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Opacity and Transparency in Phonological Change

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Opacity and Transparency in Phonological Change University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations Fall 2010 Opacity and Transparency in Phonological Change Jonathan Gress-Wright University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Comparative and Historical Linguistics Commons, and the Phonetics and Phonology Commons Recommended Citation Gress-Wright, Jonathan, "Opacity and Transparency in Phonological Change" (2010). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 266. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/266 OpenAccess abstract differs slightly from text in dissertation. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/266 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Opacity and Transparency in Phonological Change Abstract Modern High German final obstruent devoicing is usually thought to descend from Middle German devoicing without any chronological break, despite the fact that the graphic representation of final devoicing ceased in the Early Modern period. However, an alternative account holds that the spelling change reflects the actual loss of the devoicing rule, and that therefore the modern rule has an independent origin. In particular, apocope of final schwa has been suggested as the cause of the loss of devoicing in Early Modern German. According to this theory, loss of devoicing occurred because schwa apocope rendered the devoicing rule opaque, and hence hard to learn. If true, we expect to see some evidence for opaque devoicing during the period that apocope was in progress. In accordance with this prediction, we found a statistically significant correlation between apocope and absence of final devoicing in a number of German texts of the 14th and 15th centuries. After the 15th century, devoicing is lost across the board, which correlates with the completion of schwa apocope and the loss of the opaque devoicing rule. This confirms our theoretical predictions. If apocope had not rendered devoicing opaque, we would have to conclude that Early Modern German schwa apocope was an instance of rule insertion. However, the structural description of neither apocope nor devoicing leads us to expect insertion. Instead, Modern German final devoicing appears to be an instance of rule re-affirmation, which entails that the vde oicing rule, though opaque, remained productive in some dialects. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Linguistics First Advisor Donald Ringe Keywords phonology, opacity, language change, rule insertion, German, final devoicing Subject Categories Comparative and Historical Linguistics | Phonetics and Phonology Comments OpenAccess abstract differs slightly from text in dissertation. This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/266 OPACITY AND TRANSPARENCY IN PHONOLOGICAL CHANGE Jonathan Gress-Wright A DISSERTATION in Linguistics Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Supervisor of Dissertation ___________________ Donald Ringe, Professor, Linguistics Graduate Group Chair ___________________ Eugene Buckley, Associate Professor, Linguistics Dissertation Committee Donald Ringe, Professor, Linguistics Eugene Buckley, Associate Professor, Linguistics Rolf Noyer, Associate Professor, Linguistics ABSTRACT OPACITY AND TRANSPARENCY IN PHONOLOGICAL CHANGE Jonathan Gress-Wright Donald Ringe Final obstruent devoicing is attested in both Middle and Modern High German, and the modern rule is usually assumed to have been directly inherited from the medieval rule without any chronological break (Reichmann & Wegera 1993), despite the fact that the graphic representation of final devoicing ceased in the Early Modern period. However, an alternative account holds that the spelling change reflects the actual loss of the devoicing rule, and that therefore the modern rule has an independent origin (Mihm 2004). In particular, apocope of final schwa has been suggested as the cause of the loss of devoicing in Early Modern German (Kranzmayer 1956), which, if true, aligns developments in German with contemporary developments in Yiddish (King 1980). Loss of devoicing in Yiddish supposedly occurred because schwa apocope rendered the devoicing rule opaque, and hence hard to learn (Kiparsky 1972). If schwa apocope is the cause of the loss of final devoicing in Early Modern German as well, then we expect to see some evidence for opaque devoicing during the period that apocope was in progress, which is precisely what we find. A statistically significant correlation between apocope and absence of final devoicing can be shown for a number of German texts of the 14th and 15th centuries, i.e. words that never had final schwa still tend to show devoicing, while words that formerly had a final vowel tend not to show devoicing. After the 15th ii century, devoicing is lost across the board, which correlates with the completion of schwa apocope and the loss of the opaque devoicing rule. This confirms our theoretical predictions. If apocope had not rendered devoicing opaque, we would have to conclude that Early Modern German schwa apocope was an instance of rule insertion (King 1969). However, the structural description of neither apocope nor devoicing leads us to expect insertion (King 1973). Instead, Modern German final devoicing appears to be an instance of rule re-affirmation (Hock 1991), which entails that the devoicing rule, though opaque, remained productive in some dialects. iii Table of contents 1 Loss of devoicing in Early Modern German .............................................................1 1.1 Description and origin of German final devoicing.............................................1 1.1.1 Synchronic description of German final devoicing..........................................1 1.1.2 Contemporary regional variation in final devoicing ........................................4 1.1.3 Origins of final devoicing in Middle German..................................................5 1.2 Loss of devoicing in Early Modern German ......................................................7 1.2.1 Loss of devoicing due to morphemic spelling..................................................7 1.2.2 Problems with Paul’s theory...........................................................................10 1.2.3 Contemporary attestations of loss of devoicing .............................................11 1.3 Loss of devoicing through lenition.....................................................................13 1.4 Loss of devoicing through apocope....................................................................18 2 Loss of devoicing in Yiddish .....................................................................................20 2.1 Yiddish and German...........................................................................................20 2.2 Apocope and loss of devoicing in Yiddish.........................................................22 2.3 Loss of devoicing and paradigm leveling ..........................................................24 2.4 Opacity and loss of devoicing.............................................................................27 2.4.1 Opacity and markedness.................................................................................29 2.4.2 Loss of devoicing and paradigm uniformity ..................................................31 2.4.3 Opacity and loss of rule productivity .............................................................41 2.5 Productivity of devoicing and evidence for synchronic apocope....................43 2.5.1 Apocope and restructuring of underlying representations .............................43 2.5.2 Apocope as a variable rule .............................................................................47 3 Apocope and loss of devoicing in Early Modern German .....................................49 3.1 Middle German apocope ....................................................................................50 3.2 Upper and West Central German apocope ......................................................55 3.3 Interaction of final devoicing and schwa apocope in Early Modern German 58 3.3.1 The Bonn corpus ............................................................................................58 3.3.2 The Augsburger Stadtbuch.............................................................................91 3.4 Apocope and loss of devoicing in German dialects ..........................................96 3.5 Apocope and loss of devoicing in Early Modern Dutch ................................100 3.6 East Central German........................................................................................102 3.6.1 East Central German apocope ......................................................................104 3.6.2 Morphological factors in East Central German apocope .............................113 3.6.3 Final devoicing in Early Modern East Central German...............................114 3.6.4 Opacity and loss of devoicing in East Central German................................116 4 Retention of transparent devoicing in East Central German..............................118 4.1 Rule addition, rule insertion and relative chronology ...................................118 4.1.1 Rule addition ................................................................................................122
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