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Vowel breaking

January 19, 2024

In historical linguistics, vowel breaking, vowel fracture,[1] or diphthongization is the sound change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong.

Types edit

Vowel breaking may be unconditioned or conditioned. It may be triggered by the presence of another sound, by stress, or in no particular way.

Assimilation edit

Vowel breaking is sometimes defined as a subtype of diphthongization, when it refers to harmonic (assimilatory) process that involves diphthongization triggered by a following vowel or consonant.

The original pure vowel typically breaks into two segments. The first segment matches the original vowel, and the second segment is harmonic with the nature of the triggering vowel or consonant. For example, the second segment may be /u/ (a back vowel) if the following vowel or consonant is back (such as velar or pharyngeal), and the second segment may be /i/ (a front vowel) if the following vowel or consonant is front (such as palatal).

Thus, vowel breaking, in the restricted sense, can be viewed as an example of assimilation of a vowel to a following vowel or consonant.

Unconditioned edit

Vowel breaking is sometimes not assimilatory and is then not triggered by a neighboring sound. That was the case with the Great Vowel Shift in English in which all cases of /iː/ and /uː/ changed to diphthongs.

Stress edit

Vowel breaking sometimes occurs only in stressed syllables. For instance, Vulgar Latin open-mid /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ changed to diphthongs only when they were stressed.

Indo-European languages edit

English edit

Vowel breaking is a very common sound change in the history of the English language, occurring at least three times (with some varieties adding a fourth) listed here in reverse chronological order:

Southern American English edit

Main article: Southern American English

Vowel breaking is characteristic of the "Southern drawl" of Southern American English, where the short front vowels have developed a glide up to [j], and then in some areas back down to schwa: pat [pæjət], pet [pɛjət], pit [pɪjət].[2]

Great Vowel Shift edit

The Great Vowel Shift changed the long vowels /iː uː/ to diphthongs, which became Modern English /aɪ aʊ/.

  • Old English īs > Modern English ice /aɪs/
  • Old English hūs > Modern English house /haʊs/

Middle English edit

Main article: Middle English phonology § Breaking

In early Middle English, a vowel /i/ was inserted between a front vowel and a following /h/ (pronounced [ç] in this context), and a vowel /u/ was inserted between a back vowel and a following /h/ (pronounced [x] in this context).

That is a prototypical example of the narrow sense of "vowel breaking" as described above: the original vowel breaks into a diphthong that assimilates to the following consonant, gaining a front /i/ before a palatal consonant and /u/ before a velar consonant.

Old English edit

Main articles: Phonological history of Old English § Breaking and retraction, and Phonological history of Old English § Back mutation

In Old English, two forms of harmonic vowel breaking occurred: breaking and retraction and back mutation.

In prehistoric Old English, breaking and retraction changed stressed short and long front vowels i, e, æ to short and long diphthongs spelled io, eo, ea when followed by h or by r, l + another consonant (short vowels only), and sometimes w (only for certain short vowels):[3]

  • Proto-Germanic *fallan > Anglo-Frisian *fællan > Old English feallan "fall"
  • PG *erþō > OE eorþe "earth"
  • PG *lirnoːjan > OE liornan "learn"

In late prehistoric Old English, back mutation changed short front i, e, æ to short diphthongs spelled io, eo, ea before a back vowel in the next syllable if the intervening consonant was of a certain nature. The specific nature of the consonants that trigger back umlaut or block it varied from dialect to dialect.

Old Norse edit

Main article: Old Norse phonological processes

Proto-Germanic stressed short e becomes ja or (before u) jǫ regularly in Old Norse except after w, r, l. Examples are:

According to some scholars,[4] the diphthongisation of e is an unconditioned sound change, whereas other scholars speak about epenthesis[5] or umlaut.[6]

German and Yiddish edit

The long high vowels of Middle High German underwent breaking during the transition to Early New High German: /iː yː uː/ → /aɪ̯ ɔʏ̯ aʊ̯/. In Yiddish, the diphthongization affected the long mid vowels as well: /ɛː oː øː iː yː uː/ → /ɛɪ̯ ɔɪ̯ ɛɪ̯ aɪ̯ aɪ̯ ɔɪ̯/

This change started as early as the 12th century in Upper Bavarian and reached Moselle Franconian only in the 16th century. It did not affect Alemannic or Ripuarian dialects, which still retain the original long vowels.

In Yiddish, the diphthongization applied not only to MHG long vowels but also to /ɛː oː/ in words of Hebrew (in stressed open syllables) or Slavic origin:

Scottish Gaelic edit

Vowel breaking is present in Scottish Gaelic with the following changes occurring often but variably between dialects: Archaic Irish eː → Scottish Gaelic iə and Archaic Irish oː → Scottish Gaelic uə [7] Specifically, central dialects have more vowel breaking than others.

Romance languages edit

Many Romance languages underwent vowel breaking. The Vulgar Latin open vowels e /ɛ/ and o /ɔ/ in stressed position underwent breaking only in open syllables in French and Italian, but in both open and closed syllables in Spanish. Vowel breaking was mostly absent in Catalan, in which /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ became diphthongs only before a palatal consonant: Latin coxa 'thigh', octō 'eight', lectum 'bed' > Old Catalan */kuoiʃa/, */uoit/, */lieit/. The middle vowel was subsequently lost if a triphthong was produced: Modern Catalan cuixa, vuit, llit (cf. Portuguese coxa, oito, leito). Vowel breaking was completely absent in Portuguese. The result of breaking varies between languages: e and o became ie and ue in Spanish, ie and uo in Italian and ie and eu /ø/ in French.

In the table below, words with breaking are bolded.

Syllable shape Latin Spanish French Italian Portuguese Catalan
Open petram, focum piedra, fuego pierre, feu pietra, fuoco pedra, fogo pedra, foc
Closed festam, portam fiesta, puerta fête, porte festa, porta festa, porta festa, porta

Romanian edit

Main articles: History of Romanian § Breaking of stressed open e, and History of Romanian § Breaking of e and o

Romanian underwent the general Romance breaking only with /ɛ/, as it did not have /ɔ/:

  • Latin pellis > Romanian piele "skin"

It underwent a later breaking of stressed e and o to ea and oa before a mid or open vowel:

  • Latin porta > Romanian poartă "gate"
  • Latin flōs (stem flōr-) > Romanian floare "flower"

Sometimes a word underwent both forms of breaking in succession:

  • Latin petra > Early Romanian pietră > Romanian piatră "stone" (where ia results from hypothetical *iea)

The diphthongs that resulted from the Romance and the Romanian breakings were modified when they occurred after palatalized consonants.

Quebec French edit

Main article: Quebec French phonology

In Quebec French, long vowels are generally diphthongized when followed by a consonant in the same syllable (even when a final [ʁ] is optionally made silent).

  • tard [tɑːʁ] → [tɑɔ̯ʁ]; but not in tardif (because short a)
  • père [pɛːʁ] → [paɛ̯ʁ]
  • fleur [flœːʁ] → [flɶœ̯ʁ]; but not in fleuriste (long œ is at end of syllable)
  • fort [fɔːʁ] → [fɑɔ̯ʁ]; but not forte (short o)
  • autre [oːtʁ̥] → [ou̯tʁ̥]; but not autrement (long o is at end of syllable)
  • neutre [nøːtʁ̥] → [nøy̯tʁ̥]; but not neutralité (long ø is at end of syllable)
  • pince [pɛ̃ːs] → [pãɛ̃s]; or [pẽːs] → [pẽɪ̯̃s]; but not pincer
  • onze [õːz] → [õʊ̯̃z]; but not onzième

Proto-Indo-European edit

Some scholars[8] believe that Proto-Indo-European (PIE) i, u had vowel-breaking before an original laryngeal in Greek, Armenian and Tocharian but that the other Indo-European languages kept the monophthongs:

  • PIE *gʷih3wos → *gʷioHwos "alive" → Gk. ζωός zōós, Toch. B śāw-, śāy- (but Skt. jīvá-, Lat. vīvus)
  • PIE *protih3kʷom → *protioHkʷom "front side" → Gk. πρόσωπον prósōpon "face", Toch. B pratsāko "breast" (but Skt. prátīka-)
  • PIE *duh2ros → *duaHros "long" → Gk. δηρός dērós, Arm. *twār → erkar (Skt. dūrá-, Lat. dūrus).

However, the hypothesis has not been widely adopted.

Non-Indo-European languages edit

Austronesian languages edit

Some languages in Sumatra have vowel breaking processes, almost exclusively in syllable-final position. In Minangkabau, the Proto-Malayic vowels *i and *u are broken to ia and ua before word-final *h, *k, *l, *ŋ, *r (*təlur > *təluar > talua "egg").[9] In Rejang, the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian vowels *ə, i, and u are broken to êa, ea, and oa before any of word-final consonants above except *k and *ŋ (*tənur > *tənoar > tênoa "egg").[10] This process has been transphonologized by loss of *l and *r and merging of several word-final consonants into a glottal stop (*p, *t, *k in Minangkabau, or *k, *h in most dialects of Rejang except Kebanagung).

Word-final Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *-i and *-u were also broken in Sumatra. In Rejang, these vowels are broken into -ai and -au in Pesisir dialect, or into -êi and -êu elsewhere.[10]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
  2. ^ Kathryn LaBouff, Singing and Communicating in English, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 268.
  3. ^ Robert B. Howell 1991. Old English breaking and its Germanic analogues (Linguistische Arbeiten, 253.). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer
  4. ^ J. Svensson, Diftongering med palatalt förslag i de nordiska språken, Lund 1944.
  5. ^ H. Paul, "Zur Geschichte des germanischen Vocalismus", Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Kultur 6 (1879) 16-30.
  6. ^ K. M. Nielsen, Acta Philologica Scandinavica 24 (1957) 33-45.
  7. ^ Martin John Ball, James Fife (1993). The Celtic Languages. p. 152. ISBN 9780415010351.
  8. ^ F. Normier, in: Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 91 (1977) 171-218; J.S. Klein, in: Die Laryngaltheorie und die Rekonstruktion des indogermanischen Laut- und Formensystems, Heidelberg 1988, 257-279; Olsen, Birgit Anette, in: Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Armenian linguistics, Cleveland's State University, Cleveland, Ohio, September 14–18, 1991, Delmar (NY) 1992, 129-146; J.E. Rasmussen, in: Selected Papers on Indo-European Linguistics, Copenhagen 1999, 442-458.
  9. ^ Adelaar, K. Alexander (1992). Proto-Malayic: The Reconstruction of its Phonology and Parts of its Lexicon and Morphology. Pacific Linguistics, Series C, no. 119. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. hdl:1885/145782.
  10. ^ a b (PDF).

Bibliography edit

  • Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.

January 19, 2024
vowel, breaking, historical, linguistics, vowel, breaking, vowel, fracture, diphthongization, sound, change, monophthong, into, diphthong, triphthong, contents, types, assimilation, unconditioned, stress, indo, european, languages, english, southern, american,. In historical linguistics vowel breaking vowel fracture 1 or diphthongization is the sound change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong Contents 1 Types 1 1 Assimilation 1 2 Unconditioned 1 3 Stress 2 Indo European languages 2 1 English 2 1 1 Southern American English 2 1 2 Great Vowel Shift 2 1 3 Middle English 2 1 4 Old English 2 2 Old Norse 2 3 German and Yiddish 2 4 Scottish Gaelic 2 5 Romance languages 2 5 1 Romanian 2 5 2 Quebec French 2 6 Proto Indo European 3 Non Indo European languages 3 1 Austronesian languages 4 See also 5 References 6 BibliographyTypes editVowel breaking may be unconditioned or conditioned It may be triggered by the presence of another sound by stress or in no particular way Assimilation edit Vowel breaking is sometimes defined as a subtype of diphthongization when it refers to harmonic assimilatory process that involves diphthongization triggered by a following vowel or consonant The original pure vowel typically breaks into two segments The first segment matches the original vowel and the second segment is harmonic with the nature of the triggering vowel or consonant For example the second segment may be u a back vowel if the following vowel or consonant is back such as velar or pharyngeal and the second segment may be i a front vowel if the following vowel or consonant is front such as palatal Thus vowel breaking in the restricted sense can be viewed as an example of assimilation of a vowel to a following vowel or consonant Unconditioned edit Vowel breaking is sometimes not assimilatory and is then not triggered by a neighboring sound That was the case with the Great Vowel Shift in English in which all cases of iː and uː changed to diphthongs Stress edit Vowel breaking sometimes occurs only in stressed syllables For instance Vulgar Latin open mid ɛ and ɔ changed to diphthongs only when they were stressed Indo European languages editEnglish edit Vowel breaking is a very common sound change in the history of the English language occurring at least three times with some varieties adding a fourth listed here in reverse chronological order Southern American English edit Main article Southern American English Vowel breaking is characteristic of the Southern drawl of Southern American English where the short front vowels have developed a glide up to j and then in some areas back down to schwa pat paejet pet pɛjet pit pɪjet 2 Great Vowel Shift edit The Great Vowel Shift changed the long vowels iː uː to diphthongs which became Modern English aɪ aʊ Old English is gt Modern English ice aɪs Old English hus gt Modern English house haʊs Middle English edit Main article Middle English phonology Breaking In early Middle English a vowel i was inserted between a front vowel and a following h pronounced c in this context and a vowel u was inserted between a back vowel and a following h pronounced x in this context That is a prototypical example of the narrow sense of vowel breaking as described above the original vowel breaks into a diphthong that assimilates to the following consonant gaining a front i before a palatal consonant and u before a velar consonant Old English edit Main articles Phonological history of Old English Breaking and retraction and Phonological history of Old English Back mutation In Old English two forms of harmonic vowel breaking occurred breaking and retraction and back mutation In prehistoric Old English breaking and retraction changed stressed short and long front vowels i e ae to short and long diphthongs spelled io eo ea when followed by h or by r l another consonant short vowels only and sometimes w only for certain short vowels 3 Proto Germanic fallan gt Anglo Frisian faellan gt Old English feallan fall PG erthō gt OE eorthe earth PG lirnoːjan gt OE liornan learn In late prehistoric Old English back mutation changed short front i e ae to short diphthongs spelled io eo ea before a back vowel in the next syllable if the intervening consonant was of a certain nature The specific nature of the consonants that trigger back umlaut or block it varied from dialect to dialect Old Norse edit Main article Old Norse phonological processes Proto Germanic stressed short e becomes ja or before u jǫ regularly in Old Norse except after w r l Examples are PG ek a I east ON jak Swedish jag Danish and Norwegian Bokmal jeg and Icelandic ek eg but Jutlandic ae a Nynorsk eg Faroese has both The standard form is eg while the dialects of Suduroy have jeg PG hertōn heart ON hjarta Swedish hjarta Faroese hjarta Norwegian Nynorsk hjarta Danish hjerte PG erthō earth Proto Norse erthu ON jǫrd Swedish Danish Norwegian jord Faroese jordAccording to some scholars 4 the diphthongisation of e is an unconditioned sound change whereas other scholars speak about epenthesis 5 or umlaut 6 German and Yiddish edit The long high vowels of Middle High German underwent breaking during the transition to Early New High German iː yː uː aɪ ɔʏ aʊ In Yiddish the diphthongization affected the long mid vowels as well ɛː oː oː iː yː uː ɛɪ ɔɪ ɛɪ aɪ aɪ ɔɪ MHG ewic NHG ewig Yiddish אייביק romanized eybik eternal MHG hoch NHG hoch Yiddish הויך romanized hoykh high MHG schœne NHG schon Yiddish שיין romanized sheyn nice MHG sniden NHG schneiden Yiddish שנײ דן romanized shnaydn to cut MHG vriunt NHG Freund Yiddish פ רײ נד romanized fraynd friend MHG hut NHG Haut Yiddish הויט romanized hoyt skin This change started as early as the 12th century in Upper Bavarian and reached Moselle Franconian only in the 16th century It did not affect Alemannic or Ripuarian dialects which still retain the original long vowels In Yiddish the diphthongization applied not only to MHG long vowels but also to ɛː oː in words of Hebrew in stressed open syllables or Slavic origin Hebrew פסח romanized pesach Yiddish