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THE DECLINE OF THE FOOT AS A SUPERSYLLABIC MORA‐COUNTING UNIT IN EARLY GERMANIC 1
Author(s) -
SUZUKI SEIICHI
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-968x.1995.tb00439.x
Subject(s) - syllabic verse , syllable , foot (prosody) , mora , germanic languages , linguistics , history , german , philosophy
This paper examines how change in prosodic organization determined the course of segmental phonological change in early Germanic, with reference to the following three processes: (i) the development of Sievers' law in Gothic; (ii) i ‐umlaut in Old Norse; (iii) the shortening of unstressed long vowels in Old English. With the decline of the foot as a super syllabic mora‐counting unit of prosodic organization in favor of a strictly syllable‐based organization, Sievers' law extended the use of /ji/at the expense of /i:/in Gothic; Old Norse i ‐umlaut lost the original sensitivity to morale structure; Old English shortening of unstressed long syllables generalized to operate on those vowels that had originally served as a foot constituent.