Analysing Older English

An edited volume which addresses problems encountered in gathering and analysing data from early English.

General introduction David Denison, Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, Chris McCully and Emma Moore, with Donka Minkova; Part I. Metrics and Onomastics in Older English: 1. Introduction Chris McCully and David Denison; 2. What explanatory metrics has to say about the history of English function words Geoffrey Russom; 3. To þære fulan flóde óf þære fulan flode: on becoming a name in Easton and Winchester, Hampshire Richard Coates; 4. Notes on some interfaces between place-name material and linguistic theory Peter Kitson; Part II. Writing Practices in Older English: 5. Introduction Chris McCully; 6. Anglian features in late West Saxon prose R. D. Fulk; 7. 'ea' in early Middle English: from diphthong to digraph Roger Lass and Margaret Laing; Part III. Dialects in Older English: 8. Introduction: on the impossibility of historical sociolinguistics Emma Moore; 9. Levelling and enregisterment in northern dialects of late modern English Joan Beal; 10. Quantitative historical dialectology April McMahon and Warren Maguire; 11. Reconstructing syntactic continuity and change in early modern English regional dialects: the case of who Terttu Nevalainen; Part IV. Sound Change in Older English: 12. Introduction: when a knowledge of history is a dangerous thing Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero; 13. Syllable weight and the weak-verb paradigms in Old English Donka Minkova; 14. How to weaken one's consonants, strengthen one's vowels, and remain English at the same time Nikolaus Ritt; 15. Degemination in English, with special reference to the Middle English period Derek Britton; Part V. Syntax in Older English: 16. Introduction David Denison; 17. The status of the postposed 'and-adjective' construction in Old English: attributive or predicative? Olga Fischer; 18. DO with weak verbs in early modern English Anthony Warner.