This book discusses a number of approaches to charting the major developments in the syntax of English. It does not assume any knowledge of Old or Middle English or of formal syntax, although students should be familiar with traditional syntactic concepts such as verbs and nouns, subjects and objects, and linguistic concepts such as morphology and case. Bettelou Los draws on explanations from both formal and functional approaches to explore how syntactic changes are the product of the interaction of many internal and external factors.