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History of the English Language (Linguistics)

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  1. Introduction
  2. The study of the history of the English language has a long and rich tradition, starting with a range of editions of important Old and Middle English texts in the middle of the 19th century, many of which are still available as reprints from the early English Text Society (see Text Editions). The linguistic study of the history of English took off in the 20th century with a range of traditional grammars usually concerned with the phonology and morphology of Old and Middle English and a further range of detailed studies of the language of particular texts and of particular dialects areas. Since the 1970s and in the wake of the development of functionalist and formalist models of language structure, language use, and diachronic change, the various historical stages of English and the diachronic changes in the domains of phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics have also become a favorite playground of historical linguists. The study of these aspects has been greatly enhanced by the recent boost of computerized corpora, including text corpora as well as corpora enriched with various types of linguistic information. The history of English in all its breadth has thus become a field of study that draws both on rich documentation and on linguistic and methodological sophistication.
  3.  
  4. Historical Overview
  5. Many introductory textbooks present an overview of the main characteristics of English in its various historical stages and survey the grammatical development of English against the backdrop of its socio-cultural history. Barber, et al. 2009 is an updated edition of Barber’s classic text. Baugh and Cable 2002 is the fifth edition of another classic; it is rich in its historical detail and sociocultural background and is highly accessible to a wide audience. Cable 2002 is a companion book to Baugh and Cable 2002, which presents many attractive exercises for beginning students. The following selections consist of some relatively recent texts. Fennell 2001 and van Gelderen 2006 are both useful introductory course books that can also be read independently. Whereas Fennell is strongly focused on the development of the language in its changing sociolinguistic setting, van Gelderen 2006 is primarily written from a linguistic perspective. Horobin 2010 is a short overview text that focuses on some of the highlights of the history of English in short chapters. McIntyre 2009 has a quite different format, giving a treatment that is introduced at four different levels of depth, each in a separate book section. Burnley 2000 is an extremely useful source for textual material from all periods.
  6.  
  7. Barber, Charles, Joan C. Beal, and Philip A. Shaw. 2009. The English language: A historical introduction. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  8.  
  9. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511817601Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  10.  
  11. A compact, chronologically ordered history of English.
  12.  
  13. Find this resource:
  14.  
  15. Baugh, Albert C., and Thomas Cable. 2002. A history of the English language. 5th ed. London: Routledge.
  16.  
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  18.  
  19. A textbook that is rich in historical detail. Although regularly updated, it betrays its venerable age by the occasional remark that is anachronistic in the light of modern research. The fifth edition also contains a chapter on American English. Originally published in 1951.
  20.  
  21. Find this resource:
  22.  
  23. Burnley, David. 2000. The history of the English language: A source book. 2d ed. Harlow, UK: Longman.
  24.  
  25. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  26.  
  27. Contains some fifty fully annotated (excerpts from) texts spanning the period 700–1920, with full translations provided for the earliest texts. It provides short general introductions to Old English, early Modern English, Late Modern English, and Modern English. Many genres are represented, including advertising.
  28.  
  29. Find this resource:
  30.  
  31. Cable, Thomas. 2002. A companion to Baugh and Cable’s history of the English language. 3d ed. London and New York: Routledge.
  32.  
  33. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  34.  
  35. An attractive exercise book for beginning students.
  36.  
  37. Find this resource:
  38.  
  39. Fennell, Barbara A. 2001. A history of English: A sociolinguistic approach. Oxford: Blackwell.
  40.  
  41. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  42.  
  43. A textbook that includes chapters on the origin and main historical periods of English as well as chapters on US English and worldwide English. Its focus is on the sociolinguistic embedding of the development of English.
  44.  
  45. Find this resource:
  46.  
  47. Horobin, Simon. 2010. Studying the history of early English. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
  48.  
  49. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  50.  
  51. A textbook that offers seven short chapters about the basic highlights of the history of English, not ordered chronologically but by topic.
  52.  
  53. Find this resource:
  54.  
  55. McIntyre, Dan. 2009. History of English: A resource book for students. London: Routledge.
  56.  
  57. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  58.  
  59. This textbook follows the two-dimensional format of the Routledge English Language Introductions in that each of the four sections discusses the same topics but at increasing degrees of depth.
  60.  
  61. Find this resource:
  62.  
  63. van Gelderen, Elly. 2006. A history of the English language. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  64.  
  65. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  66.  
  67. A textbook with chapters on the origin and time periods of English, including a chapter on English around the world. Its focus is primarily linguistic.
  68.  
  69. Find this resource:
  70.  
  71. Textbooks
  72. Classic textbooks put emphasis on students coming to grips with the language by making them work their way through texts with the aid of a section on grammar, traditionally starting with phonology and finishing with morphology; some also include a syntax with a glossary at the back. This format is not always accessible to students who have not experienced this approach before (as students are increasingly less likely to have studied Latin or Greek at school), and more recent textbooks cater to this new audience by offering the basics rather than a translation course. The classic textbooks are still extremely useful as a resource or a handbook.
  73.  
  74. Old English
  75. A range of textbooks are available on Old English, varying widely in scope and coverage. Baker 2003 is an extensive introduction for the beginning student, especially given the fact that it starts from scratch in explaining basic linguistic concepts. Wright and Wright 1925 is a compact and traditional introduction to Old English phonology and morphology. Sweet 1974 is a compact introduction to Old English grammar but is more like a coursebook for the beginning student, with texts and a glossary. Mitchell and Robinson 2012 serves a similar purpose but provides more detail and more texts. Hogg 2002 betrays the author’s debt to the philological tradition, but the treatment bridges the gap between traditional philology and more modern approaches. Smith 2009 is a compact and clear first introduction and assumes no prior knowledge.
  76.  
  77. Baker, Peter S. 2003. Introduction to Old English. Oxford: Blackwell.
  78.  
  79. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  80.  
  81. This textbook contains a lot of the groundwork that earlier textbooks take for granted (What are parts of speech? What is a subject?). It has an accompanying website called Old English Aerobics that contains exercises.
  82.  
  83. Find this resource:
  84.  
  85. Hogg, Richard. 2002. An introduction to Old English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
  86.  
  87. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  88.  
  89. A compact textbook that successfully straddles the divide between the classic grammar and the new student.
  90.  
  91. Find this resource:
  92.  
  93. Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson. 2012. A guide to Old English. 8th ed. Malden, MA: Wiley.
  94.  
  95. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  96.  
  97. This is a textbook in the classic mold, with a grammar, texts, and glossary.
  98.  
  99. Find this resource:
  100.  
  101. Smith, Jeremy J. 2009. Old English: A linguistic introduction. Cambridge Introductions to the English Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  102.  
  103. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511812330Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  104.  
  105. This textbook is particularly useful if Old English has to be taught in a short seven-week module rather than a term or even yearlong course. Exercises are included after each chapter, and an appendix is provided with Old English texts, with a glossary.
  106.  
  107. Find this resource:
  108.  
  109. Sweet, Henry. 1974. Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon primer. 9th ed. Edited by Norman Davis. Oxford: Clarendon.
  110.  
  111. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  112.  
  113. This compact introduction in the classic mold has been used by generations of students. Its selection of texts is particularly suited to beginners. First published in 1882.
  114.  
  115. Find this resource:
  116.  
  117. Wright, Joseph, and Elizabeth Mary Wright. 1925. Old English grammar. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  118.  
  119. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  120.  
  121. A compact grammar of the phonology and morphology of Old English. Originally published 1908.
  122.  
  123. Find this resource:
  124.  
  125. Middle English
  126. The choice of textbooks on Middle English is not as extensive as for Old English, which reflects the long-standing view of Middle English as a transition stage in the historical development. Burnley 1983 is a good resource for the language of Chaucer, as is Kerkhof 1982. Horobin and Smith 2002 is a comprehensive first introduction to Middle English. Jordan 1974 is an advanced traditional text on Middle English phonology. Mossé 1968 is a textbook in the classical mold, with a grammar, texts, and glossary. Wright and Wright 1928 is the Middle English counterpart of Wright 1925 (cited under Old English).
  127.  
  128. Burnley, David. 1983. A guide to Chaucer’s language. London: Macmillan.
  129.  
  130. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  131.  
  132. More of a resource than a textbook, with the focus on Chaucer’s manipulation of Middle English dialects and social registers and his creative exploitation of its many-layered vocabulary.
  133.  
  134. Find this resource:
  135.  
  136. Horobin, Simon, and Jeremy Smith. 2002. An introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
  137.  
  138. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  139.  
  140. This work is a compact first introduction to Middle English, which nevertheless manages to be very comprehensive: Not only does it discuss the various levels of linguistic description, including syntax, but it also does justice to the complex dialectal and sociolinguistic situation.
  141.  
  142. Find this resource:
  143.  
  144. Jordan, Richard. 1974. Handbook of Middle English grammar: Phonology. Translated and revised by Eugene J. Crook. The Hague: Mouton.
  145.  
  146. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  147.  
  148. A detailed treatment of the phonological development of Middle English, with much attention for dialect detail. Originally published in 1934.
