Contents -- Introduction 7 -- MINOJI AKIMOTO: On the Decline of after and forth in Verb Phrases 11 -- ANITA AUER: Precept and Practice: The Influence of Prescriptivism on the English Subjunctive 33 -- JOAN C. BEAL / ANTHONY P. GRANT: "Make do and mend": An Online Investigation into Processes of Neologisation and the Dearth of Borrowing in Newer English Wartime Vocabulary 55 -- CLAUDIA CLARIDGE: 'With the most superlative felicitee': Functions of the Superlative in 19 th -Century English 73 -- THOMAS EGAN: Pronominal and Full Nominal Subjects in Expanding Constructions 91 -- LARISA OLDIREVA GUSTAFSSON: Irregular Verbs in 17th - and 18th -Century English Grammars: A Maze of Classifications103 -- MINNA PALANDER-COLLIN / MINNA NEVALA: Reporting in 18 th -Century Letters of Hester Piozzi 123 -- GÜNTER ROHDENBURG: The Role of Functional Constraints in the Evolution of the English Complementation System 143 -- ANNI SAIRIO: Progressives in the Letters of Elizabeth Montagu and her Circle in 1738-1778 167 -- ELENA SEOANE: Changing Styles: On the Recent Evolution of Scientific British and American English 191 -- STEFAN THIM: Phrasal Verbs in Late Middle and Early Modern English: Combinations with back, down, forth, out, and up 213 -- INGRID TIEKEN-BOON VAN OSTADE: "Disrespectful and too familiar"? Abbreviations as an Index of Politeness in 18 th -Century Letters 229 -- Index 249.