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1. The Middle-Germanic quantity shift.
1.1. Lengthening (CV-CV> CVC:V, CV:CV).
The first step in the development of the Scandinavian prosodic structure is the so-called Middle-Germanic quantity shift, which was realised both in form of vowel lengthening in open syllables (c.f. Old Swedish vita /vita/ Modern Swedish veta /ve:ta/) as well as in the lengthening of consonants, c.f. Swedish vecka, skott – Old Swedish vika, skot. As a result of this development the combination short vowel + short consonant disappears. Phonologically speaking, this quantity shift constitutes a syntagmatic change in which there was no emergence of a new type, but an increase in the number of the already existing ones at the expense of the ones that disappeared. Short-syllabic words became long-syllabic (CVCV> CV:CV or CVC:V) and thus identical in their prosodic structure to the originally long-syllabic ones (cf. Swedish vika>vecka /vεk:a/, prosodically like väcka /vεk:a/; vita>veta /ve:ta/, prosodically like beta /be:ta/). This development may be depicted as follows:
|
r o o t | ||||
|
onset |
Nucleus mora |
coda mora |
onset (extra-metrical) |
vowel of the second syllabe mora |
|
C |
V |
- |
C |
V |
|
Swedish | ||||
|
v |
i |
- |
k |
a |
|
v |
i |
- |
t |
a |
|
become | ||||
|
v |
e |
k |
k |
a |
|
v |
e |
e |
t |
a |
This syntagmatic change, however, has triggered a paradigmatic change and the emergence of a new correlation – the mutual dependence of the vocalic and consonantal quantity that I will call isochrony (following Martinet 1955). Originally short root syllables now consist of two moras, either one bimoraic vowel or monomoraic vowel + monomoraic consonant in coda position. The metrical equivalence V:=VC becomes visible, for instance, in syllabification, cf. Swedish /fi:-na/ vs. /fin-na/. There is now, however, no paradigmatic mora counting, i.e. no opposition monomoraic – bimoraic in identical prosodic position as was the case in the Old Scandinavian languages (cf. CV:-CV vs CV-CV), but only syntagmatic mora counting (CV:- =CVC-). The shift of quantity has led to a coincidence of stress and bimoraicity (long = stressed, short = unstressed) and to a prosodic emphasis on the root morpheme. In this process, all roots have turned bimoraic, while the inflections stayed monomoraic (Kusmenko 1995).
The root-closing consonant, which had been a syllable onset (vi-ka), has in the process of consonant lengthening become syllable- and morpheme-closing (vek-ka). This shift of the morpheme-closing consonant to the root syllable constitutes a change whichthe prosodic structure of the root underwent in all Germanic languages, as we shall see later.
It is an important characteristic of Scandinavian isochrony that the root syllables are not only identical in their moraic structure but also end in an extrametrical unit, i.e. the morpheme-closing consonant becomes a syllable onset if followed by a vowel (as in Swedish /fin-na, fii-na, vek-ka, vee-ka/).
In monosyllabic words like fin /fi:n/ or finn /fin:/ which look trimoraic, the last consonant is potentially extrametrical:
|
onset |
nucleus |
coda |
potential onset |
|
f |
i |
n |
n – potentially extrametrical (cf.fin-na) |
|
f |
i |
i |
n – potentially extrametrical (cf. fi:-na) |
In the course of this process, vowels have been lengthened in words of the structure CVCV in most Germanic languages, i.e. the coda came to contain an additional vocalic mora (in the West Germanic languages and varieties as well as in Danish, Icelandic, Faeroese, West Norwegian and several Swedish varieties). The lengthening of formerly short-syllabic words in other Indo-European languages proves the naturalness of vowel lengthening (cf. e.g. the development CVCV>CV:CV in Italian, e.g. grave, fede, lupo, nuovo < Lat. gravis, fides, lupos, novus). Consonant lengthening, on the other hand, is exceptional even in the Germanic languages (in West-Germanic languages it is only found in a few exceptional cases, most notably when the consonant, especially /t/ or /m/, preceded a syllable with a sonorant, as in Middle High German himmel, wetter). While consonant lengthening is the exception in most Germanic languages, there is an area in Scandinavia where it is either the only possible shift of quantity (as in Trøndelag in Norway: vækka < vika ‘week’, vætta < vita ‘to know’, tållå < tala ‘to speak’, bårrå < bora ‘to drill’), or where vowel lengthening is extremely rare and occurs only in words with /a/, as in the Svea varieties in Sweden.
This ‘unnatural’ development (consonant lengthening in open syllables) can hardly be regarded as the realisation of one of the two possible directions of development (vowel lengthening – consonant lengthening) but requires a separate explanation. I have tried to explain the exceptional consonant lengthening as an influence of the Sámi language (Kusmenko 2000). In the Sámi language, any short-syllabic noun, adjective or verb has, according to the so-called consonant gradation, an alternating form with a lengthened consonant (as, for example, nom. sg. namma –gen./acc.nama – nom. pl. namat ‘name’; borrat ‘to eat’ – boran – ‘I eat’; dahppat ‘to lock’ – dahpan ‘I lock’ etc.). This means that in the Scandinavian language of the Sámi short-syllabic words always had long-syllabic variants with long consonants. The possibility of such a development is proved by Scandinavian loanwords in the Sámi language, which either include a sole long consonant (i.e. they do not involve any consonant gradation), as in vahkko (Old Icelandic vika ‘week’), vihtta (Old Icelandic viti ‘mark, sign’), or which have both long and short syllabic forms according to consonant gradation (e.g. konno/ kono - Old Icelandic kona ‘woman’; smedda/smeda - Old Icelandic smiðr ‘smith’). The geographical distribution of consonant lengthening heightens the possibility of a Sámi influence. In Sweden, consonant lengthening is characteristic of the Svea varieties (especially the varieties of north-western Uppland)[1], while south-western varieties show vowel lengthening (e.g. Göta varieties) (cf. Svea variety posse, vecka, borra, vätta but Göta variety po:se, ve:ka, bo:ra, ve:ta). Consonant lengthening is characteristic of the varieties of eastern Norway, especially of Trøndelag, while south-western Norwegian and Danish varieties show vowel lengthening.