Quantity Adjustment: Vowel Lengthening and Shortening in Early Middle English - Paperback

by Nikolaus Ritt (Author)

Using an innovative theoretical framework, Dr. Ritt describes the phenomenon of the change in vowel length in early Middle English, and sets out to account for its occurrence. He shows that the changes stem from universal principles that govern the way in which humans use speech sounds to communicate. He examines why these principles only sometimes lead to widespread changes, as in Middle English, and goes on to suggest that language is a complex system in which conflicting tendencies are constantly renegotiating their spheres of influence.

Back Jacket

This is a unified account of all quantity changes affecting English stressed vowels during the Early Middle English period. Dr. Ritt discusses Homorganic Lengthening, Open Syllable Lengthening, Trisyllabic Shortening, and Shortening before Consonant Clusters. The study is based on a statistical analysis of the Modern English reflexes of the changes. The complete corpus of analysed data is made available to the reader in the appendices. All of the changes are shown to derive from basically the same set of quasi-universal tendencies, while apparent idiosyncrasies are shown to follow from factors that are independent of the underlying tendencies themselves. The role of tendencies - probabilistic laws in the description of language change - is given thorough theoretical treatment. In his aim to account for the changes as well as trace their chronology, Dr Ritt applies principles of Natural Phonology, and examines the conflict between phonological and morphological 'necessities'.