A major restructuring in the English consonant system: the de-linearization of [h] and the de-consonantization of [w] and [j]

Abstract

This article deals in outline with two interrelated aspects of the history of English phonology: aspects that are argued here to involve the loss of contrastive linearization for /h/ and of consonantal status for /w/ and /j/. It is suggested that these histories are clarified if proper attention is paid to contrastivity: it is necessary to identify those aspects of phonological representation which are contrastive, both segmentally and sequentially. Contrastive status can change. In this case, it is proposed here that the position of /h/ in a word has come to be noncontrastive, and that [w] and [j] are no longer contrastively consonantal, but sequential variants of their full-vowel congeners. The characterization of these restructurings involves the recognition of changing patterns of contrastivity. And, crucially, contrastivity involves not just paradigmatic distinctions between segments but also syntagmatic relations between them.