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List of Tables; List of Figures; List of Sample Texts; Acknowledgements ; Preface; Introduction; Text Overview; Note on Punctuation; Abbreviations ; Chapter 1: Studying the History of English; Reasons for Studying the History of English; A Definition of Language; The Components of Language; Linguistic Change in English; The Periods of English; An Example of Linguistic Change; The Nature of Linguistic Change; The Inevitability of Change; The Arbitrary Nature of the Linguistic Sign; The Origin of Language; Attitudes Toward Linguistic Change; Linguistic Corruption; Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism; Resources for Studying the History of English ; Chapter 2: The Sounds and Writing of English; The Sounds of English; The Phonetic Alphabet; The Phoneme; The Production of Speech; Consonants; The Consonants of English; Vowels; The Vowels of English; Stress; The Writing of English; The History of Writing; The Origin of the Alphabet ; Chapter 3: Causes and Mechanisms of Language Change; Causes of Change; Internal; External; Mechanisms of Change; Phonological Change; Determining Sounds from Written Records; The Nature of Sound Change; Types of Sound Change; Morphological and Syntactic Change; Analogy; Grammaticalization; Conservative and Innovative Changes; Semantic Change; Types of Semantic Change; Some Generalizations About Semantic Change ; Chapter 4: Indo-European; Classification of Languages; Typological Classification; Genealogical Classification; Language Families; The Indo-European Language Family; The Discovery of Indo-European; The Branches of Indo-European; Proto-Language; Reconstruction; Proto-Indo-European; Linguistic Features; Society; Homeland; Nostratic Theory ; Chapter 5: Germanic and the Development of Old English; Proto-Germanic; Grammatical and Lexical Changes from PIE to Germanic; Phonological Changes from PIE to Germanic; First Sound Shift; Accent Shift and Ordering of Changes; Vowel Changes; Second Sound Shift and Mechanisms of Change; A Brief History of Anglo-Saxon England; The Germanic Settlement of England; The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons; The Scandinavian Invasions of England; The Records of the Anglo-Saxons; The Dialects of Old English; The Written Records of Old English ; Chapter 6: The Sounds and Words of Old English; The Orthographic System of Old English; The Phonological System of Old English; Consonants; Vowels; Sound Changes; The Word Stock of the Anglo-Saxons; Core Germanic Vocabulary; Borrowing in Old English; Word Formation in Old English; Stress ; Chapter 7: The Grammar of Old English; The Nominal System; The Grammatical Categories of the Noun; Pronouns; Nouns; Demonstratives, Adjectives, and Adverbs; Agreement; Case Usage; The Verbal System; Verb Classes; The Grammatical Categories of the Verb; Inflectional Endings of the Verb; Syntax; Verbal Periphrases; Word Order ; Chapter 8: The Rise of the Middle English: Words and Sounds; French and English in Medieval England; The Norman Conquest; The Establishment of French; The Re-establishment of English; The Word Stock of Middle English; French Influence; Latin Influence; The Written Records of Middle English; Middle English Dialects; Middle English Literature; Orthographic Changes; Consonant Changes; Vowel Changes; Qualitative Changes; Quantitative Changes ; Chapter 9: The Grammar of Middle English and Rise of a Written Standard; Vowel Reduction and its Effects; Grammatical Developments in Middle English; Adjectives and Nouns; Pronouns; Loss of Grammatical Gender; Verbs; Syntax; Change from Synthetic to Analytic; Middle English as a Creole?; The Rise of a Standard Dialect ; Chapter 10: The Sounds and Inflections of Early Modern English; The Great Vowel Shift; Nature of the Shift; Details of the Shift; Changes in the Short Vowels and Diphthongs; Changes in Consonants; Renaissance Respellings; Changes in Nominal Inflected Forms; Nouns; Pronouns; Case Usage; Changes in Verbal Inflected Forms; Verb Classes; Inflectional Endings ; Chapter 11: Early Modern English Verbal Constructions and 18th Century Prescriptivism; Early Modern English Syntax; Reflexive and Impersonal Verbs; The Subjunctive and the Modal Auxiliaries; Verbal Periphrases; Do; Word Order; The Rise of Prescriptivism; Renaissance Concerns About the Language; Social, Linguistic, and Philosophical Reasons for Prescriptivism; Important Prescriptive Grammarians of the 18th Century; Aims of the 18th Century Grammarians; Ascertainment; An Academy; Methods of the 18th Century Grammarians; Authority; Model of Latin; Etymology; Reason; The Question of Usage; Dictionaries ; Chapter 12: Modern English; Grammatical Changes Since Early Modern English; Modern Borrowings; The Oxford English Dictionary; The Development of National Varieties; British versus North American English; Canadian English; Australian and New Zealand English; African English; Caribbean English; Important Regional Varieties; English in the British Isles; English in the United States; Changes in Progress; Neologisms; Grammatical Changes ; Glossary of Linguistic Terms; References