Filling the hiatus: a changing face of English · 2014-03-11 · the hiatus-filling systems of the dialects of English are constantly changing evident in the case of Intrusive-L in

CONSONANTS 2

Filling the hiatus: a changing face of English

Intro

● the phonological phenomenon of cross-morpheme hiatus-filling: the breaking up of vowel-vowel sequences (called hiatuses) across (strong) morpheme boundaries by inserting a consonant or consonant-like segment inbetween

● generally in English: the semivowels (or glides) /j/ and /w/ and the glottal stop

● in certain accents: some of the other consonants: /r/ and /l/

Intro

● in most present-day non-rhotic accents of English (e.g., non-conservative RP or Eastern Massachusetts English): /r/

● in a number of rhotic (mostly American) varieties (e.g., southern Pennsylvania): /l/

Intro

● /j/ /w/ /?/ /r/ /l/● the glottal stop: a very general, phonologically

unrestricted hiatus-filler● the others: inserted into specific positions only + the

environments for the two liquids overlap● => within a given hiatus-filling system, there is a

maximum of one unrestricted (/?/) and three phonologically controlled (/j/, /w/, /r/l/) hiatus-breakers

Intro

● liquid hiatus-filling: in constant change:● (1) its appearance is gradual, involving a step-by-

step spread or generalization – attestable even today in the case of /l/

● (2) recent studies have shown that there are two opposite trends observable in the accents of English with a liquid hiatus-filler

Intro

● two recent, opposite trends:● (1) the status of the liquid is further strengthened by

the extension of its application to additional environments (as was the case historically, too)

● (2) the use of the liquid in that role is altogether abandoned, with the glottal stop taking over

● the choice between the two tendencies seems to hinge on the degree of urbanization of the given speech community and the ensuing amount of language contact

Roadmap

● General hiatus-filling strategies in English● Accent-specific solutions in:● (i) Non-rhotic accents● (ii) Rhotic accents● (Recall: intrusive liquids)● Changing systems of hiatus resolution

General hiatus-filling strategies in English


● The choice of the glide is not at all random:● /j/ is coronal (produced by the front surface of the

tongue) (just like /i:/ and the second halves of diphthongs)

● /w/ is velar (formed in the back of the oral cavity) (just like /u:/ and the second halves of diphthongs)


● hiatus resolution is never obligatory● at least in certain speech styles, the glottal stop is

also always an option (especially in the cases with /i:/ and /u:/)

● => not fewer than three possible pronunciations for most of the examples



● The rota/rotor isn't ready:



● (cf. with Intrusive-R:

The rota/rotor isn't ready)


● But: a gap is left: there is no specific filler for cases when the first term in the hiatus is a non-high vowel (e.g., vanilla ice)

● in many dialects of English: unresolved hiatus or, alternatively, a glottal stop between the two vowels, but no third option is available

● other dialects: innovative methods to fill this gap

Accent-specific solutions● accent-specific solutions to the problem of the

missing hiatus-filler, associated with the non-high vowels: /r/ and /l/

● not possible in one and the same accent: /r/ only in non-rhotic accents, /l/ only reported as a non-high hiatus-filler in certain rhotic accents

● historically both have emerged in this role as an analogy-driven reaction to a vocalization/deletion process: vocalization/deletion + linking across morphemes → vocalization/deletion rule gets reversed into its mirror-image rule of insertion → generalized to resolve hiatus in the relevant contexts

Accent-specific solutions● Non-rhotic accents: R-dropping, linking-R,

intrusive-R


intrusive-R● Wells (1982): diachronic rule inversion: the

original R-dropping rule is replaced by R-insertion, subsuming both Linking-R and Intrusive-R


intrusive-R● Wells (1982): diachronic rule inversion: the

original R-dropping rule is replaced by R-insertion, subsuming both Linking-R and Intrusive-RThe process did not take place in one single step: Intrusive-R appeared soon after the establish-ment of R-dropping during the 18th century, but it was used follow-ing ə-final stems first


intrusive-R● Wells (1982): diachronic rule inversion: the original

R-dropping rule is replaced by R-insertion, subsuming both Linking-R and Intrusive-R

● The process did not take place in one single step: Intrusive-R appeared soon after the establishment of R-dropping during the 18th century, but it was used following schwa-final stems first

● (such stems were all non-native borrowings, and perhaps having a schwa at the end was felt by the speakers to be foreign to the phonotactic system)

Accent-specific solutions

● the descriptions of RP by Jones and Gimson: a higher frequency of Intrusive-R after schwa than /a:/ or /o:/ (Jones 1956: 113-4, Gimson 1989 [1962]: 303-4)

● Wells (1982: 222ff): the next vowel "joining in" was /a:/, while Intrusive-R after /o:/ is considered (recall, in the 1980s!) as a relatively recent development, so much so that even Professor Wells himself admittedly belongs to the group of speakers not using Intrusive-R with /o:/ (cf. ibid: 225)

Accent-specific solutions● this process of gradual extension of the scope of

hiatus-filling with /r/ from schwa to /o:/, eventually covering all the non-high vowels:

● Schwa > /a:/ > /o:/● is particularly intriguing, since a similar gradualness

is witnessed in the ongoing spread of /l/ as a hiatus-filler (see below), only proceeding in the opposite direction, /o:/ being the very starting point

Accent-specific solutions● Once /r/gets generalized as a hiatus-filler following

non-high vowels, it is expected that it will be used so in all potential cases

● Non-standard non-rhotic accents!● e.g., East Anglia, Cockney or Australian and New

Zealand English: /au/ (MOUTH) shifted and monophthongized /æ:/ or /E:/, e.g., now_and (then), how_old (are you), how_interesting (cf. e.g., Britain and Fox 2009: 180, Wells 1982: 227, 309; Hay 2001)



● Non-standard non-rhotic accents!● e.g., West Yorkshire English, discussed in some

detail in Broadbent (1991) :-) and Norwich



● Non-standard non-rhotic accents!● e.g., West Yorkshire English, discussed in some

detail in Broadbent (1991) :-) and Norwich:

A short detour

● the question arises whether non-high is really the relevant feature to describe the third hiatus-filler

● Broadbent (1991: 295-296): the feature [-high] to describe the vowels which trigger R-insertion is not restrictive enough, at least in the West Yorkshire variety she was analyzing

● in West Yorkshire English: the vowels of words like pay and go: monophthongal /e:/ and /o:/: non-high vowels!

