Cover -- Half-title -- Series-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Abbreviations -- Sources -- Languages and linguistic terms -- Preface -- 1 Social and linguistic setting of alliterative verse in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval England -- 1.1 The Anglo-Saxon poetic scene -- 1.2 The post-Conquest poetic scene -- 2 Linguistic structures in English alliterative verse -- 2.1 The prosody-meter interface -- 2.2 Old English stress -- 2.3 Old English versification -- (1) A line consists of two verses. The verses are linked by alliteration -- (2) Each verse contains two feet which jointly add up to at least four positions -- (3) All feet must contain an ictus -- (4) Nearly all verses are complete syntactic units -- 2.4 Middle English stress and its attestation in verse -- 2.4.1 Stress on major class words -- 2.4.2 The metrical treatment of inflected verbs -- 2.4.3 Compound stress -- 2.4.4 Phrasal stress -- 2.4.5 Affixes and stress -- 2.5 Middle English alliterative versification -- 2.6 Some methodological remarks -- 3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization -- 3.1 The Old English consonant system -- 3.2 The alliterative conundrum -- 3.3 Sound over letter -- 3.4 Alliteration and editorial practice -- 3.5 The morphophonemic nature of voiceless velar alliteration -- 3.5.1 Was there a phonemic split of /k/ in Old English? -- 3.5.2 The role of DORSAL in maintaining identity -- 3.5.3 The minimal pair test for the palatalized velars -- 3.5.4 PARADIGM UNIFORMITY as a factor inhibiting palatalization -- 3.5.5 The /k-/ split post-obit: coronalization and affrication as contrast enhancements -- 3.6 Alliterating voiced velars in early Old English -- 3.7 The violability of place for the Old English velars -- 3.8 Alliteration as phonetic gradience in Optimality Theory -- 3.9 Was there a…in Old English?.

3.10 The Old English consonant system revised -- 4 Syllable structure -- 4.1 The vowel alliteration riddle -- 4.2 Non-alliterative evidence for the glottal stop in Old English -- 4.2.1 Elision in Old English verse -- 4.2.2 Hiatus at morpheme boundaries -- 4.2.3 The inorganic -- 4.3 The upset of ONSET -- 4.3.1 Middle English vowel alliteration -- 4.3.2 ME elision alliteration: "Stab der Liaison" -- 4.3.3 Non-verse evidence for ONSET in Middle English -- 4.3.4 Nunnation in Middle English -- 4.4 ONSET in Modern English -- 4.4.1 The correlation between ONSET and stress in Modern English -- 4.4.2 Morphology-prosody alignment: a historical perspective -- 4.4.3 ONSET versus faithfulness (Dep) in the history of English -- 4.5 Es ist Gesetz: summary and conclusions -- 5 ONSET and cluster alliteration in Old English: the case of sp-, st-, sk- -- 5.1 Introducing cluster alliteration: sp-, st-, sk- -- 5.2 The biphonemic treatment of in alliteration -- 5.3 The special status of sp-, st-, sk- in Old English -- 5.4 Cluster constraints and the cohesiveness of sp-, st-, sk- -- 5.4.1 The importance of LOW SONORITY -- 5.4.2 Other well-formedness constraints -- 5.4.3 Obstruents in contact: the perceptual filter -- 5.5 Three-consonantal clusters: the [sl-] [skl-] change -- 5.6 /sp-, st-, sk-/ and the French vocabulary -- 5.7 Summary and conclusions -- 6 ONSET and cluster alliteration in Middle English -- 6.1 New patterns of alliteration in Middle English -- 6.2 Cluster alliteration in Old and Middle English: a comparison -- 6.3 Cluster alliteration in early Middle English: Lagamon's Brut -- 6.3.1 /s-/+stop clusters in Lagamon's Brut -- 6.3.2 Cluster alliteration in Lagamon's Brut -- 6.3.3 Why is Lagamon's Brut good linguistic evidence? -- 6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century -- 6.4.1 Wynnere and Wastoure -- 6.4.2 The Wars of Alexander.

6.4.3 Piers Plowman -- 6.5 Why is fourteenth-century verse good evidence for cluster cohesion? -- 6.6 Non-verse evidence for cluster cohesion -- 6.7 Alliterative patterns in verse and the lexicon -- 6.8 The linguistic foundation of cluster alliteration -- 6.8.1 Alliterative identity and CONTIGUITY -- 6.8.2 The inadequacy of SONORITY SEQUENCING -- 6.8.3 A hierarchy of onset cluster cohesiveness -- 6.9 Cluster alliteration after Middle English -- 6.10 Concluding remarks -- 7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in Middle English -- 7.1 Historically unstable clusters in Lagamon's Brut -- 7.1.1 /gn-/ and /kn-/ in early Middle English -- 7.1.2 /h-/ clusters in Lagamon's Brut -- 7.2 Wynnere and Wastoure -- 7.3 The Wars of Alexander -- 7.4 Piers Plowman -- 7.5 Notes on the history of velar cluster reduction -- 7.5.1 Summary of the alliterative evidence on velar-initial clusters -- 7.5.2 Voicing neutralization in velar-initial clusters -- 7.5.3 The non-cohesiveness of /kn-/ -- 7.5.4 Chronology and causation of /gn-, kn-/ reduction -- 7.6 Notes on the history of /h-/ clusters -- 7.6.1 Alliterative treatment of /x-/ clusters in early Old English -- 7.6.2 Reduction of /h-/ clusters in the "transitional" period -- 7.6.2.1 survivals in Middle English -- 7.6.2.2 survivals in Middle English -- 7.6.2.3 survivals in Middle English -- 7.6.3 On /xw/ -> /w/ -- 7.6.3.1 Alliterative and scribal evidence for /xw-/ reduction -- 7.6.3.2 The chronology and causes of /xw-/ reduction -- 7.7 The history of clusters -- 7.8 Summary and conclusions -- References -- Index of names -- Subject index.