Applying insights from variationist linguistics to historical change mechanisms that have affected the consonantal system of English, Daniel Schreier reports findings from a historical corpus-based study on the reduction of particular consonant clusters and compares them with similar processes in synchronic varieties, thus defining consonantal change as a phenomenon involving psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, phonological theory and contact linguistics. Moreover, he weighs the impact of external and internal effects on causation, examining data from a total of 15 varieties with different time depths and social histories.

Autorentext
DANIEL SCHREIER has taught in Switzerland, the USA and in New Zealand and is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He is author of Isolation and Language Change and co-author (with Karen Lavarello-Schreier) of Tristan da Cunha: History People Language.

Inhalt
Acknowledgements Abbreviations List of Tables and Figures Introduction Consonant Clusters: General Observations Initial Cluster Reduction in English Final Cluster Reduction in English Theoretical Implications Summary and Conclusion References Index