Phonological history of English consonant clusters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| ə | This article contains nonstandard pronunciation information which should be rewritten using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) for help. |
Contents |
[edit] H-cluster reductions
The h-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English involving consonant clusters beginning with /h/ that have lost the /h/ in certain varieties of English. <ref name=Wells>Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22919-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-24224-X (vol. 2), ISBN 0-521-24225-8 (vol. 3).</ref>
[edit] Wh-cluster reductions
- The wine-whine merger is the merger of /ʍ/ or /hw/ (spelt wh) with /w/. It occurs in the speech of the great majority of English speakers.
- The hole-whole merger is the replacement of /ʍ/ with /h/ before the vowels /oː/ and /uː/ which occurred in Old English.
[edit] Yew-hew merger
The yew-hew merger is a process that occurs in some dialects of English that causes the cluster /hj/ to be reduced to /j/.<ref>http://students.csci.unt.edu/~kun/ch11.html</ref> It leads to pronunciations like /juːdʒ/ for huge and /juːmən/ for human; hew and yew become homophonous. It is sometimes considered a type of glide cluster reduction, but is much less widespread than wh-reduction, and is generally stigmatized where it is found. Aside from accents with h-dropping, this reduction is in the United States found mainly in accents of Philadelphia and New York City; also in Cork accents of Hiberno-English. In some dialects of English, the cluster /hj/ (phonetically [çj]) has been reduced to [ç] so that hew and yew differ only by the initial consonant sound i.e. [çuː] and [juː]).<ref>Gimson, A. C. (1980). An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English, 3rd ed., London: Edward Arnold Publishers. ISBN 0-7131-6287-2.</ref><ref name=Wells /><ref>Ladefoged, Peter (2001). A Course in Phonetics, 4th ed., Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt College Publishers. ISBN 0-15-507319-2.</ref>
[edit] hl-cluster, hr-cluster and hn-cluster reductions
The hl-cluster, hr-cluster and hn-cluster reductions are three reductions that occurred in Middle English that caused the consonant clusters /hl/, /hr/ and /hn/ to be reduced to /l/, /r/, and /n/. For example, Old English hlāf, hring and hnutu became loaf, ring and nut in Modern English.
[edit] Y-cluster reductions
[edit] Yod-dropping
Yod-dropping is the elision of the sound [j]. The term comes from the Hebrew letter yod, pronounced as [j].
Yod-dropping before [uː] occurs in most varieties of English in the following environments:<ref name=Wells />
- After [tʃ, dʒ, j], for example chew [tʃuː], juice [dʒuːs], yew [juː]
- After [ɹ], for example rude [ɹuːd]
- After consonant+[l] clusters, for example blue [bluː]
There are accents, for example Welsh English, in which pairs like chews/choose, yew/you, threw/through are distinct: the first member of each pair has the diphthong [ɪu] while the second member has [uː].<ref name=Wells />
Many varieties of English have extended yod dropping to the following environments, on condition that the [j] be in the same syllable as the preceding consonant:
- After [s], for example suit [suːt]
- After [l], for example lute [luːt]
- After [z], for example Zeus [zuːs]
- After [θ], for example enthusiasm [ɛnˈθuːziæzəm]
Yod-dropping in the above environments was formerly considered nonstandard in England, but today it is heard even among well-educated RP speakers.<ref name=Wells /> In General American yod-dropping is found not only in the above environments but also:
- After [t], [d] and [n], for example tune [tuːn], dew [duː], new [nuː]
Image:Iw-uw merger.svg General American thus undergoes yod-dropping after all alveolar consonants. Some accents of Southern American English preserve the distinction in pairs like loot/lute and do/dew by using a diphthong /ɪu/ in words where RP has /juː/, thus [lut]/[lɪut], [du]/[dɪu], etc.<ref name=ANAE />
However, in words like annual, menu, volume, Matthew, continue, etc., where there is a syllable break before the /j/, there is no yod dropping.
Some East Anglian accents extend yod-dropping not only to the position after [t], [d] or [n], but to the position after nonalveolar consonants as well, so that pairs like pure/poor, beauty/booty, mute/moot, cute/coot are homophonous.<ref name=Wells />
In yod-pronouncing dialects, the spellings eu, ew, uCe, ue and ui, as in feud, few, mute, cue and suit generally indicate /ju:/ or /ɪu/, while the spellings oo and ou, as in moon and soup generally indicate /uː/.
[edit] Yod-coalescence
See yod-coalescence.
[edit] Other initial cluster reductions
[edit] Rap-wrap merger
The rap-wrap merger is a reduction occurring in most dialects of English that causes the initial cluster /wr/ to be reduced to /r/, making rap and wrap, rite and write etc. homophones. This reduction occurs in all dialects of present English.
Old English had a contrast between /wr/ and /r/, the former characterized by lip rounding. In Middle English, the contrast disappeared and all cases of initial /r/ came to be rounded.
[edit] Not-knot merger
The not-knot merger is a reduction that occurs in modern English where the historical cluster /kn/ is reduced to /n/ making knot and not homophones. This reduction is complete in present English, although it has not happened in all varieties of Scots.<ref>http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/peter.siemund/Articles/English%20(Variationstypologie).pdf. Quote: "ScotE is well-known for being more conservative than SBE and hence has retained many of the original features. Among these are the use of the velar fricative /x/ (cf. night, daughter, loch) the voiceless labial fricative /hw/ (cf. where, when, whine) and the retention of certain consonant clusters which are not possible in SBE: /kn/ as in knee, knock."</ref>
There is a respectable list of words in Modern English that begin with kn, including knife, knave, knead, knee, knell, knight, knit, knock, knot, know, knuckle, and others.
