08st-raw

¹⁾

ii) above) and -enne type ((iii) above) of suffixes to be preceded by a heavy syllable or its resolved equivalent. Campbell (§91) does not include the -dom type suffixes in the group of those suffixes that have to be preceded by a long syllable or its equivalent. On the other hand, the -dom type of suffixes cannot ever be preceded by a light syllable. Historically the -dom type of suffixes derive from independent (lexical) words (dōm ‘doom, judgement’) and as such could only be concatenated to an already existing word, which accidentally always comprises a heavy syllable. The quantitative requirement is thus satisfied by default. What counts is the presence of a vowel after the -dom type of suffixes (cf. wsdom vs. wsdòmes). We are thus left with suffixes in (iii) as the only candidates whose ability to receive stress depends on the weight of the preceding syllable. In addition to this, the condition which states that suffixes in (iii) must either be preceded by a heavy syllable or two light resolved syllables is also spurious. Unfortunately, in Class II of weak verbs there are no clear examples of bisyllabic verbs whose second syllable is heavy. A verb like aswéfecian ‘eradicate’, following the above discussion, must be stressed as aswéfecìan. One cannot but wonder what the stress of an imaginary verb like aswefencian would have been. There is nothing in principle that speaks against aswéfencìan. If this is so, one cannot but still wonder why the formulation is as it is: -i- has secondary stress after a heavy syllable or a resolved sequence of two light syllables. The second syllable (after the verbal prefix) of the imaginary aswefencian is heavy. If this is so, the quantity-based approach to secondary stress is suspect on another count. What decides on the secondary stress of -i-, in case of a preceding resolvable syllable, is whether it is preceded by two vowels or not (the presence of a coda consonant in such a resolved sequence is irrelevant). In addition, a following pronounced vowel is also necessary for secondary stress. The Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 21 former will have two lift positions (a primary and a secondary stressed syllable), the latter only one (primary) stressed syllable. After we have excluded the suffixes in (ii) as relevant for a formulation of stress based on the (combined) weight of the preceding syllable(s), we are left with the following set of generalisations: (A) the set of suffixes in (ii) above are always preceded by a heavy syllable, but are only stressed if followed by an inflectional ending (which, incidentally, always contains a vowel) and (B) the set of suffixes in (iii) above are stressed only if they are preceded by a heavy syllable (or its resolved equivalent) and if followed by a vowel. If only one of these conditions is met, there is no secondary stress (see (11) below; ‘n/a’ indicates that no further vowel-full inflectional suffix can be added; ‘—’ shows that the suffix in question always ends in a vowel, it is impossible to cut if off, as it were). (11) Secondary stress (possible combinations)20 Secondary stress × wsdom wésende — — úfemest hafudes wsdòmes, ?wsdōmes n/a drfènde síngènne úfemèstan n/a The table above summarises our previous findings: the really controversial issue in OE phonology is the assignment of secondary stress. It appears after heavy syllables (or resolved equivalents) and if followed by a vowel. Primary compounds like góldwlànc are outside this dimension as they represent 20 Glosses as they appear row by row: ‘wisdom’, ‘wisdom, gen. sg.’, ‘being, pres. part.’, ‘driving, pres. part.’, ‘singing, infl. inf.’, ‘uppermost’, ‘uppermost, masc. acc. sg.’, ‘head, gen. sg.’ The Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 22 demoted primary stressed syllables, which also happen to be heavy (this is a straightforward consequence of the fact that an OE word must minimally be comprised of a heavy syllable). A cautionary note on suffixation is necessary at this point, only to the extent of a short morphological detour. Assuming that early Indo-European was an analytic language characterised by the minimal word constraint, early suffixation can be crudely construed of as compounding. At a later stage, a division of labour set in between the various types and functions of compounding to the effect that inflectional and derivational suffixation could now be distinguished. The change from analytic to synthetic morphology in the various Indo-European languages can plausibly be viewed as a change in the morphological structure of original word plus word concatenations. The more obscured the structure became, the more difficult it was to differentiate between (what is now called) stem and suffixes. With no attempt at a fully-fledged account and the expense of giving an anachronistic analysis, goldwlanc ‘proud with gold’, wīsdom ‘wisdom’, cyning ‘king’, berende ‘bearing’ singenne ‘sing’ all have the same structure at a distant point in the diachrony of the language: gold#wlanc, wīs#dom, cyn#ing, ber#ende and sing#enne. In other words, all of these suffixes were originally added to a minimal Indo-European word. The difference between a primary compound (góldwlànc) and an obscured compound (wsdom) in terms of stress could be handled by recourse to the