A structural approach to short diphthongs

• Authors: Karolina Hosang

Abstracts

EN

This study presents a potential solution to a long-standing question of the phonological representation of short diphthongs. Their mere existence in Old English, the West-Saxon dialect, in particular, has been a matter of great controversy among historical phonologists and beyond. Some attention has been paid to short diphthongs attested in Icelandic by structuralists and phoneticians. Additionally, glide emergence, where a short vowel is expected, seems to take place in the present- day Sursilvan dialect of the Romansh language. What these languages have in common is that diphthongs occur in specific contexts, namely, they are allowed before consonants that are marked by what might be defined as secondary articulation. In this paper, in order to account for the occurrence of short diphthongs in these contexts, I adopt a structural model of phonological representations whereby glide emergence is the result of the interplay between a weak, empty-headed onset and the preceding nucleus.

Keywords

EN

short diphthongs; phonological representation; West-Saxon; Sursilvan; Icelandic; Government Phonology 2.0

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Linguistica Silesiana
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 47-80

Dates

published

2023

Contributors

author

Karolina Hosang

• Institute of Linguistics John Paul II Catholic University, Lublin, Poland

• https://orcid.org/0000000312486661

Identifiers

DOI

10.24425/linsi.2023.146647

Biblioteka Nauki

56028778