2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Studies in the diachronic quantitative changes of English vowels
| Project/Area Number |
23520589
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
English linguistics
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| Research Institution | Seitoku University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2011 – 2013
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| Keywords | 古英語 / 中英語 / 音量変化 / 子音連結 / 開音節 / 代償長化 / 有声阻害音 / 伸長 |
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| Research Abstract |
We ascribe the lengthening of stressed short vowels preceding the homorganic consonant clusters such as -ld, -rd, -nd to stretching of vowel quantity caused only by the following voiced obstruents but not by the clusters, whic leads us to make satisfactory explanations to the various problems involved in the lengthening in question.
As for the lengthening of stressed vowels in open syllables of disyllabic words we assume a process of two stages, tha is, compensatory lengthening as an outcome of the change of unstressed vowels with full quality into schwa and also a compensatory lengthening caused by the subsequent loss of schwa, which enables us to solve several problems such as the later shortening of the lengthened vowels, the periodical differences of the lengthening, and the dialectal differences of the lengthening.
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