Lass Roger (ed.) The Cambridge history of the English language. Volume 3, 1476-1776

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. — 668 p.The Cambridge History of the English Language is the first multivolume work to provide a comprehensive and authoritative account of the history of English from its beginnings to its presentday world-wide use. Its coverage embraces not only areas of central linguistic interest such as syntax, but also more specialised topics such as personal and place names. Whereas the volumes concerned with the English language in England are organised on a chronological basis, the English of the rest of the world is treated geographically to emphasise the spread of English over the last three hundred years.This volume of the Cambridge History of the English Language covers the period 1476–1776, beginning at the time of the establishment of Caxton’s first press in England and concluding with the American Declaration of Independence, the notional birth of the first (non-insular) extraterritorial English. It encompasses three centuries which saw immense cultural change over the whole of Europe: the late middle ages, the renaissance, the reformation, the enlightenment, and the beginnings of romanticism. During this time, Middle English became Early Modern English and then developed into the early stages of indisputably ‘modern’, if somewhat old-fashioned, English. In this book, the distinguished team of six contributors traces these developments, covering orthography and punctuation, phonology and morphology, syntax, lexis and semantics, regional and social variation, and the literary language. The volume also contains a glossary of linguistic terms and an extensive bibliography.Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6