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English /au/

An acoustic explanation for a phonological pattern

Abstract

When a consonant follows the English diphthong /au/, it must be coronal, e.g. loud, count (cf. *loub, *counk). This is a robust pattern but also an unnatural one, as there is no obvious synchronic link between /au/ and coronal place. A diachronic approach fares better, where historical changes obscured the original motivation for the pattern. The claim is that the rarity of /uː/+labial and /uː/+velar sequences in Old English resulted from a once-active constraint banning |U|-type consonants (labials, velars) after long /uː/ (also |U|). Later, /uː/ developed into /au/ while its coronal (i.e. non-labial/velar) context remained unchanged. Words such as room, soup are well-formed because their /uː/+labial sequences evolved after the constraint had become inactive.

Abstract

When a consonant follows the English diphthong /au/, it must be coronal, e.g. loud, count (cf. *loub, *counk). This is a robust pattern but also an unnatural one, as there is no obvious synchronic link between /au/ and coronal place. A diachronic approach fares better, where historical changes obscured the original motivation for the pattern. The claim is that the rarity of /uː/+labial and /uː/+velar sequences in Old English resulted from a once-active constraint banning |U|-type consonants (labials, velars) after long /uː/ (also |U|). Later, /uː/ developed into /au/ while its coronal (i.e. non-labial/velar) context remained unchanged. Words such as room, soup are well-formed because their /uː/+labial sequences evolved after the constraint had become inactive.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Prelude, theme and riffs vii
  4. English /au/ 1
  5. The internal TR clusters of Acadian French 17
  6. Hocus bogus? 33
  7. A unifying explanation of the Great Vowel Shift, Canadian Raising and Southern Monophthonging 63
  8. Deconstructing tongue root harmony systems 73
  9. Underlying representations and Bantu segmental phonology 101
  10. Uniqueness in element signatures 117
  11. Charting the vowel space 133
  12. The relative salience of consonant nasality and true obstruent voicing 145
  13. Asymmetric variation 163
  14. The beginning of the word 189
  15. On the diachronic origin of Nivkh height restrictions 201
  16. Segmental loss and phonological representation 215
  17. The phonology of handshape distribution in Maxakalí sign 231
  18. English stress is binary and lexical 263
  19. Bogus clusters and lenition in Tuscan Italian 277
  20. The prosodic status of glides in Anaañ reduplication 297
  21. Index 321
Sonic Signatures
This chapter is in the book Sonic Signatures
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.14.c1

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Prelude, theme and riffs vii
  4. English /au/ 1
  5. The internal TR clusters of Acadian French 17
  6. Hocus bogus? 33
  7. A unifying explanation of the Great Vowel Shift, Canadian Raising and Southern Monophthonging 63
  8. Deconstructing tongue root harmony systems 73
  9. Underlying representations and Bantu segmental phonology 101
  10. Uniqueness in element signatures 117
  11. Charting the vowel space 133
  12. The relative salience of consonant nasality and true obstruent voicing 145
  13. Asymmetric variation 163
  14. The beginning of the word 189
  15. On the diachronic origin of Nivkh height restrictions 201
  16. Segmental loss and phonological representation 215
  17. The phonology of handshape distribution in Maxakalí sign 231
  18. English stress is binary and lexical 263
  19. Bogus clusters and lenition in Tuscan Italian 277
  20. The prosodic status of glides in Anaañ reduplication 297
  21. Index 321
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