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Early Loss of [r] Before Dentals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Archibald A. Hill
Archibald A. Hill*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

It is well known that stressed post-vocalic [r] has been lost in many dialects of Modern English. Besides this recent loss historians of English have recognized that some [r]s in stressed syllables were lost at an earlier date.

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Type
Research Article
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PMLA , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , June 1940, pp. 308 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1940

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References

1 Cf. Mats Redin, Studies on Uncompounded Personal Names in Old English, “Uppsala Universitet Årsskrift” (Uppsala: Berling, 1919), pp. xxxv-xxxvi. Examples of this process are Æffa<Ælfbeorht, Bugga<Burga, Beonnu<Beorn. Rudolf Müller, “Untersuchungen über die Namen des nordhumbrischen Liber Vitae,” Palaestra, ix (1902, 11, 25, quotes some additional Old English examples.

2 Adolf Noreen, Altisländische und Altnorwegische Grammatik, 4th ed. (Halle: Niemeyer, 1923), pp. 185, 197–198. On similar changes in modern Scandinavian dialects, cf. Gösta Langenfelt, Select Studies in Colloquial English of the Late Middle Ages (Lund: Ohlsson, 1933), p. 51 n.

3 Dietrich Behrens, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Französischen Sprache in England. I. Zur Lautlehre der Französischen Lehnwörter im Mittelenglischen,” Französische Studien, v, pt. 2 (1886), 196. Emil Busch, Laut- und Formenlehre der anglonormannischen Sprache des XIV. Jahrhunderts, (Greifswald: Abel, 1887), 45. Louis Emil Menger, The Anglo-Norman Dialect, a Manual of its Phonology and Morphology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1904), p. 90. Johan Vising, Étude sur le dialecle Anglo-Normande du XIIe siècle, (Uppsala: Edquist, 1882), p. 87. On Middle English r-less spellings under French influence, cf. R. E. Zachrisson, “Two instances of French Influence on English Place-Names,” Studier i Modern Språkvetenskap, ulgivna av Nyfilologiska Sällskapel i Stockholm, v (1914), 19.

4 Zachrisson, op. cit., pp. 19–23; and “A Contribution to the Study of Anglo-Norman Influence on English Place-Names,” Lunds Universitets Arsskrift, N.F.Afd. I, iv, no. 3 (1909), 136. On dissimilation of [r] in modern English dialects, cf. Fritz Franzmeyer, Studien über den Konsonantismus und Vokalismus der neuenglischen Dialekte auf Grund der Ellis'schen Listen und des Wright'schen Dialect Dictionary (Strassburg: Dumont-Schauberg, 1906). Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), refers many [r]-less forms to dissimilation. Important as this process is, it seems to me less so than Zachrisson and Ekwall believe. It is noticeable that many more examples of dissimilation occur when the following consonant was one which, as this paper will show, could produce loss by assimilation, than when it was one which could not produce such a loss. (Eduard Eckhardt, “Die konsonantische Dissimilation im Englischen,” Anglia, lxii (1938), 92–93, lists eight examples of dissimilatory loss before dentals, and only one where no dental follows). Apparently the one tendency aided the other.

5 Henry Cecil Wyld, A History of Modern Colloquial English (New York: Dutton, 1920), 293–300. William Matthews. “The Vulgar Speech of London in the XV–XVII Centuries,” N & Q, clxxii (1937), 218. Langenfelt, op. cit., pp. 46–52, has other early examples of loss of post-vocalic [r] from the same district. Wyld, though right in his conclusions, did not distinguish between loss by assimilation and the general loss in post-vocalic position, so that many of his examples belong to the earlier change.

6 Karl Luick, Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1921), 695–696. Richard Jordan, Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik (Heidelberg: Winter, 1925), pp. 150–151.

7 A possible second form is the pronunciation [lomθat] for Ormathwaite in Cumberland, cf. Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, Part V, Existing Dialectal as Compared with West Saxon Pronunciation EETS, extra series lvi; (London: Trübner, 1889), p. 605. But this form may be due to dissimilation, since the etymon is probably the ON personal name Oman. Cf. W. J. Sedgefield, Place-names of Cumberland and Westmorland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1915), p. 83.

8 The statements on which the [r] regions in this map are based are found in Ellis, op. cit., pp. 17, 189, 234, 293–294, 495.

9 It should be noted that some of the dialect grammars, as for instance, Theodor Albrecht, “Der Sprachgebrauch des Dialektdichters Charles E. Benham zu Colchester in Essex,” Palaestra, cxi (1916), 81–82, and Harold Orton, The Phonology of a South Durham Dialect, Descriptive, Historical, and Comparative (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1933), 43, explain all [r]-less forms with short vowels as the result of shortening of long vowels resulting from the general post-vocalic loss. Both these grammars, however, list only examples of [r] plus dental as giving rise to such forms. Similarly, Joseph Wright, A Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, “English Dialect Society,” xxvi (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1892), states that [r] is uniformly lost before all consonants, and results in a long vowel or diphthong, and then lists two examples of short vowels before dentals, without comment.

10 Alois Pogatscher, “Etymologisches und grammatisches,” Anglia, xxxi (1908), 261–265.

11 This is the view of the process that is taken by Langenfelt, loc. cit., which is the fullest discussion of the steps of the assimilation that I have found. Langenfelt is, however, wrong on two points. First, the occurrence of the assimilation does not prove that all ME. [r]‘s were weakly trilled before consonants, since as I have shown above, [r] loss can occur in Modern dialects where [r] is strongly trilled in all positions. Second, the assimilation does not prove that all ME. [r]‘s were alveolar rather than true dental, since assimilation took place before [o] and [θ] which were certainly not alveolars, and there is no proof that ME. [d], [t], [n] were alveolar in all dialects.

12 Börje Brilioth, A Grammar of the Dialect of Lorton (Cumberland), Publications of the Philological Society, i (London: Oxford University Press [1913]), 74–76, 197.

13 There exist only the notes on special problems found in Curt Schererz, “Studien zu den Ortsnamen von Cambridgeshire,” Zeitschrift für Ortsnamenforschung, iii (1927–28), 13–26, 176–199.

14 J. K. Wallenberg, The Place-Names of Kent (Uppsala: Appelberg, 1934), p. iv.

15 This is the position of Pogatscher, loc. cit., and Luick, op. cit., p. 703, and elsewhere.

16 Emil Koeppel, “Zur englischen Wortbildungslehre, Nachträge,” Archiv, civ (1900), 279–286.

17 Ellis, op. cit., p. 189.

18 F. Kluge, “Zur Geschichte der Zeichensprache, Angelsächsische Indicia Monasteriialia,” Internationale Zeilschrift für allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, ii (1885), 123, “Cesena tâcen” (the sign of cress, g. pl.). The MS is placed by Kluge in the southeast and dated ca. 1050. Thomas Wright, Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies, 2d ed. (London: Trübner, 1884), i, col. 139, “accidenetum, gost.” The form is in a transcript of an eleventh century MS of Ælfric.