Donka Minkova

Phonemically contrastive fricatives in Old English

The article addresses two recent hypotheses regarding the history of the English fricatives /f/–/v/, /s/–/z/, /θ/–/ð/: the hypothesis that phonemicization of the voicing contrast occurred in Old English, and the related claim that the reanalysis of the contrast was due to Celtic substratum influence. A re-examination of the arguments for early phonemicization leads to alternative interpretations of the observed voicing ‘irregularities’ in Old English. The empirical core of the article presents the patterns of alliteration in Old and Middle English; this kind of evidence has not been previously considered in evaluating the progress of the change. The analytical core of the article is dedicated to the dynamics of categorization based on edge vs domain-internal contrasts, the relative strength of the voicing environments, and the distinction among fricatives depending on place of articulation. A comprehensive LAEME and MED database of all relevant forms reaffirms the traditional position regarding French influence for the phonemicization of voicing for the labial fricatives. The categorization of the contrast for the interdental fricatives is a language-internal prosodic process, and the history of the sibilants requires reference to both external and internal factors. The shift from a predominantly complementary to a predominantly contrastive distribution of the voiced–voiceless fricative pairs has been occurring at different rates for a whole millennium. The claim that phonemicization is attributable to Celtic influence in Old English is empirically and theoretically unsubstantiated.

Studies in the History of the English Language: A Millennial Perspective

The 19 papers in this volume are a selection from a UCLA conference intended to take stock of the state of the field at the beginning of the new millenium and to stimulate research in English Historical Linguistics. The authors are predominantly U.S. scholars. The fields represented include morphosyntax and semantics, grammaticalization, discourse analysis, dialectology, lexicography, the diachronic study of code-switching, phonology and metrics. Two sample articles can be downloaded for free from our website.

Ablaut reduplication in English: the criss­crossing of prosody and verbal art

The two properties that characterize Ablaut reduplication in English ( chit-chat , dilly-dally ) are: (1) identical vowel quantity in the stressed syllabic peaks, (2) maximally distinct vowel qualities in the two halves, with [ i ] appearing most commonly to the left and a low vowel to the right. In addition, Ablaut reduplicatives are described as having a trochaic contour, yet there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the stress on the second part of the formation. Historically, Ablaut reduplication appeared long after Copy reduplication ( boo-boo , yo-yo ) and flourished during the Renaissance; its productivity declined sharply in the twentieth century. This article treats Ablaut reduplicatives as verbal art products, analogs of dipodic poetic meter. The naturalness of the template ensues from the interaction of conflicting segmental and prosodic constraints on identity and markedness. An independently established hierarchy blocks high back vowels from appearing in these forms. The height difference is a response to the principle of INTEREST which favors maximum perceptual differentiation between the stressed vowels. The linear ordering of the vowels correlates with domain-final lengthening. The ambiguity between compound stress and level stress that these words exhibit is related tentatively to the existence of a separate prosodic domain, a dipodic colon. The article provides Optimality-theoretic support for the analytical relevance of gradient phonetic properties and the relevance of the colon as a separate prosodic layer, and potentially enriches the taxonomy of metrical forms in English.

English Vowel Shifts and ‘Optimal’ Diphthongs

This paper is about four changes occurring on bimoraic peaks in English: nucleus-glide dissimilation, nucleus-glide assimilation, chain shift, and merger. Although in principle all bimoraic peaks are subject to the same perceptual and articulatory forces, the phonemicization of these forces as markedness constraints and their ranking with respect to each other and to faithfulness constraints, produces distinct results. Our account attempts to separate factors that are genuinely ‘functional’ in universal phonetic terms from what is attributable to conditions obtaining in the local system. We argue — and this we see as the main thrust of the paper — that these results can be independent of each other and should not be classified as the same unified historical phenomenon loosely referred to as shifts. The four changes are initiated by conflicting phonetic and phonological pressures that result in four distinct subtypes of phonological restructuring.

Interpreting the Old and Middle English close vowels

Abstract In a series of publications, including volumes two and three of the Cambridge History of the English Language, Roger Lass has advanced the view that the short vowels spelled and were phonetically [i], [u] in Old and Middle English, and that their modern values [ i ] and [ʊ] developed after the middle of the seventeenth century. This position forces him to propose a simultaneous lowering and lengthening rule for the Middle English short high vowels which undergo Open Syllable Lengthening. We argue that there are no obstacles to reconstructing [ i ] [ʊ] for Old English, that positing a simultaneous lowering and lengthening of the short high vowels in Middle English is an unnecessary contrivance, and that the lengthened [ i ] [ʊ] did not lower, but rather merged with the raised reflexes of ME [e:] and [o:].

English Words: Smaller than words: morphemes and types of morphemes

The smallest meaningful units We think of words as being the most basic, the most fundamental, units through which meaning is represented in language. There is a sense in which this is true. Words are the smallest free-standing forms that represent meaning. Any word can be cited as an isolated item. It can serve as the headword in a dictionary list. It can be quoted. It can be combined with other words to form phrases and sentences. In general the word is the smallest unit that one thinks of as being basic to saying anything. It is the smallest unit of sentence composition and the smallest unit that we are aware of when we consciously try to create sentences. But actually there are even smaller units that carry the fundamental meanings of a language. Words are made up of these units. Consider just the unit gen inFigure 4.1. It is clearly not a free-standing word, but rather some kind of smaller unit which goes into the make-up, the composition, of words: These smaller units are called morphemes . Gen is a morpheme. It has a basic single meaning ‘birth’ which has split into two distinct, yet related and overlapping meanings, ‘birth, origin’ and ‘tribe, stock, nation, type.’ Looking at the words that appear under each of these meanings, one can readily see the difference. The meaning ‘origin’ is most easily seen on the middle branch below it, in words like genetic or genital .