Seminar 1 History of English 18 Jan. 2017 Stefan Dollinger

Sound change: classifications (Singh 2005: Section 1.2)

Some types of sound change Assimilation Dissimilation Epenthesis Aphaeresis, apocope & syncope Haplology & metathesis Chain Shifts: Northern California Vowel Shift, better known as the “Canadian Vowel Shift”

Assimilation A sound becomes similar in manner of articulation (stop, fricative, nasal…) or place of articulation (dental, alveolar, velar…) or in terms of voicing. Common! Middle English (ME) wif + man > wimman  complete assimilation [f] > [m] house + band > Old English (OE) husband  partial assimilation [s] > [z] because of [b] husband: anticipatory assimilation (the affected sound precedes the conditioning one) Progressive assimilation (a preceding sound affects a following one), e.g. past tense marker [t], e.g. rushed [d] > [t] because of [ʃ] in ‘sh’ Usually immediate neighbours are affected, but there is also distant assimilation (in case of, e.g. i-umlaut)

Dissimilation When two sounds become more dissimilar than previously (much rarer than assimilation) Latin peregrinus > Engl. Pilgrim The first r has become a lateral ([l]) OE [θeoθ] > ModE thief thief [θi:f]

Epenthesis Insertion of sounds, epenthetic vowel, epenthetic consonant Knut > [ˌkəˈnut] with epenthetic vowel, rater than the foreign consonant cluster [ˈknut] therm + meter > thermometer. OE thunor > ModE thunder French passager > English passenger

Aphaeresis, apocope & syncope Aphaeresis: loss of an initial (sound) segment, E.g. knee > ModE [ni:], PDE about > ‘bout Apocope (big in HEL = History of English): loss of a final sound, usually vowel. E.g. OE name [na:mə] > Early Modern English (EModE) [neɪm], loss of the final schwa. Syncope: loss of medial sound, usually vowel. E.g. secretary > BrE secret’ry (from four to three syllables),

Haplology Haplology (quite rare) – deletion of an entire syllable E.g. OE Englalond > England, probably > [ˈprɔbˌlɪ] – deletion of ‘ba’, or gentle + ly > **gentlely > gently (with haplology of ‘le’) * used for reconstructions ** used to mark “errors”, i.e. not rule-governed or attested behaviour

Metathesis Switching of two sounds (rare) E.g. ME bird < OE brid, OE acsian [aks-] > ModE ask

Some info on contemporary Chain Shifts Affect more than one vowel Southern (US) Vowel Shift, p. 7 in Singh (2005) Northern California Vowel Shift, today better known (and studied) as the Canadian Shift (because it’s a pan-national phenomenon in Canada) Canadian Shift = Started Post WWII. First documented in 1995. Affects the lax front vowels by lowering and/or retracting them

CS = Canadian Shift (CanE) The American NCS = Northern Cities Shift (“Inland Northern” AmE) The Northern California Shift (Singh p. 8) is in its key components like the Canadian Shift. KIT approaches DRESS, DRESS approaches TRAP and TRAP approaches PALM (approaching, but never reaching it) Some CanE and AmE varieties are (phonetically) diverging in their front vowel qualities.

Northern Cities Shift and CS Area (dark brown), after Labov, Ash and Boberg (2006) Canadian Shift Area (light brown) Northern Cities Shift Area (dark brown, spreading)