Studies in Linguistic Variation and Change: From Old to Middle English

This book comprises a series of studies by a number of scholars working on what might broadly be termed the "medieval" period of the history of English, focusing on Old English, Middle English, and the relatively less well-documented period of transition from the former to the latter. The volume brings together contributions not only from a variety of fields, ranging from semantics and syntax to prosody and phonology, but also from different theoretical standpoints, in order to improve the reader's understanding of the rapid changes that affect the language at this time. The collection of papers here should be of interest to all scholars and students working on Old or Middle English, as well as to students of historical linguistics in general, given that many of the processes and methodological parameters described here will prove to be directly applicable to the study of other periods and of other languages.