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AL L I TER ATI O N A N D S O U N D C H A N G E IN E AR LY E N G LI S H
This study uses evidence from early English verse to reconstruct the course of some central phonological changes in the history of the language. It builds on the premise that alliteration reflects faithfully the acoustic identity and similarity of stressed syllable onsets. Individual chapters cover the history of the velars, the structure and history of vowel-initial syllable onsets, the behavior of onset clusters, and the chronology and motivation of cluster reduction (gn-, kn-, hr-, hl-, hn-, hw-, wr-, wl-). Examination of the patterns of group alliteration in Old and Middle English reveals a hierarchy of clusterinternal cohesiveness which leads to new conclusions regarding the causes for the special treatment of sp-, st-, sk- in alliteration. The analysis draws on current phonetically-based Optimality-Theoretic models. The book presents valuable new information about the medieval poetic canon and elucidates the relationship between orality and literacy in the evolution of English verse. donka minkova is Professor of English Language at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has published widely in the fields of English and Germanic historical phonology and syntax, historical dialectology, and English historical metrics. She is the author of The History of Final Vowels in English (1991) and of English Words: History and Structure (with Robert Stockwell, Cambridge, 2001). She is also co-editor, with Robert Stockwell, of Studies in the History of the English Language: A Millennial Perspective (2002).
s ara h m. b. fag a n The syntax and semantics of middle constructions: a study with special reference to German an j u m p. sa leemi Universal grammar and language learnability stephen r. anderson A-Morphous morphology l esley sti rli n g Switch reference and discourse representation henk j. verkuyl A theory of aspectuality: the interaction between temporal and atemporal structure e v e v. cla rk The lexicon in acquisition an th o n y r. wa rner English auxiliaries: structure and history p. h . matth ews Grammatical theory in the United States from Bloomfield to Chomsky ljiljana progovac Negative and positive polarity: a binding approach r . m. w. d i x o n Ergativity yan huang The syntax and pragmatics of anaphora kn u d la mbrech t Information structure and sentence form: topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents luigi burzio Principles of English stress john a. hawkins A performance theory of order and constituency alice c. harris and lyle cam pbell Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective liliane haegeman The syntax of negation pau l g o rrell Syntax and parsing guglielmo cinque Italian syntax and universal grammar hen ry smi th Restrictiveness in case theory d. ro bert la d d Intonational phonology an d rea mo ro The raising of predicates: predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structure r o g er la ss Historical linguistics and language change john m. anderson A notional theory of syntactic categories b ern d h ei n e Possession: cognitive sources, forces and grammaticalization nomi erteschik-shir The dynamics of focus structure john coleman Phonological representations: their names, forms and powers christina y. bethin Slavic prosody: language change and phonological theory barbara dancygier Conditionals and prediction: time, knowledge and causation in conditional constructions c la i re lefebv re Creole genesis and the acquisition of grammar: the case of Haitian Creole heinz giegerich Lexical strata in English: morphological causes, phonological effects keren ri ce Morpheme order and semantic scope: word formation and the Athapaskan verb a. m. s. mcma h o n Lexical phonology and the history of English m atth ew y. ch en Tone sandhi: patterns across Chinese dialects greg o ry t. stu mp Inflectional morphology: a theory of paradigm structure j o a n by bee Phonology and language use laurie bauer Morphological productivity thomas ernst The syntax of adjuncts e li z a beth clo ss traugott and richard b. dasher Regularity in semantic change m aya h i ck ma n Children’s discourse: person, space and time across languages di a n e bla k emo re Relevance and meaning: the semantics and pragmatics of discourse markers i a n ro berts and anna r oussou Features, parameters and grammaticalization: a minimalist approach to syntactic change donka minkova Alliteration and sound change in early English Earlier titles not listed are also available
C AMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS General Editors: p. austin, j. bresnan, b. comrie , w. dressler, c. j. ewen, r. lass, d. lightfoot, i. roberts, s. romaine, n. v. smith
Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English
AL LIT ERATI O N AN D S OUN D CH AN GE IN E ARLY ENG LI SH DO NK A M IN KOVA Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles
List of figures List of tables List of abbreviations Preface 1
Social and linguistic setting of alliterative verse in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval England
1.1 1.2
The Anglo-Saxon poetic scene The post-Conquest poetic scene
2
Linguistic structures in English alliterative verse
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
The prosody–meter interface Old English stress Old English versification Middle English stress and its attestation in verse Middle English alliterative versification Some methodological remarks
3
Segmental histories: velar palatalization
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10
The Old English consonant system The alliterative conundrum Sound over letter Alliteration and editorial practice The morphophonemic nature of voiceless velar alliteration Alliterating voiced velars in early Old English The violability of place for the OE velars Alliteration as phonetic gradience in OT Was there a /ʃ/ in Old English? The Old English consonant system revised
Non-alliterative evidence for the glottal stop in Old English The upset of Onset O n s e t in Modern English Es ist Gesetz: summary and conclusions
5
Onset and cluster alliteration in Old English: the case of sp-, st-, sk-
5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7
Introducing cluster alliteration: sp-, st-, skThe biphonemic treatment of <sc-> in alliteration The special status of sp-, st-, sk- in Old English Cluster constraints and the cohesiveness of sp-, st-, skThree-consonantal clusters: the [sl-] [skl-] change /sp-, st-, sk-/ and the French vocabulary Summary and conclusions
6
Onset and cluster alliteration in Middle English
6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5
New patterns of alliteration in Middle English Cluster alliteration in Old and Middle English: a comparison Cluster alliteration in early Middle English: Lagamon’s Brut Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century Why is fourteenth-century verse good evidence for cluster cohesion? Non-verse evidence for cluster cohesion Alliterative patterns in verse and the lexicon The linguistic foundation of cluster alliteration Cluster alliteration after Middle English Concluding remarks
Verse evidence for cluster simplification in Middle English
7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8
Historically unstable clusters in Lagamon’s Brut Wynnere and Wastoure The Wars of Alexander Piers Plowman Notes on the history of velar cluster reduction Notes on the history of /h-/ clusters The history of /w-/ clusters Summary and conclusions
311 312 318 320 324 330 339 365 369
References Index of names Subject index
371 389 393
Figures
2.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1
The structure of the verse line Cluster alliteration in Wynnere and Wastoure Percentage group alliteration in The Wars of Alexander Cluster alliteration in Piers Plowman Cohesive alliteration versus word frequency in Middle English clusters in Old English
page 37 269 279 291 299 346
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Tables
5.1 6.1 6.2 6.3
x
Cluster cohesion in Old English alliteration Onset cluster frequency in the Middle English Dictionary Onset cluster frequency in the MED and OED2 Lexical frequency and percentage of cohesive alliteration in Middle English
page 228 297 297 298
Abbreviations
Sources ASPR Beo BM Brb Chr Cln CP Dan ECL EETS El Exo Gen Guth Jg2 Jln Jud LAEME LALME LB/Lag MA MB MED MerT Mld Mnl O&N ODEE
Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records Beowulf The Battle of Maldon The Battle of Brunanburh Christ Cleanness Cura Pastoralis Daniel An Exhortation to Christian Living Early English Text Society Elene Exodus Genesis Guthlac The Judgement Day II Juliana Judith A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English A Linguistic Atlas of Late Middle English Lagamon’s Brut The Alliterative Morte Arthure The Meters of Boethius Middle English Dictionary The Merchant’s Tale The Battle of Maldon The Menologium The Owl and the Nightingale The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology xi
xii
List of abbreviations
OED P Parl Phoen/Phx PP/PPl ROA Sea/Sfr Siege SGGK SnS Vesp W Pal/WP W&W WA
The Oxford English Dictionary The Metrical Psalms of the Paris Psalter Parlement of the Thre Ages The Phoenix Piers Plowman Rutgers Optimality Archive The Seafarer The Siege of Jerusalem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Solomon and Saturn The Vespasian Psalter William of Palerne Wynnere and Wastoure The Wars of Alexander
Languages and linguistic terms a. AL c. C DEP EME F FNC Gmc Goth GVS IO IPA LEX LOE ME ML ModE MS Norw
difference ante Anglo-Latin circa consonant Dependence Early Middle English non-sibilant fricative Function Word Germanic Gothic Great Vowel Shift Input–Output International Phonetic Alphabet Lexical Word Late Old English Middle English Medieval Latin Modern English manuscript Norwegian
List of abbreviations O OCP OE OHG OT PPh PrW R RP S SON-SEQ V VP WS
obstruent Obligatory Contour Principle Old English Old High German Optimality Theory Prosodic Phrase Prosodic Word sonorant Received Pronunciation sibilant Sonority Sequencing vowel verb phrase West Saxon
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Preface
The history of poetry is also in part a history of the language in which it was created. This book uses evidence from alliterative verse to explore the development of some important phonological features of Old and Middle English. The assumption behind this approach is that both conformity to a metrical template and linguistically circumscribed preferences govern the distribution of forms in verse. The patterns found in early English alliterative compositions provide a valuable resource for the reconstruction of the contemporary language. In a field as heavily raked over as English historical linguistics is, it is surprising and exciting to find a cache of often unrecorded and definitely unanalyzed primary data. For Old English, the only full-length study of alliterative patterns is Classen (1913), and he restricts himself to vowel alliteration. Schumacher (1914), on whose pioneering survey Oakden (1930, 1935) relies, is the only systematic account of the patterns of alliteration for a large sample of Middle English alliterative verse. This work augments the early philological findings with new material, incorporating the information gleaned from verse into new accounts of the histories of particular segments and structures. In addition to yielding fresh insights into the specific attributes of early English, the reconstruction and interpretation offered here is useful as a test for the applicability and viability of current linguistic models. The volume represents one part of a much larger project intended to cover the interplay between language and verse throughout the history of English. Half way through the project it became clear to me that extending the data coverage and analysis to syllable-counting verse and reaching beyond the end of the fourteenth century was impractical and would destroy the coherence of the current study. The re-shaping of the metrical conventions in post-Conquest England which resulted in the emergence of a new metrical blend of native and continental models, is too complex an issue to be integrated within the self-standing tradition of alliterative versification. This large topic, as well as a more detailed verse-based analysis of vowel length and syllable weight, word and phrasal stress, is postponed, optimistically, to a later date. xv
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The material I have drawn most extensively on spans about eight centuries, roughly from the second half of the seventh century to the end of the fourteenth century. My goals are both diachronic, to clarify some recalcitrant issues in the history of English phonology, and synchronic, to relate the information to other properties of the contemporary language. Each chapter thus attempts to place the philological testimony in the context of a broader chronological setting, making references to earlier and later stages of the language, and drawing on philological and typological evidence outside the confines of alliterative verse. The book starts with two background chapters. Chapter 1 addresses the social and linguistic setting of alliterative verse in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval England, emphasizing the connection between alliteration, oral delivery, and pre-silent reading. This particular acoustic aspect of early art verse makes it a good source for reconstruction of the properties of language. Chapter 2 introduces topics that are directly relevant to the case studies in the rest of the book. It addresses the prosody–meter interface and justifies the assumptions regarding stress assignment and the metrical structures found in Old English, early Middle English, and fourteenth-century alliterative verse. Chapter 3 is the first concerted effort to show that alliterative evidence has been unduly neglected in writing the phonological history of the language. The analysis of the verse data prompts a reassessment of velar palatalization. The hypothesis pursued here is that underlyingly contrastive /tʃ/ or /ʃ/ did not exist in English until after c. 1000. It is also argued that the phonemic split of early OE [γ] into /j/ and /g/ and the merger of the voiced palatal fricative [] with the pre-existing /j/ occurred around the middle of the tenth century. Chapter 4 is an inquiry into the status of the stressed syllable onset in the history of English. Although it has been rejected by many leading twentiethcentury scholars, the hypothesis defended here is of long standing: Old English vowel alliteration relied on epenthetic glottal stops in the onsets of vowelinitial stressed syllables. It is proposed that a filled Onset constraint was active in the phonology of Old English. The requirement was relaxed in Middle English under the prosodic and structural influence of Romance loan phonology. Nevertheless, the preference for a filled stressed syllable Onset survives in Modern English. The account is substantiated with evidence not just from Old and Middle English alliteration, but also from spelling, from the occurrence of procliticization, and from typological studies of similar phenomena in other languages. Chapter 5 attacks an old dilemma: what makes /sp-, st-, sk-/ different from other onsets? In descriptions of Old English alliteration this issue is usually handled by declaring the initial sibilant ‘extrametrical,’ an ‘appendix’ of some
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sort. These and other proposals regarding cluster behavior are discussed and rejected. The approach adopted here relies on the insight that sibilant + voiceless stop clusters are the only type of complex stressed syllable onsets in which the first perceptual burst comes at the stop-vowel boundary. This acoustic cohesiveness motivates the convention that disallows splitting of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in Old English alliteration. Chapter 6 presents a set of new philological data on the alliterative behavior of initial consonant clusters in Middle English. The hypothesis these data are intended to test is that Middle English cluster alliteration (/sm-/ : /sm-/, /br-/ : /br-/, /fl-/ : /fl-/ etc.) is not random. The choices are controlled by the degree of perceptual cohesion within the clusters. The combined results from the patterns found in several fourteenth-century compositions suggest a scale of cohesiveness topped by /st-, sp-, sk-/, followed by s+sonorant (/sl-, sn-, sm-, sw-/), followed by stop+sonorant (/pr-, br-, tr-, dr-, kr-, gr-, pl-, bl-, kl-, gl-, tw-, dw-, kw-/). Fricative-sonorant clusters (/fl-, fr-, r-/) appear to be perceptually least cohesive. Additional factors motivating group alliteration are the size of the lexical pool from which matching pairs can be drawn, the semantic adaptability of words to a broad range of contexts, and possibly the ‘alliterative rank’ of particular lexical items, a notion that this chapter seeks to enrich. Chapter 7 presents new philological data on the use of unstable onset clusters in verse. The alliterative practice in Middle English contradicts the hypothesis that the relative dating of the reduction of the onset clusters /gn-, kn-/, /hn-, hl-, hr-, hw-/, /wl-, wr-/ is a function of the consonantal strength of the onset components. Instead, the proximate mechanism for the simplification is lack of cohesion for the velar and labiovelar clusters. Reduction of /hw-/ is attested in the South from the twelfth century; it is the longest ‘undigested’ phonological change in the language. Its survival or re-emergence cannot be related to the cluster’s sonority profile. The evidential basis on cluster reduction comes primarily from Middle English verse, but the chapter draws also on spelling data from the on-line Middle English Dictionary, and data from the yet unpublished Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English. As a philological contribution the book records a core set of data relevant to the structure and behavior of stressed onsets and provides a methodology which can be applied to Medieval sources not covered in this study. The claims made here are therefore amenable to further empirical testing. The study is also an effort to combine traditional philological work with linguistic analysis informed by the currently popular model of Optimality Theory. An important correlation that I have attempted to highlight throughout the book is that the evidence found in verse is evidence for the surface acoustic properties of the
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Preface
contemporary language. While specific formalizations are a product of the times, it is hoped that the appeal to replicable phonetic information will create a more permanent basis for the discussion and explication of onset issues and related philological facts and phonological changes in English. It is a pleasant duty to acknowledge the institutional, collegial, and personal debts incurred in the course of writing this book. A University of California President’s Fellowship in the Humanities gave me a year of immersion in the huge literature on early English verse and allowed me to learn more linguistics. The UCLA Research Council has helped with the travel to the archives of the Middle English Dictionary in Ann Arbor and the Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English in Edinburgh, Scotland. The award of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for 2000–2001 and the UCLA English Department’s generous supplement to the Fellowship allowed me a blissful block of quiet time for research and writing without which the book might have been another decade in the making. Among the numerous colleagues to whom I owe thanks, I would like to single out in particular Thomas Cable, Robert Fulk, Richard Hogg, and Roger Lass, who have not only been the perfect professional role-models, but have actively supported this project since its inception. The influence of their research will be obvious throughout the book, and while I do not expect them to agree with the proposed analyses, I hope that they will see my efforts as a recognition of the importance of their contributions to the study of English historical phonology and meter. I have also benefited from exchanges with many colleagues who have listened, supplied advice and useful references, and shared information: Birgit Alber, John Anderson, Ricardo Berm´udez-Otero, Derek Britton, Hoyt Duggan, Heinz Giegerich, Meg Laing, Anatoly Liberman, Chris McCully, Frances McSparran, Catherine Ringen, Rick Russom, and Joe Salmons. My association with two outstanding groups of people at UCLA, the Medieval and Renaissance faculty and graduate students in the English Department, and the phonetics and phonology faculty and graduate students in the Department of Linguistics, has been most helpful. Bruce Hayes and Donca Steriade have created an energizing environment of intellectual pursuit and commitment. While the book was in its first draft, I had the opportunity to read and discuss the work of their doctoral student Heidi Fleischhacker, whose ongoing research on cluster cohesion has influenced the analysis in chapters 5 and 6. An early version of the analysis developed in chapter 5 was presented at the Sixth Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in April 2000. Different versions of chapter 6 were presented at the thirteenth
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biennial meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America in May 2001 and the fifteenth ICHL in August 2001. I am grateful to the audiences at those meetings for comments and challenges. Some of the data and the arguments in the discussion of the palatals and the velars in chapter 3 were first presented in my paper “Velars and palatals in Old English alliteration,” in Historical Linguistics 1997, ed. by Monika Schmid, Jennifer Austin, and Dieter Stein (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1998), 269–291. The current chapter is a significantly revised version of the initial hypothesis. A much shorter version of chapter 4 was published under the title “Syllable Onset in the history of English,” in the volume Generative Theory and Corpus Studies: A Dialogue from 10 ICEHL, edited by Ricardo Berm´udez-Otero, David Denison, Richard Hogg and Chris McCully (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000), 498–540. I am grateful to the editors at John Benjamins and Mouton de Gruyter for permission to include some of the material here. Special thanks to Andy Kelly, always there to keep one in awe of the vastness of Medieval studies, listen to alliterative laments, and pull out the right volume from his shelves in an emergency. At Cambridge University Press a very long time ago Judith Ayling encouraged me to start thinking of a “blue book” project. Kate Brett inherited the project and has been wonderfully motivating and patient, putting up with my numerous delays and crises, while organizing timely anonymous refereeing when I needed it. I am deeply grateful for this generous and friendly support. Thanks to Robert, whose intolerance of shoddy argumentation slowed down the project. Thanks to Robert, whose impatience with alliteration and prolixity speeded up the project. Thanks to Robert, who read the final draft sneezing and coughing and complaining that you can take a Slav to English, but you can’t make her put the comma in the right place.
1
Social and linguistic setting of alliterative verse in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval England
The primary goal of this study is to establish and analyze the linguistic properties of early English verse. Verse is not created in a vacuum; a consideration of some non-structural factors that could influence the composition of poetry is important for our understanding of its linguistic dimensions. This chapter presents a brief overview of the social and cultural conditions under which alliterative verse was produced and enjoyed in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval England. 1.1
The Anglo-Saxon poetic scene
Verse composition was a foremost outlet of creativity and a cherished form of entertainment, moral edification, and historical record keeping for the AngloSaxons. When the Northumbrian priest and chronicler Bede (b. 672/673– d. 735) wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in Latin, the poetic rendition of important themes and events in the vernacular must have already been a highly prestigious undertaking. Bede tells us how Cadmon, an illiterate shepherd, found his inability to sing in company shameful. In a dream a stranger appeared urging him to sing the song of the Creation and he uttered “verses which he had never heard.” He was then taken to the monastery at Whitby where his divine poetic gift was tested and confirmed. He spent the rest of his life as a layman in the monastery, enjoying the fellowship of the abbess and the learned brethren, and composing more religious poetry. Cadmon’s Hymn, as the original dream song is known (c. 657–680), is the only surviving piece of verse reliably attributed to the shepherd, and its literary value is minimal, yet the account of Cadmon’s miraculous endowment and the early date of the (Northumbrian) poetic specimen are of great historical significance. The story of the hymn and its survival in later versions and in other dialects testify to the existence of a section of society for whom verse was associated with loftier intellectual and spiritual experiences. The poetic skills of
1
2
1 Social and linguistic setting
a scop1 were highly appreciated; crucially, it was not the lettered minority who were exclusively, or even primarily, entrusted with the creation of verse, though of course clerics were responsible for the existence of the poetic records. In sociological terms this picture is, of course, overly romanticized. In terms of the value of verse as an evidential basis for the state of the language, however, the speech-based nature of alliterative composition cannot be overstated. Looking more closely into that issue, we can define three important characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon poetic scene which provide the relevant background for the linguistic study of the verse records. These are: (a) the centrality of verse as an artistic and social experience; (b) the coherence and relative constancy of the verse form throughout the period; and (c), the disjunction between the speechbased composition and delivery and the written preservation of the poems. The story of Cadmon and his hymn is only one recorded episode highlighting the place of the poet in Anglo-Saxon society. Other poems, too, offer glimpses of the presence and prestige of the scop, the desirability of the gift of versification, and the value and high status of verse recitation as a form of entertainment. In the famously obscure early lyric Deor the eponymous poet describes himself as “dear” to his lord, and his long-time employment as “excellent”: þæt ic bi me sylfum þæt ic hwile wæs dryhtne dyre; Ahte ic fela wintra
secgan wille, Heodeninga scop, me wæs Deor noma. folgað tilne2
The poem was presumably composed as a lament for the loss of privilege, land, and favor to another leoðcræftig monn ‘a man skilled in song’; the sad consequences of the rivalry are embedded in a catalogue of possibly wellknown stories of comparable worldly troubles. Most importantly, the plaintive 1. While the meanings of ‘singer, poet, minstrel, makar’ for the word scop are quite clear from the context in which the word appears in Old English, its etymology is unclear. The appealing connection with the verb sceppan/scyppan ‘to shape, to create,’ frequently remarked on by lesscareful writers on this topic (for example Alexander 1966/1975: 16), is “fanciful,” according to the OED. The only likely connection of the word is with OHG scoph, scof ‘poetry, fiction’ (‘commentum’), ‘sport, jest, derision’ (‘ludibrium’), and ON skop ‘railing, mocking, scoffing.’ The root scop was very productive in Old English. Its adjectival form is scoplic ‘poetic, metrical,’ and it forms the compounds sceop-crœft ‘the poet’s art, poetry,’ sceop-gereord ‘poetic diction, the language of poetry,’ scop-leoþ ‘a poetic composition.’ The Latin root meter is used with reference to non-vernacular verse: meter-fers ‘hexameter verse,’ also meter-geweorc, and the gloss for meter-lic is scop-lic (The Old English Glosses of MS. Brussels, Royal Library 1650, 299). 2. ‘I will say that of myself, that I was once a scop of the Heodeningas, dear to my lord; Deor was my name. For many years I had an excellent following/service.’
1.1 Anglo-Saxon poetic scene
3
tone of the short piece allows us to infer that mundane comforts and social prestige were accorded to those who were gifted versifiers. A similar theme appears in the final passage of Widsith, a Mercian poem also believed to be of a very early date. In that poem the traveling minstrel singing of heroic exploits is an adroit and sophisticated artist, who is aware of his role as a bestower and guardian of fame. Clearly, the versifiers functioned in a social atmosphere that was both generous and demanding, and their accomplishments were central to the spiritual self-esteem of the members of their circles. The scops’ high status had to be maintained by artful manipulation of the language; it is therefore also reasonable to suppose that the appreciation of the verbal and auditory exuberance of their creations relied on shared linguistic resources and experiences. The favorable position of the poet and the centrality of verse correlate well with other aspects of the Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition that point to its stability. In spite of the often discussed thematic divisions in Old English poetry, the corpus of verse that has survived is marked by common features which attest to a single tradition of versification from the seventh to the eleventh century. Seen as a continuation of the tribal continental habits of verse-making, the history of English verse might begin with a reference to Tacitus’ Germania, which reports the existence of traditional hymns among the peoples of Germania. Although evidence of poetry in Old English is lacking for nearly a century after the conversion of King Aethelberht I of Kent to Christianity in 597, it is reasonable to assume that the production of verse continued uninterrupted in many communities. Though not monolithic in form, compositions from the earliest to the latest exhibit a remarkable stability of basic metrical and parametrical properties: number of ictus per line and alliteration. This would be unimaginable without the axiom of continuity, and continuity must draw on sustained cultural appeal. Where discontinuity appears, in the form of deviation from earlier verse norms, it is essentially a matter of matching new language forms to a stable metrical template; thus discontinuity is also a revealing metrical and linguistic heuristic for dating of the poems. The survival and strength of pre-Christian verse, probably in the form of short pieces on pagan and heroic themes throughout Old English, is well established. Along with the Germanic character of the narrative themes in Widsith and Deor, the continuing interest in recounting heroic events in verse is suggested by the famous Finnesburh Fragment in Beowulf . Here, Beowulf’s victory over Grendel is celebrated with communal song and music and the recitation of heroic lays, and Hroþgar’s scop regales the mead-benches with the story of Finn’s retainers. It is believed that Waldere, had it survived in a fuller form than
4
1 Social and linguistic setting
the two extant fragments, would be another prime example of heroic poetry.3 Although it allows only glimpses of what might have been a long epic poem, presumably composed during the eighth century, but recorded two centuries later, Waldere indicates that Beowulf “is not an oddity.” Like the earliest heroic poems and Cadmon’s Hymn, subsequent vernacular compositions bear the marks of Germanic verse: the four-stress line bound by alliteration, end-stopped syntax, the cataloguing of royal and divine genealogies. Thus, though the main bulk of the surviving Anglo-Saxon vernacular poetry is on Christian themes, Cadmon is just the first known practitioner, and Bede the first successful popularizer, of a native verse form which survived intact and flourished in a new intellectual medium. Old English alliterative versification as an art form thus spreads over both the mythological heroic themes and the scriptural, devotional, and monastic concerns of the Anglo-Saxons. The result is a wealth of valuable material: even the partial records that we have inherited indicate that the Anglo-Saxons created a body of poetry unparalleled in Europe before the end of the first millennium.4 Crucially, the poetic monuments bear out the assumption that throughout the period verse composition was both a “careful imitation of an old tradition and individual selection and inventiveness” (Godden 1992: 509). The appreciation of poetry and its popular provenance and intellectual prominence in Anglo-Saxon times are topics which are constantly being enriched and elaborated, but they are also assumptions on which there is general scholarly consensus. That is not true of the vexed issues regarding the specific modes of creation and transmission of Old English poetry, on which academic opinions are divided and often bitterly controversial. The debate continues and it would be superfluous to rehash the arguments on either side.5 It is, however, relevant to the analytic goals of the study to clarify the reasons for my own approach to the nature of the evidential basis, and that includes some specific assumptions regarding the “orality” of the verse tradition. The reconstruction of Old English poetry as a genre which has its roots in spontaneous speech-based events has a long and trustworthy history. As noted 3. See Pearsall (1977: 5–6), Godden (1992: 491–492). 4. After 900 Norse poets also combined rhyme and assonance with alliteration in a variety of forms. After 1000, Old Norse alliterative verse became practically confined to Iceland, where it continues to exist. 5. The “oral-formulaic” character of Old English poetry was first propounded by Magoun (1953). The resulting counter-claims and further arguments in favor of this position are covered in Olsen (1986, 1988). For a very judicial presentation of the arguments and a comparison of the “orality” of the vernacular tradition to the Anglo-Latin tradition of versification, see Orchard (1994: 112–125).
1.1 Anglo-Saxon poetic scene
5
above, Cadmon’s Hymn is considered one of the earliest datable poems in Old English, but the metrical form of the poem is an Anglo-Saxon realization of a shared Germanic lineage of oral poetry. Some of the most important topics and questions about the language of verse depend on the view that the creation of verse was not a precious and rarefied occupation within the cloistered seclusion of the monasteries, but a vigorous, direct, and informed involvement with the ambient language. The poetic records we have inherited are undoubtedly a “learned” product, the handiwork of lettered scribes, or they would not have come down to us. However, the monastic setting of manuscript creation did not preclude secular activities, and the community of monks was neither closed nor entirely spiritual. Young noblemen and lay scholars also lived in the monasteries.6 In a very material way some manuscripts themselves bespeak a collective effort in the creation of verse; they often fall short of being coherent texts generated within a single nervous system. Instead, they are likely to be the product of several minds not necessarily working in harmony and towards the same end.7 All of this supports the view that the poems reflect language intuitions and faculties that must have been shared by the scops and the scribes and their audiences. Even in the instances when a particular piece is provably a close translation of a Latin original, a native speaker’s competence and feel for the properties of the vernacular underlies verse production. In that sense, for the linguist, the legitimate editorial worry about authorial versus scribal attribution of a text is not an issue of the same magnitude as for the cultural historian. Scribal and authorial testimony can be subsumed under the same speech-based umbrella as long as we are careful to isolate, wherever possible, obviously odd and uninformed mechanical interventions. The premise that the poetic monuments we study are speech-based is compatible with the various composition scenarios proposed by literary historians. It is conceivable that some poems or portions of poems were composed on the fly, that some gifted individuals memorized passages and then dictated them to trained scribes, or that some passages or whole pieces were composed and written by the same individual. The “oral” nature and transmission of Old English poetry, as understood here, refers to the internalized phonological patterns common to all speakers of Old English and the realization of these patterns in verse. To the extent that languages exist independently of the writing systems that represent them, all forms of linguistic creativity, whether in prose or in verse, 6. The documentation of these claims for the early centuries of Old English can be found in Pearsall (1977: 20–21). 7. This point is developed fully in Moffat (1992), who also stresses the danger inherent in ignoring the individuality of scribal interventions in favor of a unified notion of “the Anglo-Saxon scribe.”
6
1 Social and linguistic setting
are “oral.” It has often been noted that the diction and syntax of the poetic compositions can differ significantly from the contemporary prose, for example, Godden (1992: 494). This is undoubtedly a valid consideration in the overall characterization of the language of Anglo-Saxon verse, but it does not preclude or contradict an interpretation of orality which refers to the matching of the auditory properties of language and verse. Stylized and archaic syntax and creative word-formation are powerful foregrounding components of poetry, yet the norm of the spoken language with respect to phonological patterns has to be observed for the tradition to be understood and continued.8 By itself, this permissive definition of orality is not interesting or illuminating. Applied to poetry, however, it acquires a more concrete significance. The obligatory attention to sound repetition and rhythm in poetry enhances the importance of the phonological properties of language; the genre itself mandates sensitivity to linguistic features and patterns which might elude a prose writer’s ear. Listening to verse lines, memorizing them, repeating and altering them are all necessarily auditory experiences, though to different degrees. Placed in its most natural context, that of a pre-literate society, the orality of poetry assumes yet another dimension: poetry was composed for the purpose of recitation; verse was composed to be delivered to and appreciated by listeners, not readers. The artistry involved in stringing words together in verse lines was not visual, but auditory. This is equally true of direct improvisation and of deliberate and careful penning of verse. The position taken here is therefore that alliterative verse was orally generated and transmitted, that alliteration served as an important mnemonic in its transmission, and that it is a valuable testimony of the shared linguistic intuitions of the poets and their audience. With this in mind, I will use the label “oral” as a synonym for speech-based composition where the evidence found in a poem reflects accurately the state of the ambient language.9 8. The interplay between the norm of the “standard” language and the traditional esthetic canon in poetry which requires foregrounding is discussed in Mukaˇrovsky (1964/1970), from whom I take the concept of foregrounding as a violation of some linguistic norms for maximizing the intensity of communication. 9. This statement skirts the indeterminacy of authorial versus scribal text in Old English. I will return to the relationship between editorial work and alliterative evidence in chapter 3.4. For an eloquent and convincing justification of taking the verse evidence as an adequate source of philological and metrical reconstruction, see Fulk (1992: 6–65). An interesting parallel to the “orality” of Old English verse is provided by the use of dictation in the production of Old English prose manuscripts, see Bierbaumer (1988) and the references there. Lass (1992a: 103–106) provides a phonologically based discussion of the association between oral delivery, pre-silent reading, and writing in Old English. He suggests that the reading and the writing praxis at the time were both essentially oral, and that much of the early writing is “utterance transcription.”
1.1 Anglo-Saxon poetic scene
7
As will be argued throughout this study, the Anglo-Saxon poetic records provide strong support for the thesis that the language found in the poetry is a reliable source for the purposes of historical linguistic reconstruction. With respect to alliteration this position will be further defended in chapter 3. There are, however, aspects of the metrical structure of the classical Anglo-Saxon verse corpus, most notably the equivalence of two light syllables to a heavy one, known as resolution, which cannot be interpreted straightforwardly as grounded in the language. Though the scops may have created and recited their poems in the mead-hall, though their poems address a broad spectrum of heroic, courtly, religious, and secular themes which had to reach and impress an understanding audience, there was another side to the process. The recording, copying, and preservation of the compositions occurred within a monastic tradition of literacy, and most likely physically within a monastic environment.10 In that setting, it would not be surprising to find that certain restrictions on the metrical form do not readily match any of the prosodic structures in the contemporary language – resolution being the prime example of such artificially imposed metrical conditions. Such discrepancies between ambient language and metrical form cannot be sustained without specialized instruction, and it may indeed be the case that some scribes were better trained in the more arcane aspects of the craft than others. If this was so, then resolution (see chapter 2) was a purely metrical phenomenon, unsupported by the linguistic intuitions of the native speaker. This would be a reasonable way of explaining the disappearance of resolution after the Conquest. This is an interesting line of research, but it will not be pursued here since it interacts with alliteration only indirectly. Decisions on what constitutes alliteration and is therefore the core of my database lie outside the metrical and linguistic problems associated with resolution. This study will refer to evidence found in the entire body of Old English verse. The Old English vernacular poetic heritage is part of the Germanic verse tradition which is commonly described as “strong stress” verse, and whose most distinguishing structural characteristic is the use of alliteration on the first fully stressed syllable in each half-line. The strategy of making alliteration the most central cohesive property of this kind of poetic meter is pervasive. It applies even to compositions such as the metrical translation of The Meters of Boethius (c. 897), The Metrical Psalms of the Paris Psalter (c. 950–1050?), also translated from Latin, and Ælfric’s alliterative prose (early eleventh century), all of which can otherwise deviate widely from the accepted structural norms. The poetic records comprise a finite corpus of approximately 32,000 lines, written 10. See Blake ([1977] 1979: 18).
8
1 Social and linguistic setting
between the second half of the seventh century (Cadmon’s Hymn, c. 657–680), and the latter part of the eleventh century (Death of Edward, 1065, Durham, c. 1100).11 In addition to numerous individual editions, the entire corpus is collected and annotated in the six-volume Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (ASPR). While arguably in need of replacement,12 these volumes are still indispensable. All of the poetic records are now also incorporated into the on-line Dictionary of Old English Corpus in Electronic Form.13 Finally, as a background to the linguistic scene of the Middle English period, some comments on the position and artistic use of the Old English vernacular are in order. In Anglo-Saxon England, in spite of the strength of Latin within the scholastic sphere, Old English was widely used and highly respected as a language of many purposes: not just poetry, but also instruction, preaching, legislation. In versification, the Germanic preoccupation with alliteration, whether completely indigenous, or initially partially borrowed from Celtic, Latin, or both, flourished in the Germanic languages, and especially in Old English, beyond any comparison with adjacent traditions. In Celtic poetry, for example, alliteration was from the earliest times a prominent, but structurally subordinate, principle. The vernacular character of the alliterative tradition, its linguistic grounding, accessibility, and relative popularity guaranteed its dominance over other competing traditions. The famous historian of English poetry George Saintsbury said repeatedly that “Every language has the prosody it deserves”;14 whatever other absurd and unverifiable associations this statement evokes, it is true of the link between the prosodic cadences of the language and the structural use of alliteration in Old English. An independent consideration of the properties of Anglo-Latin verse confirms the view that the Germanic type of versification was powerfully ingrained in Anglo-Saxon culture. As documented convincingly by Orchard (1994: 43–54), the direction of the influence on insular verse with respect to alliteration was clearly from Old English to Latin. Orchard shows how the Germanic model 11. The dating of the poems in the corpus here and elsewhere in this study is based on Fulk (1992: 61, 348 ff.). More recently, the dates proposed in Fulk’s monumental study were confirmed independently by Russom (2002). On the reasons for classifying The Death of Edward and Durham as marking the end of the classical alliterative tradition, see Cable (1991: 52–56). 12. See Scragg (1988). Scragg recognizes the enormous scholarly achievement that the ASPR volumes represent, but he also points out that the current generation of Anglo-Saxonists would approach the task differently – an inevitable ageing process even for scholarly works of remarkably long and stable shelf-life. For the linguist the greatest obstacle in using the ASPR is the purist decision to forgo editorial insertion of vowel length marking. 13. The Corpus was compiled as part of the Dictionary of Old English project at the University of Toronto under the editorship of Antonette Healey. 14. See Saintsbury (1923: 404), where the statement is preceded by “I have said that . . .”
1.2 Post-Conquest poetic scene
9
of alliteration was carried over into the compositions of Aldhelm (d. 709), with 73.5 percent of the verses in Carmen Rhythmicum showing alliteration. Aldhelm’s student Æthilwald continued the trend with consistent alliteration of 63.0 percent to 66.6 percent in his later verse. These figures are more than three times larger than the respective figures resulting from an analysis of a comparable set of Hiberno-Latin octosyllabic poems. The unprecedented high frequency of alliteration in Anglo-Latin verse as compared to continental compositions in Latin is thus another indication of the pervasiveness and linguistic naturalness of alliterative verse composition. It is quite remarkable that while English verse resisted the onslaught of the undoubtedly equally prestigious Latin verse forms, Irish verse adopted the structural features of the Latin hymns: syllable-counting, rhyming, variety of meters, presumably well before the ninth century. This is how Lehmann (1956/1971: 160–198) concludes his detailed investigation of the possible influences of Latin on the Germanic verse form: When we review the changes in form which resulted from changes in influence we note either that these pertain to larger segments of form or that they bring to a conclusion changes which had been inherited previously. Nowhere do we find support for assuming that the essential modifications of small segments such as the poetic line are the results of importations.
By “larger segments of form” Lehmann means the superimposition of the long epic form on previously existing narrative material without any additional structural changes. New epic techniques were developed: expanded description of the setting; attention to historical background; fondness of the epic hero for monologues and accounts of earlier feats; yet the original alliterative stress line is kept intact. This importation of “larger segments of form” from Latin and Romance hit Germanic verse in two waves (1956/1971:163, 197): with the epic form in the eighth and the ninth centuries, and with the lyric, in the twelfth century. But the essential structural components of alliterative verse remained unchanged.
1.2
The post-Conquest poetic scene
The 1065 poem The Death of Edward is the last composition which can be described reasonably as belonging to the classical metrical tradition of AngloSaxon versification. Very revealing in this respect are the metrical statistics presented in Cable (1991: 54–55). His scansion shows one single unmetrical verse in the 68 verses of The Death of Edward, while on the other side of the
10
1 Social and linguistic setting
chronological divide the next extant poem with prominent alliteration, Durham, composed c. 1100, shows a very high level of unmetricality. In Durham, 38.1 percent of the forty-two verses fail to conform to the classical rules. Thus, while the cataclysmic effect of the Norman Conquest of 1066 with respect to changes affecting the phonology and morphosyntax of English can be questioned, the demarcation line in terms of versification modes seems clear. Powerful dramatic images have been conjured up to describe the demise of the Germanic tradition: for the literary historian “it dies choking on its own magnificence” (Pearsall 1977: 85), allowing the foreign models to fill the vacuum. For the historical linguist it “strangles itself” because of the clash between the prosodies permitted or required by an outdated poetic canon and the impossibility of such rhythms in contemporary speech (Lehmann 1956/1971: 202). To what extent was this violent death inflicted by the new demographics and the shift of political power? Did the new cultural conditions affect the rate of production and the prestige of poetry as an art form? What is the connection, if any, between the Old English tradition and the reappearance of tightly structured alliterative verse of considerable artistic value in the fourteenth century? Finally, were the continuation and reinvention of strong-stress alliterative poetry hampered by changes in the native linguistic scene? Such issues regarding the setting and provenance of the Middle English material on which this study draws define the assumptions behind the empirical base and its formal characteristics. Therefore, before we look further into the metrical and linguistic formative elements of the post-Conquest poetic heritage, we need to set the discussion in the context of the social and linguistic circumstances for the creation of alliterative verse in Middle English. Demographically, prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066 England was quite homogeneous: the majority of the population spoke some form of Germanic: Old English or Old Norse, and Celtic speakers made up a minority whose cultural presence is mostly inferential.15 As outlined above, the creation of vernacular poetry in Anglo-Saxon England was a communal linguistic undertaking. 15. The influence of Celtic verse models on English is doubtful. Saintsbury (1923: 24–25) mentions briefly the possibility of influence on English poetry from Irish and Welsh poetry, but he prudently abstains from concrete claims about borrowing from Celtic of specific elements of the verse line. While the shared historical background undoubtedly accounts for the use of Celtic sources in compositions such as Lagamon’s Brut, the extent of the formal similarities between post-Conquest English verse and Celtic verse is limited to internal rhyming and intricate stanza arrangement. Awareness that the same features of verse could have been borrowed from French or Latin, however, leads Saintsbury (1923: 24, fn) to the statement that “. . . the Englishman of 1200 was certain to get his notions of rhyme from Latin or French, not from Irish or Welsh.” Another argument which suggests that the English and the Celtic verse traditions must have developed largely independently comes from the fact that the Celts were extremely flexible
1.2 Post-Conquest poetic scene
11
The verbal art experience was widely shared. Verse could be improvised, memorized, and recited by illiterate scops, but poetry could also be composed and modified by learned monks. The recording of verse was presumably fully in the hands of the monks, but poetry must have been enjoyed outside the lettered or the most privileged circles of society. Crucially, despite the prominence of Latin within the monastic scholarly tradition, the Old English language was widely used and highly respected as the language of art, instruction, preaching, and legislation. This situation set Anglo-Saxon England apart from the continental countries where vernaculars were hardly ever recorded and where Latin was the dominant language of learning and administration. The Norman Conquest put an end to the social dominance of English speakers. “One may sum up the change in England by saying that some 20,000 foreigners replaced some 20,000 Englishmen; and that these newcomers got the throne, the earldoms, the bishoprics, the abbacies, and far the greater portion of the big estates, mediate and immediate, and many of the burgess holdings in the chief towns.”16 The loss of political independence of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and the influx of Norman monks following the posting of Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070 severely undermined the standing of English and its use in writing. With small exceptions, for example, the continuations of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, all official record keeping reverted to Latin. The effect of Lanfranc’s appointment has been described in terms of bringing the English Church “into line with the best continental practice.”17 For two or three generations after the Conquest Latin reigned supreme as the language of historical writing. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the use of Latin, rather than French or English, for the purpose of writing must be attributed to its general acceptability as the language of scholarship, not to some disdainful attitude to the vernaculars. The extended use of a lingua franca, in this case Latin, is quite natural in situations of competing languages and bilingualism. In addition to the resurgence of Latin, the linguistic situation in England during the first two centuries after the Conquest was further complicated by the physical coexistence of speakers of two distinct vernaculars, English and (Norman) French, the latter gradually evolving into an insular variety of Old French known as Anglo-Norman. Among themselves, members of the court and adaptable in their versification practices. As early as the eighth century Celtic poets had abandoned their native system of poetry and had adopted features characteristic of the Latin hymns: syllable-counting, use of rhymes, variety of meters, see Lehmann (1971: 187). If we were to look for a direction of influence from Celtic to English, there would be no reason to delay that influence for upwards of three hundred years. 16. See Powell (1902), I. 346 in Traill and Mann (eds.) (1902–1904). 17. Stenton (1952: 210–211).
12
1 Social and linguistic setting
and those forming the aristocratic circles around it must have communicated in French. On the other hand, the mundane demands of daily life must have made the use of some English for the nobility and some French for their servants necessary and desirable. Theoretically, these are good conditions for the development of bilingualism. The spread of that phenomenon should be treated with caution, however: in terms of population statistics neither Norman French nor Anglo-Norman ever had the chance of being the national spoken language. According to some estimates, the Normans never made up more than 10 percent, generously, and as low as 2 percent of a population of 1.5 million. This demographic picture is drawn on the basis of calculations of the relative numbers of English and French speakers in the immediate post-Conquest period. The course of French–English relations in the post-Conquest period is uneven, with significant French reinforcements during King Henry III’s long reign (1216–1272); still the controlling majority of the population remained English-speaking.18 The numerically limited presence of non-English speakers in post-Conquest England is reflected in the massive survival of core phonological and morphosyntactic properties from Old to Middle English and the adaptation rather than straightforward adoption of some features of French. As a trigger of structural change, the mixture of languages in Medieval England was thus a rather restricted and socially circumscribed phenomenon. Yet by being also an upperclass phenomenon, multilingualism by definition affected disproportionately the recorded vocabulary, and the artistic and literary scene in Middle English. During the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries literary patronage and remuneration came from an aristocracy which, at least until the loss of Normandy in 1204, maintained strong ties with the continent. Paris was one of the leading centers of theological and secular learning and that is where the young members of the nobility went for their education. Old French remained the dominant language of instruction in the English schools until the middle of the fourteenth century. Legal affairs were conducted both in French and in Latin, but the language of communication among those who held the lands and commanded the prestigious social positions was some variety of Old French.19 18. On the demographic estimates see Lass (1987: 53–58). For details on the “flood of foreigners” in the thirteenth century, when “the country was eaten up by strangers” see Baugh and Cable (1993: 127–129). 19. See Kibbee (1991: 5–13) on the absence of official standing for French during the first century after the Conquest. For a more extensive discussion of the shift of “prestige” from English to Anglo-Norman, see Pearsall (1977: 85–89). Pope (1934/1961: 420–427) describes the external history of Anglo-Norman and proposes a periodization of the variety into “early” (the first fifty to sixty years after the Conquest) and “late.” For an excellent recent survey of multilingualism in medieval Britain, see Schendl (2002).
1.2 Post-Conquest poetic scene
13
The importation and propagation of Norman French in post-Conquest England is the most dramatic single event in the history of English vocabulary. With two non-Germanic languages used extensively by most of the literate speakers in the country, it comes as no surprise that after the Conquest the vocabulary of English grew at a very rapid rate, with roughly 900 new words of Romance origin added to English before 1250.20 An unprecedented bulk of about 10,000 Romance words was added to English before the middle of the fifteenth century. The introduction of new vocabulary items in any language may be a good measure of cultural influence, but, as noted above, in terms of its prosodic and morphosyntactic properties English remained English. The Conquest changed the formal and thematic course of development of English verse. In that sense the demise of the classical tradition of alliterative versification is directly attributable to the new political and social conditions. When some form of a vernacular language re-emerged as a written medium, for verse or any other type of composition during the first century after the Conquest, it was first and foremost Norman or Anglo-Norman, the locally grown variety of Norman French. Poetry was written for and consumed by the inhabitants of the small courts, and the language of that poetry was AngloNorman.21 It is significant for the history of verse, however, that signs of rising national consciousness and pride in England, its traditions, and its language, on the part of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy began to appear already during the twelfth century. The picture that emerges is quite complex: the demographic balance remained staunchly in favor of English, yet within the centers of literary activity speakers of the Anglo-Norman variety of French drew on the native heritage and shaped the future of English verse. Moreover, while Latin had international currency and prestige and was recognized as the “proper” medium of historiography and law, and while Norman French was the default vernacular for those who were responsible for the creation of art, the English language and history continued to be regarded with respect and interest.22 This brings us to the question of the place of poetry in the spiritual life of the country. Meter is a universal artistic extension of human language and some 20. The figures are from Baugh and Cable (1993: 164–174). Predictably, the “first-stage” borrowings recorded between 1066 and 1250 show a very high degree of phonological assimilation to English. 21. It is difficult to differentiate between Norman and Anglo-Norman works at first, but soon after the Conquest the settlers, often the younger sons of the aristocratic families, felt the need “. . . to establish themselves and demanded history and romance, as well as Lives of Saints, all of which dealt with the English past.” On this point see Legge (1963: 3–4). 22. See Stenton (1952: 269–270). On the European fame of English artistic accomplishments in illumination, embroidery, metalwork, etc. see Chambers (1932: lxx–lxxi).
14
1 Social and linguistic setting
form of verse constitutes an aspect of every human culture. The combination of the flourishing (southern) French troubadour tradition, with which members of the aristocracy must have been familiar, and the historical centrality of the literary arts in England, lends credence to an assumption that the composition and enjoyment of verse continued to be a favorite pastime. In the new social environment of post-Conquest England, however, few speakers of English would have had the leisure or physical access to the means of recording verse, even if there were a considerable bulk of it in existence. Unfortunately, very little of that presumed heritage from the first post-Conquest century has been preserved. The entire body of surviving English verse between The Death of Edward, a Chronicle entry for 1065, and The Proverbs of Alfred, c. 1175, consists of two short poems: Durham, c. 1100, a 21-line piece; and the 24-line poem The Grave, c. 1150.23 Though metrically imperfect as compared to the classic Old English pieces, both poems are unmistakably alliterative. The paucity of English poetic material, as compared to poetry written in French or Latin, has always presented a problem for those who try to connect alliterative writing after the Conquest to the Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition. Why so little of this transitional alliterative material has survived is a characteristically intractable question in the historical reconstruction of the circumstances of creation and preservation of poetry. Still, several considerations argue in favor of an interpretation of continuity. The most tangible evidence of the strength of the alliterative model comes from the fact that some of the earliest verse compositions emerging in the second century after the Conquest, The Worcester Fragments of the Soul’s Address to the Body, Lagamon’s Brut, and The Proverbs of Alfred, are as unmistakably alliterative as the two short poems mentioned above. That is, in spite of the loosening of the metrical structure and the discernible effects of rhyme and syllable counting, when poetry in English reappears, alliteration persists as an important organizing principle of verse.24 The strength of the popular poetic tradition is most clearly recognizable in the 23. The dating adopted here is based on Pearsall (1977: 294) and Cable (1991: 52–58). On the meter of The Grave see Saintsbury (1923: 28, fn. 1). 24. It seems clear that the proper source of the continuity of alliteration is to be found in the rhythmical prose of the period, see Blake (1969), Cable (1991: 41–65). Blake’s proposal, now generally accepted, is based on a discussion of some salient stylistic features of Lagamon’s Brut. These features strongly resemble and even replicate the features of prose works written in styles and rhythms reminiscent of the Germanic heritage, such as Ælfric’s and Wulfstan’s alliterative prose works which continued to be copied through the eleventh and the twelfth centuries. Rather than being interpreted as a continuation of the pristine Old English metrical form, transitional poetic texts in their alliterative sections represent an intermediary form, to which Blake (1969: 120) gives the label rhythmical alliteration.
1.2 Post-Conquest poetic scene
15
Brut, which is based on an Old French source but still uses predominantly English vocabulary and relies on formulaic phrases that had been used in Old English, see Blake (1992: 509–512). Another, admittedly inferential, argument for continuity comes from the uncertainties of recording and the hazards of survival of any English material in the early Middle English period. The great monastic houses, from which more materials have been preserved, were fully infiltrated by Anglo-Norman, while poetry in English was written in “the smaller houses” (Pearsall 1977: 90). A related point is that the copying of English poems was more likely to be a oneoff, “special purpose activity,” while Latin and French manuscripts survived in multiple copies because of the prospective wider audience (Blake [1977] 1979: 16). What was interrupted for about a hundred years after the Norman Conquest in England was thus not familiarity with, exposure to, or composition of some form of verse, but the access of English speakers to formal authorial and scribal privileges. Thematically, verse in which alliteration was a central feature had much in common with the more prominent Anglo-Norman verse tradition, but there is also awareness of the Anglo-Saxon heroic and homiletic literary links. So, continuity is evident also in the blending of various strands and the English heritage is on an equal footing with its competitors. The friars’ miscellanies where much of the early post-Conquest poetry in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and English is collected, make no distinction of class between the materials.25 When during the late twelfth century English started to regain its pre-Conquest rank, it was quick to outstrip the popularity of Anglo-Norman as the language of official writing and the language of poetry and literary prose. Against this background the fourteenth century flowering of English alliterative composition did not happen ex nihilo; its linguistic patterns, if not all of its subjects, were supplied as much by the artistic predecessors as by its contemporaries. In summary, the position taken here, following Pearsall (1977: 90) is that “English was not immediately, if ever, cast out into the Western darkness.” In one form or another, the tradition of alliteration was sustained throughout the Middle English period and into the fifteenth century. Alliteration was widely used by the early Middle English versifiers, and it was possibly kept alive as a desirable poetic ornament continuously in some parts of the country. The reinvention of alliterative verse in the West and the South-west in the fourteenth century is likely to have drawn on a lingering perception of alliteration as an appropriate poetic device. It is difficult to imagine that the poetic masterpieces of the so called 25. This point is developed in Pearsall (1977: 90–95).
16
1 Social and linguistic setting
“revival” arose independently of the inherited appreciation of the mnemonic and artistic power of alliteration. Once again, Pearsall (1977: 84) makes this point forcefully: It does not matter that we cannot trace direct lines of descent . . . we find instead, at the beginning of the fourteenth century new varieties of alliterative writing, not confined to the West, which bear continued witness to the inherent strength of the alliterative “continuum.” On this interpretation, therefore, the alliterative revival of the fourteenth century would not be an inexplicable reversion to the past but a prolonged and particularly splendid episode in the history of a long, unbroken and powerful tradition. (emphasis added)
As in many other instances when a dated event is conveniently chosen as a cutoff point in the periodization of a continuum, the Norman Conquest of 1066 is an appropriate point of reference only in a limited sense. Before the Conquest there was no strict syllable-counting, and there is no alliterative verse which follows the “classical” Anglo-Saxon versification rules after 1066, so the fashions and the specific forms of versification changed abruptly. In that sense 1066 is indeed a watershed year. On the other hand, the tenacity of alliteration and its continued linguistic grounding on either side of that watershed are beyond debate. The properties of language and the language-based properties of verse remained unaffected by the new sociopolitical and linguistic scene. Whatever changes occurred, and those were numerous, were part of an uninterrupted continuum. Whether the discontinuity of the classical alliterative rules is real, or whether the rift we encounter is just an accidental result of the physical loss of poetic compositions, is not of consequence for the analysis of the deployment of linguistic forms in verse. The tenacity of English and the assumption of an uninterrupted alliterative lineage aligns the Old and Middle English traditions with respect to the information they offer to the linguist. This is the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this section: were the continuation and reinvention of strongstress alliterative poetry hampered by changes in the native linguistic scene? They were not; after a period of retrenchment alliterative poetry emerged as a vigorous and inspired artistic activity, well adapted to the changed language. At heart the products of the alliterative schools throughout Middle English remain traditional in the attention accorded to the optimal deployment of the acoustic features of language in verse. Verse in English during the early Middle English period corresponded most closely to what can loosely be termed “popular literature.” The works written in the fourteenth century, especially those written in the northern dialects,
1.2 Post-Conquest poetic scene
17
are also described as “popular.”26 Therefore another notion that needs to be clarified is the popularity of the Middle English alliterative pieces. One type of “popularity” is a numerical measure of the production and consumption of poetic texts, a function of demand. In that definition, the fortunes of alliterative verse in Middle English were uneven: the bulk of surviving material increases sharply after the middle of the fourteenth century. Another type of “popularity” concerns the genesis and the audience of the poems. It is difficult to imagine that the illiterate peasantry would have had much need or use for refined verbal art, and in this context one can hardly describe the alliterative verse of any period in the history of English poetry as “popular.” Yet the vigorous social presence of English had its effect on the Medieval poetic scene by creating conditions for this type of “popularity” too. The language belonged not only to the unlettered and the uneducated; many members of the lower clergy and the parish priests must have remained monolingual English-speakers. They were the ones who maintained an uninterrupted tradition of alliterative homiletic prose in early Middle English. One of the most comprehensive poetic works of the very early post-Conquest period, Lagamon’s Brut (c. 1200–1220), was penned by a monk who was undoubtedly acquainted with and influenced by the alliterative heritage.27 The conception, the goals, and the appeal of that type of writing can be described as “popular.” The popularity that can be invoked with reference to compositions in early Middle English should be read mostly etymologically – the poetic compositions were created by non-aristocrats, they were intended to educate the populus, the English-speakers. As noted above, this state of affairs is directly related also to the thematic content of the poetic documents which begin to appear in English towards the end of the twelfth century. They are didactic pieces and fall within a clerical tradition which Pearsall (1977: 89) labels “poetry of the schools.” The label refers to the possibility that the new compositions arose in the grammar schools, which were controlled by the monasteries, but, most importantly, serviced speakers of English. The “popular” connections of the poems of the alliterative “revival,” the great historical romances, the religious and allegorical poems, have to be sought elsewhere. Leaving aside Langland, very little is known about the identity of the alliterative poets of the later periods. Presumably the adaptation of the French romances was accomplished by poets who either were aristocrats themselves, or enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats. Langland, on the other hand, could not 26. Oakden (1930/1968: 87). 27. The earlier date for Lagamon’s Brut is assumed by Cable (1991: 58), the later, by Pearsall (1977: 294).
18
1 Social and linguistic setting
have belonged to the landed gentry. What unites the whole corpus and makes it useful for linguistic purposes is the deliberate choice of English irrespective of subject-matter, and a choice of metrical form that draws on and elaborates the Germanic patterns which would have been most accessible to the monolingual English-speaking majority. For the purpose of linguistic reconstruction, a critical aspect of these considerations is that the poets and scribes and their presumed audience shared the linguistic knowledge that underlies verse composition. Thus construed, the nature of the Middle English poems suggests that the language found in them corresponded closely to the contemporary vernacular. On the other hand, if copying of English poems was a “special purpose activity” in the early part of the period, rather than a stereotyped and routine job, the metrical form might be in jeopardy; deviations from some reconstructed norm of versification are to be expected. This could at least partially account for the lack of a single coherent metrical pattern to which the early works such as The Soul’s Address to the Body, The Proverbs of Alfred, and Lagamon’s Brut conform. The absence of familiar and agreed-upon norms is likely to lead to greater metrical and orthographic variety, obscuring the direct paths of prosody-to-meter matching. With alliteration, however, the ground is firmer because of the simplicity and naturalness of pairing sounds from a finite inventory. Another positive aspect of the “special” purpose composition and copying, admittedly more hypothetical than the other assumptions, is the fact that a non-routine scribal task would require more attention and thought, and possibly more careful adherence to one’s internal linguistic prompts. Whether or not poetry after the Conquest continued to maintain “an energetic life,” whether it was “very strong on the lips of men” as claimed by Chambers (1932: 66–67), is a matter of speculation. Above, I highlighted some considerations showing that for the purposes of linguistic information the material is good enough.28 On the other hand, when we do get to a period from which lengthy and substantial records exist, around the first half of the fourteenth century, the practice of composing, reciting, copying, and reading alliterative verse flourished in English. The metrical structure of the “revival” material is much more coherent, though there are significant differences between individual works that belong to that period. That does not imply that either the language 28. The hypothesis that continuity between classical Old English poetry and its Middle English alliterative counterparts should be sought in the Ælfrician alliterative prose is defended in Blake (1992: 512–513). For a metrically defined continuity of English in terms of strong stress and syllabism, as well as in terms of timing, see Cable (1991: 27, 151, passim).
1.2 Post-Conquest poetic scene
19
or its poetic traditions had somehow deteriorated prior to the fourteenth century and were in need of being revived or repaired. Although “revival” is one of the common ways in which the re-emergence of strict alliterative versification is referred to, “renewal” is probably a more appropriate description. I use the word “renewal” broadly; it is the natural way in which languages and cultural traditions continuously replenish themselves at any time. The metamorphosis of the classical Anglo-Saxon verse line immediately after the Conquest was already mentioned: along with the disappearance of certain types of poetic compounds and the verse types that used to accommodate them, the metrical device of resolution was also abandoned. It is worth noting that such changes are not a comment on the moribundity of alliteration and stress as organizing principles of verse. Poetic compounding and resolution had been specific and highly stylized features of the AngloSaxon verse form. Their disappearance in Middle English suggests that they were not linguistically grounded. The coinage of elaborate compounds is a choice available to speakers of any Germanic language at any time; the density of these in the classical poetic corpus of Old English is a matter of style and creative diction, not of language resources. Resolution disappeared because it was not understood by the antiquarians like Lagamon, or others who had some grasp of the structure of the Anglo-Saxon model. The balance between heavy and light syllables was essentially the same in the twelfth century as it had been in the eighth century, so there can be no linguistic reason for the abandonment of resolution. It was an artifice that could not and did not survive the Norman interruption. But neither the decrease of creative compounding nor the loss of resolution touched the core of the tradition. The fourteenthcentury poetic documents are a “renewal” because new features were grafted onto the existing model. Among those new features were the strong tendency to alliterate on identical vowels, the so-called Stab der Liaison, vowel :/ h-/ alliteration, /f-/ :/ v-/ alliteration. These were innovations based on changes in the contemporary language; they were additions to a healthy understanding of stress and alliteration, not attempts at a resurrection of collapsed or dying literary objects. It may be objected that the notion of “revival” rather than “renewal” is appropriate for the alliterative material of the late Middle English period because the introduction of rhyme and syllable-counting after the Conquest had relegated alliterative verse to relative obscurity. This may be so, but purely linguistically, the alliterative model of versification is always potentially lurking in a stresstimed language such as English. Whether it will surface or not is a matter of
20
1 Social and linguistic setting
literary taste. Similarly, the rise of a new tradition of syllable-counting verse was not primarily a matter of the language becoming more or less accommodating to a particular poetic form. There is no reason other than custom and fashion why the Old English poets did not use rhymes. The introduction of new versification modes in Middle English and the renewal of the old models was a culturally generated and sustained literary phenomenon, not a linguistically motivated repair strategy. In what follows I will take the evidence from both Old and Middle English alliterative verse as equally solid and empirically verifiable. The deployment of alliteration at any point in the history of English verse provides a set of descriptive parameters within which linguistic hypotheses can be tested. The reference to statistical probability in the mixed verse immediately after the Conquest generates some difficult matching issues; I will address those in the appropriate places. Adumbrating the discussion of one specific text, Lagamon’s Brut, from which evidence will be drawn in the subsequent chapters, I suggest that the transitional forms, precisely because they are free of well-defined metrical constraints, can offer prosodic insights not easily discernible in tighter structures.29 As one moves closer to the greater metrical coherence of the fourteenth-century specimens, strict matching becomes once again a statistically testable basis for the reconstruction of various linguistic forms. The evidential basis for this study encompasses the entire corpus of AngloSaxon alliterative poetry, the early Middle English mixed verse, and the later Middle English alliterative compositions. Research in this area is by definition part of the literary history of English: intentionally stylized language involves literary and artistic creativity and the choices of topic and metrical form reflect important socio-cultural realities. Although I will refer constantly to the formal properties of the poetic texts, no esthetic judgments based on meter will be attempted or advocated here. Statistical regularity will be used as a basis for drawing linguistic conclusions, rather than as a basis for appreciation of the literary merits of a particular poetic piece. In any case, the association between metrical regularity and esthetic effect can be tenuous and unrecoverable, especially for some drab and obscure pieces, which are nevertheless linguistically valuable. References to “optimality” should be understood in the strict technical sense of “conforming to some pre-defined set of linguistically defined constraints.” This is a disclaimer and not an apology; there is no “dehumanization” of poetry if its historical deposits are used as the mother-lode of rich linguistic knowledge. 29. This argument is fully developed in Minkova (1997a).
1.2 Post-Conquest poetic scene
21
Finally, a note on the material that will not be covered in this study: I will not be concerned with isosyllabic rhymed verse. The Norman Conquest of 1066 is a convenient historical divide between two distinct modes of English versification: the alliterative and the syllable-counting. To parallel the widely used terminology on English stress assignment, the two models can be referred to as instantiations of the Germanic and the Romance traditions on English soil. The features which most saliently characterize the differences between Germanic and Romance meter are obligatory alliteration for Germanic and strict syllable-counting for Romance.30 In addition, the two types overlap in that both show a preference for a fixed number of stress peaks per line, a tendency much more explicit in the insular form of isosyllabicity. Both traditions naturally also share the universally observed preference for loosening of constraints at the left edges of lines and strict observance of right-edge restrictions. Both traditions yield invaluable information about the structure of the contemporary language. The absence of any strictly syllable-counting verse in English before the end of the twelfth century weights the issue of “direction of influence” in the appearance of that specific verse feature heavily in favor of French, since the Latin syllable-counting models had been available to the monks before the Conquest. It may be worth noting that the same structural feature, syllablecounting, was adopted in Old Norse in the Skaldic verse tradition; if one variety of North Germanic could cope with that requirement, West Germanic could deal with it too. This brings us back to the balance and interplay between cultural and linguistic factors, borrowings and indigenous developments in the early history of English verse. The interaction of social and literary conditions and metrical and linguistic prosodic structures in the development of the isosyllabic verse form is a fascinating and promising research project which I will leave for the future. My goal in this study is to isolate and analyze structures unique to the Germanic-type versification, and my data have been collected from the alliterative corpus. The next chapter will survey the linguistic and metrical assumptions relevant to the analysis of the structural and phonological issues addressed in the remaining chapters of the book. 30. The terms Germanic and Romance must be understood as cover terms. Neither the individual Germanic traditions nor the various Romance traditions are internally homogeneous with respect to all their metrical properties. Russom (1998) offers an excellent comparison of the linguistic and metrical features in Beowulf , the Old Norse Eddic poems on native Scandinavian subjects in fornyr∂islag, and continental (Old Saxon) Germanic alliterative verse. Duffel (1991: 329–410) provides a comparative treatment of the diachronic development of Romance verse traditions, the hendecasyllabic line in particular. As for Medieval Latin, from which the later vernacular traditions in the Romance languages evolved, verse was either based on syllable quantity as in Classical Latin or, in the later specimens, it was accentual.
2
Linguistic structures in English alliterative verse
Chapter 1 provided some background information on the authorship, audience, and the various cultural associations of English alliterative verse. Now we turn to the linguistic reference systems whose properties will be examined in the rest of the book. Verse material provides the testing ground for the study and it is therefore also necessary to state what principles are assumed to have governed the metrical organization of that material. Since the focus is on alliteration, the descriptive remarks will cover mostly prosodic features, limiting the comments on morphosyntax, vocabulary, and discourse to specific issues addressed in the subsequent chapters. 2.1
The prosody–meter interface1
The ways in which meter adopts and adapts available linguistic structures for literary use is an important research area in linguistics. The two systems, the phonology of the language and the meters it uses, refer to the same fundamental distinctive categories and relations. In spite of the great variety of options available for the organization of metrical systems, not all features of language are harnessed into a specific verse form, but the phonological mainstays of verse are usually present also in the ambient language. The linguistic competence of the poet provides the raw material for verse, which modifies this material according to its own set of constraints. Reconstructing the past properties of a linguistic system is a major objective for historical linguistics; historical metrists, on the other hand, are concerned with the recovery and the definition of metrical patterns. These two research enterprises draw on each other: poetic texts have traditionally provided key evidence for linguistic studies; while the structural study of poetic meter relies on characteristics which are defined on the basis of linguistic primes – segments, syllables, prosodic words, stress, weight, precedence 1. Here and throughout this study I use prosody/prosodic to refer to the rhythmic organization of language, and meter/metrical to refer to the organization of verse.
22
2.1 Prosody–meter interface
23
and hierarchical relations. The fact that the same constituents form the basis for the linguistic study of speech and the study of verse, enhances the importance and the benefits of using verse evidence in historical reconstructions. As Hanson and Kiparsky (1996: 288) write: Meter is linguistically grounded at two levels. First, language itself has a rich intrinsic structure prior to any artistic form that may be imposed on it. In particular, it is prosodically organized in ways that are immediately exploitable for esthetic ends: no sooner do children learn to form simple sentences than they can fit them appropriately to the rhythm of a chant or song . . . On another level, literature stylizes the inherent prosodic organization of language with conventional forms of versification which are themselves chosen from a limited set of formal options provided by Universal Grammar.
Ideally, the metrical form(s) selected by an individual artist or a group of people will be “optimal” for the language.2 Modern metrical studies provide excellent examples of how the interaction between the two systems: the prosody of the spoken language and the conventional templates of poetic meter, can be used to enrich metrical theory. In their analyses Hayes (1983, 1988, 1989), Kiparsky (1973, 1977, 1989), Hanson (1992, 2001), Youmans (1989), Fabb (1997), and many other metrists, have produced illuminating analyses of the prosody–meter interplay, showing the importance of the integration of linguistic theory into metrical studies. In many of these insightful cases the anchor is provided by prosody; in explicating meter the researchers draw on prior knowledge and understanding of the linguistic properties of the material used in verse. Yet for Old and Middle English, the cross-referentiality of the metrical and the prosodic system can be problematic. For Old English, reliance on metrical information has been overextended to areas where isomorphy of the two systems cannot be taken for granted, as in accounting for Old English stress in terms of moraic composition of the prosodic foot.3 Nevertheless, one core assumption of the prosody–meter interface for Old English that has not been questioned is the 2. An important corollary of this interface addressed by Hanson and Kiparsky is that “Languages select meters in which their entire vocabularies are usable in the greatest variety of ways.” Since various other factors are involved in the selection of the metrical form, the principle is violable. It is possible that “For historical, cultural, or other reasons languages may have meters that fall short of naturally accommodating all their words” (Hanson and Kiparsky 1996: 294). This aspect of the vocabulary–meter interface is of special interest for the account of resolution in Old English where compounds whose roots start with light syllables cannot occupy entire verses by themselves, see Stockwell and Minkova (1997b). 3. See also the debates surrounding the existence of tertiary stress in Old English and, for Middle English, the emergence of the nuclear stress rule. Arguments against accepting the testimony of Old English verse as a non-controversial indicator of linguistic properties are addressed more fully in Minkova and Stockwell (1994), Minkova (1996b), Minkova and Stockwell (1997a).
24
2 Linguistic structures in verse
overlap between stress and ictus in those instances where the ictus is also the bearer of alliteration.4 The next section outlines the basic rules of Old English stress assignment and the approach to Old English meter adopted here. 2.2
Old English stress
It is a well-established scholarly assumption that the choice of left-edge identity as a unifying feature of the Germanic verse line was a natural artistic extension of the left-prominent prosodic patterns of Germanic. Put differently, in a language with initial word stress, the development of a verse form organized around alliteration corresponds to one of the most basic principles of metrics, the fit between stress and ictus. In this context Saintsbury’s overgeneralization that “every language has the prosody it deserves” (1923: 404) holds true. Although there are no agreed principles of interpretation of all the relevant parameters determining the metrical structures of Old English alliterative verse, the obligatory presence of alliteration as a structural binding factor and as a central linguistic means of creating an artistic effect is universally recognized. Familiarity with the rules of normal stress assignment is an important prerequisite to understanding meter.5 Since alliteration can occur only on syllables bearing stress, the relation of stress to ictus is generally straightforward, but not always. Sometimes syllables that would not bear full linguistic stress in speech must still be assigned ictus in verse; “normal stress assignment” therefore excludes special conditions such as contrastive stress on the demonstratives, as in: on þæm ¯ dæge / þisses lifes6 þ¯ys d¯ogor ð¯u / geþyld hafa7
Beo 197 Beo 1395
Since elsewhere in the Old English verse corpus the same determiners do not participate in the alliteration, I will assume that, as in Modern English, the need for special emphasis in speech and in verse can override other factors such as normal right prominence in the determiner-noun phrase. Stress assignment in Old English was a process dependent on the word class and also on the morphological nature of the syllable, i.e. it is important whether 4. In line with the distinction between prosody and meter, stress is a prosodic property of the syllable, while ictus (or lift) is the metrical position of prominence. In Old English the syllable which carries the alliteration must be prosodically prominent. 5. The presentation here follows the ideas in Minkova (1996b, 1997a) and Stockwell and Minkova (1997a) – the latter will be referred to as SM. The literature on the issue is voluminous and the survey offered here which touches only on points of relevance to the alliterative practice should not be taken as a substitute for the originals. 6. ‘On that day / of this life.’ Compare the treatment of the demonstrative in line 197 to the Beo line 1216: “Bruc ðisses beages, / B¯eowulf l¯eofa ‘Enjoy this ring, / dear Beowulf’ 7. ‘On this day you / patience have’
2.2 Old English stress
25
the leftmost syllable is part of the root or whether it is a prefix. With respect to word class the main divisions are between nouns, adjectives, adverbs, infinitives, and participles, all of which are normally stressed, inflected verbs, which are variably stressed, and function words like prepositions, conjunctions, the negative proclitic ne etc., which are never stressed. With respect to morphological properties, the main division is between roots and affixes. For the roots of stressable words: nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, stress on the first syllable is the default case, while for function words and affixes absence of stress is much more common. The reconstruction of stress placement is an enormously complex issue; in the absence of contemporary commentary the linguist’s only recourse is to typological inferential reasoning. I will assume that in Old English, as in Modern English and Germanic in general, the stress-bearing unit is the syllable.8 Both heavy and light syllables can be stressed, for example, br´ıngan ‘bring,’ se¯´can ´ ‘seek,’ fæder ‘father,’ sc´eaða ‘enemy’; there is no necessary association between syllable weight and stress. Further assumptions relevant to the reconstruction of the prosodic structure of Old English are the following:9 a Morphemes are lexically subcategorized and hierarchized. The evidence for that is furnished by the different treatment of major class words and form words and also by the different behavior of prefixes depending on the morphological nature of the root. b The segmental strings of the morphemes are grouped into hierarchically organized prosodic categories: the syllable, the foot, the prosodic word, the phonological phrase.10 c Morphological structure and prosodic structure are not always isomorphic: morphological and prosodic boundaries may, but do not necessarily, coincide.11
8. This is the default situation in stress languages, see Hayes (1995: 49–50). The fact that it is the syllable as a whole, and not an individual segment, or a larger domain, such as a disyllabic sequence, poses a serious problem for the linguistic interpretation of resolution in Old English. 9. I follow the typology in Booij and Lieber (1993: 35–37). 10. Independent evidence for the relevance of the syllable in Old English is furnished by segmental processes: vowel lengthening occurs only in stressed syllables, and shortenings are also sensitive to stress and syllable structure: open or closed. The relevance of the foot is attested by processes such as I-Mutation, and by high vowel deletion, and syncopation of light syllables. Evidence for higher level prosodic constituency is more difficult to find, but see the discussion of glottal stop insertion and elision in hiatus in chapter 4. 11. In OE the negative clitic ne or the nominal derivational prefix ge- are examples of the nonisomorphy between morphosyntactic and prosodic structure. The non-isomorphy is important also in the variable treatment of verbs and adverbs.
26
2 Linguistic structures in verse
Out of these general principles two observations bear specifically on alliteration. First, consonant and vowel changes evolve differently in stressed and unstressed positions. It is therefore predictable that claims on the status of individual changes reconstructed from alliteration will not extend automatically to all positions in the word or foot. A second consideration concerns word boundaries. Stress has a delimiting function and therefore absence of stress obliterates word boundaries, so that scribal word divisions or absence thereof can be informative. The most important source of historical information on English stress, however, is the deployment of words in verse: the co-occurrence of stress and alliteration means that alliteration, too, has a delimiting function. When an unstressed syllable is incorporated into a larger structure, resyllabification can occur within the resulting entity, and new patterns of alliteration arise.12 Some associations between stress and verse are incontrovertible, for example, within the same syntactic string nouns are consistently stronger than verbs. This corresponds to Sievers’ much cited rule of precedence (1893: §22–29). Sievers’ generalization states that if an inflected verb precedes a noun it does not have to alliterate, that it must not alliterate if the noun does not alliterate too, and that a non-alliterating noun can never be followed by an alliterating finite verb. The rule does not exclude the possibility of co-alliteration; the crucial observation is that if the alliteration is not shared the verb never determines it.13 Outside the empirically testable distinction between finite verbs and other major class words, the value of verse as a diagnostic for stress is sometimes compromised by semantic or purely metrical considerations. With systematic alliteration as my focus, my illustrations of the basic prosodic patterns will be drawn from verse; nevertheless it should be acknowledged that the two systems are not completely isomorphic. I have discussed the merits and limitations of verse as a manifestation of stress at length in Minkova (1996a, 1996b) and further detail is superfluous in the context of the present study. Only the main premises and some special cases which are relevant to alliteration will be addressed below. With these considerations in mind, the The reduction and loss of final unstressed syllables in late Old English and Middle English led to monosyllabicity and increased the instances of overlap between morphological and syllable boundaries at the right edge of words. This prepared the conditions for the emergence of a reorganization of the stress system in which the determiner of stem stress shifted from the morphology to the phonology, and in which the weight of the stem syllables acquired special importance. 12. See the discussion of the metrical evidence for resyllabification, Stab der Liaison, in chapter 4. 13. For an interpretation of the linguistic significance of this metrical fact see Campbell (1959: §93), Stanley (1975), Russom (1987b: 101–107). Auxiliaries are not included in this discussion.
2.2 Old English stress
27
principles of stress assignment for Old English are presented and exemplified in (1)–(3): (1)
Stress the first syllable of nouns, adjectives, infinitives, participles, and most adverbs Initial stress is the rule whether the first syllable is part of the root or (part of) a prefix. The following lines illustrate this principle; prefixes are in italic. þæm eafera wæs / æfter cenned14 Swa sceal geong guma / gode gewyrcean15 eafoþ ond ellen / unge¯ara nu16 Wið ord ond wið ecge / ingang forstod17 oðþæt him on innan / oferhygda dæl18
Beo 12 Beo 20 Beo 602 Beo 1549 Beo 1740
Not all prefixes behave identically. Two prefixes, ge- and be-, are never stressed, for- is stressed only rarely, while un- seems to be truly variably stressed.19 swa begylpan ne þearf / Grendeles maga20 þæt he þone breostwylm / forberan ne mehte21 siððan hie gebod godes / forbrocen hæfdon22
Beo 2006 Beo 1877 Gen 698
Such variable behavior is comparable to the situation in Modern English. The prefixes be-, for-, for example, are always unstressed, as in befit, behind, besmirch, forbid, forget, while other common prefixes such as re- can be both stressed and unstressed: recover, report, restore, but reopen, reword, and, used 14. 16. 17. 18. 19.
‘to him heir was / after born’ 15. ‘so shall young man / by good deeds bring about’ ‘strength and courage / before long now’ ‘against point and against edge / in-going prevented’ ‘until to him within / measure of arrogance’ An example of a stressed for- is found in Mld156: forlet forheardne / faran eft ongean. ‘let the hardened weapon go back again’ Some examples illustrating the variable stressing of un- are: e¯ aweð þurh egsan / unc¯uðne n¯ıð “Saga, earmsceapen, / unclæne gæst
Beo 276 Jln 418
versus wine uncuðe. / Wordum spræcon seo unclæne gecynd, / cearum sorgende
Gen 1847 Chr 1016
On the behavior of the prefix un- and the initial morpheme mon-/man- in Beowulf see Kendall (1991: 191–193), Hutcheson (1995: 29 fn. 109). 20. ‘so that boast need not / Grendel’s kinsmen’ 21. ‘so that he that breast-swelling / could not restrain’ 22. ‘after they God’s command / broken had’
28
2 Linguistic structures in verse
contrastively, re-cover, re-store, etc. Another modern parallel to the behavior of OE un- is mis-; compare mist´ake to m´ıscreant, and to m`ıs-c´ast, v. ¯ hraðe, s¯ona are generally stressed and can carry Adverbs like eft, n¯eah, ær, alliteration. Their behavior, however, is also dependent on the syntactic and metrical context.23 They are ictic and alliterate in the absence of nouns and adjectives in the same on-verse, or to the left of them in the off-verse, as in the following instances: þ¯a wæs eft swa ær ¯ / inne on healle24 mid nydgripe / nearwe befongen25 handgewriþene; / hra∂e seoþðan wæs26
Beo 642 Beo 976 Beo 1937
When other stressable items appear in ictic positions within the verse, the adverbs will not carry the structural alliteration: Hraðe wæs to bure / Beowulf fetod27 sona me se mæra / mago Healfdenes28 hatode ond hynde; / hord eft gesceat29
Beo 1310 Beo 2011 Beo 2319
(2) Stress the first root syllable of lexical verbs Verbal prefixes are almost never stressed, the only exceptions being verbs that are derived from nouns, like andswarian and verbs with adverbial prefixes like inn-gangan, æfter-spryrian, ymbfaran. In such cases the stress on the prefix must have been subordinated to the stress on the root, as can be deduced on the basis of the alliterative practice:30 23. 24. 26. 28. 29. 30.
An excellent discussion of the issues can be found in Hutcheson (1993). ‘then was again as before / inside hall’ 25. ‘in dread-grip / narrowly caught’ ‘hand-plaited / quickly then was’ 27. ‘Quickly was to bower / Beowulf fetched’ ‘Soon to me the renowned / kinsman of Healfdene’ ‘hated and harmed / to hoard again sped’ The evidence for secondary stress on the adverbial prefixes of inflected verbs is mostly typological. Kastovsky (1992: 361) assumes that “these prefixes exhibit stress-conditioned alternations; in verbs they are unstressed or have secondary stress, in nouns they have full stress.” He recon´ yrp with initial main stress and secondary structs for example a` w´eorpan ‘throw away’ versus æw` stress on the root. The statement is not ascertainable in verse, except for the often-cited instance of andsware/andswarian, where an off-verse consisting of vowel-alliterating andswarode is formulaic in Genesis. Verse lines like the following ones from The Metrical Psalms suggest that even without the competition of other stressable items, initial stress on the verbal root is the preferred option. Ne aweorp þu me, / wuldres ealdor Næfre wiðdrifeð / drihten ure
P 70. 8. 1 P 93. 12.1
Kastovsky’s assumption is modeled on the Modern English stress shifts in, for example rec´ord, v. versus r´ecord, n. There is no evidence, however, that the rec´ord – r´ecord pattern was productive in Old English and that it contributed to the rise of the Modern English diatones. On this point see also Minkova (1997b), McCully (2002).
2.2 Old English stress Sylf in þam solere, / ond ymbseteð utan31 þæt þec ymbsittend / egesan þywað32
29
Phx 204 Beo 1827
No other words (for example, function words like prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, the negative proclitic ne, and the light auxiliary verbs like b¯eon) would have any significant prosodic prominence, though, as noted above, they can sometimes be contrastively or emphatically stressed. Alliteration is the only reliable clue to the stylistic subtleties of such instances of stressing. The ambivalent prosodic behavior of lexical verbs in Germanic verse is one of the famous issues in the history of English prosody and meter.33 Unlike nouns and adjectives, lexical verbs sometimes lose their stress (i.e. get demoted) in some positions in verse, most frequently in the first dip. Demotion also occurs at the end of the on-verse, and by definition at the end of the off-verse – see the discussion of the rules of alliteration in section 2.5. The non-alliterating weakly stressed finite verbs in the following examples are italicized: Hæfdon swurd nacod, / þa wit on sund reon34 Gewat him þa se halga / healdend ond wealdend35 hwate Scyldingas; / gewat him ham þonon36 ond him Hroðgar gewat / to hofe sinum37 Eala þeodnes þrymm! / Hu seo þrag gewat38
Beo 539 And 225 Beo 1601 Beo 1236 Wan 95
Verse-initially the verb is also free to alliterate, though the frequency of this placement of finite verbs is admittedly low in the corpus. When the verb is the only major class word in the verse, it is also likely to carry the alliteration. The option of stress-bearing finite verb forms is illustrated in the following Beowulf lines: Hi hyne ða ætbæron / to brimes faroðe39 þanon he gesohte / Suðdena folc40 Gemunde þa se goda, / mæg Higelaces41 ond be healse genam; / hruron him tearas42
Beo 28 Beo 463 Beo 758 Beo 1872
31. ‘self in that upper chamber / and encompasses all around’ 32. ‘that you the neighboring people / threaten with terror’ 33. See Kuhn (1933), Bliss (1967). For some more recent interpretations see Hutcheson (1992), Stockwell and Minkova (1992, 1994), Russom (1996, 1998). 34. ‘had the swords naked / then the two of us swam to sea’ 35. ‘Set out then the holy / sovereign and ruler’ 36. ‘intrepid Scyldings / set out homeward’ 37. ‘and Hrothgar set out / towards his quarters’ 38. ‘Ah, the prince’s pride! / How the time has passed’ 39. ‘They him then carried / to briny’s current’ 40. ‘Then he sought / the South Danes’ folk’ 41. ‘Remembered then the good / kinsman of Higelac’ 42. ‘and by neck took / fell from him tears’
30
2 Linguistic structures in verse
Ultimately, the stressability of the verb depends on a number of factors: the type of verb, the syntactic function of the verb, semantic and pragmatic considerations (verbs in the imperative are more likely to be stressed than other verbs), and, crucially for alliteration, the metrical environment. Stress in speech is recognized by contrast; in meter ictus is also contrastive and depends on the components of the metrical string. Any lexical verb surrounded by words that are necessarily prosodically subordinate is a strong candidate for stress and metrical promotion. Since alliteration is never determined by the placement of just one single lexical item in an ictic position, the attribution of some level of stress on a verb in the line is facilitated by the composition of the entire string. In other words, the ambiguity regarding the stressability of the finite verb remains an issue, but the decision as to whether a verb alliterates or not in the verse is non-arbitrary.43 (3)
Assign cascading prominence to compounds and to morphologically complex words “Cascading prominence” (Stockwell and Minkova: 62) (SM) means a stairstep effect with peaks on the roots which make up the compound, exactly as in Modern English compounds like bridge-building, caretaker, moneylender, sunrise. “Morphologically complex” refers to roots and derivational suffixes, not to inflexions. Assignment of cascading stress only to morphologically complex words entails that in disyllabic roots there will be no stress on the second syl´ This caveat lable even when suffixed: for example, c´yninges, e´ arfoða, fæderes. is needed because in some metrical accounts, for example, Sievers’, when the middle syllables of such words are heavy, they can serve as an ictus and therefore linguists have assumed some degree of stress, usually referred to as “tertiary” on those syllables.44 43. An additional problem related to the reconstruction of verbal prosodies from verse arises from the fact that the majority of the verses in which a finite verb appears together with nouns and adjectives have double alliteration, for example: gesægd soðlice / sweotolan tacne “Ne sorga, snotor guma! / selre bið æghwæm
Beo 141 Beo 1384
Such positioning of the finite verb is uninformative. Among the many interpretations available in the literature, Russom’s alliteration-driven arguments (1998: 128–135) that the prosodic prominence of the finite verb is constrained by the metrical rules and that verbs appearing near the left edge of a clause had a subordinate but perceptible stress seems most acceptable. As this whole study attests, I also agree with Russom (1998: 132) that the alliterative evidence of Old English verse should be allowed “full weight.” 44. This is a simplification of a complex issue in studies of Old English meter and stress. Campbell (1959) posited stress on all medial syllables in inflected single-root words or obscured
2.2 Old English stress
31
The frequent coinage of compounds, often placing two concepts in very complex metaphorical relations, is an important stylistic feature of Old English poetry. In Beowulf , for example, about one-third of the entire vocabulary consists of compounds;45 it is important therefore to understand the principles of stress assignment and alliteration for such words. As in Modern English, the strongest stress was placed on the first syllable of the leftmost root: g¯uðrinc goldwlanc, / græsmoldan træd46 þa heregeatu / þe eow æt hilde ne deah47 Eastseaxena ord / and se æschere48
Beo 1881 Mld 48 Mld 69
In addition to alliteration, the historical preservation of vowel quality provides further phonological justification for the reconstruction of primary stress on the first root syllable of transparent compounds. The second root of true compounds is also initially stressed, though the exact level of the second stress is not so easy to recover. By default, the second root appears linearly to the right of a primary stress, so it will be weaker by virtue of its adjacency to a stronger stress to the left, especially if there is no buffer syllable between the two stresses. Apart from that, the exact degree of prominence of the second root is the combined effect of the prosodic environment and the semantic and syntactic transparency of the second element. Compare, in Modern English the relatively weak secondary stress on -set in s´uns`et v´ıew to the prominence on set- in St´anford s`et view where the syntactic boundaries are less clear, and to open set theory where the syntax and the prominence on set have to be determined contextually. Similarly, some root morphemes used in compounding may undergo semantic bleaching and are thus more likely to become prosodically demoted. This is seen in the history of for example, -day, -land, -man compounds in English; compare wedding day [-dey] to Wednesday [-di/di], Disneyland [-lænd] to England [-lənd], he-man, Spider Man [-mæn] to fisherman, kinsman with [-mən]. The same flexible behavior of the second elements of compounds can be reconstructed for Old English. In addition to the preservation of the quality
45. 46. 47. 48.
compounds, irrespective of their morphological nature or weight. Fulk (1992: 226–227) mounts a convincing attack on the circularity of Campbell’s reasoning: Campbell used Sievers’ system to deduce stress. Hogg (1992a: 47) assumes that only a heavy middle syllable can be stressed; Fulk reaches the same conclusion from the examination of the metrical evidence. The philological evidence, ultimately unsatisfactory, is discussed by Hogg who argues that “the postulation of tertiary stress is merely an ad hoc diacritic” (1994: 3). Brodeur (1959: 7). Further statistics on the share of compounds and hapax legomena in Beowulf are cited in Kastovsky (1992: 353–355). ‘war-man gold-proud / grass-mold trod’ ‘the war-gear (tax) / that will not avail you in battle’ ‘the East Saxon’s troops / and the army’
32
2 Linguistic structures in verse
of the stressed vowel, the clearest indication of the importance of secondary stress in compounds comes from their deployment in on-verses in which the compound roots provide the only two lifts in the verse. Double alliteration in such instances is possible, though never obligatory or not even very frequent: his goldgifan / gæstes gesne,49 wið þ eodþ þreaum. / Swylc wæs þ eaw hyra50 his swuster sunu, / swiðe forheawen51
Jud 279 Beo 178 Mld 115
It should be noted that normally the second element of a compound can alliterate only if the first element does too, as in all the examples cited above. This is an expected consequence of the assumption that the dominant stress is the one to the left, both prosodically and metrically. Lines such as: XXIIII, / freolic wealdend,52
DEdw 6
where XXIIII stands for twentigfeower ‘twenty-four’ are a clear anomaly.53 Typically, compounds provide two of the lifts in a verse, but the second element does not alliterate. The absence of alliteration in this context is not significant, however, because the expectation of a minimum of two lifts per verse is met by the prominence of the second elements of the compounds italicized in the examples below: gif þu þæt ellenweorc / aldre gedigest54 langunghwila. / Is me nu lifes hyht55 on ðam dægeweorce / dom geswiðrod56
Beo 661 Dream 126 Jud 266
Further suppression of the secondary stress in true compounds is possible metrically. This is most easily discernible in off-verses where a second alliterating lift is systematically avoided, or in the presence of another stressable word in the same string: monegum mægþum, / meodosetla ofteah57 feondes facne, / folcstede gumena58 goldhrodene cwen / giefe bryttian59 gryreleoða sum. / þa æt guðe sloh60 49. 51. 53. 55. 57. 58. 59.
Beo 5 And 20 Wid 102 Mld 285
‘his gold-giver / deprived of spirit’ 50. ‘against people’s plight. / Such was their custom’ ‘his sister’s son / much cut up by swords’ 52. ‘twenty-four, / nobly ruling’ See Hutcheson (1995: 184). 54. ‘if you the courage-deed / alive endures’ ‘a long time. / Now is my life’s expectation’ 56. ‘in that day’s work / glory destroyed’ ‘from many tribes / mead-benches acquired’ ‘through the foe’s treachery, / folk-stead of men’ ‘gold-decked queen / gifts to distribute’ 60. ‘terrible song. / Then at battle slew’
2.2 Old English stress
33
Especially controversial are instances in which fully independent roots have to be demoted to non-ictus though their underlying prosodic value is [+stress], as in the (rare) example from Beowulf 1881a cited above, g¯uðrinc goldwlanc, whose metrical and syllabic contour parallels the archetypal gomban gyldan in Beo 11a. This follows from the assumption (SM: 62–63) that in any sequence [s (. . .) s] up to and including the full verse, the left [s] is stronger than the right [s] on its own level: word level, derivational level, compound level, linguistically and metrically. Instances of metrical demotion of secondary stresses pose problems for the reconstruction of the metrical framework, but do not invalidate the reconstruction of a strong secondary stress on compounds whose parts are also independently productive roots in the language. It is the overwhelming salience of secondary stress in transparent compounds and, rarely, the appearance of three independently stressed words, that justify descriptions of the Old English metrical system as incorporating three lifts per verse.61 For the purposes of the present study it suffices to realize that the prosodic salience of secondary stresses may vary depending on the metrical context, and, by extension, depending on the prosodic environment in speech. Thus, a syllable bearing secondary stress and positioned in the second ictus in a verse can alliterate optionally in the on-verse, and never in the off-verse. Further problems relating to stress assignment in morphologically complex words arise from the distribution and treatment of derived words in verse. One of the much-debated issues in the literature is the assignment of stress and/or ictus on the second or third syllable of a word when it is a recognizable derivational suffix like -d¯om, -ing, -lic(e), -l¯eas, -ness, -end(e), -sume, for example, do¯´ mle`¯ase, wislice, winsume. As argued in Minkova (1996b: 28–29), the prosodic prominence of non-roots is a function of their morphological salience, syllabic composition, and position in the word. Prefixes are more likely to be stressed than suffixes due to the general preference for initial stress in the language. In verse, the behavior of suffixed words is extremely complex because their intrinsic prosodic indeterminacy is further exacerbated by purely metrical considerations, which are partly grounded on prosodic assumptions and could therefore be circular. For a thorough treatment of the metrical issues see Fulk (1992: 169–235).62 61. The most systematic defense of an independent three-stress pattern in Old English verse is found in Hutcheson (1995: 164–168). In the on-verse the three-stress pattern involves obligatory double alliteration. 62. As noted above, Fulk’s discussion of the complex relations of stress to ictus points to a systematic difference between heavy and light medial syllables in suffixed words. Normally the
34
2 Linguistic structures in verse
For the purposes of alliteration, suffixed words are not problematic. I am not aware of any instances in the corpus where the structural alliteration in the line must be carried by the first syllable of a morphological suffix. Occasional double alliteration within derived words: liciendlic, licumlic, lustlic is accidental and therefore irrelevant: nothing in my analysis will depend on the alliterative behavior of suffixes. The principles of stress assignment sketched out here make it clear that the stress contour on the word level was falling; apart from prosodically “invisible” prefixes and form words, the left syllable is the more prominent one of a pair, and it is the one that carries the alliteration. 2.3
Old English versification
Several generations of Anglo-Saxon metrists have not reached an agreement on the principles of Old English meter. In spite of many uncertainties regarding the “learned” aspects of verse composition, the rhythmic contours of verse, the appropriate linguistic components, and the acceptable range of variation, there are some incontestable facts and strong statistical tendencies which allow an adequate description of the metrical patterns in the corpus. All of the twentiethcentury metrical scholarship is a development of or a challenge to the two main approaches to Old English metrics enunciated clearly by Sievers (1893) and Heusler (1889/1891). Both approaches share the view, clearly expounded for the cognate tradition of Old Norse in the H´attatal of Snorri Sturluson around 1220, that the two parts of a verse line are linked by alliteration.63 ¯ heavy second syllable, as in hl¯afordes or slæpende will occupy the second [s] of a cascading metrical foot, whether it is morphologically recognizable or not. Light medial syllables, on the other hand, are ictic only in the second foot of a verse. Thus the suffixes of second-class weak verbs (-ode, -ian) were apparently sometimes stressed and sometimes not: for example -ode is not ictic in: tryddode tirfæst / getrume micle
Beo 922
but must be ictic in: on fagne flor / feond treddode
Beo 725
This difference is analyzed in detail by Fulk in his discussion of the “rule of the coda” (1992: 201 et passim). It states that “suffixes like -scipe and -sume, with an etymologically short high vowel in the penultimate syllable, count as two metrical positions in the coda of a verse; otherwise they count as one.” “Coda” means “the last full lift and all subsequent syllables,” which seems to be equivalent to “second foot,” see below. In my scansions I follow this rule, allowing that some phonological weight constraint may have been adopted or may have survived metrically in a system of morphologically-based stress-assignment rules. 63. The H´attatal is a section in the Younger, or the Prose Edda. It is a catalogue of meters, giving examples of 102 meters used by the Icelandic court poets (skalds) known to Snorri.
2.3 Old English versification
35
The outline of the principles of Old English versification here draws on SM. That sketch of the prosody of Beowulf is a new synthesis of Sievers’ theory that incorporates insights found in Bliss (1967) and Cable (1974), but it follows neither of them in all details. The approach preserves Sievers’ notion of metrical feet as the building blocks of the verse line. The principal innovations are to simplify the metrical stress contrasts to a binary pair, strong (s) and weak (w), without further reference to more finely discriminated stress levels and to use the notion of “silent ictus” as a necessary component of the scansion techniques. The Old English alliterative verse form inherited from the Germanic ancestors requires that two verses are linked together into a verse line by carefully controlled identity of stressed syllable onsets. The sequence of two verses or half-lines – the on-verse and the off-verse, known also as the a-verse and the b-verse – together form the alliterative long line, which, for short, is referred to as the verse line. Each verse is normally made up of two feet, and the first of these feet is stronger than the second; this means that the strong position in the first foot is stronger than the strong position of the second foot. The principal evidence for the decreasing strength of the feet from left to right is that if the on-verse has only single alliteration, it virtually always falls on the strong syllable of the first of the two feet. In the off-verse, only the stressed syllable of the first foot is allowed to alliterate. Any alliteration associated with the second strong position in the off-verse, which is also the rightmost peak in the line, is accidental and its effect, if any, is purely ornamental, not structural. Enclosing the verse in square brackets, dividing the two feet and the two verses with a slash, and using s or w for each stressed or unstressed syllable, we can represent metrical relations in the following way: Oft Scyld Scefing / sceaþena þreatum64 [w s / s w] / [s w w / s w] Beo 4 gomban gyldan. / þæt wæs god cyning65 [s w / s w] / [w w s / s w] Beo 11 on flodes æht / feor gewitan66 [w s / w s] / [s w / s w] Beo 42 The differences between the two approaches, the main one being the assumption of isochrony by Heusler and his followers, are not directly relevant to the reliability of alliteration as a diagnostic for phonological reconstruction. Alliteration is a central tenet of Russom’s linguistically-defined word-foot theory (Russom 1987, 1998). Indeed, even unpopular accounts of Old English meter such as Hoover’s 1985 proposal that the only “structure” in Old English verse is provided by alliteration, that neither isochrony nor any sort of syllable-counting was inherent in the metrical system, will support the linguistic validity of alliterative evidence. For further discussion of the claims made in the two traditions and the extensions and modifications of these traditions by later scholars see SM. 64. ‘Often Scyld Scefing / from the bands of enemies’ 65. ‘tribute yield / that was good king!’ 66. ‘on flood’s hold / far travel’
36
2 Linguistic structures in verse
As noted already, a binary notation contains all the information necessary for reading off the association between alliteration and position in the verse. When there is more than one s in the verse (the default case is two), the one to the left is the alliterating syllable. Even in a sequence consisting of an iambic-like foot followed by a trochaic-like one, as in the on-verse of Beo 4, or the off verse of Beo 11, the fact that the first stress is stronger than the second calls for no special explanation. [w s / s w] in such verses as Beo 4a or [w w s / s w] in Beo 11b, is understood by the principle of left-to-right falling stress contour. This simple binary formalism accommodates the regular stress patterns of the language including secondary stresses in compounds, also marked s quite naturally.67 Since metrical values are assigned to syllables, one further note regarding syllabification is in order. Transparent compounds retain their pre-compound word boundaries. Thus in Beo 78a healærna ‘of palaces’ is syllabified as heal.ær.na and has a heavy first syllable for that reason. This is contrary to the rules of syllabification in the classical languages, where word boundaries are ignored in syllabification: ab oris is metrically a.bo.ris. It is also quite contrary to modern English intuitions: it is possibly due to the presence of glottal stops as the initial sounds of words that apparently begin with vowels. I will return to this issue in chapter 4. Outside resolution and the differential behavior of some suffixes, both of them metrically defined propositions, syllable weight is of no consequence. The line structure of Old English verse was made coherent by alliteration; verse structure is made coherent by selectively abstracting a system of alternating prominence: [s] and [w], where [w] = [w (w)] (SM: 82 fn. 9). It is unnecessary to encode both stress and weight in the notation. The metrical alternations depend on prominence, which universally favors heavy syllables, but does not require them. As noted above, Old English prominence must have been marked by the same conglomerate of features – weight, pitch obtrusion, length, stress – that 67. The binary formalism does not, however, provide for the phenomenon known as “resolution,” defined on the basis of the following metrical fact: the ictus of a foot can be filled either by a single heavy syllable, or by a light syllable plus the next syllable (whether heavy or light). This is an enormously complex issue on which there is no scholarly consensus. For some recent opposing views see Minkova and Stockwell (1994), Keddie (1995), Hutcheson (1995), Suzuki (1996), Stockwell and Minkova (1997b), SM. The only possible intersection between theories of resolution and the alliterative data analyzed in this study is in the assessment of e.g. unorne ceorl, ofer eall clypode, Mld 256, where the metrically necessary suspension of resolution raises the question of possible glottal stop insertion before un-. As it happens, however, this, and the other example in Jg2 243, involving unalyfed do not allow speculation as to whether the second syllable of a resolvable sequence can alliterate or not.
2.3 Old English versification
37
V ERS E L INE O N -V ERS E F OOT 1
2
O FF- V ER SE
F OOT
F OOT
3
1
4
2
F OOT 3
4
Fig. 2.1 The structure of the verse line
continue to this day to mark prominence. There is simply no evidence that suggests we should believe otherwise. The overarching structure of a line of Old English poetry in binary terms is this – the numbers at the bottom are expandable “positions”. The details of this structure, here adapted with modifications from SM, break down as shown in Fig. 2.1.68 (1) A line consists of two verses. The verses are linked by alliteration This is the most important metrical rule in the context of the present study. It is the most reliable and universally accepted property of Old English verse. Of the 26,088 verses of OE poetry in Hutcheson’s corpus, only 36, or 0.001 percent, lack alliteration.69 Alliteration is the first criterion that has been used by modern editors to produce pairs of verses printed as a single line with a space separating the two half-lines, though no such divisions exist in the manuscripts. Alliteration requires identity of the onsets of the strong syllables in at least the first foot of each verse, or the second foot of the on-verse if the verse contains only one strong syllable. The two options are illustrated below: þ æs ofereode, / þ isses swa mæg70 hæfde him to gesiþþe / sorge ond longaþ71
[s w w / s w] / [s w / s w] Deo 7, 13, 17, 20, etc. [! w w w w w / s w] / [s w w / s w] Deo 372
68. The presentation differs from SM in the account of alliteration, including cross-alliteration and transverse alliteration, and in the structural treatment of the silent ictus. 69. See Hutcheson (1995: 169). Hutcheson reports also that less than one half of 1 percent of the verses contain unmetrical alliteration, and his figure includes verses in which a simple emendation would restore the alliteration. I will return to the issue of reliability of alliteration in the following chapter. 70. ‘that passed away / and so may this’ 71. ‘had for his company / sorrow and longing’ 72. On the use of the exclamation mark to mark a silent (suppressed) ictus see below.