  149.  
  150. Find this resource:
  151.  
  152. Kerkhof, J. 1982. Studies in the language of Geoffrey Chaucer. 2d ed. Leidse Germanistische en Anglistische Reeks van de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden 1. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  153.  
  154. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  155.  
  156. A resource rather than a textbook, offering a descriptive analysis of Chaucer’s grammar and usage in the classic mold, which also pays attention to prosody and rhetoric, and contains an extensive bibliography of individual studies on relevant linguistic topics.
  157.  
  158. Find this resource:
  159.  
  160. Mossé, F. 1968. A handbook of Middle English. Translated by James A. Walker. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
  161.  
  162. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  163.  
  164. A comprehensive classic textbook, with an introduction on phonology, morphology, and word order, followed by text samples and a glossary. Originally published in 1952.
  165.  
  166. Find this resource:
  167.  
  168. Wright, Joseph, and Elizabeth Mary Wright. 1928. 2d ed. An elementary Middle English grammar. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  169.  
  170. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  171.  
  172. A compact grammar on the on the phonology and morphology of Middle English. Originally published in 1923.
  173.  
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  175.  
  176. Early Modern English and Beyond
  177. The number of textbooks on early Modern English is limited. Barber 1997 is a very useful traditional introductory book for students. Görlach 1991 gives comprehensive coverage of the development of early Modern English and has a particularly rich section of text extracts. Nevalainen 2006 is a very accessible and compact introduction and pays particular attention to the sociolinguistic setting in which early Modern English developed. Wyld 1936 is a more advanced work that focuses on phonological developments and pays particular attention to dialect variation. Late Modern English has only recently been recognized as a distinct stage but has not as yet produced many textbooks, which is why Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2009 is included here rather than in a section of its own. Görlach 1999 is a detailed introduction to 19th-century English, with extensive textual documentation from many varieties. Mair 2006 is a reminder that history starts yesterday.
  178.  
  179. Barber, Charles L. 1997. Early Modern English. Rev. ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
  180.  
  181. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  182.  
  183. A very useful textbook for students, focusing on the ways in which early Modern English differs from present-day English, and reaching beyond phonology and morphology. It is particularly rich in its exemplification of language use in individual texts, and provides a section with questions for further study in text passages. First published in 1976.
  184.  
  185. Find this resource:
  186.  
  187. Görlach, Manfred. 1991. Introduction to early modern English. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  188.  
  189. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139166010Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  190.  
  191. A comprehensive overview of early modern English, including beside the standard coverage chapters on varieties of early modern English, writing and spelling, and vocabulary. It has an extensive section with text samples and bibliographical notes on the texts. Translation of Einführung ins Frühneuenglische (Heidelberg, Germany: Quelle und Meyer, 1978).
  192.  
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  194.  
  195. Görlach, Manfred. 1999. English in nineteenth century England: An introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  196.  
  197. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511627828Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  198.  
  199. An introduction the 19th-century English in England, which examines a wide range of texts to illustrate the dialectal variety and social and stylistic variation in language use. It includes a substantial selection of excerpts from texts.
  200.  
  201. Find this resource:
  202.  
  203. Mair, Christian. 2006. Twentieth-century English: History, variation and standardization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  204.  
  205. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511486951Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  206.  
  207. This survey documents the recent history of standard English, with corpus data to back up the most recent trends.
  208.  
  209. Find this resource:
  210.  
  211. Nevalainen, Terttu. 2006. An introduction to early modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
  212.  
  213. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  214.  
  215. A very accessible textbook, with exercises. Also contains background chapters on the development of a standard language and the sociolinguistic impact of various extralinguistic factors (e.g., advent of printing, increased literacy, demographic change).
  216.  
  217. Find this resource:
  218.  
  219. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2009. An introduction to late modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
  220.  
  221. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  222.  
  223. An accessible textbook capitalizing on the fact that we know much more of the social background of the writers of this recent period than we do for earlier periods, as well as the fact that many informal texts like private letters and other products of minimally schooled writers have survived. Its research questions (rather than exercises) following each chapter make extensive use of Internet sources.
  224.  
  225. Find this resource:
  226.  
  227. Wyld, Henry C. 1936. A history of modern colloquial English. 3d ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
  228.  
  229. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  230.  
  231. A resource for the advanced student, with much attention for phonological variation as attested in the many books on pronunciation and spelling emerging in the early modern period. Originally published in 1920.
  232.  
  233. Find this resource:
  234.  
  235. Glossaries
  236. The field of linguistics is rich in terminology, not all of it standardized. Loos, et al. 2004 is a good online glossary covering the entire field and updated regularly; good general coverage is also provided by Matthews 2007. Finch 2005 departs from the dictionary format by organizing its material in thematic chapters, while Trask 2000 caters particularly to the historical linguist.
  237.  
  238. Finch, Geoffrey. 2005. Key concepts in language and linguistics. 2d ed. Palgrave Key Concepts. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
  239.  
  240. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  241.  
  242. Originally published in 2000 as Linguistic Terms and Concepts. A practical reference book that differs from the standard dictionary format of such guides by the fact that entries are on average much longer and by the fact that the material is thematically organized into six chapters: Linguistics: A Brief Survey; General Terms and Concepts; Phonetics and Phonology; Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics; and Linguistics: The Main Branches.
  243.  
  244. Find this resource:
  245.  
  246. Matthews, Peter H. 2007. The concise Oxford dictionary of linguistics. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  247.  
  248. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  249.  
  250. Originally published in 1997. Gives good general coverage of linguistic terms.
  251.  
  252. Find this resource:
  253.  
  254. Loos, Eugene E., Susan Anderson, Dwight H. Day Jr., Paul C. Jordan, and J. Douglas Wingate, eds. 2004. SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms. Dallas: SIL International.
  255.  
  256. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  257.  
  258. A good online glossary covering the entire field and updated regularly.
  259.  
  260. Find this resource:
  261.  
  262. Trask, Robert L. 2000. The dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
  263.  
  264. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  265.  
  266. Covers the basic terminology of classical historical linguistics (umlaut, lenition, sandhi, etc.) and the various “laws” that have been proposed over the centuries, terms such as bioprogram and invisible hand, terminology from dialect studies, pidgin and creole studies, sociolinguistics, the names of languages and language families, and terminology from population typology, mathematical and computational methods, models of linguistic descent and grammaticalization studies.
  267.  
  268. Find this resource:
  269.  
  270. Encyclopedias
  271. No encyclopedias are specifically devoted to the history of English. One of the great popularizers of language and linguistics is David Crystal, with his inimitable way of nosing out telling details to illustrate insights in aspects of language and linguistics. Crystal 1995 comprises a very extensive section on the history of English. A lot of material on the history of English is also included in various chapters in Crystal 1987.
  272.  
  273. Crystal, David. 1987. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  274.  
  275. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  276.  
  277. A very attractively presented encyclopedia in sixty-five chapters, dealing with a wide range of aspects of the study of language and linguistics. Although not devoted to any particular language, the various chapters contain quite a lot of material from English and its history.
  278.  
  279. Find this resource:
  280.  
  281. Crystal, David. 1995. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  282.  
  283. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  284.  
  285. An encyclopedia of the English language, present and historical. The very extensive Part 1 is on the history of English, from its early beginnings to the development of English as a world language. Like the rest of the book, this section is excellently presented and is richly as well as aptly illustrated.
  286.  
  287. Find this resource:
  288.  
  289. Handbooks
  290. An excellent handbook tradition has been established for the history of English with the publication of Hogg 1992–2001, a monumental six-volume handbook on the history of English including its recent history. Hogg and Denison 2006 is a one-volume spin-off of Hogg 1992–2001; it is in some ways a digest of the larger work, rearranged into one volume, although it also contains new material. Van Kemenade and Los 2006 is a handbook that presents theoretically inspired work on a number of topics concerning language change in the history of English.
  291.  
  292. Hogg, Richard M., ed. 1992–2001. The Cambridge history of the English language. 6 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  293.  
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295.  
  296. A monumental six-volume handbook, covering each sub-period of the history of English with book-length survey chapters on phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and vocabulary, dialectology and onomastics. Volume 5 contains survey chapters of varieties of English in Britain and overseas. Volume 6 is on English in North America.
  297.  
  298. Find this resource:
  299.  
  300. Hogg, Richard M., and David Denison, eds. 2006. A history of the English language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  301.  
  302. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511791154Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  303.  
  304. An attractive one-volume spin-off of Hogg 1992–2001. The chronological division of the first four volumes of the larger work has been rearranged here into chapters on phonology and morphology, syntax, vocabulary, names, and standardization, with three chapters added on English in Britain, in America, and worldwide.
  305.  
  306. Find this resource:
  307.  
  308. van Kemenade, Ans, and Bettelou Los, eds. 2006. The handbook of the history of English. Oxford: Blackwell.
  309.  
  310. DOI: 10.1002/9780470757048Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311.  
  312. A one-volume handbook focused on theoretically inspired contributions to issues of language change, phonology, morphosyntax, pragmatics, variation, and standardization. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  313.  
