Chapters in this book

1. Prelim pages i
2. Table of contents v
3. At the crossroads of language change, variation, and contact 1
4. PART I: Language change
5. Knitting and splitting information 11
6. The order of adverbials of time and place in Old English 39
7. The demise of a preterite-present verb 61
8. Gradience in an abrupt change 83
9. Vowels before /r/ in the history of English 95
10. PART II: Language variation
11. “Pained the eye and stunned the ear” 113
12. Watching as -clauses in Late Modern English 137
13. Colloquialization and “decolloquialization” 163
14. Letters of Artisans and the Labouring Poor (England, c . 1750–1835) 187
15. New-dialect formation in medieval Ireland 213
16. Tracing uses of will and would in Late Modern British and Irish English 239
17. PART III: Variation and change in contact situations
18. The subjunctive mood in Philippine English 259
19. Revisiting a millennium of migrations 281
20. <U> or <o>: A dilemma of the Middle English scribal practice 305
21. Index 325