[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory]

Cognitive models, perspectives, and the construction of situated meaning have always been core concepts in Cognitive Linguistics. The papers in this volume present applications of those concepts to the study of discourse phenomena like the use and interpretation of metaphors, modal expressions, focus particles, tag questions, indirect speech acts, and iconographic textual references. The volume also includes two studies focussing on cognitive processes involved in discourse production.

This volume contains a selection of papers originally presented at the 12th Conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAVE), held in Montréal in 1983. It is divided into three sections: 1. Varieties of English and their history; 2. Change and variation in Romance; 3. Functions and discourse.

The present work contributes to a better understanding of the English system of degree by means of a study of a number of aspects in the evolution of adjective comparison that have so far either been considered controversial or not been accounted for at all. As will be shown, the diachronic aspects analysed will also have synchronic implications. Furthermore, unlike previous synchronic as well as diachronic accounts of adjective comparison, this monograph does not concentrate only on the ‘standard’ comparative strategies (i.e. inflectional and periphrastic forms), but also deals with double periphrastic comparatives, thus providing an analysis of the whole range of comparative structures in English.

This volume contains a set of articles based on papers selected from those delivered at the 20th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL, Edinburgh 2018). It focuses on cutting-edge research in the history of English, while reflecting the diversity that exists in the current landscape of English historical linguistics. Chapters showcase traditional as well as novel methodologies in historical linguistics (the latter made possible by the increasing quality and accessibility of digital tools), work on linguistic interfaces (between segmental phonology and prosody, and syntax and information structure) and work on mechanisms of language change (such as Yang’s Tolerance Principle, on the threshold for the productivity of linguistic rules in language acquisition). The volume will be of interest to those working on the historical phonology, morphology, syntax and pragmatics of English, language change, corpus linguistics, computational historical linguistics, and related sub-disciplines.

This volume offers a selection of 19 papers from those read at the 8th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics in Edinburgh. Many of the writers are established authorities in the field, but there are also significant contributions from a younger generation of scholars. The topics discussed span the whole history of English from the Common Germanic period to the present century and the book also includes, as appropriate to the Conference venue, a number of papers on aspects of the historical development of Scots and Scottish English.

The papers collected in this volume were first presented at the 14th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Bergamo, 2006). Alongside studies of syntax, morphology, and dialectology, published in two sister volumes, many innovative contributions focused on semantics, pragmatics and register variation. A rich variety of state-of-the-art studies and plenary lectures by acknowledged world experts in the field bears witness to the quality of the scholarly interest in this field of research. In all the contributions, well-established methods combine with new theoretical approaches, in an attempt to shed more light on phenomena that have hitherto remained unexplored, or have only just begun to be investigated. The accurate peer-reviewed selection ensures the methodological homogeneity of the papers.

The fifteen papers selected for Volume II of English Historical Linguistics 2008 have a different emphasis than those in Volume I (CILT 314, Lenker et al. 2010). Nine concentrate on the development of the English vocabulary and six on historical text linguistics, including the development of text-types and of politeness strategies. Of those in the former group, three have their emphasis on etymology, three on semantic fields, and three on word-formation, although some cover more than one of these areas. The topics include: the treatment of etymological problems in the OED; deverbal derivations formed from native verbs and from loan-verbs; the role of metaphor and metonymy in the evolution of word-fields. The field of historical text linguistics is introduced by a general survey, which is followed by more specific studies focussing on 15th-century legal and administrative texts from Scotland, on early 15th-century women’s mystical writings, on medical recipes from the 16th to the 18th centuries and on pauper letters from 18th-century Essex.
The book should appeal to scholars interested in English etymology, the history of semantic fields and of word-formation, as well as in historical text linguistics, politeness strategies and standardization. It provides not only theoretical considerations but also a wealth of case studies.

The volume brings together seventeen peer-reviewed, revised papers originally presented at the 16th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 16), held in August 2010 at the University of Pécs, Hungary. This selection aims to show how theoretical and empirical approaches can be combined in the historical investigation of the English language, what insights and exact information can be obtained about language change in the history of English with the help of tools like historical corpora or with inter- and transdisciplinary methods. The volume is arranged around five thematic headings. The first discusses dialects and regional variation from the viewpoint of contact linguistics and phonological, morphological, and lexical change. The second has syntactic variation and grammaticalization as its focus. Papers on grammatical changes in nominal and pronominal constructions are presented in part three. The integration of loanwords in Middle English is discussed in part four, and the last investigates communicative intentions in historical discourse.
The volume should appeal to linguists interested in historical aspects of dialect and discourse studies, historical pragmatics, contact linguistics, grammaticalization theory, corpus linguistics, and of course language change.

This is a general discussion of the phonology of English within the frameworks of lexical, metrical, and prosodic phonology. It not only presents a synthesis of current approaches but also reconciles their discrepancies and presents critical commentary. There is a discussion of current theories, segment and syllable structure, stress, and prosodic categories and their role in determining the application of segmental rules. Two chapters discuss lexical phonology as divided into a cyclic and a postcyclic stratum, while the final chapter discusses postlexical phonology and some other approaches.
The book includes exercises and can be used as an undergraduate or graduate textbook; at the same time, it is a valuable research tool for phonologists.

Studies on the syntactic consequences of event type in languages have shown that Aktionsart plays a role in Universal Grammar. This book contributes to the exploration of the syntax/semantics interface by presenting a thorough comparison of event and predicate types in English and Spanish. The mapping between event and syntactic predicate types, including detransitives, is given a minimalist account based on the functional categories that embed event features and on a careful analysis of the features checked by objects. As the book delves into the theoretical issue of how parameters are characterized, it presents the most comprehensive account to date of event type phenomena in Spanish, an innovative analysis of the clitic SE and a re-definition of unaccusativity. The theory is then applied to the ongoing issues in the sentence processing literature. A proposal is made for an update of the current data in light of these latest linguistic discoveries.