  314. Find this resource:
  315.  
  316. Dictionaries
  317. English has a long-standing tradition of excellent dictionaries. The most prominent resource here is without a doubt the Oxford English Dictionary, started in 1857 and completed as a first edition in 1928. For Old English, three dictionaries are listed here. Bosworth 1882 is a very substantial dictionary, which is still the main resource for the study of Old English. Clark Hall 1960 is a fine student dictionary. The online Dictionary of Old English at the University of Toronto is being developed and only part of it is currently available. Lewis 2001 is an extensive dictionary of Middle English, which will remain the standard resource for a long time to come.
  318.  
  319. Bosworth, John. 1882. An Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Edited by T. Northcote Toller. Oxford: Clarendon.
  320.  
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  322.  
  323. Together with Bosworth’s Supplement to an Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, edited by T. Northcote Toller (Oxford: Clarendon, 1921), this work is an excellent and extensive dictionary of Old English, which is the only complete resource for the study of Old English lexis. A scanned version is available online.
  324.  
  325. Find this resource:
  326.  
  327. Clark Hall, John R. 1960. A concise Anglo-Saxon dictionary. 4th ed. Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.
  328.  
  329. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  330.  
  331. Originally published in 1894. A comprehensive and handy student dictionary.
  332.  
  333. Find this resource:
  334.  
  335. The Dictionary of Old English. Edited by Antonette diPaolo Healey. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto.
  336.  
  337. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  338.  
  339. An online dictionary of Old English, based on the extensive Toronto corpus of Old English texts (some thirty-six million words). The online dictionary has been some years in the making. The letters A–G are available online (by subscription) and on CD-ROM (for purchase).
  340.  
  341. Find this resource:
  342.  
  343. Lewis, Robert E. 1969–2001. Middle English dictionary. 12 vols. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
  344.  
  345. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  346.  
  347. The Middle English Dictionary is an extensive and comprehensive work, which includes all meanings, grammatical forms, and spellings of all the words. It can also be searched online.
  348.  
  349. Find this resource:
  350.  
  351. Simpson, J. A., and E. S. C. Weiner, eds. 1989. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon.
  352.  
  353. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  354.  
  355. A fabulous resource that gives the etymology of each word in all its submeanings, accompanied by examples of its uses in texts of various stages in the history of English. Also available on CD-ROM and online by subscription.
  356.  
  357. Find this resource:
  358.  
  359. Bibliographies
  360. The Year’s Work in English Studies is the bibliographical review of scholarly work on English language and literatures written in English. It is the largest and most comprehensive work of its kind; besides offering annotated or enumerated bibliography entries, it provides expert, critical commentary supplied for every book covered.
  361.  
  362. The Year’s Work in English Studies. 1921–.
  363.  
  364. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  365.  
  366. An annual record of every publication in the field of English studies since 1921.
  367.  
  368. Find this resource:
  369.  
  370. Data Sources
  371. English is in all likelihood the language best represented in computerized corpora, which is probably true for English among historical corpora as well. Extensive digitized text corpora for the full recorded history of English are available, and they are well-nigh exhaustive for Old English. The Corpus Resource Database gives information on most corpora and links to them. One of the first electronic initiatives was Healey and Venezky 1985. The reference system to Old English texts has been standardized since the publications of Mitchell, et al. 1975 and Mitchell, et al. 1979 and has been adopted for the Old English part cited in Kytö 1993 and all other corpora based on the Helsinki corpus.
  372.  
  373. Corpus Resource Database. Helsinki: VARIENG.
  374.  
  375. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  376.  
  377. This website makes available information about electronic corpora as a resource for academic research, particularly the many available corpora for the study of the history of English. These data include a rich array of digitized historical English text corpora, as well as linguistically enriched corpora, in particular those with added syntactic parsing now available for the full recorded history of English. It includes citation conventions.
  378.  
  379. Find this resource:
  380.  
  381. Healey, Antonette di Paolo, and Richard L. Venezky. 1985. A microfiche concordance to Old English. Toronto: Centre for Medieval Studies.
  382.  
  383. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  384.  
  385. A concordance of all Old English texts in microfiche format, including a retrograde list of Old English words. Originally published in 1980.
  386.  
  387. Find this resource:
  388.  
  389. Kytö, Merja, ed. 1993. Manual to the diachronic part of the Helsinki corpus of English texts: Coding conventions and lists of source texts. 2d ed. Helsinki: English Department, Univ. of Helsinki.
  390.  
  391. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  392.  
  393. The coding incorporates the short title system of Mitchell, et al. 1975 and Mitchell, et al. 1979, which is very useful as a standard reference to texts and editions.
  394.  
  395. Find this resource:
  396.  
  397. Mitchell, Bruce, Christopher Ball, and Angus Cameron. 1975. Short titles of Old English texts. Anglo-Saxon England 4:207–222.
  398.  
  399. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  400.  
  401. The standard source of short titles for reference to all Old English texts. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  402.  
  403. Find this resource:
  404.  
  405. Mitchell, Bruce, Christopher Ball, and Angus Cameron. 1979. Short titles of Old English texts: Addenda and corrigenda. Anglo-Saxon England 8:331–333.
  406.  
  407. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  408.  
  409. Complements Mitchell, et al. 1975. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  410.  
  411. Find this resource:
  412.  
  413. Historical Dialect Atlases
  414. McIntosh, et al. 1986 is a dialect atlas of late Middle English in book format, containing many maps of phonological and morphological isoglosses. A relatively recent addition on this scene is A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English, 1150–1325, available online.
  415.  
  416. A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English, 1150–1325. 2008–. Compiled by Margaret Laing. Edinburgh: Univ. of Edinburgh.
  417.  
  418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419.  
  420. The website allows online access to the corpus underlying it, which has been drawn directly from the original manuscripts, and is morphologically tagged in great detail. It also allows online searching in the texts and drawing maps for particular phenomena, making it into a wonderful scholar’s playground.
  421.  
  422. Find this resource:
  423.  
  424. McIntosh, Angus, Michael L. Samuels, and Michael Benskin. 1986. A linguistic atlas of late Mediaeval English. 4 vols. Aberdeen, UK: Aberdeen Univ. Press.
  425.  
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427.  
  428. An interesting dialect atlas in four volumes, rich in maps of isoglosses for a wide range of phonological and morphological features.
  429.  
  430. Find this resource:
  431.  
  432. Text Editions
  433. The vast majority of the editions of historical English texts are published by the Early English Text Society, a club started in 1864 by three major editors: Frederick Furnivall, Richard Morris, and Walter Skeat. Some of the major Old and Middle English texts are not represented in the Early English Text Society series, and separate references are given for them here. Wulfstan 1971 is an edition of the homilies of Wulfstan, the 10th-century Archbishop of York. Klaeber 1950 is still the authoritative edition for the famous Old English heroic poem Beowulf, although that same poem is also represented in Krapp and Dobbie 1931–1953, a six-volume edition of the full record of Old English poetry. The two most important editions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are Plummer 1952 an edition of the Middle English part of the Peterborough Chronicle (see Clark 1958). The works of Geoffrey Chaucer have been honored by several editions, of which Robinson 1957 is cited here as the most prominent.
  434.  
  435. Chaucer, Geoffrey. 1957. The works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Edited by Fred N. Robinson. London: Oxford Univ. Press.
  436.  
  437. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  438.  
  439. A full edition of Chaucer’s texts, with a glossary.
  440.  
  441. Find this resource:
  442.  
  443. Clark, Cecil, ed. 1958. The Peterborough chronicle 1070–1154. London: Oxford Univ. Press.
  444.  
  445. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  446.  
  447. The standard edition of the Middle English continuations of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written at Peterborough, including a contemporaneously written account of the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud.
  448.  
  449. Find this resource:
  450.  
  451. Early English Text Society series. Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 1864–.
  452.  
  453. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  454.  
  455. Around five hundred text editions to date are listed on the Early English Text Society website, and some new additions are added annually. The text editions vary greatly in scope and detail: Some have the bare text with minor annotations, and others have extensive textual notes. Many but by no means all have a glossary, while yet others are accompanied by a Modern English translation.
  456.  
  457. Find this resource:
  458.  
  459. Klaeber, Friedrich, ed. 1950. Beowulf and the fight at Finnsburg. 3d ed. Boston: Heath.
  460.  
  461. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  462.  
  463. The classic Beowulf edition, with an introduction, textual notes and a glossary. Originally published 1922.
  464.  
  465. Find this resource:
  466.  
  467. Krapp, George Philip, and Elliot van Kirk Dobbie, eds. 1931–1953. The Anglo-Saxon poetic records. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
  468.  
  469. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  470.  
  471. A six-volume standard edition of the full range of Old English poetry. Volume 1: The Junius Manuscript; volume 2: The Vercelli Book; volume 3: The Exeter Book; volume 4: Beowulf and Judith; volume 5: Paris Psalter; and volume 6: The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems.
  472.  
  473. Find this resource:
  474.  