38
2 Linguistic structures in verse
Since the strong syllable of the first foot of the off-verse must alliterate, we can say that the alliteration is determined by the first foot of the off-verse. The alliterating sound of the governing foot is called the “head-letter” or “head stave” (Hauptstab).73 The second foot of the on-verse may also alliterate, but the second foot of the off-verse cannot and does not participate functionally in the alliteration. Thus the order of the alliterating words in the on-verse may be reversed without damage to the meter, while the order of the stressable words in the off-verse is fixed. Thus, the b- alliteration in Deo 8 is fixed by the placement of broþra. The asterisked construct is a violation not because of the prominence relations, but because deaþ does not alliterate with any strong position in the on-verse: Beadohilde ne wæs / hyre broþra deaþ74 ∗ Beadohilde ne wæs / deaþ hyre broþra
[s-w s / w w-s] / [w w s / w s] Deo 875 [s-w s / w w-s] / [s w w / s w]
(construct, unmetrical)
In The Battle of Brunanburh 67 switching folces and gefylled does not violate the metricality of the on-verse, but switching beforan and þissum does: folces gefylled / beforan þissum76 gefylled folces / beforan þissum (construct, metrical) ∗ folces gefylled / þissum beforan (construct, unmetrical)
[s w / w-s w] / [w- s w / s w] Brb 67 [w-s w / s w] / [w- s w / s w] [s w / w-s w] / [s w / w- s w]
In rare alliterative sequences of the type a b / a b, called cross(ed) alliteration, the b-alliteration is assumed to be outside the metrical scheme, and is most likely fortuitous: helm eallwihta, / heofon and eorðan77 Norþmanna bregu, / nede gebeded78
Gen A 113 Brb 33
73. In the terminology of Anglo-Saxon scholarship the term stave is used for “an alliterating letter in a line of Old English verse” (OED). Since my focus is on sounds and not on letters, I will use the terms sparingly, only when there can be no confusion between the two systems. 74. ‘Beaduhild was not / for her brother’s death’ 75. Weak syllables linked by a hyphen to a following strong syllable, as on sefan [w-s w . .] in Deo 9a are “extrametrical,” i.e. they are outside the syllabic and foot structure of the verse. By definition, extrametrical syllables are weak and therefore do not alliterate. The notation s-w indicates resolution. Again, by definition, the syllable undergoing resolution cannot bear alliteration because it is always metrically subordinate to the syllable to its left. 76. ‘of folks felled / before this’ 77. ‘protector of all things / heaven and earth’ 78. ‘the chief of the Northmen / by need driven’
2.3 Old English versification
39
Occasionally, weak syllables appear to alliterate, creating superfluous alliteration, or patterns of transverse alliteration, as in The Seafarer 70, 123: Adl oþþe yldo / oþþe eghete79 þæt he usic geweorþade, / wuldres ealdor80
Sfr 70 Sfr 123
The definition of alliteration as onset identity of the stressed syllables in the leftmost feet requires further refinement. First, the velar and palatal sounds associated with the spelling alliterate freely with each other only in the early verse, while in the late verse [g] and [j] are treated as separate categories. The presumed velar and palatalized realizations of , however, continued to alliterate with each other until the end of the Old English period. Since under the usual phonetic interpretations, [k] and [tʃ] sound very different to the modern ear, it has been assumed that the alliteration of these consonants was purely traditional, mechanical, or that palatalization was still non-phonemic, or both, as in Penzl (1947), Pope (1966: 101), Kuryowicz (1970), so also SM: 67. A new interpretation of this alliterative evidence is presented in chapter 3. A second characteristic of Old English and Germanic alliteration in general is that all initial vowels alliterate freely with each other, irrespective of their quality or quantity. The linguistic significance of this pattern is the subject of chapter 4. Consonants alliterate only with identical consonants; and the consonant clusters <sc-, sp-, st-> alliterate as groups only with identical clusters. The cohesive behavior of these clusters is discussed in chapter 5. Other regularities that define the structure of the alliterative long line in Old English verse are the following: (2)
Each verse contains two feet which jointly add up to at least four positions Each position is ideally filled by a single syllable, and must be filled by at least one syllable. Silent beats, though they must be assumed to exist, do not correspond to a syllable. One way of dealing with this situation would be to discount silent beats in calculating the number of positions, as proposed in SM. In that account, verses which contain silent ictus are an exception to the four-position rule. Thus, Deo 3: hæfde him to gesiþþe [! w w w w w / s w] is technically a three-position verse. However, since ictus can be used synonymously with “strong position,” it seems preferable to me now to allow an initial silent beat to satisfy the four-position principle in verses where there is only one natural
79. ‘sickness or old age / or sword-hate’
80. ‘that he us honored / lord of glory’
40
2 Linguistic structures in verse
ictus.81 There can be at most two feet per verse, but unlike the familiar notion of the classical metrical “foot,” the units we call positions and feet in Old English verse may be of uneven size and of differing internal composition. This follows both from the expandability of the weak positions early in the verse and, less convincingly, from “resolution,” the metrical equivalence of a heavy syllable to a light syllable followed by any other syllable in the ictus.82 (3) All feet must contain an ictus The relationship between ictus and prosodic prominence has already been covered. The structural gap created by a string of unstressed syllables in the first foot of the on-verse is repaired by the provision of a silent ictus. The ictic syllables are also called “lifts” – the term used above. They are grouped with weak (unstressed) syllables, usually called “drops” or “dips.” Dips can be monosyllabic, or they can contain a string of unstressed syllables. Occasionally, verses containing long cascading feet contain also a “defective” foot in the sense that the w position in it is left unfilled, i.e. the entire foot is [s Ø].83 (4) Nearly all verses are complete syntactic units The smallest syntactic units that occupy the verse are compounds, for example, Beo 2a þeodcyninga ‘of the tribe kings.’ Often the verse is filled by a syntactic phrase, as Beo 28b: (Hi hine ða ætbœon) / to brimes faroðe ‘ to briny’s current.’ Many verses are free-standing sentences, for example, Wand 5b: Wyrd bið ful aræd! ‘Fate is full stubborn.’ Since verses are syntactically coherent, they could therefore be spoken as independent units, rather easily separated by pauses. This enhances the chances of emphatic enunciation of the first ictic syllable in each 81. The most widely used definition of ictus is “stress on a particular syllable of a foot or verse,” see Burchfield (1974: 185). Although the assumption of a silent ictus is of consequence for the metrical account of Old English verse, it does not affect the empirical basis of the present study. 82. The facts of “resolution” are much more complex than this statement implies. It is an unnecessary metrical device in the account of the structure of the off-verse. A comprehensive survey and analysis of the metrical significance of resolution can be found Hutcheson (1995: 68–97). 83. An important constraint for Old English is that iteration of [w] is preferred in the first foot of a verse. The stipulation that [w] = [w (w)] noted above entails that a dip can be filled by a string of unstressed syllables. However, multiple weaks are found overwhelmingly under a single weak branch in the leftmost foot. Thus [w w s], [w w w s] or [s w w] [s w w w] are very common in the first foot of the verse, while expanded “strong” dips appear only in 2–3 percent of the second feet of verses, see Cable (1991: 9ff), Hutcheson (1995: 212). The verbal prefixes ge-, wið-, be- on-, a¯ -, etc. and the negative particle ne are ignored in these statistics. This constraint further entails that except for a resolved penultimate syllable, a verse cannot end in more than a single weak syllable. Every verse therefore ends on [s], [s-w w], or [s w].
2.3 Old English versification
41
verse. It is also a possible corollary of the formulaic status of many verses, a status which requires that they be relatively free-standing units.84 The foot types that can fit into the structural frame shown in figure 2.1 are varied and they are subject to specific distributional restrictions. In addition, some provisions have to be allowed for the instability of unstressed syllables containing sonorants (parasiting), elision, and contraction of unstressed syllables, and the purely metrical discounting of verse-initial weak syllables preceding the first falling foot, known as anacrusis. The metrical artifice of resolution whereby a light stressed syllable followed by any syllable counts as metrically equivalent to a single heavy syllable has already been mentioned. The typology of metrical feet and these principles of accommodation will not be explored in further detail since they are not directly pertinent to the gathering of alliterative data.85 Given the constraints and principles of accommodation above, Sievers (1893) defined five main verse types. Types A–C represent an exhaustive set of arrangements of the weak and strong positions of the basic [s w(w)] or [(w)w s] feet; the remaining arrangement ∗ [s w(w)] [(w)w s] would create an unmetrical threeposition verse because of the clustering of the weak positions in the middle. Types D and E are characterized by the presence of a cascading, left strong, trisyllabic foot, either [s s w] or [s w s], usually filled by compounds.86 These types are shown below, with modern mnemonic equivalents (not translations) alongside an example of each type:87 Type A Type B Type C Type D Type E
Adam’s apple on their bloodied breasts over cold climate deeds at daybreaking ear-splitting cry
[s w / s w] [w w s / w s] [w w s / s w] [s w / s s w] [s s w / s ø]
With some modifications, these five types will accommodate all but the small number of hypermetrical and corrupt verses in the corpus. The adequacy of 84. An additional observation in this context is that while the verses themselves are syntactically coherent, this is not necessarily true of the long line. Clauses and sentences can run on through a series of verses, in anticipation of or apposition to the main verb and its subject and object. 85. For more details on the typology of feet and the principles of accommodation in Beowulf , see SM: 68–71. 86. In the six-type system of Hutcheson (1995), Types D and E are restricted to compounds and the 3–stress Type gets the three stresses from three independent lexical items. 87. It is possible to split Type D into two subtypes because of the pronounced rhythmic distinction of two variants. One subtype, as in the example from The Fates of the Apostles, includes a weak syllable between the first two stressed syllables. The second subtype includes a weak syllable between the second and third stresses, as in Beo 2885a eall eðelwyn.
42
2 Linguistic structures in verse
these patterns as a coherent “system” of versification is widely discussed in the literature and this is not the place to rehearse the arguments.88 The weight of the evidence in this study falls on alliteration, however, and that feature of verse organization is stable and reliable in all accounts of Old English meter.
2.4
Middle English stress and its attestation in verse
2.4.1 Stress on major class words The stress-placement patterns characteristic of Old English remained stable in the post-Conquest period. Main stress continued to be a property of the first syllable of the root of lexical words: nouns, adjectives, adverbs, non-finite verbal forms. And þat gold greowe. so gres doþ on eorþe betere þe were; bern þat tu nahtest And eke boyes of blode with boste and with pryde Of a comliche kynge crowned with golde
Proverbs J 101–103 Proverbs M 241–24589 W & W 1490 WA 8591
The only special provision that needs to be made to this general statement is that similarly to Old English, Middle English can treat monosyllabic adverbs differently depending on the metrical context. This is true both of inherently monosyllabic adverbs such as now, and of adverbs which could become monosyllabic through the normal loss of final –e, such as sone, wele: For þou has notid me now nicollas he sayd Sire I haue neuend þe or now þat ware þat note knawen Sone was he wery of þe way so was his wale knitis And þai assembild on oure seggis bot þai ware sone drepid And sire vnworthely þou wrot and þat þou wele knawis It contraries knithede e knaw wele ourselfe
WA 876 WA 553992 WA 3616 WA 426393 WA 992 WA 233294
88. SM: 77–81 cover the main variations of the Sieversian reference system as well as the alternative approach of Russom (1987). Since then Hutcheson (1995) has proposed a new type of verse, the 3-stress verse. For an Optimality-Theoretic interpretation of the regularities and preferences in Old English versification, see Getty (1998). 89. Cited from The Proverbs of Alfred, edited by Arngart (1978). 90. Wynnere and Wastoure, edited by Trigg (1990). 91. The Wars of Alexander, edited by Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989). 92. See also lines 4698, 4730 in the same text where now provides a third alliterating lift in the a-verse. 93. The adverb sone is the third alliterating lift in WA 3761. 94. In WA 2514 wele provides the third alliterating lift.
2.4 Middle English stress
43
The prosodic behavior of adverbs in Middle English is thus similar to Modern English. With monosyllabic adverbs their placement within the phrasal group determines their prominence: in they know w´ell the adverb is phrase-final and therefore the most prominent word in that sequence, but in well gr´oomed, for example, it is the prosodically weak component of the adjective phrase. Polysyllabic adverbs alliterate like the other major class words: Bi þis a-selede sonde soþliche i telle And he luflyly hit hym laft, and lyfte vp his honed And than the Indyans ofte vttire tham droghen
Al B 28695 SGGK 36996 P3 A 38197
2.4.2 The metrical treatment of inflected verbs One of the widely discussed issues in the history of alliterative versification is the treatment of inflected verbs. An important feature of the prosody-to-syntax matching in Old English verse is that finite verbs never carry the structurally important first alliteration in the verse if there is a noun or an adjective in the same verse; this was referred to as Sievers’ rule of precedence. Because lexical verbs can lose their stress in some positions in verse, it is assumed that they are also prosodically weaker compared to nouns and adjectives. In Middle English the differential treatment of verbs was abandoned from the earliest times. Already in The Soul’s Address to the Body finite verbs can receive both stress and alliteration at any point in a verse.98 The examples cited below are characteristic of the alliterative treatment of the finite verb forms in The Proverbs of Alfred: At Seuorde sete þeynes money elde cummeþ to tune mid fele unkuþe coses Monymon weneþ þat he weny ne þarf and he mid his welþe wirche godes wulle
(J 1–2) (J 467–468) (J 317–318) (M 133–134)
Such alliterative patterning would have violated the rule of precedence in Old English. This makes the stressability of finite verbs an important point of comparison between Old and Middle English alliterative verse. The reason for the 95. Alexander and Dindimus; or, The Letters of Alexander to Dindimus, King of the Brahmans, with the replies of Dindimus . . . ed. by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, EETS 31, 1878, Repr. 1930. 96. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited by: J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, 2nd edn. revised by Norman Davis. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1967. Machine-readable text available through the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. 97. The Parlement of the Thre Ages ed. by M. Y. Offord, EETS 246, 1959, repr. 1967. Oxford University Press. The line is cited from the Thornton manuscript (T). 98. The Soul’s Address to the Body, ed. by Moffat (1987). Moffat’s comments on the behavior of finite verbs are at p. 28.
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2 Linguistic structures in verse
change in the metrical deployment of verbs is not in their intrinsic stress; it is reasonable to assume that both in Old and in Middle English verbs had stress on the first root syllable. What changed was the syntactic motivation for the association between weak stress and weak metrical position. Newly introduced independent syntactic changes in early Middle English eliminated the difference between the word order in main and subordinate clauses and produced a subject-verb order in non-matrix clauses. This process affected the frequency of verb-final clauses and generally obscured the pattern of verb-finality from a very early date, as is clear from the syntax of the Peterborough Chronicle 1070–1154, see Clark (1970). The inflected verb no longer gravitated towards the second foot of the verse where it would automatically be metrically subordinate to the lexical items to the left. Another potential cause for the different treatment of the verb may be sought in the emerging obligatory subject to the left of the verb. In Old English clause beginnings frequently coincided with verse beginnings where an initial inflected verb could be metrically in anacrusis; that position would easily accommodate a weakly stressed finite verb accompanied by a pronominal subject or no subject at all. In Middle English the loss of inflexions reduced the likelihood of having a subjectless verb anywhere in the clause. The treatment of verse beginnings does not indicate that a verb was in any way different from any other major class word, and if the subject was a pronoun, the verb would carry the right-hand prominence within the syntactic unit: Of hure tenful tach e taken ensample I sende hir to asay þe, and sothly me þynkkez þe fete of the fourche I feste thurgh the sydis
Al B 566 SGGK 2362 P3 A 91
No systematic distinction between finite and non-finite main verbs is made in the “revival” poems, nor are the a-verse and the b-verse different in that respect. Clearly separating the inflected verb from the remaining lexical words was no longer a metrical issue. If there had ever been an inherent prosodic weakness associated with finite verbs, as is strongly suggested by the constraints on Old English meter, that property of the verbs did not survive into Middle English. The metrical deployment of finite verbs in Middle English thus illustrates prominence relationships which are essentially Modern English, i.e. a finite verb is stressed if it is the rightmost constituent in its syntactic domain: Anoþer wif þat he w´edded, a worchipful ladi And as him dr´emyd ilke a dele þat doctour he t´ellis Als I w´ent to the wodde my werdes to dreghe
WP 115 WA 432 P3 A 3
2.4 Middle English stress
45
However, in potentially three-ictic (expanded) verses, the inflected verb in verb + noun object sequences is often weaker than the following noun. In such instances it will not participate in the alliteration in spite of its linear placement to the left of the other stressed word in the verse: e holden him galful & god & god of þe tounge He takis a boll of bras burneschid full clene I seghe ane hert with ane hede, ane heghe for the nones
Al B 668 WA 55 P3 A 25
There is nothing surprising about the metrical suppression of the stresses in the lines above. While within the italicized pronoun + finite verb strings the verb would be more prominent, on the utterance level the constituents to the right are more prominent. This allows metrical suppression of the verbs earlier in the utterance. A binary tree representation showing the prosodic relations in for example, WA 55 looks like this:
Notice the accumulation of S nodes above bras; it is the prosodically most prominent member of the utterance, while on the left, takis is the weakest of the clitic group heads on the first level. In verb + adverb phrases there is a strong tendency for both parts to alliterate: þanne ofsaw he ful sone þat semliche child þat so loveliche lay and wep in þat loþli cave þus ede þai furthe egirly and entirs þe vaile
WP 49 WP 50 WA 1328
Such instances of doubly alliterating finite verb + adverb collocations are frequent enough to create the impression of a syntactic formula. More examples of such alliterating pairs are: crye kenly, fandis fast, fetis freschely and fast, held hettirly from The Wars of Alexander. In William of Palerne we find: keste kyndeliche, curteisle cacces, hit hastely, reuliche rente, pertilyche pleide, ros radely, seþþen seyde, told treuly, þroly þonked, witliche went, etc. In such instances the order of the verb and the adverb is reversible; prosodically the two form a phrase within which each member is strongly stressed. The phrase as a whole will be right-prominent.
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2 Linguistic structures in verse
Modals and auxiliaries are usually unstressed, but occasional metrical promotion is possible: We witen, weies, ful wel þat e were alle þus was þis witty best werwolf ferst maked and couþe ful craftily kepe alle here bestes He wrot a wondirfull wile and will e now here
Al B 585 WP 159 WP 174 WA 416
2.4.3 Compound stress Pure compounds, i.e. words in which both roots exist independently, for example, b´ocl`ered ‘learned,’ m´ıddel`ert ‘earth,’ s´e-fl`ode ‘flood,’ have main stress on the initial syllable. The left-prominence of such compounds is easily tested in verse although the paucity of early Middle English verse texts and the considerable looseness of the verse structure sometimes undermine the value of the testimony prior to the fourteenth century. Thus, in one of the earliest postConquest compositions, The Proverbs of Alfred (c. 1150–1180), all compounds except for one questionable case alliterate on the first syllable.99 The evidence in Lagamon’s Brut is also in favor of stronger stress on the first root, but already in this text we find lines in which the stress of the second element is put to metrical use: Feðeren he nom mid fingren; & fiede on boc-felle Logice hatte ðat eit-lond. leode nere ðar nane. A steores-man ham talde wil-spel; ðat he Spaine isæih.
Lagamon 26 Lagamon 561 Lagamon 677100
The metrical relevance of the second root in compounds is a well-established fact in Old English verse. What is noteworthy in the Lagamon’s Brut examples above is not that for example, lond in eit-lond ‘island’ has prominence, but that it is only the second root that alliterates. While we can not assume that this is necessarily prosodically significant, it is still a conspicuous instance of disregard for the prominence relations between the two parts of the compound. In the poems of the fourteenth century initial stress on compounds is the predominant pattern: 99. The dating is the presumed date of the composition of the archetype. The two best texts are from the second half of the thirteenth century, see Minkova (1997a). The questionable line (C 499) involves a possible impure rhyme on (li)f : daies liht, where (li)f is editorial. Further discussion of the evidence on compound stress in the early Middle English Proverbs of Alfred can be found in Minkova (1997a: 444–449). 100. The citations are from the Ms. Cotton Caligula A.IX, ed. by Brook and Leslie (1963–1978). Electronic text available through the Middle English Compendium.
2.4 Middle English stress A bronde at his bede-hede, biddes he no nother Buk-tayles full brode in brothes there besyde And al manere of men in mylk-quyte clathis Dom as a dore-nayle and defe was he bathe
47
W&W 239 W&W 333 WA 1621 WA 4874101
Even in those much more tightly structured compositions, however, the poet can take advantage of the morphological independence and prosodic salience of the second elements of compounds. Sometimes one and the same compound can alliterate on either of its roots depending on the lexical context: He heldes doun in þe heywey and halfe-deyde liggez For he was dased of þe dint and half -dede him semyd
WA 1056 WA 4125
This usage is unsurprising in view of the fact that the second parts of these compounds are independent productive roots. Linguistically, one can assume a certain flexibility of the stress, too, depending on morphological composition, as exhibited for example by Modern English compounds with half- which allow both initial main stress and main stress on the second element: h´alf-b`aked versus h`alf-p´ounder.102 Some fourteenth-century examples of the metrical use of secondary stress in compounds are cited below; they all involve unambiguous metrical promotion of the second root: And hit lyfte vp þe ye- lyddez and loked ful brode þe hole- foted fowle to þe flod hyez Qwen þe day- raw rase he rysis belyfe A grub a grege out of gr[e]ce ane erd- growyn sorowe þan seide William witli, ‘My derworþe herte þurth malice of his stepmoder, as e mow here after
SGGK 446 Cleanness 538103 WA 392 WA 1877 WP 1745 WP 2640104
Such metrical suppression of the stress on the left root was not allowed in Old English, where the second element of a compound can alliterate only if the first 101. Other examples of alliteration on the first element of a compound in The Wars of Alexander are found at lines 284 (stele-grauyn stanys), 468 (chalke-quyte as any chasse), 608 (wald-e ed was as þe writt), 3974 (of seeles and of see-bules), etc. 102. This word fits the pattern of finally-stressed compounds identified in Fudge (1984: 147) as (Numeral + Noun) + er = Noun. Other examples are f`our s´eater, s`ıx f´ooter, etc. Fudge provides a comprehensive list of patterns of initially-stressed and finally-stressed compounds in Modern English (1984: 144–149). 103. Cleanness: An Alliterative Tripartite Poem, ed. by I. Gollancz, Select Early English Poems 7 (1921). The pattern of compound adjectives in -ed with final stress is frequent in Modern English: p`ıg-h´eaded, bl`ue-´eyed, etc., see Fudge (1984: 147). 104. William of Palerne, ed. by Bunt (1985). The more frequent alliteration for derworþe is on das in 1538, 2633. The compound stepmoder alliterates on st- in 4099, 4331, 4339, see Bunt (1985: 79). Another compound which alliterates either on the first or on the second root in WP, not mentioned by Bunt is wicchecraft ‘witchcraft’ which alliterates on /w-/ at l. 118, but possibly on /k-/ at l. 120.
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2 Linguistic structures in verse
element does too. The difference is in the application of the parametrical rules of alliteration, not in the way in which compounds were stressed. In principle, the linguistic presence of stress, even if it is a non-primary stress, can be utilized in meter; the chances are commensurate with the embeddedness of the stress. A parallel to the /gr-/ alliteration in erd-growyn ‘earth-grown’ (WA 1877) or /m-/alliteration in stepmoder ‘stepmother’ (WP 2640) is provided by the metrical treatment of compounds in ME syllable-counting verse. Occasionally compounds whose first root is a monosyllable are placed so that the left side of the compound is in an odd, or metrically weak, position, and it is the right half of the compound that matches the prominent even position, as in the following lines from the earliest specimens of such verse: Her e´ ndenn tw´a Goddsp´elless þ´uss þin e´ ene b´oþ colbl´ake, & br´ode
Ormulum 3490105 O & N 75106
2.4.4 Phrasal stress The left-heavy metrical contour of Old English verse disallows any firm conclusions about the placement of phrasal stress. In addition to the circularity of the metrical arguments, the reconstruction of the earliest prosodic relations is complicated by uncertainty regarding the dividing line between compounds and free-standing phrases. Minkova and Stockwell (1997a) examined the research history and the evidence for Old and Middle English phrasal stress and concluded that for Old English the assumption of a prosodically right-strong noun phrase is justifiable on typological grounds. By the fourteenth century phrasal stress is widely testable in verse.107 The salience of this prosodic contour in verse may have been reinforced by exposure to French prosodic patterns, with dominant right-headedness in syntactic domains larger than the word. The Middle English evidence that Minkova and Stockwell (1997a) used to test 105. The Ormulum ed. by Holt (1878). I am grateful to Niki Ritt for making the text available to me in a machine-readable form long before Professor Nils-Lennart Johannesson started the Electronic Ormulum Project now available at http://www.english.su.se/nlj/ormproj/ormulum.htm. 106. The Owl and the Nightingale ed. by Stanley (1972). 107. For an informative discussion of phrasal stress, its realization in the verse composed in different Middle English dialects, and its relation to the evolution of systematic rhyming in Middle English, see McCully and Hogg (1994). They assume, however, that the assignment of stress did change from Old to Middle English and attribute the presumed prosodic innovation to syntactic change. This assumption cannot be tested. As noted above, I prefer an interpretation of phrasal stress which relies on the stability of the right-prominent contour throughout the history of the language.
2.4 Middle English stress
49
phrasal stress was drawn from syllable-counting verse: The Owl and the Nightingale and the three fragments of the Romaunt of the Rose. The possibility of a buffer syllable, usually an inflexional -e, obscures the results because it allows perfect matching of the stressed syllables of both the adjective and the noun to strong positions in the verse line. Wiþþ þine m´ılde w´ordess Hiss a´ henn h´allhe flæsh ´ & blod
Ormulum 2806 Ormulum 3524
Turning to verse in which the rules of alliteration are more flexible and therefore more likely to reflect the cadences of the spoken language, we find some confirmation of the hypothesis that right-headedness did indeed characterize the phrasal prosody of early Middle English. The following examples from The Proverbs of Alfred leave no doubt that the nucleus of the italicized phrases was intended to match a metrical peak in lines which are unambiguously held together by alliteration.108 Ne may non ryhtwis king. vnder criste seoluen. And tþ gold grewe so gras doþ on erþe and he m(id) is welþe; wirche godes wulle. Mony mon haueþ swikelne muþ Mid fewe worde. Wismon
The same text produces evidence of the placement of adjectival noun phrases in odd–even position in lines in which the iambic rhythm is very pronounced, as in: Wis child is fader blisse
Proverbs J 224110
Admittedly, some noun–adjective phrases in The Proverbs of Alfred are uninformative. Here belong cases of double alliteration swiþe strong (J 18), longes lyues (J 155), fewe frend (J 485), cases of cross alliteration, for example, fele biscopes, / fele boclered. (C 3–4), þat cold red is quene red. (J 444), or cases in which the second term of a phrase is in rhyme position as in the example below; note, however, the alliteration in (M 274): for what is gold bute ston. Bute it hafe wis man. wo is him þat iuel wif ; Bringeþ to his cot-lif.
Proverbs M 108–109 Proverbs M 274–275
108. The examples are discussed also in Minkova (1997a). 109. MS T has: þe wise mon mid fewe word. Compare these examples to:
fi(urh) þæs deofles lore
þeo þe likede wel
(Soul’s Address, E 21)
110. Wis child is fadiris blisse (T 224), Wis child; is fader Blisse. (M 224).
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2 Linguistic structures in verse
Predictably, there are deviations from the unmarked right-prominence of the phrasal unit.111 In addition to the susceptibility of any lexically stressed syllable to metrical promotion, in phrasal units the violation of the natural prosody-tometer matching can also be due to stylistic choices prompted by the need to emphasize a particular word. Such can definitely be the motivation of some syntactic inversions in the later verse. The central observation here is that metrical and stylistic preferences are always in a position to override the unmarked prosodic contour in the ambient language. This is not sufficient reason to assume that the phrasal stress prominence in the spoken language has necessarily undergone a shift. Recovering phrasal prominence relations from the later Middle English alliterative verse is not a straightforward matter either. On the one hand, the convention of assigning alliteration to adjectives and nouns makes it very likely that in those positions in the verse where alliteration is expected, at least the first word will alliterate. Normal order of the noun phrase puts the adjectives and all other simple determiners to the left of the noun. Consequently, the statistically most frequently alliterating part of the noun phrase will be the adjective: For dyn of the depe watir and dadillyng of fewllys. fie proude kyng of persee þat passes vs agaynes Sum was smeth smaragdyns and oþire small gemmes
W & W 44 WA 170 WA 3798
The reliability of such alliterative placement for reconstructing phrasal stress in speech is called into question by several considerations. First, the promotion of the prosodically weaker member of a free syntactic phrase to metrical ictus is the mildest infraction of the prosody-meter interface because it refers to a large prosodic domain. Second, the occurrence of otherwise unmotivated syntactic inversions suggests that the requirements of meter and alliteration can override the unmarked order of the syntactic constituents within a phrase. By extension, the ‘normal’ prosodic contour of the phrase can be tweaked to fit the meter.112 In the WA lines below inversion in the b-verse is driven by the need to satisfy the obligatory alliteration on the first lift: 111. Two counterexamples I have found are: He is one. rihtwis. and so riche king. fii dueþe gin þu delen þine dere frend
Proverbs J 55–56 Proverbs J 477–478
112. On the issue of metrically induced syntactic transformations in syllable-counting verse, see Youmans (1983, 1996).
2.4 Middle English stress Was neuir na hony in na hyue vndire heuen swettir And þus þai dryfe furth þe drit of daies foure score fiare sae he figours of fischis & fourmes diuerse
51
WA 3983 WA 5001 WA 5673
The attention to alliteration is also clear from comparing the placement of one and the same adjective in different positions within the adjective-noun frame depending on the position of the phrase in the line. In the first pair of lines cited below the alternation between the kynge ryche and the riche kynge is an example of the priority of meter over normal constituent order; similar choices are made with kene and many in the other sets of lines cited below: Bot sen ye knowe noghte this kythe ne the kynge ryche Als radly as þe riche kynge rase on þe morne fie bounde of a brit son, & a brande kene Of þe conquest of þire cocatrices and of þa kene bestis Reches him of rede gold ranson[i]s many To moue þus ouir þe mountey[n]s & ouir þe many watirs
W & W 134 WA 430 WA 427 WA 4089 WA 1789 WA 2093
Another manifestation of the role of the metrical requirements is found not only in the different treatment of syntactically identical strings depending on the metrical and alliterative environment, but also the possible parasitic insertion of semantically bleached words for the sake of alliteration. In Wynnere and Wastoure (W & W) 122 below, grete is in the dip, its expected placement.113 Trynes one a grete trotte and takes his waye
W & W 122
On the other hand, it is a convenient way of filling out the alliterative pattern. The presence and promotion of great in W & W 95 and all examples from WA below illustrate that point: Full gayly was that grete lorde girde in the myddis fiis grete god full of grace sall glide to þi chambre Graunt mercy quod þe grete clerke to þe gude lady And þou þe gouernere of grece þat ware grete wondire
W & W 95 WA 358 WA 370 WA 975
In that context, it is not surprising that doubly alliterating adjective–noun phrases abound in all late Middle English poems; some examples from W & W and The Wars of Alexander are: 113. A check of the distribution of the adjective great in Kottler and Markman (1966) shows that for SGGK 54 percent of the great + N instances alliterate on the noun, versus 46 percent of alliterating great.
The Wars of Alexander comly qwene cristall clere depe desire gracious godis happy haly hereman lowde later mekill maistir mity men proude pere proude place worthi werriouris
The alliterative pairs shown here are not the result of a systematic search. They are very much part of the basic alliterative fabric of the late Middle English compositions. Such virtuosity would be difficult to imagine if the prominence was regularly on the initial syllable of the adjective, as with the compounds. Finally, as in early Middle English, some noun phrases alliterate on the head noun, in violation of the more common patterns of left-prominent alliteration or double alliteration. Such deployment is fully in line with the reconstruction of a phrasal stress distribution that replicates the prosodic patterns of Modern English: He sae þam in þe hie see sailand togedire Of ald peres out of persy prince[s] and dukes And smale mees myd hem: mo than a thousand But quicly clepud he þe ong knites alle
WA 61 WA 3267 PP P.145 WP 1182
2.4.5 Affixes and stress The ability of affixes and affixoids in the spoken language of any period of English to attract stress is best defined as a function of their morphological salience, prosodic environment, and semantic factors. These are disparate and internally gradient factors and as a result, the issue is much more complex than any blanket statement could cover. Prior to the appearance of first-hand accounts of the stress patterns of affixed words, the only direct method of testing levels of stress is by establishing the behavior of affixes in verse where their deployment in strong positions may be a measure of their salience. No clear-cut levels of non-primary stress on derivational morphemes can be established, however – all that we can say is that at the lower end of the scale are the inflexional suffixes which are weak as a rule; they are only promotable in verse under the most exceptional circumstances, see Minkova (1996a). In hindsight, historical phonological developments may suggest some differences too. Thus –dom
2.4 Middle English stress
53
(OE -d¯om), and –hood (OE h¯od) have identical syllable structure historically, but the shortening of the original long vowels must have occurred at a different time, suggesting that –hood, which presumably went through the Great Vowel Shift, preserved a higher level of stress for a longer time.114 Of the two types of affixes, only the stress-attracting prefixes intersect with alliteration. I will return to the discussion of these prefixes after some brief comments on the stressability of suffixes in Middle English, which, though an independent issue, provides a good comparison base for the behavior of prefixes. The common prosodic denominator of all derivational suffixes in Middle English, as in Old English, was that they were less prominent than the root to their left. Stress-shifts induced by Latinate derivational suffixes of the type define-definition, simple-simplicity did not exist. The potential alteration of the stress contour of affixed words when the addition of an inflexion places the suffix in medial position in Old English, for example, the change of single-stressed w´ısdom to, perhaps, w´ısd`omes, is not a “stress-shift” of the type induced by Latinate suffixes. The addition of some degree of stress on the suffix in Old or Middle English does not displace the primary stress from its position in the underived form of the word. The possibility of some degree of suffixal stress can be exploited metrically in stress-alternating syllable counting verse, where the suffixes can be placed in the even positions in an iambic line, for example: Of þine fule ´oel´ınge Vor sv´ıked´om haued schome & hete ´ & illc meocn´esse is e´ llennlæs Wiþþutenn h´errsummn´esse.
O&N 40 O&N 167 Ormulum 10908–09
As the outline in section 2.3 suggested, for Old English the non-alliterative criteria for prosodic prominence are controversial. The most plausible account would be to allow general conditions of eurythmy in the language and in the meter to condition the behavior of suffixes. A long string of unstressed syllables is an undesirable rhythmic contour; some syllables in that string will tend to be promoted to avoid this situation. The parallel promotion of derivational suffixes in stress-alternating verse in Middle English confirms the assumption that they inherited and maintained some potential for stress, intermediate between that of roots and inflexional suffixes. Tests on the promotability of suffixes are not directly applicable to the limited body of surviving early Middle English alliterative verse. Alliteration is predictably uninformative in this respect, and 114. Interestingly, the productivity of the two suffixes appears to have been sustained on the same level into Modern English, compare roguedom (1857), megastardom (1981), clubdom (1988) alongside matronhood (1836), guyhood (1912), matehood (1924), machohood (1987).
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the structural inconsistencies of the early Middle English material preclude speculations based on reconstructed metrical templates. Derivational suffixes are not eligible for alliteration in the later verse either. Although some texts relax the rule of alliterating main class words and place the alliteration, contrastively, on prepositions and conjunctions, there are no parallel cases of alliterating suffixes.115 An indirect argument for or against the preservation of the secondary stress on some derivational affixes, more specifically on the adverbial –lich(e), comes from assumptions about the structure of the b-verse in later Middle English alliterative compositions. Hagen (1992) found support for the reconstruction of a disyllabic –liche regularly attracting stress on the first syllable, backing the treatment of this suffix in Cable (1991: 92). On the other hand, it has been argued on independent grounds that the early Middle English period marks the beginning of a transition in the typology of word-formation: from residually root-based and stem-based word-formation to a focus on the word as the basic replicable unit. The prosodic correlate of this transition is the gradual reduction of the stress autonomy of the various word classes and the loss of the prosodic independence of the native derivational affixes.116 At the same time as this happens to the native suffixes, the borrowing of Romance derivational elements introduces new models of stress assignment on polymorphemic words which create the mixture of Germanic and Romance principles of stressing that we find in the language today. The latter process lies outside the focus of the present study; all that is needed to fill out the account is that suffixes were always prosodically subordinate to the root. The relationship between the main and subordinate stress was such that the subordinate stress was not sufficient to fill an alliterating metrical ictus. If words containing stressattracting suffixes, for example, -een, -ese, -esse, -et(te) had the same prosodic contour as in Modern English, –` – – ´–, the primary stress on these suffixes is never used in alliteration. Another possible test for the claim that suffixal stress is recognized in the alliterative compositions would be the distribution of suffixed words at the end of the line where two unstressed syllables are disallowed. In practice, however, derived words are studiously avoided at the 115. Bunt (1985: 79) found 26 lines (less than 0.05 percent) in William of Palerne with alliteration on linguistically unstressed syllables. All of these instances, for example posterne ‘back side’ alliterating on st-, batailes ‘battles’ alliterating on t-, emperour ‘emperor’ alliterating on r- are underived borrowings in which the heavy syllable to the right retains the right-hand prominence in the source language. This is not a linguistic violation, but a violation of the expectation that the leftmost letter of the root should alliterate. 116. The typological shift in word-formation in the history of English is discussed in Kastovsky (1992: 397 ff.). He points out that while Old English verbal inflexion was stem-based, nouns and adjectives were already moving towards word-based inflexion and derivation.
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end of b-verses. Inflected words that appear there do not provide reliable evidence for the behavior of middle syllables because of syncopation and final elision. The italicized words in the following lines are disyllabic by virtue of elision or syncopation of an unstressed <e>:117 And hase us fosterde and fedde this fyve and twenty wyntere And I slitte hym at the assaye to see how me semyde But, comliche creature, for Cristes love of hevene
W & W 206 P3 A 70 WP 1540
With prefixes the situation is, on the whole, similar, though here the alliterative evidence and the arguments are much more diverse and interesting. Native prefixes on verbs (be-, umbe-, for-, over-, under-, up-, with-, etc.), and verbal forms are normally ignored in alliteration: Quedir þaire kyng was becomen at þaire care kyndils And ichone gayly vmbygone with garters of inde He will forgiffe yow this gilt of his grace one For þer nis king under Crist þat he overcom nolde I vndiretake on my trouthe tire is þine awen fiou vpbraydis me for þe beute þat I þi blod schewid Bi a stounde was non so stef þat hem wiþstonde mit
WA 166 W&W 62 W & W 135 WP 1357 WA 1479 WA 2864 WP 3452
Predictably, some prefixes are promoted, either because they are used to form nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, or because they are semantically independent and therefore the resulting word is prosodically similar to a compound. fiou has feyned þe forwyse and fals alltogedire For he ne durst openly for overtrowe of gile And eiþer of hem a faire figure in here forhed hadde In owttrage, in unthrifte, in angarte pryde Of sum auenturus þyng an vncouþe tale
WA 715 WP 1402 WP 2881 W & W 267 SGGK 93
In the last two examples the negative prefix in unthrifte, vncouþe is in ictic position, but the promotion of this prefix is optional, as is clear from its metrical treatment in the following lines: All þe folke of his affinite at fresch ware vnwondid oure sowping in vnseson oure surfete of drinkis ‘A! has þat untrewe treytour trasted me nouþe
WA 1358118 WA 4568 WP 2075
117. Duggan (1990: 317, fn. 19) assumes that a word like tauernes ‘taverns’ at the end of the b-verse in PP 2.94 is stressed on the second syllable. The high probability of syncopation of the inflexional syllable renders this assumption unnecessary. 118. Stress on un- in this line would render the b-verse unmetrical, see below. Note also ambiguity in WA 2219: And vnethis sauyd I myselfe vnslayn of þaire handis, or in WA 158: þat euir he dured þat day vndede opon erthe.
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This ambiguity mirrors the treatment of this prefix in Old and early Middle English.119 The morphological composition, the syllabic count of the prefix, the prosodic environment, and discourse factors such as contrastive stress and emphasis are involved in the promotability of the prefix to stress. In verbal derivatives the likelihood of stress on the prefix is reduced, while a following unstressed syllable would increase the probability of stress on un-, and so would the formation of a novel word with un-. The variable behavior of this prefix with respect to stress in Old English was noted already. The OED reports that the number of un- words recorded in Old English is about 1,250 of which barely one-eighth survived beyond the Old English period. However, the productivity of the prefix persisted and new un- words came into the language in Middle English (unbusiness, unbispused, uncoverlich, ungrith, unskatheful, etc.). New formations with the unprefix meaning ‘reversal’ became very numerous in the sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth century the prefix is used with much greater freedom than is now possible (OED). Some more recent forms with the negative un- are unreason (1966), unproceed (1967), undynamized (1971), and with the ‘reversal’ un-: unblouse, undogcollar (nonce), unpearl (nonce). It should be noted that a stressed form of the prefix is now freely attachable to nouns as in uncheesecake, uncola, un-Halloween, un-kid, unmerger, un-office, unpowder, un-reader, un-suit, un-vacation, unwriter.120 The entire history of this prefix thus defies categorization; it is a typical instance of a “prefix” whose prosodic prominence comes very close to the prosodic prominence of semantically bleached roots. The assignment of stress on borrowed prefixes is subject to the same general principles: verbal prefixes will be less likely to attract stress, monosyllabic 119. For a discussion of the metrical and prosodic status of un- in The Proverbs of Alfred and the diachronic context for the distribution of the prefix in that text see Minkova (1997a: 448). The metrical use of un- in modern verse continues to vacillate. A search of the first ten hits on LION (Literature On-Line) for poetry between 1750 and 1950 containing the word uncouth makes this very clear. Alexander Anderson (1845–1909), whose metrical forms are very regular, uses ung´ainly, unc´outh, unb´utton, in his poem A Song of Labour (1873), but u´ ncouth and u´ ndeveloped in his To A City Friend (1875). Tennyson (1809–1892) uses unc´outh, un´earthly, unl´earn’d, unh´andsome, unwh´olesome, but also u´ ncouth, u´ ncanonical, u´ ndescendable, u´ nnumbered. 120. The examples are extracted from a posting on the American Dialect Society discussion group on August 14, 1998, archived at http://www.americandialect.org/adslarchive.shtml. In that message Thomas Paikeday writes: “The trend towards the un- + concrete noun, was popularized by Lewis Carroll: What is an un-birthday present? A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course (Through the Looking Glass, 1871). But the trend already existed in English. See OED at unshape (Carlyle, 1843), unaddress (1853), un-country (1964), un-book (1982), etc.”
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heavy prefixes and disyllabic prefixes are more likely to attract stress than light monosyllables, and various semantic and discourse factors may also be relevant. The prefixes a-, de-, dis- en-, re- in the examples below are unstressed – stress falls on the first syllable of the root to their right. Til I come to hise acountes as my crede me telleth Fyf & twenti olyfauntes defensable bestes “At youre preiere,’ quod Pacience tho, “so no man displese hym Croked and courbede, encrampeschett for elde And sone the sowre that hym sewet resorte to his feris
PP 6.089 SJ 445121 PP 13.135 P3 A 154 P3 A 58
Absence of stress is the most frequently found pattern for such prefixes. It is known, however, that many prefixed words in which the stress is on the root today were allowed to alliterate on the prefix in many of the Middle English alliterative compositions. He commaundiþ knytes to come consail to holde Rit in þe dawyng of day a diuinour he callis For his poverte and his pacience a perpetuel blisse And parfourme my profers and proven my strengthes That rechen for a repaste a rawnsom of silver & y schal þe redly rewarde & to Rome sende
SJ 263 WA 431 PP 14.214 P3 A 205 W & W 363 SJ 88
The placement of alliteration on prefixes which do not attract stress in Modern English has generated some interesting hypotheses regarding the relationship between stress placement and the rules of alliteration in Middle English. Most scholars assume that a mismatch between stress and alliteration is possible, as argued in Skeat (1878: xxxi–xxxii), Borroff (1962), Bunt (1985: 79), among others. An alternative view, which allows non-prominent words to be stressed when they appear in the context of other weakly-stressed words is presented in Duggan (1990). The issues around which the debate centers are the following: a Did poets and copyists feel free to alliterate on any initial consonant regardless of the syllable’s prominence in the spoken language? b Can prosodic and metrical promotion occur with some prefixes and not with others? c Were there linguistic stress doublets for all words that alliterate on weak syllables?
121. The Siege of Jerusalem, ed. by E. Kolbing and Mabel Day. EETS Original series 188. London: Oxford University Press, 1932. Electronic version available from the Oxford Text Archive, U∗ -1357-A.
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Duggan’s 1990 essay on these issues provides a comprehensive survey of the earlier positions and formulates the most recent hypothesis on these issues, namely that “stress and alliteration coincide in poems written in the unrhymed alliterative long line” (1990: 310), a positive answer to (c) above. The hypothesis rests on more rigorously restricted and restricting metrical rules defining the shape of the b-verse than had been available to earlier scholars, and on careful separation of archetypal readings from single manuscript readings. From his corpus of 18,528 verses Duggan adduces unequivocal metrical evidence that the initial syllables in words which disallow initial stress in Modern English: command, construe, maintain, remove, sustain, etc. could occasionally be placed in ictus. Although the proportion of the verses where this occurs is vaguely defined and so is the ratio of ictic versus non-ictic placement of particular items,122 Duggan’s illustrations (1990: 317–319) bear out his hypothesis: þan rat he fra þe regions and remowed his ost þan callis he to him carpentaris and comandis þaim swyþe Mit þou þe marches of Messedoyne mayntene þiselfe
WA 1172 WA 1240 WA 2098
In such lines alliteration on the initial syllable is the only way in which the verses can be metrical. From this Duggan concludes that such words were trochaic or dactylic in Middle English and that the fixing of the stress on the etymological root is a subsequent change. Arguments based on the coincidence of alliteration and stress have been traditionally favored by English philologists and Medievalists and the strict definition of the structure of the verse renders the evidence for metrical prominence incontrovertible. It is also generally believed that unlike syllable-counting and rhymed verse, alliterative verse represents much more closely and reliably the prosodic patterns of the spoken language. However, identifying stress with alliteration, especially in verse which is demonstrably tightly structured, is a dangerous step. The blanket assumption made by Duggan that every alliterating syllable was also a stressed syllable in the language ignores the possibility that the poets considered the requirements of meter more important than the stress-to-ictus matching. Moreover, the reconstruction of across-the-board “variable stress” loses sight of the fine morphological and phonological gradation that determines the likelihood of stress on a particular linguistic unit. Nouns and verbs should be treated separately, and compounds should be separated from simple stems. In principle, stress on man- in mankind, mis- in misuse, or 122. Except for some specific comments on the distribution of individual words in WA.
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un- in uncouth is much more likely than stress on be- in behold or for- in forsake. Native and borrowed prefixes are likely to be treated differently. Initial stress on words which are not morphologically complex or not recognized as such: contrary, maintain, ordain, salute, is typologically better fitted to the native system than initial stress on clearly prefixed verbs such as displease, enthrone, rejoice, remove. Individual preferences may play a role too.123 Duggan has shown convincingly how a more restrictive matrix of allowable alliterative patterns can usefully augment our prospects of reconstructing stress patterns in the language, but we still do not know which words allowed stress doublets and which did not. Metrical promotion under special conditions could occur in alliterative verse, as it clearly does in other types of verse. This phenomenon does not mirror the prosody of the language better than the evidence of forced rhymes elsewhere. Leftward stress-shifting in Middle English in b´ehold or f´orsake is as contrived as the rightward stress-shift in morn´ıng in Marlowe’s rhyme . . . dance and sing: each May morning or Coleridge’s happin´ess: distress,124 yet no one has suggested that morning or happiness were end-stressed in those poets’ pronunciation. Notice that even the famous phrase apt alliteration’s artful aid technically violates the requirement for identity of the onset of stressed syllables: the peak matching is on [a]: [-rey-] : [a:] [ey], so that a special adjustment is needed even if we allow different vowels to be paired in alliteration.125 Returning to the three questions above, I would suggest that the Middle English poets and copyists did indeed resort to alliteration on the initial consonant of a weak syllable more readily than the OE scops. Nevertheless, metrical promotion was more likely to occur with some prefixes than with others. With these considerations in mind, there is no justification to generalize and reconstruct linguistic stress doublets for all words that alliterate on weak syllables. The interpretation of the metrical evidence in alliterative verse cannot be argued globally for all kinds of lexical words, all kinds of syllabic sequences. Both theoretically and empirically, “imperfect” alliteration must be a graded phenomenon. Much more work needs to be done before we can conclude with 123. By “individual” I mean both the possibly conventional metrical treatment of a particular word, for example sustene ‘support,’ diuinour ‘magician,’ see Duggan (1990: 318–319). Similar conventions can be adopted for particular prefixes, e.g. com-, con-, re- in SGGK (Borroff 1962: 165–170). “Individuality” can be extended to the practice of a particular poet, e.g. Langland, for whom alliteration and metrical promotion in the b-verse may be decoupled from linguistic stress, see Schmidt (1978: 359–360), Duggan (1987: 53–64). 124. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, 21–22, 1600, Dejection: An Ode, 78–80, 1802. 125. The OED dates the first use of this now famous phrase to 1763 (Charles Churchill (1731–1764), Prophecy of Famine Poems, I. 101).
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any degree of certainty which words were stressed initially or variably in Middle English, but the theoretical presuppositions are becoming clearer. One step in this direction is to posit a typologically motivated scale of stressability. Generalizing over the findings for Old and Middle English, we can say that main stress was placed on the first root syllable of major class words. For other prominences, either within the domain of a single word or on levels above the word, we can reconstruct a tentative hierarchy of metrical promotability. The hierarchy correlates with the morphological and semantic independence of the unit, with its phonological properties, with the prosodic properties of the string as a whole, and, for the borrowed prefixes, with factors such as date of borrowing, frequency, and discourse-driven emphasis. Using Modern English examples, the following chart shows the chances of metrical promotability for the prosodically weaker members of a prosodic domain in descending order. Free-standing phrases: three things, proud queen, quite calmly, ran fast (w s -> s w) ⇓ Transparent compounds: scythe-blade, bathhouse, steel-gray, wild-headed (s w -> w s) ⇓ ∗ Obscure compounds: gospel, husband, sheriff, wedlock (s w -> w s) ⇓ ∗ Non-transparent prefixes: prejudice, register, transit (w s -> s w) ⇓ Heavy derivational suffixes: childhood, eastward, mankind, skillfulness (s w -> w s) ⇓ Light derivational suffixes: feathered, hardy, loathsome (s w -> w s) ⇓ Transparent prefixes: befriend, defeat, discount, mistrust (w s -> s w) ⇓ Inflexional suffixes: -er, -est, -eth, -(d)en, -es (s w -> w s)
The asterisked entries are included in the hierarchy for the sake of completeness. They are units whose compositionality is obscure and they are therefore treated like simple roots with stress on the first syllable. The parentheses show the linguistic prominence relations (w = weak and s = strong) to the left and the direction of the prominence reversal induced by metrical requirements to the right. The top and the bottom of the hierarchy cover the clearest cases: free-standing phrases are most susceptible to a switch in the prominence relations. At the other extreme of the scale, with inflexional suffixes, a reversal is least likely, i.e. under normal conditions inflexions cannot be placed in an ictic position. The intermediate ranking is hypothetical, but still testable. Additional considerations such as prosodic environment, the special treatment of verbal roots, or
2.5 Middle English alliterative versification
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various discourse-pragmatic factors can change the position of an item on the scale. 2.5
Middle English alliterative versification
Our understanding of the principles of Middle English versification is still imperfect in spite of some very significant advances in this field over the last two decades. Most notable in this respect are the contributions of Cable (1991), Duggan (1986b, 2001). This section offers a brief chronological overview of the metrical patterns found in the alliterative verse from which the phonological evidence is drawn in the rest of the study. As noted in the previous chapter, two short poems: Durham, c. 1100, a 21-line piece, and the 24-line poem The Grave, c. 1150, a total of 45 lines, comprise the entire body of surviving English verse for more than a hundred years, between The Death of Edward, a Chronicle entry for 1065, and The Proverbs of Alfred. Besides The Proverbs of Alfred the early Middle English non-isosyllabic “hybrid” verse corpus includes Lagamon’s Brut, The Worcester Fragments of the Soul’s Address to the Body, and The Bestiary.126 The only text in this group from which more extensive data are collected and used in this study is Lagamon’s Brut. The description of its structure and reliability for linguistic reconstruction requires a reference to the tradition from which this text emerged. The task of isolating and delimiting a hybrid verse tradition necessarily involves some overgeneralization and tolerance of exceptions.127 The search for unifying features of the non-isosyllabic verse produced in English in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has nevertheless yielded significant results. Norman Blake (1969) argues that early Middle English verse represents an intermediary form between verse and rhythmical prose, to which he gives the label rhythmical alliteration. The label is justified by his view that the continuity of the alliterative tradition in early Middle English is not to be sought in the survival of a “popular” alliterative verse tradition but in the rhythmical and alliterative nature of the prose works in the tradition of Ælfric and Wulfstan. Blake identifies some linguistic factors which might have influenced the changes in the alliterative mode but does not go into any detail, concentrating instead on 126. The addition of The Bestiary follows McIntosh (1982: 26 and n. 13), according to whom the “probably widely different provenance of these (and other such metrically similar poems as survive) perhaps indicates that the kind of alliterative verse they exemplify was a good deal more generally familiar in early Middle English times than is often suggested.” 127. In defining the common denominators of the alliterative verse form in early Middle English I draw on the discussion in Minkova (1997a: 435–441).
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the style (syntactic structure and vocabulary) of Lagamon’s Brut. He suggests (1969: 120–121) that “as the language became analytical instead of synthetic, the denseness, or tightness, of organization and the regularity of rhythm characteristic of classical Old English poetry were no longer possible. The growth and the number of grammatical words and the alternation in the stress patterns would change the rhythm of the language and tend towards expansiveness in poetry.” This statement echoes Lehmann’s (1956/1971: 100–103) appeal for a closer consideration of the linguistic factors in the development of verse form in Germanic and English.128 In this particular instance, Lehmann points to the role of inflexional weakening and loss: “With the further weakening of inflexional endings after the time of composition of the late Old English poems such as Judith, the alternating rhythm is almost mandatory.” The importance of inflexional attrition for the development of new verse forms can be questioned, but this does not invalidate the role of language change in the evolution of verse. The increased frequency of function words in Middle English, for example, correlates logically with the increased incidence of alliteration on such words in some texts. However, the general argument of synthetic versus analytical structure, though frequently used in describing the transitional verse forms in early Middle English, has not proven useful in accounting for the demise of the classical alliterative form in English. The replacement of inflexions by function words does not automatically result in rhythmic change or rhythmic alternation. The synthetic phrase b¯eore druncne, Beo 480b and its analytical equivalent ‘drunk on beer’ have the same prosodic contour, [s w / s (w)]. Loss of inflexions can result in an undesirable stress clash, here marked with Ø in the modern form, cf. Beo 625b Gode ð ancode ‘to God Ø thanked,’ Beo 1172a mildum wordum ‘with kind Ø words,’ Beo 1542a grimman gr¯apum ‘with grim Ø grip.’129 However, Old English poetry is not rhythmically regular, so the attrition of some inflections would not produce a recurrence of stress alternation. Moreover, in the meter of the twelfth-century Ormulum deviations from the strictly isosyllabic form are unthinkable, and that meter draws on the same linguistic structures available to the composers of alliterative verse. The trade-off between the appearance of more grammatical words in 128. For Middle English the premise that linguistic factors, more specifically right-edge phrasal stress, underlie the development of end-rhyme is exploited in McCully and Hogg (1994). 129. Seemingly unfamiliar with Lehmann’s work, David Starr (1970: 3) writes: “. . . we may safely assume that linguistic changes between A.D. 1000 and A.D. 1200 have a major effect upon . . . metrical changes . . . The most evident of these is the gradual leveling of inflections.” Although Starr addresses the emergence of the isosyllabic line and leaves the early Middle English alliterative documents outside his scope, the argument runs into the same problems in both types of verse.
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Middle English and the progressive loss of inflexions is of limited usefulness in describing the post-Conquest adoption of new metrical models. Blake’s basic insight, however, is correct and relevant in the context of linguistic reconstruction. First, early Middle English verse, by taking its cues from rhythmical prose, stays closer to the contemporary spoken language than other more highly organized and regular verse forms. A second, related, observation is that the absence of a rigorously respected template in the early post-Conquest alliterative material precludes the application of tests which can confirm or disconfirm various linguistic hypotheses. Blake’s ideas on the transitional verse form were adopted and developed further by Friedlander (1979) who makes an interesting proposal: early Middle English accentual verse can be defined not in terms of the properties of rhyme and alliteration, but by two quite concrete features, one metrical and one syntactic: a Each half line has two principal stresses (allowing for one or more secondary stresses in addition to the primary stresses). b In early Middle English accentual verse the half-line is a strong syntactic unit, and the full line is an inviolable one. As I have argued in Minkova (1997a), the application of the two tests does not work well for The Proverbs of Alfred. The mixed patterns of Lagamon’s Brut also show numerous exceptions. The observation regarding the syntactic integrity of the half and the full line is accurate, but since alliterative halflines are always syntactic units this is not a feature which sets Middle English verse apart from Old English; the question is whether the syntactic string is a phrase or a clause. It has been argued that while Old English half-lines are constituents, they are not independent clauses. The early Middle English poets, on the other hand “regarded the half-line as roughly equivalent to a spoken phrase or clause” (Friedlander 1979: 223). Obviously, a phrase and a clause are two very different syntactic objects, and while the general impression that line-ends coincide with clause-ends more frequently in the mixed meter does have some observational adequacy, the difference should not be overstated. The positioning of syntactic units in the metrical line unquestionably belongs in the overall characterization of the poetic properties of the transitional alliterative texts, but it cannot be used as a strict quantifiable criterion for defining the meter. The assumption of two main stresses in the half line is a more defensible principle, salvaged frequently by the potential for promoting a weakly stressed syllable in a string of clitics. This means that even after the common rhythmic denominator has been relaxed to “two principal stresses” there will be numerous violations and doubtful cases. Thus defined, the criterion does not
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produce a picture resembling the predictability and exhaustiveness of the fourposition principle for Old English classical verse, the templatic constraints of later syllable-counting verse, the tetrameters and the pentameters we know in Chaucer, or the tighter constraints governing fourteenth-century alliterative verse. In other words, even a very loose definition of a pattern of rhythmic recurrence cannot cover the metrical variety in the early Middle English alliterative compositions. Thus, there is no common metrical denominator that will cover all of the early Middle English non-prosaic alliterative compositions. They are clearly artistic artefacts, there is clearly great looseness of form. Pearsall (1977: 77) puts such mixed texts along “a continuum of alliterative writing of wide currency and varied function, a set of flexible and unformulated procedures within which individual writers could work according to their knowledge and inclinations.”130 We might like to think of that poetry much in the way in which we think of free verse in Modern English: no formal templates are obeyed, but free verse is still a particular blend of rhythm and style which allows us to experience it as different from prose.131 The poetry we find in early Middle English could not have been 130. Commenting on the difficulties of analyzing The Soul’s Address to the Body. The Worcester Fragments, Moffat (1987: 25) writes that “the terminological problems reflect the analytical ones.” Pearsall (1982) further describes the alliterative basis of various forms of verbal art in the following way: “Alliteration is employed as a stylistic device in Celtic verse, and there may be connections between Welsh poetry and the alliterative poetry of the West Midlands: there are examples of alliterative writing in Anglo-Norman, including one frenetic example printed in Reliquiae Antiquae; and of course alliteration is extensively employed in medieval Latin prose and poetry, including that of Richard Rolle. But these usages seem on the whole to be part of the rhetorical and stylistic practice of their own linguistic tradition, or else directly imitative (in the case of Anglo-Norman) of English, and the most that could be said is that the example of Latin may have enhanced the acceptability of alliteration in English, especially in devotional prose, as a means of rhetorical elevation” (1982: 36–37). 131. A possible parallel to the perception of the older tradition by the early Middle English versifiers is supplied by the alliterative efforts of modern poets and aspiring poets. An amusing example is the poem Grendel’s Dog, from BEOCAT, by the Old English Epic’s Unknown Author’s Cat; see Henry Beard, Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse (New York: Villard Books, Random House, 1994). A couple of the opening lines are sufficient to show how alliteration (and peculiar diction) can be indulged without regard to the authentic metrical shape of Anglo-Saxon verse: Brave Beocat, brood-kit of Ecgthmeow, Hearth-pet of Hrothgar in whose high halls He mauled without mercy many fat mice, Night did not find napping nor snack-feasting. The wary war-cat, whiskered paw-wielder, Bearer of the burnished neck-belt, gold-braided collar band . . .
2.5 Middle English alliterative versification
65
composed by disciples of the Anglo-Saxon scops because of the non-observance of various constraints, including constraints on the distribution of syllables in the dips.132 Still, for the purposes of the present study, alliteration continues to be a line-binding force, it is both “natural” and deliberate, and the evidence it produces from matching it is useful and reliable. The distinctive ingredient of alliterating stressed syllables continued to characterize the composition of verse through the early post-Conquest period and provides the strongest link to the compositions of the fourteenth century. The most important body of alliterative verse in the history of English was composed during the fourteenth century. The corpus includes masterpieces such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Langland’s Piers Plowman, numerous verse histories and romances of varying length and quality. Metrical descriptions of these pieces have been attempted for over a century. The goal of the earlier metrists, most clearly outlined in Oakden (1935/1968), was to compare the patterns found in Middle English to the Anglo-Saxon model and argue for or against the continuity of the alliterative tradition. Oakden’s impressively detailed statistics (1935/1968: 181–200), though useful in highlighting the internal variability of the patterns, fail to show the other side of the fourteenth-century alliterative corpus, its regularity. It was only in the mid1980s that Thomas Cable and Hoyt Duggan established independently, and on different grounds, that the enormous variety of rhythmic patterns and combinations found in the fourteenth-century alliterative corpus observed by all previous scholars can be reduced to a rather strict basic frame from which the variants can be generated.133 As can be expected from the universal principle of metrical laxness at the left edge of a verse domain and greater strictness at the right edge, it is the b-verse frame that has been defined with greater precision. Since the identification of the metrical prototypes and variants is not my remit, and since my alliterative data have been gathered from lines in which the alliterating staves are not in question, a brief outline of the main principles should suffice. Further arguments and details can be found in the works by Cable and Duggan cited here. The first regularity, acknowledged by several generations of metrists, is that within the long line of Middle English alliterative verse the a-verse and the b-verse are rhythmically different, see Cable (1991: 86), Duggan (2001: 481). The a-verse is heavier than the b-verse. It allows up to three strong metrical positions and all three may, but do not have to, alliterate. 132. See Cable (1991: 9, 12 ff.).
133. Duggan (1986b, 1988), Cable (1985, 1991).
66
2 Linguistic structures in verse And meled þus much with his muthe as e may now here When wawes waxen schall wilde and walles bene doun Slik care kindils in his curte quen þai þaire kyng myssid
SGGK 447 W & W 12 WA 149
Verses containing more than two metrical ictus are known as “extended.” Extended verses are not allowed in the second half-line. In that sense, the two types of verses are linearly fixed and mutually exclusive. Another property that distinguishes the a-verses and the b-verses is the distribution of the “strong” dips, sequences of two or more unstressed syllables ww(w). And bot the lengthe of a launde thies lordes bytwene Quen he was semely vp set with septour in hand At ane hert or ane hynde, happen as it myghte
W & W 54 WA 198 P3 A 5
The obligatory presence of two strong dips in a-verses containing only two ictic positions has been a matter of debate.134 Duggan (2001: 488) found that “most Middle English alliterative poets wrote two-stressed a-verses without two strong dips in fewer than fifteen percent of their lines.” In order to accommodate the “aberrant” lines in the definition of the structure of the a-verse, he proposes a less restrictive minimum requirement of two stressed and alliterating syllables and at least one strong dip (2001: 497). Within a framework of gradient metricality where statistical probabilities define the optimal arrangement(s) but do not preclude violations, the two positions can be reconciled. The minimum requirement of two stressed and alliterating syllables and at least one strong dip would constitute the highest, and inviolable, constraint on the shape of the a-verse, while the presence of two strong dips is not obligatory. A violation of the weaker, two-dip constraint does not render a line unmetrical, it simply reduces the likelihood of a poet producing such a line.135 134. Cable (1991: 92) defined “normal” a-verses as “two metrically stressed syllables and at least two strong dips.” The patterns presented here do not cover Langland’s metrical practice which is recognized as idiosyncratic, see Duggan (1986b: 577–578), Cable (1991: 86). 135. The idea of two ranked constraints where the candidate that satisfies both constraints is a “winner,” while a candidate violating the lower ranked constraint is a less desirable but still possible output, is clearly prompted by the analytic principles used in Optimality Theory (OT). It preserves the notion of “generalization” and “norm” defended in Cable (1991: 99–113) and at the same time accounts for the minority patterns which Duggan 1986b, 1988) identifies as detrimental to an abstract metrical all-or-nothing rule. An OT account of some Middle English metrical facts is attempted in Golston (1998); his handling of the philological details (1998: 720–726), however, is open to many serious challenges, especially on final extrametricality and right-edge prominence. This affects the validity of his proposal regarding the Middle English material.
2.5 Middle English alliterative versification
67
The structure of the b-verse requires that it should have exactly two lifts, and that the first of these lifts should alliterate. Alliteration on the second ictus is allowed. In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne For vch Wye may Wel wit no wont þat þer were And I slitte hym at the assaye to see how me semyde Cloped ful komly for ani kud kinges sone
PP P.1 SGGK 131 P3 A 70 WP 51
Metrists agree that one of the dips in the b-verse must be strong, and that more than a single weak syllable is disallowed at the right edge of the b-verse. The latter is an inviolable constraint shared by all forms of verse composed in Old and Middle English, including syllable-counting verse – the septenarius, the tetrameter, and the pentameter. One detail of the matrix on which the accounts of the structure of the b-verse in fourteenth-century alliterative verse disagree is the presence of an optional single weak syllable at the end of the b-verse. Overwhelmingly, the right edge of the alliterative long line is feminine [ . . . s w]. This has led some metrists, notably Cable (1991: 92), to state that “exactly” one metrically unstressed syllable should appear at the end of the second half-line. However, Duggan (1988: 125) reports that his scansion of 5,962 lines from a corpus of fifteen poems produces 439 b-verses with the structure [w w s s] and 438 instances of [s w w s]. In my calculation, this amounts to just under 15 percent of the overall data, a proportion of “exceptions” parallel to the proportion of two-stressed a-verses without two strong dips noted above. The distribution of the weak syllables at the end of the b-verse suggests that the best approach would be to associate it to the operation of constraints governing the size of the final weak position in the verse. We need two such constraints. The constraint ∗ -s w w (w)]verse (“do not place two or more weak syllables in the last dip of the line”) is inviolable. The constraint -s w]verse (“place a weak syllable in the last dip of the line”) is violable, but ranked higher than another violable constraint licensing a masculine verse ending, namely -s Ø]verse (“do not fill the last dip of the line”). This brief analytical sketch concludes my overview of the metrical patterns found in the later Middle English alliterative compositions. It should be pointed out again that neither the hierarchy of eligibility for metrical promotion nor the structural constraints on the fourteenth-century alliterative line will cover all possible rhythmic variants in the corpus. Individual poets resort to rare patterns to a different degree, Langland being the most notable outlier. Some additional comments on the metrical peculiarities of particular key poems will be made as they are introduced in chapter 6.
68 2.6
2 Linguistic structures in verse Some methodological remarks
This study builds on the commonly held assumption that the poetic records of any language are a most valuable source of information about its segmental and prosodic history. A logical corollary of this assumption for historical metrics and historical phonology is that the properties of a given linguistic system will influence the form of verse preferred by that system, and that linguistic properties can in turn be deduced reliably from the deployment of language structures in verse. The dominance of word-initial stress in Old and Middle English correlates with alliteration as an organizing structural principle in verse. Alliteration can therefore reveal the properties of the segments at the left edge of the syllable and the properties of the stressed syllable as a whole. In collecting my evidence for the next five chapters I have tried to proceed from known entities and properties of the linguistic structure, relying on independently available prosodic and segmental information. When we turn to verse written in a language whose properties are reconstructed, a very difficult situation arises: pessimistically put, we are trying to define the unknown by the unknown. The dilemma is familiar: reconstructions of verse form rely on the reconstruction of the properties of the phonology, which in its turn relies heavily on the deployment of particular forms in verse. However, the circle does not have to be terminally vicious, as many studies of the language of Old and Middle English verse have successfully shown. First, English historical linguists now control a sufficient body of evidence for the phonology which comes from sources other than verse. This kind of evidence should always be introduced in the argument and used as a testing ground for verse-based hypotheses. Second, the statistically strong pattern regularity of a given poetic composition provides support for reconstructing a metrical template from which alliterative data can be extracted confidently. Third, general theoretical and typological arguments can be used to evaluate the plausibility of a particular reconstruction. Throughout this study, then, an attempt will be made to avoid the charge of epistemic circularity or petitio principii by turning to phonological information outside verse, and by justifying the assumptions about verse structure independently of the target of explanation. Another issue which arises in the context of gathering data from historical texts is the reliability of the textual evidence. The tension between philologists and editors on the one hand, and linguists on the other, is a well-known problem in historical language studies. In the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth century, when the huge bulk of the editorial and philological
2.6 Methodological remarks
69
scholarship in historical English was done, there was no conceptual rift between the two types of work. Increased specialization in the last several decades created new and vigorous disciplinary branches which developed their own theories and methodologies. Theoretical linguists whose work is aimed at modeling human language and language change have been accused of ignoring the untidy realia of the unedited text, while linguists are uncomfortable with the traditional philological approach of avoiding strong generalizations in order to accommodate the messiness of real data. The problem is compounded by the fact that linguists usually rely on “doctored” texts which may not be representative of authorial intent, and which can be riddled with scribal errors, corruption of form, and various other mutilations which remove them further from a usually non-existent original. Duggan (1988: 121) identifies “the character of manuscript transmission and the accidents of manuscript survival and likewise . . . scholarly na¨ıvit´e as to what constitutes an adequate textual basis for metrical study” as one of the chief difficulties in describing the features of alliterative verse. In an ideal polymathic world a historical phonologist would also be an expert archivist, paleographer, comparative philologist, cultural anthropologist, a sensitive reader of verse, and a cutting-edge theoretician. Realistically, of course, even in the age of computer-aided research, this is impossible, and when we cross our disciplinary boundaries we have to stand on each other’s shoulders if we want to see beyond what is already known. I recognize the important cross-connections between the editorial philosophy behind the production of a “text” and the reliability of the data on which a particular hypothesis is based and I have made every effort to avoid distortion of the quantifiable textual information due to scribal interference. Though the goal of the investigation gives priority to historical poetic texts and thus makes chronological references desirable, the linguistic claims in the study range over a much broader spectrum of typological and structural issues in the history of English. Chronologically, the focus of the book is on Old and Middle English, spanning eight centuries of verse production, between the seventh century and the end of the fifteenth century. Since many of the linguistic issues seen through the angle of verse are of general interest, in many cases references back to proto- and West Germanic, as well as forward to early Modern and Modern English, will be made as appropriate. In my choice of research material I have tried to be guided mostly by the intrinsic linguistic interest of the various sources, though a heavy reliance on Beowulf examples for the discussion of the alliterative issues in Old English will no doubt expose some non-linguistic preferences on my part. Availability of some Middle English texts in electronic form, the existence of concordances, as well as the agreed-upon quality of the
70
2 Linguistic structures in verse
editorial work on which research like this has to rely, have also been important in the selection of texts. An enrichment of the many insightful descriptions of the stylistic and vocabulary shifts that occurred in English alliterative poetry from Old to Middle English is outside the scope of this book. This is not to deny the crucial part played by phenomena such as compound formation in the composition and stylistic identity of Old English alliterative verse, or alliterative rank and formula in Middle English. Nevertheless, vocabulary changes per se are unenlightening in terms of metrical form: “. . . poetic rhythm is much less dependent on vocabulary than on phonological features of the language, such as systems of sounds, stress, pitch, and syllabic structure” (Lehmann: 1956/1971: 66). It is precisely those aspects of Old and Middle English that the next five chapters will address: the history of individual sounds, consonant clusters, and the history of syllable structure. The unifying principle in all cases remains that of using verse evidence for linguistic reconstruction. Matching phonological structure to metrical structure is a familiar and timehonored heuristic. Here the methodology has been extended to some linguistic issues previously untreated or only partially treated with reference to verse: the history of the palatals and the velars, the history of the syllable onset, the cohesiveness of initial clusters and their reduction. Many applications of the “matching” idea to the reconstruction of the phonological history of English predate the theoretical insights of contemporary linguistics; there is much to be learned yet by using new analytical tools on philological data, now much more readily accessible and amenable to quantitative evaluation.
3
Segmental histories: velar palatalization
This chapter introduces the first concrete application of the premise that poetic meter, in all of its diverse forms, is a valuable source of historical information on the language it deploys. Having outlined the structure of the various metrical types which form the basis of the source material, I will now use verse evidence to assess and challenge some established positions concerning the evolution of the velars and the palatals in the history of English. The hypothesis that will be tested is that /tʃ/ and /ʃ/ were not phonemes in English until after c. 1000. The phonemic split of early OE [γ] into /j/ and /g/ and the merger of the voiced palatal fricative [] with the pre-existing /j/ occurred around the middle of the tenth century.
3.1
The Old English consonant system
The starting point for the discussion of the segmental histories in this chapter is the reconstructed consonantal system of Old English. The standard philological reference books are unanimous about how the graphemic–phonemic correspondences in Old English should be represented. Except for the terminology based on phonemic distinctions used in the second half of the last century, it is largely nineteenth-century scholarship that must be credited with setting up the inventory of Old English consonants still used today. Moreover, with some notable exceptions, such as the simplification of long consonants and consonant clusters, and the individual changes affecting /x/ and /r/, and possibly /l/, the English consonants are assumed to have had a rather bland and uneventful history.1 A recent successful text, Millward (1989: 84–85) states that: “The PDE [Present Day English] consonant system has remained highly stable for at least the past twelve hundred years.” The statement might be reassuring in the classroom, 1. Here and throughout this book I will follow the convention of using diamond brackets for graphic representations. Square brackets enclose phonetic, and slashes, phonemic, representations or reconstructions.
71
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
especially if viewed against the backdrop of the enormously complex qualitative and quantitative vowel changes in the history of English, but as usual, specific linguistic histories turn out to be less simple than their textbook records and some unanswered questions remain. The first such question prompted by a more careful look at the verse evidence concerns the status of the velars and the palatals in Old English. The Cambridge History of the English Language (Hogg 1992b: 95) presents the inventory of the consonants of classical Old English as including the nineteen phonemes in the chart below. The chart does not include phonemic geminates. I have added the phonetic categorization of palatoalveolar for the third column; the double lines separate the part of the system to the right of the dentals that will be of interest in this chapter.2 (1) Voiceless Stops Voiced Stops Fricatives Sibilants Affricates Nasals Liquids Approximants
3.2
Labial p b f
Dental t d s
Palatoalveolar
Palatal
Velar k g x
ʃ tʃ, d
m
n r, l
w
j
The alliterative conundrum
All entries on the chart in (1) are intended to represent phonemically contrastive entities. The affricates /tʃ/ and /d/ in the original chart are not aligned with either the dental or the palatal place of articulation; instead, they are given an intermediate position between the dental and the palatal column. This taxonomic indeterminacy with regard to place is prompted by the composite nature of the affricates which combine both dental and palatal properties. In addition to the analytical issue of whether the entities /tʃ/ and /d/ are single phonemes or phonemic sequences, the degree of palatalization and affrication in them is unclear. This is a source of scholarly discomfort for the linguist and a serious problem when the reconstructed linguistic form is taken as the basis for understanding and appreciation of the qualities of a poetic text. When we 2. It is possible that the realizations of /t/ and /d/ were palatoalveolar rather than dental. Except for //, in fact, all consonants in the “dental” column in (1) could have been alveolar. The reconstruction of the phonetic specifications of these consonants will not be at issue here; I have therefore reproduced the classification as it appears in the Cambridge History of the English Language (CHEL), I.
3.2 The alliterative conundrum
73
try to read Old English poetry aloud, we are likely to stumble at lines such as the ones in (2): (2)
Faced with such lines, neither the historical linguist nor the literary historian will find the chart in (1) helpful. Are these lines defective? One way out of the dilemma would be to say that for the items spelled which later develop the affricate: chester < ceaster, choose < ciosan, we should assume alliteration on [kj ], not affrication to [tʃ]. This would be in line with the strict observance of identity in alliteration elsewhere in the poem, but it would contradict the reconstruction of the consonantal histories inherited from the nineteenth century. If we relegate the problem to chronology alone, acknowledging the very early date of composition of Beowulf and thus taking it outside the time-span of “classical” Old English, the problem does not go away. A search of the entire database for the late West Saxon verse and for the late verse of undetermined provenance in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus yields no results supporting full contrastive affrication; the patterns remain the same as in Beowulf .6 Alliteration between /k/ and the forerunner of /tʃ/ continues to appear in later verse, all the way to the end of the tenth century, in texts which are certainly at least “classical,” if not “late” Old English:
3. ‘chester-dwellers, / keen heroes all.’ For the verbatim translations from Beowulf I have relied mainly on Porter (1993), though in many cases my choice of words will be based on their transparent phonetic relation to the surviving lexical item, as in the case of ceaster ‘camp’ and c¯ene ‘brave’ in Beo 768. Translations in this study are provided only for the Old English citations. 4. ‘to choose / king any other’ 5. ‘or the kingdom / choose would’ 6. Fulk (1992: 259) also confirms that the velar and the presumed “affricate” pronunciations of are not indisputably distinguished in any of the later poems of the Old English poetic corpus. One minor graphic curiosity is found in Cnut’s Song, a late West Saxon composition: Merie sungen þe muneches binnen Ely þa Cnut ching reuþer by Cnut 1 One could argue that the spelling for [k] shows a continuing perception of the palatal and velar manifestations of /k/ in late Old English as belonging to one and the same linguistic entity. Hogg (1992a: 265) cites spellings in Northumbrian texts, used both for palatalized and unpalatalized variants. Since there is no consistency in the use of spellings in Old English, they cannot be taken as constituting proof of the phonemic status of /tʃ/. The spellings can, of course, be linguistically suggestive of scribal awareness of a phonetic distinction between a velar stop and a palatalized variant of the same phoneme.
74 (3)
3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization in cildes had / cenned wurde Sum cræft hafaþ / circnytta fela to cynerice / cild unweaxen his cyme kalend / ceorlum and eorlum and mid cyricsocnum / cealdum wederum ðe clene Cudberte / on cildhade
Elene 1147 The Gifts of Men 918 Death of Edgar 119 Menologium 3110 Exhortation 4811 Durham 1612
The list can be extended. A search of The Metrical Psalms of the Paris Psalter13 shows other alliterating pairs for which the reconstruction of an affricate prior to the end of Old English is problematic: ceose : gecorenum, costunge : cigde (Verse 5), cigde : cuðlice (Verse 15), ciricean : Crist (Verse 24), cyrcean : cristenes (Verse 31). The verse evidence shows that the voiceless velars continued to fulfill the identity condition for alliteration into the eleventh century. This suggests that we should reexamine either the claim of the reality of a phonemic entity /tʃ/ before the end of Old English, or the assumption that alliteration was based on phonemic identity. Independently, both of these claims have merit, but they are incompatible in view of the evidence. This is the conundrum referred to in the heading of this section. The comparison between the reconstructed set of consonant oppositions in (1) and the examples in (2) and (3) defines the problem. Interestingly, the problem continues in early Middle English, but in a different form. Without putting too much emphasis on the reliability of the evidence, since attestations are scarce and the material is structurally not as informative as the comparable Old English data, we find, as late as the twelfth century, lines such as the following ones from Lagamon’s Brut:14 7. ‘as a child / was born.’ Elene is a ninth-century poem (Fulk 1992: 61). 8. ‘Some have craft / in many a church service.’ The Gifts of Men is a text included in The Exeter Book, second half of the tenth century (ASPR III: xiii). 9. ‘to kingdom / child un-grown-up.’ The Death of Edgar (975). 10. ‘his splendid lifespan / to churls and earls.’ The Menologium is dated after c. 965 (Fulk 1992: 261). Paleographically, the poem is written “in the same hand as the beginning of the Chronicle, fols. 115 b–118 b, which is dated by Plummer about the middle of the eleventh century.” (Krapp and Dobbie, ASPR III: lx). 11. ‘and by going to church / in cold weather.’ An Exhortation to Christian Living, late tenth century (Fulk 1992: 264). 12. ‘The clean Cuthbert / in childhood.’ The off-verse was emended by Holthausen from on gecheðe for metrical reasons (ASPR VI: 152). Durham is dated c. 1100. 13. The Psalms display many features, including, unfortunately, metrically irregular lines, which point to a late date of composition, though an exact date has not been proposed. The Paris Psalter itself is dated to the middle of the eleventh century, see Fulk (1992: 410–414). The citations and verse numbers are from the electronic version of the ASPR. 14. The composition is dated between 1189 and the first half of the thirteenth century. The numbered line citations are from the British Library MS Cotton Caligula A IX (C); edited text (Brook
3.2 The alliterative conundrum (4)
Heo bigunnen to chiden; cnihtes come ridden Hii bi-gonne to chide; cnihtes come ride (Otho) þa þet child wes iboren. wel wes Claudiene þer-foren; þo þat child was ibore; wel was Claudien þar-vore (Otho) & ladde þes childes moder. for quene nauede he oðer; he ladde þ(i)s childes moder; for cwene (n)a(d)++ ++ +++ oþer (Otho) Cador com to cuððe. bi-uoren Childriche Cador com to cuþþe. bi-fore Cheldriche (Otho)
75
4064 4794 4807
10729
Though alliteration is not the only metrical device in Lagamon’s Brut, its presence and importance is beyond doubt.15 This is a poem whose form harks back to Old English and it is possible that the practice of : was a misunderstanding of the pairing in the earlier material. In the Brut the pairing is certainly not letter-based, since the spelling in the text precludes conjectures concerning graphic identity as the basis for alliteration. One may consider the likelihood that these alliterative matches attest to the continuing identity of the velar and palatal values of /k/, perhaps in pronunciations recognized as archaic, but still acceptable for the special purpose of versification. In other words, the issue of what constitutes identity for the sounds in question continues to have repercussions in Middle English. A further consideration related to alliteration and reconstructed consonantal values comes from the striking lack of parallelism between the freedom with which scops and scribes alliterate words with the Germanic voiceless velar /k/ and the changed practice of alliteration of the voiced velar . This lack of parallelism is a major logical obstacle to allowing scribal convention to be a factor in the alliterative choices. If the Old English scops or scribes were content to use graphic alliteration on , there would be no good reason, and no explanation, for their failure to treat in the same way. Early Old English poetry allows the reconstructed Germanic palatal approximant /j-/, written as in geoc ‘yoke,’ geomor ‘mournful,’ gear ‘year,’ geong ‘young,’ to alliterate freely with the voiced velar sound also represented by as in the examples in (5): and Leslie 1963, 1976) made available by courtesy of the University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center. For comparison, I have also cited the corresponding lines in the later, Otho manuscript of the poem. 15. Oakden (1968: 142–143) counts 1,170 lines (out of the sample of 1,885 lines) linked by alliteration only, plus 226 lines linked by both alliteration and rhyme; a robust 75 percent of the lines have structurally relevant alliteration. Similarly, Burrow and Turville-Petre (1992: 95) count 126 out of their sample of 173 lines of the Caligula text as coupled by alliteration. Their figure of 73 percent confirms the pertinence of this metrical device for the composition as a whole and, possibly, for the reconstruction of the voiceless velar stop as maintaining at least an allophonic non-affricated realization as late as the end of the twelfth century.
76
3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
(5)
geoce gefremede; / gode wæron begen to godes dome. / Geomor siððan17 ¯ / in g¯eardagum18 Hwæt, w¯e GAR-DEna geong in geardum, / ðone god sende19
Genesis A16 1587 Genesis A 1610 Beo 1 Beo 13
Such etymologically “impure” alliterations, however, are no longer encountered in the later verse for the corresponding set of voiced velars; the voiced velar stop /g/ and the palatal approximant /j/ are kept strictly apart in late Old English: As is well known, palatal and velar g no longer alliterate in the latest verse. [Apart from two probable exceptions] . . . all . . . instances in the Chronicle poems distinguish the two: see Brunanburh (973) 15, 50, 64, Coronation of Edgar (973) 10, Death of Edgar (975) 8, 19, 26, and Death of Edward (1065) 3. The Maldon poet20 also distinguishes the two types of g, with instances at lines 13, 32, 35, 46, 61, 67, 84, 94, 100, and elsewhere . . . Ælfric, in his alliterative prose, also generally keeps velar and palatal g separate . . . The Menologium does not mix palatal and velar g for the purpose of alliteration; compare 10, 39, 100, 101, 109, 113, 117, 132, 171. (Fulk 1992: 258–259)
Thus, there is a contradiction and a challenge – and sufficient verse-based justification to question the soundness of the standard reconstruction. The general idea that the principles of Germanic meter are speech-based is firmly rooted in many seminal analyses of the alliterative tradition, see Lehmann (1956/71), Kuryowicz (1970), Russom (1987b), and numerous scholars before and after them who seek to establish the parameters of verse by reference to linguistic units. My goal, unlike theirs, is to reverse the direction of the inquiry, and to use some agreed-upon parameters of verse as the basis for linguistic reconstruction. This chapter focuses on alliteration; sound patterns such as alliteration and rhyme are special, parametrical attributes of poetic meter, see Fabb (1997: 123–127), and as such present distinctive interpretative problems related to the nature of the poetic composition and transmission. In order to situate the discussion more confidently within strictly linguistic parameters, we should first entertain the possibility of visual/letter identity in Old English alliteration. The authorship and transmission of AngloSaxon verse are seriously tangled and predictably controversial issues. The 16. ‘yoke made; / both were good.’ Genesis A, the older portion of the entire poem Genesis (lines 1–234, and 852–end), is dated to the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century (ASPR, I: xxvi). 17. ‘to god’s judgement / mournful since’ 18. ‘What! We Spear-Danes / in yore-days’ 19. ‘young in yards / him God sent’ 20. The Battle of Maldon (991/994).
3.2 The alliterative conundrum
77
“what if” question is: what if the scribes recording their own or somebody else’s compositions took alliteration literally and put letter over sound? What if the presumed [g] : [j] alliteration in the early verse was graphic, the same way that the [k] : [tʃ] was supposedly graphic in late Old English? In fact, faced with the unpleasant discrepancy between the alliterative practice with regard to the velars, the language historians have been evasive, have declared the evidence insignificant, or they have dismissed it altogether. More than half a century ago, in a pioneering and influential paper, Penzl (1947) noted the contradiction between poetic praxis and linguistic assumptions with respect to the velars. His goal was to establish the structural criteria for and the date of the phonemic split of /k/ into /k/ and /tʃ/ in Old English, however; he never questioned the hypothesis that such a split occurred. With reference to the disconcerting indication to the contrary provided by alliteration, Penzl wrote: All words with initial c alliterate with one another in Old English poetry. This fact is not conclusive evidence against a phonemic split, because it may have been due to a poetic tradition of the kind that is responsible for Modern English “eye-rhymes.” (Penzl 1947/1969: 97)
Similarly, Kuryowicz’s discussion of the parallelism between reduplication and alliteration (1970: 16) includes the comment that the practice of mixed velar-palatal alliteration of the later material is a “mechanical continuation” of certain alliterative patterns which had long ceased to be justifiably paired together.21 These are highly authoritative dismissals of the linguistic essence of the problem. Prior to addressing the philological data further and placing the findings within a more formal theoretical framework, it would be useful to assess the merits of the non-linguistic solution to the conundrum. Can the search for a linguistically-based explanation be preempted by assuming the existence of some Anglo-Saxon convention for graphic alliteration applied specifically but consistently throughout the period to the grapheme ? What are the odds that this letter, but not would be thus singled out? The historical balance between “sound” and “letter” in producing cohesion in alliterative verse is precarious and calls for discussion.
21. Kuryowicz’s exact wording is: “Das Alliterieren des Velars mit dem entsprechenden Palatallaut, der zweifellos schon vorliterarisch ein selbstst¨andiges Phonem war, zeugt von einer mechanischen Kontinuit¨at gewisser Alliterationstypen, die schon seit langem aufgeh¨ort haben, es zu sein” (1970: 16).
78 3.3
3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization Sound over letter
The title of this section echoes the shared assumption that “The so-called ‘alliteration’ depends not on letters but on sounds” Tolkien (1940: xxxiii).22 The familiar dictionary definition of alliteration as “repetition of the same consonant sounds or of different vowel sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables”23 is only superficially simple. The origin of the word points to the Latin littera ‘letter’ and the visual reference was pervasive in the early definitions.24 A more attentive reading of what alliteration means reveals an etymological contradiction, quite apparent in the “general” OED definition: “the commencing of two or more words in close connexion, with the same letter, or rather the same sound.”25 Addressing alliteration within the context of phonological reconstruction requires first that we determine the nature of the phenomenon in the documents under scrutiny: was it letters, or was it sounds that were being paired in Old English verse? As is clear from the previous two sections, the question would be of little consequence if the reconstruction of the consonantal system of Old English tallied perfectly with the scribal practice as found in the entire poetic records. This is not the case: the literature identifies the phonemicization of the voiceless palatal affricate /tʃ/ < [k’] as an Old English change; since it was presumably ignored by the scops, their practice with respect to is assumed to have been based on graphic sameness. The fully parallel phonemic development of from [g’] to /j/, however, is consistently reflected in the late poetry, prompting the assumption that the scops’ alliterative practice was based not on visual but on phonetic sameness. A separate puzzling point arises from occasional alliteration which seems to ignore initial [h-], which, again, would suggest that identity rests on sound, rather than letter. Moreover, if the principle of alliteration is repetition of the same letter, or of the same phoneme, neither the self-alliteration of 22. In Charles Leslie Wrenn (ed). 1940, Beowulf and the Finnesburg Fragment: a translation into modern English prose by John R. Clark Hall. New edition completely revised with notes and an introduction; with prefatory remarks by J. R. R. Tolkien. London. 23. Here cited from the American Heritage Dictionary, Electronic Edition, 1992. 24. Alliteration is defined as “a figure in Rhetorick, repeating and playing on the same letter” in Thomas Blount’s Glossographia; or, A dictionary interpreting such hard words . . . as are now used, 1656. The first strictly technical definition of alliteration as a structural principle of Germanic verse is later; it dates to 1774 (OED and Burchfield 1974: 174). 25. OED: from Latin al-, ad- to + littera letter + -ate, on the analogy of obliterate, from Latin. OED 2, 1989. The second OED definition of the word is: “The commencement of certain accented syllables in a verse with the same consonant or consonantal group, or with different vowel sounds, which constituted the structure of versification in Old English and the Teutonic languages generally.”
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sp-, st-, sk- as clusters, nor the practice of indiscriminate vowel alliteration fit the scheme; in spite of their broad attestation across Germanic, they become peculiar inexplicable phenomena. This chapter will concentrate on the velars; I will return to other alliterative issues in the following chapters. As noted above, the present section focuses on arguments in favor of analyzing Old English alliteration entirely as a speech-based phenomenon. Both the popular understanding of alliteration and its scholarly interpretations allow for a written and a spoken version of the process. If the linguistic premise of the issue can be defended, we can proceed to investigate and establish the linguistic margins within which the violations of the “sameness” are confined and to reconcile and revise accordingly the chronology of some disputed changes. In a literary–historical perspective, the approach promises an insight into the resources and mechanisms of Old English verse composition. On a broader linguistic scale, we can expect the approach to produce results important for the typological classification of Old English. Finally, in descriptive and etymological terms, the conveniently ambiguous and time-honored term alliteration may not be the optimal designation for the type of identity attested in Old English. Several considerations suggest that dismissing the apparent problem of matching the reconstructed consonant system and the attested patterns of alliteration by appealing to conventional graphic alliteration is a weak proposition. These are the psycholinguistic predictability of alliteration, the probability of language-verse “fit,” the predominantly oral mode of verse composition and transmission in pre-literate society, and a typological comparison to other verse traditions relying on alliteration. Some of these considerations are almost too obvious, but in their entirety they add up to a non-trivial defense of the phonological value of alliterative evidence. First, accepting the premise of a linguistically-defined identity as the basis of alliteration is well justified on general psycholinguistic grounds. In spite of its etymological meaning, the roots of what came to be called “alliteration” lie in the spoken and not the written language. In Modern English alliteration is a pervasive phenomenon cutting across dialects and registers. The desire to match the onsets of words for special effect can be observed all around us, from the nursery rhyme characters of Goosey Goosey Gander, Jack and Jill, Lucy Locket, Simple Simon, Tom Tucker, Tell Tale Tit (whose tongue shall be slit), to the idiomatic and colloquial bare bones, fit as a fiddle, go great guns, ship-shape, tit for tat, tip-top, to the mnemonic, proverbial, or simply trite down in the dumps, mealy-mouthed, waste not want not, worse for wear. Generations of kids twist their tongues to say Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers and a catchy title invites us to a program of Doleful Dirge & Dress: Music for Mourning & Measured
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Merry-Making. Richard Wright, writing on Gwendolyn Brooks, admired her ability to capture “the pathos of petty destinies, the whimper of the wounded, the tiny incidents that plague the lives of the desperately poor, and the problems of common prejudice.”26 The real sorting of significant categories: proverbial, easing of memory load, clich´es, deliberately clever, or esthetically refined, is irrelevant; in every case the appeal is to a cognitively simple yet powerful and productive model of foregrounding the auditory aspects of speech. It is a play on words in which choice of words is non-random in a particularly conspicuous phonetic way, and the non-randomness is what attracts attention and also what supports the memory of poets and performers. The universal psycholinguistic salience of alliteration is supported by studies of early childhood language development and second-language acquisition. Dowker (1989: 181) recorded alliteration in poems elicited from children and found significant, though declining, frequency of alliteration between the ages of 2–6. Another correlation which argues in favor of the naturalness of the process is that the most frequently used consonants in alliteration in Dowker’s study were /d/ (25 percent) and /b/ (14 percent); these are also the earliest consonants to be acquired cross-linguistically (1989: 198). Children with limited command of English produced twice as much alliteration as the very fluent native speakers. The parallel with child language acquisition and second-language learning should not be interpreted as alliteration being associated with some kind of “primitivism,” nor as a comment on the esthetic value of alliterative verse. Such values can change through time. The artistic impact of the early verse is culturally determined by its subject-matter, diction, allusions, possibly various syntactic features. The ease with which speakers understand and produce alliteration is an independent parameter, though one would assume that the ability to alliterate aptly was and is, indeed, an important and valued component of the poet’s craft in all traditions which employ alliteration. Against the background of strong psycholinguistic and cognitive motivation for alliteration, it comes as no surprise that phonological sameness binds together many of the formulaic phrases found in Old and Middle English. No matter how one defines a formula, phrases like earm anhaga ‘pitiful solitary-one,’ har hilderinc ‘gray-haired warrior,’ stið ond stylecg ‘strong and steel-edged,’ wlonc and wingal ‘brave and merry with wine,’ weox under wolcnum ‘grew under the skies’ derive their cohesiveness to a large extent from the matching onsets.27 26. Cited in the obituary for Ms. Brooks in The New York Times, December 4, 2000. 27. The examples are cited in Godden (1992: 502–503), whose definition of the “formula” is semantically oriented. Hutcheson (1995: 12–14) defines formulism in terms of morphosyntax.
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Discussing the semantic characteristics of the units known as “formulae” in the verse, Godden (1992: 504) notes: Beyond the formula itself is the principle of collocation: that within the verse tradition certain words are particularly frequently found close together, and that the association sets up an expectation in the listener which a poet might then exploit . . . Thus d¯om (‘judgment’, ‘fame’) tends to associate with d¯eað (‘death’), while fl¯od (‘flood, sea’) unexpectedly collocates with f¯yr (‘fire’). At times this can lead a poet into incongruous associations . . .
The impression of “incongruity” will be softened if we take into account the cohesive euphonic effect created by the alliterating pairs. As a key component of the poetic meter of the period the recurrence of the same sound was probably perceived by poets and audience as being as powerfully evocative as the semantics of the words. Along the same lines is also the observation that in early Germanic cultures, siblings’ names very frequently alliterate: Ohthere and Onela, Heorogar, Hrothgar, and Halga, Eanmund and Eadgils, Hrethric and Hrothmund, Herebeald, Hæthcyn, and Hygelac from the Beowulfian genealogies. The use of alliterative phrases in everyday language and as building blocks of verse continued throughout Middle English.28 Phrases such as def and dumb, faire and fre, fayre of face, have and holde, saye soþe, all of them also attested in Old English, are frequent in the poems of the fourteenth century. Oakden (1935/1968: 263) counts the staggeringly high number of roughly 4,250 distinct alliterative phrases in the non-rhyming alliterative poems of the fourteenth century. He uses the persistence of some alliterative phrases from Old to Middle English as an argument in favor of the continuity of the verse tradition. This is a valid argument, especially if “continuity” is seen both as lexical heritage and in terms of the linguistic naturalness and psycholinguistic appeal of phrase-internal alliteration. Although alliteration is not part of his definition either, his appendix of frequent formulaic types (303–316) is a striking demonstration of the overlap between the phenomenon of double alliteration and a morphosyntactically defined formulaicness. Some circularity on that point arises from the fact that Hutcheson lists only those formulaic sets which appear at least 50 percent in their respective types, but some types (1A1, D1∗ ) are defined as types which allow double alliteration only. Conversely, double alliteration in the formulae in verses of Type E types is also predictably rare, given the preponderance of verses classified as Type E which end in a finite verb. Some skewing is thus built into the way of classifying and presenting the data; the point is only tangential to the psycholinguistic salience of alliteration in Old English. On alliteration and word pairs linked by ne, ond, oððe, and swa in Beowulf see also Kendall (1991b: 112–115), who finds that on-verses containing these copulative conjunctions contain double alliteration in 135 lines, against only 8 with single alliteration. 28. The data on the alliterative phrases in Middle English are covered most extensively in Oakden (1935/1968: chapters 10–12).
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In summary, there are two aspects to the “naturalness” of alliteration: psycholinguistically and cognitively it is a likely byproduct of human language, and as such it exists completely independently of poetic meter. As one of the conventionalized parameters of meter, however, sound repetition, the same “natural” phenomenon, creates a highly desirable mnemonic effect which would otherwise be obscured by a writing system based on imperfect sound-spelling correspondences. It may also be associated within a given poetic tradition with esthetic satisfaction, though the latter is subject to changeable social fashions.29 Second, the reliance on alliteration gains support from the theoretically wellsubstantiated principle constraining the choices of the verse form, called “fit.”30 The principle states that, optimally, the parameters of poetic meter should be set so that the core vocabulary of the language can be used as fully as possible. Though alliteration by itself is a parametrical rule, the sound-patterning which it requires is crucially linked to prosodically prominent syllables. Applying this criterion to the Anglo-Saxon alliterative material is instructive: in terms of its prosodic organization, Old English is a prime candidate for a language in which phonologically-defined alliteration could be developed and sustained. As pointed out in chapter 2, the reconstruction of stress for Old English points to a fixed root-initial stress, not subject to the stress alternations accompanying the derivation of some Romance vocabulary today: idiot-idiotic, Paris-Parisian, 29. Other verse traditions rely on the intuitive appeal and accessibility of meter as a repetition of identical rhythmical units. Parallels between “natural” rhythms and the rhythms of verse were drawn from the earliest times. “Iunge preostas witon mid fullum gesceade þæt se dæg and seo niht habbaþ feower and twentig tida; swa eac þa scolieras witon þe synt getydde on boclicum cræfte, hig witon mid getingnysse heora modes þæt þæt rihtmeteruers sceal habban feower and twentig timan” [Young priests know with full understanding that the day and the night have twenty-four hours; so also the scholars skilled in book-craft they know with the verbal skill of their mind that the right verse (hexameter) must have twenty-four times (of pronouncing a syllable, quantities).] (Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion: Baker and Lapidge 1995: 2–236, [0639 (2.1.491)]). Byrhtferth was born c. 970. 30. Most recently the term was used in Hanson and Kiparsky (1996: 294), but the principle that the metrical forms of a language are largely determined by its phonological structure has been recognized and used in metrical and linguistic research for a long time, for example Jakobson (1933), Kiparsky (1973), Tarlinskaja (1976), Hayes (1988), Fabb (1997), etc. The application of this principle does not preclude the use of metrical forms which cannot accommodate the entire lexicon existing in some language: a case in point which was already mentioned in chapter 2 is the inability of some compounds in Old English to fill out a verse. On a similar incompatibility between the phonological and the metrical system see Hanson (2001). The “fit” between language and meter should not be confused with the etymologically unrelated literary term “fit” which stands for a section of a poem or song, a canto, or a similar division.
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polar-polarity, etc. It can be assumed that the root stress of Old English would privilege and disambiguate alliteration by consistently highlighting the first root syllable whose onset would naturally provide a salient locus of phonological identity. In accord with the “fit” principle, therefore, the conscious artistic choice of using identical stressed syllable onsets as an organizing structural principle in verse becomes also a fully motivated and effortless linguistic choice. The almost perfect overlap between stress and morphological root in Old English enhances further the probability that the poetic conventions of the period are based on maximal isomorphy between prosodic prominence, semantic salience, and metrical convention. A verse system which refers freely to graphic identity will of necessity create undesirable mismatches that cannot be tolerated in an artistic medium which is essentially oral. They are quite different from the stress mismatches widely discussed in the context of Middle English alliteration, cf. Borroff (1962), Duggan (1990), or from the type attested in later periods in English.31 The possibility of metrical manipulation in such cases was already discussed in chapter 2.4.5. It is irrelevant whether actual promotion of unstressed syllables occurred or not when they supplied the structural alliteration in Middle English; in either case it was sounds rather than letters that were matched. It has often been pointed out that the prosodic structure of the Germanic languages, with its highest prominence on the initial syllable of the root is ideally suited for alliteration.32 Attempts to look for the origin of Old English alliteration outside the indigenous Germanic verse tradition have been refuted convincingly.33 There is no reason to believe that knowledge of the Latin or of any other verse tradition, or, indeed, literacy, is a prerequisite for the effortless 31. The “fit” argument that Old English alliteration was phonologically based, and not a matter of identical letters may be weaker for the later periods when the prosodic patterns in the language, and the increasingly visual nature of poetic transmission allow more latitude. The only kind of ambiguity that one can imagine within the Old English prosodic template of root-initial stress would be of the kind illustrated by, for example, When I behold eyes blinded in my stead (Wilfred Owen, Greater Love), and indeed such ambiguity does arise with some root-like prefixes like un-. One reason why alliteration became unfashionable is perhaps the increased number of lexical items with unstressed initial syllables in the later language, compare Hopkins’ . . . our sweet reprieve and ransom . . . (Felix Randal) or Sylvia Plath’s A blue sky out of the Oreseia Arches above us. O father, all by yourself . . . (The Colossus). 32. The clearest, now classic, articulation of the adaptability of the Germanic prosodic systems to alliterative versification is to be found in Lehmann (1971: 103, 121–122, passim). 33. See Lapidge (1979: 219–220, fn. 30), who summarizes the arguments in earlier scholarship and points out that “the alliterative inscriptions from Anglian territory before AD 400 rule out this possibility [that alliteration is not original in Germanic verse] absolutely.”
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observance of this feature in Old English alliterative verse. Alliteration flourished in Germanic both for the esthetic reasons that generate it in the poetic models of other languages, and for internal linguistic reasons. It is therefore no surprise that Anglo-Latin octosyllabic verse composed by native speakers of Anglo-Saxon shows a very high concentration of alliteration. As noted in chapter 1.1, the Germanic influence on insular Latin verse was considerable. A comparison of the distribution of double alliteration in Hiberno-Latin poetry to that in Anglo-Latin reveals that “. . . such alliterative patterning is between four and twelve times as frequent in the Anglo-Latin texts as in comparable Hiberno-Latin verses . . .” (Orchard 1994: 51–54). A third, related, point turns on the oral nature of the Anglo-Saxon poetic compositions in general. This is a debated issue which cannot be pursued here. In spite of the disagreements on the precise method of composition, recording, and transmission of verse in Old English, however, scholars agree that the target audience was precisely that – an audi-ence, not a community of readers. No matter how the poems were conceived initially, they were intended to be recited aloud. Similarly to the focus that rhyme provides in rhyming verse forms, in the alliterative tradition the artistic effect is based on the recurrence of identical sounds at the left edges of words. Though this argument, like the other arguments adduced above, does not render a supposition of graphic alliteration as a last resort stratagem on the part of a scop or a scribe inconceivable or impossible, it still makes it less probable. The “oral” character of the poetic records is less controversial if we accept and underscore the premise that all parties involved in the composition, recording, and consumption of verse shared their intuitions about the prosody and the sound structure of language. This does not bridge the chronological and dialectal gaps between authors and scribes, but it does argue that they were more likely to be faithful to the sound of the verse and would not try and impose a graphic sameness which had no phonetic counterpart in their speech. The focus of this chapter is the reconstruction of the value of an Old English consonant. A reference to “orality” in terms of the compositors’ linguistic intuitions and the poems’ performative target is fully compatible with the commonly held view that the verse we have inherited is the product of welltrained, highly literate, disciplined, and resourceful people.34 The scribes to whom we owe the bulk of the surviving Anglo-Saxon poetic records were well 34. For insightful discussions of the interplay between orality and literacy in Beowulf with respect to other linguistic and stylistic features of the epic see O’Brien O’Keeffe (1997: 90–92), Schaefer (1997: 108–19), and the references they cite.
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trained. In some respects, as in the case of resolution, they may have been too well trained, but within the context of consonantal reconstruction the different treatment of the and the point unambiguously to their sensitivity to the phonological rather than to the written shape of the word. A fourth consideration pertinent to the reliability of alliteration as a phenomenon grounded in speech comes from a comparison between the AngloSaxon alliterative techniques and the techniques used in other poetic traditions which also make use of alliteration. The rigidity, consistency, and salience of alliteration within the Old English verse corpus exceed by far the rigor with which alliteration was adhered to in the Finnish, Celtic, and Latin alliterative works. Even the other early Germanic poetic traditions, as, for example, the Old Saxon compositions Heliand and Genesis, allow significant departures from the model described by Snorri’s thirteenth-century treatise on Old Norse and Skaldic poetry to which the Old English monuments conform.35 There is good reason to posit a real analytical boundary between the speech-based pleasing, ludic, mnemonic, but not testably structural, use of sound identity in the continental traditions, and the speech-based sound identity of the Anglo-Saxon and the Icelandic tradition, where in addition to its ornamental properties, alliteration is also structurally binding. The obligatory nature of alliteration makes it a good source of linguistic information; we should recognize, however, that such obligatory features of verse generate their own problems and should be treated with caution. The interrelation between language and verbal art is complex and there exists, at least theoretically, the possibility that the scop or the scribe might be prepared to stretch the linguistic acceptability of some forms, resort to archaic, innovative, rare, or dialectal pronunciations to satisfy the requirements of the metrical form. It might be argued that the exceptional sound patterns in Anglo-Saxon poetry resemble the situation in Middle English, when versifiers apparently felt more free to ignore the prosodic givens in order to satisfy the exigencies of alliteration and end-rhyme. Crucially, those violations are of prosodic, and not segmental nature, however. Within the context of segmental reconstruction of Old English, therefore, the parallel does not contradict the approach taken here. 35. On the idiosyncratic alliterative techniques of the Old Saxon Heliand and Genesis see Lehmann (1953: 7–39). The differences with respect to alliteration within Germanic should not be overemphasized. Contrasting the principles governing alliteration to the problems of establishing the rhythm of the alliterative line, Lehmann (1971: 37) states that “Throughout the whole area and time of Germanic verse these principles [of alliteration] are observed with absolute consistency” – I believe “absolute” is used rhetorically here, but the point is clear: for the Germanic verse tradition as a whole, alliteration is a unifying and defining property in spite of deviations within its individual branches.
