Ninth-century Kentish Old English <b>/<B>, where it represents a reflex of Germanic [ß], has hitherto been dismissed as an orthographic ‘archaism’. Here, however, it is argued that the graph is a genuine reflection of ninth-century Kentish phonology. The linguistic argument, which invokes the concept of neutralization in reconstructing the Old English obstruent system, is placed in the context of reconstructions of the external history of Kent. Data are drawn from forms of moneyers' names on early Anglo-Saxon coins, discussed in the context of interpretations of manuscript data.

Based on micro-analysis of a set of British English telephone calls, seven different uses of the phrase never mind are distinguished in terms of (a) sequence type, (b) speaker role, (c) sequential position, and (d) prosodic configuration. It is argued that the methodology employed here is widely applicable not only for ready-made expressions but also for less idiomatic forms such as ‘lexicalized sentence stems’ and other prefabricated chunks of language. Through such a methodology analysts can lay bare what it is that speakers ‘do’ with language and thus come to understand what it is they ‘know’ about its procedural deployment in interaction.

Verbs prefixed with over-exhibit varied subcategorization changes from the base verbs (load hay onto the wagon/$^{*}$overload hay onto the wagon, eat an apple/$^{*}$?overeat apples, $^{*}$sleep his appointment/oversleep his appointment, etc.), which seem to defy a principled explanation. This article argues that the apparently puzzling behaviors of over-verbs can be coherently accounted for within the framework of construction grammar.

Over-verbs, in the excess sense, divide into those involving a container-based understanding and those involving a scale-based understanding. Over-verbs involving a container-based understanding (e.g. overload) differ from their base verbs as to the force transmission in a causal chain. Accordingly, those over-verbs are sanctioned by a different verb-class-specific construction from that which sanctions their base verbs. But over-verbs involving a scale-based understanding (e.g. overheat) are unchanged from their base verbs as to the force transmission, and hence as to the syntactic frame.

On the other hand, over-verbs in the spatial sense (e.g. overfly) are sanctioned by a ‘landmark’-based construction, a construction that does not have to do with force transmission. And some excess over-verbs (e.g. oversleep) are also sanctioned by this verb-class-specific construction.

The proposed account pays close attention to both verbs and constructions. A verb's occurrence in a particular syntactic frame can be explained by claiming that that verb can be sanctioned by a particular verb-class-specific construction, irrespective of whether the verb is morphologically simple or complex. But in order to explain why that verb can be sanctioned by that construction at all, a detailed analysis of verb meanings is called for. In this sense, the proposed analysis is both lexical and constructional.

Middle expressions (The car drives smoothly, The book doesn't sell, These chairs fold up) have long fascinated students of the English language. This article examines some of the factors which contribute to the acceptability of such expressions. Rejecting a lexicalist approach, which aims to identify a class of middle-forming verbs, we propose, instead, a global characterization of the construction, with specific focus on properties of the subject referent in association with the semantics of the predicate. The middle construction, we argue, presents a non-Agent participant as primarily responsible for the potential actualization of the process designated by the verb phrase. The subject referent, therefore, has to be able to be construed as possessing properties which significantly facilitate, enable (or, as the case may be, impede) the unfolding of the process in question, while, at the same time, the contribution of the Agent to the process is backgrounded. We explore this thesis with specific reference to the qualia structure of the subject nominal.

This article addresses the thorny question of how to distinguish between complement and modifier PPs within the NP. Most of the accounts offered so far fail because they assume the distinction to be a rigid one: none of the semantic and syntactic criteria provided can be used as diagnostic tests for category membership, simply because the boundary between the two categories is not clear-cut. Instead, it is argued that the only viable way of accounting for the differences in formal behaviour between certain PPs within the NP is to recognize that this behaviour reflects a distinction at the conceptual level. Since, at the conceptual level, the distinction between ‘complement’ and ‘modifier’ is gradual (defined in terms of degree of activation), there is no basis for a strict linguistic dichotomy: therefore, the formal features of the PPs in question are to be regarded as approximations of the cognitive status of the concept in question, not as indications of all-or-none class membership. In addition to offering a more promising account of the complement–modifier distinction itself, the prototype-based approach proposed can also be regarded as providing plausible explanations for the formal differences commonly associated with (prototypical instances of) the two categories.

A well-known peculiarity of Modern English is that nominal possessives can occur in ‘elliptical’ constructions in which no head noun is expressed:

(1)(a) We'll meet at Mary's.

(b) This is Mary's.

(c) Mary's is red.