The processes of gemination, lenition, and vowel lengthening are central to the study of phonology, as they reveal much about the treatment of quantity in a given language. Using data from older language stages, modern dialects and standard languages, this study examines the interdependence of vowel and consonant quantity in the history of the Germanic branch of Indo-European. Kurt Goblirsch focusses on the various geminations in Old Germanic languages (West Germanic gemination, glide strengthening, and expressive gemination), open syllable lengthening in German, Dutch, Frisian, English, and Scandinavian languages, and the major lenitions in High German, Low German, and Danish, as well as minor lenitions in Bavarian, Franconian, and Frisian dialects. All of these changes are related to the development of the Germanic languages from distinctive segmental length to complementary length to syllable cut. The discussion challenges traditional theoretical assumptions about quantity change in Germanic languages to argue for a new account whereby, gemination, lenition, and vowel lengthening are interrelated.

Using an innovative theoretical framework, Dr. Ritt describes the phenomenon of the change in vowel length in early Middle English, and sets out to account for its occurrence. He shows that the changes stem from universal principles that govern the way in which humans use speech sounds to communicate. He examines why these principles only sometimes lead to widespread changes, as in Middle English, and goes on to suggest that language is a complex system in which conflicting tendencies are constantly renegotiating their spheres of influence.

This volume collects essays that approach notions of creating, maintaining, and crossing boundaries in the history of the English language. The concept of boundaries is variously defined within linguistics depending on the theoretical framework, from formal and theoretical perspectives to specific fields and more empirical, physical, and perceptual angles. The contributions to this volume do not take one particular theoretical or methodological approach but, instead, explore how examining various types of boundaries—linguistic, conceptual, analytical, generic, physical—helps us illuminate and account for historical use, variation, and change in English. In their exploration of various topics in the history of English, contributions ask a range of questions: what does it mean to set up boundaries between time periods? When do language varieties have distinct boundaries and when do they overlap? Where do language users draw up clausal, constructional, semantic, phonetic/phonological boundaries? Thus, the chapters explore not only how boundaries illustrate synchronic and diachronic features in the history of the English language but also what we can discover by questioning perceived or actual boundaries.

There are books on tone, coronals, the internal structure of segments, vowel harmony, and a couple of other topics in phonology. This book aims to fill the gap for Lenition and Fortition, which is one of the first phenomena that was addressed by phonologists in the 19th century, and ever since contributed to phonological thinking. It is certainly one of the core phenomena that is found in the phonology of natural language: together with assimilations, the other important family of phenomena, Lenition and Fortition constitute the heart of what phonology can do to sound. The book aims to provide an overall treatment of the question in its many aspects: historical, typological, synchronic, diachronic, empirical and theoretical. Various current approaches to phonology are represented. The book is structured into three parts: 1) properties and behaviour of Lenition/Fortition, 2) lenition patterns in particular languages and language families, 3) how Lenition/Fortition work. Part 1 describes the properties of lenition and fortition: what counts as such? What kind of behaviour is observed? Which factors bear on it (positional, stress-related)? Which role has it played in phonology since (and even before) the 19th century? The everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-lenition-and-fortition philosophy that guides the conception of the book supposes a descriptive, generalisation-oriented style of writing that relies on a kind of phonological lingua franca, rather than on theory-laden vocabulary. Also, no prior knowledge other than about general phonological categories should be required when reading through Part 1. The goal is to provide a broad picture of what lenition is, how it behaves, which factors it is conditioned by and what generalisations it obeys. This record may then be used as a yardstick for competing theories. Part 2 presents a number of case studies that show how Lenition/Fortition behave in a number of languages that include systems which are notoriously emblematic for Lenition/Fortition: Celtic, Western Romance, Germanic and Finnish. Finally, Part 3 is concerned with the analysis of the patterns that have been described in Parts 1 and 2. Given their analytic orientation, Part 3 chapters are theory-specific. They look at the same empirical record, or at a subset thereof, and try to explain what they see. Even though Part 3 chapters are couched in a specific theoretical environment that most of the time supposes prior conceptual knowledge, authors have been asked to assure theoretical interoperability as much as they could.

Offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to a novel theory of syntax, which analyzes grammar from a semantic perspective.

This book provides a pioneering introduction to heritage languages and their speakers, written by one of the founders of this new field. Using examples from a wide range of languages, it covers all the main components of grammar, including phonetics and phonology, morphology and morphosyntax, semantics and pragmatics, and shows easy familiarity with approaches ranging from formal grammar to typology, from sociolinguistics to child language acquisition and other relevant aspects of psycholinguistics. The book offers analysis of resilient and vulnerable domains in heritage languages, with a special emphasis on recurrent structural properties that occur across multiple heritage languages. It is explicit about instances where, based on our current knowledge, we are unable to reach a clear decision on a particular claim or analytical point, and therefore provides a much-needed resource for future research.

A linguistic view of how natural language speakers package and open information, to deal with the expression of time.