Metrical resolution, spelling, and the reconstruction of Old English syllabification

Abstract

The basics of syllable structure are well known: the most sonorous part of the syllable is its peak, or nucleus, the segment(s) preceding the peak form the onset, and the segment(s) following the peak form the coda. The peak and the coda together form the syllabic rhyme. The peak is the only obligatory part of the sylla ble, while onsets and codas are optional. Vowels are always peaks, and the sonor ants /r, l, m, n/ can also be peaks in English.Syllable structure is characterized by one constant: the peak has to be filled. The optionality of onsets and codas allows consonants in VCV strings to be differently associated with the peak. The checklist of how wordmedial syllable division works, as provided for example by Cruttenden (2008: 50, 258), involves three basic criteria:1 (1) Criteria on wordmedial syllable division: -Presence or absence of transparent morphemic boundaries (morphemic): glee.ful, slow.ness, non.ethical, mono.lith -Compatibility of onsets and codas with the distribution of wordinitial and wordfinal singletons and clusters (phonotactic): Sa.hara, Per.sia, ath.lete -Syllable division as a rationale for specific consonantal realizations (allophonic): US á{ɾ}om, cápi{ɾ}al, informal UK á{ʔ}om, cápi{ʔ}al, aspirated [t h ] in a[t h ]íre, unaspirated [t] in pla.stic.A widely attested syllable structure preference crosslinguistically is for intervo calic singleton consonants to be placed in the onset. The principle of filling the 1 Slashes enclose phonemic units, square brackets enclose phonetic realizations, angled brack ets enclose spelling forms, and curly brackets indicate ambisyllabicity. Syllable division is marked by a period.Brought to you by | Penn State -The Pennsylvania State University Authenticated Download Date | 6/25/15 9:40 PM 4 Rejecting ambisyllabicity as too restrictive, BermúdezOtero (2007: §20) includes a diachronic perspective limited to phraselevel resyllabification in Middle English, referencing onset maxi mality in the realignment of, e.g., an uncle > nuncle, an ewt > newt. This is not conclusive because the reassociation can also go in the other direction: a napron > an apron, a nadder > an adder.