The volume Keys to the History of English presents a selection of papers from the 21st International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL), which was held online in 2021 and organised by members of the English Department at the University of Leiden. The title reflects both a local and a metaphorical significance: the keys in Leiden’s coat of arms and the medieval claues sapientiae (‘keys of wisdom’), symbolising access to new insights into the history of the English language. The volume is structured into three thematic sections: (1) Syntax and word order, (2) Diachronic linguistic change and (3) Lexicography and lexis. The contributions showcase a wide range of theoretical and empirical perspectives, illustrating the breadth and depth of current research in English historical linguistics.

The first thematic part of the volume (pp. 9–79) focuses on syntactic developments in the history of English, highlighting the value of syntactically annotated corpora for diachronic investigations.

George Walkden’s chapter entitled ‘Parataxis and hypotaxis in the history of English’ (pp. 10–33) critically examines the common claim that parataxis leads to hypotaxis in the history of English. Combining theoretical argumentation with a diachronic corpus study, he addresses two hypotheses:

• – That-complement clauses evolved from a reanalysis of two paratactic clauses, as illustrated in example (1):

  

• – Hypotaxis increased throughout the history of English.

Walkden highlights problems with the first hypothesis, noting that such sequences are unattested in early Germanic languages and that the required verb-final position is more typical of dependent clauses. Instead, following Axel-Tober (Reference Axel-Tober2012, Reference Axel-Tober2017), he proposes that relative clauses were reanalysed as complement clauses, resolving both clause-type and verb-position issues. To evaluate the second hypothesis, Walkden conducts a diachronic corpus study using the York–Toronto–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE) and the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English. His findings show no clear temporal increase in hypotaxis from Old English to Late Modern English. Instead, genre plays a more significant role: speech-related genres (e.g. sermons, diaries) favour parataxis, while legal texts (e.g. statutes) favour hypotaxis. He suggests further research on how hypotaxis interacts with genre and register, citing Biber (Reference Biber2005), who questions the assumption that embedded clauses are more common in written than spoken registers.

Artur Bartnik’s contribution ‘Two types of left-dislocation in Old English’ (pp. 34–52) examines left dislocation (LD) in Old English using the YCOE. Traditionally, two types of LD are recognised in Old English:

Contrastive Left-Dislocation (CLD):

Hanging Topic Left-Dislocation (HTLD):

Bartnik evaluates three properties distinguishing these types: (a) resumptive pronoun type, (b) case matching and (c) resumptive pronoun position. His corpus study confirms that only the first property reliably differentiates CLD and HTLD – demonstrative pronouns indicate CLD, while personal pronouns indicate HTLD. The other two properties are less reliable, probably due to differences between the syntactic structures of Old English and other Germanic languages. Since in Old English fronted constituents in LD are often complex (e.g. relative or adverbial clauses), their heads may be in a different case from the resumptive pronoun, as the verbs govern different cases. Case syncretism, particularly between nominative and accusative cases, further obscures case matching. The study underscores the need for in-depth corpus analyses to reassess traditional classifications.

Lisa Gotthard’s chapter titled ‘Subject–verb agreement and the rise of do-support in the period of anglicisation of Scots’ (pp. 53–79) investigates syntactic variation and change during the anglicisation of Scots from the late sixteenth century onwards. While prior research has focused on spelling, morphology and lexis, Gotthard demonstrates that syntactic annotation of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Scottish correspondence data enables in-depth investigations of syntactic change. She explores possible links between Subject–verb agreement patterns such as the decline of the Northern Subject Rule (NSR) in Scots and the rise of do-support during the anglicisation of Scots. Do‑support only develops in the seventeenth century in Scots, which is about 200 years later than in the emerging Southern Standard English variety. Gotthard hypothesises that if do-support had been incorporated into an NSR grammar, it would follow NSR constraints, occurring with non-NSR subjects marked by -(i)s inflection (i.e. third-person singular, non-pronominal plural subjects). While her study confirms the late emergence of do-support in the seventeenth century and a decline of NSR subject–verb agreement patterns, it finds no significant frequency effect for non-NSR subjects. However, due to the concurrent decline of NSR patterns and the rise of do-support, potential competition between the two agreement systems cannot be excluded. Overall, these three studies illustrate the importance of corpus-based approaches in refining our understanding of English syntactic history.

Part 2 ‘Diachronic linguistic change’ (pp. 81–141) brings together studies that explore diverse aspects of language change in English that do not easily fit into one category or level of linguistic analysis.

The first chapter in this thematic section, ‘A modern light on diachronic processes affecting coda /l/ in English’ by Gjertrud F. Stenbreden (pp. 82–102), re-examines sound changes involving coda /l/ in the history of British English, drawing on insights from articulatory phonology, acoustic phonetics and perceptual phonetics. The author explains diphthong formation, for example, in Old English breaking (e.g. ceald ‘cold’ < cald), as a result of gestural overlap, where a schwa-like excrescent vowel emerges between two contiguous but articulatorily distinct sounds. She attributes lengthening of pre-lateral vowels (e.g. in false /fɔːls/) to diphthong formation (/a/ > /au/) followed by monophthongisation (/aː/) due to reduced gestures for the two adjacent vowels. Vocalisation of laterals, she argues, results from gestural overshoot, where, for example, with dark laterals, failure to reach the apical target causes tongue dorsum raising, producing a back rounded vowel. While highly technical, the study provides a unified explanation for a range of phonological changes spanning several centuries.

