Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T05:12:31.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Syllable Cut Prosody in Early Middle English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Robert W. Murray
Robert W. Murray*
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
*
Dept. of Linguistics University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta Canada T2N IN4 [rwmurray@ucalgary.ca]
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous studies have been largely unsuccessful in investigating Middle English quantity changes in terms of moraic or foot structure. The present study approaches quantity changes as the consequence of the phonologization of a syllable cut prosody (Trubetzkoy's (1939) 'Silbenschnittkorrelation') and provides new evidence for the relevance of syllable cut to the diachronic phonology of English. The evidence is from the author's partial reconstruction of the phonological system of the early Middle English dialect represented in the Ormulum (Northeast Midlands, circa 1180), based solely on the orthographic and metrical evidence provided by its author, Orm. Although Orm's innovative orthographic system previously defied analysis, it is fully interpretable once the role of syllable cut is recognized. The analysis provides crucial support for the relevance of syllable cut to the diachronic phonology of English, and ultimately to the explanation of the pan-Germanic similarities in the 'breakdown' of phonological quantity.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , September 2000, pp. 617 - 654
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Andersen, Henning. 1989. Markedness theory—the first 150 years. Markedness in synchrony and diachrony, ed. by Tomic, Olga Mišeska, 10–46. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Anderson, John M., and Britton, Derek. 1997. Double trouble: Geminate versus simplex graphs in the Ormulum. Studies in Middle English linguistics, ed. by Fisiak, Jacek, 23–58. (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs 103.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Anderson, Stephen R. 1984. A metrical interpretation of some traditional claims about quantity and stress. Language sound structure, ed. by Aronoff, Mark and Oehrle, Richard T., 83–106. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Thomas. 1998. Das Vokalsystem der deutschen Standardsprache. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo. 1998. Prosodic optimization: The Middle English length adjustment. English Language and Linguistics 2. 169–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blevins, Juliette. 1995. The syllable in phonological theory. In Goldsmith 1995, 206–44.Google Scholar
Borgström, Carl. 1938. Zur Phonologie der norwegischen Schriftsprache (nach der ostnorwegischen Aussprache). Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 9. 250–73.Google Scholar
Borowsky, Toni, Ito, Junko, Mester, Ralf-Armin. 1984. The formal representation of ambisyllabicity: Evidence from Danish. North Eastern Linguistic Society 14. 34–38.Google Scholar
Burchfield, R. W. 1956. The language and orthography of the Ormulum ms. Transactions of the Philological Society. 1956. 56–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deutschbein, Max. 1911–12. Die Bedeutung der Quantitätszeichen bei Orm. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literatur 126. 49–57; 127. 308–17.Google Scholar
Dobson, E. J. 1962. Middle English lengthening in open syllables. Transactions of the Philological Society 1962. 124–48.Google Scholar
Durand, Jacques (ed.) 1986. Dependency and non-linear phonology. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Fischer-Jørgensen, Eli. 1990. Intrinsic F0 in tense and lax vowels with special reference to German. Phonetica 47. 99–140.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fischer-Jørgensen, Eli, and Jørgensen, Hans Peter. 1969. Close and loose contact (‘Anschluß‘) with special reference to North German. Annual Report of the Institute of Phonetics of the University of Copenhagen 4. 43–80.Google Scholar
Fix, Hans (ed.) 1995. Quantitätsproblematik und Metrik. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 42. (Special volume, Greifswalder Symposion zur germanischen Grammatik.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 1996. Consonant doubling and open syllable lengthening in the Ormulum. Anglia 114. 481–513.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, John A. 1990. Autosegmental and metrical phonology. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, John A. (ed.) 1995. The handbook of phonological theory. Oxford: BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. Synchronic and diachronic universals in phonology. Language 42. 508–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grundt, Alice Wyland. 1976. Compensation in phonology: Open syllable lengthening. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Hammond, Michael. 1997. Vowel quantity and syllabification in English. Language 73. 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, Bruce. 1989. Compensatory lengthening in moraic phonology. Linguistic Inquiry 20. 253–306.Google Scholar
Hayes, Bruce. 1995. Metrical stress theory. Principles and case studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Heusler, Andreas. [1888] 1970. Der alemannische Consonantismus in der Mundart von Baselstadt. Shriften zum Alemannischen, ed. by Sonderegger, Stefan, I-131. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hock, Hans Henrich. 1986. Compensatory lengthening: In defense of the concept ‘mora’. Folia Linguistica 20. 431–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holm, Sigurd. 1922. Corrections and additions in the Ormulum manuscript. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells.Google Scholar
