Studies in the history of the English language II : unfolding conversations / edited by Anne Curzan, Kimberly Emmons.

Papers originally delievered at the biennial meeting of the Studies in History of the English Language conference, University of Washington, Seattle, in March 2002.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : linguistics and philology / Anne Curzan and Kimberly Emmons -- Philology, linguistics, and the history of [hw]-[w] / Donka Minkova -- An essay in historical sociolinguistics? : on Donka Minkova's "philology, linguistics, and the history of [hw]-[w]" / Lesley Milroy -- A brief response / Donka Minkova -- Why we should not believe in short diphthongs / David L. White -- Extended forms (streckformen) in English / Anatoly Liberman -- Linguistic change in words one owns : how trademarks become "generic" / Ronald R. Butters and Jennifer Westerhaus -- Introduction : corpus- and text-based studies / Anne Curzan and Kimberly Emmons -- The meanings and uses of the progressive construction in an early eighteenth-century English network / Susan M. Fitzmaurice -- Investigating the expressive progressive : on Susan M. Fitzmaurice's "the meanings and uses of the progressive construction in an early eighteenth-century English network" / Erik Smitterberg -- A brief response / Susan M. Fitzmaurice -- Modal use across registers and time / Douglas Biber -- The need for good texts : the case of Henry Machyn's day book, 1550-1563 / Richard W. Bailey -- The peril of firsts : dating Rawlinson MS poet. 108 and tracing the development of monolingual English lexicons / Ian Lancashire -- Introduction : constraint-based studies / Anne Curzan and Kimberly Emmons -- The evolution of Middle English alliterative meter / Geoffrey Russom -- Old English poetry and the alliterative revival : on Geoffrey Russom's "The evolution of Middle English alliterative meter" / Robert D. Fulk -- A brief response / Geoffrey Russom -- A central metrical prototype for English iambic tetrameter verse : evidence from Chaucer's octosyllabic lines / Xingzhong Li -- Early English clause structure change in a stochastic optimality theory setting / Brady Z. Clark -- The role of perceptual contrast in Verner's law / Olga Petrova -- Introduction : dialectology / Anne Curzan and Kimberly Emmons -- Historical perspectives on the pen/pin merger in Southern American English / Michael Montgomery and Connie Eble -- Digging up the roots of Southern American English : on Michael Montgomery and Connie Eble's "historical perspectives on the pen/pin merger in Southern American English" / Guy Bailey -- A brief response / Michael Montgomery and Connie Eble -- Vowel merger in West Central Indiana : a naughty, knotty project / Betty S. Phillips -- The spread of negative contraction in early English / Richard M. Hogg.

"In the present volume, scholars from North America and Europe address a broad spectrum of research topics in historical English linguistics, including new theories and methods such as Optimality Theory and corpus linguistics, and traditional fields such as phonology and syntax." "This volume captures an ongoing conversation at the heart of historical English linguistics: the question of evidence and historical reconstruction."--BOOK JACKET.

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