Utente:Toadino2/Fonologia storica delle vocali inglesi posteriori chiuse
La maggior parte delle varietà dell'inglese moderno hadeu vocali posteriori chiuse: la vocale posteriore chiusa arrotondata /u/ di parole come goose, e la vocale quasi posteriore quasi chiusa arrotondata /ʊ/ come in foot. In questo articolo tratteremo la storia di quete due vocali, nei vari dialetti inglesi, focalizzandoci soprattutto sui vari cambiamenti come fusioni (mergers) e divisioni (splits).
Foot–goose merger[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
Il foot–goose merger è un fenomeno dell'inglese scozzese, Ulster tra l'inglese irlandese, inglese malesiano ed inglese di Singapore,[1] dove le vocali /ʊ/ e /uː/ sono fuse. Così coppie minime come look/Luke sono omofone e good/food e foot/boot rimano. La vocale risultante è spesso [ʉ] o [y] nelle varianti scozzesi, e come [u] a Singapore.[2] L'uso della stessa vocale in "foot" e "goose" in queste varietà non è dovuta ad una vera fuione di fonemi, piuttosto all'applicazione sul lessico inglese di differenti sistemi vocalici. [3] Il full–fool merger è una fusione delle stesse due vocali prima di /l/, rendendo omofoni coppie come pull/pool e full/fool.
Foot–strut split[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
Il foot–strut split è la divisione della vocale breve del Medio inglese /u/ in due fonemi diversi /ʊ/ (di foot) ed /ʌ/ (di strut) avvenuto in parecchie varietà inglesi; un'eccezione si trova nel Nord Inghilterra e nelle Midlands. [4]
La divisione partì con una perdita dell'arrotondamento di /ʊ/ agli albori dell'inglese moderno, dando il fonema /ʌ/. Generalmente (anche se con poche eccezioni), questa perdita non si verificò quando /ʊ/ era preceduta da consonante labiale (e.g., /p/, /f/, /b/) e seguita da /l/, /ʃ/, o /tʃ/[5], lasciando /ʊ/. La divisione fu imprevedibile, e le parole put - putt divennero coppia minima, dai suoni /pʊt/ e /pʌt/. La prima descrizione dettagliata del fenomeno risale al 1644.[6]
Nelle varietà non colpite, cut e put rimano, putt e put sono omofoni /pʊt/, ed anche pudding e budding rimano. Ma luck e look non sono sempre omofoni; spesso questi stessi accenti hanno per look /luːk/, con la vocale di goose.
The absence of this split is a less common feature of educated Northern English speech than the absence of the trap–bath split.[7] The absence of the foot–strut split is sometimes stigmatized[senza fonte], and speakers of non-splitting accents often try to introduce it into their speech, sometimes resulting in hypercorrections such as pronouncing pudding /pʌdɪŋ/.
The name "foot–strut split" refers to the lexical sets introduced by Wells (1982), and identifies the vowel phonemes in the words. From a historical point of view, this name is inappropriate because foot and strut did not rhyme in Middle English (foot had Middle English /oː/ as its spelling suggests).
| mood goose tooth |
good foot book |
blood flood brother |
cut dull fun |
put full sugar | ||
| Middle English | oː | oː | oː | u | u | |
| Great Vowel Shift | uː | uː | uː | u | u | |
| Early Shortening | uː | uː | u | u | u | |
| Quality Adjustment | uː | uː | ʊ | ʊ | ʊ | |
| Foot–Strut Split | uː | uː | ɤ | ɤ | ʊ | |
| Later Shortening | uː | ʊ | ɤ | ɤ | ʊ | |
| Quality Adjustment | uː | ʊ | ʌ | ʌ | ʊ | |
| RP Output | uː | ʊ | ʌ | ʌ | ʊ |
In modern standard varieties of English, e.g. Received pronunciation (RP) and General American, the spelling is a reasonably good guide to whether a word is in the FOOT or STRUT lexical sets. The spellings o and u nearly always indicate the STRUT set (common exceptions are wolf, woman, pull, bull, full, push, bush, cushion, puss, put, pudding and butcher), while the spellings oo and ould usually indicate the FOOT set (common exceptions are blood and flood). The spellings of some words changed in accordance with this pattern: e.g. wull became wool and wud became wood. In some recent loan words such as Muslim both pronunciations are found.
Bruise–brews split[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
The bruise–brews split is the split of English /uː/ into two distinct phonemes:
- /uː/, which occurs in morphologically closed syllables (as in bruise /bruːz/);[8]
- /ɵʊ/, which occurs in morphologically open syllables (as in brews /brɵʊz/).[8]
Merger of Middle English /y/, /ɛu/, /eu/, and /iu/[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
Middle English distinguished the close front rounded vowel /y/ (occurring in loanwords from Anglo-Norman like duke) and the diphthongs /iu/ (occurring in words like new), /eu/ (occurring in words like few)[9] and /ɛu/ (occurring in words like dew).
By Early Modern English, /y/, /eu/, and /iu/ merged as /ɪu/ (with /ɛu/ merging with them a couple of centuries later), which has remained as such in some Welsh, northern English, and American accents in which through /θɹuː/ is distinct from threw /θɹɪu/.[10] In the majority of accents, however, /ɪu/ later became /juː/, which, depending on the preceding consonant, either remained or developed into /uː/ by the process of yod-dropping, hence the present pronunciations /d(j)uːk/, /n(j)uː/, and /fjuː/.
Shortening of /uː/ to /ʊ/[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
In a handful words, including some very common ones, the vowel /uː/ was shortened to /ʊ/. In a few of these words, notably blood and flood, this shortening happened early enough that the resulting /ʊ/ underwent the "foot–strut split" and are now pronounced with /ʌ/. Other words that underwent shortening later consistently have /ʊ/, such as good, book, and wool. Still other words, such as roof, hoof, and root are in the process of the shift today, with some speakers preferring /uː/ and others preferring /ʊ/ in such words. For some speakers in Northern England, words ending in -ook such as book, cook still have the long /uː/ vowel.
Change of /uː.ɪ/ to [ʊɪ][modifica | modifica wikitesto]
Template:Unreferenced section The change of /uː.ɪ/ to [ʊɪ] is a process that occurs in many varieties of British English where bisyllabic /uː.ɪ/ becomes the diphthong [ʊɪ] in certain words. As a result, "ruin" is pronounced as monosyllabic [ˈɹʊɪn] and "fluid" is pronounced [ˈflʊɪd].
See also[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
- Phonological history of the English language
- Phonological history of English vowels
- Phonological history of English consonants
- English consonant-cluster reductions
References[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
- ^ HKE_unit3.pdf (EN)
- ^ Wells, John C., Accents of English, 1982, pp. 400–2, 438–39, ISBN 0-521-22919-7.
- ^ Macafee 2004: 74
- ^ Wells, ibid., pp. 132, 196–99; 351–53
- ^ Ma in generale una qualsiasi consonante non velare
- ^ Roger Lass, The Cambridge History of the English Language iii: 1476-1776, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 88–90, ISBN 0-521-26476-6.
- ^ Wells, ibid., p. 354
- ^ a b c Template:Harvcoltxt
- ^ http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/, http://facweb.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/phone/me/mvowel.htm
- ^ Wales, ibid., p. 206
Bibliography[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
- Tyneside English, in Journal of the International Phonetic Association, vol. 33, n. 2, 2003, pp. 267–271, DOI:10.1017/S0025100303001397.