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Attila Starčević

A very special word of Old English

0 Assumptions and frameworks The fascination surrounding Old English phonology (and related, possibly non strictly phonological points of interest, such as metrical conventions found, especially, in Beowulf ) has never ceased, not despite more than two hundred years of vigorous analysis. One of the continuing sources of fascinations is found in the NomAccPl of neuter a-stem for ‘head’, which appears variably in the various dialects as hēafod, hēafudu (hēafodu), hēafdu (but never hēafd) for preOE *hæɒfudu,1 from Germanic*xaußuðō. This is a truly special word in all accounts of (pre-) OE phonology, for some approaches at least two forms are analogical, for some hēafudu is the only regular continuation of the pre-OE word. This fascination didn’t end in the past: hēafod will prove instrumental in discovering some of the (pre-) OE constraints. My treatment of unstressed high vowel deletion (HVD) of pre-OE cannot possibly introduce new data (Sections 1 and 2), the scope cannot be broader than in previous analyses, nor can a new theoretical background be introduced, but it can ask the question of whether an old problem can be analysed from another perspective with a new set of assumptions (Section 3). The assumption I will investigate is whether there was an OE template regulating HVD deletion (or the absence of it) in Section 4. This template will intersect with a number of (pre-) OE sound changes (Section 5), and will prove instrumental in the analysis of a very conservative dialect of OE, the dialect of Anglian as found in the Vespasian Psalter (Section 6). The understanding that certain morphological and phonological processes apply inside a ‘window’ of a given size is not new, not even in Indo-European languages. Constraints operating on such (implicitly assumed) templatic sizes within metrical feet in Germanic (and OE) are also well-known and have been around at least since the 1950’s, such as the notion of resolved heavy syllable, that is, the equivalence of a light syllable plus a syllable of any weight (over the head of a singleton intervocalic consonant) to a 1

The intervocalic fricative is shown as a voiceless one in this phonemic transcription.

The Even Yearbook 14 (2020), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2020, Attila Starčević

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single heavy syllable. But these approaches are fraught with difficulties such as (implied) shared stress, syllable weight as a factor in syncopation (Section 7), syllabification algorithms, rampant extrametricality with some nifty ad hock assumptions (Section 8). We will see in Section 9 that although pre-OE is characterised by syncopation of short unstressed vowels before (historical) long vowels and short vowels, we must posit a very special vowel-to-vowel interaction precluding syncopation in high vowel + C + high vowel sequences (boxed in, e.g., hēafudu, lȳtelu < *lȳtilu). The analysis will also show that the stereotyped dative plural -um suffix cannot have contained *u at the stage of pre-OE when a number of syncopation processes took place; and all this owing to hēafudu. 1 What can generally happen to Old English unstressed vowels? Hogg (1992, §6.1) gives two very simple generalizations for unstressed vowel simplification in (pre-)OE: (i)

one is reduction in length (and subsequent loss) along the lines of VV > V and V > Ø (e.g., (*ɑi > *ai >) *ā > *ǣ > æ > ə <e> in the dative singular of many nominal classes, and loss in the case of *i/u),

(ii)

the other is melodic decomposition leading to loss of contrast among the unstressed vowels (e.g., æ, e, i > ə, spelled <e> in recorded OE, as in wine ‘friend’ from *wini, ō (> o), u > u as in the case of strong feminine nouns or the nominative/accusative plural of strong neuter nouns).2

In other words, diphthongs become long monophthongs in unstressed syllables (something that took place so early that Hogg doesn’t even include this in his generalization), and are later affected by shortening in a subsequent period. Long monophthongs, by contrast, shorten (and simplify melodically). Short monophthongs undergo shortening and may also be deleted (conditions and/or period permitting).

2

As is usual, asterisked forms show reconstructed data (*wini), double asterisks show ungrammatical forms (wordu). In what follows I will represent the short vowels as is usual in the traditional literature, that is, as i, e, u, o, although (on account of Middle English open syllable lengthening) the qualities were rather ɪ, ɛ, ɔ, ʊ. This, however, is not directly relevant to the account developed here (as long as one does not think of ‘tense’ vowels where short ones are intended).

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However, not all short unstressed vowels are lost. There is a positional restriction on deletion: unstressed vowels in closed syllables are generally stable in OE independently of the weight of the syllable preceding the deletion-prone vowel, such as *i, after a light syllable (fremed ‘performed’, fremd <

• framid), or after a heavy syllable (fēred ‘departed’, fērd < fōrid). The vowel

spelt as <e> was in all likelihood ə. Deletion outside this position, however, did affect the two short high vowels (*i/u) in pre-historic/written OE (discussed below), but in a controversial fashion that has sparked many analyses. In addition to length (as Hogg summarizes) that provides stability to an unstressed vowel, there is a structural position that precludes the two short high vowels from deletion (outside the unstressed closed syllabic position) even at a time when deletion did affect the same short historical high vowels. This position seems to be a ‘strong’ one in a pre-theoretical sense preventing the two high vowels from deletion (*VCi/u). This position surfaces as (C)VCə/u in recorded OE, as in *wini > wine ‘friend’ NomSg, *wudu > wudu ‘wood’ NomSg *jevō > ġiefu ‘gift’ NomSg. In other words, the high vowels are retained after a light syllable. However, the high vowels after a heavy syllable (VCC/VVC) underwent deletion: *wordu > word ‘word’ NomAccPl, *lāru > lār ‘teaching’ NomSg. This is rather straightforward (in all accounts). Complications begin when we see that *i/u were also deleted after two light syllables: *VCVCi/u > VCVC (as in *werudu > we(o)rod ‘troops’). An added complication is that this deletion is opaque in recorded OE (as it transpires from modern editorial length marks or their absence): e.g., fremede ‘I performed’ (expected fremed after two light syllables, which is an occurring form, but not for this grammatical word), hēafdu ‘heads’ (expected ?hēafud, ?hēafudu). Of course, OE fremede is *fremedē in pre-OE, which explains the lack of apocopation of word-final <e>. It seems, then, that HVD happened and did not happen at the same time (e.g., Hogg 2000): the high vowels were not deleted across the board (but the deletion affected all the major lexical categories, although the often cited examples are taken from the nominal declensions), and this seems to have had an impact on the analogical changes affecting the nominal paradigms to varying degrees in the various dialects after HVD had run its course (giving us a convenient point for classifying some dialects of OE as more innovative). The various dialects developed various ‘patch up’ means in reaction to the post-HVD

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shape of OE morphology, which gives the analyst a convenient point in deciding how conservative (or alternatively, innovative) a dialect is. It seems that it is Anglian that is more conservative than the usual focus in the analysis of HVD, (late) West Saxon. This decision (as Fulk (2016) explains) led to a strange proliferation of deletion rules associated with the two high vowels: high vowel syncope (HVS) taking place inside words and high vowel apocopation (HVA) happening word-finally. The wish is, of course, to unite the two under HVD as they are obviously similar. Hogg (1992, §6.22) treats them as two separate rules, arguing that HVA preceded HVS (based on examples that may have nothing to do with HVD, such as neuter plural ja-stem riċu ‘riches’, wītu ‘punishments’). Both HVS and HVA were preceded by deletion of the non-high vowels. Again there are a number of diachronic changes that intersect with HVD making its workings opaque (in some of the dialects). Let’s see the details in 2. 2 High Vowel Deletion (the details) The word-final pre-OE short vowels *i and *u were deleted after a heavy syllable, or a concatenation of two light syllables, but were preserved after a single light syllable. This is the word-final position that is relatively unproblematic (all accounts are content in concluding that this is exactly what their approach covers), some often-cited examples follow in (1). (1) Word-final short *i/u (a) Loss after a heavy syllable word < *wordu ‘words’, lār < lāru ‘teaching’, cȳ < *kȳi ‘cows’, (ġe)swinč <*(ġe)swinči ‘toil’, fēt < *fōti ‘feet’, twǣm < *twǣmi/ twǣmu ‘two’, lǣs < *lǣsu ‘meadow’, brȳd < brūdi ‘bride’, fēr < *fōri ‘depart (imp)’, ġiest < *jæsti ‘guest’, wyrm < *wurmi ‘serpent’, nest < *nestu ‘nest’, etc. (b) Loss after two light syllables ides < *idisu ‘wife’, cylen < *kulinu ‘kiln’, we(o)rod < *werudu ‘troops’, etc. (there seem to be no certain examples for *i following two light syllables) © Loss after a heavy syllable færeld < *færeldu ‘passages’, wunung < *wunungu ‘dwelling place’, heġtess < *hagatussi ‘witch’, etc.

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(d) Loss after two heavy syllables ǣrist < *ǣristi ‘resurrection’, byrþenn < *byrþenni ‘burden’, henġenn <*henġenni ‘hanging’, ǣfest < ǣfȳsti ‘malice’, īsern < *īsernu ‘irons’ (e) Retention after a single light syllable nere < *neri ‘save (imp)’, wine < *wini ‘friend’, scipu < *skipu ‘ships’, godu < *godu ‘gods’, sunu < *sunu ‘sun’, etc. Although there may be uncertainties about the etymological membership of some words (such as færeld above), it seems that most analysts agree that pre-OE final *i/u were deleted after a heavy (or two light) syllables, but were retained after a single light syllable. These data suggest the rule of HVA (a rule which Hogg (1992, §6.22) analyses as a rule separate from HVS), see (2). (2) HVA A final, short, unstressed high vowel *i/u is lost immediately after (i) a stressed heavy syllable or (ii) a stressed light syllable followed by a syllable of any weight. It also seems uncontested that non-final *i/u was retained in word-final closed syllables irrespective of the weight of the preceding syllable, see (3). (3) *i/u in closed word-final syllables fremed < *framid ‘performed, pple’, hīered < *hæɒrid ‘heard, pple’, fēred < *fōrid ‘departed ppl’, hēafod < *hæɒfud ‘head’, wǣron <

• wǣrun ‘were’, wordum ‘words’ DatPl, etc.

Hogg (1992) explains the data in (1) with high vowel apocope (HVA), which, of course, cannot apply in (3) given the fact that the vowels are not word-final. Historically, HVA was preceded by non-high vowel apocopation and syncope, which are of no real interest because they happened prior to HVD and don’t seem to have depended on syllable weight and did not contribute to analogical changes sweeping across the nominal classes after they had run their course.

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This is why non-high vowel apocope/syncope is not even given any special name (see examples in (4)). (4) Non-high vowel apocope/syncope sāwl/sāul < *saiwalō ‘soul’, stān < stainã ‘stone’ AccSg, mæġden <

• mægætin ‘maiden’, þēodnes < þēodænæs ‘prince’ GenSg, hālges <
• hāleġæs ‘holy’ GenSg, blindra < *blindara (after shortening and

merging with *ɑ) < *blindōra ‘more blind’, etc. Not everything is perfect, however. Problems start appearing when *i/u (or their reflexes) are followed by another vowel. Perhaps the most commonly cited examples that no article on the high vowels can forgo are found in (5) (these are not the only data, of course). (5) High-vowel syncope hēafodu/hēafudu/hēafdu/hēafod/hēafd < *hæɒfudu < (Germanic)

• haußuðō ‘heads’,

rīċu < *rīċiju < (West Germanic) *rīkijō ‘riches’, wītu < wītiju < (Germanic) wītijō ‘punishments’ (all NomAccPl) The words in (5) have been analysed in so many ways that it seems little remains to be said: hēafodu/hēafudu is (generally) from the early ninth century Mercian dialect of the Vespasian Palter (hēafdu also occurs in the same text, however), early West Saxon shows hēafdu (also found is hēafda, but this <a> may be a scribal error or show a different scribal tradition, that of Northumbrian, or possibly a qualitatively undefined unstressed back vowel). The difference between hēafodu and hēafudu is scribal/accidental (and does not hold any point of phonological interest). These forms tell us little in themselves: hēafdu, for example, is also found in the Vespasian Psalter, but shows signs of analogy (analysed in detail by Fulk 2010). The only form which is not on record is hēafd. This form, however, has featured in analyses of HVD by Ringe (2002), who says that when high vowel apocope and syncope could apply, they both applied giving (the non-recorded) ?hēafd, which is analogically remodelled in all the dialects along the lines given in (5) above, but not because of constraints operating between

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the word-final consonants. We will later see that hēafd is, in all likelihood, impossible in any dialect, as no phonological rule could produce it. The rule of HVS can be given along the lines in (6) (as done in Fulk 2010). (6) High-vowel syncope A short high vowel *i/u is syncopated in pre-OE in an open medial unstressed syllable after a heavy syllable (but not after a light one). Note that according to this formulation, hēafodu/hēafudu should be the phonologically expected outcome (before any analogical change had a chance to rectify it). Note also that these waters are now more dangerous because another dimension has been added to the well-behaved mono-syllabic examples of (1), like word: absence of stress on the first vowel after the heavy syllable is a matter of complication (underlined): hḗafudu. Old English short stressed vowels in open syllables are not prone to syncopation: werudes ‘troop’s’, wrudes (although wr is an acceptable cluster of consonants, cf. wringan ‘twist’). But the same cannot be said about the vowels in unstressed open syllables, as in hḗafudu. We may suspect that syncopation is allowed here. There is no evidence, either phonological or metrical, that there was (secondary) stress in the word at some stage of English that could act as a buffer protecting the second u: hḗafúdu. This is not to say that there is no evidence for post-primary/tonic stress in non-compounds, but in words like hḗafudu it cannot be tested, or substantiated etymologically. Another class of words where an added set of difficulties present themselves is the nominative/accusative plural of heavy neuter ja-stems (see (5)). The Germanic form of OE rīċu/wītu was *rīkijō/wītijō (after heavy stems Germanic *j is found as *ij due to Sievers’ Law). By pre-OE times *ō is shortened giving *rīċiju/wītiju, which serves as input to HVA/HVS. Hogg (1992, §6.22) argues that recorded OE rīċu/wītu shows that HVA applied first, followed by HVS: *u is preceded by a light syllable containing *i, prohibiting HVA, but this very same *u can strike *i, yielding the syncopated rīċu/wītu. “From this we must conclude that the internal ordering was: nonhigh vowel syncope – high vowel apocope – high vowel syncope”, concludes Hogg (1992, §6.22).3 3

Traditional literature assumes that the processes affecting the high vowels also affected *j, a common formative element in Germanic, found in the class of weak verbs, or the various

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Note how Hogg shows the pre-OE forms: *rīċiu/wītiu. This is very nifty manipulation with the data because there is no pre-OE regularity that would have taken away the *j from pre-OE *rīċiju/wītiju (from Germanic

• rīkijō/wītijō). Hogg does not argue with Sievers’ Law, but it is plain he must

show these data as rīċiu/wītiu for at least two reasons. First, if he had opted for rīċiju/wītiju, he would have had to admit that diphthongs (*ij in this case)4 are also affected by HVS. It is difficult to imagine that rīċiu/wītiu could have been phonetically anything other than rīċiju/wītiju with j filling the empty onset thus avoiding hiatus. Second, if *ij is a diphthong, it cannot be deleted, but then *u would have to undergo apocopation after a heavy syllable. It seems this is a no-win situation, hence the impossible representation rīċiu/wītiu. To admit that rīċiju/wītiju syllabifies as rīċi.ju/wīti.ju he would have to admit pre-OE had a rising diphthong *ju (a type of diphthong not encountered in OE otherwise, cf. also Fulk (2010) on the status of this (supposed) highly marked vowel). This

nominal classes (ja-, jō-stems). This *j caused gemination in West Germanic after light syllables (e.g., *framjan > *frammjan > pre-OE *fremmjan > OE fremman ‘perform’). It was also found after heavy syllables (but caused no gemination), e.g., *dōmjan > OE (West Saxon) dēman. The presence of this *j must be supposed to have continued into pre-OE because otherwise i-umlaut would have failed. Hogg (1992, §6.25), however, says that there is a marked contrast between forms like cynn (cynnu) ‘race’ NomAccPl (< *kunnju < *kunnjō < *kunjō, with a ‘secondary’ heavy syllable, resulting from West Germanic gemination as a ja-stem noun) and wītu ‘punishment’ NomAccPl (*wītju < *wītiju < *wītijō, with a ‘primary’ (original) heavy stem syllable after which *j is found as *ij according to Sievers’ Law). This distinction permeates the system (although it is not commonly admitted); it is not a quirk of this particular noun. It seems cynn was never *kunnijō (after gemination and, supposedly, Sievers’ Law). This is a very interesting problem that points to a completely different direction. When did Sievers’ Law cease to operate? Was West Germanic *kunnjō possibly ?*kuɲɲō?, etc., but it is worth marking what Hogg says: “it is difficult to find grounds for asserting that loss of /j/ in similar situations was earlier yet.” Yet, no real explanation is offered, but whatever it was (and it seems it must have had something to do with the melodic makeup of the consonants rather than syllable structure), it must have occurred before (or outside the planes that encompass) the processes affecting the high vowels described traditionally. 4 It is not immediately clear what would have happened to unstressed *ij in West Germanic. Hogg (2011, §3.17) claims that *j/w were geminated after short (stressed) vowels (to *jj,

• ww), followed by vocalisation of the first glide, later to develop as expected of OE: e.g., *ij

> *ijj > *īj (*frijjō > Frīġe(dæġ) ‘Friday’, *klaj- > *klajj > *klɑ̄j > clǣġ ‘clay’, etc.). If wī́ tiju is a legitimate formation, unstressed *ij can never have had the same treatment as stressed *ij sequences, otherwise we would have an inexplicable loss of the high vowel after a heavy syllable (producing wītu), yet cf. §7.70 n.1 (but here the remark concerns unstressed *ī/i followed by coda *j, cf. ende < endĭ < *endī < *endij, discussed later).

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would explain why *i was lost (it was preceded by a heavy syllable: *wī-, *rī-), but *ju still remains.5 It is equally possible that syncopation of unstressed *i in *rīċiju/wītiju happened not because it was preceded by a heavy syllable, but because it was followed by a vowel (the normal course an unstressed vowel can take in an open syllable followed by a vowel, something which is also true for Modern English, as in family fámlɪj, separate sɛ́prət). This would again leave us with *ju. What cannot be denied is that this was eliminated by recorded OE. There is every possibility that the yod in *ju palatalised the preceding consonant resulting in

• rīċ’u/wīt’u (with ’ showing palatalization as secondary articulation). Of

course, this palatality would have been lost after a consonant that was already palatal (*ċ), but may have remained for some time on *t as secondary articulation. We have recorded OE (and later English) to prove that *t’ never assibilated to ċ, but this is because this *j comes too late to cause such a melodic change (as a matter of fact in OE ċ can only come from palatalised *k, not *t, hence wīċu). However, there is something deeply unsettling about the formulation of HVS (6): a vowel is syncopated only if it is after a heavy syllable. Syncopation is generally taken to involve a regressive relationship that holds between two vowels over the head of a consonant, as in family in Modern English (giving fámlɪj): a vowel extinguishes a vowel preceding it over a single consonant (ɪj extinguishing ə couched between m and l). The question that demands to be asked is what syncopation has anything to do with syllable weight. ‘Heaviness’ is a notion that originates in syllable structure and cannot be interpreted as a vowel-to-vowel relationship, which it seems to be (for extensive discussions see Scheer 2004). For all intents and purposes, ‘syllable’ is a theoretical notion not entertained by all theories, especially by Government Phonology and its offspring, CV phonology (ibid), whereas syncopation is an empirical (rather than purely theoretical) matter: a vowel (ə/ɪ 5

Campbell (1977: §353) gives a similar account to that of Hogg’s and concludes that rīċu is the immediate result of HVS (not noting any intermediate phonological problems(10): “When both a middle and an end syllable contained either i or u, and both were in conditions demanding loss of the vowel, the middle syllable was the one affected.” In other words, HVS bled HVA (Kiparsky 1968, and more recently, Baković 2007). Campbell (ibid; cf. Hogg 1992: §6.22 n.1) also entertains the idea that the loss of unstressed *i/u (due to apocopation and syncopation) was contemporaneous. But this is an error, and contradicts Campbell’s earlier assertion (1977: §345) that *i and *u remained after a heavy (for him long) accented syllable followed by a light syllable.

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in fáməlɪj/fámɪlɪj) is deleted because it is followed by another vowel, either optionally or obligatorily depending on other factors such as, for example, the quality of the consonants flanking the deletion-prone vowel. In Modern English, it is generally assumed that the consonants flanking the site of deletion must show a rising sonority profile, hence the impossibility of deletion in venomous (vɛ́nməs with nm showing a sonority plateau). True, for a syllable (traditionally) one needs a vowel, but it is difficult to see how a vowel could extinguish (syncopate) another vowel from left-to-right over the head of one (or a number of) consonant(s), as in *hæɒfudu > hēafdu (here *æɒ syncopating *u over the head of *f).6 But this is not all: the vowel undergoing syncopation after a heavy syllable must be followed by a heavy syllable: the data suggest that if *u is followed by a heavy syllable (underlined), syncopation is categorical (see (7)). (7) Categorical high-vowel syncope

• hēafudum > hēafdum DatPl (never *hēafudum), *hēafudæs > hēafdes

GenSg, as well as the rest of the inflected forms in recorded OE: hēafda GenPl, hēafde DatSg (where the vowels were etymologically long, giving a heavy syllable),7 *angilum > enġlum (never enġelum), *angilæs > enġles, etc. So, there must be quite a machinery to deal with a word-internal high vowel: it must be both preceded and followed by a heavy syllable to have categorical syncopation. The question to be asked is how syllable weight in itself can extinguish a high vowel, as in hēafdes, hēafde (from *hēafdē), hēafdum, hēafda (from *hēafdā). Given the well-known data, it seems that optional syncope applies only if the high vowels were preceded by a heavy, and followed by a light syllable, as in hēafudu/hēafdu (< *hēafudu). Something must be out of order here, or syncopation is just an alternative term for apocopation. But if it is an alternative

6

Obviously, having a heavy syllable followed by a vowel (with no further vowel) is not sufficient to extinguish that vowel (not even in OE): *fōrid > fēred (fērd). 7 Hēafudum, hēafuda does appear, but only in late texts or texts probably copied from Anglian sources (where they may have been remodelled on hēafudu).

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term, why have it? This is why the more-encompassing term high vowel deletion (HVD) was coined, but for this the level of the syllable was not sufficient, analyses started turning their attention to feet. Before we leave off, let’s focus on the second (equally problematic) half of the generalisation of (7): a high vowel in an open syllable is not deleted after a light syllable. Let’s look at the data in (8a) and (8b), which shows categorical absence of deletion, as opposed to presence of deletion in (8c). (8) Absence/presence of high-vowel deletion (a) In verbs fremede ‘I preformed’ (never fremde) < *framidæ, etc. (and all 1 class weak verbs with an original light stem, followed by the formative *j), cf. dēmde ‘I judged’ (never dēmede) < *dōmidæ (and all class 1 weak verbs with an original heavy stem, followed by the formative *j), etc. (b) In nouns bydel ‘beadle’ NomAccPl < *budilu < *budilō, further forms: bydeles, bydele, bydelum, bydela (never bydles, bydle, etc.), wæter ‘water’ NomAccPl < *wæteru < *wæterō, further forms: wæteres, wætere, wæterum, wætera (never wætre, wætres) (here there is an

• e in the stem, rather than a high vowel, but it shows identical behaviour)

© Examples with syncopation in nouns (for contrast) arhaic botl (later botol) ‘house’ NomAccPl < *botlu < *botlō, further forms: botles, botle, botlum, botla (never boteles, botele, etc.), etc. It seems that there is something shielding the high vowel *i (and also *e in some etymologies for water, both found as <e> ə in recorded OE) from syncopation. Weak verbs of the first class with an original light syllable (8a) do not have syncopation (irrespective of the vowel that follows). Interestingly, nouns (at least in early, Anglian) bifurcate on the basis of the presence (vs absence) of the Germanic stem final consonant cluster in the non-nominative cases: cf. bydeles (with no syncopation, (8b)) vs botles (with syncopation, (8c)), etc. There is no phonotactic constraint that would have prevented bydles. Nouns in (8b) and (8c) behave in a complementary fashion: what is allowed in (8b) is barred in (8c). The only case where they coincide is NomAccSg (botol = bydel), where the

A very special word of Old English 38

epenthetic vowel (in botol) seems to be a development that postdates the earliest (and most conservative) of OE texts (the quality of the epenthetic vowel depends on the stem vowel). We will return to this in Section 5. These data are perplexing, to say the least (especially given the shortcomings of the traditional analyses). Let’s entertain a new idea. This idea will introduce a template into (pre-) OE phonology, a template which in independent of stress, and is iterative. Before we attempt to do this, let’s introduce very briefly the framework that will be put to the test. 3 Strict CV phonology The post-generative phonological scene saw many alternative frameworks of analysis that arose out of criticism of classical generative phonology’s over-generative rule-governed power and arbitrariness of representation. One of these steps was the disassociation of the timing tier (usually shown as a sequence of X’s) from the melodic tier (holding information on the makeup of bundles of features associating to a given timing slot, known generally as ‘melody’ or melodic tier, see (9)). The structure in (9a) stands either for a long vowel (aː in our case), or a geminate consonant (mː), (9b) shows a diphthong (aj), a coda-onset cluster (nt) is shown (9c). With this representation came the understanding that timing slots can appear with unassociated (but lexically specified) melodic material (t), shown in (9d), and, even more importantly for the theoretical apparatus, that there may be timing slots with no melodic material whatsoever (9e). This ushers in the notion of a zero category, which makes the theory even more constrained than its predecessors. What’s more, there also exist floating melodies without any association to any timing slot (9f). All of these are showcased by various processes in the languages of the world. While this (long) line of development cannot be tackled here, let it suffice to say that one of these frameworks is known as Government Phonology, which managed to lateralize the relationships between the segments on the skeleton, claiming that government and licensing are the only two ‘forces’ operating between segments on the skeleton. A maximally constrained phonological theory only needs reference to these lateral relations to define what can/cannot happen to a C or V position (making thus the theory fully representational with no derivation of any kind), and suprasegmental structure has only two functions: timing, and the encoding of ‘syllabicity’ or consonantalness/vocalicness as C

A very special word of Old English 39

and V. That is, the lateralization of prosodic structure inevitably leads to a skeleton-only model with strictly alternating CV units, under which the bundles of melodic material can be found (but now a melodic bundle must be interpretable both under a C and a V position, a well-known example for which is the melodic prime U which is interpreted as the vowel u under V and as w under C, and so on). This was a gigantic step in phonological theorising, all of which is amply described by Scheer (2004), see (10) for a reinterpretation of (9). (9) The timing tier and the melodic tier in Government Phonology (a) X

X (b) X

X

a

j

a m

©

X X (d) X

n

t

(e) X

t

t

(10)

The timing tier and the melodic tier in CV phonology

(a)

C V C V

(b) C V C V

a

a

©

C VCV

n

t

(d) C V

t

(f)

j (e)

C V

(f)

t

A number of remarks are in order (none of which are exhaustive): there are no clusters (either vocalic or consonantal) in CV phonology, all clusters are ‘virtual’, having two CV units that define them (see (10a), which is a long vowel composed of two CV units, with an unpronounced consonant), a geminate/long consonant again is two CV units with an unpronounced vowel between the consonants. (10b) shows a diphthong, (10c) two consonants (a traditional coda-onset cluster), which are linked to two CV units. (10d) shows a CV unit with a consonantal bundle of features not associated lexically to the C position, (10e) shows an empty CV slot, and (10f) a floating bundle of features (defining a t in