Lilo Moessner conducts a diachronic corpus study in her chapter titled ‘Modality and the English subjunctive in noun clauses: A diachronic study’ (pp. 103–19), using the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC) to trace the decline of the subjunctive from Old English to Early Modern English and to identify factors driving its loss. Focusing on noun clauses with overtly marked subjunctive forms (third-person singular present), she categorises instances based on the mood of the verbal syntagm in the noun clause and the matrix clause and modality type (fact vs non-fact and root vs epistemic modality). The analysis of fact vs non-fact modality finds a steady increase in noun clauses expressing fact modality and a sharp decline in the subjunctive for non-fact modality. The analysis distinguishing between root and epistemic modality indicates a steady share of the indicative for the expression of epistemic modality across the three periods and confirms the decrease of the subjunctive to denote root modality. Moessner shows that the modal auxiliaries shall, must, þurfen contribute to the subjunctive’s decline across all periods, while can, may and will – which became primarily epistemic in Early Modern English – played a role only in Old English and Middle English. The study thus sheds light on the interaction of the subjunctive and modal auxiliaries. However, Moessner’s conclusion that the preference of can, may and will for epistemic modality would prevent further subjunctive loss in English could benefit from additional elaboration.

Sabina Nedelius’ contribution ‘Some philological implications of punctuation in editions of Middle English texts’ (pp. 120–41) critically examines the reliability of syntactically annotated historical corpora, highlighting their dependence on editions with liberal punctuation practices rather than transcripts of manuscripts. Her quantitative study compares ten Middle English prose texts from nine manuscripts (1300–1500) and two editions of each text to assess discrepancies in punctuation. It highlights that a lack of correspondence between punctuation marks in the manuscripts and the editions may, in fact, lead to misinterpretations of syntactic structures by automatic sentence tokenisers. She finds that 38 per cent of punctuation marks in editions have no corresponding mark in the manuscripts, while 19–20 per cent of manuscript marks are removed in edited versions. Additions outnumber removals, with 39 per cent added in first editions and 35 per cent in second editions. Notably, 46 per cent of sentence-external punctuation additions lack clear manuscript support (e.g. capitalisation or colourisation). Nedelius’ findings highlight the risk of misinterpreting syntactic structures when relying on editorially punctuated texts and her contribution serves as an important reminder of how crucial it is for historical linguists to base their analyses on transcripts or diplomatic editions.

Part 3 ‘Lexicography and lexis’ (pp. 143–232) provides a coherent set of studies on historical lexicography and lexical change.

Christopher Langmuir’s chapter entitled ‘The unfinished double glosses in Durham Cathedral Library, MS A.iv.19’ (pp. 144–65) underscores the value of detailed philological analysis. His study examines the functions of incomplete multiple glosses with appended vel (‘or’), abbreviated as ɫ in Durham Cathedral Library, MS A.iv.19. He suggests that the glossator, Aldred, may have used these incomplete glosses to invite discussion among the monastic community, particularly in cases where he was uncertain about the Latin lemma’s meaning thus signalling tentative readings. Some instances of raised vel most likely indicate time constraints during the glossing process, while others, inserted at a later stage, suggest that Aldred revisited his glosses. In some cases, spaces left after vel appear to invite additional glosses either by the same or other glossators. Yet there are also cases where the slot to the right of vel is not sufficient for adding an additional gloss. Langmuir therefore suggests that this could be seen as a cue for readers to think about alternative interpretations. Interestingly, Langmuir finds that incomplete glosses may interact across broader stretches of text, with later glosses complementing earlier ones – such as uiuificam ‘life-giving’ (fol. 45r4; L.93.19), glossed by liffæste ɫ ‘living, quickening’, and uiuifice (fol. 45r6; L.94.3), glossed as cwices ɫ ‘alive, quick’. Langmuir’s meticulous study, supplemented by an appendix listing all unfinished double glosses, offers valuable insights into Aldred’s collaborative glossing practices.

