A History of the English Language

The history and development of English, from the earliest known writings to its status today as a dominant world language, is a subject of major importance to linguists and historians. In this authoritative volume, a team of international experts cover the entire recorded history of the English language, outlining its development over fifteen centuries. With an emphasis on more recent periods, every key stage in the history of the language is discussed, with full accounts of standardisation, names, the distribution of English in Britain and North America, and its global spread. New historical surveys of the crucial aspects of the language (sounds, word structure, grammar and vocabulary) are presented, and historical changes that have affected English are treated as a continuing process, helping to explain the shape of the language today. Comprehensive and fully up-to-date, the volume will be indispensable to all advanced students, scholars and teachers in this prominent field.

RICHARD HOGG is Smith Professor of Language and Medieval English at the University of Manchester. He is editor of volume 1 of The Cambridge History of the English Language (six volumes, 1992–2001) and one of the founding editors of the journal English Language and Linguistics (also published by Cambridge University Press). He is author of Metrical Phonology with Christopher McCully (Cambridge University Press, 1986), A Grammar of Old English (1992) and An Introduction to Old English (2002). He is Fellow of the British Academy (1994), and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2004).

DAVID DENISON is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Manchester, and has held visiting appointments at the universities of Amsterdam, British Columbia, Santiago de Compostela and Paris 3. He is one of the founding editors of the journal English Language and Linguistics (published by Cambridge University Press), and author of English Historical Syntax (1993/2004) and of the ‘Syntax’ chapter in volume 4 of The Cambridge History of the English Language (1998). He is also co-editor of Fuzzy Grammar (2004).

Frontispiece: Map of England

A History of the English Language

Edited by

RICHARD HOGG AND DAVID DENISON

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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© Cambridge University Press 2006

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no reproduction of any part may take place without
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First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
A history of the English language / edited by Richard Hogg and David Denison.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-66227-3
1. English language – History. I. Hogg, Richard M. II. Denison, David, 1950– III. Title.
PE1075.H57 2006
420.9 – dc22 2005032565

ISBN-13 978-0-521-66227-7 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-66227-3 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Figures

Tables

Contributors

Richard Coates, Professor of Linguistics, University of Sussex.

David Crystal, Honorary Professor of Linguistics, University of Wales, Bangor.

David Denison, Professor of English Linguistics, University of Manchester.

Edward Finegan, Professor of Linguistics and Law, University of Southern California.

Olga Fischer, Professor of Germanic Linguistics, University of Amsterdam.

Richard Hogg, Smith Professor of English Language and Medieval English Literature, University of Manchester.

Dieter Kastovsky, Professor of English Linguistics, University of Vienna.

Roger Lass, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Senior Professorial Fellow and Honorary Research Associate in English, University of Cape Town.

Terttu Nevalainen, Professor of English Philology, University of Helsinki.

Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Senior Lecturer in Historical Linguistics, University of Leiden.

Wim van der Wurff, Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Preface

Who is this book written for? There are already so many books on the history of English, both large and small, that another one might at first sight seem otiose, redundant and unnecessary. But one of the beauties of the language is its ability to show continuous change and flexibility while in some sense remaining the same. And if that is true of the language, it is also true of the study of the language, whether undertaken for strictly academic purposes or not. This book is pitched at senior undergraduates in the main, though we trust that the general reader will also find in it much that is enlightening and enjoyable. Our justification for this work, then, is that knowledge of the history of English is a part of our common culture which needs – and repays – constant renewal.

   But there is more to it than that. There are indeed many good existing accounts, including, in particular, Barbara Strang’s first-class A History of English (1970). In the thirty-five years since its publication, the language has continued to change, and scholarship has advanced along several different paths. Most obviously, the advent of computerised material has enabled us to analyse and hence understand much material which was previously impractical for the individual scholar to assimilate. Secondly, the (very different) Chomskyan and Labovian revolutions in linguistics, both in their infancy in 1970, have had repercussions in many domains relevant to this book. While the essence of the subject remains the same, the focus of attention may have shifted.

   How does the current work relate to The Cambridge History of the English Language (CHEL; six volumes, 1992–2001)? A mixture of old and new contributors will be apparent, albeit with some of the ‘old’ contributors working on ‘new’ areas (and the whole book in any case written afresh). More important is the fact that the orientation of this work is rather different from that of CHEL. The most obvious difference is in emphasis, now tilted (within a full account of the history of the language) slightly more towards the later than the earlier periods. A further shift is the emphasis on variation, both in terms of standard and non-standard varieties and of different Englishes – in Britain, North America and worldwide.

   On the other hand, we do attempt to cover, if more concisely than was possible in CHEL, the ‘core’ structural elements of the language. To make a slightly artificial division, Chapters 2 to 4 deal with major domains of the internal, structural history of English, while Chapters 5 to 9 tackle aspects of its use, distribution and variation. All eight are individual, coherent and linguistically informed accounts, taking their subject-matter through the whole sweep of the recorded history of English. In the opening chapter, and continuing throughout the book, we attempt to situate these linguistic developments in their historical and social context. From the continual, dynamic interaction of internal and external factors comes what is by any standards a richly varied language.

Richard Hogg and David Denison, Manchester, May 2005

Acknowledgements

Richard Hogg and David Denison wish to thank Sylvia Adamson, Jeff Denton, Robert Fulk, Willem Hollmann, Jussi Klemola, Meg Laing, Steve Rigby and Mary Syner for help with or comments on Chapter 1. Olga Fischer and Wim van der Wurff particularly wish to thank Willem Koopman for reading Chapter 3 with great care and meticulousness; their chapter was also improved by comments from students on van der Wurff’s course ‘English Historical Syntax’ at the University of Leiden in 2003. Ed Finegan is grateful to Richard W. Bailey and Michael B. Montgomery for comments and suggestions on a draft of Chapter 8.