A very special word of Old English 40

this case). Melodically empty structural positons are denoted with lower case letters: ‘v’ for a vocalic, ‘c’ for a consonantal positon). All phonological structure now boils down to a strict succession of CV units. As we can see, having a strict alternation of CV units forces the analyst into a ‘templatic’ view of linguistic processes from the outset. Let’s see how this may have played out in (pre-) OE. 4 The OE template Having seen the problems that a syllable-based approach to HVD faces, it is time to see how a template-based approach fares. I will assume that OE was dominated by a template the size of two CV units.8 4.1 Templates in general and the OE template in particular The work on templatic morphology is primarily linked to the Semitic languages (e.g. McCarthy 1979, McCarthy & Prince 1990). Templatic morphology or phonology in the Indo-European languages still sounds rather exotic, although some attempts have been made in this direction. Scheer (2003), criticising his earlier work (Scheer 2001), shows that Czech, for example, shows (non-synchronic) templatic characteristics in its nominal and verbal morphology. For lack of space, the Czech template will not be discussed (this template is also discussed in Scheer 2004). Instead the possibility of analysing the OE data with the help of a four-position CVCV template will be introduced (cf. Denwood (2006), and along different by converging lines Charette (2008), argue for a similar CVCV template in Turkish).9 In OE, similarly to modern English, the minimal word constraint can be formulated as a constraint that requires lexical words not to fall short of two CV units. Note that the number of word-initial consonants and the enclosed empty vowels between them do not count, hence the ungrammaticality of sprɛ, for example, which is as ungrammatical as a single CV unit with an unpronounced consonant (ɛ).10 The first mention of ‘template’ for OE appears in Colman (1984), and is also used in Colman (1988). This use of the term, however, is reserved for the regularities in diphthong formation. 9 The notion of ‘template’ has been proposed for many non-Semitic languages: e.g. by Itô & Mester (1989), Lin (1993), Golston (1996), Crowhurst (1998), Ashwini (2007), etc. 10 Here we are dealing with two language specific constraints: one regulates the minimal size of lexical morphemes: in OE, as well as Modern English, it is two CV units, or a heavy syllable 8

A very special word of Old English 41

I postulate that OE had a constraint that worked from the beginning of the word and looked for CV units, starting with the first stressed pronounced V. The size of this template is CVCV (the second V could also be an empty/unpronounced V). The parameters of this constraint are set out in (11). (11) Parameters of the OE CVCV-template EDGE: left SIZE: CVCV (i.e. two CV units) FIRST ANCHOR POINT: a pronounced V, the head of the template; the C’s in the template can remain empty (= c) SECOND ANCHOR POINT: a pronounced V or empty V (= v) OPERATION: iterative; the head always attaching to a pronounced V (note: diphthongs and long vowels occupy two CV units (CVCV); this is a lexical matter) This is as stipulative and arbitrary a constraint on OE phonology as any other, syllable-based or otherwise (the difference being that syllable based accounts have a longer provenance). The viability and non-circularity of all constraints lies in their application to the widest possible range of data: a stipulative constraint that works loses its arbitrariness with the help of the data that it handles. If we apply this templatic constraint, a unified picture of HVD can be developed. (12) High vowel deletion (templatic deletion) High vowels are deleted if they cannot attach to a CVCV template. A high vowel which can attach to a CVCV template is not deleted. Let us see how this works for pre-OE data. in traditional accounts (in the form of either a long vowel, as in Shah ʃɑː, or a short vowel followed by a consonant, as in bass bas). A further constraint stipulates that in both OE and Modern English the V of the first CV slot much attach to a pronounced vowel, rendering rɛ, prɛ, sprɛ equally ungrammatical (subminimal). The question of what silences the vowels in word-initial clusters such as pr (or rather pvr with ‘v’ showing a silenced vowel) or spr (svpvr) is a theoretically-laden question, something that is not directly relevant now, but whatever feature of the consonants silences the vowels insures that the V of the first CV fails to detect the vowel as a possible anchor point. (Modern English needs another constraint: no lexical word can end in a short vowel, no matter how long the word is: trɛjpa.)

A very special word of Old English 42

(13) HVD and the OE template (a) *ʃipu/wini

(b) *word

C V C V

C V C V C V

ʃ i w i

w o

p n

u i

© *nītinu

i

t

ə

n

u

C V C V C V C V

u

(e) *firinu/kylinu

æ r

f

ə

l

d

u

(f) *fulwiht

C V C V C V

C V C V C V C V C V

f k

f

i y

r l

i i

n n

u u

(g) *dēmid

11

d

(d) *færeld

C V C V C V C V n

r

u

l

w i

x

t

u

(h) *fremid

C V C V C V C V

C V C V C V

d

fr11

e

m i

d

e

m i

d

The analysis of word-initial branching onsets is fraught with difficulties for accounts that advocate the CV approach, and this probably shows that they are marked structures (and as such they deviate from the least marked ‘syllable’ type of strictly alternating consonants and vowels (something that can be found in all languages), i.e., CVCV. We will not analyse these here, and show them as ‘lump’ consonant clusters (e.g., fr, br, tr, spr, etc.), see also preceding footnote.

A very special word of Old English 43

(i) *fremidæ

(j) *hæɒfudu

C V C V C V fr e

m i

d

æ

C V C V C V C V h

æ

ɒ f

u

d

u

The data are reconstructed, and show a state of pre-OE at the point when HVD became active. The template applies from the left edge of the word attaching to the (first) pronounced V. The size is two CV units. The application is iterative. The first vocalic position of the template must be filled with a pronounced vowel, the second position is either a pronounced V or an empty V (see (13f)). HVD occurs under the following circumstances: the constraint on the size of template is not satisfied ¹⁾. The areas where the size of the template is not met are shaded. It is here that the two vowels undergo deletion. In (13g) the high vowel attaches to the head position of the template and thus escapes deletion. In (13h) it attaches to the second anchor point of the first CVCV template. As can be seen, it is the iterated application of the CVCV template that decides on the preservation of the high vowels. Any other (i.e. non-high) vowel is not deleted (13i) (we will see that these word-final vowels were long in pre-OE). If the traditional account relies on counting syllables and their weight, this account relies on counting CV units. This templatic constraint explains the OE form hēafodu/hēafudu NACCPL < *hæɒfudu (the last two (underlined) vowels are preserved because they can attach to the CVCV template). This was a form that was ruled out as a possible phonologically developed (i.e. non-analogical) form by Hogg (2003: 369). The alternative form hēafdu can be viewed to be the result of syncope (at a later stage of OE). This templatic analysis must concede that a form like hēafod ‘head’ NomAccPl cannot be the result of a phonological process affecting the historical word. It must then be the result of analogical levelling based on bi-syllabic words like werod ‘troops’ NomAccPl. (cf. Hogg (2003; §4) for the dialectal variation and incidence of the various forms, as well as Fulk (2010) for a more recent approach). This templatic analysis seems to usher in through the back door the much contested notion of resolution, i.e. the equivalence of one light syllable plus another syllable to one heavy syllable (discussed later). This is not the case here,

A very special word of Old English 44

however. A ‘resolved syllable’ is a CVCV template whose anchor vowels happen to be pronounced. The notion of ‘shared stress’ does not enter the picture. There are two independent constraints: one designates the head of the template as stressed (‘stress the first vowel in the stem’), the other regulates the size of the template (‘OE is dominated by a template whose size is two CV units’). The melodic decomposition of the second vowel in the OE template is the function of absence of stress (*wini > wine). Resolution, as it is often claimed, is not (only) a meter-specific device needed to check the number of positions in an OE half-line. It is part of OE phonology: HVD is one of the processes that can capture it at work. This neatly dovetails with the usual assumption on the gist of resolution (two syllables can function as a single unit): two syllables (of which the first one must be light) are equivalent to a single heavy one (hence the identical behaviour of word and firen). In short, HVD is captured with the help the CVCV template. Since the notion of syllable is non-existent in CV phonology, the question of syllable weight does not arise in mono-syllabic words closed by a single C: what we can say is that OE wer ‘man’, for example, satisfies the OE minimal word requirement imposed on lexical words (it comprises two CV units) and, by default, it also satisfies the OE CVCV template (werv wer in terms of CV phonology). That HVD is not simply a process of apocopation, i.e. the general loss of unstressed short vowels word-finally, has always been present in various analyses in one way or another. In Sievers–Brunner (1965; §146–149) the conditions governing HVD are given as (see (14)), minimally amended to with i/u: (14) Sievers–Brunner (1965) on HVD (i) final *i/u are lost in the following configuration of syllables: light light -

- i/u heavy

heavy -

heavy

- i/u

A very special word of Old English 45

(ii) they are preserved after heavy -

light -

i/u

Although the necessary condition for the loss of the high vowels is absence of stress, it is not the sufficient condition. In other words, unstressed high vowels can be preserved. HVD does not depend on syllable weight either (in *skipu and *kylenu the (highlighted) syllable preceding *u is light, yet the effects are different: scipu vs. cylen). The Sievers–Brunner account is clearly a templatic analysis in disguise. The generalisation of ‘counting’ in the templatic account put forth here refers to the counting of CVCV size portions of the skeleton (given the conditions in (11)). 4.2 The OE CVCV template in close up In this section I show with the help of the OE template that in OE there is no distinction between rising sonority clusters and coda-onset clusters. HVD, coupled with the OE CVCV template, shows that in OE the vocalic position between the members of a rising sonority cluster (branching onset, or muta cum liquida, as traditionally referred to) was visible for the template. This is supported by the NomAccPl plural of a-stem neuter nouns: *botlu ‘house’ > botl, *wedru > wedr ‘weather’, etc. These nouns originate in Germanic mono-syllabic stems ending in an obstruent plus sonorant cluster, followed by a suffixal inflectional vowel (see (15)). (15) Rising sonority clusters and the OE template12

• botlu/*wedru

12

C

V

C

b w

o e

t d

V

C

V

l r

u u

Rising sonority clusters is a cover term for branching onsets (i.e. rising sonority clusters found word-initially, e.g. dr) and bogus rising sonority clusters (those that do not occur word-initially, but can occur word-internally (sometimes) flanking a vowel that alternates with zero, e.g. dl ~ dəl). In OE they behave identically, hence the cover term.

A very special word of Old English 46

The data show that the OE template has access to the empty vowel couched between the members of a rising sonority cluster. The high vowel *u is deleted as it cannot attach to a CVCV template. In other words, rising sonority clusters (*wedru > wedr, *botlu > botl) and coda-onset clusters (*þingu > þing ‘thing’) behave in the same way as far as HVD is concerned: they are simply consonants flanking an empty (unpronounced) vowel.13 A syllable-based account would have to resort to coda-capture’ (e.g. Anderson 1982, Hall 1992), i.e. the first consonant of a rising sonority cluster would have to be syllabified into the coda to make the first syllable heavy (*wed.ru) in order to account for HVD. The same capturing effect would have to be suspended in the case of a single intervocalic consonant to derive the right result (*ski.pu > scipu). HVD shows that s+C sequences were also clusters flanking an empty vowel: *nestu > nest ‘nest’.14 The syllable based approach cannot account for the data without resorting to ad hoc solutions like coda capture. One of the constraints on the OE template in (11) was that the first anchor point must be a full vowel. Rising sonority clusters (given that the vowel they enclose is accessible to the OE template) offer a testing ground. The prediction is that in the sequence CVVCØCV the second iteration of the template is unsuccessful (the empty vowel, Ø, cannot house the first anchor point). This prediction is supported by the following data: *spātlu > spātl ‘saliva’ NomAccPl, *ātru > ātr ‘poison’, *fōdru > fōdr ‘fodder’, *hūslu > hūsl ‘Eucharist’, etc. These data show that the head of the template must always be a pronounced vowel. This explains why the vowel enclosed by word-initial rising sonority

13

14

This is not to say that these clusters pattern uniformly in all other respects too: while long vowels are commonly found before rising sonority clusters, they are less common before coda-onset (falling sonority) clusters. There is no evidence in OE that the long vowel of frōfor ‘comfort’ was shortened in any of the non-NomSg forms after syncopation: frōfre, frōfra, frōfru (words such as this one are not remarkable phonologically and abound in OE). Words that have a long vowel before a coda-onset cluster are fewer in number, especially those that contain a non-coronal coda-onset cluster: lēoht xt ‘light’, fēng ŋɡ ‘seize, pt’ (in addition to those that end in a coronal cluster: frēond ‘friend’, dūst ‘dust’). Examples involving *sk (> ʃʃ) followed by a high vowel seem non-existent and *sp is rare (e.g. wæsp/wæps < *wæspu, a historically ō-stem noun which has joined the a-stem masc. nouns, which thus makes it unreliable as a testing ground). In other classes where they do occur their behaviour cannot be tested with the help of HVD.

A very special word of Old English 47

clusters (including s+C clusters) is invisible to the template. Let us see what the effects would be of a template whose head could link to an empty vowel. (16) *bræġnu/*hūslu (a) C

V

b (b) C h

V

C

V

C

r

e

j

C

V

C

u

s

V

V

C

V

n

u

C

V

l

u

(16a) and (16b) show that in case the template could set anchor indiscriminately to both full and empty vowels, the OE data could not be accounted for: bræġnu/hūslu ‘brain, Eucharist’. This justifies the constraint on the template which states that the head must always link to a full vowel. We have just seen that HVD shows that rising sonority sequences were also clusters (the empty vowel between the two consonants was visible). There is no proof that long vowels are shortened before consonant clusters of any type: e.g. fēng ‘seize’ 1/3SGPAST, tāhte ‘teach’ 1/3SGPAST, þūhte ‘seem’ 1/3SGPAST (for coda-onset clusters), and ātres ‘poison’ GSG, Hūsle ‘Eucharist’ DSG, spātles ‘saliva’ GSG (for rising sonority clusters). The length in these vowels is justified by their diachronic development: a short vowel would have resulted in OE fing, teahte (with breaking), þohte, ætres, Hosle, spætle (cf. Campbell 1959; Chapter 5). Closed syllable shortening cannot be demonstrated for Proto-Germanic either. How this is handled by CV phonology is not relevant now. 4.3 The OE template and syncopation We have seen in connection with both verbal and nominal paradigms that a high vowel is not syncopated after a light syllable, but is lost after a heavy syllable (see Section 2). The relevant data are shown in (17).

A very special word of Old English 48

(17) The syncopation of the high vowels NO: *fremidV > fremedV ‘performed’, *werudV > werudV ‘troop’ vs. YES: *hīeridV > hīerØdV ‘heard’, *enġilV > enġØlV ‘angel’ The absence of syncopation after light but not after heavy syllables cannot be accounted for with reference to the stress of the following vowel (all of the vowels, shown as ‘V’ here for simplicity’s sake, are unstressed). (18) The OE template and syncopation Syncopation cannot penetrate a CVCV template. Stipulative though it may be, as all constraints, it explains why there is no syncopation after a light syllable: the second vowel is resistant to government coming from outside. The usefulness of all constraints lies in their scope of application: the greater the pool of data accounted for with a constraint, the more explanatory it becomes. This restriction on lexical representation can be represented graphically as shown below in (19). (19) The relationship between the OE template and syncopation

(a)

C V C V C V fr e m ə d fremede ‘I did’

ə

(b)

C V C V C V C V h i ə r hīerde ‘I heard’

ə

d

ə

In (19) (for recorded OE) two representations are shown (V = any pronounced vowel; no attempt has been made at the correct representation of the diphthong in (19b)). The iterations of the CV template are boxed. In (19a) the pre-OE vowel *i is shown as a schwa. Syncopation is graphically shown with a white arrow. The position I take here is that this historic vowel had lost its distinctive melodic properties by recorded OE times and show it accordingly as a schwa (this schwa is justified by examples like the one shown in (19b) where the same vowel is lost to syncopation, note the absence of the association line between

A very special word of Old English 49

the schwa and the timing slot V). The syncopation of ə is allowed for by the absence of stress on the first V (ə) of the second iteration of the template: hīerəde. The collapse of the integrity of the second CVCV stretch was initiated by the absence of stress and is signalled by the syncopation of ə. The schwa in (19a) cannot be reached by syncopation from outside the template. Note that even in traditional approaches, syncopation is only possible over the head of a singleton inter-vocalic consonant (cf. Modern English family with an unpronounced vowel spelt as <i>). Let’s investigate a further aspect of the OE template. (20) The imperviousness of the OE template

• werudV > werudV (e.g., werudes) vs
• hæɒfudV > hēafdV (e.g., hēafdes)
• budilV > bydelV (e.g., bydeles)
• angilV > enġlV (e.g., enġles)15

vs

The loss of the high vowels in hēafdu and enġles happens after a heavy syllable, but only if these high vowels are, in turn, followed by a heavy syllable. If the syllable before the high vowels is light, there is no syncopation. As we have seen, this aspect of syncopation cannot be tackled satisfactorily by the traditional syllable-based approach (which is basically a description of the facts not related to any other property of the language or of phonological theory in general). The OE template has proved useful in accounting for HVD and now it can also be used in explaining the absence of syncopation after light syllables. With the introduction of the template a number of hitherto unrelated aspects of OE fall into place. The difference between bydel ~ bydeles vs. botol ~ botles in early OE can now be explained as a function of the nature of the CVCV template embracing the second vocalic position: pronounced in bydel-, empty in botl- (the second pronounced vowel in botol represents historically a ‘secondarily’ developed pronounced vowel, discussed in Section 5).

15

The <ġ> after the nasal is reconstructed to have been dʒ (as a result of palatalization of earlier

• ŋɡ).

A very special word of Old English 50

4.4 Further characteristics of the template In accordance with (18) government from outside cannot penetrate the template. However, government originating from inside the template (from the second vowel) can hit the first vowel. This is how we can explain the alternations (across dialects and possibly within one given dialect) in (21). (21) Government originating from inside the template

• hæɒfudu > hēafudu ~ hēafØdu ‘head’ NomAccPl vs.
• þūrilu > þȳrØlu ‘hole’ NomAccPl, *hīeride > hīerØde ‘hear’

1/3SGPASTIND The fact that there are no alternations in the case of <e> ə (< *i) in recorded OE (especially West Saxon), e.g. þȳrlu ~ þȳrelu, as opposed to <u/o> (< *u), e.g. hēafodu/hēafudu ~ hēafdu, can only be explained as a difference in the quality of the two unstressed vowels: the process of melodic change in the two high vowels was not completed simultaneously (the change *i > ə <e> (and complete loss when syncopated) was completed earlier than in the other high vowel,

• u).16 The difference in the quality of the two unstressed vowels is apparent

word-finally: *i always appears as <e> (a vowel into which many front vowels merged historically), whereas *u appears as <u/o>, still showing a phonological opposition to <a> ɑ (the only other unstressed back vowel): *wini > wine vs.

• bedu > bedu ‘prayer’. The situation can be summed up as ‘word-internal schwa

is obligatorily syncopated’. If, however, the second vowel of the OE template is a schwa, it cannot be reached by government (in accordance with (18)): frem<ə>de ~ fremØde. We will return to this problem from the perspective of pre-OE in Section 8 when we show that the loss of historical *i (> ə) in hīerde (< *hɑuridǣ) is due to the inability of the vowel to attach to the CVCV template (in which case it was syncopated).

16

The change u > ə was only completed in Middle English25: e.g., sunu ‘son’ > sune. Wordfinal schwa later underwent across-the-board apocopation (resulting in sun).

A very special word of Old English 51

4.5 The OE template and syncopation Let us take a representative, and often cited example, of the Germanic ja-stem masculine: *andjaz ‘end’ (*andijaz according to Sievers’ Law) is found is OE as ende. The intermediate stages can be reconstructed as *andij > *endij (~

• endī) > early OE endi > ende (Campbell 1959; §355 (3)). Note that *i (e.g.
• wini) never appears as <i> in early OE, as opposed to *ī (e.g., endi). This

clearly shows that HVD can only be short-HVD. This lends further justification to the OE template. Similar examples are (now with neuter nouns): *wītī ‘punishment’, *rīkī ‘kingdom’, appearing in OE as wīte and rīċe. Given the templatic account, the failure of the high vowel to delete is easily accounted for (it comprised a CVCV template, i.e. it was long at the time when HVD applied). Whether the actual pronunciation of *ij in *endij-type nouns was *ij or *ī makes no difference: both satisfy the CVCV template. The plural of the ja-stem neuter nouns is -u (< *-ō). The analysis below makes use of the OE template (see (22) below). (22) Representative examples of the ja-stem masculine/neuter nouns (a)

C V C V C V C V e n

• endij/*endī

©

d

i

j

t

j

C V C V C V C V w

• wītiju

C V C V C V C V w i

• wītju

(b)

u

(d)

i

t

i

j

u

C V C V C V C V h æ

• hæɒfudu

ɒ f

u

d

u

(22a) shows that in *endij/*endī ‘end’ NomAccSg there can be no deletion of the high vowel: it is ‘saved’ by the OE template; (22b), shows *wītiju ‘punishment’ NomAccPl shows that neither of the high vowels is lost (they allow for a second iteration of the template). The words whose representative here is taken to be *wītiju are all found with their *u preserved in OE: wītu. Obviously, there must have been a stage shown in (22b), otherwise we would have a completely

A very special word of Old English 52

inexplicable case of high vowel retention after a heavy syllable, i.e. we would have an unexplained second iteration of the OE template in wītu. Forms in this class (NomAccPl) are uniformly stable across OE dialects, showing that here there was really no analogical process involved, or otherwise it would be difficult to explain how all dialects ‘analogised’ in the same direction. The fact that there are no alternations like wītu ~ ?wītəu ~ wītju (whose spelling would be wītġ(e)u, with ġ(e) showing a common OE spelling practice of rendering j) can be explained as the loss of distinctive features of *i and syncopation (a word-internal schwa is syncopated, cf. (22c)). After the obligatory syncopation of schwa, the representation in (22c) still shows a possibility yielding wītġ(e)u wītju. This possibility cannot be ruled out by any feature inherent in the representation in (22c). It must be concluded that post-consonantal yod (in Cj sequences) was lost for melodic (rather than structural) reasons (observable in the case of HVD). The loss of post-consonantal yod must therefore have been completed before recorded OE. The behaviour of words like

• wītiju shows that the representation given earlier for hēafudu (repeated in

(22d)) is further justified. That is, hēafudu (contra Hogg 2003) is the result of a phonological process, not analogy. Mutatis mutandis, if hēafudu cannot be the result of a phonological process then neither can wītu (a form which cannot plausibly be the result of any analogical process as all neuter nouns with a heavy stem reject plural *u: e.g. word). The floating u in (22d) shows that it can (optionally) be syncopated yielding hēafdu. We may safely say that this syncopation occurred after the templatic shortening discussed here (otherwise the noun should have surfaced as hēafd). This templatic account, coupled with the fact that melodic decomposition affected the front (short) high vowel earlier than the back high vowel, does away with self-contradictory statements given by Campbell (1959; §353 (p. 147)): “Unaccented i and u seem to have been lost at exactly the same time; otherwise [*wītiu] would have become [*wītu] and then [*wīt, after HVD]; while, if u were lost first, the development would have been [*wītiu > *wīti >

• wīt]” (I have replaced the original example with the one discussed here). This

is difficult to interpret: if *u is lost first, it does so for unexplained reasons as the preceding syllable is light: *wītiu > wītu. In light of the above, namely that the loss of post-consonantal *j after the syncopation of ə (*wītəju > *wītju > wītu) is a process operating between

A very special word of Old English 53

consonantal melodies, can shed new light on why *j is lost in the verbal paradigm, e.g. *dēmjan (< *dōmijan by Sievers’ Law). As (22b) shows the loss of

• j cannot be linked to syllable weight or the OE template. We must conclude

that this is a melodic affair (affecting structure of the consonants, not the skeleton and its role in deletion). As there are no remnants of this *j in recorded OE (dēmġ(e)an), just as there are no signs of (the structurally parallel) *j in the case of heavy-stem ja-stem neuter nouns in the plural (recall *wītju > wītu, wītġ(e)u), the process must have been played out in prehistoric OE on the melodic level between consonants. Up to this point we have found a number of processes that can be described more insightfully if a templatic account of OE phonology is adopted: absence of syncopation after light syllables, HVD, the hitherto unexplained alternations like hēafudu ~ hēafdu (as well as the non-existence of alternations like þȳrlu ~ þȳrelu (at least) in West Saxon and, by the same token, the existence of forms exemplified by wītu). (In Section 6 we will see why Anglian can be regarded more conservative than West Saxon, showing that þȳrelu really is the phonologically expected outcome with an unsyncopated ə <e>.). We have also found melodic constraints (e.g., *wītju > wītu) that have previously been put down to constraints operating with syllable weight (cf. Hogg (2011) on the possible absence of *j after heavy syllables).17 4.6 The OE template and long vowels We have seen that long vowels occupy two CV slots on the timing tier (e.g., bān = bacan, with the box showing the long vowel occupying two CV slots, with ‘c’ showing a silent consonant). How is this relevant to HVD? Stressed long vowels are not nearly as interesting as unstressed long vowels for the simple reason that by recorded OE long vowels disappear from unstressed syllables (and are found merged as whatever sound it is that appears as <e> for those that

17

Sievers’ Law was formulated almost exclusively on the behaviour of ja-stem nouns. A curious gap, however, remains: heavy-stem jō-stem nouns, for which the same *j/ij alternation should be observed, are never found with u in OE (e.g. *bandjō > *bandijō >

• bendiju > (expected) bendu (recall *wītiju > wītu). It seems *ijō rather irregularly

developed to *ī in this class of nouns in Germanic (it was bandi in Gothic), later to be shortened to *i in North-West Germanic (Ringe and Taylor 2014: 14), from which OE bend straightforwardly follows. This is certainly an anomaly of Common Germanic.

A very special word of Old English 54

originate in front vowels). The origin of length (and its gradual loss) is described, for example, by Hogg (2011). This does not mean, however, that all traces of length are irretrievably lost. There are some rules of thumb that one can find helpful: for example, if a word-final unstressed vowel is found after a heavy syllable (supposing it is the result of purely phonological changes at a point in time before analogical levelling takes over), it originates in a historical long vowel (e.g., stāne ‘stone’ DatSg < stainǣ < *stainai, ende < *andī, helpe ‘help’ PrSubj < *helpǣ, stāna GenPl < *stainō < stainōo, etc.). The reverse does not hold: if a word-final unstressed vowel is found after a light syllable, it can originate in either a historically long (e.g., guma ‘man’ NomSg < *gumō < gumōom) or a historically short vowel (but then it must be preceded by a light syllable, e.g. sunu ‘sun’ NomSg < *sunu, wine ‘friend’ NomSg < *wini). To the latter class we can add: or any long vowel that was shortened early enough to be ‘saved’ from deletion by a preceding historically short vowel in a light syllable: e.g., scipu < *skipō, ġiefu < *jevō < *gevō, etc. (of course, the very same

• ō, when preceded by a heavy syllable, was lost: word < *wordu < *wordō).

This somewhat clumsy formulation on how *u (and *i) found its way into recorded OE can be explained more straightforwardly as: word-final short high vowels were saved from deletion if they attached to a CVCV template (underlined here): scipu, wine, sunu, ġiefu, etc. To this class can be added the notoriously difficult cases discussed here: hēafudu (recorded as such, but claimed traditionally to be the result of analogy), *rīċiju (recorded as rīċu after *i > ə and syncopation at a stage postdating templatic deletion when the high vowel <u> could again be preceded by a heavy syllable), *strenġiþu (> *strenġþu, analogically refashioned to strenġþ). I have identified three causes that contributed to the opaque nature of HVD in recorded OE: (i) absence of stress (shown with x here) on the head of the CVCV template in forms like hēafu̽du, *rīċi̽ju), (ii) melodic decomposition of unstressed *i > *ə (which seems to have been more advanced than that affecting *u) and (iii) syncopation of schwa (leading to forms like hīerde (*hīerədæ < *hīeridǣ), which is never found as hīerede, not even in very conservative Anglian). The syncopation of *ə, coupled with the shortening of unstressed front long vowels (and their mergers), made the templatic deletion of the high vowels even more opaque (cf. hīerde, where <e>, originally a long vowel, is now found as a (presumably) short vowel after a heavy syllable, in obvious violation of a previous constraint that defined pre-OE). What is more,

A very special word of Old English 55

syncopation seems to have been chiefly responsible for the gradual obfuscation of the templatic constraint that originally protected the short high vowels from deletion. The representation in (23) shows the pre-OE form of fremede when long vowels could still be found unstressed. (23) Long unstressed vowels in pre-OE

(a)

C V C V C V C V æ

fr e m i d

• fremidǣ ‘I did’

©

C

(b)

C V C V C V C V CV h i ə r i

• hīeridǣ ‘I heard’

d

æ

V C V C V C V C V

h i ə r

• hīeridǣ ‘I heard’

i

d

æ

As can be seen long vowels (as well as diphthongs) occupy two CV slots (here exemplified with *ie and ǣ), something that already satisfies the OE CVCV template. We can say that long vowels come with a lexically specified CVCV template. We can see the consequences of this: in (23b) the formative *i is not enclosed in a template. It seems it could not ‘share’ a position with the previous or the following template (it could not ‘snatch’ a foothold from the second half of the first diphthong or the first half of the long vowel, see (23c) for an impossible snatching of a CV slot from a diphthong shown with shading). As such it was affected by syncopation (discussed in Section 8), hence the recorded hīerde. As opposed to this, in (23a), the same *i was enclosed in a CVCV template and as such was shielded from syncopation from the following vowel (shown with gradual fill), and so it escaped deletion after it shifted to ə in recorded OE, giving fremede. This is how CV phonology can show in structural terms the rather cumbersome: ‘unstressed word-internal *i in an open syllable is syncopated if it is preceded by a heavy syllable and followed by a heavy syllable (= heavy by a consonant cluster or by having had an original long vowel)’. The deletion fol-

A very special word of Old English 56

lows from the position of the pre-OE *i, i.e., from the fact that it was not enclosed in a CVCV template that could save it from deletion. It is still not clear why categorical syncopation happened in forms like enġlum DatPl (< *enġilum). The pre-OE *i should have been enclosed in a template: enġilum. We will return to this in Section 7 and 8. Do we have any independent evidence for claiming that long vowels lexically occupied two CV slots and this template was seen as a stretch of material that could be accessed by any other regularity of (pre-) OE? It seems we do. 4.7 Old English morphology and long vowels The evidence comes from compounding, analysed in Starčević (2009, 2013), where the suitability of the Germanic Foot (Dresher & Lahiri 1991) in accounting for a number of OE phonological processes was evaluated. It was shown that the Germanic Foot was at best problematic for its implications with respect to stress (for example, the exceptional stressing of OE words with a light stressed syllable, e.g., gúma ‘man’), mora sharing, resolved stress, etc. Compounding proves equally problematic. For our purposes, compounding will be taken informally to involve A and B to yield AB. Before a rule is attempted, some examples are supplied in (24). Truncation is shown as ‘’ here. (24) Examples for OE compounding consonant final cyning ‘king’ + gereord ‘banquet’ = cyninggereord ‘kingly banquet’ hæsel ‘hazel’ + hnutu ‘nut’ = hæselhnutu ‘hazelnut’ lēoht ‘light’ + bǣre ‘bearing’ = lēohtbǣre ‘luminous’ vowel final  monosyllabic cū ‘cow’ + horn ‘horn’ = cūhorn ‘cow horn’  multisyllabic (a) ending in <i>: not applicable, unstressed *i, if not deleted, appears as <e> in recorded OE, <i> in very early OE (b) ending in <e>: (sometimes) truncated

A very special word of Old English 57

(b1) light syllable before final vowel wine ‘friend’ (< *wini) + drihten ‘lord’ = winedrihten ‘chum lord’ cyrice ‘church’ + gang ‘going’ = cyricgang ‘church attendance’ cwene ‘female’ + fugol ‘bird’ = cwenfugol ‘female bird’ (b2) heavy syllable before final vowel ende ‘end’ + lāf ‘remnant’ = endelāf ‘last remnant’ wīte ‘punishment’ + þēow ‘slave’ = wīteþēow ‘slavery as punishment’ ēage ‘eye’ + wund ‘wound’ = ēagwund ‘eye wound’ © ending in <a>: <a> truncated (c1) light syllable before final vowel guma ‘man’ + stōl ‘chair’ = gumstōl ‘throne’ (c2) heavy syllable before final vowel steorra ‘star’ + glēaw ‘clever’ = steor®glēaw ‘clever at astronomy’ scucca ‘devil’ + gyld ‘service’ = scuccgyld ‘idolatry’ (d) ending in <u> (with <o> as an allograph of <u>) (d1) light syllable before final vowel: <u> not truncated medu ‘mead’ + wērig ‘weary’ = meduwērig ‘drunk’ (d2) heavy syllable before final vowel: not applicable, <u> (< *u) deleted due to HVD. (e) Summary (truncation) Preceding syllable

light heavy

C-final monosyllabic ending in a (long) V trun’d? trun’d?

multisyllabic ending in unstressed

no no

n.a. n.a.

n.a. no

<i>

<e>

<a>

<u> (<o>)

trun’d? trun’d? trun’d? trun’d? yes/no yes/no

yes yes

no n.a.

A very special word of Old English 58

Words ending in consonants are not truncated. On the face of it, the deletion of what appears as <a> is categorical, the deletion of <u>, however, never happens. It is clear that the vowels appearing as <e> in recorded OE must represent a pool of vowels with different pre-OE values, giving an insight into pre-OE phonology, see summary in (24e). We may take the etymological (pre-OE) length of word-final inflectional vowels into consideration: *endī/endij, *kwenō(n)/*kwenō ,̄̃ *gumā, etc. We have already concluded that unstressed long vowels that survive into recorded OE must originate in pre-OE long vowels. What is more, long vowels are always preserved in OE irrespective of the weight of the preceding syllable (ende, cwene, guma) and truncated in compounding. This, however, does not explain ende, which escapes truncation in compounding. What is more, if we suppose on the basis of OE that long vowels survive into OE, we are forced to conclude that wine and medu had long final vowels (*winī, *medū), but this is incorrect etymologically, and there is no sound basis for assuming such lengthening in pre-OE (other than for the purposes of escaping word-final deletion). Bliss (1967: §37, app. §4), Kuryłowicz (1948/1949, 1970) and Suzuki (1996) note that morphological identity among the words involved in alternations sensitive to HVD may have given rise to the equivalence between morphologically comparable words with and without an overt ending, e.g., hof ‘enclosure’ = word, gifu ‘gift’ = gūð ‘combat’. Suzuki (1996) claims that *i/*u were reanalysed as part of the stem, rather than a suffix that they originally were: e.g., wine < *win-i ‘friend’, rather than win-e and, similarly, gif-u (< *gif-ō), reanalysed as gifu. Fulk (1992) follows Kaluza’s (1896) insight in viewing short vowels as descending from proto-Germanic plain vowels, and the long ones as those of the circumflected ones (traditionally called trimoraic): e.g., -e (< *ôz) FemAccPl, -a (< *ô) MascNomSg, etc. Fulk (2002: 336) adds another category to the “long endings”: all inflections ending in a consonant. Bliss (1967) and, more recently, Suzuki (1995, 1996) classify long vowels as those that remain after heavy syllables by OE times. Consequently, all of those vowels that are lost after heavy syllables are short. This may leave a synchronic alternation between -e (< *i)/u (e.g., in NomSg) and zero: e.g., wine ‘friend’ vs wyrm ‘serpent’ (i-stem nouns), sunu ‘son’ vs. hand ‘hand’ (u-stem nouns), etc. In some cases, however, the phonological shape of the vowel that appears after both heavy and light syllables is

A very special word of Old English 59

the same as the one that still alternates with zero in a given paradigm (e.g., wine NomSg vs wyrm < *wyrmi NomSg vs wine/wyrme DatSg). Suzuki (1996: 286) treats the dative singular ending -e (found in a certain class of nouns) as long because it usually appears as unresolved (that is, it is not treated as a single unit with a preceding short vowel), known as Kaluza’s Law. As can be seen, both accounts are synchronically opaque: <e> (< *i) NSg is synchronically indistinguishable from <e> (< *ai) DatSg. Fulk’s and Kaluza’s system of long vowels is not coextensive with that postulated by Bliss and Suzuki, but all analyses agree that Kaluza’s Law worked at a very early stage of OE when there still existed a quantitative distinction between unstressed vowels in inflectional endings. Suzuki (1996: 285), similarly to Bliss (1967: §5 in app. B) and many others, argues that the short vowels that Kaluza’s Law makes use of in resolution all go back to pre-OE *i and *u, which were subject to HVD based on the weight of the preceding syllable. Irrespective of how a synchronic morphological account18 can deal with OE compounding, we must conclude that a diachronic account can only resort to vowel length that was still contrastive in pre-OE. Let us formulate our rule for OE compounding in (25). (25) OE compounding Take A and B if A ends in a consonant or a stressed vowel, put A and B together, if A ends in an unstressed vowel, (i) truncate the final vowel of A if it is long, put A and B together (ii) if the final vowel of A is short, put A and B together

