Consonant Change in English Worldwide

DANIEL SCHREIER has taught in Switzerland, the USA and in New Zealand and is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He is author of Isolation and Language Change and co-author (with Karen Lavarello-Schreier) of Tristan da Cunha: History People Language.

• Acknowledgements Abbreviations List of Tables and Figures Introduction Consonant Clusters: General Observations Initial Cluster Reduction in English Final Cluster Reduction in English Theoretical Implications Summary and Conclusion References Index

'This book is a remarkable descriptive and theoretical tour de force which not only describes, but also succeeds in finding, explanations for the phenomenon of consonant-cluster reduction in terms of a spectacular range of disciplines. The work is extremely impressive in its coverage of a broad but - we can now see - integrated field. Daniel Schreier has based the research reported on here on a very wide and impressive range of data. The theoretical conclusions arrived at, and the principles adumbrated, will be regarded as of vital importance by scholars working in historical linguistics, linguistic variation and change, and phonology.' - Professor Peter Trudgill, University of Fribourg, Switzerland'...the book provides interesting insights into the complex area of phonotactics in various varierties of English around the world and should inspire further research in the field.' - The Year's Work in English Studies'...this volume represents an extremely well crafted synthesis of existing and innovative work, some of it carried out in some of the world's most remote and isolated and fascinating Anglophone communities by the author himself, and it will serve as a benchmark for future studies of this ubiquitous variable of English.' - David Britain, English World-Wide