  475. Plummer, Christopher. 1952. Two of the Saxon Chronicles parallel: With supplementary extracts from the others: Based on an edition by John Earle. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  476.  
  477. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  478.  
  479. The classic edition of the two major manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Originally published in 1892–1899.
  480.  
  481. Find this resource:
  482.  
  483. Wulfstan, Archbishop of York. 1971. The homilies of Wulfstan. Edited by Bethurum, Dorothy Oxford: Clarendon.
  484.  
  485. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  486.  
  487. Wulfstan was the Archbishop of York in the late 10th century and is best known for the involved rhetorical style in which he prophesied the end of the world as the year 1000 was approaching. The edition has minor text notes and an index of names used. Originally published in 1957.
  488.  
  489. Find this resource:
  490.  
  491. Journals
  492. No journals are specifically devoted to the history of English. The journals cited here variously cover language change generally, including a fair amount of work on historical English (Diachronica, Language Variation and Change, Folia Linguistica Historica), the English language including its history (English Language and Linguistics, English Studies), and a more philological approach, again welcoming work a variety of historical work on English (Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, Transactions of the Philological Society).
  493.  
  494. Diachronica. 1984–.
  495.  
  496. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  497.  
  498. A forum for the presentation and discussion of information concerning all aspects of language change in any and all languages of the globe. Particularly welcomes contributions that combine theoretical interest and philological acumen. Articles are available online for purchase or by subscription.
  499.  
  500. Find this resource:
  501.  
  502. English Language and Linguistics. 1997–.
  503.  
  504. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  505.  
  506. Focuses on the description of the English language within the framework of contemporary linguistics. Is concerned equally with the synchronic and diachronic aspects of English language studies. Articles are available online for purchase or by subscription.
  507.  
  508. Find this resource:
  509.  
  510. English Studies. 1919–.
  511.  
  512. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  513.  
  514. Attracts work on the language, literature, and culture of the English-speaking world from the Old English period to the present. Articles are available online for purchase or by subscription.
  515.  
  516. Find this resource:
  517.  
  518. Folia Linguistica Historica.
  519.  
  520. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  521.  
  522. Folia Linguistica Historica is devoted to diachronic linguistics (including both historical and comparative linguistics) and to the history of linguistics. Articles are available online for purchase or by subscription.
  523.  
  524. Find this resource:
  525.  
  526. Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 1897–.
  527.  
  528. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  529.  
  530. Focuses on Northern European cultures of the Middle Ages, covering Medieval English, Germanic, and Celtic Studies. Articles are available online for purchase or by susbscription.
  531.  
  532. Find this resource:
  533.  
  534. Language Variation and Change. 1989–.
  535.  
  536. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  537.  
  538. A journal specifically dedicated the study of linguistic variation and change and the capacity to deal with systematic and inherent variation in synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Articles are available online for purchase or by subscription.
  539.  
  540. Find this resource:
  541.  
  542. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen (Bulletin of the Modern Language Society). 1899–.
  543.  
  544. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  545.  
  546. A quarterly published since 1899.
  547.  
  548. Find this resource:
  549.  
  550. Transactions of the Philological Society. 1842–
  551.  
  552. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  553.  
  554. Transactions of the Philological Society began as the Proceedings of the Philological Society (1842–1853). Transactions reflects its Society’s long-standing interest in comparative and historical linguistics in general and in Indo-European and the history of English in particular. Articles are available online for purchase or by subscription.
  555.  
  556. Find this resource:
  557.  
  558. Lexicon
  559. Major survey contributions on the vocabulary and word meaning in the various historical stages of English can be found in the relevant chapters of volumes 1–4 of Hogg 1992–2001 (cited under Handbooks). They give a good overview of the inherited Germanic vocabulary of Old English and the major layers of loanwords adopted into English from French in the Middle English period, from Latin and Greek in the Early Modern period, and from other languages. Durkin 2009 is a textbook dedicated to etymology. Stockwell and Minkova 2001 is primarily concerned with the learned vocabulary borrowed over the Middle English period and after. Kastovsky 2000 focuses on what can be learned on word formation from the Oxford English Dictionary (cited under Dictionaries). Katamba 2005 is a highly accessible textbook, which without assuming any prior knowledge gives a good survey of the richness of present-day English vocabulary and the way it is used, against the background of its historical background.
  560.  
  561. Durkin, Philip. 2009. The Oxford guide to etymology. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  562.  
  563. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  564.  
  565. A practical introduction to the history of words and the dilemmas faced by etymologists. Chapter 9 (pp. 266–283), on the etymology of names and how names differ from ordinary words, is particularly novel and interesting.
  566.  
  567. Find this resource:
  568.  
  569. Kastovsky, Dieter. 2000. Words and word-formation: Morphology in the OED. In Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the untrodden forest. Edited by Lynda Mugglestone, 110–125. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  570.  
  571. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  572.  
  573. This article offers a lucid discussion of the treatment of word formation processes in the Oxford English Dictionary (8 vols. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1928) and highlights the theoretical and practical problems that confronted James A. H. Murray and his editorial team: the interaction between diachrony and synchrony. Contains many interesting examples.
  574.  
  575. Find this resource:
  576.  
  577. Katamba, Francis. 2005. English words: Structure, history, usage. London: Routledge.
  578.  
  579. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  580.  
  581. Originally published in 1994 as English Words. This textbook is primarily synchronically oriented, but as words are end products of long individual histories, diachrony is never far away. The broad range of phenomena described (e.g., word structure, storage and retrieval, how words are created and used) offers inspiring new insights into lexical and semantic change.
  582.  
  583. Find this resource:
  584.  
  585. Stockwell, Robert, and Donka Minkova. 2001. English words: History and structure. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  586.  
  587. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511791161Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  588.  
  589. Is concerned primarily with the learned vocabulary of English, the words borrowed from French in the Middle English period and from Latin and Greek during the Renaissance.
  590.  
  591. Find this resource:
  592.  
  593. Phonology
  594. Major survey contributions on phonology in the various historical stages of English can be found in the relevant chapters of volumes 1–4 of Hogg 1992–2001 (cited under Handbooks). Campbell 1959 provides much detail on the phonological development from continental West-Germanic to Old English, also focusing on dialects. Hogg 1992–2001 (cited under Handbooks) bridges the philological approach to Old English phonology and more modern approaches. Dobson 1968 gives a very detailed picture of the changes in pronunciation that took place in the early modern period. Minkova 1991 interestingly focuses on the history of unstressed syllables. Minkova 2009 comprises interesting treatments of weak sounds in the history of English and in regional varieties.
  595.  
  596. Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English grammar. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  597.  
  598. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  599.  
  600. The focus of this work, still a classic, is very much on historical phonology and the inflectional morphology of Old English. It is rich in its explication of dialect detail and of the historical roots of Old English inflectional classes.
  601.  
  602. Find this resource:
  603.  
  604. Dobson, Eric J. 1968. English pronunciation 1500–1700. 2 vols. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon.
  605.  
  606. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607.  
  608. A monumental two-volume work on the rapidly changing pronunciation of English in the early Modern period. Volume 1 is devoted to a complete survey of the wide range of sources available as evidence for sound change, including the writings of spelling reformers wishing to adapt the spelling to the rapidly changing pronunciation, while volume 2 is concerned with a detailed account of the phonological development.
  609.  
  610. Find this resource:
  611.  
  612. Hogg, Richard. 1992. A grammar of Old English. Vol. 1, Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell.
  613.  
  614. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  615.  
  616. A detailed work on the phonological development of Old English, including its dialect sources.
  617.  
  618. Find this resource:
  619.  
  620. Minkova, Donka. 1991. The history of final vowels in English: The sound of muting. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  621.  
  622. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  623.  
  624. A detailed treatment of the historical development of vowels in unstressed syllables, with much attention given to phonological, morphological, and prosodic effects.
  625.  
  626. Find this resource:
  627.  
  628. Minkova, Donka, ed. 2009. Phonological weakness in English: From old to present-day English. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
  629.  
  630. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  631.  
  632. An interesting edited collection on a variety of issues relating to weak segments in historical and dialectal varieties of English.
  633.  
  634. Find this resource:
  635.  
  636. Morphology
  637. Derivational morphology and word formation are difficult to separate from works on the lexicon. Bauer 1983, Marchand 1969, and Plag 2003, although synchronic descriptions, have much to offer to the historical linguist. Bauer 2006 offers more general discussion of the notion of productivity in morphology; Plag 1999 discusses constraints on productivity in English.
  638.  
  639. Bauer, Laurie. 1983. English word-formation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  640.  
  641. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139165846Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  642.  
  643. The focus of this textbook is synchronic, but word-formation always has a diachronic dimension. The theoretical framework is generative and transformational.
  644.  
  645. Find this resource:
  646.  
  647. Bauer, Laurie. 2006. Morphological productivity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  648.  
  649. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  650.  
  651. Tries to answer the questions: What exactly is morphological productivity, how does it work, and what does it have to say about what makes some endings more productive than others? Discusses fundamental notions such as lexicalization, transparency, regularity, markedness and naturalness, default, and analogy, storage, production and comprehension, and productivity. Originally published in 2001.
