Re: English Haplology and Degemination (was meaning of the Germanic

At 6:37:48 PM on Friday, February 29, 2008, Richard
Wordingham wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>> Oh, come on. "Prob'ly" is so common that it gets recorded
>> by pronouncing dictionaries. So is "particu'ly". Of
>> course it's hard to distinguish "abrupt haplology" (bVbV
>> --> bV) from "syncope cum degemination" (bVbV --> bbV -->
>> bV) especially if the first vowel is unstressed, but it's
>> the effect that counts. I've heard "parall'ism" more than
>> once, and here vowel loss with degemination is unlikely,
>> since the haplologically (or should I say "haplogically")
>> lost vowel is full in the original form.

> This is a different route to the one I had in mind. In
> what follows, I will transliterate IPA to X-SAMPA.

<groan>

> You are describing a development from /prQb&b&li:/ (and
> similar), which leaves the intermediate stage /prQb&li:/.
> I was talking of /prQb&bli:/ > /prQbbli:/ > /prQbli:/. The
> syncopation is regular in my speech. Notice that the
> degemination is happening in a cluster of three or more
> consonants.

> Peter Gray's examples of "lib'ry" <library> and "Feb'ry"
> <February> need not be haplology - they are parallel to
> the common homophony of <secretary> and <sectary>, where
> /r&/ has vocalised (after syncopation?) as /&/ (/r/ and
> /&/ seem to function as a semivowel-vowel pair in
> non-rhotic English), and then been (further?) syncopated.
> A simpler explanation of "lib'ry" is that it is also
> syncopation followed by degemination. <February> also has
> the natural development route */febrjU&ri:/ > /febjU&ri:/
> > /febj&ri:/

This step isn't particularly natural: the previous stage is
['fEbjU,(w)Eri] or the like

> > /febri:/. The first stage may actually be <February> >
> <Febuary> - the latter is a common misspelling.

I'd be very much surprised if it were by way of your starred
form: [rjU] is pretty unlikely even for those varieties
(like mine) that have [njU]~[n^U], [djU]~[d^U], etc.

> I don't think "parall'ism" is as clear case as it may
> seem. <parallel> may be pronounced as a single foot,
> /"p{r&l&l/,

While I don't doubt that it has been, I've never heard it so
pronounced, however. In my experience it always has
secondary stress on the final syllable, ['pEr&,lEl] or
['pær&,lEl], which makes the rest of the derivation rather
less likely.

> in which case /"p{r&l%lIz&m/ (% = secondary stress) and
> /"p{r&l&%lIz&m/ are obvious pronunciations of
> <parallelism>, so degemination is again a possibility,
> though less compelling than before.

Brian