EAN: 9783860572801

EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH - HANS SAUER MONIKA KIRNER...

The history of English spans more than 1500 years. From humble beginnings  English has
developed into the world's most important language  as even opponents of globalization have to
admit  and it has now between 300 and 400 million native speakers as well as about one billion
speakers of English as a second or foreign language. It has become the lingua franca of science
economics  international relations  travel  etc. Its prominence has also attracted the
attention of linguists  and a lot of research on its history  structure  and use has been done.
Several ways of arranging the material have suggested themselves. Often a chronological
approach has been adopted  another possibility is to proceed by linguistic level and treat the
historical development separately on each level. In this book  we have tried to achieve a
balanced presentation of both external factors and internal evolution and therefore we have
chosen the chronological approach for chapter 3 - which sketches the periods of the prehistory
and history of English  namely Indo-European  Germanic  Old English  Middle English  Early
Modern English and Modern English - and the systematic approach for all following chapters 
which cover amongst other things phonology  morphology  syntax  semantics  pragmatics  and
vocabulary as well as some varieties of English. In general  we are looking at English language
history specifically from the point of view of its consequences for present-day English  and we
will be introducing methods  approaches and basic technical terms as we go along. A number of
indices and appendices  a glossary of terms as well as a detailed table of contents make the
access to the volume easier. Evolution of English is intended for everybody who has an interest
in the topic  and particularly for students who have to or who want to take a paper or exam on
the history of English.

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