A detailed study of Old English, taking as its point of departure the 'standard theory' of generative phonology as developed by Chomsky and Halle. Dr Lass and Dr Anderson set out all the main phonological processes of Old English and against their larger historical background (including subsequent developments in the history of English). They propose many fresh solutions to long-standing problems in the history and structure of Old English. The result is an extensive and sophisticated treatment of this subject. An important theory is examined against a well-studied body of linguistic knowledge, and is partly validated and partly revised. The book will be important for all linguistics and historians of English and Indo-European.
Dr Lass examines certain crucial issues in phonological and general linguistic theory through detailed studies of English phonetics, dialectology and language-history. He argues that contemporary 'standard' phonological theory is inhibited and misled by the related disadvantages of an artificially constrained formalism and a restricted database. He confronts theories of English phonology with a much wider range of material than is usual, drawing for example on Scots, Northern and North-Midland English, East Coast American dialects, and many others. Dr Lass offers solutions to many outstanding problems in the history of English. All the detailed discussions are informed by an overriding concern for the methodological and philosophical issues suggested by such problems. What kind of discipline is linguistics? What kinds of knowledge do its procedures yield and how are they validated?
