Conditions for the voicing of Old English fricatives, II: morphology and syllable structure

Fulk, R. D.

doi:10.1017/s1360674302001053

Cited by 10 publications

(35 citation statements)

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“…First, it is evident that early phonemicisation of a voice contrast in fricatives provides an explanation for the early indications of phonemicisation even in Old English (Fulk 2001(Fulk , 2002. First, it is evident that early phonemicisation of a voice contrast in fricatives provides an explanation for the early indications of phonemicisation even in Old English (Fulk 2001(Fulk , 2002.…”

Section: Five Points In Support Of the Proposed Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

An explanation for the early phonemicisation of a voice contrast in English fricatives

Laker¹

2009

English Language and Linguistics

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Most handbooks and grammars contend that in Old English the voiced fricatives [v, D, z] were merely allophones of /f, θ, s/ in sonorous environments. How these voiced fricatives became phonemes is debated among scholars. In this article, all previous accounts are critically reviewed. A new proposal is then presented, which explains the facts in a more direct way than previous theses. I argue that phonemicisation of a previous allophonic voice alternation in fricatives had already taken place in many areas of Anglo-Saxon England through language contact with Brittonic. Voiceless as well as voiced fricative phonemes existed in Brittonic at the time of contact, and language shift would have led directly to the phonemicisation of the previous allophonic variation found in early Old English.1 I am grateful to Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Colin Ewen, Robert Mailhammer, Karling Rottschäfer, Theo Vennemann, David L. White, and the two anonymous referees for useful comments on an earlier draft of this article. 2 There is disagreement about the phonemic status of the contrast of voice in Old English fricatives; I therefore put the fricatives in italics or square brackets '[]' in this introductory section, thus avoiding a phonemic analysis with slants '/ /'. Based on the explanation set out in section 3 of this article, the status of voiced fricatives need not have been the same in all varieties of Old English. 3 The rules in table 1 apply to all Old English dialects with one exception, namely that initial fricatives were voiced in some southerly dialects of Late Old English, and possibly earlier (Fisiak 1984; Dietz 1990: 296-307; Goblirsch 2003 and 2005: 83-101). More copious Middle English evidence shows that initial voiced fricatives were found, very approximately, to the south of a line running from mid Shropshire in the west to the Essex-

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Section: Five Points In Support Of the Proposed Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

An explanation for the early phonemicisation of a voice contrast in English fricatives

Laker¹

2009

English Language and Linguistics

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“…Since there is evidence for trochaic feet (Dresher & Lahiri 1991), this means that reduction takes place in unfooted syllables only. The trochaic foot hypothesis is strengthened by Fulk's (2001) observation that fricative voicing fails to apply in the same set of environments, suggesting that both high vowel deletion and fricative voicing are sensitive to (minimal) foot boundaries: high vowel deletion occurs only outside of (minimal) feet, while fricative voicing only occurs inside (minimal) feet. The examples of high vowel deletion in (9) are taken from Martínez-Paricio (2013), who cites Dresher & Lahiri (1991).…”

Section: (8)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Moraic Domains between feet and syllables: An argument from vowel reduction typology

Nazarov

2019

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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In this paper, I propose a separate prosodic domain that regulates mora assignment in syllables: the Moraic Domain, a domain between the foot and the syllable in which only the head syllable may be moraic (see also van der Hulst & Moortgat 1980; LeSourd 1993; and Hermans & Torres-Tamarit 2014, among others, for other proposals of metrical domains between the foot and the syllable). I argue that this domain is necessary to account for the combination of two typological generalizations about vowel reduction. The first is the Ambiselectivity Generalization, according to which vowel reduction that decreases sonority (Crosswhite 1999; 2001; de Lacy 2002) may be restricted to foot-internal unstressed syllables, or to unfooted (minimal foot-external) syllables (see Martínez-Paricio 2013 for evidence). The second is the Sonority Requirement Generalization, which is derived from typological facts discovered by Crosswhite (1999; 2001); according to this generalization, a language may have at most one vowel reduction process that forces underlying low vowels to reduce to mid or high vowels. While accounts for each individual generalization may be derived from existing proposals without a Moraic Domain (Crosswhite 1999; 2001; Martínez-Paricio 2013), I show that no such account can derive both generalizations at once. In contrast, I argue that a Moraic Domain can account for both generalizations when embedded into Crosswhite's (1999; 2001) account. This is demonstrated with a case study of Dutch semi-informal vowel reduction (Kager 1989), which cannot be derived in Crosswhite's (1999; 2001) original approach without Moraic Domains.

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“…2 Some unexpected facts about fricative realization in OE Laker (2009) attributes the assumption of early phonemicization of the voicing contrast in fricatives to Bammesberger (1988) and Fulk (2001Fulk ( , 2002. Upon re-reading Bammesberger, one finds the suggestion worded extremely cautiously.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fricative in the suffix is unvoiced at a morpheme boundary, for which two plausible explanations exist, cited in Laker (2009: 214): fricative voicing was blocked if the flanking vowels were unstressed, e.g. streng-þ(u) < * strangi-þu, originating with Luick (1914-40) and supported by Fulk (2001), or -þu was exempt from voicing due to the open nature of the juncture between the base and the suffix -open junctures block 5 The velars present separate problems, especially in syllable-final position. I have nothing to add to Fulk (2002: 95), who states that 'the syllable-final devoicing of fricatives is limited to [G], and even in this case the interchange of <h> and <g> may be orthographic rather than phonological'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…None of the studies in question claims the existence of such minimal pairs for /f/-/v/, /s/-/z/, /θ/-/ð/, but Bammesberger (1988) comes close to showing a minimal pair with the pertinent observation that the reflexes OE claensian 'cleanse' (also perhaps maersian 'glorify') and OE cursian 'curse' appear to challenge the basic principle of OE voicing; voicing occurs if the fricative is flanked by voiced segments, so curse should have [-rz Again, a look at the lexical relations of the two items makes the proposed pairing irrelevant. The -sian in claensian 'cleanse' is a famous crux (see Fulk 2001 and the references therein); after covering a wide range of comparable data and earlier explanations, Fulk (2001: 68) states that 'Where the voicing in cleanse originated remains a mystery.' 12 It is, indeed, a one-off, since the sibilant is voiceless and shares the voicelessness with the preceding consonants in other derivatives of the weak-verb suffix - * sojan: blissian 'bless', blessian 'sprinkle with blood', miltsian 'pity'; the <t> in glisten < OE glisian, glisnian appears c. 1225 and hypothetical OE * glimsian 'glimpse' is ME (c. 1400).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Phonemically contrastive fricatives in Old English?

Minkova¹

2011

English Language and Linguistics

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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.

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Conditions for the voicing of Old English fricatives, II: morphology and syllable structure

Cited by 10 publications

References 4 publications

An explanation for the early phonemicisation of a voice contrast in English fricatives

An explanation for the early phonemicisation of a voice contrast in English fricatives

Moraic Domains between feet and syllables: An argument from vowel reduction typology

Phonemically contrastive fricatives in Old English?

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