LL-L: "Phonology" LOWLANDS-L, 18.MAR.2001 (07) [E]
Lowlands-L
sassisch at yahoo.com
Mon Mar 19 02:06:04 UTC 2001
======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 18.MAR.2001 (07) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Web Site: <http://www.geocities.com/sassisch/rhahn/lowlands/>
User's Manual: <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html>
Archive: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html>
=======================================================================
A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic, Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
=======================================================================
From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Phonology" LOWLANDS-L, 18.MAR.2001 (05) [E]
A chairde,
Ron wrote:
> Anyway, I would appreciate any insights and
> explanations any of you may
> care to share [on aspiration].
Linking aspiration to Danish was interesting,
considering that it will be remembered that most of
northern England was the Danelaw and consequently the
languages now spoken there are either strongly
influenced by Norse or Dano-Norwegian speech patterns
(my own hypothesis concerning the affliation of my own
mother tongue - Long Eaton English spoken near
Nottingham in the north Midlands - is presumably well
known if ridiculous).
>From anecdote I remember that a Greek friend - whose
language does not employ aspiration - had great
difficulty imitating the English spoken in Nottingham
when learning new words. It is also the case I believe
that the strength of aspiration is used amongst native
speakers of these varieties to differentiate between
areas - with one area's aspiration being audibly
different to another. To what extent might these
innovations or developments be spontaneous or derived
from Norse/Danish?
And what of the influence of Frisian in the northern
varieties of English? I remember being taken aback by
the number of placenames incorporating "Fris-"
(Frisian) as an element to indicate Frisian settlement
in the Midlands of England, specifically around
Leicestershire and south-east Nottinghamshire. Could
any of this aspiration dissemination be attributed to
the in-migration of other Lowland language groups into
the Nottingham area?
Go raibh maith agaibh,
Críostóir.
----------
From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: Phonology
Ron wrote, wondering about the origin of aspiration in Lowland
languages
> I am wondering if within the Lowlandic language area stop
> consonant aspiration is inherently language-type-specific
> (with some spreading to adjacent varieties of another type) or
> if it is a truly areal feature with no determinable
> genealogical basis.
European orthographies don't generally indicate aspiration
(except ancient Greek), so it's not easy to demonstrate
conclusively how aspiration developed in Germanic but the
consensus view among Germanists is:
Germanic seems to have added aspiration to Germanic _ptk_
(presumably to heighten the contrast between ptk and bdg).
Gothic is thought to have had aspiration, though the evidence is
indirect at best. Most Germanic varieties have aspiration,
including isolated and conservative Icelandic.
Aspiration presumably led Old High German to shift ptk (p` t`
k`) to [pf], [ts] <tz>, [kx] <kch> etc., as Ron surmised. It
has been suggested that the shift was prompted by Celto-Romans
in the overrun provinces on the Rhine and Danube trying to
pronounce German aspirates. This may have eliminated aspiration
from Old High German, paving the way for the binnendeutsche
Konsonantenverdumpfung, which generally merges p/b, t/d etc.
Greek also spirantized its aspirates: phi went from [p hH] to
[f], theta from [t h] to [T] (like English THorn), and khi from
[k h] to [x] (like German _ach_)
Dutch is thought to have abandoned aspiration due to French
influence (likewise the shift of [u] to [y] etc.), and thus
Lowland varieties derived from Dutch didn't inherited
aspiration.
Loss of aspiration in some west Low Saxon varieties is
presumably another of the influences of Dutch immigrants there.
Some Germanic languages have taken a different tack from Dutch:
they kept aspiration but abandoned voicing.
Thus: Dutch and French etc. have [p] vs. [b]
mainstream English and German etc. have [p`] vs. [b]
Danish, Icelandic etc. have [p`] vs. [p], written <b>
(Jutland Danish speakers- does your <b> sound like French <p>
or <b>?
> Is _Wedder_ 'weather' underlyingly /weder/ or /weter/? Is
> _Betten_ ~ _Bedden_ ~ _Berren_ underlyingly /beten/
> or /beden/? Yes, there are etymological and
> diachronic indications, but are they relevant to the phonology
> of a given variety?
Etymological and diachronic indications help researchers, but
speakers don't make use of them in learning their language's
phonology- if [t] never shows up in someone's _Wedder_, it won't
occur to their child to think there would be a /t/ there. It is
hard, tho, to be sure how obscure a related form has to be
before speakers no longer use the same underlying form, but it
happens pretty easily.
Take German _Weg_ [ve:k] and _weg_ [vEk], both originally with a
short vowel: even though the two words are clearly related,
speakers didn't extend the lengthened vowel to the adverb.
> Danish varieties seem to have similar or identical aspiration
> patterns:
> aspiration only applies initially (though intervocalic stops
> seem to always be voiceless). Might we be dealing with a
> Danish feature spread into North Saxon or with a North Saxon
> feature spread into Danish (considering that
> the patterns in Norwegian and Swedish are very different)?
It's not clear to me: it's so common for Germanic languages to
lessen the articulation of unaccented syllables, the weakening
in Danish, North Saxon, English etc. could easily have happened
separtely, but since they are neighbors, they may have
reinforced the trend.
> Incidentally, I noticed that in some English dialects (of
> Southern England,I believe) in which aspiration is very
> strong, initial /t/ is realized as what to my ears sounds
> almost like [ts`] or [c`] (for want of a more accurate
> symbol); e.g., _titillating_ ['ts`Its`IlEIts`IN].
> This is also a feature I have noticed in varieties that seem
> to fall within the range of Standard Danish, in this case
> however only initially; e.g., _titte_ ['ts`it@] 'to peep'.
I was just going to mention Danish- since they use only
aspiration and not voicing to distinguish between "p" and "b",
they seem to be maximizing this contrast
There is a voluminous literature devoted to just such topics,
which I have not, unfortunately, looked at in many years, but it
is out there, in dusty university libraries.
Stefan
----------
From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Phonology
Thanks for your feedback, Críostóir and Stefan.
Stefan wrote:
> Dutch is thought to have abandoned aspiration due to French
> influence
Frankish/Franconian?
> I was just going to mention Danish- since they use only
> aspiration and not voicing to distinguish between "p" and "b",
> they seem to be maximizing this contrast
This type of maximization is not uncommon, also outside Germanic, namely
where a language has only voiceless consonants and thus has only aspiration
as a contrastive device. Good examples are found among the Chinese
languages ("dialects"), specifically in Mandarin. Basically speaking, the
Chinese group of languages does not have voiced stops, and it contrasts
only by means of aspiration or the lack of it. (I am not counting /b-/ in
Min [Hokkien], because it corresponds to /m-/ in other Chinese languages;
e.g., /bæ3/ vs Mandarin /ma3/ 'horse', often believed to be derived from
ancient /mb-/ -- Min still has the usual contrast between [p`] and [p].)
Assumedly to maximize the contrast, many Mandarin dialects have changed the
aspiration puff to a fricative consonant; e.g., [p`a] > [pxa], [p`i] >
[pCi], thus [pxa] vs [pa] (Pinyin spelling _pa_ vs _ba_), and [pCi] vs [pi]
(Pinyin spelling _pi_ vs _bi_). I am not aware of this happening in the
southern Chinese languages and have often wondered if it is due to and made
possible by Altaic influence in Northern China, also considering that
Northern Mandarin has /x-/ where other varieties have /h-/.
This definitely took us away from the Lowlands, but it serves to add to
Stefan's point of contrast maximization as a more general tendency.
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
==================================END===================================
You have received this because your account has been subscribed upon
request. To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l"
as message text from the same account to
<listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or sign off at
<http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
=======================================================================
* Please submit contributions to <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>.
* Contributions will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
to be sent to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or at
<http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
* Please use only Plain Text format, not Rich Text (HTML) or any other
type of format, in your submissions
=======================================================================
More information about the LOWLANDS-L
mailing list