Stress and quantity in Old and early Middle English

Stress and quantity in Old and early Middle English:Evidence for an optimality-theoretic model of language change

Ricardo Bermúdez-OteroUniversity of Manchester / Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

JULY, 1996

Dept of English Language and LiteratureThe Victoria University of Manchester

Oxford RdManchester M13 9PL

United Kingdom

e-mail: [email protected]: +44 (0)161 275 3256

-Comments most welcome-

Ricardo BERMÚDEZ-OTERO 2

* This paper reports research in progress towards Bermúdez-Otero (in preparation). It forms a complementary setwith Bermúdez-Otero (1996), which addresses related issues in Old and Middle English quantity. During its preparation,I have benefited from discussions with John Hutton and Daniel Everett. Any errors, whether of fact, interpretation oromission, are solely my own.

The following notational conventions will be observed in this paper:1

> ‘historically becomes’ � syllable, irrespective of quantity� ‘surfaces synchronically as’ L light syllable� ‘is as harmonic as’ H heavy syllable� ‘is more harmonic than’ -H underlying H surfacing as L» ‘dominates’ +L underlying L surfacing as HC , C ‘C1 and C2 are unranked with respect to each other’1 2

In tableaux, constraints or constraint-groups separated by a solid line are crucially ranked; elements to the left ofthe solid line outrank those on the right. If two constraints are separated by a dotted line, their relationship is either non-crucial or unknown.

Where appropriate, parentheses indicate foot boundaries; square brackets, prosodic-word boundaries. Whererelevant, syllable boundaries are indicated with a full stop.

OE words are cited in the original spelling. Long vowels are marked, where appropriate, with a colon.Reconstructed forms are indicated by the symbol ; ungrammatical forms, with an asterisk.†

The statement and interpretation of alignment and faithfulness constraints will follow the conventions set out inMcCarthy & Prince (1993) and McCarthy & Prince (1995), respectively.

0. Introduction*Optimality Theory (OT) compels the historical linguist to reformulate a number of questions.

In its non-derivational, constraint-based framework, for example, the problems of synchronicreconstruction must be addressed in a new manner. This point is less trivial than it seems, insofar asOT has proved capable of providing principled and natural accounts for linguistic patternssuperficially riddled with exceptions and ‘non-uniformity’ (see Pater 1995). Most importantly, thehistorical linguist must enquire whether OT affords the possibility of devising a truly restrictive, andhence explanatory, model of language change in generative grammar.

In an optimality-theoretic framework, constraint reranking is the main mechanism of languagechange. OT can therefore impose natural restrictions on linguistic change by limiting the number ofconstraints which may be reranked at any one time. In the strongest form of this strategy, only oneconstraint may be displaced in the hierarchy at any one time (Reranking Maximality Hypothesis). Thispaper tests this hypothesis against an instance of sound change dated roughly around the transitionfrom Old to Middle English (OE and ME, respectively): Trisyllabic Shortening, as it affected theGermanic word-stock. The analysis is backed up with an optimality-theoretic overview of foot andquantity structure in OE. It will be seen that the change may be appropriately described as thedemotion of a single constraint.

The paper is structured as follows. The explanation of language change in OT is discussed in§1. Stress assignment and quantitative balance in OE are dealt with in §2. Trisyllabic Shortening inthe native word-stock of English is introduced and analyzed in §3. §4 provides a brief summary ofresults .1

Stress and quantity in Old and early Middle English: Evidence for an optimality-theoretic model of language change 3

The locus of historical action could conceivably be assumed to be elsewhere (e.g. in the phonetic interpretation of 2

the output; see Hutton 1996b), but in such case we would be forced to declare phonological change extragrammatical, andOT would have nothing to say about it. Indeed, constraint reranking has been assumed to be the essential mechanism oflanguage change in all OT work that I am aware of (see particularly Cho 1995, Jakobs 1995, Hutton 1996b). Kiparsky's(1970) defence of competence theories of language change, as opposed to performance theories, is still relevant here.