A short detour

● She then concludes that the necessary trigger for R-formation is a non-high, lax vowel, whereas /j/ and /w/ insertion takes place after non-low, tense triggers

● Although Broadbent's paper focusses on West Yorkshire only, intuitively it is not implausible that the same applies to all R-intruding accents with monophthongized pay and go vowels

A short detour

● Plus: recent data from south-east England (Uffmann 2008: 8):

● also support the lax analysis of R-insertion● in fact, as the data suggest, it may as well be the

case that the reference to high/low is not needed at all

A short detour

● /r/ following high, lax vowels!

A short detour

● /r/ following high, lax vowels!

=> /r/ is inserted to break thehiatus after lax vowels

Rhotic accents

● In some of the rhotic accents of English, a phenomenon of L-sandhi is attested

● L-vocalisation/deletion, linking-L, intrusive-L

Rhotic accents

● Bristol-L: long been noted, giving rise to popular anecdotes and jokes, but it is also found utterance-finally, and therefore it will be considered a different phenomenon not straightforwardly related to hiatus-filling, and henceforth ignored

Bristol is the only city in Britain "to be able to turn ideas into ideals, areas into aerials, and Monicas into monocles"; where "a father had three lovely daughters, Idle, Evil, and Normal"; and where a local girl learning to dance was heard to say "I can rumble but I can't tangle" (Wells 1982: 344)

Rhotic accents: Intrusive-L in the US

● Gick (2002: 167): "an instance of phonological change in progress"

● seems to follow the same route of development as undergone by /r/ in non-rhotic accents:

● vocalization – linking – merger of the originally liquid-final words with certain vowel-final ones – reanalysis/rule inversion/intrusion – generalization to all non-high vowels

● but, unlike /r/, it has been "caught in the act", that is, described before its completion

Rhotic accents: Intrusive-L in the US

● but, unlike /r/, it has been "caught in the act", that is, described before its completion: no L-inserting dialect in the US has reached full generalization

● In most such accents Intrusive-L is firmly established after /o(:)/

● (=> the vowel that first triggers Intrusive-R is the schwa, whereas the primary trigger for Intrusive-L is /o(:)/)

Rhotic accents: Intrusive-L in the US● However, no such dialect uses Intrusive-L following

/a(:)/ and schwa systematically● Some speakers do sporadically extend Intrusive-L to

words ending in those vowels● => Although apparently there are no L-vocalizing

accents (as yet) which use Intrusive-L's in all potential cases, clearly the target group of vowels is comprised by the non-high set

● Intrusive/Linking-L is inserted to resolve the hiatus in situations when no other phonologically circumscribed hiatus-filler is available, i.e., when the only alternative is the glottal stop

Changing systems

● the hiatus-filling systems of the dialects of English are constantly changing

● evident in the case of Intrusive-L in the US: its current description is but a snapshot of change in progress

● only time will tell whether the spread of Intrusive-L from /o(:)/ to other vowels will follow the pattern envisaged based on the example of Intrusive-R, whether it will prove or disprove the emerging lax analysis

Changing systems

● But: cross-morpheme hiatus-filling turns out to be a changing face of English in non-rhotic accents, too, being far from settled and well-established

● R-sandhi: two opposite forces:● (i) with the emergence of "new" final non-high

vowels R-sandhi spreads to new environments, recall, e.g.:

Changing systems

Changing systems

● (ii) in certain accents/registers it is slowly receding, disappearing in favour of the (default) glottal hiatus marker: not only Intrusive-R that tends to be avoided that way (as in Conservative RP), but Linking-R, and, to a lesser degree, nonlexical /j/ and /w/ as well

In fact, this applies to the whole hiatus resolution system of English, including non-productive cases realized by the allomorphy of the, a(n), o(f) – for a detailed study, see Britain and Fox (2009)

Changing systems

● Britain and Fox (2009):● in England, the traditional complex hiatus-filling

system is maintained in rural, ethnically rather homogeneous speech areas like the Fens

Changing systems



● whereas in multicultural urban communities like London or Bedford language and sociocultural contact is driving it towards a regularized, "levelled" system with a dominant glottal stop

Changing systems



● whereas in multicultural urban communities like London or Bedford language and sociocultural contact is driving it towards a regularized, "levelled" system with a dominant glottal stop

● Whether the same trend is observable in rhotic accents and also perhaps for Linking/Intrusive-L is an issue for future research

41

Based on BBK 2011. Filling the hiatus: a changing face of English. In: Faces of English. Pázmány Papers in English and American Studies 5. 30-41.

For a follow-up research project, see BBK - Réka Bögös 2011. "Hiátustöltő stratégiák tipológiája és grammatikai szerepe angol dialektusokban". Paper presented at 'Nyelvelmélet és dialektológia' thematic conference, PPCU, 15-16 November 2011.

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Filling the hiatus: a changing face of English · 2014-03-11 · the hiatus-filling systems of the dialects of English are constantly changing evident in the case of Intrusive-L in