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Laryngeal enhancement in early Germanic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2004

Gregory K. Iverson  and
Joseph C. Salmons
Gregory K. Iverson
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Joseph C. Salmons
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Abstract

This paper builds on growing evidence that aspirated or fortis obstruents in languages like English and German are laryngeally marked, but that phonetic voicing in the (unmarked) unaspirated or lenis series is contextually determined. Employing the laryngeal feature set proposed by Halle & Stevens (1971), as incorporated into the ‘dimensional theory’ of laryngeal representation (Avery & Idsardi 2001, forthcoming), we develop an explicit account of this phonetic enhancement of phonological contrasts, which is widely known as ‘passive voicing’. We find that both passive voicing and inherent aspiration have been phonetic and phonological characteristics of the Germanic languages since the break-up of Indo-European, with laryngeally unmarked stops repeatedly enhanced by the gesture of [spread glottis]. A key implication of this view is that Verner's Law was not an innovation specifically of early Germanic, but rather is an automatic (ultimately phonologised) reflex of passive voicing, itself a ‘persistent change’ rising out of the enduring ‘base of articulation’ that came to characterise Germanic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Phonology , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , May 2003 , pp. 43 - 74
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Early partial versions of this paper were presented at the International Conference on Historical Linguistics in Melbourne and the Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference in Banff, and in talks at the Humboldt University in Berlin, the Linguistics Student Organisation at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Ohio State University during 2001 and 2002. We thank those audiences for many helpful comments and suggestions, and especially owe the following for comments on earlier drafts: Anthony Buccini, Morris Halle, Rob Howell, Michael Jessen, Brian Joseph, Monica Macaulay, Richard Page, Bert Vaux and the anonymous reviewers for this journal. All shortcomings naturally remain our own.