18

Campbell (1959; §341, fn. 3; §348, fn. 2) claims that it is by analogy to a-stem nouns (that originally contained a short a in Germanic) that nouns of the ō-stem and the weak declension appear with no connecting vowel: i.e., giefstūl ‘gift-throne’ < *gefō, heortlēas ‘dispirited’ <

• hertōn, carlēas ‘free from care’ < *karō, etc. That the length of the stem final vowel may

have had anything to do with truncation is left unexplored. However, the age of the compounds also seems to have been a factor. This conclusion is supported by Campbell (1959; §348, fn.2) himself who says that compounds with a connecting vowel, like nafugār/nafegār ‘auger’ are late, probably based on the nominative (nafu ‘nave’ < *nafō) or genitive (nafe). This neatly dovetails with our analysis: the above old compound (carlēas) was formed when the final vowel was still long (and truncated), the new compound (nafugār) after shortening affected word final *ō (> o > u).

A very special word of Old English 60

If we accept (25) and work backwards, as it were, we can now supply the missing disambiguating length marks on the final vowels of the examples in (24), see (26). (26) Word-final (unstressed) inflectional vowels winĕ, medŭ, cyricē, cwenē, ēagē, gumā, steorrā, scuccā The disambiguated vowels in (26) only show reconstructed quantity, but tell us nothing about quality. This reconstruction is probably true for classical or at least non-late OE. If spelling is anything to go by, it seems that in word-final unstressed position in this period there is no short or long <i>, no long <u> for the high vowels, only long <a> exists for the low vowels and both long and short <e> for the (presumably) front (and/or central) mid region. It is equally possible that short <u> was actually a short ɔ (or o in traditional accounts, with <o> usually being treated an as allograph of <u>). This in turn means that there were no unstressed high vowels in word final position in inflectional endings. Note, however, that there is one more surprise at the end of vowel-final words: ende does not undergo truncation (endelēaf), contrary to our expectations (endlēaf). Let us look at some etymological considerations. The word is a ja-stem noun: *andjas > *andijas. The *i was responsible for umlaut. There is some controversy over what the pre-OE form of the word was (e.g., Campbell 1959, Hogg 2011): *andij or *andī. What is certain is that it cannot have been

• andi (*endi after umlaut) because word-final *i would have been deleted by

HVD (end). It may, however, have been *andī. We must, however, discard the possibility of *endij surviving into OE. One piece of evidence comes from spelling: *endij is expected as <endiġ>. The other is phonological: in OE there was no general monophthongisation of word-final ij <iġ> to a vowel spelt <e> (e.g., īfiġ ‘ivy’, īfe). We must conclude therefore that ende must have been

• endī:

(i) the high front vowel caused umlaut, (ii) it was not lost to HVD because it was long, (iii) *ij must have undergone monophthongisation to *ī before the first written evidence appears, and (iv) *ī must finally have undergone shortening to *i (ende is found with word-final <i> in very early manuscripts: endi),

A very special word of Old English 61

(v) unstressed i is later shifted to a vowel spelt <e> in classical OE (the same change in melody affected the etymological short *i in *wini > wine winə). The shortening of *ī to *i (> ə) and HVD were in a counter-feeding relationship (the shortening comes too late, as it were, for endi to undergo HVD). Compounding treats ende identically to winĕ and medŭ. All this evidence triangulates pre-OE *endij/*endī as very early OE endĭ, later OE endĕ. We can now extend (26), shown in (27). (27) Word-final (unstressed) inflectional vowels winĕ, medŭ, endĕ, cyricē, cwenē, ēagē, gumā, steorrā, scuccā This gives us the following word-final unstressed vowels for a stage of OE before which all inflectional vowels lost their distinctive quantity: ŭ (or ɔ̆), ĕ, ē and ā. We must reject Suphi’s (1988) claim that there was no quantitative distinction in inflectional vowels. Phonology and morphology treat them differently, so they must be different. The quality of the vowels shown as <e> and <ē> must remain conjectural. The data from OE compounding lends itself well to a templatic analysis. Compounding deletes a word-final long, but not a word-final short vowel. Long vowels are the size of an OE CVCV template (underlined) that is accessed by truncation: cyricē, cwenē, ēagē, gumā, steorrā, scuccā (of course, ā = aa = CVCV), see (28) for guma. (28) OE gumā for purposes of compounding (a) long vowels/diphthongs occupy two CV units lexically C1

V1 C2

ɡ

u

V2

m

C V3 a

(b) splitting of long vowels into two parts (ungrammatical) C1

• ɡ

V1 C2 u

m

V2

C V3 a

A very special word of Old English 62

As can be seen, the long vowel occupies two CV slots (28a). The association of a long vowel with two CV units is lexical. This length is coextensive with the OE template. A long vowel (or diphthong) cannot be cut in half by the template (see (28b)): *guma a. This is corroborated by the data we have discussed so far. Of course, an additional mechanism must explain the splitting in half of the C2V2 unit, but that must be disregarded now. One reason may be that the morphological parsability of the lexical item guma would have been compromised (after all, there are a number of OE words beginning with gu-). 5 Syllabic Sonorant Formation and the OE template One phonological class of nouns that can offer further insights into pre-OE phonology is the class of words that contain a Consonant+Sonorant cluster that had come to stand word-finally as a result of various apocopation rules, such as ɡr, fr, tr, tl. This happened in the NomAccSg of a-stem masculine and neuter nouns. Let’s have a look at (29) from recorded OE. (29) Syncopation in a-stem masculine and neuter nouns

S I N

(a) NOM enġel /ACC ‘angel’

MASCULINE

NEUTER

(b) fugol ‘bird’

(e) (f) botol wæter ‘house’ ‘water’

© (d) hefon tungol ‘heaven’ ‘star’

(g) bydel ‘beadle’

GEN

enġles

fugles hefones

tungles botles

wæteres bydeles

DAT

enġle

fugle

tungle

botle

wætere

bydele

P NOM

enġlas

fuglas hefonas tungol

botol

wæter

bydel

GEN

enġla

fugla

hefona

botla

wætera

bydela

DAT

enġlum

fuglum

hefonum tunglum

G

L U

hefone

/ACC

R

tungla

botlum wæterum bydelum

In (29) a typical OE paradigm is shown exemplifying syncopation (or absence thereof) before vowel initial inflectional suffixes. The data in (29c), (29f) and (29g) (shaded) show absence of syncopation in those cases where the vowel is protected by the OE template (previously explained as absence of syncopation after a light syllable). In (29a), (29b), (29d) and (29e) in the boxes shown with the ragged lines the vowel that appears in the Nom Sg is syncopated, as expected

A very special word of Old English 63

(the traditional explanation being that the syncopated vowel is preceded by a heavy syllable). The nouns in (29a) and (29b), as well as (29d) and (29e) appear to be the same, at least synchronically at some stage of recorded OE. However, these nouns looked somewhat different in pre-OE (shown in (30)). (30) Syncopation in bi-syllabic a-stem masculine and neuter nouns in pre-OE MASCULINE S I N G P L U R

NOM /ACC

(a) aŋɡil

(b) fuɡl

© hevun

NEUTER

(d) tuŋɡl

(e) botl

(f) wæter

(g) budil

19

GEN

aŋɡil-

fuɡl-

hevun-

tuŋɡl-

botl-

wæter- budil-

DAT

aŋɡil-

fuɡl-

hevun-

tuŋɡl-

botl-

wæter- budil-

NOM /ACC

aŋɡil-

fuɡl-

hevun-

tuŋɡl-

botl-

wæter- budil-

GEN

aŋɡil-

fuɡl-

hevun-

tuŋɡl-

botl-

wæter- budil-

DAT

aŋɡil-

fuɡl-

hevun-

tuŋɡl-

botl-

wæter- budil-

The data in (30) show a reconstructed piece of synchronic pre-OE after the loss of the Germanic NomAccSg suffixes (data where ‘-’ appears should read as ‘followed by a vowel in the inflectional suffix’). As can be seen OE enġel and fugol show a different state of affairs in pre-OE: enġel is etymologically an original bi-syllabic stem, as opposed to originally mono-syllabic *fugl, *tungl,

• botl. This paradigm was both reduced and expanded to the one shown in (29)

after the operation of the following processes: (i) syncopation (it operated after heavy syllables, but not light ones, before a vowel-initial suffix), reducing bi-syllabic nouns with an initial heavy syllable (with a consonant+sonorant cluster: *aŋɡil-) and monosyllabic nouns with a heavy root syllable (with a consonant+sonorant cluster: *tuŋɡl) to the same shape: VCCCV- (enġles

tungles) (shown in doubly framed boxes above), against which