Compensatory lengthening
Encyclopedia
Compensatory lengthening in phonology
and historical linguistics
is the lengthening of a vowel
sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant
, usually in the syllable coda
. This may be considered an extreme form of fusion
(Crowley 1997:46), or possibly arise from speakers' attempts to preserve a word's moraic
count.
An example from the history of English
is the lengthening of vowels that happened when the voiceless velar fricative
/x/ and its palatal
allophone
[ç] were lost from the language. For example, in Chaucer
's time the word night was phonemically /nixt/; later the /x/ was lost, but the /i/ was lengthened to /iː/ to compensate. (Later the /iː/ became /aɪ/ by the Great Vowel Shift
.)
Both the Germanic spirant law
and the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law
show vowel lengthening compensating for the loss of a nasal.
Non-rhotic forms of English have a lengthened vowel before a historical post-vocalic */r/: in Scottish English, girl has a short /i/ followed by a light alveolar /r/, as presumably it did in Middle English; in Southern British English, the */r/ has dropped out of the spoken form and the vowel has become a "long schwa".
. It is particularly notable in forms where n or nt comes together with s, y (= ι̯), or i. The development of nt + y was perhaps thus:
Forms with this type of compensatory lengthening include the nominative singular and dative plural of many participles, adjectives, and nouns, the 3rd person
plural ending for present
and future
active
of all verb
s, and the 3rd person singular present of athematic verbs:
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
and historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
is the lengthening of a vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
, usually in the syllable coda
Syllable coda
In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a rime. Some syllables consist only of a nucleus with no coda...
. This may be considered an extreme form of fusion
Fusion (phonetics)
In phonetics and historical linguistics, fusion, or coalescence, is the merger of the features of two segment into one.A common form of fusion is found in the development of nasal vowels, which frequently become phonemic when final nasal consonants are lost from a language. This occurred in French...
(Crowley 1997:46), or possibly arise from speakers' attempts to preserve a word's moraic
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
count.
An example from the history of English
History of the English language
English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic invaders from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the...
is the lengthening of vowels that happened when the voiceless velar fricative
Voiceless velar fricative
The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English....
/x/ and its palatal
Voiceless palatal fricative
The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The symbol ç is the letter c with a cedilla, as used to spell French words such as façade...
allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
[ç] were lost from the language. For example, in Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's time the word night was phonemically /nixt/; later the /x/ was lost, but the /i/ was lengthened to /iː/ to compensate. (Later the /iː/ became /aɪ/ by the Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen , a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....
.)
Both the Germanic spirant law
Germanic spirant law
In linguistics, the Germanic spirant law or Primärberührung is a specific historical instance of dissimilation that occurred as part of an exception of Grimm's law in the ancestor of the Germanic languages.-General description:...
and the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law
In historical linguistics, the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law is a description of a phonological development in some dialects of West Germanic, which is attested in Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon...
show vowel lengthening compensating for the loss of a nasal.
Non-rhotic forms of English have a lengthened vowel before a historical post-vocalic */r/: in Scottish English, girl has a short /i/ followed by a light alveolar /r/, as presumably it did in Middle English; in Southern British English, the */r/ has dropped out of the spoken form and the vowel has become a "long schwa".
Greek
Compensatory lengthening is very common in GreekAncient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
. It is particularly notable in forms where n or nt comes together with s, y (= ι̯), or i. The development of nt + y was perhaps thus:
- *mont-yă → montsa (palatalizationPalatalizationIn linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
ty → ts) → mõtsa (nasalizationNasal vowelA nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
and vowel lengthening) → mõssa → mõsa (shortening ss → s) → mōsa (denasalization, retention of long vowel) = μοῦσα "museMuseThe Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
"
Forms with this type of compensatory lengthening include the nominative singular and dative plural of many participles, adjectives, and nouns, the 3rd person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
plural ending for present
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
and future
Future tense
In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
active
Voice (grammar)
In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments . When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice...
of all verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s, and the 3rd person singular present of athematic verbs:
- *πάντ-ς → πᾶς "every, whole" (masculineGrammatical genderGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
nominativeNominative caseThe nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
singular) - *πάντ-ι̯ᾰ → *πάντσα → πᾶσα (feminine)
- *πάντ-σι → πᾶσι (masculine/neuter dative plural)
- compare παντ-ός (m./n. genitive singular)
- *όντ-ι̯ᾰ → *όντσα → οὖσα participle "being" (feminine nominative singular)
- *οντ-ίᾱ → *ονσία → οὐσία "property, essence"
- compare ὀντ-ός (m./n. genitive singular, from participle ὤν "being",)
- DoricDoric GreekDoric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
ἄγ-ο-ντι → ἄγοντσι → AtticAttic GreekAttic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
/IonicIonic GreekIonic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
ἄγουσι "they drive"
- Doric τί-θε-ντι → *τίθεντσι → Attic/Ionic τίθεισι "he/she places"
See also
- MoraMora (linguistics)Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
- Phonological history of the English languagePhonological history of the English languageThe phonological history of English describes changing phonology of the English language over time, starting from its roots in proto-Germanic to diverse changes in different dialects of modern English....
- Ancient Greek nounsAncient Greek nounsIn Ancient Greek, all nouns are classified according to grammatical gender and are used in a number . According to their function in a sentence, their form changes to one of the five cases...