In her chapter titled ‘Early modern manuscripts containing Old English dictionaries in England and northern Germany: From John Joscelyn to Dietrich von Stade’ (pp. 166–90), Melanie Vollbrecht examines an Old English–Latin dictionary compiled in Early Modern English by antiquarians John Joscelyn and John Parker, comparing it with four Northern German copies. The first copy, produced by lawyer Friedrich Lindenbrog in the early seventeenth century, was followed by three seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century copies. Vollbrecht traces the dictionary’s and manuscripts’ production history, demonstrating how different scholarly contexts shaped their evolution. She highlights, for example, the different contexts spawning an interest in the study of medieval English texts. While the original was compiled under the patronage of Archbishop Matthew Parker, a prominent figure in the English Reformation, Lindenbrog’s copy is to be seen in the context of legal enquiries and the scrutiny of Anglo-Saxon law codes. The later seventeenth- and eighteenth-century copies, however, indicate a true interest in English etymology. Vollbrecht’s analysis reveals that Lindenbrog condensed entries and omitted Early Modern English interpretamenta, suggesting a possible intent to print the dictionary in Germany. Unlike Joscelyn and Parker’s dictionary, none of the Northern German copies imitate the Anglo-Saxon minuscule. Lindenbrog seemed to struggle with Insular script, misreading characters such as insular long descending ‘s’ and insular ‘r’. Only the Northern German copy by archivist Dietrich von Stade corrected these errors, reflecting his greater familiarity with medieval English manuscripts. All versions of the dictionary make use of markers, which in some cases served functions such as combining separate entries, but in others, e.g. underlining and marginal ‘x’, seem to be idiosyncratic in nature and do not have clear functions. Vollbrecht’s study, with its keen attention to manuscript features and textual modifications, thus sheds light on the origins of Old English scholarship in the Early and Late Modern periods.

Marta Sylwanowicz and Anna Wojtyś’ chapter ‘Loss of wiþer-words in English’ (pp. 191–211) analyses the loss of words containing wiþer (‘against, in opposition to’) between Old English and Middle English using the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC 2009) and the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (CMEPV). They argue that frequency effects contributed to the loss of wiþer-lexemes. In Old English, these words were already relatively rare, with only ten appearing more than ten times, such as wiþerweard (‘contrary, adverse, hostile’) and wiþerwinna (‘adversary, opponent, enemy’). Only two wiþer-lexemes have a sense that is not an extension of the original meanings of wiþer. Both of these occur in glosses: wiþerdune ‘narrow’ and wiþerstæger ‘steep, abrupt’. In Middle English, wiþer-words drastically declined from 214.96 to 11.47 instances per million words. Although frequent Old English items like wiþerward and wiþerwinn persisted, most wiþer-words disappeared. However, some new wiþer-lexemes, such as wiþerfulle (‘antagonistic, hostile’), emerged in Middle English. The vast majority of wiþer-words in CMEPV continue to display the core sense ‘against, opposite’ and some, such as wiþerfulnesse ‘wickedness’, denote an extension of this sense. Only in a few rare lexical items, e.g. wiþerthreten ‘to be a threat, to threaten’, does wiþer seem to be reduced to an intensifying function. The study suggests that the primary factor in this decline was competition with wiþ, which had a similar meaning (‘opposite to, against’). The formal similarity between wiþer and wiþ even resulted in synonyms in Old English, such as wiþerfeohtend and wiþfeohtend (‘adversary’). Unlike wiþer, wiþ increased in frequency in Middle English, potentially contributing to the former’s decline.

Julia Landmann’s study titled ‘Investigating the dynamics of the lexicon: A socio-historical perspective of the borrowing of Yiddish words into English’ (pp. 212–32) explores Yiddish borrowings into English using data from the Oxford English Dictionary online and contemporary English corpora, including the British National Corpus (BNC), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the TV Corpus and the Movie Corpus. She identifies 248 Yiddish-derived words, categorising them into six domains with subcategories. The largest category, ‘People and Everyday Life’, accounts for 57.3 per cent of the borrowings, covering subdomains like ‘Drugs and Criminality’ and ‘Communication’. Other prominent categories include ‘Faith and Religion’ (16.1 per cent) and ‘Gastronomy’ (13.7 per cent). Landmann outlines several motives for borrowing Yiddish lexical items. Some, like borscht belt (‘resort area in the Catskill Mountains frequented by Eastern European Jewish communities’), which has become a common expression in American English, fill semantic gaps in English. Others, such as link (‘not pious, not orthodox’) in the domain ‘Faith and Religion’, following Benor’s (Reference Benor2010) definition, can be assigned to a category labelled ethnolinguistic repertoires, thus functioning as markers of Jewish identity. Many words in ‘People and Everyday Life’, including to yentz (‘to have sexual intercourse’), also serve identity-expressive purposes. Additionally, terms like klutz (‘clumsy’) have entered everyday colloquial English, largely due to their spread through the entertainment industry, particularly American sitcoms. While French and Latin loanwords in English have been extensively studied, Landmann’s research provides valuable insights into the influence of Yiddish as a minor donor language and the reasons that motivated speakers to adopt Yiddish terms.

Overall, Keys to the History of English offers diverse explorations of English historical linguistics, covering all periods from Old English to the present day. It provides diachronic perspectives as well as detailed synchronic studies of specific periods, as seen in Christopher Langmuir’s examination of incomplete multiple Old English glosses in Durham Cathedral Library, MS A.iv.19, and Sabina Nedelius’ analysis of punctuation practices in Middle English texts. The volume highlights the immense value of both state-of-the-art corpus studies and rigorous philological investigations of historical manuscripts. By bringing together these diverse approaches, the book underlines the importance of integrating traditional and computational methodologies in linguistic research as keys for gaining fresh insights into the history of English.