In particular, the pedagogical premise of the original edition, according to which much of the content is communicated through elicitation rather than bare narrative, has been built upon very effectively in the new work, with the result that the presentation of phonological and morphological developments is now very attractive. On the plus side, what might be termed the backbone of any history of Spanish-patterns of sound change and the formation of the modern morphology-is covered in Resnick and Hammond's text in a manner that should appeal to today's students. Linguistics has changed radically since the 1980s, both in method and in focus, and by reviving an old classic such as this an essential task of the authors is to avoid the trap of putting new wine into old bottles. It is worth considering, however, to what extent this history of Spanish has stood the test of time.
All in all, then, the new edition adds significant value and teachers who liked the original work should welcome this updated version. The modern typeface too, together with the sophisticated layout, also departs quite markedly from the somewhat basic formatting that characterized the original work. Apart from updated phonetic transcriptions, exercises and bibliographic references, the main innovation in the new edition is the inclusion of additional, more advanced material in a 'Temas y datos adicionales' section inserted in each chapter between the main body and the end-of-chapter exercises. After this there is a chapter on the formation of Spanish dialects, situating this within a discussion of broader issues relating to language change, and finally a long chapter on the Spanish lexicon, from historical, dialectological and sociolinguistic perspectives.
The new edition retains the core of the older one, with three introductory chapters (on the historical background to the development of Spanish, foreign influences and miscellaneous technical details) followed by two long chapters on phonological changes from Latin to Spanish and on cambios gramaticales (largely historical morphology). This is a revised and expanded edition of a work that was originally published in 1981 under the single authorship of Melvyn Resnick. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Introducción a la historia de la lengua española.
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