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Tensing and syllabication in Middle English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Derry L. Malsch and
Roseanne Fulcher
Derry L. Malsch
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
Roseanne Fulcher
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Abstract

Traditional analyses of open-syllable tensing in Middle English exhibit two anomalies. First, high vowels appear to lower as well as tense, whereas other vowels appear only to tense. Second, a large number of exceptions, both native forms and Norman French borrowings, appear to compromise the productivity of open-syllable tensing, and typically are left unanalysed. But the first anomaly disappears when it is observed that all vowels lower when tensed; and the second disappears when the environment for open-syllable tensing is properly stated, rendering it sensitive to the operation of independently required syllable-boundary insertion rules and an independently motivated sonorant gemination rule. Additional Norman French borrowings which are not tensed are analysed as analogous to phonologically similar native forms which are morphologically complex, and therefore predictably exempt from tensing resulting from the operation of syllable-boundary insertion.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1975, pp. 303 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 by Linguistic Society of America

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