All of the kn words stem from Old English forms beginning with cn- (the orthographic change from c to k, which began with the influence of Norman French spelling, is outside the scope of the current discussion), and at the time all were pronounced with an initial /k/ sound before the /n/. These words were common to the Germanic languages, most of which still pronounce the initial /k/. Thus, for example, the Old English ancestor of knee was cnēo, pronounced /kneːo/ and the cognate word in Modern German is Knie, pronounced /kniː/.
Most dialects of English reduced the initial cluster /kn/ to /n/ relatively recently--the change seems to have taken place in educated English during the seventeenth century, meaning that Shakespeare did not have the reduction.[citation needed]
[edit] Nome-gnome merger
The nome-gnome merger is the reduction of the initial cluster /gn/ to /n/ that occurs in all dialects of present English. In Middle English, words spelt with gn like gnat, gnostic, gnome etc. had the cluster /gn/.
[edit] S-cluster reduction
S-cluster reduction is the dropping of /s/ from the initial consonant clusters /sp/, /st/ and /sk/ occurring in Caribbean English resulting in pronunciations like:
- Spit - 'pit
- Stomach - 'tomach
- Spend - 'pen
- Squeeze - 'queeze
[edit] Final cluster reductions
[edit] Nonstandard final consonant cluster reduction
Final consonant cluster reduction is the nonstandard reduction of final consonant clusters in English occurring in African American Vernacular English and Caribbean English.
Examples are:
- test - tes'
- desk - des'
- hand - han'
- send - sen'
- left - lef'
- wasp - was'
The plural of test and desk become tesses and desses by the same English rule that gives us plural messes from singular mess.<ref>http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/phonology/Features.html</ref><ref>http://www.indiana.edu/~hlw/PhonProcess/accents.html</ref><ref>http://courses.essex.ac.uk/lg/lg449/AAVEfeatureList.htm</ref><ref>http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/ebonics/EbonicsExamples.html</ref>
[edit] Plum-plumb merger
The plum-plumb merger is the reduction of the final cluster /mb/ to /m/ that occurs in all dialects of present English. In early Middle English, words spelt with mb like plumb, lamb etc. had the cluster /mb/.
[edit] Consonant cluster alterations
[edit] Yod-rhotacization
Yod-rhotacization is a process that occurs for some Southern AAVE <ref>http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/phonology/features.htm</ref> speakers where /j/ is rhotacized to /ɹ/ in consonant clusters causing pronunciations like:
- beautiful - /bɹutɪfəl/
- cute - /kɹut/
- music - /mɹuzɪk/
[edit] S-cluster metathesis
S-cluster metathesis is the nonstandard metathesis of final consonant clusters starting with /s/ occurring in African American Vernacular English. <ref>http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/phonology/features.htm</ref>
For AAVE speakers with S-cluster metathesis the following words can undergo the following changes:
- ask → aks
- grasp → graps
- wasp → waps
- gasp → gaps
S-cluster metathesis is lexically determined.
The above pronunciations in fact have a long history, and all the metathesised forms have existed in English for around as long as the words themselves, with varying degrees of acceptance.
For example, the Old English verb áscian also appeared as acsian, and both forms continued into Middle English. The two forms co-existed and evolved separately in various regions of England, and later America. The variant ascian gives us the modern standard English ask, but the form "axe", probably derived from Old English acsian, appears in Chaucer: "I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housband to the Samaritan?" (Wife of Bath's Prologue, 1386.) It was considered acceptable in literary English until about 1600 <ref>http://www.etymonline.com</ref> and can still be found in some dialects of English including, of course, African American Vernacular English. It is, however, one of the most stigmatized features of AAVE, often commented on by teachers.
[edit] Scream-stream merger
The scream-stream merger is the pronunciation of the consonant cluster /str/ as /skr/ occurring for some speakers of African American Vernacular English making "scream" and "stream" homophonous as /skrim/. <ref>http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/phonology/features.htm</ref>
This phonological pattern in AAVE is a phonological pattern that's been mentioned from time to time, often by speech pathologists. Presumably the speech pathologists were concerned about this use of "skr" in place of standard English "str" because it was not clear whether the combination of sounds was an indication of a disorder or dialectal pattern. Still the scream-stream merger has not been observed or recorded in the literature nearly as often as other sound patterns. There are three possible reasons for this: (1) One is that because "skr" only occurs in positions where "str" can occur in general American English, there will be limited opportunity to produce the sound. (2) Secondly, the scream-stream merger may be viewed as a feature of the speech of young AAVE speakers that is not maintained in adult AAVE. (3) Thirdly, the scream-stream merger may be associated with AAVE spoken in certain regions of the United States.
- Common words in which the /sk/ sequence occurs are given below:
- "street" = /skrit/
- "stretch" = /skrɛtʃ/
- "straight" = /skreɪt/
In summarizing her research on the cluster, Dandy (1991) notes that the form is found in Gullah and in the speech of some young African Americans born in the Southern United States. She explains that the stream-scream merger is a highly stigmatized feature and that many of the students in her study who used it were referred to speech pathologists. She goes on to note the following about her research: "I also found a continuum that may indicate sound change in progress. If children said skretch for stretch, they probably have used the skr alternation in other words that contained the feature: skreet for street, skrong for strong, skrike for strike, skranger/deskroy for stranger/destroy. There were some who said skreet for street but did not make alteration on other words with that sound". (p. 44). Also, although Dandy does not make this point, it is important to note that the students' use of /skr/ may have been affected by the training they were getting from the speech pathologists.
[edit] See also
- Phonological history of the English language
- Phonological history of English consonants
- Phonological history of English fricatives
[edit] References
<references/>
