LINGUIST List 13.978

Tue Apr 9 2002

Qs: Great V Shift, Eng Syllable Shape Frequencies

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

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Directory

  1. Cornelia Gerhardt, The Great Vowel Shift
  2. Dr Martin J. Ball, Syllable shape frequencies in English

Message 1: The Great Vowel Shift

 Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 14:57:01 +0200
From: Cornelia Gerhardt <c.gerhardtmx.uni-saarland.de>
Subject: The Great Vowel Shift

Dear fellow linguists,

I am looking for publications that discuss the following
sociolinguistic explanation of what caused the Great Vowel Shift in
English (see Jeremy Smith. 1996. An historical study of English:
Function, form and change. London: Routledge.) To put it in a
nutshell, the trigger was that East-Anglians and the 'Mopsae'
hyperadapted certain features of upper-class London speech.

Thank you for bibliographical information or your opinion,
I'll post a summary.

Cornelia Gerhardt
Lehrstuhl f�r englische Sprachwissenschaft
Universit�t des Saarlandes, Saarbr�cken, Germany

c.gerhardtmx.uni-saarland.de
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Message 2: Syllable shape frequencies in English

 Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 08:59:11 -0500
From: Dr Martin J. Ball <mjb0372louisiana.edu>
Subject: Syllable shape frequencies in English

I wonder if colleagues could point me towards any references on
syllable shape frequencies in English (any variety)? Specifically I
want to know the relative frequency in representative texts of open as
opposed to closed syllables; and for closed syllables I wish to find
out the relative frequency of final stops, fricatives, nasals and
liquids.
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