List of Maps and Figures
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
1.1 The Time Periods of English
1.2 Language Change
1.3 Sources of Information on Language Change
1.4 Linguistic Preliminaries
1.5 The Sounds of English,and Symbols Used to Describe Them
1.5.1 Consonants
1.5.2 Vowels
1.5.2.1 Monophthongs
1.5.2.2 Diphthongs
1.6 Structure of the Book
2 The Pre-history of English
Timeline:The Indo-European Period
2.1 The Indo-European Langages and Linguistic Relatedness
2.1.1 The Beginnings
2.1.2 The Development of Historical Linguistics
2.1.3 Genetic Relatedness
2.2 Linguistic Developments:The Indo-European Language Family
2.2.1 Family-Tree Relationships
2.2.2 The Indo-European Family
2.2.2.1 Indo-Iranian
2.2.2.2 Armenian
2.2.2.3 Albanian
2.2.2.4 Balto-Slavonic
2.2.2.5 Hellenic
2.2.2.6 Italic
2.2.2.7 Celtic
2.2.2.8 Germanic
2.3 From Indo-European to Germanic
2.3.1 Prosody
2.3.2 The Consonant System:Sound Shifts
2.3.2.1 Grimm’s Law
2.3.2.2 Verner’s Law
2.3.2.3 The Second Consonant Shift
2.3.3 The Vowel System
2.3.4 Morphology
2.3.5 Syntax
2.3.6 Lexicon
2.3.7 Semantics
2.3.8 Indo-European/Germanic Texts
2.3.9 Neogrammarians，Structuralists and Contemporary Linguistic Models
2.4 Typological Classification
2.4.1 Universals
2.4.1.1 Synatactic Universals
2.4.2 Morphological Typology
2.5 Sociolinguistic Focus,The Indo-European Tribes and the Spread of
Language,Languag Contact and Language Change.
2.5.1 Language Contact
2.5.2 Archaeological Linguistics
2.6 Conclusion
3 Old English
Timeline:The old English Period
3.1 Social and Political History
3.1.1 Britain before the English
3.1.2 The Anglo-Saxon Invasions
3.1.3 Anglo-Saxon Influence
3.1.4 Scandinavian Influence
3.2 Linguistic Deveopments:The Sounds,Structure and Typology of Old English
3.2.1 The Structure of Old English
3.2.1.1 OE Consonants
3.2.1.2 Vowels:from Germanic to Old English
3.2.1.3 Old English Gender
3.2.1.4 Inflection in Old English
3.2.1.5 Old English Syntax
3.2.1.6 Old English Vocabulary
3.3 Linguistic and Literary Achievements
3.3.1 Texts
3.3.1.1 Prose
3.3.1.2 Poetry
3.4 The Dialects of Old English
3.5 Sociolinguistic Focus
3.5.1 Language Contact
3.5.1.1 Latin and Celtic
3.5.1.2 The Scandinavians
4 Middle English
4.1 Social and Political History
4.2 Linguistic Developments:Middle English Sounds and Structure,with Particular
Emphasis on the Breakdown of the Inflectional System and its Linguistic
Typological Implication
4.3 Middle English Dialects
4.4 Sociolinguistic Focus:Social Stratification,Multilingualism and Dialect
Variation,Language Contact:The Myth of Middle English Creolization
4.5 Conclusion
5 Early Modern English
6 Present-Day English
7 English in the United States
8 World-Wide English
Bibliograpby
Index
