Studies In The History Of The English Language Ii

by Curzan, Anne

• ISBN13: 9783110180978
• ISBN10: 3110180979
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Mouton De Gruyter

Summary

The volume contains selected papers from the SHEL-2 conference held at the University of Washington in Spring 2002. 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; and Dialectology - leading scholars respond directly to each other's arguments within the volume. The volume captures an ongoing conversation at the heart of historical English linguistics: the question of evidence and historical reconstruction.

Table of Contents

Introduction : linguistics and philology	p. 3
Philology, linguistics, and the history of [hw]-[w]	p. 7
An essay in historical sociolinguistics? : on Donka Minkova's "philology, linguistics, and the history of [hw]-[w]"	p. 47
A brief response	p. 55
Why we should not believe in short diphthongs	p. 57
Extended forms (streckformen) in English	p. 85
Linguistic change in words one owns : how trademarks become "generic"	p. 111
Introduction : corpus- and text-based studies	p. 127
The meanings and uses of the progressive construction in an early eighteenth-century English network	p. 131
Investigating the expressive progressive : on Susan M. Fitzmaurice's "the meanings and uses of the progressive construction in an early eighteenth-century English network"	p. 175
A brief response	p. 183
Modal use across registers and time	p. 189
The need for good texts : the case of Henry Machyn's day book, 1550-1563	p. 217
The peril of firsts : dating Rawlinson MS poet. 108 and tracing the development of monolingual English lexicons	p. 229
Introduction : constraint-based studies	p. 275
The evolution of Middle English alliterative meter	p. 279
Old English poetry and the alliterative revival : on Geoffrey Russom's "The evolution of Middle English alliterative meter"	p. 305
A brief response	p. 313
A central metrical prototype for English iambic tetrameter verse : evidence from Chaucer's octosyllabic lines	p. 315
Early English clause structure change in a stochastic optimality theory setting	p. 343
The role of perceptual contrast in Verner's law	p. 371
Introduction : dialectology	p. 411
Historical perspectives on the pen/pin merger in Southern American English	p. 415
Digging up the roots of Southern American English : on Michael Montgomery and Connie Eble's "historical perspectives on the pen/pin merger in Southern American English"	p. 435
A brief response	p. 445
Vowel merger in West Central Indiana : a naughty, knotty project	p. 447
The spread of negative contraction in early English	p. 459
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