English questions

[Sol717]

The deletion of word-final u in Old English was weight sensitive. U was retained in scipu, where it was preceded by a single light syllable, but deleted in wordu > word, where it was preceded by a heavy syllable. Deletion also applied in stems consisting of two light syllables (which are not that common iirc).

Oh I see. So Old English at some point had "scipu" but "word". Is "wordu" attested at all, or is it simply reconstructed?

I don't believe *wordu is attested. The retention of heavy-syllable /u/ may be attested elsewhere; the Franks Casket possibly retains it in ᚠᛚᚩᛞᚢ flōdu (classical OE flōd), though such a retention would problematise the sequencing of other OE sound changes.

[Raphael]

What, exactly, do English speakers mean when they describe a place as "cavernous"? Online dictionaries give definitions like "cavern-like" or "cave-like", but that doesn't really help me much, because I don't really understand what's meant by that, either. Does it mean big? Small? High-ceilinged? Low-ceilinged? With lots of hidden corners and alcoves? I assume it doesn't mean "equipped with stalactites and stalagmites", right?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

What, exactly, do English speakers mean when they describe a place as "cavernous"? Online dictionaries give definitions like "cavern-like" or "cave-like", but that doesn't really help me much, because I don't really understand what's meant by that, either. Does it mean big? Small? High-ceilinged? Low-ceilinged? With lots of hidden corners and alcoves? I assume it doesn't mean "equipped with stalactites and stalagmites", right?

When I speak of something "cavernous", I think of a somewhere spacious, with a high ceiling, possibly vaulted or in some way cavern-like, but also that it gives one the impression of being in a literal cavern — with some sort of idea of dimness, dampness, perhaps some sort of eerie or watery sound. The most relevant element is the large size of the place, however.

[zompist]

What, exactly, do English speakers mean when they describe a place as "cavernous"?

Primarily "enormous", with perhaps an implication of "dark" or "confusing".

[linguistcat]

What, exactly, do English speakers mean when they describe a place as "cavernous"? Online dictionaries give definitions like "cavern-like" or "cave-like", but that doesn't really help me much, because I don't really understand what's meant by that, either. Does it mean big? Small? High-ceilinged? Low-ceilinged? With lots of hidden corners and alcoves? I assume it doesn't mean "equipped with stalactites and stalagmites", right?

Agreed with the above. Caverns are specifically large caves or chambers of caves, so I feel like whoever translated or defined it as cave-like was doing a disservice.

[Travis B.]

I agree with all of the above - cavernous means cavern-like and not simply cave-like, with caverns being large openings within caves, typically with tall ceilings, while caves themselves need not be cavernous. Of course cavernous also indicates other qualities, as mentioned, such as being dark and damp.

[Raphael]

Thank you, everyone!

[Raphael]

I'm currently reading zompist's Middle East Construction Kit, and it led me to re-read some Biblical passages, and this, in turn, reminded me of the habit of some English Bible translations to put the word "LORD" in ALL CAPS. Not necessarily surprising, given how important that title is, but I find it interesting that the word "God" usually isn't put in ALL CAPS, even when the word "LORD" is: "I am the LORD thy God".

Something similar seems to be the case in some German Bible translations with the word "HERR", but not the word "Gott". This seems to indicate that the convention isn't an English-only thing.

So, who decided on this? I assume it can't have been that way in the original Biblical Hebrew, given that that language doesn't seem to have capital letters, right? Or am I wrong on that?

[Ares Land]

LORD, in all caps, is used where the Hebrew has YHWH, the Tetragrammaton. (I don't know if Hebrew uses any special typography, I do know they mark the vowels of Adonai 'lord'). 'Lord', not in small caps, is used for adonai (just plain 'lord')

[bradrn]

LORD, in all caps, is used where the Hebrew has YHWH, the Tetragrammaton. (I don't know if Hebrew uses any special typography, I do know they mark the vowels of Adonai 'lord'). 'Lord', not in small caps, is used for adonai (just plain 'lord')

Checking my Chumash, I can’t see any special typography for the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew. The English, however, always translates it as Lᴏʀᴅ. (In contrast to Elohim, which gets translated as ‘God’. I can’t find any instances of lowercase ‘Lord’.)

[Ares Land]

Some examples here:
https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/god-yhwh ... d-LORD.htm

[zompist]

One neat fact that didn't make it into the book: the Dead Sea Scrolls wrote YHWH in a different script— the paleo-Hebrew letterforms as opposed to the normal square script.

See here (search for "Dead Sea") for examples.

[bradrn]

Recently I encountered someone who pronounces the word palm differently when standalone vs. when used as part of the compound palm tree. (The vowel in the latter sounds a bit more closed, I think.) Does anyone else have this distinction?

[bradrn]

I’ve come to the conclusion that English native vocabulary is sesquisyllabic, with a postsyllable inventory of /m̩ n̩ r̩ l̩ j̩/.¹ I can find several arguments for this analysis: English displays a pattern where syllabic consonants are allowed only as the nucleus of the syllable after the stressed syllable, and are completely barred from stress. Such consonants display an ambiguity between syllabic consonants and syllables with schwa (or other vowels) which is well known from more ‘traditional’ sesquisyllabic languages. Furthermore, words made to sound stereotypically ‘English’, as found in e.g. nonsense poems, disproportionally contain words with a posttonic syllabic consonant — nonsense poems can have such words at rates approaching 50 %.

In fact, I can’t think of any good arguments against this analysis. Can anyone think of a convincing reason why English native vocabulary is not sesquisyllabic?


___________________
¹The inclusion of /j̩/ here might be a bit controversial, but think it’s justified due to its unusual phonetics and frequency in native vocabulary — as well as its orthographical representation with ⟨y⟩.

[zompist]

I’ve come to the conclusion that English native vocabulary is sesquisyllabic, with a postsyllable inventory of /m̩ n̩ r̩ l̩ j̩/.¹ I can find several arguments for this analysis: English displays a pattern where syllabic consonants are allowed only as the nucleus of the syllable after the stressed syllable, and are completely barred from stress.

But syllabic consonants can be stressed: cult, vulture, adultery, bird, demurred, nervous. IMD at least, the /r̩/ in Bert, Albert sound exactly the same.

(I can't think of any stressed m̩ n̩ though, except interjections like um and mmhmm.)

I don't know what you mean by /j̩/; can you provide examples?

Also, the typical native word is certainly not sesquisyllabic, but monosyllabic.

[bradrn]

I’ve come to the conclusion that English native vocabulary is sesquisyllabic, with a postsyllable inventory of /m̩ n̩ r̩ l̩ j̩/.¹ I can find several arguments for this analysis: English displays a pattern where syllabic consonants are allowed only as the nucleus of the syllable after the stressed syllable, and are completely barred from stress.

But syllabic consonants can be stressed: cult, vulture, adultery, bird, demurred, nervous. IMD at least, the /r̩/ in Bert, Albert sound exactly the same.

I see no syllabic consonant in /ˈkʌlt/, and no stressed syllabic consonant in /ˈvʌltʃr̩/. You’re quite right about /ˈbr̩d/, /dəˈmr̩d/, /ˈnr̩vəs/ though. I’m not quite sure about adultery, since it could be either /əˈdʌltr̩ˌj̩/ or /əˈdʌltr̩ˌiː/. However, I note that there are no unambiguous examples which do not involve /r̩/.

I don't know what you mean by /j̩/; can you provide examples?

I mean the HAPPY-vowel.

Also, the typical native word is certainly not sesquisyllabic, but monosyllabic.

Most ‘sesquisyllabic’ languages are also largely monosyllabic. And there are plenty of words following the pattern: addle, adder, bagel, bottle, bottom, button, candle, dappled, denim, fiddle, girdle, girder, haggle, happy…

[zompist]

I’ve come to the conclusion that English native vocabulary is sesquisyllabic, with a postsyllable inventory of /m̩ n̩ r̩ l̩ j̩/.¹ I can find several arguments for this analysis: English displays a pattern where syllabic consonants are allowed only as the nucleus of the syllable after the stressed syllable, and are completely barred from stress.

But syllabic consonants can be stressed: cult, vulture, adultery, bird, demurred, nervous. IMD at least, the /r̩/ in Bert, Albert sound exactly the same.

