Karl Luick’s "Historische Grammatik" and Medieval English consonant changes

Abstract

The fragments of Karl Luick’s Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache published during his lifetime which contained an account of the development of English vowels and diphthongs have long served as a theoretical source successfully exploited by a host of historical phonologists. Much less known is the final part of the grammar dealing with consonants, edited and published a few years after Luick’s death by Friedrich Wild and Herbert Koziol (1940). The acceptance by linguists of the part of the grammar devoted to the history of English consonants was not immediate. The article describes the circumstances which determined such an undeservedly lukewarm reception of this important study.