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Lexical diffusion in the making: the lengthening of Middle English /a/ during the eighteenth century and across the diasystem of English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2020

NICOLAS TRAPATEAU
NICOLAS TRAPATEAU*
Affiliation:
Laboratoire BCL: Bases, Corpus, Langage – UMR 7320 Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, BCL Campus Saint Jean d'Angely – SJA3 / MSHS-SE Bâtiment de l'Horloge 24, avenue des diables bleus 06357 Nice CEDEX 4 Francenicolas.trapateau@univ-cotedazur.fr
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Abstract

A long /aː/ in pre-fricative and pre-nasal contexts in words such as fast, answer or after is one of the most distinctive phonological features of British RP and, to a certain extent, of Southern Hemisphere varieties of English (Trudgill 2010). The lengthening of /a/ has been particularly gaining ground from the eighteenth century onwards (Beal 1999; Jones 2006). The pronouncing dictionaries published between the eighteenth century and the present day allow us to trace its lexical diffusion (Labov 1994) across the whole lexicon. Drawing on the statistics of the ARCHER corpus, the lexical sets of the ECEP database, the full electronic edition of Walker's dictionary (1791), Wells’ Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (2008) and the Macquarie Dictionary (2015), this article examines the role played by the phonetic environment, word frequency, phonetic analogy and isolated lead words like draught or master in the spread of the lengthening of /a/. The results show that word frequency per se has no clear effect on /a/ lengthening in either pre-fricative or pre-nasal environments in eighteenth-century sources. The article also offers a possible relative chronology of the spread of that phenomenon to each phonetic environment within the bath set.

Keywords

phonologyeighteenth-century Englishbath wordslexical diffusion
Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 24 , Special Issue 3: Studies in Late Modern English historical phonology using the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP) , September 2020 , pp. 527 - 543
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