I see no syllabic consonant in /ˈkʌlt/, and no stressed syllabic consonant in /ˈvʌltʃr̩/. You’re quite right about /ˈbr̩d/, /dəˈmr̩d/, /ˈnr̩vəs/ though. I’m not quite sure about adultery, since it could be either /əˈdʌltr̩ˌj̩/ or /əˈdʌltr̩ˌiː/. However, I note that there are no unambiguous examples which do not involve /r̩/.

Well, you're talking about Australian English then. For me it's [kl̩t, vl̩tʃr̩].

(I can pronounce [kʌlt] as a phonetic exercise, but there is only one sound between the k and t in cult. By contrast kilt is [kɪɫt].)

I don't know what you mean by /j̩/; can you provide examples?

I mean the HAPPY-vowel.

It's just [i] for me. Do you have a different vowel in happiness?

[Travis B.]

For me (an NAE-speaker) like Zompist I can have syllabic /r/ in stressed syllables which is indistinguishable from unstressed syllabic /r/. Unlike Zompist I have a clear difference between stressed /ʌl/ or stressed /ʊl/ and unstressed syllabic /l/.

[Zju]

What is this syllabic /r/ you're all discussing? Doesn't <Vr> merely represent /ɚ ɝ/ in rhotic vernaculars? [kl̩t], too, doesn't sound like anything I've heard online.

[bradrn]

But syllabic consonants can be stressed: cult, vulture, adultery, bird, demurred, nervous. IMD at least, the /r̩/ in Bert, Albert sound exactly the same.

I see no syllabic consonant in /ˈkʌlt/, and no stressed syllabic consonant in /ˈvʌltʃr̩/. You’re quite right about /ˈbr̩d/, /dəˈmr̩d/, /ˈnr̩vəs/ though. I’m not quite sure about adultery, since it could be either /əˈdʌltr̩ˌj̩/ or /əˈdʌltr̩ˌiː/. However, I note that there are no unambiguous examples which do not involve /r̩/.

Well, you're talking about Australian English then. For me it's [kl̩t, vl̩tʃr̩].

(I can pronounce [kʌlt] as a phonetic exercise, but there is only one sound between the k and t in cult. By contrast kilt is [kɪɫt].)

I used phonemic transcription for a reason — it comes out more as [kɔwt] for me. It’s definitely not /kl̩t/ [kut] though.

EDIT: I’ve found what seems to be an example in my dialect: the surname Milner, pronounced /ˈml̩nr̩/ [ˈmuˑnɐ]. But I’m not sure how good this example is, since for me it can also be /ˈmɪlnr̩/ [ˈmɪwnɐ].

I don't know what you mean by /j̩/; can you provide examples?

I mean the HAPPY-vowel.

It's just [i] for me. Do you have a different vowel in happiness?

Well, it’s just [i] for me also. But it’s a strange vowel — for a start, it’s [ɪ] for a number of people, making it basically the only short vowel occurring in unambiguously open syllables. See also Wikipedia:

The phonemic status of this [i] is not easy to establish. Some authors consider it to correspond phonemically with a close front vowel that is neither the vowel of KIT nor that of FLEECE; it occurs chiefly in contexts where the contrast between these vowels is neutralized, implying that it represents an archiphoneme, which may be written /i/. Many speakers, however, do have a contrast in pairs of words like studied and studded or taxis and taxes; the contrast may be [i] vs. [ɪ], [ɪ] vs. [ə] or [i] vs. [ə], hence some authors consider that the happY-vowel should be identified phonemically either with the vowel of KIT or that of FLEECE, depending on speaker.

For me (an NAE-speaker) like Zompist I can have syllabic /r/ in stressed syllables which is indistinguishable from unstressed syllabic /r/.

For me they are different — bird is [bəːd] whereas scabbard is [ˈskæbəd]. I begin to suspect that these are two different phonemes, merged in NAE.

What is this syllabic /r/ you're all discussing? Doesn't <Vr> merely represent /ɚ ɝ/ in rhotic vernaculars?

Yes, exactly — [ɚ] and [ɹ̩] are basically the same thing. I write /r̩/ because it’s easy to type, and to emphasise that it’s phonemic representation.

(Tangentially related: I’ve come to believe that IPA is unsuited for phonemic transcription, and that we should all be using Americanist notation for phonemic transcription and IPA for phonetic transcription. This seems to be an unpopular opinion.)