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This 2003 study uses evidence from early English verse to reconstruct the course of some central phonological changes in the history of the language. It builds on the premise that alliteration reflects faithfully the acoustic identity and similarity of stressed syllable onsets. Individual chapters cover the history of the velars, the structure and history of vowel-initial syllable onsets, the behaviour of onset clusters, and the chronology and motivation of cluster reduction (gn-, kn-, hr-, hl-, hn-, hw-, wr-, wl-). Examination of the patterns of group alliteration in Old and Middle English reveals a hierarchy of cluster-internal cohesiveness which leads to new conclusions regarding the causes for the special treatment of sp-, st-, sk- in alliteration. The analysis draws on phonetically based Optimality-Theoretic models. The book presents valuable information about the medieval poetic canon and elucidates the relationship between orality and literacy in the evolution of English verse.
This book covers the historical development of the English phonological system from its earliest reconstructed and recorded forms to its most recent variations.
A new edition of this textbook discusses the learned vocabulary of English - the words borrowed from the classical languages.
English Words: History and Structure is concerned primarily with the learned vocabulary of English, the words borrowed from the classical languages. It surveys the historical events that define the layers of vocabulary in English, introduces some of the basic principles of linguistic analysis, and is a helpful manual for vocabulary discernment and enrichment. Exercises accompanying each chapter and further readings on recent loans and the legal and medical vocabulary of English will be available online in the near future. * Introduces students to some basic linguistic terms needed for the discussion of phonological and morphological changes accompanying word formation * Designed to lead students to a finer appreciation of their language and greater ability to recognize relationships between words and discriminate between meanings * An informative appendix discusses the history and usefulness of the best known British and American dictionaries * Online readings and exercises to deepen and strengthen knowledge acquired in the classroom
Studies in the History of the English Language II: Unfolding Conversations contains selected papers from the SHEL-2 conference held at the University of Washington in Spring 2002. In the volume, scholars from North America and Europe address a broad spectrum of research topics in historical English linguistics, including new theories/methods such as Optimality Theory and corpus linguistics, and traditional fields such as phonology and syntax. In each of the four sections - Philology and linguistics; Corpus- and text-based studies; Constraint-based studies; Dialectology - a key article provides the focal point for a discussion between leading scholars, who respond directly to each other's arg...
The Handbook of the History of English is a collection of articles written by leading specialists in the field that focus on the theoretical issues behind the facts of the changing English language. organizes the theoretical issues behind the facts of the changing English language innovatively and applies recent insights to old problems surveys the history of English from the perspective of structural developments in areas such as phonology, prosody, morphology, syntax, semantics, language variation, and dialectology offers readers a comprehensive overview of the various theoretical perspectives available to the study of the history of English and sets new objectives for further research
The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.
The 19 papers in this volume are a selection from a UCLA conference intended to take stock of the state of the field at the beginning of the new millenium and to stimulate research in English Historical Linguistics. The authors are predominantly U.S. scholars. The fields represented include morphosyntax and semantics, grammaticalization, discourse analysis, dialectology, lexicography, the diachronic study of code-switching, phonology and metrics.
The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.
This book discusses a number of approaches to charting the major developments in the syntax of English, addressing key issues of interpretation and focus for the benefit of students of the topic.