This Language, A River is an introduction to the history of English that recognizes multiple varieties of the language in both current and historical contexts. Developed over years of undergraduate teaching, the book helps students to both grasp traditional histories of English, and also to extend and complicate those histories. Exercises throughout provide opportunities for puzzling out concepts, committing terms and data to memory, and applying ideas. A comprehensive glossary and up-to-date bibliographies help to guide further study.

This book approaches the structure of English from a form-function perspective that is both theoretical and practical. It asks learners to consider meaning, structure and use, in contrast to many grammars that focus on structure, sometimes to the exclusion of use and even meaning. The book presents an extended introduction to areas of grammar that many would see as indispensable, such as participial and infinitive phrases. The analysis is largely achieved through form-function tree diagramming and extends the structure to include finite and nonfinite predicates.

This Language, A River is an introduction to the history of English that recognizes multiple varieties of the language in both current and historical contexts. The book aims to enable students to both grasp traditional histories of English, and to extend and complicate those histories. Exercises throughout provide opportunities for puzzling out concepts, committing terms and data to memory, and applying ideas. A comprehensive glossary and up-to-date bibliographies help to guide further study. This accompanying workbook includes exercises keyed to each chapter of the textbook. Exercises are graded into beginning, intermediate and advanced groupings, which will aid in making the textbook appropriate for different levels of students.