A modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Part 2 Syntax (First Volume):: Otto Jespersen Collected English Writings (Otto Jespersen: Collected English Writings)

A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles represents the magnum opus of Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, originally published in separate volumes between 1909 and 1949. This Routledge edition, released in 2006 as part of a collected set of Jespersen's works, serves to preserve his foundational contributions to the field of English linguistics, specifically his shift away from the prescriptive rules of the past toward a descriptive, usage-based analysis of language evolution.

The second part of the series focuses on syntax, reflecting Jespersen’s pioneering interest in how English grammatical structures developed historically. His design sought to provide a comprehensive record of linguistic shifts through thousands of cited examples from literary sources. Over time, this work has been received by scholars as an essential reference for historical philology, prized for the author's clarity and his innovative ability to categorize the complexities of syntax within a coherent, evidence-based framework.