Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T17:16:34.845Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 3 - The Role of Foot Structure in Germanic

from Part I - Phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

By
Laura Catharine Smith
Edited by
Michael T. Putnam  and
B. Richard Page
Michael T. Putnam
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
B. Richard Page
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access

Summary

This chapter demonstrates the varied role the foot has played in shaping phonological and morphophonological patterns across the Germanic languages. Data from German and Dutch dialects highlight how features are licensed differently in strong versus weak branches of feet paving the way for a range of patterns including medial consonant cluster simplification and consonant lenition which often result in worsened phonetic cues. The trochee is shown to shape morphological processes such as Dutch and German plural formation via prosodic templates in both the standard languages and dialects. Lastly, vowel balance in Frisian and Scandinavian, a process often argued to result from stress patterns and stem shapes, is reinterpreted in terms of the trochaic foot. The foot-based approach provides a unified account for various manifestations of vowel balance across the dialects. Scratching the surface of Germanic phenomena, the chapter serves to invite the reader to consider other patterns which may also be prosodically driven in terms of the foot and foot-based templates.

Keywords

foot structureprosodic templatestrocheesconsonant cluster simplificationconsonant lenitionHessian subtractive pluralsplural formationvowel balance
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics , pp. 49 - 72
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Árnason, K. 2011. The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bergmann, G. 1989. “Upper Saxon.” In Russ (ed.): 290–312.Google Scholar
Booij, G. 1995. The Phonology of Dutch. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Booij, G. 1998. “Phonological output constraints in morphology.” In Kehrein, W. and Wiese, R.: (eds.), Phonology and Morphology of the Germanic Languages. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag: 143–163.Google Scholar
Broselow, E. 1995. “Skeletal positions and moras.” In Goldsmith, J. (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell:175–205.Google Scholar
Côté, M-H. 2000. Consonant Cluster Phonotactics: A Perceptual Approach. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Côté, M.-H. 2004. “Consonant cluster simplification in Québec French,” Probus 16: 151–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downing, L. 2006. Canonical Forms in Prosodic Morphology. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Durrell, M. 1989. “Westphalian and Eastphalian.” In Russ, (ed.): 59–90.Google Scholar
Freiling, P. 1929. Studien zur Dialektgeographie des hessischen Odenwaldes. Marburg: Elwert.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, J. (ed.) 1995. The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goltz, R. and Walker, A. 1989. “North Saxon.” In Russ (ed.): 31–58.Google Scholar
Halle, M. and Vergnaud, J-R. 1987. An Essay on Stress. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Holsinger, D. 2000. Lenition in Germanic: Prosodic Templates in Sound Change. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison.Google Scholar
Holsinger, D. 2001. “Weak position constraints: The role of prosodic templates in contrast distribution,” Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Papers in Linguistics 19: 91–118.Google Scholar
Holsinger, D. and Houseman, P. 1998. “Lenition in Hessian: The case of subtractive plurals.” Yearbook of Morphology 1998. Dordrecht: Kluwer: 159–174.Google Scholar
Hommer, E. 1910. Studien zur Dialektgeographie des Westerwaldes. Dissertation, Philosophische Fakultät der Universität Marburg. Marburg: R. Friedrich’s Universitätsbuchdruckerei.Google Scholar
Hooper, J. 1976. Introduction to Natural Generative Phonology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hulst, H. van der 1984. Syllable Structure and Stress in Dutch. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Hulst, H. van der 1999. “Word accent.” In van der Hulst, H. (ed.), Word Prosodic Systems in the Languages of Europe. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter: 3–115.Google Scholar
Hulst, H. van der (ed.) 1999. Word Prosodic Systems in the Languages of Europe. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hulst, H. van der and Kooij, J. 1998. “Prosodic choices and the Dutch nominal plural.” In Kehrein, W. and Wiese, R. (eds.), Phonology and Morphology of the Germanic Languages. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag: 187–197.Google Scholar
Itô, J. 1986. Syllable Theory in Prosodic Phonology. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst.Google Scholar
Kager, R. 1995. “The metrical theory of word stress.” In Goldsmith, J. (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell: 367–402.Google Scholar
Kauschke, C., Renner, L., and Domahs, U. 2013. “Prosodic constraints on inflected words: An area of difficulty for German-speaking children with specific language impairment?” Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 27: 574–593.Google Scholar
Kehrein, W. and Wiese, R. (eds.) 1998. Phonology and Morphology of the Germanic Languages. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Kock, A.1904. “Vocalbalance im Altfriesischen,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 29: 175–193.Google Scholar
Kristoffersen, G. 1990. “East Norwegian prosody and the level stress problem.” Unpublished ms., University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Kürsten, O. and Bremer, O. 1910. Lautlehre der Mundart von Buttelstedt bei Weimar. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.Google Scholar
Kusmenko, J. 2007. “The origin of vowel balance in Swedish and Norwegian dialects.” In Bull, T., Kusmenko, J., and Rießler, M. (eds.), Språk og språkforhold i Sápmi. Berlin: Nordeuropa-Institut der Humbolt-Universität 235–258.Google Scholar
Kusmenko, J. and Riessler, M. 2000. “Traces of Sámi-Scandinavian contact in Scandinavian dialects.” In Gilbers, D. G., Nerbonne, J, and Schaeken, J. (eds.), Languages in Contact. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi: 209–224.Google Scholar
Lahiri, A., Riad, T., and Jacobs, H. 1999. “Diachronic prosody.” In van der Hulst, H. (ed.), Word Prosodic Systems in the Languages of Europe. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter: 335–422.Google Scholar
Lavoie, L. 2001. Consonant Strength: Phonological Patterns and Phonetic Manifestations. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Liberman, M. 1975. The Intonational System of English. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA. Published in 1979 by Garland Press, New York.Google Scholar
Liberman, M. and Prince, A. 1977. “On stress and linguistic rhythm,” Linguistic Inquiry 8: 249–336.Google Scholar
Löhken, S.1997. Deutsche Wortprosodie: Abschwächungs- und Tilgungsvorgänge. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag.Google Scholar
McCarthy, J. and Prince, A. 1995. “Prosodic morphology.” In Goldsmith, J. (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell: 318–366.Google Scholar
Murray, R. and Vennemann, T. 1983. “Sound change and syllabic structure in Germanic phonology,” Language 59: 514–528.Google Scholar
Perridon, H. 2002. “The quantity shift in North Germanic,” Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 56: 69–77.Google Scholar
Philipp, M. and Bothorel-Witz, A. 1989. “Low Alemannic.” In Russ, (ed.): 313–336.Google Scholar
Prince, A. and Smolensky, P. 1993. “Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar.” Unpublished ms., Rutgers University and University of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Raymond, W., Dautricourt, R. and Hume, E. 2006. “Word-internal /t,d/ deletion in spontaneous speech: Modeling the effects of extra-linguistic, lexical, and phonological factors,” Language Variation and Change 18: 55–97.Google Scholar
Riad, T. 1992. Structures in Germanic Prosody: A Diachronic Study with Special Reference to the Nordic Languages. Dissertation, Stockholm University.Google Scholar
Russ, C. (ed.) 1989. The Dialects of Modern German: A Linguistic Survey. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Schönfeld, H. 1989. “East Low German.” In Russ (ed.): 91–135.Google Scholar
Smith, L. C. 2007. “Old Frisian vowel balance and its relationship to West Germanic apocope and syncope.” In Bremmer, R., Laker, S., and Vries, O. (eds.), Advances in Old Frisian Philology, Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik, Vol. 64 / Estrikken-Ålstråke, Vol. 81. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi: 379–410.Google Scholar
Smith, L. C. 2007. “The resilience of prosodic templates in the history of West Germanic.” In Salmons, J. and Dubenion-Smith, S. (eds.), Historical Linguistics 2005: Selected Papers from the 17th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Madison, July 31–August 5, 2005. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: 351–365.Google Scholar
Smith, L. C. 2009. “Dialect variation and the Dutch diminutive: Loss, maintenance and extension of prosodic templates.” In Dufresne, M., Dupuis, F., and Vocaj, E. (eds.), Historical Linguistics 2007. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: 37–46.Google Scholar
Smith, L. C., Champenois, C., C., and Schuhmann, K. 2016. “The role of prosody in shaping German plurals.” Paper presented at the Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC) 2016, Reykjavik, Iceland.Google Scholar
Smith, L. C., Holsinger, D., and Salmons, J. 2005. “The limits of perceptual distinctness: Evidence from West Germanic.” Paper presented at the Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC) 2005, University of California–Davis.Google Scholar
Smith, N. and van Leyden, K. 2007. “The unusual outcome of a level-stress situation: In the case of Wursten Frisian.” The North-western European Language Evolution 52: 31–66.Google Scholar
Vennemann, T. 1988. Preference Laws for Syllable Structure and the Explanation of Sound Change: With Special Reference to German, Germanic, Italian, and Latin. Berlin, New York, and Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Versloot, A. 2008. Mechanisms of Language Change: Vowel Reduction in 15th Century West Frisian. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.Google Scholar
Wiese, R. 2001. “How prosody shapes German words and morphemes,” Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 6: 155–184.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×