LL-L "Phonology" 2003.12.07 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 07.DEC.2003 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Thanks for your feedback about short and long 'a's in Estuary English.

Mark Brooks wrote:

"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."

I did wonder about that myself, that maybe it had something to do with the
letter before the 'a', but couldn't find any real consistences. Both 'bad'
and 'bag' are long, whereas 'lad' and 'mad' are long but 'lag' and 'mag' are
short.

Ron, you wrote:

"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)."

Nice theory - I like!

It gives Estuary a feature different from Standard English which isn't just
a progression from the standard but has its basis in historical development.

Another difference that I neglected to mention was that verbs tend always to
have the short vowel. When stressed, they will have a long vowel, but in
connected speech it tends to be short, giving minimal pairs between say,
'land' noun /læ:nd/ and unstressed 'land' verb /lænd/.

Could this feature date from verb forms in Middle English having lost the
final -en early on, whereas final unstressed vowels were lost later on,
combined with complementary lengthening - so that pairs such as 'flaggen' v,
and 'flagge' n changed first to /flæg/ and /flæg@/, and then to /flæg/ and
/flæ:g/?

Also the lengthening before nasals can be explained in much the same way as
Germanic 'tanT-' with a short vowel changed to 'tooth' with a long vowel
after having nasalising the vowel, losing the nasal and then losing the
nasalisation. My vowel in 'land' (noun) for example is fairly nasal - maybe
in a few generations the 'n' will have disappeared altogether and they'll
only be a long 'a' left. Who knows? I won't be around to find out :(

I've heard this difference between short and long 'a' is also a feature of
South West England English, but occurs in different environments - does
anyone know the rules for this?

Cheers
Gary

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