Full Description
Charting the major developments in the morphology of English, this book introduces students to English inflectional and derivational morphology, presenting them with a long-range perspective of language change. The book is also built around the chronological periods crucial for each type of important large-scale change in the morphology of English, moving from Old, Middle and Early Modern English, to Modern English.The book also explores four sources of linguistic innovation -- learner errors in categorical inflectional systems, lexical analogy, productivity in derivational systems and language and dialect contact -- illustrating the extent to which the history of English Morphology offers significant information about morphological change in general.
Contents
Preface; Acknowledgements Section A. ConceptsChapter 1. MorphologyChapter 2. Linguistic change and the evidence of the pastSection B. Inflectional morphologyChapter 3. Old English inflectional morphologyChapter 4. Inflectional change in late Old English.Chapter 5. Casemarking in Middle English. Chapter 6. Contact with Norse and French. Chapter 7. Middle English verb inflection. Chapter 8. Toward Modern English. Section C. Derivational morphologyChapter 9. Inherited derivational patternsChapter 10. French derivational patterns in EnglishChapter 11. Latinate derivational patterns in EnglishChapter 12. Some aspects of modern English derivational morphologyBibliography; Index
