LL-L "Phonology" 2008.06.09 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=========================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L  - 09 June 2008 - Volume 04
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.
=========================================================================

From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.06.07 (01) [E]

Fred asked: "Is there such a thing as a right pronunciation?. Has anyone
dealt with the "problem" before? What was your solution?"

I for one pronounce it with stress on the first syllable – kílometer.
However, I frequently hear it both ways.  For what it's worth, Spanish
pronounces it with stress on the second syllable – kilómetro.  I traveled in
Europe many years ago, but I doubt that has had any effect on my
pronounciation.

Mark Brooks
----------

From: Travis Bemann <tabemann at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.06.08 (01) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Phonology
>
> Thanks and bravo, Travis! This is certainly important to realize in cases
of
> languages such as English, Scots and other languages (such as Russian)
that
> have unpredictable stress assignment and significant vowel reduction in
> "un"-stressed syllable.

The matter is that with Old English, there was effectively limited
fixed phonemic stress, so that most words had stress on the first
syllable of the root (and not just the first syllable). Yet at the
same time, both Early New English and Middle Scots acquired a lot of
very conscious loans from languages with mobile stress (both phonemic
and allophonic), to the point that the stress alternation patterns in
larger words constructed from them were borrowed with them. (There
were a good amount of such loans during the Middle English period, but
they were far more strongly nativized, and hence much more closely
match native English stress patterns.) But the matter is that Anglic
dialects as a whole, both English and Scots, never have been true
mobile stress languages. Hence the system you see in English and Scots
today effectively reflect the shoehorning of loans with mobile stress
into a native system with fixed phonemic stress. As they never had a
true native system of mobile stress, the borrowed mobile stress of
many loanwords came to be associated with said loanwords and words
constructed from them; effectively, it got frozen through the
development of allomorphy of such words' morphemes. Furthermore, due
to internally having fixed phonemic stress, there was a strong
tendency for vowel reduction to become phonemicized, as there would be
a lack of sufficient stress movement to reinforce the unreduced
underlying forms in question. Of course, due to the borrowed mobile
stress of loanwords really being underlying allomorphy, such
phonemicization of unstressed vowels would also have been applied to
each allomorph individually. As a result, many of the allomorphs
reflecting borrowed mobile stress would have been permanently
separated phonologically, as the original unreduced forms that
differed only in primary stress placement would have been rendered
unrecoverable phonologically.

> This is not to say that certain phenomena of vowel reduction do not occur
in
> other languages as well, including those in the Lowlands.
>
> Interestingly, Low Saxon tended to aim for easier management by reducing
to
> zero unstressed syllables in borrowed nouns with final stress; French
> courage [kuˈʀaːʒ] > kraasch' [krɒːʒ] ~ kraasch [krɒːʃ] 'courage', (Latin
> advocatus) > Afkaat [ʔafˈkʰɒːt] 'lawyer', 'barrister', Greek αποθήκη
> apothḗkē > Latin apotheca > Apteek [ʔapˈtʰɛɪk] ~ Afteek [ʔafˈtʰɛɪk] (>
> Kashubian apteka, Polish apteka, Russian аптека apteka, Latvian aptieka,
> Estonian apteek, Finnish apteeki) 'pharmacy'.

The matter one must remember is that Low Saxon underwent general
apocope, which would likely have culled a lot of unstressed vowels in
such words if it also applied word-internally (which I suspect might
be the case). To really tell what happened in the case of Low Saxon
one would have to look at Middle Low Saxon, as that predated the
general apocope which occurred therein. Of course, in the English case
it is clear that the Early New English apocope only occured
morpheme-finally, and furthermore the development of a lot of the
final schwas in New English dialects today reflects extensive vowel
reduction postdating said apocope.

----------

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

Thanks again, Travis, for these interesting and important bits of
information. The Kahuna (http://lowlands-l.net/treasures/kahuna.htm) has
begun to pay attention.

Low Saxon apocope is morpheme-final. There are two interesting things about
it:

   1. While it did (or does?) apply in most North Saxon dialects (which are
   the ones that tend to dominate the presence of the language), it did not
   apply in a good number of others, especially in Westphalian and Eastphalian
   ones and North Saxon and Eastern dialects that border them. So you can still
   analyze living varieties that have no apocope.

   2. I would really love to get your analysis of the phenomenon of
   lengthening as a result of apocope, a feature that goes by many younger
   people who rely much on writing, most of which does not indicate it. In
   other words, this feature, along with distinction between diphthongs and
   long monophthongs, is in the process of being lost in great part because of
   poor spelling. Apocope causes lengthening of the preceding syllable, which
   in cases of long monophthongs leads to extra- or super-long monophthongs
   (referred to as *Schleifton* "drawl tone" in German). What's particularly
   interesting here is that final devoicing (which otherwise applies
   consistently) is starved in the case of super-length. In other words, it
   looks as though apocope applies after devoicing. In dialects with
   intervocalic d-deletion, /d/ may then be deleted (which seems to have
   happened in the case of Dutch *luyde* > *lui* 'people'), and in a few
   dialects this happens to /g/ as well. Examples:

   Monophthongs:*
   hase *[ˈhɒːze] ~> *haas'* [hɒːˑz] (not *[hɒːs]) 'hare'
   (*haar* [hɒːɐ] 'hair' >) *hare* [hɒːre] -> *haar'* [hɒːˑɐ] 'hairs'
   *stede* [ˈsteː(d)e] ~> *steed'* [steːˑ(d)] (not *[steːt]) 'stead',
   'place', 'spot'
   *dele* [ˈdeːle] ~> *deel'* [deːˑl] (not *[deːl]) 'floor', 'hallway',
   'stage'
   *luyde* [lyː(d)e] ~> *luyd'* [ˈlyːˑ(d)] (not *[lyːt]) 'people'
   (*bruud* 'bride' [bruːt] >) *bruyde* [ˈbryː(d)e] ~> *bruyd'* [bryːˑ(d)]
   (not *[bryːt]) 'brides'
   (*dag* [dax] 'day' >) *dage* [ˈdɒːɣe] ~> *daag'* [dɒːˑɣ] (not *[dɒːx])
   'days'
   *mage* [ˈmɒːɣe] ~> *maag'* [mɒːˑɣ] (not *[mɒːx]) 'stomach'
   (*weg* [vɛç] 'way' >) *wege* [ˈveːɣe] ~ *weeg'* [veːˑɣ] (not *[veːç])
   'ways'
   (*schaap* [ʃɒːp] 'sheep' >) *schape* [ˈʃɒːpe] ~> *schaap' *[ʃɒːˑp] (not
   *[ʃɒːp]) 'sheep' (pl.)
   *oge* [ʔoːɣe] ~> *oog'* [ʔoːˑɣ] (not [ʔoːx] or [ʔɔʊx]) 'eye'
   (*schip* [ʃɪp] 'ship' >) *schippe* [ˈʃɪpe] ~> *scheep' *[ʃeːˑp] (not
   *[ʃeːp]) 'ships' ([ɪː] > [eː])
   But:
   *stimme* [ˈstɪˑme]* ~> stimm* [stɪˑm] 'voice'
   *lippe* [ˈlɪpe]* ~> lipp* [lɪp] 'lip'
   *valle* [ˈfaˑle]* ~> **vall* [ˈfaˑł] 'trap'
   (*pot* [pʰɔt] 'pot' >) *pötte* [ˈpʰœte] ~> *pöt* [pʰœt] 'pots'

   Diphthongs:
   (*leyge* [ˈlɛˑɪʝe] ~ [ˈlaˑɪʝe] >) *leyg'* [lɛːɪʝ] ~ [laːɪʝ] ('low' >)
   'bad'
      (usually written *leeg* and mispronounced as [lɛɪç])
   (*droyge* [ˈdrœˑɪʝe] ~ [ˈdrɔˑɪʝe] >) *droyg'* [drœːɪʝ] ~ [drɔːɪʝ] 'dry'
      (usually written *dr**ö**ö**g* and mispronounced as [drœɪç] ~ [drɔɪç])
   *louge *[ˈlɔˑʊɣe] ~ [ˈlaˑʊɣe] > *loug' *[ˈlɔːʊɣ] ~ [ˈlaːʊɣ] 'lye',
   'leach', 'solution'
      (usually written *Loog* and mispronounced as [loːx] ~ [lɔʊx])

Please note that apocope does not apply in cases of grammatical marking;
e.g. *Dat huus is groot *[groːt]* un hoog* [hoːx] 'The house/building is big
and tall', *dat grote *[groːte]*, hoge *[ˈhoːɣe]* huus* 'the big, tall
house/building'.

Thanks for thinking about this!

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20080609/0796b429/attachment.htm>