Fitzmaurice Susan M., Minkova Donka (eds.) Studies in the History of the English Language IV: Empirical and Analytical Advances in the Study of English Language Change

Mouton de Gruyter, 2008. — 444 p. — (Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL] 61). — ISBN 3110205874, 9783110205879.Empirical and Analytical Advances in the Study of English Language Change continues the project of initiating and energizing the conversations among historians of the English language fostered by the series of conferences on studying the history of the English language (SHEL), begun in 2000 at UCLA. It follows in the footsteps of three high-profile SHEL-based collections of peer-reviewed research papers and point-Counterpoint commentaries. In the current volume, the editors invited contributors to reflect upon their approaches and practices in undertaking historical studies, focusing particularly on the methods deployed in selecting and analyzing data. The essays in this volume represent interests in the study of linguistic change in English that range across different periods, genres, and aspects of the language and show different approaches and use of evidence to deal with the subject. They also represent the current state of research in the field and the nature of the debates in which scholars and historians engage as regards the nature of the evidence adduced in the explanation of change and the robustness of heuristics. The editors share a strong interest in examining the evidence that informs and grounds research in their fields at the same time as interrogating the heuristics employed by their colleagues for the histories they present. The contributions to the volume give expression to these interests. Contributors are: Richard Hogg (to whose memory the volume is dedicated), William Labov, Elizabeth Traugott, Rob Fulk, Thomas Cable, Jennifer Tran-Smith, Charles Li, Christina Fitzgerald, David Denison, Christopher Palmer, Don Chapman, Graeme Trousdale, Joan Beal, Connie Eble, Stefan Dollinger and Raymond Hickey. The volume is of interest to scholars and postgraduate and research students in the history of English.Dedication to Richard M. Hogg
Tabula Laudatoria
Introduction: Heuristics and evidence in studying the history of the English language
Susan Fitzmaurice and Donka Minkova
Triggering events
William Labov
What’s new in Old English?
Richard M. Hogg
Coding the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose to investigate the syntax-pragmatics interface
Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Susan Pintzuk
Anglian dialect features in Old English anonymous homiletic literature: A survey, with preliminary findings
R.D. Fulk
The elusive progress of prosodical study
Thomas Cable
Fidelity in versification: Modern English translations of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Jennifer Anh-Thu Tran Smith
Response to Tom Cable’s comments
Jennifer Anh-Thu Tran Smith
Metrical evidence: Did Chaucer translate The Romaunt of the Rose?
Xingzhong Li
Trochees in an iambic meter: Assumptions or evidence?
Xingzhong Li
“Ubbe dubbede him to knith”: The scansion of Havelok and Middle English -es, -ed, and -ed(e)
Christina M. Fitzgerald
A response to Tom Cable
Christina M. Fitzgerald
Patterns and productivity
David Denison
Borrowed derivational morphology in Late Middle English:
A study of the records of the London Grocers and Goldsmiths
Chris C. Palmer
Fixer-uppers and passers-by: Nominalization of verb-particle constructions
Don Chapman
Words and constructions in grammaticalization: The end of the English impersonal construction
Graeme Trousdale
Variation in Late Modern English: Making the best use of ‘bad data’
Joan C. Beal
English/French bilingualism in nineteenth century Louisiana:
A social network analysis
Connie Eble
Taking permissible shortcuts? Limited evidence, heuristic reasoning and the modal auxiliaries in early Canadian English
Stefan Dollinger
‘What strikes the ear’: Thomas Sheridan and regional pronunciation
Raymond Hickey
Author index
Subject index