The ‘Total Transformation Alternation’ (Levin, 1993: 57) has been attested in Modern English only with the Turn Verbs, verbs such as CHANGE, CONVERT, TRANSFORM, and TURN. This paper presents data showing the alternation also to be attested for some of the Middle English Cooking Verbs, including SĒTHEN ‘to simmer’. Since the alternation is not found with all the ME Cooking Verbs, this appears to be evidence against the correlation of lexical semantics with syntax. However, the paper goes on to demonstrate that this alternation is also available to ‘Reduction Verbs’, including Modern English REDUCE. Before REDUCE was used in this sense, Middle English verbs such as SĒTHEN could denote reduction in volume. When they were so used, they could appear in any of the syntactic constructions of this alternation. The paper concludes by reiterating the importance of investigating semantic components, rather than concentrating exclusively on verb classes.

Although the argument structure of preposition–verb (P–V) compounds in Old English (OE) is jointly determined by the head V and the nonhead P, the contribution of the nonhead is limited, often resulting in a seemingly peculiar case-government pattern for a given P–V compound. This paper shows that a new understanding of the case-assigning properties of the head in OE P–V compounds, which is built on the relative obliqueness among OE NP arguments, with accusative NPs less oblique than dative or genitive NPs and verbal arguments less oblique than prepositional arguments, enables us not only to explain the contribution of the nonhead without weakening the traditional priority of the head but also to improve upon the argument attraction process as an account of subcategorization inheritance, demonstrating how the mechanism of argument attraction can be constrained in a principled way.

This paper deals with the metrical behavior of a class of verbs in Old English whose descendants became the syntactically distinct auxiliaries of the modern period (have, be, may, will, shall, and associated forms). Contrasting two poems from the Old English period (Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon), I show that while the verbs in question show consistently stressed metrical placement in Beowulf, in Maldon they show a pronounced tendency to be placed in unstressed metrical positions, while verbs outside the eventual class of auxiliaries differ indiscriminately. In this way, the poetry suggests a phonological difference between pre-auxiliaries and other verbs perhaps centuries before corresponding morphological and syntactic differences fully emerged in the Middle and early Modern English periods.

This paper presents an account of sociolinguistic–syntactic variation in Indian English. It focuses on the differences between Standard Indian English (SIE) and Indian Vernacular English (IVE), restricting the discussion to the syntax of wh-questions, Focus constructions, null subjects and objects (pro drop), and null expletive subjects. The major claim of this paper is that the differences between the observed patterns of generalization in SIE and IVE are best accounted for in a conceptualization of grammar that is based on a general notion of priority of syntactic constraints on well-formedness. This optimality-theoretic (OT) conceptualization (Grimshaw, 1997; Prince & Smolensky, 1993) is able to capture the following generalizations: (a) IVE is just as systematic and logical as SIE; (b) the grammars of IVE and SIE are bound by the same set of grammatical constraints; and (c) the differences between the two varieties is a function of how each grammar prioritizes these constraints. This paper thus also presents a strong argument for using OT as a framework for research on language variation and use.

This paper tries to reveal the constraints on the use of the present perfect progressive (PPP) in combination with numerical object NPs. Existing accounts tend to take situation type classes as a basis for the description of the PPP. It is shown that such an approach does not yield adequate results. (Un)boundedness (Declerck, 1991; Depraetere, 1995) plays an equally important role as (a)telicity in determining whether the progressive can be used or not. (Un)boundedness, as opposed to (a)telicity, is concerned with actual terminal points (of situations referred to) rather than potential (inherent) endpoints. It will be shown in this paper that, in some cases, the conflict between the unboundedness inherent in the progressive form and the boundedness often brought about by numerical object NPs that are used in nonstative sentences results in unacceptability. Considerable attention is first paid to the constraints on the use of the past progressive with numerical object NPs. The second part of the paper focuses on the PPP: apart from (un)boundedness and (a)telicity, the type of perfect and our knowledge of the world also play their part in determining whether or not the PPP is acceptable in sentences with a numerical object NP.

Review of Tony Bex & Richard J. Watts (eds), Standard English: the widening debate. London: Routledge. 1999. Pp. xi + 312. Hardback £50, ISBN 0 415 191629; paperback £15.99, ISBN 0 415 191637.

According to D'Souza (1999) the question of standard English ‘is one of the great, unresolved problems that we are carrying into the twenty-first century’ (p. 271). Why should this question be so important and why so unresolved? And what does the book under review here add to our possible understanding of this issue? There are a number of significant issues here. First, there is the question of definition: what is a standard language? From this follows the ontological question as to whether they actually exist or are merely convenient (or inconvenient) fictions. Are we talking about spoken or written language? And in the global context, there are questions such as whether a global standard of international English exists or is emerging? Or is international intelligibility always a negotiation of possibilities with no obvious standard? And how do the new standard Englishes of Singapore, India, or Hong Kong relate both to all the other forms of English within those countries and to the other regionalized standards as well as the possible international standard? From definitional questions we move on to more political and pedagogical ones: Are standard languages hegemonic forms to be opposed? Are standard languages hegemonic forms to be acquired? Does access to standard language give people greater social and economic mobility, or is this another myth associated with standard languages?