Consonant Change in English Worldwide Synchrony Meets Diachrony

by Schreier, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9781403998248
• ISBN10: 1403998248
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-03
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Applying insights from variationist linguistics to historical change mechanisms that have affected the consonantal system of English, Daniel Schreier reports findings from a historical corpus-based study on the reduction of particular consonant clusters and compares them with similar processes in synchronic varieties, thus defining consonantal change as a phenomenon involving psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, phonological theory and contact linguistics. Moreover, he weighs the impact of external and internal effects on causation, examining data from a total of fifteen varieties with different time depths and social histories.

Author Biography

Daniel Schreier is currently Assistant Professor for English Historical Linguistics, University of Berne, Switzerland.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	ix
List of Figures	xi
Acknowledgements	xiii
List of Abbreviations	xv
1 Introduction	1	(15)
1.1 Phonotactic language change: an interdisciplinary approach	5	(7)
1.2 Scope, outline and structure	12	(4)
2 Consonant Clusters: General Observations	16	(40)
2.1 Consonant clusters and syllable structure	18	(21)
2.2 Change and adaptation mechanisms	39	(6)
2.3 Causes and motivations: a first approach	45	(9)
2.4 Conclusion	54	(2)
3 Initial Cluster Reduction in English	56	(70)
3.1 Historical loss of initial clusters in British English	58	(24)
3.2 /hw-/>/w-/ in post-colonial English, with special reference to New Zealand	82	(31)
3.3 Initial cluster loss in language contact conditions	113	(9)
3.4 Conclusion	122	(4)
4 Final Cluster Reduction in English	126	(72)
4.1 A typology of consonant cluster reduction in English, revisited	129	(8)
4.2 Four case studies: final CCR in New Zealand and South Atlantic English	137	(21)
4.3 Final CCR in English around the world: a comparative analysis	158	(38)
4.4 Word-final CCR in English: summary	196	(2)
5 Theoretical Implications	198	(23)
5.1 Variation and differentiation	198	(14)
5.2 Implications for language change	212	(5)
5.3 A psycholinguistic explanation?	217	(4)
6 Summary and Conclusion	221	(5)
Notes	226	(4)
References	230	(14)
Index	244