Mechanisms of Language Change Vowel Reduction in 15th Century West Frisian Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6006 Janskerkhof 13 fax: +31 30 2536406 3512 BL Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://wwwlot.let.uu.nl/ http://www.rug.nl/let/onderzoek/onderzoekinstituten/clcg/publications/grodil Front cover: Historical dialect map of the words ‘Monday/month’ ISBN: 978-90-78328-69-8 ISSN: 0928-0030 NUR 616 Copyright © 2008 Fryske Akademy / Arjen Versloot. All rights reserved. RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN Mechanisms of Language Change Vowel Reduction in 15th Century West Frisian Proefschrift ter verkrijging van het doctoraat in de Letteren aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, dr. F. Zwarts, in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 13 november 2008 om 15.00 uur door Arianus Pieter Versloot geboren op 30 april 1965 te Schiedam Promotores: Prof. Dr. G. J. de Haan Prof. Dr. J. F. Hoekstra (Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel) Copromotor: Dr. W. Visser (Fryske Akademy, Leeuwarden / Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) Beoordelingscommissie: Prof. Dr. V. J. J. P. van Heuven (Universiteit Leiden) Prof. Dr. T. Hofstra Prof. Dr. Ir. J. Nerbonne Acknowledgments Writing this thesis has been fascinating and extremely rewarding. Starting as a vague idea to ‘find something out about syllable structures’ in Frisian, it evolved into its present form. I would like to thank a number of people who have contributed to the final result in many different ways: Firstly, my supervisors, who ploughed through several preliminary versions of my text, making critical suggestions and posing challenging questions. Special thanks to Willem Visser, head of the department and long-standing colleague at the Fryske Akademy, who was always willing to listen to new ideas and findings, discuss their relevance with me and make valuable suggestions. Thanks also to my primary supervisor, Germ de Haan, for keeping a keen eye on the logistics and planning of my thesis. The study in its present form gained momentum in the summer of 2006 when the Frisian Institute of the University of Groningen provided me with a complete digital edition of the Frisian charters. My thanks to them for this invaluable contribution. Also, Karel Gildemacher, a former colleague from the onomastics department, who kindly provided me the toponymic database on the charters. These were essential tools for exploring the charter data. Wilbert Heeringa guided me through some of the fundamentals of statistics. I am also greatly indebted to Paul Boersma, whose lecture in Zadar, September 2006, inspired me to consider algorithms in the formation of grammatical structures and the concept of bidirectionality (section 5.2). And my thanks go to Dunja Brozoviæ (Zagreb) for the kind invitation to attend the Zadar conference. Vincent van Heuven discussed several phonetic aspects with me at an earlier stage of my research and provided essential input for the concept of the Intensity Integral (section 5.1), and the relationship between vowel reduction and tone contour (section 4.4). The members of the reading commission put in considerable time and effort, not only to judge the overall result, but to comment in detail on the text. The directors of the Fryske Akademy enabled me to concentrate on my thesis without the distraction of other obligations within the institute. Ferjan Ormeling, my former cartography professor, advised on how to improve the legibility of the maps. Thanks go also to my wife, Rebecca van der Doef, for her encouragement and several practical ideas for improving the structure of the text and the lay-out. And to the Cum Lingua editors and sub-editors who did much more than simply check for spelling and grammar mistakes in my English. Liuwe Westra’s reading of the final version of the text helped prevent many minor mistakes. Without the help of so many individuals, the text would have looked somewhat different, but of course, I remain responsible for the final version you see before you. And finally, I would like to stress that I consider this thesis to be the start of a challenging research program, rather than my final say on this topic. Arjen Versloot Ljouwert/Leeuwarden September 17, 2008 Fryske Akademy nr. 1026 Mechanisms of Language Change Vowel Reduction in 15th Century West Frisian 1. Introduction -1- 1.1 Central research question: mechanisms of language change -1- 1.2 Introducing the subject -3- 1.2.1 The Frisian Language -3- 1.2.2 Main relevant sources -6- 1.2.3 The Periodisation of Frisian and terminology used -7- 1.2.4 Main relevant developments in West Frisian between 1300 and 1600 -9- 1.2.5 Basic views on the mechanisms of language change -12- 1.3 Methodological preliminaries -15- 1.3.1 Collecting the data -15- 1.3.2 Spelling and spelling tradition -19- 1.3.3 Phones, phonemes and graphemes -23- 1.3.4 Mapping the charter language -28- 1.3.5 Reading instruction for maps and graphs -33- 1.3.6 Original charters and copies -41- 1.3.7 Data size and statistical reliability -44- 1.3.7.1 The implications of counting features from an historical corpus -44- 1.3.7.2 The concept of ‘random’ -45- 1.3.7.3 Random preservation -45- 1.3.7.4 Random selection from language forms -46- 1.3.7.5 Central concepts: variation and variance -49- 1.3.7.6 Variation in time and space: testing the time trend -50- 1.3.7.7 Testing the spatial trend -55- 1.3.7.8 Variation and variance: statistical context -60- 1.3.7.9 Variant mixture in practice -64- 1.3.7.10 Token count or charter count? -67- 1.3.8 The language of Unia -70- 1.4 The Power of Algorithms -76- 2. Description of processes -81- 2.1 Vowel Balance as a phonetic and phonological tendency in Germanic -82- 2.2 Degemination -85- 2.2.1 The Germanic context -85- 2.2.2 The Frisian context -86- 2.2.3 The West Frisian charters -87- 2.3 Open Syllable Lengthening -94- 2.3.1 The Germanic context -94- 2.3.2 The Frisian context -99- 2.3.3 The West Frisian charters -102- 2.3.3.1 Old Frisian short root vowels, when not followed by an unstressed /a/ -102- 2.3.3.2 Old Frisian /a/ and /]/ before /a/: regional diversity -110- 2.3.3.3 <VVCC>-spelling -116- 2.3.4 The reverse process: shortening before an /a/ -123- 2.3.4.1 Old Frisian fôta -123- 2.3.4.2 Mônandei ‘Monday’ -125- 2.3.5 Conclusion -128- 2.4 Reduction of unstressed vowels -129- 2.4.1 The Germanic context -130- 2.4.2 The Frisian context -132- 2.4.3. The West Frisian charters -138- 2.4.3.1 Old Frisian /a/ following a short root, followed by a consonant -138- 2.4.3.2 Old Frisian /a/ following a long root, followed by a consonant -143- 2.4.3.3 Summary: the development of Old Frisian /a/ in protected position -155- 2.4.3.4 Old Frisian word-final /a/ following a short root -156- 2.4.3.5 Old Frisian word-final /a/ following a long root -161- 2.4.3.6 Summary: Old Frisian /a/ in word-final position -162- 2.4.3.7 Old Frisian /c/ in protected position -164- 2.4.3.8 Old Frisian word-final /c/ following a short root -171- 2.4.3.9 Old Frisian word-final /c/ following a long root -173- 2.4.3.10 Summary: Old Frisian /c / in word-final position -181- 2.5 Vowel Balance -183- 2.5.1 The Frisian context -183- 2.5.2 The West Frisian charters -186- 2.6 Vowel Harmony -190- 2.6.1 The Germanic context -191- 2.6.2 The Frisian context -193- 2.6.3 The West Frisian charters -195- 3. Phonological Interpretation -203- 3.1 The phonological status of Old Frisian <a>, <e> <u> and <i> in current studies -205- 3.2 Variation in time and space and phonological interpretations -208- 3.3 Phonetic and phonological contrast -213- 3.4 Phonological contrast of underlying /a/ and /c/ -216- 3.5 The nature of ‘underlying’ /a/ -219- 3.6 The nature of protected <i> -221- 4. Late mediaeval Frisian as a tonal language -225- 4.1 The heavy impact of Old Frisian /a/ -225- 4.2 Finding typological parallels -228- 4.3 The character of tonal contrasts in Scandinavian dialects -232- 4.4 The prominence of unstressed /a/ -235- 4.5 Contrasting tone contours and quantitative effects -239- 4.5.1 Stress and duration -240- 4.5.2 Regional diversity in quantitative effects -243- 4.6 Qualitative impact of unstressed /a/ -247- 4.6.1 Vowel Harmony and Accent II -247- 4.6.2 Accent Shift -250- 4.7 The phonologisation of tone contours -252- 4.8 The dialect of Wûnseradiel in the 14th and 15th century -254- 4.9 Conclusion -256- 5. Modelling Language Change -257- 5.1 Modelling the reduction of /a/ and /c/ as a phonetic process -258- 5.1.1 Vowel ‘mass’: reduction and erosion -258- 5.1.2 The controlling factors -259- 5.1.3 Making a forecast -262- 5.1.4 Checking the forecast -264- 5.1.5 Reverse engineering: The final proof -267- 5.1.6 Discussion -270- 5.1.7 Concluding remarks -275- 5.2 A bidirectional model of language change -276- 5.2.1 Introducing the Bidirectional Table -277- 5.2.2 Turning the table into a working algorithm -280- 5.2.3 Verifying the model -285- 5.2.4 A second case study: seke -290- 6.