The volume contains selected papers from the SHEL-2 conference held at the University of Washington in Spring 2002. Scholars from North America and Europe address a broad spectrum of research topics in historical English linguistics, including new theories/methods such as Optimality Theory and corpus linguistics, and traditional fields such as phonology and syntax. In each of the four sections - Philology and linguistics; Corpus- and text-based studies; Constraint-based studies; and Dialectology - leading scholars respond directly to each other's arguments within the volume. The volume captures an ongoing conversation at the heart of historical English linguistics: the question of evidence and historical reconstruction.
Anne Curzan is Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Kimberly Emmons is Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA.