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En[dj]uring [ʧ]unes or ma[tj]ure [ʤ]ukes? Yod-coalescence and yod-dropping in the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2020

JOAN C. BEAL ,
RANJAN SEN Open the ORCID record for RANJAN SEN [Opens in a new window] ,
NURIA YÁÑEZ-BOUZA  and
CHRISTINE WALLIS Open the ORCID record for CHRISTINE WALLIS [Opens in a new window]
JOAN C. BEAL
Affiliation:
9 Les Coudrais, 22150Plouguenast, [email protected]
RANJAN SEN
Affiliation:
School of English, The University of Sheffield, Jessop West, 1 Upper Hanover Street, SheffieldS3 7RA, United [email protected]
NURIA YÁÑEZ-BOUZA
Affiliation:
Facultade de Filoloxía e Tradución, Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, Pontevedra, E-36310, [email protected]
CHRISTINE WALLIS
Affiliation:
School of English, The University of Sheffield, Jessop West, 1 Upper Hanover Street, SheffieldS3 7RA, United [email protected]
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Abstract

Yod-coalescence involving alveolar consonants before Late Modern English /uː/ from earlier /iu > juː/ is still variable and diffusing in Present-day English. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives both (/tj dj/) and (/ʧ ʤ/) British English pronunciations for tune (/tjuːn/, /tʃuːn/), mature (/mǝˈtjʊǝ/, /mǝˈʧʊǝ/), duke (/djuːk/, /dʒuːk/) and endure (/ᵻnˈdjʊə/, /ɛnˈdjʊə/, /ᵻnˈdʒʊə/, /ɛnˈdʒʊə/, /ᵻnˈdjɔː/, /ɛnˈdjɔː/, /ᵻnˈdʒɔː/, /ɛnˈdʒɔː/). Extensive variability in yod-coalescence and yod-dropping is not recent in origin, and we can already detect relevant patterns in the eighteenth century from the evidence of a range of pronouncing dictionaries. Beal (1996, 1999) notes a tendency for northern English and Scottish authors to be more conservative with regard to yod-coalescence. She concludes that we require ‘a comprehensive survey of the many pronouncing dictionaries and other works on pronunciation’ (1996: 379) to gain more insight into the historical variation patterns underlying Present-day English.

This article presents some results from such a ‘comprehensive survey’: the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP). Transcriptions of all relevant words located are compared across a range of eighteenth-century sources in order to determine the chronology of yod-coalescence and yod-dropping as well as internal (e.g. stress, phoneme type, presence of a following /r/) and external (e.g. prescriptive, geographical, social) motivations for these developments.

Keywords

eighteenth-century Englishhistorical phonologyyod-coalescenceyod-droppingpronouncing dictionaries
Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 24 , Special Issue 3: Studies in Late Modern English historical phonology using the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP) , September 2020 , pp. 493 - 526
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

