Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T18:19:01.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Phonotactics, graphotactics and contrast: the history of Scots dental fricative spellings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2020

BENJAMIN MOLINEAUX Open the ORCID record for BENJAMIN MOLINEAUX [Opens in a new window] ,
JOANNA KOPACZYK Open the ORCID record for JOANNA KOPACZYK [Opens in a new window] ,
RHONA ALCORN ,
WARREN MAGUIRE Open the ORCID record for WARREN MAGUIRE [Opens in a new window] ,
VASILIS KARAISKOS  and
BETTELOU LOS
BENJAMIN MOLINEAUX
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and English Language The University of Edinburgh Dugald Stewart Building 3 Charles Street EdinburghEH8 [email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]
JOANNA KOPACZYK
Affiliation:
Department of English Language & Linguistics University of Glasgow 12 University Gardens GlasgowG12 [email protected]
RHONA ALCORN
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and English Language The University of Edinburgh Dugald Stewart Building 3 Charles Street EdinburghEH8 [email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]
WARREN MAGUIRE
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and English Language The University of Edinburgh Dugald Stewart Building 3 Charles Street EdinburghEH8 [email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]
VASILIS KARAISKOS
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and English Language The University of Edinburgh Dugald Stewart Building 3 Charles Street EdinburghEH8 [email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]
BETTELOU LOS
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and English Language The University of Edinburgh Dugald Stewart Building 3 Charles Street EdinburghEH8 [email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The spelling conventions for dental fricatives in Anglic languages (Scots and English) have a rich and complex history. However, the various – often competing – graphemic representations (<þ>, <ð>, <y> and <th>, among others) eventually settled on one digraph, <th>, for all contemporary varieties, irrespective of the phonemic distinction between /ð/ and /θ/. This single representation is odd among the languages’ fricatives, which tend to use contrasting graphemes (cf. <f> vs <v> and <s> vs <z>) to represent contrastive voicing, a sound pattern that emerged nearly a millennium ago. Close examinations of the scribal practices for English in the late medieval period, however, have shown that northern texts had begun to develop precisely this type of distinction for dental fricatives as well. Here /ð/ was predominantly represented by <y> and /θ/ by <th> (Jordan 1925; Benskin 1982). In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, this ‘Northern System’ collapsed, due to the northward spread of a London-based convention using exclusively <th> (Stenroos 2004). This article uses a rich body of corpus evidence for fifteenth-century Scots to show that, north of the North, the phonemic distinction was more clearly mirrored by spelling conventions than in any contemporary variety of English. Indeed, our data for Older Scots local documents (1375–1500) show a pattern where <y> progressively spreads into voiced contexts, while <th> recedes into voiceless ones. This system is traced back to the Old English positional preferences for <þ> and <ð> via subsequent changes in phonology, graphemic repertoire and letter shapes. An independent medieval Scots spelling norm is seen to emerge as part of a developing, proto-standard orthographic system, only to be cut short in the sixteenth century by top-down anglicisation processes.

Keywords

Scotsphonotacticsgraphotacticsphonologyspelling
Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 91 - 119
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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

Adamczyk, Michał. 2016. Realisations of the word-initial variable (th) in selected Late Middle English northern legal documents. In Waniek-Klimczak, Ewa & Cichosz, Anna (eds.), Variability in English across time and space, 11–41. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.Google Scholar
Aitken, A. J. 1971. Variation and variety in written Middle Scots. In Aitken, A. J., McIntosh, Angus & Pálsson, Hermann (eds.), Edinburgh studies in English and Scots, 177–209. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Alcorn, Rhona, Karaiskos, Vasilis, Kopaczyk, Joanna, Los, Bettelou, Maguire, Warren & Molineaux, Benjamin. Forthcoming. From Inglis to Scots: A Corpus of Grapho-phonological Correspondences (1380–1500) with Associated Corpus of Changes. www.amc.lel.ed.ac.uk/fits/Google Scholar
Bald, Marjory. 1926. The anglicisation of Scottish printing. The Scottish Historical Review 23(90), 107–15.Google Scholar
Bann, Jennifer & Corbett, John. 2015. Spelling Scots: The orthography of literary Scots, 1700–2000. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benskin, Michael. 1977. Local archives and Middle English dialects. Journal of the Society of Archivists 5(8), 500–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benskin, Michael. 1982. Letters <þ> and <y> in later Middle English, and some related matters. Journal of the Society of Archivists 7, 13–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benskin, Michael. 1997. Texts from an English township in late medieval Ireland. Collegium Medievale 1–2, 91–170.Google Scholar
Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DOEC: Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus. 2009. Compiled by Antonette diPaolo Healey with John Price Wilkin & Xin Xiang. https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doecorpus/ Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project (accessed 3 March 2019).Google Scholar
eLALME: An electronic version of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English. 2013–. Compiled by Michael Benskin, Margaret Laing, Vasilis Karaiskos & Keith Williamson, The University of Edinburgh. www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/elalme/elalme.html (accessed 3 March 2019).Google Scholar
Fisiak, Jacek. 1984. The voicing of initial fricatives in Middle English. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 17, 3–21.Google Scholar
Jensen, Vibeke. 2012. The consonantal element (th) in some Late Middle English Yorkshire texts. In Tyrkkö, Jukka, Kilpiö, Matti, Nevalainen, Terttu & Rissanen, Matti (eds.), Outposts of historical linguistics: From the Helsinki Corpus to a proliferation of resources. Helsinki: Varieng e-Series. www.helsinki.fi/varieng/series/volumes/10/jensen/ (accessed 15 September 2019).Google Scholar
Johnston, Paul. 1997a. Older Scots phonology and its regional variation. In Jones, Charles (ed.), The Edinburgh history of the Scots language, 47–111. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, Paul. 1997b. Regional variation. In Jones, Charles (ed.), The Edinburgh history of the Scots language, 433–513. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Jordan, Richard. 1925. Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik. Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung.Google Scholar
Kniezsa, Veronika. 1997. The origins of Scots orthography. In Jones, Charles (ed.), The Edinburgh history of the Scots language, 24–46. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Kopaczyk, Joanna, Molineaux, Benjamin, Karaiskos, Vasilios, Alcorn, Rhona, Los, Bettelou & Maguire, Warren. 2018. Towards a grapho-phonologically parsed corpus of medieval Scots: Database design and technical solutions. Corpora 13(2), 255–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LAEME: A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English, 1150–1325. 2013–. Compiled by Margaret Laing www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/laeme2/laeme2.html, version 3.2. The University of Edinburgh (accessed 3 March 2019).Google Scholar
Laing, Margaret. 1999. Confusion wrs confounded: Litteral substitution sets in Early Middle English writing systems. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 100(3), 251–70.Google Scholar
Laing, Margaret & Lass, Roger. 2003. Tales of 1001 nists: The phonological implications of litteral substitution sets in some thirteenth-century South-West Midland texts. English Language and Linguistics 7(2), 257–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laing, Margaret & Lass, Roger. 2009. Shape-shifting, sound-change and the genesis of prodigal writing systems. English Language and Linguistics 13(1), 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laing, Margaret & Lass, Roger. 2013. Introduction: Part II, The corpus, chapter 3: Overview. In Margaret Laing (comp.), A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English, 1150–1325. The University of Edinburgh. www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/laeme2/laeme_intro_ch3.html (accessed 3 March 2019).Google Scholar
LAOS: A Linguistic Atlas of Older Scots, Phase 1: 1380–1500. 2008. Compiled by Keith Williamson. The University of Edinburgh. www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/laos1/laos1.html (accessed 3 March 2019).Google Scholar
Lass, Roger. 1991–3. Old English fricative voicing unvisited. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 25–7, 3–45.Google Scholar
Lass, Roger. 1992. Phonology and morphology. In Blake, Norman (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 2: 1066–1476, 23–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lass, Roger & Laing, Margaret. 2013. Introduction, chapter 2. In Margaret Laing (comp.), A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English, 1150–1325, version 3.2. The University of Edinburgh. www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/laeme2/laeme2.html (accessed 3 March 2019).Google Scholar
MacKenzie, Laurel. 2018. Variable stem-final fricative voicing in American English plurals: Different pa[ð ~ θ]s of change. Language Variation and Change 30, 147–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maguire, Warren. 2016. Pre-R dentalisation in Scotland. English Language and Linguistics 20(2), 315–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maguire, Warren, Alcorn, Rhona, Kopaczyk, Joanna, Molineaux, Benjamin, Karaiskos, Vasilios & Los, Bettelou. 2019. Charting the rise and demise of a phonotactically motivated change in Scots. Folia Linguistica Historica 40(1), 37–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntosh, Angus. 1974. Towards an inventory of Middle English scribes. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 75, 602–24.Google Scholar
Meurman-Solin, Anneli. 1997. Differentiation and standardisation in Early Scots. In Jones, Charles (ed.), The Edinburgh history of the Scots language, 433–513. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 2011. Phonemically contrastive fricatives in Old English. English Language and Linguistics 15(1), 31–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 2014. A historical phonology of English. Online companion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/media/resources/Historical_Phonology_of_English_-_Online_Companion.pdf (accessed 13 June 2019).Google Scholar
Molineaux, Benjamin, Maguire, Warren, Alcorn, Rhona, Karaiskos, Vasilis, Kopaczyk, Joanna & Los, Betelou. In press. Sound change vs orthographic remapping: Visualising ‘excrescent’ <t> and <t> deletion in fifteenth-century Scots.+and++deletion+in+fifteenth-century+Scots.>Google Scholar
Murison, David. 1979. The historical background. In Aitken, A. J. & McArthur, Tom (eds.), Languages of Scotland, 2–13. Edinburgh: Chambers.Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. 1984. The sociolinguistic history of t/d deletion. Folia Linguistica Historica 5(2), 221–55.Google Scholar
Scragg, Donald G. 1974. A history of English spelling. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Simpson, Grant. G. 2009[1973]. Scottish handwriting 1150–1650: An introduction to the reading of documents. Edinburgh: John Donald Short Run Press.Google Scholar
Stenroos, Merja. 2004. Regional dialects and spelling conventions in Late Middle English: Searches for (th) in the LALME data. In Dossena, Marina & Lass, Roger (eds.), Methods and data in English historical dialectology, 257–85. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Stenroos, Merja. 2007. A Middle English mess of fricative spellings. Reflections on thorn, yogh and their rivals. In Krygier, Marcin & Sikorska, Liliana (eds.), To make his English sweete upon his tonge, 9–35. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Strang, Barbara. 1970. A history of English. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Thurber, Beverly A. 2011. Voicing of initial interdental fricatives in early Middle English function words. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 23(1), 65–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Keith. 2002. The dialectology of ‘English’ north of the Humber, c. 1380–1500. In Fanego, Teresa, Méndez-Naya, Belén & Posse, Elena (eds.), Sounds, words, texts and change, 253–86. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar