This volume focuses on the present state of English historical linguistics as a unitary discipline. In particular, the selection of papers challenges the idea that the community of linguists working on the history of English stands united merely by subject matter, but divided by method and theoretical outlook. The volume emphasizes the way in which scholars in our community are lead to refine and further articulate their empirical proposals by challenges from different research paradigms. Thus, a running thematic thread of the volume is the dialogue between generative grammatical theory and corpus studies, including those in sociolinguistic tradition. The volume is divided in four main sections: syntax, phonology, text types, sociolinguistics and dialectology.

Is historical linguistics different in principle from other linguistic research? This book addresses problems encountered in gathering and analysing data from early English, including the incomplete nature of the evidence and the dangers of misinterpretation or over-interpretation. Even so, gaps in the data can sometimes be filled. The volume brings together a team of leading English historical linguists who have encountered such issues first-hand, to discuss and suggest solutions to a range of problems in the phonology, syntax, dialectology and onomastics of older English. The topics extend widely over the history of English, chronologically and linguistically, and include Anglo-Saxon naming practices, the phonology of the alliterative line, computational measurement of dialect similarity, dialect levelling and enregisterment in late Modern English, stress-timing in English phonology and the syntax of Old and early Modern English. The book will be of particular interest to researchers and students in English historical linguistics.

This volume surveys the current debate on the morphome, bringing together experts from different linguistic fields-morphology, phonology, semantics, typology, historical linguistics-and from different theoretical backgrounds, including both proponents and critics of autonomous morphology. The concept of the morphome is one of the most influential but contentious ideas in contemporary morphology. The term is typically used to denote a pattern of exponence lacking phonological, syntactic, or semantic motivation, and putative examples of morphomicity are frequently put forward as evidence for the existence of a purely morphological level of linguistic representation. Central to the volume is the need to attain a deeper understanding of morphomic patterns, developing stringent diagnostics of their existence, exploring the formal grammatical devices required to characterize them adequately, and assessing their implications for language acquisition and change. The extensive empirical evidence is drawn from a wide range of languages, including Archi, German, Kayardild, Latin and its descendants, Russian, Sanskrit, Selkup, Ulwa, and American Sign Language. As the first book to examine morphomic patterns from such a diverse range of perspectives and on such a broad cross-linguistic basis, The Morphome Debate will be of interest to researchers of all theoretical persuasions in morphology and related linguistic disciplines.

Is historical linguistics different in principle from other linguistic research? This book addresses problems encountered in gathering and analysing data from early English, including the incomplete nature of the evidence and the dangers of misinterpretation or over-interpretation. Even so, gaps in the data can sometimes be filled. The volume brings together a team of leading English historical linguists who have encountered such issues first-hand, to discuss and suggest solutions to a range of problems in the phonology, syntax, dialectology and onomastics of older English. The topics extend widely over the history of English, chronologically and linguistically, and include Anglo-Saxon naming practices, the phonology of the alliterative line, computational measurement of dialect similarity, dialect levelling and enregisterment in late Modern English, stress-timing in English phonology and the syntax of Old and early Modern English. The book will be of particular interest to researchers and students in English historical linguistics.