scholarly journals Middle English Open Syllable Lengthening (MEOSL) or Middle English Compensatory Lengthening (MECL)?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
DONKA MINKOVA ◽  
MICHAEL LEFKOWITZ
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Input Structure ◽  
Compensatory Process ◽  
Compensatory Lengthening ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Controversial Aspect ◽  
Vowel Quantity

This study addresses a controversial aspect of the change traditionally known as Middle English Open Syllable Lengthening (MEOSL): the variable results of lengthening in disyllabic (C)V.CVC stems, the heaven–haven conundrum. It presents a full philological survey of the recoverable monomorphemic input items and their reflexes in Present-day English (PDE). A re-examination of the empirical data reveals a previously unnoticed correlation between lengthening and the sonority of the medial consonant in forms such as paper, rocket, gannet and baron, as well as interplay between that consonant and the σ2 coda. The alignment of disyllabic stems with a medial alveolar stop and a sonorant weak syllable coda (Latin, better, otter) with (C)V.RVR stems (baron, felon, moral) opens up a new perspective on the reconstruction of tapping in English. The results of lengthening in disyllabic forms, including those previously thought of as ‘exceptions’ to the change, are modeled in Classical OT and Maxent OT, prompting an account which reframes MEOSL as a stem-level compensatory process (MECL) for all inputs. We show that OT grammars with conventional constraints can correctly predict variation in the (C)V.TəR stems and categorical lengthening or non-lengthening in other disyllabic stems. Broadening the phonological factors beyond the open-syllable condition for potential stressed σ1 inputs in (C)V.CV(C) stems allows us to apply the same constraints to stems whose input structure does not involve an open syllable and to propose a uniform account of stressed vowel quantity in all late Middle English mono- and di-syllabic stems.

The diachrony and synchrony of vowel quantity in English and Dutch

Diachronica ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Richard Page
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Middle Dutch ◽  
Compensatory Lengthening ◽  
Vowel Quantity

This investigation of Open Syllable Lengthening in Middle English and Middle Dutch treats the changes as the result of listener-based reinterpretations of coarticulatory effects on vowel duration. OSL in English is a result of compensatory lengthening, which is analyzed as a hypocorrection. OSL in Middle Dutch involves a hypercorrection in which the duration of etymologically long vowels is reinterpreted as a purely phonetic correlate of stress in open syllables. The different phonological bases for OSL provide a diachronic explanation for the retention of contrastive vowel quantity in Modern English and its absence in Modern Dutch.

scholarly journals Northern dialect evidence for the chronology of the Great Vowel Shift

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-102
Author(s):  
Hilary Prichard
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
Chain Analysis ◽  
Vowel Shift ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Dialect Geography

This paper demonstrates how the tools of dialect geography may fruitfully lend a new perspective to historical data in order to address the lingering questions left by previous analyses. A geographic examination ofSurvey of English Dialectsdata provides evidence in favor of a push-chain analysis of the Great Vowel Shift, in which the Middle English high-mid long vowels raised before the high long vowels were diphthongized. It is also demonstrated that the so-called “irregular” dialect outcomes, which have previously been cited as evidence for a lack of unity of the Great Vowel Shift, are no longer problematic when viewed in the light of a theory of dialect contact, and can in fact refine our understanding of the chronology and geographic extent of the shift itself.

The history of /-n/ loss in English: Phonotactic change with lexical and grammatical specificity

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-230
Author(s):  
Donka Minkova ◽  
Michael Lefkowitz
Keyword(s):  
Data Base ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
N Loss ◽  
Morphological Marker ◽  
Statistical Comparison ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
Word Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Word Classes

Abstract In Old English, /-n/ loss started in early Northumbrian and spread to the southern dialects after about 1050. An important diagnostic of the transition to Middle English, the loss is commonly assumed to be morphologically driven. However, /-n/ loss in atonic syllables could also be phonologically-conditioned: aweġ ‘away’<onweġ, abūtan ‘about’<onbūtan. In Middle English, the loss proceeded rapidly, but the triggers behind the different rates of change and the different results for the various categories have not been fully explored. Using LAEME, we survey all attestations of /-n/ loss, enriching the empirical data-base on the change. The findings show significant differences within word-classes, and differences between inflectional and derivational suffixes. This raises a set of theoretical questions: why did only /-n/ inflections lose their codas, why was the productivity of verbal derivational /-n/ phonotactically restricted, what justifies the loss or retention of /-n/ in stems? We look into the interplay of phonological and morphological factors, isolate the sets in which the results appear to be phonotactically driven, and address the phonotactic dimension in relation to other factors, both within and above the word level. In noun plurals, /-n/ loss emerges as the clearest case of avoidance of phonotactically suboptimal sequences at the word level. A statistical comparison of the end-points of the change reveals that overall frequency has stayed constant and has no obvious direct bearing on the process, while the presence of /-n/ as a morphological marker has changed significantly. The paper ends by identifying aspects of the history of /-n/ that remain uncharted.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. xxii-7
Author(s):  
Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
History Of ◽  
Science And Theology ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Canterbury Tales

