Change in Contemporary English

Reviews / Votes

Review of the hardback: 'CCE suggests a number of issues that will no doubt inspire much research in the future, not only in English, but in any language for which electronic corpora are available over a fifty- to hundred-year period. ... Regardless of any limitations of the corpora, the authors have developed a rigorous methodology for tagging, quantifying and analyzing electronic corpus materials, and revealing the multifactorial nature of change in use.' Elizabeth Closs Traugott, English Language and Linguistics '... the studies collected in this volume are very valuable for the analysis of ongoing language change. The observations of these very detailed descriptions of language use and variation in the second half of the twentieth century across the two major written varieties of English will - together with, for example, the quantitative data and qualitative analyses of the Longman Grammar ... certainly be a highly welcome basis for further investigations into ongoing grammar change in English.' Ursula Lenker, Anglia '... this is a masterly book, no doubt the standard treatment of its subject for years to come. In an exemplary fashion it combines a meticulous attention to detail and empirically sound documentation with a fundamental interest in the nature and causes of syntactic change, and it provides far-reaching insights on both levels.' Edgar W. Schneider, English World-Wide