Old English A Historical Linguistic Companion [Paperback]

An accessible linguistic companion to Old English and its Indo-European and Germanic background.Bridging the gap between elementary Old English grammars and the major philological grammars and recent interpretations of Old English data, this work renders accessible the Indo-European and Germanic background to Old English in a linguistically up-to-date and readable form.Bridging the gap between elementary Old English grammars and the major philological grammars and recent interpretations of Old English data, this work renders accessible the Indo-European and Germanic background to Old English in a linguistically up-to-date and readable form.Old English is a companion to Old English studies and to historical studies of early English in general. 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. He bridges the gap between elementary Old English grammars and the major philological grammars and recent interpretations of Old English data.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.