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A separate question that this position statement should address is why not allow “slant” alliteration if “slant” rhyme is a respectable metrical device. The response to that would be that the systematicity of rhyme and the systematicity of alliteration rest on very different phonological foundations. Alliteration is identity of segments at the strongest and most salient syllable position in English. Decisions on identity in this position are much more categorical than in other positions. Identity of rhyme is much more flexible. Partial rhymes for some poets seem esthetically significant.36 If the scops were inclined to mismatch or distort the sounds of the language they were familiar with, one would expect both more numerous and more drastic deviations from the independently reconstructed sound-spelling correspondences. This is not the case. Violations such as alliteration between consonants which are similar, but not identical in some significant way, say between /p/ and /f/, or /s/ and //, simply do not occur in Old English. Nor do we find deviations such as accidental triple alliterations, or frequent violations of the principle of non-alliterating second lift in the offverse, the first of which is practically unknown in the OE poetic corpus, and the second, exceedingly rare.37 The rare phenomenon of cross-alliteration, see above 2.3, is either accidental, or, if it is a kind of enhancement of the structural alliteration, it shows great awareness of and loyalty to the system on the part of the scop. Ultimately, the rationale that enables us to draw on alliterative data found in the Old English poetic corpus for the reconstruction of phonological and morphological features of the language is probabilistic. The probabilistic approach to the use of metrical and phonological criteria in determining the chronology of the poetic records was defended so convincingly by Fulk (1992: 6–65) that further comments are unnecessary. In a similar way, the convergence of arguments in favor of phonologically-governed alliteration enhances the probability that the philological data are reliable, and that there exists a strong predictive relationship between the form found in verse and its linguistic characterization. Of all the verse properties that can and have been used in matching presumed linguistic forms to their attestations in verse, alliteration is the most easily identifiable, pervasive, stable, non-controversial. It is indeed surprising 36. See Hanson (2002). 37. Hutcheson’s 1995 corpus of 26,088 scanned verses contains eight on-verses with triple alliteration, for example And 107a ‘geþola þ¯eoda þrea,’ El 464a ‘ongit guma ginga,’ and the hypermetrical Dur 15a ‘and br¯eoma b¯ocera Beda’ and eleven instances of unmetrical double alliteration in the off-verse. With regard to alliteration, he finds that “well under one half of one percent of the verses in the present corpus contain unmetrical alliteration” (1995: 169).
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that two hundred years of scholarship in the field have failed to integrate fully the rich and reliable source of alliteration into our historical phonological reconstructions.38 The four considerations presented above, in their aggregate, strengthen the probability that alliteration is a reliable source for reconstruction. Another argument, of epistemological nature, and internal to the field, is grounded in the well-established scholarly practice of alliteration-based editorial emendations. 3.4
Alliteration and editorial practice
Although the element of uncertainty will always be present, it is important to emphasize that the position advocated here is shared by a community of scholars whose goals are not those of linguistic reconstruction per se, but the reconstruction of texts which most closely represent the authorial originals. The thesis that the simplicity, naturalness, and salience of alliteration as a structural metrical device are a guarantee that it was understood and applied properly in the originals, and that imperfect alliteration is to be attributed to scribal corruption, has long been accepted by an informed community of textual scholars. Defending the rationale for emendations based on alliteration and meter in Beowulf , one of the best studied texts in English literary history, Fulk (1997: 45–47) makes a very important factual observation: lack of alliteration or other metrical defects in Beowulf are often accompanied by incoherences in meaning and syntax. An example of the co-occurrence of more than one type of inconsistency is provided by the manuscript reading for line 2881b which starts with the sequence , unattested elsewhere in the entire Old English corpus.39 As early as 1815, Grundtvig proposed the now standard emendation to <wergendra> which makes sense of the otherwise incomprehensible passage: 38. The persistent indifference of linguists to the evidence of alliteration is curious: the standardly cited volume Toward a Grammar of Proto-Germanic, edited by van Coetsem and H. Kufner (1972) contains no reference to alliteration. The only references to alliteration in the recent highly influential and otherwise excellent Cambridge History of the English Language, vol. I, appear in Godden’s chapter on ‘Literary language’ (1992b: 492–494). 39. The electronic search was made from The Dictionary of Old English Electronic Corpus, Antonette Healey, Editor, University of Toronto. The Dictionary of Old English Corpus in Electronic Form is an on-line database consisting of every existing and known text in Old English. As such, it represents about three million words of Old English and another two million words of Latin. The database was compiled as part of the Dictionary of Old English project at the University of Toronto.
Another example of the way in which trust in the strength of the alliterative principle can assist editors is provided by the poem Maxims I which contains two half lines apparently not joined by alliteration, a highly unusual phenomenon. The passage below is commonly printed on separate lines, since the most salient binding property, the alliteration on the first lexical word in the off-verse, seems to be missing:41 (7)
Swa biþ sæ smilte, þonne hy wind ne weced42 Maxims I 54–55
Robinson (1966: 359) argued, and Bammesberger (1986: 71–72) agreed with him, that the key to the problem lies with the word wind. Following Robinson’s proposed emendation of wind to sund, which is glossed as ‘sea, water,’ the line can be regularized as: (8)
Swa biþ sæ smilte, / þonne hy sund ne weced43
Other references to alliteration-driven emendations can be found in Bammesberger (1986: 46, 97) for Christ and Satan 7 and Beowulf 2298. Similarly, though the manuscript has initial for the name of the character Unferð in all four attestations in Beowulf , the name alliterates on a vowel and all editors emend accordingly: (9)
[H]Unferð maðelode, / Ecglafes bearn44 Beo 499
The philosophy and practice of textual editing is a vexed issue thoroughly discussed elsewhere. Fortunately, the physical method of production of a text is not as central to the arguments here as it might be in other contexts. Moreover, 40. ‘fire less fiercely welled from head. / Defenders too few thronged round chieftain, / when for him the crisis came’ 41. See ASPR III: 158. Noticing the absence of alliteration, Krapp and Dobbie (1936: 306) endorse the idea that this may be “a survival from an earlier original form in short independent sentences, not remodeled to fit later metrical requirements.” 42. ‘As the sea is serene when her wind not wakes’ 43. ‘As the sea is serene / when she water not stir’ 44. ‘Unferð spoke / Ecglaf’s son.’ This particular editorial interference has been hotly debated, see Fulk (1987), and we will return to it in the discussion of vowel alliteration. Bjork (1997: 206) provides an extensive summary of the debate and observes that many of the initial words in the Beowulf manuscript have been changed, “where they make good sense.”
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alliteration is one of the verse features that has not come under attack as a potential help for the editors; in fact, one finds a rare and reassuring consensus on that topic. Alliteration is singled out as the most reliable philological and linguistic informant in Fulk’s 1996 illuminating discussion of the issues of textual criticism in Old English verse. Fulk refers to the regularity of alliteration as a prime example of sufficient probabilistic justification for textual emendations and points out that this is a basis for emendations accepted by “nearly all editors of critical editions” (1996: 17).45 Of all the emendations metri causa, restoring alliteration is considered least invasive. Fulk (1997: 46) finds that “In Beowulf itself, illegible words aside, out of 3,182 lines there are just thirty-seven that, unemended, would lack any alliterative link between the verses . . . more important, in twenty-three of these thirty-seven non-alliterating lines, emending for the sake of alliteration also improves the meter, grammar and/or sense.”46 Emendations based on alliteration are easily cross-checked and verified in the ASPR, another reason why textual data collected and used for reconstruction should not be considered contaminated by editorial interference. The position that linguistic and not graphic sameness forms the structural basis of Anglo-Saxon verse does not entail that repetition of the same letter cannot and has not been used as a decorative device by highly literate composers of verse. One such example comes from the Anglo-Latin verse of Aldhelm, see Lapidge (1979), Orchard (1994: 53), and for a more general discussion of the shift from the aural to the visual, Mugglestone (1991: 58). Similarly, one should not rule out hastily the possibility that the strict etymological meaning of alliteration might occasionally apply to the meta-constraint of identity in the verse modes of the transitional post-Conquest period, or even in Middle English.47 The Old English patterns, however, are so consistent across the poetic corpus that the linguistic bias of the approach is warranted.48
45. See also the statement in Lehmann and Tabusa (1958: 8–9). 46. On the rationale for using alliteration in Middle English editorial work, see Turville-Petre (1980, 1987) and Duggan (1986a, 1988). Essentially, the situation is the same as in Old English. Reporting on the editorial work on The Wars of Alexander Turville-Petre (1987: 152) writes that irregular alliteration (in the Ashmole manuscript) “is always, or at any rate nearly always, corrupt.” The rigorous editorial approach to the question of alliteration adopted by Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989) did not make it necessary for them to “manipulate” the evidence (1989 : 153). 47. It should be said, though, that the single most persistent “eye” alliteration in Middle English, between <sch-> and <s-> has a more plausible phonetic explanation, see chapter 6.3. 48. The delicate line separating graphic from phonetic identity as the basis for alliteration can become blurred in some otherwise excellent studies. Discussing the behavior of alliteration in Aldhelm’s Anglo-Latin hexameters, Lapidge (1979: 220) asks: “Does f alliterate with v
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Admittedly, there will always be some uncertainty as to what the poets and the scribes themselves understood alliteration to mean. Individual interpretations, idiosyncratic styles, and even ad hoc decisions to violate a prescribed or learned pattern, should be considered. As stated above, the enterprise of reconstructing linguistic forms from a mediated text is a matter of probabilistic induction, yet “probability is unavoidable because certainty is unattainable” (Fulk 1996: 18). However, the vernacular roots of Germanic alliteration, the oral nature of the compositions, and the facilitating and enhancing factor of the prosodic structure of Old English provide a combination of arguments which support very strongly the premise of primacy of speech over writing in Old English alliteration. The Anglo-Saxon scops approached their craft not litterarum cum lusibus ‘with play on letters,’49 but sonorum cum lusibus. 3.5
The morphophonemic nature of voiceless velar alliteration
Except for the textual findings in Fulk (1992), whose goal was to date the poetic texts on metrical and philological grounds, and not to reconstruct the phonological system, the inconsistency in the alliterative treatment of and pointed out in section 3.2 has remained largely outside the focus of linguistic studies. The persistence of alliteration has been acknowledged occasionally, but it was dismissed as “graphic” (Penzl 1947), or “mechanical” (Kuryowicz 1970), so also Pope (1966: 101), who records the different treatment of in Maldon but leaves the observation without further comment. A notable exception to the widespread dismissal of the problem is the provocative in Aldhelm’s hexameters, as it would in Old English verse?” A puzzling question, since Old English disallows the voiced labio-dental fricative [v] in initial position, therefore the presumed alliteration cannot be sound-based. One would assume therefore that the reference is to the possibility of being used for [f-], but that, too is unlikely, since the angular was not part of the consonantal inventory of the language. If such alliteration were attested (assuming a spelling for [v-]), it might be an interesting indication of initial voicing in OE, which, however, is “. . . only to be regularly detected in eleventh-century and later texts” (Hogg 1992b: 283). Orchard remarks that: “Although alliteration of f, ph and v is unattested in purely OE verse, it is found in Anglo-Saxon macaronic poetry; cf. A Summons to Prayer, line 21: ‘f ultumes f riclo uirginemalmum’ (ASPR VI: 70).” (1994: 49, n. 114) and thus adds a corrective to Lapidge’s assumption and provides a valuable additional support to Fulk’s (1992: 264, 278) hypothesis that the poem belongs to the Southern group of poems and that it was a late composition. For some early attestations of initial labial fricative voicing in the South, for example u¯ıf ‘five,’ see Hogg (1992a: 32). 49. The phrase is taken from Aldhelm’s pupil Æthilwald’s poem, III.5, cited in Orchard (1994: 52–53). The fuller context in translation is: ‘Heavenly Lord, . . . pour forth eloquent words for me . . . (so that) I may adapt the verses to the usages, with play on letters.’
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theoretical discussion of the alliterative practice with respect to palatalization and I-Umlaut in Lass and Anderson (1975: 139–141), recently recapitulated in Lass (1997: 68–74).50 In a section entitled “Excursus: the testimony of alliterative practice,” Lass and Anderson recognize the analytical difficulty of relegating the issue of identity of the velars and the palatals to purely conventional “eye alliteration,” which “. . . seems here to deny the distinctions that both history and theory demand,” though they do not appear to be aware of the separate problem posed by the discrepancy of the late Old English evidence for and . Shifting the account onto a more abstract plane, they focus on the nature of the identity which non-identical surface sounds, [g]-[j], [c]-[k], represent in alliteration. They seek to reconcile linguistic history and theory with the practice of the scops by positing identity on some “as yet undescribed” abstract level of representation, involving a set-theoretic conjecture about identical graph-choice for overlapping reflexes of underlying segments. They write: “. . . alliterative (and orthographic) practice can be seen to depend not on phonetic likeness, nor even on underlying identity, but on the possibility of identity at some abstract level of representation” (Lass and Anderson 1975: 140–141, Lass 1997: 74). This is an interesting proposition. It echoes other claims in the literature, for example Kiparsky (1968/1970), Hayes (1988), Fabb (1997: 130–131), that meter can refer to underlying representations rather than to the surface form of words. The arguments rest on the underlying identity of words which are involved in surface morphophonemic alternations. Indeed, it is possible that the association of words derived from the same root is at least to some extent responsible for the systematic identification of with other words in Old English, see below 3.5.4. This, however, covers only one aspect of the identity observed in the examples in (3) above, namely the possibility (not illustrated by the examples) that cognates might alliterate analogically. The other aspect is 50. My summary of Lass and Anderson’s position follows the earlier version in spite of the addition of what looks like expanded data on alliterative disparities in some poems in the Exeter Book in Lass (1997: 71–72, ex. 2.11). The distributions cited there (/k/ : /k/, /k : /tʃ/, /g/ : /g/, /g/ : /j/, etc.) are uninformative because (a) the phonemic status of the phonetic realizations is taken for granted – and it does not have to be, and (b), the poems appearing together in the Exeter book: Christ I, The Phoenix, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Judgement Day I, etc., are not necessarily all of the same date, see Pope (1966: 81), Fulk (1992: 368, 397), and certainly not “eleventh century.” Lass (1997: 72–73) contains some comments on the spelling variation between and representing the same palatal entity, but the consistency of self-alliteration of /g/ and /j/ in the later verse renders this scribal peculiarity immaterial in our context. Lass himself says that the Lass and Anderson position of 1975 is “the only answer I know that makes sense of this [the odd behavior of the velars]” (1997: 74).
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a matter of surface similarity of etymologically unrelated entities represented by . Therefore, there is more to be learned from the alliterative evidence. I will argue that the position that “. . . poetic praxis is not a very good index of a (superficial) language state, i.e. of phonetic realization or even phonemic identity” is premature, and that it is not the case that “the grouping of sames prompted by the verse is contradicted by historical and other evidence” (Lass 1997: 74). The probability that alliteration is a matter of gradient surface identity whose limits are well defined should be tested. The alliterative evidence is more coherent if it is interpreted as governed by constraints on the surface phonetic realizations, which, in their turn, can be analyzed in terms of compliance or non-compliance with underlying phonemic boundaries. Crucially, the question of why certain “aberrant” alliterations are allowed, while others are apparently avoided, in the entire body of surviving poetic material of Old English is a linguistic one; the rest of this chapter addresses the philological and analytical issues related to this question. Before I turn to a reinterpretation of the first set of data referring to the history of the voiceless velar stop, in (10) below I summarize the conflict between the evidence in verse and the accepted linguistic reconstruction: (10) Alliteration Reconstruction
EOE : [k] : [k’]
LOE : /k/ : /tʃ/
Alliteration Reconstruction
EOE : /j/ : /γ/ : (/g/)
LOE : /j/ : /j / or /g/ : /g/
3.5.1 Was there a phonemic split of /k/ in Old English? In Proto-Germanic, the voiceless velar stop /k/ in initial position had two allophones: a palatal allophone [k’-] before front vowels and palatal consonants, and the velar allophone [k-] before back vowels and non-palatal consonants. This reconstruction parallels the two realizations of /k/ in Modern English before front and back vowels: keen, keep, key, cute, with [k’-], and cool, crown, cop, quota with [k-]. The allophonic realizations of Proto-Germanic /k/ are reconstructed on the basis of the universal phonetic behavior of initial /k/ in various environments, and also on the basis of subsequent history in the daughter languages. This allophonic distribution is also the one posited for early Old English.51 Returning to the chart of the Old English consonants in (1) of this 51. For Germanic the assumption is implicit in Nielsen (1981: 141); for the continuation of this situation in Old English see Hogg (1992a: 258–76).
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chapter, we see that it is further assumed that before the end of the Old English period, the original palatal allophone [k’] in Germanic words of the type cinn ‘chin,’ Goth. kinnu-s, cild ‘child,’ Goth. kilþei ‘womb’ had developed into a phonemic affricate /tʃ/. In the philological literature, for example Wright and Wright (1925: §§309– 311), Luick (1914–1940/1964: §637: 1), positing an early phonemicization of [k’-] to /tʃ/ has seemed an analytical imperative because of the need to keep the cinn ‘chin’ set of words distinct from the set of words containing secondarily palatalized [k’-], as in cynn ‘kin.’ The cynn ‘kin’ type words have a “secondary” palatal because the front vowel is the umlauted reflex of an etymological /u/, i.e. it is itself “secondary.”52 The logic is that the phonemicization of [k’-] to /tʃ/ has to precede I-Umlaut, otherwise cinn and cynn would have fallen together. Penzl (1947) argued that the phonemic split between the two types of /k/ was accomplished in Old English as a consequence of the fact that I-Umlaut created identical front vowel environments /e/ and /æ/ for the original allo¯ on versus cæg(e) ¯ phones [k’-] and [k-], for example c¯eace ‘cheek’ < WG∗ kæk¯ ‘key’ = OFris. key, kay.53 Hogg, whose 1979, 1992a, and 1992b studies are the most thorough recent investigations of Old English palatalization, shows (1979: 101–102 and 1992a: 269) that in other instances of I-Umlaut, the newly created front vowels [y(:)] < [u(:)], and [ø(:)] < [o(:)] did not immediately merge with pre-existing vowels. This leads him to refine and narrow considerably the range of structural environments needed for the phonemic split of /k/ to /k/ and /tʃ/; the necessity for positing an early phonemic split is thus restricted to cases where the velar is followed by the I-Umlaut of ∗ /a:/. Further, he makes the significant observation (1992a: 269) that it is almost impossible to find minimal pairs to support the argument behind Penzl’s (1947) conclusion with regard to phonemicization of /tʃ/, and that except for the already cited pair ¯ c¯eace ‘cheek’ versus cæg(e) ‘key,’ “. . . perhaps the best pair is Nbr. cæfertun ‘hall’ vs. WS ceafer ‘beetle’ (with palatal diphthongization).” He adds: “The dialect differences, difficult as they are, are insignificant compared with many 52. Informally, I-Umlaut is the fronting or palatalization of back vowels under the assimilatory influence of palatal /i, j/ in the following syllable. 53. The etymological history of this key word is unfortunately obscure. Onions (1983: 504) gives ¯ and cæge ¯ OE cæg and the OFris. forms cited here, but adds that “the form is not found elsewhere; of unknown origin.” The presence of a palatalization trigger in the same syllable ¯ (dat. is also at issue. Hogg (1979: 105) and Colman (1986: 226–229) accept a disyllabic cæge ¯ from Gmc. ∗ kaijai > ∗ k¯ajæ > ∗ kæjæ ¯ as the form relevant to the ordering and sg. of cæg) reconstruction of palatalization. An analysis which does not refer to the ordering problem ¯ was monosyllabic or disyllabic at the time of I-Umlaut can leave the issue of whether cæg unresolved.
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other problems in determining the status of the several variant forms of each of these words.” Hogg does not refer to the evidence in verse. As far as I have been able to establish, even those few potentially contrastive pairs that he cites are used like any other words in the alliterative corpus. The single instantiation, from The Riddles, is: (11)
cægan craeften / þa clamme onleac Riddle 4254
However, the date of this example, though not quite certain, renders the evidence moot. No other instantiations of these words appear in the relevant alliterative positions in the verse portion of the Old English Dictionary Corpus.55 The problem of ordering palatalization with respect to I-Umlaut is not trivial: on it hangs the assumption of affrication within the Old English period. Hogg (1992b: 106–107) describes the process as “one of the most important sound changes in Old English, not only for the period itself, but also for the later history of the language.” He posits the phonetic sequence of events: ∗ [k] > [c] > [tʃ], (parallel to ∗ [g] > [ ] > []), and adds: “By the ninth century . . . the new palatal stops had developed into the palato-alveolar affricates /tʃ/ and // [as is demonstrated by other forms such as feccen ‘fetch’ < ∗ fetijan, where /tj/ became /tʃ/]”, see also Hogg (1992a: 272). Jordan (1934/1974: §177) dates the assibilation “at the latest around 900.” Luick (1914–1940/1964: §637: 1) describes the development as very early, Anglo-Frisian. Lass (1994: 53–59) also believes that “In the transition [from Germanic] to Old English a new series was created, occupying this previously empty region [the palatal region]: the affricates /tʃ,/ and the fricative /ʃ/”, similarly Nielsen (1981: 140–141). Though the broad consensus clearly puts the change on the early side, not all philologists and linguists have been comfortable with the explicit early dating of the phonemic split: Wright and Wright warn that the assumption that [k’] had developed into [tʃ] “cannot be proved.” They also point out that “all that can be said for certain is that the change had already taken place by the beginning of the Middle English period” (1925: 162–163). The skepticism is well justified, though Wright and Wright do not give any reasons for their f
54. ‘by the power of the key / the clasp unlocked.’ The Riddles (1–59) are close in date to Beowulf , see Fulk (1992: 408). 55. The only ‘beetle(s)’ in the poetic records show up in the Metrical Psalms of the Paris Psalter, possibly a late composition (Fulk 1992: 408, 410–414): gangan gærshoppan / and grame ceaferas (P 104.30.2), where the metrical position of the word precludes speculation based on alliteration.
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statement other than the unreliability of the spelling evidence and arguments based on it.56 The failure of scribes to distinguish the initial palatal from the velar allophones of /k/ is a well-known and generally acknowledged problem in the treatment of this issue. The ambiguity of the textual evidence of the graph in OE is discussed in detail in Campbell (1959: 173, n. 1), Hogg (1992a: 28–9, 257, 264–265), see also Hogg (1992b: 90). The points which touch on the issue of affrication are several. First, there is the possibility of a diacritic showing the palatal quality of the initial consonant; the practice is fully compatible with an account of advanced palatalization but no affrication within Old English which will be the analytical choice here. Second, there is the issue of occasional spellings. There are seventy spellings in the verse portion of the electronic Dictionary of Old English Corpus. With the exception of kalend, Khana(an), and kirk, the initial spellings are all derivatives of cyn ‘kin’: kyning, kyn, kingc, etc. Thus there may have been a preference for an idiosyncratic spelling with for one set of related words, but the practice hardly indicates conscious scribal decisions based on phonetic distinctions. Third, the occasional use of for the voiceless velar spirant in Old English does not appear to have any phonetic significance either. Hogg (1992a: 265) cites some word-medial spellings in Northumbrian texts, used both for palatalized and unpalatalized variants, but the lack of consistency of these spellings renders them linguistically uninformative.57 Some other orthographic considerations with regard to the velars will be addressed below. For now, in referring to the letters used in the manuscripts, I will disregard the variation between the ambiguous on the one hand, and the which, in its rare appearances in the Old English documents, is consistently used for the stable velar stop [k]. This is standard practice in Old English dictionaries and glossaries, for example Bosworth and Toller (1898/1983). The various runic allographs for the velars and the palatals will also be ignored.
56. The same difficulty is underscored in Hogg (1979: 103), pace B¨ulbring (1899). A more forceful assertion that the dentalization and assibilation process was not completed in Old English, and that it should be dated to a later period, was made by van Langenhove on the basis of place-name evidence (1930: 72). His arguments have not been incorporated into the standard accounts. 57. A minor graphic curiosity, related to the orthographic variants of , is found in Cnut’s Song, a Late West Saxon composition: Merie sungen þe muneches binnen Ely ða Cnut ching . . . Cnut 1. One could argue that the spelling for [k] shows a continuing perception of the palatal and velar manifestations of /k/ in late Old English as belonging to one linguistic entity, see the comments on Lagamon’s Brut and the examples in (4) above.
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The same approach will be taken with regard to the graphic difference between , , and /i/.58 Turning back to alliteration: as indicated in 3.2, the early Old English patterns can safely be interpreted to mean that the status of [k] and [k’] is allophonic. A search of the entire database for the late West Saxon verse and for the late verse of undetermined provenance in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus yields no interesting results; the patterns remain the same as the late Old English examples indicate. Thus, indiscriminate alliteration on , irrespective of the etymology and quality of the following vowel, occurs throughout the entire Old English period with examples from the earliest texts to Brunanburh (937), The Menologium (after c. 965), Coronation of Edgar (973), Death of Edgar (975), The Battle of Maldon (991/994), The Death of Edward (1065). The assumption that alliteration in the Anglo-Saxon records is illuminating entails that the split of early Old English /k/ into [k] and [tʃ] did not occur until the end of the tenth century, or even somewhat later. Within English historical phonology, this is a bold hypothesis, adjusting the record by at least one, and as much as four, centuries, depending on which scholar’s work one believes in. The linguistic arguments for an early [k]/[tʃ] split, both inferential, come from two sources. First, positing an early phonemic /tʃ/ would contribute to the symmetry of the Old English consonantal system (Lass 1994: 53), see above. If well motivated, positing a causal relation between abstract structure and phonological change is a legitimate heuristic. Modeling phonological change as a function of systemic distributional properties is a time-honored structuralist, and even pre-structuralist, notion, famously manifested in the push- and drag-chain theories of the “Great” English Vowel Shift. Within Optimality Theory, the idea that spatial relations can determine the direction of phonological change has recently received a boost in the work of Flemming (1995), who presents a convincing formal model of dispersion as maximization of the auditory distinctiveness of contrasts. The development of /tʃ/ in Middle English is thus a well-understood typological process which various linguistic models can accommodate well. The phonetic and structural naturalness of the change of [k] to [tʃ], however, is independent of its dating. 58. On the use of , see further Campbell (1959: 173). The significance of the Ruthwell Cross runic refinements for [k]/[c] is dismissed convincingly by van der Rhee (1977: 36–37) and Ball (1988: 113–114); I will follow these scholars in assuming that the Ruthwell Cross runic symbols used for the voiceless velar stops are allographs of the same grapheme and not representations of specific phonetic values. The use of for the insular letter found in the manuscripts is a common editorial convention which does not prejudice the discussion of the phonetic material it represents.
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In the interpretation proposed below, the phonetic correlates of the attested patterns of alliteration in late Old English do not require reference to phonemicization, which renders the structuralist line of reasoning irrelevant. In any case, Lass’s “empty region” observation can be interpreted to refer to the effect of the change; no one has made an explicit argument that the presumed change of [k] to [tʃ] in Old English was caused by an imbalance in the consonantal system. Even if the development can be seen as contributing to the stability of the Middle English consonant system, for Old English this argument can be abandoned. The second, more central argument for the early dating of [k] to [tʃ] affrication in Old English, as mentioned at the beginning of this section, is based on the chronological ordering of a set of related events. More specifically, the hypothesis of an early phonemicization of the allophones of /k/ is driven by the need to differentiate between two types of palatal voiceless velars: the original ones, which were always present in Germanic; and the ones emerging after Old English I-Umlaut, which created new non-contrasting environments for [k’]. I believe that the logic of the existing accounts is vulnerable if we recognize the intricate allophonic relationships within the set of voiceless velar stops. Phonetic and morphophonemic factors suggest that [k’] should be split into two subtypes, [kj ] and [k’].59 Here is my proposal regarding the distribution of the allophonic subtypes. First, some more background. Early Old English realized the voiceless velar /k/ as a palatalized [kj ] initially before etymological front vowels, as in cinu ‘chin’ (Gmc. ∗ kinn, IE ∗ genw-), and velar [k] before back vowels and consonants, as in c¯ol ‘cool’ (Gmc. ∗ k´olu-z), climban ‘climb’ (WGmc. ∗ klimban). The early, etymological [kj ], surfaces almost without exception as Middle and Modern English /tʃ/, thus c¯eap ‘cheap,’ ceorl ‘churl,’ c¯eosan ‘to choose,’ ∗ ciern ‘churn,’ cipp ‘chip,’ cisten ‘chestnut,’ etc. I-Umlaut, which created new front vowels, is an early Old English change, yet the newly palatalized [k’]’s, as in cyme ‘coming’ (Gmc. ∗ qum-s), appear to have been kept distinct from the “old” palatals. The words in that group are in the general velar /k/ family to this day: c¯epan ‘to keep,’ c¯ene ‘keen,’ cyrnel ‘kernel,’ cyning ‘king,’ etc. The traditional account has to assume early phonemicization of the inherited etymological [kj ] → /tʃ/, otherwise it is not clear why the new generation of palatal [k’]’s before umlauted vowels was not confused with the etymological ones, i.e. why a 59. I am introducing [kj ] to indicate an intermediate phonetic quality distinct from the [k’] and from the later affricate [tʃ], a more strongly palatalized voiceless velar stop, possibly involving double articulation. On the justification for positing [kj ] as a phonetic realization distinct from the post-I-Umlaut [k’], see below, 3.5.2.
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word like cynu ‘kin’ did not merge with cinu ‘chin.’ For at least the last century, this ordering logic has been considered compelling evidence for early affrication of the Germanic [k’] in Old English. The reasoning behind the assumed sequence of phonological events appears sound, but it is also open to question. Hogg (1979) was the first one to point out that the chronological ordering of palatalization/affrication of [k’] to [tʃ] prior to I-Umlaut is not at all straightforward, nor, as I will show below, is it necessary. Within the framework of phonemic contrasts, the first flaw of the traditional ordering arises from the realization that the creation of a palatalizing environment due to I-Umlaut of the back vowels ∗ u, ∗ o, short and long, is a two stage process of fronting and unrounding. Even after the fronting of the vowels had started, the resulting rounded vowels, the /y/ and the /ø/ of Old English, were not necessarily the same palatalizing force that the etymological front vowels were. Since /y/ and /ø/ continued to be entities distinct from the corresponding unrounded /i/ and /e/ at least into the ninth century, the velar quality of the consonants preceding the rounded vowels could be sustained longer than in front of the fully unrounded vowels.60 Thus, for most of Old English, even after the onset of I-Mutation, we can reconstruct three types of environments in which an initial /k/ could appear: back vowels and consonants; front unrounded vowels; and front rounded vowels. Schematically: (12)
c. 500–700 A.D. c. 700–800 A.D. (I-Mutation) c. 1000– ME
60. This touches on the question of when the front rounded vowels split categorically from the back vowels. Lass (1992a) presents a number of arguments – from typology and from ontological parsimony – to argue that the phonologization of the front rounded vowels, in spite of continuing variable spelling, was probably accomplished in all dialects by the mid ninth century. He admits, however, that as nothing in history is unequivocal, this is only one (more theoretically appealing) way to interpret the spellings (1992: 106–107). I think that his dating is plausible; that does not affect the identification of the umlauted vowels with the etymologically fully front vowels, however.
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The linguistic ingredients of the proposed alternative account of /k/ are: (a) phonotactically conditioned phonetic difference between the two types of fronted velars, [kj -] and [k’-]; and (b) paradigm uniformity maintaining the unity within the [k’-] - [k-] set. 3.5.2 The role of Dorsal in maintaining identity The traditional argumentation leading to the supposedly early affrication of Old English /k/ → /tʃ] rests on the assumption that linguistically there can be only one type of phonemically non-distinctive “palatal” counterpart of the velar [k]. I have already shown how a binary allophonic set of [k’] versus [k] forces the hypothesis of early affrication in words of the cinn ‘chin’ type; it seems to be the only solution to their non-merger with cyn(n) ‘kin’ type words. Recent phonetic research has shown, however, that contextual fronting is a gradient phenomenon and that different “fronted” velars display quite distinct acoustic and articulatory characteristics. Keating and Lahiri (1993) present data supporting a distinction between “fronted” velars, here transcribed as [k’]61 , and palatalized velars, here [kj ]. Not only do these phonetic entities differ from real, phonemic, palatals, but they also differ from each other. Keating and Lahiri (1993: 99) summarize their findings as follows: The phonemic palatals have occlusions which are distinctly more fronted than the others . . . Neither fronted nor palatalized velars have such a forward occlusion, though palatalized velars, especially before [i], may have quite fronted lateral contact. Acoustically, these palatalized velars show evidence of strong fronting. From these results we conclude that palatals are coronal, front velars are not, and palatalized velars before /i/ may be weakly so.
In seeking to explain linguistic change, reference to synchronic phenomena is a widely used and appropriate methodological procedure. Applying Keating and Lahiri’s findings to the Old English data suggests the following hypothesis: in terms of acoustic feature specification all voiceless velars were still Dorsal until at least the year 1000.62 At the same time, adjacency to a fully unrounded etymological [i] introduces a predictable secondary coarticulator, Cor onal, associated with the degree of stricture in the vowel and the involvement of the tongue front in the articulation. At the time of across-the-board alliteration, the 61. The IPA symbol for the fronted velar has a subscript + . 62. Dorsal is one of the major place features and includes palatal, velar, and uvular articulations. The other major place features are Labial, C oronal, Radical , and Laryngeal , see Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 44). As will be shown in 3.8 this analysis is in line with detailed phonetic studies of CV coarticulation which have demonstrated that the most dramatic effects of coarticulation are found in the formant transitions of dorsals/laryngeals, see Flemming (1995, 1997: 83).
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
coronal feature is present in the “chin” subset of words, but its realization is conditioned by the environment and it is phonologically non-contrastive. In terms of internal organization, [kj ] can be represented as a complex segment in which Dorsal is still the dominant place articulator: (13)
[kj] place
D ORSAL C ORONAL
The plausibility of analyzing the palatalized velars into two phonetically distinct types is supported by an earlier observation about the environments in which we find the etymological palatals and the “secondary palatals” in Old English. Attempting judiciously to place the reconstruction on a secure phonetic basis, Hogg (1979: 101) suggests that the feature [+grave] may account for the similarity of labial vowels and velars, a factor which would prevent the [k] from being fronted prior to the unrounding.63 The place-based proposal developed here and Hogg’s suggestion are fully compatible. Hogg’s focus is on the blocking effect of continuous lip-rounding of the umlauted vowels on the development of palatals, while I focus on the distinct phonetic properties of palatalized velars before /i/, which introduces coronality in the articulation. Either way the alliteration data are explained in a satisfactory way. Hogg did not refer to alliteration, and he was unwilling to challenge the traditional account to the extent of proposing a different chronology of the phonemicization of the affricate. His suggestion nevertheless takes the account of the history of the palatals clearly in that direction by acknowledging that (a) the evidence for ordering palatalization prior to I-Umlaut rests on a very limited set of minimal pairs; and (b) that the persistence, and possibly continuous restoration, of the velar quality of the consonant in umlauted forms, the celan ‘to cool’ type in the middle column of (12), may be predictable on analogical grounds (1979 and 1992a: 138). After a discussion of the minimal pair test for the establishment of phonemic contrasts between affricates and palatals in Old English, I will turn to a specific account of how morphophonemic identity may have played a role in the history of the velars and the palatals in section 3.5.4. below. 63. The phonetic justification for this account is solid; for a more recent account of coronalization in the context of [-back] vowels in terms of feature organization, see Clements and Hume (1996: 294–296).
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3.5.3 The minimal pair test for the palatalized velars As adumbrated above, Hogg pointed out that the relative dating of palatalization and umlaut can only be determined in the case of ∗ a¯ > æ¯ “for there is no question of unrounding to muddy the waters” (1979: 102). More specifically, since the unrounding of the umlauted vowels proceeded slowly and unevenly across the various dialects of Old English, the assumption that the front rounded vowels [y] and [ø], short and long, had merged completely with /i/ and /e/ at the time of the latest reliable evidence for general alliteration, is unwarranted. For the hypothesis of early phonemic palatalization to be persuasive, there should be a robust number of word pairs with identical environments in which the inherited front vowels cause affrication, while the umlauted front vowels do not, as in chin versus kin. This pair was disqualified because of the different quality of the vowels in Old English. It was suggested that the velar [kj ] before original /i/ and umlauted diphthongs64 has a minor coronal coloring while still identified with the dorsal allophones of /k/. Now the entire argument against the monophonemic treatment of all voiceless velar stops rests on establishing stable phonemic contrasts in the only remaining environment, the original versus the umlauted /æ:/ and /æ/. The difficulty of finding such pairs has been observed repeatedly. It ensues from several factors: the ambiguous results before fronted Anglo-Frisian /æ/, /æ:/ (for example early Northumbrian cæster ‘-caster’ versus WS ceaster ‘-chester’), the interference of breaking, the frequent restoration of the back vowel before /w/ in all dialects and before /lC/, /rC/ in some dialects, and the ubiquitous paradigmatic leveling. Moreover, in WS /æ/ and /æ:/, when preceded by the fronted velar /k’/, appear to have undergone a certain degree of raising, and possibly further changes involving the insertion of a palatal glide after the consonant. In one scenario, this palatal reinforcement results in a [iə]-type diphthong, as in ceaf ‘chaff,’ c¯eace ‘jaw.’ This renders the scribal equivalent to for the purposes of subsequent consonantal development and makes pairs of the type c¯eac ‘cheek’ versus cæg ‘key’ irrelevant.65
64. I-Umlaut of diphthongs always raises either the nucleus of a diphthong to a high front vowel or produces a high front glide between the consonant and the following nucleus. 65. For the phonetic interpretation of the diphthong see Hogg (1992a: 109), Stiles (1988: 345–348). The account of /k-/ palatalization proposed here appears to support the idea that the so-called “palatal diphthongs” written <ea> were a genuine phonetic development reflected in the spelling, rather than a purely scribal adaptation to the shift of the consonant from a fronted velar to a palatalized velar. There is a large literature, however, starting with Stockwell and Barritt (1951), discussed and adopted in Lass and Anderson (1975: 279–282), arguing that the <e> of the so-called
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
Eliminating many of the potential minimal pairs in this way leaves practically no items on which the chronology can be tested, see 3.5.1. The minimal pair test, therefore, would be insufficient grounds for writing the entire history of the voiceless velar. In effect, none of the umlauted vowels, short and long /y, ø, æ/, can furnish an environment which would be identical with the /i/ environment of the palatalized velar /kj /. The history of /k/ in Old English therefore does not provide independent evidence concerning the relative chronology of I-Umlaut and the full coronalization and phonemicization of the palatalized velar allophones. For all we know, the two processes may have been simultaneous. Drawing on modern experimental evidence, one can entertain seriously the probability of a conditioned phonetic distinction between palatalized and fronted velars. Further, it is probable that both types were judged by the scops and the scribes of the Old English alliterative material as sufficiently similar to the primary velar stop /k/. A phonemic split in Old English remains an untestable proposition, while the idea of sustained phonemic identity is bolstered by some important morphophonemic factors.
Paradigm Uniformity as a factor inhibiting palatalization 3.5.4 This section explores the role of inflectional and derivational analogy, a factor in the history of the velars which has sometimes been remarked upon, but which has not been pursued beyond the mention of isolated examples. The etymological and derivational connection between the umlauted forms and the pre-umlaut forms is self-evident, yet the consequences of this connection have not been built into the account. Instead, as shown in the previous sections, much greater emphasis has been placed on the similarity of the phonetic
“palatal diphthongs” was only a diacritic indicating the quality of the consonant. If we assume, with them, that <e> was indeed a diacritic, and that there was no vowel diphthongization, the account schematized in (12) will still work. The only substantive difference will be that in my version the diacritic will have the additional role of marking the palatalized velars, as in c¯eowan ‘chew,’ ceaster ‘-chester’ when they appear before non-high vowels. Unfortunately, in that scenario, we have to face the additional problem of spellings representing different phonetic entities, as in c¯eowan ‘chew’ and c¯ene ‘keen.’ It is this discrepancy that leads me to choose the ‘diphthongal’ account. This is very tentative, however; there are clear coarticulatory effects here and it may never be clear whether the scribes wanted to mark the vowels or the consonants as different. (This is similar to the famous issue in the phonology of Bulgarian, where there is no scholarly agreement whether it is the consonant or the vowel that is distinctively palatal in pairs such as H M [n’(j)am] ‘dumb,’ ‘mute,’ versus HaM [nam] ‘to us.’)
ʁ
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environments in words in which the initial is followed by inherited and derived front vowels. Lass (1994: 54–55) presents data which are highly suggestive of the analytical advantage of the existence of paradigmatic deterrents to the palatalization in umlauted environments, but he disregards this potentially informative thread in favor of a strict temporal ordering of palatalization prior to I-Umlaut. Commenting on the ostensible “irrationality” of assuming that palatalization of /k/ can occur before /i/, but not before front /y/, and of allowing there to be two kinds of /e(:)/ with respect to palatalization, he points out that items with front vowels that fail to cause palatalization have related back-vowel forms not just historically, but also synchronically for Old English. The chart in (14) adapts and re-tabulates the examples cited in Lass (1994: 55): (14)
No I-Umlaut Cantwarabyrig ‘Canterbury’ camb ‘comb’ coss ‘kiss’
The forms in the first column of (14) are described as “hiccoughs” in a system which is assumed to favor phonetically-conditioned alternations of the velars, as in c¯eosan ‘choose,’ Go kiusan, OHG kiosan, and in cinn, Go kinnus, OHG kinni. Yet Lass’s solution to the apparent problem is to reconstruct a firmly ensconced /tʃ/ prior to I-Umlaut without further exploiting the significance of the cognates. The interpretation I want to pursue here is that the preservation of the front velar [k’] in environments which eventually overlap with the coronalization environments cannot be understood fully without factoring in lexical information from the ambient language, and that therefore Hogg’s cursory references to the role of analogy (1979: 101, 1992a: 138) were not only right, but have to be seen as a key factor in the preservation of the phonemic identity of the velars in derived and non-derived environments. The right-hand column of (15) below is a list of the forms that I have been able to identify in which the voiceless velar stop is followed by a mutated vowel in Old English. I have deliberately restricted my search to stems which have survived into Middle and Modern English, and whose subsequent history provides some clue to the degree of palatalization of the velars in them. The left-hand column lists one or more of the contemporaneously recorded forms which show the back vowel of the base. The list
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is compiled on the basis of Holthausen (1934) and Bosworth and Toller (1898/1983).66 (15)
66. In preparing the chart I also consulted The Dictionary of Old English Corpus in Electronic Form, 1998 release, University of Toronto, Canada. The few items I have not included are items which (a) are either ambiguous in their Old English form, for example cydic, coydic ‘kad-, ked-, chad-, ched-lock,’ c¯yfl, but also c¯ufel ‘cowl,’ (b) clearly follow the Latin form, for example cymen ‘cumin,’ Lat. cuminum, or (c) are onomastic, for example cylene ‘city’ -coln (as in Lincoln), Cynete ‘river Kennet.’ 67. ME and dialectal kerf, carf (Onions 1966/1983). See also below, the note on Lat. curtus ‘cut short.’ 68. Reference from the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Onions (1966/1983). 69. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology lists cudgel as being “of unknown origin.” The etymological relation to “cog” is suggested by Holthausen (1934). 70. Compare to Old English ceol ‘keel, a flat-bottomed vessel’ from PrG. ∗ keulaz which should have produced ∗ cheel. 71. Also capian ‘to turn, incline oneself,’ gloss from Bosworth and Toller (1898); listed as cognate with c¯epan in Holthausen. Compare also copian ‘to cop, lay hold of.’ 72. According to The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (ODEE) the two forms are related by gradation. 73. According to the OED, this entry has no known cognate in Old English; however, the ON. kyrtill ‘tunic’ may have influenced the phonological form of this word, compare OHG. kurt, kurz. The Anglo-Saxon Charters record two instances of curt ‘short’ (Sawyer 1968, 1165, lines 11–12), and there are over twenty attestations of curtus ‘short’ in the Old English Anglo-Latin materials; the word must have been familiar enough either in its Old Norse form, or in the Latin form to furnish the model for the preservation of the initial velar.
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The list is not overwhelmingly long. Nevertheless, the very existence of the parallel patterns suggests strongly that the segmental adjacency of to a non-back vowel [y], [ø], even [e], in words of the type cyrnel ‘kernel,’ c¯elan ‘cool,’ is at best only part of the picture. The focus on the similarity between front and umlauted vowels has tended to obscure the presence of other possible factors involved in the perseverance of the velar quality of the consonant. In addition to the phonetic reasons discussed above, which provide independent salient ground for the subsequent phonemic split, the coexistence of two types of morphologically and semantically associated forms: a phonological base and forms derived through umlaut, enhances the resistance to palatalization in the latter allomorphs. Without formalizing the account further, we can attribute this resistance to “faithfulness to the base” where the “base” has the phonological properties of the form in the left-hand column of (15).74 Adjacent segmental strings in the base and the derivative maintain their identity due to a combination of phonetic similarity defined as shared non-coronality and the powerful reinforcement from semantic and morphological associations within the set of paradigmatically related forms. The preservation of the voiceless velar supports the argument (Kastovsky 1988, 1992) that the derivational processes of Old English were moving in the direction of relying on a single, invariable stem.75 Allomorphic leveling plays a role also in the elimination of forms which had the inherited palatalized velars [kj ] in some paradigmatic forms, but preserved the plain velars in others, such as c¯eosan ‘to choose,’ p.t. c¯eas, but curon ‘p.t.pl., they chose,’ coren, p.p. ‘chosen.’ A parallel in the opposite direction is provided by OE ceorfan ‘carve,’ p.t. cearf, curfon, p.p. corfen. The resulting modern form carve, however, is as likely to be due to the paradigmatic analogy from the past plural and the past participle as to the preservation of /k-/ in Scandinavian.76 74. For a full exposition of the theory which underlies the proposed treatment of the relations between the allomorphs see McCarthy and Prince (1997). The relevance of their Correspondence Theory to the material analyzed here proceeds from the idea that surface realizations reflect a competition of two types of constraints: well-formedness constraints which are phonologically motivated and governed; and faithfulness constraints, which enforce identity between corresponding morphological elements. 75. Kastovsky’s section on palatalization and assibilation (1988: 121) follows the standard assumption of early assibilation of the /k/ before etymologically front vowels. In my account the morphologization of I-Umlaut is also a source of stem invariability, but it does not involve a necessary temporal precedence of the re-categorization of [kj ] to /tʃ/. 76. The ODEE (Onions 1966/1983: 149) states: “The normal representation of OE ceorfan would be ∗ charve, but initial k had established itself by c. 1200 in the present stem through the influence of other parts of the verb or of the Scandinavian forms.” Hogg (1992a: 275) also believes that ModE carve may be due to Scandinavian influence. Another form which is more
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
Relevant examples of paradigmatic allomorphy of this kind are extremely hard to find; in any case the leveling of the [kj -] : [k-] distinction, though less likely than that between [k’-] and [k-], is not a challenge to the potential of allomorphy to interact with and even override phonetic factors. Thus, the two components of the analysis of the continuing categorical identification of all three allophones as /k-/ in initial position are morphophonemic and phonetic. The combined effect of the two factors is most clearly demonstrable in the stability of the fronted velars. This sets them apart from the palatalized velars whose particular shape is a precondition of their subsequent affrication, but which are still perceived as a type of /k/, sharing dorsality with the other /k/ allophones. The distinctions within the family of the etymological voiceless velar stops are gradient, yet even within that continuum it is predictable that the phonetically adjacent [k’] and [k] should be more susceptible to cross-derivational identity effects than the non-adjacent [kj ] and [k]. Schematically: (16)
This is indeed in line with the data in (15) and the rarity of [kj ] : [k] analogical collapse. Another observation prompted by the paradigmatic data is that there is a clear tendency to analogize to the base form, where “base” is defined as a dictionary headword entry. In those cases where cross-derivational effects can be invoked to account for the historical fate of the initial velars, the phonetic shape that remains stable over time is that of the base. Thus, the present likely to be due to borrowing than to internal phonological change is ModE kettle, OE cetel, WS cietel, ME and dialectal chetel (Onions 1966: 504). 77. The alignment of d¯ıc under “palatal” acknowledges the possibility that allophonic affrication might have started earlier in positions other than the onset of stressed syllables. For a discussion of allomorphic variation between palatalized and unpalatalized velars word-internally as in secan ‘seek,’ but beseech, drink, rather than ∗ drinch < OE drinceð, attributed to leveling away of the palatalization and/or Scandinavian influence, see Hogg (1992a: 274–275).
3.5 Voiceless velar alliteration
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tense of c¯eosan ‘choose,’ and the singular for c¯u ‘cow’ are the unmarked members of the pairs under discussion. This kind of linguistic behavior, though not automatic, is well attested elsewhere in the phonological history of the language: compare the way in which Middle English Open Syllable Lengthening ignores the potentially blocking environment of inflected forms, so that we do not get long–short alternations between, for example, ape-apes, bake-bakes, hope-hopes. The productivity of the root and the frequency of the derivatives can also be an important factor, though the nature of the surviving material precludes meaningful quantification. Still, it is reasonable to assume that reinforcement might also have come from derivatives which copy the phonetic shape of the base. In the case of c¯eosan, for example, its cognates c¯easega ‘a chooser,’ c¯easnes, n. ‘election, choice,’ -c¯easig, adj. ‘-picking,’ or-c¯eas, adj. ‘free from accusation,’ or-c¯easnes, n. ‘immunity,’ might have contributed to the robustness of the palatalized velar. The past tense and past participle allomorphs cur-/cor- on the other hand appear in isolation and do not participate in word-formation. To summarize at this point: what the verse evidence suggests, and linguistic argumentation supports, is that the phonemicization of the palatal and velar allophones of early Old English /k/ did not occur before the end of the Old English period. Palatalization of the inherited front velars proceeded simultaneously with the unrounding of the mutated high front vowels, but the two processes did not produce mergers because of the continuing phonetic dissimilarity of the respective non-back velars. The alliterative practice of the scops with respect to is unexceptional and reflects accurately the phonemic contrasts in the consonantal system. Speculations that the metrical requirement of phonemically identical single consonant syllable onsets was changing and therefore “archaic” pronunciation variants were allowed in key metrical positions, comparable to the “eye rhymes” of Modern English, are on the wrong track. The account obviates the need to refer to “identity on some as yet undescribed abstract level of representation” (Lass and Anderson 1975: 139–141), Lass (1997: 74), because the identity can be well described both on the phonetic and on the phonemic level. Very importantly, the Old English practice with respect to the consonantal realizations of confirms Jakobson’s (1933) independent suggestion that the metrical rules of a language refer to categorical distinctions rather than to the actual manifestations of these categories. As we shall see, this is a strong tendency, not an absolute requirement for meter. At least in the case of Jakobson’s view of the matching of language and meter is corroborated.
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3.5.5
The /k-/ split post-obit: coronalization and affrication as contrast enhancements Before we turn to the data provided by the voiced velars in Old English, a discussion of some other implications of the proposed /k-/ analysis is in order. I have argued that there was only one contrastive entity /k-/ in Old English and that its different realizations were environmentally conditioned. The subsequent history of the Old English fronted velar /k’-/ and the palatalized velar [kj -] points to progressive phonetic differentiation resulting in a phonemic split into /k-/ and /tʃ-/. The split may have started as early as the eleventh century; its occurrence raises one of the uneasy but frequent questions in historical phonology: why would identical phonetic conditions produce different results at different times? Why did words of the cynn type not go through further palatalization and affrication after the rounded vowel was fully fronted and unrounded? I have already suggested that morphological uniformity may have been involved in the preservation of the velar properties of the cynn type words. A more comprehensive answer to such a question is impossible; it would involve untestable hypotheses regarding free variation, sociolinguistic factors, unrecoverable phonetic detail. Stepping back from the specific circumstances surrounding the developments of /k-/ in Old and Middle English, we can address, if not the particular dating, at least the predictability of the phonological split in terms of universal markedness. In section 3.5.2 it was argued that the property that distinguished the etymological /kj ] from the other fronted velars was the presence of coronality in its articulation. Place of articulation is arguably the most important factor in consonantal markedness, and within the larger domain of place, the feature C oro na l has been shown to be very low on a hierarchy of place markedness, with Labial and Dorsal showing higher levels of markedness: (17)
The arrangement in (17) recognizes the organization of segmental features with functional feature groupings, or nodes as in the articulator-based feature theory elaborated in Clements and Hume (1995/96). Speech in their model is 78. The hierarchy, which has the status of a meta-constraint, was proposed by Prince and Smolensky (1993: ch. 9). It is based on the literature on coronal underspecification (Paradis and Prunet 1991), the essence of which is that coronal place is less marked than dorsal or labial. Lombardi (1997) extends this hierarchy to include pharyngeal (including laryngeal) PLACE as less marked than coronal; the pharyngeal end of the hierarchy is included here in anticipation of the discussion of glottal stop insertion and the history of /h-/ later in this book.
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produced using several independently functioning articulators which have their own nodes on different tiers. I will return to the importance of the hierarchy of place features below; for the moment it will suffice to note that not all place features are equally salient functionally. If increase of coronality in fully palatal contexts can be seen as a change towards a less marked realization, the history of the velars and their fronted and palatalized allophones after the end of the tenth century is predictable on typological grounds. By way of comparison it should be noted that the development of the palatalized velars towards full coronals is unexceptional and has been reported in a number of languages. It occurs in English, Slavic, Italian, and Spanish dialects, French, Bantu, Akan, etc.; recent surveys of velar palatalization resulting in a coronal and specific accounts of these processes are found in Flemming (1995: 143), Guion (1996: 6–21). As is clear from the preceding sections, the separation of the cild ‘child’ type from the cyrnel ‘kernel’ type can be accounted for by more intense palatal coarticulation before /i/ and /i/ in the former group, the only two environments in which a “true” palatal, in the sense of Keating and Lahiri (1993), systematically emerges. A strong acoustic similarity between /k/ and /tʃ/ exists along the dimension of “aperiodic noise.” Guion (1996: 45) reports mean durations for aperiodic noise (i.e. transient frications and aspirations if present) in word-initial English stops before a variety of vowels as follows: /b-/ 10 ms., /d-/ 12 ms., /d-/ 45 ms., /p-/ 53 ms., /t-/ 59 ms., /k-/ 86 ms., and /tʃ-/ 86 ms. The similarity, best attested before high vowels, provides a good basis for defining the perceptual conditions for the reanalysis of [kj ] to [tʃ-]. The effect of some other factors on the development of the two segment types should also be considered: position with respect to the syllable boundary, and the prosodic property of the host syllable. Hogg (1992a: 258–259) surveys the accounts of the non-palatalized velar stops as in for example, gel¯ıcung ‘liking,’ s¯ecan ‘seek,’ æcer ‘field,’ bæc ‘back,’ and concludes that “palatalization was a change by which all velar consonants were palatalized when adjacent to and in the same syllable as either /i/ or /j/.” Thus, in addition to the primary condition, the phonetic environment of a true palatal, tautosyllabicity apparently also played an important role. Tautosyllabicity is not at issue with respect to the alliterative material which prompted the analysis above, and it may produce opposite results within the paradigms of the affected roots, compare seek to beseech. Position in the syllable in broader terms is, however, directly relevant to the evolution of coronalization and affrication in that the position of the velar before or after the syllabic peak affects its chances of undergoing change.
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
An argument can be made that the palatalized velars became affricated first word-internally, where they could appear in coda position, a prototypical position of neutralization. Positions of neutralization would logically accommodate unmarked segments. Affrication would also be more advanced in the onset of a prosodically weak syllable, where absence of stress would have the same neutralizing effect. The earliest scribal evidence of affrication in Old English comes from spellings, as in ‘to fetch’ < ∗ fetjan, where an etymological dental stop undergoes affrication before a following /j/ similar to Modern English [bεtʃjə]/[bεtʃə] ‘bet you.’ Hogg (1992a: 270–272) assumes that such spellings, common in late West Saxon, attest to affricated pronunciation, at least for the sequence dental stop + /j/, “by at the latest the beginning of the ninth century.” He further suggests that the palatal stop, here referred to as the palatalized velar [kj ], “developed into an affricate at the same time.”79 It is well established that the progressive coronalization of the velars and their affrication is a lenition process, and that lenition is positionally determined. The ninth-century data are therefore interpretable straightforwardly as the first step in the process which results in across-the-board phonemic contrast between the voiceless velars and the palatals in the eleventh century.80 Spelling and general theoretical considerations make it plausible that the palatalized velars in lenition positions, for example dic ‘ditch,’ pic ‘pitch,’ had fully palatalized surface realizations and had joined the newly generated voiceless affricates from dental stops + /j/ by the beginning of the ninth century.81 In comparison, the development of affricates in root-initial position was slowed 79. Accepting the spelling as valid evidence for the existence of a voiceless palatal affricate does have the undesirable consequence of severing further sound from spelling in a system which has traditionally been assumed to have been largely phonemic. 80. Hogg (1994: 11–13) observed the existence of “variables” in the process of palatalization of the velars and proposed an internal hierarchization of the variables. He posits two positional variables: Adjacency and Direction, stipulating further that Right-to-Left assimilation is stronger than the Left-to-Right effects. Either these parameters, or an account based on the inherent properties of the syllabic onset versus the syllabic coda, will capture successfully the spread of coronalization through the Old English lexicon. 81. Metrical criteria for the affrication are difficult to establish. Hutcheson (1991: 51–52) assumes that word-medial /tʃ/ exists in Old English, and states that its bisegmental nature would prevent resolution, but he cites no evidence supporting the assumption. I found three attestations of fetian ‘fetch’ in the poetic corpus: Beo 1310: Hraðe wæs t¯o bure / B¯eowulf fetod ‘Quickly was to bower / Beowulf fetched,’ where the environment would prevent affrication, Gen 2667: forht folces weard./ Heht him fetigean to ‘ordered him brought to,’ where resolution (assuming disyllabic fetigean) is impossible, and Judith 35: þa¯ e¯ adigan mægð / ofstum fetigan ‘the blessed maid / quickly fetch,’ where resolution must be suspended independently by Kaluza’s Law. Of these, only the tenth-century Judith example would be of any chronological interest; the limited data and the complication based on indeterminacy of the
3.5 Voiceless velar alliteration
111
down due to the strength of the onset: identity is preserved longest in that position, especially if the onset belongs to a stressed syllable.82 It is this fundamental distributional privilege which allows all root-initial voiceless velars to continue to be identified as belonging to the same linguistic entity until much later, yielding alliterative pairs such as cynerice : cild (Death of Edgar), cyrcean : cristenes (Psalms, verse 31). Finally, a relevant distinction which is not recoverable in a historical context, but which is confirmed experimentally on modern material, is that between careful speech and fast speech. The hypothesis is that affrication starts in more relaxed and casual speech registers. Studying the peak spectral frequencies of velars and palatoalveolars before front and back vowels, Guion (1996: ch. 3) found that in what she calls “citation speech,” which would correspond to the careful and emphatic register of verse composition and delivery, the acoustic difference between [k] and [tʃ] is statistically significant, while in fast speech the difference is non-significant. This supports the hypothesis that the process of affrication is perceptually conditioned and initiated in faster speech. A further interesting result, though based on a limited sample of speakers, is that “The peak spectral frequency of [k] was also shown to be more similar to [tʃ] before the high front vowels in the female speakers studied” (Guion 1996: 154). Interpreted in the context of the late Old English consonantal system, these results suggest the possibility that the identification of the palatalized [kj ] with [k] or [tʃ] could vary according to register and gender. The evidence recovered from the verse compositions is likely to reflect more accurately the careful and conservative enunciation of the male scops, for whom identification of [kj ] with [k] justified the alliterative choices. Otherwise the significant acoustic syllabic count of -ian verbs, let alone the possible bisegmental behavior of the pre-affricated palatalized velar [kj ], make the test uninformative. Of the four relevant forms of stice/sticien ‘stick/stitch’ (Christ and Satan 508, Metrical Charms 11, 2, Judgement Day II 180, Solomon and Saturn 171), only the end of the ninth–beginning of the tenth-century SnS 171: ðæt ða sienfullan / saula sticien might be interesting, since it presupposes resolution (if one wants to avoid two unstressed syllables verse-finally). No relevant forms of ditch or pitch exist in the ASPR. 82. For a recent discussion of the positional privileges of onset segments see Fougeron and Keating (1997). Some consideration should be given also to the fact that fronted velars [k’] before the front rounded vowels [y, ø] generally appear in stressed syllable onsets since I-Mutation is a regressive assimilation. Of all the examples of iterative I-Umlaut in historically trisyllabic words, affecting first a medial vowel, and then the fronted medial vowels affecting ¯ > ¯ ‘eternal,’ (∗ æjuki > ∗ ajyci > ∗ æci the stem-initial vowel, the only relevant form is æce ∗ æce ¯ (Hogg 1992a: 124). It is possible that the additional factor of stress helped to maintain the difference between the coarticulation of [kj ] + /i, i, j/, which is positionally unrestricted, and the coarticulation of [k’] + /y, ø/, which occurs only in stressed syllable onsets.
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
difference between [k] and [tʃ] would have blocked alliteration of the type cyrcean : cristene. This does not preclude a scenario of [kj ] : [tʃ] identification in different registers and for a different section of the speakers. It is this latter identification that eventually results in the addition of a new contrastive entity in the phonology of the language. The evolution of the voiceless velar stop from early Old English to Middle English is represented graphically in (18). : /k/
(18)
c. 500–700 AD (I-Mutation) c. 900– c. 1000-– ME
+ etymologically front vowels [kj] [kj] Non-onset
Onset j
[k ]
[tʃ] /tʃ/
+ C or etymologically back vowels
[k] [k’]
[k]
[k’]
[k] /k/
The affrication and merger of [kj ] with the independently generated [tʃ] after c. 1000 marks the cut-off point beyond which phonemicization of /k/ and /tʃ/ realigns the allophonic relations, creating a new entity and distancing it from the velars. This prevents fronted voiceless velars from further coronalization even during and after the full fronting of the umlauted vowels. Continuing strong cross-derivational faithfulness effects and borrowings from Scandinavian, other Germanic languages, and Anglo-Norman, where /k’/ remains unaffricated in palatal environments, reinforce the phonemic identification of [k’] with /k/. Post-Conquest loans and formations such as kid (c. 1200), kill (c. 1200), kitten (1377), -kin/-kins (diminutive), fourteenth century, kayles [keilz] (dial., ‘ninepins, skittles’), also cube, cue, cure, acute from Old French, preserve Dorsal as their dominant articulator and do not go through the same process. The account consistent with the alliterative evidence assumes that initial coronalization of the voiceless velar stop [k] –> [k’] –> [kj ] was triggered by adjacency to etymological /i, i, j/. The presence of an abutting high front vowel or glide is treated here as the most important factor in the history of /k-/. Palatal assimilation turns one of the /k/ allophones into a marginally coronal segment and thus increases its chances to develop further in the direction of unmarked palatality. Uniformity within the inflexional and derivational paradigms, though not in itself a trigger, is a critical factor in the preservation of the dorsal quality of
3.6 Voiced velars in early Old English
113
the fronted velars [k’] after I-Mutation places them in the environment of front vowels. The coexistence of mutated and non-mutated cognates circumscribes the crossover towards coronality. The independent development of the affricate [tʃ] from word-internal voiceless dental stops + /j/ produced a new coronal entity in the language and facilitated the shift of [kj ] –> [tʃ], first in syllable coda positions and in unstressed syllables, and later, after the end of the tenth century, also in the onset of root-initial syllables. The proposed account covers practically all of the surviving reflexes of the relevant Old English items. Nevertheless, such complex interplay of phonological factors, powerful paradigmatic and semantic associations, and influence from Scandinavian predictably produce some unorthodox sets whose surviving forms would be a problem for any generalization. They involve crossovers which must be due to unrecoverable paradigmatic and external factors. The individual history of the “irregular” members of these pairs does not affect the argument in this chapter – these are the leaky edges of a generally tight filter of constraints described here and they have to be treated separately. Some such pairs are care–chary, cold–chill, kettle–chettel (dial.), kirk–church, and, word-medially, the histories of milk–milch, muckle (dial.)–much, seek–beseech, –wick–wich.83 3.6
Alliterating voiced velars in early Old English
We turn now to the discrepancy described in 3.2 and exemplified in (5), created by the behavior of the voiced velars in Old English alliterative verse: the lines in (19) illustrate the point. (19)
to godes dome./Geomor siððan84 geong in geardum,/ðone god sende85 siþþan g¯eara i¯u/goldwine [minne]86
Genesis A 1610 Beo 13 Wand 22
In the early poetic documents two etymologically distinct categories, the palatal approximants /j/ from PrG and the voiced velars from PrG /γ/ < IE /gh/ mixed 83. The form chicken, OE c¯ıcen, ∗ c¯ıecen, Germ. ∗ kiuk¯ınam, is “irregular,” compare kitchen < OE cycene; the idiosyncratic behavior of the velar in the second syllable of chicken may have been influenced by association with Germ. ∗ kuk ‘cock,’ OE cocc, or it may be due to syncopated inflexional forms: cicnes, cicnu, where the velar could not undergo affrication. Lass and Anderson (1975: 141–147) point out the special behavior of class II weak verbs: prician, ‘prick,’ sticien ‘stick,’ the blocking effect of infinitival -an, as in brecan ‘break,’ specan ‘speak,’ and other cross-derivational factors involved in the pairs drink-drench, stink-stench. 84. ‘to god’s judgement / mournful since’ 85. ‘young in yards / him God sent’ 86. ‘since years ago / my generous lord’
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
freely in alliteration. In the later verse words with inherited [j-] alliterate with themselves and are kept apart from the voiced velar stops, both in palatal and in non-palatal environments. The evidence for the separate treatment is beyond dispute. Here again is the relevant statement by Fulk (1992: 258–259), cited in section 3.2: As is well known, palatal and velar g no longer alliterate in the latest verse. [Apart from two probable exceptions] . . . all . . . instances in the Chronicle poems distinguish the two: see Brunanburh (973) 15, 50, 64, Coronation of Edgar (973) 10, Death of Edgar (975) 8, 19, 26, and Death of Edward (1065) 3. The Maldon poet also distinguishes the two types of g, with instances at lines 13, 32, 35, 46, 61, 67, 84, 94, 100, and elsewhere . . . Ælfric, in his alliterative prose, also generally keeps velar and palatal g separate . . . The Menologium does not mix palatal and velar g for the purpose of alliteration; compare 10, 39, 100, 101, 109, 113, 117, 132, 171.87
Unlike the : alliteration, therefore, where it was the late poems that presented an analytical problem, : alliteration is an issue only for the early poetic material. Were it not for the mixed alliteration of the ’s in verse dated prior to the tenth century, the interpretation would be straightforward: the separate treatment of the palatals and the velars in the later verse would indicate that the phonemic split of to /g/ and /j/ was completed in the language and recognized accordingly by the scops. What remains unaccounted for is the apparent violation of the phonemic principle of alliteration in the earlier verse. Purely scribal identity was argued to be an implausible reason for the pairing of the voiceless velars; is there a convincing linguistic basis for : alliteration in the early poems? In early Old English the voiced velar fricative was represented most frequently by (here = ), which can stand for a voiced velar fricative [γ], a voiced palatal fricative [], a palatal approximant [j], a voiced velar stop [g] after nasals, and non-syllabic [i].88 One possible way of understanding the seemingly unmotivated alliterations of the earlier verse without invoking “eye alliteration” would be to focus on the phonetic similarity between the palatal
87. Fulk’s observation that there was a change in the alliterative choices in the later verse is not original – it has a long history in the philological literature, going a hundred years back to Kluge’s Grundri (1902: 1000), see also Pope (1966: 101) – but Fulk’s summary states the facts most comprehensively and explicitly. 88. See Hogg (1979, 1992a: 31, 34, 43). Spellings with in the early texts, and before and in borrowed names throughout the period, for example iu ‘previously,’ Ianuarius ‘January,’ Iulius ‘July,’ Iacobus, Iohannes, Iudas, etc., for the palatal approximant, are of no special significance and do not affect the proposed analysis.
3.6 Voiced velars in early Old English
115
approximant [j] from Germanic /j/ and the voiced palatal fricative [], the allophone of /γ/ initially before front vowels other than umlauted vowels. Notice that the two realizations are notoriously close; they were not distinguished in the IPA until 1989, when the new symbol [] (curly-tail <j>) was introduced for the palatal fricative, also known as “voiced dorso-palatal fricative” (Pullum and Ladusaw 1986: 82). Projecting these phonetic facts back to early Old English, we can reconstruct a gradient picture: the palatal allophone of /γ/ is phonetically extremely close to /j/, while maintaining an allophonic relation with the corresponding velar [γ], as shown in (20): (20)
Gmc. palatal approximant [j]
Palatalized fricative [] /j/
ge¯ar ‘year’ ge¯oc ‘yoke’
Velar fricative [γ] /γ/
gieldan ‘yield’ georn ‘yearning’
gold ‘gold’ gamen ‘game’
The key to understanding the early patterns of alliteration, I believe, is in the quite unusual phonetic proximity of [j] and []. Technically, [j] : [] alliteration crosses a phonemic boundary, yet it appears to be a tolerated violation of the phonemic principle due to the scalar quality of the allophonic variants of the voiced velar fricatives in early Old English; the broken line connecting the [] allophone to the phonemic unit /j/ in (20) is intended to represent the possibility of a surface association triggered by the phonetic proximity of [j] and []. Central to this analysis is also the assumption of a velar fricative /γ/ < IE/∗ gh/ in all positions in the syllable, initially, as well as medially and finally.89 It will be noticed that the early Old English situation might prompt an analysis conflating all three phonetic values into one single contrasting unit. All of the relevant segments can be represented in the same way orthographically. As was the case with the voiceless fronted velars, minimal pairs on which the phonemic contrast can be tested are extremely difficult to find, especially in view of the paucity of genuine etymological /j/-initial major class words in the Old English 89. This follows Minkoff (1967: 93) who posits a spirant /γ/ in all positions except after /n/ or in unvoicing environments – in final unstressed position or before other consonants. Lass (1994: 76, 78) assumes hardening of [γ] to [g] in initial position even for the earliest period, but the alliterative practice would contradict that assumption. Hogg (1992a: 261, 288–289) spells out the analytical reasons for positing a fricative [γ] as the early Old English reflex of IE ∗ /gh/ > Gmc. /γ/ > EOE /γ/ initially as well as elsewhere.
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
lexicon.90 Scandinavian influence complicates the picture further. Thus, one analytical possibility would be to posit a neutralization of the [j] : [] : [γ] distinction in initial position. That scenario is not too plausible, however. The first, and less objectionable, point would be that onsets in English are not a typical neutralization site, though, of course, this is only a tendency. The more serious obstacle would be that for the relevant set of realizations we would have to assume a historical input of two distinctive entities, followed by a temporary merger, followed by a reversal of the merger along the lines of the original etymological categories, at least for the gold-type words. Rather than argue for a monophonemic status of all allophones in early Old English, therefore, it seems preferable to follow the traditional division into two phonemes, which is supported, as noted above, by the historical perseverance of two separate categories: Germanic /j/ versus Germanic /γ/ + back vowels, for example geoc, ioc ‘yoke’ < IE [iu-] versus gors(t) ‘gorse’ < IE∗ ghrzd. The nearly overlapping phonetic realization of two distinct phonemes is a familiar phenomenon in phonology. It is also well known that in verse both the structural well-formedness of the line and the parametrical rules of alliteration and rhyme represent a continuum. The notion of linguistically motivated gradience of the parametrical constraint of rhyming in terms of “feature” rhymes was developed and defended by Zwicky (1976), see also Holtman (1994, 1996). Similar claims have not been made for the alliterative patterns of Old English; instead, orthography has been held responsible for the discrepancy between spelling and reconstructed sound. I believe that the early Old English alliterative practice with respect to is a prime candidate for gradual rather than categorical satisfaction of the identity requirement. This is the line that will be pursued below, but not before a note of caution. The appeal to specific features, rather than to overall phonemic identity in alliteration should be made with utmost discretion because of the specific properties of the syllable Onset and the syllable R hyme; it will only be plausible if it can be defended phonetically. 90. This observation will not affect the premise of the proposed analysis, but it still appears relevant in the context of the strictness of matching the ’s. Remarkably many of the inherited /j/-initial words in Old English are non-major class words: ge ‘and,’ g¯e ‘you,’ gea ‘yea,’ geon ‘yon,’ gief ‘if,’ giese ‘yes,’ git ‘you two,’ etc. In contrast, the number of fully stressable lexical items with Gmc. /j/ in Old English was quite low: less than a dozen of the total of fortyfour entries under G2 = Gmc. /j/ in Holthausen (1934) fit that description, for example g¯ear ‘year,’ geoc ‘yoke,’ geocor ‘bitter,’ geohhol ‘yule,’ ge¯omor ‘sad,’ geong ‘young,’ giest ‘yeast.’ The statistical peripherality of such types in the lexicon may have been an additional, purely pragmatic factor in the early violability of the full featural identity adhered to elsewhere in the alliterative corpus.
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The alliterative identification of the allophones in early Old English, as modeled in (20), justifies an analysis based on the notion of gradient wellformedness. By isolating one particular property of the adjacent segments, we can draw specific boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable violations of identity. What [j] and [] share crucially is not just allophonic status, but the specific place features: the palatalized fricative [] is both Dorsal and C oro na l, which enables it to bridge the gap between the approximant and the fricative, allowing g¯ear ‘year’ to alliterate with gold ‘gold.’ Syllogistically, the surface relationships are as follows: (21)
a etymological palatal approximant /j/ : palatal fricative [] b palatal fricative [] : velar fricative [γ] ∴ c etymological palatal approximant /j/ : velar fricative [γ]
The premises (a) and (b) in (21) are independently confirmed on the grounds that (a) is phonetically justified, and (b) is straightforward alliterative pairing of allophones. Both premises refer to well-formed alliterative onsets. It is easy to see how the intuition of the scops would sanction the “therefore” conclusion in (c). Indeed, the appeal of the modus ponens argumentation would be strong even in the case of alliterations. The reason why an account crossing the phonemic lines is considered here, and not for the voiceless velars, is that the syllogistic reduction in (21) seems the only way to account for the matching practices in early Old English while the alliteration on allows a credible alternative. One should acknowledge, however, that the account proposed for alliteration in early Old English could extend to the across-the-board alliteration in late Old English, assuming a phonemic /kj/ alliterating with the allophones of /k/. This would be a compromise between the traditional /tʃ/ reconstruction for Old English and my monophonemic proposal, but the basic point, the lack of a phonemic affricate in Old English, still stands. As for alliteration, the reference to the surface identification of two distinct entities here is quite different from the principle formulated in Lass and Anderson (1975: 140). They state broadly that “Any two segments may alliterate, if they are types that can be derived from one underlying segment – even if their sources in a particular case are different. Thus [g] can alliterate with any [j] regardless of origin, since both segments are possible outputs of underlying /g/ . . . Corollary: for ‘may alliterate’ substitute ‘may be spelt alike.’ ” A critical point in my assumptions regarding the pairing of the /j/ realizations in the geong ‘young’ type of words extant in Germanic and the realizations of the reflexes of IE ∗ gh > Gmc. γ, as in gold ‘gold,’ is not that they are possible
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
outputs of the same entity, but that the alliteration is based on the phonetically mediated surface similarity of two separate sources. The account of alliteration follows the assumption that hardening or strengthening of the velar fricative to [g-] in initial position had not occurred in early Old English. Since the shift from a fricative to a stop is unaccompanied by a spelling change, its dating is a matter of controversy, and the analysis suggested by the alliterative data has the advantage of shedding light on that chronology. The hardening of the voiced velar fricative has been recognized as a “later” Old English change by a well-represented school of thought, including Campbell (1959), though, admittedly, it remains one of the debatable issues in English historical phonology. Lass and Anderson (1975: 134) find “no very strong evidence for fricative articulation [presumably Campbell’s = [γ]] in OE, anywhere except in environments between back vowels,” and assume that was an underlying stop. Thus, variations on the dating range from “pre-historic” occlusion, as in Luick (1914–1940/1964), to “late” Old English, as in Hogg (1979: 93, 1992a: 31), (1992a: 288–289), who gives the best phonemicization arguments in support of the lateness and posits the systematic appearance of the initial stop c. 1000.91 None of Hogg’s arguments refers to the shift of the alliterative practice. The thesis that the cessation of [j] : [γ] alliteration is due to the phonetic dissimilarity between [j] and [g] therefore provides an independent window onto the chronology of fricative hardening. The date that tallies most closely with the verse data is the one proposed by Jordan (1934/1974: 172), according to whom the velar became a plosive in the second half of the tenth century. Thus, the alliterative data enable us to establish a new connection: the independent development of the fricative [γ] to a stopped [g] in initial position must have been the turning-point in the alliterative alignment of the velars and the palatals. Changing the manner of articulation for one of the members of the pair produced a break in the continuity of the phonetic values previously associated freely with each other in word onsets. In linguistic terms, the shift of [γ] to [g] in initial position constitutes a breach of an inviolable constraint, identity of manner, rendering the previous allophonic alignment unacceptable. By the second half of the tenth century the palatal fricative [] had merged with the etymological approximant /j/; a switch in phonemic allegiance which is recognized by the scops. At approximately the same time, the earlier [γ] is hardened to /g/. In a fashion parallel to the allophony of the voiceless velar stop 91. The uncertainty of the dating, however, reappears even in Hogg (1992b: 91): “Initially /γ/ remained a fricative until a fairly late, but unspecifiable, date” (my italics).
3.6 Voiced velars in early Old English
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/k/, /g/ in late Old English had two allophones, [g] and [g’].92 The development of the Old English voiced velar fricative and the merger of its [] allophone with PrG /j/ is charted in (22): (22)
The chronological relationship between the palatal merger (g¯ear ‘year’ merging with gieldan ‘pay, yield’) and the hardening of the voiced fricative are not recoverable orthographically, but the causal connection between the two changes is obvious: the pre-existing palatal approximant in the system absorbs the phonetically very similar palatal fricative. The reasons for the tenacity of the [g’] created by adjacency to umlauted vowels in words of the type represented by g¯es ‘geese,’ gylden ‘golden’ in the third column of (22) are the same ones that allowed the fronted allophones of /k/ to continue alliterating. Again, the appeal here is to the persistent rounded quality of the mid and high umlauted vowels, and, most importantly, paradigm uniformity. The chart in (22) represents the developments of the voiced velar approximants and spirants from Old to Middle English. Like the corresponding chart for in (18), it covers most, but not all of the Modern English reflexes of the words. A largish group of “exceptions”: against, give, get, guest, guild, gap, gate, gallows, guess owe their initial stop in Modern English to Scandinavian influence, see Jordan (1934/1974: 174). The affricate in jaspis, OE geaspis, jew, OE Giuðeas, pl., July, OE giu(lu)ling, etc. with Germ. /j/, as well as in gem, OE gimm < L. gemma, must be due to secondary borrowing from French. Like [k’] in post-Conquest borrowings from Scandinavian, [g’] in such loanwords remains unaffected: gear < ON gervi, geld ‘castrate’ < ON 92. Since I used [k’] rather than the IPA [c] for the voiceless palatal stops, I will use [g’] rather than the IPA barred dotless j (voiced palatal stop) [ ] to make the notations parallel to each other. f
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
gelda, gill ‘organ of breathing’ < ON ∗ gil, gill ‘ravine’ < ON gil, gilt ‘young sow’< ON gyltr, gird ‘fasten’ < ON gyrda. Comparing the developments of the velars and the palatals in (18) and (22), we see that linguistic principles and not spelling govern the practice of the poets; both and alliterations are well motivated phonetically and phonologically. In both instances the notion of gradualness of the parametrical constraints on alliteration in the palatal-velar area provides a framework which renders reference to scribal alliteration unnecessary for the Old English period. The contradiction between the standard phonemic reconstructions for the velars and the palatals shown in (1), and their deployment in verse, forces a reconsideration of the dating of the relevant events. The arguments are strongly against reconstructing /tʃ/ as a phoneme in what is traditionally labeled “classical” Old English; similarly, the evidence lends no support to the position that the realization of the IE /gh-/ in early Old English was a stop rather than a spirant word-initially. Preferably, the alliteration of single consonants rests on a phonemically-based para-metrical principle, but in the case of early /j/ : /γ/ alliteration, categorization in terms of phonemes cedes its place to a phonetically scalar similarity –> identity, a surface phenomenon which allowed the scops some leeway in the velar-palatal area.
3.7
The violability of place for the Old English velars
It was argued in section 3.5.2 that Dorsal , the feature that refers to tonguebody articulations, was active in maintaining the identity of the voiceless velars throughout the Old English period. The property that distinguished the etymological [kj ] from the other fronted velars was the presence of coronality in its articulation. The subsequent increase of coronality in palatal environments is unexceptional in terms of the universal place markedness hierarchy. Reference to the active articulator, tongue tip versus tongue body, in defining the gradualness of place identity, provides a useful framework also for the description of the behavior of the voiced velar fricative /γ/ in early Old English. Within that framework, we can assume that the palatal fricative [] had both coronal and dorsal articulations; it could be represented as a complex segment: (23)
[] P LACE D ORSAL
C ORONAL
3.8 Phonetic gradience in OT
121
In this scenario, once again, the coronal coarticulation would be ignored in the case of [] : [γ] alliterations, statistically by far the most numerously attested pattern. This suggests that shared dorsality is sufficient for the two realizations to be treated as identical in terms of place. The statistically marginal case of [j] : [γ] alliteration (because of the lack of /j/ stressed words in Old English) must be attributed to a presumed secondary dorsal component in the glide, where coronality may have been weakly present and violable.93 In the following section, the data and the proposed analysis of the Old English velars will be presented in terms of Optimality Theory, the model which currently seems best suited to deal with a combination of categorical and non-categorical linguistic facts. 3.8
Alliteration as phonetic gradience in Optimality Theory
The account of the relationship between reconstructed entities and alliteration in Old English appears to depart from the traditional description of singleconsonant alliteration as phonemically-based. However, if the scops made use of onset identity also as a gradient and partially violable requirement, the issue of categorical phonemic identity needs to be reconciled with articulatory gradience. The re-evaluation of the possible reasons for the alliterative choices prompts a reappraisal of the traditional reconstructions found in the historical philological and phonological literature. The violable nature of onset identity in Old English which emerges from the alliterative data might present a problem if couched in categorical generative rules based on underlying phonemic distinctions, but it lends itself to formalization in terms of Optimality Theory.94 In most general terms, alliteration is based on the following parameters. First, ideally, alliteration preserves the underlying distinctions in the language, 93. For the phonetic plausibility of this speculation see Keating and Lahiri (1993: 80–82), who also cite a case, namely Hungarian, where the forward central constriction for the glide /j/ is lacking and the dorsal articulation component in it is so prominent that it dominates the coronal component. Many of the phonetic characteristics of the segments in the palatal-velar area are still under investigation, but the results so far appear to be fully compatible with the assumptions made here. 94. Whether the ability of the theory to accommodate a wide gamut of previously puzzling phenomena is a merit or a shortcoming is still being debated. I take it that an attempt to model the observations and proposals made in the earlier sections is worth the effort. Crucially, here and elsewhere in this book I have tried to refer exclusively to constraints which are well established in the OT literature. The single most significant departure from “standard” OT is my use of icons to represent, roughly, the degree of well-formedness of the alliterative outputs.
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
i.e. it requires that the input and the output of a particular form belong to the same phonological category. This, in conventional OT terms, is the notion of Input -to-Output (I–O) correspondence. It is a typical faithfulness constraint according to which the contrasting feature specifications of the input should be preserved in the output string. I–O correspondence is a very important component of the selection of matching pairs, but like all universal constraints it is also violable. Second, alliteration requires maximum similarity of the Onset of the stressed syllables positioned in the leftmost strong positions of the a- and the b-verse.95 This is a surface similarity between the phonetic realizations of the underlying entities. Since alliteration is conceptually the same as iteration in reduplication, its theoretical analog is the Base-Reduplicant (B–R) correspondence, where neither part is derived from the other. Like the I–O correspondence, the B–R correspondence is violable, only here the violations are computed over the similarity or identity of two realizations, i.e. it is an Output-to-Output (O–O) correspondence. Evaluating the well-formedness of a certain alliterative choice in this framework amounts to finding out which realizations satisfy all or most of the correspondence constraints. As argued in the previous sections, Old English alliteration appears to involve constraints which are feature-specific.96 The constraints needed to define alliteration are thus a general I–O Identity constraint and a B–R Identity constraint which must be decomposed further into constraints which cover the attested alliterative patterns: (24)
Constraints on Old English Alliteration: a I–O Identity: Underlyingly contrasting entities are contrasting in the output97
95. As with other theory-specific terms, the term Onset is set off typographically following the practice in the current linguistic literature. The significance of this practice does not go beyond separating visually the generic use of the word onset from the linguistic term Onse t which is associated with important structural and analytical properties. 96. The feature-specificity of imperfect rhymes was already mentioned, see Zwicky (1976). The similarity between initial rhyme and reduplication has been emphasized repeatedly since Kiparsky (1973: 241) pointed out the parallelism between Gothic reduplication and old Germanic alliteration. While certain aspects of the “initial” rhyme and the end-rhyme require different treatment due to the different phonological properties of the syllable onset and the coda respectively, the principle of surface gradualness should be applicable to both positions, though the margin of variability is much more restricted in the onset. 97. This is a simplification of a more complex situation: obviously a contrasting entity is a bundle of features and only some of these features have a contrastive function in a particular context. Here the constraint is conceptually equivalent to historical preservation of the status quo of phonological oppositions in the language.
3.8 Phonetic gradience in OT
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b O–O Identity: Ident Cont :
Alliterating onsets must have identical continuancy features Ident Voice: Alliterating onsets must have identical voice features Ident Place : Alliterating onsets must have identical place features
The table in (25) presents the ranking of the three constraints for the velars. Some clearly alliterating pairs (b : b) and clearly non-alliterating pairs (b : p) are included for comparison: (25)
O–O Ident Con t
O–O Ident Voi c e
O–O Ident Pl ac e
I–O Ident
b:b k : k’ (∗ ) (∗ )
k’ : kj γ:
(∗ )
:j γ:j tʃ : k
∗!
j:g
∗!
b:p
∗ ∗
∗!
Asterisks in the table indicate that a constraint has been violated. If the constraint violation renders alliteration unacceptable, i.e. there are no attested cases of such use, the violation is marked as fatal (∗ !). Violations of constraints to the right of a fatal violation are irrelevant – these are the shaded areas on the table. Parenthesized violations (∗ ) indicate that the output includes a secondary place feature, in our cases [coronal] in which the two consonants disagree. Satisfaction of all four constraints is the optimal instantiation of alliteration. Since alliteration can be a gradient para-metrical constraint, the simultaneous satisfaction of all four constraints is not necessary for the alliteration to be functional. Of the three O–O constraints, identity of place is violable, marked by an asterisk, while identity of continuancy and identity of voice cannot be violated. The violations of these two constraints in the bottom three rows of (25) are marked “∗ !”. In effect, none of the attested patterns in Old English shows pairs which cross the line between voiced and voiceless segments; the identity of continuancy is also observed.
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
Ident Voice and Ident Cont would not be rankable with respect to each other except for the possibility, not built into the representation, that the continuancy matching of the approximant [j] with the velar and the palatalized fricatives [γ] and [] is imperfect. This hedge recognizes the more openly introspective reconstruction of the status of the voiced palatal fricative versus the etymological approximant. While the two were probably distinguished by the degree of opening, air turbulence, and noise, they are both still voiced, and still continuants, only the level of continuancy would be higher for the approximant. Moreover, for the purpose of accounting for the alliterative practices of Old English, the assumed similarity in the levels of obstruction is supported by the subsequent merger of the early palatal fricative in Old English with the inherited Germanic approximants. The violation which in the model in (25) renders alliteration unacceptable is a full-scale violation of the manner of articulation, as between ∗ [tʃ] : [k] where the fricative component of the affricate introduces an Ident Cont violation, as is also the case with ∗ [j] : [g]. The alliterative pairs in the second through the fifth row are all functional. The two violable constraints refer to a subset of the parameter Pl ac e and to I–O Identity. Thus, for the purpose of defining the allowable margins of alliteration, the meaningful and revealing fact is that manner of articulation and voicing have to be copied, while other violations are tolerated. Full identity of the place of articulation is less salient: the matching can be made on the basis of a shared dorsality. This analysis raises a series of interesting theoretical questions: why is it that a place feature can be violated? Why is it just the velars and the palatals that can violate place? Everything else being equal, why should palatals and velars be treated more liberally, i.e. why should we not get /f/ alliterating with //? Place is an important factor in consonantal markedness. Is the Old English pattern strictly local, or can the principle be extended to cover a wider range of featural hierarchical relations elsewhere? The first relevant observation in this context is that the type of allophonic variation observed in the palatal and velar region must have existed elsewhere in the consonantal system. However, there are no comparable consonantal pairings involving place variation elsewhere: none of the other consonants exhibits a change of place of articulation within the history of English. In both cases discussed here, the direction of the change historically has been from velar to palatal. A logical correlate of this observation is that the key to the attested patterns should be sought in coarticulation. Recent acoustic studies indicate that the most dramatic effects of coarticulation are found in the formant transitions of dorsals/laryngeals, see Flemming (1995, 1997: 83), who
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125
has demonstrated that these transitions are more susceptible to change than the comparable transitions of other consonants. The sensitivity of the velars to frontback environment explains why reconstructing their phonetic and phonemic values can present a problem not found in the other consonants whose phonemic status is not significantly affected by the tongue position of the adjacent vowels. In terms of articulatory specifics, too, the vowel-context variation in tongue body and tongue blade position – dorsality and coronality – is shared by all consonants, yet again it is the velars that have distinct characteristics. On this point, Keating and Lahiri (1993: 89) write: What is special about the velars . . . is that the tongue body is the primary articulator, so that variation in tongue body position is also variation in the stop constriction location. For velars, variation in tongue body location affects the size of the resonating cavity in front of the constriction and thus affects the audible characteristics of the consonant noise. For labials and coronals, tongue body movement does not affect the size of the front cavity, and therefore does not affect the release acoustics as much.
Since the observed velars alliterate on the basis of their shared dorsal features, the violation of coronality, often present only as a secondary articulation, is acceptable. The account is in accord with the extensive literature on coronal underspecification (see above), which asserts that Coronal place is less marked than Dorsal or Labial, and is therefore presumably more violable. For convenience, I reproduce (17) below: (17)
Clearly, the constraint Ident Place stated holistically is not sufficient to exclude alliterations such as /s/ : /f/, /m/ : /n/, // : /f/, /r/ : /l/, and a number of other unattested combinations. The hierarchy allows us to unpack the place constraint further and focus on the velars. In addition to being able to refer to the fact in very specific and hierarchical terms, the central theoretical point of this “decomposition” of the place node is the confirmation that “each constituent may function as a single unit in phonological rules,” see Clements and Hume (1995/1996: 251). The features needed to characterize the place node of the oral consonants cross-linguistically are:98 98. Clements and Hume (1995/96: 277). I will return to the glottal features in chapter 4.
126 (26)
3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization labial : involving a constriction formed by the lower lip c or onal: involving a constriction formed by the front of the tongue dorsal : involving a constriction formed by the back of the tongue
In order to detail further the range of variability of the single consonant selected in Old English alliteration, we may unpack the earlier Ident Place constraint. The set of constraints covering manner, voicing, and place is given in (27): (27)
ident cont :
Alliterating onsets must have identical continuancy features ident voice : Alliterating onsets must have identical voice features ident labial : Alliterating onsets must have identical labial features ident cor : Alliterating onsets must have identical coronal features ident dorsal : Alliterating onsets must have identical dorsal features
The ranking of these constraints, which gives a somewhat expanded version of (25), is given in the table in (28): (28)
O–O Ident Cont
O–O Ident Voice
O–O Ident Labial
O–O Ident Dorsal
O–O Ident Coronal
i–o Ident
b:b k : k’ (∗ ) (∗ )
k’ : kj γ:
∗
:j γ:j tʃ : k j:g
∗!
p:t t:k
∗ ∗
∗!
b:p
(∗ )
∗! ∗! ∗!
The model formalizes the suggested reasons why Old English allowed some alliterations and disallowed others: the violations of place features matter only when they result in a mismatch between full coronality and full dorsality, as in the non-occurring ∗ [t] : [k]. The affricate [tʃ], being fully coronal, cannot participate in the alliteration with [k] which is fully dorsal. The table in (28) is only illustrative, though it covers most of the possible combinations of the reconstructed consonant sounds of Old English with each
3.8 Phonetic gradience in OT
127
other, except [m] : [n], [r] : [l], and [] : [s]. The avoidance of [m] : [n] alliterations suggests that a good alliterating match requires that if both segments are nasal, they must also share coronality. The difference between [r] : [l] may be subsumed under Dorsal , allowing for the possibility of representing a uvular consonant with a dominant dorsal articulator, and as a segment in which the Co ro na l is dominant. [] : [s] agree in everything except in the feature Distributed : [s] is both Coronal and Distributed , while [] is C oro na l and Nondistributed ; it is likely that the difference between the two can also be expressed in terms of dorsal constriction. Crucially, these unattested pairings would not be subject to the special coarticulation behavior which separates the velars from the rest of the consonants in the system. Identifying Co ro na l as the most flexible feature in alliterative identity brings us closer to understanding how the traditional phonemic accounts of Old English fit the more general principles of perceptual contrastiveness developed in current phonological theory. Isolating first C o ronal, and then, more generally, Pl ac e, as properties responsible for the alliterative discrepancies in Old English has implications broader than the very specific phonetic details discussed above.99 The question is whether this behavior can be motivated independently, i.e. outside the assumption of violable metrical meta-constraints, which in itself just restates the observations in the first part of this chapter. The “local” or “para-metrical” violability of Place here has been justified by the special position of the velars which are most susceptible to vocalic palatal assimilation. They are the segments in the system which display tolerance for greater allophonic amplitude without necessarily becoming members of a different P lace series, but they are also material from which phonemic splits along the velar-palatal dimension occur historically. The phonemic realignments covered in this chapter: the split of /k/ into /k/ and /tʃ/, and the split of /γ/ into /g/ and /j/, are due both to the broad allophonic range of the original phonemes, and to the independent rise or existence of “host” segments: medial [tʃ] < [t] + [j], the inherited /j/, and the phonotactically conditioned medial [g].100 Until the merger of the voiced palatal fricative [] with the preexisting Gmc. /j/ and the affrication of [kj ] to [tʃ], place violation in the back 99. Holtman (1996) singles out Place as the most easily violable constraint for English and Dutch slant rhymes. She develops an account in terms of feature geometry, in which the place features are low down in the hierarchy and therefore most easily “manipulable.” Holtman’s model does not contradict the local functional account I propose here; however, the parallel with slant rhymes, though initially attractive, leaves the structural position of the matched segment – onset or rhyme – out of sight and should therefore be taken with utmost caution. 100. The voiced velar stop [g] realization of /γ/ after nasals and in gemination is a shared assumption in the literature, see the references in 3.6, and in Hogg (1992a: 251–252), Lass (1994: 78).
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
consonantal region did not result in categorical contrastiveness. The subsequent history of the velars and the palatals depended heavily on coarticulation. Minor context-sensitive variation in place features in alliteration may have been present elsewhere in Old English, but it is neither recoverable nor has it ever become an issue since there are no subsequent developments of individual consonants parallel to the changes of the velars. The violation of Pl ac e in any other point of the system outside the velars, say mixing labio-dentals and dentals, ∗ [f] : [], or even alveolars and palatoalveolars, ∗ [s] : [ʃ], would have been perceived as more aggravating, and such pairings were in fact blocked, because of the preexisting full functional integration of the place distinction features outside the narrow velar area. “Local” violability largely, but not completely, overlaps the familiar “phonemicization” arguments; the new angle which the present study adds to the previous descriptions of the “local” situation is the specific interface between the categorical phonemic basis and the gradual phonetic basis in the selection of matching pairs of segments. The analysis identifies the properties licensing the special patterns of velarpalatal alliteration which had been largely dismissed in the literature. Reference to the typology of the velar consonants allows us to see how and why some but not all technically subphonemic features can become relevant in sustaining alliteration. The observation that everything else being equal, one feature can be ignored with impunity contradicts Jakobson’s statement that “. . . nowhere . . . among all . . . Germanic alliterative devices, do we find the slightest intention to abstract one single distinctive feature from the concurrent features of the alliterating phonemes and to use it as their only binding element” (1963: 88). We have isolated P lace, and more specifically Dorsal as being active in maintaining alliterative identity. The hypothesis developed here places phonetically “imperfect” alliteration in Germanic closer to the set of “feature rhymes” discussed in Zwicky (1976). An important consequence of casting the data into an OT framework is that it provides a testing ground for the internal ranking of phonological feature constraints. The data support an account in which manner of articulation and voicing rank higher than place of articulation, and place is the least salient feature in that it allows only partial satisfaction. The constraint formalism makes the linguistic basis of alliteration easier to understand. Rather than invoking external factors to account for ostensible inconsistencies in the rules of alliteration, the account addresses the linguistic threshold of violability that underlies the practice of the scops and the scribes. The gradient acceptability is expressed in terms of constraint values which relate directly to identifiable and measurable phonetic properties. What is more,
3.8 Phonetic gradience in OT
129
representing the rules of alliteration in this way allows for a certain amount of predictability of the Old English textual data: the linguistically-motivated position strengthens the arguments in favor of using alliteration as the basis for editorial emendations in the Old English corpus. One more general argument in favor of the Old English ranking comes from acoustic phonetics: perceptually voice and manner features are more salient than the place features of consonants. Recasting the statement in terms of general principles of markedness, it would be possible to claim that perceptually, voicing and manner features are more marked, while place is acoustically “unmarked.” A confirmation of this claim can be found in Ladefoged (1982: 182–183) according to whom acoustically “there is virtually no difference . . . during the actual closures of [b, d, g], and . . . absolutely none at all during the closures of [p, t, k].” Place of articulation is notoriously difficult to differentiate on a spectrogram; on the other hand, “. . . it is possible to tell many things about the manner of articulation from spectrograms. Voicing, too, has very clear acoustic correlates.” One should add immediately, however, that until specific measurements verify that the same situation obtains in syllable onsets as elsewhere, the generality of the Old English situation remains a matter of speculation. The assumption that the patterns of alliteration were controlled by perception rather than by production agrees with the view that verse in Old English was orally generated and transmitted; alliterative verse is a form of speech, appropriately stylized and mnemonically organized. In an overwhelmingly preliterate society, the process of verse composition may be seen as parallel to acquisition. It is well known that “. . . children’s perceptions are well ahead of their productions.”101 Approached from that perspective, the analysis presented above contributes to the understanding of orality and literacy in the history of English verse. Medieval poets composed with a live audience in mind; they must have been keenly conscious of the sounds that held together their verses, and they knew that what they were producing had to be sanctioned by their listeners. Not surprisingly, the metaphors one finds in manuals of poetic training are those of “speaking” and “hearing,” rather than of “writing.” Geoffrey of Vinsauf, whose Poetria Nova marks the peak of rhetorical instruction in the late twelfth century, advises: “. . . ensure that a well-modulated voice enters the ears and feeds the hearing . . .”; “See to it that an expression, as it wins the mind’s approval, may likewise charm the ear . . .”102 It is not far-fetched to assume that the Old English poets worked under the same injunctions. 101. Hayes (1999: 25) and further references therein. 102. The citations are from Nims’s 1967 translation of the Poetria Nova at pp. 18, 87.
130 3.9
3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization Was there a /ʃʃ/ in Old English?
The existence of a palatal /ʃ/ phoneme in Old English is widely assumed in the literature, hence the inclusion of /ʃ/ in the consonantal inventory in (1). The change, to quote from the Cambridge History of the English Language (Hogg 1992b: 107), “. . . occurs everywhere except between vowels, where it must be supposed that the two segments were always quite separate segments. Medially the palatalisation of ∗ /sk/ took place only if the conditions for palatalisation of ∗ /k/ were present, so we find forms such as wasce [with ʃ] ‘I wash’ < ∗ waske, but ascað ‘he asks’ < ∗ askað with /k/ before a back vowel.”103 Since I have disputed the grounds for positing phonemic affrication of the palatalized velar [kj ] to /tʃ/ before the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, it would be logical to look into the parallel phenomenon affecting the cluster [sk]. In most of the Anglo-Saxon poetic corpus <sc-> alliterates exclusively with itself. This behavior is uninformative with respect to the change to /ʃ/ since s+ obstruent cluster alliteration is one of the most remarkable shared features of all Germanic alliteration and thus the alliteration would be acceptable in either case, [sk] : [sk], or [ʃ] : [ʃ]. The first indication that the Germanic tradition of cluster alliteration was breaking down in Old English appears in The Battle of Maldon, where <st-> alliterates with <s-> at l. 271.104 The first instances of pairing <sc-> with <s-> in alliteration come from Ælfric (c. 955–1020). The Metrical Psalms of the Paris Psalter, a composition dated to the middle of the eleventh century (Fulk 1992: 414) also show <sc-> : <s-> alliteration, for example at 105.26.5, 105.27.2, 106.40.3, 140.10.3, etc. The appearance of “mixed” <s-> : <sc-> alliteration in the later verse throws some doubt on the existence of a phonemic /ʃ/ in Old English. The three s+obstruent clusters behaved identically earlier; if we assume that they continued to do so, a reading supported by the Maldon evidence, the occurrence of <s-> : <sc-> alliteration could just mean that the hyper-identity required for these clusters had ceased to be part of the parametrical constraints on identity in the later alliterative verse, and that/s-/ : /s-/ was as good as any other consonantal copying. This is the interpretation that seems the most logical one, but it excludes [ʃ-] in initial position. The alternative assumption, namely that the alliteration in those texts was between /s/ and /ʃ/, runs into the difficulty of having to explain why Ælfric and the creators/copyists of The Metrical Psalms would 103. The Cambridge History does not date the change, but Hogg (1992b: 273) states that assibilation of [sc] to /ʃ/ “was well under way during the tenth century,” “a process which ran alongside assibilation elsewhere.” 104. Maldon 271: æfre embe stunde he sealde sume wunde. The line is cited in Pope (1966: 101), Fulk (1992: 259); they both suggest that the alliterative violation may be due to the rhyme.
3.9 Was there a /ʃʃ/ in Old English?
131
observe the phonemic boundaries for all other consonants, and especially with the voiced velars, while choosing to ignore the difference between the dental, or dento-alveolar /s/ and the palato-alveolar /ʃ/. Also, assuming alliteration between /s/ and /ʃ/ loses sight of the parallelism between /sk-/ and the other two /s-/ clusters.105 Another possible test for the status of the [sk-] sequence might come from the behavior of the sequence when it appears medially after a short vowel: if such disyllabic words, presumably of the shape #(C)VʃʃV(C)# appear in a position where they have to undergo metrical resolution, then we can treat [ʃ] as monosegmental and incapable of rendering the initial syllable heavy. The assumption follows from the universal principle that a single intervocalic consonant syllabifies as the onset of the second syllable, i.e. a #(C)VʃʃV(C)# string will syllabify #(C)V – ʃ V(C)#. However, there is no evidence in the ASPR corpus that the sequence was ever treated as a single phoneme. Moreover, it is not hard to find examples which confirm the bisegmental status of the sequence. In all of the lines cited in (29), representative of a broad chronological range of composition, the assumption of a monosegmental /ʃ/, and therefore resolution in the italicized words, will destroy the metricality of the verses by rendering them three-positional: (29)
Ferigan freolice / ofer fisces bæð Swylce he afedde / of fixum twam Nu ic fitte gen / ymb fisca cynn yða yrfeweard, / earmra fisca ðonne [.]e hangiende / helle wisceð Forðon ic anlic ætt / æscean hlafe Gefæstna þinne egsan / flæsce minum bisceop bremran / Nu on Brytene rest
Andreas 293 Andreas 589106 The Whale 1107 Solomon and Saturn 81108 Solomon and Saturn 105 Psalms 101.7.1109 Psalms 118.120.1 The Menologium 104110
105. The possibility of alliteration based on surface phonetic similarity between a highly palatalized, but not yet assibilated [s’ + kj ] and any [s-] is not analytically distinct from saying that the alliteration was between /s-/ : /s-/, and that phonemicization of the /ʃ/ had not occurred. 106. ‘He also fed / from two fishes.’ Notice that even the single grapheme <x> has to be treated as bisegmental, with metathesis. A similar case, Beo 549, is noted by Hutcheson (1991: 52), who finds no evidence that /ʃ/ was treated as monosegmental anywhere in the meter, but offers no further comment on the issue and does not challenge the accepted reconstruction. 107. ‘. . . about fish kind’ The poem is probably Cynewulfian, of the same school of poetic art that produced The Panther, The Partridge, and The Phoenix (Krapp and Dobbie, ASPR III: li). 108. Text from the end of the ninth–beginning of the tenth century (Krapp and Dobbie, ASPR VI: lx). MS. 41 (B), Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, has earma fixa. The metathesis as reflected in the spelling of the (B) manuscript precludes the possibility of /ʃ/ independently of the metrical evidence. 109. ‘Because I only ate / bread of ash’ 110. Possibly as late as the middle of the eleventh century, see above.
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
It could be argued, of course, that the lack of assibilation in some of the cited forms is environmentally conditioned by the following back vowels (see Hogg 1994: 4–5). The attested metrical behavior of the forms in -e or -eð would make such a claim problematic: the distribution of the relevant examples appears to be random. There appears to be no justification to assume that one and the same word, say fisc ‘fish,’ would syllabify differently and have different metrical properties depending on whether its inflexion is unstressed -a or -e, -um or -es.111 It has been pointed out that the lack of palatalization medially is confirmed by spellings showing metathesis: ash-tree, OE /, fish, OE pl./, ME frosh, dial. frosk ‘frog,’ OE /, thresh, OE / wash, OE <wascan>/<waxan>, etc.112 In view of the metrical considerations presented above, this behavior is predictable; moreover, the metathesized <x> spellings tend to be “late” (Luick 1914–1940 [1964]: 913). What is not clear is the assertion that such spellings say anything about the reconstruction of [ʃ] in non-metathesized inflexional forms like disce, fisce. While it is quite likely that a palatal environment would result in a more advanced stage in the complex process of palatalization, there is nothing informative about the <sc> spellings in terms of dating of the phonemicization. All we can say is that until late into Old English, and probably as late as 1100 if [ʃ] existed, it was still allophonic.113 It is also noteworthy that the subsequent paradigmatic leveling of the forms with [sk] could go in the direction of non-palatalization: ask spellings: ‘ashtree’ versus ‘flask,’ ‘ask’ versus <waxan> ‘wash,’ , ME both frosh and frosk, ‘frog,’ belie the idea that <x> forms bear witness to a differentiated treatment of [sk] in different environments, as originally proposed by Luick (1914/1940 [1964]: 913). In fact, the related claim that syllabification is relevant to the process by giving the second segment /k/ different chances of assimilation is, I believe, misleading. The cluster /sk/ remained bisegmental in
111. The metrical test would not be applicable under an assumption of ambisyllabicity; positing ambisyllabicity of medial consonants following short stressed vowels in Old English creates a multitude of analytical problems, not the least of which would be the future of (C)V-stressed syllables which undergo Open Syllable Lengthening in Middle English which cannot have occurred in syllables which were already heavy. 112. See Luick (1914/40[1964]: 913–914), Minkoff (1967: 98), Hogg (1992a: 273, 1996: 4). 113. This is the date given in Jordan (1934/1974: 168–169) regarding Old English palatalization of [sk] to [sk¸c] [s¸c] except medially before velar vowels, and finally after velar vowels. 114. ME tush, surviving dialectally and applied to Indian elephants (Onions 1983: 950).
3.10 OE consonant system revised
133
all environments in Old English; full assibilation occurred at a time when all post-tonic vowels were already reduced to [-ə], or had already started disappearing, so that environment is not a factor in the differential treatment of the forms.115 The strongest philological reasons for positing early and, for many scholars, ubiquitous [sk] >/ʃ/ in Old English, seems to come from the interpretation of spellings such as sceacan ‘shake,’ sceamu ‘shame,’ where the <e-> after the initial cluster is taken as a diacritic indicating palatalization. A reconstruction which acknowledges advanced phonetic palatalizations is fully in accord with this kind of evidence. It is likely, as first suggested by B¨ulbring (1900), and supported by Hogg (1996: 4), that the nature of the process is best accounted for by the phonetic interaction between /s/ and the following /k/. In terms of the features used in the analysis of the velars above, this would mean that the noncoronal [k] is assimilated to the coronal articulation of [s]. There is no reason why the diacritic <e> should not be taken as an indicator of that pre-phonemic stage of coronal assimilation. The subsequent history of phonemicization of [sk] > /ʃ/ is a compromise between the phonetic impetus towards coronality in initial position and in palatal environments, and the maintenance and spread of unassimilated forms in velar environments in the same paradigm. The latter was probably reinforced by the bisegmental sequence [sk] in lexical items borrowed from Latin, Scandinavian, and Dutch: school, scanty, scour, skin, skipper, skirt, sky, bask. In summary, the metrical tests do not bear out the postulation of phonemic assibilation of [sk] to /ʃ/ in Old English. The philological arguments for /ʃ/ are not incompatible with a later date of the change, sometime around, or soon after, the Norman Conquest. This would not contradict an assumption recognizing the stronger and more widespread palatalization of the [sk] cluster than other palatalizations in Old English; it only argues that the reconstruction of a fully phonemicized palatoalveolar /ʃ/ in Old English is unwarranted. 3.10
The Old English consonant system revised
Focussing on the alliterative behavior of the velars and the palatals, and interpreting the data in phonological and phonetic terms, chapter 3 has argued for a 115. This takes care of the controversial forms bisc(e)op ‘bishop,’ cuscute ‘cushat,’ whose velar environment has been seen as a problem within an environment and syllabification-based account, see Luick: (1914/1940 [1964]: 915), Hogg (1996). Further complicating details of the change: the dialectal concentration of <x> forms in late West Saxon and Kentish, as well as the ME attestations of <s-> spellings, are irrelevant to the present argument.
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3 Segmental histories: velar palatalization
revision of the traditional inventory of consonants in Old English. The proposed revisions are boldfaced in the chart in (30): (30) Voiceless stops Voiced stops Voiceless fricatives Voiced fricatives Sibilants Affricates Nasals Liquids Approximants
Labial p b f
Dental t d
Palatoalveolar
s
Palatal
Velar k g116 x γ117
d (?)
m w
n r, l j
Old English did not go beyond a purely allophonic variation between [k], [k’], and [kj ] until after c. 1000. The phonemic split of [γ] into /j/ and /g/ and the merger of the voiced palatal fricative with the pre-existing /j/ occurred around the middle of the tenth century. Though initiated in Old English, the assibilation of [sk] did not reach the phonemic status of /ʃ/ until the end of the period. The special behavior of the velars is predictable on phonetic grounds: the velars are more susceptible to contextual effects than other consonants; the greater variations in tongue-body position within that set create gradient acoustic characteristics which are reflected in the alliterative practice of the scops.
116. After c. 950.
117. Before c. 950.
4
Syllable structure
Chapter 3 argued that the potential conflict between letter-based and speechbased identity in Old English alliteration should be resolved in favor of the linguistic principle, an approach which in its turn allowed a re-evaluation of the segmental histories of the velars. Proceeding from the same premise, the primacy of the linguistic signal over convention and the written medium, I now turn to the evidence and the arguments for reconstructing the status of the stressed syllable onset in the history of English. In Modern English the realization of a filled Onset in stressed syllables is optional and can be subject to segmental and prosodic variability.1 Unlike the voluminous literature on segmental quality and quantity, the empirical and theoretical coverage of Onset is quite limited. The presence or absence of a glottal stop in vowel-initial stressed syllables in Old English has been the only issue debated in the literature, with no single position becoming generally accepted. There has been no comparable interest in the Middle English evidence for vowel-initial syllables, nor has the diachronic picture ever been compared to the Modern English data on Onset . A further question that needs to be addressed is the probability of hybridization of the native prosodic patterns with the typologically different Romance syllable structure, parallel to the much discussed hybridization of the stress system. These are the issues that chapter 4 will examine. 4.1
The vowel alliteration riddle
Throughout Germanic verse, vowels alliterated with each other promiscuously, “Alle Vokale stoben durcheinander” (Heusler 1925: 95). The examples from 1. Here and elsewhere in this study the use of small caps for Onset indicates that the reference is not to the generic noun but to a well-formedness constraint on the structure of the syllable according to which the onset position of the syllables is preferentially filled, i.e. “syllables must have onsets,” see Kager (1999: 93). Onset is a familiar syllable structure constraint which is part of Universal Grammar. All languages have CV-syllables, but not all languages have V-syllables. For a recent discussion of the constraint within OT see Blevins (1996: 217).
135
136
4 Syllable structure
Beowulf in (1) are typical of the alliterative tradition throughout the AngloSaxon period: (1)
h¯u þ¯a æðelingas / ellen fremedon2 oþðæt him æghwylc ¯ / ð¯ara ymbsittendra3 ¯ısig ond u¯ tf¯us, / æ∂elinges fær4 ¯ e¯ ce drihten, / þæs þe h¯e A Abel sl¯og5
Beo 3 Beo 9 Beo 33 Beo 108
A poet himself, and a writer of a handbook on the rules of poetry, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241), wrote (c. 1220) that the “sound branch” (hlj´oðsgrein) is one of the two important components of Germanic verse, the other one being “poetic language.”6 Much of our initial understanding of the placement of alliteration in the verse line rests on Snorri’s advice; he is also credited with the suggestion that alliteration of different vowels is more esthetically pleasing than alliteration of identical vowels, see Kaluza (1911: 121), Heusler (1925/1956, I: 95). Against the background of tight consonantal alliteration, and the even tighter variant of onset identity provided by the selfalliterating clusters sp-, st-, sk-, ascertaining the underlying principle of vowel alliteration is an imperative. Conceptually, this practice has puzzled scholars for two hundred years and has produced some correspondingly animated rhetoric. Commenting on the asymmetry between consonant and vowel alliteration, Lass (1995: 143) writes: given the specificity of the system elsewhere, the restrictiveness of consonantal alliteration and the laxness of vowel alliteration suggests that the latter might be misinterpreted, swept under the rug, as an unmotivated ‘elsewhere.’ . . . This is weak, and may show a facile disrespect for the technical proficiency of the practitioners of a major verse tradition (poor guys, once they had alliteration, vowels were just a locus desperatus).
Drawing a parallel between the rigid identity patterns of consonantal alliteration and the practice of vowel alliteration is, indeed, a challenge. Assuming that all vowels in stressed vowel-initial syllables were understood as being identical in some sense leads to the inference that the Anglo-Saxon scops and scribes followed some arbitrary versification rule which allowed them the freedom to mix vowel qualities. The latter proposition is not testable – there are no explicit instructions on how to write alliterative verse prior to Snorri, and, in any case, as mentioned above, the interpretation of Snorri’s text that 2. ‘how the leaders / courage accomplished’ 3. ‘until to him each / neighbor’ 4. ‘icy and out-keen, / hero’s vessel’ 5. ‘eternal Lord / in which he Abel slew’ 6. Snorri’s book, The Prose Edda, from which this citation is taken, contains many Norse legends and accounts of the special diction of the Skaldic poets. As noted in chapter 2, it also describes the great variety of poetic meters used in Skaldic and Eddic verse.
4.1 Vowel alliteration riddle
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non-identical vowels alliterate better can only be taken as a post-hoc summary of the Old Norse tradition. In spite of the obvious parallels between the Old Norse tradition and the Old English traditions, they are sufficiently different to disallow an a priori assumption that Snorri’s remarks cover the Old English tradition fully, though in this case we have no reason to assume otherwise.7 The closest one can come to instruction in prosodic matters in Old English is Bede’s (c. 673–735) textbook De Arte Metrica, which must have been an important source of information about the principles of classical meters, see Kendall (1991a). Alliterative decorum is not among Bede’s topics, however, unless by a speculative extension of the principle of verse behaving in ways “not immediately apparent to the eye.”8 If alliteration in verse was based on identity of one or more linguistic attributes, we should ask which exact features could have licensed vowel alliteration. This is an interesting linguistic question, and a reasonable answer to it will also provide a window to the otherwise puzzling practice of mixed vowel alliteration not just in Old English but in all Germanic alliterative verse. The vowel alliteration conundrum has been addressed by many leading philologists and historians of English prosody. Rapp (1836) started the tradition of reconstructing a “glottal catch” in vowel-initial stressed syllables in Germanic. During most of the nineteenth century, scholars found no reason to disagree with the idea that the basis of vowel alliteration was provided by that entity. Two independent proposals at the end of that century, by Jiriczek (1895) and Kauffmann (1897), focus on the sonority of vowels as the property responsible for vowel alliteration. Two more theories on why all vowels alliterate with each other were added in the twentieth century, so that now we can count four proposals concerning the nature of the common denominator in Germanic vowel alliteration. Identity of the vowels in these proposals has been described in terms of: 7. Russom (1998), who studied the relationship between three compatible Germanic traditions: Beowulf , the Old Norse Eddic poems on native Scandinavian subjects in fornyrðislag, and Continental (Old Saxon) Germanic alliterative verse, did not observe any differences between the patterns of alliteration with respect to vowel-initial syllables (1998: 64). Instructions for writing alliterative verse in Latin, however, state explicitly that the vowels have to be identical, see Kabell (1978: 13, fn. 37), Classen (1913: 44). Similarly, identity of vowels in alliteration seems to be strongly preferred in Middle English, a matter to which I return below, 4.3.1. 8. Of interest in the first three chapters of De Arte Metrica is Bede’s awareness of the discrepancy between the written shape of the letters and their prosodic values, or potestates. Bede’s comments refer to the manner in which syllable length is determined. The principle of verse behaving in ways “not immediately apparent to the eye” (Kendall 1991: 21) was thus familiar to the readers of the book. The principle could have been extended to the interpretation of the conventions of vowel alliteration where what must have been apparent to the ear was not necessarily apparent to the eye.
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4 Syllable structure a b c d
a shared feature [+ vocalic] diachronic vowel identity a null/zero onset a glottal stop preceding the vowel
By way of providing a background for my own arguments, I will summarize (a)–(c) briefly, noting that all four proposals are well rehearsed in the relevant literature where further details can be found.9 Proposal (a), a shared feature account, shared sonority, is so general that it amounts to a restatement of the problem. A terminological variant of this proposal is to consider [+ syllabic] the relevant feature for the matching of different vowels.10 Labeling identity based on the overlapping vocalic feature Ident Vocalic , and identity based on place features Ident Place , and evaluating the results in terms of optimal matching is unenlightening.11 (2)
Candidates
Ident Vocalic
Ident Place
a:a
∗
a:æ
∗
a:i
∗
y:i
∗
a:b
∗!
∗
¨ 9. Kabell (1978: 16–17) offers a survey of the positions on this issue, stating that “Uber die Ursache dieser Ausnahme von der sonst u¨ blichen Identit¨at des stabenden Anlauts haben besonders die germanischen Philologen gegr¨ubelt . . .” Kabell himself favors the Kock-Classen thesis of possible “historical” identity as the basis for vowel alliteration. He recognizes that there is no necessary contradiction between the predominance of identical vowels and the existence of a “scharfer Vokaleinsatz” theory favored in the previous century. Kabell opts for the historical identity position on esthetic grounds, dismissing an important piece of evidence, the free mixing of vowels synchronically, as irrelevant for the structure of the verse and the linguistic properties of the language in which this verse was composed. A more recent summary and discussion of the various accounts can be found in Suzuki (1996: 307–312). Suzuki favors the zero/null onset approach, and formulates the generalization that “Alliteration applies to the optimal onset that constitutes a proper subset of a given onset” (1996: 308). If we take away the “subset” hedge in the rule, which is inserted specifically to deal with the unpleasant problem of sp-, st-, sk- alliterations, we are back to the familiar formulations of alliteration. As will be shown below, Suzuki’s complex rule is unnecessary, and his dismissal of Onset for the purpose of characterizing stress is unwarranted. 10. The feature [+ syllabic] is taken as the “defining” feature in Irish alliteration in Malone (1988: 92). 11. As in the previous chapter, I am using representations familiar from Optimality Theory. An asterisk indicates a tolerated violation of the constraint in its column, an exclamation point marks a violation which renders a form unacceptable.
4.1 Vowel alliteration riddle
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No matter what the formalism, stating that identity of place is optional but that sharing the feature [+ vocalic] is inviolable amounts to avoiding the hard question of why consonant matching does not violate identity of place features randomly. Classen (1913: 20) reports that after first formulating his sonority theory, Jiriczek informed him that he had revised his view, proposing that the explanation for the indiscriminate vowel alliteration should be sought in shared acoustic qualities, rather than in phonetically abstract “sonority.”12 The distinction, though potentially interesting in terms of the intended switch of focus from production to perception, remains only classificatory. In either case, whether we take “sonority” as an articulatory feature as distinct from “obstruency,” or as an acoustic feature correlating with degrees of loudness, the problem of attributing vowel similarity to one very general attribute of all vowels persists. As was shown in the previous chapter, deviations from full featural identity in consonantal alliteration are minute and can be traced to very specific phonetic properties. If “sonority” were in any way explanatory for the bundling together of vowels in alliteration, there would be no reason for the non-occurrence of, for example [n] : [m], or [t] : [d] alliterations since these pairs have degrees of sonority closer to each other than the sonorities of, for example [a] versus [i]. Account (b), the reference to diachronic vowel identity, is based on the frequently cited book-length study of vowel alliteration in the Germanic languages by Classen (1913). Defending and expanding an argument made earlier by Kock (1889–1894), Classen builds on the assumption that the extant Germanic poetic corpus is “certainly not the oldest.” As for English, he says that “The system of vowel alliteration with identical vowels must have already broken down a considerable time before the composition of Beowulf , since almost all sound laws affecting vowels were prior to 700” (1913: 22). Classen’s methodology was to identify all forms exhibiting vowel alliteration in Beowulf , the Heliand, and the poems of the Edda and to substitute them with their Germanic sources. His results suggest a strong preference for identical vowels. By appealing to “the force of conservatism” and the formulaic character of the poetry, Classen reverses historical vowel changes which occurred prior to c. 700, and counts as many as 75 percent of the vowel alliterations in Beowulf as based on identical vowels at some earlier diachronic stage 12. The idea of “shared property” is stated clearly (?) in one section of the 17-clause, 220-word long sentence in which Jiriczek (1895: 548) expounds his position: “. . . w¨ahrend bei Vokalen ihr gemeinsamer Character als reine Stimmlaute, deren Stimmf¨ulle im . . . Verse durch den auf sie fallenden Accent noch eindringlicher hervortrat, das gleichmachende Moment gewesen sein d¨urfte . . .”. As far as I have been able to establish, Jiriczek’s retraction was not developed further.
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4 Syllable structure
(1913: 85). The comparable figures in the remaining material are 74 percent for the Heliand, and between 58 percent and 82.6 percent for the Old Norse material.13 Dissimilarities, even after the undoing of the changes, are attributed to the paucity of words beginning with a stressed vowel in the Germanic languages, which, combined with the qualitative and quantitative instability of vowels in general, contributed to the gradual disintegration of the presumed original system. The strongest objection to Classen’s thesis, as noted in the relevant literature,14 is that it relies heavily on reconstructed values and is therefore of questionable synchronic relevance. The least one would expect to find, in a corpus of poetry whose composition and transmission spans a period of three-to-four hundred years, is a chronological increase of the instances of dissimilar vowel alliteration, but this case has not been made. Moreover, even if we assume with Classen that Germanic alliterative versification originally strongly preferred full vowel identity, we still have to explain the linguistic basis of the acceptability of mixed alliteration in the statistically significant remaining portion of verse lines. Approached from the point of view of the entire syllable, Classen’s idea that identical vowels are better could nevertheless be useful. It could be applied to the construction of a scale of similarity, where onset and peak are treated together as a unit for the purpose of optimizing verse. In that framework identical vowels would be statistically more likely because the poets would choose identical onsets and peaks rather than just identical onsets. This kind of virtuosity could have discernible mnemonic advantages or even desirable esthetic effects. Speculation on well-formedness defined over a larger portion of the syllable still leaves identity of the onsets as the necessary condition; peak identity remains optional, and it can be scalar depending on the intrinsic similarity of the respective vowels. In principle an empirical finding of gradient similarity in vowel alliteration is of interest because it is logically akin to another phenomenon, cluster alliteration where identity also extends beyond the single segment. The two-point identity of sp-, st-, sk- alliteration is obligatory in Old English, while other consonant clusters, for example sl-, sw-, br-, gr-, etc., alliterate optionally with each other. In other words the parametrical rules of alliteration may be defined on two separate planes. On one plane identity is obligatory; it involves either the leftmost realization of the syllable, or the 13. For obvious chronological reasons, Classen’s counts exclude all lines containing Christian names. 14. The most recent references and brief dismissals of Classen’s idea are found in Lass (1995: 144–145) and Suzuki (1996: 310).
4.1 Vowel alliteration riddle
141
clusters sp-, st-, sk-. All matching syllables must pass that filter. On another plane the degree of similarity of a matched pair would be assessed with reference to a string that involves either the second consonant in the onset or the vowel in the peak, i.e. a matching of sl- : sl- or ta- : ta- is better than sl- : s- or ta- : te-, but both combinations pass muster. Since Middle English privileges some clusters in alliteration, identity beyond the leftmost edge provides a good testing ground for the properties of the clusters that behave in that way. I will return to the discussion of these clusters in chapter 6. For now identity or similarity of the vowels per se will be ignored and the focus will be on vowel alliteration as evidence for the structure of the syllable in Old English. The third approach, most clearly stated in Jakobson (1963), though adumbrated in Rieger (1876), is an attempt to reconcile the structural requirement of onset identity with the troublesome lack of identity of alliterating vowels. To account for the apparent inconsistency, Rieger had suggested an opposition between the spiritus lenis, the glottal stop of vowel-initial words, and the spiritus asper, the [h-] in occasional vowel : alliterations.15 Jakobson rejected the glottal stop hypothesis as being ad hoc and circular, a charge originally leveled by Classen (1913: 13). The issue is that since the glottal stop was never written, it could have been concocted by analysts to justify vowel alliteration, while the only evidence for it is the very assumption that it was necessary for vowel alliteration (Jakobson 1963: 88). In an attempt to avoid the circularity of the argument, Jakobson proposed a treatment of all stressed syllable vowel onsets as incorporating an unmarked (zero) glide, which is structurally akin to a consonant, but has no phonetic substance, though it is supposed to be phonologically opposed to its tense (marked) counterpart /h/. His proposed system of alliteration rests on a three-way distinction: consonants, tense glides (h-), and lax glides (Ø). He finds “the expression or suppression of these Anlaut signals in the delivery . . . of no significance” (1963: 91), which allows for an interpretation of the lax glide as either a zero, or, possibly, an underlying zero physically realized as a glottal stop in delivery. Kiparsky’s (1978) proposal is a conceptual extension of the zero onset idea: he shifts the focus onto syllable structure and accepts an unrealized null onset as sufficient to fulfill the structural requirement of identical onsets in alliteration. Accounts (a)–(c) are all unsatisfactory in some way: account (a) is too general; (b) is empirically suspect; and (c) is rendered unnecessary by a better motivated version of (d). No extended critique of (c) will be offered here on the assumption 15. Rieger’s view was rejected on the basis of the rarity of vowel : h alliterations. The problems posed by such alliterations will be taken up in section 4.2.3 below.
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4 Syllable structure
that if one can identify a sufficiently broad-ranging set of phenomena which weigh in favor of the glottal stop hypothesis, a recourse to a structural zero/null onset as the basis of alliterative identity is obviated. As acknowledged repeatedly in this study, all our reconstructions are ultimately probabilistic. Yet if the aggregate data and related considerations favor an account compatible with a positive, well-defined, and physically testable entity surviving in modern varieties of English and Germanic, that positive, phonetically-based hypothesis is preferable, even though some of the same data might be compatible with a negative/ null entity. Accounts (c) and (d) are mutually exclusive since both hypotheses rely on the same notion of syllable composition and seek to establish identity in the same structural position; an acceptable defense of (d) makes (c) moot. Moreover, the appeal of the structural zero onset in Old English as in Kiparsky (1978) is confined to the analysis of alliteration. It has not been shown to be independently needed in the phonology of English, and is prompted solely by the need to address the basis of identity attested in the verse. The glottal stop, on the other hand, serves both purposes: it provides the basis for alliterative identity and its presence or absence can be traced independently in other phonological processes. The essence of account (d), first proposed by Rapp (1836: 53 ff.), is the postulation of a “glottal catch” similar to the Modern German glottal stop occurring before stressed vowels and after a pause. As mentioned above, this was the dominant theory in the nineteenth century, until Sievers changed his position on the issue (1901), and Classen (1913) opened his monograph on vowel alliteration in Germanic by declaring the glottal stop hypothesis circular: The view that it is the glottal-catch which constitutes the binding element in vowel alliteration is one which in itself would afford a satisfactory solution to the problem. But the statement of the theory is only a statement, and has not been supported by any kind of evidence as to the existence of the glottal-catch in the old Germanic languages. The only evidence adduced so far in its favor is the very assumption that it was a necessary element in vowel alliteration, a circulus vitosus!
Starting with Hammerich (1948), and culminating most recently with Lass (1995) and Liberman (2000), the glottal-stop theory for Germanic has been resurrected, though the theoretical and empirical arguments brought to bear on the issues are different. Lass (1995: 147–149), taking his cue from Hammerich (1948: 33, 71), analyzes the glottal stop as a continuation of an Indo-European laryngeal; this is also the position taken in Scharfe (1972: 156–159). In a sweeping survey of the fate of a variety of glottalized and aspirated entities from IndoEuropean to Germanic Liberman rejects the Indo-European origin of the glottal
4.1 Vowel alliteration riddle
143
stop. Instead, he interprets it as “a redundant marker of syllable structure” (2000: 328), a position which is fully compatible with the analysis proposed below, which treats the glottal stop as a necessary surface component of vowel-initial stressed syllables.16 In the rest of this chapter I adduce new data and arguments showing that the reconstruction of Onset for Old English should not be dismissed as circular. First, however, we need to clarify the notional overlap between three useful diagnostic phenomena which will be referred to frequently in the next sections: the glottal stop, hiatus, and elision.17 Note that only one of these, hiatus, has a reliable graphic expression: two adjacent vowel letters separated by a word boundary, for example agenne eard ‘own earth,’ oþþe yldo ‘or old age.’ The associated phenomena of elision and glottal stop insertion are primarily inferential, though some graphic correlates for them will also be identified. Elision, the loss of an unstressed vowel when followed by another vowel, is rarely, if ever, graphic in Old English. The position that will be defended here is that in Old English the glottal stop, though not graphically represented as a rule, could always be realized in the onset of vowel-initial stressed syllables. The relevance of hiatus and elision in this context is that the phonetic insertion of a glottal stop before stressed vowels in scribal hiatus environments would prevent pre-vocalic elision. Thus, there is a positive correlation between the glottal stop and graphic hiatus, and a negative correlation between the glottal stop and phonological elision, as in (3):18 (3)
a [+ ʔ] (glottal stop congruent with graphic hiatus) b [+ ʔ] ∼ -V# – #V- –> Ø – #V-(glottal stop incompatible with elision)
The notation in (3a) means that the insertion of a glottal stop is permitted at the juncture of two vowel letters across a word boundary, as in the b-verse of 16. Liberman’s study focusses on the relationship between the class of glottal stops and the loss of markedness for the voiced obstruents in the various Germanic dialects. His discussion of the glottal stop in English explicitly excludes the pre-vocalic use of the glottal stop (2000: 323). At the end of his paper (2000: 346), however, he points to the absence of good arguments associating the pre-vocalic glottal stop to an Indo-European laryngeal and adds that “it is reasonable to suppose that if the prevocalic glottal stop is ancient, it was used not only in word-initial position.” 17. The idea of the logical relation of these phenomena is of long standing. Thus Sievers (1901: 151) notes that the spiritus lenis appears to be an innovation within the Indo-European family and allows for its existence in Germanic. He points out in this connection that elision, contraction of neighboring vowels, and liaison observed in some Indo-European languages are criteria which speak against the appearance of the glottal stop in these languages. 18. Angled brackets enclose graphemes. The pound sign # stands for word boundary. The symbol stands for congruence, and the symbol ∼ means ‘is the negation of.’
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4 Syllable structure
A¯ sl¯og. The notation in (3b) means that if a wordBeo 108: þæs þe h¯e ( ʔ ) Abel final vowel is deleted when the next stressed word is vowel-initial, i.e. if there is scribal elision across word boundaries, the assumption of a glottal stop in the second onset is unwarranted. An example of (3b) is the incompatibility of a glottal stop in the host word with the elision of the vowel in the negative clitic ne in ne + æfre → næfre ‘never,’ ne + ænig → nænig ‘none,’ but not ∗ n ʔ æfre or ∗ n ʔ ænig. 4.2
Non-alliterative evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
If alliteration were all that we had to go by in the reconstruction of syllable structure in Old English, the charge of circularity in positing a glottal stop realization would not be unfounded. The alternative accounts of why nonidentical vowels are paired together do, indeed, look feeble, but that by itself does not remove the circularity from the glottal stop account. If the account is to be considered plausible, we need to refer to non-alliterative evidence for it. Some initial support for the likelihood of an epenthetic glottal stop as a solution to preserving the integrity of Onset comes from phonetics and the typology of consonants in general. The phonetic properties of the glottal stop [ʔ], along with those of [h], are maximally underspecified in that they have the same vocal tract configurations as those of the adjacent vowels, see Ladefoged (1982: 253); that increases the probability of the glottal stop being the unmarked segment to co-occur with vowels. In support of the unmarkedness of [ʔ], Lombardi (1997: 159) cites an extensive list of languages with pre-vocalic glottal stop epenthesis: Malay, Selayarese, Ilokano, Czech, English, Arabic, Hebrew, German, Kisar, Sundanese, Tamil, Gokana, Tunic . . . , adding that the list is by no means exhaustive.19 For Old English, in addition to the cross-linguistic naturalness of a glottal stop in vowel-initial stressed syllables, there are several recoverable and fairly solid indicators that the glottal catch idea may not have been a figment of the imagination of nineteenth-century philologists. The evidence to be presented, direct and inferential, is both from spellings which have not previously been interpreted in the context of syllable structure, and from verse. Not surprisingly, the first argument in support of the idea that identity of vowel alliteration is based on the presence of a pre-vocalic glottal stop, comes from elision in Old English verse. 19. In purely technical terms, underspecification and unmarkedness need not be identical or even overlapping notions; here I am using the terms loosely to refer to the generally acknowledged lack of specifications and epenthetic predisposition of [ʔ].
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
145
4.2.1 Elision in Old English verse Given the relatively broad range of accommodation of unstressed syllables in Anglo-Saxon verse compared to later syllable-counting verse, it is not surprising that the assumption of pre-vocalic elision does not affect the metricality of many Old English verse lines. The examples cited in (4) would be metrically well formed with or without the parenthesized final vowels preceding the fully stressed alliterating vowels. (4)
Beo 791 Beo 830 Beo 1649 Beo 2772 Exo 11 Sfr 70 El 423 El 1252 BM 70
Because of the possibility of extended dips, these attestations cannot be treated as either positive or negative metrical evidence for the presence of a glottal stop, though in some instances elision would result in the need to reclassify the verse into a rarer type. Thus, for example, Exo 11a ece alwalda if scanned as [s w / s s w] would be a subtype of the D Type which is three times more frequent than the subtype [s / s s w] that the elided scansion would put it in.29 In contrast to such relatively uninformative lines, however, there are instances in the verse corpus for which the assumption of elision will threaten seriously the acceptability of a verse, as in (5) below, where monosyllabic lange, eacne, dyre, rihte, etc. would render the on-verses three-positional and therefore defective.30 20. 22. 24. 26. 28. 29. 30.
‘Would not earls’ protector / for any cause’ 21. ‘so too anguish / all assuaged’ ‘awesome for earls / and the woman too’ 23. ‘sign any / for him blade took’ ‘eternal ruler / power gave’ 25. ‘illness or old age / or war’ ‘the innocent / of all guilts’ 27. ‘often, not once, / I had the remembrance’ ‘None of them could / the others harm’ The frequency statement is based on counts for these subtypes in Hutcheson (1995: 293). It might be objected that in some verses, for example eacne in Beo 1621, the extra syllable could be supplied by an epenthetic vowel before the nasal. Epenthesis with nasals, however, is much less frequent than in consonant + r, l clusters, (Minkoff 1967: 74, Hogg 1992a: 238), and in any case the examples involving dyre, lange, rihte, etc. would not be subject to this option. The inflexional significance of the boldfaced unelided final vowels is also a factor. However, reliance on the morphological salience of the -e is a chronologically limited argument: it is well known that elision in hiatus in Middle English does not spare inflexions. Notice that the cases cited in (4) and (5) are quite distinct from the cases of elision of abutting unstressed vowels. The latter process seems to occur freely and is unrelated to the claim that
146 (5)
4 Syllable structure l¯eof landfruma / lange a¯ hte.31 e¯ acne eardas, / ð¯a se ellorg¯ast32 d¯yre ¯ıren, / ðær ¯ hyne Dene sl¯ogon33 recene geryno, / ond rihte æ34 blæd forbræcon / billa ecgum35 on ecne eard, / ond hyre eac gecyð36 agenne eard, / eft geseceð.37 agenne eard / eft to secan.38 on u¯ rne eard / in bec¯omon39 þe þine æ / efnan nellað40
Beo 31 Beo 1621 Beo 2050 Andreas 1511 Dan 708 Guthlac B 1182 Phoen 264 Phoen 275 BM 58 P70. 3
The resistance to elision is even more noticeable with words which are syntactically “special clitics,” for example the pronominal objects in Old English. An assumption of clitic contraction in Beo 472, Beo 2142, and Elene 375 in (6) below would destroy the required vowel alliteration since it would enforce resyllabification: (6)
The same pattern is observed in other strings which would technically correspond to the notion of “clitic group” in Modern English.44 Thus, numerous examples indicate the impossibility of pre-vocalic elision of the final vowel in the Old English equivalents to the definite article, the demonstratives s¯e (masc.) and þa¯ (pl.). An elided -e at the end of the demonstratives as in (7) would garble the alliteration in a very large number of lines such as:
31.
32. 34. 35. 36. 38. 40. 42. 44.
Onset was obligatory in stressed syllables. On the assumption of elision in Beo 517b: h¯e þe¯ æt sunde oferfl¯at ‘he you in swimming overcame,’ see Hutcheson (1995: 129), who finds no evidence of similar metrical elision elsewhere in his 13,044 line corpus of Old English verse. ‘loved land-ruler / long reigned.’ The fact that the verb ahte does not participate in the structural alliteration in the line is irrelevant to the point, namely that pre-vocalic elision would render the line unmetrical. ‘mighty regions, / when the alien’ 33. ‘precious iron, / where him Danes slew’ ‘swift mysteries / and right law.’ Similarly: þurh rihte æ ¯ / reccan cuðon, Elene 281. ‘riches destroyed / with the edges of swords.’ Similarly (with the Genitive): wraþe geworhtra / wita unrim, Jln 172, and ne þær freme meteð / fira ænig, Jln 218. ‘in a vast earth / and her also told’ 37. ‘own earth, / again seek’ ‘own earth / again to seek’ 39. ‘to our earth / in came’ ‘that your law / does not want to execute’ 41. ‘old treasures; / he me oaths swore’ ‘but me heroes’ keeper / again gave’ 43. ‘your code of law, / that to me should answer’ On the definition and metrical role of the clitic group in English see Hayes (1989).
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English (7)
ðæt se ecghete / a¯ ðumsw¯eoran45 þ¯a se ellengæst ¯ / earfoþl¯ıce46 ond þe þa andsware / ædre gecyðan47 eft to earde. / þonne se æþeling bið48
147
Beo 84 Beo 86 Beo 354 Phoen 354
The same pattern of preserving the autonomy of the words within syntactic units in which the head is vowel-initial is confirmed by the alliteration in groups ¯ þære) ¯ as in (8a) and in prepositional formed by a demonstrative (þæt, þæs, þæm, phrases as in (8b): (8)
(a) æfenræste; / wiste ðæm ahlæcan49 þæt hig þæs æðelinges / eft ne wendon50 in þæt orlege / unryhte swealg51 ingong ærest / in þæt atule h¯us52 ¯ısigfeþera; / ful oft þæt earn bigeal53 (b) næfre he on aldordagum / ær ne siþðan54 earne secgan / hu him æt æte speow55 eorlum elðeodigum, / on eðelland56
Admittedly, this is an argument “from absence,” but its relevance should also be measured against the observation that elision of an unstressed vowel before another vowel in speech and especially in verse is a well-attested cross-linguistic phenomenon. Assuming that in comparable syntactic frames the presence of a glottal stop is more likely to inhibit elision and contraction than a null onset, the evidence from verses like the ones in (5), compounded by the negative evidence in (6)–(8), favors the glottal stop interpretation. When gathering data on elision it is important to remember that it occurs freely at the juncture of two unstressed vowels. Moreover, in the absence of the glottal stop deterrent elision is not only metrically acceptable, but it can even be shown to be preferable in terms of verse complexity. This is illustrated by the following examples where elision would reduce the italicized sequences of three or more unstressed syllables to the more frequent type of disyllabic or trisyllabic non-ictic positions: 45. 47. 49. 51. 53. 54. 55.
‘that the edge-hate / of oath-swearers’ 46. ‘Then the fierce beast / terribly’ ‘And you the answer / quickly tell’ 48. ‘again to earth. / Then the nobleman is’ ‘evening rest / knew the monster’ 50. ‘that they the hero / again not thought’ ‘in that hostility / unjustly engulfed’ 52. ‘entrance first / in that awful house’ (?) ‘of icy feathers; full oft that eagle shrieked’ ‘never he in old days / before nor since then’ ‘to eagle telling / how he at eating fared’ 56. ‘to the exiled people, / in native land’
148 (9)
4 Syllable structure seofon niht swuncon; / he ðe æt sunde oferflat57 þonne w¯ene ic to ð¯e / wyrsan geðingea,58 wene ic þæt he mid gode / gyldan will59 Ne meahte ic æt hilde / mid Hrunting60 ræsde ¯ on þone r¯ofan, / ð¯a him r¯um a¯ geald,61 selfa secge, / þonne ic of þys siþe cume62
Elision in strings like þonn(e) ic ‘when I’ in Gen 553b does not result in an unmetrical verse. Nevertheless, a four-syllable anacrusis which produces the scansion [(w w w w) s w / s w] is statistically more likely to occur in the corpus than a string of five unstressed syllables in that position [(w w w w w) s w / s w].63 Before stressed vowels, on the other hand, it is the glottal stop that safeguards the metricality of the verses in (5); elision is effectively blocked by the realization of a glottal stop before major class words such as a¯ hte, eard(as), ¯ıren, ¯ 64 The alternative assumption of a null onset in all vowel-initial syllables æ. in (6)–(8) would not affect the metricality of these verses, but it would create alliteration problems through resyllabification and would leave the difference in the metrical behavior of stressed and unstressed syllables with respect to elision unaccounted for. The significance of examples such as the ones cited in (5)–(8) is highlighted further by the fact that, unlike Old English, Middle English allows pre-vocalic elision freely in all prosodic patterns. In the syllable-counting verse this assertion is difficult to substantiate in the sense that elision often regulates the number of syllables per line, while the assumption of what the “regular” number 57. ‘seven nights strove; / he you at swimming overcame’. For a recent recognition and defense of elision on the basis of metrical complexity in this particular line see Russom (1998: 141). Russom (1998: 144) comments on the ambiguity that elision creates in Old English meter; in his treatment elision always involves adjacent unstressed vowels (1998: 21). 58. ‘then expect I for you / worse things’ 59. ‘think I that he with good / repay will.’ On the manuscript reading wen’ic in this line and lines 338, 442 see ASPR IV: 134. 60. ‘Not could I in fight / with Hrunting’ 61. ‘rushed at the brave king / when him chance allowed,’ 62. ‘the same said / when I come from that journey’ 63. Both types would be relatively rare, but the type resulting from elision is attested 19 times in the corpus, including 15 instances in the b-verse, while the total number of verses of the type [(w w w w w) s w / s w] in Hutcheson’s corpus is only 3 (1995: 290). 64. As noted above, this statement is inferential. The blocking effect of [ʔ] would be disproved by instances where everything else being equal, a null onset provides a better account of the syllabification of a particular string. This is the case with elision in Modern French and Middle English: no elision before consonantal onsets (and h-aspir´e onsets) but regular elision before vowel-initial (zero) onsets. Also, as noted above, Latin resyllabifies across word boundaries, and Latin has never been analyzed as a language requiring a filled Onset.
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
149
is depends on elision. Still, the statistical predominance of identical syllabic count per line in non-elision environments and the strict iambic alternation in some Middle English poetic works support the assumption that the elisions in the examples in (10) and (11) below are genuine. In (10) elision occurs within clitic groups: (10)
In (11) elision of an unstressed final vowel occurs across word boundaries, and even across larger syntactic boundaries:65 (11)
þatt Godess Sune Allmahhti Godd Forrþi þatt baþe enngless & menn & þurrh ure allre wille, & allse hiss sune efft affterr himm “Iwis it was ure oer broþer, & hold hire ee noþerwa[r]d, vor rite niþe & for fule onde Ayther were armed on a stede How hyt befelle owre eldurs olde Felte iren hoot, and he bygan to smyte,
In the history of English verse elision does not occur provably before the end of the twelfth century; The Ormulum and The Owl and the Nightingale are the first compositions in which elision in hiatus is testable on the basis of the stable syllable-counting nature of the verse line. Admittedly, elision is not obligatory throughout the texts from which the Middle English elision examples are cited, nor in any single Middle English verse composition. Pre-vowel elision is not an absolutely unfailing rule in Chaucer, see Minkova and Stockwell (1997b: 47). It is important to observe, however, that instances of non-elision are more frequent at the caesura, as in (12): (12)
Com forth, my whyte spouse! Out of doute “Lo, Nece, I trowe ye han herd al how
MerT 2144 Troilus IV 87666
Anticipating the arguments in the following sections: the preservation of the first vowel in the hiatus environment in Middle English does not have to 65. The examples from Sir Tryamowr and Octovian are cited from Reichl and Sauer (eds.) (1993). 66. The disyllabic scansion of nece is only one of two possible scansions of this line. Alternatively, elision can be assumed on nece, but the -e on trowe has to be syllabic.
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be linked to the presence of a glottal stop. The schwa in spouse, nece can be syllabic for purely metrical reasons. In instances like the ones in (12), the syntactic bracketing puts the abutting lexical items in separate larger domains, rendering such instances uninformative with respect to the realization of a glottal stop before the stressed vowel to the right of the syntactic boundary.67 In addition to elision in verse, there is substantial evidence of scribal prevocalic elision of final -e in Middle English prose, suggesting that elision was in no sense only a metrical accommodation enforced by the new mode of syllable-counting versification. Though not the only factor behind the increased attestation of elision in Middle English, the presumed absence of a glottal stop in vowel initial roots is a likely enabling element in a process which was both morphologically and phonologically conditioned. Elision in speech evolved into a hiatus-avoidance strategy which became an important component of the phonological history of the unstressed vowels (Minkova 1991: 62–69). The parallels between Old and Middle English with respect to elision therefore support a hypothesis of progressive disappearance of the glottal stop in the post-Conquest period. 4.2.2 Hiatus at morpheme boundaries A second set of data supporting the glottal stop analysis comes from the way in which vowel-final prefixes attach to vowel-initial roots in Old English derivation: the scribes respect the break between the two vowels. The consistency with which prefixes preserve their final vowels in spelling would suggest that hiatus at the morpheme boundary was not resolved by elision: the prefix and the root remain separated by, presumably, the glottal stop. At first sight, the above introductory statement may seem easily falsifiable. In his influential Old English Grammar Campbell (1959: 188) inserted the brief remark that “the vowels of unaccented prefixes usually remain even in hiatus (e.g. airnan, beurnen, geunnan)” (my italics), yet all the forms he cites in which the hiatus is not observed by the scribes are either blends of the negative ne-, ni- with a following weak verb (n¯ahte ‘had not,’ nis ‘is not’), or early adverbial compound forms involving be-: binnan ‘within,’ b¯utan ‘without,’ bufan ‘above’(1959: 147). These examples are not directly relevant to the reconstruction of the glottal stop, however, because of the questionable stressability of the vowel-initial roots of the items for which the negative contraction is attested. 67. For the Middle English alliterative verse, Cable (1991: 159) observes that “the extent to which it is possible to reconstruct elision [for Cleanness] is uncertain.”
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
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As pointed out in chapter 2, finite verb forms in Old English, and especially auxiliaries, are notoriously problematic in terms of prosodic prominence; see also Minkova (1996b: 16–18). As regards negative contraction in Old English, I would argue that it has to be treated as a more general phenomenon which goes beyond the narrower, phonologically conditioned elision in hiatus between any two vowels. Negative contraction is well attested in non-vocalic environments, thus nas [ne + wæs] ‘was not,’ nat [ne + wat] ‘knows not,’ nele [ne + wile] ‘will not,’ nolde [ne + wolde] ‘wanted not,’ nyten [ne + witan] ‘ignorant.’ The first observation therefore is that contraction is more likely to occur with frequent and/or prosodically weak verb forms. Fully stressed vowel-initial verbs, on the other hand, regularly resist negative contraction: (13)
forðon ðe h¯e ne uðe ¯ / ðæt ænig ¯ o¯ þer man68 þæt hie þære spæce / sped ne ahton ycan wolde / ac him ne uðe god69
Beo 503 Gen 1686 Jud 183
In that context it is also noteworthy that the negative particle ne does not undergo contraction even in cases when it precedes an unstressed vowel-initial verbal prefix, as in the following examples: (14)
hildebille, / hond sweng ne ofteah70 ne ahicgan, / ða hit forhæfed gewearþ71 englas ne oðeowdun, þa se æþeling cwom72 þæt he ne agæle / gæstes þearfe73
Beo 1520 Daniel 147 Christ 449 Christ 816
The likelihood of negative contraction in verse must be measured against the prosodic salience of the verb within the particular metrical environment. It is remarkable that even the most frequently attested forms of contraction in Old English could be suspended: (15)
68. 69. 70. 72. 74. 76. 78.
on þam gerædum / þe hit riht ne wæs,74 þæt he ne wolde / wereda drihtnes75 æþelum ecne. / Ne eom ic ana þæt,76 drihtne selfum; / ne eom ic deofle gelic77 “Ne eart ðu gedefe, / ne dryhtnes þeow78
Mld 190 Gen 352 Andreas 636 Gen 587 Guth 579
‘because he not allowed / that any other man’ ‘to increase wanted / but God did not allow him’ ‘to battle-blade / hand swing not pulled’ 71. ‘not think out / then it became denied’ ‘angels not appeared / when the prince came’ 73. that he delay not / his spirit’s need’ ‘on those stirrups / that was not right’ 75. ‘that he did not want / the force of the lord’ ‘great with talents / I am not one that’ 77. ‘the lord himself / I am not like the devil’ ‘you are not meek / nor servant of the lord’
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In some cases the suspension of contraction can be traced to alliteration, for example (ne) wolde: wereda in Gen 352, or, as in Guth 579, the autonomy of the negative particle in the on-verse is supported by the co-ordinate ne ‘neither’ in the off-verse. The observation regarding non-contraction of the negative particle is valid for many forms of the s-root of the verb wesan ‘to be’: eom ‘am,’ eart ‘art,’ and the Anglian (e)aron ‘are.’ The Old English Dictionary Corpus shows no examples of ∗ neom/neam ‘am not,’ ∗ neart ‘art not,’ and ∗ nearon ‘are not’ in its entire verse database, though occasional contracted forms appear in the glosses and prose texts, a total of nine attestations.79 Like the verbal contraction with the negative ne which is a phenomenon found mostly in auxiliaries and in other potentially weakly stressed items, negative contraction with adverbs must have started out as a function of the prosodic ambivalence of these items. The point can be illustrated with the behavior of næfre ‘never.’ Of the total of 85 entries of næfre in the Concordance to the AngloSaxon Poetic Records in which the adverb is in a position to alliterate, only a small proportion, 9 instances, do in fact alliterate.80 Compare the examples in (16) with non-alliterating næfre to those of (17): (16)
wop to widan ealdre; / næfre ge þæs wyrpe gebidað.81 þæt næfre forlæteþ / lifgende god82 “Næfre we hyrdon / hæleð ænigne83
Guth 636 Andreas 459 Elene 538
79. The electronic search was made from The Dictionary of Old English Corpus in Electronic Form ed. by Antonette Healey, University of Toronto. This on-line database consists of every existing and known text in Old English. The situation is quite different with the third person singular contractions, nys/nis ‘is not,’ which are very common in both verse and prose. It is possible that the higher frequency of the third person in the narrative accounts for this discrepancy. 80. The alliterating instances are found in Andreas 1286, Guthlac 640, 648, 658, 1013, 1210, Riddle 9: 7, The Rune Poem 50, and The Judgement Day II 254. An excellent coverage of the various issues concerning the chronology, dialectal distribution, and possible syntactic interpretation of contraction and non-contraction in negated verbs and indefinite pronouns can be found in Fulk (1992: 122–140). These issues are not germane to the discussion here – all that the comments on negation are intended to show is that the behavior of ne is not a counter-argument to the reconstruction of a glottal stop onset in vowel-initial major class roots. An observation which can not be pursued further here is that the number of alliterating attestations of the non-negated adverb, the positive æfre ‘ever’ is much higher than the nonalliterating ones; the proportion seems reversed from that attested for næfre. In Beowulf none of the 8 instances of næfre alliterate, but of the 7 attestations of æfre, there are 5 instances of alliteration (lines 70, 280, 692, 1101, 1314) and only 2 non-alliterating uses: lines 504, 2600. Why the negative form of the same adverb should be prosodically weaker is a fact that remains to be accounted for. 81. ‘cry to the wide eternity / never you wait for the blow’ (?) 82. ‘that never abandon / the living God’ 83. ‘never we heard / any man/hero’ (?)
The number of instances of the type illustrated in (17) is small; nevertheless, it suggests that the negative contraction for some compositions, in this case notably Guthlac, had created a new, initially stressable lexical item. Similarly, the adverbs binnan ‘within’ < be + innan, b¯utan ‘without’ < be + utan, bufan ‘above’ < be + ufan must have developed on the basis of prosodically ambiguous adverbs, and once the prefixed adverbs were formed, elision would have been facilitated by the reduced stress on the second vowel-initial element of the compound. An interesting aside on the issue of contraction in Old English is that in some cases, but not all, there is a marked discrepancy in the number of contractions attested in the poetry and in the prose. The adverb and preposition bufan ‘above,’ for example, shows only a single (questionable) appearance in the whole poetic corpus (Metr. Charms 3: 7), against 134 prose attestations, binnan ‘within’ appears only twice (Judith 64, Metr. Charms 9: 14) against 451 in the prose. The interpretation of these numbers is difficult, especially against the distribution of parallel uncontracted forms. Thus, there are only three instances of be-utan in the entire Dictionary Corpus, all three of them in verse, but the 6 attestations of the form be-ufan are only in prose.87 It is quite possible that stylistic differences played some role in the selection, i.e. contracted forms like bufan and binnan were considered more colloquial and were therefore excluded consciously from the poetic vocabulary. Finally, placing the contraction of the negative particle ne within a broader Germanic context, it should be noted that it is a particle that tends to develop idiosyncratic patterns. It is “more widespread in Old English and Old Frisian than anywhere else within Germanic,” and it is “much more common in West Saxon than in the Anglian dialects” (Nielsen 1981: 146–147). This interesting typological observation may be related to finer dialectal nuances within the more general constraint on the syllable onset. Logically, the weaker the stress of the host word, the more likely it would be that contraction will occur. This 84. ‘preserver of men / never will’ (?) 85. ‘that you me with enmity / never must’ (?) The possibility of alliteration on [m-]: mec : motan exists too; this would reduce further the proportion of alliterating instances of næfre. 86. ‘over the dark of the night, / never departs’ (?) 87. The hyphenation is from Bosworth and Toller (1898/1983).
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would also mean that negative contraction should be most actively resisted in those varieties of Germanic in which the stress is assumed to have had the greatest intensity. Comparing the metrical traditions in the three branches of Germanic: Old Norse, Old English, and continental West Germanic, Russom (1998) drew conclusions about the intensity of the stress and the degree of linguistic subordination of unstressed syllables in these three dialects. In his reconstruction Old Norse stress is strongest and Old Saxon stress weakest, with Old English taking an intermediate position. The distribution of negative contraction within Germanic, however, does not fit well within his hypothesis; theoretically we would not expect Old English to be the leader in that regard, as argued by Nielsen. More research is needed to sort out the facts of this apparent contradiction. For now, the facts about the patterns of negative contraction are too uncertain to serve as a basis for questioning Russom’s well-argued position. As mentioned above, unlike the negative clitic, prefixes remain separate in hiatus. There are relatively few vowel-final prefixes in Old English: a-/æ-, be-/ bi-, ge-, to-, so the number of forms which are potentially informative in the context of vowel loss in hiatus is limited.88 The productivity and the length/stress status of a- is uncertain, and its semantic meaning is vague (Kastovsky 1992: 378). There has even been speculation that in some texts, for example The Exeter Book, an acute accent mark over the verbal prefix a´ - was intended to indicate syllabic division, see Krapp and Dobbie ASPR (1936, III: xxiv). The same practice is observable in Solomon and Saturn (ASPR VI: cxl–cxli); a´ / risan (Chr. 1024), a´ / ðolian (Chr. 1319), a´ / settaþ (Guth 701), a´ / breoteð (SnS 296), a´ / styreð (SnS 297), etc. The be- and ge- prefixes, also vague, but somewhat more identifiable semantically, are well known for their prosodic invisibility: a correlate which would suggest susceptibility to phonological change – compare the allomorphic relation between the full form of and- and its unstressed form on-.89 88. I have omitted one vowel-final prefix, ymb(e) from this list; the loss of the second unstressed vowel in it seems to proceed completely independently of phonological environment: ymbeodan ‘surround,’ ymb-iernan ‘run around,’ ymb-utan ‘about’ appear side by side with ymbfon ‘encompass,’ ymb-scinan ‘shine round,’ ymb-þringan ‘throng round.’ In that sense the attestations of ymb(e)- are irrelevant for the discussion. 89. On the extrametricality of the Old English prefixes see SM (70–71). For Beowulf Kendall (1991b: 101) classifies unstressed prefixes into two sets: those with a consonantal ending and those with a vocalic ending, and finds that for nouns and adjectives “in terms of alliterative requirement, they [the high frequency a-, be-, ge- and to-] have less force than the consonantal prefixes.” Another vowel-initial prefix, t¯o-, seems to have greater morphosemantic salience and a more serious claim to real compound status, but it is also consistently non-alliterating; the five entries with t¯o- in the chart in (18) are included for the sake of comparison.
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
155
Given the premise of low morphemic and prosodic salience for the prefixes, the scribal consistency of the non-elided prefixed forms can be interpreted to mean that the prefix and the root remained separated by, presumably, the glottal stop. The list in (18) illustrates the point; the hyphenation is from Bosworth and Toller (1898). Since the same prefixes occur in verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, the entries are alphabetical, and not according to wordclass: (18)
The pattern of non-contraction is stable. Some of the items listed above were probably of lower frequency, but frequency alone cannot be a determining factor: a check in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus shows 1,120 attestations of ge-end-, 332 of ge-open-, 158 of to-eacan. Despite differences of semantic and phonological salience among the individual prefixes – a- and to- are more likely to be stressed and semantically identifiable than the others, while ge- can be close to meaningless – they are overwhelmingly invisible to the meter.90 Normally, these non-contracted prefixes behave metrically as proclitics in Old English verse, i.e. they are subsumed under the strong metrical position and do not constitute part of the dip, though there are some rare instances of verses where the prefixes have to count independently for the sake of metricality: 90. For recent arguments that these metrically invisible prefixal elements should be analyzed as proclitics in Beowulf see Suzuki (1996: 338–340).
156 (19)
4 Syllable structure oft geæhted; / ðæt wæs a¯ n cyning91 rim aurnen. / þa se rinc ageaf 92 geeardode. / Nu þu ealle forlæt93
Beo 1885 Gen 1626 Christ I 208
The behavior of the prefix is the same in vocalic and consonantal environments. Compare the metrical status of the ge- in Beo 1885a in (19) to the same prefix in Beo 1399: (20)
þ¯a wæs Hr¯oðg¯are / hors gebæted ¯ 94
Beo 1399
¯ In (20) the b-verse would be unmetrical if the ge- prefix on gebæted was metrically invisible. Hutcheson (1995: 102, fn. 19) found that in the first 500 lines of Beowulf alone, the prefix is metrically necessary more than 25 percent of the time. The distribution in (19) and the parallel behavior of ge- before vowels and consonants illustrated in (20), also support the assumption that contraction was inhibited because of a filled syllable onset. The situation in Old English, where contraction was generally avoided, can be compared to the proclitic contractions in hiatus which begin to appear with considerable frequency in Middle English. Such contractions are well covered in the philological literature.95 Some relevant comparison forms, attested in the Ormulum and elsewhere in Middle English are shown in (21): (21)
Jordan ([1934] 1974: 151) views such contractions as a consequence of the “acceleration of the speaking tempo,” a phrase repeatedly used by Luick with reference to the causes for Middle English unstressed vowel reduction and schwa loss (Luick 1914–1940: §451–452, §456, 602, etc.). Puzzling as this assertion by the great anglicists of the first half of the last century may be – after all, we cannot assume that post-Conquest speakers of English suddenly felt the urge to talk faster than their predecessors – it appears that their intuition can be justified in linguistic terms. The contractions in question, licensed by the disappearance of an obligatory syllable Onset constraint, would physically 91. ‘often praised; / that was one king’ 92. ‘number run out. / When the warrior destroyed’ 93. ‘lived. / Now thou all abandon’ 94. ‘Then was for Hrothgar / hors bridled’ 95. See Jordan (1934/1974: 151), Jespersen (1909: 276).
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
157
speed up the production of the particular strings of function + lexical words as in the examples in (21). The difference between the earlier view and the one proposed here is that the change in syllable structure, the realignment of prosodic boundaries, is seen as the trigger and not as the effect of the perceived “acceleration.” Compounds whose second root begins with a vowel could provide another link to glottal stop insertion. The relevant evidence is limited since what we need to isolate in order to establish the probability of elision within the compound is based on resolution in Old English verse. The example from Beowulf 78 in (22) below illustrates the point: (22)
healærna mæst; / scop him Heort naman96
Beo 78
The syllabic division in the on-verse compound is crucial: resolution of ∗ hea-lær- would produce an unacceptable three-position verse ∗ [s-w w / s]; the metricality of the line is guaranteed by the fact that healærna ‘of the hallhouses/palaces’ is syllabified as heal.ær.na and the first syllable is therefore heavy. This observance of the morphological boundary within the compound is contrary to modern English intuitions, where root boundaries yield to phonologically-driven syllabification and pineapple, live-oak, red eye may syllabify in fast speech as pi.na.ple, li.voak, re.deye.97 In the case of Old English, the morphologically-based syllabic division is possibly reinforced by the presence of glottal stops as the initial sounds of roots that apparently begin with vowels. Unlike the maximal onset syllable division of Modern English, in com¯ pounds such as Old English æt¯eaca ‘addition,’ cofincel ‘little chamber,’ cwicæht ‘livestock,’ friþa¯ þ ‘peace-oath,’ frumieldo ‘first age,’ twi-ecge(de) ‘twoedge(d),’ wynele ‘pleasant oil,’ the first syllables are heavy by virtue of the fact that the post-vocalic consonants in æt, cof, cwic, friþ, etc. belong to a separate syllable and count in calculating syllable weight. In addition to being different from Modern English, the syllable division in (22) also runs contrary to the rules of syllabification in the classical languages, where internal morphological and even word boundaries are ignored for metrical purposes: ab oris is metrically a.bo.ris.98 The chances of maximal 96. ‘of hall-rooms largest; / gave him Heorot name’ 97. The possibility that the medial consonant is ambisyllabic is irrelevant to the point at issue. 98. On this point see Hutcheson (1991: 46–47), who cites the example in (22) in connection with establishing syllabic length in Old English verse. In his account, a monosyllable ending in a vowel and followed by a word beginning with a vowel produces a string – VCV- where “C”
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4 Syllable structure
syllabification with vowel-initial second roots in Old English would be thwarted by the glottal stop, for example heal. ʔ ærn, though admittedly this consideration may be only partially responsible for the facts; the evidence is compatible also with an assumption of morphological independence of the compound elements. The phonological preference for associating a medial consonant with the syllable to the right could perhaps be overridden by morphosyntactic considerations. The picture is obscured further by the fact that as a consequence of the general Germanic prohibition on light lexical monosyllables, the statistically predominant type of compound in Old English has a heavy first element, so that the metrical test exemplified by healærna mæst, Beo 78a, would be inapplicable. The complexity and indeterminacy in assigning boundaries in such cases is compounded by the fact that most of the potential test forms, such as æt¯eaca ‘addition,’ cofincel ‘little chamber,’ etc. are rare and do not appear in verse positions where their syllabification can be checked reliably against the meter. The only compounds in the Bessinger and Smith Concordance (1978) which exhibit hiatus at the boundary between the two roots: bealuinwit ‘malice,’ medoærn ‘mead-hall,’ and sigeeadig ‘victorious,’ appear in positions where the number of syllables involved cannot be established beyond reasonable doubt. The resyllabification evidence based on compound behavior in Old English is thus ambivalent. In contrast to the behavior of heal.ærna ‘of the hall-house,’ Middle English provides positive evidence that the language has become much more prone to ignoring the morphological boundaries in compounds with a vowel-initial second root. This is attested by the history of obscured compounds of the type barn < bere ærn ‘barley-house,’ bridal < br¯yd ale ‘feast, bridal ale-drinking,’ daisy < dæges e¯ age ‘day’s eye,’ smallage < smal ache ‘parsley.’99 An additional reason why evidence from hiatus at compound boundaries should be treated with caution but still allowed into the picture, is the leftprominent stress pattern of compounds. Unlike the roots of prefixed words, the second elements of compounds are prosodically subordinate to the first represents a syllable boundary. As argued in Minkova and Stockwell (1994: 40–42), the question of weight in Old English monosyllables is not a phonological issue. Hutcheson’s observation concerning word boundaries equaling consonants in hiatus environments is captured better by positing a glottal stop before the fully stressed vowel-initial lexical root. Hutcheson also comments that elision in hiatus between two unstressed syllables would be “difficult to account for in light of the fact that # = C metrically” (1991: 53). This apparent difficulty is eliminated by the glottal stop account. 99. The similar-looking lovage ‘love-parsley’ is a ME folk-etymological analysis of Old French levesche, luvesce.
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
159
element, hence the diminished justification for [ʔ]-insertion compared to [ʔ]-insertion in prefixed words. As indicated above, multiple factors are at play in the history of compounds: the weakness of the tendency towards blurring of morphological boundaries results from the conflict between the independent morphological status of the two parts of a compound and rightward stress-subordination. Morphological salience appears to be the dominant factor in the overall history of compounding, yet the lesser, but still present factor of rightward stress-subordination can be detected in obscured compounds.100 Two more considerations are relevant in the context of morphological and syllabic realignment in Middle English. First, the contractions which are consistent with a weakening of the Onset constraint seem to have spread at a different rate in the different dialects. The northern and the East Midlands documents preserve uncontracted forms longer than the corresponding southern and West Midlands texts – this geographical distribution suggests that the loss of an obligatory Onset might have been influenced by external factors.101 Second, chronologically, there is a clear upward curve in the number of recorded “false junctures” for vowel-initial words from late Middle to Early Modern English. The list of Middle English examples in (21) can be augmented by wellknown later instances of morphological reanalysis of the type newt, nickname, nowele < an owele ‘an owl,’ the converse apron, adder, and the less familiar umpire < O.Fr. nonper, ME noumpere, ouch < OF nouche ‘necklace,’ attested 100. Contradicting the tendency towards compound obscuration as in barn, bridal, daisy, there is strong independent evidence that compounds in general retain their pre-compound word boundaries, as attested by the difficulty of defining the distinction between compounds and syntactic groups, see Sauer (1992: 714–715). Among the Gesamtverzeichnis in Sauer (1992: 627–680), vowel-initial second element entries (the index is alphabetical starting with the first element) such as on-eyde, brad-egede, all-ane, earm-eðre, asse-earen, chirch-ancre, deað-uuel, æst-ænde, Æst-Ængle, Æst-Engelond, etc., do not appear to exhibit any special properties separating them from compounds with consonant-initial second elements. A more comprehensive search of the two types of compounds, their alternative spellings, and their behavior in Middle English verse, is a task for the future. 101. The evidence for that dialectal feature is cited in Jordan (1934/1974: 151) based on negative contractions in the ME dialects. Some of the earliest non-negative contractions I have been able to identify are þa(a)postles ‘the apostle(s)’ (l. 19015, 20502, 20703, 19039 (E)), þorth ‘the earth’ (3757), þuprising ‘the resurrection’ (E 19124) in Cursor Mundi (mainly in the Cotton MS, first half of the fourteenth century), and in the WBible John 13: 14: e owen to waische another the totheris feet (c. 1384). There is one tother attestation in Chaucer and three instances of thother in Gower’s Confessio Amantis (1390–1393). The overwhelming majority of the contracted the + other forms in the electronic Middle English Compendium (University of Michigan) are from the fifteenth century. Whether the distribution can be confirmed more broadly outside the negative clitic remains to be established.
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from the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries (see also Salmon 1958: 234). From the evidence cited in Jespersen (1909: 276), it appears that elision across morphological boundaries reached its peak during the eighteenth century. After that the tide turned, possibly as a reaction to an external set of factors: education, standardization, literacy, the non-linguistic forces that were so powerful in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After all, gout < go out, attested in 1600, dup < do up, attested in 1685, and dout ‘extinguish’ < do out, attested 1526–1841, are as good as doff and don: the survival of some such forms against the demise of others must have been an issue of frequency, fashion, education, not of systemic phonological pressure.102 In the long debate over the viability of the glottal stop theory, one of the arguments against the reconstruction of [ʔ] in Old English comes from occasional alliteration of vowels with : the existence of such alliteration appears to preclude the reconstruction of a glottal stop in stressed prevocalic position. The possibility that such pairs might be due to alliteration between the spiritus lenis and the spiritus asper was rejected by Classen (1913: 16) on the grounds that such alliteration is exceptionally rare.103 The Old English situation with respect to “mixed alliteration” will be described and discussed in the following section. It will become clear that not only is the practice of : vowel alliteration a weak refutation of the claim that the glottal stop represents a phonetic reality for Old English, but that the relevant data can in fact be used as positive evidence supporting the glottal stop hypothesis. 4.2.3 The inorganic Though available in earlier scholarship, the evidence that will be presented and discussed below has not been interpreted as evidence for the syllable structure constraints active in Old English. The data concern pre-vocalic insertions and omissions of the letter in the Old English manuscripts. For the poetry this point can be illustrated with the frequent unetymological 102. Johnson describes doff as “in all its senses obsolete, and scarcely used except by rustics” (OED entry under doff ). 103. Classen (1913: 16–18) addresses the more general problem ensuing from the occurrence of mixed alliteration between vowels and “other” segments in Germanic. His main target is the alliteration of vowels with the semi-vowels j and w in Old Norse. Responses to the challenge that these pose to the glottal stop theory with regard to Old Norse point out that the initial j was probably still vocalic, and similarly, at the time of the composition of the poems of the Edda, the [u-] was still syllabic in function. The subsequent change of [u-] to [v-] is responsible for the fact that at the time of committing the poems to writing many of the [u-] original words in the pairs were substituted by vowel-initial words, which also accounts for the rarity of such alliterations in the Old Norse corpus.
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
161
scribal additions of as in the following examples from the Exeter Book: (23)
eastan ond westan, / ofer ealle gesceaft − elne unslawe. / Da se ælmihtiga on æfentid / oþerne mid þec ac wæs in þam ofne, / þa se engel cwom seo me eðles ofonn / ond mec her eardes onconn to geheganne. / Hat bið onæled, ne hafað heo ænig lim, / leofaþ efne seþeah
Christ 885 Guth 950 Guth 1215 Azarias 61 Rhyming Poem 74 Judgement Day I 9 Riddle 39, 27
The manuscript reading for the italicized items is [healle], [hælmihtiga], [onhæfen tid], [hofne], [heardes], [onhæled], and [hænig] respectively, see Krapp and Dobbie (ASPR, III. 1936). Ample data on insertion and loss was collected in Scragg (1970), who covers the use of initially before a vowel in both stressed and unstressed items, and in the onset of a stressed syllable after a prefix.104 His study presents impressive scribal and non-scribal arguments against an assumption of “instability” of the glottal fricative in Old English, concluding that the vagaries of spelling cannot be equated with /h-/ loss in prevocalic position. Given that the scribal evidence coupled with other considerations weighs heavily on the side of continuous stability of the prevocalic /h/ in Old English, the forms identified as “deviant” make an instructive point with reference to the scribal perception of what happened at syllable boundaries. The data shown in (24) are drawn from Scragg’s narrative (1970: 167–182); it combines Scragg’s citations and the attestations cited in Schlemilch (1913: 51–52). Since my focus is on stressed syllable onsets, I have excluded pronominal forms and conjunctions. The figures do not include omissions and insertions which are clear cases of haplography/dittography. I have also ignored references to the frequency of attestations in the Northumbrian texts, because they present a somewhat different scribal problem. The ratio between omissions and insertions there, approximately 1 : 4, is within the range of the ratio shown in the other texts, and therefore the argument would not be affected by their inclusion. 104. Scragg’s data cover all pre-c. 1000 texts listed in Ker’s Catalogue plus a selection of documents written between c. 1000–1050 (1970: 167). Scragg places scribal attestations in their manuscript context and points to factors other than the purely phonetic ones; he makes a plausible case for attributing some scribal forms to mechanical errors, haplography and dittography, Latin scribal influence, and, especially for the poetry, confusion of sense.
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(24) ´ Epinal Glossary Erfurt Glossary Corpus Glossary VP Gloss Bede Vesp. D Orosius CP (MS Hatton 20) Parker Chronicle Junius MS Vercelli MS105 Exeter Book Beowulf Transl. of Benedect. Rule106 WS Gospels Ælfric Glosses to Aldhelm108 Total
The discrepancy in the frequency of attested omissions versus insertions is striking; it cannot be logically correlated with phonological “weakness” in terms of consonantal strength, or to any other phonological properties of the /h-/.109 In fact, one would expect to find a much higher proportion of the instability data to be associated with words of low prosodic prominence, which is, surprisingly, not the case in most of the texts, see Scragg (1970: 190). There must be some other reason both for the lopsidedness of the distribution of omissions versus insertions of stressed syllable-initial s and for the higher number of insertions and omissions before stressed syllables than before unstressed syllables.
105. The data on the Vercelli Homilies are from Scragg (1992: lvi). The counts from the poetry are based on Scragg (1970: 174–175). 106. The counts are from the early eleventh-century MS CCCC178 (Scragg 1970: 179). 107. Scragg (1970: 180) cites he for æ ‘law’ (presumably a “mistake of matter” since either word would fit the context), hyfele ‘evil,’ also hyfelan. One additional example, heornostlic, is cited in Schlemilch (1913: 51). 108. End of the eleventh century. Data from Schlemilch (1913: 51–52). 109. Peter Kitson (personal communication) has drawn my attention to the fact that Charter Boundary S811, of about 960, Ms. c. 1200, from the Meon valley has a large crop of unetymological insertions of . Interestingly, of the fourteen initial insertions, all but one precede a : hup, hupan, hut, hupon. I can think of no reasonable linguistic account of this fact – to me it seems most likely that this is an idiosyncratic practice with no special significance beyond the parallel it provides to other cases of unetymological insertion.
4.2 Evidence for the glottal stop in Old English
163
The first type of imbalance, the propensity towards inserting rather than omitting , was noticed and discussed by Sweet (1908: 49), whose interpretation is that since pre-vocalic /h-/ was silent in Latin, “in the oldest texts h is sometimes wrongly prefixed to native words, and is also used to show hiatus.” The distribution prompts Scragg to reiterate the suggestion that this development in the written language is to be connected to the use of in late Latin as a diacritic signifying hiatus (1970: 186, 192).110 Pointing out that such insertions occur with considerable frequency in “sentence-stressed words” in non-Latinate texts, van Langenhove (1923: 16–17) addresses the second imbalance, the preference for “tampering with” stressed vowel-initial words, and states that “in these instances h was not a mere symbol for the eye, but represented an actual sound – a sound occasional of course inasmuch as the emphatic pronunciation of the word was itself but occasional.” My proposal shares with van Langenhove the idea that inserted s are an attempt to represent an actual sandhi glottal stop, though I see the insertion as a predictable consequence of the structural requirement for a filled onset, and only secondarily as a correlate of “emphatic pronunciation.” Sweet and Scragg, on the other hand, were right to invoke Latin scribal habits to account for the use of in these cases, though in the account proposed here the is more than “a diacritic signifying hiatus.” In the absence of a special symbol for /ʔ/ an argument can be made that the scribes would occasionally insert as a convenient way of marking the obligatory sandhi /ʔ/ in stressed vocalic onsets.111 By definition, a proof of what the scribes really intended is beyond reach. Nevertheless, cumulatively the evidence is compatible with a hypothesis that scribal was used as a glottal stop marker. Some additional considerations are also relevant. First, as is clear from the data in the chart in (24), the number of insertions in verse is relatively higher than that in the prose documents. Under the assumptions of the oral nature of composition and transmission of verse adopted in chapter 1, it would be highly probable that a scribe recording an alliterative poem would be more sensitive to the presence of the phonetic signals associated with prominent stress. Once again, this argument 110. Scragg (1970: 165) notes that in the OED entry for H Robert Murray wrote: “during the Middle-English period, and down to the 17th c., we find numerous instances of the nonetymological absence or (more often) presence of initial h in native words also” (here cited from the second edition), though the parenthetical “more often” is not compared to the situation in Old English or elaborated on by Murray or subsequent editors. 111. For an extensive discussion of the discrepancy between writing systems and the reconstruction of a glottal stop in the Vokaleinsatz both within Germanic and elsewhere, see Scharfe (1972).
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should be kept separate from the non-specific “emphasis” idea proposed by van Langenhove, embraced by Flasdieck (1950: 277), and used also by Lutz (1993), who suggests that the prevocalic insertions of in stressed words in the Lindisfarne Glosses can be accounted for by emphatic pronunciation. It is possible that in careful delivery of prose the glottal stop epenthesis would be more clearly realized and more noticeable than in fast speech. That, however, would be much more speculative than a genre-specific argument relying on the importance of the acoustic signal in art verse. The appeal to “emphasis” is especially oblique when we are interpreting evidence from prose/glosses from which no further prosodic information can be recovered. Second, if insertion was just a hiatus marker anywhere, including hiatus between two unstressed vowels, and not an attempt to highlight a stressed syllable onset, one would expect a goodly proportion of unstressed vowel-initial words with an excrescent . However, as mentioned above, the number of insertions in words of low prosodic prominence is unimpressive compared to the more robust number of unetymological s in hiatus before a stressed syllable, as in the examples in (25): (25)
ahebbad’ geharn gehendod gehiht gehyppe gehywdest
p.part. of ‘to ebb’ ‘ran’ ‘ended’ ‘increased’ ‘disclose’ ‘thou showed’
A possible parallel to the insertion patterns described in this section is provided by a minor scribal feature observed in the Vercelli Homilies. Scragg (1992: lv) records inorganic initial in geadiga (XXIII. 85) for eadig ‘rich, happy,’ geardungstowa (IX. 26), for eardungstowa ‘of dwellings,’ geardige (XXI. 12) for eardige ‘should dwell,’ geardodan (XXIII. 56), for eardodan ‘lived,’ gearnian (IX. 14, XIV. 168) for earnian ‘deserve.’ Interestingly, the same texts show confusion between and in final position: astah, beah, burh, sorh, ælmigtig (Scragg 1992: lvi–lvii). Whether inorganic insertion of is a late Kentish feature, or, as suggested by Scragg, it is simply a late Old English phenomenon, not localized, is not an issue which I have been able to determine. In any case, this type of scribal ingenuity will be in accord with at least the Kentish evidence in Middle English discussed in section 4.3.3 below. Summarizing the non-alliterative evidence for the reconstruction of a glottal stop, we can say that the argument that Old English stressed syllables required a filled Onset is not circular. The original idea linking vowel alliteration in
4.3 The upset of Onset
165
verse with the realization of a prevocalic glottal stop is upheld by a good deal of solid empirical and inductive support from language typology, from elision in Old English verse, from the observance of morphological boundaries, and from “irregular” spellings. As for why it is the glottal stop, and not some other segment that should be reconstructed, the arguments are: (a) that it could be seen as a continuation of the IE laryngeals;112 (b) that laryngeals are the most frequently observed placeless epenthetic consonants cross-linguistically, see Lombardi (1997), Ortmann (1998). Specifically for German and most varieties of Modern English, [ʔ-] is the default onset when liaison fails to occur, see Giegerich (1999: 186–187) and references therein. Finally, turning to phonetics, as has been suggested by Donca Steriade (2001: 44), [ʔ] is favored epenthetically and disfavored underlyingly for a single reason, low perceptual salience. A long line of researchers have pointed out the phonological and phonetic “placelessness” of h and ʔ in terms of lack of oral articulatory targets.113 The fact that [ʔ-] has no articulator to support a preceding coda is related to the fact that it is typically restricted to word-initial and inter-vocalic position. This is fully consistent with the fact that the epenthesis for Old English is only functional in the onsets of stressed syllables; it cannot be reconstructed reliably elsewhere. By being highly perceptually salient stressed syllable onsets compensate for the deficiency of the glottal stop and allow it to be functional. 4.3
The upset of Onset
Though gleaned from various previously unrelated sources, in its aggregate the evidence from Old English points to a requirement for a filled stressed syllable Onset , a situation which does not obtain for most varieties of Modern English. Before we move on to a discussion of the phonological properties of Onset in Modern English, I will present the relevant findings for Middle English and offer an interpretation of that evidence for the history of Onset in the language. As with so many other linguistic features, “Middle” English will turn out to be a period of transition. Sections 4.3.1–4.3.3 below cover the ways in which the intermediate history of syllable structure can be reconstructed, both on the basis of verse evidence, and by drawing on other types of data. 112. Pace Liberman (2000), see note 16 above. The idea is explicitly articulated in Hammerich (1948) and revived in Lass (1995: 147–149). 113. “It is clear that [ʔ] has, with [h], a uniquely favorable property for an epenthetic consonant: it does not possess an oral constriction and thus it will fail to include oral coarticulation on neighboring vowels, unlike the orally articulated consonants” (Steriade 2001: 44). For further discussion see Steriade (1996: 135–136).
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4.3.1 Middle English vowel alliteration In a London dissertation written more than a century ago, Lawrence (1893: 55) made an interesting discovery concerning vowel alliteration in Piers Plowman: in terms of frequency “it differs toto coelo from the Beowulf .” His survey of vowel alliteration in other Middle English texts (The Morte Arthure, The Destruction of Troy, William of Palerne, The Gestes of Alisaunder, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Cleanness and Patience, and the three texts of The Vision of Piers the Plowman114 ) concluded with a strong statement describing Middle English vowel alliteration as being “evidently in a moribund condition” (1893: 109 [my italics]). The inference was based on statistical findings showing that the Middle English poetic material he studied revealed a sharp drop in the proportion of vowel alliteration to consonantal alliteration compared to Old English. Schumacher (1914: 44–56) expanded the scope of Lawrence’s database. The list in (26) combines information from both sources: (26)
Beowulf SGGK St. Erkenwald Piers Plowman A Piers Plowman B Piers Plowman C
15.5% 4.8% 1.1% 3.6% 3.8% 3.9%
Wynnere and Wastoure Alexander A Alexander B William of Palerne The Destruction of Troy The Siege of Jerusalem
2.1% 3.7% 5.0% 2.3%115 5.0% 2%
The decrease in the share of vowel alliteration is from 15.5 percent in Beowulf to an overall 3 percent in fourteenth-century verse. In addition to the general avoidance of vowel alliteration, there is also a manifest tendency to alliterate on identical vowels. The interpretation of these figures is riddled with questions that go beyond the focus of this study: textual transmission, literacy, the occasional disassociation of alliteration and stress in Middle English. Within the framework adopted here, however, which rests on the assumption that change of poetic form is linked to linguistic change, the statistical rough edges are less important than the holistic picture. The comparison data are strongly symptomatic of the poets’ and scribes’ decreased confidence in the appropriateness of alliteration on vowels of different quality. Seen from that angle, the new practice emerged as a corollary of a typological change in the syllabic structure of 114. The bibliographical details are found in Lawrence (1893: 56–58); imperfections of the earlier editions used in his counts do not affect the line of argument presented here. 115. The drop is even more dramatic if one excludes alliteration on identical vowels, and alliteration of vowel with h-; the latter “mixed” type is included in the counts in (26).
4.3 The upset of Onset
167
the language under the influence of Anglo-Norman loan phonology: from being obligatory in Old English, glottal stop epenthesis had become optional in Middle English. Thus, the glottal stop hypothesis provides a principled linguistic account of the diachronic alliterative facts. Even if the drop in the proportion of vowel alliteration shown by the data in (26) could be attributed partially to changing conventions of versification – though we have no information on which such an argument could rest – the assumption of a changing Onset covers the facts well and its effect must be taken into consideration. In comparison, the strongest theoretical rival to the glottal stop theory, the hypothesis that empty onsets provided the common denominator in alliteration in the history of English, cannot accommodate the same data. An account relying on empty onsets as the binding feature of vowel alliteration would have to relegate the explanation for the statistically significant decrease of vowel alliteration rates in Middle English to alternative and unrecoverable extralinguistic factors. Stated in more formal linguistic terms, and in anticipation of the formalization of the account in section 4.4, we can say that the evidence in (26) lends itself to an interpretation of the change as a reranking of the Onset constraint with respect to faithfulness to the base. Two factors facilitate the abandonment of an obligatory Onset in Middle English: first, the glottal stop had never been part of the contrastive, underlying phonological system of the language – it was always realized as an output epenthetic segment under specific prosodic conditions. Like the presumed phonetic, but arguably not phonemic [η] in Old English in words such as lang ‘long,’ gang ‘going, progression,’ the epenthetic segment was environmentally conditioned; it was therefore distributionally defective. Second, Middle English was a time of significant borrowing of Romance lexical items and English-Anglo-Norman bilingualism especially among socially prestigious speakers; the model for a lower ranked Onset was provided by scores of vowel-initial loan words: actor, aim, air, April, arch, eagle, ease, envy, err, odor, olive, optic, orange, order . . . 4.3.2 ME elision alliteration: “Stab der Liaison” As adumbrated in section 4.2.1, Old English verse shows little evidence of phonological procliticization involving unambiguously stressed vowel-initial lexical items. The interpretation most compatible with that finding is that the integrity of the word was kept intact by the presence of the glottal stop, i.e. alliteration respects the morphological boundaries even when the two successive words fall within the same syntactic unit. There are no clear instances of shifting
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the syllable boundary in the Old English alliterative corpus. The negative evidence, as in (6)–(8) in 4.2 and (27) below, is easy to trace in numerous examples which show that, for example the “definite articles,” the demonstratives s¯e (masc.), s¯eo (fem.), þæt (neut.), and þa¯ (pl.), and their inflexional forms þæs, ¯ þær(e) ¯ could not have been resyllabified without garbling the alliteration; þæm, the same is true of prosodic units containing other weak determiners and prepositions. Compare the examples below to Modern English: an aim – a name, of ice – a vice, seep in – see pin:116 (27)
Swa se æþela fugel / æt þam æspringe117 eal unforcuþ. / Biþ þæs oþer swice,118 þa þæt ærende / ealwealdan gode119 eahtodan eorlscipe / ond his ellenweorc120 H¯eo wæson ofste, / wolde ut ¯ ðanon121 122 Eac him wolde Eadric / his ealdre gelæstan ¯
The alliterative evidence in Middle English often follows the same pattern, as in the examples from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight123 (28)
And I am here an erande / in erdez vncouþe, þis oritore is vgly, / with erbez ouergrowen;
SGGK 1808 SGGK 2190
However, in addition to the predictable alliteration based on consciously and carefully observed word boundaries, some phenomena in the alliterative compositions of Middle English would support an assumption that pre-vocalic glottal stops were either disappearing or were completely abandoned as a feature of the spoken language. The practice in question, known as Stab der Liaison, involves resyllabification within clitic groups where the host stressed syllable is vowel initial. Logically, this intriguing alliterative practice could not have arisen if the onset of the host word was filled. Some examples of Stab der Liaison are cited in (29):124 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 123.
The Modern English situation will be discussed in more detail in section 4.4.2. So the noble bird / at the water source’ ‘all honorable. / It will of the other deception’ ‘then the errand / to the all-wielding God’ ‘they praise heroic acts / and his courage-deeds’ ‘She was in haste, / wanted out thence’ 122. ‘Also Eadrich wanted / to support his lord’ The lines are cited from the electronic edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight made available by the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. 124. Some of these lines are cited also in Schumacher (1914: 57–61). More evidence for “elision alliteration” is found in The Wars of Alexander: myne awen (2339), myn empire (3186), an Emperoure (3236) alliterate on n-, and even hes peris (3033), on sp- (Turville-Petre 1980:
4.3 The upset of Onset (29)
An oþer noyse ful newe / ne3ed biliue þe tweyne y3en and þe nase, / þe naked lyppez, ‘þat schal I telle þe trwly,’ / quoþ þat oþer þenne And non eire of myn own / neuer yet I hadde Toax, a tide mon / of þat oþer side If this were nedles note / anothir comes aftir It sall þe noy not a nege nane of his thotis125 Takis þam with him to his tent & þam at ese makis126 Vmquile he noys as a nowte, as a nox quen he lawes
169
SGGK 132 SGGK 962 SGGK 2444 Destr. of Troy 5315 Destr. of Troy 6805 W & W 338 WA 676 WA 1955 WA 4871
The alliterative choices illustrated by the examples in (29) bear directly on the reconstruction of Onset in Middle English. On the one hand the absence of glottal stop epenthesis in vowel-initial stressed syllables suggests strongly that obligatory Onset was no longer part of the phonology of Middle English. On the other hand, the resyllabification in (29) points to a situation where a filled Onset is still a highly desirable option. The statistical frequency of Stab der Liaison is impossible to determine; there is every indication, however, that it was not an isolated phenomenon. It was frequent and customary (“h¨aufig und gebr¨auchlich”) in The Destruction of Troy,127 and The Wars of Alexander128 and attested, albeit infrequently, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Cleanness, Patience,129 The Legend of Sir Erkenwald,130 Morte Arthure.131 Many alliterative compositions show doubtful evidence of the phenomenon. The texts in which Stab der Liaison is not attested at all are Alexander A and Alexander B,132 most likely originating from the West
125. 126. 127.
128.
129. 130. 131. 132.
307), see also Duggan and Turville-Petre (eds.) (1989: xix). Schumacher (1914: 57) is cautious about taking the evidence as conclusive with regard to the general disappearance of the glottal stop in all dialects; this is a sensible warning as far as the generality of the shift is concerned. It is clear nevertheless that the data in (29) are incompatible with an assumption of continuing obligatory glottal stop epenthesis. Duggan and Turville-Petre emend manuscript a nege to an ege in line 676, and a nox to an ox in line 4871 (1989: xlv). The line is cited from The Wars of Alexander, ed. by Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989: 62). Ed. by Panton and D. Donaldson, EETS 39 and 56 (1869 and 1874). The late Middle English text contains 14,044 long lines. It is of northern origin with some West Midlands features. Schumacher used the edition by Walter Skeat, EETS ES XLVII, 1886. It is a northern text of 5,678 lines from the first quarter to the first half of the fifteenth century. Duggan and TurvillePetre (1989: xix) also comment on the poet’s fondness of elision alliteration in The Wars of Alexander. Ed. by Richard Morris, EETS 1, 4, 1869. Ed. by C. Horstmann, 1881. A North-western text dated 1386, 352 long lines. Ed. by E. Brock, EETS 8, 1871. A Yorkshire text of 4,346 long lines, dated c. 1440. Ed. Walter Skeat, EETS ES I and XXXI, 1867 and 1878.
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Midlands, but showing the scribe’s distinct bias towards southern forms (Skeat 1878: xxvi).133 Though firm conclusions about the strength of the filled Onset requirement can hardly be drawn just on the basis of the chronological and dialectal distribution, it seems to suggest that more “conservative” areas such as the northern or western parts of the country were more sensitive to the structural preference for a filled Onset . The satisfaction of Onset through glottal stop insertion optimizes the syllable structure without compromising syllable and morpheme boundaries. Without the glottal stop an oþer syllabified maximally as a.no þer, is a better phonological structure than an.o.þer, but the optimization of the syllable structure occurs at the expense of the morphology–prosody alignment. Not surprisingly, the non-alignment is attested only in the environment of potentially proclitic weakly stressed words: an, at, þat, myn, þyn, his, etc., where the damage done to the morphosyntactic bracketing would be minimal. Thus, the process illustrated in (29) testifies both to the violability of the Onset constraint, and to its continuing relevance to the phonology of Middle English. Stab der Liaison results in a filled Onset; resyllabification is enabled by the absence of a prevocalic glottal stop. As mentioned above, Stab der Liaison is not pervasive in the alliterative corpus of the period. Its relative rarity is not surprising; producing and recording alliterative verse in Middle English was both an oral and a more “literate” enterprise, and the transfer and preservation of features characteristic of speech, but not of writing, was less likely than in the earlier literary periods. Also, the picture is obscured by the general reluctance of the Middle English alliterative poets to employ vowel alliteration. The flexibility of the alliterative practice in Middle English with respect to the number of alliterating positions and the acceptability of alliteration on prosodically weak words are additional factors that probably conceal some relevant information. Crucially, returning to the point above, resyllabification would have been inhibited by literacy: by the fourteenth century poetic compositions were probably more often written down before they were performed. With these considerations in mind, it is reasonable to accept Stab der Liaison as good evidence for the flexible status of Onset with respect to the prosodification of the group function word + host in Middle English.
133. The statements are based on Schumacher (1914: 212). Bunt (1985: 81) cites a single possible instance of Stab der Liaison in William of Palerne, but dismisses it as questionable. The text combines West Midland and eastern, possibly Norfolk, features (Bunt 1985: 75).
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171
4.3.3 Non-verse evidence for Onset in Middle English A special Middle English phonological development which has direct bearing on the issue of Onset , is the narrowing of the first component of OE e¯ a, accompanied by loss of sonority and transfer of accent. The spellings in (30) attest to this specifically Kentish change which is assumed to have taken place after the eleventh century.134 (30)
OE
ME (Kentish)
OE
ME (Kentish)
e¯ adi e¯ anian e¯ are e¯ are
135 ‘ear of corn’
e¯ ast e¯ astre e¯ aþ Ead-
(Devonshire)
According to the philological accounts, the reconstructed /jε:/ remained most stable in initial position; in medial position there is one single example of that type, the word dead ‘dead,’ spelled . There is no evidence for the /j/ in other words where the ea is non-initial. Traditionally, all of these examples have been treated as instances of Akzentumsprung, but as the data and the analysis in Stockwell (1991: 317) show, the phenomena subsumed under this rather large umbrella are much better characterized for English with reference to consonant-vowel assimilation. However, the assimilatory account cannot apply to instances where there is no adjacent consonant to trigger the change as in (30). Facing this problem, Stockwell (1991: 319) writes: I have no explanation for the development of rising diphthongs in word-initial position either in these examples or, for that matter, all over Icelandic and Frisian. They seem to me to represent a genuinely different phonetic process which only superficially resembles the phonetic assimilations exemplified in (1) and (2) above [(1) refers to front vowel absorption by preceding palatals and (2) refers to back glide nucleation by following back glides].
It is not uncommon for grammars to scatter evidence of various constraints across different subsystems and varieties of language. If indeed the Kentish developments cited in (30) represent a genuinely different phonetic process, and if they can be attributed to the continuing preference for a filled Onset, then the observed discrepancy between word-initial position and medial position is no longer a puzzle. The Kentish glide-epenthesis becomes a logical prediction 134. Jordan (1934/1974: 109). 135. The spellings are found in John Wycliffe, here cited from Bosworth and Toller (1898/1983: 231).
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4 Syllable structure
of the account. The assumption of a persistent Onset constraint in Middle English is further evidenced by the spellings in (31):136 (31)
The forms cited are post-fourteenth century, mostly from texts written in the West and the Southwest. Such forms have remained problematic, in the sense that they do not fit any general patterns describing the overall properties and directions in the phonological history of English. Factoring in Onset as a continuing, though violable, constraint on the structure of the stressed syllable accounts for such epenthetic phenomena in a natural way. Jones (1989: 177–181) comes closest to recognizing the importance of the epenthetic segments in terms of a continuing structural constraint on the stressed syllable in English. He points out, rightly, that accent shifting is merely a nonexplanatory label, and that “glide epenthesis” can occur in instances where the syllable-bearing peak remains intact.137 The approach advanced here differs from his in two significant ways. Jones believes that the epenthesis is a manifestation of a stratagem to highlight and foreground the complex (bimoraic) vowel space in any environment. I focus on Onset as a universally available constraint on syllable structure; its effect on the output can be seen both with monomoraic and bimoraic peaks, compare ‘us’ to <woth> ‘oath’, ‘end’ to ‘also.’ The data shown in (31) may suggest that the epenthesis effect is perceived as stronger with bimoraic peaks, but this would be an extraneous consequence of the higher statistical probability of the cooccurrence of stress and bimoraicness in Middle and Modern English. Also, 136. The list includes forms cited in Jones (1989: 179), Luick (1914–1940: §435), and Minkoff (1967: 219). 137. Without reference to the situation in Old English, Jones (1989: 71–72, 179–180) speculates briefly in the direction of consonantal epenthesis as an onset-filling strategy in Middle English. His account, however, does not consider the strength of this strategy in Old English. Thus, Jones ends up focusing on onset-filling not as a progressively weakening structural requirement, but as a stratagem ensuring that the nucleus is sufficiently highlighted. As will be clear from the comments on the correlation of stress and filled onset in section 4.4, those two tracks converge to avoid marked output structures.
4.3 The upset of Onset
173
Jones relates the phenomenon of epenthesis to the stability, and even the increase of prominence of complex peaks in the later language, whereas in the analysis advocated here, the probability of Onset-induced epenthesis in English has been diminishing. 4.3.4 Nunnation in Middle English Nunnation is the addition of an unetymological after a vowel. This phenomenon is potentially relevant for the description of the changes affecting Onset in Middle English. The earliest Middle English examples of nunnation are found in Lagamon’s Brut. Madden (1847/1970: I. xxix–xxx) offered the first extensive comments on nunnation in that text, suggesting that the unetymological final –n might have been used for the sake of euphony. Lewis (1963: xix) places nunnation at the top of his list of the chief characteristics of the language of the Ms. Cotton Caligula and describes it as a device “used to avoid hiatus before a word beginning with a vowel or h.” The examples from Lagamon’s Brut below illustrate this phenomenon: (32)
Her ich aeuen ælche cnihten; is cunden & his rihten Ich hæten eou wurchen; & bulden þa chirchen Appas eoden in ænne bur; & þat balu mæinde
8445 8449 8853
The appearance of the inorganic in that text has the same effect as that of elision, i.e. avoidance of hiatus.138 Other words in the text that behave in the same way are togadere(n) ‘together,’ þenene(n) ‘thence,’ þohte(n) ‘thought.’ Intervocalic link consonants are also found in the Cursor Mundi.139 Other Middle English forms which behave in the same way are eve(n) ‘evening,’ game(n) ‘play,’ ire(n) ‘iron,’ maide(n) ‘maiden,’ same(n) ‘together.’ In those forms the preservation of the etymological , more typical of the southern dialects than in the north, is dependent on the phonological environment, i.e. is lost before consonant-initial words (Jordan 1934/1974: 160). While in principle nunnation and related hiatus-avoiding unetymological insertions could be seen as an analogue to Stab der Liaison, the evidence is not as straightforward. First, it can occur before consonant-initial stressed words where its presence cannot be justified with reference to the shape of the onset, for example þus seiden Mærlin; & seoððen he sæt stille (Lag 8602). Also, the transitional consonant can be inserted before the initial vowel of an unstressed 138. On this point, see also the comments in Minkova (1991: 67–68). 139. The Cursor Mundi is a non-alliterative poem, composed c. 1300 in the Northeast Midlands and surviving in four later manuscripts.
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syllable, where the Onset constraint is less strictly observed, as in hæten eou, eoden in in (32). Nunnation is similar to the widespread phenomenon of “false junctures” found not just in verse, but throughout the Middle English textual corpus. (33) lists a selection of such false junctures where is associated with the onset of the following vowel-initial word:140 (33)
ME
Source
Gloss
a nawl a neiland a neke name a newt a ninch atte nale atte nende atte noke for þe nanes mi ney my naun
an awl an island an eke name an ewt an inch at an ale at an ende at an oke for þan anes min ei myn own
‘an awl’ ‘an island’ ‘a nickname’ ‘a newt’ ‘an inch’ ‘at the ale’ ‘at an end’ ‘at an oak’ ‘for the one’ ‘mine eye’ ‘mine own’141
These are all instances of shift of the boundary within the clitic group. The inverse phenomenon, loss of initial through a word boundary shift, is also attested, thought the number of examples is smaller: adder < næddre, auger < nafu-gar ‘drill,’ apron < naperon, ouch < nouche ‘clasp,’ umpire < nomper. As will be shown below, the nunnation patterns within clitic groups can be extended to clitics with other consonants, the thother ‘the other,’ thone ‘the one’ pattern. All of these processes are of interest in the context of our discussion, even though the phenomenon of nunnation per se, as in (32), is undoubtedly related to the initial stages of the loss of final in unstressed syllables, and should therefore be treated also as a case of hypercorrection and inverse spelling. 4.4
Onset in Modern English
The most frequent references to the structure of the onset in the history of English deal with the phonotactic constraints on the consonantal combinations 140. My sources are Jordan (1934/1974: 161), where the term “false juncture” is used, Luick (1914–1940/1964: 994–995), OED. 141. Compare the Scottish form nainsel -sell, ‘one’s own self’; her nainsel, ‘a phrase attributed to Highlanders in place of the first personal pronoun, and hence used as a designation for a Highlander’ (OED).
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175
that can appear in that position. Onset does not contribute to the calculation of syllable weight; it is therefore routinely ignored in describing the prosodic properties of English, diachronically and synchronically. The historical data presented in the previous sections, however, reveal an interesting correlation between the presence or absence of Onset and the prosodic organization at different diachronic stages. The evidence for consonantal epenthesis in vowelinitial native lexical items in (30) and (31) above, and the stress-related considerations put forth in Jones (1989), raise the question of the nature of the association between Onset and stress in English. The information collected in this study has made it clear that the behavior of Onset in unstressed syllables has to be treated separately. If indeed the realization of this structural property of the syllable is prosodically circumscribed, we need to look further into the interplay between Onset and other prosodic features and to justify typologically the focus on stressed syllables. In the remaining sections of this chapter I want to show that incorporating Onset into the prosodic history of English is enlightening both from the point of view of the history of the language, and from the point of view of the modern language. The arguments put forward support the position that the association between a filled Onset and stress, which is essential to the coherence of the proposed historical account, is not an incidental correlate of a particular representation of syllable geometry, but an essential structural component of the syllable. 4.4.1 The correlation between Onset and stress in Modern English From the familiar observation that a filled Onset is universally preferred, it does not necessarily follow that the presence of a pre-vocalic consonant will be more compelling in stressed syllables than in unstressed ones. Throughout this chapter, I have been tracing the behavior of Onset in stressed syllables. None of the arguments supporting the idea of an obligatory Onset in stressed syllables in Old English can be shown to be relevant for unstressed syllables. Similarly, the instances of Onset-driven resyllabification and epenthesis in Middle English described in 4.3.2 and 4.3.3, are phenomena confined to stressed syllables. In principle, this differential behavior is not surprising: both crosslinguistically and in English, stressed and unstressed syllables exhibit quite distinct phonological properties in many other respects. Well-known instantiations of selective treatment under different prosodic conditions can be found in the strong tendency for the co-occurrence of syllable weight and stress, the preservation of vowel quality under stress as compared to vowel reduction in unstressed syllables, etc. No such correlation has been claimed to exist between Onset and stress in the history of English, however.
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Connecting the past to the tangible present is always a bonus in diachronic linguistics. The question that we should be asking at this point is whether there is such a correlation in the modern language that corresponds to the hypothesis of obligatory co-occurrence of stress and Onset in Old English. Against the background of Onset being treated as the poor relative of other prosodic attributes of the syllables, since it does not count towards the computation of mora-based syllable weight, it is not surprising that the question has generally been bypassed.142 Some interesting cases of correlation between onset and stress assignment in English and Italian were, however, brought up in Davis (1988). For American English, Davis argues that the composition of the Onset of the pre-suffixal syllable in words containing the suffix – ative determines its stressability. Thus, words containing a sonorant onset, as in generative, nominative, cumulative, have a single stress, while otherwise identical structures, but no sonorant in the onset of the relevant syllable, have secondary stress on that syllable, thus for example inv´estig`ative, qu´alit`ative, ´ınnov`ative maintain secondary stress. More recently, one study by Hammond (1995) gathered a large body of Modern English data which lend support to the idea that positing co-occurrence of Onset and stress historically is well justified. Hammond’s study establishes, from a database of 20,000 English words, a significant correlation between the distribution of stress and word-initial onsets in disyllabic words. According to his calculations, zero-onset stressed syllables are only 9 percent of the 3,949 trochaic words counted, the able versus gable type, while zero-onset unstressed syllables are 37 percent of the 1,416 iambic words counted, the again versus began type. This significant difference indicates that unstressed syllables tolerate zero onset much better than stressed syllables, or stressed syllables prefer onsets. (34) Iambic Trochaic
CV-
V-
% V-
895 (began) 3,607 (gable)
521 (again) 342 (able)
37 9
142. Discussing the relevance of syllable onsets to stress placement Everett and Everett (1984) find a strong correlation between the type of syllable onset, voiced or voiceless, in the Amazonian language Pirah˜a and conclude (1984: 711) that “a nonlinear structure for Pirah˜a stress must be constructed on syllable projections rather than rhyme or nucleus projections. Therefore the possible domains for stress placement in Universal Grammar must be allowed to include such projections.” The authors are not concerned with English or Germanic data and offer no comments on English.
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177
Hammond comments that “This statistical skewing is repeated in words of all lengths.” In the same study he also shows the distribution of initial stress as a function of whether the word begins with a vowel or a consonant-vowel sequence in a chart here reproduced as (35). The columns labeled “%” show the percentage of stressless syllables for each length and segmental condition. (35)
CV # of ’s 2 3 4 5 6
( , ) 3,919 1,945 346 28 0
(, ˘) 790 761 663 67 10
V % 17 28 66 71 100
( , ) 556 599 116 10 0
(, ˘) 521 437 400 76 10
% 48 42 78 88 100
The chart shows a very marked preference for CV-structure for stressed syllables: 83 percent of the disyllabic words have CV-initial stressed syllables. In contrast, stressless syllables consistently form a greater percentage of the total in the vowel-initial columns to the right: 48 percent versus 17 percent for disyllabic words, 42 percent versus 28 percent for trisyllabic words, etc. These counts lend very strong support to our synchronic intuition that a filled stressed syllable Onset is to be preferred over an empty one. Moreover, it can be seen as the continuation of a constraint which was much stronger in the earlier stages of the language, but whose prosodic effects continue to be powerful. An instructive parallel to Hammond’s data is provided by the way in which German roots respect Onset: as reported by Golston and Wiese (1998: 178), 94 percent of the items in a corpus of 6,512 roots in German are consonantinitial. This distribution renders the glottal stop epenthesis in the remaining 6 percent readily predictable.143 Thus, the composition of the stressed syllable in two modern Germanic languages provides typological support for the focus on 143. The German picture is quite complex. Alber (2001) describes the glottal stop epenthesis as limited to edges of morphemes in Southern German, but as occurring before vowel-initial stressed syllables in Standard German. Morpheme-internal vowel-initial syllables that are unstressed are not subject to glottal stop epenthesis at the same rate as stressed syllables. Alber’s analysis in terms of OT relies on a constraint banning domain-internal epenthesis (O-CONTIGUITY); the appeal to that specific constraint is necessitated by the Southern German facts and by the tangible presence of glottal closure at the left edge of unstressed syllables. She acknowledges that “stress can favor the presence of glottal closure” but since the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables in her data is not strong enough she prefers to keep it out of the phonological analysis and instead concentrates on the role of edge-related phenomena. Since alliteration was my starting-point and since the majority of
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stressed syllables from our historical account: the synchronic statistical results are also a corollary of the hypothesis that stressed vowel-initial syllables in Old English required [ʔ]-epenthesis. We will never know whether the insertion was sensitive to register and/or rate of delivery, and to what extent, but the odds are in favor of its surface presence in “careful” speech and especially in verse recitation. In sum, before looking into the effect of the Onset constraint on the prosodic organization at the phrasal level in Modern English, we have characterized the syllable as a domain in which the prosodic property of stress correlates with the segmental composition of the onset. Traditionally, as noted above, stress has been treated as interacting with phonological weight, and weight is calibrated in terms of moras. The situation found categorically in Old English, almost categorically in Modern German, and very prominently manifested in Modern English argues for the independence of the onset as a phonological and prosodic component. In terms of phonological representation, skeletal positions and moras, the strong correlation between a filled Onset and stress would be yet another piece of evidence which supports the distinction between a segment which is not a full-fledged weight-bearing unit, and a segment which is fully and unambiguously weight-bearing. Broselow (1996: 191) cites some instances in the phonological literature where onset segments must be analyzed as moraic and comments that “[This analysis] brings the mora full circle from its function as encoder of syllable weight to encoder of segmenthood, blurring the distinction between moraic and skeletal tiers.” The data we are dealing with suggest that, at least for Germanic, the theoretical notions of two separate moraic and skeletal tiers can be independently justified. While consonantal segments present in the stressed syllable onset are not mora-bearing, they are still capable of triggering effects of structural completeness, producing syllables of preferred configuration.144 the diachronic assertions are ascertainable only in stressed position, I prefer to use stress as the correlate of glottal stop epenthesis. The position would not be incompatible with a morpheme-boundary analysis, where the left edge of a root equals the onset of a stressed syllable. 144. One analytical alternative, discussed in Broselow (1996: 190), is to start out by associating each underlying segment with a mora, and then have a universal Onset Creation Rule remove the mora from pre-vocalic consonants and attach it to the following vocalic mora. I believe that this move is unnecessary: it is analytically costly and the removal of the unit of weight from a CV sequence amounts to a theoretical sleight of hand. An approach which recognizes that for prosody all segments matter, though some matter more than others, seems to be more economical and general. In other words, without trying to formalize the statement, I see both syllable weight and “filled-out” syllable structure as two independent factors, or constraints on stress placement in English.
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179
4.4.2 Morphology–prosody alignment: a historical perspective One of the important prosodic issues related to reconstructing an obligatory Onset in Old English and positing a subsequent demotion of that constraint, is the issue of morphology–prosody alignment. A comparison of the Old English data in (18): a-etan ‘devour,’ be-æftan ‘after,’ be-ebbian ‘leave aground,’ etc. and (25): ahebbad p.part. of ‘to ebb,’ gehended ‘ended’ etc., to the Middle English contractions in (21): bæften ‘after,’ toffren ‘to offer,’ teken ‘in addition,’ etc., and the Stab der Liaison in (29), makes it clear that similar or equivalent morphosyntactic sequences must have been prosodified differently in the history of English. This section will look at the ways in which the Onset data adduced above can inform us about the preservation or non-preservation of morphological boundaries within the confines of the Prosodic Word. For a start, everything we have seen so far suggests that there has been a change in the prosodic realization of morphological boundaries in English. At first sight it may appear strange to assume that English has allowed two types of morphology–phonology alignment historically. However, Align, one of the basic components of Universal Grammar, does not have to be a constraint by itself, but simply a schema for creating language or time-specific constraints, as specified by Russell (1997: 119). Within that approach, a change of the prosodic interpretation of morphological boundaries is a natural process which can be associated with the change in the realization of morphological and prosodic edge signals. In our case, the testable edge signal is the reconstructed epenthetic glottal stop. The historical data presented in this chapter indicate that in Old English the left edge of a grammatical category Lex = Lexical Word is aligned with the left edge of the prosodic category PrW = Prosodic Word.145 As argued in 4.2.2. and as shown in (36) below, except for the negative proclitic ne, most affixes and function words in Old English are best analyzed as located outside the Prosodic Word; they are “free” clitics. Initial position in Pr W is associated with certain phonetic phenomena such as voiceless stop aspiration in Modern English, or, in the Old English parallel, glottal stop epenthesis.146 By deterring resyllabification within the Prosodic Phrase (PPh), glottal stop epenthesis becomes also a key diagnostic for the type of morphology–prosody alignment in the earliest stages of English. 145. The terminology and the geometry of the representations follow Selkirk (1996: 450–451). As she argues, neither of these structures incurs a violation of an alignment constraint which requires that the left edge of any Prosodic Word should coincide with the left edge of a Foot. 146. Giegerich (1989) offers an insightful discussion of the parallels between glottal stop insertion and aspiration.
In (36) the Prosodic Phrase dominates the Prosodic Word directly; all arguments adduced in section 4.2 from non-elision, absence of contractions, and the insertion of inorganic in vowel-initial major class words indicate that this should be the appropriate representation for Old English. One legitimate question in connection with the historical representation in (36) is the status of the syllables which precede the Prosodic Word within the domain of the Prosodic Phrase. In classifying those items I have used the term “free clitics.” The term is borrowed from Selkirk (1996: 441), who describes three different types of clitics corresponding to the first element in a syntactic phrase containing a function word followed by a full lexical item [Fnc Lex]. These are: free clitic, where the function word is sister to Prosodic Word and daughter to the Phonological Phrase; internal clitic, where the clitic is dominated by the same Prosodic Word that dominates its sister lexical word; and affixal clitic, where the function word is located in a nested Prosodic Word structure. The type of alignment involving “free” clitics as in (36) is argued by Selkirk (1996: 452) to be the optimal grammatical representation of non-final function words in Modern English. The same analysis is applicable to Old English. In Middle English, on the other hand, the evidence suggests that the prosodification of the same morphosyntactic sequences has changed as shown in (37): (37):
Middle English PPH
PRW σ t(o) t(o) a th(e)
P RW eken eve (n)other ende
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181
In (37) the Prosodic Phrase and the Prosodic Word are bracketed together under the higher level P rW node, rendering the prefixes and function words Pr Winitial and allowing greater prosodic cohesion within the syntactic domain of the phrase [Fnc Lex]. More importantly for the fate of Onset , the fact that both sister nodes are internal to the Prosodic Word at a lower level licenses resyllabification which satisfies Onset . The function words in this configuration are internal clitics, i.e. they have lost some of their morphological independence. The price of satisfaction of Onset is more complex prosodic nesting, and violation of the independent one-to-one alignment between lexical and prosodic word. The re-analysis of domain-associations represented in (37) above highlights the conflict between alignment and Onset in Middle English: Onset, though no longer inviolable, is sufficiently strong to trigger a shift of clitic status for the initial morphemes in the Prosodic Phrase from “free” to “internal.” Prosodically, the function words have moved away from acting like independent words, they have abandoned some of their “wordhood,” and have moved closer towards the fully dependent state of “affixhood.”147 At the same time, since glottal stop epenthesis was no longer readily available to safeguard the integrity of vowelinitial major class words, their left edge morphological boundary is no longer cleanly aligned with the Prosodic Word boundary, so , are coextensive with the Prosodic Phrase. Turning to Modern English: unlike the alliterative and spelling evidence for Middle and early Modern English, it is generally the case that Modern English does not show resyllabification or aspiration in such structures, another diagnostic for left-edge alignment. The structures in (38), which have the same geometry as the Old English representation in (36), are typical of the present-day language: (38):
Modern English PPH
PRW that let eight
object enter answers
*tha th object *le th enter *eigh th answers
147. The assumed preservation of the “free” clitic status may of course be just a reflection of the way in which poetry treats language – by blocking the development of internal clitics. Without the additional non-alliterative arguments it would be impossible to tell whether the blocking is driven by the presence of the glottal stop at the left edge of the Pr W or by careful speech habits – the results would be the same.
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The maintenance of ‘free’ clitics in Modern English is only part of the story – and it is underscored here because of the particular historical relevance of the contrast between forms such as thother and the impossibility of ∗ thobject today.148 Without going into further detail, we can note that while careful speech variants are more likely to correspond to the structure in (38), the Middle English structure of nested Prosodic Word and internal cliticization has not been completely abandoned. It persists in the prosodification of Modern English object pronouns which present a special case of morphosyntactic cliticization, as shown by Selkirk (1996: 358). Here belong pairs of the type: (39)
feed us see you will it
∼ = ∼ = ∼ =
fetus Mia billet
[fi s] [mijə] [bil -t]
4.4.3 Onset versus faithfulness (Dep io) in the history of English I have presented arguments that the structure of the stressed syllable in English has undergone an important change with respect to its configuration. One of the diagnostics for the change has been the way in which function words followed by vowel-initial lexical words are prosodified. The evidence from alliteration and scribal epenthesis suggests that Old English was a language with an obligatory stressed syllable Onset. Middle English maintained the preference for a filled Onset , but it no longer treated the epenthesis of a glottal stop as the preferred strategy for filling out the syllable frame. In Modern English the preference for a filled Onset is an important part of the phonology, but it comes only second to the preservation of the morphological integrity of the word. The three stages in the development of Onset outlined here lend themselves to a 148. Giegerich (1999: 254–260, 277–280) describes the various phonological processes that provide the obligatory onsets of English, both epenthetic sandhi segments and resyllabification across morpheme and word boundaries. Liaison is obligatory inside structures involving vowel-initial suffixes (hearing, feeling). In compounds and phrases it is optional: pop art can be [pɒp(ʔ)art]. Exercising the option of liaison is what accounts for the well-known children’s rhyme: Does eat oats And mares eat oats And little lambs eat ivy
∼ = ∼ = ∼ =
Dosey Doats And Merrzy Doats And Little Lamzy Divy
[(-i) ots] Anon.
The analysis of English liaison is complicated by the “mixed” phonetic signals. As Giegerich points out (1999: 280 and fn. 19), there is subtle allophonic variation that can be unstable across various speech tempi and styles. An OT account of the variability between dark and light allophones of /l/ in stem-final /l/ before vowel-initial suffix (heal-ing, mail-er, hail-y) and vowel-initial clitics (mail it) appears in Hayes (2000).
4.4 Onset in Modern English
183
formalization within the framework of Optimality Theory. The survey of the diagnostic Onset facts in the history of English is conducted with reference to the constraints listed in (40): (40)
Onset : D e p IO :
Syllables must have onsets. Every segment of the output has a correspondent in the input.149 Align-L (Lex, PrW): Align the left edge of the lexical word with the left edge of the Prosodic Word. The alignment leaves the “free” clitic outside the domain of the Prosodic Word.150 Strict Layering: No PPh immediately dominates a syllable.151
In Old English, Onset for stressed syllables was undominated whereas input–output faithfulness was ranked lower: Ons>> De p IO . The alignment type consonant with the Old English evidence is one of simple lexical wordedge to Prosodic Word edge: Align-L (Lex, PrW) which appears to be very strong within the set of recoverable data. The table in (41) shows the ranking of the four relevant constraints for Old English and the way in which various realizations satisfy them: 149. D ep is a correspondence constraint which describes the interdependency of input–output (IO) strings. The specific instantiation of the constraint applicable here, De p IO , prohibits epenthesis, see McCarthy and Prince (1996b: 264). With the single exception of the pre950 Old English alliterative pairings of /j/ and /(␥ )/, see chapter 3, and sp-, st-, sk- cluster alliteration – another special case of hyper-identity discussed in chapter 5 – alliteration in Old English respects phonemic boundaries. In that sense, glottal stop insertion creates a contrastive output environment: [ʔa-] contrasts with, for example [ba-], and the identity of [ʔa-] to [ʔe-] is of the same order as that of [ba-] and [be-]. 150. As indicated in section 4.2, following Russell (1997: 119), Al ign here will be treated more broadly, not as a constraint by itself, but a schema for creating constraints. The references to word boundaries here and the references to the left edge of the stressed-syllable in the earlier part of the chapter are equivalent, i.e. Lex is assumed to be left-prominent. In effect, the left edge of the Prosodic Word is also a foot boundary – the difference is of no consequence for the analysis. Prosodification involving “internal” clitics will violate Align-L. 151. Another name for this constraint is Exhaustivity, see Selkirk (1996: 443). I have chosen Selkirk’s finer differentiation between “free” and “internal” clitics over the Prosodic Hierarchy defined in Hayes (1989: 207–211), because the Clitic Group in Hayes, though otherwise a well-defined domain, cannot capture the different historical behaviors of the English function words. The prosodic manifestation of “weak” function words is the syllable. Thus, if a function word fails to cliticize to a host lexical word, the result is a violation of Strict Layering , since the prosodification allows a syllable to be directly dominated by the Phonological Phrase. Seen from the point of view of the Clitic Group, this constraint translates into: “Function words must be ‘internal’ clitics.”
184 (41)
4 Syllable structure Old English Candidates
Onset
Align-L (Lex, PrW)
Strict Layering
Dep IO
ðing ∗
ʔeorl eorl
!∗ ∗
to-ʔeacan to-eacan ∗ teacan
!∗
∗ !∗ ∗
on ʔeðelland ∗ o. neðelland
∗
!∗
∗
∗
In ðing, ʔ eorl, to- ʔ eacan, on ʔ eðelland the dominant constraint is satisfied either by the presence of an onset consonant, or through glottal stop epenthesis. As in Modern English, Old English favored (C)CV-initial stems: only about 13 percent of the major class words of frequency over fifty in the Concordance to ASPR are vowel-initial.152 In general, therefore, across the Old English lexicon instances of epenthesis will be much rarer than the corresponding CV-initial stressed syllables. For the majority of the lexicon, the input-output correspondence is perfect and Dep IO is satisfied automatically. The distributional restrictions on [ʔ-], and of course the long-standing issue of absence of graphic marking for this entity, raise the question of what its underlying phonemic status should be. The assumption behind the definition of the constraints and the ranking in the table in (41) is that [ʔ-] is the result of surface epenthesis.153 The main point of this chapter, that the composition of stressed syllable onsets in English has undergone a change, and that the 152. My count included 208 items listed in the ConcordanceAppendix of headwords in order of frequency (1978: 1503–1510). The figures are only approximate, however since the Appendix lists different spellings of the same word separately and some items are duplicated for no obvious reason. 153. Giegerich (1999: 255) proposes the same interpretation of the status of the glottal stop for Modern English. His discussion of the glottal stop is situated within a broader account of sandhi processes such as glide insertion and the [ə]/[r] allophony in non-rhotic dialects of English. The latter are phenomena that can be associated with unstressed positions, while my focus is the behavior of Onset in stressed syllables.
4.4 Onset in Modern English
185
realization of the glottal stop is a key to that change, is not affected by its underlying status. While it may be appealing to posit an underlying /ʔ-/ just for Old English, to parallel the consistency with which it presumably surfaced, it would not alter the substance of the claim regarding the composition of the onset on the surface. Crucially, the input-output correspondence De p IO and Strict Layering will have to remain violable constraints. Taking the position that [ʔ-] is epenthetic avoids the analytical problems of recognizing a largely featureless segment of restricted distribution as a co-equal member of the consonantal inventory.154 Therefore, I prefer to treat [ʔ-] as an entity identifiable and replicable on the surface, where its signal is the basis of onset identity required by alliteration. The violation of Dep IO in ʔ eorl, on ʔ eðelland, to- ʔ eacan is tolerated as long as the stressed syllables fulfill the structural wellformedness requirement of a filled Onset . The logic behind the ranking Onset with respect to Align-L (Lex, PrW) is the following: if Ons >> Align-L (Lex, PrW), [ʔ-] epenthesis would occur first and would block resyllabification, which would then guarantee the desirable alignment. This is the option shown in (41). If, on the other hand, the dominance is reversed and Align-L (Lex, PrW) >> Ons, the potential for epenthetic satisfaction of Onset would still be open prior to elision, so a question may be raised whether the two constraints need to be ranked with respect to each other. The ranking in (41) is based therefore not so much on the absolute effect of the two highest-ranking constraints, as on the emphasis on Onset which has been the focus of this diachronic investigation. The aim of the formalization is just to represent the alliterative and other philological facts which rule out surface structures like eorl and teacan in favor of ʔ eorl and to ʔ eacan. The ranking, as shown in (41), is chosen following the logic that if resyllabification could satisfy Onset in Old English by filling it with any initial consonant, as ∗ teacan, ∗ o. nEnglish, one should be able to establish some textual or metrical support for that process. That kind of resyllabification is very much in evidence in Middle English. As shown in 4.2.1–4.2.2, the broader version of alignment, allowing (re)syllabification within the domain of the Prosodic Phrase, though logically available in Old English, is not attested. The absence of fully contracted forms outside of the negative clitics (næfre < ne + æfre ‘never,’ 154. The frequency of productive [ʔ-] epenthesis both in languages where it is phonemic (as in Ilokano) and in languages where the insertion is “phonetic” (as in Sierra Miwok, Baka, or German) is mentioned in Ortmann (1998: 71). He relates the likelihood of this kind of epenthesis to the fact that for this placeless segment the minimal root node specification [-sonorant] obviates any other positive information needed to identify a default obstruent.
186
4 Syllable structure
nænig < ne + ænig ‘no(ne),’ but ∗ teacan < to-eacan ‘in addition’) helps with the ranking of Onset with respect to the Strict Layering constraint, thus Ons >> Strict Layering . Moreover, assuming the blocking effect of the glottal stop on elision, the metrical preservation of hiatus in (7) and (8), and the non-contractions in (18) support the proposed top ranking of Onset independently. Two powerful factors are thus at play in the prosodic behavior of vowel initial stressed syllables in Old English: Onset and Align-L; the satisfaction of Onset guarantees satisfaction of Align-L, but not vice versa. The two constraints are stronger than the requirement for function words to form “internal” clitic groups with the following lexical words.155 The situation with regard to the interaction of the same constraints is considerably less clear in Middle English. The mixed nature of the data for that period allows an analysis in which all of the constraints governing the prosodic behavior of vowel-initial stressed syllables can be violated, though none of the violations appears impossible. The tableau in (42) shows the rise of De p IO in the hierarchy of constraints, while Onset is no longer the all-powerful constraint it must have been in Old English. (42)
Middle English
Candidates
De p IO
Onset
Strict Layering
Align-L (Fnc Lex, PPh)
thing ∗
oath ʔoath (?)
∗
woth ‘oath’
∗ ∗
an.other a.nother
∗
∗ ∗
∗
The hierarchization of the constraints in Middle English is very tentative because it is obscured by a number of factors. The data show ambivalence about initial epenthesis, which means that Onset has lost its dominant position over the other constraints. Dep IO has gathered strength, and possibly 155. This raises the additional question of whether O nset and Align-L need to be conjoined together in order to rank higher than Strict Layering , i.e. whether this is a ranking specific to strings involving unprefixed vowel-initial lexical words. Since my focus is on the history of On set and not on the history of clitic group formation in English, I will not address the question here.
4.4 Onset in Modern English
187
outstripped all other competitors, but forms like woth ‘oath’ and yende ‘end’ indicate that it continued to be violable. Contractions and resyllabifications of the type another, teken ‘in addition,’ and the Middle English Stab der Liaison argue that what used to be a fatal violation, the misalignment of the lexical and Prosodic Word Align-L (Lex, PrW), has become acceptable. Both an.other and a.nother are allowed, but an.other gathers more violations. Crucially, none of the Old English forms ruled out by the hierarchy in (41) can be similarly ruled out for Middle English; uncomfortably, anything goes. Modern English continues the trend of demotion of Onset. Though still present in the language, this constraint has a limited effect on the prosodic behavior of sequences of function words + lexical words. The table in (43) shows the proposed ranking for Modern English: (43)
Modern English Candidates
De p IO
Align-L (Lex, PrW)
Onset
Strict Layering
thing oath
∗
under oath
∗
∗
∗
∗
unde . roath
∗
that object tha . th object
!∗
The options in Modern English are more limited than in Middle English, at least with respect to resyllabification not involving /r/; in fact, in Modern English, constraint violability with respect to Align-L (Lex, PrW) seems to be sensitive to the particular epenthetic segment.156 This selective resyllabification is represented in the tableau in (43) by allowing the realization unde. roath, but disallowing tha. th object. Moreover, Intrusive -r- in English seems to differ between British and American English. In American English it is restricted to (a) phrase-final position, when the functional word is also a Prosodic Word if you hafta-r, I said was gonna-r . . . and (b) at the right edge of Lex after a 156. For a most comprehensive treatment of these issues the reader should consult Giegerich (1999) and the references there. Details on the presence of intrusive -r- in Modern English depending on position within the prosodic structure are presented in Selkirk (1996: 454–459), Ortmann (1998: 53–58).
188
4 Syllable structure
word-final low vowel: Donka-r is speaking, the spa-r in the valley. It is not inserted after non-phrase-final function words: He shoulda eaten, I am gonna ask Adrian, though the latter are not the same in British English. Crucially, it should be pointed out that the resistance to resyllabification in English is quite pronounced, both before other segments, and before vowels.157 The table for Modern English ignores the possibility of glottal stop epenthesis since such epenthesis is limited to some varieties and registers. In any case, including ʔ oath-type forms would not affect the main-line argument beyond providing local support for the perseverance of a more robust Onset constraint in some more Old-English-like varieties of English. 4.5
Es ist Gesetz: summary and conclusions
In his discussion of sandhi and liaison in Modern English Giegerich (1999: 192) wrote that, “the default rule which associates the melody [ʔ] with empty onsets . . . ought to bear the name ‘Rapp’s Law’, after Karl Moritz Rapp (1836) . . .”158 This chapter has defended the validity of Rapp’s Law for Old English. Both the traditional alliterative arguments and new metrical and scribal arguments point to the plausibility of reconstructing a filled stressed syllable Onset as an obligatory well-formedness constraint in Old English. The position taken here differs from previous accounts defending the glottal stop in that the proposed OT analysis avoids the need to posit a phonemic entity “glottal stop.” In the most vigorous recent defense of the glottal stop hypothesis in diachronic terms Lass (1995: 146) proposes that “both the phonemic /ʔ/ and the prohibition of null onsets be taken as characterizing at least Northwest Germanic (if not Proto-Germanic).” My position, to distinguish it clearly from Lass’s, is that, indeed, zero onsets were prohibited both in earlier Germanic and in Old English, but that positing an underlying /ʔ/ is moot. An analysis of scribal and metrical phenomena as based on speech signals, and of alliteration as referring to surface contrasts avoids the analytical problems of recognizing a placeless segment of restricted distribution as an equal-rights member of the consonantal inventory. The implication is that not all surface contrasts need to translate directly into underlying contrasts; the epenthesis is treated as an allowable violation of the identity of input–output. The diachronic evidence and 157. For more data specifically on non-resyllabification in Modern English see Labov (1997: 166 ff.). 158. Rapp’s relevant statement, here cited partially from Giegerich (1999: 286–287) is: “Wenn ich ə sage, so hab’ ich schon zwei Buchstaben ausgesprochen, das heisst neben dem Urvocal ist hier auch schon der Urconsonant gegeben. Es ist Gesetz: Kein Vocallaut kann laut werden, ohne einen Mitlaut . . .” (my emphasis).
4.5 Summary and conclusions
189
arguments thus enrich our understanding of the universal constraint known as Onset . Unlike previous defenders of the nineteenth-century glottal stop theory, I have argued that the obligatory filled stressed syllable Onset in Old English can be tested both in the verse and in data gathered independently of verse composition. Restricting the analysis to stressed syllable onsets is supported by the Old English data and by the cross-linguistic typology of syllable onsets. Theoretically, the analysis developed here is therefore of interest in terms of the debate over models of phonological representation of stress. While traditionally the onset branch of the non-linear syllable template has been considered irrelevant for the prosodic property of stress, the correlation between a filled Onset and stress in the earlier stages of the language lends support to an independent universal parameter determining stress: segmental composition. Rather than treating this as an issue of moraic versus skeletal tiers of representation, the model of ranked and violable constraints in Optimality Theory provides an adequate solution to the surface co-occurrence of Onset and stress. Following Old English, the balance of options for maintaining the wholesomeness of the onset shifted away from glottal stop insertion. It is possible that this is related to some indigenous reduction in the absolute intensity of stressed syllables – uneven intensity of stress is a well-argued hypothesis regarding different dialects of Old Germanic, see Russom (1998). This would affect the delineation function of initial stressed syllables in Middle English: they could dispense with the glottal stop and allow for liaison to occur more freely. It is also likely that the Middle English situation was shaped at least partly through the pressure of the foreign model of genuinely onsetless syllable structure. By the fourteenth century, the importance of Onset had been undermined – glottal stop insertion became optional, while new patterns of morphosyntactic alignment emerged and took over the role of optimizing the syllable structure. Evidence from Middle English verse and late Middle English – early Modern English data shows both the continuing survival and the decreased salience of Onset in stressed syllables. In Modern English the co-occurrence of stress and Onset points to the presence of this constraint, while other phonological criteria make it clear that it has ceded its dominant position to faithfulness and alignment constraints. Why more cases of internal procliticization such as thende ‘the end,’ toffer ‘to offer,’ thother ‘the other,’ have not survived in the standard language,159 and 159. Local evidence for survival of the Middle English patterns comes from the forms (one or) t’other[th υðə], (in) the house [th aυs]in NW Yorkshire. I am grateful to Chris McCully for these examples.
190
4 Syllable structure
why the nuncle : ond on sp¯ed wrecan / spel ger¯ade1 and þæt spere sprengde, þæt hit sprang ong¯ean2 <st> : <st>: on stefn stigon; / str¯eamas wundon3 þ¯a st¯od on stæðe, st¯ıðl¯ıce clypode4 <sc> : <sc>: Oft Scyld Sc¯efing / sc¯eaðena ðr¯eatum5 H¯e sc¯eaf þ¯a mid þ¯am scylde / þæt se sceaft tobærest6
Beo 873 BM 137 Beo 212 BM 25 Beo 4 BM 136
The unitary behavior of /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters in verse is paralleled by verbal reduplication in Gothic, for example skaidan – af -skaiskaiþ ‘divide,’ staldan – ga-staistald ‘acquire.’ Other word-initial clusters may behave in this manner in verse, but not consistently; these self-alliterating clusters will be discussed in chapter 6. (4)
1. 3. 5. 6. 7. 9.
abreot brimwisan, / bryd ahredde7 Gangaþ nu snude, / snyttro geþencaþ8 Fromsiþ frean. / Frynd sind on eorþan9
Beo 2930 Elene 313 WfL 33
‘and on success create / a skilful tale’ 2. ‘and the spearhead thrust / so that it sprang back’ ‘on prow went up; / streams eddied’ 4. ‘stood then on the place / sternly called’ ‘oft Scyld Scefing / from bands of enemies’ ‘He thrust then with the shield / so that the shaft broke’ ‘cut down sea-leader / wife rescued’ 8. ‘go now quickly / with wisdom think’ ‘my lord’s departure. / Lovers are in earth’
192
5.2 Biphonemic treatment of <sc->
193
Compared to the randomness of (4), the overwhelming regularity of the patterns in (1)–(3) makes it clear that the alliterative convention relies on some special linguistic property of the /s-/ + voiceless stop onsets, not on graphic identity. This chapter will present and discuss the evidence for obligatory cluster alliteration in Old English. It will address issues concerning the analysis of cluster alliteration, and it will place the findings within the more general context of phonotactic preferences in the history of English. Deciding whether the special linguistic attributes of /sp-, st-, sk-/ were sufficient to motivate the Germanic and Old English poets to initiate and consistently maintain the tradition or whether an outside model was also involved is a difficult issue. The neighboring tradition of Old Irish versification does not follow the same parametrical rules.10 To the extent that Latin used alliteration, /sp-, st-, sk-/ were not given any special treatment. On the other hand, in the best specimens of Anglo-Latin verse, the compositions by Aldhelm (d. 709), the clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/ alliterate only with themselves, a practice which contradicts recognized classical Latin usage. The most reasonable explanation of the phenomenon of cluster alliteration in Anglo-Latin is indeed vernacular influence from Old English, as noted by Orchard (1994: 46). Once that influence is in place, however, there is always the possibility of mutual reinforcement between the practice of Anglo-Latin verse composition and the possibly more spontaneous compositions of the Anglo-Saxon scops who were crafting verse for oral delivery. Aldhelm, whose alliterative practice shows systematic cohesive treatment of /sp-, st-, sk-/, was enormously influential; he was “the most imitated Anglo-Latin poet” during the Old English period (Orchard 1994: 281). Familiarity with the Anglo-Latin model therefore might have provided an incentive for a scop or a scribe to follow suit; the practice could have been partly artificially fostered. 5.2
The biphonemic treatment of <sc-> in alliteration
Before we proceed with the discussion of the clusters illustrated in (1)–(3), the decision to bundle together instances of <st-> and <sp-> alliteration with instances of <sc-> alliteration needs to be clarified. The standard linguistic descriptions of Old English include the voiceless palatoalveolar fricative /ʃ/ as a regular member of the phonemic system. The change of [sk] > [sc] > [s¸c] > [ʃ], with some variations regarding the intermediate stages, and excluding medial positions before back vowels, is generally assumed to have occurred during 10. See Lehmann (1956 [1971]: 189–190), Malone (1988).
194
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
the transition from pre-Old English to Old English, see Lass (1994: 58–59, 78), similarly Hogg (1992b: 106–107). Some of the philological issues regarding the rise of the new phoneme /ʃ/ were already adumbrated in 3.9. Here I will present further alliterative evidence relevant to the reconstruction of a phonemic /ʃ/ in the history of English. The phonetic basis for the change of [sk] > [ʃ] is examined in Hogg (1992a: 35–36, 262, 272–273). Acknowledging that the intermediate stages of the development are obscure, he nevertheless postulates gradual assimilation of [s] and [k’], first in manner of articulation to produce affrication to ∗ [s¸c], followed by place assimilation resulting in [ʃ].11 Addressing the initiation of the change, Hogg (1992a: 272) endorses the suggestion, first made by B¨ulbring (1900), that /s/ could have had a pre-palatal (post-alveolar) articulation, which in its turn could have had a palatalizing effect on the adjacent /k/. This suggestion in itself, however, would not be sufficient to explain the different behavior of /sk/ on the one hand, and /sp, st/ in English. While in similar circumstances, the palatalization of [s] to [ʃ] occurs in Modern German loanwords with <sp->, <st->, but not in <sk->.12 A more plausible scenario, incorporating the pre-palatal articulation, would involve a series of phonetic steps motivated by a variety of factors. First, we can assume a positionally induced change of /k/ to a fricative [¸c], which, after influencing [s] regressively, may have developed into some type of /x/, further weakened to /h/, a voiceless counterpart of the following vowel. Second, later the strong similarity of the two strident fricatives, /s/ and /ʃ/ (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996: 146–152) would facilitate their neutralization in pre-palatal position. A third component of the account, which would counteract the monophonemicization, is the coexistence of “foreign” (Scandinavian) words in which <sk-> was a stable biphonemic sequence. There is also the possibility that the identity of /k/ within the cluster /sk-/ was influenced by the appearance of the cluster in Anglo-Norman, where its simplification involving deletion of the /s-/ lagged behind the corresponding twelfth- to thirteenth-century change in Old French (Pope 1934/1961: 151, 431). Looking beyond the articulatory mechanism of the palatalization and assibilation, cross-linguistically, [s] is characterized as the speech sound of high frequency, sharing with [ʃ] “a comparatively large acoustic intensity.” Both [s] 11. Hogg uses the IPA symbol [c] for the voiceless fronted velar and the palatalized velar which in this book are transcribed as [k’] and [kj ]. 12. See Wiese (1996: 226–227). An analysis of the distribution of the alveolar [s] and its palatoalveolar counterpart [ʃ] in German in terms of domain edges (contiguity) is offered in Alber (2001). Her analysis involves featural change at the left edge of the root, but not elsewhere, which is the opposite to what happens in Old English in some environments.
5.2 Biphonemic treatment of <sc->
195
and [ʃ] are alveolar fricatives;13 [s] produces the highest frequencies in speech, while the noise in [ʃ] is at a slightly lower frequency, cf. Ladefoged (1982: 184–185). Other similarities between [s] and [ʃ] are that “for both sounds the teeth are close together, making them strident fricatives” and “both sounds can be made with the tip of the tongue up or down” (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996: 148–149). Along with the similarities, which would be utilized more fully in languages like German where historically all [s-] in initial clusters become [ʃ] and only recent borrowings allow [s-], there are differences which are important for English.14 The constriction for [ʃ] is further back and wider, which would facilitate coarticulation with a following velar, enhancing the chances of /sk/ to become [ʃ] while other [s-] clusters remain unaffected. Thus, some phonetic predisposition for the change can be seen either in articulatory terms, as outlined by Hogg, or it can be seen as acoustically predictable, a process assisted by the similarity of the place features of the two consonants. Identifying ways in which the change is typologically natural tells us nothing about its chronology, and indeed the exact dating of the phonetic stages and therefore the existence of a monosegmental [ʃ] in Old English is very much a matter of controversy. Hogg (1992a: 117–119, 273) discusses the developments after initial <sc-> in the various dialects. He suggests, tentatively, that use of the diacritic <e> before a back vowel in Late West Saxon, for example sceolon ‘they shall,’ sceort ‘short,’ could have been an orthographic indicator of palatalization.15 He also notes the failure of metathesis to occur in forms such as asce ‘ashes,’ unlike the widespread Late West Saxon metathesis in axian ‘ask,’ dixas ‘dishes,’ fixas ‘fishes.’ From this he infers that assibilation was “well under way during the tenth century.” This is a safe assumption in so far as it is taken to refer to the initial stage of the process which affects the quality of the segments, but not the composite nature of the cluster. The fact that palatalization is marked diacritically in exactly the same texts that show metathesis of medial 13. More specifically, English [s] is an apical or laminal alveolar, while [ʃ] is an apical or laminal domed post-alveolar (palatoalveolar), see Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 164). 14. The discrepancy between English and German in terms of /s/ + obstruent clusters is an issue which takes us too far afield from the focus of this book. The similarity between [s] and [ʃ] may have enhanced the chances of [sk] > [sc] > [s¸c] > [ʃ], but it was clearly not the dominant force behind the change in English. In the change of [sp], [st] > [ʃp], [ʃt] in German, it must have been a much more highly ranked factor. The German situation today ([sp], [st] > [ʃp], [ʃt] but not ∗ [sk] > [ʃk]) is attributed to dissimilation of the feature [high] in the two parts of the cluster by Wiese (1996: 267–268). Obviously, the analysis is not applicable to English. 15. The idea that <e> was an orthographic feature marking the palatalization of the consonant goes back to Stockwell and Barritt (1951). Hogg (1992a: 120) points out that the spellings with <e> in those cases where the consonant is followed by a non-high back vowel make it impossible to establish any kind of relative chronology.
196
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
/-sk-/ would suggest the possibility of a continuing bisegmental realization, with assibilation slightly more advanced in onset position. Jordan (1934/1974: §181) dates the monophonemicization of [s¸c] to /ʃ/ to c. 1100, which puts it outside the Old English period proper, a position also taken by Luick (1914–1940: 912).16 The Wrights (1925: 164) write that “There is no definite proof that sc became ʃ . . . in early OE as is assumed by some scholars.” In 3.9 I cited the metrical evidence against the assumption of phonemic assibilation of [sk] to /ʃ/ in Old English. Given the uncertainties of the reconstruction, it is reasonable to look to alliteration for additional evidence supporting the late, eleventh-century dating of the change. The picture presented by the alliterative data is as follows: the graphemic sequence <sc-> alliterates with itself throughout the classical Old English period. For Beowulf the evidence for <sc> pairing with <sc> is very solid: out of the twenty-three available examples there are no instances of mixed alliteration.17 In addition to that, there is one single example of <sp> alliterating with <sp> (Beo 873), and fourteen examples of <st> alliterating with <st>.18 The patterns in the early verse thus tell us nothing about the dating of the palatalization; they just confirm the strength and salience of sibilant + stop cluster alliteration, and the fact that there was no difference in the treatment of the three clusters. Though the exact phonetic steps of the change of [sk] to [ʃ] cannot be proven, the logical assumption in reconstructing the <sc-> cluster palatalization would be that the process was sensitive to the phonetic environment. If so, it would be likely that the process would occur first in unstressed environments and/or in adjacency to front vowels. Given the convention of using a diacritic to mark consonantal palatalization before back vowels,19 one would also expect 16. On the origin of Middle English /ʃ/ see also Flasdieck (1958). 17. The single possible exception is in l. 707: se scynscaða / under sceadu bregdan ‘the spectral foe / pull down into the shadows.’ The MS reading, first emended by Grein (1857) is syn scapa ‘evil foe,’ which would be semantically coherent, but the emendation is unjustified on the grounds that the second element of a compound (-scapa) never carries the single alliteration in Beowulf . The <sc-> : <sc-> alliterations appear in: Beo 4, 19, 26, 243, 274, 288, 496, 650, 703, 707, 918, 939, 979, 1026, 1033, 1154, 1686, 1694, 1895, 1939, 2570, 2850, 3118. 18. The relevant alliterations appear in Beo 212, 320, 926, 985, 1404, 1533, 2213, 2288, 2540, 2545, 2552, 2566, 2718, 3117. 19. The difficulty of deciding whether marked a change on the vowel or on the preceding consonant in the coarticulation of a palatal consonant followed by a front vowel was addressed in 3.5.3, fn. 65. One instance where this kind of indeterminacy is more likely to be resolved in favor of palatalization of the preceding consonant is the sequence <sc-> + non-high back vowel, for example sceatt ‘property.’ This by itself does not “prove” the realization of <sc-> as [ʃ], pace Hogg (1992a: 120). All it suggests is an appreciable degree of palatalization of the second consonant in the original cluster.
5.2 Biphonemic treatment of <sc->
197
evidence that the scops were conscious of the difference and would therefore avoid alliteration of <sc-> followed by a front vowel with <sc-> followed by a back vowel or a consonant. The data in Beowulf , admittedly early, do not support such an assumption: in almost half of the instances of scribal <sc-> alliteration, the pairing is between <sc-> followed by a back vowel and <sc-> followed by a front vowel. The situation is similar in The Battle of Maldon. (5) illustrates the mixed alliteration patterns found in the corpus: (5)
ac hy scamiende / scyldas bæran20 we willaþ mid þam sceattum / us to scype gangan21
Beo 2850 Maldon 40
More such examples are found at Beo 496, 918, 939, 1026, 1033, 1895, 3118, Maldon 56, 136. My findings contradict Dimler (1974), who surveyed the extensive and inconclusive literature on the issue and collected <sc-> alliteration data for a broad chronological span, from the eighth century to the middle of the eleventh century (1974: 25). He found that self-alliteration of <sc-> + front vowels is widely attested – in three-quarters of the cases overall. However, the counts offered by Dimler for Beowulf do not coincide with mine. A check of Maldon also shows different results; the ratio is three to one in favor of mixed alliteration. Even if there is a slight preponderance of self-alliteration, the significance of this fact would be hard to assess. It could simply be due to the frequency of eligible lexical items: shine, ship, scyld ‘guilt,’ etc. More damaging to Dimler’s speculations is the inescapable fact that there is no point at which mixed alliteration of <sc-> + front vowels and <sc-> + back vowels or /r/ is avoided completely by the scops. This invalidates his conclusion (1974: 27–28) that alliteration supports a “uniform mode of pronunciation” which he takes to be [ʃ]. My position is that positing [ʃ] in Old English is not the only possible way of interpreting the data. That there was a similarity between all <sc-> onsets is beyond doubt, but the uniformity of pronunciation of the cluster in all environments may just as well have been based on a bisegmental realization: [sk] : [sk’]. A similar negative argument could be made along the lines of native words versus words borrowed from Scandinavian. The earlier material is predictably uninformative. There are no instances in Beowulf where a word borrowed from Old Norse or Latin, the type that clearly resists monophonemicization, alliterates with a native word. Separating borrowed from native vocabulary in the entire corpus is of no help either, for example the word scolu, scole ‘school’ appears seven times in the ASPR, but never in a position where it participates 20. ‘but they ashamed / shields bore’
21. ‘we want with the treasure / to the ship go’
198
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
in the structural alliteration. Schubel (1942: 260–261) cites a set of learned borrowings and names (scapular, school, scholar, scuttle, scurf, Scot, Scotch, Scotland), in which palatalization never occurred, but they, too, can be found alliterating with <sc-> words which have developed an initial [ʃ].22 Thus the assumption that monophonemicization did not develop during the Old English period is compatible with the negative evidence of alliteration. The existence of a salient contrast between /sk/ and /ʃ/ initially cannot be established on the basis of alliterative matching. Therefore, we should allow a more generous timespan for the change, within which positional, dialectal, and individual lexical differences can be accommodated. A monosegmental [ʃ] interpretation can also be called into question by the data on <sc-> : <s-> alliterative pairing. Lines alliterating on /s/ in which the fourth strong position is occupied by an <sc-> initial syllable can serve as a negative test proving that <s-> does not alliterate with <sc->. This argument is made in Fulk (1992: 261) for The Menologium, a text dating probably after c. 965. The lines cited in (6) illustrate how the proscription on double alliteration in the off-verse can be used as evidence that <sc-> was kept separate from a simple initial <s-> both in earlier verse (Beowulf, The Phoenix, Juliana), and in later compositions such as The Menologium: (6)
sunne swegl-wered / s¯uðan scineþ.23 − Donne soðfæstum / sawlum scineð24 strong wiþstondan / storma scurum,25 ebedes afera. / And þæs symle scriþ26 his sunu sende / on þas sidan gesceaft27
Beo 606 Phx 589 Jln 651 Mnl 136 Mnl 227
Yet another way of looking at <sc-> would be by comparing the stability of self-alliteration of the three relevant clusters. The patterns in (1)–(3) are practically exceptionless in the earlier verse. The later compositions continue to follow the constraints with respect to <st-, sp->. The line in Maldon in (7) is remarkable in that it appears to defy the earlier cluster identity convention: 22. Schubel (1942) suggests, and I find this a good argument, that the alliteration of <sc-> with <s-> in Ælfric’s Homilies can be interpreted as an indication of the continuation of two separate sounds in <sc->, pace Slettengren (1943). 23. ‘sun bright-clothed / from south shines’ 24. ‘(over) the faithful / souls shines.’ The Phoenix is a Cynewulfian poem, dated to the second half of the eighth century (Fulk 1992: 403). 25. ‘strongly withstood / the showers of the storms.’ Juliana, a poem in The Exeter Book, is a ninth-century text. 26. ‘of prayer offspring / and ever the course’ 27. ‘sent his son / on the side of the creation’
5.2 Biphonemic treatment of <sc-> (7)
æfre ¯ embe stunde / h¯e sealde sume wunde28
199
Maldon 271
This line is often cited as a precursor of rhyming, for example Stanley (1988: 25), who also describes it as “lacking alliteration to link the two halflines, unless st were to rhyme with s.” With reference to the same line, Fulk’s observation (1992: 259) that the alliteration may have been influenced by the rhyme is most probably a correct interpretation of the choice of phonological identity that holds the line together. Indeed, Maldon 271 is one of four lines (ll. 42, 309, 271, 282) that Pope (1966: 104) singles out as “unorthodox” in terms of alliteration; he suggests that alliterative violation in them is due to rhythmic influence from rhymed couplets. Another later poem, Judgement Day II, dated no earlier than the second half of the tenth century, which firmly avoids alliteration between palatal and velar , treats the orthographic clusters <st-, sp-, sc-> in the same way as they are treated in the classical verse. The non-alliteration of /s/ with /sp/ in that poem is proven by the verse in Jg2 268, see Fulk (1992: 263–264): (8)
ac þær samod ricxaþ / sib mid spede
Jg2 268
The situation does appear less firm with respect to the <sc-> cluster. The strongest indication that <sc-> maintained its bisegmental composition since it was identified with <s-> comes from The Metrical Psalms of the Paris Psalter (P51–P150), where <sp-> and <st-> continue to alliterate as single units, while there are many instances of <sc-> alliterating with <s->:29 (9)
sceame sceandlice / þe þines siðes her do ðines scealces / sawle bliðe and mid sarlicre / sceame onmettest
P 68.7.2 P 85.3.3 P 88.39.2
Whether this kind of treatment constitutes definitive evidence for the merger of [s] and [k’] into a single segment is doubtful. Two factors should be considered in this context. First, in their aggregate, and quite apart from this particular violation of the classical pattern, the metrical “faults” of The Metrical Psalms suggest very strongly that the composition must be dated to the middle of the eleventh century (Fulk 1992: 410–414). The dating arguments are not based solely on <sc-> : <s-> alliteration; as in all other instances, Fulk’s dating 28. ‘anon and anon / he inflicted some wound’ 29. Further examples of this type (<sc-> ); <s-> and <s-> : <sc->) can be found at P 63.7.1, 73.10.3, 75.3.2, 78.13.2, 85.3.3, 90.5.1, 105.26.5, 105.27.2, 106.40.3, 125.6.2. Flasdieck (1950: 270) counts “31 (+8?) sc : s against 14 sc : sc.” His phonetic interpretation of the evidence is alliteration between [sʃ] and [s], but he assumes a c. 950 date for The Metrical Psalms of the Paris Psalter, which has subsequently been shown to be a very late composition, as late as the middle of the eleventh century (Fulk 1992: 410–414).
200
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
avoids circularity by examining the text against a broad range of linguistic criteria. Consequently, if the text can be shown independently to be quite late, there is no need to take out the <sc-> cluster from the special set of [s] + voiceless stop alliterating clusters until at least the beginning of the eleventh century. Also, such evidence in one text may indicate that the change was incipient in one dialect, but it does not tell us much about the spread of the change elsewhere. Another argument against disassociating <sc-> from <sp-> and <st-> at any point in Old English comes from the alliterative practice of Ælfric (c. 955– c. 1020), who ignores the classical Germanic practice of <sp-, st-, sc-> cluster alliteration in favor of a straightforward /s-/ alliteration.30 If non-cluster alliteration could be justified for <sc->, no such justification existed for abandoning the <sp-, st-> alliteration. In the latter half of the twelfth century, the presumed original version of The Soul’s Address to the Body31 shows alliteration of scerpe ‘sharp’ with scorede ‘pointed,’ (F29), scrift ‘penance’ with siþieþ ‘travels’ (F10), possibly istreiht ‘stretched out’ with ‘sone ‘soon’ (A31).32 These pairings, as well as Ælfric’s practice earlier, constitute evidence for the evolution, or dissolution, of the metrical norms, but since <sc-> is treated very much the same way as <sp-, st->, they are not helpful in dating the phonetic development of <sc-> to [ʃ] individually. While it is not impossible to assume alliteration based on the acoustic similarities between [s-] and [ʃ-], the parallel of <sp- st-> alliterating on <s-> would make such an assumption difficult to sustain. The conclusions one can draw from the evidence concerning the unitary treatment of the set of [s] + obstruent clusters are probabilistic rather than definitive. The clusters /sp-, st-/ have been phonetically stable in the history of English. If Ælfric treats all three clusters in the same way in his highly structured alliterative prose, his practice is not revealing with respect to the exact phonetic nature of <sc->. He abandons the earlier model for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual phonetic properties of the consonants involved. Presumably, by the end of the tenth century the obligatory self-alliteration of the clusters in question was a poorly understood poetic artifice. This led to a change in the way in which the rules of poetic composition were interpreted by individual scops, a separate issue from the change of the phonemic status of the <sc-> cluster. 30. The evidence is most thoroughly covered in Schubel (1942). By all accounts, English is the first Germanic language in which the s + voiceless stop cluster alliteration becomes unstable. Heusler (1925–1928/1956, I. 95) calls the practice of /s/-cluster alliteration “einer der festesten Grunds¨atze” [one of the firmest principles] of Germanic alliteration and reports that the practice is maintained in Iceland up to the fourteenth century. 31. The dating is from Moffat (1987: 25). 32. The full line is: he biþ eastward istreiht, / he biþsone stif (A31).
5.2 Biphonemic treatment of <sc->
201
The chart in (10) summarizes the patterns of alliteration of [s] + voiceless obstruent from Old to Middle English; a check mark means ‘alliterates with’ and a dash means ‘does not alliterate with’: (10) <sc>:<sc> <sp>:<sp> <st>:<st> <sc>:<s> <sp>:<s> <st>:<s>
OE √ √ √
LOE/EME √ √ √
– – –
– (?) – (?) – (?)
ME √ √ √ √ √ √
Thus, the various alliterative arguments for a monosegmental /ʃ/ confirm the post-Old English dating of this change suggested by other scholars and tested against the verse evidence in chapter 3. No proveably ‘Old English’ poem separates <sc-> from <sp-> and <st->; the typological and diachronic arguments in favor of a unitary treatment of the three clusters for Old English prevail. A different analysis for <sc-> would be defensible on grounds of its subsequent history, but the focus here is on Old English. Obtaining a clear and positive picture is probably impossible; the cluster simplification of initial <sc-> to /ʃ/ cannot be established with certainty for all of the dialects until after c. 1100. The phonetic substance of the second element of the <sc-> cluster could have been either a palatalized velar stop, [k’-] or [kj -] before palatal vowels, or some kind of voiceless velar fricative in front of back vowels and /r/. Both realizations were subsequently replaced by a monosegmental [ʃ], with the change presumably starting in palatal environments. Finally, going back to the phonetic determinants of the change, I would like to suggest a slightly different path of <sc-> simplification which would be compatible with the metrical and alliterative evidence in Old English: [sk] > [s⊥ k’] > [s⊥ c¸ ] . . . ME [ʃ]. Of all possible consonants occupying the second position in /s/ + consonant clusters in Old English, only /k/ shares the feature [+high] with /ʃ/.33 On those terms the Old English change of <sc-> /[sk]/ to [s⊥ k(,) ] is an instance of regressive feature assimilation in a cluster which violates rising sonority.34 Crucially, in an assimilatory account based on the feature [+high], some kind of /k/ needs to be present in order for the height assimilation to occur. Alliteration is based on allophonic similarity of the raised and non-raised realizations of both parts of the cluster. Whatever happens to the 33. Chomsky and Halle (1968: 176–177). 34. I am using [s⊥ ] to indicate a somewhat higher allophone of the alveolar fricative, closer to the palatoalveolar region, but not quite there.
202
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
second consonant subsequently may be fitted in accounts already available in the literature.35 5.3
The special status of sp-, st-, sk- in Old English
The previous section argued that the practice requiring identity of sibilant + stop alliterating onsets in Old English poetry remained unaffected by the possible internal developments of the <sc-> cluster. For all three clusters, <sp-, st-, sk->, unit alliteration was followed faithfully for about three centuries. Whether it was handed down through instruction, learned in the monasteries and the scriptoria, or whether each poet figured out the rules by himself intuitively, on the basis of the shared phonetic properties of these clusters, is beyond recovery. In any case, group alliteration of <sp-, st-, sk-> is undoubtedly a solid parametrical rule of verse composition. This alliterative choice prompts an interesting linguistic question: why were the <sp-, st-, sk-> clusters the only word-initial clusters treated as units by the scops? A related question is whether the abandonment of obligatory cluster alliteration at the end of the period resulted from a change in the nature of these clusters or whether it was a choice based on a different interpretation of what constitutes good alliteration. The “special” nature of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in Germanic is a famous phonological problem. Additional complications arise in English by the uneven behavior of the clusters depending on their position in the syllable and in the word. The different behavior of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in different positions is attested by the contrast between the stable alliterative patterns where /sp-, st-, sk-/ are treated in the same way, essentially the same as single consonants, and the ambiguous behavior of these clusters in syllabification. In Old English verse /sp-, st-, sk-/ prevent resolution, so the integrity of the cluster is not observed; the clusters are heterosyllabic. This is true both in the earlier verse and in the later specimens: (11)
35. The absence of the parallel assimilation in /s/ + /w/ clusters, where the /w/ is also [+high] is probably due to the basic well-formedness of the /sw-/ cluster with respect to sonority. If anything, /sw-/ is more likely to be split by a vowel; unlike /sk-/ it is a non-cohesive cluster. Assimilation is more likely to occur within cohesive clusters. 36. ‘fierce foe-scather, / firmly had’ 37. ‘wise, very sad / fortress to seek’ 38. ‘afterwards loving kinsmen / to the west brought.’ Elene is a ninth-century poem. 39. ‘and against all fiends / held fast.’ The Exhortation to Christian Living is a late tenth-century text, see ASPR VI (1942: lxxiii), Fulk (1992: 264), though the metrical evidence of the latter should be used with caution.
5.3 Status of sp-, st-, sk- in OE
203
The classic argument for the different phonological status of consonant clusters in the onset and in the coda of a stressed syllable is made in Kuryowicz (1966: 197 ff.). He uses the distributional fact of the reversibility of /st/ in the coda as evidence of the cluster’s cohesion, a most important observation. Crucially, he treats the clusters as composite entities, not as monosegmental phonemic units. The degree of cohesion can vary according to the cluster’s position. As for Old English, the word-internal and word-final effects of the clusters can be of considerable interest, but in what follows only the behavior of /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters at the left edge of the word will be addressed. If we can establish a set of criteria for unitary behavior stressed syllable – initially, such behavior elsewhere, or its failure, might be easier to understand. One of the basic tenets of syllabic phonology is that there is an optimal left-toright arrangement of segments preceding the syllable peak. Sievers (1901: §527) defined the principle succinctly: “the closer to the syllabic segment [a consonant is], the greater its sonority must be.”40 This means that syllable onsets are “best” when they display gradient sonority (Abstufung der Schallf¨ulle) – from low to high. Conceptually, the rising sonority of onset clusters is a universal property of syllable structure, though the details of the sonority hierarchy can be languagespecific. For English, the phonetic specification of some sounds in terms of percentage values of the traditional feature [sonorant], defined numerically in relation to the amount of acoustic energy present during the production of the sound, are given in (12a): (12a)
Sonority values:41 p, t, k f, , h s, ʃ 0 5 15
w, j 70
m, n, ɹ 75
l, i 80
85
æ, ɔ, o 95
The sonority values can be indexed in various ways. The phonetic information for the segments in (12a) corresponds roughly to a version of the sonority hierarchy as in Selkirk (1984: 112), from which (12b) is adapted: 40. The full citation is: “Ein a¨ hnliches Verh¨altniss [rising sonority] gilt f¨ur die Consonanten unter einander: je n¨aher dem Sonanten, um so gr¨osser muss die Schallf¨ulle sein.” Sievers (1901: §116) identifies Sonant with a segment capable of forming a syllable peak ( = ‘silbisch’), as distinct from a Con-sonant which is non-syllabic ( = ‘unsilbisch’). Sievers’ work is a development of the principles of increasing sonority before the peak and decreasing sonority after the peak of the syllable first described by Whitney (1865). 41. The hierarchy for English is based on the phonetic specification data in Ladefoged (1982: table 11.7). The consonants are the allophones that occur before the vowel [a] in a stressed syllable. The vowels are the allophones at the beginning of a stressed syllable. I use Ladefoged’s sonority values rather than the various more abstract versions of the sonority scale because it provides for a certain distancing between the voiceless stops and /s/. This is not necessarily the case in other scales, which bundle together voiceless fricatives and voiceless stops, as in Clements (1990: 285).
204 (12b)
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE Sonority index:42 p, t, k b, d, g f, 0.5 1 2
s 4
m, n 5
l 6
r 7
i, u 8
e, o 9
a 10
The shared cross-linguistic preference for structuring syllable onsets in accord with the sonority of the segments has been widely accepted and employed in accounts of syllabification and cluster-formation and distribution for over a century. Except for the three /s/ + voiceless stop clusters, all attested Old English onset clusters conform fully to the predictions of the universal sonority hierarchy. The chart in (13) below shows the subsets of attested consonant cluster onsets in Old English; excluded are only clusters in which the first member is non-continuant and whose sonority profile and stability are completely unproblematic, for example pl-, bl-, kl-, gl-, pr-, br-, tr-, dr-, etc.:43 γr r
(13) fr wr
fl wl
fn sl sp st sk
sw spr str skr
sn (spl)
w
xr
γl xl
xw
γn xn
sm
(skl)
The problem with the boldfaced /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters is that they violate the rising sonority requirement for consonantal clusters in the onset: /s/ in English has a sonority value of 15, versus a zero sonority value for /p, t, k/.44 This contradiction between the strong and viable theoretical generalization about 42. I am excluding /v, z, ð/ (with an index of 3) because they cannot appear in initial consonant clusters in the history of English. Selkirk (1984: 132) leaves the glides out of the hierarchy on the assumption that they are the same as the high vowels. Regarding /s/ she makes a statement which is very important in the present context: “. . . the s occupies a place in the hierarchy next to the nasals and higher than all other obstruents. There is some psychoacoustic basis for assigning s to this position, for it is far more salient acoustically (and, presumably, perceptually) than any of the other obstruents” (1994: 132–133). 43. The cluster kn- belongs in this group too. Its sonority profile is in line with the expected trajectory, and it remains stable until the end of the ME period. For further details on the history and interpretation of the /k-/ in this cluster see Minkova (1993: 222), Minkova and Stockwell (1997b: 42) and chapter 7 in this book. 44. In spite of Ladefoged’s disclaimer that “there is a great deal of guesswork” in assigning specific percentage values (1982: 267), the point about voiceless stops being less sonorous than /s/ is uncontroversial. The cited numerical values should be taken as an approximation, not necessarily reflecting precise measurements or absolute values. The account draws on a rough typology of the English consonants in that the measurements are based on the modern language; in the absence of evidence to the contrary projecting modern data to explain the past is the only recourse we have.
5.3 Status of sp-, st-, sk- in OE
205
rising sonority in the onset and the perseverance and prominence of /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters in the phonology of many languages, including English, has spawned many ingenious accounts of the relationship between the /s/ and the following voiceless stops. I will review some of the more recent discussions of these onsets that appear within studies of the history of English and Germanic. It will become clear that the proposed solutions are problematic, and that describing these clusters with reference to more detailed Onset conditions defined as optimality-type constraints gives us a fresh perspective on the reasons for their peculiar behavior. A common analytical approach to the incompatibility between the rising sonority requirement in the onset and the facts regarding /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters is to remove the /s-/ from the structural representation of the syllable altogether. The idea of treating /s-/ as an element sitting outside the structure of the syllable to the right goes back at least a hundred years, and is evident in Sievers’ (1901) treatment of syllable structure. The “appendix” or “prependix” idea is used in Vennemann (1988: 10, 19), Lutz (1991: 207), Giegerich (1992: 149). Within the history of Old English verse, the idea is embraced by Suzuki (1996). Responding to the puzzle of <sp-, st-> cluster alliteration – Suzuki takes the <sc-> out of the picture on the assumption that it is monosegmental – he adopts the following account for the unorthodox behavior of /s-/ initial clusters in Beowulf : The exceptional status of /s/ as regards onset formation is ascribed to the operation of a special rule, /s/-adjunction. This rule is ordered toward the end of the syllable-building process and operates on peripheral position without respect to the sonority hierarchy . . . The postulation of /s/-adjunction accounts for the unique properties of /s/-clusters . . . This rule operates on the output . . . by adding /s/ in initial position. (1996: 294–295)
Suzuki’s analytical choice follows a careful survey of the voluminous philological and phonological literature on the issue. The convenience of positing the “special rule” of /s/-adjunction is obvious; by taking the /s-/ out of the picture, the analysis produces unexceptional single-consonant onsets /p, t, k/. The alliteration is really based on the identity of the voiceless stops, and mixed alliteration of /sp-, st-/ clusters with /s-/ is prevented by a late addition of /s-/ to the voiceless stops.45 Suzuki’s more general rule for alliteration, “Alliteration applies to the optimal onset that constitutes a proper subset of a given onset”
45. Another non-occurring pattern which will have to be explained away by “late /s/- adjunction” in Suzuki’s account would be the impossibility of matching /sp-, st-/ with just /p-, t-/. I owe this observation to Robert Stockwell.
206
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
(1996: 295), is specifically worded to accommodate the /s/-adjunction rule, and it treats alliteration as a complex derivational process. In the /s/-adjunction framework, the identity between underlying structure and surface structure is arbitrarily violated by the addition of /s-/ to some, but not all /p-, t-, k-/- initial stressed syllables. If the /s-/ is part of the underlying representation, it has to be removed from the phonological component because of the sonority violation, and then it has to be re-inserted in the phonetic representation. A rule-derived late insertion of /s-/ contradicts the assumption that verse composition was an oral process based on the actual physical properties of the onset. This approach requires that the integrity and the reality of the cluster as a cluster be maintained at all analytical levels. Alliteration is not an abstract rule, but a process of matching phonetic entities as they are realized in speech. This is true even in instances of vowel alliteration. It may be objected that positing a surface epenthesis of a pre-vocalic glottal stop in Old English stressed onsets contradicts the idea of the phonology being entirely recoverable from the surface. The analysis of vowel alliteration proposed in chapter 4 allowed for input–output correspondence in Old English to be violated in the case of graphically vowel-initial stressed syllables. Why should [ʔ] epenthesis be different from /s/-adjunction? Here are some reasons why there is no parallel between /s/-adjunction and glottal-stop insertion. The violation of D ep IO (every segment of the output has a correspondent in the input), which allows surface glottal stop insertion is not arbitrary. Glottal stop insertion is not specific to some, but not all stressed vowel-initial syllables. The realization of a placeless [ʔ] in bare onsets is a universally favored process. Metaphorically, [ʔ] is ideally suited to be a phonetic wild card. On the other hand, there is nothing specific about /s-/ that will make it a preferred epenthetic remedy to a defective sonority profile in the onset. /s/- adjunction is assumed to occur in some but not all low-sonority consonants. Seen from a non-generative, surface-oriented perspective, the account based on /s/-adjunction is ad hoc. In order for the /s/ to be “adjoined” to the Onset , there must be an operation of removing the non-conforming segment from the underlying representation prior to the clusters’ surface realization in words like stream, spell. This step is not needed in the case of [ʔ-] epenthesis. Speaking simplistically, in the s-adjunction framework the scops’ mental map of the alliterating words contained fully articulated /sp-, st-, sk-/, but they somehow knew that the /s-/ did not belong in these clusters, though in recitation the clusters must have been realized as bisegmental. At the same time, in /sl-, sm-, sn-, sw-/ the /s-/ was interpreted as present at all levels. It is true that conformity to the sonority hierarchy makes the /sl-, sm-, sn-, sw-/ clusters potentially acceptable on separate grounds. Nevertheless, the “adjunction”
5.3 Status of sp-, st-, sk- in OE
207
proposal still faces the problem of dealing with two different types of /s-/ clusters underlyingly. It is hard to imagine what independent evidence could be adduced in support of selective “adjunction”. In the Old English lexicon, /s-/ contrasts in the same way with /p-, t-, k-/ as it does with /l-, m-, n-, w-/, and /sp-, st-, sk-/ contrast with /p-, t-, k-/ in the same way in which /sn-, sl-, sw-/ contrast with /n-, l-, w-/. The examples from Beowulf in (14) illustrate that point: (14a)
ond on sp¯ed wrecan / spel ger¯ade50 on stefn stigon; / str¯eamas wundon51 Oft Scyld Sc¯efing / sc¯eaðena ðr¯eatum52
Beo 873 Beo 212 Beo 4
The persistence and visibility of /s/ in (14a) against the putative invisibility of /s/ in (14b) requires a phonetic explanation. In addition to the objections raised above, a last-resort adjunction-rule for Old English produces other analytical problems. One such problem would be the incipient phonetic changes taking place within the <sc-> sequence at some time during the period. Since the patterns of alliteration stay the same, we would have to assume that entities corresponding to two consonantal qualities are stuck in front of /p-, t-, k-/ in the derivational process. As pointed out in 5.2 above, the phonetic nature of the assibilation of <sc-> to [ʃ] is such that it presupposes active contact between the two segments, not a peripheral, unintegrated /s-/. It is the shared features of the two segments that propel the change, so neither of these segments can be a phantom entity at any stage: the phonology and phonetics in this case must be identical. Another argument in favor of the reality of the /s/ at every level of analysis comes from metathesis of the /sp, st/ clusters. Old English disallows /ps-/ (the word psalm is usually rendered as <sealm>) and /ts-/ word-initially, but syllable- and word-finally, where one would expect diminished perceptual salience of the components of the cluster, metathesis occurs. Examples of this are the alternate forms / ‘fetter,’ <wæps> / <wæsp> ‘wasp,’ for earlier (Goth.) ‘leprosy,’ for ‘baptist.’ The late West Saxon metathesized forms axian ‘ask,’ dixas ‘dishes,’ etc. also attest to the psychological reality of the /s/ in that cluster. 46. 48. 50. 52.
‘jewelled hall, / in dark nights’ 47. ‘through searing fear / soul shove’ ‘armour-net sewn / by smith’s artifice:’ 49. ‘Beowulf’s journey / quickly announced,’ ‘and on success create / a skilful tale’ 51. ‘on prow went up; / streams eddied’ ‘oft Scyld Scefing / from bands of enemies’
208
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
Further confirmation of both the cohesiveness and the autonomy of the two components of the clusters can be sought in currently attested metatheses, speech errors and spoonerisms, and syllabification word-medially. The /sp-/ – /ps-/ metathesis in English can occur in the onset of an unstressed syllable as in spaghetti – psketti. Speech errors point to the cohesiveness of the cluster and the salience of the /s/ too: keep still does not become ∗ teep kill, but either steep kill or skeep till, scuttlebutt does not become ∗ buttlecutt, but buttlescutt, and pay scale turns up as skay pale or spay cale, and not as ∗ cay pale, attesting to the reality of /sp-, st-, sk-/ for the speaker.53 The phonological compositionality and the reality of /s/ is also indirectly supported by syllabification. The word-division patterns for Old English show that the /st/ cluster word medially is split at an average rate of 83.5 percent.54 In terms of syllabification, it has been shown that in the modern language too, /s/-initial clusters behave in the same way as they did in Old English: the /s/ syllabifies with the syllable to the left.55 Indeed the syllabification argument has been used by Treiman, Gross, and Cwikiel-Glavin (1992) to question the widespread assumption that if a cluster can appear word-initially, it is automatically a well-formed onset. Although they declare /s/-initial clusters “illegal” and treat the realization of /s/ as a case of /s/ affixation in all positions (1992: 396–397), their findings are compatible with a different interpretation. The frequent syllabification of the /s/ to the left can be attributed not to the illegality 53. Not too long ago, a joint publication of mine with Robert Stockwell was jocularly referred to as “the paper by Stinkova and Mockwell.” Fromkin (1971: 32) does not consider the transposition of whole clusters as evidence that these clusters are indissoluble units. However, her set of examples includes a broad range of clusters, br-, dr-, thr-, and only one case of sk-, so the conclusions are not transferable. Davidsen-Nielsen (1975) is a classic study comparing the evidence for and the advantages of analyzing /sp, st, sk/ clusters as either monophonemic or bisegmental entities in English and other modern Germanic languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German). For speech errors in English, he finds that in 45 occurrences recorded by him, only 14 could not be accounted for in terms of a unitary analysis. However, the overall conclusion of the study, weighing in distributional and syllabification arguments, is that English /sp, st, sk/ are clearly bisegmental. In her interesting study of the acquisition of word-initial clusters in English, Jessica Barlow (Barlow 2000) reports that children treat the /s-/ clusters differently, either as complex onsets, or as /s/-adjuncts. The existence of different possible grammars makes judgements concerning markedness difficult. 54. The percentage is calculated from the figures cited in Lutz (1986: 205), where she reports the scribal findings separately for three environments. After a short stressed vowel /sp/ is split 89.5 percent of the time, after a long stressed vowel the figure is 79 percent, and between stressed vowels, 81.7 percent. 55. See Treiman, Gross, and Cwikiel-Glavin (1992). Their results contradict Davidsen-Nielsen (1974), who analyzes medial sp-, st-, sk- as a unit in the onset of stressed syllables: confi.scation, Au.stralia, see Davidsen-Nielsen (1974).
5.3 Status of sp-, st-, sk- in OE
209
of the cluster but to the different properties of the stressed word-initial positions from all other positions in which these clusters appear. In other words, the splitting of the cluster in medial position may be due to the preference for a filled coda.56 Other factors that may be involved in the split syllabification are the appeal to optimal onset filling: singly-filled onsets which would require splitting of the clusters are preferred to doubly filled onsets,57 onset sonority contour, etc. Obviously, these factors may either be unavailable or irrelevant to to the cluster word-initially. Drawing on historical and current data therefore indicates that the /s/ is an inalienable part of the phonology of these clusters and has to be dealt with accordingly. Unlike the surface epenthesis of the glottal stop, for which we can adduce phonological, phonetic, and scribal arguments, the lack of any written evidence for a late-adjoined /s-/, or affixed /s-/ in Old English makes the discrepancy between surface evidence and the proposed adjunction analysis even more conspicuous. In another recent study of Old English metrical structure G¸asiorowski (1997: 15–17) also recognizes the special problems arising from the incompatibility between the sonority hierarchy and the behavior of /sp-, st-, sk-/ though he downplays somewhat the systematicity of cluster alliteration in the data. His solution is representational: he proposes that the special behavior of the three clusters be handled by using a skeletal (CV) tier, “distinct from the phonemic tier and mediating between the latter and syllable structure.” In his analysis, the clusters “function like single obstruents without losing their identity as biphonemic sequences” as shown in (15) below: C
(15)
s
p t k
C or
[+cont]
-cont -voice P of A
56. The ∗ Coda (or No-Coda) is a well-formedness constraint which requires syllables to be open, see Kager (1999: 94). In practice, for a single inter-vocalic consonant, it enforces maximalonset syllabification. Its opposite, which will cover the association of the /s/ with the syllable to the left, is Max-Coda. It is defined as “Affiliate as many consonants to the left as possible when there is more than one” by Hammond (1999: 219), who uses this constraint in his account of syllabification in English. 57. The structural well-formedness constraint ∗ [ CC or ∗ ComplexOns is discussed in Kager (1999: 97). English is not a language which disallows complex onsets, but this does not rule out some effect from this constraint medially.
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5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
Using an extra layer of structure, in this case the skeletal tier, may be a convenient way to represent the patterns of alliteration, but since the extra layer is needed exclusively for /s/-initial clusters, it amounts to a restatement of the problem. G¸asiorowski’s observation that “the number of immediate constituents in an OE onset never exceeds two, and . . . when it equals two, the second position must be a sonorant” (1997: 16) is entirely dependent on the postulation of the additional structure for the clusters in questions and remains unenlightening. However, by not relegating the /s/- to a position altogether outside the syllable, he highlights the unitary nature of the cluster, which I believe should be the most important component of the account. The split-level representation allows G¸asiorowski the generalization that “the first onset position may be regarded as dominant; it may be filled by any consonant or any of the clusters /sp/, /st/, and /sk/; it is also ‘locally obligatory’, which means that if there is a single element in the onset, it will occupy that position” (1997: 16).58 The first position is regarded as the head of the onset. The prose is formalized as in (16): alliteration O
O
alliteration O O
C C
C
C C
C
s t styredon
x l hlude
x r hrefn
(16)
s t r streamas
alliteration O O C
C
C
zero eorla
zero œfen
All relevant onset heads, the boldfaced Cs on what in G¸asiorowski’s account is the phonemic tier, occupy the leftmost edge of the syllable onset. He recognizes both the importance of the compositionality of the Onset and the possibility of a cluster-internal hierarchy. His formulation of the principle of alliteration, based on the Onset structure in (16) is that: [If we adopt this analysis for Old English,] the principle of alliteration becomes very natural and involves no disjunction: (stressed) syllables alliterate iff the head positions of their onsets are filled in the same way. (1997: 16–17)
Like Suzuki’s special conditions on alliteration, the problem with this definition is that it refers to syllabic properties at some level not testable on the level of realization. Though the specific mechanisms of excluding /sp-, st-, sk-/ cluster alliterations differ, both views have to hedge the question why in fact 58. The idea of cluster-internal hierarchization, with principal and subordinate consonants within the onset goes back to Pike and Pike (1947), where subordinate consonants are defined on the basis of their secondary articulation.
5.3 Status of sp-, st-, sk- in OE
211
some alliterating onset heads are monosegmental, while others are bisegmental or epenthetic.59 The disjunction, rather than being explained, is relegated to “layered” syllable structure building. This may be a good abstraction, but it is hardly an explanation of what allows the “head position” in (16), for example streamas: styredon, to be occupied by a very limited set of clusters, namely /st-, sp-, sk-/. Answers to those questions are not readily forthcoming, otherwise they would have made their way into the canon. I chose to discuss two proposals which attempt to deal with the behavior of the /s/- clusters specifically in reference to Old English meter. Both proposals adopt the theoretical premises of a long and rich tradition of scholarly attempts to account for the phonotactic properties of the recalcitrant clusters. As noted above, the idea of treating /s-/ as an element sitting outside the structure of the syllable material to the right employed by Suzuki goes back at least a hundred years, and is evident in Sievers’ (1901) treatment of syllable structure. The “appendix” or “prependix” idea is used in Vennemann (1988), Lutz (1991), Giegerich (1992), and, within a different framework, Kaye (1996), who argues that s + C sequences are never tautosyllabic, to mention only some of its proponents. A similar analytical stratagem which can deal with the initial consonant in the cluster is to declare it “extrasyllabic.” The tradition of leaving segments unparsed by the process of syllabification is deeply ensconced in phonological theory.60 Extrasyllabic segments are more likely to undergo deletion, they allow epenthesis, and, within a derivational framework, they can be incorporated into the structure of the syllable at a later stage. Neither of the two testable properties of the process (deletion, epenthesis) can be asserted for English. I have already pointed out why the “late addition” of /s/ to the onset appears contrived. The direction in which the analysis ought to be pursued is the cohesion between the two segments rather than taking one of them out of the picture. In this context it should be noted that the effects of the cohesiveness of the clusters vary among the branches of Germanic and may not be shared by other languages which have the same clusters. This has generated accounts in which 59. One structural description of alliteration, already mentioned in chapter 4, is Kiparsky’s rule that “Words alliterate if their initial W is the same”(1978: 45). In a hierarchical view of the syllable a W is defined in relation to the peak of the syllable, which would be S. In the case of /sp-, st-, sk-/, the W branches into [s w] (for /s/ and the stop respectively). Allowing the W to branch only for /sp-, st-, sk-/ is not a solution – it just identifies the problem and associates it with the unfavorable sonority contour for that sequence. 60. For a review of the theory of extrametricality and its origin and development in linguistics, see Hayes (1995: 56–61). On the difference between extrametricality and unsyllabified consonants, see Hayes (1995: 106).
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5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
“extrasyllabicity” is attributed to the leftmost consonant in some languages, but not in others. Since extrasyllabicity in any of its various theoretical guises is incompatible with a strong degree of coarticulation, and since there are no arguments for word-initial extrasyllabicity, I will ignore that possibility for English.61 Emphasis on the unitary nature of the clusters has been a major theme in research on the behavior of /sp-, st-, sk-/. The most detailed monophonemic proposal strictly for onsets in Germanic is found in Lubbe’s study of /sp-, st-, sk-/, where the author lists over a dozen precursors of this idea (1987: 89–90). However, Lubbe’s reference to alliteration stays within the classical Old English period only; he does not comment on the similarity between these clusters and other clusters in the later alliterative verse – I will return to this similarity in chapter 6. In addition, a monophonemic analysis will run into difficulties with the later Old English/early Middle English treatment in verse where the clusters are parsed into segments and the alliteration is on /s-/. A different account is needed that will capture both the advantages of a unitary treatment and preserve the identity of the components. For Old English, G¸asiorowski’s proposal highlights the unitary nature of /sp-, st-, sk-/ by applying the autosegmental idea of “contour structures” (1997: 15), borrowed from the phonological modeling of segments such as prenasalized stops and affricates, for example ‘[ts, ].’ The articulation of such segments typically involves more than one distinct area in the vocal tract.62 The two-root representation of complex onsets (Steriade 1994) is a compromise between a single unit treatment on the timing level and a two-segment organization on an autonomous level. G¸asiorowski (1997: 16) interprets the phonetic properties of the /s/- cluster by assuming that the voicelessness and the point of articulation of the /s/- are predictable and non-contrastive, and therefore should not be specified underlyingly. The description of /s/- in those clusters as “underspecified” is an explanatory track going back to the generative tradition.63 The 61. Pointing out the differences between French and English with respect to onset clusters, Rialland (1994: 136) analyzes /s/- (and other cluster-initial consonants) in French as “extrasyllabic,” invisible to the core syllabification, as not being part of any syllable. She argues that /s/- initial clusters in French do not exhibit the high degree of coarticulation with following segments that is typical of onset consonants. For a critical discussion of Rialland’s proposal see Nolan (1994). 62. This is the standard interpretation of the cohesion obtaining in such sequences, see Pullum and Ladusaw (1986: 235) and the section on contour segments in Clements and Hume (1995/1996: 254–256) 63. Underspecification allows segments to be specified only for features which contribute to the contrast relations of that segment, see Steriade (1987). Divesting /s/ of features other than
5.3 Status of sp-, st-, sk- in OE
213
targeted “underspecification” of /s/- is not explored further, and the account only pushes the question one level back: why is it that /s/- would lose its identity in the environment of voiceless stops? Is this some kind of assimilation? What prevents the /s/ in /sw-/, /sl-/, etc. from absorbing the features of the following segments? And how can /s/- be underspecified while the clusters “function like single obstruents without losing their identity as biphonemic sequences” (1997: 16)? A somewhat different approach to the factor responsible for the unitary nature of /s/ + stop clusters in Germanic has been proposed by Iverson and Salmons (1995, 1999). Following Anderson and Ewen (1987), they put together a forceful argument in favor of the feature [spread glottis] as a salient privative feature responsible for voicing/laryngeal oppositions in early Germanic and in most of the Germanic languages today, including English and German. In order to model the unitary function of two separate segments, they also resort to the “two-root” interpretation of segmental structure. Their representation for English words like spa and pa (1999: 138) is given in (17): (17)
X
X
X
X
Rt
Rt
Rt
Rt
Rt
s
p
a
p
a
[sp gl]
[sp gl]
The crucial point that Iverson and Salmons make is that the unity of the clusters is based on the shared “temporally monosegmental [spread glottis] feature” (1999: 144). The hypothesis allows the authors to relate well-known patterns of aspiration and sonorant devoicing to the involvement of that feature. More specifically, they believe that “. . . positing [spread glottis] rather than [voice] as the operative feature in Germanic entails the conclusion that clusters of sp-, st-, sk- comprise but single units at the timing level of representation” (1999: 143–144). At the same time, like most other predecessors in the unitary approach to the clusters, liberally credited by the authors, they have to recognize the segmental autonomy of the consonants. Indeed, they explicitly write that they assume that these “prosodically unified /sp/ structures are a product of the fusing of the timing and laryngeal properties of lexically independent /s/ and /p/” (1999: 149, n. 3). [consonant], and describing /s/ as a kind of ‘archiconsonant’, a strategy employed by generative phonology, is arbitrary, as pointed out by Lass (1984: 54).
214
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
Iverson and Salmons’ hypothesis covers elegantly many aspects of Germanic assimilations which have been traditionally characterized as voicing assimilations. However, their model of a shared [spread glottis] feature as a factor responsible for cluster cohesion overgenerates in the case of /s/ + sonorant and obstruent + sonorant clusters. By their account, foot-initial sonorant devoicing after voiceless obstruents in cases like slip, sneeze, plan, fleet, is a manifestation of the same principle of a single [spread glottis] gesture (1995: 372–375).64 Since in their framework all obstruent-initial clusters have to share their laryngeal features in the same way, this ought to generate a degree of structural and functional identity of these clusters. This entailment, however, is not borne out by the fact that obstruent-initial clusters such as /sn-, sl-, kr-, fl-/ do not behave in a unitary way in Germanic reduplication or Old English alliteration. Iverson and Salmons’ account will not tell us why /sp, st, sk/ word-medially are heterosyllabic, while obstruent-sonorant clusters, for example /kr, fl/ etc., are preserved as clusters to the right of the syllable boundary (Treiman, Gross, and Cwikiel-Glavin 1992). Unity based on [spread glottis] will not capture the absence of ∗ ft-, ∗ ht-, ∗ pt-, etc. in English, though, of course, the existence of such gaps is not an argument against just this particular proposal. More relevantly for English, the shared feature [spread glottis] in clusters will not be illuminating in the case of /gn-/, /kn-/, or /xr-, xl-, xn-/, which ought to be like other obstruent-initial clusters, but in fact behave differently historically. Thus, even if the spread glottis hypothesis is on the right track regarding the appropriate way to describe the voicing contrast in Germanic, and even if it accounts better for aspiration and sonorant devoicing in English, it does not separate /sp-, st-, sk-/ onsets from other obstruent onsets usefully with respect to alliteration. In what follows, I will leave aside the issue of [spread glottis] versus [voice] and will use the familiar terms voiced/voiceless with reference to glottal stricture.65 In the next section I will outline an account which does not refer to independent prosodic and segmental levels of representation and 64. The coarticulatory devoicing in stop-sonorant and fricative-sonorant sequences is discussed in Hoole (1999: 112–121). He reports that for voiceless clusters the glottal gestures merge. An interesting and potentially relevant difference in the devoicing patterns of fricative-sonorant clusters is that the duration of the devoicing gesture for /f-/+sonorant clusters differs from that of /s/+ sonorant clusters. 65. The feature [spread glottis] as described specifically for Germanic by Ringen and Jessen (2001) may provide the right heuristic for the account of frequent / confusion in Middle English as described in chapter 7. If the contrast between /k-/ and /g-/ is based on aspiration and not on voice, that contrast is in jeopardy before a following stop. The reference to [spread glottis] rather than [voice], however, is unrelated to the historical reduction of /kn-/ and /gn-/ clusters.
5.4 Cluster constraints and cohesiveness of sp-, st-, sk-
215
which can capture the duality of unitary behavior and compositionality of these clusters. 5.4
Cluster constraints and the cohesiveness of sp-, st-, sk-
Within the rich and disconcerting research history of the issue of sp-, st-, sk- the most promising analytical direction appears to be the identification of the factors motivating the unitary behavior of the clusters in syllable-initial position. The line pursued here is that it is the high degree of coarticulation, and not some special structural property of the /s/ by itself that is responsible for the behavior of the /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters in the history of English. The fact that /sp-, st-, sk-/ are extremely common and cohesive across many languages suggests that any attempts to place them solely within a framework of onset well-formedness with respect to rising sonority are misguided. While not irrelevant in principle, rising sonority in the onset is only one of several relevant factors that contribute to the perceptual and articulatory Gestalt of a consonant cluster. Granting the sonority profile a determining role in every case is what motivates accounts which take /s-/ out of the picture; to construct such accounts simply in order to satisfy rising sonority is circular. Therefore, the special character of /s/ + voiceless obstruent clusters in the phonological system of Old English calls for a closer examination of features in contact, without losing sight of the privileged stressed syllable onset position, or the possibility that the sonority of the adjacent segments is of consequence. An examination of the behavior of /sp-, st-, sk-/ requires reference to the clusters’ well-formedness and the clusters’ cohesiveness. These two notions must be kept apart: a phonotactically well-formed cluster does not have to be cohesive, while cohesion may occur at the cost of violating well-formedness. The goal here is to isolate the properties that are unique to /sp-, st-, sk-/: in the course of the discussion both well-formedness and cohesiveness and their relation to each other will be taken into consideration. My first step will be to engage in a somewhat abstract speculation of why clusters whose properties are similar to those of /sp-, st-, sk-/ do not appear in English. In a negative way, this will address the well-formedness and the unmarkedness of the existing clusters. The first observation in the context of featural interaction within a cluster is that the appearance of a continuant in preconsonantal position is a common cross-linguistic phenomenon. In terms of manner of articulation features, the appearance of continuants: /s/, or /f-, -, v-/, etc., at the left edge of a cluster is the unmarked situation. Second, the clusters in question share their laryngeal, or voice features; they are both
216
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
voiceless. This second restriction on the composition of the “special” clusters, the leftward spread of voicelessness, is again in the direction of unmarkedness. Violations of the laryngeal constraint in clusters with a voiceless second element are considered the exception;66 this in fact correlates well with the expectation of rising sonority in onset clusters. The absence of other voiceless continuant-initial clusters in English at any point, i.e. ∗ fp-, ∗ ft-, ∗ fk-, ∗ p-, ∗ ht-, etc., should therefore be addressed in terms of cluster sonority and not as feature markedness, an issue I will return to below. Being “unmarked” by virtue of the concatenation of the features [+continuant] and [-voice], while violating the rising sonority requirement, places /sp-, st-, sk-/ in a class by themselves. Descriptively, then, the feature content characterizing the possible obstruent clusters is: (18)
/s/ +cont -voice
/p, t, k/ [-voice]
That combination of features will also generate some other obstruent clusters unattested in Old English; theoretically, the first slot could be filled also by /f-, -, h-/, in which the rising sonority requirement would be less radically violated. Excluding the universally rejected structure of identical onset consonants,67 the possible combinations conforming to the feature specification in (18) are listed in (19): (19)
[fp-] ftfk-
θp[θt-] θk-
hpht[hk-]
The shaded sequences in (19) would be easy to exclude on the basis of restrictions on place features within obstruent clusters. The overlap of the features [labial] in the voiceless obstruent sequence [fp-] is sufficient to render it very highly marked in articulatory terms. Similar considerations would exclude the two adjacent coronals in [t-], and the two adjacent non-coronals in [hk-]. Although acceptable in terms of articulatory markedness, ft-, fk-, fs-, p-, 66. See Clements (1990: 316), Lombardi (1996). 67. Identical syllable-initial consonants and sequences overlapping in crucial features, such as manner of articulation, are proscribed by the Obligatory Contour Principle. The possibility of initial geminates as in Trukese, Ulithian, Gilbertese (Blevins 1996: 236, n. 16) is irrelevant for Germanic. Possible obstruent clusters involving identical manner of articulation: /fs-, s-, hs-/ and /sf-, s-, sh-/ would be avoided for the same reason. The marginal /sf-/ in later English does not display the same unitary behavior as /sp-, st-, sk-/.
5.4 Cluster constraints and cohesiveness of sp-, st-, sk-
217
k-, hp-, ht- represent a gap in Old English, but not universally; the similarity in their degree of sonority is arguably a source of perceptual problems which some languages heed more than others. In addition, clusters with /h-/ and /f-/ + stop are dispreferred because non-coronals have been found to be the universally marked member of obstruent clusters.68 Cross-linguistically, such clusters would tend to get simplified.69 Excluding clusters with the coronal fricative [-] from the inventory of obstruent clusters is more of a problem, in the sense that they are well formed with respect to the coronality of the left segment. To differentiate between potential clusters starting with coronal fricatives ([sp], [ʃp] and [p]), and among the coronal fricatives in general, Morelli (2000: 128) proposes that coronality should be unpacked further into sub-constraints referring to ∗ [-anterior] ∗ [+anterior] and ∗ [+distributed] ∗ [-distributed]. For English, this would mean that the ranking of the constraint [+distributed] /s-/ could override the chance of occurrence of [] + obstruent clusters. This ties up with the assumption that /s/ is, the least marked of the coronal fricatives. On the other hand, if the sonority difference between [s] and [] is significant (difference in stridency), and if the undesirability of [-]+obstruent clusters is related to the avoidance of clusters with overall low sonority, as will be argued below, the extra apparatus needed for Morelli’s account would be unnecessary for English. The non-occurrence in English of another obstruent set, the sequences /fs-, s-, hs-/, might be accounted for by a combination of two factors. Although they conform to the rising sonority pattern, the rise is minimal and that would create a perceptually demanding situation. A second, related, filter, which could be active in English, but does not have to be so cross-linguistically, is the proscription on two voiceless continuants in the onset: if the first consonant is [+continuant], the second consonant must be [+ voice], i.e. /sw-, hw-, w-/ are well formed, but not ∗ fh-, ∗ s-, ∗ fs-. Finally, though universally possible, the clusters, /tl-/ and /dl-/ are unattested in Old English, contrary to the prediction of the sonority contour for onsets. 68. The reference here is to Prince and Smolensky (1993), where the fixed ranking of place features is ∗ PL/Lab, ∗ PL/Dor ∗ PL/Cor. 69. Initial [pt-, ft-, fk-, fs-] are possible onsets in the author’s native language, Bulgarian, but in casual speech, dialectally, and in the early stages of language acquisition they surface regularly as singletons: [t-, k-, s-]. Thus, e.g. vsiˇcki ‘all, pl.’ is [fsitʃki] in citation form, but [sitʃki] in casual delivery. Personal evidence aside, a recent dissertation (Morelli 2000) offers an extensive survey of obstruent clusters in thirty languages including the attestations of the above clusters. Blevins (1996: 213–214) includes minimal sonority distance for initial and final clusters as one of the constraints on relative sonority of segments within the English syllable.
218
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
The non-occurrence of these combinations can be described as a blocking of the combination of the features [+coronal] and [+lateral].70 Like the other unattested clusters, the lack of these clusters is due to the specific constraint ranking in the phonological system of English, diachronically and synchronically. 5.4.1 The importance of Low Sonority Turning back to the attested initial clusters, the question of why the particular combination of features should behave differently in /s/- clusters remains to be answered. Exploring the direction of “internal cohesion”71 is promising; our search for the causes of cohesion should focus on the phonetic unity of the sequences in question. Two factors rise to prominence in this context. Phonetically, the nature of the coarticulation depends crucially on the specifications of the second element, the voiceless stop. This shifts the attention away from the /s-/ and highlights the phonologically voiceless stop as the segment on which the characterization of the clusters’ properties should focus.72 A factor mentioned earlier to which we need to return briefly is that structurally the unitary effect of the /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters is associated primarily with their privileged position at the onset of a stressed syllable. The cohesiveness of /sp-, st-, sk-/ may surface in other syllable positions in the history of English, but never with such thoroughness as it does in the practice of Old English alliteration. The non-unitary treatment of these clusters with respect to resolution was illustrated and discussed in 5.3. Medially, the behavior of the clusters with respect to Open Syllable Lengthening cannot be used as unambiguous evidence for or against cohesion of the st- cluster either. Minkova (1982) surveyed the evidence for the change in words with medial /s/ + stop clusters and found that 70. The occurrence of [+coronal] + [+lateral] /sl-/ will have to be sanctioned separately by the difference of [+strident] (/s/) and non-strident (/t, d/) coronals before the lateral sonorant /l/. For more examples of such onset filters in English see Giegerich (1992: 153–156). 71. I enclose the term in quotes here to attribute it to Kuryowicz (1966: 199), who distinguishes between a “compound” cluster, with close internal cohesion, and other clusters (for example tr-, pr, cr-) which represent only “groups.” A categorical distinction is unnecessary: cohesion is a matter of degree in phonetic terms. I take the more recent term “coarticulation,” used widely in the phonological literature, as overlapping with “internal cohesion.” For a full history of this term as well as a comprehensive survey of the nature and uses of phonetic coarticulation see Hardcastle and Hewlett (1999). 72. The idea that the account of cohesive behavior should center on the second element, the consonant of lowest sonority in the cluster, is supported by studies of reduplication in Sanskrit. In the Sanskrit data, as described in Gnanadesikan (1995), complex onsets are simplified and the choice of consonant copied in the reduplicant is a function of its sonority: it is the segment of lowest sonority that is copied.
5.4 Cluster constraints and cohesiveness of sp-, st-, sk-
219
the results do not support uniform syllabification of the entire cluster to the right, i.e. maximal onset syllabification. In the examples where lengthening occurs, the cluster becomes final through schwa loss, i.e. compensatory lengthening may also be at play: (20)
Lengthened -st(e) forms chaste < OF chaste, 1225 host /h-/ is that either /-r-/ following a velar fricative in the onset was always [-continuant], or that /-r-/ changed its degree of constriction and became [-continuant] as part of the process. In either case, the appearance of an oral non-continuant in the second position would be a highly marked situation. (I assume that in all stable consonant + /r-/, /l-/ initial clusters these second segments are also [+continuant].) 79. The inverse constraint, ∗ Ident Continuant, can also be relevant to the description of consonantal phonotactics. It would refer to acoustic salience and would cover familiar phonetic and phonological territory, such as the exceptions to Grimm’s Law (IE /sp, st, sk/ > ∗ /sf, s, sx/), where the combination of two unobstructed consonants, especially voiceless fricatives, places higher perceptual demands on the speaker. In Old English that constraint would have been dominated by Son-Seq. Therefore, if /l, r/ were continuants, as is assumed here, the co-occurrence of continuants in clusters like /fl-, fr-, r-, hl-/, etc. would have been licensed by sonority considerations which override ∗ Ident Continuant.
224
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
of [-voice] in both parts of the cluster becomes more evident. The clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/ behave in a cohesive manner because the concatenation of two obstruents conceals the perceptual breaking point needed for the separate treatment of the sibilant and the following stop. In its more familiar version, this parameter refers to the favoring of voicelessness in post-obstruent positions, attributable to the duration of the closure during coarticulation. Assuming that the articulation of the obstruent and the following stop is temporally overlapping, it is difficult to produce the drop in the air pressure between the two segments which would enable voicing. This would be an alternative way of accounting for the phonologized absence of voicing contrast in /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters in English, noticed and discussed in Davidsen-Nielsen (1969).80 The third constraint, whose history was adumbrated in 5.3 above, is the preference for rising sonority in onset clusters: (24)
Sonority Sequencing (Son-Seq): complex onsets rise in sonority.81
Son-Seq s is a familiar cross-linguistic markedness constraint. The only clusters in violation of this constraint in all of the history of English, are /sp-, st-, sk-/. It may be noted that like Modern English, Old English initial clusters violated Son-Seq only “mildly.” Presumably the sonority distance between the two components of the “ill-formed” clusters has to fit within some languagespecific limits. Thus, the sonority drop from /s/ to /p/ can be tolerated in English and elsewhere, while a more dramatic drop, for example from /r/ to /t/, a jump from 75 to zero on the acoustic energy scale in (12a), or from index 7 to 0.5 in (12b), would be blocked in English but acceptable in Russian, for example rtom ‘with the mouth.’ 80. Further important phonetic information on voicing coarticulation can be found in studies by Ohala (1983), Westbury and Keating (1986), Hoole (1999). Hoole (1999: 115–121) includes an extensive discussion of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of laryngeal gesture overlap in /s-/ clusters. He notes that in /st-/ only one spatial amplitude peak occurs and also highlights the areas in which further experimental and theoretical work is needed. For a discussion of this laryngeal feature constraint and the unmarkedness of regressive voicing assimilation in clusters at the left edge of the word see Lombardi (1996). A persuasive argument in favor of the phonetic groundedness of post-obstruent devoicing is developed in Hayes (1999), where the phonetic effectiveness of the constraint ∗ [−son][+voice] is calculated at a very high 0.841. Hayes cites ∗ Voiced obstruent after another obstruent as an active constraint in Latin. 81. The definition is from Kager (1999: 267). The constraint Son-Seq used in the OT literature is based on the definition of the Sonority Sequencing Principle (Son-Seq) in Clements (1990), who in his turn draws on the well-known observations concerning cluster sonority profiles in work by Whitney, Sievers, Jespersen, Saussure, and Grammont (ibid.: 284–285).
5.4 Cluster constraints and cohesiveness of sp-, st-, sk-
225
5.4.3 Obstruents in contact: the perceptual filter One possible proscription which we may consider in connection with the well-formedness of onset clusters could be: ∗ Ident Obstruent , i.e. avoid clusters in which both members are [+obstruent]. This would cover the cooccurrence of fricatives and oral stops. The set of possible stressed syllableinitial single obstruents in Old English is /p-, t-, k-, b-, d-, γ-, f-, -, h-, s-/. The sonorants are /m, n, w, r, l/. Phonotactically, ∗ Ident Obstruent translates into a filter favoring an obstruent–sonorant mixture, in that order, which would overlap with the preference for rising sonority in onset clusters. However, were it not for /sp-, st-, sk-/, the only obstruent+obstruent combination, the constraint would not be needed for the description of the attested Old English onsets in the native vocabulary. Interestingly, with respect to the obstruent–sonorant contrast, there is also a preference for the adjacent consonants to be of opposite values. The inverse combination, two non-obstruents, i.e. two sonorants, combine in Old English only in the clusters /wr-, wl-/.82 Phonologically, the tendency to avoid clusters of segments with phonetically identical or overlapping properties is captured by the principle known as the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) which prohibits adjacent identical elements. The proscription against featural identity of adjacent segments is not absolute; as Goldsmith (1996: 21) puts it, it can function “as a measure of wellformedness condition like any other such measure.”83 Typically, the OCP is most active with features specifying place of articulation. Place features have not been specifically referred to in our account, but conceptually it is likely that a mixed [+obstruent] [+sonorant] cluster should be preferred because of the preference for sonority sequencing. In fact, all clusters attested in Old English except /sp-, st-, sk-/ conform to the avoidance of identity principle. As noted above, this can be argued even for the values of Old English <wr-, wl->.84 While <w-> may have been an approximant in some syllable and word positions, and may have lost voice and friction at the time when these clusters were 82. This statement is based on the traditional interpretation of OE <w-> as an approximant. Reconstructing two adjacent sonorants in OE is not an analytical necessity for /wr-, wl-/. Initially before another consonant <w-> can be a voiced fricative – the argument for that is the retention of <w-> before back vowels historically, and the existence of the /wl-, wr-/ clusters in the first place. More specifically, the realization of <w-> in this position can be interpreted as a voiced rounded labiovelar fricative [w⊥ ]. We will return to this issue in chapter 7. 83. The principle of avoiding adjacent identical items in language goes back at least to Karl Brugmann (1909), who coined the term horror aequi on the analogy of the more familiar New Latin term horror vacui. 84. The <w> is conventional. The letter commonly used by the Old English scribes was wynn
.
226
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
simplified, OE /wr-, wl-/ probably had a voiced rounded labiovelar fricative as their first element. Thus, though other accounts have highlighted the co-occurrence of obstruents as a relevant consideration in describing the behavior /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters, the reference to obstruency here is needed only in so far as it is tied up with voicing. All of the parameters discussed so far serve to describe the unmarkedness of /sp-, st-, sk-/. As noted earlier, the description of the properties that make these clusters common should be separated from the issue of why these clusters are cohesive. I will now turn to that issue. A most promising line in the search for a perceptually-based account of cohesiveness is pursued in recent work by Fleischhacker (2000, 2001). Her focus is on the behavior of obstruent–sonorant clusters, where the contiguity of the two types is crucial for defining cross-linguistic patterns of vowel epenthesis. Her study of loanword adaptation and interlanguage phonology shows that whenever epenthesis occurs, its site (prothesis or anaptyxis) is determined by the nature of the cluster. The idea is that the choice of epenthesis type maximizes the auditory similarity between the non-epenthesized input and the output. More specifically, obstruent–sonorant clusters allow epenthesis and do not display unitary behavior because the obstruent–sonorant juncture is acoustically very similar to an obstruent–vowel juncture. For English, for example a sequence like -pling [-pli ] is reasonably similar to [-pəli ]; in both instances, there is a perceptual break after the obstruent licensing optional epenthesis. In alliteration, clusters such as pl-, tr-, br-, etc. can be broken up because alliteration requires identity up to the first perceptual break. In Fleischhacker’s account the contiguity of obstruents in /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters, or the absence of a sonorant in the second position of the cluster, captures the cohesiveness of these clusters vacuously. She explicitly proposes that /s/ + stop clusters are particularly resistant to separation because they contain no cluster-internal perceptual breaks. This approach to the problem of cohesiveness is appealing and convincing and I will adopt it here in describing the differences in auditory similarity between the various possible word-initial clusters as they play themselves out in the alliterative practice of early English. Inverting the observation that obstruent–sonorant clusters are non-cohesive in alliteration because of the perceptual break they contain, we can posit a filter ∗ Perceptual Break which will cover the auditory reason for keeping /sp-, st-, sk-/ together in alliteration. (25)
∗ Pe r c e p t ual Br e ak: a cluster alliterating only with itself does not contain a perceptual break.
The constraint follows Fleischhacker (2001), who defines a perceptual break as a “perceptual event coinciding with the onset of vowel-like formant structure.”
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The strength of a cluster-internal perceptual break depends on the composition of the cluster: the presence of a stop burst preceding the onset of formant structure enhances the break, and glides and liquids induce a stronger break than nasals. Fleischhacker’s definition is obviously the “universal” filter which a particular poetic tradition can accommodate in various ways. In that context, the constraint in (25) is a particular instantiation of a constraint of more general validity; it is not made up in an ad hoc manner just to cover the peculiarities of verse. Returning to the characterization of the /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters: if we were to ask what goes into rendering them cohesive, we can describe the situation with the help of the filters listed above. It is a mixed bag of factors which do not fit together into a canonical OT table at all, though I have borrowed some of the conventions familiar in OT. The crucial distinction between singleton and cluster alliteration is attributed to the absence of a perceptual break between the consonants in the clusters in the first row. This in itself would be sufficient to define /sp-, st-, sk-/ uniquely among the attested clusters. Of the well-formedness conditions only the overall sonority of a cluster is powerful enough to block the realization of a cluster. Unattested clusters like the ones in the bottom two rows are excluded on the basis of the perceptual difficulty of adjacent obstruents where both are of zero or minimal sonority. The table includes also factors which are relevant to the comparison between the cohesive clusters, the non-cohesive, but historically stable clusters in the second row, and the non-cohesive, historically unstable clusters of the third and the fourth rows. More specifically, one of the factors, ∗ Ident Non-Continuant, is useful because it highlights the differences between clusters that behave identically with respect to alliteration, i.e. they are noncohesive, but their histories bespeak important internal differences not captured by ∗ P e rcep tua l B reak. ∗ Ident Non-Continuant is a markedness condition on consonant coarticulation in stressed syllable onsets which will be relevant in the account of the history of /gn-, kn-/. The last two columns fill out the well-formedness picture by bringing in factors of concern in the earlier accounts which aimed to define the properties of /sp-, st-, sk-/. Negatively, Ident Voiceless licenses the appearance of /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters in the first place. Son-Seq is there to remind us that nothing in the behavior of /sp-, st-, sk-/, either in alliteration, or in relation to the other clusters, or historically, depends on that factor, in spite of the centrality of the constraints in earlier approaches to the same issues. Technically, just for comparing the degree of cohesiveness among the various onset clusters, the latter two constraints are not needed.
228
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
Table 5.1 Cluster cohesion in Old English alliteration ∗ P erceptual ∗ Low ∗ Ident. Non- Ident SonBreak Sonority Continuant Voiceless Seq ∗
All of the clusters in the second row are obstruent–sonorant clusters, attested and stable throughout the history of the language. In Old English, they alliterate most commonly just on the first consonant because the clusters are non-cohesive; there is a sufficient break between the obstruent and the sonorant to allow identification of the first consonant as an autonomous alliterating unit. The clusters in the third and the fourth row are equally “breakable,” though their histories call for further discussion. The new elements in the inventory of factors that characterize the unique cohesive behavior of the clusters are then first, the absence of a perceptual break until after the stop, which disallows the singling out of the leftmost segment as a target of identity. Second, I have posited the presence of, and have assigned a role to, the constraint ∗ Low Sonority. It is not a constraint on cohesiveness; rather, it addresses a restriction on the range of possible clusters 85. To account fully for these clusters, one might need an additional constraint on the co-occurrence of velar stops and nasals. They represent a special issue which will be addressed in chapter 7. 86. For /hr-, hl-, hn-/ the violation will not occur if Old English was a voiceless velar fricative. If, however, the is a glottal approximant, which it may have become by late Old/early Middle English, the behavior of /hr-, hl-, hn-/ clusters with respect to Son-Seq becomes irrelevant, because they are not proper “clusters.” 87. The question mark is prompted by the uncertainty regarding the nature of the /w-/ initial segments in Old English. If the <w-> had the sonority of glides, then the /wr-, wl-/ clusters violate the sonority sequencing trajectory. If, on the other hand, [w] in initial position in Old English was an approximant with an appreciable degree of friction, then the same clusters will not violate Son-Seq.
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in English. It is immediately obvious that ∗ Low Sonority could be satisfied easily by clusters whose second elements are sonorants, i.e. the most frequent type: pr-, kl-, sm-, etc. The last two rows in Table 5.1 intend to illustrate the fact that clusters such as ∗ pt-, ∗ fk-, attested cross-linguistically are not in the inventory of onset clusters in English: their combined sonority is too low to satisfy the language-specific minimal requirement expressed by ∗ Low Sonority . In this account, the puzzle of why in Old English (and Germanic) Son-Seq, a well-known markedness constraint, is allowed to be violated only by /sp-, st-, sk-/, becomes uninteresting. These clusters satisfy other markedness constraints which jointly override Son-Seq. Trying to account for cohesiveness through the prism of Son-Seq is on the right track only to the extent that a satisfaction of Son-Seq decreases the likelihood of cohesiveness. Essentially, however, these are two separate phonological parameters. The co-occurrence of a SonS eq violation with cohesiveness for /sp-, st-, sk-/ in English does not imply that all clusters which are in violation of Son-Seq will also be cohesive, nor that compliance with Son-Seq will result in non-cohesion.88 Why /sp-, st-, sk-/ should exist in spite of the Son-Seq violation, but clusters such as ∗ /rt-, rd-/ are unattested in English, is a genetic question which is quite outside the scope of the cohesion inquiry. In an account which separates the wellformedness questions from cohesiveness behavior there is no need to justify the cohesiveness by taking the Son-Seq violation as the starting-point as has been done in previous accounts. Analyzing <s-> as an invisible appendix to the cluster just so that it does not transgress against the phonotactic expectations is an unnecessary representational stratagem.89 Instead, the analysis proposed here treats Son-Seq as an acceptable violation dependent on a set of coarticulation factors which act together to ensure cluster well-formedness. Put differently, the lack of a perceptual break coexists 88. Fleischhacker’s (2001: 5) typology of vowel epenthesis with respect to consonant clusters shows the phenomenon as scalar, with Korean at one end of the scale, permitting epenthesis in all obstruent-initial clusters, including S+stop clusters. At the other end of the scale is Iraqi Arabic where all obstruent-initial clusters, including stop-sonorant clusters behave cohesively. 89. The perceptually-based account will accommodate the so-called s-mobile in Indo-European. Indo-European s, when it formed the first member of an initial consonant group, was “an unstable sound, and liable to disappear under conditions which it has not been possible accurately to define” (Burrow 1955: 80), though a recent study by Southern (1999) throws light on the conditions of survival and loss of the s-mobile. Under the assumption that the similarity of two onsets is not primarily a matter of their composition, but a consequence of the nature and timing of the perceptual break, the alternation between /s + C/ and /C/ appears less mysterious.
230
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
with a violation of Son-Seq, but it also entails that other phonotactic conditions are met. /sp-, st-, sk-/ are good clusters because their joint sonority rises above a certain level, and because they do not violate phonotactic requirements incompatible with the violation of Son-Seq. Not all well-formed clusters behave cohesively, however. I have argued that various conditions combine to license the structure and produce the distinctive effect of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in Old English. Tabulating the phonotactic conditions allows us to attempt an evaluation of their relative importance; that aspect of the interaction of factors has not been addressed in earlier studies. The constraint on perceptual cohesiveness ∗ Pe r c e pt ual Br e ak defines a hierarchy which is revealing with respect to the unique properties of initial /sp-, st-, sk-/. Unlike the “appendix” account, this approach to the facts is not equivalent to a restatement of the problem. By focusing on the perceptual effect of coarticulation and the overall sonority of the clusters which violate Son-Seq, the account addresses directly the causes of the exceptional behavior of these clusters. At the same time, it accommodates the gradient behavior of other clusters with respect to cohesiveness – another interesting issue which can be tested on alliterative data. 5.5
Three-consonantal clusters: the [sl-] [skl-] change
The cohesiveness of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in English, both historically and at present, is manifested further through the fact that only these clusters allow the addition of yet another consonant in the onset of the syllable. That consonant must be an approximant, and only /r/ and /l/ are really attested in that position in Old English.90 In Old English the matching of such three-consonantal edges required identity only up to the approximant: (26)
on stefn stigon; / str¯eamas wundon91 strang ond stiðmod. / gestah he on gealgan heanne92 and þæt spere sprengde, þæt hit sprang ong¯ean93
Beo 212 Dream 40 BM 137
The only possible segment at the left edge of triconsonantal clusters in modern English is the voiceless sibilant /s-/.94 One of the often cited advantages of 90. The clusters /skw-/, /skl-/ occur first in the fourteenth century, and /stj-/, /skj-/ are a seventeenthcentury development (Harris 1954: 97). 91. ‘on prow went up; / streams eddied’ 92. ‘strong and resolute / he climbed onto the high gallows’ 93. ‘and the spearhead thrust / so that it sprang back’ 94. Foreign borrowings with initial /ʃ/ such as Strauss, strudel, spritzer, Sprachgef¨uhl are quickly adapted to the phonotactics of English; [ʃtr-, ʃpr-] can be heard only in deliberately foreign pronunciations and do not belong in the native system.
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231
the “appendix” account for /sp-, st-, sk-/ is that it eliminates the need to treat three-consonantal onsets such as /spr-, spl-, str-, skr-/ as an aberrant phonological phenomenon. If /s-/ is out of the picture, the remaining portion of the onset is well-formed in terms of Son-Seq, nothing further needs to be said about these clusters. The analysis presented here interprets Son-Seq as only one of the factors determining the composition and behavior of onset clusters. The question arises whether this different approach can deal equally well with tripartite clusters. The answer is positive. The extraordinary cohesiveness of /sp-, st-, sk-/ allows them to behave phonologically like units. If the first perceptual burst falls to the right of the cluster, the transition between the /-p-, -t-, -k-/ and a following sonorant is of the same order as the transition between any singleton obstruent followed by a sonorant. Structurally, in the perceptually based account proposed here, /sp-, st-, sk-/ + sonorant onset string is similar to /s-/ + sonorant string. This similarity finds a strong diachronic confirmation in the well-documented process of or insertion in /sl-/ onsets. The following examples of alternating spellings of <sl>, <scl>, or <skl> in Middle English support that hypothesis:95 (27)
95. Many of these examples are cited in Harris (1954: 78–79). Luick (1914/1940: 860–861) describes this epenthesis of stops as “eine Erscheinung . . . deren Eigenart nicht ganz sicher zu erfassen ist” [a phenomenon whose peculiarity cannot be grasped with certainty]. He cites a number of “intrusive” spellings that go all the way back to Old English: sclat, scleacnes, sclidd, sclep. If in all cases <sc-> stood for /ʃ/ there would be very little to explain beyond the acoustic similarity between /s-/ and /ʃ/. The possibility that this phenomenon may have had something to do with the similarity and therefore possible confusion between /sk’/, /s-/, and /ʃ/ is not considered here because of the bidirectionality of the process. A “real” epenthetic account may be connected to the parallel post fourteenth-century development of a new cluster /skw/ in the language. 96. A relatively frequent spelling, found from the time of Poema Morale a. 1250 to the York Plays (c. 1450). 97. From ∗ slenta, ON ∗ slantjan, Norw. dial. slenta ‘to slope’, older Dan. slente ‘to slide, slip’ (MED). 98. ‘Cassock, overgarment’ (MED). 99. ‘A part of a loom, consisting of wires or strips of reed, wood, etc., set in a frame, used for forcibly compressing the weft, a weaver’s reed’ (MED). 100. ‘lazy, sluggish, characterized by sloth’, from ON (?) (MED).
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5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
The list is not complete. In searching the MED, one finds numerous headwords and forms in which <sl-> alternates with <scl-/skl->. Among them are common words such as slab <sclabbe>, slade <sclade>, slayer <scleer, sclaer>, sleyer ‘a veil’ <skleir(e), sklere, sklaire, s(c)leire, s(c)laire>, sling <scling, sclang, sclong>, sloe <sclach>, sloth <sclouthe>, sluttish <scluttish>, slumbering <sclumbringe>, etc.101 Note that the alternation of <sc-> and <sk-> spellings, as well as the other evidence from epenthesis, deletion and metathesis occurring in the same sequence argues against the possibility of interpreting the similarity as based on /s/ spelled <s-> and /ʃ/ spelled <sc->. The opposite development, the omission of the stop before the sonorant in the same sequences also points to the similarity between /s/ + /l/ and /sk-/ + /l/. (28) lists some examples in which the velar stop has been dropped from French borrowings in which the etymological sequence /skl-/ ends up as /sl-/ in English: (28)
French /-skl-/ esclaundre esclat esclate103 sclaue c. 1290
ME /sl-/ slander slat slate slave
French /-skl-/ esclendre esclice escluse
ME /sl-/ slender102 slice sluice
In fact, the OED lists the spelling <scl-> as a Middle English and Scots variant of <sl->. Although the loss of the initial <e-> in the French borrowings occurred quite early, /skl-/ forms of all these words persisted well into the seventeenth century. Obviously, there was a long period in the language when /skl-/ and /sl-/ forms for the same lexical item were in free variation. Luick (1914/1940: 860) identifies the fifteenth century as the time when this variation peaked. While the “appendix” account takes /s-/ out of the picture and aligns the remaining part of the cluster with the common pattern, it would not be very helpful in explaining why this kind of variation can arise in the first place. Indeed, assuming that /s-/ is extrametrical makes the deletion or insertion of a stop before /-l-/ completely unmotivated. An account based on the perceived similarity between the two forms /skl-/ < – > /sl-/ makes it clear why the epenthetic 101. One interesting development is the change from ML sclarea & OE slaria to clary ‘a garden herb,’ spelled sclari, slaream in ME (MED). 102. OED forms: 4–6 slendre, 5- slender, 4, 6 sclendre, 5–7 sclender; 5 sklendire, 5–6 -re, 6 -ir, -ur, 5–6, 9 dial., sklender; 6 scl-, sklinder. 103. Anglo-Latin sclata, sklata from the fourteenth century.
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233
or deletable consonant is a voiceless stop, and not just any consonant.104 It is only a voiceless stop that can be fitted in the pre-sonorant position without impinging dramatically on the overall perceptual structure of the onset. While the most common examples involve the /sl-/ /skl-/ alternation, the same type of perceptual similarity is involved in alternations with the other voiceless stops in that position too, for example <stlidornis> for ‘slidderness’ (MED) and the following <spl-> spellings for <sp->105 (29)
ME spelling splarpynge spleter splittes (pl.) splite
Some of these may be instances of metathesis: spel- in ‘alloy’ becoming sple-, spil- in ‘spilled’ becoming spli-. Inversely, the sequence /spl/ + vowel may be split by switching the position of the approximant and the vowel: ME sple(ndoure) ‘splendor’ appears as <spel-dor>, splaien ‘unfurl’ appears as <spal> in surnames (MED). Evidence of a somewhat different nature, but still germane to the point are the nineteenth-century alternating pairs splosh–slosh, splutter–sputter.
5.6
/sp-, st-, sk-/ and the French vocabulary
This section is a brief survey of the fate of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in Anglo-Norman and Old French borrowings. Vowel prosthesis, also referred to as epenthesis, to the left of word-initial groups of s+consonant goes back to the second century AD. In Old French the phonetics of these clusters remained stable initially and the prosthetic vowel /e/ which was already appearing in Late Latin, became a fixed feature in front of such clusters since the twelfth century (Pope 1934: 145, 217).106 In both varieties of French a prosthetic <e-> was regularly inserted in words containing the initial clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/:
104. I am using the double arrow < – > to indicate that two entities are in a similarity relationship to each other. 105. The MED marks these as “errors.” This does not invalidate the point that they make – errors are good evidence for what the mental lexicon of a speaker or a scribe allows. 106. The loss of /s/ in preconsonantal position in French did not occur fully until after the end of the fourteenth century, see Pope (1934: 206, 264). It resulted in compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel.
234 (30)
5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE ME
OF
ME
OF
ME
OF
space spaniel spoil spleen
espace espaigneul espoille esplien
stable stage stale statute
estable estage estale estatute-
scale squash squat scourge
escale ‘of fish’ esquasser esquater escorge
In Old English, roots beginning with the sequences /Vsk-/, /Vsp-/, /Vst-/ always had stress on the initial vowel. Prefixed derivatives such as aspend (last attested c. 1175) asteal (last attested c. 1325) are rare; they could not have produced the phonotactic model for V + /sp-, st-, sk-/ where the stem vowel is unstressed. It is not surprising therefore that the borrowing of Romance words with initial <est-, esp-, esc-> should have undergone rapid assimilation resulting in abandonment of the initial vowel. This alignment with the native phonotactics must have started very early. Among the words borrowed in the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries we find stable (1264), sclaue ‘slave’ (1290), statute (1290), followed by stage (1300), spleen (1300), spoil (1325), space (1325), scale (1330), etc. In fact, the bulk of the attestations in Middle English ignore the prosthetic vowel. It is only towards the end of the fourteenth century that prosthetic forms begin to appear. The MED records one single form each of espace, espolen, both in very unEnglish contexts. What this means is that in the earlier part of Middle English the strength of the native model for these clusters was sufficient to override the “foreignness” of the borrowings. These words quickly became part of the core vocabulary of English. Historically in Romance, the development of the prosthetic vowel is a different type of diagnostic of the cohesiveness of /sp-, st-, sk-/.107 Later loanwords tend to retain the foreign phonotactics along with a meaning that is often associated with a different, usually higher register. The examples in (31) illustrate this point; the parenthesized dates are the first attestations of these words in the OED: (31)
scale v. (1380) spirit (1250)108 spouse v. (1290) squire (1290) strange (1297)
For some of the synchronic variables, spy–espy, state–estate, the semantic differentiation occurred later. The preservation of the /s/ in the English forms of these words is partly due to the re-introduction of the consonant in 107. See Broselow (1992), Fleischhacker (2000), who discuss the asymmetry between prosthesis for sibilant fricative + stop clusters and anaptyxis for obstruent + sonorant clusters. 108. See also sprite (1300).
5.7 Summary and conclusions
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French in the sixteenth century, partly to the direct influence of Latin.109 The modern language accommodates both phonotactic models: special–especial, squadron–esquadron (obs.), state–estate, stew–estew (obs.), strange – estrange. For Middle English, however, the pattern of stem-initial /sp-, st-, sk-/ remained dominant.
5.7
Summary and conclusions
The goal of this chapter was to isolate the set of features whose co-occurrence makes the existence, frequency, and stability of /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters phonologically likely. Another aim was to relate the perceptual factors that define the special cohesive effect of these clusters to the alliterative behavior of these onsets in Germanic and Old English. The acoustic unity of /sp-, st-, sk-/ does not occur in spite of the violation of the universal constraint on rising sonority, the approach taken in earlier accounts, but because this constraint is weak in relation to other factors. The clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/ obey co-occurrence constraints on continuancy and voicing which non-cohesive clusters are free to violate. In this sense, the interpretation of cohesiveness involves a concatenation of mutually dependent filters. As in the previous chapters, the starting-point for the account was the behavior of the clusters in alliteration, and again the parametrical rules of alliteration proved a valuable source of philological information. In every instance the reconstructions based on alliteration in those instances were also supported by other internal linguistic or external data. The situation with /sp-, st-, sk-/ is peculiar in that except for the alliterative evidence, by definition restricted to the privileged position in stressed onsets, there are no other tests that can yield information about the cohesiveness of these clusters in the older language. On the other hand, the cohesiveness of sibilant–obstruent clusters in other languages has been amply documented (Fleischhacker 2001). The special property of these clusters is realized provably only in the onset of stressed syllables. A testable parallel for this situation exists in the modern language: full cluster copying is freely deployed in meta-linguistic rules such as reduplication, alliteration, and, of course, spoonerisms.110 109. Pope (1934: 152) notes the uncertainty in the pronunciation of preconsonantal <s> in French between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. She attributes this to the orthographical tradition, analogical influences, provincial variation, etc. 110. The reduplication data of Modern English conform to the cohesiveness of /sp-, st-, sk-/, but they do not separate these clusters from the rest of the onsets. All Ablaut reduplicative words in English (for example crick-crack, spitter-spatter, flip-flop, splitter-splatter, strim-stram, squish-squash) respect the identity of the onset fully.
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5 Onset and cluster alliteration in OE
Compare the Old English original to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf 926: (32)
st¯od on stapole, / geseah st¯eapne hr¯of ‘standing on the steps, under the steep eaves’
Beowulf 926 Heaney (2000)
The factors isolated as significant in the behavior of the /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters show that the Germanic and Old English alliterative practice was well motivated and typologically predictable. From the point of view of the entire history of the language, the dividing line between /sp-, st-, sk-/ and the other onset clusters remains position-specific and period-specific. Cluster alliteration of s + stop clusters became inconsistent in early Middle English; at the same time, other initial clusters began to alliterate as units. The perceptual break which we interpret as crucial for the way onsets were treated in Old English was ignored by some post-Conquest poets and scribes. Thus, in addition to the linguistic justification provided by the missing perceptual break in /sp-, st-, sk-/ in the language, the Old English scops must have observed unit alliteration unfailingly because they were trained in a tradition in which a unique linguistic property had been elevated to the status of an artificial convention. The exact source of this convention remains unclear, but as suggested in 5.1, it may have had something to do with the prestige of the Anglo-Latin compositions by Aldhelm. Diminishing loyalty to the classical form of versification towards the end of the OE period allowed this detail of the traditional ars poetica to go by the board. Starting with Ælfric (c. 955–c. 1010), whose innovative blend of poetry and prose was much copied and influential, the s+ stop clusters were no longer special, and poets and scribes could treat /sp-, st-, sk-/ on a par with other “good” clusters. This historical progression suggests an interesting correlation between the linguistic and the literary component of alliterative verse. Neither pervasive native tradition, nor the prestigious offspring of that tradition, Anglo-Latin verse, or the mixture of the two, would have been likely to succeed in the absence of the right linguistic conditions. The Germanic and the Old English traditions rest on a linguistically sound principle, so sound indeed that it could influence versification in Latin and in turn be influenced by it. However, as the classical tradition grew more and more fossilized towards the end of the tenth century, alliteration may have been re-interpreted. Apart from relying on identity of the material up to the first perceptual break, the matching Heaney matches clusters too: (slack–asleep, sleep–slopped, Grendel–gruesome, Grendel– grim, triumph–truth), but I have found no other matching of the OE alliterative pattern so perfect as in line 926.
5.7 Summary and conclusions
237
was extended to as much of the material to the right as possible. This would be in line with the increased identity of the vowels in vowel alliteration discussed in 4.3.1 and the spread of cluster alliteration to other onsets in Middle English. Thus, the gradual relaxation of cluster alliteration specifically on /sp-, st-, sk-/ became one of the symptoms of the demise of the classical Anglo-Saxon model. The discussion of /sp-, st-, sk-/ unit alliteration in Old English leads to some interesting questions concerning the fate of cluster alliteration in Middle English and the fate of onset clusters in general. The former will be the theme of chapter 6. In addition to defining the properties of /sp-, st-, sk-/, the exposition in this chapter identified constraints that together may help us define the limits within which other initial clusters in English are historically well-formed. Seen from that perspective, Table 5.1 separates the surviving from the non-surviving initial clusters in English; the latter will be addressed in chapter 7.
6
Onset and cluster alliteration in Middle English
Turning to the practices of the Middle English alliterative poets with regard to onset clusters, we will continue to rely on the assumption that the selection of items to fit particular verse patterns is done with considerable discrimination. Verse composition draws on the available phonological material in the language; therefore the poetic choices provide an evidential basis for the reconstruction of features in the contemporary language, and a good testing ground for linguistic claims that are not period- or even language-specific. This chapter will look into the distribution of cluster alliteration in Middle English. The goal of this particular portion of the study is to establish the correlation between the composition of the onsets and their cohesive behavior in verse. Assuming that the phonetic and phonological determinants remained relatively constant, and that cluster alliteration is a good diagnostic of similarity, it will be interesting to see how well-formed clusters other than /sp-, st-, sk-/ are deployed in verse. It is often recognized, and most cogently argued by Fulk (1992: 266–268, 286–287), that some aspects of Old English verse had become highly artificial by the time of the Norman Conquest. Whether linguistically or culturally induced, the distancing between the early and the late verse is apparent in the collapse of the classical rules of verse organization, in the reduced use of poetic compounds, and even in the changing conventions of what constitutes acceptable alliteration. The so-called “transitional” poetic material, which builds on models such as Ælfric’s rhythmical prose, adheres only to a subset of the rules of classical verse. Notably absent are Sievers’ D and E Type verses involving stress clashes and secondary stress.1 Nevertheless, the poetic effect of the post-Conquest compositions continues to rest largely on alliteration and the four-beat line, although both are interpreted much more loosely. Alliteration 1. On these issues, see Cable (1991: 41–65). He provides a detailed summary of previous research in this area and an enlightening comparison between the rhythmic profiles in Ælfric’s rhythmical prose and the Old English patterns.
238
6.1 New patterns of alliteration in ME
239
remains a central structural component of the “revival” poems of the second half of the fourteenth century too. One alliterative feature that supposedly distinguishes Old from Middle English alliterative compositions is cluster alliteration, or zusammengesetzte St¨abe: the extension of the self-alliteration pattern from /sp-, st-, sk-/ to other clusters. Put differently, unlike their Old English predecessors, the Middle English poets allowed themselves considerably more latitude in judging the scope and limits of onset similarity and identity. The rules of alliteration were restructured: not only the leftmost edge of the onset, but the entire onset was eligible for alliteration. The /sp-, st-, sk-/ cluster alliteration provided the model for that restructuring. This chapter will examine the rate at which different clusters participated in alliteration as units. The hypothesis that the investigation will test is that not all well-formed initial clusters are equally cohesive and that the selection of matching pairs depends on the composition of the cluster; this, in turn, is revealing in terms of the cluster’s linguistic properties. The chapter starts out with a brief summary of the alliterative innovations in Middle English, followed by a chronological survey of the evidence found in Middle English verse. The data are then analyzed in the context of more general phonological claims concerning the composition and hierarchical cohesion of consonant clusters. More specifically, the findings are used to test the status and the violability of the Contiguity constraint. The final section of the chapter addresses the interplay between phonological factors, lexical frequency of occurrence, and alliterative rank in the selection of self-alliterating clusters. Only clusters that have maintained their segmental composition will be examined in this chapter. Historically unstable clusters will be treated separately in chapter 7.
6.1
New patterns of alliteration in Middle English
Descriptions of Middle English alliteration invariably mention that the “pure” patterns of Old English were extended in some specific ways (Kaluza 1911: 203–205, Schumacher 1914: 1–3, Oakden 1930/1968: 158–163). The points of interest in which classical Old English alliteration differs from Middle English alliteration are: a b c d
Strong tendency to alliterate on identical vowels Stab der Liaison Cluster onsets alliterate as groups (zusammengesetzte St¨abe) The clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/ alliterate on /s-/
240
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME e Dialectal borrowing in alliteration: /f-/:/v-/, /w-/:/v-/ f /s-/:/ʃ-/ alliteration g Vowel : /h-/ alliteration
Additional delimitative linguistic and metrical properties which will not be addressed in this study are the avoidance of enjambment, i.e. the syntactic unity of the line, the increased incidence of alliteration in the b-verse, and the tendency for consecutive lines to share the same alliteration. Oakden (1930/1968: 157) uses the latter as an argument for the continuity of the tradition. Oakden’s insistence on “continuity” has been countered by Cable (1991). The position taken here is that some continuity must be assumed, in the limited sense that matching the onsets of stressed syllables continues to organize the line, and that the number of alliterating peaks to the left continues to exceed the number of peaks to the right. However, the poems composed at the height of the alliterative “revival” are reinventions and not imitations or even “extensions” of the preConquest modes of versification. The innovative features of Middle English alliterative verse in (a)–(g) above are not of equal relevance to the reconstruction of the ambient language. The linguistic significance of (a) and (b) was already discussed in chapter 4. This chapter will focus on (c) and (d), two contradictory phenomena related to cluster alliteration.2 Apart from the observation that (c) and (d), group alliteration and splitting of the /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters, are non-traditional, there has been no discussion in the literature regarding the scope of these phenomena, or the possible linguistic reasons for the choice of clusters treated as units. My concrete investigation of the Middle English material will start with the first long post-Conquest composition which relies heavily on alliteration, namely Lagamon’s Brut, and proceed with the fourteenth-century material. Before that, however, a look back and a comparison between the verse practices of Old and Middle English poets with respect to the same phenomena is in order. 6.2
Cluster alliteration in Old and Middle English: a comparison
As discussed in chapter 5, in Old English the clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/ alliterated as units while all other word-initial clusters were unpacked such that the first consonant participated in the alliteration. Examples of the two patterns are shown in (1a) and (1b): 2. The phonetic motivation of the pattern in (f), /s-/ : /ʃ-/ alliteration, will be considered briefly in 6.3.1.
6.2 Cluster alliteration in OE and ME (1)
(a) Scaðan scirhame / to scipe foron3 Stopon styrnmode, / stercedferhðe4 and þæt spere sprengde, / þæt hit sprang ongean5 (b) ðurh sliþne niþ / sawle bescufan6 druncen & dolhwund. / Næs ða dead þa gyt7 þe þær baldlicost / on þa bricge stop8
This is standard alliterative verse lore: there are no exceptions to /sp-, st-, sk-/ unit alliteration in the classical body of Anglo-Saxon verse. What is not so well known is that taking a step outside the canonical patterns, we find that even in Old English there are numerous examples of other initial clusters also behaving as units, though this kind of rhyming is not systematic. Some examples of Old English cluster alliteration are cited in (2): (2)
Swa þa drihtguman / dreamum lifdon9 forgrand gramum, / ond nu wiþ Grendel sceal10 slæpendne rinc, / slat unwearnum11 gyf ðonne Frysna hwylc / frecnan spræc12 abreot brimwisan, / bryd ahredde13 Gangaþ nu snude, / snyttro geþencaþ14 geclungne to cleowenne. / þonne clæne bið15 þurh briddes had / gebreadad weorðeð16 ond a snellice / snere wræstan17 þær com flowende / flod æfter ebban18 swiðe mid his swurde, / swenges ne wyrnde19
The practice has not gone entirely unnoticed. Pope (1966: 101) observed that “when a syllable begins with two or more consonants, all may alliterate (as do 3. 5. 6. 8. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15. 16.
‘Scathing foes sheer-armored / to ship fared’ 4. ‘Stepped sternly; / stout-hearted’ ‘And that spear caused to spring / so that it sprang again’ ‘through painful fear / soul shove’ 7. ‘drunken and wounded. / He was not dead yet’ ‘Who there boldly / on the bridge stepped’ 9. ‘So the lord’s men / with dreams lived’ ‘Ground down the grim ones / and now with Grendel shall.’ Other examples with /gr-/ in Beowulf are found at ll. 102, 334. ‘Sleeping warrior, / slashed unhindered’ ‘if then Frisian any / through unfriendly speech’ ‘Cut down sea-leader, / wife rescued’ 14. ‘go now quickly / with wisdom think’ ‘shrunk to a ball / then destroyed is’ ‘through birdhood / he is brought to motion’ (on the translation see Bammesberger 1986: 62–63). Another /br-/ example is found in The Battle of Maldon: þa Byrhtnoð bræd / bill of sceðe, brad and bruneccg, / and on þa byrnan sloh.
Maldon 162–3
17. ‘and always swiftly / the strings strum’ 18. ‘There came flowing / flood after the ebb’ 19. ‘mightily with the sword / the stroke did not restrain’
242
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
those beginning with sw in Maldon 118), but usually only one is required to do so.” A further search in the Old English Corpus on-line and the Concordance to the ASPR turned up an unexpectedly large number of lines with cluster alliteration both in the earlier and in the later material: /bl-/ : /bl-/ in Genesis A, B (eighth century) at ll. 1761, 2333, Guthlac 497, /kl-/ : kl-/ in Elene (ninth century) at l. 696, /sl-/ : /sl-/ in Judith 247, /sn-/ : /sn-/ in Andreas (ninth century) 267, Elene 154, 313, etc. The density of group alliteration varies from poem to poem, which is to be expected if the choice reflects the fine and gradient acoustic distinctions among the various clusters and if it correlates with the availability of appropriate vocabulary items. This is a testable proposition, although I have not collected further data from the corpus of Old English verse with this hypothesis in mind. Without conducting a complete search, among the relatively later poems I found Judith quite remarkable in this respect, with cluster identity or similarity in lines 5, 6, 12, 17, 19, 23, 29, 30, 33, 37, 39, 43, etc. In Maldon interesting cluster alliteration or near identity (see below) appears in lines 9, 12, 17, 39, 41, 62, 72, 78, 92, 100, 106, 109, 115, 118, 131, 140, 144, 150, etc. The ratio of cluster alliteration in these late poems is thus quite high: in Maldon 18 out of the first 150 lines and in Judith 12 out of the first 50 lines are of that type. So, cluster alliteration is definitely attested in the Old English poetic records, yet it has never received serious scholarly attention. Even scholars who are aware of the possibility of matching more than the left edge of a cluster do not treat this feature as significant beyond the merely descriptive remarks made in passing relating it to the discontinuity of the poetic tradition. Oakden (1930/1968: 163–165) does not mention the possibility of cluster alliteration in Old English outside the obligatory /st-, sp-, sk-/ pairing. Schumacher (1914: 40–45), whose remarkable philological spadework provides the most extensive coverage of cluster alliteration in the literature, and the basis of much of Oakden’s observations on this issue, refers to Old English cluster alliteration as “an exception.” Kaluza (1911: 122) mentions the possibility of consonant clusters alliterating with each other “in later poems,” and cites some examples from Judith. Yet, as shown in (2), the appearance of such patterns is by no means chronologically restricted to the later monuments in the poetic corpus. In his outstanding coverage of the late developments in Old English verse Fulk (1992: ch. 10) uses the criterion of /st-, sp-, sk-/ unity as a possible diagnostic, but he generally ignores other instances of cluster alliteration.20 20. One instance in which Fulk discusses self-alliteration of /sl-/ and /sw-/ as one of the many possible features pointing to a late date is in his discussion of the composition of Judgement
6.2 Cluster alliteration in OE and ME
243
Old English cluster alliteration, as illustrated in (2), has not been studied, presumably because it is seen as nothing more than accidental, excessive ornamentation which contributes nothing to the structural or stylistic coherence of a poetic piece. Naturally, even the occasional occurrences of group alliteration in the Old English poetic corpus could reflect the degree of cohesion of particular clusters. Still, although the practice was not unfamiliar to the Old English scops, these examples are comparatively rare and do not strike the reader as attestations of quite the same deliberate focus on identity that they appear to have become later. Therefore a more systematic search of the data and a link to a hierarchy of phonologically-based preferences is more appropriate for the Middle English material. Before we look into the consonantal data, we must note the parallel between vowel alliteration and cluster alliteration in the two periods. Chapter 4 argued that Old English vowel alliteration was based on the presence of an epenthetic glottal stop, i.e. it required identity of the material to the left of the first perceptual break in the stressed syllable. This is also true of cluster alliteration, no matter whether the break came between the right edge of the onset and the peak, as in /sp-, st-, sk-/, or within the onset. Any further identity of the stressed syllables in Old English was a structurally redundant enrichment, explicitly frowned upon in the case of alliteration on identical vowels. There is no record of a parallel negative esthetic judgement regarding cluster onset identity, but it was clearly not a feature that was actively sought. In contrast, alliteration on identical vowels and alliteration on entire clusters became specially favored by the Middle English poets. While identity up to the first perceptual break remained a necessary condition for acceptable alliteration shared by both traditions, extending the domain to include everything up to the syllable peak, and the syllable peak itself, became a desirable stratagem for the poets of the “revival” period. By examining more closely the zusammengesetzte St¨abe of Middle English, I will show that the Old English examples in (2) foreshadow the development of an alliterative conceit that flourished in Middle English. In both periods the practice can be taken as an indicator of the history and nature of cluster cohesion and cluster similarity in English. The lines cited in (3) illustrate broadly the extended use of group alliteration in fourteenth-century alliterative texts: Day II (1992: 262–263). Cluster alliteration is not used elsewhere as an attribute whose presence could be relevant to the dating of Old English verse. The matter is, of course, determined not by changes in the ambient language but rather by a new interpretation of the parametrical rules of verse composition. In that sense it could be useful, though only indirect, evidence for dating.
244 (3)
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME With brases of broun stele / brauden full thikke With [sy]de21 slabbande sleues / sleght to þe grounde Til Sleuthe and sleep sliken hise sydes Ther smyt no thyng so smerte, ne smelleth so foule That were bisnewed with snow, and snakes withinne, Brayden vp brigges with brouden chaynes There the gryse was grene, growen with floures, And the precyous prayere of Hys prys Modyr And when his dredefull drem whas drefen to þe ende,
W & W 113 W & W 411 PPl 2.09922 PPl 11.434 PPl 15.112 Siege 615 Parl. 3 Ages 8 MA 1–2 MA 322423
The inverse tendency, the occasional splitting of the clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/ to allow them to alliterate on /s-/ is not new either; it goes back to the so-called “transitional” poetic material, which builds on models such as Ælfric’s rhythmical prose and adheres only to a subset of the rules of classical verse. Unpacking of /sp-, st-, sk-/, usually associated with general laxity of metrical form, occurs already in The Soul’s Address to the Body (Moffat 1987: 54) and Lagamon’s Brut. The examples in (4) are from MS Cotton Caligula A ix:24 (4)
A steores-man ham talde wil-spel; þat he Spaine isæih. Heo speken þer to sæhte; to sibbe and to some. & smat on Herigales sceld. þat his stæf atwaie wond
LB 677 LB 2045 LB 4204
Whether the fourth lift in the examples in (4) is interpreted as alliterating or not is irrelevant to the point.25 Splitting of /sp-, st-, sk/ occurs also in many fourteenth-century compositions as in (5):
21. MS has elde. The emendation to sleghe ‘skillfully made’ proposed by Turville-Petre is rejected by Trigg (1990: 42) on semantic grounds. 22. All citations from Piers Plowman are based on the online version of the B-text included in the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. The text used is The Vision of Piers Plowman, edited by A. V. C. Schmidt, a critical edition of the B-text based on Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17 with selected variant readings, London and New York: J. M. Dent and E. P. Dutton, 1978. The electronic edition in HTML was made available through the Oxford Text Archive, distributed by the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative. 23. The citations are from the text included in the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse: The Alliterative Morte Arthure, A critical edition, edited, with an introduction, notes, and glossary by Valerie Krishna, New York: Burt Franklin, 1976. 24. Text: c. 1250, Early English Text Society 250, 277. For my search I have used the electronic edition of the text available on http://www.hti.umich.edu/english/mideng/ . 25. The /s-/ in isæih (l. 677) and some (l. 2045) is boldfaced here on the assumption that the second lift in the b-verse in the alliterating portions of Brut can be a legitimate alliterating position. Of the 1,170 lines linked by alliteration in Oakden’s count of the patterns in the poem (1935 [1968]: 142–144), 41 lines have the pattern aa/aa. In addition, there are 660 lines in which the fourth lift participates in the alliteration, for example xa/xa, ax/xa, aa/xa, etc.
6.3 Cluster alliteration: Lagamon’s Brut (5)
þi skathill sectours / schal seuer þam aboute Thanne Symonye and Cyvylle stonden forth bothe So that he sewe and save Spiritus Temperancie. And a[s] smartli as þei couþe, þe skinnes of turned þat þe stede him ofsaw, sone he up leped þe king of Spayne stifli stert up sone
245
W & W 443 PP 2.072 PP 20.22 W Pal 259026 W Pal 3283 W Pal 4355
The splitting of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in the fourteenth-century compositions is admittedly rare. The Old English convention is observed strictly in many texts, for example Alexander A and B, The Parlement of Thre Ages, The Siege of Jerusalem, The Wars of Alexander. These are also the texts that show high incidence of group alliteration. The correlation suggests that in addition to the phonological propensity of clusters to behave cohesively or non-cohesively, individual poets interpreted differently the notion of what constitutes a good alliterative unit. Again, before moving on to the presentation of the Middle English material in detail, it should be noted that Old and Middle English compositions display the same types of alliteration, only they do so to a different degree. Many ME poets explicitly favor cluster alliteration, while matching /sp-, st-, sk-/ as units is not an obligatory property of the alliterating syllables. This particular relaxation of the Old English parametrical rules is facilitated by the fact that while /sp-, st-, sk-/ remain cohesive, they are also bisegmental. For all clusters, group alliteration is optional; minimally, a well-formed line requires identity of the leftmost segment of the stressed syllables, i.e. the first consonant of any cluster in the appropriate lift positions. 6.3
Cluster alliteration in early Middle English: Lagamon’s Brut
The more frequent incidence of Zusammengesetzte St¨abe in Middle English was noticed in the nineteenth century, and in 1914 Karl Schumacher cataloged some of the instantiations in a large corpus of fourteenth- to sixteenth-century texts. He remarked briefly (1914: 44) that poets who observe the pattern of three alliterating lifts per long line use group alliteration most frequently, citing Wynner and Waster, The Parlement of Thre Ages, Alexander A and B, Gawain, Cleanness, Patience, The Siege of Jerusalem, Death and Life as examples. Oakden (1930/1968: ch. 8), the only other survey of such alliterative practices, 26. Text from Bunt edition (1985). Composition c. 1360–1375, West Midlands (Gloucestershire). Length: 5,540 (long) lines. Over 80 percent of the lines in the text – 78.1 percent according to Oakden (1930/1968: 184 ff.), but the percentage is higher if one counts the appropriate emendations suggested by Bunt (1985: 82–83) – follow the alliterative pattern aa/ax.
246
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
relies entirely on Schumacher on this point. Both studies leave the impression that the choices are unregulated and that all initial clusters stand the same chance of rhyming as units. As noted, the research history on English alliterative versification, observations regarding unit alliteration and the splitting of /sp-, st-, sk-/ have been used to argue for or against the continuity of the Old English tradition. It is possible to work this practice into the description of the poets’ style, diction, and metrical consistency. Regarding the use of zusammengesetzte St¨abe as a stylistic issue alone, however, would lose sight of its linguistic underpinnings. It is important therefore to establish the scope and the possible linguistic reasons for the choice of clusters treated as units. The next sections of this chapter will address these two issues in greater detail, starting with a survey of the alliterative practice in Lagamon’s Brut. 6.3.1 /s-/ + stop clusters in Lagamon’s Brut The composition of Lagamon’s Brut is dated 1189–1207; the dialect is that of North Worcestershire (Oakden 1930/1968: 142–143). The absence of foursyllable half-lines in the poem is an important test of its “discontinuity” with regard to the patterns found in classical Old English meter.27 On the other hand, all but one of the eleven most frequent patterns found in the poem – and that particular pattern is at the bottom of the frequency scale – have two lifts per half-line. The occurrence of two lifts per half-line can therefore be taken as the norm. In spite of the mixing of metrical forms in the poem, more than threequarters of the lines are linked by alliteration.28 This is a sufficiently reliable basis for testing the alliteration patterns. Not surprisingly for a text whose structural properties are often associated with the late Old English alliterative rhythmical prose, in Lagamon’s Brut the /st-, sp-, sk-/ cluster alliteration of the classical Old English period was a desirable, but no longer inviolable, verse feature. Another non-traditional aspect of the alliteration in the text is the frequent unit alliteration of initial consonant clusters.29 27. This comparison is drawn from the interesting discussion of the metrical structure of Lagamon’s Brut in Cable (1991: 58–63). 28. The distribution of alliterating lines is uneven throughout the work. In the first 12,000 verses alliteration as the structural binding principle prevails, in lines 12000–14000 the picture changes in favor of end-rhyme. In lines 20000–22000 alliteration is more pronounced, but less significantly so, etc. These observations are based on Brandst¨adter (1912: 26). 29. The examples cited here are selected from the older of the two extant manuscripts, MS Cotton Caligula A ix, c. 1250, Early English Text Society 250, 277. For my search I have used the
6.3 Cluster alliteration: Lagamon’s Brut
247
The picture is mixed and the patterns warrant a more detailed description. The first observation is that the majority of the relevant alliterations follow the Old English model with respect to onset matching: (6)
It should be noted that some alliterating word pairs, such as spac-spelede/spilede ‘spoke-said,’ stark-strong, stockes-stanes ‘stocks-stones,’ have a highly formulaic character.31 “Pure” cluster alliteration of the type shown in (6) is not absolutely consistent in the text, however. The first deviant alliterative pairing is that between <s-> and <sc->. (7)
for his ahne sune seoþen; hine sceat to deaþe. & þu swiðe hiendliche; scild þe wið dæðe. & greiðede his scipen gode; bi þan sæ-flode. Aen ich wulle to Scotte; to scone mire docter. Mid muchele Scot-ferde; he scrað to þisse londe. Bruttes & Scottes; & moni scone. ðein
129 538 542 1714 2050 2556
These data are very much like the data for late Old English presented in the previous chapter. The uncertainty of the dating of the monophonemicization of /sk/ to /ʃ/ has already been discussed (see 5.2); for this text in particular we may consider three analytical options. The first one is that the breakdown of <sc-/ sk-> cluster alliteration is evidence that the development of the earlier electronic edition of the text available at http://www.hti.umich.edu/english/mideng/ . I have compared the electronic version to the printed version of Brook and Leslie’s 1963–1978 EETS editions (Vols. I, II). The printed version is off by one line for citation in the second volume (lines 2998 to the end) because the printed line 2997a [herden ∂e men of Rome of Belinnes dea∂e] ∗ appears as line 2998 in the electronic text. Thus printed line 3000 corresponds to e-line 3001, 4500 to 4501, etc. 30. The spelling difference between <sc-> and <sk-> is irrelevant: OE scr¯ıdan = ON skriða ‘glide, escape,’ pret. scr¯ad. This is the only instance of /sk-/ : /sk-/ alliteration in the poem. 31. Alliterating binomials are also common outside the verse corpus, compare bothe stock and ston ‘everything,’ sweren bi stokkes and bi stones ‘to swear by idols,’ stok or ston ‘something lifeless, motionless, silent, etc.; also as a term of abuse’ (MED). The availability of such formulaic collocations makes it easier for the poet to observe the pattern of unit alliteration. Examples of ready-made formulaic alliteration are found at lines 96, 433, 1905, 2021, 2911, 7038, 11817, etc.
248
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
/sk-/ cluster to /ʃ-/ in native words had already advanced sufficiently to allow alliteration based on the strong acoustic similarity of /s/ and /ʃ/. The second interpretation is that the understanding of the rules of cluster cohesion had changed sufficiently to allow “unpacking” of the /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters, in which case the material in (7) tells us nothing about the exact phonetic nature of the <sc-> sequence. In this second interpretation, the alliteration may have been either on two allophones of /s-/, or on /s/ : /ʃ-/. A third option, considering the subsequent history of some of the alliterating items, is that the alliteration in the last three examples in (7), in lines 1714, 2050, 2556, was on two /s-/ initial clusters, phonemically /sk-/, but allophonically [s⊥ k’] for Scott(es) alliterating with [s¸c] or [s⊥ c¸ ] in non-borrowed items.32 In that view, the <sc-> words alliterated optionally either as clusters, in those lines where they were matched to unequivocal biphonemic /sk-/, or, elsewhere, the alliteration was on some allophonic realization of /s-/. Schematically, the options are: (8)
Spelling
<sc-> (OE words): :<sc-> (borrowed)
Alliteration /s/ : /ʃ/ /s/ : /s/ [s k’] : [sç]
Spelling <sc-> (OE words) : <s->
All interpretations have merit. The acoustically-motivated hypothesis, the top row in the Alliteration column in (8), is plausible on the basis of the similarity between /ʃ/ and /s/ which have high levels of noisiness, a phonetic fact which underlies the assignment of the [+strident] feature to them which they share only with one other fricative in the system, /f/.“Strident sounds are marked acoustically by greater noisiness than their non-strident counterparts” (Ladefoged 1982: 184, 251).33 Apparently, for the purposes of alliteration, similarity of noisiness can be of consequence for the identification of similarity. The use of noise frequency for sibilant matching provides a phonetic basis for positing intentional alliteration of /s-/ : /ʃ/ in some of the later poems, for example 32. The alliteration on stable /sk-/ in Scott(es) in lines 1714, 2050, and 2556 with <sc-> also allows the same two interpretations, though it reinforces slightly the possibility of /sk-/ : /s¸c/ identification. Unfortunately, the only other stable /sk-/ initial word in the text, scare/scarn ‘scorn, contempt,’ is not used in an alliterating position anywhere in the poem. 33. Since /f/ and /s, ʃ/ are never paired together in alliteration, this would mean that the stridency they share is less salient for the perception of similarity than the difference in coronality; /f/ is a non-coronal, while /s, ʃ/ are coronal. Guion (1996: 64) reports the results of a study according to which “the important cues for the fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/ are given by the noise, but the differentiation of /f/ and // is accomplished primarily on the basis of cues contained in the vocalic part of the syllable.” The inference is that “the frication of /s/ and /ʃ/ provide the necessary and sufficient cues for their identification, and override whatever cues may be provided by the vocalic portions.”
6.3 Cluster alliteration: Lagamon’s Brut
249
William of Palerne, Piers Plowman, Richard the Redeles, pace Schumacher (1914: 213), who refers to this type of alliteration as fraglich ‘questionable.’ This similarity, possibly reinforced by the graphic identity of the two sounds, is presumably what accounts for the tradition of considering /s-/ : /ʃ-/ alliteration a feature distinguishing Old from Middle English verse, see above, 6.1.34 The splitting of a bisegmental /sk-/, in whatever realization of the second consonant in the onset, the second interpretation in the middle column of (8), is plausible on the analogy of the optionality of cluster alliteration with other clusters. The third row refers to instances where the choice might go in favor of “unit” alliteration [s⊥ k’]:[s¸c] which presupposes continuing compositionality of <sc-> in native words. This is the least likely option, but it cannot be ruled out altogether. Finally, since the text exists in two versions, it should be noted that the discussion here would not apply automatically to the later and more northern version of the Otho manuscript. In that text the <sc-> of the Caligula version is regularly replaced by <s->.35 While by definition the later copyist would want to observe the alliterative pattern, the alliteration between graphically fully identical entities as in: for his owene ʃone/hine ʃet to deþe (Otho 129) increases the likelihood of /s/ : /ʃ/ matching. The issue that cannot be determined without further research is the following: since a bisegmental /sk-/ is perceived as cohesive, would the similarity between two singletons /s/ : /ʃ/ be a better basis for alliteration than the “unnatural” splitting of /sk-/ and the matching of its first consonant with a singleton elsewhere? It would be an empirically testable question whether, for example Modern English sip is perceived as more similar to ship than it is to skip.36 Experimental data might help us determine which of the interpretations of the alliterative observations is more likely. Again, it is possible that a non-linguistic factor, namely 34. In contrast to sibilants, other fricatives are identified on the basis of formant transitions, and not the noise portion. Interpreting alliteration as correspondence of stressed onsets up to the transition point would account for the absence of /f/ : // alliteration. It should be pointed out, however, that in view of the frequent confusability of /f/ : // in Modern English, the issue of why Middle English poets and scribes never mix these two voiceless fricatives in alliteration cannot be considered closed. I think that this is one case where spelling should be considered; it argues in favor of the ‘littera’ component of the alliteration of <sc-> words. 35. See Madden (1847/1970, I: xxxi) who cites spellings such as same ‘shame,’ set ‘shot,’ sip ‘ship,’ sop’shop,’ as evidence for the Anglian or Northumbrian origin of the later transcription of the text. 36. Such questions are addressed in current research by Donca Steriade and her students; they have already accumulated an impressive body of evidence that similarity judgements are a good source of information regarding the phonological properties of segments.
250
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
spelling, is a contributing factor to the matching of /s/ and /ʃ/. It is relevant to be reminded in this context that we never find otherwise intuitively similar fricatives such as /f/ and // rhyming with each other. Obviously, for the historical material at hand a definitive answer is beyond recovery. If one had to choose nevertheless, the “unpacking” interpretation seems appealing because it is independently supported by the treatment of other sibilant-initial clusters in the same composition. Although the predominant practice with respect to /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters in the text is indeed consistent with the Old English tradition, the clusters /sp-/ and /st-/ can alliterate just with /s/. By analogy, a “transitional” cluster of a raised [s⊥ ] plus a palatal velar fricative [k’] or [¸c] for graphic <sc-> could alliterate just on the first consonant. As the following examples show, in Lagamon’s Brut all sibilant-initial clusters can be treated as genuine sequences of two consonants:37 (9)
A steores-man ham talde wil-spel; þat he Spaine isæih. Heo speken þer to sæhte; to sibbe and to some. & smat on Herigales sceld. þat his stæf atwaie wond; þe þer sæt swa sære; i þa spæc-huse. Lete we hit þus stonden; & speken of þan kinge. and smat hine þurh-ut mid his spere; and þas word spilede; and speken wið Sexisce men; and sæhte i-wurðen. and hehte heom comen sone; and speken wið him-seolue.
677 2045 4204 6546 7646 13252 14511 14838
Instances of the type shown in (9) are not very frequent in the text. Excluding rhyming lines, the above set includes all of the examples I could identify as violations of /sp-/ cluster alliteration in the entire text. Some additional /st-/ : /s-/ alliterations appear in lines 4, 180, 739, 1157, 1183, 1317, 2075, 2092, etc. The greater density of /st-/ : /s-/ alliteration is proportionate to the broader range of /st-/ initial lexical items used in the text. The ratio of /st-/ initial words used in the text to /sp-/ initial words is about 3 : 1 (44 : 13). As will become clear below, in spite of the fact that it does occur, such deployment of alliterating items does not disconfirm the statement that sibilant-initial clusters top the scale of cohesion for onset clusters. Lagamon’s Brut attests to a continuing strong preference for cohesive usage of the clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/ while it also points to a different conception of 37. In selecting examples of alliteration of the s + stop clusters with just /s/ I have tried to steer clear of instances where alliteration is clearly not the primary means of holding the line together, as in: Cnihtes swiðe stronge; igripen speren longe and speken of Maximiæn; þat was a swiðe stro[n]g mon.
11719 12513
6.3 Cluster alliteration: Lagamon’s Brut
251
the principles of alliteration which allows the identity to be based on the visual image of the sound. It is possible that at this stage in the development of English verse alliteration could have been moving closer to being “a figure in Rhetorick, repeating and playing on the same letter,” which is how the earliest OED entry defines the term.38 Reliance on the acoustic similarity between the alliterating onsets still has the upper hand, however. Some indication that it was the acoustic signal and not solely the shape of the letter that continued to govern the choices comes from alliteration on non-initial, but stressed syllables, and alliteration of : , both spellings for the voiceless velar /k-/. This does not rule out “eye alliteration” entirely, but it is still the case that in Lagamon’s Brut alliteration remained primarily a matter of sound and not of letter. The transition from the classical model to new Middle English models of alliterative composition did not alter the essentially oral nature of the tradition with respect to alliterative choices. Alliteration can therefore continue to be treated, albeit cautiously, as a source of linguistic information. 6.3.2 Cluster alliteration in Lagamon’s Brut The tendency to treat a broad range of initial consonant clusters as units: /sm-, sw-, sl-, br-, dr-, gr-, tr-, fl-/ is very pronounced in Lagamon’s Brut. In collecting the data on the deployment of these clusters I have used the following criteria to determine whether a line can be counted as exhibiting cluster alliteration: a The cluster is repeated at least twice in the first three lifts in the line. b There are no competing candidates for alliteration in the line. c There are no clearly discernible effects of rhyme and syllable-counting. This is a very restrictive set of conditions for the selection of relevant data, perhaps too restrictive. Each criterion refers to an attested pattern of alliteration in the poem which cannot be considered “accidental.” Excluded are: crossalliteration, ab : ab, the second most frequent alliterative pattern in this work, accounting for half of the non-aa : ax lines, followed by ab : ba, followed by aa : aa and verses with both end-rhyme and alliteration which exceed the number of alliterative verses without end-rhyme, see Brandst¨adter (1912: 18–26). Criterion (c) allows some subjective interpretations; nevertheless, I have looked primarily for non-ambiguous lines. Whenever I refer to data that would not be licensed by 38. This is Blount’s 1656 definition. The first strictly technical definition of alliteration as a structural principle of Germanic verse is later; it dates to 1774 (OED and Burchfield 1974: 174). Further on the lexicographical history of this term see 3.3.
252
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
the criteria defined in this way, I separate them from the findings in the canonical verse type. The examples in (10) illustrate group alliteration in Lagamon’s Brut: (10)
inne griðe & inne friðe; & freoliche loueden. þer wes moni breoste; mid brade spere i-þurlud. Letten heo climben on hæh; cleopien to þon folke And alle þe flæmen; þe iflowe buð of Rome. Of Spaine ich wes ut idriuen; and al mi driht-liche folc. in-to ane muchele slæde. & slahliche his folc hudde; Marline gromede; & he grimliche spæc. mid sæxen to-snæ[ðd]e; snelle ðe ðeines. Breken braden speren; brustleden sceldes. Ofte me hine smæt; mid smærte erden. sweord aein sweorde; sweinde wel ilome.
This overview of cluster alliteration follows the line numeration in the text. Arranged according to the type of initial clusters, and starting with the sibilantinitial clusters /sm-, sn-, sw-/, the results are as follows: The cluster /sm-/ is found initially only in five lexical items: smiten ‘to smite’ and its forms, by far the most frequently used /sm-/ word in the poem (×75), smiðien, smið ‘smith,’ and the rarely used smal ‘small’ (×5), smart ‘sharp’ (×1), smokien ‘to smoke’ (×1). In view of the rarity of eligible items, the appearance of /sm-/ : /sm-/ alliteration is high: 269, 783, 7616, 10661, 10138, 13503, 15022, 15346, 15349. Thus /sm-/ can be classified as one of the clusters likely to alliterate cohesively most of the time.39 The number of eligible words starting with /sl-/ is comparable to the number of items with /sm-/ : slade ‘valley,’ slæht ‘battle,’ slæn ‘to slay, strike’ and its forms, slæpen ‘to sleep,’ slume(n) ‘doze.’ In addition to the occurrence of cluster alliteration in line 4283 cited in (10) above, /sl-/ alliterates with /sl-/ six more times, in lines 401, 485, 612, 8980, 9187, 12993.40 The words slæht, slæpen, and especially the forms of the word slæn, appear to be preferred lexical choices in view of the subject-matter; other /sl-/ words are rare in the text. The need to use narrative-specific words probably accounts for the fact that all of 39. Instances of singleton alliteration are rare outside the narrative-driven collocations of the verb smite; much of the action in some passages involves smiting with or on swords, spears, and schields. 40. Three lines: 401, 8980, 9187 use a second /sl-/ word in the final lift of the line, where the alliteration may not be functional, at lines 401 slæð: slepa, 8980 slume: slæpen, 9187 slumen: slæpen. The pairing of slumen: slepen ‘slumber-sleep’ appears also at lines 612, 16004. The alliterating phrase slume slepe is glossed by the MED as ‘a deep sleep.’ Further on the semantics of this pair, see Smith (2000: 91).
6.3 Cluster alliteration: Lagamon’s Brut
253
the /sl-/ : /s-/ pairs in the poem involve slaying or sleeping.41 In that context, the frequency of /sl-/ unit alliteration is high. The tendency for this cluster to retain its integrity as cluster and copy itself as a unit is comparable and even somewhat more stable than that of /sm-/ because of the smaller proportion of singleton alliteration. The cluster /sn-/ appears only in three words in the text: snæde ‘cut,’ snawe ‘snow,’ snelle ‘quick, active.’ A total of twelve lines in the text include /sn-/ words, but in more than half of the cases the words are either in rhyming lines (9886, 11807, 12238), or in non-alliterating positions (10043, 13706, 14313, 14403). Even in this miniature pool, however, line 8060 cited in (10) above shows /sn-/ alliterating as a unit. The /sw-/ cluster appears in a much larger set of lexical items.42 The /sw/ initial words in the poem cover a very broad range of semantic fields and can therefore appear in many different alliterative collocations: an(d)swer(ien) ‘answer,’ swærkeð ‘grow dark,’ swæt ‘sweat,’ swain/swein ‘swain,’ swalen ‘burn up,’ swart ‘black,’ sweðen ‘bind,’ swefne ‘sleep,’ swelten/swulten ‘die,’ swende ‘lashed,’ sweord ‘sword,’ sw(e)ore ‘neck,’ swerien ‘swear,’ swete ‘sweet,’ swiðere (adj. comp.) ‘swifter,’ swift(e) ‘swift, swiftly,’ swike ‘traitor,’ swin ‘swine,’ swink, swinken ‘labor, travel,’ swipen ‘blows (pl),’ swippen ‘beat,’ swoghen ‘swoon.’ Within this generous array of options, the attestations of cluster alliteration are numerous: (11)
aiðes heo sworen; swiken þat heo nolden ðat of ðen ilke sweorde. enne swipe hefde; heo heom letten swalen. inne swærte fure; þe Uortigerne biswac; mid his swike-dome. Calibeorne his sweor[d]; he sweinde bi his side. And he sweinde touward Baldulfe; mid his swiðren honde.
2046 3814 5082 8948 10548 10691
Additional instances of /sw-/ cluster alliteration are found at lines 776, 1141, 2058, 2514, 5975, 8035, 8431, 10952, 11862, 13870, 15236, a total of 17 times. At least that many lines in the composition have a /sw-/ initial word in the final 41. The frequent alliterative use of these words is related to the details of the storyline. The pairing of synonyms should be distinguished from the stylistically-defined notion of “alliterative rank,” which involves the selection of a particular item from a group of synonyms or near-synonyms which are not phonologically related. 42. I am discounting repetition of swa ‘so,’ swilc ‘such,’ and even swi∂e ‘greatly,’ when used adverbially. As the pair of lines 740 and 745 shows, the intensifier was not used consistently as an alliterating word:
ðe king wes swi∂e særi; & seorhful on mode. Brutus wes swi∂e war; for wisdome him fulede.
740 745
254
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
lift.43 The impression this distribution leaves is of a strong tendency for the cluster to alliterate with itself. The words which are most frequently used as carriers of the cluster alliteration are the inflectional and derivative forms of sword (×12), swike ‘traitor’ (×11), and swear (×9). Proportionately, given the very large pool of items available for alliteration, /sw-/ words are not paired together as readily as /sm-/ and /sn-/, but the incidence of cluster alliteration is quite pronounced. Next, we will turn to clusters whose first consonant is a stop. The initial cluster /br-/ is very well represented in Lagamon’s Brut lexicon: twenty-three items, including the high frequency items brother, Brutus, and British. (12)
Brutus him swar an æð; breken þat he hit nælde. frommard his breoste; & breid eft on-ein. ðer wes moni breoste; mid brade spere i-ðurlud. A schip funde Brennes; bi þon brimme stonden. Breken braden speren; brustleden sceldes.
354 951 2266 2373 10052
The density of /br-/ alliteration in the poem is very high. The most frequently alliterating words are the forms of breken ‘break,’ followed by the name Brutus. An interesting case is presented by the word broðer ‘brother,’ extremely frequent in certain portions of the poem, as in lines 2153–2923, where it is matched to another /br-/ word fifteen times, though not necessarily in the first two lifts.44 The general impression is that /br-/ alliterates as a cluster frequently, but not as frequently as the /s-/ initial clusters. A relevant comparison here is the frequency of /sw-/ group alliteration, for which the poet draws on twenty-three items, the same number available for /br-/ alliteration. I estimate the ratio of /sw-/ to /br-/ alliteration, counting also instances where the final lift is involved in copying the cluster, at about 5 : 3 in favor of /sw-/. 43. See, for example, 441 swerde: swippen, 2694 swerien: swiken, 3734 swonc:asweote. Further instances of this type are found in lines 1967, 2107, 4082, 4444, 5381, 8870, 8884, 8890, 10603, 11283, 13790, 13867. A real excess of /sw-/ alliteration is found in two consecutive rhyming lines: seoððen sworen eorles; seoððen sweoren beornes. seoððen sweoren ðeines; seoððen sweoren sweines.
11412 11413
I take these to be cluster alliterations rather than /sw-/ : /s-/ alliterations because elsewhere seoððen is not placed in alliterating lifts, for example in lines 1292, 1335, 2122, etc. 44. The density of brother alliterating on /br-/ in this passage is partly due to its frequent matching with the proper name Brenne(s). Elsewhere, however, the poet uses brother non-alliteratively, mostly phrase, or verse-finally, which would indicate that the word was of low alliterative rank and the pairing with /br-/ initial proper names was opportunistic. The lines exhibiting such pairing are not included in my counts.
6.3 Cluster alliteration: Lagamon’s Brut
255
If the correlation between single and cluster alliteration is mostly a function of the poet’s diction, one would expect similar rates of unit alliteration for clusters attested in lexical sets of comparable size. The clusters /kl-, kr-, gl-, dr-, fl-, fr-, r-/ are found in more or less the same number of lexical items eligible for alliteration. Here are the details of the results from a full search of all 16,096 long lines of the text. There are eleven items in the text eligible for /kl-/ alliteration: clað(es) ‘clothes,’ clæf ‘cut,’ clæne ‘pure,’ clærc ‘scholar,’ cle(o)pien ‘speak,’ clibbe ‘club,’ cliseden ‘glistened,’ clives ‘cliffs,’ clude ‘rock,’ clumbe ‘climbed,’ clupte ‘embraced.’ In five lines /kl-/ unit alliteration is beyond doubt; to this should be added seven lines which are structurally different but nevertheless cannot be fully discounted.45 The unit alliteration appears in the lines cited in (13) and in lines 4339, 8078, 10402. (13)
Wes þa clude swiðe heh; þer heo acliue fuhten. Letten heo climben on hæh; cleopien to þon folke
959 2965
Alliterating words with /kr-/ in the poem are: cræft ‘craft,’ craken ‘break,’ Cristene ‘Christian,’ Cristindom ‘Christendom,’ cron ‘crane,’ crosce ‘fool,’ crucce ‘crutch,’ crune(en) ‘crown,’ crupen ‘crept,’ a total of nine items. Except for one rather uninteresting example, a kind of alliterative cheville, these words alliterate only on /k-/ words, not on other /kr-/ words: (14)
Cristine we beoð alle; and of Cristine cunne.
14860
The results for /gl-/ are as follows: there are ten alliterating /gl-/ words: gladien ‘give pleasure,’ gladscipe ‘gladness,’ glæne ‘clean,’ glæs ‘glass,’ glæuest ‘wisest,’ gleden ‘embers,’ gleomen ‘minstrels,’ gleowien ‘sing,’ glit ‘glides,’ glitend ‘glistened.’ In spite of the very high density of the forms of glad (×24) and glide (×15), cluster alliteration is rare:46 (15)
þis ðing glad me biuoren; and glitene[de] on golde.
7843
The potential for alliteration on the /dr-/ cluster exists for twelve lexical items, of which by far the most frequent one is Drihten ‘lord, God,’ though there is 45. In five instances the second /kl-/ word is in the final lift of the verse, as in he is mid sæ- cliuen; faste biclused. 9302. Further instances, in some cases mixed with rhyming are found in lines 428, 961, 10883, 11920–11921, 16084. 46. Two additional occurrences with /gl-/ in final position are found at lines 8104 Gloucestre: glæuest, 9588 gleomen: gleowen. An interesting matching: cleope[de]: Gloucestre appears in lines 8173, 8248. However, these are both ax/xa lines, and I have not counted those in my data. I will return to the issue of alliterating voiced–voiceless velars below.
256
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
also a great deal of drawing, driving, drinking, and dreaming in the text. Nine lines in the poem show cluster alliteration, of which five depend on the cooccurrence of forms of the words drink and dream ‘sleep’: 6720, 6760, 7025, 11499, 15396. Cluster alliteration on /dr-/ is illustrated in (16):47 (16)
Of Spaine ich wes ut idriuen; and al mi driht-liche folc. Argal þe wes idriuen ut. drof him wes on heorte; ðenne we habbeð idrunken. dreme we lude; heo drunken heo dremden; blisse wes among heom. ankeres heo up droen; drem wes on uolken.
3098 3285 6760 7025 12747
There are thirteen /fl-/ initial items eligible for alliteration: flan ‘arrows,’ Flaundres ‘Flanders,’ flæme ‘fugitive,’ flæs ‘meat,’ fleme ‘flight,’ flæmen ‘put to flight,’ fleon/flæn ‘flee, fly,’ fleoten ‘float,’ fleoð ‘flows,’ flit ‘dispute,’ flocke ‘flock,’ flod ‘water, sea,’ flor ‘floor.’ The concentration of attestations of flood, flow, flan ‘arrows,’ and especially forms of flee, is extremely high. The semantic range of the /fl-/ initial words is quite broad too. Nevertheless, the five lines cited in (17) represent the total set of /fl-/ cluster alliterations in the entire text:48 (17)
& þa quike men at-flowen; & muchel fleam makeden. Her comen blake fleen; and fluen in mone eene. And alle þe flæmen; þe iflowe bu∂ of Rome. and fluen after ðere sæ; swulc heo fluht hafden. þa sparwen heore flut nomen; & fluen to heore innen.
1241 1946 2969 11548 14611
The cluster /fl-/ is subject to a remarkably high incidence of simple left edge alliteration, /fl-/ : /f-/; I counted forty-seven instances of that type. The only cluster that shows a comparable level of singleton alliteration in this text is another fricative-initial cluster, /r-/, whose alliterative deployment, however, seems to be quite idiosyncratic. Initial /r-/ is found in fifteen lexical items used in the text:49 þralle(s) ‘slave,’ þrasten ‘penetrate,’ þrattien ‘threaten,’ þrætte ‘threat,’ þreo ‘three,’ þreottene ‘thirteen,’ þridde/þriddendale ‘third/one-third,’ þrie ‘thrice,’ þriste ‘bold,’ þritty ‘thirty,’ þrowe ‘course of time,’ þrucce ‘thrust,’ þrumde ‘compressed,’ þrungen ‘went,’ þruppe ‘passage.’ At first sight group alliteration on these words appears to be common, approximately at the level of frequency of /br-/ group alliteration. However, in most of the lines displaying /r-/ alliteration 47. Further matching of /dr-/ words in the structurally ambiguous final position occurs ten times at lines 48, 755, 913, 3343, 4011, 4053, 5105, 6781, 7462, 8862. 48. There are also six occurrences of /fl-/ in final or rhyming position at lines 518, 791, 924, 4172, 8026, 11150. 49. I am using the editorial thorn for all items in this group.
6.3 Cluster alliteration: Lagamon’s Brut
257
twice one of the alliterating lifts is a form of the numeral three or its cognate thirty. Out of twenty-one lines in which group /r-/ alliteration occurs, only three do not involve the numeral:50 (18)
He tæh hine aein ane þrowe; & þreateð ðene castel. 322 Ah Bruttes him þrungen to; þræfliche swiðe 13875 Æiðer þratte oðer swiðe; and þruste mid worde. 15144
The great frequency of alliterating three, especially in lines where it is not obviously required by the narrative, suggests that the word is used as an alliterative “filler.” Lexical items that do not clearly further the discourse, and which do not have a particular stylistic flavor, can still be useful in furnishing the desired alliterating onset – this is what is meant here by the notion of “filler.” While the semantically redundant use of such words is driven by the desire to fill out the alliteration, and it is thus a valid stylistic criterion, its linguistic significance is more difficult to assess. Whether it is included in the /r-/ counts for Lagamon’s Brut is not of great consequence, but, as we shall see later, such alliterative fillers in fourteenth-century poetry, words such as grete ‘great,’ and clene ‘entirely’ do belong in the overall picture. The situation with /r-/ is complicated by the fact that the incidence of singleton alliteration, i.e. /r-/ : /-/ is also high. I counted twenty-four such pairings, though, admittedly, many of the lines in which /r-/ appears to alliterate on /-/ are non-canonical and may involve rhyme, as in 229, 267, 680, 836, 2387, etc. The information on cluster alliteration gathered in this way is sufficiently varied across cluster types to obviate the need for covering all possible initial clusters.51 The chart below shows the results for group alliteration collected and described in this section; the clusters are arranged according to their composition, starting with the sibilant-initial clusters /sm-, sn-, sw-/. The first column lists the alliterating cluster. The second column records the number of lexical items used alliteratively from which the choices can be made. The third column 50. The numeral is used in group alliteration in lines 28, 640, 1932, 1944, 4352, 4883, 8051, 8279, 10341, 11052, 11665, 13278, 13292, 13293, 13294, 13633, 14314, 14580. In five lines (1944, 4352, 5993, 8279, 10341), the alliteration is based on the repetition of the phrase þreo dæies and þreo nit ‘three days and three nights’ which is clearly a ready-made half-line. This kind of consideration intersects and probably sometimes overrides the linguistic considerations in the selection of the alliterating items. In addition, alliteration on /r-/ is possible in the fourth lift and in lines with rhyme. Except for line 248 þralle: þretiað, all such lines rely on three or its forms for alliteration. 51. One cluster for which the data are extremely rich is the cluster /fr-/. Group alliteration in aa/ax verses appears more than twenty-five times in lines 94, 242, 532, 809, 1933, 2713, etc. I counted also eleven occurrences of group alliteration in other verse types: 239, 339, 2606, 6953, 7152, 11090, etc.
258
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
shows the number of lines where the clusters alliterate as units at least twice in aa/ax type lines, and the fourth, the number of other types of lines, aa/aa, ax/xa, xa/aa, etc., or rhyming lines where a cluster is copied at least twice. (19)
Cluster
No. of items
Copied in aa/ax lines
Copied in other lines
Sm-
5
6
4
sl-
5
4
3
sn-
3
1
0
Sw-
23
17
18
br-
23
11
11
kl-
11
5
7
kr-
9
1
0
gl-
10
1
2
dr-
12
9
10
fl-
13
5
6
r-
15
18
3
The survey of some of the alliterating clusters in Lagamon’s Brut thus allows us to observe some tendencies. On the whole, unit alliteration appears to draw more often on s- initial clusters than on stop-initial clusters or fricative-initial clusters. Although the results do not present a very clear hierarchy of preferences, the incidence of unit alliteration decreases from /s-/ initial to stop-initial clusters, as for example a comparison of the numbers for /sl /to the numbers for /kl-/ and /gl-/, or a comparison between /sw-/ and /br-/, suggests.52 Fricative-initial clusters and stop-initial clusters do not show much difference: the reference here is to clusters which have comparable representations in the vocabulary and show comparable frequency of unit alliteration: /dr-/ and /kl-/ on the one hand, and /fr-/ and /r-/ on the other.53 Finally, the high density of /r-/ cluster alliteration at the bottom of the chart can be attributed partly to the ease of inserting an alliterative cheville. One could also speculate that another influence on the behavior of the cluster /r-/ may come from articulation, i.e. in addition to the 52. One interpretation of the results for /dr-/ is that in addition to indicating cohesion, they can be attributed to the text-specific concentration of semantically compatible items (drink : dream) that can easily fit within the confines of an alliterative line. 53. I take the rarity of /gl-/ group alliteration as a fact possibly related to the low overall incidence of this cluster in the lexicon and the absence of semantic ‘filler’ with /gl-/.
6.3 Cluster alliteration: Lagamon’s Brut
259
perceptual properties of a cluster, articulatory proximity may play a role. The fact that /r-/ is a homorganic cluster may be relevant in comparing /r-/ to some velar-initial clusters, /kr-/, /gl-/, which behave less cohesively. I will return to this issue below.54 6.3.3 Why is Lagamon’s Brut good linguistic evidence? As adumbrated in 6.3.1, the patterns of alliteration in Lagamon’s Brut are far from perfect. A calculation based on Oakden’s (1930/1968: 143) sample counts shows that about 76.3 percent of the half-lines in the poem are linked by alliteration.55 The distribution of alliteration in the line is often unorthodox as compared to the standard ax/ax or aa/ax of classical Old English. Crossalliteration, ab/ab, excessive alliteration, aa/aa, alliterating final lifts, ax/xa, and other alliterative combinations are frequent, Thus, as mentioned above, is it difficult to estimate the extent to which alliteration is structurally important for some lines, or simply ornamental. The issue is of little consequence for the points made here, however. There can be no question that even the non-aa/ax lines cited in this section represent a deliberate attempt to match identical onsets, and therefore constitute reliable evidence for the linguistic characteristics of the alliterating units. I chose to illustrate the changed perception of what makes for “good” alliteration with data from Lagamon’s Brut for several reasons. First, Lagamon’s translation of the Norman-French Chronicle fills a chronological gap in the history of English alliterative versification. It is a reliably datable very early text, and the paucity of material from that period is notorious. There are no studies or statistics available in the literature covering the specific alliterative choices with regard to initial clusters made in that composition.56 In that sense, the material presented here is genuinely new verse information which can be used both 54. The formant transitions of velars take longer than those of alveolars or labials, cf. Ladefoged (1982: 183). 55. Oakden’s sample contains 1,885 lines (about 12 percent of the total 16,096 long lines in the composition), of which 56 are discounted as metrically corrupt, i.e. having no rhyme or alliteration. From the remaining 1,829 lines, 1,170 half-lines are linked by alliteration only, 226 are linked by alliteration and also rhyme or assonance. The alliterative lines are concentrated towards the early part of the narrative, and rhymed lines are characteristic of the latter portions, so the percentage does not reflect accurately the density of alliteration across the text. Oakden’s results agree with the fully comprehensive study by Brandst¨adter (1912), whose dissertation covers the entire text of the Cotton Caligula A ix. 56. There are no published formal studies or statistics covering the specific alliterative choices made in any Middle English composition, for that matter. However, some useful information on many of the texts, especially with respect to /sp-, st-, sk-/ alliteration can be gleaned from Schumacher (1914), whose survey does not cover Lagamon’s Brut, and from the editorial notes on individual texts.
260
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
for phonological reconstruction and for confirming or disconfirming more general linguistic hypotheses regarding the nature and behavior of onset clusters. Another reason for selecting and trusting Lagamon’s work is that the alliterative lines in the poem are neither subject to the metrical constraints of the classical alliterative meter, nor do they follow constraints comparable to the tighter reinvented rules of fourteenth-century alliterative verse.57 Lagamon must have been familiar with the Anglo-Saxon tradition, though he obviously did not understand it fully. Such familiarity, aided by the inherent cohesiveness of /sp-, st-/, would account for the fact that the pattern illustrated in (6) at the beginning of section 6.3.1 is the dominant one for the s+stop clusters. In spite of the absence of this type of cluster matching in the original work, the poet applied the classical Anglo-Saxon model fairly loyally. At the same time the influential exemplars of late Old English alliterative prose, where /sp-, st-/ cluster alliteration was ignored, provided a basis for a less strict observance of this particular convention. It is significant for the history of alliteration in English that in the earliest ME “transitional” verse compositions the archetypal cluster alliteration of /sp-, st-/ is both strong and violable. This is the blueprint for the extension of cohesion alliteration to other initial clusters: /sm-, sl-, sw-, fl-, fr-, br-, dr-, tr-, kl-/. If we approach the text with that understanding, then the frequency of cluster alliteration becomes a legitimate correlate of a cluster’s linguistic suitability for wholesale copying. A related factor which makes Lagamon’s Brut a useful text in tracing the patterns of alliteration is that it is a translation. The Middle English version of the Chronicle is the work of a bilingual speaker, or at least someone whose proficiency in Norman French must have been considerable. It is known that by the twelfth century, the /sp-, st-, sk-/ of late Latin were no longer tolerated either in Old French and, possibly, in Norman French (Pope 1934/1961: 217).58 The special angle here is that since these clusters were unavailable in the source language, they must have had a pronounced “Germanic” ring to them which appealed to an antiquarian like Lagamon. Using these clusters cohesively, while not observing the structural frame of Old English verse and often succumbing to the temptation of stress-alternating rhythm and rhyme, the composer reasserts 57. I have addressed the definitions and interpretations of the transitional form of meter in Minkova (1997a: 435). That essay, devoted mostly to the recovery of the changing prosodic patterns in The Proverbs of Alfred, presents also my arguments regarding the use of “amorphous” verse as an empirical base for linguistic reconstruction. Crucially, my position is that metrically “loose” compositions have certain advantages over strict forms of verse; while they are unhelpful with respect to the history of meter, they can be more revealing of the linguistic status of the entities used in such verse. See also the discussion in 2.5 above. 58. See also 5.6.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
261
the non-accidental association between alliteration as a property of verse and the special treatment of initial s+stop clusters. This is not the same as assuming that any cluster alliteration was seen as part of the overall conception of what constitutes proper metrical practice – there is a clear imbalance in the frequency with which the various clusters are used. In other words, the usefulness of the text lies also in supplying evidence that in spite of the potential negative interference from a foreign phonological model, linguistic features such as stressed syllable onset identity up to the first perceptual break continue to influence the choice of diction. The acoustic cohesion responsible for the strength of the Old English convention of /sp-, st-, sk-/ alliteration provided the basis for new patterns. Cluster alliteration was reinterpreted to include a much broader set of onset sequences. To previous researchers the new models of alliteration have looked very much like across-the-board cluster alliteration, inconsistently applied. As we will see later, the preference tendencies found in Lagamon’s Brut are even more pronounced in the fourteenth century, pointing to a linguistic rationale of the patterns.
6.4
Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
Alliterative composition flourished in the West, the West Midlands, and the Northwest of England in the fourteenth century. The patterns of zusammengesetzte St¨abe recorded in the Brut are attested amply in these later compositions. Middle English textual scholars agree that the alliterative forms which evolved in the fourteenth century draw on the Anglo-Saxon classical models, but are in no way metrical “copies” of the old poems. Nor is it assumed that the “alliterative revival” was a re-emergence of a continuous, unbroken oral tradition. The variety of metrical forms and deviations in the fourteenth-century alliterative corpus is such that imposing an Anglo-Saxon metrical template on them is impossible. The most likely account of the existing variation is that all poets were familiar with some very general metrical rules, but that each individual poet composed verse according to rules and constraints of their own devising.59 One feature that compositions from all dates do share, however, is the tendency to treat consonantal groups as single units; it is well attested throughout the corpus, described by Schumacher (1914: 40) as ein gern benutztes Reimmittel “a willingly used rhyming pattern” and as “popular” by Oakden 1930/1968: 59. See Cable (1991), Duggan (1986b, 1988), and the discussion in 2.5 above. In the context of one specific text, Wynnere and Wastoure, on this point, see also Trigg (ed.) (1990: xxix–xxxiii) and the references therein.
262
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
165–66). Both scholars attribute the observed fluctuations in the rate of cluster alliteration to varying poetic skills in achieving more sonorous effects. I will proceed with the presentation of the data on cluster alliteration first with reference to an early alliterative “revival” text, Wynnere and Wastoure. This will be followed by a survey of the evidence from The Wars of Alexander and Piers Plowman. 6.4.1 Wynnere and Wastoure One of the most tightly structured poems in the early Middle English alliterative corpus is the mixed dialect composition Wynnere and Wastoure, dated between c. 1352 and 1370.60 Of the 503 alliterative long lines in the poem 477 exhibit a minimum of three alliterating lifts per line (Trigg 1990: xxxii). Eliminating unreadable lines and mechanical errors, this presents a picture of remarkable (96.5 percent) consistency of metrical form. The text shows the expected spand st- alliterations as in (20): (20)
For if thay strike one stroke / stynte þay ne thynken Thoo þat spedfully will spare / and spende not to grete, Thynkes to strike or he styntt / and stroye me for euer. þe spyres and þe onge sprynge / e spare to our children
107 224 229 298
There are no exceptions to the cluster alliteration of /sp-/ and /st-/ in Wynnere and Wastoure, see lines 224, 238, 325, 398 for /sp-/ and 107, 127, 142, 195, 229, 252, 265 for /st-/. The practice with respect to /sk-/ is difficult to assess because there are only two lines in which it is attested: (21)
þus are e scorned by skyll / and schathed þeraftir þi skathill sectours / schal seuer þam aboute
362 443
In l. 362 the borrowing schathed < Old Norse scaði ‘injury, damage’ dates back to Old English, and it is possible that in Middle English both /sk-/ and /ʃ-/ pronunciations for this word existed side by side.61 The alliteration in l. 443 could be simply on /s-/ without involvement of the modal auxiliary schal. The skathill 60. The poem exists in a single version found in British Library Additional MS 31042, in a miscellany compiled by Robert Thornton in the early 1450s. The text used is Trigg (1990). For some electronic searches I have used Wynnere and Wastoure, ed. by Warren Ginsberg, originally published in Wynnere and Wastoure and The Parlement of the Thre Ages, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Western Michigan University for TEAMS, 1992, at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/ginwin.htm. On the dating, see Trigg’s Introduction (1990: xxv). The “mixed dialect” is a compromise between forms suggesting North Central Midlands, the Northwest Midlands, and some East Midland features; for further discussion and references see Trigg (1990: xxi–xxii). 61. According to the MED some forms in sch- may belong to ME shathen < OE sceaðian, scaðian ‘harm.’
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
263
sectours ‘harmful executors’ is a particularly interesting matching in that it is a rare and possibly fortuitous example of /skV-/ being matched to /sVk/ – the pattern expected for clusters of non-sibilant obstruents + sonorants.62 The OE <sc-> cluster is likely to be a /ʃ/ in this text; this is also suggested by the fact that it is usually spelled <sch>. Throughout the poem <sch-> is found alliterating with itself, as shown in (22): (22)
Schowen owte of the schawes, in schiltrons þay felle Schynethe alle for scharpynynge of the schauynge iren Schew hym of fatt chepe scholdirs ynewe
53 185 481
Further instances of <sch> : <sch> appear in lines 317, 403, 432. Along with this type of matching there are some instances in which <sch-> is paired with <s->: (23)
For to [schadewe]63 our sones / bot þe schame es our ownn, (Nedeles saue e þe soyle / for sell it e thynken.) For to gyf ensample of siche / for to schewe oþer And make ði sides in silken / schetys to lygge
400–1 421 463
This picture is not unlike the findings in Lagamon’s Brut. Without additional confirmation, therefore, the practice in Wynnere and Wastoure on its own cannot be taken as proof of the monophonemicization of the <sc-> of Old English to /ʃ-/ in the dialect of the poet. All three instances of <sch-> pairing with <s-> in (23) could be interpreted as “eye rhymes,” though the matching of ‘sheep’ with <scholdirs> ‘shoulders’ in l. 481 makes it more likely that the basis for the matching in (23) is the acoustic closeness of /ʃ-/ : /s-/. This is tentative; there is a distant possibility that the line belongs to the 3.5 percent of lines in the poem which violate the pattern of three alliterating lifts per line. The frequency of /ʃ-/ : /s-/ alliteration in the poem is half of that for selfalliteration of <sch->. Since the overall numbers are low, comparing the rate of occurrence is not helpful for reconstructing the phonetic nature of <sch->. A broader evidential basis, however, would support a hypothesis of [ʃ-] matching 62. An example of the more predictable matching is the /bir-/ /br-/ pairing in line 426:
þat þou schal birdes vpbrayd of þaire bright wedis The word birde ‘noble woman’ was a partial synonym of the familiar bride ‘young woman, bride’; it is sometimes confused with it. The perceptual similarity between the two would have contributed to the eventual disappearance of birde, which was a strictly poetic word in late Middle English (MED). 63. The manuscript reading is saue to. Trigg (1990: 13, 41) adopts Gollancz’s emendation of saue to to schadewe “on grammatical and stylistic rather than alliterative grounds,” noting, correctly, that the <s-> : <sch-> alliteration would get some support from the <s-> alliteration in line 401.
264
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
imperfectly [s-], or some more palatalized, or more laminal realization of /s-/.64 Singleton matching is suggested also by the commonness of <s-> : <sch-> in non-northern alliterative texts and phonological hindsight: as will be shown below, <s-> : <sch-> alliteration is not an isolated phenomenon in Middle English; spelling and subsequent history point to monophonemicization too. The changing spelling habits, i.e. the use of <s(s)> for [ʃ-], may have contributed more to the identification of <s-> with <sch-> than in other potential instances of “eye rhyme.”65 Not surprisingly for a composition which shows such discipline with respect to metrical form and the observance of alliteration, the model of sp- stalliteration is extended to other initial clusters: (24)
With brases of broun stele / brauden full thikke Croked full craftily / and kembid in the nekke I pryke and I pryne / and he the purse opynes Sythen dropeles drye / in the dede monethe And sayne God wil graunt it his grace / to grow at þe last With [sy]de66 slabbande sleues / sleght to þe grounde
113 151 232 276 398 411
Predictably, cluster alliteration of the type illustrated in (24) is not totally pervasive. It is frequently the case that only two or three of the lifts in the line will alliterate on a particular cluster, as in lines 151, 276 above.67 Even such “imperfect” examples, however, show intentionality and provide sufficient support for the reconstruction of what constituted a basis for preference in onset matching. Once again, the possibility that the matching was visual, and not acoustically based, must be considered. The strongest argument against taking simple letter identity as the basis for alliteration would be the unevenness of cluster alliteration across various consonant combinations. My position is that for the creator of the poem and its copyist(s) alliteration was a structural desideratum which was the better satisfied the more fully the stressed onsets matched each 64. Schumacher (1914: 95–96) considers and rejects the possibility that <s->- initial words could be pronounced with /ʃ/, which would make the pairing perfect. The dialect evidence points to /ʃ/ pronunciations of <s-> words in the North (for example cinder, sew, soon, suet, suit). One would expect, therefore, to find <s-> : <sch-> alliterations in the North, which is not confirmed in the Northern texts Schumacher surveyed: The Wars of Alexander, The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, Death and Life, etc. 65. Throughout this study (except in the citation for line 129 of the Otho manuscript of Lagamon’s Brut in 6.3.1) I have used <s-> for the Middle English orthographic long s, a lower-case form of the letter s, . 66. MS has elde. The emendation to sleghe ‘skillfully made’ proposed by Turville-Petre is rejected by Trigg (1990: 42) on semantic grounds. 67. The type of matching represented in line 232: pryke : pryne : purse will be discussed below.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
265
other. That the matching was phonological, and not scribal, is made clear further by the alliteration in lines 70, 340, where /k-/ is written in three different ways. The alliteration in (25) must be a matter of sound identity, not of spelling: (25)
Was casten full clenly / in quarters foure Kiddes clouen by þe rigge, / quarterd swannes
70 340
As argued elsewhere in this book, such usage supports the principle of the primacy of the acoustic signal, and the principle can be extended to the deployment of clusters in alliteration. Continuing with the survey of the data on zusammengesetzte St¨abe in Wynnere and Wastoure, I will first look at the distribution of group alliteration of /s-/ + sonorant clusters. The clusters /sm-/ and /sn-/ are attested in one lexical item each: smytte ‘fight’ and snyppes ‘snipes.’ Each of these words appears only once in the poem, line-finally and outside the alliterative scheme. The cluster /sl-/ is better represented: it is the onset of five words in the text, each one of them used only once. The adjective slee ‘misleading’ is used outside the structural alliteration at line 6, and the verb slees ‘destroys’ alliterates on /s-/ in line 302. The other three /sl-/ words slabbande- sleues- sleght are concentrated in line 411. The consistency of the metrical form in Wynnere and Wastoure makes it likely that the selection of lexical items will be driven to a considerable extent by their appropriateness for alliteration. Therefore the fact that there is only one incidence of /sl-/ : /s-/ alliteration while three /sl-/ words co-occur in the same line is a strong indication that /sl-/ was ranked fairly high in terms of cohesiveness. There are seven /sw-/ words in the text, used either non-alliteratively, or in conjunction with each other. The cluster appears to behave cohesively in the following two lines: (26)
And I was swythe in a sweuen / sweped belyue Late vs swythe with oure swerdes / swyngen togedirs;
46 320
Some /sw-/ items, especially when the cluster is followed by a back vowel, started losing a post-consonantal /-w-/ from the twelfth century onwards.68 One should allow for the possibility of cluster simplification for the adverb swythe, often a prosodically weak word, as in line 121, where it is used non-alliteratively. Dialectally, such simplification is suggested by the spelling <sude> in the southwest and the southwest Midlands. However, even if swythe is discounted, /sw-/ self-alliteration seems intentional in the lines cited in (26). Crucially, there is not a single example of alliteration on <s-> : <sw->; 68. For some examples see Jordan/Crook (1974: 155), Lass (1992b: 67).
266
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
this would suggest that the alliteration in lines 46, 320 is indeed based on two /sw-/ lifts.69 The numbers are small, but telling; as will be shown below, some stop-initial clusters are represented by the same number of vocabulary items as /sw-/, yet the results are much more evenly distributed among the various alliterative options. Non-sibilant initial clusters of comparable frequency in the lexicon of the poem are /br-/ with 24 headwords, /kr-/, /tr-/ (7 headword entries each), /fl-/ (9 headword entries), and /dr-/, /gr-/, /fr-/ (10 headword entries each).70 The chart below summarizes the search on these clusters in Wynnere and Wastoure: (27)
# of words Singleton Cluster OR1 :OVR1 / Cluster in the text alliteration alliteration OR2
Nonalliterating
st
16
0
7
0
14
sp
13
0
4
0
4
sw
7
0
2
0
4
br
24
17
13
4
3
kr
7
3
2
2
2
tr
7
2
2
1
2
gr
10
2
4
3
8
dr
10
4
4
0
1
fl
9
4
1
6
0
fr
10
4
0
1771
4
69. For comparison, in The Siege of Jerusalem <sw-> also alliterates as a group: 317 swykel : sweng : swerd, 1172: swalten : sweng : swerd, similarly at lines 536, 1145. 70. I have also checked the distribution of /kl-/ (6 headwords) and /gl-/ (4 headwords). /kl-/ words are outside the alliteration three times, they alliterate on the obstruent nine times, and twice the rhyme is richer: /kl-/ : /kr-/ in 59, and /kl-/ : /kol/ in 293. /gl-/ alliterates on the obstruent three times, and once on /gr-/ in line 391. The only interesting result is a line in which the alliteration indicates voicelessness of the initial obstruent in : For the colde wyntter and the kene with gleterand frostes 275 Only four words used in the texts start with /r-/. One of them, three, is not used for alliteration, and the other three are bundled together in a single line: The throstills full throly they threpen togedire
37
71. The alliteration on /fr-/ : /fVr-/ is in lines 21, 66, 78, 102, 138, 160, 170, 272, 287, 311, 402, 434. Alliteration on /fr-/ : /f(V)l-/ is found in lines 78, 155, 159, 179, 287.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
267
The three horizontal sections of the chart separate the clusters according to type: sibilant-initial, stop-initial, and fricative-initial. Within these types, the clusters are arranged according to the number of headwords with that cluster used in the text. I have excluded sibilant-initial clusters of low frequency, i.e. /sl-, sm-, sn-/. The third column gives the number of instances of the obstruent–sonorant cluster alliterating only on the obstruent (/tr-/ : /t-/, /fr-/ : /f-/), etc., i.e. OR : O, where O = obstruent, and R = sonorant. The fourth column lists the number of lines where the cluster alliterates cohesively at least in two of the three lifts in the line (OR : OR). The fifth column records the number of lines in which the clusters are matched by a copy of the cluster with an epenthesized vowel, for example /kr-/ : /kVr-/, as in crafte : Carmes ‘craft : Carmelite friars’ in line 176, /fl-/ : /fVl/ as in fele : floures : folde ‘many : flowers : (un)fold’ in line 35; these instances of splitting the cluster are marked as OR : OVR. The fifth column includes also lines in which there is “near” cluster alliteration, defined as identical obstruents in the first onset position, but either /-l-/ or /-r-/ in the sonorant position, for example /fl-/ : /fr-/ as in flowres : Fraunse ‘flowers : France’ in line 78.72 Such alliteration is marked as OR1 : OR2 . The last column records the number of lines in which a word with the relevant cluster is used nonalliteratively. The alliterative patterns recorded in the penultimate column (OR1 : OVR1 /OR2 ) obviously represent two different types of phonological similarity. They are bundled together here only because jointly these two types contrast with the instances of fully cohesive alliteration. Within a more carefully discriminating account the similarity judgements for OR1 : OR2 (greves : gladdes ‘aggrieves : gladdens,’ l. 391) and OR1 : OVR1 (grete : gartare : gerede ‘great; garter; geared,’ l. 94) are likely to be different. Typologically, we can expect OR1 : OR2 to be judged more similar than OR1 : OVR1 . This is due to the salience of precedence relationships in the “mental map” of the clusters, the latter a reference to ongoing work by Steriade (2001). Fleischhacker (2000) has found that the similarity based on skipping the second segment in the OR clusters exceeds precedence-based similarity, for example flip is more similar to fip than to filp. The data in Wynnere and Wastoure support these observations for stop-initial clusters; the difference is most pronounced for /br-/ which alliterates on /b-/ much more often than on either /bVr-/ or /bl/. For fricative-initial clusters the ratio is reversed. Apart from the clear-cut separation of sibilant-initial clusters from the remaining clusters, the most striking result of this search is the discrepancy in 72. The full line includes also an instance of OR:OVR matching: Two with flowres of Fraunse before and behynde
78
268
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
the last four rows in (27). It points to a pronounced tendency for the fricative initial clusters /fl-/ and /fr-/ to resist cohesive alliteration. In that, these clusters contrast with the sibilant-initial clusters which never alliterate in that way, see the shaded cells in the top three rows and the bottom two rows. On the other hand, /fl-/ and /fr-/ seem to be highly desirable alliterative choices if the similarity is extended to the OR1 : OVR1 /OR2 types, noticeably more so than the corresponding /gr-/ and /dr-/ clusters which are represented by the same number of words in the text. Drawn from lexical pools of comparable size, and alliterating just on the obstruent at about the same rate, the /dr-/, /gr-/ versus /fl-/, /fr-/ differences are significant also because they point to the inversion of the rate of occurrence of cluster alliteration versus OR1 : OVR1 /OR2 alliteration. With /fl-/ and /fr-/, in attempting maximum similarity of the stressed onsets without actually using words beginning with the same cluster, the poet resorts to a broader interpretation of similarity. The two “broader” strategies here are to bind together words which resemble each other because of the similarty between the cluster as a whole and the cluster when split by a vowel, or to match /r-/ to the lateral sonorant /l-/. The following set of examples illustrate this point for /fr-/: (28)
þat were fourmed full fayre appon fresche letters Two with flowres of Fraunce before and behynde, One of the ferlyeste frekes that faylede hym never: Than alle the faire fre londe that ye byfore haden. The Frydaye and his fere one the ferrere syde,
66 78 102 272 311
As noted above, jointly the two options FR : FVR and FR1 : FR2 , where F = non-sibilant fricative, exceed significantly the number of attestations in which the cluster alliterates simply on /f-/ without further attempts at matching the rest of the words. Since such patterns are not found at all with the sibilantinitial clusters, and are not common at all with the stop + sonorant clusters, we can infer that the degree of cohesiveness of the fricative-initial clusters is lower than that of stop-initial clusters. The results represent a continuum of similarity. Taking two ends of the continuum as the two terms of comparison, the shaded cells in (27), we can specify the similarity relationship among different pairs of clusters. The difference () between a fricative + sonorant cluster (FR1 ) and either a split cluster (FVR1 ) or a fricative + another sonorant (FR2 ) is smaller than the corresponding difference between a sibilant-initial cluster (SC1 ) and a split cluster (SVC1 ) or a sibilant + another consonant (SC2 ). This is summarized below:
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
269
Fig. 6.1 Cluster alliteration in Wynnere and Wastoure (29)
In prose, the formula represents the proposition that, for example /fr-/ is more similar to /fur-/ or /fl-/ than /sm-/ would be to /sum-/ or /sn-/. The difference would be larger for /sp-, st-, sk-/, while stop-initial clusters will occupy an intermediate position. All of these clusters are well formed; and a reference to cohesion, or Contiguity alone (for more on that term see below), cannot capture this state of things; we need to refine the conditions under which specific pairings are more likely to occur. Figure 6.1 shows the percentages of group alliteration measured against all alliterating instances in Wynnere and Wastoure. 6.4.2 The Wars of Alexander The Wars of Alexander (WA) is a tightly structured alliterative text originating most likely in the Northwest Midlands, see Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989: xlxx). The dating of the original composition is uncertain and ranges between 1361 and the first half of the fifteenth century (1989: xlii–xliii). It survives in two versions, both of them distinctly northern. For my search I used the 1989 EETS edition by Duggan and Turville-Petre. The edited text, which takes the longer and more complete Ashmole manuscript as its basis, but also records the readings in the Dublin manuscript, is 5,803 lines long and lacks an ending.73 73. I am grateful to Hoyt Duggan for making available to me a machine-readable version of the edited text.
270
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
Pearsall (1977: 168) describes the poet of WA as “a most conscious and sophisticated stylist, the ‘poet’s poet’ of the revival.” The poem is remarkable for its “verbal splendours,” “alliterative furore,” “brilliant display of ornate diction,” “wealth and extravagance of language,” a vehicle of “vivid visualizing imagination.” Alliteration is observed unfailingly throughout the poem. Duggan and Turville-Petre believe that the Wars-poet “always wrote verses of the form aa/ax, except in a few dozen lines with vocalic alliteration throughout the line,” and that “with regard to alliterating sounds, the Wars-poet appears to have had rather more severe standards of alliteration than other poets in the tradition” (1989: xviii–xix). It is interesting to see how someone who controls the metrical form so well, and stretches the vocabulary resources to their utmost, treats initial clusters. Alliteration on /sp-, st-, sk-/ is completely predictable and uniform throughout the poem. The glossary to the text contains 148 /st-/-initial entries. Counting the results only for the first 2,131 lines, up to the beginning of Passus Nine, which covers about 37 percent of the text, I found no instances of splitting the cluster, and no instances where only two of the three alliterating lifts are on /st-/. For all other clusters the results cover the entire edited text. The cluster /sp-/ is represented by 52 alliterating lexical items which are used either nonalliteratively, or in conjunction with two other /sp-/ words in the same line. There are 29 lines in the text in which the alliteration is based on three /sp-/ words per line. There are no exceptions to this pattern. The Old English cluster <sc-> alliterates with itself; the most reasonable reconstruction for it is that it represented /ʃ/. It is spelled <sch->, <sh->, <s->. There is a single instance of /s/ alliterating with /ʃ/ (schogs ‘shakes’; son-tree ‘sun-tree’ : schoke ‘shook’ : schire ‘bright’ at l. 5145).74 The cluster /sk-/ in words of Scandinavian origin can be spelled <sk->, <sck>, <sc->, and <sch->, for example <skapid> ‘escaped,’ also <scapid> and <schapid>, <schew> ‘sky,’ also <skewys> pl., <scere> ‘frighten,’ <skerrid>, p.t. This variety of scribal options does not affect the alliteration, which remains clearly cluster-based. Forty-one words in the text are potential participants in /sk-/ alliteration. Sixteen lines show /sk-/ words in three lifts in the line. The only other placement of /sk-/ initial words is in non-alliterating positions. Again, the pattern is completely consistent.75 74. See Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989: xix, xxxiv). 75. The only line which might suggest /sk-/ : /s-/ alliteration is in the Ashmole Ms 1.4862, where sex ‘six’ is in the margin: And [sex] score on þis side and seuen at was armed
4862
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
271
The number of /s-/+ nasal stop words decreases significantly. Only twelve /sn-/ initial words are used in the poem. Even so, the model of cohesive /s-/ + stop alliteration is observed for /sn-/, with four lines showing three /sn-/ lifts per line, 1683, 3761, 4123, 4224, and no instances of split alliteration. The pool of nine lexical items with /sm-/ is the smallest among the sets of cluster-initial words in the poem. These words appear three times per line in seven lines: 1432, 3470, 3798, 3806, 5398, 5550, 5641. Unlike the other s-initial clusters surveyed so far, however, /sm-/ alliterates with /s-/ twice, at 3484 and 5769. Both instances involve the word smargdone ‘emerald,’ and it seems that the /s-/ alliteration may be a conscious avoidance of repetition, since the same word alliterates on /sm-/ in adjacent passages in lines 3470, 3798, 3806, and in 5398, 5550. The cluster /sl-/ is represented by nineteen alliterating words.76 This cluster too shows cohesive behavior, yet the results here are more varied. In seven lines the cluster appears in lifts twice or more than twice per line. Of these, three lines have three /sl-/ lifts: (30)
þan slade he slily away and he fra slepe rys[ys] þat ilk slymand slugh quen e ere slide hyne Fand him slowmand on slepe and sleely him rayses
2996 4585 5300
In four lines, 38, 2346, 2691, 2759, the cluster /sl-/ is used twice per line. In another four lines the alliteration is on /sl-/ : /sel-/: 475, 1146, 1468, 2215. Singleton alliteration on /sl-/ appears in two lines 179, 3088.77 Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989: 281) find support in the Latin sources for the emendation sex, first proposed in 1901 on the basis of alliteration, i.e. /sk-/ does not alliterate on /s-/ elsewhere, so the alliteration is on /s-/. The emendation is endorsed further by the fact that score, even when used verse-medially, is weakly stressed and falls outside the alliteration, as in lines 1495, 3305, 5687. 76. I am excluding slike (a) ‘such’ which is regularly placed in the dip and does not participate in the alliteration, for example: Lo maistir slike a myschefe and maynly hire pleynes þat chefe sall to a chiftan and slike a chefe maistir
399 440
For this distribution of slike, see further lines 62, 67, 69, 99, 149, 488, 531, 539, 561, etc. The exclusion is also needed because I am using the edited text where the variants slike–suche are not recorded (Duggan and Turville-Petre 1989: xlv). 77. This count would be higher if one includes the alliteration of two very frequent words in the text: sleep and slay and their forms. I attribute the “anomalous” singleton alliteration in this case to unavoidable discourse pressures, i.e. such alliteration is driven by the need to use a particular word in a particular narrative context. Put differently, the poet will not use a /s-/ or a /sn-/ word unless there is an appropriate cluster-initial match for it, but the need to refer to sleep and slay overrides the similarity imperatives. I do not know how this interplay between semantic content and alliterative matching can be quantified meaningfully.
272
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
The number of /sw-/-initial alliterating items is very high: 40 glossary headword entries.78 The cluster /sw-/ alliterates as a group in three lifts per line in 18 lines, as in: (31)
Lete aswage or he sware þe swelme of his angirs Swythe swyngis out his swerde and his swayfe feches He swyngis out with a swerd and swappis him to dethe
873 929 1081
Further instances of /sw-/ group alliteration appear at lines 156, 248, 1307, 1355, 2195, 3918, 4098, 4237, 4322, 4405, 4514, 4636, 5126, 5146, 5451. In addition, there are three lines in which the cluster is repeated twice per line: 234, 362, 4241. Only two lines show singleton alliteration for /sw-/: 1141 and 2951. There are no instances where the similarity is based on /sw-/ : /s-/ + vowel +/-w-/, i.e. no OR1 : OVR1 . Concluding the survey of the sibilant-initial clusters, we can say that splitting of these clusters, either by matching /s-/ to another /s-/, or by seeking similarity between the cluster and the same sequence of sounds separated by a vowel, is very rare. It does not occur at all with four of the clusters, and where it does occur, it is lexically motivated or constitutes a negligible proportion of the overall usage of this cluster for alliteration. The next set of clusters whose distribution was also recorded in the WA is the set of stop + sonorant clusters. One of the most widely attested initial clusters in the poet’s vocabulary is the cluster /br-/, found in 87 words and their forms in the text. The cluster /br-/ appears in three lifts per line in 11 lines, for example: (32)
Of bras and of brynt gold and o brit siluir And braydis furth with a brym bere out at þe brade atis A brit brynnand brand he braidis out of shethe
276 496 2764
Further instances of three /br-/ alliterating words per line appear in 1926, 2082, 2259, 2770, 4008, 4093, 4909, 5040. Two other facts about the patterning of the /br-/-initial words should be noted. First, there is a sharp rise of the instances in which the cluster alliterates twice per line: a total of 58 instances.79 This 78. I have not included in the counts the adverb swyth(e) ‘quickly,’ because it consistently falls outside the alliteration. The noun answar(ing)(e) ‘answer’ alliterates on a vowel (for example 2307, 2310, 2637, 3285, 3707, 5425), and is therefore irrelevant, but the verb can alliterate on /sw-/ as in lines 234, 362 and is included in the statistics. 79. The attestations are at lines 427, 462, 510, 783, 897, 906, 925, 965, 1094, 1337, 1343, 1345, 1346, 1397, 1497, 1536, 1539, 1549, 1637, 1642, 1837, 1841, 2024, 2822, 2874, 2997, 3018, 3245, 3325, 3376, 3397, 3423, 3663, 3931, 3970, 4033, 4041, 4129, 4212, 4218, 4359, 4577, 4632, 4868, 4889, 4936, 4964, 5050, 5330, 5371, 5388, 5459, 5470, 5481, 5491, 5665, 5738, 5774.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
273
practice points to an obvious attempt to match the cluster as a group as often as possible. Second, failing the opportunity to pair at least two /br-/ words per line, the poet opts for similarity between /br-/ and /bl-/ (×42), or between /br-/ and /bVr-/. The density of the latter type of matching is quite remarkable: a total of 81 instances. By comparison, singleton alliteration on /b-/ without any other similarities in the onset and the peak, is less frequent, attested in 79 lines. The placement of a /br-/ initial word outside the alliteration happens relatively infrequently, given the large number of available /br-/ words used by the poet, and often involves the verb bring and its forms. Thus, it can be said that the /br-/ cluster shows properties that are shared with the sibilant-initial clusters, but the similarity between /br-/ and other onsets is much more often achieved by splitting the cluster and matching the left edge of the word to the /br-/ as closely as possible. Another very widely represented cluster in this text is /gr-/. It is the initial cluster in 67 main glossary entries. Three alliterating /gr-/ words per line appear in 17 lines, for example: (33)
A growen grape of a grype a grete and a rype For as þe grayne is in þe grape growis þe fruits At þe grete flode of granton now graythis he his tentis
1470 2551 3260
Further examples are found at lines 26, 544, 1118, 1453, 1877, 3252, 3366, 3425, 3472, 3503, 3739, 3884, 5083, 5644. That the cluster is a favored focus of alliteration is clear from the great frequency of lines in which /gr-/ is used twice per line; I counted 92 such lines. The total number of lines in which /gr-/ is matched to itself, 109 times, exceeds the instances of alliteration of /gr-/ with /g-/ which occurs in 62 lines. In another 38 lines /gr-/ is matched either to /gl-/ (×17) or to /gVr-/ (×21), so the similarity extends beyond the leftmost segment. Again, the OR1 : OVR1 /OR2 type of matching must be interpreted as a “second best”: the cluster is no longer cohesive, but both of its parts are copied in the left edge of the matching word. One lexical item that appears with unrelenting regularity in alliterative positions is the adjective grete ‘great, glorious, large’ and its forms; I counted 68 such uses. Quite often these are semantically redundant; they are easy alliterative “fillers”. (34)
þe grete glorius god graythid in þi trone And growis out of þe grete see in graynes and in cragis A grym grisely gome with grete gray lokis
2901 3503 5083
For /kl-/ the results are as follows: 46 words in the text start with that cluster. The incidence of three or more alliterative lifts per line is significant in that it is
274
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
lower than that of the /sp-/ or /sk-/ initial clusters, represented by a comparable number of lexical items. The six lines in which /kl-/ alliterates three or more times are 555, 1501, 2234, 4752, 4990, and 5558. (35)
Cloudis clenely toclefe clatird vnfaire Closid all in clere stele and in clene plates þan vp he clame to a cliffe þat to þe cloudis semed
555 1501 2234
In another forty lines the cluster is used in two lifts per line; clearly the poet is attempting to replicate the /kl-/ as much as possible. However, with this cluster the instances of singleton /kl-/ : /k-/ alliteration are much more frequent: I counted 111 such lines. Although this number includes thirty-four lines in which the split alliteration is on the semantically redundant adverb clene ‘entirely,’ there can be no doubt that the cluster is not overwhelmingly cohesive.80 Alliteration of /kl-/ with /kr-/ appears thirteen times, and alliteration of /kl-/ with /kVl/ is attested seven times. The ratio of straightforward singleton alliteration to /kl-/ : /kVl-/ or /kr-/ alliteration is about 5 : 1. The proportions for /kr-/, represented by thirty-four words in the text, are slightly more in favor of singleton alliteration: forty-one singleton uses, nine cluster alliterations, and a remarkably high rate of /kr-/ : /kl-/ pairings, of which I counted twenty-five instances. There are also twelve instances of /kr-/ : /kVr/ rhymes. The cluster /dr-/ appears in three lifts per line in four lines: (36)
Droe and at þe first drate him dreped for euire þou sall be drechid of a drinke a drate of vnsele Dragons dryfes doun o drit fra þe derfe hillis Quen we ere drinkeles and dry we draw to þe bourne
1191 1229 3996 4806
The rate at which this cluster alliterates with itself twice per line is quite high: I counted thirty lines of this type.81 The same number of lines show /dr-/ :
80. The word appears more than sixty times in the text, often as an alliterative cheville. Examples in which the alliteration is on the adverb clene are: Bees conquirid and ouercomyn clene altogedre Beknew him clene all þe case how þe kyng sayd
174 671
Further split alliteration on clene is found at lines 1023, 1147, 1245, 1327, 1425, etc. 81. The attestations are at lines: 64, 359, 336, 487, 1356, 1431, 1460, 1595, 1903, 1983, 2061, 2141, 2696, 2710, 2859, 2986, 3926, 3929, 3975, 3978, 3991, 4222, 4675, 4919, 5001, 5068, 5249, 5604, 5680, 5704.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
275
/dVr-/ alliteration. Singleton alliteration is twice as frequent: it occurs in 61 lines. The cluster /dr-/ thus occupies an intermediate position in a hierarchy of cohesiveness. The cohesiveness of the corresponding voiceless cluster /tr-/ is even lower. Fifty-four lexical items are available for /tr-/ alliteration. In four lines /tr-/ alliterates as a cluster on three lifts: (37)
þire traitours on þis trechoure trowthis has strakid þe testre trased full of trones with trimballand wingis Qua suld þat trecherous trayne of treson him wirke With tribute and trouage and many tried giftis
3320 5041 5154 5227
In another twenty lines the alliteration is on /tr-/ on two of the lifts.82 Once again, the ratio of cluster-to-singleton alliteration is 2:1 in favor of singleton alliteration. This comparison does not take into account the additional thirteen instances of /tr-/ alliterating with /tVr/, in which the poet avails himself of the intrinsic splittability of the cluster to achieve maximum similarity. Covering every single alliterating cluster is not my goal here. The sample is sufficiently broad to support comparisons between the sibilant-initial clusters and the stop-initial clusters, and in every case the comparison has shown the sibilant clusters to be more cohesive than the stop+sonorant clusters.83 The next set of clusters for which data from WA have been collected are fricative-initial clusters. With /fl-/ the results are as follows: there are fortyfive items eligible for alliteration on /fl-/. Of these, the cluster appears in three
82. The attestations are at lines 123, 543, 110, 1419, 1802, 1894, 2220, 2420, 2523, 2707, 2802, 3115, 3488, 3567, 3847, 5097, 5101, 5357, 5498, 5770. 83. I checked the results for /gl-/. There are twenty-six words that can alliterate on /gl-/. Of these, only one line shows three /gl-/ lifts: And gods glorious gleme glent þam emaunge
4944
In 8 lines (2097, 3393, 3462, 3755, 3925, 4681, 5084, 5630) /gl-/ initial words occupy two lifts per line. There are 11 instances of split alliteration /gl-/ : /g-/ and 8 lines in which the /gl-/ cluster does not participate in the alliteration. The most striking fact about the deployment of the /gl-/ cluster in the Wars is the frequency with which the cluster is matched to /gr-/. Out of the total of 32 lines in which /gl-/ is paired with /gVl-/ or /gr-/, the latter type, /gl-/ : /gr-/ occurs 28 times. What this suggests is that the similarity between these two clusters exceeds the similarity between /gr-/ : /g-/ or the similarity between /gl-/ and /gVl-/. This is an interesting result in that it points to a somewhat different interpretation of cohesiveness. The cluster is perceived as more than the sum of its two separable parts, and it is preferentially matched to another cluster rather than being treated as a sequence of two consonants.
276
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
alliterating lifts per line in a single line where two of the three /fl-/ initial words are editorial: (38)
With þat þe flammand flode f[lasshed] in his een
125684
No other lines show three alliterating /fl-/ per line. There are fifteen lines in which the cluster appears twice in the line. In 62 lines the cluster /fl-/ alliterates simply on /f-/ with no similarity of the segments that follow the fricative, i.e. the proportion of straight /f-/ alliteration to group alliteration is 4 : 1, a ratio not found for any other cluster studied so far. In addition, in 27 lines the cluster /fl-/ is echoed by /fr-/ or by /fVr/, as in: (39)
So with a flote of fresons folowand þi helis Lo þof vs fall now to flee we may na ferryre wend Full many flees may fell bot a fewe waspis
1882 2725 3138
Within the group illustrated in (39) the dominant pattern, for 22 of the 27 instances, the alliteration is /fl-/ : /fVl-/. Another possibly cohesive fricative-initial cluster is /fr-/. Not counting the attestations of the preposition fra, fro, from, there are thirty-two /fr-/ initial head entries in the WA glossary. Three alliterating /fr-/ words appear in line 675 (afrit : freke : afrayd). Alliteration on two /fr-/ words per line occurs in 11 lines: 672, 974, 1040, 1819, 1921, 3965, 4141, 4467, 4765, 4893, 5800. With forty-seven instances of singleton alliteration, /fr-/ : /f-/, the ratio of singleton to cluster alliteration is approximately the same as with /fl-/, 4 : 1. The incidence of split alliteration which relies on a similarity beyond the initial consonant, /fr/ : /fVr-/appears in thirty-two instances. In five lines /fr-/ alliterates with /fl-/. The third fricative-initial cluster investigated here is /r-/. Thirty words in the text are eligible for alliteration on that cluster. Eleven lines show full triple alliteration on /r-/ as in: (40)
Threschis doun in a thrawe many threuyn dukis To thre dais on a thrawe be threpild togedire And thre thousand of thra men to thraw with engynes
1449 1599 2345
84. The Ashmole MS has femand for flammand and fell for flasshed. The editorial choice though “not an obvious one” relies partially on alliteration on /fl-/, which “is perhaps a guide.” (Duggan and Turville-Petre 1989: 38, 207). The rarity of /fl-/ self-alliteration as compared to the splitting of the cluster would argue against the emendation, however. In view of the alliterative distribution of the other /fl-/ words in the poem, it seems that the emendations may be unnecessary.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
277
The most frequently repeated item is three or its forms.85 Another 13 lines show /r-/ in two lifts per line. With 16 attestations, the occurrence of singleton alliteration is below the level of group alliteration. Matching of the cluster to /Vr-/ is comparatively rare: it appears only 8 times, which brings the cluster-to-split alliteration ratio to 1 : 1. It seems that the highly cohesive effect for /r-/ may be a fortuitous consequence of the fact that the cluster appears in many battle-related words which a careful versifier could easily bundle together in the same line. Some of these words are given in (41); this particular aspect of group alliteration is important because the high level of cohesion for the /r-/ cluster appears to reflect a language-specific sound-meaning association, rather than some universal acoustic property of that cluster. (41)
The mutual attraction of these words in a battle narrative is not surprising. More interesting in this case is the overlap between the phonaesthetic properties of these words and their cohesive alliteration, not unlike the concentration of /sl-/ words in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight discussed in Smith (2000: 90–92). This kind of stylistic foregrounding could not have been lost on the audience. Moreover, the additional parameter of cohesive alliteration enriches the notion of “alliterative rank.” Unlike alliterative fillers referred to earlier, where the semantics of the word are of little import, in this case the selection of a particular word from a pool of synonyms, for example thraly ‘violently,’ threuen ‘mighty,’ is the combined consequence of both meaning and phonetic form.
85. As in Lagamon’s Brut the lines in which three is just an alliterative filler raise considerably the rate of cluster alliteration for /r-/. Other lines with triple alliteration where three supplies one lift are 554, 2172, 2409, 2386, 2985, 3065, 3198, 3770, 3971, it also supplies a lift in 1369, 1834, 2216, 3198, 5263, etc. The numeral three and its forms appear readily also outside the alliteration, as in 277, 436, 3892, 4053, 4115, 4319, etc.
278
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
The chart below summarizes the findings for The Wars of Alexander: (42) # of Singleton 3 × cluster 2 × cluster OR1 : OR1 : NonCluster words alliteration alliteration alliteration OVR1 OR2 alliterating st sp sk sn sm sl sw
148 52 41 12 9 19 40
0 0 0 0 2 2 2
br gr gl kl kr dr tr
87 67 26 46 34 48 54
79 62 11 111 41 61 50
fl fr r
45 32 29
62 47 1687
4986 29 16 4 7 3 18
0 0 0 0 0 4 3
0 0 0 0 0 4 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
53 63 15 6 3 12 33
11 17 1 6 1 4 4
58 92 8 40 6 30 20
81 21 4 8 12 30 13
42 17 28 13 25 0 0
41 90 8 59 18 57 52
0/1 1 11
15 11 13
22 32 888
5 5 0
24 18 17
Compared to the previous summaries, this chart is more explicit in that it separates the instances of triple versus double cluster alliteration per line. This division is useful in comparing the top and the bottom sets of clusters where the values are reversed, compare /st-, sp-/ to /fl-, fr-/. The shaded figures in the fourth and the fifth columns show that for sibilant-initial clusters triple alliteration is the predominant pattern and instances of splitting are the exception. For stop-initial clusters, cohesive behavior, manifested either by triple or by double alliteration, is very prominent, though instances of singleton alliteration regularly outnumber group alliteration. With fricative-initial clusters, except for /r-/, the frequency of cluster alliteration decreases significantly and it is the occurrence of split alliteration that defines the behavior 86. This figure represents only 37 percent of the edited text. 87. This count does not include lines 3471, 3731, 3488 in which third and thirty are used in lines in which the alliteration is on /tr-/. 88. An interesting case of Stab der Liaison appears in 773: Tharmes thrist out of thees banes and shuldres.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
279
Fig. 6.2 Percentage group alliteration in The Wars of Alexander
of the clusters. The chart separates also the instances of OR1 : OVR1 from the instances of OR1 : OR2 .89 The very high frequency of OR1 : OR2 for some clusters is quite noticeable. Alliteration on, for example /sl-/ : ∗ /sr-/, /dr-/ : ∗ /dl-/ is phonotactically impossible. This would force a careful rhymer to search the lexicon more diligently for /sl-, sVl/, /dr -, dVr/ Zusammengesetzte St¨abe, while the options of /br-/ : /bl-/ (×42), /gl-/ : /gr-/ (×28), etc. provide more similarity than straightforward split alliteration. The data on the clusters in WA do not allow a judgement on whether the OR1 : OR2 similarity exceeds OR1 : OVR1 similarity or not; this is an issue which deserves further attention. Overall, the findings support the hypothesis that sibilant-initial clusters are most cohesive, and that some fricative-initial clusters, most notably /fr-, fl-/, show levels closer to the lower end of the scale. Figure 6.2 shows the percentages of cluster alliteration against the total of singleton and cluster alliterative uses in The Wars of Alexander. In this case I have not counted OR1 : OVR1 alliterations. 89. The lack of full reciprocity in the OR1 : OR2 column for /gl-/ : /gr-/ and /kl-/ : /kr-/ comes from the fact that in order to avoid double counting, in some cases one of the clusters is counted in the cluster alliteration column, while the other one is counted in the OR1 : OR2 category. Thus a line such as: Clede him all as a clerke and his croune shauys
121
is counted only as one instance of 2 × cluster alliteration for /kl-/ and one instance of OR1 : OR2 for /kr-/.
280
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
6.4.3 Piers Plowman Our next source of information about the alliterative practices in the second half of the fourteenth century will be William Langland’s masterpiece, Piers Plowman, which exists in several successive states, the A, the B, and the C texts.90 Langland lived between c. 1330 and c. 1400. He is thought to have been born in Worcestershire, and references in the poem suggest that he knew London and Westminster as well as Shropshire, and he may have been a cleric in minor orders in London. The text I have used for my searches here is the B-text, a version of the poem written between 1377 and 1379 (Schmidt 1978: xvi).91 The text consists of a Prologue of 231 lines and twenty passuses, a total of 7,275 lines of verse.92 The most frequent type of alliteration in the text is aa/ax, estimated at 70.3 percent in the B-text; in about 9 percent of the lines the on-verse is “extended” (Schwellvers), having three stressed syllables (Oakden 1930/1968: 168, 171). Thus, alliteration is a prominent and reliable property of the composition.93 As before, in collecting the data I have attempted to avoid metrically uncertain lines as much as possible, ignoring the last lift and discounting instances where the inherent prosodic weight of the alliterating words is in question. 90. A hybrid version, manuscript Bodley 851, has been edited as a fourth version known as The Z Version. For further details on the manuscripts and editions of Piers Plowman the reader is referred to The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive web site, created and maintained by Hoyt Duggan, see http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/piers/. 91. The Vision of Piers Plowman, ed. by A. V. C. Schmidt (1978). The electronic edition in HTML was made available through the Oxford Text Archive, distributed by the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative as part of the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. The citations have been cross-checked in the parallel edition (Schmidt 1995), and where relevant, in the Skeat (1867) edition of the A-text. The modernized spelling of the examples follows the procedures in Schmidt (1978: xxxix): is used for ,
for , and are distinguished. 92. The line distribution for the passuses is as follows: I: 209, II: 237, III: 352, IV: 195, V: 642, VI: 330, VII: 201, VIII: 129, IX: 207, X: 473, XI: 439, XII: 295, XIII: 459, XIV: 332, XV: 610, XVI: 275, XVII: 353, XVIII: 434, XIX: 485, XX: 387. This includes the all Latin or macaronic lines in the text; no evidence from these lines has been considered here. 93. One of the alleged formal defects of the text is “impure” alliteration of /s-/ with /ʃ/ (the qualifications are Oakden’s), as in: into sikel or to sithe, to shaar or to kultour – “Certes,’ quod he, “that is sooth,’ and shoop hym for to walken
3.308 11.437
I will not reopen the discussion of this practice here. It is worth repeating, however, that it would constitute a good argument against an assumption that alliteration in Middle English had become a visual device. Further evidence that for Langland and his copyists alliteration was primarily a matter of sound, and not a matter of “first letter”, i.e. not scribal, comes from, for example That is coveitise and unkyndenesse, that quencheth Goddes mercy
17.345
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
281
In Piers Plowman /sp-, st-, sk-/ clusters regularly alliterate with each other: (43)
Spycers speken with hym to spien hire ware Whoso spareth the spryng spilleth hise children. Strook forth sternely and stood bifore hem alle, He myghte neither steppe ne stonde er he his staf hadde, To scorne and to scolde and sclaundre to make, Thanne Scriptare scorned me and a skile tolde Of scornyng and of scoffyng and of unskilful berynge;
2.226 5.040 P.183 5.346 2.082 11.001 13.276
The evidence for /sp-, st-, sk-/ cluster alliteration is very robust. A complete search of the B-text for /sp-/ alliterations shows that out of 38 attestations, 32 are completely regular. The lines that look exceptional are most certainly due to the unavailability of appropriate lexical items, so for /sp-/ cluster alliteration is in fact attested in 31 out of the 32 total instances.94 The lines cited in (44) comprise the complete set of lines in which the B-text shows deviations from the standard practice of /sp-, st-, sk-/ alliteration: (44)
Ayein swiche Salomon speketh, and despiseth hir wittes, And in stede of stywardes sitten and demen Thanne Symonye and Cyvylle stonden forth bothe Than he that gooth with two staves, to sighte of us alle. “That is in extremis,’ quod Scripture,” amonges Sarsens and Jewes And so may Sarsens be saved, scribes and Jewes. “And sith that thise Sarsens, scribes and Jewes “Ac pharisees and sarsens, scribes and Jewes “By this skile,’ he seide, I se an evidence
94. The regular alliteration appears in the cited lines and in lines P.52, 1.149, 3.171, 3.272, 3.310, 5.041, 5.147, 5.212, 5.434, 7.46, 9.98, 9.101, 10.40, 10.102, 14.197, 15.36, 15.143, 15.275, 15.609, 17.01, 17.34, 17.83, 18.12, 18.86, 18.261, 19.304, 19.342, 19.405, 20.055. Five apparent violations involve Spiritus: Spiritus Prudencie the firste seed highte; The seconde seed highte Spiritus Temperancie. The thridde seed that Piers sew was Spiritus Fortitudinis; The ferthe seed that Piers sew was Spiritus Iusticie, So that he sewe and save Spiritus Temperancie.
19.278 19.283 19.291 19.299 20.22
The unexpected alliteration is clearly forced by the need to repeat the word Spiritus in the numbered list in which it appears. This case is parallel to the forced non-cohesive use of other items when the discourse requires them, for example brother in Lagamon’s Brut (6.3.2) and sleep, slay in WA (6.4.2). In contrast to the use of alliterative “fillers” which are semantically redundant, the evidence that such items produce should be attributed to the need to communicate a particular semantic content; the choice is lexical and of little phonological significance.
282
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
In the one seemingly aberrant line involving /sp-/, 15.54, the alliteration pattern may be aab/bx, which would bring up the conformity to the /sp-/ cluster alliteration to 100 percent, counting two occurrences of a cluster per line as relevant. Similarly, in lines P.96 and 2.072 the alliteration may be aa/bx, which leaves only a single exception to /st-/ cluster matching, line 17.039, which is alliteratively irregular and additionally suggests assonance in staves : alle.95 With /sk-/ the situation is different: the cluster alliterates with itself nine times (2.082, 3.057, 10.298, 10.301, 10.329, 11.001, 11.107, 13.276, 19.286), but, as shown in (44), it is also matched to /s-/ in 10.344, 15.388, 15.499, 15.603. Again, it can be assumed that restricted lexical choice is responsible for the non-cluster matching in lines containing scripture, scribes. If we count these as a single item – note the clustering of instances in passus 15, the conformity to cluster alliteration rises to 82 percent. The evidence for cluster alliteration of other complex onsets is informative in terms of the hierarchy of cohesiveness. The complete set of relevant lines where the alliterating clusters are /sn-, sm-/ is cited in (45): (45)
And what smyth that any smytheth be smyte therwith to dethe! Ther smyt no thyng so smerte, ne smelleth so foule And whan smoke and smolder smyt in his sighte, For smoke and smolder smerteth hise eighen “Ac the smoke and the smolder that smyt in oure eighen, That were bisnewed with snow, and snakes withinne,
3.324 11.434 17.324 17.326 17.344 15.112
With the possible exception of one line, P.145,96 where the noun phrase smale mees ‘small mice’ would be right-prominent, making smale less likely to alliterate, all /sm-/ and /sn-/ initial words in the text alliterate as clusters. This is remarkable consistency compared to the results obtained from alliteration on other clusters. Before I proceed further with the survey of the alliterative patterns, some methodological clarifications are in order. Here, and throughout this poem, I have not considered the second lift in the b-verse as relevant, ignoring the 95. Another difficulty in quantifying self-alliteration comes from cohesive use across lineboundaries, but not within the same line, for example: “Two stokkes ther stondeth. ac stynte th[ow] noght there: Thei highte “Stele-noght” and “Sle-noght” – strik forth by bothe
5.576 5.577
I have not counted line 5.577 as an exception to the pattern of cohesive /st-/ alliteration. 96. And smale mees myd hem: mo than a thousand
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
283
possibility of aa/bb alliteration when aa is a cluster and bb is the same cluster alliterating on the left edge. Thus the b-verse smyt in his sighte in line 17.324 in (45), and sliken hise sydes in 2.099 in (47) below are not counted as evidence against cluster alliteration because of the /sm-/ : /sm-/ and /sl-/ : /sl-/ patterns in the respective a-verses. In any case, the pattern aa/bb is rare in Piers Plowman, amounting to about 1.5 percent of the lines.97 Following the same principle, when a cluster appears only in the second lift of the b-verse, it will not be counted as constituting a violation of cluster alliteration, for example: (46)
Thei ben acombred with coveitise, thei konne noght out crepe
1.196.
The next /s-/ cluster, /sl-/, can alliterate as a unit, as shown in (47): (47)
Til Sleuthe and sleep sliken hise sides Thanne cam Sleuthe al bislabered, with two slymy eighen. The whiche is sleuthe, so slow that may no sleightes helpe it
2.099 5.386 13.407
Further examples of cluster alliteration on /sl-/ in the text are found at P.10, P.45, 20.163, 20.217. The consistency of /sl-/ group alliteration in these seven lines appears compromised at first sight because in twenty-two instances /sl-/ alliterates with /s-/ or even /ʃ-/ as in (48): (48)
And most sotil of song other sleyest of hondes, For shrift of mouthe sleeth synne be it never so dedlyAc satisfaccion seketh out the roote, and bothe sleeth and voideth, Ech man subtileth a sleighte synne to hide,
13.297 14.090 14.094 19.460
It should be noted that the twenty-two instances of /sl-/ singleton alliteration are based on just three words: sleep (13×), sloth (6×), and slay (3×).98 In addition to the inherent cohesiveness of the cluster and the relatively small size of the lexical pool, the concentration of instances of /sl-/ : /s-/ alliteration 97. The small number of aa/bb lines in which the a and b alliteration falls on different consonants do of course constitute evidence for or against cluster alliteration. Thus in line 5.469: Ne nevere wene to wynne with craft that I knowe
5.469
The /kr-/ : /k/ alliteration in the b-verse is clearly structurally central and therefore it will be counted as an instance of non-cohesive use of /kr-/. 98. The word slay appears in 3.287, 5.577, 10.365, sleep in P.231, 1.005, 2.097, 5.004, 5.361, 5.376, 7.145, 11.265, 11.320, 14.002, 14.068, 17.323, 18.299, and sloth in 5.435, 5.449, 14.253, 20.159, 20.217, 20.374. Langland uses only 9 /sl-/ initial words, though the MED lists 259 headwords and 312 headwords and forms with that onset.
284
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
on three words provides the third dimension to the description of unit alliteration: the semantic and stylistic value of a particular word. Thus in Piers Plowman the need to refer to sloth and sleeping overrides the phonologically motivated preference to keep the cluster together, especially in Passuses 5 and 20. This is a very clear parallel to the use of sleep and slay and their forms discussed in 6.5. Keeping these two words out of the picture, but counting somewhat arbitrarily sloth, brings the occurrence of /sl-/ unit alliteration to 54 percent. However, because it is largely a matter of subject-specific lexical choice, this low figure does not argue against the cohesiveness of the /sl-/ cluster.99 Alliteration on /sw-/ is hard to quantify because of the uncertainties surrounding the vocalization of the approximant in that cluster. A cursory check shows that the ratio of cluster-to-singleton alliteration is approximately 1 : 3. The in swich ‘such’ is definitely not a cluster in Langland’s dialect. The evidence for that word is that wherever swich partakes in the alliteration, it alliterates exclusively on /s-/: P.32, 3.088. 3.134, 7.040, 9.122, 10.026, 10.107, 10.202, etc. In what follows, I will no longer refer to the data on /sw-/ because of the instability of the cluster.100 Going back over the results for /s-/ initial clusters at this point: /sl-/ is the least likely cluster to alliterate with itself, followed by /sk-/. The cohesive behavior of sibilant + stop clusters approaches 100 percent. In the earlier texts examined in this chapter we found that with stop-sonorant clusters, /tr-, dr-, kr-, gr-/, the use of cluster alliteration is lower than that recorded for the /s-/-initial clusters. Piers Plowman is a lengthy composition and counting every instance of every single cluster in the poem would be superfluous, so in the survey below I present the results of searches for group alliteration only for some stop-sonorant clusters. The clusters whose alliterative distribution was counted are /pr-, br-, kr-, gr-, kl-, gl-/.
99. Once again I want to make it clear that this is not identical to the concept of “alliterative rank,” which refers strictly to the preference for one particular member of a synonymic group for the purposes of alliteration. That notion was explored by Brink (1920), Borroff (1962), Turville-Petre (1977), Cronan (1986), and Lester (1996). The choice of alliterating items can be motivated by a combination of factors, therefore analyses of the behavior of synonyms with respect to alliteration will profit from incorporating the phonological information on cluster cohesion and references to the availability of appropriate lexical items sharing their onset properties. 100. The MED’s practice for all words beginning with <sw-> is to record all variant forms except those beginning with <su->; forms with <su-> are given only when there are no examples of the same forms with <sw->. The spellings <sw-, su-> are also frequently used in variant forms of words beginning with <squ->, which makes searches and comparisons unreliable.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
285
The first cluster, /pr-/, presents some idiosyncratic problems. It appears at the left edge of the prefix pro- where it can alliterate either on /pr/ or as a cluster: (49)
And that is the profession apertly that apendeth to knyghtes “And late apparaille thise provisours in palfreyes wise Provysour or preest, or penaunt for hise synnes
1.100 2.171 4.133
For the Prologue and the first six passuses three lifts on /pr-/ appear in just two lines: at 4.122 (prechours : prechynge : preved) and 5.041 (preide : prelates : preestes). Much more common is the pattern of alliteration with two out of the three alliterating lifts starting with the same cluster as in (50): (50)
She is pryvee with the Pope–provisours it knoweth, Ne to deprave thi persone with a proud herte. Preestes that prechen the peple to goode And though povere men profre yow presentes and yiftes,
3.147 3.179 3.223 6.041
My sample contains a total of 24 instances of two cluster-alliterating lifts.101 For comparison, a single /pr-/ lift in the line appears 59 times.102 This puts the cluster alliteration for /pr-/ at 29 percent. This is a high proportion, but it should be noted that many of the lines involve instances of pray and priest, whose semantic and syntactic compatibility increases significantly the chances of double alliteration. For /br-/ a search of the Prologue and the first ten passuses show 72 instances of single alliteration, 10 instances of two /br-/ lifts, but no instances of three lifts filled by the same onset, i.e. about 12 percent of cluster alliteration. The cluster /br-/ occurs initially extremely often in the ME lexicon: 460 headwords and 545 headwords and forms recorded in the MED. The only other cluster which appears with comparable frequency is /gr-/, with 476 headwords and 554 headwords and forms. Quite often the alliteration attests to the intuition of 101. Repetition of /pr-/ onsets appear in lines P38, P59, P68, P90, 1.080, 2.080, 3.150, 3.234, 4.095, 4.133, 5.042, 5.104, 5.143, 5. 158, 5.165, 5.169, 5.198, 5.611, 6.169, 6.295. I have not counted lines in which similarity may be based on the splitting of the cluster, i.e. /pVr-/ as in And somme putten hem to pride, apparailed hem therafter, For the parisshe preest and the pardoner parten the silver Persons and parisshe preestes pleyned hem to the bisshop
the poet regarding the greater closeness of /br-/ to /bVr-/ or /bl-/ than to any other /b-/ initial syllable, as in the following examples: (51)
That broughte hire to boure with blisse and with joye. “Barons and burgeises she bryngeth in sorwe,
3.103 3.163
Such variations on the notion of onset similarity in Piers Plowman are difficult to quantify because the size of the text would make the search prohibitively time-consuming. Moreover, it is unlikely that the findings will be more illuminating than the corresponding findings in Wynnere and Wastoure and The Wars of Alexander. Instead, in Piers Plowman I have sought to establish the ratio of full onset alliteration to alliteration on just the initial stop. As in the previous texts, the hypothesis which those data can confirm or disconfirm is that more cohesive clusters will tend to be chosen for group alliteration at a higher rate. The cluster /kr-/ appears in a rather broad array of lexical items. This is not surprising, given the frequency of /kr-/ initial words in the language. The MED search shows 415 headwords, and 490 headwords and forms with . In Piers Plowman the most frequent of the items is Crist/Cristen ‘Christ/Christian.’103 The chances of double alliteration, and even triple alliteration, are considerable. (52)
That han cure under Crist, and crownynge in tokene To cracchen us and al oure kynde, though we cropen under benches Sholde no Cristene creature cryen at the yate
P.88 P.186 9.080
In the Prologue and the first six passuses there are 55 lines where /kr-/ onsets appear in alliterating positions.104 Of these 10, or 18 percent, appear twice or three times per line. For /gr-/ the ratio of cluster alliteration is quite high: 33 instances out of a total of 88 cases in the Prologue and the first ten passuses, or 37.5 percent. However, the picture is somewhat distorted by two factors. First, as mentioned above, the overall pool of /gr-/ words in the language is the largest one among 103. Out of the 55 lines with /kr-/ alliteration in the sample for this search, 23 use the root Crist for alliteration: 5 in lines with double alliteration and 18 with single alliteration. I found another 16 /kr-/ initial items used in the poem: craccen, craft, crafty, craved, creature, crede, creme, crepe, croft, cropen, cropped, cros, crowne, crowninge, cruddes, cryden. 104. An interesting case of possibly alliterating unstressed syllable onset is provided by line 6.005: Hadde I cryed this half acre and sowen it after. Though the /kr-/ echo is certainly present in the line, I have not included this line in my counts because elsewhere acre alliterates on a vowel.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
287
the words with obstruent-initial cluster onsets in Middle English, with 476 headwords and 554 headwords and forms. Second, in the data I collected, the frequency of words such as grace, great, grant is very high – the easy deployment of these words swells the number of lines showing cluster alliteration. (53)
My fader the grete God is and ground of alle graces, And of his grete grace graunted hym blisse –
2.029 9.047
Counting all attestations in the Prologue and the first ten passuses, the numbers for the cluster /gl-/ are as follows: out of a total of 31 lines, only five (5.319, 5.340, 9.061, 10.083, 10.156) have two /gl-/ alliterating lifts. This comprises 16 percent of the usage. There are 15 /gl-/ words in the sample, the most frequent of which is gloton ‘glutton’ in Passus V.105 For /kl-/ the Prologue and the first six passuses show 43 instances of a single /kl-/ word alliterating in /k-/. There are, however, 7 instances106 of two lifts in the line alliterating in /kl-/; cluster alliteration occurs in 14 percent of the cases. Clusters of stop + approximant show the following distribution. For /tw-/ except for a single non-alliterating twyne ‘entwine’ at line 17.206, the only initial words used in the text are cognates of two: bitwene, twelve, twenty, tweyne, twies; none of these words alliterate among themselves. As for the determiner two, it should be discounted altogether because in the majority of cases it is obviously weakly stressed, and has probably lost the /-w-/ already. Spellings with and are very widely attested in LALME, maps 550, 557. For /kw-/ the results are of less interest because of the paucity of English /kw-/ words that Langland uses. The frequency of parenthetical and unalliterating quod ‘said’ + pronoun is overwhelming. Only a handful of other items: quake, queed ‘evil one,’ quene ‘queen,’ queynt, quash, quenche, questions, quyk, quite/quiteth ‘requite’ appear in the text. Scanning the entire text, I found that group alliteration appears in lines 13.010, 14.189, 18.248, 18.347, while the other instances in the text alliterate on /k-/. Note, however, that line 13.010 is embedded in /k-/ alliteration, and the method of using identical alliteration in consecutive lines is one of the features of the alliterative compositions of the fourteenth century. Thus, cluster alliteration and /kw-/ : /k-/ alliteration are evenly balanced in the text. All relevant examples in the text are cited in (54): 105. The MED has 233 headword entries and 258 headword and form entries with /gl-/. 106. The attestations are in lines P.154, 3.034, 4.119, 5.312, 5.320, 6.059, 6.304.
288 (54)
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME And no corps in hir kirkyerd ne in hir kirk was buryed But quik he biquethe hem aught or sholde helpe quyte hir dettes; And how this coveitise overcom clerkes and preestes; We sholde take the acquitaunce as quyk and to the queed shewen it “The whiles I quykne the cors,’ quod he, “called am I Anima; Quaked as quyk thyng and al biquasshed the roche. And bothe quyke and quyte that queynt was thorugh synne; And tho was he conquerour called of quyke and of dede.
With /dw-/ the only item eligible for alliteration in the text is the root dwell, and its inflexional forms and derivatives. No interesting information can be derived from that word, but it is still worth noticing that the repeated punning on dwell – do-well- do-evil in the text is good evidence for the intuitive non-cohesiveness of that cluster: (55)
And Dowel and Do-yvele, wher thei dwelle bothe.’ And Dowel and Do-yvele mowe noght dwelle togideres. Where that Dowel dwelleth, and do me to knowe.’ “Sire Dowel dwelleth,’ quod Wit, “noght a day hennes
8.017 8.024 8.078 9.001
The practice with respect to clusters of non-sibilant fricative + sonorant, /fr-, fl-, r-/, is similar to that in The Wars of Alexander. With the cluster /fr-/ the findings are as follows: the Prologue and the first ten passuses show a total of 49 lines in which /fr-/ initial words alliterate. This high density of /fr-/ initial alliterating words is to be expected in view of the overall frequency of /fr-/ words in the ME lexicon: 362 headwords and 404 headwords and forms with /fr-/ are recorded in the MED. However, in this large sample only the lines cited in (56) are instances of cluster alliteration. (56)
For to be youre frend, frere, and faile yow nevere Of a freres frokke were the foresleves. But if it be fressh flessh outher fissh fryed outher ybake “And thanne freres in hir fraytour shul fynden a keye
3.052 5.080 6.310 10.320
With 17 items, the pool of lexical items from which /fr-/ alliteration can be drawn is quite rich and diverse.107 This is comparable to, and even marginally better than, the numbers found elsewhere, for example with /gl-/, /kr-/. However, the ratio of self-alliteration for this cluster is about half of that for /gl-/, /kr-/: only 7.5 percent of the lines in this large sample show cluster alliteration. On the other hand, /fr-/ appears to be readily and even deliberately matched to /fVr-/: 107. The eligible items in the text are frayned ‘asked,’ fraytour ‘refectory,’ free, freke ‘man,’ frele ‘frail,’ freletee ‘frailty,’ frend, Frenssh, frere ‘friar,’ fresshe ‘fresh,’ frete ‘eat,’ fretted ‘adorned,’ Friday, frokke ‘frock,’ fruyt ‘fruit,’ fryed ‘fried,’ frythed ‘hedged.’
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century (57)
I fond there freres, alle the foure ordres Thanne I frayned hire faire, for Hym that hire made Freres with fair speche fetten hymthen, Of a freres frokke were the foresleves. I frayned hym first fram whennes he come
289
P.58 1.058 2.230 5.080 16.174
The cluster /fl-/ occurs frequently in initial position in the ambient language: the MED records 320 headwords and 351 headwords and forms on /fl-/. The pool of eligible lexical items in PP is quite generous, with 26 different items available for alliteration.108 To track the distribution of /fl-/ words, I scanned the Prologue and the first 15 passuses, from where the following examples are taken: (58)
Alle fledden for fere and flowen into hernes; Of thi flour and of thi flesshe – fecche whanne us liketh, And feblest fowel of flight is that fleeth or swymmeth. And out of the flynt sprong the flood that folk and beestes dronken;
2.234 6.157 12.239 14.064
A total of seven lines show /fl-/ more than once per line, the lines cited and lines 6.184, 12.168, 15.035. In spite of the apparent richness of lexical choices, cluster alliteration on /fl-/ is not very prominent. It represents only 11 percent of the total 61 instances of alliterating /fl-/ words. There are numerous instances of /fl/ matched to /fVl-/, for example at lines 1.040 (flessh : folwen), 2.147 (Fals-witnesse : floryns), 2.211 (Falsnesse : fleigh), 12.168 (felawe : fleteth: flood), etc. The results on are as follows: 16 words in the text are potential candidates for alliteration: thraldom, thralles, thredbare, three, thresshe, thresshfold, thretynge, threve, threw, thridde, (also thritty, thritti), thrittene, thritty, thriveth, (also thryveth) throte, [thr]umbled, thrungen. Of these, words appear in more than one lift per line five times, in the examples below and in 10.209, 5.497:109 108. flailes, flappes, flapten, flaterere (also flatereres), flatte, Flaundres, flawme ‘flegm,’ fle, (also fledden), fleckede, fleigh (also fleen, fleynge), flessh, fleteth, flex ‘flax,’ flicche ‘side of bacon,’ flight, flittynge, flobre ‘sully,’ flodes, floor, florissheth, floryns, flour ‘flour,’ floures ‘flowers,’ flowen, flux ‘discharge,’ flynt. 109. The line “The thridde day therafter Thow yedest in oure sute:
5.497
presents a special case because double alliteration of /r-/ here implies a syncopated form of therafter. This is more likely than assuming alliteration between /d-/ in day and /ð-/ in thou. Mixed alliteration /d/ : /ð/ is not found anywhere else in the ME alliterative corpus – no such “unvollkommene oder fragliche Reime” are mentioned in Schumacher’s most exhaustive survey of the texts (1914: 94–162).
290 (59)
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME He [thr]umbled on the thresshfold and threw to the erthe.110 A thousand and thre hundred, twies thritty and ten, Ac I have thoughtes a threve af thise thre piles –
5.351 13.269 16.055
Langland seems reluctant to include /r-/ words in his alliterating scheme. Scanning the entire poem, in addition to the lines cited in (59), I found only five more cases of a /r-/ word placed in an alliterating position.111 The ratio of cluster to first consonant alliteration is 5 : 5, an even split. There are no /w-/ words in the text. The last attestations of words, according to the MED are: thweal (n.) ‘ablution,’ c. 1150, thw¯en (v.) ‘to wash, to cleanse,’ c. 1175, thwert-out (adv.) ‘wholly,’ c. 1225, thwert-over (adj.) ‘crosswise,’ rarely used, last entry c. 1500, thw¯ıre (adj.) ‘obstinate, wicked,’ c. 1150, thwirli (adj.) ‘wicked’ 1175, thwirnisse (n.) ‘perversity, affliction,’ c. 1150. Excluding clusters whose second element is the approximant /w/ for the reasons given above, the results for the historically stable clusters in Piers Plowman, B-text, are summarized below. For this text I calculated the ratios of cluster alliteration measured as a percentage of the overall occurrences of the cluster in alliterating positions. (60)
Cluster
%
Cluster
%
Cluster
%
sp st sm sn sk sl
100 100 100 100 82 54
gr pr kr gl kl br
37.5 29 18 16 14 12.2
r fl fr
50 11 7.5
The first column lists sibilant-initial, the second, stop-initial, and the third, fricative-initial clusters. For /sk-/ in the first column the numbers are low and the results inconclusive; the high incidence of /sl-/ : /s-/ was possibly influenced by Lass (1991–1993: 41) argues that as early as Old English initial voiced fricatives can be reconstructed outside East Mercian and Northumbrian. Even if this is the case, the absence of alliterative matching of /d-/ and /ð-/ elsewhere makes speculations about the voicing of the fricative in in Langland’s language vacuous. For a more general discussion of the chronology and evidence for the voicing of in function words see Minkova and Stockwell (1997b: 44–46). 110. Some manuscripts have rather than . As noted above, the spelling
is editorial for the scribal , following Schmidt’s practice (1978: xxxix). 111. The attestations are in lines 5.277, 5.510, 8.115, 16.131, 20.011. In lines 13.269, 16.055 the numeral three is unstressed and is outside the structurally necessary alliteration.
6.4 Cluster alliteration in the fourteenth century
291
Fig. 6.3 Cluster alliteration in Piers Plowman
the content-driven frequency of sloth and sleep. On the whole, the first column confirms the hypothesis that the perceptual break in sibilant-initial clusters is likely to come after the cluster – this is truer of sibilant + stop clusters than for /sl-/. The second and third columns show a mixed picture, with /fl-/ and /fr-/ exhibiting the lowest levels of cohesiveness. As in the previous texts, /r-/ is more likely to alliterate as a unit than the other non-sibilant fricative-initial and the stop-initial clusters. Figure 6.3 shows the percentages of cluster alliteration in Piers Plowman plotted as a bar graph. Leaving Piers Plowman, we can say that the alliterative patterning with respect to clusters confirms the differences in cluster cohesiveness found elsewhere. Even a metrically relatively imperfect text such as Piers Plowman can be illuminating as to which clusters are most likely to be chosen for repetition in the line: /sp-, st-, sm-, sn-/, and which would be least favored as a cluster: /fr-, fl-/. The four texts investigated in this chapter were chosen because they cover a wide chronological range, they differ in metrical regularity, they exist in machine-readable form, and the printed versions come with extensive editorial annotation. Conducting a more comprehensive search is becoming a more tractable task with more and more material available in digital form. A sampling of three other texts, Alexander and Dindimus,112 The Parlement of the 112. Alexander and Dindimus, also known as Alexander B, an alliterative poem of 1,140 lines, composed in the West Midlands and dating between c. 1340 and 1370, is a translation from Latin (Skeat 1878/1973: xx–xxi). Except for The Destruction of Troy, for which the pattern reaches 99.9 percent, Alexander B is the poem in the ME alliterative corpus for which the aa/ax pattern of alliteration is highest, at 96 percent.
292
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
Thre Ages,113 and The Siege of Jerusalem114 revealed tendencies similar to the results in the searched texts. In all of these texts /sp-, st-/ initial clusters are kept together, while stop-initial and fricative-initial clusters are readily divided. A more explicit statistical picture for the entire alliterative corpus is not only extremely hard to put together due to textual problems and editorial disagreements, but it would probably be unnecessarily repetitious. The sample is sufficiently large to allow the formulation of a hypothesis which can subsequently be tested against more data from English and other languages. 6.5
Why is fourteenth-century verse good evidence for cluster cohesion?
Before I proceed with the non-alliterative evidence for cluster cohesion in English, I would like to address briefly the question of the title of this section. The arguments for choosing the fourteenth-century alliterative material as reliable evidence come from the high frequency of cluster cohesion in the chosen texts, the non-random nature of its distribution, and, again, the acoustic nature of the phenomenon. Since cluster alliteration occurred in Old English too, collecting similar data from Anglo-Saxon verse would in principle be possible. As observed in 6.2, however, it was only in Middle English that the esthetic desirability of cluster alliteration became a recognizable attribute of versification. The concentration of cluster alliteration in the fourteenth-century compositions thus produces a relatively large basis for testing the linguistic hypotheses relating to cluster cohesion. Such information can, of course, be gleaned also from some later alliterative compositions; this is a task easily undertaken once we have 113. Warren Ginsberg (ed.). Wynnere and Wastoure and The Parlement of the Thre Ages. Originally published in Wynnere and Wastoure and The Parlement of the Thre Ages, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Western Michigan University for TEAMS, 1992. I have used both the Offord edition (EETS 1959, repr. 1967) and the online text available at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/ginparl.htm. The text does not allow a dating more definite than between 1352–1353 and about 1390. Offord thinks it probable that the poem was composed before 1370, but acknowledges this as supposition. 114. The text is considered one of the technically most accomplished alliterative compositions of the latter half of the fourteenth century, dated c. 1390–c. 1400, see Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989: xviii). The search was much facilitated by the availability of the machine-readable version of the text created by Hoyt Duggan and accessible through the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. All citations were compared to the printed edition of The Siege of Jerusalem, edited by E. Kolbing and Mabel Day, Early English Text Society, Original series 188. London: Oxford University Press, 1932.
6.5 Fourteenth-century verse and cluster cohesion
293
worked out the methodology of data collection on this particular alliterative feature.115 The empirical information collected in the previous sections shows that Middle English cluster alliteration is not randomly distributed. Alliterative choices depend demonstrably on the phonetic nature of the adjacent consonants, which in their turn motivate the presence or absence of a perceptual break within an onset cluster. The poet’s desire to maximize the identity of stressed onsets is discernible in the use of semantically weak alliterative fillers such as grete ‘great,’ clene ‘entirely.’ Another possible influence on the choice of alliterating partners may be the “alliterative rank” of a particular lexical item, a notion which must be extended to cover both synonymy and alliterative compatibility. The narrow focus on words with initial clusters makes it impossible to determine the exact role of this factor; still, we have found that at times the availability of semantically related words with identical clusters may affect the frequency of cluster alliteration. This was especially clear in the case of battle-related words in WA: thraly ‘violently,’ thrange ‘crowd,’ thraw ‘shot missiles,’ threshis ‘knocks,’ thret ‘threatened,’ thrillis ‘penetrates,’ thringis ‘rushes,’ throtild ‘suffocated,’ etc., or sleep and sloth, or pray, preach, and priest in PP. These are not quantifiable parameters; though they can tilt the numbers in some directions; on the whole they do not seem to interfere or dramatically change the tendencies established by the cluster identity counts in our texts. In English historical phonology alliterative evidence has always been taken with a grain of salt because of the possibility of it being based on letter identity. My position throughout this book has been that alliteration cannot be assumed to be “eye rhyme” either in Old or in Middle English. The continuity and strength of sound-based, rather than letter-based alliteration is substantiated by pairings such as the ones cited in (61):116
115. The Alliterative Morte Arthure has already been mentioned in this connection. Dunbar (c. 1460–1513) in The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo is also careful with the alliterative matching. Death and Life and The Scottish Field, the latter dated c. 1515, are shorter and metrically inconsistent. 116. A potential problem may arise from the assumption that /ks/ spelled <x> may alliterate with /s-/, which would be neither phonetically nor orthographically justified. Schumacher (1914: 119) shows convincingly that <x> should not be interpreted as /ks/; it is in fact a simple /s/. His supporting evidence comes from pairings such as disseuert : Cite : Xanthus, suster : Exonia : seruage, assignet : soueran : Xantipus in The Destruction of Troy and similar rhymes elsewhere. This is another indication that alliteration depended on die feinere Empf¨anglichkeit des Ohrs “the refined receptivity of the ear”; a phrase used with reference to Lagamon’s sound-based alliteration by Brandst¨adter (1912: 27).
(W & W 481) (W & W 70) (W & W 340) (W & W 340) (PP 6.269) (WA 698) (WA 1980)
Arguably, the extension of the practice of cluster alliteration itself fits better an assumption of an auditory-based creation of the verse line; the recording and copying of the text were subordinate processes. 6.6
Non-verse evidence for cluster cohesion
Inferences about cluster cohesion so far have been based on the premise that the poets’ choices of alliterating pairs correspond to the degree of similarity between onset clusters. Quantitatively, alliterative poetry provides the largest bulk of data available on cluster behavior in Middle English. In a system with uncodified spelling rules, however, alternative scribal forms can also be informative. The logic behind using alternate cohesive/split spellings is the following: if a cluster is fully cohesive, it should not be subject to spelling variation. If, on the other hand, the juncture between the first and the second consonant can be interpreted as similar to a perceptual break, the resulting ambiguity may trigger spelling variation. (62) shows a sample of some scribal variants of cluster-initial words found in the Middle English Dictionary in which the cluster is split by scribal epenthesis. (62)
borohte ‘brought’ dowelle ‘dwell’ furment ‘grain’ < OF, L frument gernet(e) ‘pomegrante’ OF grenade gerner ‘storeroom’ < OF grenier
Whether the spellings represent genuine doublet forms or not is impossible to decide when the epenthesized scribal forms have not survived in the standard language. Still, the evidence cannot be dismissed; tentative as it may be, it conspicuously excludes /sp-, st-, sk-/.117 Moreover, the probability of alternative realizations is enhanced by the mirror image of the phenomenon in (62), namely 117. On this point, I am relying on the judgement of the MED editors, who mark the extremely rare single split spellings of these clusters as “errors.” I have identified a total of six such “errors”: <sepit> for <spit>, <sepere> for <speren>, <sipirit> for <spirit>, <sepelle> for <spellen>, <sytyh> for <stig(e)> ‘rise,’ <sitne> for <stone>.
6.6 Non-verse evidence for cluster cohesion
295
a “syncopated” spelling of the sequence of etymological initial obstruent (other than /s-/) + vowel + sonorant sequence: (63)
crate ‘carat’ croub ‘raven,’ OF corb crub for curb ‘restraint’ crunle ‘kernel’ flette for fillet ‘ribbon’ frist ‘first’, OE fyrst frith ‘fiord, firth’ frubischer ‘furbisher’
No examples comparable to the ones cited in (63) exist with /sp-, st-, sk-/. This combination of scribal epenthesis and syncope corroborates an assumption that the scribes were interpreting an obstruent–sonorant sequence as similar to an obstruent–vowel sequence. The data in (62)–(63) represent, admittedly, “occasional” spellings. They cannot be dismissed as irrelevant, however, because such spellings are fully paralleled by the history of some more familiar historical doublets based on the similarity between non-sibilant obstruents followed by a sonorant and the same sequence with an epenthetic vowel inserted between the obstruent and the sonorant: (64)
O1 VR2 < O1 R2 V burst < OE brestan, berstan bort ‘diamond fragment’ < ge-brot (?) curd < crud dirt < ON drit
118. The Germanic name element in these names is frið ‘peace,’ as in Frederick, Friedman, Friedrich, etc. 119. This is a Southwestern dialect form, same as burches for breeches (OED). 120. Dialectal ‘a grassy enclosure, a paddock’ (OED). 121. Among the ME alternations in rarer or non-surviving items are garsel – gressel ‘brushwood,’ gulch – gluc(c)en ‘drink greedily,’ turpin – tropin ‘hare,’ etc.
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6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
Turning back to Langland, it is appropriate in this context to be reminded of his original and imaginative use of the potential similarity of the O1 R2 V O1 VR2 strings. Here I cite again the examples from Piers Plowman which show how a linguistic attribute is used for creating a special artistic effect: (66)
And Dowel and Do-yvele, wher thei dwelle bothe.’ And Dowel and Do-yvele mowe noght dwelle togideres. Where that Dowel dwelleth, and do me to knowe.’ “Sire Dowel dwelleth,’ quod Wit, “noght a day hennes
6.7
Alliterative patterns in verse and the lexicon
PPl 8.017 PPl 8.024 PPl 8.078 PPl 9.001
The presentation of the data on cluster alliteration in the preceding sections made repeated references to the number of lexical items in which a cluster is represented in a particular text. The comparison would be incomplete without placing these remarks within a broader picture of the lexical pool for items beginning with identical onsets. This section will look into the possibility of a correlation between the frequency of cluster alliteration and the availability of eligible lexical items in the language. By doing this we can address the question whether the poets’ practices regarding cluster cohesion are circumscribed by the availability of topic-appropriate lexical items. It would therefore be interesting to compare the results presented in the previous sections to the overall lexical pool for a particular onset. Table 6.1 lists the MED frequencies, in descending order, for entries beginning with fourteen different clusters. I searched for both the headword entries and for alternative spellings under “headwords and forms” in the electronic edition; the order of frequency is identical for both sets of data.122 The cluster /pr-/ is excluded because the results are skewed by the very high incidence of the prefixes pro-, pre-, per-. The electronically-generated numbers are only an approximation; they cover the full chronological span of the MED, and no single author or scribe would command or use but a portion of the entire recorded vocabulary. Nevertheless, the numbers are revealing in two ways. First, the very prominent cohesive behavior of sibilant + voiceless stop is matched by the size of the available lexical pool. This correlation is rough: the data on cluster alliteration are gathered from art verse and the numbers in Table 6.1 include some statistical noise, especially in the headword count. It is still a novel observation, however, that 122. No “headwords and forms” count for /sk-/ would be meaningful because of the variety of spellings and the massive graphic overlap of /sk-/ and /ʃ/.
6.7 Alliterative patterns in verse and the lexicon
297
Table 6.1 Onset cluster frequency in the Middle English Dictionary Cluster
of all cluster-initial words in Middle English, it is /st-/ and /sp-/ words that occur most frequently. This distribution is confirmed by a comparable search of the OED. Table 6.2 compares the onset cluster frequency in the MED and the on-line OED2.123 The consistency with which /sp-/ and /st-/ words appear at the top of the list is quite remarkable. In addition to whatever properties these clusters have, the sheer wealth of lexical choices would facilitate the observance of a convention for cohesive alliteration. The possible interdependence between lexical frequency and cluster cohesion can be tested on other languages. One could also pursue a Darwinian line of speculation and ask whether the cohesiveness of sibilant-stop onsets makes them more likely survivors; fascinating as this question is, this is not the place to consider it.124 The second notable fact emerging from the comparison is that except for /sp-, st-/, the size of the lexical pool does not correspond to the consistency of cluster alliteration. Leaving some cells unfilled because of insufficient data,125 the matching between the overall lexical frequency and the percentage of cluster alliteration in the three fourteenth-century texts is shown in Table 6.3. 123. The results for /kr-/ and /kl-/ include , , and spellings. 124. Whether the universally attested cohesion of these clusters is responsible for, or in any way related to, the significantly larger number of /st-, sp-/ words than words with any other cluster is a matter which can only be ascertained cross-linguistically. Though the logic of the correlation is appealing, the findings on /sn-, sm-/ for English would contradict it. Moreover, there are languages which do allow vowel epenthesis in sibilant-obstruent clusters, such as Korean, see Fleischhacker (2000). The correlation will not be pursued further here. 125. I have taken out the cluster /pr-/ because I have no reliable count of the words in which that cluster appears at the beginning of a stressed syllable.
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6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
Table 6.3 Lexical frequency and percentage of cohesive alliteration in Middle English MED % cohesive % cohesive % cohesive % cohesive MED headwords alliteration alliteration alliteration alliteration Cluster headwords and forms W & W WA PP Averages st
968
1148
100
100
99
99.3
sp
558
591
100
100
97
99
gr
476
554
58
37.5
46.6
br
460
36.5
sk
433
kr
415
490
28.5
fr
362
404
0
18.8
kl
350
399
0
27
14
13.7
fl
320
351
8.3
19.2
11
12.8
sl
259
312
77.7
50
67.6
gl
233
258
0
19
16
11.7
r
160
248
n/a
60
54
57
sm
138
159
n/a
77.7
sn
127
134
n/a
545 n/a
44.4 38 n/a
75
12
28.8
100
82
91
10
18
18.8
100
7.5
100 100
8.7
88.8 100
The initial clusters in Table 6.3 are arranged in order of descending lexical frequency. The shaded rows show the most cohesive clusters. The most clearcut comparisons are the drop of frequency of cluster alliteration between /st-, sp-/ and /gr-/, br-/, the juxtapositions of the pairs /sk-/ /kr/ and /kl-/ /fr-/, and the difference between /sm-, sn-/ and the other (relatively) lowincidence clusters, for example /gl-/. In spite of the fact that /sm-, sn-/ are the least frequent onset clusters in the set of fourteen clusters surveyed here, they are much more cohesive than the stop- and fricative-initial clusters. Comparing /sm-, sn-/ to, for example, /fl-, fr-/ makes it evident that, on the whole, different rates of cluster alliteration cannot be attributed to lexical frequency. The possibility of a non-accidental correlation between /sp-, st-/ cohesion and lexical frequency exists, but no such correlation can be claimed for the other clusters. Thus, in spite of fluctuations among the various texts, the overall picture confirms the expectation that the nature of the consonants is an important
6.8 Linguistic foundation of cluster alliteration
299
Fig. 6.4 Cohesive alliteration versus word frequency in Middle English
determining factor in the choice of alliterating pairs. The correlations between lexical frequency and cluster alliteration are shown in the chart in Figure 6.4. The mismatches between alliteration and the lexical pool are quite obvious; lexical availability is not what determines cohesion. The choices are neither random, nor should they be addressed as artistic flourishes of verbal ingenuity. The distribution of cluster alliteration establishes a hierarchy of probability which reflects the phonetic and phonological properties of the onset. The linguistic grounding of this distribution will be discussed in the following section.
6.8
The linguistic foundation of cluster alliteration
This chapter builds on the premise that alliteration in the English verse tradition of the fourteenth century was subject to constraints which mimic those of reduplication. Functionally the two processes are different. In true reduplication the copying is a grammatical process creating a new form. In alliteration the items pre-exist in the lexicon and are selected for their ornamental, esthetic value; the function of the matching is to bind the verse line together. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that in both instances the choice of matching linguistic entities is governed by the same principles of perceptual well-formedness. In verse, the application of these principles can be influenced by the availability of appropriate lexical items, their “alliterative rank” and other non-phonological considerations, but, essentially, the choices are restricted by the composition of the cluster. The heuristic merit of the data presented in this chapter is that it allows us to test the validity of some ideas currently debated in theoretical linguistics. The hypothesis about cluster Contiguity as a universal constraint maintaining the order of adjacent segments, in this case onset consonants, and
300
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
the ways in which this constraint can be violated, follows Fleischhacker (2000, 2001). 6.8.1 Alliterative identity and Contiguity In alliteration, the more familiar base-reduplicant correspondence known and studied in Optimality Theory takes the form of a non-directional relationship of output identity of the onset strings. Alliterative data are therefore a good testing ground for Correspondence Theory; the pairing of stressed onsets in verse can reveal the status and the violability of the Contiguity constraint as defined in (67):126 (67)
Contiguity: For a pair of matching strings S1 and S2 , the segments contiguous in S1 are also contiguous in S2 .
Contiguity is a correspondence constraint which guarantees that the string copied and its copy do not undergo epenthesis or deletion. The three options, satisfaction of Contiguity, and its violations, Splitting and Skipping, are shown in the correspondence diagram in (68):
S1
C ONTI GUITY C1 C2 V 3
S P LITTING C1 C2 V3
S KIP P ING C1 C2 V 3
S2
C1 C2 V 3
C1 V C2 V3
C1
(68)
V3
The hypothesis that the chapter has been testing is that Contiguity alone, or its violations Splitting and Skipping cannot capture the similarity relations that hold across the paired segments in S1 and S2 . That similarity has to be expressed in terms of the content of the corresponding strings, i.e. specific phonetic information has to be built into the phonological model. I have focused only on stressed onset clusters. My data are entirely historical, but the interpretation relates to both phonological change and to the typology of consonant cohesion in general. Except in sibilant-stop clusters, Old English verse required identity only of the leftmost segment, treating Skipping and Splitting in cluster correspondence as acceptable violations. Similarity beyond that leftmost segment was not structurally or esthetically called for. The diagram in (69) shows the correspondence relations of cluster-initial strings in Old English verse; the difference between Splitting and Skipping is structurally irrelevant: 126. McCarthy and Prince (1996b), Kager (1999: 250).
6.8 Linguistic foundation of cluster alliteration (69)
S1 S2 Old English:
301
C ONTIGUITY C1 C2 (V)
S P LITTING C1 C2 (V)
S KIPPING C1 C 2 V
C1 C2 (V) sp : sp, st : st
C1 V (C V) br : bV(r), k l : kV(l)
C1 V tr : tV-, sm : sV-
In Middle English the requirement for alliterative correspondence can be satisfied in three different ways, where only Skipping, or singleton alliteration, is the same as in Old English. Splitting and Skipping are no longer equally ranked violations of Contiguity . (70)
S1 S2 Middle English
C ONTIGUITY C1 C2 V
S P LITTING C1 C2 V
S KIPPING C 1 C2 V
C1 C2 V sp : sp, br : br
C 1 V C2 V sp : sVp, br : bVr-
V C1 sp : s-, br : bV
The three levels of shading in (70) indicate different degrees of satisfaction of the alliterative correspondence: ideally, Contiguity is observed, but if it is not, the next best option is Splitting. Skipping is the “last resort” option; it is the minimum that the parametrical rules demand. Many well-formed clusters such as /gr-/, /br-/, or /fl-/, /fr-/ can be matched in three different ways, but not at the same rate. All three options are sensitive to the properties of the adjacent segments. The parallel between alliteration and reduplication with respect to maximum copying has also been handled by the Totality constraint, defined as “every element in the reduplicant must have a phonologically identical correspondent in the base” (cf. Holtman 1996: 54).127 To tality in alliterative reduplication is an Output–Output constraint whose ranking changes from Old to Middle English, or even from one period and poet to another in Middle English. In Old English verse it was inviolable only for the /s/ + obstruent clusters, but it was very low-ranking for other clusters. For early Middle English verse, Tota l i ty is highly ranked, and not subject to the artificial limitations of Old English. Like Contiguity, the analytical goal of Total it y could not be achieved without further reference to Splitting and Skipping in the corresponding alliterating outputs, only Contiguity defines this need more explicitly within the constraint itself. 127. For an earlier interpretation of Totality as “cohesion,” see Kuryowicz (1966), and the discussion in Suzuki (1996).
302
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
6.8.2 The inadequacy of Sonority Sequencing The special cohesiveness of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in onsets was discussed in chapter 5. It is a well-documented and much studied issue. This chapter has shown that cohesiveness is not an exclusive property of the sibilant-initial clusters, and that these clusters, too, can be non-cohesive, albeit rarely. This gradual behavior argues for a unified treatment of all clusters. Following the familiar notions of cluster well-formedness based on rising sonority from the edge towards the peak of the syllable, the inventory of English onset clusters has been dichotomized traditionally into clusters that violate Sonority Sequencing (sp-, st-, sk-) and all other clusters. (71)
Dichotomy of English onset clusters based on Sonority Sequencing : ¬ OR (sp, st, sk) C1C2
OR (all other onsets)
However, the empirical information from Middle English verse shows that separating /sp-, st-, sk-/ categorically and lumping together “all other” onsets is not justified phonologically. The distribution of Contiguity, Splitting and Skipping depends demonstrably on the phonetic nature of the adjacent consonants, which in its turn motivates the presence or absence of a perceptual break within the onset. Associating onset well-formedness with the sonority slope is nothing new; the most familiar version of this type of observation is perhaps one part of Vennemann’s Head Law. It describes a preferred onset cluster as involving a sharp drop of consonantal strength from the onset to the nucleus (1988: 13–14). (72)
Head Law A syllable head is the more preferred: . . . (c) the more sharply the Consonantal Strength drops from the onset toward the Consonantal Strength of the following syllable nucleus.
The differences between the approach adopted here and Vennemann’s approach are the following. First, Vennemann refers to the abstract phonological property of consonantal strength, while here the reference is to concrete acoustic measurements of sonority whose values influence the phonological behavior of the string. Second, the heuristic technique here relies crucially on the output similarity of comparable onset strings, not on well-formedness per se. Any change that occurs, as in the examples in section 6.6, is accounted for in terms of
6.8 Linguistic foundation of cluster alliteration
303
how similar the epenthetic and non-epenthetic forms are. Finally, Vennemann accounts for the behavior of s + stop clusters by calling the /s-/ a “prependix,” while here the cohesiveness of these clusters does not call for special stipulations. It falls out naturally from the dissimilarity between the clusters as units and their potentially split forms. Group alliteration of /sp-, st-, sk-/ is attributed to the absence of a cluster-internal perceptual break, which inhibits Splitting . In terms of historical change, the maintenance of similarity between successive outputs is a critical factor: two forms like filmsy and flimsy are sufficiently similar for one to change into the other, but I am not aware of any comparable instances involving sibilant-initial clusters. 6.8.3 A hierarchy of onset cluster cohesiveness128 Defining alliteration as identity of the sound or sounds preceding the first major perceptual break at the left edge of the syllable, we can see why clusters for which the perceptual break is minimal or non-existent are systematically matched to each other as units. The more vowel-like the second consonant is, the more likely it is that the cluster will be split. Acoustically, the onset of vowel-like formant structure is interpreted by the listener as a possible break point in the continuity of a consonant cluster. An abrupt rise in intensity, as in the transition from an obstruent to /-w/ in dwell is more likely to create the perception of discontinuity, than a gradual rise, as in a sibilant followed by a nasal.129 Clusters in which the second element is an obstruent are not perceived as splittable in that way; “identity” for them encompasses the entire cluster. The familiar hierarchy of sonority shown in (73) is inversely proportional to the probability of a cluster being interpreted as similar to a split version of
128. In this section I would like to acknowledge again my indebtedness to the line of research currently conducted within OT by Donca Steriade and Heidi Fleischhacker. Fleischhacker has pointed out that the phonetic foundation of cohesion is in the varying salience of the perceptual break between the two consonants. The strength of the perceptual break is enhanced by (a) the high intensity of the formant structure of the second consonant; and (b) a clusterinternal burst which creates a boost in the auditory response and marks the point of speech segmentation. The burst accompanying stops is heard more clearly than that of a fricative in the same position. 129. “Intensity” is an acoustic property of sounds corresponding to loudness. It is “proportional to the average size, or amplitude, of the variations in air pressure.” “In general, vowels have the highest intensity . . . the lateral and nasal sounds [have] only slightly less intensity than the vowels . . . voiceless fricatives [have] very little intensity” (Ladefoged 1982: 169–170).
304
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
itself; everything else being equal, decreasing sonority of the second consonant corresponds to greater cohesiveness of the cluster. (73)
Sonority scale: obstruents < nasals < liquids < glides < (vowels) Cluster cohesion: CO > CN > CL > CW > (CV) C = consonant, O = obstruent, N = nasal, L = liquid, W = glide
Another important parameter in identifying a cluster as a unit versus perceiving it as a sequence of two independent segments, is the effect that the offset of the first consonant creates. The transition point from a stop to a following consonant is more salient in terms of speech segmentation than the transition of a fricative to the same consonant. All else being equal, the most cohesive will be those clusters in which the leftmost segment is less consonantal. (74) shows how a decreasing rate of segmentability relates to cluster cohesion:130 (74)
Parenthesized clusters are non-occurring onsets in the history of English. Cumulatively, the two parameters define the most cohesive cluster as a stop followed by an obstruent, the only combination that will be at the top of the cohesion scale in both (73) and (74). Clusters that satisfy this description, for example, ∗ pf-, ∗ kt-, ∗ pt-, are unattested in English.131 The next closest combination, which is at the top with respect to (73), and ranks second in (74), is a cluster which is both CO and FC, i.e. FO (fricative + obstruent). The only such combinations in English are the sibilant-stop clusters /sp-, st-, sk-/. All other clusters in the language are less cohesive by virtue of the sonority of their second consonant. Our data on /sm-, sn-/ suggest that although the properties of both parts of a cluster may influence its cohesiveness, the second consonant is more important in that
130. Both in (73) and (74), I am using a standard strength hierarchy, for example Lass (1984: 178), Giegerich (1992: 133). I leave the question of the importance of the voicing of the initial obstruent open. In principle, voiceless obstruents should induce a more salient burst, but I have no alliterative data to test the effect of voicing of the first consonant on the cohesion of the cluster. Also, although it has been argued that strength hierarchies can be language-specific, I have found no evidence that Old or Middle English differed from Modern English with respect to the scale in (73). 131. Cross-linguistically, such clusters will tend to simplify. German /pf/ is a monosegmental affricate, see Wiese (1996: 40), who cites analyses in which all stop-fricative combinations in German are interpreted as potential phonological affricates. Phonetically, simultaneous double closure can result in single articulations, as in kp , gb , see Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 329–343).
6.8 Linguistic foundation of cluster alliteration
305
respect: consonant + nasal clusters are more likely to be identified holistically than other consonant + sonorant clusters.132 The question of how clusters in which the first element is a stop or a nonsibilant fricative, for example /br-, kl-, dw-, fr-, fl-, r-, w-/, behave with respect to cohesion, has not been addressed in other historical studies of English consonant phonotactics, and it bears further investigation. Since only stops involve more abrupt offsets, one would expect /fr-, fl-, r-/ to be more like the /s-/ initial clusters, where the perceptual break is minimal. Contrary to this prediction, our data show that only /r-/ is indeed identified as a unit half of the time, approximating the level of cohesiveness of /sl-/. With both /sl-/ and /r-/, however, there were additional considerations of diction and phonaesthetic coloring that may have distorted the picture. The other fricative-initial onsets, /fr-/ and /fl-/, are much more likely to be interpreted as possessing an internal break, i.e. the fricative–sonorant transition appears to be quite similar to a fricative–vowel transition. In our alliterative data these two clusters repeatedly exhibited less cohesion than /s-/ initial clusters and stop-sonorant clusters. With these considerations in mind, the hierarchy of cohesiveness for English cluster onsets based on the alliterative evidence in Middle English is shown in (75). (75)
A hierarchy of cluster cohesiveness: Sibilant fricative + obstruent: /st-, sp-, sk-/ ↓
The hierarchy of cohesiveness resembles the inverse typology of vowel epenthesis sites with respect to consonant clusters in Fleischhacker (2000). (75) is based on the Middle English data collected for this chapter; the hierarchy that reflects it differs from the one that Fleischhacker proposes in two respects: for 132. Steriade (2001: 7) reports that “a relevant finding emerging from the research on similarity is that stricture differences ([±sonorant], [±continuant], [±consonantal]) play the major role in generating dissimilarity judgments, in contrast to voicing and place.” In the case discussed here it is the non-continuancy of the nasals that places them in an intermediate position with respect to cohesion.
306
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
her cross-linguistic material, sibilant-liquid and sibilant-glide are on a separate level, while all non-sibilant obstruents are kept together. I have not found enough data to justify separate levels for /sl-/ and /sw-/, but it appears that there is enough justification to put /fr-, fl-, r-/ on a separate level, especially in view of the high level of split alliteration for /fl-/ and /fr-/. In all other respects the hierarchical arrangement is predictable in that it corresponds to the acoustic properties of the segments included in the cluster. It is only at the top of the scale, with /sp, st-, sk/, that the observations are clear cut, and even there, some tolerance for non-cohesiveness was found in the less-carefully crafted verse in the early Middle English corpus. The other arrangements are tentative, especially in the lower half of the hierarchy. Nevertheless, the findings provide a basis for further study of onset cluster behavior in English, an underresearched issue, and they also add to the information on onset cluster behavior in general. Throughout this chapter I have assumed that the Middle English poets consciously pursued maximum phonological similarity between the onsets of stressed syllables. These onsets stand in a correspondence relation to each other, and their correspondence is circumscribed by the acoustic properties of the cluster’s components. Therefore the evidence from the alliterative compositions is taken as evidence for perceived similarity judgements as defined in Steriade (2001). The particular concatenation of features produces a similarity effect which serves as the basis of the unitary or non-unitary behavior of these clusters. Thus, Middle English alliteration provides historical corroboration for the hypothesis that the behavior of the consonants in the onset is sensitive to the acoustic signal. Except for /sp-, st-, sk-/, all cluster onsets in the history of English have a sonorant as their second consonant. They are not, however, treated equally cohesively in alliteration. This suggests that the inventory of initial clusters based on Sonority Sequencing in (71) must be revised as in (76), with the major dichotomy occurring between sibilant-initial and non-sibilant-initial clusters, and two further divisions along the lines of second consonant sonority and first consonant stricture. (76)
Typology of English onset clusters based on Contiguity: ST (sp-, st-, sk-) SC SR (sn-, sm-, sl-, sw-) C1C TR (br-, pl-, kw-, dr-, gl-, tw-, etc.) ¬SC FR ( fl-, fr-, θr-)
6.9 Cluster alliteration after ME 6.9
307
Cluster alliteration after Middle English
Cluster alliteration is regarded as one of the most salient characteristics of postConquest alliterative verse, but it is in fact a continuation of a linguisticallymotivated practice that existed in Old English. The parametrical rules of verse in both periods reflect the phonological properties of the matching clusters, though they do so to a different degree. The alliterative evidence of Middle English suggests that historically stable levels of cohesiveness can be deployed differently by different traditions. In Old English, the cut off line between /sp-, st-, sk-/ and other initial clusters is interpreted here as one of the “learned” aspects of versification, an artifice which has its linguistic foundation. By “learned” I mean that the inviolable parametrical rule must have been acquired through instruction in the tradition and facilitated by inductively figuring out what the constraints of the model are. In Middle English some poets felt free to ignore the special status of /sp-, st-, sk-/ altogether, extending the notion of maximal onset matching to other initial clusters. In doing so, they presumably relied not on instruction but entirely on their own intuitions about the perceptual similarity of onset clusters. Other poets refrained from violating /sp-, st-, sk-/ cluster alliteration, possibly following instruction or other available models. Crucially, since alliteration is an easily internalized analog to reduplication, the relaxation of the parametrical rules in Middle English allowed the extension of the notion of cluster alliteration to other clusters. The picture is not chaotic: with some glitches, due to the nature of the sources, the patterns found in Middle English confirm the expectations defined by the linguistic properties of the clusters. At the modern end of the chronological scale the verse evidence is diffuse and non-quantifiable. There is, however, one cache of data that seems worth mentioning: the Ablaut words of Modern English (crick–crack, plink–plonk, scribble–scrabble, smick–smack, snip–snap, strim–strum, trim–tram). Going through the most extensive collection of such data (Thun 1963: 323–347), one does not find a single exception to the full onset copying exemplified by the words cited above. Such words, all of them of more recent, post-sixteenthcentury vintage, always and invariably copy the entire onset in reduplication. The reason for that cannot lie in the acoustic properties of the clusters; it is a copying convention similar to the observance of /sp-, st-, sk-/ cluster alliteration in Old English. Historically, then, cluster cohesion was used most sparingly in Old English alliteration. It became a widely used and mostly perceptually motivated part of the alliterative schemes in Middle English, and it is no longer distinctive in Modern English word-formation types where onset identity is required without
308
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
regard to the size or nature of the cluster. Whether the same preferences that were established for the Middle English poets can be shown to exist for modern poets remains an open question because of the rarity and non-structural nature of alliteration in modern poetry in general. My attempt to collect some relevant data from the entire corpus of Seamus Heaney’s Collected Poems (1965–1975) did not turn up any interesting results; the patterns are simply too random to be informative. This is not to deny, however, that we still have a lot to learn about the alliterative patterns in other fourteenth-century works, the continuation of the practice in the fifteenth century, and the reasons for the esthetic shifts away from alliteration in the history of English verse. 6.10
Concluding remarks
This chapter uses Middle English alliteration to establish perceived similarity judgements for onset clusters. In early Middle English the poets felt free to ignore the special status of /sp-, st-, sk-/ altogether. In fourteenth-century verse all clusters were judged to be cohesive, but not equally so. Middle English alliteration has never been looked at from the point of view of the hierarchy of perceptual cohesion of the onsets. I hope to have shown that, literally, there is more to alliteration than meets the eye. The patterns of onset matching found in the fourteenth-century corpus constitute a good basis for testing the validity of recent theoretical claims regarding the constraint Contiguity and its corollaries Splitting and Skipping. In her ongoing study of onset clusters and contiguity Fleischhacker (2001) hypothesizes that “the possibility of deletion or insertion . . . in a specific segmental environment is directly related to the degree of perceived similarity between (i) the string resulting from deletion or insertion, and (ii) the unaffected string.” In this chapter this prediction was tested against data from the alliterative corpus and Middle English scribal and etymological information. Except for /sp-, st-, sk-/, all possible word-initial clusters in English have a sonorant as their second consonant. Phonetic studies show that the transition from an obstruent to a sonorant creates perceptual conditions similar to those arising at the obstruent–vowel juncture. The distribution of alliterative matching in verse thus supports the idea of a universal phonological hierarchy of perceptual cohesiveness in onset clusters. The clusters /st-, sp-, sk-/ are at the top of the scale, followed by s + sonorant clusters, followed by stop + sonorant and fricative + sonorant clusters. While the Middle English alliterative corpus as a whole still bears witness to the primacy of the oral principle in alliteration, it also points to some significant
6.10 Concluding remarks
309
differences from the way the principle was applied to Old English verse. First, the interpretation of onset identity was broadened to include all complex onset clusters. This was accomplished in a manner congruent with a scale of gradient cohesiveness of these clusters. Unlike the Old English scops, some Middle English poets did not interpret any point on that scale as a clear cut-off point for the purposes of versification. Middle English versifiers and their copyists reached deeper into the inventory of possible initial clusters; no clusters were exempt from cohesive treatment. Nevertheless, /st-, sp-, sk-/ were still the leading choices for that practice, while /fr-/ and /fl-/ were more likely to be matched by Skipping and Splitting. The observation that the new patterns of alliteration in Middle English represent a relaxation of the classical parametrical rules is undoubtedly correct, but it is also vague. A closer look into group alliteration in Middle English shows that the innovations on the classical rules are not linguistically undisciplined. Zusammengesetzte St¨abe, a prominent attribute of fourteenth-century alliterative verse, reflect the gradient cohesiveness of the initial clusters in the language. Alliteration optimally involves full consonant identity, and, failing that, consonant identity up to the first perceptual burst in the stressed syllable. The matching of identical first consonants to maximally similar second consonants, i.e. /bl-/ : /br-/, /kl-/ : /kr/, is a special case of optimal correspondence. Additional factors guiding the poets’ choice could be the “alliterative rank,” the phonaesthetic associations, and the semantic malleability of a word, as well as the overall size of the lexical pool. My discussion of constraints on clustering in English started with an attempt to specify the conditions that license the cohesive behavior of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in Old English. In the previous chapter I described and defined, by elimination, the factors that must be present for a cluster to be both well formed and cohesive. A crucial component of the new descriptive account of the properties of /sp-, st-, sk-/ in chapter 5 is the requirement for a minimum overall sonority. This shifts the focus of the explanation from the first to the second consonant. The account pivots around the voiceless stops: the items at the bottom of the sonority scale. In this chapter the focus on the sonority of the second consonant was widened to include other initial clusters. Copying an entire initial cluster, for example /sw-, sl-, pr-, kr-, br- gr-, r-/, etc., was optional in Middle English. Crucially, however, there are no texts in which non-sibilant clusters alliterate as a group more often than sibilant-initial clusters. The patterns of onset identity found in the Middle English alliterative corpus are congruent with independently defined linguistic constraints and as such they constitute a good basis for testing the validity of recent theoretical claims regarding cluster cohesion. Since such data
310
6 Onset and cluster alliteration in ME
is difficult to come by outside the verse evidence presented here, the exercise of gathering all the details has been productive and rewarding, though at times it did feel like counting how many angels may stand together upon a needle’s point.133
133. 1642 R. Carpenter Experience III. iv. 17 : That so many Angels may well stand together without much thrusting upon a needles point.
7
Verse evidence for cluster simplification in Middle English
The most notable change affecting onset clusters in the history of English is the simplification of velar-initial, glottal fricative-initial, and labial approximantinitial clusters to monosegmental onsets. Comparing the reconstructed Old English forms and their Modern English reflexes we find: (1)
Old English a cnif [kni:f] gnætt [gnæt] b hnægan [hnæjən] hringe [hriŋgə] hlædel [hlædl] hwæl [hwæl] c wriþan [wri:ðən] wlisp [wlisp]
Modern English knife [Ønaif] gnat [Ønæt] neigh [Ønei] ring [Øri] ladle [Øleidl] whale [(h)weil] writhe [Øraið] lisp [Ølisp]
The loss of the leftmost segments of the onsets in (1a) and (1c) is dated during or after the fifteenth century. The simplification of the /h-/ clusters in (1b) started much earlier, occurring roughly during the transition from Old to Middle English, with the exception of [hw-] –> [(h)w-], a change which is presumed to have occurred later. Moreover, the unaspirated pronunciation [w-] for this historical cluster is characteristic only of some varieties of Modern English. Cluster simplification has been widely studied, but alliterative evidence has not been included in the argumentation for the inception and dating of these events. This chapter will address the behavior of the historically unstable initial clusters: /kn-, gn-, hn-, hr-, hl-, hw-, wl-, wr-/ in alliteration. First, I will present the evidence found in the same Middle English alliterative texts that were covered in chapter 6. This allows comparisons between the use of stable and unstable clusters in alliteration. The verse data will then be placed in the context of broader scribal evidence of the Middle English Dictionary (MED) and The Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English (LAEME). The chapter concludes with a discussion of the causes for cluster simplification and a proposal for a revised chronology of the changes. 311
312 7.1
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME Historically unstable clusters in Lagamon’s Brut
This section will survey the alliterative use of the three types of historically unstable clusters in Lagamon’s Brut. As in chapters 5 and 6, my main source of data is the earlier Caligula manuscript of the poem (British Museum MS Cotton Caligula A.IX), with references to the Otho manuscript (British Museum MS Cotton Otho C.XIII) wherever relevant. I start with the evidence for the use of the velar-initial clusters /kn-/ and /gn-/. 7.1.1 /gn-/ and /kn-/ in early Middle English There are no /gn-/ initial words in either text of Lagamon’s Brut, while /kn-/ words occur freely in both alliterating and non-alliterating positions. This imbalance between /kn-/ and /gn-/ frequency is a recurring and predictable fact in the Middle English verse material. It correlates with the size of the available lexical pool for the two types of onsets. A search of the MED (putting all derivationally related headwords together), shows only a handful of /gn-/ items eligible for alliteration: gnare ‘snare,’ gnat, gnaw, gnede ‘scarcity,’ gneornung (ger.) ‘mourning,’ gnit (n.) ‘nit,’ gnodden (v.) ‘to rub between the hands,’ gnof (n.) ‘person,’ gnokken (n.) ‘the cuckoo,’ gnost (n.) ‘a spark.’ Practically all of them show alternative spellings with , suggesting voicing neutralization. I will return to this issue in 7.5.2. With all of about ten words to work with, mostly onomatopoeic, the lack of alliterative evidence for /gn-/ is not surprising; the text yields no information regarding the claim that /gn-/ cluster simplification occurred prior to /kn-/ simplification.1 Alliterative information regarding etymological /kn-/ is much more readily available. Here are some specific data on the treatment of /kn-/ in the Brut. The eligible alliterative items in the text are cnaue ‘boy,’ (i)cnawen ‘know,’ cneo ‘knee,’ cneoli ‘to kneel,’ cnif ‘knife,’ cniht ‘knight,’ (i)cnutten ‘knotted.’ I have found no lines in which /kn-/ shows self-alliteration in the canonical aa/ax pattern. The initial consonant /k-/ in the cluster, spelled both and , appears stable, as the alliterative evidence in the following lines attests:2 1. This assumption is made in Lutz (1991: 236, 249) as part of an account of cluster simplification based on the consonantal strength relations of the adjacent segments. 2. The spelling is used regularly for all cognates of kin, including king. There are no spellings in the Caligula MS after line 1400. Further instances of /kn-/ : /k-/ alliteration are found at lines, 3435, 4737, etc.
7.1 Unstable clusters in Lagamon’s Brut (2)
þa cnihtes of þan castle; quic-liche heom wið-stoden. Wonne þu comest to þon cnihten; þat þene king bi-witeð þe king læi on cneouwen; and cleopede to Crist[e].
313
318 359 15999
My search turned up one lexeme-specific aspect of /kn-/ of stylistic interest. The noun cniht ‘man, knight’ and its morphological and spelling variants appear 795 times in the Caligula version of the text. This extraordinary density is not matched by alliterative use of the word: only a minute proportion of the lines in which the word is used alliterate on /k-/. This is apparently a word for which the notion of “alliterative rank” is quite useful. The exclusion of this word from the structural alliteration defines cniht as part of the basic, non-elevated vocabulary of the period. Its use in the poem is driven by the needs of the narrative; it is not part of the special poetic diction. This finding confirms observations on the use of the same word in later texts: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Alliterative Morte Arthure, and William of Palerne.3 As far as simplification goes, the text yields no information about the status of /gn-/ and it confirms the stability of the initial consonant in /kn-/. There are no instances of cluster alliteration for either onset; the significance of this cannot be evaluated fully because of the limitations of the lexical pool for /gn-/ and the metrical uncertainties of the text. The only fact of interest, to which I will return in 7.5.3, is that the overall frequency of the cluster /kn-/ in the MED at 109 headwords and 127 headwords and forms is comparable to that for /sm-/ (138/159) and /sn-/ (127/134). Nevertheless, /kn-/ is never chosen for group alliteration, while /sm-, sn-/ words in this text and elsewhere, alliterate regularly as clusters. 7.1.2 /h-/ clusters in Lagamon’s Brut The etymological sequence of /h-/ + /-r, -l, -n/ had already been simplified in the dialect of the compositor and scribe(s) of both the Caligula and the Otho versions of the text. This statement is based on scribal evidence. Alliterative evidence for the change confirms this:4 3. Comparing the alliterative use of knit and lede ‘man, warrior’ Lester (1996: 105) reports that in SGGK lede appears 38 times, always in an alliterating position, while knit appears 68 times, of which 41 are in non-alliterating positions. Similarly, in MA, lede alliterates in all of the 15 lines where it is used, while knit alliterates only 22 times out of a total of 121 occurrences. Bunt (1985: 84–85) also assigns “low alliterative rank” to knit in WP, though the instances of alliterating knit in his text are high: 79 alliterating; 22 non-alliterating. The lower alliterative rank of the word becomes obvious when it is compared to other synonyms for “man” which are always alliterating, such as frek (×29), gom (×40), and lud (×23). 4. The last MED record of in neck is c. 1150. In rugge‘back,’ OE hrycg was last recorded a. 1150. in lean is slightly later (a. 1225,? a. 1200, Trin.Hom.). No
314 (3)
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME & his nakede sweord; leide on his necke. warp he an his rugge; a ræf swiðe deore. þa leonede he ouer wal; & lude gon cleopien. and alle ða lafdies; leoneden eond walles. ah he lustnede eorne; luðer on his ðohte.
345 11858 5376 12335 13156
The only ostensibly surviving /h-/ initial cluster in Lagamon’s Brut is /hw-/. This cluster is generally assumed to have persisted longest; in some sources its reduction is dated as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. The scribal testimony for earlier simplification is dismissed as affecting only prosodically weak words (Lass 1999: 123–124). Alliterative evidence has not been used in the dating. Since alliteration precludes prosodic weakness, it will be interesting to see what the practice of Lagamon and the other Middle English poets is with respect to this cluster. There are no instances of group alliteration on the historical cluster /hw-/ in Lagamon’s Brut.5 Only two instances of the old spelling appear in the entire Caligula text: ihwær in l. 1482, and nohwar in l. 14624. The later Otho manuscript has one instance of in nohware in line 379. Elsewhere the reflex of OE is spelled either <wh-> or <w->. Although it is the received knowledge on the status of <wh->/ that it was still representing a fricative + sonorant cluster in Middle English, the alliterative evidence for words in Lagamon’s Brut is highly suggestive of identification with /w-/. Some examples of <w-> matching are cited below: (4)
whulche wurð-liche wude; whulche wilde deores. whar ich mihte on wilderne; wurchen ænne castel. a Whiten-sunen-dæie; he þer wærf6 makede. While heo weoren; a ðissere worlde-richen.
5874 7698 8728 9835
Further instances of <wh-> : /w-/ pairing are found at lines 3088, 3515, 5873, 6103, 6136, 7737, 7853, 7886, 7928(?), 7992, 8934, 9009, 9118, 9359, 9483, spelling for loud is recorded in the MED, but the Ormulum has for OE hlude ‘loud.’ The last recorded form for lady is a. 1150. OE hlystan ‘listen’ preserves occasional spellings until c. 1225. 5. The choice of symbol is based on the presupposition that the initial consonant in the cluster is /h-/, a necessary stage in the loss, even if is reconstructed as /x/ in Old English. In line with the assumed lateness of the development, Lass (1999: 122) reconstructs a velar fricative /x/ in this position. 6. This could be a case of uninformative self-alliteration. The word wharf ‘assembly, crowd’ is traced back to OE hwearf , corresponding to OS hwarf ‘crowd,’ MLG warf, werf ‘circle, assembly,’ OHG warb, MHG warp, warf (OED). The word alliterates on /w-/ in the two instances where it appears in the ASPR, Guthlac 263 (hwearfum : woð), Judith 249 (weras : hwearfum).
7.1 Unstable clusters in Lagamon’s Brut
315
15518, etc. While matching with /w-/ is quite common for the instances in which a <wh-> word is used alliteratively, I have found only three instances in which <wh-> allows speculation that it could be matched to /h-/, and in all three lines other factors may be at play.7 The hypothesis of advanced simplification of this cluster in the text is reinforced by additional scribal evidence. First, numerous inverse spellings of etymologically /w-/ initial words in the Caligula version would contradict an assumption of a surviving biphonemic /hw-/: (5)
The common practice of inserting by hypercorrection can only mean that the scribe was aware of the tradition of representing /w-/ with <wh->, but did not know which words merited that spelling. Conversely, etymological initial words are rendered regularly as simply <w->: whær/wær, whanene/wanene, whenne/wenne, whuder/wuder, whulc/wulc. The spelling <w-> for OE /hw-/ has been mentioned in the literature as evidence for early simplification of the cluster.8 It has, however, also been dismissed. In her otherwise thorough study of these issues, Lutz (1991: 34–35, 45–47) rejected the scribal evidence for early simplification of /hw-/ adduced in the earlier scholarship because she believed that the evidence was restricted to prosodically weak interrogative words. Both my alliterative data and additional scribal data not cited elsewhere show that this is not a tenable argument. The 7. The questionable lines are: and whuder þu hatest; for þu ært ure hærre. Hamun hine bi- þohte; whet he don mihte. and huden heom wel i whar; þe while men sloh Gillomar.
2702 4627 9119
In 2702 <wh-> may be outside the /h-/ : vowel alliteration, and 9119 and 4627 are suspect because the rhyming scheme makes the alliteration structurally irrelevant. 8. See, for example Luick (1914–1940: §704), Harris (1954: 56–60), and Sievers and Brunner (1942: §217). Skeat (1867: 205) pointed out that the change is more advanced in the South, the implication being that these spellings reflect the pronunciation and the orthographic practice of Anglo-Norman scribes for whom /hw-/ would have been a “foreign” cluster. Harris (1954) is the most thorough and convincing advocate of early simplification of /hw-/. He recognized the possibility of coexistence of the new /w-/ with /hw-/ already in late Old English, and citing considerable scribal evidence he concluded that by the thirteenth century the simple form was more common (1954: 56–60). Harris does not address the evidence of the Caligula text of Lagamon’s Brut, restricting his comments to the pervasive <w-> of the Otho manuscript.
316
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
scribal simplification data in Lagamon’s Brut include not only the <wh-> interrogatives, which would be predictable “leaders” in this development, but also other historical /hw-/ words used in the text: (6)
The combined evidence from alliteration and spelling is quite convincing: the Caligula version of Lagamon’s Brut, dated a. 1225 (?a. 1200) 9 shows a highly advanced stage in the reduction of the etymological cluster /hw-/. It is in the nature of each phonological change that it does not affect every single lexical item at the same time. Even, and particularly, within a framework of gradual /hw-/ reduction, alliteration becomes a particularly strong argument for positing early /h-/ loss. The prosodic prominence of alliterating words is more likely to trigger associations with hyperarticulated variants typical of slow and careful speech, and in a system allowing only incipient variation those would, of course, be the conservative /hw-/ pronunciations. The predominance of /w-/ alliteration therefore makes it clear that the initial /h-/ was not a stable and distinct part of the older /hw-/ cluster in Lagamon’s dialect. 7.1.3 <w-> clusters in Lagamon’s Brut The last set of historically unstable clusters to be considered is /wl-, wr-/. There are no /wl-/ words in the text. The use of /wr-/ in Lagamon’s Brut is in keeping with reconstructions describing the reduction of /wr-/ to /r-/ as a post-Middle English change (Harris 1954: 97, Lass 1999: 122). The cluster alliterates regularly on /w-/: (7)
mid wieleden mid wrenchen; mid wunderliche strengðen. þa iwerð he swiðe wrað; & þas word seide. þat weoren æi wimman; swa wræcchelichen atoene. & we wreken wurhliche; ure wine-maies.
949 1914 6036 10040
Further examples are found at lines 870, 1580, 4103, 10522, etc. The pool of lexical items from which alliterating words can be drawn is very substantial: 9. The dating is from the MEC Hyper-Bibliography. It should be noted that all etymological /hw-/ items are spelled <w-> in the somewhat later, c. 1300 Otho Ms. Thus. ‘whetted,’ <wales-bone> ‘whales-bone,’ <witsontime> ‘Whitsuntide,’ etc.
7.1 Unstable clusters in Lagamon’s Brut
317
there are over fifty entries of <wr-> headwords in Madden’s Glossary (1847: III. 651–652). Some items are of exceptionally high frequency: references to wrað ‘anger,’ writ ‘(letter)-writing,’ and wreken ‘avenge(ing)’ are very central to the narrative. Lines in which <wr-> words are used in alliterative positions occur commonly, both with single and with group alliteration: (8)
and wrað him iwræððed; wunder ane swiðe. and his wreche sende; an wræstliche þan folke.
10665 14764
In addition to the lines cited in (8), where the <wr-> words are freely combined, there appears to be a special stylistic flavor to the use of some /wr-/ words in the text which cluster in the same line. The author repeatedly conjoins writing and wrath; similarly, we find the formulaic cognate object in writen a writ ‘to write a writ’ as in line 1573 below:10 (9)
þe king nom þat writ on hond; & he hit wrodliche bi-heold he letten writen a writ; & wel hit lette dihten. A writ he lette makien. mid muchere wraððe; Cezar iseh þis writ; and he hit wraðliche biheold.
244 1573 3651 3679
While the alliterative use of <wr-> in (7)–(9) indicates survival of a bisegmental onset /wr-/, a note of caution is in order. Searching for <wr-> in Lagamon’s Brut turns up some lines in which the cluster seems to alliterate on /r-/: (10)
& þat writ wes irad; imæ[n]g þan Rom-leden. þan kaisere heo radden; þat he write runen; and riden to Rom-leoden. mid raere wraððen. what-se hæfde richedom; he hine makede wræcche mon.
6183 12647 13863 3269
(10) represents the entire set of lines where the question of /r-/ alliteration of a <wr-> word may arise. The coexistence of reduced and unreduced variants of the same cluster is always a possibility, therefore the usage illustrated in (10) may be evidence for just that: incipient and variable cluster reduction. On the other hand, the observance of a strict alliterative scheme in Lagamon’s Brut is far from perfect; in lines 6183, 12647, 13863 there are other /r-/ words to carry the alliteration, and line 3269 is held together by rhyme. I will assume therefore that the <w-> initial clusters were still bisegmental in the poet’s language. 10. This particular phrase is not unique to Lagamon. Ælfric and Wulfstan use gewrit awrat, and in Middle English we find write writtis in Orm, writen . . . wriht in Alexander B, etc. The phrase is also recorded in Oakden (1935 [1968]: 217, 312).
318 7.2
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME Wynnere and Wastoure
Jumping ahead to the middle of the fourteenth century, and looking at the alliterative practice in a much more tightly structured poem, produces results quite similar to the results found in Lagamon’s Brut. There are no initial words used in Wynnere and Wastoure. There are eleven instances of /kn-/ : /k-/ alliteration, at lines 80, 81, 134, 203, 205, 210, 315, 327, 468, 491, 502. The /kn-/ cluster is repeated twice in lines 83 and 485: (11)
And by þe cabane I knewe the knyghte that I see And luke thi knave hafe a knoke bot he þe clothe sprede
83 485
However, the word knyghte ‘knight’ in line 83 is editorial; the manuscript has kynge, corrected by the editors on the basis of the surrounding text. The proportion of singleton to cluster alliteration is thus strongly in favor of the former, a distribution similar to the one found for /kn-/ in Lagamon’s Brut. Another parallel can be drawn between /k-/ clusters that are historically stable and clusters that undergo simplification. The distribution of the three clusters in Wynnere and Wastoure is shown in (12): (12)
# word # of OR1 : OVR1 / Cluster types tokens Singleton Cluster OR2 kn kr kl
5 7 6
20 8 13
11 3 9
2 2 0
511 2 2
% cluster alliteration 11.1 28.6 0
In spite of the higher density of /kn-/ tokens in the text, the percentage of cluster alliteration for /kn-/ appears to be low. One must be cautious with these counts, however: the numbers are small and the discrepancy between /kr-/ and /kl-/ is a sign of warning that the distribution may not be based on cluster cohesion. Two factors make the use of /kn-/ clusters in alliteration difficult to interpret in terms of cohesion: the overall number of available lexical items in the vocabulary of the poet and the specific items required by the narrative in the text. A headword and forms search in the MED shows the results in (13): (13)
Cluster
MED headwords
MED headwords and forms
12
415 350 109
490 399 127
11. In lines 81, 205, 210, 315, 485 /kn-/ is matched to /kl-/. There is no repetition of lexical items, no formula involved here. This does not appear to be of phonological significance; rather, it is an accidental effect of the frequency of /kl-/ words in the text – 8 headwords and 28 tokens. 12. There are 32 forms in the MED, all of them duplicating primary entries under .
7.2 Wynnere and Wastoure
319
The ratio is about 4 : 1 in favor of the words with the historically stable clusters. As pointed out in chapter 6, the numbers alone are not definitive; the internal composition of the cluster and the varying frequency of individual tokens must also be taken into consideration. Nevertheless, these counts give us a fair idea what lexical pool a poet would have been drawing on in trying to match an entire velar-initial cluster. Thus in addition to relating the low incidence of cluster alliteration to the overall paucity of words with that cluster, there is also the factor of specific lexical choice. More than half of the /kn-/ tokens in the text are forms of the verb know. It is possible that the word can be thrown in as an alliterative filler, as in l. 315: That bene knowen and kydde ‘that are known and recognized,’ but it is normally a necessary semantic component of the narrative. On the other hand, clene ‘bright(ly)’ is inserted regularly for the sake of alliteration. Such considerations make inferences on the cohesiveness of /kn-/ unreliable. All we can say is that in terms of dating, the treatment of in Wynnere and Wastoure supports the assumption that that spelling still represents a biphonemic sequence in the fourteenth century. Among the /h-/ initial clusters of Old English, the single potential survival in Wynnere and Wastoure is /hw-/. There is only one line in the text in which one of the 13 <wh-> initial words participates in the structural alliteration, and in it the <wh-> is self alliterating and therefore uninformative:13 (14)
Whitte als the whales bone / whoso the sothe tellys
181
The <wh-> is not provably part of the alliterative scheme on [h-] in line 150: (15)
With thre hedis white-herede / with howes one lofte
150
This scansion assumes that white-herede ‘white-haired’ has verse-induced prominence on the second half of the compound, a phenomenon of compound behavior familiar from isosyllabic verse. Prominence on white would induce stress clash if hedis ‘heads’ is monosyllabic, as it might well have been. More importantly, the pattern of a disyllabic dip between the two lifts in the a-line is normative for this poem.14 The other uses of the adjective white (in lines 144, 156, 175) are outside the alliterative scheme. Thus the evidence for in this text allows both a /hw-/ and a reduced /w-/ interpretation. Turning to <w-> clusters in Wynnere and Wastoure: not surprisingly in view of the length of the poem, there are no <wl-> -initial words in the text. W&W 13. Alliteration in line 181 could be aa/bb, with right-prominent whoso and b-line alliteration on /s-/. This scheme is not reported elsewhere in the poem (Trigg 1990: xxxi–xxxvi). 14. On the avoidance of weak medial dips in the a-verse in Middle English alliterative poetry see Duggan (2001).
320
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
is one of the earliest texts of the alliterative revival. In it, alliteration of <wr-> with <w-> appears to support the continuing biphonemic status of the sequence spelled <wr->: (16)
Wyse wordes and slee / and icheon wryeth othere Loo! this wrechide Wastoure, / that wydewhare es knawenn
6 326
This pattern is found in another eight lines: 198, 201, 309, 395, 423, 424, 439, 465. The only two instances of self-alliteration are in lines 71 and 324, where the /w-/ alliteration is confirmed by the matching to <w-> in the third alliterating lift in the line: (17)
Wroghte als a wodwyse / alle in wrethyn lokkes. Bot than this wrechede Wynnere / full wrothely he lukes
71 324
In lines 57 and 200 <wr-> appears to be paired with initial words: (18)
For to ridde and to rede / and to rewlyn the wrothe And fro he wiete wittirly / where the wronge ristyth,
57 200
This matching is ambiguous. There is only one other line in the text with extra rich rhyme aa/aa, line 167 (Domynyke : daye : dynttis : dele) which weakens, but does not eliminate the case for /r-/ in wrothe ‘anger’ in line 57. Whether line 200 is aa/ax or aa/bb is impossible to determine; statistically the former is more likely. The occasional bb scheme does occur in the b-verse, however, for example 103, 386, 476.15 This would allow the possibility of /r-/ alliteration in line 200 (wronge : ristyth). As mentioned above, the simplification of <wr-> is standardly assumed to have been a mid-fifteenth-century development, though the dating can be called into question by earlier spellings (Minkova and Stockwell 1997b: 41–42). I leave open the possibility that some simplification may have been underway already in the fourteenth century which would justify the reconstruction of a <wr-> : echo in W&W. We will return to the discussion of <wr-> in 7.7. 7.3
The Wars of Alexander
Collecting data on the historically unstable clusters from The Wars of Alexander is important because of the numerous northern characteristics of the text. If the alliterative practice of a poet is taken as a basis for reconstructing his phonology, there should be some differences between texts originating in different 15. On this point, see also Trigg (1990: xxxv).
7.3 The Wars of Alexander
321
geographical areas. This expectation is confirmed by the findings in this text, especially with respect to /hw-/ alliteration. The evidence regarding the velar-initial clusters /gn-, kn-/ in the Wars is as follows. A single appearance of gnaistes ‘gnashes’ in 5447 is line-final. There are no other words in the text. The types and tokens of /kn-/ are much more prominent. There are 15 glossary headword entries with the spelling ( is not used in either manuscript of the poem). The cluster appears in alliteration 153 times. In another 61 lines a word is placed outside the alliterative scheme. The ratio of single (/kn/ : /k-/) to double (/kn-/ : /kn-/) alliteration is strongly in favor of splitting the cluster. Not counting five lines in which it is difficult to decide whether a word is used structurally or decoratively, at 100, 2648, 2998, 3654, 5044), the examples below represent the total set of lines in which cluster alliteration on /kn-/ is used in the poem: (19)
And kneland on þe cald erth he knockis on his brest For he knew not of our knithede ne of our kid strenth It contraries knithede e knaw wele ourselfe þat vnnethes ken may a knit to knaw to his fere He knelis doun with his knitis on þe cald erthe Lest he ware knawyn for þe kyng þe knit for to blinde
1722 1950 2332 4207 5055 5360
This low incidence of group alliteration of /kn-/ was observed in the other texts too. Note also the reliance on the forms of two lexical items: knit ‘knight’ and forms of the verb knaw(e) ‘know.’ Here is a comparison between the rates of cluster alliteration on /kn-/ and the two other /k-/ clusters in The Wars of Alexander:16 (20) Cluster
# word types
# of tokens
Singleton alliteration
Cluster alliteration
% cohesive alliteration
kn kr kl
15 34 46
214 92 237
142 66 124
6 7 46
4 9.7 27
An additional observation is that for both /kl-/ and /kr-/ there are instances of triple alliteration, here conflated in the penultimate Cluster alliteration column, while no triple alliteration lines are attested with /kn-/. The discrepancy discussed in the other texts is in evidence here too: /kn-/ is less likely to appear in cluster alliteration than other voiceless velar initial onsets, even though the frequency of /kn-/ tokens is similar to, or exceeds that of, the other clusters. 16. The chart excludes the instances of /kr-/ : /kVr-/ (×12) and /kl-/ : /kVl/ (×8) alliteration.
322
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
The only potentially surviving /h-/ cluster in the Wars is /hw-/. Both versions of the poem are assumed to be copies of exemplars with West Midlands (for A) or Midland or perhaps West Midland characteristics (for D).17 In the Ashmole manuscript, whose scribe worked in Durham or possibly South Northumberland, the most common rendition of Old English is or , though occasionally <wh-> is also used. In the Durham manuscript, which was written in the Northeast, around Durham or Northumberland, Old English words are usually spelled <wh->, with <what> alternating with and one spelling for ‘whether.’ The poet’s language, as reconstructed on the basis of the alliterative practice, reflects the survival of the initial segment “in parts of the North and North Midlands . . . [as] a very strongly aspirated /xw-/” (Duggan and Turville-Petre 1989: xxxvii). Interestingly, the editors note (ibid.) that this text shares with The Siege of Jerusalem and The Destruction of Troy the practice of matching etymological to etymological . Such matching is found in the following lines: (21)
Quirris furth all in quite of qualite as aungels Of þe qwele of fortoun þe quene þat [whistely] changis18 For h[i]m was quartirs of qwete vmqwile out of nombre
1679 1977 4640
The fact that the italicized forms: qualite ‘quality, rank,’ quene ‘queen,’ quartirs ‘quarters (measures of grain),’ can alliterate with etymological as in quite ‘white,’ qwele ‘wheel,’ qwete ‘wheat,’ is an important dialect criterion. Duggan and Turville-Petre’s (1989: xxxvii) assumption of doublet forms both for /kw-/ and for /hw-/ in the poet’s language is confirmed by alliteration. Etymological /hw-/ alliterates on /h-/ in: (22)
e behald me sa hogely quareon is our mynd Of þe quilke he hopid in his hert sumquat to knawe
269 679
Awareness of an advanced, reduced pronunciation of the cluster as a simple /w-/, possibly through familiarity with the southern dialects, is suggested by the following lines: (23)
For now vs wantis in a qwirre as þe quele turnes Bot quen ne in quat time sal qwaite19 þe þis auntir And sone þe wacchemen without quen þai him þare sawe
1980 1232 5290
17. For the localization of the sources and the description of the scribal practice for the two manuscripts, I rely on Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989: xxv–xxvii, xxxi–xxxiv). 18. This is the Durham MS reading. The Ashmole text has <swiftly>. 19. The word is of uncertain origin (Duggan and Turville-Petre 1989: 207) and appears only in the Ashmole manuscript. The MED lists the spelling as a variant of the verb waiten ‘to await
7.3 The Wars of Alexander
323
Finally, in four lines neither spelling nor alliteration can be a reliable guide as to what sound was intended to be matched.20 Given the diversity of the matching, we can summarize the findings as indicative of a conservative northern retention of the bisegmental cluster, while at the same time the existence of Southern reduced forms is occasionally confirmed even in this text. The last clusters to be considered in the Wars are the /w-/-initial clusters. The <wl> items used in the poem are wlattis, pr.pl. ‘disgust,’ wlated, pp. ‘disgusted,’ and wlonk, adj. ‘excellent,’ each of them appearing only once. In line 4406 the word wlattis is outside the alliteration, and in the other two lines, 5215, and 5760, <wl-> is only optionally matched to /w-/.21 There are 26 headword <wr-> entries in the Glossary of Duggan and Turville-Petre’s edition of the Wars. The alliterative distribution of these items is entirely in favor of bisegmental composition of the cluster: none of the 87 instances of alliterating /wr-/ suggests reduction. Cluster alliteration, as in the lines cited below, is very rare: (24)
And so þe wee in his wreth wrekis his modire Sire we haue wayued to ow writtis it write we þe same Is wrawid and wrathfull of will and wode as a lyon
978 2820 3294
Only three other lines: 2877, 3290, 4518 (and 203 in the Durham manuscript) show this pattern. There are no lines in which the cluster occurs more than twice. The most frequent cluster alliterating pair is write and writ, at lines 203, 2820, 2877, 3290, see the comments on this formulaic phrase in (9) above. Self-alliteration on /wr-/ in two lifts occurs only about 10 percent of the time. The splittability of the cluster is strongly supported by the pairing of /w-/ with /w-/ + vowel + /-r-/, as in: something’ also used reflexively, here probably in the meaning ‘be on the lookout for,’ ‘befall’ (MED). 20. The ambiguous lines are: And que þir it for any quat a quyle latt him kepe And whyne ert þou and who and what makys þou here So que þir þai here or elsquat it hurtis ay þe saule Quirland all on queles quen þe quene entres
581 835 4686 5420
Duggan and Turville-Petre (1989: xix) list line 4686 as /h-/ alliteration, but it could possibly involve vowel alliteration on or and ay. 21. The full lines are: A worthi wedow and a wlonk with thre wale childire It wald haue wlated any wee þat welth to behald
5215 5760
324 (25)
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME Vnethis werped he þat worde þe writt me recordis Of wrichis and wirlingis out of þe west endis Of were ore of wristillinge for þus has wirid shapen And if þou wirke þaim al þe wa and wrak at þou may [h]e will me wreke on oure werke wers þan of thefes
709 1857 2387 2846 3327
For a clearer picture of the rate of separability for the /wr-/ cluster, the following table compares the distribution of /wr-/ cohesive alliteration to the cohesive alliteration shown by other clusters in which the second segment is /-r-/ in The Wars of Alexander: (26) Cluster
# word types
Singleton alliteration
Cluster alliteration
Split OR1 : OVR1
% cohesive alliteration
gr br dr tr fr kr wr
67 87 48 54 32 34 26
99 121 61 50 52 66 53
109 69 34 24 12 7 6
21 81 30 13 32 12 28
58 36.5 36 32.4 18.8 9.6 10.1
The counts in (26) suggest that the relatively low incidence of group alliteration for /wr-/ is not a matter of available vocabulary. The MED lists 211 headwords and 288 forms and headwords in <wr->, a fairly solid group, but still about half that for /kr-/.22 Moreover, the density of alliterative uses of /wr-/ words is slightly higher than that of /kr-/ words, which are quite high in the frequency range for Middle English shown on Table 6.1, chapter 6 (at 415 and 490 respectively) and also exceed the <wr-> words used in this text. The other figure that deserves a comment is the high rate of split OR1 : OVR1 alliteration for /wr-/ which accounts for about one-third of the alliterating occurrences, a rate comparable only to the split alliteration of /br-/ and /fr-/. 7.4
Piers Plowman
We will start the discussion of historically unstable clusters in Piers Plowman with the velar-initial clusters /gn-, kn-/. As noted already, the set of initial words in Middle English is limited and therefore the incidence of these 22. I am grateful to Paul Schaffner, the “e-MED” Production Coordinator for information regarding the overall occurrence of <wl-> and <wr-> in Middle English. At the time that this book is going into production (December 2001), the entries for <wl-> and <wr-> are not available as part of the on-line MED.
7.4 Piers Plowman
325
words in alliterative positions is predictably low. The single line where alliteration could be used to ascertain the continuing cluster status of is line 10.057: (27)
And gnawen God with the gorge whanne hir guttes fullen
10.057
Although the line is cited from the B-text, the basis of all other data on Piers Plowman in this and the previous chapters, the same alliterative scheme appears in the A-text (11.44) and the C-text (11.41). However, we cannot be certain that this single line can be taken as reliable evidence for bisegmental /gn-/. The concatenation of three alliterating lifts is a possible variation on the more frequent aa or aax in the first half-line in the B-text (Schmidt 1978: 359), yet the syntactic nature and prosodic position of the word should also be considered. Gnawen ‘gnaw, revile’ is the inflected verb in the clause, and assuming an ictus on a verb in any alliterative composition can be problematic. Besides, gnawen God ‘revile God’ would have right-prominent phrasal stress, another reason to assume that gnawen can be accommodated in the initial dip rather than constitute a lift. The distribution of dips and lifts in the line is uninformative in either Cable’s (1991: 92–93) rules for the first half-line, or in Duggan’s more open-ended “minimum” requirements for the a-verse (2001: 496). In addition, gnedi ‘hungry, greedy’ alliterates on /g-/ in PPl.C (Hnt HM 137) at line 16.86 and PPl.B (RwlPoet 38) at line 5.347. In both cases the emendation is proposed and preferred in the printed versions. There are no /kn-/ : /gn/ alliterating pairs in the text. Though such evidence is not strong, it still suggests that the simplification of /gn-/ cannot have been advanced in Langland’s dialect – it may not even have started. Words in are matched either to another word, or, much more frequently, to /k-/ initial lifts:23 (28)
Clothed hem in copes to ben knowen from othere, Comen up knelynge to kissen his bulle. Thanne kam ther a Kyng: Knyghthod hym ladde; And knytten it on a coler for oure commune profit Thanne I courbed on my knees and cried hire of grace, In kirtel and courtepy, and a knyf by his syde;
P.56 P.73 P.112 P.169 1.079 5.079
The density and regularity of this type of alliteration leaves no question that the initial velar stop was still pronounced and that it was identified with /k-/ in Langland’s speech. There are over a hundred lines in the Prologue and the first fifteen passuses (5341 lines) of the B-text in which /kn-/is matched to /k-/. 23. There are no spellings in the B-text.
326
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
Since the onset is still clearly a cluster, one would expect some proportion of self-alliteration. However, there is only one line in that very large sample in which the entire cluster is repeated: (29)
Or a knyght from a knave there – knowe this in thyn herte.
6.049
The lexical choice of /kn-/ words is not very rich, but it includes some items of great frequency: beknew, biknowen, knappes ‘buttons,’ knave/knaves, knees, knele(d), knelynge, knock ‘blow,’ knokked, knoweliched ‘acknowledged,’ know(en), knyf/knyves, knyghted, knyght(es), knyghthod, knytten, yknyt. The most frequent items alliterating on /k-/ are forms of know, knight, kneel. A comparison between /kn-/ cluster alliteration which is below one per cent in Piers Plowman, and cluster alliteration of /kr-/ (18 percent) and /kl-/ (14 percent) in the text is of interest. As for /kn-/ (11.1 percent) versus /kr-/ (28.6 percent) in W&W, see (12) above, the numbers here might suggest that the degree of cohesiveness – treated as a factor enhancing the chance for cluster alliteration – is a function of the sonority of the second segment in the cluster. Liquids have a clearer formant structure than nasals and they are therefore higher on the scale of sonority. In an ideal abstract setting, therefore, one would expect /kn-/ to behave more cohesively than /kr-/ and /kl-/. Recall, however, that the overall ratio of /kn-/ words compared to /kr-/, /kl-/ words is very low, about 1 : 4. As shown above, Langland uses only eight distinct roots in /kn-/. Echoing the account of the discrepancy between /kn-/ and /kr-/ group alliteration in W&W, I propose to attribute the results in Langland to the paucity of the lexical pool and to idiosyncratic stylistic choices. It is possible that the discrepancy between singleton and cluster alliteration for /kn-/ in this text is also due to avoidance of clusters in which both segments are non-continuants; this issue is taken up again in 7.5.3. We now turn to /h-/ initial clusters. No survivors of the Old English /hr-, hl-, hn-/ onsets are found in Piers Plowman. The cluster whose distribution remains to be tested is /hw-/. Most of the <wh-> items in the text are words which tend to be intrinsically low-prominence words and are therefore outside the alliteration: whan, what, wheither, whennes, wher, whereby, while, whilom, which, why. The evidence for cluster reduction in these words is uniform and quite compelling, as the following lines show:24
24. Uninformative self-alliteration appears in 14.041 (wherof : wherfore; wherby).
7.4 Piers Plowman (30)
Bothe in wareyne and in waast where hem leve liketh, And there myghtow witen if thow wilt whiche thei ben alle To wite what his wille were and what he do sholde. I Have wonder for why and wherfore the bisshop And of whennes he were, and whider that he thoughte. The which was Dobet, where that he wente.
327
P.163 2.045 3.117 11.301 16.175 19.129
As pointed out already, proponents of the hypothesis that the reduction of /hw-/ to /w-/ belongs to a much later date argue that such evidence is irrelevant because it is confined to prosodically weak words. Like Lagamon, however, Langland often uses these words in syntactic functions and stylistically contrastive positions that require prosodic prominence, as in 2.045, 3.117, 11.301, 19.129 above. Moreover, the evidence for simplification covers also items outside the prosodically ambivalent interrogative words. Cluster simplification is confirmed by the pairing of fully stressed <wh-> words with /w-/: while ‘time,’ whiten ‘whiten,’ the whyes ‘the whys, causes,’ etc. (31)
“Whit wyn of Oseye and wyn of Gascoigne, For to werche thi wille the while thow myght laste.’ Wowes do whiten and wyndowes glazen, And wordeden wel wisely a gret while togideres.25 Now awaketh Wrathe, with two white eighen, “For to werche by thi wordes the while my lif dureth.’ And wepen whan I sholde slepe, though whete breed me faille. For alle that wilneth to wite the whyes of God almyghty, And thus thorugh wiles of his wit and a whit dowve
The list above is not exhaustive, but it documents well the widespread nature of the /w-/ alliteration for stressed <wh-> words. Crucially, the items in the above set never alliterate on /h-/, and this is a significant finding regarding the dating of the reduction. A related issue is the alliterative practice with respect to <wh-> in who, whom, whose, whoso. The question is whether they alliterate on /w-/ or on /h-/ if they appear in the appropriate prominent position in the line.26 More specifically, the question is how an /h-/ alliteration should be interpreted. Although by their very nature these items are not good alliterative choices, there are some 25. It is possible that the alliteration in this line is aa/bb, in which case while would not alliterate. 26. The expectation for a /w-/ variant during the fourteenth century is suggested by the alliteration of this word in other texts, for example Worþy wemlese God, in whom y byleue
SJ 197
328
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
examples in the text where it seems to be the case that whom, who, whoso alliterate either on /h-/, or, by extension, on a vowel: (32)
And God asked of hem, of whom spak the lettre, For whoso27 hath moore than I, that angreth me soore. Whoso hadde the hood sholde han amendes of the cloke. Who is bihynde and who bifore and who ben on horse28 – And whoso ete that, ymagynen he sholde,
1.049 5.116 5.325 17.106 19.279
The examples are not ideal, yet it is worth noting that if the intended alliteration in them is on /h-/, this could be evidence for early loss of /-w/ in this particular item, unenlightening with respect to the history of /hw-/ elsewhere. The loss of post-consonantal /w-/ when followed by a back vowel, as in suster ‘sister’ < OE sweostor, is attested from the twelfth century onwards (Jordan 1934/1974: 155). The raising and backing of OE /a:/ in hwa ‘who’ to /ɔ:/ and to /o:/ in the Midlands and Gloucester is also a very early change (Luick 1914–1940: 363). The chance of /-w-/ absorption into the back vowel would be predictably higher in unstressed position, i.e. a /h-/ reconstruction for who, whom, whose, whoso as the dominant variant in Langland’s language is plausible. Comparing two of LALME’s Southern maps for the word who, we see that the ‘ho-’ type (h+vowel) on map 1103 is much more densely attested than the corresponding ‘wo-’ type (w + vowel), found on map 1104.29 27. Here and in 5.325, 19.279 whoso may be right-stressed, in which case the examples are uninformative. For the compound indefinite determiner whoso the possibility of /s-/ alliteration is supported by: That who soseith hem sothest is sonnest yblamed! And se bi his sorve that whoso loveth joye,
3.283 19.066
Ambiguous involvement of whoso in alliteration appears in: And whoso helpeth me to erie or sowen here er I wende, To over sen hem hymself ; whoso best wroghte, And whoso ete of that seed hardy was evere
6.065 6.113 19.292
There are no instances of unambiguous alliteration on /w-/, though some /w-/ echoes are possible in P.195, 6.001, 17.017: That witnesseth Holy Writ, whoso wole it rede – “This were a wikkede wey but whoso hadde a gyde “And whoso wercheth after this writ, I wol undertaken,
P.195 6.001 17.017.
28. In 17.106 there might be a /b-/ echo; it is also possible that the alliteration is on bihynde and horse. 29. The corresponding maps for whose (maps 1107 and 1108) show almost identical distribution of “ho-” type (h + vowel) (×17) and “wo-” type (w + vowel) (×16). Why the <w-> forms are not as rare for whose as they are for who is not clear; maybe the link between the nominative
7.4 Piers Plowman
329
In summary, the alliterative practice in Piers Plowman produces no evidence for a continuing bisegmental status of <wh->, while there is good evidence that the cluster had been reduced. The exact phonetic nature of the resulting onset is unclear, i.e. it could have been the voiceless labiovelar approximant or fricative [w], but in any case it was already an allophone of /w-/. It will be assumed therefore that in Langland’s speech /hw-/ had already been simplified. The other cluster whose history we can try to reconstruct from alliteration is /wr-/.30 Like the author of Wynnere and Wastoure, Langland clearly gives preference to /wr-/ : /w-/ alliteration: (33)
And if hym wratheth, be war and his wey shonye. And wolde that ye wroughte as his word techeth. Therinne wonyeth a wight that Wrong is yhote, In witnesse of which thyng Wrong was the firste, Swiche weddynges to werche to wrathe with Truthe! Whan ye witen witterly wher the wrong liggeth.
P.174 1.013 1.063 2.108 2.117 3.176
Group alliteration on /wr-/ is a prominent feature of the text. (34)
I wolde be wroken of tho wrecches that wercheth so ille, Ther as wrathe and wranglynge is, ther wynne thei silver; That Wrong was a wikked luft and wroghte muche sorwe. If Wrathe wrastle with the poore he hath the worse ende,
2.195 4.035 4.062 14.224
The high rate of cluster alliteration should be interpreted cautiously. It has been observed repeatedly that <wr-> words share semantic properties; it is therefore possible that the repetition of the cluster in the line is driven not by its inherent cohesiveness, but by the semantic associations of the lexical items in this group.31 This would be particularly likely for Langland, whose alliterative technique is marked by widespread matching of items on the basis of morphological and semantic relatedness. My inspection of the data for the entire text shows a pronounced tendency for the use of derivatives of the same root, for example spere/ spereth, smyth/ smytheth, bisnewed/snow, both with and the genitive was shaky and the latter was associated with the other interrogatives which were, of course, /w-/ words. The results for forms with , are conflated as ‘w(h)as’ (map 1109). Similarly, for whom (map 1106), the two types of initial spellings are bundled together as ‘w(h)am.’ 30. The eligible items are: wranglynge, wrastle, wratheth, wrecched, wrecchednesse, wrecches ‘wretch,’ wrighte ‘craftsman,’ writ, writen, writhen ‘clenched,’ wroken ‘avenged,’ wrong(es), wroot, wroth, wrotherhele ‘misfortune,’ wroughte, wryngen. 31. The common semantic field, as described in Kay and Wotherspoon (2000: 57) is “torment, distortion or discomfort.” Kay and Wotherspoon suggest further that the semantic and visual associations of <wr-> qualify it for a “silent phonaestheme” or “graphaestheme.”
330
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
singleton onsets and with clusters. This suggests that while alliteration is indeed the factor triggering and enhancing the wordplay in the poem, the selection is often governed by the availability of semantically and morphologically-related words.32 As noted in the discussion of /wr-/ in Wynnere and Wastoure, the reduction of /wr-/ is usually dated to the middle of the fifteenth century, but there are some early instances of spellings. Piers Plowman’s B-text contains one line that may indicate simplification of the cluster to /r-/: (35)
Or ellis al riche and ryden aboute; I, Wrathe, reste nevere
5.14933
5.149 is an isolated case of possible matching of /wr-/ to /r-/. Moreover, the editorial punctuation suggests that I, Wrathe, were probably intended as parenthetical; these appositive elements in the line could be extrametrical and would be irrelevant for the alliteration. For Langland, therefore, the assumption of a continuing bisegmental /wr-/ can be upheld, with caution. There are no <wl-> words in the text.
7.5
Notes on the history of velar cluster reduction
None of the texts examined here yielded reliable information regarding the dating of the velar loss in /gn-/. The alliterative use of /kn-/ confirmed its bisegmental status. The behavior of that cluster was compared to the behavior of other velar-initial clusters. After expanding and summarizing the evidence for /gn-/ and /kn-/ in the alliterative corpus, this section will turn to scribal evidence for the neutralization of the two clusters. The section 32. Langland’s delight in wordplay is recognized in the literature. As noted by Schmidt (1978: xxxiii) “His [Langland’s] word-play may be said to grow out of his metre: the alliterative poet compelled to choose words beginning with the same sound often stumbles into homophony more easily than the writer of rhyming or blank verse.” Further interesting alliterating pairs are: Cristen–uncristen 1.093, prechours–prechynge 4.122, grave–ungrave 4.130, clothes–yclouted 6.059, pledours–plede 7.042, glotonye–forglutten 10.083, blissed–blisse 11.167, flight–fleeth 12.239. The phenomenon is even more pronounced with singleton onsets, for example tale–tolde P.51, coupled–uncoupled P.207, kyngene–kyng 1.105, bidding–bad 1.110, unkynde–kyn 1.192, servaunts–servyce 3.217, dooth–dede 5.043, namely–name 5.258, thonked–thoght 8.109, sleuthe–slow 13.407, deme–domes 15.027, filled–ful 15.337, wite–witterly 18.066, nede–nedes 18.400, deidest–deeth 19.175, dede–doon 19.183, demen– domesday 19.197. 33. The corresponding C-text lines (VII. 126) have the same clausal division (Schmidt 1978: 269); this might put wrathe outside the alliteration.
7.5 History of velar cluster reduction
331
ends with a discussion of the chronology and causation of velar cluster reduction. 7.5.1 Summary of the alliterative evidence on velar-initial clusters The entire set of eligible items in /gn-/ in the MED is given in (36): (36)
There are no /gn-/ initial words in either text of Lagamon’s Brut or in Wynnere and Wastoure. A single appearance of ‘gnashes’ in The Wars of Alexander is line-final. The dating of /gn-/ simplification cannot be tested very reliably in Piers Plowman, though the survival of the cluster as such is suggested by the use of /gn-/ : /g-/ alliteration in a few lines. Going outside the texts covered in detail here adds little to these inconclusive findings. A well-crafted line in the Parliament of Three Ages, an early fifteenth-century text suggests continuing bisegmental interpretation for /gn/:34 (37)
Gnattes gretely me greuede and gnewen myn eghne
50
No /gn-/ alliteration is used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Alliterative Morte Arthure, and The Siege of Jerusalem. Searching later fifteenth-century verse has been unproductive. There are two isolated examples of possible /gn-/ alliteration in the Towneley Plays35 and a line in another source, Henryson’s Fables: 34. Text c. 1450(?a. 1400) Parl.3 Ages (Add. 31042). The search was based on all texts available in the MEC. 35. The Towneley Plays EETS (1966), re-edited from the unique MS by George England with sidenotes and introduction by Alfred W. Pollard, London; New York [1966] Early English Text Society Extra series no. 71. The plays originated c. 1430 (Pearsall 1977: 298). Text available through the MEC.
332 (38)
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME (Then wofully sich wightys) Shall gnawe thise gay knyghtys Bot gyrned and gnast, my force did, I frast, With watter caill, and to gnaw benis or peis,
Lazarus 129–130 The Judgement 103–104 Fables 321
These matchings should not be overestimated. Alliteration in the Towneley Plays is not obligatory, and the line from Lazarus may be a /k-/ alliteration. Henryson’s alliteration is not structural. Therefore, no arguments regarding the dating of /gn-/ reduction can be made safely on the basis of alliteration. The evidence regarding /kn-/ was found to be much more ample and reliable. All four texts investigated for that feature show unequivocal preservation of the velar. The findings support fully the standard accounts which date the beginning of the reduction to the middle of the fifteenth century, though some sporadic early, possibly dialectal or even idiosyncratic, spellings may suggest a somewhat earlier date.36 7.5.2 Voicing neutralization in velar-initial clusters An important issue relating to the history of the initial segment in the velar clusters is the stability of what is traditionally thought of as the “voicing” distinction in these onsets. The devoicing of preconsonantal is suggested by, for example: (39)
For þe colde wyntter and þe kene / with gleterand frostes
W & W 275
An editorial emendation of gleterand ‘sparkling, glittering’ to cleterand or clengande have been proposed (Trigg 1990: 34), but the intervention would be unnecessary if we recognize the potential for preconsonantal voicing neutralization of the velars. Similarly, alliterative /kn-/ : /g-/ pairings such as occur at lines 1003 (kneled/knes : God), 1096 (knit : go), 3284 (kneled : grounde), 4410 (knit : graunt), all from William of Palerne, have been noticed, but, with some uneasiness, editors and commentators have regarded those as unconvincing or aberrant.37 Lutz, whose explanatory framework leads to the assumption that /gn-/ should have been reduced before /kn-/, notices the fact of “occasional” spellings for /gn-/ but dismisses an earlier claim by Horn regarding the general 36. The evidence and the extensive literature on /kn-/ reduction are surveyed in detail in Lutz (1991: 238–244). She also summarizes the two most detailed proposals concerning the path of simplification (Catford 1974) and K¨okeritz (1945). A simplified and informative scenario of the reduction is given in Lass (1999: 123). 37. See Schumacher (1914: 129, 213), Bunt (1985: 81).
7.5 History of velar cluster reduction
333
convergence of /kn-/ and /gn-/, at least for the standard language ([1954] 1991: 237). My own survey of the scribal documentation convinces me that neutralization between the two clusters is the correct reconstruction and that the appearance of greater tenacity for /kn-/ is due solely to the larger size of the lexical pool of /kn-/ words. The scarcity of alliterative evidence for the preservation of bisegmental /gn-/, either as [gn-] or as [kn-], in Middle English is not an automatic indication of earlier reduction for /gn-/ as compared to /kn-/. It is interpreted here as a direct consequence of the restricted lexicon from which the poets were drawing. The total choice of words with ME is very limited. The search of the MED recorded above turned up a total of twenty-five headwords for which is a possible spelling, and, as is obvious from the list in (36), many of them are derivatives of the same stem or rare and uncertain forms. Moreover, we find spellings for a considerable number of etymological /kn-/ words; the latter can be spelled both with and with : (40)
In view of the minimal number of etymological /gn-/ words in the language, the proportion of spellings for /kn-/ is very high. It is strongly indicative of voicing neutralization of the initial velars in the cluster. Further evidence for the confusability of /gn-/ and /kn-/ comes from the opposite phenomenon, Middle English spellings of etymological /gn-/ as :38 (41)
Etymological /gn-/ spelled : gnast ‘spark’ ME gnauen ‘gnaw’ ME gnat ‘gnat’ ME gneden ‘to be scanty’ ME gniden ‘to crush’ ME 39 gnoff ‘churl, person’ ME
38. A special case is the /<sn-> doublet in gnare/snare, and gnap/snap. The MED gives the etymology of the word gnare ‘a noose, snare,’ as “[?A blend of snare ; grane, var. of grin].” 39. The MED etymologizes as a blend of gniden ‘to crush’ and knag(ge) ‘blow.’ It is a word attested in ?a. 1475 Ludus C.(Vsp D.8) 355/12: What boy bragge outh, hym spilly I; as knave, wyth this craggyd knad hym kylle I.
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
It is important to note that the spellings cited in (40) and (41) are all based on MED records after the thirteenth century. A search of the entire LAEME database failed to produce a single comparable example. This suggests that / and continued to be both stable and strictly separate spellings for distinct phonemic entities in Early Middle English. Though the LAEME and MED databases allow us a fairly reliable reconstruction of the chronology of the neutralization, the reason why there are no signs of it in the earlier materials is not clear. It is possible that the delay is only apparent and is to be attributed to the uneven size of the pre- and post- 1300 materials, or to the more systematic preservation of the Old English spelling practices in the LAEME manuscripts. The interpretation that the later criss-crossing of : spellings supports is that of neutralization of the laryngeal feature distinctions of the prenasal velars, not of phonologically determined temporal lag of /kn-/ reduction. If we assume that in that position the laryngeal feature responsible for the /g-/ : /k-/ contrast was [spread glottis], as is argued for other Germanic dialects by Iverson and Salmons (1995, 1999), the neutralization started most likely as a consequence of the loss of aspiration for the /k/. This could have been initiated by prestigious socially marked, French-based unaspirated /k-/ in pre-nasal position in the south already in the thirteenth century. The subsequent history of the two clusters is inconclusive; there is no difference in the treatment of /gn-/ and /kn-/. Recent /gn-/ attestations, such as the eighteenth-century borrowed pronunciation of the German word gneiss as (optional) [gnais], or the Anglo-Irish gneve [gni:v] ‘the 12th part of a ploughland,’ or the Italian gnocci [ɒki] ‘dumplings’ with an initial palatal nasal (OED), are strictly learned, spelling pronunciations. This is true of /kn-/ pronunciations too, as in cnimial [kni:miəl] ‘relating to the tibia’ (1871), cnicin [knaisin] ‘a plant principle,’ cnida [knaidə] ‘a nettle cell’ (1876), but cnicnode (1869), cnictrope, Cnideria (1884), cniderian (1934) have [n-]. The dating of the velar-initial cluster reduction in English ranges over a long stretch of time. Lutz (1991: 236–237, 249) assumes loss of /gn-/ in the southern and Midlands dialects already in the late fourteenth century. This dating is inferential – it is part of an account of cluster simplification based on the consonantal strength relations of the adjacent segments, here referred to as Sonority Sequencing (SonSeq). In principle the logic is sound since conformity to SonSeq may be one of the factors that can affect the rate of historical change, yet the evidence for this particular pair is missing. In the philological literature the reduction of the cluster is associated with the disappearance of /gn-/ words from the vocabulary. It is true that the (minimal)
7.5 History of velar cluster reduction
335
frequency of such words appears to decrease during the fourteenth century. Such lexical loss, not phonologically conditioned, can undoubtedly be a contributing factor in the evolution of the change. However, while the scribal confusion for etymological /kn-/ and /gn-/ is widespread, there is no spelling evidence showing spellings for etymological /gn-/ words that antedates the spellings for etymological /kn-/.40 In addition to familiar later spellings, a closer look at the MED reveals scribal evidence of quite early /kn-/ simplification: (42)
Etymological /kn-/ spelled : knobbe ‘knob’ ME 41 knew(e) ‘knew’ ME (c. 1300, King Horn) horse-knave ‘horseman’ ME , a. 1314
Apart from spellings for /kn-/ during the fifteenth century, there are occasional inverse spellings for etymological /n-/: (43)
Etymological /n-/ spelled noying ‘harm, annoyance’ 42 nou ‘now’ 43
No comparable early evidence is found for /gn-/. Since nothing else supports a presumed late fourteenth-century loss of the initial velar in the surviving /gn-/ words, the dating of /gn-/ reduction prior to /kn-/ reduction is unwarranted. Therefore a causal connection between the date of simplification and the respective consonantal strength of /g/ and /k/ as hypothesized in Lutz (1991: 249) should also be rejected. It is much more likely that the two changes overlapped 40. Lutz (1991: 137) acknowledges the absence of late Middle English and early Modern English spellings of for /gn-/ both in the OED and in the specialized studies offering scholarly surveys of the evidence for the loss. The single possible pre-1500 source she cites is nip ‘to bite,’ first attested 1393, which the OED connects, tentatively, to two parallel forms, and , of which only the latter is provenanced to Low German and Dutch knippen. The inverse spellings, for /n/ as in for ‘nose’ (MED a. 1425), but no for /n/ create further problems for claims of chronological precedence of /gn-/ reduction. 41. The forms appear in a thirteenth-century lyric. The full citation is c. 1250 þene latemeste dai (Trin-C B.14.39) 32: þenne sulen woremes woniin þe wid-innen, Ne salt þu þe nout weriin wid neppe [vr.nappe] ne wid pinne ‘Nor shalt thou thyself not be dressed (wear) with ‘cnaep’ nor with pin.’ Dr. Margaret Laing of the Institute for Historical Dialectology, University of Edinburgh, believes (personal communication) that “here the word is MED’s knap(pe and may be ‘knob’ ‘tassel’ ‘button’ -evidently something ornamental. But it may have been an adaptation by the Trinity scribe (or a precursor of him in the textual stemma), from nappe/neppe from OE hnaep ‘cup,’ ‘drinking bowl.’ ” In any case the unambiguous spelling nobbes ‘knobs’ appears a. 1398 (MED). 42. a. 1425 Medulla Grammatice (A Latin-Middle English Glossary ): 44. 43. a. 1475 Liber Cocorum (Sln 1986) p. 7: Furmentex . . . Take know mylke, and play hit up . . .
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
chronologically, but that the simplification of /kn-/ stretches over a longer period of time because of the larger number of high frequency lexical items involved in the change. 7.5.3 The non-cohesiveness of /kn-/ One observation in connection with the textual findings earlier in the chapter was that /kn-/ appears to be less cohesive than /kr-/, though a difference between /kn-/ and /kl-/ could not be ascertained for Wynnere and Wastoure. This was found to be unrelated to the frequency of the /kn-/ tokens used by a particular poet. We should be reminded that the frequency of /kn-/ words in the lexicon is comparable to the frequency of /sm-/ and /sn-/ words, yet the latter behave much more cohesively, as shown Table 6.3 and Figure 6.4 in chapter 6. The chart below combines our data on /kr-/, kl-/, and /kn-/ alliteration found in Wynnere and Wastoure, the Wars of Alexander, and Piers Plowman: (44) Cluster
W & W% cohesive alliteration
WA% cohesive alliteration
PP% cohesive alliteration
% cohesive alliteration averages
kn kr kl
11.1 28.6 0
4 9.7 27
1 18 14
5.3 18.8 13.7
All voiceless velar initial clusters are separable. Their non-cohesiveness can be explained with reference both to their acoustic and their articulatory properties. One possible factor involved in that behavior could be that the formant transitions of velars take longer than the transitions in alveolar or labial sounds (Ladefoged 1982: 183). This factor may enhance the chances of initial velars in onset clusters to be perceptually disassociated from the following segment. Also, the role of the second part of the /kn-/ cluster should be considered. All stable members of the stop + sonorant group have as their second element sonorants that have a clearer formant structure than nasals. In that context, stop + nasal clusters would be undesirable both acoustically, because of the relatively low position of nasals on the sonority scale compared to other sonorants, and also due to the relative difficulty of producing adjacent stops. The differences between /kn-/ and other /k-/ initial clusters indicate that there are other forces at work, i.e. the articulatory effort of producing a sequence of two non-continuants. There are no other onset clusters in English that share noncontinuancy. In other words, while some gestural overlap would be easier with other velar-initial clusters, the dorsal-coronal non-continuant combination in /gn-, kn-/ makes them maximally non-overlapping.
7.5 History of velar cluster reduction
337
The argument made here therefore is that this particular property of /gn-/ and /kn-/, their non-cohesiveness, must be worked into the account of their later history. This is different from the claim that the reduction of /kn-/ and /gn-/ was due to the “unfavorable strength relations” within the cluster, as hypothesized in earlier studies.44 The trigger, in the account proposed here, is not so much that the clusters /gn-, kn-/ suffer from some universally defined syllable structure deficiency, though adjacent non-continuants are indeed non-optimal articulatorily, but that the inherent separability of the clusters contributes to confusion of their initial elements. 7.5.4 Chronology and causation of /gn-, kn-/ reduction The neutralization of distinctions between /g-/ and k-/ before /-n-/ in the onset is only the first step in the long process of replacement and loss of the first segment. We do not know when exactly the perceptibility of the initial velar began to decrease before the nasal and why. It is certain, however, that the process was already under way by the beginning of the fifteenth century, i.e. it is a change which started in Middle English. One possible proximate cause of the change is the absence of /gn-/ and /kn-/ words in the new vocabulary of Middle English: Latin and Old French disallowed these onsets.45 The persistence of the clusters in the North (Luick 1914–1940: § 801, K¨okeritz 1945) and the complex sociolinguistic history of the change in early Modern English and into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Dobson 1968: § 417, cited in Lutz [1991: 244]) does support an assumption of loan phonology interference. Thus, the particular phonetic makeup of the cluster is only a necessary enabling factor for the reduction. The change may have been initiated through the influence of loan phonotactics. Once preconsonantal velars became non-distinct in the onset, a process replicating the Gallo-Roman convergence of /kl-/ and /gl/,46 the path of reduction and loss is open. Either one of the detailed mechanisms of the change, K¨okeritz (1945) or Catford (1974), both of which incorporate the famous intermediate stage /tn-/ will “naturally” result in the reduction of the cluster to a single segment. Both accounts are plausible, though Catford’s four-stage progression 44. See Vennemann (1988: 19), Lutz (1988: 229–231). 45. This excludes loanwords and names borrowed from Greek directly or via Latin which are either or . 46. The change is described in Pope (1934/1961: 96). Other similar ‘confusions’ in the history of Romance are the Gallo-Roman substitution of /kl-/ for /tl-/, see Pope (1934/1961: 67), and the change of /kr-/ > /gr-/ > /γr-/ > /r/ (Lat. lacrima, OF larme), or /gm-/ > /(γ)m-/ > /m-/ (1934/1961: 133), though the latter are developments in medial position. The point is that a preconsonantal position in a cluster is perceptually vulnerable.
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
with each step corresponding to testable phonetic data from present-day Scottish dialects seems somewhat more attractive.47 By “naturally” I mean that once the perceptibility of the initial segment is damaged, the remaining changes are phonologically predictable, though not necessary. This does not mean that the intermediate steps have to be the same in each case, or that the whole cycle reconstructed for English should be repeated in every language which has a /gn-/ : /kn-/ contrast.48 The inverse spellings cited in (40)–(41) in the previous section attest to the reduced distinctiveness of the velar stops before the nasal. I suggest that it was at that point that the phonology of the two clusters started to change and a new mapping of contrasts arises. The framework from which the term “mapping” is taken is the OT-based theory of the P(erceptibility) map, developed by Donca Steriade. She defines the P-map in the following way (2001: 2): The distinct grammatical component, which I call the P-map . . . is a set of statements about absolute and relative perceptibility of different contrasts, across the different contexts where they might occur. For instance, the P-map will be the repository of the speaker’s knowledge that the [p]-[b] contrast is better perceived before V’s (e.g. in [apa] versus [aba]) than before C’s (e.g. in [apta] versus [abta]).
Extending this idea to the historical development of the velar-initial clusters, an important component of the change was that that the contrast [k] : [g] was not perceived well before [n]. That part of the grammar of a late fourteenthcentury speaker would be best understood if the distinction between /g/ and /k/ was a matter of aspiration or [spread glottis]. In pre-vocalic position, the distinction can be maintained better, while before another consonant, especially 47. The stages Catford (1974: 23) posits are: /kh n/ (Aberdeenshire > /k’n/ (Glenesk, N. Angus); k’ = no audible release of the voiceless velar stop, though Catford calls this “nasal release”) > /t’n/ (barely audible [t-], Angus, rare) > /kn/ (Shetland Isles, complete assimilation of the velar to the nasal). The last stage is probably best represented as some kind of premodified nasal, for example /nn/ (Lass 1999: 123). 48. Note that an assumption of [spread glottis] rather than [voice] as the feature distinguishing /g/ from /k/ (see 5.3), makes the insistence on establishing chronological ordering unnecessary because a /kn-/ and /gn-/ contrast based on spread glottis makes voicing irrelevant in favor of aspiration. The loan phonology would not have offered aspirated /k-/. Guion (1996: 192–194) reports an experiment in which trained phoneticians were asked to transcribe [g] + vowel stimuli without noise. Interestingly, “some of the transcribers heard [k]’s.” The data were excluded from Guion’s statistics, however (1996: 193), so it is hard to say to what extent Ringen’s and Jessen’s (2001) [spread glottis] analysis for German stops is supported by these results.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
339
a relatively low sonority consonant, the distinction will no longer be perceived. The appeal of Steriade’s model is that “A P-map account . . . predicts . . . this: insofar as a C-cluster contains one and only one C whose confusability with Ø is greater than that of the other cluster members, cluster reduction will target this one consonant” (2001: 42). In our case absence of aspiration in the initial velar takes the [k] in [kn-] out of the set defined by the remaining prevocalic aspirated [kh ] tokens in the language. The phonetic disassociation of [k] in /kn-/ from /k/ elsewhere in the onset allows further weakening of the one-time velar – it ceases to be part of the /k/ family of sounds. Since the coronal /-n-/ of the cluster is never in any danger of being confused, reduction eliminates the initial consonant, with an intermediate stage of “confusion” with a perceptually adjacent element, another coronal, sometimes represented as , and even misheard as [t-]. This is the “barely audible [t-]” reported in Catford (1974). In summary, the ideas that this section has entertained are the following. First, the laryngeal feature difference in velar-nasal clusters was neutralized in Middle English. Second, regional preservation of the distinction and the survival of velar-nasal clusters in the North support a possible link of the change to Romance phonotactics. Third, the low rates of cluster alliteration can be attributed to lexical and phonological factors: the relative paucity of lexical choices, the acoustic properties of velars, and the phonetic undesirability of the velar-nasal sequence, especially when both segments are non-continuants. Finally, the attrition of the velars is a consequence of their greater confusability with each other and with Ø while the nasal remained perceptually salient and stable. 7.6
Notes on the history of /h-/ clusters
7.6.1 Alliterative treatment of /x-/ clusters in early Old English Before we turn to the summary of the alliterative data on clusters in Middle English, a look back into their alliterative use in Old English is in order. The umbrella statement about initial /x-/ in Old English alliteration is that it behaves like any other consonant, i.e. it alliterates with itself, irrespective of the nature of the following consonant or vowel. The reconstruction of a voiceless velar fricative phoneme /x-/ in Germanic and early Old English follows from its genealogical connection with Indo-European /k/. The realization [x-] in onsets may have survived longer in preconsonantal position than in singleton onsets, except for , which presents special problems, see 7.6.3 below. It is assumed that approximately by the end of the tenth century the [x-] in most
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
onsets had become a glottal [h-] and it continued as a glottal fricative [h-] in Middle English.49 Phonotactically, a voiceless velar fricative /x-/ in the onset of stressed syllables is restricted to a pre-sonorant position; the full set of allowable combinations of is /xV-, xr-, xl-, xn-, xw-/. An early and tightly structured poetic text like Beowulf provides a baseline to which subsequent developments can be compared.50 The following chart shows the distribution of lines in Beowulf in which the relevant clusters are found. The notation x in the first column stands for the sound spelled , not for an abstract alliterating position. Thus xr : xV stands for the pattern represented by hronrade : hyran (l. 10). (45) Alliteration pattern
Singleton alliteration
xr : xV xV : xr xr : xl xl : xr xr : xw Total xrxl : xV xV : xl xl : xr xr : xl Total xlTotal xn-51 xw : xV xV : xw xr : xw Total xw-
54 58 1 4 2 119 9 13 4 1 27 7 10 9 2 21
Cluster alliteration
% Cluster alliteration
7
7
5.5
0 0 0
0 0
1 4.5
49. The dating of the initial change of [x-] to [h-] is hypothetical. All we can say with certainty is that the historical progression is from [k-] –> [x-] –> [h-], with the end-points associated with Indo-European (for [k-]) and Middle English (for [h-]). In the literature the assumptions regarding the phonetic nature of the velar fricative in Old English are often unclear. Most recently Anderson (2001) says at p. 206 that “the [x] variant [in OE] forms clusters with a preceding /r/ or /l/,” citing hrof ‘roof,’ hlaf ‘loaf,’ hnutu ‘nut,’ hwæl ‘whale’ as examples, but then on p. 210 he says: “In OE [h] clustered with various sonorants,” citing the same set of examples (my italics). 50. The statement follows Fulk (1992: 390) whose arguments date the composition of Beowulf between c. 725 and 825. 51. All examples of alliterating /xn/ are of the type /xV/ : /xn-/, with the cluster appearing in the first lift of the off-verse.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
341
The density and stability of /x-/ alliteration, attested in 192 lines, must be taken as unambiguous proof that the pre-sonorant consonant was treated like any other consonant. The only possible exceptions to the expected pattern in Beowulf are found at lines 1390, 1975:52 (46)
These lines do not reveal much about the status of /xr-/ in fully stressed onsets. Out of a total of thirteen attestations of the adverb hraðe/hraðor ‘quickly,’ the matching in l. 1937 (handgewriðene : hraðe) is the only other instance in Beowulf in which the adverb must alliterate. In nine lines: 224, 543, 740, 748, 1294, 1310, 1541, 2117, 2968, the placement of the adverb explicitly prohibits alliteration on hraðe/hraðo. Three lines (1576, 1914, 1975) are potentially ambiguous, for example in 1975 the adverb could be in anacrusis. Since the prosodic prominence of adverbs in Old English verse is variable, and since hraðe in Beowulf is predominantly non-alliterating, line 1390 suggests that indeed initial /x-/ weakening may have started early in words of low prominence. While this isolated exponent of a possible early change is unsurprising, it does not invalidate the assumption that in the language of the poet /x-/ was still /x-/ in all fully stressed positions.55 52. These “exceptions” were cited in Stockwell and Minkova (1997a: 67). I no longer believe that they represent valid evidence for /h-/ deletion in ; they are simply a reflection of the weak prosodic status of the adverb. 53. ‘Arise, guardian of the kingdom / let us quickly go’ 54. ‘Quickly was cleared / as the mighty king had bidden’ 55. Specifically, the alliterative attestations counted in the chart are as follows: in the onverse alliterates with in the off-verse at lines 10, 64, 371, 407, 456, 543, 653, 717, 925, 963, 1017, 1022, 1131, 1189, 1195, 1202,1214, 1236, 1296, 1302, 1321, 1343, 1399, 1407, 1483, 1507, 1580, 1592,1629, 1687, 1745, 1769, 1801, 1836, 1840, 1862, 1878, 1899, 1914, 1970, 2037, 2045, 2245, 2270, 2328, 2358, 2488, 2561, 2575, 2831, 2840, 2960, 2992, 3148. in the on-verse alliterates with on the off-verse at: 32, 322, 335, 339, 374, 396, 495, 540, 548, 662, 772, 988, 999, 1066, 1091, 1217, 1245, 1279, 1307, 1363, 1446, 1457, 1503, 1521, 1576,1588, 1646,1659, 1807, 1816, 1847, 1872, 1889, 1937, 1990, 2113, 2155, 2180, 2191, 2345, 2351, 2363, 2430, 2448, 2474, 2477, 2558, 2581, 2583, 2593, 2754, 2805, 2809, 2819, 2925, 3017, 3136. alliterates with at line 2935. alliterates with in lines 304, 1897, 2935, 3034. alliterates with in lines 2171, 2442. alliterates with in lines 356, 454, 1279, 1515, 1564, 2010, 2129. in the on-verse alliterates with in: 89, 1112, 1979, 2411, 2773, 3126, 3157, 3169, 3179. in the on-verse alliterates with in the off-verse in: 52, 267, 611, 688, 1415, 1731, 1892, 2296, 2375, 2634, 2802, 3020, 3142.
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
As for cluster alliteration, the patterns of some frequency are /xr-/ : /xr-/ (5.5 percent) and /xw-/ : /xw-/ (4.5 percent). The absence of /xn-/ self-alliteration would be expected in view of the low incidence of items in the vocabulary, only about 6 percent of the total number of /x-/ + sonorant words. It is interesting to note that cluster alliteration on /xr-/ and /xw-/ appears at a rate comparable to the rate found for other fricative-initial clusters in Middle English, namely /fr-/ (averaging ∼ 7 percent) and /fl-/ (averaging ∼10 percent). This is a confirmation of the observation made in chapter 6 that clusters in which the left segment is a non-sibilant fricative are less likely to be treated cohesively. For comparison, in Beowulf , where cluster alliteration is not part of the scheme, 25 percent of the /sl-/ alliterations and 20 percent of the /br-/ alliterations are cohesive. 7.6.2 Reduction of /h-/ clusters in the “transitional” period The history of the /x/ + sonorant clusters in late Old English is more difficult to trace. Schlemilch, in his famous study of the orthography of the “transitional” period (1000–1150), noted that in + sonorant group the scribal loss of appears to have been carried through “am leichtesten,” compared to pre-vocalic loss (1913: 50). In such groups, wherever the is missing, the loss is attributed to Anglo-Norman scribal practice. Going further back, some tenth-century scribal and alliterative evidence for cluster reduction has been interpreted as indicating a considerable degree of weakening of the velar /x-/ through the glottal /h-/, to, perhaps, simple aspiration of the sonorants. Lutz (1991: 31–32, 1993), following a lead by Eric Stanley, refers to paleographic evidence in the late Northumbrian Lindisfarne Glosses as supporting a tenth-century dating of /h-/ loss in pre-sonorant position. It is true that the special scribal evidence in that document, frequent insertion of the sign for spiritus asper (|-) instead of before /-r-, -l-, -n-/, can be seen as a reaction to different allophonic realizations before vowels and before sonorants. This, however, does not signal directly and necessarily earlier loss of the in clusters than in pre-vocalic position. The spellings in one manuscript can be a matter of regional variety, register, tempo, the scribe’s exposure to other models.56 My argument is not that the /h/ did NOT start disappearing in clusters alliterates with in lines 677, 952, 1069, 1114, 1327, 1929, 2544. alliterates with in lines 152, 175, 686, 1448, 1601, 2137, 2161, 2517, 2642, 2994. alliterates with in lines 146, 526, 584, 814, 1248, 1495, 1828, 2052, 3005. alliterates with at line 163. 56. Reconstructing the exact course of the loss outside West Saxon is a difficult proposition because surviving Old English is so patchy and poorly represented outside the West Saxon
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
343
in some varieties of Old English, but that we cannot assert that the ordering of the phonemic reduction of clusters before the pre-vocalic loss of /h-/ can be dated to Old English. In fact, Harris (1954: 52–53) cites sporadic loss before sonorants in the Epinal Glossary (eighth century), the Durham Ritual, and the Vespasian Psalter (ninth century). He also lists pre-1100 inorganic additions to etymologically simple sonorants. But he goes on to ask the relevant question: “Are we justified in concluding that in late Old English no phonemic distinction was made?” His answer is in the negative: after surveying the Old English alliterative evidence which “would seem to forbid this assumption” and the scribal evidence of early Middle English, he concluded that the reduction of these clusters is a thirteenth-century change. This dating turns out to be too conservative, but the survival of a phonemically distinctive pre-sonorant /h-/ until the beginning of the eleventh century is a sound assumption. One piece of alliterative evidence, cited by Harris (1954: 53), is taken by Lutz (1991: 32) as supporting a late OE dating of considerable fricative weakening in /hn-, hl-, hr-/. The evidence concerns the scop’s similarity judgements in Judith, a poem dated to the second half of the tenth century. In that poem, as Harris points out, the clusters alliterate with each other rather than with prevocalic , which Lutz interprets as “consonant with” the evidence for highly advanced weakening of the in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The case for the relevance of /h-/ + sonorant cluster alliteration in Judith is misinterpreted, however. First, there are no alliterating initial words in the poem. Second, among the total of six alliterations on (at lines 23, 205, 251) and (at lines 37, 282, 289), two contradict the expectation, i.e. they are straightforward /h-/ alliterations:57 (47)
hegemony. Margaret Laing has suggested to me that glosses may be more likely to represent something closer to spoken usage than careful book hands which would be copying rather than commenting. She notes (personal communication) that the Lindisfarne gloss is in a very current-looking minuscule and is said to have been put into the older Latin text by the glossator Aldred. It is not surprising that the same sort of thing is found in the Durham Ritual gloss as it was the work of the same glossator – Aldred – who was recording a subphonemic distinction. 57. The examples are cited from Judith, ed. by B. J. Trimmer, London: Methuen & Co., 1961. There is one additional line where the /hr-/ word is not in an obligatory lift, but where nevertheless /h-/ association is a strong probability: hate on hreðre minum.” . . . Hi ða se hehsta Dema
Judith 94
58. ‘to their lord / the battle to make known’ The MS apparently has hyldo ‘grace, favor’ rather than the emended hilde ‘battle’ due to religious associations, Trimmer (1961: 29). 59. ‘beheaded held / They then the rue-mood’
344
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
While there are two lines each with cluster alliteration on and in Judith, one should not read too much into it because the poem is one of the poetic pieces in late Old English where the incidence of any cluster alliteration is high. There are self-alliterating clusters throughout this short poem: /sw-/ : /sw-/ (30, 65, 80, 106, 240, 321, 357), /sn-/ : /sn-/ (55, 125, 199), /br-/ : /br-/ (57, 192, 317), /fr-/ : /fr-/ (4, 84), /dr-/ : /dr-/ (29, 86), /r-/ : /r-/ (164), /hw-/ : /hw-/ (215), /fl-/ : /fl-/ (221), /sl-/ : /sl-/ (247). In a poem of only 349 lines this is an extremely high concentration of Zusammengesetzte St¨abe. Against this background two lines showing group alliteration on /hl-/ and two more on /hr-/ should not be taken as evidence of any change affecting those clusters. Rather, the poem shows that the practice of enriching the alliteration by including an entire onset, an “innovation” considered characteristic of Middle English verse, has its parallels in late Old English versification. Cluster alliteration of /hr-/ and /hl-/ is thus fully “consonant with” an interpretation of continuing biphonemic status of these clusters. The alliterative matching in other tenth- and eleventh-century poetic records reveals no instances of alliteration that would support an assumption of phonemic loss of /h-/ in pre-sonorant position. My search of The Battle of Maldon, The Paris Psalter, The Meters of Boethius, Guthlac, and The Battle of Brunanburh confirms Harris’ (1954: 53) results: the orthographic clusters alliterate with and not with . (48)
þurh þa hringlocan, / him æt heortan stod60 þæt ic hlafordleas / ham siðie61 healdon þone hererinc/. Wæs him hreoh sefa62 hofon hine hondum / ond him hryre burgun.63 har hilderinc, / hreman ne þorfte64
Maldon 145 Maldon 251 Met 1.71 Guthlac 730 Brunanburh 3965
The only alliterative evidence that may suggest initial weakening of the clusters appears in Ælfric (c. 955–1020), who occasionally matches them to the respective sonorants (Sievers and Brunner 1942: §217). The alliterative liberties taken in Ælfric’s prose are well known, however. Besides, Ælfric regularly pairs /hr-/ and /hl-/ with /h-/ or with each other.66 So, while looser matching may be a 60. ‘through the ring-locks / stood at his heart 61. ‘that I lordless / should travel home’ 62. ‘troubled was his mind, he was in fear of the man’ (translation from Bosworth and Toller). The Meters of Boethius is a late Southern composition (Fulk 1992: 49). 63. ‘heaved him with hands / and him from fall protected’ 64. ‘the old warrior / did not dare exalt’ 65. From The Poems of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The Battle of Brunanburh (ASPR VI: 16–20) is dated at 937. 66. See, for example ÆCHom I. 26 [0064 (392.119)]: þæt folc þa hrymde / hluddre stemne.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
345
genuine indication of incipient change, it does not point to an accomplished loss. Thus, the reconstruction of the process has to rely on scribal omissions, inverse spellings, and spellings. These are covered in the philological literature, for example Luick (1914–1940: 938–939), Harris (1954: 54–55), Jordan (1934/1974: 179). It is on that orthographic basis that the weakening to /h-/ is dated to the eleventh–twelfth centuries, and its loss to the thirteenth century, except for Kentish, where the change appears to have been delayed.67 As was made clear in the textual survey at the beginning of this chapter, there is no alliterative evidence in Middle English on which the reduction of the clusters can be dated. The following three subsections summarize the Middle English scribal evidence on as recorded in the Middle English Dictionary and the Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English.68 7.6.2.1 survivals in Middle English The cluster /xn-/ was rare in Old English; my count of headword entries in Bosworth and Toller (1898 [1983]) turned up thirty-eight entries.69 There are no /hn-/ entries in the LAEME database. There are no Middle English words for which the only recorded spelling in the MED is . The following is a complete list of etymological /xn-/ words for which alternative spellings exist in the MED stencils: ME form
67. As in every other type of change, one can expect isolated instances of the change appearing earlier than the bulge in the curve. The examples in the Lindisfarne Gospels and gloss, for, perhaps, ‘brightly’ and rather than ‘alive’ (c. 970 in the North), are in that category. I owe these examples to Margaret Laing. 68. I am very grateful to LAEME’s enviably erudite editors Margaret Laing and Keith Williamson for allowing me access to their files prior to the publication of this excellent research tool. 69. See also Lutz (1991: 36, fn. 50). The type count for OE words that Lutz cites (60) includes prefixed ge- forms and strong verb Ablaut forms; I am counting only initial stems. Lutz (1991: 35, fn. 48) points out, correctly, that the overall rarity of the type has to be taken into consideration in weighing the significance of the rarity of early Middle English spellings with for OE .
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
Fig. 7.1 clusters in Old English
An inverse spelling form, , appears for OE nacod ‘naked.’70 Except for a stray in a compound surname, Seburgha de Hnotteclive (1259),71 and some spellings in the fourteenth century, the spellings were abandoned by c. 1150. As mentioned above, the total number of historically eligible /hn-/ words is small compared to the number of words with the other /h-/ + sonorant initial clusters. Based on Lutz’s (1991: 31) numbers, and ignoring the fact that they include prefixed forms and strong verb Ablaut forms, I calculate a total of 945 /h/ + sonorant types in Old English, of which only 60, or 6.3 percent are words. The remaining three clusters are distributed approximately evenly, though words top the frequency. The ratios are as follows: 29.4 percent, 38.6 percent, and 25.6 percent. The distribution is shown in Figure 7.1. 7.6.2.2 survivals in Middle English The MED lists three headwords with : hlisa (n.) ‘reputation, fame,’ hlisful (adj.) ‘renowned,’ hloth (n.) ‘a band of robbers.’72 The last recorded uses of these words are around the beginning of the thirteenth century. In addition, there are fifteen forms with etymological whose main entry in the MED 70. a. 1150 (c. 1125) Vsp.D.Hom.Fest.Virg.(Vsp D.14) 29/136: þonne he hnacod wæs, heo hine bewreah mid lichame and mid reafe. a. 1150 (c. 1125) Vsp.D.Hom.Fest.Virg.(Vsp D.14) 27/120: Oðre bescrydeð sumne hnacodne mid ateorigendlicen reafe. 71. The is missing from all attestations of the word not ‘short-haired’ except in the one name spelling: (1259) Cust.Glastonbury in Som.RS 5 132: Seburgha de Hnotteclive, matched two lines earlier by: (1259) Cust.Glastonbury in Som.RS 5 130: Johannis de Notteclive. (MED). 72. In addition, two forms of the OE verb hlidan ‘to put a lid on’ are recorded in LAEME.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
347
is under . The following is a complete list of Old English /xl-/ headwords which continue in use in Middle English and for which an alternative spelling is recorded in the LAEME database and in the MED:
ME form
OE form
Latest spelling
Gloss
ladi(e) (n.) lammasse (n.) laughter (n.) lenen (v.) ler (n.) list (n.) listen (v.) listing(e) lof (n.) lord (n.) lordship(e) (n.) lord-swike (n.) lot (n.) lude(v.) lutter (adj.)
Forms recorded only in LAEME are hlote ‘lot, chance’ and hlude ‘clamored.’ Three forms, (p.t.) c. 1225 from OE lucan ‘to drag,’ ‘body’ from OE licama, and a. 1225 from OE lust ‘desire’ show inverse spellings. While all of these examples outline a path of reduction and monophonemicization, occasionally we find the spelling which would suggest at least local persistence of a different realization of the sequence. Thus we find ‘moos,’75 ‘loud,’ , ‘lord,’ ‘listen.’76 In some texts, most notably Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt (1340)77 spellings are quite frequent: ‘load,’ ‘lean,’ ‘lord.’
73. a. 1225 (1200) Vices & Virtues (1) 17/6: ða fif gildenene besantes ðe ðe hlauerd btahte his ðralle . . . Compare, however, in the same text 7/7: Ic am swiðe for3elt a3eanes mine laferde god almihtin., 7/32: Bidde we alle ure lauerd Crist . . . ðat he us 3iue mihte. 74. OE Homily ‘De Initio Creature’ (ME version). 75. Awe blete þafter lomb; lhou þafter calue cu from Svmer is icumen (Hrl 978) a. 1300. English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century, ed. C. Brown (1932). 76. The spellings are cited from the LAEME database, texts # 183, 144, 11, 12, 1200, 1300. 77. London, British Library, Arundel 57.
348
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
7.6.2.3 survivals in Middle English The MED includes only three etymological /xr-/ words in its section: hradnysse (n.) ‘quickness,’ hræcen (v.) OE hræcen ‘to cough up blood/sputum,’ and hreo(h)nysse (n.) ‘rough weather, storm.’78 None of these words is attested after c. 1150. Another twelve words with an etymological , entered under in the MED, show occasional surviving alternative spellings in Middle English, though in all instances -less spellings predate surviving spellings; I will return to the significance of this fact below.79 The following is a complete list of etymological /xr-/ words for which an alternative spelling is recorded by the MED: ME form
a. 1225 c. 1150 c. 1150 a. 1225 a. 1225 a. 1225 c. 1150 c. 1150 c. 1150 c. 1150 c. 1150 a. 1225
‘garment’ ‘swiftly’ ‘raw’ ‘reed’ ‘leper’ ‘to afflict’ ‘soft cooked’ ‘descend’ ‘back’ ‘to touch’ ‘ring’ ‘to ring a bell’
(51)
Very few texts preserve the spellings fully: Medicina de Quadrupedibus [Hrl.MQuad.],82 the OE Homily ‘De Initio Creature’ (a. 1225), and the Winteney-Version of the Regula S. Benedicti (a. 1225). An inverse spelling 78. Attested in a single text, Herbarium Apuleii [Hrl.HApul.] c. 1150 (OE). To these forms we may add rek(e) (n.), OE hreac ‘heap’ spelled which appears in a gloss: c. 1225(OE) Wor.Aelfric Gloss.(Wor F.174) 540/46: Aceruus, hreac, uel hupel. Another form found in the same text (extracted from the LAEME files) is OE hrutan ‘sneeze, snore’; there are no later attestations of this word. 79. The latest attestations of for ‘garment,’ ‘reed,’ ‘ring a bell’ are in a. 1225 in Wint.Ben. Rule (Cld D.3): Die Winteney-version der regula S. Benedicti, ed. M. M. A. Schr¨oer (1888). 80. The same dates are valid for the adverb radli, OE hrædlice, and the comparative rather, OE hraðor. 81. The spellings for OE hreofla ‘leper’ and hreopian ‘to afflict’ are found in OE Homily ‘De Initio Creature’ (ME version) [Vsp.A.Hom.Init.Creat.] a. 1225(OE) Vsp.A.Hom.Init.Creat. (Vsp A.22): Old English Homilies . . ., ser. 1, ed. R. Morris, 2 parts, EETS 29, 34 (1867, 1868; reprinted as one vol. 1988). 82. The MED stencils refer to Das Herbarium Apuleii nach einer fr¨uhmittelenglischen Fassung, ed. H. Berberich, Anglistische Forschungen 5 (1902). even pp. 2–24.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
349
is recorded for rein (n.) ‘rain,’ a1150.83 One entry, thraldom appears as , a spelling labeled “error” by the MED.84 Confusion between /h-/ and /-/ before /-r/ is possibly signaled also by for hreoflan ‘leper’.85 I have presented all this philological material in order to show that cumulatively, the MED data and the additional information found in LAEME make it clear that the loss of /h-/ in pre-sonorant position was a fairly rapid change, contained within the limits of approximately two centuries. It is also clear that any attempt to establish a chronological sequence for the loss of /h-/ in the three pre-sonorant positions, either within Old English, or within Middle English, is an unsupportable proposition. The seemingly earlier and more frequent attestations of reduction suggested in some earlier scholarship contradict the predictions of the consonantal strength hierarchy. While accepting the assumption that /hr-/ was the first cluster to undergo reduction, Lutz (1991: 36–37) deals with this apparent incompatibility by disassociating (for this cluster only) the presumed early date of the change from its phonological causation. Instead, she proposes that the precocity of /hr-/ simplification is a corollary of the frequency of lexemes. The problem with this line of argument is that it has to refer to token counts, not just to type counts; it is clear from Figure 7.1 above that in fact was the most frequent cluster in terms of word types. In terms of token frequency, however, /hr-/ is lower than /hl-/. The difference between the type-token ratio for (1 : 14) and (1 : 19) is not large enough or reliable enough to allow us to use it as an argument in the dating of the change. The MED and the LAEME results show that earlier scholars were justifiably agnostic with respect to the relative dating of the three changes: the reduction of the three clusters has to be lumped together within the same time-span, as Lutz (1991: 37) also acknowledges. The reduction of /hn-, hl-, hr-/ is therefore also unenlightening with respect to the effect of the consonantal strength or the sonority of the remaining segment in the cluster. 7.6.3 On /xw/ –> /w/ The chronology and dialectal distribution of the reduction of OE /hw-/ is more complex and much more easily traceable in Middle English. Moreover, the history of /hw-/ reduction is a central test-case for theoretical phonology. It has 83. a. 1150(OE) Vsp.D.Hom.(Vsp D.14) 2/16: Heo hruron of heofonum into helle swa swa hregn deþ on eor ∂ an. 84. (?a. 1439) Lydg. FP (Bod 263) 4.595 (MED). 85. c. 1150(OE) Hrl.HApul.(Hrl 6258B) 128.121/3: Nim þeos wyrt & . . . le3e to þan þreoflan [read: hreoflan]; he byð 3elæcnud (MED).
350
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
been used as an argument in favor of the role of the strength relations between the first and the second segment in the onset: Vennemann (1988), Lutz (1991), Suzuki (1996), and, within a different framework but still with reference to sonority ranking, Anderson (2001). The philological and theoretical aspects of the reduction of /xw/ –> /w/ is discussed in the following two sections. First, it is important to go back and survey the alliterative and scribal evidence for /xw–/ reduction. 7.6.3.1 Alliterative and scribal evidence for /xw-/ reduction The biphonemic status of Old English is reliably reconstructed from alliteration; in fully stressed lexical items alliterates regularly on /x-/:86 (52)
Ac se hwita helm / hafelan werede87 hea hornscipe, / ofer hwæles eðel88
Beo 1448 Andreas 274
Although this is the predominant pattern of alliteration, the first echoes of /w-/ can be detected in less spellings in Old English, for example MS <wælweg> for editorial hwælweg ‘path of the whale,’ for ‘ocean,’ in The Seafarer line 63. Some alliterative matchings in (mostly) late Old English verse also suggest reduction: (53)
hwearfum wræcmæcgas. / Woð up astag89 þa hwile þe hi wæpna / wealdan moston.90 þa hwile þe he wæpna / wealdan moste weras <werig>ferh ∂ e / hwearfum þringan91 wið ðy hwitan attre / wið ðy wedenan attre92
As we saw earlier, when the “curtain” on alliterative composition rises at the end of the twelfth century, at least in some varieties of Middle English the etymological /xw-/ has already passed through the /hw-/ stage and Lagamon identifies it regularly with /w-/. There is every indication that the reduction started in the South at about the same time that the other /h-/ initial clusters 86. The <w-> is, of course, a modern convention; in the Old English manuscripts the symbol used for the labiovelar fricative or approximate was the runic symbol þ (wynn) or, less commonly, or , see for example Hogg (1992a: 42). 87. ‘but the white helm / head guarded’ 88. ‘high horned (beaked) ship / over the whale’s dominion’ 89. ‘with the band of people, evil spirits / clamor was raised’ Guthlac is an early composition, probably late eighth or ninth century (Fulk 1992: 400–402). 90. ‘as long as they their weapons / could wield’ also Maldon 272. 91. ‘evil people / pressed in crowds’ 92. ‘with white poison / with wicked poison.’ The five manuscripts which contain The Metrical Charms are from the tenth and eleventh centuries (ASPR VI: cxxx– cxxxvii).
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
351
began to be simplified. However, this particular change was delayed or even did not start in some dialects. The difference is borne out by the evidence presented in the first part of this chapter: in the more Northern composition The Wars of Alexander /hw-/ can be matched both to /h-/ and to /w-/, while in Piers Plowman the matching was unequivocally with /w-/. For comparison, the Gawain poet also alliterates reflexes of Old English : /w/:93 (54)
Whettez his whyte tuschez; with hym þen irked What! hit wharred and whette, as water at a mulne; And wyth quettyng awharf, er he wolde lyt;
SGGK 1573 SGGK 2203 SGGK 2220
Further examples of <wh->; /w-/ alliteration from SGGK and Purity, Patience, and Pearl are cited in Oakden (1930 [1968]: 78). Similarly, in William of Palerne94 the alliteration of , commonly spelled <w->, is on /w-/: (55)
Sche awayted wel þe white bere-skinnes Whilum þei went on alle four, as do þ wilde bestes Whanne þe wite beres wist, þat were in þe quarrer
Will 1710 Will 1788 Will 2401
The standard assumption regarding the history of this cluster is that the , re-spelled <wh-> in Middle English, was lost first in the South and the Southeast Midlands and popularly certainly also in London (Jordan 1934/1974: 178–179). This dating is based on spelling evidence in The Peterborough Chronicle (1132 ff.), The Ayenbite of Inwyt, Poema Morale, Vices and Virtues, Trinity College Homilies, etc. In the Southern part of the area surveyed by McIntosh, Samuels, and Benskin (1986), LALME map 1091 shows considerable concentration of <wa-> forms for the entry what. More evidence for <w+V> spellings is found in LALME Map 253, 274, 563, 574. In Scotland, Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, Westmorland, and large sections of Lancashire and Yorkshire, the initial segment of the OE cluster /xw-/ must have remained a velar fricative much longer than in the South. The initial aspiration remains an important dialect feature of these areas to this day. This is the type of dialectal information that historical linguists, metrists, and textual editors use to determine the regional provenance of the Middle English verse material, see Oakden (1930 [1968]: 28), Milroy (1992: 175). In 93. On this point, see also the discussion in Davis (1967: 136–137). My examples are from the electronic version of SGGK made available through the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library; the edition scanned is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2nd edn. edited by J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, revised by Norman Davis: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. 94. The manuscript is dated 1350–1375 by the MED. It combines West Midland and Eastern, possibly Norfolk dialectal features (Bunt 1985: 75).
352
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
Middle English, northern and northeastern spellings with for etymological testify to the continuing bisegmental composition of the cluster. What is remarkable, however, is that even in a text which shows scribal confusion in representing etymological /xw-/ as , , , such as Gawain, the alliteration is only on /w-/, see the example in (54), SGGK line 2220. The strength of the scribal tradition would account for this discrepancy. Still, the North–South split of the reduction, along the line that follows the Ribble–Aire valleys (Oakden 1935 [1968]), is a well-established fact and the apparent lag or absence of the change in the North requires an explanation. To complete the scribal picture in line with the information presented on the other pre-sonorant clusters, the following chart lists the complete set of items which the MED records only with spellings; all other etymological words appear in a variety of spellings, including , <w->, <wh->, , , etc.: ME form
The examples above illustrate lexical loss in Middle English at a rate comparable to that of words with other sonorants in second position. The OED/MED records make it clear that the spelling convention of switching the and the <w-> began to change during the twelfth century.95 Predictably, the disappearance of /h-/ in some regions and its preservation in others creates a variety of spelling practices which cover every possible combination of letter arrangements for all possible realizations: /w-/, hw-/, and even /h-/. (The exception is for /w-/, which is reassuring because it would be the least logical association.) Here are some examples:
95. A relevant instance is the first attestation of the phrase litel what ‘trifle,’ OE litel hwæt, spelled in the Peterborough Chronicle (a. 1121), followed by in the Ormulum c. 1200. The OED mentions “sporadic anticipations of the <wh-> spelling in the 11th century in the interlinear Rule of St. Benedict, as in æiwheera (ed. E.E.T.S., p. 81), whænne (ib. 103), and in the 12th century in the Peterborough Chronicle (e.g. whilc, an. 675), and the Lambeth and Cotton Homilies.” The OED also notes that the first -less spellings are found in OE, from the ninth century on.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters (57)
<wh-> <wh-> <w-> <w>
for /w-/ for /w-/ for /h-/ for /(h)w-/ for /h-/
<whe, whee> <wheren> <wite> <wamlok>
‘more carefully’ ‘we’ ‘praise’ ‘white’ ‘hemlock’
353
OE wærlice OE we96 OE herian97 OE hwit OE hemlic
At this point, before we turn to the discussion of the relationship between the dating of /hw-/ reduction and its causation, it should be emphasized once again that spelling suggesting a re-analysis of the Old English cluster in the South is supported by every type of evidence: alliteration, inverse spellings, and plain <w-> rendering. 7.6.3.2 The chronology and causes of /xw-/ reduction Establishing which of the four initial clusters was simplified first in English is of considerable theoretical interest. In principle, the different sonority of the second segments in the clusters can be expected to affect the rate of reduction of the /x-/ in them. As discussed in chapter 5, one of the well-known observations about the structure of syllabic onsets is that they preferentially follow a pattern of rising onset sonority (Sievers 1901: § 527). The mirror image of sonority is consonantal strength, and from that angle the principle defining a preferred onset is that “Good syllable heads [according to the Head Law] are those with a continual drop of Consonantal Strength from the beginning toward, and including, the nucleus (Vennemann 1988: 18).” Putting the optimal cluster at the top, the hierarchy of onset well-formedness according to the sonority differential between the onset and the peak, looks like this: (58)
/hw-/ >> /hr-/ >> /hl >> /hn-/
Conceptually, this is the inverse of the consonantal strength scale for the OE clusters, such as the one posited in Murray (1988: 266), see also Suzuki (1996: 305), though, for reasons given in 6.8.2, the reference here is to sonority. Sonority is measured on the second consonant in the onset. Recall that the sonority index in chapter 5, partially reproduced here, shows a steady rise of sonority from the nasal stop to the maximally open and most sonorous vowel in the system. 96. A special case of <wh-> for /w-/ is recorded by the OED: “From the fourteenth century onwards there are sporadic instances of initial whr for wr, as whrightes (R. Brunne’s Chron. Wace 8711), whrassid ‘wrested’ (St. Cuthbert, 6041), whretchedly (Bale, 1560).” 97. This representation of /h-/ is responsible for the Modern English spelling for whole < OE hal and whore < OE hore. A similar case is presented by the alternative spellings whoop and hoop, whelked and welked.
354 (59)
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME Sonority index (partial):98 m, n l r i, u e, o 5 6 7 8 9
a 10
In this framework, /hn-/ would be predicted to be the least stable cluster; it is the idea around which Lutz (1991) constructs her study of consonantal changes in English. In her account consonantal strength, in combination with positional factors, determines the fate of the “unstable” clusters. The prediction of that hypothesis is, again, that loss in onset clusters should affect /hn-/ first, and /hw-/ should be simplified last. The empirical search has shown, however, that for most of the Midlands and the South it is impossible to establish chronological precedence or lag for any of the changes. If anything, it is the /hr-/ and the /hw-/ clusters for which occasional Old English spellings and alliterative pairings may suggest incipient simplification; tentatively, they would be the “leaders” in the reduction process. This contradiction between the textual findings and the predictions of the theory has not gone unnoticed. Lutz (1991: 35–37, 226, 249–255), whose survey of the literature on /h-/ loss is the most comprehensive recent contribution to this issue, acknowledges that some late West Saxon texts point to an earlier weakening of /h-/ before /-r/ than before /-n, -l/. To accommodate this philological observation she regards the scribal indications of /hr/ reduction as less important than the token frequency of /hr-/ words in Old English. I have already commented on the problems that this argument encounters in 7.6.2.3 above. More consequential for the overall account of the /hC-/ clusters, however, is that Lutz (1991: 34–35, 227) does not recognize the evidential value of the early alliterative and scribal evidence for reduction. Her discussion of the history of the cluster is based on the assumption that the <w-> spelling for Old English /hw-/ in stressed position appears only in the late fourteenth century (1991: 227). She does not regard <wh-> spellings for /w-/ initial lexical items in the early Middle English materials as a relevant dating argument. Both Lutz (1991) and later Suzuki (1996: 306–307) conclude that the scribal evidence for the reduction of /hC-/ clusters (other than the reflexes of ) is insufficiently detailed for the establishment of a reliable chronological order. Noticing an especially counter-intuitive fact, the earlier reduction of /hw-/ than of /hn-/ in Old High German, Suzuki adds a comment on the limitations of the consonantal strength approach to cluster reduction: “. . . the historical development of clusters in early Germanic seems to resist an account that is predicated 98. For the full index see (12b) in chapter 5. Following Selkirk (1984: 132) from where this hierarchy is adapted, I assume that /w/ has the same index as the high vowels.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
355
exclusively on the relative sonority values of the clusters involved” (1996: 307). He does not, however, propose an alternative interpretation of the phonological reasons for the reduction of the Old English clusters. Instead, he reconciles the chronological discrepancies by assuming different sonority values for /w/ in Old High German, a fricative, and for /w/ in Old English, an approximant. I have presented evidence that simplification started as early as that in the other clusters, if not earlier. I have also rejected the idea of establishing a connection between the sonority profile of the /hC-/ onsets and the chronology of their reduction. The phonetic nature of the phonemic entities involved should nevertheless be at the center of the historical account. As in all other cases of historical reconstruction of phonetic properties, we have to project our knowledge of the physical properties of currently testable sounds to the past. In this case the matter is complicated by the potentially simultaneous change of both members of the cluster, in place of articulation: from dorsal to laryngeal for the , and in voicing (or spreading of the glottis), from voiced to voiceless, for the <w->. The discussion here refers only to the cluster as it appears in stressed onsets. I assume that all relevant /w/ allophones in Old English were labiovelar. This allows for six possible allophonic realizations of the cluster prior to its reduction to a single segment: (60)
EOE
LOE [xw ]99 [xw] [hw ] [hw] [x ] [h ]
Value of Dorsal/Radical100 Dorsal/Radical Laryngeal Laryngeal Dorsal/Radical Laryngeal
Value of <w> Voiced fricative Voiced approximant Voiced fricative Voiced approximant Voiceless approximant Voiceless approximant
w w
All of these values can be reconstructed with some degree of plausibility, though some are better than others. The very earliest pronunciation could have been [xw⊥ ], which would have had its initial consonant constantly reinforced by Scandinavian loanwords since it corresponds to Old Norse /xv-/. This is a realization we can plausibly reconstruct in Northumbrian until late Old English. The 99. The voiced labiovelar fricative is marked diacritically as [w⊥ ] (adding the “raising” sign), to distinguish it from the voiced labiovelar approximant (Pullum and Ladusaw 1986: 161). On the absence of the option of a voiceless fricative labiovelars realization see Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 326); basically, a voiceless counterpart of [w⊥ ] must be a velar fricative with labialization, but it cannot have friction in both places of articulation. 100. These major place features, following Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 44), cover all three possible early Old English pronunciations; velar, uvular, and pharyngeal. Further on why the is plausibly reconstructed as a pharyngeal fricative, see Liberman (1967).
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
concatenation of non-sibilant fricatives as in [xw⊥ ], however, is likely to create instability because of the articulatory distance between the components and the potential for acoustic confusability. This situation can be resolved in more than one way. Old Norse changed the cluster to /kv-/.101 In Old English, on the other hand, coarticulatory changes affect both segments. The perceptual overlap of two adjacent fricatives can be alleviated by weakening of the initial consonant to a glottal fricative, by reducing the friction and increasing the sonority of the second consonant which becomes more-vowel-like, or by a combination of the two. Another factor which must be considered in the context of coarticulation is voicing: though the direction of the sonority sequencing is the predicted one, the maintenance of voicing after /x-/ would be endangered. Voicing of the second segment can be maintained more easily if the second segment is a continuant, otherwise, as was shown in the discussion of the sibilant-initial clusters, the voicing contrast in post-obstruent position is neutralized. Taking these considerations into account, we can isolate some of the allophonic realizations as less likely, namely [xw], [hw⊥ ], and [h]. The first one, [xw] would develop to [x] because of voicing assimilation. [hw⊥ ] would be unlikely because the /h/ realization is typically found before vowels and vowel-like sounds, not fricatives. [h] cannot be ruled out per se, but it would be neutralized with [hw] in the direction of the latter for similar reasons: the chances of /h/ increase with the sonority of the following segment. Assuming that “what-if” is a legitimate heuristic, we can thus eliminate most of the options as unlikely or irrelevant and concentrate on two realizations which are arguably the basis of the subsequent developments of this cluster: [x] or [hw]. In the scenario I propose the etymological input, phonologized as /xw-/, has two realizations in late Old English: (61)
LOE [x ] hwita : hafelan hwæles : hama
[hw] hwitan : wedenan hwearfum : weras
w
In the first realization, [x-], the fricative-approximant cluster would involve a sharp rise in sonority after the non-sibilant fricative sufficient to keep it perceptually separate from the following approximant. This is the predecessor 101. In Bulgarian [xv-](HVRLM ‘to throw’, HVZWZM ‘to catch’, HVRQZ ‘to fly’) is strictly a hyper-articulated, spelling-induced pronunciation. Dialectally and in relaxed educated speech is it regularly simplified to [f-]; the parallel is not perfect because the second segment in Bulgarian is a labio-dental fricative, but the principle is the same.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
357
of the entity that survives into Middle and Modern English in Scotland and Northumberland.102 The separability of the cluster is the basis of the most frequent pattern of alliteration in Old English and the northern-based alliteration in Middle English. The [x] in this cluster is the justification for the spellings in the northern texts. The exact dating and regional distribution of the glottalization of [x] to [h] is extremely complex, but it must have been late enough and familiar enough in the South to warrant the dedicated <wh-> spelling. It is important to bear in mind also that the [x] to [h] shift, though a necessary step in dialects where the cluster undergoes phonemic reduction, is not contrastive in the varieties where there is no phonemic merger with /w-/. A phonemic contrast between /w-/ and the sequence [x], [h], or the allophone [], was maintained in “conservative” regional dialects. It was also found in the southern educated varieties up to the nineteenth century – there the phonemic distinction between [h]/[] and [w] must have been artificially reinstated in early Modern English. I will return to that point. Crucially, wherever the contrast survives, the exact feature specification of the etymological is unimportant. The contrast can rely either on a dorsal feature for the first consonant, or the voicelessness (or spread glottis) of the labiovelar approximant.103 In the second realization shown in (61), namely [hw-], the cluster is perceptually well formed, but its first consonant is not easily separable and distinct because it has only a laryngeal specification; all its other features are derived from the neighboring sounds.104 Because of the non-specificity of the /h-/, the maintenance of phonemic contrast between [hw-] and a simple [w-] becomes problematic. Positing an intermediate devoicing of the [w-] to [-] is unnecessary; even if a [-] variant existed, it never gathered enough momentum to become contrastive. The merger of the older /hw-/ with /w-/ undoubtedly occurs first in unstressed words, which are indeed a large portion of the words in Old English. Again, the important thing to notice regarding the historical 102. I follow Trudgill (1998: 40) in limiting the current contrast of /w-/ ∼ /hw-/ to Northumberland. Cumbria, Durham, North and East Yorkshire have merged the two realizations into /w-/. On evidence for loss of contrast in Yorkshire already at the end of the eighteenth century (1791–1792), see Giner and Montgomery (2001: 348). 103. The non-contrastiveness of the sequential [hw-] and the monosegmental [] realization of the onset in for example whether in the “conservative” dialects is pointed out also in Anderson (2001: 202). On the interpretation of <wh-> as a biphonemic sequence in Irish English, which is nevertheless “always phonetically a single segment [],” see Hickey (1984). 104. This presupposes complete loss of glottal constriction. “In English, [h] acts like a consonant, but from an articulatory point of view it is simply the voiceless counterpart of the following vowel” (Ladefoged 1982: 33–34). For a more detailed phonetic description of /h-/ as a ‘foreshadow’ of the following segment, see Keating (1988).
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
account of the change is that in the regional varieties in which this option is taken, there is no provable chronological precedence of the reduction of + sonorant cluster over reduction. This takes us back to the observation that the philological records and the alliterative evidence do not confirm the predictions of an account which relies entirely on preferences calculated on the basis of the consonantal strength of the onset components. Anderson (2001: 209–210) presents a truncated history of the /hC-/ clusters as part of an argument concerning the phonological representation of /h/, /w/, and /j/ in the history of English. His main point, the development of syntagmatic noncontrastiveness for /h/ and deconsonantization of /w/ is valid and compatible with the account proposed here. Of particular interest is his suggestion that the re-ranking of sonority for /w/ – from below to above other sonorants – is responsible for the reduction of /hr-/, hl/, and /hn/, because “/h/ combines only with the most sonorant consonants after the reranking: the semi-vowels . . . The loss of /hr/, /hl/, and /hn/ reflects a sonority ranking below /w/ and /j/ rather than just instability of [h].” The position taken here certainly agrees with the thesis that /hC-/ cluster reduction is not just a matter of “instability” and that it involves more than “a general tendency for [h]- loss.” What remains unexplained in Anderson’s account, however, is why [hw] did not reduce prior to the other clusters and prior to the reranking of /w/. Neither the predictions made by Anderson’s theory of sonority nor Vennemann’s (1988) theory of optimal syllable structure accounts for the results of /hC-/ cluster reduction in those dialects that treat all clusters identically. Here I would like to look closer into the possible phonetic mechanisms involved in the /hw/ /w/ merger (hwitan : wedenan), ignoring the allophonic status of /w/. It is a complex and unavoidably speculative reconstruction. Initially – one has to start somewhere, and I start with early Old English – the articulatory sequence [xw] must have been characterized by unevenness in production time. This situation in adjacent consonants when one of the articulations “leads or lags behind the other by a substantial part of the total time required for their production” is described in Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 329). The next step we can posit would be that imbalance in the production time could lead to [hw], where the articulations of the segments are “effectively simultaneous . . . their onsets and offsets . . . are timed to occur very closely together” (ibid.). At this stage [hw] can just become [w], and any remaining aspiration is a supplementary, non-distinctive feature. This is the right branch in (61).105 105. Reacting to the proposed scenario, Robert Stockwell (personal communication) offers a somewhat different speculation which produces the same result: “Suppose the [w] is viewed as
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
359
The question of why /h/ appears to have survived longer before /w/ than before other sonorants in the North remains, of course. We can start with the assumption that in those dialects /w/ became voiceless, similar to the other sonorants that had to go through a voiceless stage (Sievers and Brunner 1942: §217, Sweet 1903: §732, Luick 1914–1940: §§704, 792). Two considerations seem relevant to the reconstruction of the subsequent history of the cluster. The first has to do with a “what if” argument, i.e. what would be the chances of survival of the voiceless sonorants? Can we reconstruct a path of change which would be typologically plausible? The second consideration has to do with the sociolinguistic history of ; that will be addressed in the next section. Starting from early Old English, the history of + sonorant clusters and in the North can be represented as follows (I am replacing the [] symbol with its equivalent [w] for the sake of uniformity; there are no IPA symbols comparable to [] for the voiceless sonorants [l, r, n]): (62)
The chart is non-committal with respect to the devoicing of the sonorants in Old English, no claim can be made regarding the dating of the change. The key to understanding why the “transitional” alternations produced different results is in the ambient phonological system. The main point that the chart in (62) aims to clarify is that distinctiveness of contrast is inherently comparative. More specifically, in the upper three rows, the potential acoustic distances between [l] ∼ [l], [r] ∼ [r], and [ n] ∼ [n] are minimal, while the perceptual contrast between a voiced [w] and a voiceless approximant [w] is robust and well attested. Taking our cues from the typology of the respective segments as described in Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996), the details of the individual pairs are as follows.
non-syllabic [u]. Then the [h] can be viewed as the voiceless [u] that precedes the voiced [u] in dialects like mine, and all Scots and Irish and all over America where they have been prominent. 106. The [h-] realization before /-l-, -r-, -n-/, as opposed to posited [x-] before /-w-/, is a shortcut; the [h-] stage is inferred from later history. 107. For simplicity, I am using the symbol for the generic “r-sound”. The details of the exact articulation are irrelevant here as long as the [r] which is the target of the merger is always voiced.
360
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
For /l/, reconstructed as a voiced lateral approximant, the voiceless counterpart, an approximant [l] is rarely attested, and there are no Indo-European languages that have it in initial position. Welsh allows [l] only in clusters after an initial voiceless stop.108 The option of developing an initial contrast between a voiced approximant [l] and a lateral fricative [] exists, but it would involve an additional step – affrication and additional articulatory effort. Languages are well known to balance ease of production against perceptual clarity. The convergence of [l] with the pre-existing [l] is thus functionally well justified. The merger of [r] with [r] and of [ n] with [n] is another instance where the argument from typology makes sense. While “contrasting voiceless rhotics occur in a few languages . . . we do not know the exact production of these sounds” (Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 237). For the nasals, the contrast between voiced and voiceless segments is attested in several languages spoken in South-East Asia; the contrast between voiced and voiceless nasals is reported to rely heavily on aspiration (1996: 111–116). In principle, a phonemic split of the realizations of [ n] and [n] would not have been impossible, but it would have been a more costly change in terms of preserving the minimal distance between the contrastive segments in the system and it would have involved more active articulatory effort. Also, recollect that /hn-/ words are the least popular among the /hC-/ words (fig. 7.1); this would jeopardize further the chances of a [ n] [n] difference developing into a phonemic contrast in the language. In all three cases we have referred to potential distinctions that are never contrastive in English. In an account which looks into the available perceptual space, such comparisons are important for stating phonological generalizations. Unlike the perceptual distance between voiced and voiceless laterals and nasals, the maintenance of a phonemic contrast between [hw] / [w] /w/ involves only a change of the laryngeal feature, no other feature change. The inherent high sonority of the existing labiovelar approximant guarantees a salient perceptual distance between the two realizations. It should also be noted that the voiced–voiceless mergers for /r, l, n/ occurred at a time when only oral stops in the language had laryngeal contrasts in initial position, while by the time [(h)w] was phonemicized, initial laryngeal contrasts (/f-v/, /s-z/) were in place. In addition to recognizing the different viability of voicing contrasts for the sonorants and for the /w/, the proposed account refers to the quality of the initial segment. A crucial assumption here is the variable pronunciation of 108. The voiceless lateral fricative [] in Welsh can contrast initially with a voiced approximant. The fricative [] is about twice as long as [l] and it “has a higher second formant than [l] and considerable noise concentrated in the frequency range between about 5000 and 7000 Hz.” (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996: 203).
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
361
this consonant. I assume, in agreement with a tradition in the literature, most energetically and convincingly defended in Milroy (1983, 1992: 198–200), that in the South /h-/ lost its pharyngeal friction properties and acquired its modern quality quite early, as early as the twelfth–thirteenth centuries. Seen from the point of view of /h-/ dropping, the historical simplification of the cluster rests on the similarity between two onsets: /hw-/ and /w-/. In the representation below the double-pointed arrows indicate a relation of similarity, and the delta symbol stands for the difference between the values of the entities enclosed in parentheses: (63)
[h-] loss: (hw- ↔ w-) ≈ (Øw- ↔ w-)
This is the scenario of early cluster reduction. In it the difference between the cohesive /hw-/ and the singleton /w-/ is minimal. It is approximately the same as the difference between /Øw/ and /w-/, which are in fact identical. The /h-/ is confusable with Ø. Within the P-map account (Steriade 2001) the cluster is predicted to lose its initial aspirate. In the North, the coarticulation of a strong velar fricative results in devoicing of the second segment. The cluster is non-cohesive and both of its parts are potentially confusable. One source of confusion would be that perceptually the transition between the fricative and the approximant in [x] would be similar to the transition between the onset and the following vowel in /xV-/, especially given favorable conditions regarding confusability of [] with a following (back) vowel. (64)
[w] loss: (xw ↔ xV-) < (xw ↔ wV-)
In this option it is the voiceless approximant that is in a vulnerable position because it is more confusable with its adjacent segment, the vowel to the right, than the initial consonant in the cluster. This is what underlies the development of [x-]/[h-] realizations of OE words, the type represented by who, whose, whom.109 In the third option, the difference between one of the three possible voiceless realizations in the North, [xw], [hw], or [w] and the voiced [w], is larger than the difference between [hw-]- ↔ [w-]. The internal differences between the 109. The principle of similarity between obstruent + approximant cluster and obstruent + vowel extends easily to other changes in English: OE swulc > ModE such, OE twa > ModE two, the ongoing post-coronal /ju/ > /u/ simplification which started in EMod English and keeps expanding, for example rude, chew, suit, lute, and American southern pronunciation of Tuesday, dune, news, etc.
362
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
allophones are irrelevant; as argued above, even a monosegmental [w] is sufficiently different from [w] to prevent confusion with [w]. This distinctiveness translates into a sustained phonemic contrast between the allophonic realizations of <wh-> in Middle English and etymological /w-/ (65)
The picture is complicated further by non-phonological factors. The first option in (63), involving loss of /h-/, may have been influenced by the high frequency of prosodically non-prominent interrogative <wh-> words, and possibly by the fact that /h-/ clusters were phonotactically alien to speakers of Anglo-Norman after the Conquest. The second option, the tendency to dismantle the cluster by abandoning the approximant could have been reinforced by dialectal borrowing and various other cultural factors. The history of who, whose, whom has been regarded as an anomaly by many previous scholars, for example Luick (1914–1940 [1964]: 971), Jordan (1935 [1974]: 155), who have appealed to prosodic weakness or dissimilation in trying to account for that particular development. It is not the goal of this study to retrace the vagaries of the /hw-/ monophonemicization in the dialects, but at least within a theory of similarity of outputs, adopted here, we can bring who, whose, whom in the fold of “accountable” changes.110 Thus, what this section adds to the more familiar accounts is a recognition of the phonological legitimacy of all three scenarios, including the early reduction of . The occurrence of this reduction in the southern dialects simultaneously with all other clusters is just one of the possible routes of change. The continuing variability in the pronunciation of the earlier /xw-/ cluster can be handled phonologically within a theory that takes account of gradient output similarity. Ultimately, the motivation for the enormously long chronological span over which “undigested” change spreads, may be sought in the fact that there is no clear preference between the various solutions to an initial . This is what lies behind the statement in Wells (1982: 228–229) that “Present-day RP usage could be described as schizophrenic.” 7.6.3.3 The /w/ : /w/ mergers and unmergers in the South Throughout the previous sections I referred to the preservation of the /[hw] ∼ [w]/ : /w/ contrast as a “northern” phenomenon. Standard accounts based on orthoepistic testimony, however, present the contrast also as a feature of the standard language in the South until the eighteenth century (MacMahon 110. Compare the history of who, whose, whom to hurlpool / whirlpool, hurlwind / whirlwind, hurtleberry / whortleberry.
7.6 History of /h-/ clusters
363
1998: 467–468, Lass 1999: 123–124). Against the background of indisputable southern loss in Middle English, our view of this interesting change deserves a reconsideration: how is it that [w] : /w/ had merged for the alliterative poets and scribes, but the pronunciation authorities of the early Modern English period did not acknowledge a merger? The proposal I want to put forward is a continuous line of /h-/-lessness from Middle English onward for the registers which lie outside the “standard.” We have seen that the alliterative practice during the fourteenth century supports a reconstruction of widespread reduction of the <wh-> cluster to /w-/. It is conceivable that the merged /w/ /w/ pronunciation continued uninterrupted in some varieties to this day, but a decline of its sociolinguistic status triggered an “unmerger” in literate circles in the South after the fifteenth century. The history of lower-prestige variants is always difficult to reconstruct, but some records of “everyday” English show reduction through the sixteenth century. Thus, the Londoner Henry Machyn in his 1556–1557 journal has <warff> for wharf and <wyche> for which, but he writes <whyt> for with and <whent> for went.111 It is only in the seventeenth century that we have an explicit contemporary record of the status of the opposition, and when we do, it comes from highly educated writers who would have been influenced by the orthography. The scenario that this suggests, then, is not one of continuous distinctiveness of /w/ : /w/, but rather of a Renaissance reinstatement of the /w/ under the influence of spelling and education, and, possibly, dialectal borrowing from northern varieties that preserve the contrast. Positing a historical “unmerger” is a bold step, but the suggestion appears much less radical if we take into consideration two factors. First, unlike other “unmergers,” a re-phonemicization of /w/ : /w/ along the pre-merger lines would have been assisted by the spelling, especially if maintaining a distinction corresponding to the orthography was recommended by the best authors of the day. The graphic convention <wh-> must have been quite remarkable in itself, so that in 1619 even an ardent spelling reformer like Alexander Gill would write: “wh will solely from bad habit retain its force in what, wheðer ‘whether,’ and the like.”112 A second factor would be the high frequency of <wh-> tokens – the 111. The forms are found in the excerpts in Cusack (1998: 165–167). I cite these forms as an example, not as proof; obviously this is a hypothesis that can be verified, or not, by looking into spelling “errors” in the appropriate lower register documents of the period. More details on the spelling evidence for a systematic and continuous /hw-/ : /w-/ merger in the South from the thirteenth century onwards, including the Early Modern period, can be found in Minkova (2002). 112. Cited from Alexander Gill’s Logonomia Anglica, Part II. Translation by Robin C. Alston. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiskell, p. 98.
364
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
visual image of those words would be a powerful model even for the semiliterate. Also, many of the about seventy common words with <wh-> are possibly onomatopoeic: wheeze, whiff, whip, whir, whisk, whoop.113 In them the <wh-> is not etymological in the same sense as in whale, whether, while; the point is that a <wh-> spelling of an original /h-/ word would reinforce the <wh-> : /w/ association. Finally, the prestige of Scots pronunciation in the first half of the seventeenth century may also have had an effect on the fate of the cluster. It is possible that King James I (1603–1625) and his immediate circle of Scottish favorites provided the model that socially-aspiring speakers and educators followed, so the aspirated pronunciation became a cultural shibboleth. The tension between spelling and pronunciation, and the important role of the former can be illustrated with the history of an eighteenth-century borrowing from Chinese, the word whangee ‘a bamboo cane.’ Its first recorded spellings in the OED are <wangee> in 1790, and <wanghee> in 1813, clearly suggesting /w-/. Then, in 1836, the <wh-> spelling appears for the first time, and the pronunciation of the word today is given as [hwæ-] by the OED. A similar example is provided by the alternative form of the widow-bird, the 1783 borrowing whidah, whose etymology is traced to Ouidah/Widah, a port in Southern Benin. The OED pronunciation for whidah is [hw-], clearly a spelling pronunciation. Such examples give more credence to a claim that education and spelling are likely to have restored the previously simplified cluster in the prestigious social varieties in the South in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The zeal with which the monosegmental onset in lower class, illiterate pronunciation, was decried can be read clearly off John Walker’s entry on : This letter is often sunk after w, particularly in the Capital, where we do not find the least distinction of sound between while and wile, whet and wet, where and wear. Trifling as this difference may appear at first sight, it tends greatly to weaken and impoverish the pronunciation, as well as sometimes to confound words of a very different meaning. The Saxons, as Dr. Lowth observes, placed the h before the w, as hwat: and this is certainly its true place: for, in the pronunciation of all words beginning with wh, we ought to breathe forcibly before we pronounce the w . . . and then we shall avoid that feeble, cockney pronunciation, which is so disagreeable to a correct ear. (1791/1831: 53)
Once associated not just with non-prestigious regional pronunciations but with the glorious Saxon past, the restoration and maintenance of the “true place” 113. See also the relationship of hurlpool, hurlwind, hurtleberry to whirlpool, whirlwind, whortleberry, etc., and of thwack, thwang to whack, whang, in the OED.
7.7 History of /w-/ clusters
365
of the for those who aspired to have a “correct ear” became a class and education shibboleth and, more grandiosely, another way of asserting the national heritage. In summary, there is no necessary temporary relationship between consonantal strength and /hC-/ reduction, or sonority re-ranking and preservation of the cluster. Whenever reduction occurs, it is triggered by confusability of /h/ with Ø. The intermediate realizations of , the voiceless [l], [r], and [n], were unstable for typological reasons. In line with all previous accounts, cluster reduction as outlined here must assume a gradual change from a cluster to a single segment passing through phonetically intermediate stages, when traces of the earlier pronunciation surface allophonically in the realization of the new variant. Different regional and social varieties interpret the variants differently resulting in classic cases of merger and phonemicization of contrasts.
7.7
The history of <w-> clusters
With about a dozen words representing it, the cluster <wl-> was not very prominent in Old English, though some of the <wl-> words such as wlæc ‘tepid,’ wlanc ‘rich, proud,’ wlitan ‘to look’ appear frequently in the records.114 Such words invariably alliterate on <w>: (66)
wlitebeorhtne wang / swa wæter bebugeð115 wlancne wicing, / þe him þa wunde forgeaf116
Beo 93 Maldon 139
In Middle English the range of lexical choices shrank further. Alliterative usage, to the extent that it can be established on this very impoverished lexical base, indicates a continuing bisegmental realization, as in the following lines: (67)
A worthi wedow and a wlonk with thre wale childire It wald haue wlated any wee þat welth to behald As thay hade wonde worthyly with that wlonk euer Whyle the wlonkest wedes he warp on hymseluen Wyth her vnworthelych werk me wlate wythinne
WA 5215 WA 5760 SGGK 1988 SGGK 2025 Cln 305
Standard reference books and specialized studies, for example Harris (1954: 63), Lutz (1991: 228–231), assume a Middle English starting-point for the 114. There are thirty-nine headword entries on <wl-> in the MED, but many of the entries are based on the same root, for example wlaffen ‘stammer,’ wlaffere, wlafferinge, wlaffing(e). I am grateful to Paul Schaffner from the MED for making the electronic files available to me. 115. ‘fair bright field / as water surrounds’ 116. ‘the proud viking / who had wounded him’
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7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
simplification of /wl-/ to /l-/. Statements regarding the chronology of cluster simplification are usually accompanied by comments on the relationship between this change and lexical loss. Lutz’s detailed coverage of the available information, which supersedes Harris’ survey, makes a case for dating /wl-/ simplification earlier than /wr/ simplification by interpreting both lexical loss and the occasional confusion between /wl-/ and /bl-/ as instances of cluster reduction. This chronological ordering would fit the predictions of Vennemann (1988) in the sense that the consonantal strength relations in /wl-/ would be slightly less favorable than those in /wr-/. Yet while lexical loss may indeed affect the survival potential of the cluster, this does not have to be causally linked to its phonological ill-formedness.117 Similarly, the change of /wl-/ to /bl-/, exemplified by two words of uncertain etymology: blaff (obsolete, single OED quote in 1699) and blot (not related to <wl-> by the OED), does not contribute anything to the dating, so this part of Lutz’s argument (1991: 230) is unsupported. This leaves three other words on which to base the entire argument about chronological precedence, and they all have parallel <wl-> and forms surviving into the fifteenth century and even the early sixteenth century: wlake ‘tepid’ (1450), wlate ‘feel disgust’ (1493), wlonk ‘proud, rich’ (1508). As in the case of the /gn-/ - /kn-/ clusters, it would be more realistic to assume that the /wl-/ cluster was absorbed by /wr-/ through neutralization of the sonorant. Some evidence for that can be seen in the confusion between <wlappen> ‘wrap’ c. 1384 (MED), also , <wap> (OED), and the gerund <wrapping> spelled wapping, wlapping, lapping. The received knowledge on the initial stage of /wr-/ reduction is that the change started in the seventeenth century (Harris 1954: 97, Lass 1999: 122). LAEME shows no spellings for OE <wr-> words.118 There are thirtyone tokens of “split” (<wVr>) spellings in the LAEME database similar to the ones found in the MED, for example wretch ‘wretch’ (<werchan>), wrath ‘wrath’(<warded>), wrench ‘wrench’ (<wernch>), etc. In the texts surveyed here the alliterative evidence generally supports that dating, although we saw some suggestive echoes in Lagamon’s Brut, 117. The marginality of the cluster in terms of lexical items does, of course, reduce its learnability, and that may eventually affect the phonological shape of the cluster, but this is quite different from equating lexical loss with cluster reduction. On a Praguian-type view of how the paucity of /wl-/ words could play itself out historically in terms of functional load, or lack thereof, see Vachek (1964). 118. A possible exception is the compound þeowwracu where the /w/ in wracu ‘vengeance’ is spelled and could go on either side of the syllable division; that is most likely assimilation of the /w/ to the preceding back vowel. I am grateful to Margaret Laing for extracting this information from the LAEME files.
7.7 History of /w-/ clusters
367
Wynnere and Wastoure, and Piers Plowman. Pairing with is occasionally found also in other alliterative verse: (68)
& þat writ wes irad; imæ[n]g þan Rom-leden. And fro he wiete wittirly where the wronge ristyth, Or ellis al riche and ryden aboute; I, Wrathe, reste nevere Rugh ronkled cheke that other on rolled
LB 6183 W & W 200 PP 5.149 SGGK 953
Further evidence that the phonetic nature of the cluster may have started changing earlier comes from spelling. A harbinger of the later developments is the spelling for OE ∗ wruncle ‘wrinkle’ by the Gawain poet, in the Cursor Mundi, and in Richard Rolle. The late thirteenth-century Havelok (MS dated early fourteenth century) shows an interesting inverse spelling: Wreieres and wrobberes made he falle (Hav 39) where the unetymological spelling <wr-> in robber < OF robber ‘rob’ implies simplification in wreieres < OE wregere ‘traitor.’119 Unfortunately, LALME records no items that would be relevant in this context. The issue is of interest, especially if we consider the inverse spelling evidence of Scandinavian /r-/ initial borrowings which appear with <wr-> in ME, such as <wrang> from ON rangr ‘wrong.’ The perseverance of this cluster in Scotland is well known; the retention of the initial cluster there “endured well into the modern period . . . now virtually obsolete except in peripheral dialects or in a few specific words.”120 In some Northeastern varieties of Scots /wr-/ has changed to /vr-/ “a pronunciation still heard from elderly speakers” (McClure 1994: 65). A similar change of /wr-/ to /vr-/ is recorded in some southwestern English dialects. The account of the reduction of this cluster, too, has to refer to allophonic realizations. Taking the [r] as a generic rhotic, two possible realizations which mark the biphonemic and the monophonemic options are: (69)
The matching in the first column corresponds to the continuing perception of the cluster as a composite sequence. The alliterative data, especially clear in 119. See Harris (1954: 65), Jordan (1934/1974: 155). 120. A fifteenth-century alliterative evidence for this is found in Dunbar’s Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo: Bewrie, said the Wedo, e woddit wemen ing
41
368
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
the Wars of Alexander (7.3), showed this sequence to be non-cohesive. Spelling data, too, confirm an assumption of separability.121 The initial segment in this separable cluster is either the voiced labiovelar [w] or the voiced labio-dental continuant [ ] which is phonetically intermediate between [w] and [v]. The allophonic existence of [ ] is probable because of Middle English and later associations of the segment with the spelling .122 In the second column the identification is between a doubly articulated, labialized [r], and an initial labial. This would be a case of progressive labial coarticulation affecting the second segment. A phonetically plausible reconstruction would be that the reduction must have passed through an intermediate stage during which the release phase of the labiovelar approximant [w] was shortened, turning it into a “rounding” gesture, a secondary, non-contrastive consonantal articulation. This is in contrast to the option in the left branch of (69). In the latter case [w] > [ ], the non-cohesiveness of the cluster is enhanced. In the “reduction” option in the right-hand branch of (69), which turns out to be the dominant one for reasons that may be non-linguistic, coarticulation is enhanced; the perceptual break between the two parts of the cluster is eliminated by reanalyzing a primary labial articulation to secondary labialization.123 The first option preserves the input and enhances its acoustic distinctiveness, while the second option is more economical in terms of articulatory effort. 121. My search through the MED stencils in Ann Arbor turned up ‘split’ spellings for wrallen ‘twist (), wrappen ‘wrap’ (<warpyd>), wrase ‘a small bundle (<warse>), wrathe ‘wrath’ (<wærþe>), wraulen ‘roar’ (<warl>), wrecce ‘wretch’ (<wherc, werch>, 1224 SW Midl.), wrek ‘a thing drifted ashore’ <werk, warec>, wrench (<wernch>), wresten ‘twist’ (<wyrast>), wrestle (<werstild, warstel(e)d>), wreth ‘wreath’ (<werthes>), wrighte ‘carpenter’ (<wirhte>, OE wyrhta), wrist (<wirst>), writ (<wirte, weritt>), etc. I am grateful to Frances McSparran and her co-workers for allowing me access to their files. The non-cohesiveness of the sequence is suggested also by inverse spellings, for example <wrð-> for <wurð-> ‘worth,’ <wrðen> ‘become,’ and <wrs(e)> for <wurse> ‘fiend,’ ‘worse.’ Other ME inverse spellings (from the online MED) with <wr-> are wret(e), wrette, wrot, wrothe; pl. for wart ‘wart,’ and <wraud-> for ward ‘the sea floor.’ The confusion between a <w> spelling and a voiced labio-dental fricative is evident in spellings such as <werrei(e), werrai(e), werai, wer(r)i, werie> alternating with for OF and AF . 122. The “sound substitution” of [v] for /w-/ is discussed extensively in the philological literature, see Jordan (1934/1974: 156), who also present the arguments for and against Scandinavian influence on the development of this particular feature. The more likely account of the development of [v] < /w-/ is that by Luick (1914–1940 [1964]: §761), according to whom it was a native development, a hypothesis supported by the evidence of place name spellings with outside the counties in which other Scandinavian influence is strong. 123. The reference to “non-linguistic” reasons refers to the possibility of a negative reaction to the “provincial” retention of the bisegmental sequence in the sixteenth century. Whether this was a relevant factor or not remains to be ascertained.
7.8 Summary and conclusions 7.8
369
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 7 presents alliterative and philological data on the use of unstable onset clusters in the history of English. Lutz (1991: 249) posits a chronological scale of the simplification of the three onset cluster types, /gn-, kn-/, /hn-, hl-, hr-, hw-/, /wl-, wr-/, which in her analysis corresponds to the strength relations between the participating consonants. The worse the strength relations between the first and the second segment in the onset, the earlier the disappearance of the first consonant. In support of her hypothesis, she states that: /w-/ disappears earlier before /l/ than before /r/ /h-/ disappears earlier before sonorants than before /w/ /g/ disappears earlier than /k/ before /n/
The evidence presented in this chapter shows that none of these statements is tenable for English and that in some cases the evidence runs against the expectations set up on the basis of the consonantal strength relations in the onset. Low lexical yield for /wl-/ and /gn-/ leads to mergers with the more frequent types /wr-/ and /kn-/. Although relative sonority can be posited as a factor determining the survival potential of /hw-/ versus /hl-, hn-, hr-/, the reference here is to a measurable physical property (sonority), as distinct from the purely relational property of consonantal strength. The chapter attempts to relate cluster cohesiveness to the history of cluster reduction in English. The clusters which develop monosegmental realizations are comparable to the clusters at the lower end of the scale of cohesiveness established for the onset clusters in chapter 6. Non-cohesive clusters have the potential of maintaining the compositionality of the cluster by increasing the perceptual distance between the segments, at the cost of additional effort. This path is taken by <wr-> in those varieties where the cluster survives. Similarity of the unstable cluster components to Ø is another factor involved in their historical development. The survival rate of the intermediate phonetic entities as phonemes is determined by the universal properties of the consonantal system: coexistence of laryngeal contrasts for sonorants is typologically unlikely, while the contrast between // and /w-/ is less marked. Lexical frequency and sociolinguistic factors are also important for the course of change. Reduction of /hw-/ is attested in the South from the twelfth century; it is the longest “undigested” phonological change in the language and the appearance of eighteenth century reduction is likely to be a culturally-induced phenomenon disguising the continuity of /w/ in “lower” registers. This chapter concludes my survey of the alliterative evidence for cluster behavior in Middle English. Chapter 5 showed that the self-alliteration on
370
7 Verse evidence for cluster simplification in ME
/sp-, st-, sk-/ does not need an explanation: it is a predictable consequence of the absence of a perceptual break between the two parts of the cluster. Chapter 6 set up a hierarchy of cluster cohesiveness derived from the alliterative practice in Middle English. Unlike the Old English scops, the Middle English poets did not interpret any point on that scale as a cut-off point for the purposes of versification. Chapter 7 revisits the old issue of cluster reduction in the context of the perceptual properties of the coarticulated segments. Clusters have been well loved; now it is time to leave this love to others. Silence in love bewrays more woe Than words, though ne’er so witty Sir Walter Ralegh (1552–1618), The Silent Lover, 5–6
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Subject index continuancy 123, 124, 223 non/ 305 continuant(s) 124, 215, 220, 223, 356 co-occurrence of 223 non- 336 voiced labio-dental 368 voiceless 217 contraction(s) 152, 156, 159, 185, 187, 190 in hiatus 156 negative 159 non- 155 c or onal 99, 108, 112, 117, 125, 126, 127, 216, 339 coarticulation 121 -ity 100, 109, 120, 121, 125, 126, 217, 248 feature 100 non- 216, 217 underspecification 108, 125 Coronation of Edgar 76, 96 Correspondence Theory 105 Cursor Mundi 159, 173, 174, 367 Cynewulf 131 Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt 347 De Arte Metrica 137 Death and Life 245, 264, 293 Death of Edgar, The 74, 76, 96 Death of Edward, The 8, 9, 14, 61, 76, 96 dental 72 stop(s) 110, 113 Deor 2, 3 Dep IO 182, 183, 186, 206 violation of 185 Destruction of Troy, The 166, 169, 291, 322 diacritic 102 indicating palatalizations 133 95, 133 diction 6, 19 poetic 313 Dictionary of Old English Corpus (in Electronic Form) 8, 73, 87, 95, 96, 152, 155 diphthong(s) palatal 101, 102 dip(s) 40, 155 di s tri bu ted 127 dorsal 99, 100, 108, 112, 117, 120, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 355, 357 constriction 127 -ity 121, 124, 126
