This volume unites nineteen papers on core topics in linguistics: phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, and phraseology of English, exploring both synchronic and diachronic aspects of the English language. The papers have been collected to honour D. J. Allerton, who has taken a keen interest in all of these fields throughout his professional life. He has just retired from his professorship at the university of Basel where he has been professor of English linguistics since 1980. The authors of the contributions are colleagues and former students, all of whom felt inspired by his way of doing linguistics. Topics covered range from the Great Vowel Shift to contemporary changes in World Englishes, and from theoretical questions on the sound system and word formation patterns of English to more applied topics in phraseology and the lexicon.