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This Language, A River is an introduction to the history of English that recognizes multiple varieties of the language in both current and historical contexts. Developed over years of undergraduate teaching, the book helps students to both grasp traditional histories of English, and also to extend and complicate those histories. Exercises throughout provide opportunities for puzzling out concepts, committing terms and data to memory, and applying ideas. A comprehensive glossary and up-to-date bibliographies help to guide further study.

This Language, A River: A History of English

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Grammar Fundamentals

Section 1: Parts of Speech

Section 2: Basic Syntactic Relations for Nouns

Section 3: Sentences

Chapter 3: Before English

Section 1: Before English

Section 2: The Genetic Model

Section 3: The Proto-IE Nominal Group

Section 4: The Proto-IE Verbal Group

Chapter 4: Introduction to Phonetics and the International Phonetics Alphabet

Section 1: Introduction to Phonetics and the International Phonetics Alphabet

Section 2: The International Phonetic Alphabet

Section 3: Describing the Sounds of English

Section 4: Practice with IPA

Chapter 5: Germanic

Section 1: Migration of the Indo-Europeans

Section 2: Development of Germanic

Section 3: Distinctive Features of Germanic

Chapter 6: A Review of Four Important Terms and Concepts

Chapter 7: Old English

Section 1: The Early External History

Section 2: OE Orthography and Phonology

Section 3: The OE Verbal Group

Section 4: The OE Nominal Group

Section 5: OE Syntax

Section 6: OE and Old Norse

Section 7: OE Literature

Chapter 8: Middle English

Section 1: The Norman Conquest

Section 2: The Reemergence of English

Section 3: Orthography and Phonology

Section 4: The ME Nominal Group

Section 5: The ME Verbal Group

Section 6: Literature in the ME Period

Chapter 9: Early Modern English

Section 1: The Early Modern Period and the Age of Print

Section 2: Phonology

Section 3: Morphology and Syntax

Section 4: The Early Modern English Verbal Group

Section 5: Standardization and Prescription

Chapter 10: The Modern Period and Global Englishes

Section 2: American English

Section 3: Global Englishes

Glossary of Terms