ABSTRACT
Q How would you go about looking Jor change in English grammar? Would you need a corpus oj data? Why (not)? What benefits arise Jrom using your method? A You would need some kind of corpus of data, though it might not be data of the same kind as that mentioned here. Even a series of anecdotes about what people used to say (and you can't assume that such anecdotes are accurate) provides data. Using a corpus of the type I used means that the data can be checked and the experiments replicated by others. It leads to relatively precise and objectively verifiable statements about change.