References

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Burn, John. 1786. A pronouncing dictionary of the English language, 2nd edn.Glasgow.Google Scholar
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Kenrick, William. 1773. A new dictionary of the English language. London.Google Scholar
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Spence, Thomas. 1775. The grand repository of the English language. Newcastle.Google Scholar
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Beal, Joan C. 2020. ‘A received pronunciation’: Eighteenth-century pronouncing dictionaries and the precursors of RP. In Kytö, Merja & Smitterberg, Erik (eds.), Late Modern English: Novel encounters, 22–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Carter, Paul. 2003. Extrinsic phonetic interpretation: Spectral variation in English liquids. In Local, John, Ogden, Richard & Temple, Rosalind (eds.), Papers in laboratory phonology 6: Phonetic interpretation, 237–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
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Dobson, Eric J. 1957. English pronunciation 1500–1700, vol. II: Phonology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
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Elphinston, James. 1786–7. Propriety ascertained in her picture; or, Inglish speech and spelling rendered mutual guides, 2 vols. London: John Water.Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond. 2012. Standard Irish English. In Hickey, Raymond (ed.), Standards of English: Codified varieties around the world, 96–116. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honeybone, Patrick. 2012. Lenition in English. In Nevalainen, Terttu & Traugott, Elizabeth C. (eds), The Oxford handbook of the history of English, 773–87. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, Arthur, Trudgill, Peter & Watt, Dominic. 2012. English accents and dialects, 5th edn.London: Hodder Education.Google Scholar
Jones, Charles. 1989. A history of English phonology. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Michael, Ian. 1970. English grammatical categories and the tradition to 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 2014. A historical phonology of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
OED = Oxford English Dictionary, online edition. www.oed.com.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J. 1983. The origin of sound patterns in vocal tract constraints. In MacNeilage, Peter F. (ed.), The production of speech, 189–216. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Betty S. 2001. Lexical diffusion, lexical frequency, and lexical analysis. In Bybee, Joan L. & Hopper, Paul J. (eds), Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure, 123–36. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Peter. 2004. Sheridan, Thomas. In The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25371 (accessed 1 July 2019).Google Scholar
Trapateau, Nicolas. 2016. ‘Pedantick’, ‘polite’, or ‘vulgar’? A systematic analysis of eighteenth-century normative discourse on pronunciation in John Walker's dictionary (1791). Language & History 59(1), 25–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, William S.-Y. 1969. Competing changes as a cause of residue. Language 45(1), 9–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, J. C. 1982. Accents of English, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria. 2020. ECEP: Historical corpora, historical phonology and historical pronouncing dictionaries. English Language and Linguistics 24(3), 475–92.Google Scholar
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria, Beal, Joan C., Sen, Ranjan & Wallis, Christine. 2018. ‘Proper’ pro-nun-ʃha-ʃhun in eighteenth-century English: ECEP as a new tool for the study of historical phonology and dialectology. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 33(1), 203–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, James. 1757. Linguae Britannicae vera pronunciatio: or, A new English dictionary. London.Google Scholar
Burn, John. 1786. A pronouncing dictionary of the English language, 2nd edn.Glasgow.Google Scholar
Johnston, William. 1764. A pronouncing and spelling dictionary. London.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 1797. Genuine edition. Sheridan improved: A general pronouncing and explanatory dictionary of the English language, 2nd edn.London.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 1798. Sheridan improved: A general pronouncing and explanatory dictionary of the English language, 3rd edn.London.Google Scholar
Kenrick, William. 1773. A new dictionary of the English language. London.Google Scholar
Perry, William. 1775. The royal standard English dictionary. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Scott, William. 1786. A new spelling, pronouncing, and explanatory dictionary of the English language. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Sheridan, Thomas. 1780. A general dictionary of the English language. London.Google Scholar
Spence, Thomas. 1775. The grand repository of the English language. Newcastle.Google Scholar
Walker, John. 1791. A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language. London.Google Scholar
Anonymous. 1790. A caution to gentlemen who use Sheridan's dictionary. To which are added, for the assistance of foreigners and natives, select rules for pronouncing English with precision and elegance. London.Google Scholar
