Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- Part I: Introduction -- 1 Introduction -- Part II: Language change and special passives -- 2 A theory of language change -- 3 Systemic change and the rise of the passive -- 4 The development of special passives -- Part III: Connecting individual and community grammars -- 5 The EMMA corpus -- 6 The prepositional passive -- 7 The nominative and infinitive -- 8 Networks in adult cognition -- Part IV: Summary and conclusions -- 9 Conclusion -- 10 Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index