Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion

Old English is a companion to Old English studies and to historical studies of early English in general. It is also an introduction to Indo-European studies in the particular sense in which they underpin the history of English. Professor Roger Lass makes accessible in a linguistically up-to-date and readable form the Indo-European and Germanic background to Old English, as well as what can be reconstructed about the resulting state of Old English itself. His book is a bridge between the more elementary Old English grammars and the major philological grammars and recent interpretations of the Old English data.Old English assumes a basic knowledge of phonetics and phonology, the elements of syntactic and morphological theory, and an introduction to historical linguistics. An extensive glossary gives definitions of the major technical terms used.

• Unique modern linguistic introduction for students of Old English, with clear explanations of linguistics and an extensive glossary of terms • Useful also for trained historical linguists wanting to know more about Old English in particular • Looks back to origins and forward to development into Modern English, placing Old English in widest possible historical context

Part I. Historical Prelude: 1. Background and origins; 2. Indo-European to proto-Germanic to West Germanic; Part II. Old English Phonology: 3. Evolution of old English phonology: the major early sound changes; 4. Suprasegmentals; Part III. Morphophonemic Intermezzo: 5. Ablaut, laryngeals, and the IE root; Part IV. Morphology, Lexis and Syntax: 6. Inflectional morphology, I: Nouns, pronouns and adjectives; 7. Inflectional Morphology, II: The Verb; 8. Vocabulary and word-formation; 9. Topics in old English historical syntax: word-order and case; Part V. Historical Postlude: 10. The dissolution of old English; Glossary; References; Index.