Introduction

Chapters in this book

1. Prelim pages i
2. Table of contents v
3. Acknowledgements vii
4. Introduction 1
5. Part I. Phonology and morphology
6. Chapter 1. Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law 15
7. Chapter 2. The foot in the history of English 41
8. Chapter 3. Ambiguity resolution and the evolution of homophones in English 61
9. Chapter 4. The threshold of productivity and the ‘irregularization’ of verbs in Early Modern English 91
10. Part II. Syntax
11. Chapter 5. The reanalysis of VO in the history of English 115
12. Chapter 6. The role of (the avoidance of) centre embedding in the change from OV to VO in English 137
13. Chapter 7. Syntactic changes in verbal clauses and noun phrases from 1500 onwards 163
14. Chapter 8. Prepositions in Early Modern English argument structure and beyond 201
15. Chapter 9. Should with non-past reference 225
16. Chapter 10. Shifting responsibility in passing information 245
17. Part III. Semantics and pragmatics
18. Chapter 11. Theatrical practices and grammatical standardization in eighteenth-century Britain 263
19. Chapter 12. Towards a companionate marriage in Late Modern England? 287
20. Chapter 13. On the development of OE swā to ModE so and related changes in an atypical group of demonstratives 309
21. Index 345