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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 19 February 2009 - Volume 01<br>
===========================================</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">From:
R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>>
<br>
Subject: Phonology<br>
<br>
Thank you for your response to my discussion of aspiration, Ingmar. <br>
<br>
That was a good point about Danish. The link may be Jutish (if you count it
among the Danish varieties). If we are dealing with a continuum or with
Hanseatic influence is another question. I rather suspect it is a case of a
continuum, of an areal feature.<br>
<br>
Two things about this:</span></p>
<ol style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><li><span style="font-size: 11pt;">With
the exception of intervocalic <i>d</i> (which is realized as a lax interdental fricative,
i.e. as a lax ("sloppy") [ð]), these Danish (including Jutish) consonants are
not voiced but are "devoiced" lenis: <i>b</i> and <i>g</i></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">, usually represented in descriptions as </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">[b<span lang="ZH-CN">̥</span>] ([b_0])</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> and </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
[g<span lang="ZH-CN">̊</span>]</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> ([g_0])</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> respectively. So they are
essentially unaspirated /p/ and /k/ respectively, and they are indeed derived
from <i>p</i> and <i>k.</i> I am contending that, technically speaking, they ought
to be written <i>p</i> and <i>k</i> respectively.<br><br></span></li><li><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I
don't think we can tell from which varieties this supposedly areal feature of aspirating
only stressed syllables (shared by Danish, Low Saxon and American English)
originally emanated. I guess it is not impossible that it was an areal feature
already at the time when Saxons (then living at the mouth of the Elbe river),
Angles (living in what is now Schleswig) and Jutes (living just north of
there) emigrated to Britain and that they took it with them where it may have
survived in certain English dialects, possibly in Wessex. I'm not too sure
about it being due to a Celtic substratum, because I would expect it to be more
wide-spread in Britain
then. As you said, American English may have preserved and spread this regional
British pronunciation. I do not think it is due to German influence in America. In Germany it is minority pronunciation and even in
Northern Germany has been considered
sub-standard for a long time, being essentially a Low Saxon substratum feature limited
to Missingsch and Missingsch-derived Northern German, i.e. to low-prestige German
varieties.</span></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Seattle, USA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <<a href="mailto:roerd096@PLANET.NL">roerd096@PLANET.NL</a>><br>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2009.02.12 (02) [E]<br>
<br>
Well, maybe it's just a "natural" tendency to aspirate only in
stressed<br>
syllables, and that Low Saxon and American English coincidently both<br>
followed the same path?<br>
<br>
And don't forget Danish, with "Peder", "peber",
"pige",as opposed to the<br>
very closely related Norwegian Bokmaal...<br>
That voicing of intervocal consonants is such a universal tendency as<br>
well, I mean: we find that in very many todally unreladed languages.<br>
<br>
In English, it may originate from Celtic influence, since varieties spoken<br>
in areas closest to Celtic have it the most, am I right?<br>
Maybe that's where US English has it from.<br>
Or maybe American pronunciation just reflects popular British prono of a<br>
few centuries ago?<br>
<br>
There were many German immigrants in the States, a lot of them from Low<br>
Saxon speaking areas, maybe they helped establish this prono...<br>
<br>
Just my zwopfennig<br>
<br>
Ingmar</span></p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br></span></p><p style="margin-left: 80px; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">From: R. F.
Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>>
<br>
Subject: Phonology<br>
<br>
Hi, everyone!<br>
<br>
I would like to revisit and possibly get your thoughts about consonant
aspiration.<br>
<br>
It seems to me that among the modern Germanic language groups there are
indications of genealogical traits mixed with areal features due to language
contacts.<br>
<br>
If you look at Low Frankish (including Dutch) and Low Saxon, two closely
related groups, you find that presence and absence of aspiration is a major
distinguishing feature. There is no aspiration in Low Frankish (and indeed in <i>all</i>
Frankish groups), while with the exception of far-western dialects (with Low
Frankish contacts) Low Saxon has aspiration in syllables with primary stress, virtually
identical to the pattern in mainstream American English (as opposed to other
English varieties in which stress makes little difference).<br>
<br>
As I said, Frankish can be generalized as having no aspiration. Going farther
south we find Alemannic, most of whose varieties have strong aspiration. Going
east from there we find (Austro-)Bavarian and Thuringian with no aspiration
(?), where at the old and middle stages supposed "lenition" led to
ambiguous spelling (e.g. <i>buter ~ puter</i> 'butter'). Going farther east we
are well and truly in the "new" territory that used to be mostly
Slavic speaking and became home for immigrants from all over the west, with
considerable influx of Franks from as far away as today's Netherlands and Belgium. Assumedly, the
"Central German" varieties, which include the "Upper Saxon"
and Silesian ones, are products of language mixing. However, they are
predominantly without aspiration, which may be due to a continuum with
neighboring Thuringian, to Frankish influx or to both of the above. However,
going north from there and entering the eastern extension of Low Saxon we find
that aspiration predominates, be it because of the persistence of this feature
(despite Low Frankish influx), because of aspiration in the Slavic substratum
languages or because of both of them.<br>
<br>
Frisian seems to be a mixed bag: aspiration in Germany under previous Saxon
domination and no aspiration under Dutch domination.<br>
<br>
Scandinavian varieties are predominantly aspirating ones. In Danish, aspiration
is so strong that it has led to the creation of affricates (/t/ -> [ts]). In
Islandic, aspiration is so strong that consonants come to be pre-aspirated in
certain environments (a feature Icelandic shares with the Turkic Yughur
language of Gansu, China, for instance).<br>
<br>
And so we arrive at English, the "new" kid on the block, the love
child of Old Saxon, Old Frisian and other players on previously Celtic-speaking
soil. Here we find a preponderance of aspiration with the exception of a few
(northern?) dialects. A Saxon feature that spread, perhaps facilitated by
Celtic aspiration? As mentioned earlier, mainstream American English by and
large follows the same aspiration pattern as does mainstream Low Saxon (i.e.
aspiration of voiceless stops in syllables with primary stress only; e.g. Peter
[</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ˈ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">p</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">it</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ɻ̩</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">] ~ [</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ˈ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">p</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">i</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ɾɻ̩</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">],* Low Saxon [</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ˈ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">p</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">e(</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ː</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">)t</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ɝ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">] ~ [</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ˈ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">p</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">e(</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ː</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">)</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ɾɝ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">],* versus British English [</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ˈ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">p</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">i</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ː</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">t</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰɚ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">] ~ [</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ˈ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">p</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">i</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ːʦ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰɚ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">] and German [</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ˈ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">p</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">e</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ː</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">t</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";" lang="ZH-CN">ʰɐ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">]). (*This permitted the development
of the medial t-flap in American and Low Saxon.)<br>
<br>
Are there any relevant thoughts and theories out there?<br>
<br>
Thanks and regards,<br>
Reinhard/Ron<br>
Seattle, USA</span></p>
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