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.
Acknowledgements
This version of the paper has benefitted vastly from Margaret Laing’s careful critical scrutiny of our data and challenges to some of our arguments. We are also grateful for the helpful readings of the anonymous reviewers. We could not have asked for a better editorial process; all remaining infelicities are our own.
References
ASD=Bosworth, Joseph. 2010. An Anglo-Saxon dictionary online. Edited by Thomas N. Toller et al., compiled by Sean Christ & Ondřej Tichý. Faculty of Arts, Charles University Prague. http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/ (accessed November 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Benskin, Michael. 2011. Present indicative plural concord in Brittonic and Early English. Transactions of the Philological Society 109(2). 158–185.10.1111/j.1467-968X.2011.01279.xSearch in Google Scholar
Britton, G. C. 1959. N-plurals in the nouns of Havelok the Dane.Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 60(2). 175–179.Search in Google Scholar
Burzio, Luigi. 2007. Phonologically conditioned syncretism. In Fabio Montermini, Gilles Boyé & Nabil Hathout (eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 5th Décembrettes: Morphology in Toulouse, 1–19. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
CELEX=R. Harald Baayen, R. Piepenbrock & L. Gulikers. 1995. CELEX2. Web download. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium.Search in Google Scholar
Cohen Priva, Uriel. 2008. Using information content to predict phone deletion. In Natasha Abner & Jason Bishop (eds.), Proceedings of the 27th West Coast conference on formal linguistics, 90–98. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Search in Google Scholar
Cohen Priva, Uriel. 2017. Informativity and the actuation of lenition. Language 93(3). 569–597.10.1353/lan.2017.0037Search in Google Scholar
CoNE=Roger Lass, Margaret Laing, Rhona Alcorn & Keith Williamson. 2013. A corpus of narrative etymologies from Proto-Old English to Early Middle English and accompanying corpus of changes, Version 1.1. Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh. http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/CoNE/CoNE.html (accessed November 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Cruttenden, Alan. 2014. Gimson’s pronunciation of English, 8th edn. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203784969Search in Google Scholar
DOE=Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. 2016. Dictionary of Old English: A to I Online. Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project. https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/ (accessed November 2018).Search in Google Scholar
DOEC=Antonette diPaolo Healey, John Price Wilkin & Xin Xiang. 2009. Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus. Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project. https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doecorpus/ (accessed November 2018).Search in Google Scholar
eLALME=Michael Benskin, Margaret Laing, Vasilis Karaiskos and Keith Williamson. 2013. An electronic version of a linguistic atlas of late mediaeval English. Edinburgh: The Authors and the University of Edinburgh. http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/elalme/elalme.html (accessed November 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Fernández Cuesta, Julia, Nieves Rodríguez Ledesma & Inmaculada Senra Silva. 2008. Towards a history of Northern English: Early and Late Northumbrian. Studia Neophilologica 80(2). 132–159.10.1080/00393270802493217Search in Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 2012. An introduction to Middle English: Grammar and texts. Peterborough, Ont. Buffalo, NY: Broadview Press.Search in Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 2018. A comparative grammar of the Early Germanic languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/sigl.3Search in Google Scholar
Giegerich, Heinz. 1999. Lexical strata in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511486470Search in Google Scholar
Hajek, John & Shinji Maeda. 2000. Investigating universals of sound change: The effect of vowel height and duration on the development of distinctive nasalization. In Michael B. Broe & Janet B. Pierrehumbert (eds.), Papers in laboratory phonology V, 52–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hoad, T. 1994. Old English weak genitive plural -an: Towards establishing the evidence. In M. Godden, D. Gray & T. Hoad (eds.), From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle English: Studies presented to E.G. Stanley, 108–129. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hogg, Richard. 1992. A grammar of Old English. Vol. 1: Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Hogg, Richard M. & Robert D. Fulk. 2011. A grammar of Old English. Vol. 2: Morphology. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9781444327472Search in Google Scholar
Hotta, Ryuichi. 2015. s-pluralization in Early Middle English and word frequency. In Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre & Javier Calle-Martín (eds.), Approaches to Middle English: Variation, contact and change, 163–179. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Search in Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1942. A modern English Grammar on historical principles. Part 6: Morphology. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard.Search in Google Scholar
Kastovsky, Dieter. 1992. Semantics and vocabulary. In Richard M. Hogg (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language. Vol 1: The beginnings to 1066, 290–408. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CHOL9780521264747.006Search in Google Scholar
Kitson, Peter. 1992. Old English dialects and the stages of the transition to Middle English. Folia Linguistica Historica 11(1–2). 27–87.10.1515/flih.1990.11.1-2.27Search in Google Scholar
Krakow, Rena A. 1994. Nonsegmental influences on velum movement patterns: Syllables, sentences, stress, and speaking rate. Haskins Laboratory Status Report on Speech Research 117/118. 31–48.10.1016/B978-0-12-360380-7.50008-9Search in Google Scholar
Krygier, Marcin. 1994. The Disintegration of the English strong verb system. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Search in Google Scholar
LAEME=Margaret Laing. 2013. A linguistic atlas of Early Middle English, 1150–1325, Version 3.2. Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh. http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/laeme2/laeme2.html (accessed November 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Lass, Roger. 1992. Phonology and morphology. In Norman Blake (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English Language. Vol. 2: 1066–1476, 23–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CHOL9780521264754.003Search in Google Scholar
Marchand, Hans. 1969. The categories and types of present-day English word-formation. München: C. H. Beck.Search in Google Scholar
McShea, John J. 1933. The weak declensional and nunnated strong nouns in the Middle English Genesis and Exodus. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America PhD dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Miller, D. Gary. 2014. English lexicogenesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199689880.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Mincoff, Marco. 1967. English historical grammar. Sofia: Naouka i izkoustvo.Search in Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 1991. The history of final vowels in English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110889512Search in Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 2014. A historical phonology of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.10.1515/9780748634699Search in Google Scholar
Moore, Samuel. 1927. Loss of final n in inflectional syllables of Middle English. Language 3(4). 232–259.10.2307/409257Search in Google Scholar
Mossé, Fernand. 1952. A handbook of Middle English. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Muthmann, Gustav. 1999. Reverse English dictionary. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110806847Search in Google Scholar
Myers, Sara M. 2014. An investigation of certain aspects of the genitive noun phrase in Middle English (1150-1500). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh PhD dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Newman, John. 2009. Phonological conditioning and noun plural formation in Middle English. Anglica 18. 23–31.Search in Google Scholar
Nielsen, Hans F. 1981. Old English and the continental Germanic languages: A survey of morphological and phonological interrelations. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.Search in Google Scholar
OED=The Oxford English dictionary. http://www.oed.com/ (February 2019).Search in Google Scholar
Paddock, Harold. 1989. On explaining macrovariation in the sibilant and nasal suffixes of English. Folia Linguistica Historica 9(1). 235–270.10.1515/flih.1989.9.1.235Search in Google Scholar
Plag, Ingo, Julia Homann & Gero Kunter. 2017. Homophony and morphology: The acoustics of word-final S in English. Journal of Linguistics 53(1). 181–216.10.1017/S0022226715000183Search in Google Scholar
Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky. 2004. Optimality Theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. In John McCarthy (ed.), Optimality Theory in phonology: A reader, 3–71. Malden, MA: Blackwell.10.1002/9780470759400Search in Google Scholar
Reed, David W. 1950. The history of inflectional N in English verbs before 1500. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Reszkiewicz, Alfred. 1973. A diachronic grammar of Old English, Vol. 1. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.Search in Google Scholar
Riad, Tomas. 1999. Structures in Germanic prosody. Stockholm: University of Stockholm.Search in Google Scholar
Ringe, Don. 2006. A linguistic history of English, Vol. 1: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199284139.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Robinson, Orrin W. 1992. Old English and its closest relatives: A survey of the earliest Germanic languages. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Roedler, Eduard. 1912–1916. (Part I); Anglia Neue Folge 28:4, 420–502 (Part II). Die Ausbreitung des s-Plurals im Englischen. Kiel: Chistian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel PhD dissertation.10.1515/angl.1916.1916.40.420Search in Google Scholar
Schendl, Herbert. 1996. The 3rd plural present indicative in Early Modern English: Variation and linguistic contact. In Derek Britton (ed.), English historical linguistics 1994: Papers from the 8th international conference on English historical linguistics, 143–160. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.135.11schSearch in Google Scholar
Schlüter, Julia. 2005. Rhythmic grammar: The influence of rhythm on grammatical variation and change in English. Berlin: Mouton DeGruyter.10.1515/9783110219265Search in Google Scholar
Schlüter, Julia. 2009. Weak segments and syllable structure in Middle English. In Donka Minkova (ed.), Phonological weakness in English: From old to present-day English, 199–237. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-0-230-29686-2_10Search in Google Scholar
Sievers, Eduard. 1896. An Old English Grammar. Translated and edited by Albert S. Cook. Boston: Ginn & Co.Search in Google Scholar
Tanner, James, Morgan Sonderegger & Michael Wagner. 2017. Production planning and coronal stop deletion in spontaneous speech. Laboratory Phonology 8(1). https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.96 (accessed November 2018).10.5334/labphon.96Search in Google Scholar
Wakelin, Martyn F. 1972. English dialects: An introduction. London: The Athlone Press.Search in Google Scholar
Wełna, Jerzy. 1996. English historical morphology. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.Search in Google Scholar
Wojtyś, Anna. 2009. Suffixal past participle marking in mediaeval English. Anglica 18. 45–68.Search in Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph. 1905. The English dialect grammar. Oxford: Henry Frowde.Search in Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph & Elizabeth M. Wright. 1925. Old English grammar. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
