"This volume contains a set of articles based on papers selected from those delivered at the 20th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL, Edinburgh 2018). It focuses on cutting-edge research in the history of English, while reflecting the diversity that exists in the current landscape of English historical linguistics. Chapters showcase traditional as well as novel methodologies in historical linguistics (the latter made possible by the increasing quality and accessibility of digital tools), work on linguistic interfaces (between segmental phonology and prosody, and syntax and information structure) and work on mechanisms of language change (such as Yang's Tolerance Principle, on the threshold for the productivity of linguistic rules in language acquisition). The volume will be of interest to those working on the historical phonology, morphology, syntax and pragmatics of English, language change, corpus linguistics, computational historical linguistics, and related sub-disciplines"--.

• ENGLISH HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: English Historical Linguistics at 20 ICEHLs
  • 1. Themes
  • 2. Other publications proceeding from ICEHL-20
  • 3. The papers in this volume
  • 4. Conclusion
  • References
• Part I. Phonology and morphology
• Chapter 1. Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law: Towards a unified phonetic account
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Problems with the traditional account
    • 2.1 The original IE/Gmc obstruent inventory
    • 2.2 Chronology and intermediate stages
    • 2.3 A unified phonetic account
  • 3. Air-flow, pressure, voicing, aspiration and laryngeal specification
  • 4. ‘Germanic enhancement’
  • 5. Remaining problems
    • 5.1 The voiced aspirates and fricative stopping
    • 5.2 Devoicing
    • 5.3 A Gmc consonant shift cycle?
    • 5.4 The prime mover
  • 6. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Chapter 2. The foot in the history of English: Challenges to metrical coherence
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Change in the early Old English metrical system
  • 3. The change in directionality
  • 4. The change in the edge of main stress
  • Acknowledgements
  • Funding
  • References
• Chapter 3. Ambiguity resolution and the evolution of homophones in English
  • 1. Introductory remarks
  • 2. The evolution of homophones
    • 2.1 Why do homophones exist?
    • 2.2 Word frequencies and homophones in present-day English
    • 2.3 Homophones in Old English and Middle English
  • 3. Evolution of diatones
    • 3.1 Why do diatones evolve?
    • 3.2 Word frequency and diatones
  • 4. Neural bases of the evolution of homophones and diatones
    • 4.1 Neural substrates of bisyllabic noun-verb homophones in English
    • 4.2 Neural substrates of diatones
  • 5. Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Funding
  • Sources
  • References
  • Appendix. The evolution of diatones in the 16th, 17th, and 18th century
• Chapter 4. The threshold of productivity and the ‘irregularization’ of verbs in Early Modern English
  • 1. The Tolerance Principle, its range and limits
  • 2. English verbs in -ing
  • 3. The 16th and 17th centuries
  • 4. New past tense forms in Early Modern English
  • 5. The productivity of /ʌ/ in Early Modern English: The case of strung
  • 6. Stuck
  • 7. Strike / strick, past stroke / strake / struck
  • 8. Dug
  • 9. Looking forward
  • 10. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Part II. Syntax
• Chapter 5. The reanalysis of VO in the history of English: Evidence for a language-internal account
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The debate on OE word order and diachronic change
  • 3. Research questions, methodology and sample
  • 4. Results
  • 5. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Sources
  • References
• Chapter 6. The role of (the avoidance of) centre embedding in the change from OV to VO in English
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Data, corpus and data retrieval
    • 2.1 Database
    • 2.2 Methodology
    • 2.3 Corpus and data retrieval
  • 3. Analysis
    • 3.1 Single centre embedding
    • 3.2 Multiple centre embedding
  • 4. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Chapter 7. Syntactic changes in verbal clauses and noun phrases from 1500 onwards
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Preparing the corpora
    • 2.1 Data
    • 2.2 Methods of data preparation
    • 2.3 Evaluation of spelling normalisation, tagger and parser
    • 2.4 Querying the manually annotated corpora
  • 3. Findings from the diagnostic step on ARCHER
  • 4. Participial clauses
  • 5. From verbal to nominal
    • 5.1 Verb/noun ratio
    • 5.2 Verb and noun modification
    • 5.3 Changes in productivity
  • 6. Noun compression
  • 7. From full clause to non-finite clause
  • 8. Information structure
  • 9. Conclusions
  • References
• Chapter 8. Prepositions in Early Modern English argument structure and beyond
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Prepositions: Previous research on variation and change
  • 3. Prepositional patterns in EModE
    • 3.1 Methodology
    • 3.2 Hypotheses
    • 3.3 Results
  • 4. Competition between NP- and PP-complementation in EModE and WEs
    • 4.1 Methodology
    • 4.2 Hypotheses
    • 4.3 Results
  • 5. Conclusion
  • Sources
  • References
• Chapter 9. Should with non-past reference: A corpus-based diachronic study
  • 1. Introduction: Setting the scene
  • 2. Structure of the paper and research method
  • 3. Uses of should in the historical periods of English
  • 4. Quantitative analysis
    • 4.1 Old English
    • 4.2 Middle English
    • 4.3 Early Modern English
  • 5. Interpretation of the quantitative results
  • 6. Summary and conclusion
  • References
• Part III. Semantics and pragmatics
• Chapter 10. Shifting responsibility in passing information: Stance-taking in Sir Thomas Bodley’s diplomatic correspondence
  • 1. Introduction and theoretical background
  • 2. The sample
  • 3. Framing reliability of information
  • 4. Modulating epistemic scales and specifying source authority
  • 5. Further stance-related strategies: Appearance vs. truth, shared vs. new information
  • 6. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Source
  • References
• Chapter 11. Theatrical practices and grammatical standardization in eighteenth-century Britain: you was and you were
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Context
  • 3. Methods
  • 4. 1752–1773: A broadly quantitative overview
  • 5. Before 1762: Qualitative analysis of you was in context
    • 5.1 Social status and you was
    • 5.2 you was and you were in explicit contrast
    • 5.3 you were in formal contexts
    • 5.4 you was from condescension to emotion
    • 5.5 Unaffected you was used by lead female characters
  • 6. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Chapter 12. Towards a companionate marriage in Late Modern England?: Two critical episodes in Mary Hamilton’s courtship letters to John Dickenson
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Framework
  • 3. Material
  • 4. Social practice: Courtship and marriage in the upper classes in eighteenth-century England
  • 5. Two case studies
    • 5.1 Discursive practice: Letter frequency
    • 5.2 ‘Text’ dimension: Hunting
  • 6. Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Sources
  • References
• Chapter 13. On the development of OE swā to ModE so and related changes in an atypical group of demonstratives
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Data and methodology
  • 3. Demonstratives of manner, quality and degree in Old English
  • 4. OE swā as a source of grammaticalisation: Some frequent patterns
  • 5. From exophoric to anaphoric
    • 5.1 VP-anaphora do so
    • 5.2 So as a propositional anaphor
    • 5.3 So as a sentence connective
  • 6. From exophoric to cataphoric
    • 6.1 Comparative constructions
    • 6.2 The quotative use of swā
  • 7. The development of thus and such
    • 7.1 Þus > thus
    • 7.2 Swylc/swelc > such
  • 8. Summary and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Index