BISAC SubjectsLANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative

At the Crossroads of Historical and Cognitive Linguistics

Edited by Anna Rogos-Hebda and Heli Tissari

This volume explores the synergy between historical and cognitive linguistics, demonstrating how the two can jointly shed light on patterns of language change. Focusing on figurative language, particularly metaphor and metonymy, it features a range of case studies that zoom in on the emergence and… read more

[Figurative Thought and Language, 21] 2026. vii, 288 pp.

The Development of the Chinese Cleft Construction: A diachronic constructional approach

Fangqiong Zhan

This book explores the development of the Chinese cleft construction through the lens of Diachronic Construction Grammar. Focusing on shi as an invariant copula, it examines the VP de cleft, the V de O cleft, and the bare shi cleft, showing how each signals contrastive and specificational meaning.… read more

[Constructional Approaches to Language, 41] 2026. xviii, 207 pp.

How to Ask (Im)politely: Letters from Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East from the ninth to the nineteenth century

Edited by Gijsbert Rutten and Petra M. Sijpesteijn

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 27:1 (2026) v, 138 pp.

Pardon my French?: Dutch–French language contact in the Netherlands (1500–1900)

Gijsbert Rutten, Andreas Krogull, Brenda Assendelft and Jill Puttaert

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Dutch–French contact situation in the Early and Late Modern period, when the Dutch language and culture supposedly underwent frenchification in various spheres of life. Bringing together empirical approaches based on a wide range of datasets,… read more

[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 15] 2026. ix, 312 pp. | open access

Diachrony of Tone

Edited by Sandra Auderset, Rikker Dockum and Ryan Gehrmann

Special issue of Diachronica 42:3/4 (2025) v, 259 pp.

The Diachrony of Word Class Peripheries

Edited by Tanja Ackermann and Christian Zimmer

Word classes of a language are usually not homogeneous groups of lexemes that share the same morphological and syntactic properties completely. Rather, lexemes are usually grouped together that have some basic commonalities but may differ in detail, e.g., regarding their inflectional behaviour. In… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 238] 2025. v, 252 pp. | open access

Dutch and Contact Linguistics: The Dutch language outside the Low Countries

Edited by Christopher Joby and Nicoline van der Sijs

Whilst the Dutch language cannot be considered a world language in the manner of English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French, the fact that speakers of Dutch have sailed to the four corners of the earth means that it cannot be overlooked in language-contact studies. This volume brings together scholars… read more

[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society, 55] 2025. vi, 584 pp.

From and Towards Demonstratives: Grammaticalization processes and beyond

Edited by Veronica Orqueda and Berta González Saavedra

Special issue of Journal of Historical Linguistics 15:2 (2025) v, 190 pp.

Germanic Interrelations: Studies in memory of Hans Frede Nielsen

Edited by Stephen Laker, Carla Falluomini, Steffen Krogh, Robert Nedoma and Michael Schulte

This volume celebrates Hans Frede Nielsen’s contribution to the field of Germanic studies and his work as founding editor of the journal and book series North-Western European Language Evolution. Twenty peer-reviewed articles explore a broad range of topics involving North and West Germanic… read more

[NOWELE Supplement Series, 34] 2025. viii, 380 pp. | open access

Historical Linguistics 2022: Selected papers from the 25th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Oxford, 1–5 August 2022

Edited by Holly Kennard, Emily Lindsay-Smith, Aditi Lahiri and Martin Maiden

This book offers a peer-reviewed selection of the best and most original contributions to the twenty-fifth International Conference on Historical Linguistics. They faithfully reflect the spirit of the Conference in that they all display a shared passion for the diachronic study of language but also… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 369] 2025. vi, 310 pp.

Investigating Language Isolates: Typological and diachronic perspectives

Edited by Iker Salaberri, Dorota Krajewska, Ekaitz Santazilia and Eneko Zuloaga

Language isolates provide unique insights into human history and linguistic diversity. Nevertheless, isolates have been studied less exhaustively than non-isolates. The eleven papers gathered in this volume provide new methodological tools in order to better understand isolates, including a… read more

[Typological Studies in Language, 135] 2025. vii, 339 pp.

Varieties of German in Contact Settings: Studies in honor of William D. Keel

Edited by B. Richard Page and Michael T. Putnam

This volume pays homage to the legacy of William D. Keel and the significant impact of his research on German in contact settings from myriad perspectives and traditions. It includes structural and sociolinguistic studies focusing on varieties of German spoken throughout the world, including… read more

[Studies in Germanic Linguistics, 10] 2025. vi, 275 pp.

Corpus-Pragmatic Studies of Democratization in Public Discourses: New perspectives, methods and materials

Edited by Turo Hiltunen, Turo Vartiainen and Jenni Räikkönen

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 25:2 (2024) vi, 177 pp.

Demystifying New Methods in Historical Linguistics

Edited by Erich Round

Special issue of Diachronica 41:3 (2024) v, 137 pp.

The Development of Aspirated Fricatives in Gothic: A contact-linguistic perspective

Seiichi Suzuki

This book presents three major hypotheses concerning the development of fricatives in Gothic. First, Gothic introduced aspiration or a phonological feature [spread glottis] to the fricative system. Second, this acquisition of aspirated fricatives should be explained as a contact-induced change.… read more

[Studies in Germanic Linguistics, 9] 2024. xix, 155 pp.

Historical Linguistics 2019: Selected papers from the 24th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Canberra, 1–5 July 2019

Edited by Bethwyn Evans, Maria Kristina Gallego and Luisa Miceli

This volume comprises a selection of papers that were presented at the 24th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL24), which took place at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra from 1-5 July, 2019. The volume’s aim is to reflect the breadth of research presented at… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 367] 2024. vi, 368 pp.

Keys to the History of English: Diachronic linguistic change, morpho-syntax and lexicography. Selected papers from the 21st ICEHL

Edited by Thijs Porck, Moragh S. Gordon and Luisella Caon

This volume brings together contributions selected from papers delivered at the 21st International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL, Leiden 2021). The contributions deal with various aspects of English language across time and geographical space, shedding light on both long-term… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 363] 2024. vii, 235 pp.

Thematic issue: Historical Linguistics of Sign Languages

Special issue of Diachronica 41:2 (2024) v, 158 pp.

Unlocking the History of English: Pragmatics, prescriptivism and text types. Selected papers from the 21st ICEHL

Edited by Luisella Caon, Moragh S. Gordon and Thijs Porck

This volume brings together contributions selected from papers delivered at the 21st International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL, Leiden 2021). The chapters deal with aspects of language use throughout the history of English, including efforts to prescribe and regulate… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 364] 2024. viii, 253 pp.

Using Tonal Data to Recover Japanese Language History

Elisabeth M. de Boer

This book challenges several assumptions commonly encountered in Japanese dialectology: that the pitch-accent analysis of modern Tōkyō Japanese is an appropriate basis for describing the suprasegmental phonology of other dialects and earlier stages of Japanese; that the Kyōto-type dialects have… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 365] 2024. viii, 130 pp. | open access

Different Slants on Grammaticalization

Edited by Sylvie Hancil and Vittorio Tantucci

This volume on grammaticalization focuses on new theoretical and methodological challenges underpinning language change. It provides new approaches and insights deepening our understanding of the cognitive, pragmatic, and socio-cultural mechanisms that trigger the formation and the change of… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 232] 2023. vi, 284 pp.

On Spoken French: An Ashby Reader

William J. Ashby

This scholarly edition invites us to reconsider our assumptions about the French language, by showcasing the oeuvre of one of the pioneers of diachronic Spoken French corpus linguistics, William J. Ashby, and the ground-breaking findings to come out of his influential Tours corpora (1976 & 1995),… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 226] 2023. xiv, 534 pp.

Politeness in and across Historical Europe

Edited by Annick Paternoster, Gudrun Held and Dániel Z. Kádár

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1 (2023) vi, 216 pp.

Dating the Old Norse Poetic Edda: A multifactorial analysis of linguistic features

Christopher D. Sapp

This book offers new dating of the poems of the Old Norse Poetic Edda , perhaps our best sources about the mythology and legends of the Viking Age. This study compares the anonymous Eddic poems to dated skaldic poems with respect to five phenomena that develop diachronically in early… read more

[Studies in Germanic Linguistics, 5] 2022. xii, 246 pp.

Development of Tense and Aspect Systems

Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović

Linguistic construal of time lies at the center of language and language use; it is also one of the cognitive foundations of culture. The focus of the papers in this volume is on historical developments of genetically different aspect and tense systems across continents, with contributions on the… read more

[Benjamins Current Topics, 123] 2022. v, 202 pp.

Earlier North American Englishes

Edited by Merja Kytö and Lucia Siebers

Varieties of English in the U.S. and Canada display fascinating developments from colonial times up until the twenty-first century. To throw light on the linguistics of North American Englishes and their socio-historical contexts, this volume brings together research from various traditions,… read more

[Varieties of English Around the World, G66] 2022. viii, 261 pp.

English Historical Linguistics: Historical English in contact. Papers from the XXth ICEHL

Edited by Bettelou Los, Chris Cummins, Lisa Gotthard, Alpo Honkapohja and Benjamin Molineaux

This volume drawn from the 20th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL, Edinburgh 2018) focuses on the role of language contact in the history of English. It showcases a wide variety of historical linguistic approaches, including ‘big data’ analyses of large corpora,… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 359] 2022. vi, 185 pp.

English Historical Linguistics: Change in structure and meaning. Papers from the XXth ICEHL

Edited by Bettelou Los, Claire Cowie, Patrick Honeybone and Graeme Trousdale

This volume contains a set of articles based on papers selected from those delivered at the 20th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL, Edinburgh 2018). It focuses on cutting-edge research in the history of English, while reflecting the diversity that exists in the… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 358] 2022. viii, 349 pp.

Language Change at the Interfaces: Intrasentential and intersentential phenomena

Edited by Nicholas Catasso, Marco Coniglio and Chiara De Bastiani

This volume offers an up-to-date survey of linguistic phenomena at the interfaces between syntax and prosody, information structure and discourse – with a special focus on Germanic and Romance – and their role in language change. The contributions, set within the generative framework, discuss… read more

[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 275] 2022. viii, 255 pp.

Sociolinguistic Variation in Old English: Records of communities and people

Olga Timofeeva

This is the first extensive study of Old English to utilise the insights and methodologies of sociolinguistics. Building on previous philological and historical work, it takes into account the sociology and social dialectology of Old English and offers a description of its speech communities… read more

[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 13] 2022. xv, 204 pp.

Diachronic Dimensions of Alignment Typology

Edited by Eystein Dahl

Special issue of Diachronica 38:3 (2021) v, 199 pp.

Historical Pragmatics today: Articles in honour of Andreas H. Jucker

Edited by Irma Taavitsainen and Jonathan Culpeper

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 22:2 (2021) v, 143 pp.

Language Contact in the Territory of the Former Soviet Union

Edited by Diana Forker and Lenore A. Grenoble

The former Soviet Union (USSR) provides the ideal territory for studying language contact between one and the same dominant language (Russian) and a wide range of genealogically and typologically diverse languages with varying histories of language contact. This is the first book that bundles… read more

[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society, 50] 2021. vi, 386 pp.

The Life Cycle of Adpositions

T. Givón

Adpositions are used, universally, to mark the roles of nominal participants in the verbal clause, most commonly indirect object roles. Practically all languages seem to have such markers, which begin their diachronic life as lexical words -- in this case either serial verbs or positional nouns. In… read more

[Not in series, 236] 2021. xii, 205 pp.

Pre-Historical Language Contact in Peruvian Amazonia: A dynamic approach to Shawi (Kawapanan)

Luis Miguel Rojas-Berscia

South America was populated relatively recently, probably around 15,000 years ago. Yet, instead of finding a relatively small number of language families, we find some 118 genealogical units. So far, the historical processes that underlie the current picture are not yet fully understood. This book… read more

[Contact Language Library, 58] 2021. xvii, 211 pp.

Spanish Socio-Historical Linguistics: Isolation and contact

Edited by Whitney Chappell and Bridget Drinka

This interdisciplinary volume explores the unique role of the sociohistorical factors of isolation and contact in motivating change in the varieties of Spanish worldwide. Recognizing the inherent intersectionality of social and historical factors, the book’s eight chapters investigate phenomena… read more

[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 12] 2021. v, 235 pp.

“All families and genera”: Exploring the Corpus of English Life Sciences Texts

Edited by Isabel Moskowich, Inés Lareo and Gonzalo Camiña

“All families and genera”: Exploring the Corpus of English Life Sciences Texts aims at exploring scientific writing in late Modern English. This volume is the fourth of its kind devoted to the analysis of the relations between language and different scientific disciplines from 1700 to 1900. Here,… read more

[Not in series, 237] 2021. xv, 310 pp.

Austronesian Undressed: How and why languages become isolating

Edited by David Gil and Antoinette Schapper

Many Austronesian languages exhibit isolating word structure. This volume offers a series of investigations into these languages, which are found in an "isolating crescent" extending from Mainland Southeast Asia through the Indonesian archipelago and into western New Guinea. Some of the languages… read more

[Typological Studies in Language, 129] 2020. ix, 510 pp.

Changes in Meaning and Function: Studies in historical linguistics with a focus on Spanish

Edited by Jorge Fernández Jaén and Herminia Provencio Garrigós

Diachronic linguistics has been experiencing a strong revival during the last few decades, since an increasing number of researchers have assumed that evolutionary and historical factors must be considered to properly understand how natural languages work. This book offers new data and insights on… read more

[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature, 25] 2020. xii, 332 pp.

Corpora and the Changing Society: Studies in the evolution of English

Edited by Paula Rautionaho, Arja Nurmi and Juhani Klemola

This book showcases eleven studies dealing with corpora and the changing society. The theme of the volume reflects the fact that changes in society lead to changes in language and vice versa. Focusing on the English language, be it from Old English to the present, or a shorter time span in the… read more

[Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 96] 2020. xii, 305 pp.

Development of tense and aspect systems

Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović

Special issue of Journal of Historical Linguistics 10:2 (2020) v, 193 pp.

Diachronic Treebanks for Historical Linguistics

Edited by Hanne Martine Eckhoff, Silvia Luraghi and Marco Passarotti

Over the last few decades, the widespread diffusion of digital technology has increased availability of primary textual sources, radically changing the everyday life of scholars in the humanities, who are now able to access, query and process a wealth of empirical evidence in ways not possible… read more

[Benjamins Current Topics, 113] 2020. v, 154 pp.

Historical Linguistics: A cognitive grammar introduction

Margaret E. Winters

This textbook serves a dual purpose. It is, first, a comprehensive introduction to historical linguistics, intended for both undergraduate and graduate students who have taken, at the least, an introductory course in linguistics. Secondly, unlike many such textbooks, this one is based in the… read more

[Not in series, 227] 2020. xvii, 241 pp.

Historical Linguistics 2017: Selected papers from the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, San Antonio, Texas, 31 July – 4 August 2017

Edited by Bridget Drinka

The collected articles in this volume address an array of cutting-edge issues in the field of historical linguistics, including new theoretical approaches and innovative methodologies for studying language through a diachronic lens. The articles focus on the following themes: I. Case & Argument… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 350] 2020. xi, 495 pp.

Late Modern English: Novel encounters

Edited by Merja Kytö and Erik Smitterberg

The past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented surge of interest in the language of the Late Modern English period. Late Modern English: Novel Encounters covers a broad range of topics addressed by international experts in fields such as phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, spelling and… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 214] 2020. vii, 359 pp.

Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar

Edited by Lotte Sommerer and Elena Smirnova

This volume brings together ten contributions by leading experts who present their current usage-based research in Diachronic Construction Grammar. All papers contribute to the discussion of how to conceptualize constructional networks best and how to model changes in the constructicon, as for… read more

[Constructional Approaches to Language, 27] 2020. vi, 355 pp.

Perfects in Indo-European Languages and Beyond

Edited by Robert Crellin and Thomas Jügel

This volume provides a detailed investigation of perfects from all the branches of the Indo-European language family, in some cases representing the first ever comprehensive description. Thorough philological examinations result in empirically well-founded analyses illustrated with over 940… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 352] 2020. xiv, 686 pp.

Records of Real People: Linguistic variation in Middle English local documents

Edited by Merja Stenroos and Kjetil V. Thengs

English local documents – leases, wills, accounts, letters and the like – provide a unique resource for historical sociolinguistics. Abundant from the early fifteenth century, they represent the language and concerns of people from a wide range of social, institutional and geographical backgrounds.… read more

[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 11] 2020. ix, 310 pp.

The Role of Pragmatics in Cyclic Language Change

Edited by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 21:2 (2020) v, 182 pp.

Variation and Evolution: Aspects of language contact and contrast across the Spanish-speaking world

Edited by Sandro Sessarego, Juan J. Colomina-Almiñana and Adrián Rodríguez-Riccelli

This book is a collection of original studies analyzing how different internal and external factors affect Spanish language variation and evolution across a number of (socio)linguistic scenarios. Its primary goal is to expand our understanding of how native and non-native varieties of Spanish… read more

[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 29] 2020. viii, 277 pp.

Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts: In honor of Merja Kytö

Edited by Ewa Jonsson and Tove Larsson

This volume provides a diachronic and synchronic overview of linguistic variability and change in involved, speech-related and spoken texts in English. While previous works on the topic have focused on more limited time periods, this book covers data from the 16th century up to the present day. The… read more

[Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 97] 2020. xiii, 348 pp.

Walking on the Grammaticalization Path of the Definite Article: Functional Main and Side Roads

Edited by Renata Szczepaniak and Johanna Flick

This volume focuses on the grammaticalization of the definite article in German. It contains eight empirically-based papers which examine individual stages of the grammaticalization path from its beginnings as a demonstrative to the definite article and beyond. Focusing on cognitive, pragmatic,… read more

[Studies in Language Variation, 23] 2020. vi, 253 pp.

Agreement in Language Contact: Gender development in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Florian Dolberg

Gender in English changed dramatically from the elaborate system found in Old English to the very simple he/she/it-alternation in use from (late) Middle English onwards. While either system is well described and understood, the change from one to the other is anything but: more than 120 years of… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 208] 2019. xxi, 351 pp.

The Carthaginian North: Semitic influence on early Germanic: A linguistic and cultural study

Robert Mailhammer and Theo Vennemann

This book presents a new and innovative theory on the origin of the Germanic languages. This theory presents solutions to four pivotal problems in the history of Germanic with critical implications for cultural history: the origin of the Germanic writing system (the Runic alphabet), the genesis of… read more

[NOWELE Supplement Series, 32] 2019. xiii, 268 pp.

The Determinants of Diachronic Stability

Edited by Anne Breitbarth, Miriam Bouzouita, Lieven Danckaert and Melissa Farasyn

While much of the literature has focused on explaining diachronic variation and change, the fact that sometimes change does not seem to happen has received much less attention. The current volume unites ten contributions that look for the determinants of diachronic stability, mainly in the areas of… read more

[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 254] 2019. vi, 294 pp.

Developments in English Historical Morpho-Syntax

Edited by Claudia Claridge and Birte Bös

Spanning the time from Old English to modern American English, this volume provides fresh perspectives on core issues and theories in the morphosyntactic history of English nominal, verbal and adverbial constructions. The contributions discuss the loss, rise and restructuring of morphonological… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 346] 2019. vi, 312 pp.

Exploring (im)politeness in ancient languages

Edited by Kim Ridealgh

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 20:2 (2019) v, 144 pp.

Historical Linguistics 2015: Selected papers from the 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Naples, 27-31 July 2015

Edited by Michela Cennamo and Claudia Fabrizio

The collection of articles presented in this volume addresses a number of general theoretical, methodological and empirical issues in the field of Historical Linguistics, in different levels of analysis and on different themes: (i) phonology, (ii) morphology, (iii) morphosyntax, (iv) syntax, (v)… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 348] 2019. viii, 639 pp.

Keeping in Touch: Emigrant letters across the English-speaking world

Edited by Raymond Hickey

The current volume presents a number of chapters which look at informal vernacular letters, written mostly by emigrants to the former colonies of Britain, who settled at these locations in the past few centuries, with a focus on letters from the nineteenth century. Such documents often show… read more

[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 10] 2019. x, 289 pp.

Language Planning as Nation Building: Ideology, policy and implementation in the Netherlands, 1750–1850

Gijsbert Rutten

The decades around 1800 constitute the seminal period of European nationalism. The linguistic corollary of this was the rise of standard language ideology, from Finland to Spain, and from Iceland to the Habsburg Empire. Amidst these international events, the case of Dutch in the Netherlands offers… read more

[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 9] 2019. x, 312 pp. | open access

Late Modern English Medical Texts: Writing medicine in the eighteenth century. Including the LMEMT Corpus

Edited by Irma Taavitsainen and Turo Hiltunen

The eighteenth century in medicine is a fallow period lying between the innovations of the Royal Society (1662–) with its new ways of doing science and the nineteenth-century achievements of clinical and laboratory medicine. The period deserves more attention, as the seeds of some modern… read more

[Not in series, 221] 2019. xix, 432 pp., incl. CD-RoM

Norms and Conventions in the History of English

Edited by Birte Bös and Claudia Claridge

This volume explores changing norms and conventions in the English language, as displayed in a broad range of historical data from more than five centuries. The contributions discuss the interplay of sociocultural conditions, specific discourse traditions and structural aspects of language, paying… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 347] 2019. v, 215 pp.

Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes: Sex and sophistry in the Old Testament - A new English translation

T. Givón

This book is a new English translation of the two shortest, most controversial and perhaps most vibrant books in the Hebrew Old Testament – Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) and Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). The two books slipped into the Jewish – and eventually Christian – Canon by a series of… read more

[Not in series, 222] 2019. ix, 159 pp.

Understanding language genealogy: Alternatives to the tree model

Edited by Siva Kalyan, Alexandre François and Harald Hammarström

Special issue of Journal of Historical Linguistics 9:1 (2019) v, 176 pp.

Writing History in Late Modern English: Explorations of the Coruña Corpus

Edited by Isabel Moskowich, Begoña Crespo, Luis Puente-Castelo and Leida Maria Monaco

This volume focuses on the relationship and interaction of language and science between 1700 and 1900. It pays particular attention to English History writing in late Modern English as compiled in the Corpus of History English Texts (CHET), a newly released sub-corpus of the Coruña Corpus of… read more

[Not in series, 225] 2019. vii, 278 pp.

Arabic in Contact

Edited by Stefano Manfredi and Mauro Tosco

The present volume provides an overview of current trends in the study of language contact involving Arabic. By drawing on the social factors that have converged to create different contact situations, it explores both contact-induced change in Arabic and language change through contact with Arabic. read more

[Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 6] 2018. vi, 372 pp. | open access

A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages

R.D. Fulk

Fulk’s Comparative Grammar offers an overview of and bibliographical guide to the study of the phonology and the inflectional morphology of the earliest Germanic languages, with particular attention to Gothic, Old Norse / Icelandic, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, and Old High German, along… read more

[Studies in Germanic Linguistics, 3] 2018. xv, 420 pp. | open access

Diachronic Corpora, Genre, and Language Change

Edited by Richard J. Whitt

This volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of the intersecting fields of corpus linguistics, historical linguistics, and genre-based studies of language usage. Papers in this collection are devoted to presenting relevant methods pertinent to corpus-based studies of the connection between… read more

[Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 85] 2018. viii, 337 pp.

Diachronic Treebanks

Edited by Hanne Martine Eckhoff, Silvia Luraghi and Marco Passarotti

Special issue of Diachronica 35:3 (2018) v, 153 pp.

The Diachrony of Classification Systems

Edited by William B. McGregor and Søren Wichmann

Classification is a popular topic in typological, descriptive and theoretical linguistics. This volume is the first to deal specifically with the diachrony of linguistic systems of classification. It comprises original papers that examine the ways in which linguistic classification systems arise,… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 342] 2018. xi, 362 pp.

Dialogues in Diachrony: Celebrating Historical Corpora of Speech-related Texts

Edited by Merja Kytö and Terry Walker

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 19:2 (2018) v, 141 pp.

Directional Particles in Cantonese: Form, function, and grammaticalization

Winnie Chor

This book is the first on Cantonese that deals with the grammaticalization phenomenon systematically. Focusing on a group of twelve directional particles, this book tracks their grammaticalization pathways from full-fledged directional verbs, to directional particles indicating meanings relating to… read more

[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 9] 2018. xvii, 239 pp.

The Evolution of Argument Coding Patterns in South American Languages

Edited by Antoine Guillaume and Spike Gildea

Special issue of Journal of Historical Linguistics 8:1 (2018) v, 167 pp.

Explorations in English Historical Syntax

Edited by Hubert Cuyckens, Hendrik De Smet, Liesbet Heyvaert and Charlotte Maekelberghe

The papers in this volume cover a wide range of interrelated syntactic phenomena, from the history of core arguments, to complements and non-finite clauses, elements in the clause periphery, as well as elements with potential scope over complete sentences and even larger discourse chunks. In one… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 198] 2018. viii, 312 pp.

Grammaticalization meets Construction Grammar

Edited by Evie Coussé, Peter Andersson and Joel Olofsson

Grammaticalization research has increasingly highlighted the notion of constructions in the last decade. In the wake of this heightened interest, efforts have been made in grammaticalization research to more precisely articulate the largely pretheoretical notion of construction in the theoretical… read more

[Constructional Approaches to Language, 21] 2018. vi, 315 pp.

Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change: Spanish across space and time

Edited by Jeremy King and Sandro Sessarego

This collection of original contributions dealing with Hispanic contact linguistics covers an array of Spanish dialects distributed across North, South, and Central America, the Caribbean, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Bosporus. It deals with both native and non-native varieties of the language,… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 340] 2018. vi, 336 pp.

