Vowel reduction in verbs in King Alfred’s Pastoral Care
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Sverre Stausland Johnsen
Abstract
An original unstressed vowel *ō generally develops to a in Old English. In some categories, however, both a and u are found as reflexes. The traditional explanation for this phenomenon posits that *ō developed to u when the following syllable also had a *u. A statistical analysis of the distribution of a and u in such forms in an Old English text finds no support for this theory. Since shortened vowels tend to raise and unstressed vowels in medial syllables are shorter than in final syllables, I hypothesize in this paper that *ō shortened and raised to u in medial syllables. A statistical analysis of the same text strongly supports this new hypothesis. This vowel raising process can be explained by neuromuscular and perceptual properties. Producing short low vowels increases the risk of undershooting the vowel target, which translates into vowel raising. At the same time, a shortened low vowel can be misperceived as a higher vowel, since high vowels are shorter than low vowels. With these explanations, a formal grammatical analysis is not needed to explain why vowel raising takes place.
Abstract
An original unstressed vowel *ō generally develops to a in Old English. In some categories, however, both a and u are found as reflexes. The traditional explanation for this phenomenon posits that *ō developed to u when the following syllable also had a *u. A statistical analysis of the distribution of a and u in such forms in an Old English text finds no support for this theory. Since shortened vowels tend to raise and unstressed vowels in medial syllables are shorter than in final syllables, I hypothesize in this paper that *ō shortened and raised to u in medial syllables. A statistical analysis of the same text strongly supports this new hypothesis. This vowel raising process can be explained by neuromuscular and perceptual properties. Producing short low vowels increases the risk of undershooting the vowel target, which translates into vowel raising. At the same time, a shortened low vowel can be misperceived as a higher vowel, since high vowels are shorter than low vowels. With these explanations, a formal grammatical analysis is not needed to explain why vowel raising takes place.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
-
Phonology
- A Phonological motivation behind the diatonic stress shift in Modern English 3
- Vowel reduction in verbs in King Alfred’s Pastoral Care 19
- The development of early Middle English ō 41
- The diachronic development of stød and tonal accent in North Germanic 53
- The evolution of the (alveolo)palatal lateral consonant in Spanish and Portuguese 69
-
Diachronic typology
- Evaluating prehistoric and early historic linguistic contacts 89
- Patterns in the diffusion of nomenclature systems 109
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Morphology
- Morphological evidence for the paradigmatic status of infinitives in French and Occitan 135
- Constructional change at the interface of cognition, culture, and language use 155
-
Morphosyntax
- Stages in deflexion and the Norwegian dative 179
- Differential Object Marking in Old Japanese 195
- The grammaticalization of progressive constructions with a focus on the English progressive 213
- Hate and anger, love and desire 233
- The argument indexing of early Austronesian verbs 257
- The syntax of mood constructions in Old Japanese 281
- Medieval Sardinian 303
- Index 325
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
-
Phonology
- A Phonological motivation behind the diatonic stress shift in Modern English 3
- Vowel reduction in verbs in King Alfred’s Pastoral Care 19
- The development of early Middle English ō 41
- The diachronic development of stød and tonal accent in North Germanic 53
- The evolution of the (alveolo)palatal lateral consonant in Spanish and Portuguese 69
-
Diachronic typology
- Evaluating prehistoric and early historic linguistic contacts 89
- Patterns in the diffusion of nomenclature systems 109
-
Morphology
- Morphological evidence for the paradigmatic status of infinitives in French and Occitan 135
- Constructional change at the interface of cognition, culture, and language use 155
-
Morphosyntax
- Stages in deflexion and the Norwegian dative 179
- Differential Object Marking in Old Japanese 195
- The grammaticalization of progressive constructions with a focus on the English progressive 213
- Hate and anger, love and desire 233
- The argument indexing of early Austronesian verbs 257
- The syntax of mood constructions in Old Japanese 281
- Medieval Sardinian 303
- Index 325