  652.  
  653. Find this resource:
  654.  
  655. Marchand, Hans. 1969. The categories and types of present-day English word-formation. 2d ed. Munich: Beck.
  656.  
  657. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  658.  
  659. As word-formation always has a diachronic component, this classic text of English word formation, inspired by the Oxford English Dictionary, is a great resource for historical morphology.
  660.  
  661. Find this resource:
  662.  
  663. Plag, Ingo. 1999. Morphological productivity: Structural constraints in English derivation. Topics in English Linguistics 28. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  664.  
  665. DOI: 10.1515/9783110802863Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  666.  
  667. Focuses on the combinability of affixes and compares the productivity of a number of competing native and Latinate suffixes that create verbs, with insightful treatment of their—of necessity very abstract—meanings.
  668.  
  669. Find this resource:
  670.  
  671. Plag, Ingo. 2003. Word-formation in English. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  672.  
  673. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511841323Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  674.  
  675. This textbook does not assume much linguistic knowledge and is very accessible. The exercises encourage students to get hands-on experience in analyzing data.
  676.  
  677. Find this resource:
  678.  
  679. Morphosyntax and Grammaticalization
  680. The two main parameters along which languages differ syntactically and where we also find differences between the stages of a single language are word order patterns and the expression of grammatical information by bound morphemes (in the morphology) or by free words (in the syntax). If there are losses in (inflectional) morphology (e.g., loss of case-endings and verbal endings due to phonological erosion), the loss in functionality may be restored by free forms. Such new grammatical forms are recruited from existing lexical words, which then develop from lexical into grammatical items. This development is known as grammaticalization. As the history of English is one of a gradual development from a synthetic (morphologically rich) language to an analytic (morphologically impoverished) language, it provides many interesting case studies of grammaticalization. Antoine Meillet introduced the term grammaticalization in 1912 (Meillet 1948) The study of grammaticalization is revived by Lehmann 1995, which introduces a number of parameters against which the degree of grammaticalization of a construction can be measured, and most especially by Hopper and Traugott 2003, which presents grammaticalization as a framework of study from a functionalist perspective. Issues of debate include whether grammaticalization is a unidirectional change and an independent mechanism of change. This latter issue is hotly debated in Campbell 2001. Formal grammarians interested in how a change from a lexical to a grammatical category can be modeled have also formulated substantial hypotheses on the nature of grammaticalization as a morphosyntactic change. Van Kemenade 1999 includes a number of articles with case studies and formal analyses of grammaticalization. Roberts and Roussou 2003 presents a formal model of grammaticalization, taking the strong position that grammaticalization is always a response to inflectional loss.
  681.  
  682. Campbell, Lyle, ed. 2001. Special Issue: Grammaticalization: A critical assessment. Language Sciences 23.2–3.
  683.  
  684. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  685.  
  686. Special issue of Language Sciences in which the majority of papers argue against grammaticalization as an independent mechanism of language change. Articles are available online for purchase or by subscription.
  687.  
  688. Find this resource:
  689.  
  690. Hopper, Paul J., and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  691.  
  692. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139165525Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  693.  
  694. The classic textbook on grammaticalization, containing many case studies from English.
  695.  
  696. Find this resource:
  697.  
  698. Lehmann, Christian. 1995. Thoughts on grammaticalization. LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 1. Munich: LINCOM Europa.
  699.  
  700. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  701.  
  702. Introduces a number of parameters against which the degree in which a construction has grammaticalized can be assessed. Originally published in 1982.
  703.  
  704. Find this resource:
  705.  
  706. Meillet, Antoine. 1948. L’évolution des formes grammaticales. In Linguistique Historique et Linguistique Générale. Vol. 1. By Antoine Meillet, 130–148. Paris: Champion.
  707.  
  708. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  709.  
  710. The first text to introduce the concept of grammaticalization. Originally published in 1912.
  711.  
  712. Find this resource:
  713.  
  714. Roberts, Ian G., and Anna Roussou. 2003. Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  715.  
  716. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511486326Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  717.  
  718. Argues for the strong hypothesis that grammaticalization is always a response to morphological loss.
  719.  
  720. Find this resource:
  721.  
  722. van Kemenade, Ans, ed. 1999. Special Issue: Functional properties of morphosyntactic change. Linguistics 37.6.
  723.  
  724. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  725.  
  726. Contains articles that offer detailed case studies and formal analyses of grammaticalization. Articles are available online for purchase or by subscription.
  727.  
  728. Find this resource:
  729.  
  730. Edited Volumes
  731. The volumes cited here are good illustrations of thematic volumes with case studies of grammaticalization in the history of English. Fischer, et al. 2000 contains case studies on a variety of syntactic constructions from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Lindquist and Mair 2004 is mostly focused on verbal constructions. The contributions to Rissanen, et al. 1997 deal with adverb formation, indefinite pronouns, and reflexives.
  732.  
  733. Fischer, Olga, Annette Rosenbach, and Dieter Stein, eds. 2000. Pathways of change: Grammaticalization in English. Studies in Language Companion Series 53. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  734.  
  735. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  736.  
  737. It is the specific aim of this volume to bring together work on grammaticalization in English, and it comprises contributions on a range of grammatical phenomena as well as issues in grammaticalization such as its purported unidirectionality.
  738.  
  739. Find this resource:
  740.  
  741. Lindquist, Hans, and Christian Mair, eds. 2004. Corpus approaches to grammaticalization in English. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  742.  
  743. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  744.  
  745. Corpus-based studies on grammaticalization are brought together in this volume, most of them on auxiliation phenomena.
  746.  
  747. Find this resource:
  748.  
  749. Rissanen, Matti, Merja Kytö, and Kirsi Heikkonen, eds. 1997. Grammaticalization at work: Studies of long-term developments in English. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  750.  
  751. DOI: 10.1515/9783110810745Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  752.  
  753. This collection brings together diverse phenomena in the history of English under the broad umbrella of grammaticalization.
  754.  
  755. Find this resource:
  756.  
  757. Aspect
  758. The amount of work done specifically on aspect in the history of English is limited. Brinton 1988 is an interesting study of form-meaning mappings for aspectual verbs, including complex verbs. McFadden and Alexiadou 2010 is a corpus-based treatment of the vexed puzzle of the development of perfects with have and be.
  759.  
  760. Brinton, Laurel J. 1988. The development of English aspectual systems: Aspectualizers and post-verbal particles. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  761.  
  762. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  763.  
  764. A detailed case study in monograph format, emphasizing the need to make a clear distinction between aspect and aktionsart and between the aspectual meaning of individual forms and the meanings that result from the combination of verbs, auxiliaries, particles, and adverbs as well as nominal arguments.
  765.  
  766. Find this resource:
  767.  
  768. McFadden, Thomas, and Artemis Alexiadou. 2010. Perfects, resultatives, and auxiliaries in earlier English. Linguistic Inquiry 41.3: 389–425.
  769.  
  770. DOI: 10.1162/LING_a_00002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  771.  
  772. An article on the syntactic and semantic development of have and be perfects in English and the implications for theories of auxiliary selection, The core argument is that have and be perfects are distinct in origin and in syntactic and semantic structure. The be perfect remained constant in meaning, whereas the have perfect developed a wider range of uses that allowed it to encroach on the domain of the be perfect. Available online by subscription.
  773.  
  774. Find this resource:
  775.  
  776. Modals
  777. The history of English modals is one of the paradigm cases of grammaticalization, developing from relatively independent lexical verbs, and ultimately developing into grammatical words, auxiliaries. Kuteva 2001 is a cross-linguistic work on auxiliation exploring language use factors. López-Couso and Méndez-Naya 1996 explores the relation between subjunctive mood inflection and the use of modals. Plank 1984 argues strongly against Lightfoot 1979 (cited under Frameworks for the Study of Syntactic Change) in terms of sudden reanalysis from a fully lexical verb to an auxiliary. Warner 1993 provides an alternative treatment, which makes use of the concept of such a reanalysis but also provides a rationale for the gradualness of the transition. Roberts 1985 is the first to establish the now widely accepted correlation between the establishment of modals as a separate category of auxiliaries and the loss of finite lexical verb movement to a syntactic position for verb inflection.
  778.  
  779. Kuteva, Tania. 2001. Auxiliation: An enquiry into the nature of grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  780.  
  781. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  782.  
  783. A cross-linguistic study of the phenomenon of auxiliation. It explores the cognitive forces underlying auxiliation and attempts to shed light on how auxiliation relates to discourse and to pragmatic considerations.
  784.  
  785. Find this resource:
  786.  
  787. López-Couso, María José, and Belén Méndez-Naya. 1996. On the use of the subjunctive and modals in Old and Middle English dependent commands and requests: Evidence from the Helsinki corpus. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 97:411–422.
  788.  
  789. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  790.  
  791. A corpus-based study relating the development of the use of subjunctive mood inflection and modal verbs in Old and Middle English.
  792.  
