EXPLANATION AND LINGUISTIC CHANGE -- Editorial page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Table of contents -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION -- REFERENCES -- THE LANGUAGE LIFEGAME: PREDICTION, EXPLANATION AND LINGUISTIC CHANGE -- 1.0. Introduction -- 2.0. The relationship between synchronic and diachronic theories -- 3.0. Reasons for language universals -- 4.0. The language lifegame -- 5.0. Snowballs -- 5.1. Snowball (1): development of pidgins -- 5.2. Snowball (2): destruction of verb-final constraint -- 6.0. Summary and conclusion -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- HEADLESS RELATIVES IN THE HISTORY OF DUTCH -- ABBREVIATED SOURCES. -- NOTE -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- MODERN DUTCH COULD BE MIDDLE DUTCHER THAN YOU THINK (AND VICE VERSA) -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Bossuyt's proposal -- 3. Second thoughts on P2 integration -- 4. The internal structure of the headless relative -- 4.1. Stacking -- 4.2. The position of the complementizer -- 4.3. A head for a headless relative -- 4.4. Conclusion -- 5. Final remarks -- FOOTNOTES -- REFERENCES -- A BRIEF REPLY TO MR. WEERMAN. -- A 'CASE' FOR THE OLD ENGLISH IMPERSONAL -- 0. Introduction -- 1. The case of the OE impersonal -- 2. Case alternation with OE personal verbs -- 3. Theories of Case -- 4. Case and the lexicon -- 5. Conclusion -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- REQUISITES FOR REINTERPRETATION -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The case of modern Dutch -se -- 2.1. The female inhabitatives in synchronic analyses -- 2.2. The female inhabitatives as a separate pattern -- I semantics -- II morphological valence -- III syntactic valence -- 2.3. On the genesis of female inhabitatives in -se_ -- 2.4. Reinterpretation and its consequences for the synchronic system -- 3. The case of Sranan e -- 3.1. The original system -- 3.2 Recent deviations from the original system -- 3.3 Interpretation of the deviations -- 4. Requisites for reinterpretation -- NOTES.

BIBLIOGRAPHY -- LANGUAGE, SPEAKERS, HISTORY AND DRIFT* -- 1. Preliminaries -- 2, Alternative ontologies -- 3. Psychological reductionism and history -- 4. Programmatic interlude: Some questions -- 5. Arguments for the autonomy of history, 1: Conspiracies -- 6. Problems for psychologism: Sapir on 'drift' -- 7. Arguments for the autonomy of history, 2: Centres of gravity -- 8. Arguments for the autonomy of history, 3: Convergent drift -- 9. The ontological dilemma: A new pair of spectacles? -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- NUMBER NEUTRALIZATION IN OLD ENGLISH: FAILURE OF FUNCTIONALISM? -- 1. Outline of the functionalist view -- 2. Number neutralization in Old English: The system -- 3. Number neutralization in Old English: Change and variation -- 4. The functionalist view qualified -- REFERENCES -- THE STATUS OF THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- ON SH*TTING THE DOOR IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH: A REPLY TO PROFESSOR SAMUELS -- NOTE -- REFERENCE -- A BRIEF REJOINDER TO PROFESSOR LASS -- 'EXPLANATION' BY LINGUISTIC MAPS -- REFERENCES -- OLD ENGLISH DIALECTS: WHAT'S TO EXPLAIN -- WHAT'S AN EXPLANATION? -- NOTE -- REFERENCES -- SUBJECT INDEX.