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From: rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards)
Subject: Re: The continuing story of /Z/ (and /v/ and /z/)
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References: <rte-0510951400230001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <453qvv$7ee@netsrv2.spss.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 23:28:42 GMT
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In article <453qvv$7ee@netsrv2.spss.com>, markrose@spss.com (Mark
Rosenfelder) wrote:

> In article <rte-0510951400230001@mac-118.lz.att.com>,
> Ralph T. Edwards <rte@elmo.lz.att.com> wrote:
> >There has been some discussion of how English acquired the sound /Z/ as in
> >vision, measure, and rouge.  Some have suggested borrowing from French,
> >while I have suggested it first arose natively in words like the first
two and
> >only then could be borrowed.
> >
> >The data:
> >
> >Origins of the English Language Joseph M. Williams 1975 p351
> >
> >Spellings like picchure and isshu for picture and issue appear in the 15th
> >century.  Spellings like vishion and pleshar for vision and pleasure
> >appear in the 17th century.  He speculates that the later appearance of
> >the pronunciation spellings for the /Z/ words may be because there is no
> >good way to represent the pronunciation.  In any case, the shift has
> >appeared by the 17th century (the examples are around 1650).
> >
> >The Oxford Dictinary of English Etymology.
> >
> >Mirage is 19th century, Rouge is 18th century, Garage is 20th century.
> 
> I commend you for looking up some actual data on this issue; I think it
> makes a pretty good case for your overall position, although this:
> 
> >Also from OotEL
> >French is the source of the voiced/voicless
> >contrast in the spirants, through s/z and f/v contrasts.  Indirectly this
> >may have opened up holes in the phonological system that made the T/D and
> >S/Z contrasts possible.
> 
> allows me to claim that I was partly right as well.  :)

Well yes and no.  Further reading found this hidden in the chapter before
phonological change.  Words like offrian (offer) in OE had doubled
consonants that were longer than single consonants and apparently always
unvoiced.  There also were similar doubled s as in cyssan (kiss).  Later
the extra length for these consonants was lost, but the unvoiced nature of
ff and ss was kept, creating intervocalic contrast between single s and f
(pronounced [z] and [v]
as in lose and love (was lufu).  Williams goes on to say "In fact this
probably occurred before we borrowed foreign words with initial /v/ and
/z/ sounds and before we lost final inflections at the ends of words that
left voiced and voiceless spirants in contrast there."

> 

So the (revised) sequence is:

1. (10th c?) Double consonants lose their length, creating contrast
between voiced and unvoiced spirants intervocallically.  /z/, /v/, and /D/
contrast with /s/, /f/, and /T/.  (The only example given is moththe
(moth)

2.  11-14th century Engish acquires INITIAL /z/ and /v/ from French. 

3. 14th-17th century through loss of endings and /zj/->/Z/ shift, English
 acquires contrasting S/Z (/S/ was previously acquired from /sk/), and
final /v/ /z/ and /D/

4. 18th- English borrows words with initial and final /Z/.

 
> Still no data on when the /u/ of words like 'measure' was weakened to /@/, 
> which is an essential part of the story.

It is correct that I found no precise description, but the spelling
pleshar for pleasure suggests it was already a neutral vowel by 1650.  It
is not essential since the vision-prison words also provide contrast.

 till then [S] and [Z] may still
> be allophones ([z] -> [Z] / V_u).  You were still missing this point in
> your other recent posting; the fact that there's no /u/ in 'measure' today
> doesn't tell us anything about its pronunciation in the 17th century.

The fact that American and British pronunciations agree tells me somthing.
The book I found (hanging around in my library) doesn't talk about
unstressed vowels.  Anyone know a more complete source?
> 
> However, the 17C spellings you cite do indicate that the new pronunciation
> was perceptually salient to English speakers, which is consistent with its 
> being phonemic.  (Spelling usually doesn't indicate allophonic variation.)
> 

Hadn't thought of that, good point.

Note that this means that no consonants were borrowed from French without
a native forerunner intervocalically.  This source represents ME French u
as
/iu/, presumably like the ew in few.  This leaves only oi as a borrowing
from French.

-- 
R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
