Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English

Anneli Meurman-Solin is Senior Researcher in English Historical Linguistics, University of Helsinki. María José López-Couso is Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. Bettelou Los is Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics, Radboud University Nijmegen.

• 1. On the Interplay of Syntax and Information Structure: Synchronic and Diachronic Considerations - Bettelou Los, Maria Jose Lopez-Couso, and Anneli Meurman-Solin ; 2. The Loss of Verb-Second and the Switch from Bounded to Unbounded Systems - Bettelou Los ; 3. The Effect of Information Structure on Object Position in Old English: A Pilot Study - Ann Taylor and Susan Pintzuk ; 4. Word Order, Information Structure and Discourse Relations: A Study of Old and Middle English Verb-Final Clauses - Kristin Bech ; 5. Syntax and Information Structure: Verb-Second Variation in Middle English - Ans van Kemenade and Marit Westergaard ; 6. Discourse Status and Syntax in the History of English: Some Explorations in Topicalization, Left-Dislocation and there-constructions - Javier Perez-Guerra ; 7. Givenness and Word Order: A Study of Long Passives from Early Modern English to Present-Day English - Elena Seoane ; 8. The Connectives And, For, But, and Only as Clause and Discourse Type Indicators in 16th- and 17th-Century Epistolary Prose - Anneli Meurman-Solin ; 9. The Role of the Accessibility of the Subject in the Development of Adjectival Complementation from Old English to Present-Day English - An Van linden and Kristin Davidse ; 10. Latin Absolute Constructions and Their Old English Equivalents: Interfaces between Form and Information Structure - Olga Timofeeva ; 11. Why a Determiner? The Possessive + Determiner + Adjective Construction in Old English - Cynthia Allen ; 12. Functional shifts and the Development of English Determiners - Tine Breban ; 13. The Proximal and Distal Perspectives in Relation to the Position of Directional Modifiers in the English Noun Phrase - Turo Vartiainen

This book presents valuable studies that pave the way for a deeper understanding of the interface between syntax and information structure on the diachronic axis...the book is useful not only for those working on the history of English, but for any historical linguist.