ENGLISH HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS 2008 -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Table of contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1. New paths of investigation: Corpus and constructionist approaches -- 2. Functional and distributional approaches to the history of nominal and verbal constructions -- 2.1 Approaches -- 2.2 Verbal constructions -- 2.3 Modality and (marginal) modals -- 2.4 Developments in the English noun phrase -- 3. Syntactic variation and change through contact -- References -- Part I. Verbal constructions -- "Þonne hate we hine morgensteorra" -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Descriptive framework -- 3. Dimensions of complementation -- 4. Analysis -- 5. Conclusion -- References -- Tracking and explaining variation and change in the grammar of American English -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The adjective accustomed in the first decade of the TIME corpus -- 2.1 Variation in the data and the extraction principle -- 2.2 A semantic distinction -- 3. Accustomed with sentential complements involving subject control in the 1960s -- 4. Concluding observations -- Sources -- References -- Prevent and the battle of the ‑ing clauses -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Explaining the complementation of prevent -- 3. Data -- 4. Discussion -- 4.1 Data set 1: Variation within individual texts -- 4.2 Data set 2: Variation between different texts -- 5. Conclusion -- Sources -- References -- Prescription or practice? -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Method -- 3. Results -- 4. Discussion -- 4.1 Return -- 4.2 Miscarry -- 4.3 Become -- 4.4 Recover -- 4.5 Go -- 4.6 Arrive -- 4.7 Come -- 5. Conclusions -- References -- On the idiomatization of "give + O + to" constructions -- 1. Introduction -- 2. A general survey of the "give + O + to" construction before Middle English -- 3. Analysis of "give + O + to" constructions -- 3.1 Rivalry among the give constructions.

3.2 The "give + O + to" construction -- 4. Some factors contributing to the idiomatization of the "give + O + to" construction -- 4.1 Weakening of Nouniness -- 4.2 Construction and frequency -- 4.3 French influence on the 'give + O + to' construction -- 5. Conclusion -- Sources -- References -- The clausal complementation of good in extraposition constructions -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Data and methods -- 3. Towards a functional description of the Present-Day English data -- 3.1 Mandative versus propositional complements -- 3.2 The Present-Day English distribution of types of complements -- 3.3 Two patterns with propositional to‑clauses -- 4. Diachronic developments -- 5. Locative and KAK patterns with purely evaluative adjectives -- 6. Conclusions -- References -- Part II. Modality and (marginal) modals -- The 'fail to' construction in Late Modern and Present-Day English -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The main senses of 'fail to' -- 3. The loss of negation -- 4. Some new sorts of failure -- 5. Is 'fail to' grammaticalizing? -- 6. Summary and conclusion -- Sources -- References -- The interplay of modal verbs and adverbs -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Etymology -- 3. Framework and the origin of the collocation -- 4. Mæg eaþe 'may easily' in Old English -- 5. Semantics of mæg eaþe 'may easily' in Middle English -- 6. To what extent is it lexicalization? -- 7. Conclusion -- Dictionaries -- References -- Current change in the modal system of English -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Current change in the modal system of English -- 2.1 Observing current change -- 2.2 Core modal frequency in Present-Day English -- 2.3 Core modals vs. semi-modals -- 2.4 Monosemy of modals -- 3. Corpus and data collection -- 3.1 Current change and the Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English -- 3.2 Data -- 3.3 Semantic coding -- 4. Results and discussion -- 4.1 Overall frequencies.

4.2 Root and epistemic modality -- 4.3 Motivating factors -- 5. Conclusion -- References -- Part III. Developments in the English noun phrase -- Discontinuous quantificational structures in Old English -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Movement structures -- 3. Base-generated constructions -- 4. Remnant constructions -- 5. Conclusion -- References -- Genitive variation in letters, history writing and sermons in Late Middle and Early Modern English -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Previous research -- 3. Factors influencing genitive variation -- 4. Genitive variation in the letter, history and sermon genres -- 4.1 Selection of corpus -- 4.2 Selection of genitive variants -- 4.3 Classification of genitive variants -- 4.4 Corpus analysis -- 5. Conclusion -- References -- Appendix A: Sources for the genre corpus material -- Part IV. Syntactic variation and change through contact -- On the use of beon and wesan in Old English -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Old English double paradigm -- 3. Analysis of the examples -- 3.1 Indicative -- 3.1.1 1st Person Singular -- 3.1.2 2nd person singular -- 3.1.3 3rd person singular -- 3.1.4 Plural -- 3.2 Subjunctive -- 3.3 Imperative and infinitive -- 4. Conclusion -- References -- The reflexes of OE beon as a marker of futurity in early Middle English -- 1. Background -- 1.1. Futurity in Old English -- 1.2 The OE bēon paradigm (Taken from Campbell 1959: 768 (d)) -- 1.3 OE beon and the expression of futurity -- 1.4 The grammarian's view -- 1.5 Old English forms of the verb to be as a marker of futurity -- 2. Late Middle English -- 2.1 Survival of 'be' as a marker of futurity -- 2.2 Late Middle English grammars -- 3. Early Middle English -- 3.1 The grammarian's view -- 3.2 A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English (LAEME) -- 4. Prospect -- References -- Stylistic fronting in the history of English -- 1. Introduction.

2. Stylistic fronting in Icelandic -- 3. Stylistic fronting in Old English -- 3.1 Theoretical assumptions -- 3.2 Database and the constructions analyzed -- 3.3 The results -- 4. Stylistic fronting in Middle English -- 4.1 Theoretical assumptions -- 4.2 Database and the constructions analyzed -- 4.3 The results -- 5. Scandinavian influences? -- References -- Appendix: Command lines used for the present study -- Subject and Word index -- The series CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY.