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It is intended to publish by 2010 a new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in which the whole etymological and historical apparatus of entries, untouched since the early twentieth century, will be comprehensively re-done, with the aim of bringing the treatment of the pre-1500 part of the language up to the standard now found in the later period. To this end a new programme of reading is being instituted for the period of Early Modern English, yet no corresponding programme is envisaged for Middle English in the mistaken belief that, as a general rule, it will be sufficient simply to ‘borrow’ the requisite material from the Middle English Dictionary and the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue , supplemented as necessary by recourse to the Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch and the Anglo-Norman Dictionary . The present article puts this plan to the test, using first-hand evidence.

Æthelberht 73 has previously been interpreted in terms of either sexual or financial misconduct by a free woman, while the following clause 74 has been taken to establish the compensation for injury payable to an unmarried girl. Neither interpretation is satisfactory. This paper uses linguistic, comparative and contextual evidence to argue that Æthelberht 73 and 74 comprise a related pair of clauses concerning violence committed by adult women and by unmarried girls.

The paper begins with an overview of Africa's linguistic landscape, and a review of the change of status of English in its history in Africa and Asia. In a subsequent discussion of colonial language policies, it is shown that the colonial masters had different and varying attitudes towards the local languages, ranging from their sheer repression in favour of the European language, to their full promotion. In all colonies, however, due to a number of circumstances, European languages reigned supreme at independence. Positive attitudes towards indigenous languages gradually developed only later, resulting in the decline of English in some countries and its disinstitutionalisation in others. At the turn of the millennium, however, the gains of English on the continent, both in quantity and in quality, had outnumbered the losses. The paper analyses the reasons why some African languages despite the regained pride on them by Africans, may hold on a thin thread for their survival in the third millennium, while no foreseeable development seems likely to threaten the position of European languages in general, and that of English in particular.

Göran Kjellmer, Gēata lēod : On the Partitive Genitive in Old English Poetry Christian Mair, Early or late Origin for begin + V -ing ? Using the OED on CDROM to settle a dispute between Visser and Jespersen Ewald Standop, “What's in a Name?” – oder: Die IPA-Umschrift und die englische Aussprache – Zum Erscheinen des Handbook of the International Phonetic Association

Einführung in das Studium der Anglistik und Amerikanistik , ed. Uwe Böker und Christoph Houswitschka; Hans-Dieter Gelfert, Einführung in das Studium Anglistik/Amerikanistik (Reinhard Heuberger) Ivan A. Sag & Thomas Wasow, Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction (Ewald Standop) A. P. Cowie, English Dictionaries for Foreign Learners: A History ; Hilary Nesi, The Use and Abuse of EFL Dictionaries: How Learners of English as a Foreign Language Read and Interpret Dictionary Entries (Günther Jehle) Klaus Fischer, German-English Verb Valency: A Contrastive Analysis (Daniela Wawra) Jean Hudson, Perspectives on Fixedness: Applied and Theoretical (Gabriele Knappe) Juhani Rudanko, Diachronic Studies of English Complementation Patterns: Eigtheenth Century Evidence in Tracing the Development of Verbs and Adjectives Selecting Prepositions and Complement Clauses (Ewald Standop) Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs and Customs , ed. Carl Lindahl, John McNamara and John Lindow (Hans Sauer) Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain , ed. D. A. Trotter (Muriel Kasper) Susanne Scholz, Body Narratives: Writing the Nation and Fashioning the Subject in Early Modern England (Martina Mittag) Richard Wagner, Die Kunst des fortschreitenden Denkens: Ralph Waldo Emersons Ästhetisierung von Selbst und Gemeinschaft (Dieter Schulz) The Selected Letters of D. H. Lawrence , compiled and edited by James T. Boulton (Dieter Mehl) Susana Onega, Metafiction and Myth in the Novels of Peter Ackroyd (Martin Middeke) Recent Trends in Narratological Research: Papers from the Narratology Round Table ESSE 4, September 1997, Debrecen, Hungary, and other Contributions , ed. John Pier (Sabine Buchholz) Intercultural Encounters – Studies in English Literature: Essays Presented to Rüdiger Ahrens on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday , ed. Heinz Antor and Kevin L. Cope (Roy Sommer)