The Subjunctive in the Age of Prescriptivism

This monograph focuses on the description, use and development of the inflectional subjunctive in English and German in the eighteenth century. A close comparison between meta-linguistic comments (eighteenth-century grammars) and actual language usage (corpus study) allows the evaluation of the influence of prescriptivism on language change.

ANITA AUER is an Assistant Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands. She has taught and lectured in Austria, England and the Netherlands. Her research interests and publications are mainly focused on historical linguistics in relation to English and German.