Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics: (65 Current Issues in Linguistic Theory)

This volume is a collection of articles based on papers presented at the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics at Cambridge in 1987. It draws together important state-of-the-art' studies in the syntax, phonology, morphology and semantics of Old, Middle and Modern English by prominent figures in the field into a single volume. Core theoretical areas are well represented and there are also major papers in dialectology, stylistics, metrics, socio-historical linguistics and the history of English linguistics.The volume is dedicated to the memory of Professor James P. Thorne, whose last conference paper is included in the collection.

Table of Contents:
1. In memoriam James Peter Thorne, 1933-1988 (by Lyons, John); 2. Preface; 3. List of participants; 4. Restandardisation in middle Scots (by Agutter, Alex); 5. British and American English: odi et amo (by Algeo, John); 6. The stylistic function of ME gan reconsidered (by Brinton, Laurel J.); 7. Historical linguistics - linguistic archaeology (by Clark, Cecily); 8. The assessment of lexical mortality and replacement between old and modern English (by Coleman, Robert); 9. Preposition stranding and relative complementiser deletion: implicational tendencies in English and the other Germanic languages (by Dekeyser, Xavier); 10. The old English impersonals revived (by Denison, David); 11. On the unity of the Mercian Second Fronting (by Dresher, B. Elan); 12. Hugh Blair's theory of the origin and the basic functions of language (by Frank, Thomas); 13. Methodological preliminaries to the study of linguistic change in dialectal English: evaluating the grammars of Barnes and Elworthy as sources of linguistic evidence (by Ihalainen, Ossi); 14. The typological status of old English word-formation (by Kastovsky, Dieter); 15. The double object construction in Old English (by Koopman, Willem F.); 16. Where do Extraterritorial Englishes come from? Dialect input and recodification in transported Englishes (by Lass, Roger); 17. Obsolescence and universal grammar (by Lightfoot, David W.); 18. On the role of some adverbs in Old English verse grammar (by Lucas, Peter G.); 19. Adjectival inflexion relics and speech rhythm in late middle English and early modern English (by Minkova, Donka); 20. Modelling functional differentiation and function loss: the case of but (by Nevalainen, Terttu); 21. Dating old English inscriptions: the limits of inference (by Page, Ray); 22. Paradigm arrangement and inflectional homonymy: old English case (by Plank, Frans); 23. A contact-universals origins for periphrastic do with special consideration of old English-Celtic contact (by Poussa, Patricia); 24. A new kind metrical evidence in old English poetry (by Russom, Geoffrey); 25. The development of ME from open syllable lenghtening in the west midlands (by Teclaw, Malgorzata); 26. Some modern standard English filters (by Thorne, James P.); 27. Exemplification in Eighteenth century grammars (by Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid); 28. From less to more situated in language: the unidirectionality of semantic change (by Traugott, Elizabeth Closs); 29. The easy-to-please construction in Old and middle English (by Wurff, Wim van der); 30. Reworking the history of English auxiliaries (by Warner, Anthony); 31. On grounding in English narratives: a diachronic perspective (by Warvik, Brita); 32. Author index