This Handbook produces a stereoscopic view of Chaucer’s works. Juxtaposing chapters by Middle English scholars with chapters by specialists in other fields – Latin and vernacular literature, philosophy, theology, and history of science – it offers a new perspective that uses the works of Chaucer to look out upon the wider world. Clusters of essays that place Chaucer’s works in “the Mediterranean Frame” and “the European Frame” are bracketed by groupings on “Biography and Circumstances of Daily Life” and “The Chaucerian Afterlife,” while a cluster on “Christian Doctrine and Religious Heterodoxy” foregrounds the role of confessional identities in the emergence of Middle English literary authority. The Handbook’s scope addresses the claim of universality that is often implicit in the study of Chaucer’s works. Chapters on anti-Judaism in the Canterbury Tales and on Hebrew literature reveal what has been suppressed or elided in the construction of English literary history, while studying the Arabic sources and analogues of the frame tale tradition reveals the patterns of circulation that lie behind the early modern emergence of national literatures. Chapters on French, Italian, and Latin literature address the linguistic context of late fourteenth-century Europe, while chapters on philosophy, history of science, and theology spur on new areas of development within Chaucer studies. Pushing at the disciplinary boundaries of Chaucer Studies, this Handbook maps out how we might develop our field with greater awareness of the interconnected world of the fourteenth century, and the increasingly interconnected – and divided – world we inhabit today.

scholarly journals Bonds and Brands: Foundations of Sovereign Debt Markets, 1820–1830

2009 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 646-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Flandreau ◽  
Juan H. Flores
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Market Power ◽  
Market Share ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Information Asymmetries ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Finance Theory

How does sovereign debt emerge? In the early nineteenth century, intermediaries' market power and prestige served to overcome information asymmetries. Relying on insights from finance theory, we argue that capitalists turned to intermediaries' reputations to guide their investment strategies. Intermediaries could in turn commit or else they would lose market share. This sustained the development of sovereign debt. This new perspective is backed by archival evidence and empirical data, and it suggests why strong but undemocratic states could borrow.“A good name is worth more than a gem.”Yiddish proverb

Acute accents as graphic markers of vowel quantity in two Late Old English manuscripts

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
TOMASZ MOKROWIECKI
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Quantitative Changes ◽  
English Manuscript ◽  
Vowel Quantity

The available standard accounts of Old and Middle English usually assert that scribes paid very little or no attention to vowel quantity. However, a great deal of what has been said so far about quantitative changes in Late Old and Early Middle English is based either on purely theoretical models, or on extremely questionable Modern English data. Surprisingly, except for a few more detailed studies on the peculiar orthography of The Ormulum, little has been done so far to analyse other orthographic systems from this perspective. Furthermore, as has already been shown in earlier studies, vowel quantity of Old and Middle English can be reconstructed to some extent on the basis of orthographic evidence from some manuscripts. Since use of the accent mark by some scribes is often associated with vowel length, the primary aim of the present study is to assess the reliability of the accent marks used in MSS Gg. 3.28 (Homilies of Ælfric) and William H. Scheide (The Blickling Homilies) as potential orthographic indicators of vowel quantity. The results of the analysis clearly show that the accent mark is one of those orthographic notations that can be extremely helpful in establishing vowel quantity in a Late Old English manuscript.

The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
History Of ◽  
Science And Theology ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Canterbury Tales

This Handbook produces a stereoscopic view of Chaucer’s works. Juxtaposing chapters by Middle English scholars with chapters by specialists in other fields – Latin and vernacular literature, philosophy, theology, and history of science – it offers a new perspective that uses the works of Chaucer to look out upon the wider world. Clusters of essays that place Chaucer’s works in “the Mediterranean Frame” and “the European Frame” are bracketed by groupings on “Biography and Circumstances of Daily Life” and “The Chaucerian Afterlife,” while a cluster on “Christian Doctrine and Religious Heterodoxy” foregrounds the role of confessional identities in the emergence of Middle English literary authority. The Handbook’s scope addresses the claim of universality that is often implicit in the study of Chaucer’s works. Chapters on anti-Judaism in the Canterbury Tales and on Hebrew literature reveal what has been suppressed or elided in the construction of English literary history, while studying the Arabic sources and analogues of the frame tale tradition reveals the patterns of circulation that lie behind the early modern emergence of national literatures. Chapters on French, Italian, and Latin literature address the linguistic context of late fourteenth-century Europe, while chapters on philosophy, history of science, and theology spur on new areas of development within Chaucer studies. Pushing at the disciplinary boundaries of Chaucer Studies, this Handbook maps out how we might develop our field with greater awareness of the interconnected world of the fourteenth century, and the increasingly interconnected – and divided – world we inhabit today.

scholarly journals Is Metaphysics Immune to Moral Refutation?

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-492
Author(s):  
Alex Barber
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Present Discussion ◽  
New Perspective

AbstractWhen a novel scientific theory conflicts with otherwise plausible moral assumptions, we do not treat that as evidence against the theory. We may scrutinize the empirical data more keenly and take extra care over its interpretation, but science is in some core sense immune to moral refutation. Can the same be said of philosophical theories (or the non-ethical, ‘metaphysical’ ones at least)? If a position in the philosophy of mind, for example, is discovered to have eye-widening moral import, does that count against it at all? Actual responses by philosophers to the question of whether unanticipated moral consequences of metaphysical theories have evidential force are scattered, implicit, divergent, under-argued, and sometimes even self-undermining. The present discussion is, most immediately, an attempt to sort out the confusion. Beyond that, it exploits the new perspective this question gives us on a familiar topic: the relation of philosophy to science.

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