Abstract
We analyse j/w+r sequences in the history Early Modern English (EMoE), the predecessor of Standard (Reference) British English (SSBE) and its most current version, Current British English (CUBE) to arrive at the nature of historical pre-r (and also pre-l) breaking, a process (together with r-deletion and smoothing) responsible for the phonemic contrast between schwa-final and any other diphthongs (and long vowels): bear ɛə vs bay ej (or eɪ), lore ɔə vs law ɔː vs low ow at the beginning of the twentieth century, found as bɛː vs bɛj, loː law/lore vs ləw low CUBE. The main thrust of the argument presented here is that (i) (historical) diphthongs and the long high monophthongs are uniformly represented as vowel+glide sequences, giving ‘bias’ to the title and (ii) that breaking is consonant prevocalisation (CP) of r/ɫ in j/w+r/ɫ sequences (lejr > lejər lair, fajɫ > fajəɫ file). This is followed by r-deletion and smoothing (leər > lɛə > lɛː lair), which are unrelated to breaking ‘proper’. The analysis of breaking as consonant prevocalisation builds on the framework developed by Operstein (2010), with earlier precursors in articulatory phonology, historical linguistics (e.g. Howell 1991a, 1991b), and frameworks using privative melodic features, such as government phonology (e.g. Kaye, Lowenstamm & Vergnaud 1985), dependency phonology (Anderson & Ewen 1987), particle phonology (Schane 1984), element theory (Backley 2011), etc. The article introduces the theoretical background in section 1, followed in section 2 by a discussion of breaking in the history of English. We then look at a classical interpretation of breaking and discuss its shortcomings in section 3. We then look at why the long high monophthongs are better analysed as diphthongs in section 4 before we look at how these vowels fit into the bigger canvas of the diphthongs in section 5. The next step in sections 6 and 7 takes us to the analysis of breaking as CP happening in jr, wr and jɫ sequences. In section 8 we look at CP undone in the later history of the language and some of the consequences for earlier English that follow from the modern distribution of j/w+r sequences.
1 Background
Operstein (2010) develops a framework building on the insights of articulatory phonology (Browman & Goldstein 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1995, 2000, with various aspects of it appearing in Kaye, Lowenstamm & Vergnaud 1985; Howell 1991a, 1991b; Byrd 1996; Gafos 1999, 2002; Albano 1999; Scheer 2004; Goldstein, Byrd & Saltzman 2006, and many others). The fundamental assumptions of Browman & Goldstein (1986, etc.) centre around the idea of consonantal structures composed of coordinated articulatory movements, termed gestures, which refer to constrictions formed in the oral tract. These constrictions are defined in terms of paired variables, referring to constriction location (CL) and constriction degree (CD), corresponding to the general assumptions on the place and manner of articulation of consonants. CL and CD are dimensions with a number of values: CL may take on the value of [labial], [dental], [palatal], etc., that of CP the values of [closed] (for the stops), [critical] (for the fricatives) and [open] (for the approximants and vowels, with some further sub-values). Phonetic sequences of consonants/vowels are represented in terms of scores of ordered gestures showing the temporal activation of the individual articulators. The phonological gestures corresponding to articulatory movements can overlap with, or (considerably) lag behind the other gestures of neighbouring segments. Gestures can also be mistimed with respect to other constituent gestures inside a particular segment, or phoneme in the traditional sense. They may also be weakened and lost. Processes such as consonant deletion, insertion, lenition, vowel nasalisation, excrescence (epenthesis, svarabhakti, etc.), and a score of other phenomena, can only be handled by recourse to what happens to the phonologically defined gestures during production. There can be no insertion of any gestures into the string of gestures which has not been specified in a gestural score. In simple terms, nasalisation of a in pan pãn1 shows the temporal overlap of the velar opening gesture with the preceding vocalic gesture, the excrescent p in symphony sɪmpfənɪj shows the temporal overlap of the lip closure gesture of m and the two gestures associated with the following fricative: the closure gesture of the velum and the opening gesture of the glottis. The consonant gesture in the historical r in the predecessor of CUBE was weakened and lost (car, cart).
The next feature of the model, something that is crucial to the analysis of CP, is the separation of the gestures into vocalic (V) and consonantal (C). That vowel articulations are continuous and serve as a background to (more constricted) consonantal articulations was proposed by Öhman (1966), an idea built around the separation of gestures into C- and V-tiers. This is unproblematic for consonants with secondary articulations (pj, nɯ, etc.). CP will, crucially, involve the V-tier of consonants appearing as onglides to consonants (e.g. jp, jʃ, ən, etc.), but may also appear on both sides of a secondarily modified consonant (as in jpj), sliding in and out of synchronisation with rest of gestures. The novelty of Operstein's analysis lies in the analysis of both plain and secondarily modified consonants having both a V- and a C-gesture (except for the plain glottals). The analysis ties in this aspect of consonants with their prosodical status (in essence, their appearance in weak positions, cf. Sheer 2004). A consonant in a weak (typically, coda) position will decompose and its vocalic gesture slide towards the preceding vowel resulting first in a non-vocalic onglide, but with time it may be incorporated into the preceding vowel, thus strengthening the (stressed) vowel through diphthongisation or lengthening, as Operstein says (p. 38). N. Hall (2006) differentiates between (segmental) epenthesis and (non-segmental) vowel intrusion, which would be the equivalent of Operstein's onglide. This approach allows us to see the temporarily/articulatorily dislodged gestures of a consonant, and understand how a consonant can be articulatorily splayed out over a stretch of time and neighbouring gestures. We have evidence for this in historical spelling: tawlk for talk in English, chevaulx ‘horses’ in French showing the decomposition of dark-l into a w-like V-gesture followed by the C-gesture, followed by its loss (tawk, chevaux). European Portuguese corroborates this: linking-l is both dark and clear, as in sal amargo [saɫlɐmárgu] ‘bitter salt’ (Herslund 1986, 516 fn. 2). In Brazilian Portuguese dark-l is found as [wl], as in hospita[wl]existe… ‘(the) hospital exists…’ (Collischonn & Costa 2003, 35 fn. 4, cf. also Strycharczuk & Scobbie 2020 for English). The two gestures in wl, superimposed on each other, would produce ɫ. Of course, a phonological model working with gestures as autosegments cannot (and does not) want to account for all the minute phonetic details stemming from the various degrees of sliding of gestures in and out of synchrony with respect to each other, but can predict that these will be found phonetically. Spelling is also unable to mirror these tiny differences: data like tawlk are important for our understanding of what went on in the past, but the details of the degrees of ‘darkness of l’ are irretrievably lost. This gestural approach is superior to SPE-based descriptions based on binary features (Chomsky & Halle 1968), as are aproaches using privative features that are essentially articulatory targets, gestures that can be pronounced in isolation, and are also the building blocks of larger segments (e.g., Schane 1984; Anderson and Ewen 1987; Backley 2011).
There is ample experimental proof for what can be interpreted as the articulatory dislodging of the gestures inherent in dark-l in (modern) English. Clear-l and dark-l are merely two endpoints of a phonetic continuum, conditioned by phonetic, dialectal, morpho-syntactic and lexical factors, or even micro-phonologies. Additionally, ɫ-vocalisation (> w) as the endpoint of lenition may coexist with l-darkening or replace it altogether. As Turton (2017) argues, accounts working with a purely categorical difference between ‘clear’ and ‘dark’ present as much of a false picture as those that advocate a purely gradient approach. Strycharczuk & Scobbie (2017, 16), for example, analyse the degree of fronting of uː and ʊ, contingent on the phonetic nature of l in terms of ‘fuzzy’, or morphologically conditioned contrasts, seen in pairs like hula-fooling vs bully-pulling. They conclude that “the production of morphologically-complex forms such as fool-ing or pull-ing leads to simultaneous activation of two allophones: A clear [l] (due to intervocalic position), and a dark [ɫ] (due to morphological constraints or analogy to a related word like fool or pull). As both categories are activated simultaneously, both of them influence the resulting /l/, which is a phonetic blend of a dark and a clear /l/”. From the point of view of articulatory phonology, this phonetic gradience can be seen as the temporarily out-of-synch interpretation of the respective phonological gestures of l, played out on a scale of phasing of these gestures in line with the ever-increasing phonetic nature of a bundle of gestures as they enter the level of interpretation. As we analyse some of the historical data for breaking, we will see that it involved decomposition of the gestures of (velar) ɫ and (pharyngeal) r and the propagation of the V-gesture towards the stressed vowel, advancing as far as the j/w before it, setting off a new series of changes in later EMoE.
2 Breaking and/or epenthesis: some of the problems
Breaking (or Brechung) for the language historians is unavoidable in the description of Old English (OE). OE breaking is discussed in both traditional (e.g. Strang 1970; Gelderen 2014; Minkova 2014) and more specialised literature (e.g. Howell 1991a; Hogg 1992, 2011; Ringe 2014). The term ‘breaking’ is used to cover a number of (possibly unrelated) processes.
In OE (e.g. Hogg 2011) breaking of the front vowels ī̆, ē̆, ǣ̆ is found when they were followed by a velar or a velarised consonant (or consonant group), i.e. by rC/ɫC/x/w. Of these ɫ and r had to be in word-internal coda (a weak position weaker than word-final coda, cf. Sheer 2004), or in Hogg's terms they had to be covered by a consonant, including themselves. All these consonants can be supposed to have been velar. The consequences of breaking are visible in OE orthography in the form of a grapheme suggesting a back/velar vowel, which can be considered a natural reaction of a front vowel to the velar place of articulation (see (1)).
| Old English breaking |
| eaht ‘eight’ (< *æxt), eall ‘all’ (< *æll), heard ‘hard’ (< *hærd), steorra ‘star’ (< sterra), fīras ‘men’ (< *feorhas < *ferhas), cneowe ‘knee, DatSg’ (< *knewe), hweowol ‘wheel’ (< *xwewol), tiohhian ‘consider’ (< *tioxxian), Peohtas ‘Picts’ (< *pixtas), seah ‘see, Pt’ (< *sæx), sēon ‘see’ (< *seoxan < *sexan), but bær ‘bear, Pt’, hwæl ‘whale’, etc. |
Whether all the inputs should be considered to produce uniform outputs is questionable. OE spelling was hopelessly inadequate at representing all the phonologically relevant differences (cf. Moulton 1954, 27) and it also ‘overrepresented’ some (otherwise conceivably allophonic) differences (cf. Daunt 1939, 1952). In addition to this, in spite of a unifying feature like ‘velar’, the environments can also be thought of as (very) different: both sonorants (ɫ/r/w) and obstruents are involved (x, but not k or ɣ), and, additionally, ɫ/r must be in word-internal coda, whereas x was able to break preceding vowels in both word-final and prevocalic positions as a singleton consonant (seah ‘see, Pt’ < *sæx, fēos ‘property, GenSg’ < *feuxes < *fexes; cf. Howell 1991b for a treatment of a number of West Germanic processes involving epenthesis). In other words, <eo> in steorra and Peohtas may show phonologically different results of the same pre-OE *e, disguised by the various OE spelling conventions, such as the ban on trigraphs or the poorly understood ban on <eu> (cf. Lass 1994, 3.9.4). While OE breaking is relatively well-understood, there is also Middle English (ME) breaking, which seems a coinage of Anderson & Jones (1977, §5.6), but cf. Kemmler & Rieker (2012, 15f) and Minkova (2014, 206), covering the diphthongs that developed out of OE vowels followed by xt/çt in ME (see (2)).
| Middle English breaking |
| OE þōhte > ME thought, dohtor > doughter ‘daughter’ with ou; |
| OE fehtan > ME feighten ‘fight’, lēht/lēoht > light/leoht (early) with eiç/iç |
| The changes in (2) neutralise an OE opposition: ox (dohtor) and oːx (þōhte) are found as ou (and continue the same line of development). |
The changes in spelling in (2) are not easy to interpret. The appearance of a vowel letter before xt/çt seems to indicate an epenthetic vowel in response to a phonotactically difficult situation. A new vowel may theoretically imply an additional syllable, for which there is no proof. It is, however, more likely that the vowel was an epenthetic one originally, reinterpreted phonologically in the long run as the second member of a diphthong. In other words, its creation through epenthesis remained subphonemic from the point of view of syllable count (doxtər and dowxtər both remained disyllabic), cf. Operstein (2010, 7), who shows them with a superscript (dowxtər would be dowxtər), distinguishing them thus from the second half of diphthongs. That the sequence of the two vowels was analysed as a diphthong (rather than two vowels in hiatus, or just a diacritic showing a quality change in the monophthong) is supported by later developments: in Early Modern English (EMoE) ME o lowers to ɒ (in the hypothesised diphthongal ow as well) and merges with the reflex of ME aw (resulting in thought, daughter, law all having oː in CUBE).
The other problem showing that ME breaking in (2) must have been different to OE breaking in (1) is the fact that there can be no articulatory incompatibility between the conflicting specifications of the vowel and the fricative: ME breaking shows the appearance of j between a front vowel and ç, and of w between a back vowel and x. This seems a clear example of CP with the V-gesture of a coda ç and x producing j and w, respectively. We can only speculate on the pronunciation of eight ‘eight’. Given the degree of temporal misalignment in the gestures, it could have been anything ranging from ejçt, eiçt to ejht to (ultimately) ejt (showing only those pronunciations that can be captured using the IPA). The full phonetic gradience of the decomposition must have been similar to any other decomposition (cf. talk/tawlk/tawk/toːk ‘talk’).
Epenthetic vowels contributing to (what appears as examples for) an increase in syllable count appear in later ME, couched between the two members of various sonorous clusters: lm, rm, rl and rn (cf. Maguire 2018, 493, sourced from MED), shown in (3).
| Epenthesis in sonorous clusters in later ME |
| lm: elm (<ellem>), whelm (<quilum>); |
| rm: alarm (<alarom>), arm (<arum>), farm (<verem>); |
| rl: churl (<cherel>), earl (<erel>), pearl (<perel>), world (<woreld> but this may be a remnant of the OE bisyllabic form); |
| rn: aforn ‘forward’ (<aforen>), barn (<baren>), bern ‘man’ (<beren>), bairn ‘child’ (<berun>), corn (<coren>), etc. |
In EMoE, examples for epenthesis are less copious (cf. Maguire 2018, 4.2 for details). Some famous examples are shown in (4), some from Shakespeare's plays.
| Epenthesis in sonorous clusters in Early Modern English (17th century) |
| alarum (in alarum-bell for alarm-bell, Macbeth, Act II, Scene 3), philome for film (Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 4), carel for carl, elem for elm, storem for storm (Bullokar, cf. Kökeritz 1953, 292; Dobson 1957/1968, 913), etc. |
Absence of spelling records like mower/mouer/moer ‘more’ or raer/rayer ‘rare’ is no proof for the absence of such processes (the process may simply be disguised by (traditional, OE or (Old) French) spelling or the lack of a daring proprioceptive approach at reforming spelling). Despite sparse evidence in spelling of epenthesis in EMoE, evidence from 19th and 20th century English is more readily available. Maguire (2018, 4.4) provides a succinct generalisation of epenthesis in England in this period, quoted in full: “epenthesis in /lm/ was widespread, epenthesis in /rm/ was not uncommon, and epenthesis in /rl/ and especially /rn/ was rarely attested outside of the far north. As is the case in Irish English […], epenthesis was essentially restricted to morpheme-final position, with occasional instances in the 20th century dialects suggesting that it occurred more specifically in stem-level coda position (e.g. Thur[ə]sday in northeast England).” Epenthesis in Scots occurs (Maguire 2017, 500) “in the morpheme-final coda clusters /lm/, /rm/, /rn/ and /rl/, and that epenthesis in all of these clusters is found, at very high rates (at levels close to or over 70%), across Lowland Scotland”. Maguire's conclusion is that epenthesis in Irish English was present in the dialects of English and Scottish settlers and as such does not originate in areal contact with Irish, where the structural conditions are different and only partially overlapping with the English and Scottish data. Maguire does not speculate on the phonological conditioning, apart from quoting Beal (2010, 20), who says that schwa is inserted because “clear /l/ followed immediately by /m/ or /n/ is very difficult to produce [sic].” This impressionistic remark notwithstanding, the conclusion is inevitable: epenthesis in sonorous clusters stays well-intrenched in England and Scotland. OE and ME breaking in (1) and (2), as well as vowel epenthesis in both ME and later periods in (3) and (4) seem similar. Recast in terms of CP, the examples in (1), (2), (3) and (4) show an onglide to the consonant in a weak position. Breaking in (2) leads in the long run to changes in the stressed vowels through the phonemicisation of the glide, whereas the processes in (3) and (4) do not affect the quality of the stressed vowel preceding the original cluster of sonorants. OE breaking in (1), and the breaking up of a cluster of sonorants in (3) and (4) indicate two different “reactions to the same phonotactically difficult situation” (Howell 1991a, 104). In (1), there is weakening (sonorisation/pre-vocalisation) of the original liquids (although there is never complete loss of these, comparable to later r-deletion in coda position), in (2) there is CP of x/ç (in an environment where no articulatory difficulty can be invoked), in (3) and (4) the liquids are retained (presumably in their strong/consonantal form) as they are now followed by a vowel (or at least they are not in word-internal coda, cf. Howell 1991, 107). The word-final sonorants, however, acquired an onglide, showing their decomposition. In terms of CP, the onglides are the result of the movement of the V-gesture towards the stressed vowel caused by the weak position in which the sonorant was found.
3 Breaking by r
Wells (1982, 214) discusses pre-r breaking as one of the Southern British English prestige innovations (as he calls them), involving the (historical) long monophthongs iː, eː, oː, uː and a following (coda, or onset) r, producing an epenthetic schwa between the vowels and r, see (5) for his formulation and (6) for some derivations. The vowels are those of the lexical set near, square, force and cure.
| Wells' Pre-R Breaking (structural description) |
| ∅ > ə / [−low, +long V]__r |
| Wells' Pre-R Breaking applied to the long monophthongs | |||||||
| beer | chair | more | sure | caring | query | Turing | |
| Input | biːr | tʃeːr | moːr | ʃuːr | keːrɪŋ | kwiːrɪ | tjuːrɪŋ |
| Output | biːər | tʃeːər | moːər | ʃuːər | keːərɪŋ | kwiːərɪ | tjuːərɪŋ |
As (6) shows, the long vowels were affected by both coda-r and onset-r. The diphthongs were also affected, see (7). Examples with historical ɔɪ followed by r are rare (including only Moira and Moir).
| Wells' Pre-R Breaking of the diphthongs | ||
| fire | tower | |
| Input | faɪr | taʊr |
| Output | faɪər | taʊər |
The rule in (5) was followed by pre-schwa laxing whereby a long (tense) vowel changes to a short (lax) vowel, producing ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ from iː, eː, oː, uː under the influence of the following non-syllabic schwa (Wells 1982, 214). This produced the broken diphthongs: ɪə, ɛə, ɔə and ʊə, see (8).
| Breaking followed by pre-schwa laxing | |||||||
| beer | chair | more | sure | caring | query | Turing | |
| Input | biːr | tʃeːr | moːr | ʃuːr | keːrɪŋ | kwiːrɪ | tjuːrɪŋ |
| Pre-R Breaking | biːər | tʃeːər | moːər | ʃuːər | keːərɪŋ | kwiːərɪ | tjuːərɪŋ |
| Pre-Schwa Laxing | bɪər | tʃɛər | mɔər | ʃʊər | kɛərɪŋ | kwɪərɪ | tjʊərɪŋ |
| R-Deletion | bɪə | tʃɛə | mɔə | ʃʊə | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. |
The ‘laxing’ of the long vowels brought on by the schwa was followed by r-deletion, which deleted all coda r's in the predecessor of CUBE producing contrastive pairs like may mɛɪ vs mare mɛə, phi faɪ vs fire faɪə (in Wellsian terms). In other words, after r-deletion the broken diphthongs acquired phonemic status. This stage of development in CUBE can be contrasted with that found in General American (GA) where there is pre-r laxing but no r-deletion, hence fear/query fɪr/kwɪri vs fee fi, mare/parent mɛr/pɛrənt vs may me, etc.
The short vowels followed by onset-r were not affected by pre-r breaking, just like those short vowels that were followed by an obstruent, see (9) following Wells' transcription. Historical short ɪ, e, ʌ/ʊ followed by coda-r were affected by the (first) nurse merger, as in birth, berth, burly (all with əː in contemporary transcriptions), not discussed here. The short æ and ɒ also underwent a quality change and came to be realised as ɑː (car, cart) and oː (port) in SSBE, also not discussed here.
| Short vowels followed by onset-r | ||
| ɪ | as in | mirror, fit |
| e | ferry, pet | |
| æ | marry, mat | |
| ʌ | courage, cut | |
| ɒ | porridge, pot | |
| ʊ | courier, put | |
There are a number of problems with Wells' Pre-R Breaking: (i) it affects both the long monophthongs and the diphthongs (one would like to see a uniform class of vowels as input to the rule), (ii) if long vowels are analysed as a sequence of two short vowels (i.e. eː = ee caring), as is the usual practice in some analyses (e.g. Danielsson 1963; Lass & Anderson 1975; Lass 1994), or as a single melodic specification linking to two skeletal slots producing a ‘long e’ in autosegmental phonology, the question is why schwa is inserted after a ‘double’ e in caring, but not after a ‘single’ one in ferry. There must be a reason why the short vowels were not broken before r, giving ferry, not **fɛərɪ (cf. fairy) or mirror **mɪərə (cf. Vera). There must be something special about the second half of long vowels. Perhaps we are not dealing with long vowels, after all.
We may try to remedy Wells' account of breaking by assuming that at least some of the input vowels in (6) were already diphthongs at the time of breaking, bringing them thus in line with the diphthongs in (7), giving the derivation in (10).
| Breaking with diphthongs | |||
| chair | more | caring | |
| Input | tʃeɪr | moʊr | keɪrɪŋ |
| Pre-R Breaking (I) | tʃeər | moər | keərɪŋ |
| Pre-R Breaking (II) | *?tʃeɪər | ?moʊər | ?keɪərɪŋ |
The solution is not discussed by Wells for obvious reasons: (i) if eɪ and oʊ are diphthongs with two vocalic halves functioning as a unit, and the result is as shown for pre-r breaking (I), the question of why ɪ/ʊ were deleted at the same time with schwa-epenthesis must be answered, (ii) if the result is as shown for pre-r breaking (II), the question remains why ɪ/ʊ+(onset/coda) r had to be ‘amended’ with an epenthetic schwa, if no such epenthesis happens to ɪ/ʊ+onset r when ɪ/ʊ are not part of diphthongs (mirror, courier vs caring, touring). The reason why the two long monophthongs (iː and uː) pattern phonologically with the diphthongs eɪ and aɪ, for example, for breaking remains obscure.
The reason for breaking must be sought in the component gestures of r. Sledd (1966) discusses the English of American South where underlying ər surfaces as əj (bird bəjd). j is also found before back vowels, as in porch (pojtʃ), which leads Sledd to hypothesise CP followed by r-deletion, rather than direct vocalisation: bəjd < *bəjrd. This also means that r in this accent had a palatal V-gesture. The bəjrd-stage is not directly attested, but liquid pre-vocalisation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the Germanic languages (Howell 1991a, 1991b; Operstein 2010, 153). Similar accents are described by Harris (1994, 2013) and Pringle & Padolsky (1981). Such a palatal r cannot be hypothesised for the predecessor of CUBE: CP in fire, for example, would have been indistinguishable from the offglide of the diphthong, resulting in fɑj for fire after CP and r-deletion in CUBE.
4 iː/uː as ij/uw
We suggest that inability of previous analyses to see a uniform conditioning environment for breaking stems from the misinterpretation of the two long high vowels. In 1877, Sweet analyses English long i a consonantal diphthong, i.e. ij (§75), long u as uw (§81). Sweet (1900, §686) discusses the following half (or narrow) diphthongs: ei, ou, ij, uw. He also identifies the second element of ij to be nearly identical to the consonant j in you (§677). The second element of the diphthong in moon, you, etc. is a distinct w (§680). The full (or wide) diphthongs are ai, au, oi (they are “made up of vowels as distinct as possible from one another”, §687). The narrow diphthongs came to be analysed as long high monophthongs (iː, uː) later in the century.2 The third class of vowels is that of murmur or the schwa-final diphthongs (iə, eə, uə, juə and ɔə). Jespersen (1907, 33) also has ij for the vowel in each, deal, etc.
In Jones (1918, 1922, §367, §460), the diphthongal quality of ij and uw is lost (sea is transcribed as siː, rule as ruːl). He does, however, say that iː may phonetically be represented as ij (§367). In Jones, the narrow and the wide diphthongs are still transcribed as ei, ai, ou. In contrast to Jones, Gimson (1980) in the third edition of his Introduction to the Pronunciation of English (identical in its theoretical framework to the first edition published in 1962), continues the tradition of transcribing the second half of diphthongs with a ‘lax i’ and ‘lax u’: eɪ, aɪ, əʊ. Gimson (1980, 96), however, says that the diphthongs and the ‘long i’ and ‘long u’ can be analysed as involving a consonantal glide post-centrally (= after the nucleus), giving iː = ij, uː = uw, eɪ = ej, aɪ = aj. This possibility is discarded for the following distributional (and historically grounded) reasons: (i) j/w cannot be found as freely after vowels as they are found before vowels, (ii) they are weakly articulated after vowels, less forcefully than j/w in the onset, and may simply be thought of as the prolongation of the nucleus, as, for example, in [eː] = [eɪ] (Gimson's notation), (iii) they have none of the fricative like consonantal qualities characteristic of j/w in the onset preceded by aspirated p/t/k (as in pure, queen). Gimson's reasoning in (i) is based on the history of the (standard) dialect he describes (in other words, some of the combinations are missing, such as əj, uj or ew). Of course, no distribution is set in stone, new ones may (and do) emerge. The reasoning in (ii) is phonetically grounded, something that is impossible to record in a phonological description, which resorts to categorical distinctions. The reason in (iii) for not transcribing the diphthongs with a vocalic off-glide (j/w) is non sequitur: the fricative-like feature of j/w after aspirated p/t/k is the result of coarticulation (of aspiration spreading onto the glides, making them phonetically voiceless, producing queen kw̥ijn/kʍijn/kɸijn). Such devoiced glides are not found in the coda, in other words, but this does not invalidate those transcriptions that do use j/w after the nucleus (pain pejn, tone təwn). We must conclude that none of Gimson's three reasons above for not recording a post-central glide invalidate a system which has such phonological glides. McCarthy (1991, 198), for example, analyses Eastern Massachusetts English as containing diphthongal nuclei: [iy] feel, [ey] fail, [ay] file, [oy] foil, all of them showing a schwa between /j/ and /l/, which is presumably dark: [fiyəl] feel, etc.
5 Reinstating the diphthongs as V+glide sequences
Lindsey (2019) looks at a whole range of changes affecting post-RP English (CUBE). Lindsey reinstates diphthongs as vowel+j/w sequences, seen in (11). The inventory of the long monophthongs shows some additions to the Jonesian system established a hundred years ago, shown in (11). To appreciate the whole picture, (12) shows the short monophthongs, (13) the long monophthongs.
| Post-RP diphthongs (CUBE) | ||||
| j-final: | ɪj (fleece), | ɛj (face), | oj (choice), | ɑj (price); |
| w-final: | ʉw (goose), | əw (goat), | aw (mouth) | |
| Post-RP long vowels (CUBE) |
| ɪː (near), ɛː (square), ɑː (start, balm, path), oː/ɵː (cure), oː (force, thought, north, cure), əː (nurse, cure) |
| Post-RP monophthongs (CUBE) |
| ɪ (kit), ɛ (dress), a (trap), ə (strut), ɔ (lot), ɵ (foot) (cf. Carley, Mees & Collins 2018, 144) |
A note is in order about vowel quality: earlier aj is now ɑj in CUBE, uw is ʉw/ɵw (but this does not impinge on the analysis). One of the differences between the diphthongs in (11) and those described by Sweet, Jones or Gimson is the (near) disappearance of the schwa-final diphthongs, which were monophthongised (ɪə > ɪː, ɛə > ɛː, (j)ʊə > (j)oː/ɵː/əː) and entered the class of long (non-high) vowels. The two long high monophthongs, however, left the class of long monophthongs and were reinstated as j/w-final diphthongs. The details (like the threefold development of jʊə) are not directly relevant, but no opposition was lost. The classes in (11), (12) and (13) show the vowels in Lindsey's phonetically (narrowly) precise terms, cf. Lindsey 2012; Chapter 13). This gives us CUBE.
6 Breaking as consonant prevocalisation (CP)
In addition to pre-r breaking, Wells (1982, 298) discusses examples of pre-l breaking of the j-final diphthongs, see examples in (14) in both Wells' transcription and the current transcription.
| Pre-l breaking | ||||
| Wells' transcription for RP: | [fiːəl]/[fɪəl] feel, | [seɪəl] sale, | [maɪəl] mile, | [ɔɪəl] oil |
| CUBE: | fɪjəɫ/fɪəɫ feel, | sɛjəɫ sale, | mɑjəɫ mile, | ojəɫ oil |
Strictly speaking, Wells' transcription is inaccurate as it aims to be narrow. This is more than just a quibble over the choice of non-contrastive symbols in a system (cf. Bloomfiled 1935, 98): dark-l's are velar sonorants, found (generally) pre-consonantally and word-finally (when no vowel follows) in CUBE. As such, they are prone to undergo decomposition. In terms of gestures, they possess a V-gesture involving the tongue dorsum and a C-gesture involving the tip of the tongue (Sproat & Fujimura 1993; Browman & Goldstein 1995; Operstein 2010). The V-gesture moves closer to the stressed vowel. The words in (14) are traditionally taken to originate in historically schwa-less forms: *fɪjɫ, *sɛjɫ, *majɫ, *ɔjɫ. Before alveolar (or perhaps palatal) l there is no CP in CUBE if the word is synchronically monomorphemic, as in filing (cabinet) fɑjlɪŋ. fɑjəlɪŋ #file#ing# may be analysed along similar lines to hula/fooling, discussed earlier, with simultaneously evoked clear- and dark-l's showing a ‘compromise’ solution with a schwa and a l (of some intermediate quality between categorically clear and categorically dark). McCarthy (1991, 198), for example, claims that fajəlɪŋ is possible in much more monitored speech.
There is no CP before a (short) front vowel+ɫ, showing that CP occurs at the meeting point of j (a close palatal vocoid) and the V-gesture of dark-l, see (15) for a comparison.
| No epenthesis in checked vowel+ɫ sequences |
| fill fɪɫ, **fɪəɫ (cf. feel ɪjəɫ/ɪəɫ), fell fɛɫ, **fɛəɫ (cf. fail ɛjəɫ), Val vaɫ, **vaəɫ (cf. vial ɑjəɫ/ɑəɫ) |
McCarthy (1991, 198) claims in connection with Eastern Massachusetts that sequences of glide+liquid are too similar in sonority (a final nasal in spine shows a steeper sonority cline, hence the absence of a vowel), so they cannot be tauto-syllabic, and an epenthetic schwa is needed. There are, however, other sequences of consonants not too dissimilar to each other which do not require such a schwa: corn **kɑrən, snarl **snɑrəl, bust **bəsət, etc. Gick & Wilson (2001, 2006) analyse such epenthesis (their excrescence) as the result of a tense vowel (the GA equivalent of a j-final diphthong here) and a following liquid. They claim that /j/ and /l/ (more precisely ɫ) have conflicting TR (tongue root) targets, and the resulting epenthetic schwa forms during the vocalic transition. The experiment involved the following clusters (in Gick & Wilson's transcription): /il/, /awl/, /ejl/, /ajl/, /ɔjl/. In other words, there is a schwa-like transition between the two gestures associated with a tense front vowel/glide (advancement) and a following liquid (retraction/backing/velarisation) (2006, 645, 655). There are two ways in which such a conflict in gestures can be resolved, the study claims: one is epenthesising as discussed, the other involves laxing, whereby feel and fill, and fail and fell neutralise in lax vowels, as in Pittsburgh English. The study does not discuss j+r sequences in GA, despite the introduction where an epenthetic schwa is shown in hi[ə]re = higher. The expectations are that j+r would behave similarly, showing CP. Let us see such an instance from the history of the predecessor of CUBE.
7 Disentangling historical pre-r breaking
7.1 The first step (schwa as a pharyngeal pre-vowel)
In this section, we analyse pre-r breaking in the predecessor of CUBE. For this we will assume that j- and w-final diphthongs were followed by r (at a stage when r was found in onset and coda alike), see (16).
| The j-final diphthongs+r (in the predecessor of CUBE) |
| ɪjr > ɪjər mere, beard, ethereal (mete) |
| ɛjr > ɛjər fare, laird, parent (fate) |
| ajr > ajər fire, Ireland, pirate (kite) |
| ɔjr > ɔjər Moir, Moira (loiter) |
The data in (16) show CP of r after j, producing jər in response to the conflicting gestures (or tongue body movements in the sense of Gick & Wilson): j was palatal, r was not. We will triangulate its V-gesture later. The control group for the same historical vowel can be seen in brackets (the vowel behind mere mɪː and mete mɪjt is the same historical ɪj). Diphthongs ending in w were also affected, see (17).
| The w-final diphthongs+r (in the predecessor of CUBE) |
| uwr > uwər poor, mooring, gourd (moot) |
| juwr > juwər pure, during, cured (puke) |
| owr > owər gore, boring, force (note) |
| awr > awər our, tower, bowered (clout) |
The data show a point in time in EMoE when schwa appeared as an onglide to r in wr clusters. The control group shows that the historical vowel behind poor oː is the same vowel of moot. The schwa-like transition between w and r must have happened for the same reason it did in jr sequences: the two sonorants had different V-gestures (w was labio-velar, r was not). Wells (1982, 45) says that words like weir ɪə and dare ɛə may be considered to contain a non-syllabic schwa (hence ɪə̆ ɛə̆) if the analyst sees in the schwa a rendering of the underlying (historical) r, lost subsequently. Operstein (2010) indicates these with a superscript, indicating pre-vocalisation with a non-syllabic schwa: poor puwər. We encounter the same process with the reflexes of vocalised ɫ, that is ə̆/ɤ̆/ʊ̆ (milk mɪʊk). The data shows that the excrescent schwa was a phonetic (if not yet a phonological) reality: CP of r in the jr/wr clusters set the words containing it on a totally different path to those where j/w were not in contact with r.
The data show that we deal with a historical r whose V-gesture was neither palatal nor labio-velar. If it had been palatal, as discussed earlier, its V-gesture would have been indistinguishable from the offglide of j-final diphthongs during pre-vocalisaiton (**fajjr/fajir for fire before deletion of the C-gesture of r), giving fɑj in CUBE. In case of a hypothesised pre-velarisation/labialisation of r, the V-gesture of r would also have been indistinguishable from the offglide of w-final diphthongs in (17), resulting in **ɡowwr/ɡowur gore, later ɡow (later still gəw in CUBE). For a phonologically (and diachronically) noticeable effect on the vocalic space before it, the V-gesture of r must have been pharyngeal to have been phonetically salient enough and preserved between j/w and r as something different to both j and w: fajər (cf. also Pulleyblank 1986; Gussenhoven & van de Weijer 1990; McMahon, Foulkes & Tollfree 1994). The pre-vowel to r, realised as a compromise between the non-matching locations of constriction of the tongue, can be (ideally) thought of as ɔ/ɑ̯ (i.e., a ‘back’ schwa), which often surfaces as ə/a, something that can be ascribed to the raising/fronting of the preceding nucleus, hence to assimilation (Operstein 2010, 84; Silverman 2011), or, simply, the historical pharyngeal schwa lost its pharyngeal characteristics after it was disassociated from r. That r is pharyngeal is also supported by (standard) German, where the vocalised reflexes of coda-r (or, more exactly, ʁ) are variously transcribed as ɐ/ʌ, but not ə, given that there is an opposition, as in schöner ʃøːnɐ ‘nicer' vs schöne ʃøːnə ‘nice, Fem/Pl' (Krämer 1979; T. A. Hall 1993; Scheer 2004, etc.). Evidence for dark-r (and ɫ) is also provided by Germanic, where Indo-European syllabic sonorants are continued with u as a pre-vowel (Old English wurdon ‘they became’ < *wr̩d-, full < *fl̩n, un- ‘negative prefix’ < *n̩-, ymb(e) ‘around’ < *umbi < *h2m̩bhí-, Fulk 2018), suggesting they all had a non-palatal/non-central gesture to them.
Note that pharyngeal r shows CP even in the onset of monomorphemic words like parent, query, during: its pharyngeal V-gesture propagated towards the nucleus both in coda and onset (fare/parent/more/during fɛjər/pɛjərənt/mowər/djuwərɪŋ). Before short monophthongs (shown in (9)), there was no such process irrespective of how front (palatal) a vowel was (mirror, very, marry). The pharyngeal V-gesture of r is no longer found in CUBE,3 having been supplanted by palatal (see 7.4). By contrast the CP of the dorsal V-gesture of dark-l is found in (canonical) coda (fieɫd, fiɫed vs hula, helix, filing). The question of whether all (surviving) r's in all positions (as in word-initial/pre-vocalic before a stressed vowel) were pharyngeal is left open.
7.2 R-deletion
The next step is the deletion of non-prevocalic r giving (18).
| The triphthongs after r-deletion (in the predecessor of CUBE) |
| ɪjər > ɪjə mere, beard (mete) |
| ɛjər > ɛjə fare, laird (fate) |
| ajər > ajə fire, Ireland (kite) |
| (ɔjər > ?ɔjə Moir (loiter)) |
| uwər > uwə poor, gourd (moot) |
| juwər > juwə pure, cured (puke) |
| owər > owə gore, boring, force (note) |
| awər > aə our, tower, bowered (clout) |
(18) can be interpreted as the loss of C-gesture of r (whatever it was at this stage) in coda (cf. McMahon, Foulkes & Tollfree 1994, who refer to this as reduction in the rhotic's C-gesture). In a standard taxonomic approach, we have just arrived at the point of establishment of broken (schwa-final) diphthongs as phonemes. The broken diphthongs now distinguish words: mere ɪə vs me ɪj, fare ɛə vs fay ɛj, lore oə vs law oː, etc. Roughly speaking (and disregarding some anachronistic vowel qualities, such as oː for ɔː in law), we have (broadly) arrived in Sweet's and Jones' times.
Bermúdez-Otero (2011, Section 7), discussing cyclicty, the life cycle of phonological processes and linking/intrusive r in accents of English that have it, describes the quality of word-final prevocalic r, seen in saw r eels, and describes it as a lenited ɹ̞ (hence saw ɹ̞ eels) with seven features that distinguish it from (non-analogical) onset-ɹ (saw reels). The place of articulation of onset-ɹ is not discussed. There are, however, phonological arguments for a palatal place: (i) ɹ palatalises the alveolars (try, dry), (ii) there is no sɹ (in either native or borrowed words: shrew, Sri Lanka, Srebrenica), (iii) j after ɹ in stressed syllables was lost (rule, cf. mute), a deletion paralleled by the phonotactic absence of homorganic onset consonants (**pw, **tl, **θl). Further proof would be needed to claim that non-lenited onset-r (reel) was also pharyngeal in EMoE. It must also have been pharyngeal in word-internal onsets after short vowels (mirror, very, marry), but here there was no CP here to prove this phonologically (**mɪərə).4 If it was pharyngeal (or at least one of its gestures was), it was lost in the predecessor of CUBE and supplanted by palatal. Some accents of GA still have a pharyngeal r, but whether this is the original inherited feature remains obscure.
7.3 Smoothing
The triphthongs that resulted from CP underwent smoothing (glide loss), a process that is still ongoing in CUBE (as in royal mail roəɫ mɛəɫ, with further possible monophthongisation to roːɫ mɛːɫ), see (19) for the next step (based on Cruttenden 2014; Carley, Mees & Collins 2018; Lindsey 2019).
| Smoothing in triphthongs (in the predecessor of CUBE) |
| ɪjə > ɪə mere, beard, ethereal (mete) |
| ɛjə > ɛə fare, laird, parent (fate) |
| ajə > aə fire, Ireland, pirate (kite) |
| (ɔjə > ɔə Moir, Moira (loiter)) |
| uwə > uə poor, gourd, mooring (moot) |
| juwə > juə pure, cured, during (puke) |
| owə > oə gore, force, boring (note) |
| awə > aə our, bowered, tower (clout) |
(19) shows that the ‘overlong’ vowels (resulting from CP) lost their sonority trough (j/w) and were smoothed (compressed) into a diphthong, giving Sweet's murmured diphthongs. Our analysis has tried to show that there was no deletion of j/w before r to produce ɛə from ɛj in one fell swoop.
7.4 Monophthongisation
To enter the world of post-RP SSBE (CUBE), monopthongisation (the coalescence of two vowels) has to be applied, see (20).
| Monophthongisation of the ‘murmured’ diphthongs |
| ɪə > ɪː mere, beard (mete) |
| ɛə > ɛː fare, laird (fate) |
| aə > aː/ɑː fire, Ireland (kite) |
| uə > oː poor, gourd (moot) |
| juə > joː/jɵː/jəː pure, cured (puke) |
| oə > oː gore, boring, force (note) |
| aə > aː/ɑː our, tower, bowered (clout) |
The data in (20) shows what Lindsey (2019) describes as the long monophthongs of CUBE. Jones (1922, §404, §408) says that aj has a fully front unrounded open vowel, but there are speakers in London (presumably in the East End) who have ɑj. As far as smoothing of the wide diphthongs is concerned, Jones has some interesting remarks. When aiə (§414) undergoes smoothing (or levelling as he calls it), the resulting vowel is aɛ, aə, or aː (but remains distinct from ɑː of far). There are some interesting remarks on the levelled version of the triphthong in tower (§415). The vowel is a “variety of aː, tending towards ɑː”. He represents this vowel sitting half-way between aː and ɑː as àː. In a footnote Jones explains that there may be a three-fold opposition of the various ‘a sounds’: taːrɪŋ ‘tiring’ vs tàːrɪŋ ‘towering’ vs tɑːrɪŋ ‘tarring’. The Jonesian three-fold set proved to be impossible to maintain, so in CUBE the smoothed vowel is usually ɑː, as in firepower fɑːpɑː (cf. Hannisdal 2006; Hughes, Trudgill & Watt 2013; Carley, Mees & Collins 2018).
However, smoothing had not yet run its full course. Jones does not discuss anything along the lines of ɪə > ɪː, ɛə > ɛː. However, words with historical ow (spelled usually -ore-, oar, but also some words with -our and only two words in -oor) generally have ɔː (more, roar, board; course, pour; door, floor), but ɔə is also permissible (§435), which must mean that ɔə was somewhat dated even a hundred years ago and did not represent the majority pronunciation. It had already merged with ɔː (the current oː) from other sources (north, law). In Jones (1956, and later editions), ɔə is marked as †ɔə and relegated to second position as a variant of ɔː or ʊə. The sequence uə is found in words in -oor as ɔə, oə or ɔː (poor). And finally, juə is found as ɔə, oə, ɔː, œə or œː in words in ure or -urV. One of the reasons for why smoothing is not shown for ɪə and ɛə might lie in the fact that these vowels had no preexisting ɪː/ɛː from other sources to merge with (cf. Szigetvári 2016). They did ultimately undergo smoothing, however. The first of the remaining two to go was ɛə, transcribed as a long monophthong in Upton (1995) probably because short ɛ was now found in words where Jones and Gimson had e (get, lead). ɪə, however, remains transcribed diphthongal in modern dictionaries, but as Lindsey (2019, 49) says: it “does not phonetically represent contemporary speech.”
An interesting question is what was created in monophthongisation after schwa-deletion (care kɛː). Pulleyblank (1986, 1997) calls for the introduction of a voiced pharyngeal glide, parallel to the coronal (j, ɥ) and dorsal (ɰ, w) glides, showing it as [H] (a non-syllabic ɑ, or ɑ̯, as in Operstein 2010, 176). Szigetvári (2016, 136) in his analysis of a very restrictive case of flapping (happening only after short vowels) in New Zealand English Acrolect hypothesises that long vowels are phonologically sequences of a short vowel+h (e.g. martyr mɑhtə). This analysis allows him to consider the diphthongs and the long vowels uniformly as VC sequences. In this accent of English, therefore, t cannot be flapped if it is preceded by a consonant (including the glides). The ‘phoneme of length’ and the schwa onglide to r may be viewed as manifestations of an underlying pharyngeal glide (cf. Bloch & Trager 1942; Pulleyblank 1986, 237f).
Although the schwa (including the phoneme of length left behind after deleting its onglide) and r may be the same object phonologically viewed historically, this reality, at least in SSBE, is a reinterpreted and analogically expanded imprint of an earlier (EMoE) state of affairs, which has nothing to do with the pharyngeal quality of either the schwa or r. What we see in examples like saw r eels and more r apples (with intrusive and linking r's, respectively) is a modern SSBE reinterpretation of a stage of EMoE, when a pharyngeal r lost its C-gesture and was deleted in canonical coda. Its V-gesture had already moved towards the vowel. At this (reconstructed) stage, ə may still have been pharyngeal, but the r that survived in liaison (more apples) cannot have been pharyngeal (having undergone lenition in coda). Ultimately, even the schwa lost its pharyngeal quality. There ensued now a phonological reality where words ending in historical ⟨r⟩ had a non-pharyngeal r after them when they were prevocalic (more r apples, never r again). This r may now be analysed as floating melody. This was difficult to maintain for too long, as there were words like law and China, which had no such floating melody. At this stage, analogical input restructuring occurs, which ensures that all V-final words end in a non-pharyngeal r (as in Bermúdez-Otero 2011, 18, who has a lenited ɹ̞ for historical ɹ). In CUBE this means all words ending in ə or ‘ː’ now end in r (realised pre-vocalically across word boundaries: saw r eels, more r apples, spa r of Bath, never r again, China r and Canada r are). Diphthongs are unaffected. Bermúdez-Otero (2011) relies on McCarthy's (1991) FinalC (i.e. *V[−hi]]ω) constraint, which ensures no word can end in a vowel at word level. CUBE can also be derived in a non-OT framework, using an insertion rule, which inserts r after all R-Vowels (i.e. schwa and the long monophthongs, cf. Szigetvári 2016). This account cannot (and does not want to) distinguish between linking and intrusive r; now they are all intrusive and non-pharyngeal (similarly to Bermúdez-Otero's account). Additionally, cross-linguistically, the phoneme of length is usually not found interpreted as r, but usually as the vowel, or some quality of the vowel, before it, as in Hungarian (rí és bőg ‘cries and howls’ riːjeːʃbøːɡ), further highlighting the analogical mechanism behind ‘linking/intrusive r’ in English.
7.5 Other sources of broken diphthongs
There are two other sources for broken vowels: (i) diphthong+schwa(+any other segment, including ɫ) and (ii) breaking by ɫ. Breaking by dark-l occurs when a historical j-final diphthong is followed by ɫ (Wells 1982, 298; Carley, Mees & Collins 2018, 143–144). In such a configuration, a schwa develops, which can be considered a pre-vowel of ɫ, see (21).
| Breaking by ɫ | |
| fee vs field: | fɪj vs fijəɫd |
| pay vs paled: | pɛj vs pɛjəɫd |
| tie vs tiled: | tɑj vs tɑjəɫd |
| toy vs toiled: | toj vs tojəɫd |
| she vs shield: | ʃɪj vs ʃɪjəɫd |
In (21) only ɫ in canonical coda is shown (shield, piled). A word-final ɫ (pale, tile) is predicted to show the same phonetic gradience discussed above, both in the realisation of the vowels and the l. It would be a hasty (i.e. categorical, albeit phonologically tempting) conclusion to say that when there is a vowel-initial suffix or a vowel-initial word, dark-l becomes clear post-lexically, and consequently there is no epenthetic schwa (fɪjəɫ vs fɪjlɪŋ feel vs feeling or feel it). The analysis based of (mis)timed gestures predicts a much wider spectrum of phonetic detail and differentiation, which receives support from phonetic studies (as discussed by Bermúdez-Otero 1999, 2007, 2011; Ramsammy 2015; Turton 2017, and references therein). How phonetic gradience (of the interpretation of the dorsal V-gesture in the variably dark pronunciations of l found in fooling, for example) is ultimately handled by phonology (and phonological change) is an interesting question, the answer to which is complex and involves diachronic data as a good testing ground. Consider fire it fɑjər ɪt, which has an obligatory schwa and r, none of which have a pharyngeal gesture in CUBE. The schwa is a lexical matter of the word fire, its presence has been ‘untied’ wholly from the gestural score of the historical r (of which it was an onglide to originally). In the predecessor of CUBE, the historical r in fire with a pharyngeal V-gesture must have exemplified the same scale of phonetic gradience we encounter for l in CUBE: it must have been variably pharyngeal in canonical coda (fire/fire that), prevocalically across word- and phrase-boundaries (firing, fire it, fire Anne), in onset word-internally (parent, very), etc. Working backwards from fɑjə in CUBE, however, shows that the variably pharyngeal r was (at some point) gesturally categorically pharyngeal (otherwise, the explanation for the ubiquitous schwa in jr sequences remains elusive: a non-pharyngeal r would not have had a V-gesture producing the ɑ̯ onglide). It is only diachronically that we see categorical examples for how phonology treated phonetic gradience. Based on the appearance of the pre-vowel in the predecessor of CUBE, it was pharyngeal, at least at an idealised point when its phonological V-gesture started moving towards the vowel. If we had examples for the effects of a historical non-pharyngeal r in identical environments to that of fire or fire it (or any other environment), a different explanation would be necessary (perhaps one not exclusively relying on phonology, but analogy, lexicalisation, dialectal borrowing after the process ceased to operate, etc.).
There is no transitional schwa when a w-final diphthong is followed by dark-l in CUBE, cf. fowl, soul: fawɫ, səwɫ, etc. (**fawəɫ, **səwəɫ, cf. vowel, Noel (personal name), where the schwa is not due to pre-l breaking). This shows that the transitional schwa results from the difficulty of transition between palatal j and velar ɫ: with w being labio-velar there is no such incompatibility of gestures or, alternatively, the dorsal V-gesture of ɫ produces a prevocalised onglide melodically influenced by, and thus coinciding with, w (fawwɫ). In w+l sequences (i.e. when l is empirically clear), we could expect an epenthetic schwa as w and (clear) l are gesturally incompatible, but there is no such schwa (fooling, bowling, cowling all have wl/**wəl).5 This may be explained by syncopation: as wl can only be found if followed by a vowel, schwa is deleted in such sequences (hypothetical/reconstructed fuwəlɪŋ > fuwlɪŋ fooling), similarly to what happens in words with wəɫ when it is followed by a vowel (bowel wəɫ, but disembowelling wlɪ), see also next section for similar examples with r. Accurately pinpointing the place of articulation of r is probably (ultimately) impossible in a historical account, but prevocalisation of r before j/w triangulated its V-gesture as pharyngeal.
The other sources of what appears to be broken vowels in CUBE is not due to CP of r or ɫ. It is constituted by original diphthong+schwa(+any consonant) sequences, see (22) for examples.
| Diphthong+schwa sequences |
| paeony, real, theory, Deidre ɪjə, mayor (originally or based on spelling) ɛjə, vial ɑjə, via ɑjə, vowel awə, (feather) boa əwə, truant ʉwə, puerile jʉwə, royal ojə |
That the sequences in (22) are phonologically identical to the sequences resulting from historical schwa-epenthesis is clear from smoothing, see (23).
| Smoothing affecting sequences not resulting from CP of r |
| paeony ɪː (cf. peer), mayor ɛː (cf. care), via ɑː (cf. tire), vowel ɑː (tower), boa oː (formerly, still occurring in Noel Coward's songs as ɔː, now analogically reanalysed as əwə) (cf. boar), puerile jɵː (cf. pure), royal oː (cf. Royle, if it was ever monosyllabic and different to royal), etc. |
The examples in (23) may still have unsmoothed sequences (pɪjənɪj), but some show categorial smoothing (drawer = draw). Smoothing is influenced by many factors (Hughes, Trudgill & Watt 2013, 54; Carley, Mees & Collins 2018, 140–141): it may often be suspended because speakers are aware of the component morphemes: (brick) layer is likely to be lɛjə, as opposed to layer ‘things successively put on top of each other’ lɛː, greyer, player, slayer is likely to have ɛjə because of the compositionality of the word. Smoothing is also found in triphthongs originating in CP of ɫ: tʃɑjəɫd/tʃɑːɫd child (Lindsey 2019, 46), crocodile, etc.
8 CP undone
Smoothing is dependent on schwa in the triphthongal sequences. If there is no schwa, there can be no smoothing, and it seems epenthetic schwas could (and can) be deleted. Jones (1922, §417) gives a list of words with possible pronunciations including triphthongs, smoothed diphthongs and long monophthongs: piety paiəti, paəti, paːti (but not **paiti), cf. Lindsey (2012). Although all these pronunciations are possible in this word, there are examples where smoothing is not possible because the modern form has no schwa (it was lost to syncopation), see (24) with a ‘modern’ translation of Jones' transcription showing the absence of schwa.
| No schwa, no smoothing |
| Byron bɑjrən, tyrant tɑjrənt, violent vɑjlənt, dowry dawrɪj, devouring dɪjváwrɪŋ, fiery fɑjrɪj, etc. |
Some of the words in (24) must have acquired a shwa onglide from pharyngeal r in EMoE (Byron, tyrant), some had an original schwa (violent, violet). It can be assumed that these schwas were lost to syncopation. Of course, some of Jones' examples are continued into CUBE because there was no syncopation in them for phonological or morphological reasons: diaphragm (there is no syncopation across a consonant cluster), violin (no syncopation before a stressed vowel), society, liable, acquirement (blocked by other conditions), etc. Let us see now which j/w-final diphthongs can be found before onset-r (based on Lindsey 2019), see (25).
| j/w-final diphthongs before r |
| (i) the (very) narrow diphthongs (ɪj ʉw): delirium -ɪjrɪ-, rural -ʉwrə- |
| (ii) the narrow diphthongs (ɛjr əwr): caring **-ɛjrɪ-, gory **-əwrɪ-/**owrɪ |
| (iii) the wide diphthongs (ɑj aw oj): pirate -ɑjrə-, wiry -ɑjrɪ-, towering -awrɪ-, Moira -ojrə- |
Schwa does not obligatorily appear in jr clusters before onset r if the glides were preceded by ɪ and u (25i). If j/w is followed by onset r and preceded by the low vowels (ɑ and a), as in (25iii), there is no obligatory schwa either. As a matter of fact, inserting a schwa into mono-morphemic words like pirate/Byron sounds decidedly old-fashioned and is unlikely to be found in CUBE. Non-monomorphemic words like wiry wɑːrɪj ‘made of wires’ probably show a compromise between simultaneously activated wɑː (with smoothing+monophthongisation) and Vrɪj (with r across vowel-initial words/suffixes).
There is an interesting fact revealed by (25ii): there are no ɛjrV, əwrV (< owrV) or ɛjərV, əwərV (< owərV) sequences. This absence of mid-vowel+w/j+ə sequences suggests that smoothing and monophthongisation ran earliest (and is categorical) in the sequences that contained the two mid vowels and schwa (ɛjə, owə) because the quality of the onglide schwa was mid central, resulting in ɛː and oː. Note that this obligatory smoothing + monophthongisation of the mid vowels + ə ran its course before the ow > əw change in CUBE, otherwise gore would be **ɡəː. Across words, however, ɛjr/əwr freely occur: pay rise, showroom, showing that CP of r did not apply post-lexically (or does not survive from EMoE). As English has no synthetic (level 1) or analytic (level 2) suffixes beginning with r, the behaviour of ɛjr and əwr in derived words cannot be tested. Thus, the only vowels that can be followed by j/w+onset r in mono-morphemic words are the non-mid vowels.
9 Conclusion
The analysis has reinterpreted the notion of breaking in terms of consonant prevocalisation (CP) or consonant ongliding couched in the framework of articulatory phonology and the notion of a consonantal structure resting on V- and C-gestures (as developed by Operstein 2010). The analysis has argued that the V-gesture of dark-l was dorsal, that of r pharyngeal. These V-gestures propagated closer to the preceding vowel and became mistimed with respect to the C-gesture of the two consonants. The propagation of the dorsal gesture affected l's in the coda, a weak position. The forward propagation of the pharyngeal gesture of r occured in both coda and onset positions. Both vocalic gestures first resulted in a schwa-like consonantal onglide to the two laterals, later to be reinterpreted as vocalic, leading to smoothing and monophthongisation. The analysis was also ‘biased’ in the sense that CP was only taken to apply after diphthongs, i.e. in j/w+r/ɫ sequences. It also follows that all ‘long’ vowels in Early Modern English at the point when prevocalisation occurred were diphthongal (ending in j or w), even the long high monophthongs. The full consequences of this claim are to be examined in detail in the future, especially those pertaining to EMoE (and by necessity, Middle English). CP (traditionally referred to as breaking) was followed by deletion of coda-r (interpreted as the total loss of the C-gesture of r) and smoothing, followed in turn by monophthongisation, enlarging the class of long monophthongs in CUBE (e.g. kɛjr > kɛjər > kɛjə > kɛə > kɛː for care).
Acknowledgement
This idea of breaking as presented here has been in the making for many years and has benefited from the many thought-provoking discussions (sometimes during exam invigilation) I had with my colleagues Péter Szigetvári, Ádám Nádasdy, Miklós Törkenczy and Zoltán G. Kiss. I thank them all for the impetus to this article, as well as the two reviewers for their helpful comments. The usual disclaimers follow.
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Unless necessary, no distinction is made between phonological representation and phonetic interpretation (even if reconstructed), which will be shown in bold (sail sɛjəɫ), reconstructed forms with an asterisk (*fɑjɫ), historically ungrammatical formations with double asterisks (**fɑjwr).
The enforced introduction of iː and uː into the system, complementing ɑː (which was undoubtedly monophthongal), may perhaps have been seen as a logical step in presenting a more ‘balanced’ system, resembling the vowel systems of many languages. The problem with the approach is not its strive for ‘abstractness’, but the absence of phonological evidence speaking in its favour.
But it is in various accent of American English (cf. Delattre & Freeman 1968; Catford 1983, 2001; Gick 2002).
That r was pharyngeal in Middle English is supported by the late Middle English change of ɛ > a/ɑ before coda r: ferm > farm, lerk > lark, mervel > marvel.
This is what we find in Dublin English, an accent where l is clear: w+l (fool fuwəl) (cf. Hickey 2004, 83–84).
