PAPERS FROM THE 5TH ICEHL AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E.F. KONRAD KOERNER (University of Ottawa) Series IV - CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY Advisory Editorial Board Henning Andersen (Los Angeles); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles) Thomas V. Gamkrelidze (Tbilisi); Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin) J. Peter Maher (Chicago); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.) E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Danny Steinberg (Tokyo) Volume 65 Sylvia Adamson, Vivien Law, Nigel Vincent and Susan Wright (eds) Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics PAPERS FROM THE 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS Cambridge, 6-9 April 1987 Edited by SYLVIA ADAMSON, VIVIEN LAW, NIGEL VINCENT and SUSAN WRIGHT JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA 1990 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (5th: 1987: St. John's Col­ lege, Cambridge, England) Papers from the 5th International Conferrence on English Historical Linguistics: dedi­ cated to the memory of James Peter Thorne (1933-1988) / edited by Sylvia Adamson ... [et al.]. p. cm. - (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763; v. 65) Half t.p. title: Papers from the 5th ICEHL Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English language--History--Congresses. 2. English language-Middle English, 1100- 1500--Congresses. 3. English language--Old English, ca. 450-1100~Congresses. I. Thorne, James Peter, 1933-1988. II. Adamson, Sylvia. III. Title. IV. Title: Papers from the 5th ICEHL. V. Series. PE1075.I57 1987 420.9--dc 20 90-681 ISBN 90 272 3562 7 (alk. paper) CIP © Copyright 1990 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. Dedicated to the memory of JAMES PETER THORNE (1933-1988) CONTENTS In Memoriam James Peter Thorne, 1933-1988 by John Lyons xi PREFACE xxi LIST OF PARTICIPANTS xxv Alex Agutter Restandardisation in Middle Scots 1 John Algeo British and American English: odi et amo 13 Laurel Brinton The stylistic function of ME gan reconsidered 31 Cecily Clark Historical Linguistics - Linguistic Archaeology 55 Robert Coleman The assessment of lexical mortality and replacement between Old and Modern English 69 Xavier Dekeyser Preposition stranding and relative complementiser deletion: implicational tendencies in English and the other Germanic lan­ guages 87 David Denison The Old English Impersonals Revived 111 B. Elan Dresher On the unity of the Mercian Second Fronting 141 Thomas Frank Hugh Blair's theory of the origin and the basic functions of lan­ guage 165 Ossi Ihalainen Methodological preliminaries to the study of linguistic change in dialectal English: evaluating the grammars of Barnes and Elwor- thy as sources of linguistic evidence 189 viii CONTENTS Dieter Kastovsky The typological status of Old English word-formation 205 Willem Koopman The double object construction in Old English 225 Roger Lass Where do Extraterritorial Englishes come from? Dialect input and recodification in transported Englishes 245 David Lightfoot Obsolescence and Universal Grammar 281 Peter Lucas On the role of some adverbs in Old English verse grammar 293 Donka Minkova Adjectival inflexion relics and speech rhythm in late Middle Eng­ lish and Early Modern English 313 Terttu Nevalainen Modelling functional differentiation and function loss: the case of but 337 Ray Page Dating Old English inscriptions: the limits of inference 357 Frans Plank Paradigm arrangement and inflectional homonymy: Old English case 379 Pat Poussa A contact-universals origin for periphrastic do with special consid­ eration of Old English-Celtic contact 407 Geoffrey Russom A new kind metrical evidence in Old English poetry 435 Malgorzata Teclaw The development of ME o from open syllable lengthening in the West Midlands 458 James P. Thorne Some Modern Standard English filters 471 Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade Exemplification in eighteenth century grammars 481 Elizabeth Closs Traugott From less to more situated in language: the unidirectionahty of semantic change 497 Wim van der Wurff The easy-to-please construction in Old and Middle English 519 CONTENTS ix Anthony Warner Reworking the history of English auxiliaries 537 Brita Wårvik On grounding in English narratives: a diachronic perspective 559 AUTHOR INDEX 577