difference between compounding and Level 2 suffixation for example, whereas the difference between wsdom and cýning by Level 2 (inflectional suffixes) and Level 1 (or derivational) affixation. Even within derivational suffixes there must have existed a difference in semantic compositionality: wīsdom contained a morphologically transparent derivational suffix (-dom), whereas cyning was already semantically opaque at this stage (it was probably already lexicalised and mono-morphemic, i.e. it was not derived using productive suffixation). Kim (2001: 44) uses the term ‘historical suffix’ for the dom-type affixes and ‘lexical suffixes’ for a lexicalised patronymic suffix like -ing. The distinction is grounded in the degree of semantic compositionality and (possibly) the level where morphological suffixation takes place. Phonologically, however, they show identical behaviour with respect to secondary stress. All inflectional suffixes (e.g. -ende and -enne) were already semantically opaque at this stage of OE and served grammatical functions only. The phoThe Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 23 nology of secondary stress proves that words formed with derivational and inflectional suffixes behaved identically. Irrespective of the way their morphological composition is represented, phonology treats cyning and berende in the same way (there is no secondary stress on their second syllable). In other words, the traditional classification of primary compounds vs. obscured compounds, as well as derivational vs. inflectional suffixes can be reformulated in terms of a compound–mono-morphemic word cline. If one exempts primary compounds as relevant on the basis that here two words get concatenated that meet the minimal word requirement in their own right (cf. góldwlànc), phonology treats the rest of the vocabulary in ‘flat’ manner. Contra McCully (1999b: 31), who claims that it is impossible to integrate OE stress assignment into a single level, it is claimed here that stress is calculated after morphology has run its course. Phonology in itself offers little insight into how the lexicon is constructed in terms of derivational or inflectional cycles. The case of compounds is more complex from a morphological point of view (they can also undergo inflectional suffixation, for example), but from a phonological point of view they can be decomposed into two independently stressed words followed by demotion of the second primary stress in line. If phonology can reveal anything about the organisation of the OE lexicon, this only happens with compounds, the rest of the non-compound words (whether mono-morphemic, derived or inflected) treated without recourse to internal structure: e.g. hǣrìngas ‘herring, non./acc. pl.’, cýnedòmes ‘kingdom, gen. sg.’ and síngènde ‘singing’, all handled in the same way by phonology (as shown by the appearance of secondary stress). It seems that even if syllable weight has a role to play in the assignment of stress, to grant it a theoretic status in the phonology of OE, as it is usually done, would be misguided or at least missing the need for a more explanatory account. It is time to investigate briefly an account of OE stress based on syllable weight and try to understand the reasons for introducing this notion into the description of OE phonology in the first place. 2.3 An account based on syllable weight McCully & Hogg’s (1990: 333) final account of OE stress, the so-called OESR (Old English Stress Rule) reads as follows (S stands for ‘stressed’, W for ‘weakly (secondary) stressed’): The Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 24 OESR Assign maximally binary S W feet from left to right, where S must contain branching, or be dominated by a branching foot at the left edge of the domain. As argued by McCully & Hogg (1990), the OESR works in a mirror-image fashion to the modern English stress rule: the major difference is that the OESR applies cyclically from left-to-right and is sensitive to morphologically designated extrametricality. Crucially, monosyllabic verbal prefixes are invisible to the OESR, which thus works on a priori determined morphological domains: [Nand[saca]], yielding ándsàca ‘apostate’, vs. [Von[sacan]], resulting in onsácan ‘deny’. The verbal prefix is later left-adjoined to the foot sácan by Stray Morpheme Adjunction, which is very similar to the Stray Syllable Adjunction process of modern English (Hayes 1982: 235). This account of OE stress can be termed a ‘flat approach’, as already remarked, because it is assumed that stress computation applies when all suffixes (derivational and inflectional), as well as the morphological domains, are present. In other words, there are no domains after the stem sac- ([on[sacenne]] ‘deny, infl. inf.’ rather than [on[sac]enn]e, with -enn, the mutated infinitive suffix -an < *anjwhose last consonant underwent gemination, and the dative suffix -e). Accordingly, a word like wórda ‘word, gen. pl.’21 and ǽþeling ‘noble, nom. sg.’ must be analysed as shown in (12). 