  In this paper, we explore the idea of analysing the historical bias of
contextual language models based on BERT by measuring their adequacy with
respect to Early Modern (EME) and Modern (ME) English. In our preliminary
experiments, we perform fill-in-the-blank tests with 60 masked sentences (20
EME-specific, 20 ME-specific and 20 generic) and three different models (i.e.,
BERT Base, MacBERTh, English HLM). We then rate the model predictions according
to a 5-point bipolar scale between the two language varieties and derive a
weighted score to measure the adequacy of each model to EME and ME varieties of
English.