פ סח romanized peysekh Pesach Hebrew מנורה romanized m nora Yiddish מנורה romanized mnoyre menorah Old Czech chren Yiddish כריין romanized khreyn chrain Polish kosz Yiddish קויש romanized koysh basket Scottish Gaelic edit Vowel breaking is present in Scottish Gaelic with the following changes occurring often but variably between dialects Archaic Irish eː Scottish Gaelic ie and Archaic Irish oː Scottish Gaelic ue 7 Specifically central dialects have more vowel breaking than others Romance languages edit Many Romance languages underwent vowel breaking The Vulgar Latin open vowels e ɛ and o ɔ in stressed position underwent breaking only in open syllables in French and Italian but in both open and closed syllables in Spanish Vowel breaking was mostly absent in Catalan in which ɛ and ɔ became diphthongs only before a palatal consonant Latin coxa thigh octō eight lectum bed gt Old Catalan kuoiʃa uoit lieit The middle vowel was subsequently lost if a triphthong was produced Modern Catalan cuixa vuit llit cf Portuguese coxa oito leito Vowel breaking was completely absent in Portuguese The result of breaking varies between languages e and o became ie and ue in Spanish ie and uo in Italian and ie and eu o in French In the table below words with breaking are bolded Syllable shape Latin Spanish French Italian Portuguese CatalanOpen petram focum piedra fuego pierre feu pietra fuoco pedra fogo pedra focClosed festam portam fiesta puerta fete porte festa porta festa porta festa portaRomanian edit Main articles History of Romanian Breaking of stressed open e and History of Romanian Breaking of e and o Romanian underwent the general Romance breaking only with ɛ as it did not have ɔ Latin pellis gt Romanian piele skin It underwent a later breaking of stressed e and o to ea and oa before a mid or open vowel Latin porta gt Romanian poartă gate Latin flōs stem flōr gt Romanian floare flower Sometimes a word underwent both forms of breaking in succession Latin petra gt Early Romanian pietră gt Romanian piatră stone where ia results from hypothetical iea The diphthongs that resulted from the Romance and the Romanian breakings were modified when they occurred after palatalized consonants Quebec French edit Main article Quebec French phonology In Quebec French long vowels are generally diphthongized when followed by a consonant in the same syllable even when a final ʁ is optionally made silent tard tɑːʁ tɑɔ ʁ but not in tardif because short a pere pɛːʁ paɛ ʁ fleur flœːʁ flɶœ ʁ but not in fleuriste long œ is at end of syllable fort fɔːʁ fɑɔ ʁ but not forte short o autre oːtʁ ou tʁ but not autrement long o is at end of syllable neutre noːtʁ noy tʁ but not neutralite long o is at end of syllable pince pɛ ːs paɛ s or pẽːs pẽɪ s but not pincer onze oːz oʊ z but not onziemeProto Indo European edit Some scholars 8 believe that Proto Indo European PIE i u had vowel breaking before an original laryngeal in Greek Armenian and Tocharian but that the other Indo European languages kept the monophthongs PIE gʷih3wos gʷioHwos alive Gk zwos zōos Toch B saw say but Skt jiva Lat vivus PIE protih3kʷom protioHkʷom front side Gk proswpon prosōpon face Toch B pratsako breast but Skt pratika PIE duh2ros duaHros long Gk dhros deros Arm twar erkar Skt dura Lat durus However the hypothesis has not been widely adopted Non Indo European languages editAustronesian languages edit Some languages in Sumatra have vowel breaking processes almost exclusively in syllable final position In Minangkabau the Proto Malayic vowels i and u are broken to ia and ua before word final h k l ŋ r telur gt teluar gt talua egg 9 In Rejang the Proto Malayo Polynesian vowels e i and u are broken to ea ea and oa before any of word final consonants above except k and ŋ tenur gt tenoar gt tenoa egg 10 This process has been transphonologized by loss of l and r and merging of several word final consonants into a glottal stop p t k in Minangkabau or k h in most dialects of Rejang except Kebanagung Word final Proto Malayo Polynesian i and u were also broken in Sumatra In Rejang these vowels are broken into ai and au in Pesisir dialect or into ei and eu elsewhere 10 See also editSmoothing phonetics Unpacking linguistics References edit The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Fourth Edition 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company Kathryn LaBouff Singing and Communicating in English Oxford University Press 2007 p 268 Robert B Howell 1991 Old English breaking and its Germanic analogues Linguistische Arbeiten 253 Tubingen Max Niemeyer J Svensson Diftongering med palatalt forslag i de nordiska spraken Lund 1944 H Paul Zur Geschichte des germanischen Vocalismus Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Kultur 6 1879 16 30 K M Nielsen Acta Philologica Scandinavica 24 1957 33 45 Martin John Ball James Fife 1993 The Celtic Languages p 152 ISBN 9780415010351 F Normier in Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Sprachforschung 91 1977 171 218 J S Klein in Die Laryngaltheorie und die Rekonstruktion des indogermanischen Laut und Formensystems Heidelberg 1988 257 279 Olsen Birgit Anette in Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Armenian linguistics Cleveland s State University Cleveland Ohio September 14 18 1991 Delmar NY 1992 129 146 J E Rasmussen in Selected Papers on Indo European Linguistics Copenhagen 1999 442 458 Adelaar K Alexander 1992 Proto Malayic The Reconstruction of its Phonology and Parts of its Lexicon and Morphology Pacific Linguistics Series C no 119 Canberra Dept of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies The Australian National University hdl 1885 145782 a b Some Irregular Reflexes of Proto Malayo Polynesian Vowels in the Rejang Language of Sumatra PDF Bibliography editCrowley Terry 1997 An Introduction to Historical Linguistics 3rd edition Oxford University Press Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Vowel breaking amp oldid 1181789277, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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