Historical Linguistics

This book provides an accessible introduction to anyone interested in the history of the English language. It outlines the major issues and terminology used in the field of Historical Linguistics, a required part of most university-level language and linguistics courses, and creates an opening into the field for the new reader.

Provides an accessible introduction to anyone interested in the history of the English language. By Herbert Schendl. Part of the Oxford Introductions to Language Study series.

SECTION 1; Survey; 1. Language change as a matter of fact; Attitudes to language change; Language state and process; The aims and scope of historical linguistics; 2. Reconstructing the past: Data and evidence; The data of historical linguistics; The written evidence; Sources of evidence; Comparing and reconstructing languages; Correspondences between languages; Laws of change; Internal reconstruction; 3. Vocabulary change; Coining new words; Changes of meaning; Why do word meanings change?; 4. Grammatical change; Morphological change; Syntactic change; 5. Sound change; How sounds are produced; Phonetic change; Phonemic change; 6. Language contact; Borrowing from other languages; Convergence and linguistic areas; Language birth: pidgins and creoles; Language death; 7. How and why do languages change?; Functional explanations; Psycholinguistic explanations: Language acquisition; Sociolinguistic explanations; The origin and spread of changes; 8. Postscript: Further developments; Socio-historical linguistics and historical pragmatics; Evolutionary linguistics; Standardisation and language planning; Conclusion; SECTION 2; Readings; SECTION 3; References; SECTION 4; Glossary