Patterns of Change in 18th-century English: A sociolinguistic approach

Edited by Terttu Nevalainen, Minna Palander-Collin and Tanja Säily

Eighteenth-century English is often associated with normative grammar. But to what extent did prescriptivism impact ongoing processes of linguistic change? The authors of this volume examine a variety of linguistic changes in a corpus… read more

[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 8] 2018. xi, 311 pp. | open access

Reorganising Grammatical Variation: Diachronic studies in the retention, redistribution and refunctionalisation of linguistic variants

Edited by Antje Dammel, Matthias Eitelmann and Mirjam Schmuck

With most studies on grammatical variation concentrating on the synchronic level, a systematic investigation of long-term grammatical variation within the context of language change, i.e. from a predominantly diachronic perspective, has largely remained a desideratum. The present volume fills this… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 203] 2018. v, 302 pp.

Sociocultural Dimensions of Lexis and Text in the History of English

Edited by Peter Petré, Hubert Cuyckens and Frauke D'hoedt

The chapters collected in this volume examine how the sociohistorical and cultural context may influence structural features of lexis and text types. Each paper pays particular attention to social ‘labels’ and attitudes (conservative, religious, ideological, endearing, or other), thereby focusing… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 343] 2018. viii, 258 pp.

Studies in Historical Ibero-Romance Morpho-Syntax

Edited by Miriam Bouzouita, Ioanna Sitaridou and Enrique Pato

This volume features fourteen papers by leading specialists on various aspects of historical morpho-syntax in the Ibero-Romance languages. In these papers, fine-grained analyses are developed to capture the richness of undiscussed or —often— previously unknown data. Comparative across the… read more

[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 16] 2018. vi, 340 pp.

Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony

Edited by Sonia Cristofaro and Fernando Zúñiga

Typological hierarchies are widely perceived as one of the most important results of research on language universals and linguistic diversity. Explanations for typological hierarchies, however, are usually based on the synchronic properties of the patterns described by individual hierarchies, not… read more

[Typological Studies in Language, 121] 2018. vi, 434 pp.

Untersuchungen zu den Gründungsdokumenten der färöischen Rechtschreibung: Ein Beitrag zur nordischen Schriftgeschichte

Christer Lindqvist

Die färöische Gegenwartsorthographie ging nicht wie die moderne Rechtschreibung vieler Sprachen aus einer jahrhundertelangen Schrifttradition hervor, sondern wurde im Wesentlichen im 19. Jh. neu erschaffen. Ihre Gründungsdokumente bestehen aus vier färöischen Zaubersprüchen, die in einer bis Mitte… read more

[NOWELE Supplement Series, 29] 2018. xx, 312 pp. (incl. CD-Rom)

Creole Studies – Phylogenetic Approaches

Edited by Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen and Eeva Sippola

This book launches a new approach to creole studies founded on phylogenetic network analysis. Phylogenetic approaches offer new visualisation techniques and insights into the relationships between creoles and non-creoles, creoles and other contact varieties, and between creoles and lexifier… read more

[Not in series, 211] 2017. x, 414 pp. | open access

The Dawn of Dutch: Language contact in the Western Low Countries before 1200

Michiel de Vaan

The Low Countries are famous for their radically changing landscape over the last 1,000 years. Like the landscape, the linguistic situation has also undergone major changes. In Holland, an early form of Frisian was spoken until, very roughly, 1100, and in parts of North Holland it disappeared even… read more

[NOWELE Supplement Series, 30] 2017. xviii, 613 pp. | open access

Development of Tense/Aspect in Semitic in the Context of Afro-Asiatic Languages

Vit Bubenik

The author applies the comparative method for the reconstruction of earlier aspectual systems in the Afro-Asiatic phylum of languages. Moving ‘upstream’ from the documented systems of Semitic, Berber and Old Cushitic the state of affairs during the common stage of Proto-Semito-Berbero-Cushitic is… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 337] 2017. xx, 228 pp.

Discourse-Pragmatic Variation in Context: Eight hundred years of LIKE

Alexandra D'Arcy

Like is a ubiquitous feature of English with a deep history in the language, exhibiting regular and constrained variable grammars over time. This volume explores the various contexts of like, each of which contributes to the reality of contemporary vernaculars: its historical context, its… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 187] 2017. xx, 235 pp.

Exploring Future Paths for Historical Sociolinguistics

Edited by Tanja Säily, Arja Nurmi, Minna Palander-Collin and Anita Auer

This volume explores potential paths in historical sociolinguistics, with a particular focus on the inter-related areas of methodological innovations, hitherto un- or under-explored textual resources, and theoretical advancements and challenges. The individual chapters cover Dutch, Finnish and… read more

[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 7] 2017. vii, 331 pp.

Historical (socio)pragmatics at present

Edited by Matylda Włodarczyk and Irma Taavitsainen

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 18:2 (2017) v, 180 pp.

Language Contact and Change in Mesoamerica and Beyond

Edited by Karen Dakin, Claudia Parodi and Natalie Operstein

Language-contact phenomena in Mesoamerica and adjacent regions present an exciting field for research that has the potential to significantly contribute to our understanding of language contact and the role that it plays in language change. This volume presents and analyzes fresh empirical data… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 185] 2017. xv, 433 pp.

Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas: In honor of John V. Singler

Edited by Cecelia Cutler, Zvjezdana Vrzić and Philipp Angermeyer

Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas brings together the original research of nineteen leading scholars on language contact and pidgin/creole genesis. In recent decades, increasing attention has been paid to the role of historical, cultural and demographic factors in… read more

[Creole Language Library, 53] 2017. vii, 369 pp.

Language Dispersal Beyond Farming

Edited by Martine Robbeets and Alexander Savelyev

Why do some languages wither and die, while others prosper and spread? Around the turn of the millennium a number of archaeologists such as Colin Renfrew and Peter Bellwood made the controversial claim that many of the world’s major language families owe their dispersal to the adoption of… read more

[Not in series, 215] 2017. xiii, 324 pp. | open access

Language and Slavery: A social and linguistic history of the Suriname creoles

Jacques Arends

This posthumous work by Jacques Arends offers new insights into the emergence of the creole languages of Suriname including Sranantongo or Suriname Plantation Creole, Ndyuka, and Saramaccan, and the sociohistorical context in which they developed. Drawing on a wealth of sources including little… read more

[Creole Language Library, 52] 2017. xxix, 463 pp. | open access

The Rise and Development of Evidential and Epistemic Markers

Edited by Silvio Cruschina and Eva-Maria Remberger

Special issue of Journal of Historical Linguistics 7:1/2 (2017) vi, 274 pp.

Space in Diachrony

Edited by Silvia Luraghi, Tatiana Nikitina and Chiara Zanchi

Space is a fundamental dimension of human life and is pervasive in human experience. Research on space has highlighted the possible asymmetrical nature of spatial relations. Differences in the encoding of goals and sources of motion are a case in point, and cross-linguistic coding tendencies show… read more

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 188] 2017. xvii, 373 pp.

Word Order Change in Acquisition and Language Contact: Essays in honour of Ans van Kemenade

Edited by Bettelou Los and Pieter de Haan

The case studies in this volume offer new insights into word order change. As is now becoming increasingly clear, word order variation rarely attracts social values in the way that phonological variants do. Instead, speakers tend to attach discourse or information-structural functions to any word… read more

[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 243] 2017. ix, 376 pp.

Element Order in Old English and Old High German Translations

Anna Cichosz, Jerzy Gaszewski and Piotr Pęzik

This book is the first comprehensive corpus study of element order in Old English and Old High German, which brings to light numerous differences between these two closely related languages. The study’s innovative approach relies on translated texts, which allows the authors to tackle the problem… read more

[NOWELE Supplement Series, 28] 2016. xvii, 424 pp.

Linguistics and Literary History: In honour of Sylvia Adamson

Edited by Anita Auer, Victorina González-Díaz, Jane Hodson and Violeta Sotirova

Linguistics and Literary History systematically explores the advantages of an inter-disciplinary approach within the broad area of English studies. It brings together stylistics, literary theory and diachronic linguistics in order to explore their interaction at various methodological, descriptive… read more

[Linguistic Approaches to Literature, 25] 2016. vi, 216 pp.

A Middle English Syntax: Parts of speech

Tauno F. Mustanoja

For a good orientation into the history of English grammar, several books are indispensable. One of those is Mustanoja’s A Middle English Syntax. However, for a long time this work was not readily available; the present edition changes that. This is a fac simile reprint from the 1960 publication… read more

[Not in series, 207] 2016. ix, 702 pp.

Periphery – Diachronic and Cross-Linguistic Approaches

Edited by Yuko Higashiizumi, Noriko O. Onodera and Sung-Ock S. Sohn

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 17:2 (2016) v, 175 pp.

The Diachrony of Infinitival Patterns: Their origin, development and loss

Edited by Ulrike Demske and Łukasz Jędrzejowski

Special issue of Journal of Historical Linguistics 5:1 (2015) v, 174 pp.

Popular News Discourse: American and British newspapers 1833-1988

Special issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 15:2 (2014) v, 172 pp.