Hoole, Philip, Mooshammer, Christine; and Tillmann, Hans G.. 1994. Kinematic analysis of vowel production in German. Proceedings of the International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP) 1994, 1. 53–56.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J., and Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman, and Halle, Morris. 1956. Fundamentals of language. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Jensen, John T. 1993. English phonology. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1904. Lehrbuch der Phonetik. Leipzig: Teubner.Google Scholar
Johannesson, Nils-Lennart. The Ormulum project. Available electronically at http://www.hf.ntnu.no/engelsk/staff/johannesson/ormulum.htm.Google Scholar
Jones, Charles. 1989. A history of English phonology. London & New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Kahn, Daniel. 1976. Syllable-based generalizations in English phonology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Kaluza, Max. 1911. A short history of English versification from the earliest times to the present day. London: George Allen.Google Scholar
Kim, Jin-P'yong. 1983. The letterforms of Han'gul. Its origin and process of transformation. The Korean language, ed. by Korean, the Commission, National for, UNESCO, 80–102. Seoul: Si-sa-yong-o-sa Publishers. (U.S. edition: Arch Cape, Oregon: Pace International Research.)Google Scholar
Kim, Myungsook. 1993. On lengthening in the open syllables of Middle English. Lingua 91. 261–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurath, Hans. 1956. The loss of long consonants and the rise of voiced fricatives in Middle English. Language 32. 435–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuryłowicz, Jerzy. 1948–49. Latin and Germanic metre. English and Germanic Studies 2. 34–39.Google Scholar
Kusmenko, Jurij. 1995. Die mittelgermanische Quantitätsverschiebung im Lichte der Daten der modernen germanischen Dialekte. In Fix 1995, 73–102.Google Scholar
Lahiri, Aditi, and Dresher, B. Elan. 1999. Open syllable lengthening in West Germanic. Language 75. 678–719.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lass, Roger. 1985. Minkova noch einmal: MEOSL and the resolved foot. Folia Linguistica Historica 6. 245–65.Google Scholar
Lass, Roger. 1992. Phonology and morphology. The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 2, ed. by Blake, Norman, 23–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse. 1970. Suprasegmentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Winfred P. 1971. The development of Germanic verse form. New York: Gordian.Google Scholar
Liberman, Anatoly. 1992. A bird's-eye view of open syllable lengthening in English and in the other Germanic languages. Nowele 20. 67–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luick, Karl. 1898. Beiträge zur englischen Grammatik III: Die Quantitätsveränderungen im Laufe der englischen Sprachentwicklung. Anglia 20. 335–62.Google Scholar
Luick, Karl. [1914–21] 1964. Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache. Stuttgart: Bernhard Tauchnitz. [Reprint of vol. 1]Google Scholar
Lutz, Angelika. 1991. Phonotaktisch gesteuerte Konsonantenveränderungen in der Geschichte des Englischen. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lutz, Angelika. 1994. Vocalisation of ‘post-vocalic r‘—an early Modern English sound change? Studies in early Modern English, ed. by Kastovsky, Dieter, 167–85. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Maas, Utz and Tophinke, Doris. 1993. Loser und fester Anschluß. Versuch der Neubewertung einer abgelegten Kategorie. Sprachwandel und Sprachgeschichte: Festschrift für Helmut Lüdtke zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Schmidt-Radefeldt, Jürgen and Harder, Andreas, 133–51. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Maddieson, Ian. 1993. Splitting the mora. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 83. 9–19.Google Scholar
Malsch, D. L., and Fulcher, R.. 1975. Tensing and syllabication in Middle English. Language 51. 303–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markus, Manfred. 1989. The spelling peculiarities in the Ormulum from an interdisciplinary point of view: A reappraisal. The living middle ages: Studies in mediaeval English literature and its tradition: A festschrift for Karl Heinz Göller, ed. by Böker, U., Markus, M., and Schöwerling, R., 69–86. Stuttgart: Beiser.Google Scholar
Martinet, André. [1955] 1964. Économie des changements phonétiques. Bern: A. Francke.Google Scholar
Milliken, Stuart R. 1988. Protosyllables: A theory of underlying syllable structure in nonlinear phonology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University dissertation. (University Microfilms International Dissertation Information Service, Ann Arbor, Michigan.)Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 1982. The environment for open syllable lengthening in Middle English. Folia Linguistica Historica 3. 29–58.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 1985. Of rhyme and reason: Some foot-governed quantity changes in English. Papers from the fourth international conference on English historical linguistics, ed. by Eaton, Roger, Fischer, Olga, Koopman, Willem, and van, Frederike Leek, der, 163–78. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 1996. Nonprimary stress in early Middle English accentual-syllabic verse. English historical metrics, ed. by McCully, C. B. and Anderson, J. J., 95–119. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka, and Stockwell, Robert P.. 1992. Homorganic clusters as moric busters in the history of English: The case of -ld, -nd, -mb. History of Englishes: New methods and interpretations in historical linguistics, ed. by Rissanen, Matti, Ihalainen, Ossi et al., 191–207. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka, and Stockwell, Robert P.. 1994a. Syllable weight, prosody, and meter in Old English. Diachronica 11. 35–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minkova, Donka, and Stockwell, Robert P.. 1994b. Review of the Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 2, 1066–1476, ed. by Blake, Norman. Journal of Linguistics 30. 528–47.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka, and Stockwell, Robert P.. 1998. The origins of long-short allomorphy in English. Advances in English historical linguistics 1996, ed. by Fisiak, Jacek and Krygier, Marcin, 211–39. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Morsbach, Lorenz. 1896. Mittelenglische Grammatik. Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Murray, Robert W. 1995. Orm's phonological-orthographic interface and quantity in Early Middle English. In Fix 1995, 125–47.Google Scholar
