Books by Olga (Universiteit van Amsterdam) Fischer

A comprehensive guide for students already introduced to the history of English and who want to understand the far-reaching structural changes that the grammar of English has undergone in its 1500-year history. The book will be an important resource for linguists with an interest in language change, as well as for literary scholars engaging with older texts.

This book is a guide to the development of English syntax between the Old and Modern periods. Beginning with an overview of the main features of early English syntax, it gives a unified account of the grammatical changes occurring in the language during this period. Written by four leading experts in English historical syntax, the book demonstrates the ways in which syntactic change takes place and how these changes can be explained in terms of grammatical theory and language acquisition. The authors draw upon a wealth of empirical data and through a series of well-selected case studies they cover a wide range of topics including changes in word order, infinitival constructions and grammaticalization processes. This invaluable introduction to the significant changes in early English syntax will appeal to students and researchers in historical linguistics, theoretical linguistics and the history of English.