ARCHER 3.2. A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers version 3.2. 2013. Originally compiled under the supervision of Douglas Biber and Edward Finegan at Northern Arizona University and University of Southern California; modified and expanded by subsequent members of a consortium of universities. Current member universities are Bamberg, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Helsinki, Lancaster, Leicester, Manchester, Michigan, Northern Arizona, Santiago de Compostela, Southern California, Trier, Uppsala, Zurich. www.manchester.ac.uk/archer (accessed January 2015).Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 1996. The Jocks and the Geordies: Modified standards in eighteenth-century pronouncing dictionaries. In Britton, Derek (ed.), English historical linguistics 1994: Papers from the 8th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Edinburgh, 19–23 September 1994, 363–82. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 1999. English pronunciation in the eighteenth century: Thomas Spence's Grand repository of the English language (1775). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 2003. John Walker: Prescriptivist or linguistic innovator? In Dossena, Marina & Jones, Charles (eds.), Insights into Late Modern English, 83–106. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 2020. ‘A received pronunciation’: Eighteenth-century pronouncing dictionaries and the precursors of RP. In Kytö, Merja & Smitterberg, Erik (eds.), Late Modern English: Novel encounters, 22–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beal, Joan C. & Sen, Ranjan. 2014. Towards a corpus of eighteenth-century English phonology. In Davidse, Kristin, Gentens, Caroline, Kimps, Ditte & Vandelanotte, Lieven (eds.), Recent advances in corpus linguistics: Developing and exploiting corpora, 31–53. Amsterdam: Rodopi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boswell, James. 1791. The life of Samuel Johnson LLD. London. [Ed. Hill, George Birkbeck, 1934. Oxford: Clarendon Press.]Google Scholar
Carter, Paul. 2003. Extrinsic phonetic interpretation: Spectral variation in English liquids. In Local, John, Ogden, Richard & Temple, Rosalind (eds.), Papers in laboratory phonology 6: Phonetic interpretation, 237–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carter, Paul & Local, John. 2007. F2 variation in Newcastle and Leeds English liquid systems. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37, 183–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Matthew Y. & Wang, William S.-Y.. 1975. Sound change: Actuation and implementation. Language 51(2), 255–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Christopher. 1687. The English teacher, or a discovery of the art of teaching and learning the English tongue. London. [Ed. Bertil Sundby, 1953. Lund Studies in English 22, Lund.]Google Scholar
Dobson, Eric J. 1957. English pronunciation 1500–1700, vol. II: Phonology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP). 2015. Compiled by Beal, Joan C., Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria, Sen, Ranjan & Wallis, Christine (The University of Sheffield and Universidade de Vigo). Published by the Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield. www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/ecep/Google Scholar
Elphinston, James. 1786–7. Propriety ascertained in her picture; or, Inglish speech and spelling rendered mutual guides, 2 vols. London: John Water.Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond. 2012. Standard Irish English. In Hickey, Raymond (ed.), Standards of English: Codified varieties around the world, 96–116. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honeybone, Patrick. 2012. Lenition in English. In Nevalainen, Terttu & Traugott, Elizabeth C. (eds), The Oxford handbook of the history of English, 773–87. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, Arthur, Trudgill, Peter & Watt, Dominic. 2012. English accents and dialects, 5th edn.London: Hodder Education.Google Scholar
Jones, Charles. 1989. A history of English phonology. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Michael, Ian. 1970. English grammatical categories and the tradition to 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Minkova, Donka. 2014. A historical phonology of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
OED = Oxford English Dictionary, online edition. www.oed.com.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J. 1983. The origin of sound patterns in vocal tract constraints. In MacNeilage, Peter F. (ed.), The production of speech, 189–216. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Betty S. 2001. Lexical diffusion, lexical frequency, and lexical analysis. In Bybee, Joan L. & Hopper, Paul J. (eds), Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure, 123–36. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Peter. 2004. Sheridan, Thomas. In The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25371 (accessed 1 July 2019).Google Scholar
Trapateau, Nicolas. 2016. ‘Pedantick’, ‘polite’, or ‘vulgar’? A systematic analysis of eighteenth-century normative discourse on pronunciation in John Walker's dictionary (1791). Language & History 59(1), 25–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, William S.-Y. 1969. Competing changes as a cause of residue. Language 45(1), 9–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, J. C. 1982. Accents of English, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria. 2020. ECEP: Historical corpora, historical phonology and historical pronouncing dictionaries. English Language and Linguistics 24(3), 475–92.Google Scholar
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria, Beal, Joan C., Sen, Ranjan & Wallis, Christine. 2018. ‘Proper’ pro-nun-ʃha-ʃhun in eighteenth-century English: ECEP as a new tool for the study of historical phonology and dialectology. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 33(1), 203–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar