Van Gelderen Elly. A History of the English Language

John Benjamins, 2006. — 344 p.There are a number of well-known histories of the English Language (Baugh & Cable, Pyles & Algeo, Barber, and Fennell). The justification for yet another book on the history of English comes from having taught a course on this topic at the undergraduate and graduate levels for over 10 years and not finding any of the books completely satisfactory. The present book is more grammatical and typological in focus, i.e. language-internal, although this can of course not be a course on Old and Middle English or on historical linguistics and therefore only parts of the grammar are covered. I have used the change from synthetic to analytic as a leitmotiv.
A lot of emphasis is placed on linguistic (phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic) analysis of Old, Middle, and early Modern English texts. This means students will learn how to approach older texts and to work with these. Most examples and texts will be authentic and the use of facsimile editions is encouraged. Incorporating these texts in this book, rather than in an (optional) workbook, makes it easier to see working with texts as an integral part of a class on the history of English. I have provided possible answers to the text questions and the other exercises. In my classes, we usually go over the texts and exercises and the answers provide a review. Having the answers in the back makes the book usable for self-study as well.