1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 English today 1
1.2 Studying variety across time in language 2
1.3 How has the English language changed? 2
1.4 How can we learn about Old English and later changes in the language? 3
1.5 Changes of meaning-the semantic level 4
2 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS BROUGHT TO BRITAIN 9
2.1 Roman Britain 9
2.2 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 9
2.3 How the English language came to Britain 12
3 OLD ENGLISH(Ⅰ) 21
3.1 Written Old English 21
3.2 Dialects and political boundaries 35
3.3 Danish and Norwegian Vikings 37
3.4 Effects of Viking settlement on the English language 46
3.5 The Norman Conquest 51
4 OLD ENGLISH(Ⅱ) 55
4.1 The language of Old English poetry 55
4.2 OE prose 60
4.3 OE grammar 65
4.4 Latin loan-words in OE 71
4.5 ON loan-words in OE 73
4.6 Early French loan-words 74
5 FROM OLD ENGLISH TO MIDDLE ENGLISH 76
5.1 The evidence for linguistic change 76
5.2 The Norman Conquest and the English language 77
5.3 The earliest 12th-century Middle English text 82
5.4 The book called Ormulum 86
5.5 12th-century loan-words 96
6 EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH-12th CENTURY 98
6.1 Evidence of language change from late OE to early ME in La？amon's Brut 98
6.2 The Owl＆the Nightingale 123
7.1 The Fox and the Wolf 126
7 EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH-13th CENTURY 126
7.2 The South English Legendary 127
7.3 A guide for anchoresses 132
7.4 Lyric poems 135
7.5 The Bestiary 137
7.6 The Lay of Havelok the Dane 143
7.7 Early 13th-century loan-words 1200-1249 145
8.1 Cursor Mundi-a history of the world 149
8 NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN TEXTS COMPARED 149
8.2 Later 13th-century loan-words 1250-1299 161
9 THE 14th CENTURY-SOUTHERN AND KENTISH DIALECTS 163
9.1 The dialect areas of Middle English 163
9.2 How to describe dialect differences 169
9.3 A South Eastern or Kentish dialect 170
9.4 An early South West dialect 177
9.5 A later 14th-century South West dialect 179
9.6 Loan-words 1300-1319 184
10.1 A 14th-century Scots English dialect 187
10 THE 14th CENTURY-NORTHERN DIALECTS 187
10.2 Another Northern dialect-York 191
10.3 The York Plays 195
10.4 Northern and Midland dialects compared 202
10.5 Chaucer and the Northern dialect 203
10.6 Loan-words 1320-1339 205
11 THE 14th CENTURY-WEST MIDLANDS DIALECTS 207
11.1 A North-West Midlands dialect-Sir Gawayn and ？e Grene Kn？t 207
11.2 A South-West Midlands dialect-Piers Plowman 215
11.3 Loan-words 1340-1359 223
12 THE 14th CENTURY-EAST MIDLANDS AND LONDON DIALECTS 224
12.1 The origins of present-day Standard English 224
12.2 A South-East Midlands dialect-Mandeville's Travels 225
12.3 The London dialect-Thomas Usk 227
12.4 Loan-words 1360-1379 229
13 THE LONDON DIALECT-CHAUCER,LATE 14th CENTURY 231
13.1 Chaucer's prose writing 231
13.2 Chaucer's verse 236
13.3 Editing a text 239
13.4 Loan-words 1380-1399 243
14 EARLY MODERN ENGLISH Ⅰ-THE 15th CENTURY 247
14.1 The beginnings of a standard language 247
14.2 Early 15th-century East Midlands dialect-The Boke of Margery Kempe 251
14.3 Later 15th-century East Midlands dialect-the Paston letters 255
14.4 Late 15th-century London English-William Caxton 257
14.5 The medieval tales of King Arthur 263
14.6 Late 15th-century London dialect-the Cely letters 266
14.7 15th-century loan-words 271
15 EARLY MODERN ENGLISH Ⅱ-THE 16th CENTURY(ⅰ) 273
15.1 The LisleLetters 273
15.2 Formal prose in the 1530s 280
15.3 A different view on new words 287
15.4 John Hart's An Orthographie 289
15.5 The Great Vowel Shift 293
15.7 Loan-words 1500-1549 302
15.6 Punctuation in 16th-century texts 302
16 EARLY MODERN ENGLISH Ⅲ-THE 16th CENTURY(ⅱ) 305
16.1 The development of the standard language 305
16.2 Evidence for some 16th-century varieties of English 308
16.3 English at the end of the 16th century 316
16.4 Loan-words 1550-1599 319
17 EARLY MODERN ENGLISH Ⅳ-THE 17th CENTURY(ⅰ) 322
17.1 Evidence for changes in pronunciation 322
17.2 Sir Thomas Browne 326
17.3 George Fox's Journal 331
17.4 John Milton 337
17.5 John Evelyn's Diary 340
17.6 The Royal Society and prose style 342
17.7 Loan-words 1600-1649 346
18 EARLY MODERN ENGLISH Ⅴ-THE 17th CENTURY(ⅱ) 352
18.1 John Bunyan 352
18.2 Spelling and pronunciation at the end of the 17th century 355
18.3 John Dryden 366
18.4 North Riding Yorkshire dialect in the 1680s 371
18.5 Loan-words 1650-1699 372
19 MODERN ENGLISH-THE 18th CENTURY 376
19.1 Correcting,improving and ascertaining the language 376
19.2 Dr Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language 381
19.3 The perfection of the language 383
19.4 'The Genius of the Language' 384
19.5 Bishop Lowth's Grammar 386
19.6 'The depraved language of the common People' 388
19.7 'Propriety＆perspicuity of language' 389
19.8 Language and social class 395
19.9 William Cobbett and the politics of language 398
19.10 18th-century loan-words 403
20 FROM OLD ENGLISH TO MODERN ENGLISH-COMPARING HISTORICAL TEXTS 407
20.1 Commentary on Text 173 407
20.2 'Your accent gives you away!' 410
21.1 Some developments in the standard language since the 18th century 418
21 POSTSCRIPT Ⅰ-TO THE PRESENT DAY 418
21.2 The continuity of prescriptive judgements on language use 420
21.3 The grammar of spoken English today 422
21.4 19th-and 20th-century loan-words 424
22 POSTSCRIPT Ⅱ-ENGLISH SPELLING TODAY:A SUMMARY 431
22.1 The Roman alphabet and English spelling 431
22.2 The contrastive sounds of English 431
22.3 The spelling of vowels in English 433
22.4 The spelling of consonants in English 439
23 POSTSCRIPT Ⅲ-THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH SPELLING:A SUMMARY 442
23.1 Old English 442
23.2 After 1066-Middle English 445
23.3 Early Modern English 450
23.4 Correct spelling today 456
Bibliography 458
Index 460
文库索引 480