saditty, hincty + dicty

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 26, 2005, at 10:30 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: saditty, hincty + dicty
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> --------
>
> Ben Zimmer cites:
>
>> _Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage_ (2003),  [...]
>> *dick ty* (dic ty) [dIkti] adj (Antg, Baha) [IF] [Usu of women]
>>   [...]   [Prob < (SE) _dignity_ with reduction and devoicing of
>> intervocalic  consonant cluster [dIgn at ti > dIgnti > dIkti]
>
> and asks
>
>> -----> Does the "dignity" derivation seem plausible? And could it have
>> originated in Caribbean English? Marcus Garvey was born in
>> Jamaica, after all.
>
>
> Wilson doubts:
>
>>>>
>
> And [dIgntI], with the cluster [gnt], is clearly not a possible English
> word.
>
> <<<
>
> Well, so much for "didn't", "couldn't", "wouldn't", and "hadn't". And
> they
> don't even have a following vowel to support the cluster. Or is /gn/
> so much
> more marked than /dn/?
>
> Seriously, though, let's just suppose that the [n] in the cluster is
> syllabic. Then we get
>
>                 dIgn at ti
>>       dIgnti (with syllabic n)
>>       dIknti (with voiceless syllabic n)
>>       dIkti
>
> The step from #3 to #4 would happen very fast, I s'pect, because a
> voiceless
> nasal would be almost inaudible in that context, at least to
> English-speakers.
>
> Howzat?
>
>
> mark by hand
>

If a theory of language change is posited that is powerful enough to do
that, then it would also be powerful enough to derive English from the
sounds that chimpanzees make. For example, the claim that a voiced
segment can shift to a voiceless segment in the environment between two
voiced segments is an extremely powerful one. It would be extremely
difficult to show that anything like that has ever been an ordinary
occurrence in any human language, even among those of the
(geographically) Caucasian family of languages.

In certain, clearly-defined phonological environments that are
ultimatelyof semantic origin, exactly this happens in BE, as in an old
blues song that opens with the line, "I'm leavin' you, daddy!" in which
"daddy" is clearly not pronounced as [daedi], but as [daeti], with the
standard, voiceless, aspirated, English [t]. This - and examples can be
multiplied - clearly shows that it *is* possible for a voiced segment
in the environment between two voiced segments to be devoiced. But this
is only the kind of exception that proves the rule. That is, it's
easily possible, within almost any theory of phonology, to make this
kind of apparent contradiction go away *without* having to eat the
claim that a voiced segment does not become voiceless between two
voiced segments in any Indo-European language and probably not in any
human language.

OTOH, if you said that "dignti" > "digty"  because [-gnt-] is not a
possible cluster in any dialect of English, you'd have made a claim
that could not be simply dismissed out of hand as nonsense, because, to
quote the late, great Al Capp, "as any fool can plainly see," that
claim is true. And "digty" would > "dikty" almost automatically.

-Wilson