21 The derivation of worda, for example, is not supplied by McCully & Hogg (1990) for obvious reasons: if the OESR, after erecting a ‘S’ node over branching structure (the rhyme in the case of word), it cycles for another time, now trying to erect ‘S’ on -a. This last syllable, if considered to comprise a short vowel, must be labelled as unstressed by some default mechanism that assigns ‘w’ to unstressable phonological material. It cannot even be subject to Marginal (Final) Destressing, as the final syllable of ǽþeling, because it cannot be assigned secondary stressed in the first place (given that the syllable is light). If it is considered to contain a long vowel (as it historically did), it would be subject to Marginal (Final) Destressing (an issue not discussed by the authors). The Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 25 (12) The OESR applied to wórda and ǽþeling (a) S S word (b) W S ?W a S æ c) W þel W S ?S ing S æ W þel w ing In (12b), on its second cycle, the OESR scans -ing as the head of a secondary stressed foot because it is heavy (it contains branching at the level of the rhyme). There is no ‘S’ label on -ing in the original source, although it is underlyingly stressed (as claimed by McCully & Hogg 1990: 327): it conforms to the description of the OESR. It must be assigned the label ‘S’. This second weak foot is then subjected to Marginal (Final) Destressing22 and thus surfaces as unstressed. As can be seen the fact that the final heavy syllable is destressed can only be handled by rule ordering: OESR (this scans the word for branching constituents and assigns the labels ‘S’ and ‘W’, shown in (12b) below the horizontal line; here the first branching constituent is achieved at the level of the foot) –> Word Rule (this decides on the primary prominence of the first of the two nodes, shown in (12b) above the horizontal line) –> Marginal (Final) Destressing (this converts a weak final unary, i.e. non-branching, foot into a destressed syllable and attaches it to the preceding foot, shown in (12c), with ‘w’ showing an unstressed syllable here, for expository reasons). After Destressing has applied, ǽþeling now has the following prominence relations on foot level: ‘S w’, before the last syllable undergoes stray syllable adjunction. In other words, ‘W’ shows a weak or secondary stressed foot (as in góldwlànc: ‘S W’), whereas ‘w’ designates a weak syllable attached to a preceding strong foot by Stray Syllable Adjunction, as in 22 The syllable has to be non-lexical, otherwise it would also destress the second elements of compounds, as in góldwlanc. The Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 26 the case of the last ‘w’ syllable of ǽþeling. The prominence of ǽþeling is now simply ‘S’, dominating the three syllables of the word. In contrast to this, in (12a) the final syllable does not qualify for secondary stress (the vowel is short and cannot be assigned ‘S’ on the second iteration of the OESR). In contrast to this, wordum ‘word, dat. pl.’ would receive the same analysis as æþeling. The real motivation behind formulating a weight-sensitive OESR is not apparent at this point. Primary stress would be assigned in the same way even without branching at some level of structure at the left edge of the domain (at the level of the rhyme, or the foot; what matters is that there must be branching somewhere in the structure). Formulating a purely morphologically-grounded rule (which says that primary stress is always found on the first syllable of a word unless it is a verbal prefix or an unstressable prefix), would also derive the right result. In addition, there is another theory-internal technical point worth mentioning: the derivation of æþeling is ambiguous. The formulation of the OESR as it stands (‘assign maximally binary S W feet from left to right’) allows primary stress to be assigned in one iteration, without the ultimate (here: heavy) syllable first receiving underlying stress (‘S’) and then being demoted to weak/secondary stress (‘W’) and ultimately subjected to Marginal (Final) Destressing and finally right-adjoined to the preceding foot as an unstressed syllable (shown as ‘w’). A binary ‘S W’ foot could be assigned to æþeling in the first cycle with ‘S’ dominating a branching structure, -æþe, and ‘W’ dominating an underlyingly stressed syllable which ultimately ends up as unstressed. Making reference to the weight of the last syllable seems superfluous and unnecessary. Both derivations, nevertheless, yield the same result. This ambiguousness questions the validity of the account of primary stress assignment. The discussion of secondary stress, as found in ǽþelìngas ‘noble, nom./acc. pl.’, is instructive in showing how circular the analysis of weight-based primary stress is. The derivation of this word is given in (13) (cf. McCully & Hogg 1990: 329). The Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 27 (13) The derivation of ǽþelìngas S S æ W W þel S W ing as When it cycles first, the OESR assigns ‘S’ and ‘W’ to the first two (resolved) syllables. Branching is thus achieved at foot level. On its second cycle, the rule assigns ‘S’ and ‘W’ to the two remaining syllables. The Word Rule then assigns primary stress to the first foot, leaving the second foot secondary stressed (creating ǽþelìngas). A theory-internal technical problem can already be spotted: when the OESR cycles for the second time, it seems to glide over the heavy syllable of -ing (even if the [g] of this suffix is in onset of the next syllable, the rhyme is still heavy, dominating [iN]). If the OESR is sensitive to syllable weight and