Koopman Willem F., van der Leek Frederike, Fischer Olga, Eaton Roger (Eds.). Explanation and Linguistic Change

John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1987. — 309 p. — (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 45).This volume presents the outcome of a workshop, held in Amsterdam in 1985, on the nature, even possibility, of explanation in Historical Linguistics: why changes take place and others do not, and why they occur at a particular time and place. The workshop, and this volume, aim to explore questions such as i) are the factors which explain the actuation of a change different from those that explain its implementation?; ii) is it possible to give a typology of changes?; iii) should linguistic explanation hope to meet the same requirements as explanation in the pure sciences?; iv) are all linguistic changes necessarily the product of variation?; v) should there be a formal theory of change apart from a general thoery of grammar?The Language lifegame: Prediction, Explanation and linguistic change - Jean Aitchison
Headless relatives in the history of Dutch - Alain Bossuyt
Modern Dutch could be middle Dutcher than you think (and vica versa) - Fred Weerman
A brief reply to Mr. Weerman - Alain Bossuyt
A ‘case’ for the Old English impersonal - Olga Fischer and Frederike van der Leek
Requisites for reinterpretation - Geert Koefoed and Jaap van Marle
Language, speakers, history and drift - Roger Lass
Number neutralization in old English: failure of functionalism? - Frans Plank
The status of the functional approach - M.L. Samuels
On sh*tting the door in modern English: A reply to Professor Samuels - Roger Lass
A brief rejoinder to Professor Lass - M.L. Samuels
‘Explanation’ by Linguistic maps - Jan Stroop
Old English dialects: What’s to explain; what’s an explanation? - Thomas E. Toon