LL-L "Phonology" 2003.12.02 (01) [E]

Tue Dec 2 18:12:20 UTC 2003

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From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.12.01 (04) [E]

Gary wrote:
I'd welcome any feedback - the last example in both
lists might give some clues - also noteworthy is that
there are no verbs in the second list, but apart from
that, I'm foxed.

I'd like to make a suggestion.  Granted, it's not much of one, but it does
provide an explanation.  I can't remember what the phenomenum is called, but
it's a duplication of "clues" to the word in an effort to overcome
similarities.  I'm thinking of the pair "mag" and "bag."  Mag has the short
vowel and bag has the long one.  Perhaps it's a "failsafe" in case the
hearer doesn't make the distinction between the /m/ and the /b/.  The
difference in vowel would help word recognition.

Mark Brooks

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Gary Taylor:

> In my dialect I make a difference between a short and
> long 'a' (/æ/ and /æ:/ - not to be confused with the
> Standard English a pronunciation of 'bath' which is
> also present in my dialect, it's more akin to an
> American pronunciation of the a in 'bath'). I've been
> trying to work out some of the rules for it but have
> come across some complications. It seems partly to do
> with the following letter and partly to do with the
> word class, so for example any word ending in a
> voiceless consonant (p-t-k etc), a fricative (s-z-f
> etc) or b will automatically have a short æ (bap
> /bæ?p/ - bat /bæ?/ - back /bæ?(k)/ - jazz /dZæz/ - dab
> /dæb/).  All words ending in an 'n' or 'm' will have a
> long æ (man /mæ:n/ - lamb /læ:m/), words ending in
> 'ng' though have a short æ (sang - /sæŋ/),
> however words ending in 'ngle' have a long æ (tangle -
> /tæ:ŋgo/).
>
> It gets more interesting with words ending in d and g.
> The following is a list of words - the challenge is
> can you work out the rules?? I've been puzzling over
> it for a long time, and I'm not sure if the
> differences are due to sporadic changes or due to
> historical differences, which were never present in
> the script. Anyway here's a list for you to puzzle
> over:
>
> Short æ
> cad, dad, fad, gad, had, nad, pad, tad, plaid, Brad,
> Chad, dag, fag, gag, hag, Jag, lag, mag, nag, sag,
> tag, wag, shag, brag, blag, flag (verb)
>
> Long æ
> bad, lad, mad, sad, bag, rag, flag (noun)
>
> I'd welcome any feedback - the last example in both
> lists might give some clues - also noteworthy is that
> there are no verbs in the second list, but apart from
> that, I'm foxed.

Hi, Gary!

It is a perplexing problem indeed!  I've mulled it over, considering word
class and environmental conditioning possibilities -- so far to no avail.
Mark could be right in suspecting differentiation by means of vowel length
assignment (above).  However, I cannot see how this would account for cases
in which without this device no homophony would result, unless this is a
case of haphazard rule spread, in which case you would need to explain why
it affected some words and not others.

This may be a long shot, but perhaps it is worth our while anyway to
consider the possibility of inherited vowel length and early conditioning
that is not reflected orthographically but in Estuary English is
phonologically preserved.  Before we do, let me point out that many or most
of the words in the group with short vowels are etymologically unexplained.
I do not know if this is a significant piece of information.  The few words
about which we know something appear to have had short vowels all along
(ME=Middle English, OE=Old English, ON=Old Norse):

pad < OE pad
hag < OE hægtesse, hæhtisse, hægtes, hegtes
sag < ME sag ~ sacke
wag < OE waƽian ~ waƺian
shag < OE sceaƽa
brag < ME *brag < French braguer?
cad < cadet?
nad < gonad
mag < magazine

Words of the group that in Estuary English have long vowels either (1) had
long vowels all along (a minority apparently) or (2) their Middle English
forms are of the type VCCe:

(1)
mad < OE gemǣd, (ge)mād

sad < OE sæd (< Germ. root *sā-'to satisfy')
(2)
bad < ME badde
lad < ME ladde
bag < ME bagge (ON baggi)
rag < ME ragge < OE *ragg (ON rǫgg)
flag (cf. Swedish flagg(a), Saxon vlag(ge), Dutch vlag < vlagghe)

If this is not a pipe dream, we might assume that in type (2) short vowel
lengthening is caused by deletion of the final vowel (a schwa assumedly).
Weird?  Well, it is not all that different from assigning extra length to
long vowels where a "schwa" (or short /e/) has been deleted after a voiced
consonant in numerous Lowlands Saxon (Low German) dialects, in which
otherwise consistent final consonant devoicing does not apply; e.g.:

dag [dax] 'day' vs (daage ['dɒːɣə] >) daag' [dɒːˑɣ] 'days' (not *[dɒːx]!)

bruud [bruːt] 'bride' vs (brüyde [bryː(d)ə] >) brüyd' ~ brüy' ['bryːˑ(d)]
'brides'

(lüyde ~ lüye ['lyː(d)ə] >) lüyd' ~ lüy' ['lyːˑ(d)] 'people', 'folk'

(syte ['ziːtə] >) syt [ziːt] 'side' vs (syde ~ sye ['ziːdə] >) syd' ~ sy'
[ziːˑ(d)] 'silk'

deyv [dɛˑɪf] 'thief' vs (deyve ['dɛˑɪvə] >) deyv' [dɛːɪv] 'thieves' (not
*[dɛˑɪf]!)

What I am postulating here is that the "beat" for the "lost" schwa has been
added to the preceding vowel.  The difference is that in Estuary English
this seems to happen to a short vowel while in Lowlands Saxon it happens to
a long vowel or diphthong.

In the case of "flag" it could be possible that the noun comes/came with
this schwa while the verb does/did not (i.e., *flagge vs *flag).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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