Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T23:10:33.993Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

/s/-Lenition and the Preservation of Plurality in Modern Occitan1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2014

Laurel MacKenzie
Laurel MacKenzie*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
*
*Address for correspondence: Laurel MacKenzie, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. +44 (0)161 275 3152. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the variable weakening and deletion of /s/ in the Languedocian variety of Modern Occitan, with particular attention to how it has affected the system of plural marking in noun phrases. Using data from linguistic atlases, I demonstrate that /s/-lenition in this variety involves a stage of vocalization to [j]. I find that, where /s/ on the definite article has vocalized to [j], the immediately-preceding vowel of the definite article has undergone concomitant raising to [e]. This raising appears to preserve the difference between singular and plural despite the plural’s weakening /s/. I argue that these results support Labov’s (1994) hypothesis that the meaning of a weakening element may be transferred to a stable, co-occurrent one.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistic Geography , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , October 2014 , pp. 59 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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.)

Footnotes

1

An earlier version of this paper appeared in Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 16.2.

References

Anglade, Joseph. [1921] 1977. Grammaire de l’ancien Provençal ou ancienne Langue d’Oc: Phonetique et morphologie. Paris: Editions Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Barra-Jover, Mario. 2012. L’évolution des marques de pluriel nominal roman à la lumière de l’occitan. In Mario Barra-Jover, Guylaine Brun-Trigaud, Jean-Philippe Dalbera, Patrick Sauzet & Tobias Scheer (eds.), Etudes de linguistique gallo-romane, 201–216. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta. 1973. The interplay of social and linguistic factors in Panama. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University dissertation.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. & Trudgill, Peter. 1998. Dialectology, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Dorothy A. 1969. Grammatical constraints in phonological change: The unstressed vowels of Southern France. New York, NY: Columbia University thesis.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 1985. Grammatical constraints in phonological change: Unstressed *a in Southern France. Orbis 31. 169–189.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles. 1990. From esses to aitches: Identifying pathways of diachronic change. In Thom Huebner (ed.), Sociolinguistic perspectives: Papers on language in society, 1959–1994, 200–215. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Floricic, Franck. 2010. Remarques sur le marquage du nombre dans le parler occitan de Veyrines-de-Vergt. In Franck Floricic (ed.), Essais de typologie et de linguistique générale: Mélanges offerts à Denis Creissels, 417–433. Lyon: ENS Editions.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory R. 1981. Linguistic variation in Brazilian Portuguese: Aspects of the phonology, syntax, and language history. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.Google Scholar
Héran, François, Filhon, Alexandra & Deprez, Christine. 2002. La dynamique des langues en France au fil du XXe siècle. Population et Sociétés 376. 1–4.Google Scholar
Hernández-Campoy, Juan Manuel & Trudgill, Peter. 2002. Functional compensation and southern peninsular Spanish /s/ loss. Folia Linguistica Historica 23. 31–57.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1994. Principles of linguistic change, vol. 1: Internal factors. (Language in Society 20). Malden, MA:Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul, Simons, Gary F. & D. Fennig, Charles. (eds.). 2014. Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 17th edn. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com Google Scholar
Moseley, Christopher (ed.). 2010. Atlas of the world’s languages in danger, 3rd edn. Paris, UNESCO Publishing, Online version: http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas Google Scholar
Pope, M. K. 1952. From Latin to Modern French, with especial consideration of Anglo-Norman: Phonology and morphology. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana. 1980. Deletion and disambiguation in Puerto Rican Spanish. Language 56. 371–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranson, Diana. 1991. Person marking in the wake of /s/ deletion in Andalusian Spanish. Language Variation and Change 3. 133–152.Google Scholar
Ravier, Xavier. 1978. Atlas linguistique et ethnographique du Languedoc occidental, vol. 1. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar
Ravier, Xavier. 1982. Atlas linguistique et ethnographique du Languedoc occidental, vol. 2. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar
Ravier, Xavier. 1986. Atlas linguistique et ethnographique du Languedoc occidental, vol. 3. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar
Ravier, Xavier. 1993. Atlas linguistique et ethnographique du Languedoc occidental, vol. 4. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar
Ronjat, Jules. 1932. Grammaire istorique des parlers provençaux modernes, vol. 2. Montpellier: Société des Langues Romanes.Google Scholar
Sauzet, Patrick. 2012. Occitan plurals: A case for a morpheme-based morphology. In Sascha Gaglia & Marc-Olivier Hinzelin (eds.), Inflection and word formation in Romance languages, 179–200. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiffman, Harold. 1996. Linguistic culture and language policy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Seklaoui, Diane R. 1989. Change and compensation: Parallel weakening of [s] in Italian, French, and Spanish. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Spence, N. C. W. 1976. A note on the history of the French definite article le/la/les. Romance Philology 29. 311–318.Google Scholar
Terrell, Tracy. 1977. Constraints on the aspiration and deletion of final /s/ in Cuban and Puerto Rican Spanish. Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 4. 35–51.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Max W. 1988. Occitan. In Martin Harris & Nigel Vincent (eds.), The Romance languages, 247–278. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar