1 INTRODUCTION&Richard M.Hogg 1
1.1 Political history and language history 1
1.2 Ecclesiastical history and language history 10
1.3 Literary history and language history 14
1.4 The nature of the evidence 19
Further reading 25
2 THE PLACE OF ENGLISH IN GERMANIC AND INDO-EUROPEAN&Alfred Bammesberger 26
2.1 Language change and historical linguistics 26
2.2 The Germanic languages 28
2.3 The Indo-European languages 31
2.4 Historical phonology 33
2.5 Historical morphology 47
2.6 Syntax 59
2.7 The lexicon 63
Further reading 66
3 PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY&Richard M.Hogg 67
3.1 Introduction 67
3.2 Orthography 72
3.3 Phonology 83
3.4 Morphology 122
Further reading 164
4 SYNTAX&Elizabeth Closs Traugott 168
4.1 General background 168
4.2 Noun phrases 171
4.3 Verbal groups 179
4.4 Case assignment and the status of subject and object 201
4.5 Complex sentences 219
4.6 Word order and the order of clauses 273
4.7 Summary of changes 285
Further reading 286
5 SEMANTICS AND VOCABULARY&Dieter Kastovsky 290
5.1 Introduction 290
5.2 Foreign influence 299
5.3 The stratification of the Old English vocabulary 338
5.4 Word-formation 355
5.5 Semantics 400
Further reading 407
6 OLD ENGLISH DIALECTS&Thomas E.Toon 409
6.1 Introduction 409
6.2 Old English dialects:origins and sources 414
6.3 Orthographic and phonological variation 429
6.4 Variation and dialectology 433
Further reading 451
7 ONOMASTICS&Cecily Clark 452
7.1 General principles 452
7.2 Anthroponymy 456
7.3 Toponymy 471
Further reading 487
8 LITERARY LANGUAGE&Malcolm R.Godden 490
8.1 Introduction 490
8.2 Poetry 491
8.3 Prose 513
Further reading 535
Glossary of linguistic terms 536
Bibliography 548
Primary sources and texts 548
Secondary sources 550
Index 589