looks for the first available branching spot, in this case -ing, the second foot should be erected over this suffix. It is only on its third cycle that another foot could be imposed on the final syllable -as. This syllable, since it is domain-final, would undergo Marginal (Final) Destressing and be adjoined to the preceding foot (the one dominating -ing). The result would be the same in either case (ǽþelìngas). It seems that the OESR is sometimes sensitive to rhymal branching, sometimes to foot-level branching. It is impossible to decide which principle takes precedence. This leaves the analysis ambiguous on theory internal grounds.23 Another ambiguity is worth mentioning: it is not clear how the Word Rule (the rule that decides on the prominence of any two nodes) would react to a structure shown in (14): 23 Clearly branching at foot level is given precedence over branching at syllable/rhymal level (as encoded in the final version of the OESR), but this is again a stipulation that does not seem to follow from anything. The Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 28 (14) Word Rule and left-strong prominence S N1 W N2 S N1 S æ W N2 W þel S ing S as Let us consider the derivation for this alternative scenario in detail: first, the OESR looks for branching and assigns ‘S’ to these structures (on its first iteration, ‘S’ is assigned to the first syllable of the leftmost resolved sequence of syllables; on the second iteration the next branching structure receives ‘S’, the heavy syllable dominating -ing, and in the third cycle the final heavy syllable will be designated as ‘S’). Second, for any pair of foot-level nodes N1, N2, N1 is strong (McCully & Hogg 1990: 323). Note that there is no special proviso insuring that feet must branch, i.e. dominate at least two syllables. It can be surmised that the grouping of feet happens from the left edge, giving OE its left-strong prominence: this assigns primary stress correctly to the structure ǽþeling). In the next step of the derivation, the first branching foot node (dominating ǽþeling) is found right-flanked by another node (dominating -as). The Word Rule (again) assigns primary stress to the first node. The second node at this level (the one dominating -as) is now a ‘W’ foot and must be subjected to Marginal (Final) Destressing (not shown here), yielding ǽþelingas. This, however, cannot derive secondary stress (cf. the correct ǽþelìngas). This can only be overcome if one assumes that after the first cycling (which erects ‘S’ on ǽþe-), the OESR immediately groups syllables (disregarding their weight) into a non-unary foot (-lingas). Thus the right result is achieved but the derivation becomes ambiguous: it is not clear when the OESR is satisfied by branching at rhymal level and when at foot level. If the OESR is only satisfied by foot-level branching in its second cycling but The Even Yearbook 8 (2008), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 1218–8808, http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even, © 2008, Attila Starčević Old English stress – from constituency to dependency 29 can be satisfied with both syllable and foot-level branching at the left edge of the word, a more uniform analysis is called for. In McCully & Hogg’s analysis secondary stress can only be derived by crude force: in its second cycle the OESR cannot be satisfied by a unary branching foot. It seems that unary feet are not preferred at the right edge of the word: whenever possible a bi-syllabic foot must be constructed (cf. the derivation of ǽþelìngas above) which then receives secondary stress. In connection with the stress pattern of hafode, which has no secondary stress on its second syllable (hafòde) on the evidence of OE poetry, and usually shows syncopation of the medial vowel (hafde), can be handled by a stipulation: a foot whose first syllable contains a short vowel (-o- in this case) and a second a syllable of any kind (a light one in this case: -e) can only be assigned secondary stress at the left edge of a domain. In hafode, -ode is not at the left edge of the domain, so it cannot be assigned secondary stress. At the right edge of the domain, the ‘S’ node must dominate a branching (heavy) syllable, in addition to another syllable, for the foot to receive secondary stress. The stipulation that ‘S’ can also dominate a branching foot whose first leg is a light syllable at the left edge of the domain only is necessary to account for what McCully & Hogg (1990) call a systematic exception to the OESR, i.e. bisyllabic words whose first syllable is light, as in gúma ‘man’, cýning, etc. It is only with this stipulation that the stress pattern a typical OE word like gúma can be derived (the first syllable is not heavy, so the word would have no stress). This makes the derivation of primary stress (especially when coupled with the supposition that a primary stressed syllable must be heavy) suspect. Let us look more closely at the derivation of hafode. Despite McCully & Hogg’s (1990) insistence that stress applies after all suffixes have been aligned, the internal bracketing of hafode is given as [[hēafod]e] (hēafod is the monomorphemic base (< *hauβuð-), -e the inflectional suffix). It is explicitly claimed that the bracketing [hēafode] is incorrect (1990: 331, their (14b

²⁾
18b), (18e) and (18f