Search Results

This article classifies all the Romance languages and dialects with regard to the phonological property of vowel length, phonemic and allophonic, considering its relationship to its correlate in phonetic substance, namely vocoid duration. It examines the rise and fall of vowel length in Romance, starting with a reference to Latin, where vowel length was contrastive as was consonant length, while in the Latin-Romance transition the former became dependent on the latter, as a part of a syllable structure conditioning. Consequently, Proto-Romance can be reconstructed as featuring an allophonic rule that lengthens stressed vowels in non-final open syllables (short, OSL) identical to that operating today in standard Italian, all Italo-Romance dialects south of the La Spezia-Rimini line, and Sardinian, which I will label type A languages. Due to a series of later changes, the remaining Romance languages and dialects lost this allophonic rule, which gave rise to either of the two further types: on the one hand, languages lacking contrastive gemination and contrastive vowel length (type B, including Daco- and Ibero-Romance all along their documented history, as well as, today, most of Gallo-Romance); and, on the other hand, languages lacking contrastive gemination but displaying contrastively long versus short vowels (type C, including most of northern Italo-Romance as well as part of Raeto- and Gallo-Romance, but which arguably stretched from the Apennines to the North Sea in the Middle Ages). This article examines all relevant sources of evidence, from Latin epigraphic inscriptions to experimental phonetic measurements, showing that they all chime perfectly with the picture just outlined. Needless to say, while the data from modern languages and dialects are observational, and those from older stages delivered by the written record need interpretation, reconstruction is, by definition, constructional: It can be supported by several sources of evidence but is in itself always provisional. Therefore, the story to be told here must be considered the best approximation to the historical truth that the present author deems reconstructible based on the available evidence.

Syllable structure has helped shape the Germanic languages and, remarkably, the syllable template inherited from Germanic has remained relatively stable over nearly 2,000 years since our first written Germanic records. Onsets permit anywhere from zero to three consonants with only /ŋ/ barred from forming a word-initial simple onset. As for complex onsets, English has simplified many inherited clusters, for example, /kn/➔[n], while Yiddish has developed a wider range of possible clusters. What they have in common is that two-consonant clusters are formed from obstruents+sonorants, conforming to the Sonority Sequencing Generalization (SSG) stipulating that sonority should fall from the nucleus toward the syllable edges. This generalization, however, is violated by three-consonant clusters, namely sequences of a sibilant plus two consonants, usually an obstruent+liquid. The monophthongs and diphthongs filling the nucleus (as well as syllabic sonorants in some varieties) have a symbiotic relationship with the following coda mediated via the rhyme. Because stressed syllables are preferably bimoraic as per Prokosch’s Law, vowels are long in open syllables or when followed by at most one consonant. However, before two consonants (including orthographically), vowels are typically short. This plays out in unique ways in various languages. In some Scandinavian languages, consonants are lengthened after short vowels, thereby building contrasts via not only vowel length, but also consonant length, for example, Icelandic [ma:n] ‘young lady, acc.’ versus [man:] ‘man, acc.’ Thus, some scholars have argued that vowel length is allophonic in these Scandinavian languages, but phonemic in languages like German and English, for example, bit [bɪt] versus beat [bijt]. As for coda consonants, the SSG typically applies, creating a large number of clusters that are generally mirror images of permissible onsets. Many coda clusters have the shape sonorant+obstruent or liquid+nasal. These latter clusters may be broken up, for example, Afrikaans fil(ə)m ‘film’, or simplified in some languages, for example, Norwegian nd clusters➔n. Word finally, clusters tend to be more complex both in the coda, as well as due to the coronal appendix consonants added to the end of the coda. These appendices more often than not coincide with morphological complexity, for example, German Gast+s ‘guest, gen.sg.’, though not always, for example, Dutch herf-st ‘autumn’. Indeed, rules for syllabification highlight the differences between word-initial and medial onsets because maximizing the onset also does not hold across some morphemic boundaries, for example, Lie.be ‘love’ but lieb.lich ‘lovely’. Furthermore, while languages like Dutch tend to maximize onsets like German and English, they also balance that with the need for stressed syllables to be minimally bimoraic leading to the syllabification as-ter, for instance, rather than *a-ster with the onset maximized. And, lastly, following the Contact Law, syllable contacts are more preferred when there is a strong onset following a weak coda. This preference can account for differential syllable divisions, for example, p.l in Icelandic but .pl in Faroese, as well as ultimately changes in onsets such as West Germanic gemination and glide strengthening. What makes each language unique is how they have individually adapted the syllable template through time. It is these differences that provide a more complete perspective of Germanic syllable structure and form the basis for the current discussion.