16.2749, Review: Historical Ling/Romance Langs: Cravens (2002)

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2749. Sat Sep 24 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.2749, Review: Historical Ling/Romance Langs: Cravens (2002)

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org) 
        Sheila Dooley, U of Arizona  
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona  

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Lindsay Butler <lindsay at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

What follows is a review or discussion note contributed to our 
Book Discussion Forum. We expect discussions to be informal and 
interactive; and the author of the book discussed is cordially 
invited to join in. If you are interested in leading a book 
discussion, look for books announced on LINGUIST as "available 
for review." Then contact Sheila Dooley at dooley at linguistlist.org. 

===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 22-Sep-2005
From: Herbert Izzo < hizzo at umich.edu >
Subject: Comparative Historical Dialectology 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 16:16:34
From: Herbert Izzo < hizzo at umich.edu >
Subject: Comparative Historical Dialectology 
 

AUTHOR: Cravens, Thomas D.
TITLE: Comparative Historical Dialectology
SUBTITLE: Italo-Romance Clues to Ibero-Romance Sound Change
SERIES: Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic 
Science
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins Publishing Company
YEAR: 2002
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/13/13-2638.html 

Herbert J. Izzo, Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics, 
University of Calgary, Canada

Neither the title nor the subtitle of this work gives a real indication of 
its content.  It is not about dialectology in the usual meaning of the 
term, for it is concerned chiefly with standard Romance 
languages.  'Two Problems in Romance Historical Phonology: 
Intervocalic Voicing in Italy and Initial Palatalization in Spain' would 
have been a somewhat more informative title, especially since 
phonology alone is dealt with.

As his Introduction (Chapter I) accurately states, Cravens sets out to 
explore two sets of sound changes in the Romance languages: the 
voicing vs. retention of intervocalic Latin /p, t, k/ in Italy and the 
palatalization of initial /l, n/ in Iberia.  This exploration leads us through 
quantities of relevant data, (many of them beyond the usual repertory 
familiar to every Romanist) and many theoretical considerations, both 
old and new.

Chapter II is a 25-page excursus on substratum influence, mostly 
concerning the probability of Celtic and Basque influence on voicing in 
Western Romance.  Cravens is generally skeptical but reaches no firm 
conclusions, which makes the whole discussion seem otiose, 
considering that Chapter III argues that intervocalic voicing occurred 
early in Latin itself.  The evidence that Cravens adduces for early 
voicing (mostly misspellings in inscriptions, graffiti, and early Medieval 
texts) is not negligible and must be considered, but he takes no notice 
of the strong counterevidence we find in Latin loanwords in Germanic 
(cf. Latin catillus: Engl. kettle) and Latin loans both to and from Greek.

Chapter IV's insistence that the threat of homophony seems never to 
have impeded a sound change is, I think, excessively prolix since it is 
a long-established fact.  Cravens' rejection -- correct in my opinion -- 
of various diachronic-structural arguments of Martinet and Weinrich 
seems a trifle ironic in view of the fact that his whole approach 
depends on the assumption that phonological pressures underlie 
sound changes.  ("This book attempts to demonstrate that [all the 
sound shifts it discusses] are ultimately attributable to the loss of early 
pan-Romance consonant gemination." [p.1])

Finally, although it may be only as a lone voice crying in the 
wilderness, I must express my objection to the use of the 
term "variable rule".  If we say that Italian has 'strada' (< via strata) 
but 'aneto' (< anetu) because the voicing rule is variable, we have 
uttered an empty tautology: /-t-/ is voiced in the words in which it is 
voiced and it remains voiceless in the words in which it is not voiced.  
If, however, we try to find the conditions or reasons for different 
outcomes of the same sound in different words (as in fact Cravens 
does) we are not making the rule variable but rather more precise.  
And this is simply to do normal historical phonology.  
English 'was'/'were' do not show that rhotacism was variable in 
Germanic.  The outcome depended on the placement of stress.  Nor 
do 'gero'/'gestum' show that rhotacism was a variable rule in Latin.  
Latin rhotacism occurred only intervocalically.  But why did final /s/ 
become /r/ in Old Latin honos?  By analogy to all the other forms of its 
paradigm.  That French 'peine' (< pena) and 'avoine' (< avena) show 
two different results of Latin /e:/ was not the result of a variable rule 
but the result of interdialectal borrowing.  The apparent change of /r/ 
to /l/ in English 'belfry' was due not to a variable rule but to popular 
etymology.  Then there are cases where words do not undergo sound 
changes because they were not in that language when the change 
occurred.  In Spanish the voicing of Latin intervocalic /p, t, k/ is a 
completely regular, not variable change, yet there are hundreds of 
Spanish words in which voicing did not occur because those words 
were adopted long after voicing had occurred.  The rule was not 
variable but is simply no longer in effect, like a law that has been 
repealed.  A new and opposite change can occur, which may (in part 
at least and without, of course, returning the whole system to its 
previous state [consider the devoicing of Medieval Spanish voiced 
sibilants, which restored the /s/ of 'casa', 'mesa', etc. but also 
destroyed the contrast that had originally existed between Latin /s/ 
and /ss/ and was preserved in Medieval Spanish as a contrast 
between /z/ and /s/.

So then, a regular sound shift may appear to be variable because it 
operates only in certain environment (i.e., the statement of the 
change, the "rule", is incorrect because it is too general [cf. Latin and 
Germanic rhotacism or the Germanic Sound Shift]); or irregularities 
may be introduced by analogy (Old Italian 'veggio' < 'VIDEO replaced 
by 'vedo' on analogy to 'vede' < VIDIT, etc.)  or anomalous forms may 
be borrowed from a dialect that made a different (or no) change 
(Fr. 'aveine/avoine').

Seeking such explanations for apparent exceptions to "sound laws" 
has been fundamental to historical phonology for many decades.  The 
term "variable rule" seems like an abandonment of responsibility: "A 
sound may change or not; there is no reason why it does one or the 
other in different cases, the rule is variable" (i.e., there is no rule).

Cravens has been using "variable rule" in regard to the voicing of /p, t, 
k/ in Tuscan for 25 years (the length of time he and I have disagreed 
about it), but he has not used "variable rule" as a pretext to avoid 
investigation of the causes of differing outcomes of the same sounds; 
on the contrary, this book investigates carefully and creatively the 
problems it attacks.  Although I disagree with it in certain respects, I 
consider this work essential reading for all who are seriously 
concerned with Romance historical linguistics.  Personally, it has 
caused me to modify my own view of intervocalic voicing in Tuscan. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Herbert J. Izzo is Professor Emeritus of the University of Calgary.  He 
studied Romance languages and linguistics at the University of 
Michigan as well as at the University of New Mexico and in Mexico 
and Italy.  He has been Visiting Professor at the University of 
Michigan, Stanford, and University of Bucharest and has done dialect 
research in Italy and Spain.  He is currently a Visiting Scholar in 
Classics at the University of Michigan.





-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2749