Linguists have traditionally represented patterns of divergence within a language family in terms of either a ‘splits’ model, corresponding to a branching family tree structure, or the wave model, ...resulting in a (dialect) continuum. Recent phylogenetic analyses, however, have tended to assume the former as a viable idealization also for the latter. But the contrast matters, for it typically reflects different processes in the real world: speaker populations either separated by migrations, or expanding over continuous territory. Since history often leaves a complex of both patterns within the same language family, ideally we need a single model to capture both, and tease apart the respective contributions of each. The ‘network’ type of phylogenetic method offers this, so we review recent applications to language data. Most have used lexical data, encoded as binary or multi-state characters. We look instead at continuous distance measures of divergence in phonetics. Our output networks combine branch- and continuum-like signals in ways that correspond well to known histories (illustrated for Germanic, and particularly English). We thus challenge the traditional insistence on shared innovations, setting out a new, principled explanation for why complex language histories can emerge correctly from distance measures, despite shared retentions and parallel innovations.
Warren Maguire examines Mid-Ulster English as a key case of new dialect formation, considering the roles of language shift and dialect contact in its phonological development.
The origins of owld in Scots MAGUIRE, WARREN
English language and linguistics,
09/2020, Letnik:
24, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The usual development of OE ɑld in words such as old in Scots is to auld, reflecting the development of this sequence in northern dialects more generally. But in some Scots dialects other ...pronunciations of these words, reminiscent of dialects of English south of the Ribble–Humber Line, are found. These forms, of the type owld, are found across Lowland Scotland, with particular concentrations in the far north and southwest. Origins in Irish English and English in England have been suggested for this feature of Scots but these hypotheses have not been explored. Aitken & Macafee (2002: 61–2) instead argue for an endogenous origin of both auld and owld, but this proposed double endogenous development of OE ɑld is problematic in a number of ways. In this article, I examine the history of these developments in Scots in comparison to their development in dialects of English in England and Ireland. The lack of evidence for the owld development in Older Scots suggests that these forms are of relatively recent origin. Crucially, the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP) reveals that the owld pronunciations were in fact a feature of early forms of Standard English. Furthermore, several characteristic features of Irish English have spread into southwest Scotland, and the distribution of owld forms in the area fits this pattern. Thus Scots forms such as owld are not the result of endogenous development, but have their origin in English, in the case of southwest Scotland at least in part from Irish English, and elsewhere in Scotland from early forms of Standard English. These owld forms have been ‘localised’ and reinterpreted as ‘Scots’, alongside or replacing original auld. The analysis of the origins of this feature highlights not only the role of contact with varieties of English in the development of Scots, but also the importance of sources such as the ECEP database for understanding the historical phonology of Scots and English.
Alphabetic spelling systems rarely display perfectly consistent one-to-one relationships between graphic marks and speech sounds. This is particularly true for languages without a standard written ...form. Nevertheless, such non-standard spelling systems are far from being anarchic, as they take on a conventional structure resulting from shared communities and histories of practice. Elucidating said structure can be a substantial challenge for researchers presented with textual evidence alone, since attested variation may represent differences in sound structure as well as differences in the graphophonological mapping itself. In order to tease apart these factors, we present a tool-Medusa-that allows users to create visual representations of the relationship between sounds and spellings (sound substitution sets and spelling substitution sets). Our case study for the tool deals with a longstanding issue in the historical record of mediaeval Scots, where word-final , , and appear to be interchangeable, despite representing reflexes of distinct pre-Scots sounds: x, xt and θ. Focusing on the documentary record in the Linguistic Atlas of Older Scots (LAOS, 2013), our exploration surveys key graphemic categories, mapping their lexical distributions and taking us through evidence from etymology, phonological typology, palaeography and historical orthograpy. The result is a novel reconstruction of the underlying sound values for each one of the target items in the record, alongside a series of sound and spelling changes that account for the data.
Epenthesis in liquid+sonorant clusters is a well known feature of Irish English, almost universally assumed to be the result of contact with Irish, which has extensive epenthesis. However, epenthesis ...was (and still is to a degree) common in English and Scots in Britain, specifically in liquid+sonorant clusters in stem‐level codas. This paper examines epenthesis in Mid‐Ulster English (MUE), comparing it to epenthesis in Irish, English and Scots. This comparison reveals that epenthesis in MUE is essentially identical to epenthesis in English and Scots, diachronically and synchronically, and is not very like epenthesis in Irish. At most, Irish played a reinforcing role in the development of epenthesis in MUE. That this most `Irish‐like’ of features of this Irish English dialect is not of Irish origin has important consequences for our understanding of the historical phonology of MUE and other Irish English dialects.
Pre-R Dentalisation in Scotland MAGUIRE, WARREN
English language and linguistics,
07/2016, Letnik:
20, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Pre-R Dentalisation (PreRD), the dental pronunciation of /t/ and /d/ before /r/ and /ər/, is a well-known feature of English varieties throughout Ireland. PreRD is often accompanied by an .../r/-Realisation Effect (RRE), whereby /r/ is pronounced as a tap after the dentalised consonant, and a Morpheme Boundary Constraint (MBC), such that PreRD is blocked by Class 2 morpheme boundaries. Although an Irish origin for PreRD has been suggested, the presence of PreRD, the RRE and the MBC in northern English dialects in a form nearly identical to what is found in Ireland suggests that the origins of PreRD lie instead in English in Britain. The possible existence of PreRD in Scotland is suspected, but definitive evidence for PreRD, the RRE and the MBC there has never been published. In this article, I provide the first detailed analysis of these features in Scotland, using unpublished data collected as part of the
Linguistic Survey of Scotland
. It will be seen that there is substantial evidence for PreRD, the RRE and the MBC in Scots dialects. The presence of these features in Scotland has important consequences for their history in Britain, and confirms the British origin of PreRD in Ireland.
Pre-R Dentalisation in Scotland 1 MAGUIRE, WARREN
English language and linguistics,
07/2016, Letnik:
20, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Pre-R Dentalisation (PreRD), the dental pronunciation of /t/ and /d/ before /r/ and /ər/, is a well-known feature of English varieties throughout Ireland. PreRD is often accompanied by an .../r/-Realisation Effect (RRE), whereby /r/ is pronounced as a tap after the dentalised consonant, and a Morpheme Boundary Constraint (MBC), such that PreRD is blocked by Class 2 morpheme boundaries. Although an Irish origin for PreRD has been suggested, the presence of PreRD, the RRE and the MBC in northern English dialects in a form nearly identical to what is found in Ireland suggests that the origins of PreRD lie instead in English in Britain. The possible existence of PreRD in Scotland is suspected, but definitive evidence for PreRD, the RRE and the MBC there has never been published. In this article, I provide the first detailed analysis of these features in Scotland, using unpublished data collected as part of the Linguistic Survey of Scotland. It will be seen that there is substantial evidence for PreRD, the RRE and the MBC in Scots dialects. The presence of these features in Scotland has important consequences for their history in Britain, and confirms the British origin of PreRD in Ireland.
Tracing L-vocalisation in early Scots Molineaux, Benjamin; Kopaczyk, Joanna; Maguire, Warren ...
Papers in Historical Phonology,
11/2016, Letnik:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This paper provides novel evidence for the frequency and spatio-temporal distribution of the earliest instances of Scots L-vocalisation. This so-called “characteristic Scots change” (McClure 1994: ...48) entails the loss of coda-/l/ following back vowels, with concomitant vocalic lengthening or diphthongisation (e.g. OE healf > OSc hawff; OE bolster > OSc bouster; OE full > OSc fow, cf. Johnston 1997: 90). Using data from the Linguistic Atlas of Older Scots (LAOS), spanning 1380-1500, we reassess the claims for the emergence of L-vocalisation in the early 15th century (Aitken & Macafee 2002: 101-4) and for its completion by the beginning of the 16th (cf. Stuart-Smith et al. 2006, Bann & Corbett, 2015). Based on attestations of -less forms and reverse spellings, we map the spread of -loss over time and space. Emphasis is placed on the relative chronologies and lexical and geographic distributions of the change in different phonological contexts, including morpheme-final, pre-labial, pre-velar and (more lexically sporadic) pre-alveolar. Particular attention is also paid to the under-explored /l/~Ø alternation in borrowed items from (Norman) French (cf. realme~reaume ‘realm’) and their potential influence on the development of coda-/l/ in Scots. The results show low-level presence of the phenomenon throughout our corpus, but no signs of a categorical change in any of the target contexts.
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