Selected papers from 11 ICEHL, Santiago de Compostela, 7–11 September 2000

From the rich programme (over 130 papers were given during the conference), the twelve papers in Volume 1 were carefully selected to reflect the state of current research in the fields of English historical syntax and morphology. Some of the issues discussed are the emergence of viewpoint adverbials in English and German, changes in noun phrase structure from 1650 to the present, the development of the progressive in Scots, the passivization of composite predicates, the loss of V2 and its effects on the information structure of English, the acquisition of modal syntax and semantics by the English verb WANT, or the use of temporal adverbs as attributive adjectives in the Early Modern period. Many of the articles tackle questions of change through the use of methodological tools like computerized corpora. The theoretical frameworks adopted include, among others, grammaticalization theory, Dik’s model of functional grammar, construction grammar and Government & Binding Theory.

The thirteen papers in Volume 2 reflect the state of current research in the field of English historical linguistics. The areas represented in the volume are lexis and semantics, text-types, historical sociolinguistics and dialectology, and phonology. Many of the articles tackle questions of change and linguistic periodization through the use of methodological tools like corpora, linguistic atlases, thesauri and historical dictionaries. The theoretical frameworks adopted include, among others, multi-dimensional analysis, systemic-functional grammar, Communication Accommodation Theory, historical discourse analysis and Optimality Theory.