Introduction: Key questions for historical phonology

This chapter lays out how we understand the field of historical phonology and how we have conceived of and laid out this volume. Above all, we see the project broadly, because historical phonology often progresses by close cooperation with related and allied fields—theoretical phonology, phonetics, acquisition, sociolinguistics—and the Handbook includes all of these. Moreover, the Handbook seeks to present a wide range of divergent approaches and views, in terms of empirical and theoretical orientation.