This collection of papers is a product of the first international conference of the Society of Historical English Language and Linguistics (SHELL) held at Chiba University, Japan, in September 2005. The society aims at the reunion of linguistics and philology. The papers discuss current issues in the area of syntax, semantics and stylistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

This monograph presents Old English renderings of Christian words found in interlinear glosses, especially the Gospels and the Psalter glosses. Nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs in biblical contexts are included through dialectal (Northumbrian, Mercian, and West Saxon) diachronic (early and late West Saxon) and idiolectal (i.e. scribal) comparison. By using interlinear glosses, the correspondence between the original Latin word and the Old English rendering can be recognised more clearly than in ordinary prose, and at the same time, a flexible choice of renderings can be seen in some contexts. The author tries to show which Old English words were chosen as renderings, while some Latin words were accepted without translation.

This volume is a collection of papers read at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds in 2017, in two sessions organized by the Institute of English Studies at the University of London and four sessions organized by the Society of Historical English Language and Linguistics. Contributions consist of poetry, prose, interlinear glosses, syntax, semantics, lexicology, and medievalism. The contributors employ a wealth of different approaches. The general theme of the IMC 2017 was 'otherness', and some papers fit this theme very well. Even when two researchers deal with a similar topic and arrive at different conclusions, the editors do not try to harmonize them but present them as they are for further discussion.

This collection of papers is a gift for all the members of the Japan Society for Medieval English Studies, who worked abroad under the direction of British, European and American medievalists or greatly influenced by those scholars as guests of the Society. Six papers in this book tell parts of their special fields of study: Aldred the Northumbrian scribe, Old English glosses, the Exeter Book, source studies of Old English homilies, Old English Boethius and Judgement Day II. As one of their students and a former president of the Society, the editor adds the last paper on Old English syntax.

This monograph is one of the studies on English verb syntax, especially focusing on its changes in Old and Middle English periods. Investigations have been made so far by the author on 'impersonal' verbs, reflexive constructions, verbs of motion, verbs of emotion, and other verbs in various semantic fields. In this study the author explains all the periphrastic expressions found in the early history of English, some of which survived up to Modern English, by using dictionary data and her own findings. She tries to show the devices of periphrastic expressions with modal and other auxiliaries, which have supplied simple verb forms in writings and translations in the process of the language change.

This monograph is a study of words and expressions of emotion found in Old and Middle English texts. Lexical variety, rivalry among synonyms, both native and non-native, and their successive replacement are discussed illustrated with a large number of examples. "Impersonal" and reflexive constructions, which give peculiar features to medieval texts, are examined, focusing on basic verbs of emotion. Words found in the Seven Deadly Sins and the contrasting use of the genitive and the of-phrase in God's love and the love of God are treated as typical medieval themes. Appendices are added to illustrate the variant forms of these words and expressions in the versions of the Gospels and the Psalter, together with formulaic expressions of emotion in Old English poetry.