This book is a guide to the development of English syntax between the Old and Modern periods. Beginning with an overview of the main features of early English syntax, it gives a unified account of the significant grammatical changes that occurred during this period. Four leading experts demonstrate how these changes can be explained in terms of grammatical theory and the theory of language acquisition. Drawing on a wealth of empirical data, the book covers a wide range of topics including changes in word order, infinitival constructions and grammaticalization processes.

Particle verbs (combinations of two words but lexical units) are a notorious problem in linguistics. Is a particle verb like look up one word or two? It has its own entry in dictionaries, as if it is one word, but look and up can be split up in a sentence: we can say He looked the information up and He looked up the information. But why can't we say He looked up it? In English look and up can only be separated by a direct object, but in Dutch the two parts can be separated over a much longer distance. How did such hybrid verbs arise and how do they function? How can we make sense of them in modern theories of language structure? This book sets out to answer these and other questions, explaining how these verbs fit into the grammatical systems of English and Dutch.

Particle verbs (combinations of two words but lexical units) are a notorious problem in linguistics. Is a particle verb like look up one word or two? It has its own entry in dictionaries, as if it is one word, but look and up can be split up in a sentence: we can say He looked the information up and He looked up the information. But why can't we say He looked up it? In English look and up can only be separated by a direct object, but in Dutch the two parts can be separated over a much longer distance. How did such hybrid verbs arise and how do they function? How can we make sense of them in modern theories of language structure? This book sets out to answer these and other questions, explaining how these verbs fit into the grammatical systems of English and Dutch.

This book is a guide to the development of English syntax between the Old and Modern periods. Beginning with an overview of the main features of early English syntax, it gives a unified account of the significant grammatical changes that occurred during this period. Four leading experts demonstrate how these changes can be explained in terms of grammatical theory and the theory of language acquisition. Drawing on a wealth of empirical data, the book covers a wide range of topics including changes in word order, infinitival constructions and grammaticalization processes.

The relationship between changes in (inflectional) morphology and the consequences of these changes in syntax has been a perennial issue in historical linguistics. The contributors to this volume address the issue of how to model the phenomena of syntactic and morphological change within recent frameworks, including the Minimalist Programme. Topics addressed include the way categories like aspect and mood interact over time with the valency of verbs; the nature of changes in verb placement; the changing division of labor between different types of argument marking--case, word order, clitics, agreement. The volume contains chapters by many of the leading scholars in the field. There is a substantial introduction which reviews the development of ideas in generative historical syntax over the last fifteen years, and assesses the distinctive properties of the generative position. The volume will appeal to those working in theoretical syntax, and also to specialists in the history of German, French and the Romance and Germanic languages more broadly.

The relationship between changes in (inflectional) morphology and the consequences of these changes in syntax has been a perennial issue in historical linguistics. The contributors to this volume address the issue of how to model the phenomena of syntactic and morphological change within recent frameworks, in particular the minimalist programme. A special concern is the way different criteria for the selection of argument structure especially aspect and mood, interact over time with various types of argument marking case, word order, clitics, agreement. The volume contains papers by many of the leading scholars in the field. There is an introduction which reviews the development of ideas in generative historical syntax since the early 1980s and assesses the distinctive properties of the generative position.

"The Handbook of the History of English" is a collection of articles written by leading specialists in the field that focus on the theoretical issues behind the facts of the changing English language.
organizes the theoretical issues behind the facts of the changing English language innovatively and applies recent insights to old problems
surveys the history of English from the perspective of structural developments in areas such as phonology, prosody, morphology, syntax, semantics, language variation, and dialectology
offers readers a comprehensive overview of the various theoretical perspectives available to the study of the history of English and sets new objectives for further research