See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317037267 The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking: A metaphonic feature-based unified solution Presentation · May 2017 CITATIONS READS 0 59 1 author: Johan Schalin University of Helsinki 29 PUBLICATIONS 25 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Common Norse sound change - doctoral dissertation on Proto- and Ancient Scandinavian phonology, umlaut and loanword substitutions in Finnic. View project All content following this page was uploaded by Johan Schalin on 09 January 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. THE NOTORIOUS CRUXES OF COMMON SCANDINAVIAN UMLAUT AND BREAKING: A metaphonic feature-based unified solution Note 8-page digital hand-out in separate file Johan Schalin, 16 May 2017 (corr 11 June) Contextualizing Historical Lexicology 1 Front Umlaut in Germanic: Examples Paleo-Germanic English German Old Norse Old Swedish m. nom. sg. *fōtz foot fuß fótr fōtẹr m. nom. pl. *fōtez feet füße fœtr føtẹr̄ m. nom. sg. *fullaz full voll fullr fullẹr 3.. pers. sg. *fulljeþi fills (filleth) füllt fyllir fyller m. nom.sg. *langaz long lang langr langẹr f. nom.sg. *langeþō length (länge) lengd længd f. nom.sg. *langizȭ (longer) länger lengra længra The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 2 Umlaut and Breaking in Scandinavian The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 3 RASMUS RASK and JACOB GRIMM • “Over 200 years have passed since the rule of Germanic umlaut was formulated at the first time. We know incomparably more about this change than [Rasmus] Rask and [Jacob] Grimm did, but we are still unable to answer some basic questions” (Anatoly Liberman 2007: 13) The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 4 Rasmussen about Research on Norse Front Umlaut Jens Elmegård Rasmussen (2000: 143): • “The descriptive facts being basically clear, the subject has been a much-favoured testing ground for new theories in phonological analysis and linguistic change. The record is not an entirely flattering one, for the real advances scarcely outnumber instances of collective disregard of words of reason and rallying around popular, but unfounded, idées fixes”. The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-Nov-2016 5 The Nature of Umlaut and Breaking? Some Basic Questions: 1 • Is it metaphony? • Transmitted by a phonological generalisation or rule from weakening triggers to improve perception? or, • Is it coarticulation? • Transmitted by a phonetic tendency in anticipation of clearly articulated triggers to ease the articulatiory effort? • Does it jump over consonants? and if it does, why? • Is ”rounding umlaut” or even ”breaking” part of the same? • Was umlaut for long positionally predictable, i.e. ”allophonic”? The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 6 Internally reconstructed periods • Main dialects of western and eastern Scandinavian developed through the ”Common” Scandinavian umlaut era in parallel. • Viewed through umlaut, Gutnish and Övdalian in Sweden are more remote relatives. The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 7 THE PROBLEM OF ANOMALIES The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 8 Umlaut, Breaking and Syllable Weight Short trigger after heavy syllable Short trigger after light syllable *gas‖ti >ON gest ‘guest’ (acc.) *sta.ði >ON stað- ‘place’ (acc.) i-umlaut *dō.mi‖ðō >OSw dø̄ mda ‘I deemed’ *fra.mi‖ðō >ON framda ‘I carried out’ *lan‖g-i.þu >ON lęngd ‘length’ *fra.m-i‖þu >ON fręmd ‘furtherance’ iʀ (or iz) gastiz >ON gestr ‘guest’ (nom.) *sta.ði-z >ON staðr ‘place’ (nom.) ͡ -umlaut *mū‖s-i͡z >ON myss ‘mice’ (pl.) *hnu.t-iz >OSw nytẹr ‘nuts’ (pl.) Breaking *sel‖ƀaz >OSw siælfẹr ‘self’ *fe.ta- >ON fet- (but OSw fiæt-) ‘step’ u/w-umlaut *feþ‖ru >OSw fiæþẹr ‘feather’ *me.luk- >OSw miolk- ‘milk’ The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 9 The Nature of Umlaut and Breaking? Some Basic Questions: 2 • Whence do the unexpected outcomes or anomalies originate? • Is the umlaut mechanism conditioned on prosody? • Is the chronology of trigger reduction conditioned on prosody? (the trigger disappears before it becomes active) • Was umlaut for long positionally predictable ”allophonic”? • Are the outcomes mixed up by morphological generalisations? • In this research plain and simply: Focus on the contrastive features of targets and triggers. The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 10 Distribution of Front Umlaut: Classic Problem Configuration 1. Heavy first syllable, 2. Light syllable 3. Light syllable and front umlaut and deleted trigger, remaining trigger, accomplished no front umlaut umlaut accomplished 1. class of weak verbs *doo.miðoo > dœmda *ta.li.ðoo > talða ‘I deemed/sentenced’ ‘I counted/told’ 1. 1. pers. sg. pret. pers. sg. pret. masculine i-stems gas.tiz/*gas.ti > *sta.ðiz/*sta.ði > gestr/gest ‘guest’ staðr / stað ‘place’ nom. sg. / acc. sg. nom. sg. / acc. sg. instrumental suffix *-il- *ban.dilooz > bendlar *ka.ti.looz > katlar *ka.ti.laz > ketill ‘bands’ nom. pl. ‘kettles’ nom. pl. ‘kettle’ nom. sing. The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 11 Umlaut Reversion: Iverson G. & J. Salmons (2012) 1. post-phonological fronting /dōmiðō/ /staði/ /taliðō/ in all environments ~> {dȫmiðō} ~> {stäði} ~> {täliðō} /dōmiðō/ 2. lexification upon loss of a /staði/ /taliðō/ ~> {dȫmiðō} trigger after a heavy syllable ~> {stäði} ~> {täliðō} ═► /dœmðō/ 3. trigger loss by suffix /staði/ {täliðō} /dœmðō/ analogy ~> {stäði} ≈► /tal+ðō/ Loss of vitality of fronting rule by parasitic rule loss 4. syncope after light /staði/ /dœmðō/ /talða/ syllable ≈► /stað/ The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-Nov-2016 12 ”A Light Target Syllable Does Not Carry Enough Accent to Mutate” • Paul Bibire (1975: 206): ”it may therefore be suggested that long syllables show more extensive mutation than short syllables, because they were more strongly accented than short syllables.” • Thomas Riad (1988: 17) ”I-umlaut, then, is sensitive to stress. When stress gets concentrated to the initial syllable, in heavy syllables earlier than in light ones, the initial syllable becomes open to change by the succeding i.” The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-Nov-2016 13 But..., it is not about target syllable weight! Light first syllable, with unexpected front umlaut Long *glaðī- > gleði ‘joy’ (fem. nom. sg.) triggers Remote *aðulija > eðli, øðli ‘character’ n. nom./acc. sg. umlaut iʀ-umlaut *hnut-i͡z > (OSw) nytẹr ‘nuts’ (f. nom./acc. pl.) The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 14 The Trigger Stands ”Too Close to the Target” • Seichi Suzuki 1995: “The crucial point is that umlaut in its initial stage did not materialise when the target vowel and the inducing vowel belonged to the same supersyllabic constituent, the foot; accordingly short stems failed to be affected by the process: e.g., staþr, talþa”. • Anatoly Liberman (2001: 87): “When i belonged to the initially indivisible group, it did not cause umlaut, or, to put it differently, umlaut needed an agent external to the prosodic structure in which it occurred...”. • (Ibid.): “....It remains to explain why this rule existed, which is not easier to do than for a mouse to bell a cat”. The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 15 The Mechanism Depends on Mora Count or Stress: 1 • Eva Ejerhed Braroe (1979): In addition to main stress, every even numbered mora from the left is assigned with stress and only non-stressed triggers transmit umlaut: •stá1.ðí2 versus gä́1ś2‖tì3 •tá1.lí2‖ðò3ó4 versus dö́ 1ö́ 2‖mì3.ðó4ò5 The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 16 The Mechanism Depends on Mora Count or Stress: 2 • Jörgen Rischel (2008): following the first mora (main stress), every odd numbered mora from the left is assigned with stress and only prominent moras transmit umlaut: •stá1.ðì2 versus gä́1s̀2‖tí3 •tá1.lì2‖ðó3ò4 versus dö́ 1ö̀ 2‖mí3.ðò4ó5 The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 17 The Deletion of the Trigger may Preempt Fronting due to Syllable Structure • Paul Kiparsky (2009): Deletion of the trigger after heavy syllable was delayed because the main stressed foot would have become trimoraic (*μμμ): • *sta1ð2z (OK) & *ta1l2‖ðoo (OK) • +ga1s2t3z or +do1o2m3‖ðoo NOT OK! • ► *gas‖tiz > *gäs‖tiz > *gästz > gestr • ► *doo‖mi.ðoo > *döö‖mi.ðoo > *dööm‖ðoo > dœmda The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-Nov-2016 18 An Acid Test for Prosodic Solutions Hardly any difference in structure => it must be the trigger ! The notorious cruxes of Common Scandinavian umlaut and breaking / Johan Schalin 16-May-2017 19 Sub-Minimal Pairs 1. Regular dorso-palatal 2. Descendant of PlGmc 3. Etymologically regular descendant of PlGmc† */i/; no */i/ >*ȋ in laminalising descendant of PlGmc */e/ > *ȋ front umlaut environment *skut-ilaz >*skʋ̊ tïlaz >skutill *matiðaz >*matȋðaz *glað-elaz >*glaðȇlaz ‘shuttle’ (with instrumental suffix) >mettr ‘satisfied’ (past. >*glaðȋlaz >gleðill ‘fun, good *mati(-z) >*matï(-z) >mat(-r) part. m. nom. sg.) cheer’ (with diminutive suffix) ‘food’ *batizȭ >*batȋzō >betra *hnutez >*hnʋ̊ tȋz > OSw nytẹr ‘nuts’ (pl.) ~ODa nytær *batistaz >*batïstaz >baztr ‘best’ ‘the better’ (f. nom. sg.) *dug-eþō >*dʋ̊ gȋþʋ >dygð *lag-i-ðȭ >*lagïðō >lagða ‘I put’ ‘virtue’ *fram-i-ðȭ >*framïðō >framda ‘I *framizȭ >*framȋzō *frameþō >*framȋþʋ >fremd promoted’ >fremra ‘the anterior’ (f.