The Even Yearbook 7 (2006)
#72
volume: 7 (2006)
author: Attila Starčević
title: Middle English quantity changes — Further squibs
keywords: Middle English, Old English, quantitative changes, open syllable lengthening, trisyllabic shortening, homorganic lengthening, template, CV/VC phonology
abstract: The article attempts to add some new insights and also further problems and doubts into the pool of Middle English quantitative changes, a topic described amply from various perspectives. The article’s attempt is to give an overview of the problems and suggest a tentative solution awaiting further research in the framework of CV/VC phonology. The aim is to question some of the age-old suppositions on Middle English vocalic changes, such as open syllable lengthening, trisyllabic laxing, shortening before consonant clusters, compensatory lengthening following the loss of Middle English word-final schwa, etc. It is suggested that there was no general open syllable lengthening in Middle English (this is also supported by some of the rarely mentioned and/or overlooked cases of Middle English open syllables followed by vowels other than the schwa which never underwent lengthening). It is tentatively suggested in the end of the article that Middle English words had to abide by a … V C V … template (the word template is not used in the traditional sense known from the morphology of the Semitic languages, for example, and is ambiguous between a CV or VC unit because the minute details of the analysis are still wanting). All in all, it is argued at some length that Middle English quantitative changes were in fact templatic in nature.
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