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The Dialectal Distribution of Certain Phonological Features in Middle English

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The Dialectal Distribution of Certain Phonological Features in Middle English English Studies ISSN: 0013-838X (Print) 1744-4217 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/nest20 The dialectal distribution of certain phonological features in middle English Mary S. Serjeantson To cite this article: Mary S. Serjeantson (1922) The dialectal distribution of certain phonological features in middle English, English Studies, 4:1-6, 93-233 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00138382208596436 Published online: 13 Aug 2008. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 14 View related articles Citing articles: 2 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=nest20 Download by: [University of Victoria] Date: 25 August 2017, At: 03:13 93 and 'when we do meet with it, it is already in complete and crystallized form' (page 779), with which compare Van Gennep's dictum : "L'utilisation purement littéraire du thème a été, dans chaque système culturel (Grèce, avec les Dialogues des Morts; Rome avec l'Enéide; Moyen Age avec la Divine Comédie, etc.), l'oeuvre d'une période d'incroyance vis-à-vis de conceptions périmées." (La Formation des Légendes, Paris 1910, p. 104). IX. The theories discussed above, all of them fruit from Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough, are in our present state of knowledge entitled to every respect and worthy of all consideration. Their value to the anthropologist needs no comment. But their value to a mere littérateur is hardly less, since they help him to be on his guard against generalities and banalities, and against quasi-mystic 'talk through the hat' about the deep Slavic soul, and the brooding Keltic spirit and the rest of the modern catchwords, claptrap and psittacism. WILLEM VAN DOORN. The Dialectal Distribution of certain Phonological Features in Middle English. Introduction. § 1. Previous Investigations. The study of early Place-Name forms with a view to determine the geographical distribution of M.E. dialect features is as yet in its early stages, but the progress that has already been made in this line of research more than justifies its further development. Professor Wyld's articles on O.E. y in M.E. (Englische Studien 47. 1913-14) dealt with aH the southern and midland counties. The same point, together with O.E. ^(from W. Gmc. a) was investigated by Professor Brandi (Zur Geogr. der altengl. Dial). Ekwall (Gontrib. to the Hist, of O.E. Dialects) traced the boundary of the O.E. area of the fracture of ^ before I + consonant, and the distribution in M.E. oDownloaded by [University of Victoria] at 03:13 25 August 2017 f u, i, and e as the i mutation of ce (ea) before I + consonant. Heuser's Alt-London deals chiefly with Middlesex, Essex, and Herts., and discusses the following phonological feature« : O.E. ce ; O.E. y ; fracture of œ before I + cons. ; i-mutation of a + nasal. Professor Wyld has shown (Essays and Studies, Vol. VI p.p. 114-119, etc.) that the results obtained from PI. Ns. are confirmed by examination of literary texts in those counties to which such texts can be definitely assigned. Therefore in the case of other counties the conclusions drawn from PI. Ns. may be accepted with some confidence, and as practically no smallest district in England is without its ancient records, there seems no reason why, as regards the phonological features at least, it should not be possible to establish M.E. dialect boundaries fairly accurately. The field of research is almost unlimited. The enormous mass of material, both published and unpublished, that awaits in libraries and muniment 94 rooms the examination of the philologist, is an inexhaustible mine, and patient and careful search will doubtless reveal man)' surprises and many treasures. § 2. Difficulties. There are, however, from the point of view of the investigator of dialects, a few difficulties to be faced. One possibility that must be reckoned with is that scribes may have sometimes used, not the local speech-forms, but some sort of official language, approximating more or less closely to the West Saxon, or the London English, or whatever may have been most in vogue in the official circles of the day. There is very little evidence of scribes from one part of the country employing their own local forms in names in other counties which normally used a different type. We do not find Kentish forms in Hereford, nor Hampshire pronunciations in Essex, and where apparent exceptions to the normal type do appear, it is always in such a small proportion as to be practically negligible. It is perhaps rather dangerous to trust altogether to one manuscript to illustrate the speech-habits of a particular county, but in