Variation and Change in the Lexicon

The present volume is a corpus-based study of the occurrence, variation, and change in the use of English adjective pairs in - ic and - ical over several centuries. The study involves the analysis of large, multi-million-word corpora representing the English language at various stages. It examines the nature of competition between the two affixes: what kind of rivalry existed, what kinds of words entered into competition, and in what ways the rivalry was resolved. The book presents close studies