Kurzus nemzetközi vendég- és részidős hallgatóknak
- Kar
- Bölcsészettudományi Kar
- Szervezet
- BTK Angol Nyelvészet Tanszék
- Kód
- BBI-ANG17-342E.12
- Cím
- Választható nyelvészeti szeminárium: Az angol frikatívák története
- Tervezett félév
- Őszi
- Meghirdetve
- 2024/25/1
- ECTS
- 5
- Nyelv
- en
- Oktatás célja
- Objectives To learn how contrastive reconstructive linguistics works on a single language (its predecessor, its continuation and all its living varieties), to learn the importance of phonological variation and its impact on the establishment of a phonological system, the importance of analogy, the relationship between analogy and phonology, etc. Outcomes Students will have learned how to argue persuasively about (and understand the differences among) phonology, phonetics, historical linguistics, analogy, lexicalisation, loss of contrast. By the end the course students will be able to talk insightfully about how loss of contrast can bring about changes in phonology and how phonology can lead to new contrast being born.
- Tantárgy tartalma
- The course will discuss the history of fricatives in English from Germanic to the modern times using the insights of laryngeal realism. The course is a very advanced theoretical one relying on notions such as laryngeal oppositions, GT 'glottal width', privative vs binary vs scalar features, enhancement, etc. The course will look at how contrast in the fricatives in Germanic developed, to be lost in West Germanic and Old English, to be in flux in Middle English, to be ultimately settled in Modern English. We will look at how Old English geminates were lost in Middle English and how this brought about a new system of contrast. Middle English is exactly this: a middle or transitional period between a stage where there was only a single series of fricatives (Old English) and a stage where there is a fortis vs lenis set for all places of articulation (Modern English). Some of the questions we will discuss: (i) how do words like live, graze, bathe end in lenis fricatives, but life, grass and bath in fortis ones, (ii) how does the lenis /s/ of the plural develop from OE -as (why does it sound voiced, when the Old English fricatives are claimed to be voiceless word-finally), (iii) how do Old French words influence the nascent contrast in the fricatives, (iv) how can we explain words like vat, vixen from Old English words that contained phonetically voiceless fricatives, (v) what does the Moder English morphologically conditioned alternation of wife ~ wives, house ~ houses, etc. show about Old and Middle English, (vi) is a lenis or a fortis fricative expected in the post-sonorant position (worthy, northern vs earthen), (vii) what does Southern English Fricative Voicing (vram, zourd) tell us about Old English, (viii) the importance of stressed vs unstressed vowels in the maintenance of voicing in the lenis obstruents, (ix) if the plural suffix has a lenis fricative after an unstressed vowel (as in bridges), why do bath, grass (unexpectedly) have a fortis one after a stressed vowel, etc.
- Számonkérés és értékelés
- Two online tests administered in Canvas (30-30%), a major end-of-term assignment (guided essay) based on some controversial topic discussed during the term (40% of the final grade).
- Irodalomjegyzék
- A selection from at least the following books/articles will be covered, conditions permitting (the readings will be supplied in electronic format): Britton, Derek. 2011. “Degemination in English, with Special Reference to the Middle English Period.” In Analysing Older English, Studies in English Language, eds. David Denison, Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, Chris McCully, and Emma Moore. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. chapter, 232–44. Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hogg, Richard M. 1992. A grammar of Old English. Volume 1: Phonology. UK: Blackwell Publishing. Honeybone, Patrick. 2005. Diachronic evidence in segmental phonology: the case of obstruent laryngeal specifications. In: van Oostendorp, M. and van de Weijer, J. (eds) The Internal Organization of Phonological Segments. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 319–354. Kurath, Hans. 1956. The loss of long consonants and the rise of voiced fricatives in Middle English. Language 32, 435–45. Rpt. in Roger Lass (ed.), 1969, Approaches to English historical linguistics: an anthology, 142–53. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Lass, Roger. 1994. Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moulton, William G. 1954. The stops and spirants of early Germanic. Language 30.1–42. Moulton, William G. 1972. The Proto-Germanic non-syllabics (consonants). In Coetsem, F. van & H. L. Kufner (1972) Toward a Grammar of Proto-Germanic. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. 141–173. Ringe, Don and Ann Taylor. 2014. From Proto-Germanic to Old English. Vol. 2. A linguistic history of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sledd, James. 1958. Some questions of English phonology. Language 34, 252–8.