Murray, Robert W., and Vennemann, Theo. 1983. Sound change and syllable structure in Germanic phonology. Language 59. 514–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naiditsch, Larissa. 1997. Zur Rekonstruktion der Silbenstruktur-Entwicklung in den oberdeutschen Mundarten. Nowele 31/32.253–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, B. Richard. 1998. The Germanic Verschärfung without the laryngeals: An argument for [consonantal]. Paper presented at the fourth Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC4), April 17–19, 1998, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Parkes, M. B. 1983. On the presumed date and possible origin of the manuscript of the ‘Orrmulum’: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 1. Five hundred years of words and sounds, ed. by Stanley, E. G. and Gray, Douglas, 115–27. Cambridge: Brewer.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, David. 1995. Phonological quantity and multiple association. In Goldsmith 1995, 307–17.Google Scholar
Phillips, Betty S. 1992. Open syllable lengthening and the Ormulum. Word 43. 375–82.Google Scholar
Plotkin, V. Y. 1972. The dynamics of the English phonological system. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramers, Karl Heinz. 1988. Vokalquantität und -qualität im Deutschen. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reis, Marga. 1974. Lauttheorie und Lautgeschichte: Untersuchungen am Beispiel der Dehnungs- und Kürzungsvorgänge im Deutschen. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.Google Scholar
Riad, Tomas. 1992. Structures in German prosody: A diachronic study with special reference to the Nordic languages. Stockholm University: Department of Scandinavian languages.Google Scholar
Ritt, Nikolaus. 1994. Quantity adjustment: Vowel lengthening and shortening in Early Middle English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russom, Geoffrey. 1987. Old English meter and linguistic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Salmons, Joseph C. 1993. The glottalic theory: Survey and synthesis. McLean, VA: Institute for the Study of Man.Google Scholar
Sarrazin, G. 1898. Mittelenglische Vokaldehnung in offener Silbe und Streitbergs Dehnungsgesetz. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literatur 101. 64–86.Google Scholar
Sievers, Eduard. 1901. Grundzüge der Phonetik zur Einführung in das Studium der Lautlehre der indogermanischen Sprachen. 5th edn. Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel.Google Scholar
Sisam, Kenneth. 1962. Studies in the history of Old English literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Corrected reprint of 1953 edition.]Google Scholar
Stockwell, Robert P. and Minkova, Donka. 1990. The early Modern English vowels, more o' Lass. Diachronica 7. 199–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streitberg, Wilhelm. 1894. Die Entstehung der Dehnstufe. Indogermanische Forschungen 3. 305–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweet, Henry. 1888. History of English sounds. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Tarlinskaja, M. G. 1974. Meter and rhythm of pre-Chaucerian rhymed verse. Linguistics 121. 65–87.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Moritz. 1896. Orms Doppelzeichen bei Sweet und bei Morsbach. Anglia 18. 371–81.Google Scholar
Treiman, R., and Danis, C.. 1988. Syllabification of intervocalic consonants. Journal of Memory and Cognition 27. 87–104.Google Scholar
Trubetzkoy, N. S. 1939. Grundzüge der Phonologic Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. [5th reprint, 1971.] (= Principles of phonology, trans. by Christiane A. M. Baltaxe. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.)Google Scholar
Vachek, Josef. 1959. Notes on the quantitative correlation of vowels in the phonematic development of English. Mélanges de linguistique et de philologie. Fernand Mossé in memoriam, 444–56. Paris: Didier.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. 1988a. Preference laws for syllable structure and the explanation of sound change. With special reference to German, Germanic, Italian, and Latin. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. 1988b. The rule dependence of syllable structure. On language: A festschrift for Robert P. Stockwell, ed. by Duncan-Rose, Caroline and Vennemann, Theo, 257–83. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. 1991a. Syllable structure and syllable cut prosodies in Modern Standard German. Certamen phonologicum 2, ed. by Bertinetto, Pier Marco, Kenstowicz, Michael, and Loporcaro, Michele, 211–43. Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. 1991b. Skizze der deutschen Wortprosodie. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 10. 86–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. 1994. Universelle Nuklearphonologie mit epiphänomenaler Silbenstruktur. Universale phonologische Strukturen und Prozesse, ed. by Ramers, Karl Heinz, Vater, Heinz, and Wode, Henning, 7–54. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. 1995. Der Zusammenbruch der Quantität im Spätmittelalter und sein Einfluß auf die Metrik. In Fix 1995, 185–223.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. 2000. From quantity to syllable cuts: On so-called lengthening in the Germanic languages. Institut für Deutsche Philologie, Universität München, to appear.Google Scholar
Von Essen, O. 1962. Trubetzkoy's fester und loser Anschluß in experimental phonetischer Sicht. Proceedings of the fourth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 590–98.Google Scholar
White, R. M., and Holt, Robert (eds.) 1878. The Ormulum, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph, and Wright, Elizabeth Mary. 1928. An elementary Middle English grammar. 2nd edn. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar