The development of Old English

This volume is the second in Ringe’s Linguistic history of English, picking up where the previous book, From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (Ringe 2006), left off. It covers the time period from the break-up of Proto-Germanic until c. 900 ce, thus ending roughly in the middle of the Old English (OE) period as traditionally conceived. The scope of this monumental project will be apparent from the fact that, two volumes in, the series has reached roughly the point where most conventional histories of the English language begin: Old English. Unlike the first volume in the series, this book contains a section on syntax, written by Ann Taylor. The inclusion of syntax is welcome, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this volume is really two books bound together: the chapter on syntax is by far the book’s longest at 118 pages, and could easily be expanded into a book-length work in its own right. There are also many structural differences between the two parts of the book, the most obvious being the time period covered: while the phonology and morphology chapters cover the period from the breakup of the Germanic language family to 900 ce, the syntax chapter contains only a few paragraphs here and there on prehistory, and covers the whole OE period up to 1100 ce.1 The phonology and morphology chapters are primarily diachronic and atheoretical. By contrast, the syntax chapter is primarily synchronic and couched in a Government & Binding-style descriptive metalanguage, which, however, is presented in an accessible way and eschews unnecessary technicalia. The syntax chapter also has its own index.