Amazon.com description: Product Description: Together these two volumes provide an overview of many of the issues that are currently engaging practitioners in the field of English historical linguistics. In the first volume, the primary concern is with the historical grammar of English. Some papers take a broad overview of the subject, positioning it within current advances in linguistic theory, while others deal with specific points of syntax and morphology in a historical context. The second volume deals with the historical study of the English lexicon and its sound and writing systems. Contributions from scholars around the world remind us that not only English itself but the history of English is now an international possession.