Studies in the History of the English Language V: Variation and Change in English Grammar and Lexicon: Contemporary Approaches

The 12 studies demonstrate how the history of the English language is increasingly engaged with corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, and other methods of contemporary linguistics. Considering first grammar and syntax then the lexicon, they discuss such topics as dialogical contexts as motivations for syntactic change, notions of direction and Old English prepositional phrases, subject compounding and a functional change of the derivational suffix -ing in the history of English, bad ideas in the history of English usage, a re-evaluation of Celtic influence on English, and re-examining orthographic practice in the Auchinleck Manuscript through study of complete scribal corpora. Colleagues comment on each essay, and authors respond. Annotation 穢2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)