References

ARCHER 3.2 = A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers version 3.2. 2013. Originally compiled under the supervision of Douglas Biber & Edward Finegan at Northern Arizona University and University of Southern California; modified and expanded by subsequent members of a consortium of universities. Current member universities are Bamberg, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Helsinki, Lancaster, Leicester, Manchester, Michigan, Northern Arizona, Santiago de Compostela, Southern California, Trier, Uppsala, Zurich. Examples of usage taken from ARCHER were obtained under the terms of the ARCHER User Agreement (available on the Documentation page of the ARCHER website, www.manchester.ac.uk/archer/) (accessed July 2019).Google Scholar
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Beal, Joan C. 1999. English pronunciation in the eighteenth century: Thomas Spence's Grand Repository of the English Language (1775). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
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Jones, Charles. 2006. English pronunciation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. 1994. Principles of linguistic change, vol. 1: Internal factors. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 2014. A historical phonology of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Mugglestone, Lynda. 2003 [1995]. Talking proper: The rise of accent as social symbol, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Betty S. 1989. The diffusion of a borrowed sound change. Journal of English Linguistics 22, 197–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Betty S. 2015. Lexical diffusion in historical phonology. In Honeybone, Patrick & Salmons, Joseph (eds.), The Oxford handbook of historical phonology, 359–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Trapateau, Nicolas. 2015. Placement de l'accent et voyelles inaccentuées dans la prononciation de l'anglais du XVIIIe siècle sur la base du témoignage des dictionnaires de prononciation, des vers et de la musique vocale. PhD dissertation, University of Poitiers, France.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 2010. Investigations in sociohistorical linguistics: Stories of colonisation and contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, William S.-Y. 1969. Competing changes as a cause of residue. Language 45, 9–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, J. C. 1982. Accents of English, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Joseph. 1905. The English dialect grammar. Oxford: Henry Frowde.Google Scholar
ARCHER 3.2 = A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers version 3.2. 2013. Originally compiled under the supervision of Douglas Biber & Edward Finegan at Northern Arizona University and University of Southern California; modified and expanded by subsequent members of a consortium of universities. Current member universities are Bamberg, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Helsinki, Lancaster, Leicester, Manchester, Michigan, Northern Arizona, Santiago de Compostela, Southern California, Trier, Uppsala, Zurich. Examples of usage taken from ARCHER were obtained under the terms of the ARCHER User Agreement (available on the Documentation page of the ARCHER website, www.manchester.ac.uk/archer/) (accessed July 2019).Google Scholar
Buchanan, James. 1757. Linguæ Britannicæ vera pronunciatio: or, A new English dictionary. London: A. Millar.Google Scholar
Buchanan, James. 1766. An essay towards establishing a standard for an elegant and uniform pronunciation of the English language, throughout the British dominions, as practised by the most learned and polite speakers. London: Edward & Charles Dilly.Google Scholar
Burn, John. 1786. A pronouncing dictionary of the English language, 2nd edn. Glasgow: The Author.Google Scholar
Cooper, Christopher. 1685. Grammatica linguæ Anglicanæ. London: J. Richardson.Google Scholar
Daines, Simon. 1640. Orthoepia Anglicana. London: Robert Young & Richard Badger for the Company of Stationers.Google Scholar
Davies, Mark. 2004–. British National Corpus (from Oxford University Press). www.english-corpora.org/bnc/ (accessed 31 July 2019).Google Scholar
ECEP = Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database. 2015. Compiled by Joan C. Beal, Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, Ranjan Sen & Christine Wallis (The University of Sheffield and Universidade de Vigo). Published by the Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield. www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/ecep/ (accessed 31 July 2019).Google Scholar
Johnston, William. 1764. A pronouncing and spelling dictionary. London: W. Johnston.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 1797. Genuine edition. Sheridan improved: A general pronouncing and explanatory dictionary of the English language, 2nd edn. London: Vernor & Hood.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 1798. Sheridan improved: A general pronouncing and explanatory dictionary of the English language, 3rd edn. London: Vernor & Hood.Google Scholar
Kenrick, William. 1773. A new dictionary of the English language. London: John & Francis Rivington et al.Google Scholar
Macquarie complete Australian dictionary application, based on the 6th edition. 2015. www.macquariedictionary.com.au (accessed 31 July 2019).Google Scholar
Nares, Robert. 1784. Elements of orthoepy: Containing a distinct view of the whole analogy of the English language; so far as it relates to pronunciation, accent, and quantity. London: T. Payne & Son.Google Scholar
OED = Oxford English Dictionary. 2009. 2nd edn on CD-ROM (v. 4.0). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Perry, William. 1775. The royal standard English dictionary. Edinburgh: The Author.Google Scholar
Scott, William. 1786. A new spelling, pronouncing, and explanatory dictionary of the English language. Edinburgh: C. Elliot.Google Scholar
Sheridan, Thomas. 1780. A general dictionary of the English language. London: J. Dodsley, C. Dilly & J. Wilkie.Google Scholar
Spence, Thomas. 1775. The grand repository of the English language. Newcastle: T. Saint.Google Scholar
Walker, John. 1791. A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language. London: G. G. J. & J. Robinson & T. Cadell.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. 2008. Longman pronunciation dictionary, 3rd edn. Longman.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 1985. Lengthening of a in Tyneside English. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 41, 31–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 1999. English pronunciation in the eighteenth century: Thomas Spence's Grand Repository of the English Language (1775). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 2004. English in modern times 1700–1945. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Horvath, Barbara M. & Horvath, Ronald J.. 2001. Short A in Australian English: A geolinguistic study. In Blair, David & Collins, Peter (eds.), English in Australia, 341–55. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Charles. 2006. English pronunciation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. 1994. Principles of linguistic change, vol. 1: Internal factors. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 2014. A historical phonology of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Mugglestone, Lynda. 2003 [1995]. Talking proper: The rise of accent as social symbol, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Betty S. 1989. The diffusion of a borrowed sound change. Journal of English Linguistics 22, 197–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Betty S. 2015. Lexical diffusion in historical phonology. In Honeybone, Patrick & Salmons, Joseph (eds.), The Oxford handbook of historical phonology, 359–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Trapateau, Nicolas. 2015. Placement de l'accent et voyelles inaccentuées dans la prononciation de l'anglais du XVIIIe siècle sur la base du témoignage des dictionnaires de prononciation, des vers et de la musique vocale. PhD dissertation, University of Poitiers, France.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 2010. Investigations in sociohistorical linguistics: Stories of colonisation and contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, William S.-Y. 1969. Competing changes as a cause of residue. Language 45, 9–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, J. C. 1982. Accents of English, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Joseph. 1905. The English dialect grammar. Oxford: Henry Frowde.Google Scholar