Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics : Studies in Morphosyntactic Variation in the Paston Letters (1421-1503).

Intro -- Proem -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- 1. Aims and contents -- 1.1. Empirial objectives, historical embedding -- 1.2. Structure of the book -- Chapter 2 Historical sociolinguistics -- 1. What is historical sociolinguistics? -- 1.1. Social sciences - history - linguistics -- 1.2. Historical sociolinguistics -- 2. Summary -- Chapter 3 Social network analysis - present and past -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Social netork analysis -- 2.1. The development of network theory -- 2.2. Social network analysis, language variation, and language change -- 2.3. Principles of language change -- 2.4. Historical network analysis -- 2.5. Micro- versus macro-studies -- 2.6. Developing a network for (late) medieval England -- 3. The network(s) of the Paston family -- 3.1. Biographical sketches -- 3.2. The network(s) -- 4. The corpus -- 4.1. Scribes and authors -- 4.2. Methodology -- Chapter 4 Personal pronouns -- 1. The development of personal pronouns in Middle and Early Modem English -- 1.1. Sources: dialect geography -- 1.2. Sources: internal factors -- 2. Pronouns in the Paston letters -- 2.1. General developments -- 2.2. Distribution across time -- 2.3. Individual patterns -- 2.4. External factors -- 2.5. Internal factors -- 3. Summary -- 4. Ye and You -- Chapter 5 Relative clauses -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Relativization - some technical remarks -- 3. Relativization and the history of English -- 4. Relative clauses in the Paston letters -- 4.1. Methodology -- 4.2. Results: a community grammar -- 4.4. Results: individual grammars -- 5. Summary -- Chapter 6 The light verb construction -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The structure of the light verb construction -- 3. Historical developments -- 4. The light verb construction in the Paston letters -- 4.1. Methodological issues -- 4.2. Results: A community grammar.

4.3. Results: A social grammar -- 3.4. Results: individual grammars -- Chapter 7 Conclusion: a network perspective -- 1. A historical whodunit -- 1.1. Personal pronouns, relativizers, and light verb constructions -- 1.2. Corroborative data -- 2. Networks and language use in the Paston family: Take One -- 2.1. Why network strength scales should not simply correlate with historical data - at least in this case -- 3. Networks and language use in the Paston family: Take Two -- 4. Social networks and language use: a new perspective -- Notes -- References -- Author index -- Subject index.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.