The foot in the history of English: challenges to metrical coherence
Dresher & Lahiri (1991) propose that Old English displays ‘metrical coherence’: different phonological processes are sensitive to the same metrical structure. We consider how English has dealt with challenges to metrical coherence. We show that the resolved moraic trochee, assumed to characteriz...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Book section |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
John Benjamins Publishing Company
2022
|
| _version_ | 1797109221221728256 |
|---|---|
| author | Dresher, BE Lahiri, A |
| author2 | Los, B |
| author_facet | Los, B Dresher, BE Lahiri, A |
| author_sort | Dresher, BE |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Dresher & Lahiri (1991) propose that Old English displays ‘metrical coherence’: different phonological processes are sensitive to the same metrical structure. We consider how English has dealt with challenges to metrical coherence. We show that the resolved moraic trochee, assumed to characterize the early Old English foot (Bermúdez-Otero manuscript; Goering 2016a, b), became untenable after the shortening of unstressed vowels, arguing that this stage of Old English, at least, requires the Germanic Foot, an extended and resolved trochee. After 1570 (Lahiri 2015) the direction of parsing changed from left-to-right to right-to-left when the number of Latin loanwords with stress-affecting suffixes had passed a threshold derived from Yang’s Tolerance Principle (Yang 2016). This change reestablished the metrical coherence that had been disrupted by these words. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:37:24Z |
| format | Book section |
| id | oxford-uuid:131a36e8-7948-4d61-9da4-113dd4359798 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:37:24Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:131a36e8-7948-4d61-9da4-113dd43597982023-03-31T12:09:09ZThe foot in the history of English: challenges to metrical coherenceBook sectionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_1843uuid:131a36e8-7948-4d61-9da4-113dd4359798EnglishSymplectic ElementsJohn Benjamins Publishing Company2022Dresher, BELahiri, ALos, BCowie, CHoneybone, PTrousdale, GDresher & Lahiri (1991) propose that Old English displays ‘metrical coherence’: different phonological processes are sensitive to the same metrical structure. We consider how English has dealt with challenges to metrical coherence. We show that the resolved moraic trochee, assumed to characterize the early Old English foot (Bermúdez-Otero manuscript; Goering 2016a, b), became untenable after the shortening of unstressed vowels, arguing that this stage of Old English, at least, requires the Germanic Foot, an extended and resolved trochee. After 1570 (Lahiri 2015) the direction of parsing changed from left-to-right to right-to-left when the number of Latin loanwords with stress-affecting suffixes had passed a threshold derived from Yang’s Tolerance Principle (Yang 2016). This change reestablished the metrical coherence that had been disrupted by these words. |
| spellingShingle | Dresher, BE Lahiri, A The foot in the history of English: challenges to metrical coherence |
| title | The foot in the history of English: challenges to metrical coherence |
| title_full | The foot in the history of English: challenges to metrical coherence |
| title_fullStr | The foot in the history of English: challenges to metrical coherence |
| title_full_unstemmed | The foot in the history of English: challenges to metrical coherence |
| title_short | The foot in the history of English: challenges to metrical coherence |
| title_sort | foot in the history of english challenges to metrical coherence |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT dresherbe thefootinthehistoryofenglishchallengestometricalcoherence AT lahiria thefootinthehistoryofenglishchallengestometricalcoherence AT dresherbe footinthehistoryofenglishchallengestometricalcoherence AT lahiria footinthehistoryofenglishchallengestometricalcoherence |