  793. Find this resource:
  794.  
  795. Plank, Frans. 1984. The modals story retold. Studies in Language 8.3: 305–364.
  796.  
  797. DOI: 10.1075/sl.8.3.02plaSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  798.  
  799. A forceful response to the view of Lightfoot 1979 (cited under Frameworks for the Study of Syntactic Change) of the history of English modals as a case of catastrophic reanalysis from full lexical verb to auxiliary. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  800.  
  801. Find this resource:
  802.  
  803. Roberts, Ian G. 1985. Agreement parameters and the development of English modal auxiliaries. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3.1: 21–58.
  804.  
  805. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  806.  
  807. Presents a groundbreaking theoretical analysis in which a correlation is established between the reanalysis of modals as a category of auxiliaries and the loss of finite lexical verb placement in a syntactic position for verb inflection. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  808.  
  809. Find this resource:
  810.  
  811. Warner, Anthony R. 1993. English auxiliaries: Structure and history. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  812.  
  813. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511752995Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  814.  
  815. A careful study of the history of English auxiliaries, showing how they gradually develop from verbs with a number of lexical properties to a distinct class of auxiliaries.
  816.  
  817. Find this resource:
  818.  
  819. Rise of Do-Support
  820. A particularly noteworthy case of grammaticalization in the history of English is the rise of do-support between the 16th and 18th centuries, as in present-day English Why did you take the book with you? Whereas do was a causative verb in early English, it started developing pure auxiliary uses over the late Middle English period, and these boosted in a rather remarkable way from the 16th century onward. Do-support became a grammatical requirement in various types of questions and negative clauses. The initial reference for any study of the rise of do-support still is Ellegård 1953, given its publication date an astonishingly extensive corpus-based and quantitative work on the rise of periphrastic do, whose data and observations still form the basis for all serious work on the topic. Kroch 1989 uses them to show that, along with the reanalysis of modals, do became a periphrastic expression of verb inflection, compensating for the loss of movement of finite lexical verbs to a syntactic position for verb inflection. Warner 2005, again exploring data from Ellegård 1953, makes sense of the quantitative quirks in the rise of do by distinguishing between the earlier rise of a grammatical requirement and a stage in which sociolinguistic factors kicked in to first delay and then further promote the rise of do. Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1987 presents a sociolinguistic treatment of do-support in 18th-century English.
  821.  
  822. Ellegård, Alvar. 1953. The auxiliary do: The establishment and regulation of its use in English. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell.
  823.  
  824. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  825.  
  826. The initial reference on any study of do-support in the history of English, with a detailed corpus-based treatment and citation of the database.
  827.  
  828. Find this resource:
  829.  
  830. Kroch, Anthony S. 1989. Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1.3: 199–244.
  831.  
  832. DOI: 10.1017/S0954394500000168Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  833.  
  834. Presents the argument that different grammatical contexts in which a grammatically shared syntactic change manifests itself show the change at similar rates of change, known as the constant rate hypothesis. The rise of do-support in various grammatical environments such as questions and negated clauses is presented as one of the paradigm cases for the constant rate hypothesis. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  835.  
  836. Find this resource:
  837.  
  838. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 1987. The auxiliary do in eighteenth century English: A sociohistorical-linguistic approach. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris.
  839.  
  840. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  841.  
  842. A treatment of the sociolinguistic factors that played a role in the establishment of periphrastic do in the 18th century.
  843.  
  844. Find this resource:
  845.  
  846. Warner, Anthony. 2005. Why DO dove: Evidence for register variation in early modern English negatives. Language Variation and Change 17.3: 257–280.
  847.  
  848. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  849.  
  850. Makes a case that an intermediate stage in the rise of do-support, in which the establishment of do was first delayed and then further boosted, marks the transition between a stage in which do was established as a grammatical marker and a new stage in which it was also subject to sociolinguistic variation. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  851.  
  852. Find this resource:
  853.  
  854. Syntax
  855. Until the 1980s, historical syntax produced fine descriptive works on the development of the language in general, on particular periods, and on the syntax and morphology of individual texts. Many of these works are listed under the various subheadings below. The scope of these works is of necessity restricted by the fact the study of syntax requires a larger database than that of, for example, phonology: While a few pages of historical text allow the scholar to form a good idea of the phonology of a text, the study of the syntax requires a considerably larger database, so that a more or less full range of constructions can be exemplified. Since the 1980s, the study of historical syntax, including that of English, has become a blossoming field, as the combined result of two developments. The first is the advent of sophisticated formal and psycholinguistic frameworks of study that provide the scholar with a toolkit to analyze and model syntactic phenomena, their relatedness, and their development over time. The second is no doubt what we may call the corpus revolution and the quantitative study of syntactic change, which allow systematic searching for syntactic constructions in large computerized and linguistically enriched corpora and quantitative analysis of syntactic patterns over time. These two developments have recently yielded a boost of detailed diachronic syntactic work on a broad range of constructions. These developments now allow the field to move beyond the valuable contributions of traditional historical syntax and to achieve a comprehensiveness of treatment that was not possible until recently.
  856.  
  857. Surveys
  858. Major survey contributions on syntax in the various historical stages of English, synthesizing the vast literature up to that point, can be found in the relevant chapters of volumes 1–4 of Hogg 1992–2001 (cited under Handbooks). Highlights in the traditional literature are Jespersen 1909–1949, a seven-volume insightful work on present-day English morphology and syntax and how it developed over time; Visser 1963–1973, a four-volume overview work of verbal complementation; Mitchell 1985, a comprehensive work on Old English syntax; and Mustanoja 1960, a work on the syntax of Middle English. Denison 1993 surveys the history of verbal constructions. Fischer, et al. 2000 presents a theoretical approach to the development of a number of core syntactic constructions.
  859.  
  860. Denison, David. 1993. English historical syntax. London: Longman.
  861.  
  862. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  863.  
  864. A survey of a range of verbal constructions in the history of English, with in-depth discussion of the relevant data, and extensive critical discussion of the literature.
  865.  
  866. Find this resource:
  867.  
  868. Fischer, Olga, Ans van Kemenade, Willem Koopman, and Wim van der Wurff. 2000. The syntax of early English. Cambridge Syntax Guides. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  869.  
  870. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  871.  
  872. An outline of the theoretical framework, survey chapters of Old and Middle English syntax and a corpus-based theoretical treatment of the historical development of a number of core syntactic constructions such as OV/VO word order, verb second, infinitival complementation, and some case studies in grammaticalization.
  873.  
  874. Find this resource:
  875.  
  876. Jespersen, Otto. 1909–1949. A modern English grammar on historical principles. 7 vols. London: Allen and Unwin.
  877.  
  878. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  879.  
  880. A classic work in English studies, focused on morphology and syntax. Volume 7, Syntax, was completed by Niels Haislund.
  881.  
  882. Find this resource:
  883.  
  884. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
  885.  
  886. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119357.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  887.  
  888. An extensive descriptive survey of Old English syntax, very rich in data.
  889.  
  890. Find this resource:
  891.  
  892. Mustanoja, Tauno F. 1960. A Middle English syntax. Vol. 1, Parts of speech. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.
  893.  
  894. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  895.  
  896. A traditional treatment of Middle English syntax, which gives a thorough overview of the parts of speech.
  897.  
  898. Find this resource:
  899.  
  900. Visser, Fredericus T. 1963–1973. An historical syntax of the English language. Vols. 1–3b. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  901.  
  902. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  903.  
  904. A four-volume survey of the history of English syntax, focusing on verb complementation and containing many citations of examples for each construction.
  905.  
  906. Find this resource:
  907.  
  908. Word Order and Case
  909. A well-known traditional as well as cross-linguistic observation is that languages rich in case morphology have relatively free word order and that thus the loss of inflections over time leads to the rigidification of word order. While the history of English, which lost much of its case inflections and developed rigid subject–verb‑object (SVO) order and thus losing object–verb (OV) word orders, fits this observation in a broad sense, it has proved notoriously difficult to establish it with any degree of empirical precision, and authors are reticent to push the case. In most work on the loss of OV word order, the correlation with the loss of case inflections merits only minor attention. Kroch and Taylor 2000 argues that the loss of OV word order is the result of competition between two grammars, an OV and a verb–object (VO) grammar, where the VO grammar gradually wins out over the OV grammar. Susan Pintzuk and Ann Taylor pursue this argument further, gathering more evidence for their perspective in Pintzuk and Taylor 2006 and follow-up work. Contra this work, Biberauer and Roberts 2005 provides an analysis of Old English word order in which all variation is brought together in one single (VO-based) grammar. Van der Wurff 1997 makes a case that what is left of OV word order in late Middle English is best analyzed as being the result of syntactic object movement in a VO grammar. Ingham 2000 shows that by the 15th century OV word order has become restricted to negated objects. More precise correlations between case and syntactic developments are achieved in the domain of constructions involving changes in argument marking, such as passives and impersonal constructions. Allen 1995 presents a detailed study of this topic, taking the perspective that case and word order are specified for each verb or class of verbs on a lexical basis.
  910.  
  911. Allen, Cynthia L. 1995. Case-marking and reanalysis: Grammatical relations from old to early modern English. Oxford: Clarendon.
  912.  
  913. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  914.  
  915. A careful treatment of the history of impersonal verbs and various types of passive constructions, embedding the development of these constructions in a detailed study of changes in the English case system.
  916.  
  917. Find this resource:
  918.  
  919. Biberauer, Theresa, and Ian Roberts. 2005. Changing EPP parameters in the history of English: Accounting for variation and change. English Language and Linguistics 9.1: 5–46.
  920.  
  921. DOI: 10.1017/S1360674305001528Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  922.  
  923. Provides a formal analysis of Old English word order in which all word order variation is accounted for on the basis of one single underlying VO grammar. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  924.  
  925. Find this resource:
  926.  
  927. Ingham, Richard. 2000. Negation and OV order in late middle English. Journal of Linguistics 36.1: 13–38.
  928.  
  929. DOI: 10.1017/S0022226799007963Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  930.  
  931. Shows that in the 15th century, OV word order is restricted to contexts with negated objects. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  932.  
  933. Find this resource:
  934.  
  935. Kroch, Anthony, and Ann Taylor. 2000. Verb–object order in early Middle English. In Diachronic syntax: Models and mechanisms. Edited by Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas, and Anthony Warner, 132–163. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  936.  
  937. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  938.  
  939. Presents an argument on the basis of quantitative work on syntactic patterns that the alternation between OV and VO word order in early Middle English is the result of syntactic competition between two grammars.
  940.  
  941. Find this resource:
  942.  
  943. Pintzuk, Susan, and Ann Taylor. 2006. The loss of OV order in the history of English. In The handbook of the history of English. Edited by Ans van Kemenade and Bettelou Los, 249–278. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  944.  
  945. DOI: 10.1002/9780470757048Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  946.  
  947. Further pursue the argument that the loss of OV word order is the result of grammar competition displaying, over time, the constant rate effect argued for in Kroch 1989 (cited under Rise of Do-Support). They differentiate between four factors that influence the position of the object: the length of the object, the clause type in which it appears, the date of the text, and the case and semantic role of the object. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  948.  
  949. Find this resource:
  950.  
  951. van der Wurff, Wim. 1997. Deriving object–verb order in late ME. Journal of Linguistics 33.2: 485–509.
  952.  
  953. DOI: 10.1017/S0022226797006531Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  954.  
  955. Argues that cases of OV word order in late Middle English can be plausibly analyzed as the result of syntactic object movement in an exclusively VO grammar. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  956.  
  957. Find this resource:
  958.  
  959. Verb-Second and Its Loss
  960. Verb second (V2) is the name of the phenomenon found systematically in all the present-day West-Germanic languages except English, which shows it systematically only in relic form in questions with auxiliaries: Why did you take the book with you? Some constituent, not the subject, introduces the clause, followed by the finite verb in second position as distinct from the position of the nonfinite verb. Finite verb and subject are inverted. Earlier stages of English had this word order pattern with a variety of clause-introducing constituents, all finite verbs (not just auxiliaries) and in two types: one in which subject–verb inversion always occurred (as in questions), and one in which inversion was a good deal more variable. Van Kemenade 1987 is the first study to contextualize systematically this concept against the backdrop of the V2 literature on the Germanic languages. Pintzuk 1999 first shows that the two V2 patterns in early English really represent two types of V2. Van Kemenade 1997 shows the relevance of a systematic distinction between two basic types of finite verb: those with an agent semantic role and those without an agent. Warner 2007 explores the factors determining variation between inverted and noninverted word orders in late Middle English. Kroch, et al. 2000 makes a case that Northern English had only one type of V2 and attributes the loss of V2 in late Middle English to contact between speakers of Northern and Southern dialects. Haeberli 2002 presents evidence that the loss of the variable type of V2 involves the increasing preverbal placement of nominal subjects in late Middle English.
  961.  
  962. Haeberli, Eric. 2002. Observations on the loss of verb second in the history of English. In Studies in comparative syntax. Edited by C. Jan-Wouter Zwart and Werner Abraham, 245–272. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  963.  
  964. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  965.  
  966. A corpus-based study of V2 in late Middle English, showing that the loss of variable V2 results from the increasing preverbal placement of nominal subjects.
  967.  
  968. Find this resource:
  969.  
  970. Kroch, Anthony, Ann Taylor, and Donald Ringe. 2000. The middle English verb-second constraint: A case study in language contact and language change. In Textual parameters in older languages. Edited by Susan Herring, Pieter T. van Reenen, and Lene Schøsler, 353–391. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  971.  
  972. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  973.  
  974. Presents evidence that northern Middle English has one type of V2 only, as influenced by language contact with the Scandinavian invaders in northern England in the 9th and 10th centuries. They further hypothesize that the loss of V2 in late Middle English was the result of contact between speakers of northern and southern dialects.
  975.  
  976. Find this resource:
  977.  
  978. Pintzuk, Susan. 1999. Phrase structures in competition: Variation and change in Old English word order. New York: Garland.
  979.  
  980. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  981.  
  982. Establishes that the two V2 patterns found in Old and Middle English really represent grammatically distinct types of V2.
  983.  
  984. Find this resource:
  985.  
  986. van Kemenade, Ans. 1987. Syntactic case and morphological case in the history of English. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris.
  987.  
  988. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  989.  
  990. Systematically relates V2 in Old and Middle English to the same phenomenon in the present day West Germanic languages, establishes variation with respect to V2 in some contexts, and explores its development over the Old and Middle English periods.
  991.  
  992. Find this resource:
  993.  
  994. van Kemenade, Ans. 1997. Verb second and embedded topicalization in old and middle English. In Parameters of morphosyntactic change. Edited by Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent, 326–352. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  995.  
  996. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  997.  
  998. Establishes an important factor that complicates the analysis of V2 in Old and Middle English: whether the finite verb is one with an agent semantic role.
  999.  
  1000. Find this resource:
  1001.  
  1002. Warner, Anthony. 2007. Parameters of variation between verb–subject and subject–verb order in late middle English. English Language and Linguistics 11:81–111.
  1003.  
  1004. DOI: 10.1017/S1360674306002127Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1005.  
  1006. Explores V2 variation in late Middle English, explicitly including all the factors argued for in the previous literature. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1007.  
  1008. Find this resource:
  1009.  
  1010. Negation
  1011. The historical development of negation in a variety of languages is subject to a cyclical development in which negation is first strengthened by a second negation element and then followed by weakening and disappearance of the original negator, and thus the cycle closes and a new cycle follows. The initial formulation of this cycle is due to Jespersen 1917, whose name is forever attached to it. Van Kemenade 2000 presents a formal treatment of its course in the history of English and regards it as a grammaticalization phenomenon. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, et al. 1999 is an attractive collection of articles on a variety of aspects of negation in the history of English, from a variety of philological and linguistic perspectives.
  1012.  
  1013. Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and other languages. Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 1. Copenhagen: Høst.
  1014.  
  1015. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1016.  
  1017. Introduces what has come to be known as Jespersen’s cycle and shows its relevance for a variety of languages. In particular, see pages 1–151. A digitalized version is available online.
  1018.  
  1019. Find this resource:
  1020.  
  1021. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid, Gunnel Tottie, and Wim van der Wurff, eds. 1999. Negation in the history of English. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  1022.  
  1023. DOI: 10.1515/9783110806052Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1024.  
  1025. A collection of articles on a variety of aspects of negation in the history of English.
  1026.  
  1027. Find this resource:
  1028.  
  1029. van Kemenade, Ans. 2000. Jespersen’s cycle revisited: Formal properties of grammaticalization. In Diachronic syntax: Models and mechanisms. Edited by Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas, and Anthony Warner, 51–74. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1030.  
  1031. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1032.  
  1033. Presents a formal way of modeling Jespesen’s cycle in the history of English as a case of grammaticalization.
  1034.  
  1035. Find this resource:
  1036.  
  1037. Verb Complementation
  1038. This section focuses on the history of infinitival complementation, an area in which rich work has taken place. Visser 1963–1973 (cited under Surveys) is a rich source of data, which for the early stages needs verification. Further highlights are Warner 1982, a study of a late Middle English body of texts; Fischer 1988, which gives a detailed picture of the development of accusative and infinitive constructions; and Los 2005, which gives a detailed treatment of the rise of the to-infinitival complements.
  1039.  
  1040. Fischer, Olga. 1988. The origin and spread of the accusative and infinitive construction in English. Folia Linguistica Historica 8.1–2: 143–217.
  1041.  
  1042. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1043.  
  1044. Shows the distinct development of two types of infinitival complement, jointly dubbed accusative and infinitive constructions as complements of monotransitive verbs, developed in the history of English. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1045.  
  1046. Find this resource:
  1047.  
  1048. Los, Bettelou. 2005. The rise of the to-infinitive. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1049.  
  1050. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1051.  
  1052. A detailed treatment of the history of infinitival complements, challenging the argument made in much previous literature that in earlier stages of English, infinitives were nouns. Shows furthermore that the increase of to-infinitival complements over the history of English served primarily to replace subjunctive that clauses, suggesting that infinitival to develops into the nonfinite counterpart of a modal verb over the Middle English period.
  1053.  
  1054. Find this resource:
  1055.  
  1056. Warner, Anthony. 1982. Complementation in Middle English and the methodology of historical linguistics: A study of the Wyclifite sermons. London: Helm.
  1057.  
  1058. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1059.  
  1060. A careful analysis of verb complementation in late Middle English, based on the Wyclifite sermons.
  1061.  
  1062. Find this resource:
  1063.  
  1064. Relative Clauses
  1065. Relative clauses are, as one specific syntactic structure in the history of English, described in detail in the various relevant volumes of the Cambridge History of the English Language (see Hogg 1992–2001, cited under Handbooks). They were part of a heated theoretical debate in the 1970s and 1980s concerning the nature of the processes underlying the placement of relative pronouns. These issues are laid out in Allen 1980. Lasnik and Sobin 2000 deals with an interesting issue on the choice of relative pronouns in present-day English, offering a theoretical argument on how archaic features may be represented in syntax.
  1066.  
  1067. Allen, Cynthia L. 1980. Topics in English diachronic syntax. New York: Garland.
  1068.  
  1069. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1070.  
  1071. Concerned primarily with questions and relative clauses in Old and Middle English and particular syntactic features that diversify various subtypes of the constructions. The prime theoretical argument is that two basic mechanisms are involved in these constructions: syntactic movement of a question word or relative pronoun and deletion over a variable.
  1072.  
  1073. Find this resource:
  1074.  
  1075. Lasnik, Howard, and Nicholas Sobin. 2000. The who/whom puzzle: On the preservation of an archaic feature. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 18.2: 343–371.
  1076.  
  1077. DOI: 10.1023/A:1006322600501Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1078.  
  1079. Makes sense of the choice between who and whom in present-day English. The authors argue that the choice for whom as a question word or relative pronoun clashes with syntactic rules and is dictated by the demands of prescriptive preference. The authors claim that such prestige-driven variants are the result of grammatical viruses. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1080.  
  1081. Find this resource:
  1082.  
  1083. Frameworks for the Study of Syntactic Change
  1084. With the advent of a variety of formal and sociolinguistic frameworks for the study of language change, historical linguistics as a field draws both on the philological tradition and on considerable linguistic sophistication. In addition, the corpus revolution has made the coverage of a large body of historical texts humanly possible and allows study of change over time on a scale that until recently was unimaginable. Some of the frameworks that have particularly sparked new research are highlighted here. Models of formal syntax, with their focus on speakers’ internalized grammars (i.e., the I-language) have provided the study of historical change with a perspective that constrains the number of possible analyses and gives the student of change a theoretical toolkit with which to model possible relations between changes. Lightfoot 1979 initiates this perspective, arguing strongly that the locus of syntactic change is when a new generation of speakers radically reanalyzes a part of the grammar. The constraints on the grammar thus acquired to an important extent determines the course of change. Lightfoot 1999 presents a less deterministic framework that allows a more pronounced role for the language input on which the new generation of speakers bases its grammar. Roberts 2007 is a recent textbook on generative diachronic syntax. Models based on language use (i.e., E-language) also play an important role in the study of change and attaches primary importance to the semantic and cognitive changes resulting from language use over time. Much work in this line has been done on grammaticalization (see Grammaticalization). Traugott and Dasher 2002 specifically focuses on how new meanings arise through language use. The study of language variation is a further perspective highly relevant to the study of language change. Kroch 2001, writing from a formal perspective (focusing on I-language), argues that variation and change proceed quantitatively over time in an S-shaped curve and that grammatically related constructions develop according to the constant rate effect, that is, at parallel rates of change. Other models for the study of language variation and change are more firmly grounded in language use, and their emphasis is on the sociolinguistic factors in the speech community that play a role in determining the course of change. This line of work was initiated by Labov, and a prime reference here is Labov 2001. With respect to historical English, an important source and toolkit for sociolinguistic work is Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2003.
  1085.  
  1086. Kroch, Anthony S. 2001. Syntactic change. In The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory. Edited by Mark R. Baltin and Chris Collins, 699–729. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  1087.  
  1088. DOI: 10.1002/9780470756416Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1089.  
  1090. Argues for a formal linguistic quantitative approach to language change, in which grammar change proceeds over time in an S-shaped curve, where grammatically related constructions develop over time at parallel rates of change (i.e., the constant rate effect). Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1091.  
  1092. Find this resource:
  1093.  
  1094. Labov, William. 2001. Principles of linguistic change: Social factors. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  1095.  
  1096. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1097.  
  1098. Presents the results of several decades of work on the social origins and social motivation of linguistic change.
  1099.  
  1100. Find this resource:
  1101.  
  1102. Lightfoot, David W. 1979. Principles of diachronic syntax. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  1103.  
  1104. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1105.  
  1106. Initiates the field of diachronic generative syntax, arguing for first-language acquisition as the locus of syntactic change, where universal grammar plays a deterministic role in forcing radical reanalysis.
  1107.  
  1108. Find this resource:
  1109.  
  1110. Lightfoot, David W. 1999. The development of language: Acquisition, change and evolution. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  1111.  
  1112. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1113.  
  1114. Further develops the view of first-language acquisition as a process of cue-based learning, in which robust evidence in the language input feeds into cues, which in turn feed into parameter settings for the native language.
  1115.  
  1116. Find this resource:
  1117.  
  1118. Nevalainen, Terttu, and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg. 2003. Historical sociolinguistics: Language change in Tudor and Stuart England. Longman Linguistics Library. London: Pearson Education.
  1119.  
  1120. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1121.  
  1122. Firmly establishes the theory and praxis for the study of sociolinguistically driven change, with extensive corpus-based case studies from the early Modern English period.
  1123.  
  1124. Find this resource:
  1125.  
  1126. Roberts, Ian G. 2007. Diachronic syntax. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1127.  
  1128. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1129.  
  1130. Relates work in historical linguistics to current work on universal grammar and historical syntactic variation and explains how questions in historical syntax relating to word-order change, grammaticalization, reanalysis can be explored in terms of current generative theory. Examines the nature of the links between syntactic change and first-language acquisition and considers the short- and long-term effects of language contact, drawing extensively on data studies in the literature.
  1131.  
  1132. Find this resource:
  1133.  
  1134. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Richard B. Dasher. 2002. Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  1135.  
  1136. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1137.  
  1138. Examines the ways in which new meanings arise through language use. Drawing extensively on research from the history of English and Japanese, shows that most changes in meaning originate in and are motivated by the associative flow of speech and conceptual metonymy.
  1139.  
  1140. Find this resource:
  1141.  
  1142. Edited Collections
  1143. The focus here is on collections that focus on themes associated with various frameworks for the study of language change. Formal work on syntactic change has a strong forum in the annual Diachronic Generative Syntax conferences, which have in many cases resulted in thematic collections of articles. While these collections always include work on a variety of languages, a few recent collections cited here are rich in work on English. Lightfoot 2002 takes as its theme how the relation between loss of inflectional morphology and resulting syntactic changes can be modeled. Crisma and Longobardi 2009 presents a range of case studies illustrating how syntactic change can be modeled from the perspective of formal linguistic theories. Davidse, et al. 2010 is a collection of articles presenting a usage-based perspective on the development of English. Bergs 2005 presents a case study on the social network of the 15th-century Paston collection.
  1144.  
  1145. Bergs, Alexander. 2005. Social networks and historical sociolinguistics: Studies in morphosyntactic variation in the Paston letters (1421–1503). Berlin: de Gruyter.
  1146.  
  1147. DOI: 10.1515/9783110923223Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1148.  
  1149. A sociolinguistic case study, focusing on sociolinguistically driven change in the 15th-century collection of letters from the Paston family.
  1150.  
  1151. Find this resource:
  1152.  
  1153. Crisma, Paola, and Giuseppe Longobardi, eds. 2009. Historical syntax and linguistic theory. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1154.  
  1155. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560547.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1156.  
  1157. Presents articles with case studies of syntactic change as modeled from the perspective of formal grammar.
  1158.  
  1159. Find this resource:
  1160.  
  1161. Davidse, Kristin, Lieven Vandelanotte, and H. Cuyckens, eds. 2010. Subjectification, intersubjectification and grammaticalization. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  1162.  
  1163. DOI: 10.1515/9783110226102Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1164.  
  1165. A collection from a usage-based perspective, exploring on the basis of case studies from the history of English how the concepts of subjectification and intersubjectification can be insightfully employed in grammaticalization research.
  1166.  
  1167. Find this resource:
  1168.  
  1169. Lightfoot, David W., ed. 2002. Syntactic effects of morphological change. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1170.  
  1171. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250691.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1172.  
  1173. The articles are case studies on the syntactic changes resulting from the loss of inflectional morphology and how such changes can be modeled from the perspective of generative grammar.
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