a general investi- gation like the present one it has to be done occasionally; as a matter of fact, in counties for which several manuscripts or groups of documents have been used, the evidence afforded is hardly ever conflicting. For some counties the wealth of easily accessible material is almost embarrassing, while in others the lack of suitable documents sometimes checks the development of a theory at an important point. The centuries for which the fewest Place-Name sources are forthcoming are the 11th and i2th( hence there is frequently a wide gap between the O.E. period and the M.E. period which remains to be bridged by future investigation. For the 12th century there is a large body of material in the Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, but the language of these is in some ways peculiar, and needs special examination. In considering dialect features from a chronological point of view, we observe a tendency to preserve archaic forms of Place Names, particularly when the elements of which the PI. Ns. are composed were not easily to be identified with the independent words. For instance, long after the time when Bedford must have adopted the pronunciation calf instead of chalf Ç> O.E. cealf) the name Chalgrave is invariably spelt with ch- (Chalgraua, etc. § 76), showing that the first element was no longer connected in the minds of the speakers with the ordinary word calf. § 3. Scope of the present investigation. Downloaded by [University of Victoria] at 03:13 25 August 2017 Four phonological features are here dealt with : 1) The fracture of œ before I + cons. ; 2) The i-mutation of fa Ç> W. Gmc. au) ; 3) M.E. [y] from O.E. to ; 4) O.E. y and y + front cons, in M.E. I have attempted in each case to trace the geographical distribution of the various types of pronunciation, indicating the varying boundary-line in the different centuries. Section I includes all the counties south of Shrop- shire, Staffs., Derby, Notts, and Lincoln ; Section II the West-Midlands, South, and South-Midlands ; Section III the West-Midlands and South-West. § 4, Chronologic! variation in the geographical distribu- tion of phonological features. It will be seen that the grouping of dialect features varies considerably in each county during the period covered by the following investigation. To give one instance of this, taken at random from the material given below, Devon in the 13th century has only fractured forms for O.E. œ before 95 I + cons., and for O.E. y four times as many i- as there are «-spellings; while in the 14th century the fracture-forms have quite disappeared, and u- and i- forms for O.E. y are in the proportion of 2 to 1. (§ 151). Some features seem to have obtained at first over a very small area, and then spread widely over one county after another, completely ousting the types originally in use in these districts ; other features appear at first distributed over a fairly large area, which is slowly contracted, until it finally disappears altogether. This gradual expansion and contraction can be traced in most of the dialect features here treated. Where the largest amount of material has been collected the development appears most regular; there are no very startling and abrupt changes of type, and diver- gencies from the normal are inconsiderable. This variation in the distribution of dialectal characteristics makes it very often impossible, or at least dangerous, to draw conclusions about one period from material belonging to an earlier or a later one. Each century or half-century should be judged as far as possible on its own evidence, and that of other periods used only to confirm results thus obtained, or to supplement them when absolutely necessary. § 5. Reliability of the Old English Charters. Since the main object of this investigation is to trace dialect boundaries in M.E., the material collected for the O.E. period is used chiefly as an introduction — an endeavour to follow back to their beginnings features which are important tests of dialect in M.E. I have employed for this purpose some of the O.E. charters, since these seemed to promise more detailed results, with regard to the different counties, than those that can be obtained from the literary texts. One hundred and twenty charters have been examined, all of which seem to be genuine as far as their age is concerned. It may be questioned whether they really reflect the ordinary language of the districts to which they belong. But as it is chiefly from such documents as charters and wills that our knowledge of Early Kentish is derived, and as the old Suffolk and Surrey charters contain so many features evidently characteristic of the local dialects (Wyld : Essays and Studies. VI 125, 141), there is no reason why the charters of Worcester or Gloucester or Hampshire should not be equally reliable.
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