Prosody and Deletion in Early English

Prosody and Deletion in Early English

It has been generally agreed that phonological weakening processes tend to occur to weak positions whereas strengthening processes are more likely to take place in strong positions (Beckman 1998, de Lacy 2001, Kirchner 1998, among others). In the diachronic study of phonology, prosodic markedness of phonological positions has also been explored(Macken & Salmons 1997, Holsinger 2000, Smith 2003). In line with this view, a number of phonological changes are motivated by prosodic strength or weakness of phonological positions within the domain of prosodic units. This paper can be seen as an extension and refinement of the approach. The main purpose of this paper is to argue that there exists relative prosodic strength among phonological positions within the domain of a prosodic unit (a bomoraic trochee) and that phonological changes refer to their relative prosodic strength. It is shown that phonological weakening processes tend to affect first a consonant in the weakest position and then the phonological contexts for the following weakening processes expand to the next stronger position. In order to illustrate this tendency, I provide an analysis of /h/-deletion in Old and Middle English at the prosodic foot level. /h/ has a history of its graded disappearance from Old English until now. I show that the relative chronology of /h/-deletion in early English depends to a great extent on the strength relation among phonological positions concerned within the domain of the prosodic foot.