Some Old English Phonological Processes : A Nonlinear Analysis

Abstract

This paper examines some problematical Old English phonological processes within a nonlinear framework that employs an intermediate C-V tier in syllable structure: 1)various injectivity and surjectivity relationships between segments and C-V units, 2)extrasyllabicity, 3)assimilation, compensatory lengthening and degemination, 4)reduplication, 5)long consonants, and 6)an appendix on ambisyllabicity and s-obstruent clusters.

In 1976 Kahn represented the syllable as a hierarchical unit with two tiers: the root (0) node of the syllable and the terminal segments of the actual vowels, consonants, and glides that it dominates. Various expanded versions of it have since appeared, differing from each other in the number of the intermediate structures posited between the two basic tiers. Clements and Keyser (1981), for one, have introduced a third C-V tier to mediate between the root tier and the terminal segmental tier. The elements of the C-V tier that make up the syllable are composed of C (for a nonsyllabic) and V (for a syllabic). Unlike others, they maintain that the C and V skeletal units are linked directly to a syllable node with no intervening consitutents such as onset, rime, and appendix, as postulated in Halle and Vergnaud(1980) and Harris (1983).2 Thus, the syllable structure of a Luganda word ono 'this' can variously be represented as follows: