Stockwell R., Minkova D. English Words: History and Structure

Cambridge University Press, 2001. — 221 p. — ISBN: 0521790123.English Words: History and Structure is concerned primarily with the learned vocabulary of English, the words borrowed from the classical languages and French. It initially surveys the historical events that define the layers of vocabulary in Old English (c. 450–1066) Middle English (1066–1476), Early Modern English (1476–1776), and Present-Day English. It is both an introduction to some of the basic principles of linguistic analysis and a helpful manual for vocabulary discernment and enrichment. Exercises to accompany each chapter and further readings on recent loans and the legal and medical vocabulary of English are available on-line at http://uk.cambridge.org/linguistics/resources/englishwords.An introduction to the textbook.
Word origins.
The background of English.
Composition of the Early Modern and Modern English vocabulary.
Smaller than words: morphemes and types of morphemes.
Allomorphy, phonetics, and affixation.
Replacement rules.
Deletion rules and other kinds of allomorphy.
Fossilized allomorphy: false cognates and other etymological pitfalls.
Semantic change and semantic guesswork.
The pronunciation of classical words in English.
Appendix I: an introduction to dictionaries.
Appendix II: morpheme list.