1. Language change in Optimality Theory

1.1. The explanation of change in Optimality TheoryHistorical linguistics has hitherto been unable to formulate causal laws of language change.

Given a grammatical description of a language, however exhaustive, it is impossible to predict itsfuture development, even in gross outline. Nomological explanations of language change, in the senseof Lass (1980), remain unattainable. The emergence of OT is unlikely to change this state of affairs.

Generative linguistics, however, has traditionally contemplated another notion of explanationwhich may prove more pertinent to the realm of language change. Generative descriptions oflinguistic fact are assumed to derive their explanatory power from Universal Grammar (UG), whichdefines the class of possible natural languages. A set of synchronic facts in a language can beexplained precisely to the extent that it can be deduced from the axiomatic content of UG. In thissense, the explanatory power of UG increases in direct proportion to the number of substantive claimsit makes regarding natural languages. Very often, enrichments of UG come about by stating that acertain set of circumstances is impossible in the world's languages.

From a generative point of view, therefore, the possibility of explaining language changedepends on the existence of a theory which defines the class of possible historical changes in naturallanguage. Such a theory may be regarded as constituting the diachronic component of UG. Thus, UGwill be able to explain language change to the extent that it can establish constraints (whether positiveor negative) on the class of historical changes that a language may undergo. Here, I will definelanguage change as a function relating two consecutive states, G and G , of a grammar G. I willa b

assume that G and G must be chronologically adjacent, i.e. not separated by a distinct interveninga b

state of G characterized by surface forms different from those of G and G . Applied to thea b

phonological realm, this definition of language change is partially similar to the traditionalNeogrammarian notion of Lautgesetz.

In rule-based frameworks, UG's ability to constrain language change was woefully small. Halle(1962) suggests that the class of possible phonological changes is identical with the class of possiblephonological rules. Thus, language change would consist of the addition of new rules to the grammar.To this mechanism, Kiparsky (1968) adds rule simplification, rule reordering and rule loss. In thissense, the theory of language change in rule-based grammar fully inherits the excess of generativepower attendant on rewrite-rules and rule ordering.

With the advent of OT, the language-specific content of grammars has undergone a dramaticreduction. The Completeness Hypothesis states that UG defines the set of all possible linguisticconstraints (CON), and that every grammar includes all the members of CON (Green, 1993). Thus,crosslinguistic variation is reduced to two areas: the lexicon, and the language-specific hierarchizationof CON. Accordingly, diachronic variation is channelled through just two mechanisms: lexical changeand constraint reranking . This paper will focus on constraint reranking. Lexical change will probably2


be the province of learnability theory to a large extent (see e.g. Prince & Smolensky 1993 for theconcept of lexicon optimization).

In conclusion, the job of explaining language change in OT largely consists of devising atheory which makes substantial claims as to what constraint rerankings are possible in naturallanguage.

1.2. Change naturalness and change maximalityOne of the basic ideas that a theory of language change must encode is that change is gradual.

As Crowhurst & Hewitt (1994:10) put it, "[...C]hange creeps -rather than sweeps- across language".Thus, UG must set a limit to the number of constraints that may be reranked by a single instance oflanguage change. Otherwise, the sets of surface forms generated by G and G could differ to thea b

point of causing a communication breakdown between generations, a possibility which is not attested.We may thus formulate the following hypothesis:

(1) Reranking Naturalness HypothesisThe naturalness of a constraint reranking is inversely proportional to thenumber of constraints it affects.

Here, ‘naturalness’ can be taken as the equivalent of ‘attestable recurrence across natural language’,or as the opposite of ‘markedness’.

Eventually, one will in fact be able to measure the very success or otherwise of OT inaccounting for language change by the extent to which this hypothesis proves true. At this stage, notethat the hypothesis itself provides a source of external evidence for theoretical analyses. Crowhurst& Hewitt use it to test the validity of a set of metrical constraints: the variation created by thereranking of a single constraint, they hypothesize, will be more likely to occur between consecutivediachronic stages or between synchronically coexisting systems than the variation created byreranking greater numbers of constraints. Very extensive research will be necessary to test theReranking Naturalness Hypothesis. In this paper, I would like to focus on a stronger proposition thatappears to be implicit in Cho's (1995) work on constraint reranking.

Cho (1995) argues that reranking must match one of the following templates:

(2)G Ga b

a) C , C > C » C1 2 1 2

b) C » C > C , C1 2 1 2

In other words, either two unranked constraints become ranked (2.a), or two ranked constraintsbecome unranked (2.b). (3) is explicitly forbidden:

(3)G Ga b

C » C > C » C1 2 2 1


Given the assumption that crucial non-ranking gives rise to surface free variation (Anttila, 1995),Cho's templates embody the claim that, between any two consecutive, different, non-variating,historical stages, there will intervene a period of free variation:

(4) Free-Variationist Model of Sound Change

Stage 1no variation

C » C1 2

�

Stage 2free variation

C , C1 2

�

Stage 3no variation

C » C2 1

Cho's templates for reranking appear to embody a substantial claim with regard to languagechange. In (2.a), C is unranked with respect to C in G ; the change consists of demoting C with2 1 2

a

respect to C , or promoting C with respect to C . In (2.b), C dominates C in G ; the change consists1 1 2 1 2a

of cancelling the ranking of C relative to C , or vice versa. Assuming that, whether (2.a) or (2.b)1 2

applies, all other rankings remain equal in the hierarchy, we must reach the conclusion that eachreranking affects the position of only one constraint in the hierarchy. If, in turn, all language changemust fit one of the two templates, then the following claim follows:

(5) Reranking Maximality HypothesisReranking may maximally affect the position of a single constraint in thehierarchy at any one time.

It is important to note that Cho (1995) does not make this hypothesis explicit, although all herexamples respect it.

If correct, the Reranking Maximality Hypothesis would constitute a dramatic improvementin the ability of generative grammar to constrain, and thus explain, language change. In this paper,I shall test it against Trisyllabic Shortening in the Germanic word-stock of English circa AD 1100.In striking confirmation of the hypothesis, the demotion of a single constraint in the OE hierarchy isenough to trigger the change in the appropriate environment and with the appropriate restrictions.This example is remarkable for the sheer number of constraints involved.

As formulated in (5), however, the Reranking Maximality Hypothesis is less restrictive thanthe Anttila-Cho model, in that it does not explicitly require that the repositioning of a constraint inthe hierarchy should be accomplished via an intermediate period of crucial non-ranking: cf. stage 2in (4). This difference is calculated to avoid the problems inherent in moving constraints between non-adjacent positions in the hierarchy, as e.g. in the reranking leading from G (C » C » C » C ) toa

1 2 3 4


Hutton provides a comprehensive critical survey of accounts of OE stress.3

The question of the size of the OE foot is to a certain extent bypassed in Colman's (1994) dependency account,4

insofar as constituency is not a theoretical primitive in Dependency Phonology. This allows one to refer to foot-heads (‘ictus’in Colman's terminology) without implying the existence of foot-boundaries.

G (C » C » C » C ). Jakobs (1995) suggests that an instance of sound change involving this sortb1 3 4 2

of non-adjacency occurred in the passage from early Old to later Old French. Obviously, in itstransition from G to G , the system may go through an intermediate period of competition betweena b

both hierarchies, reflected in the surface as free variation. Whether or not such competition could beformally cast as crucial non-ranking is a moot point; in our example, this would presumably involvethe non-ranking of C with respect to C and C simultaneously. The viability (let alone the2 3 4

interpretation) of simultaneous non-ranking of a constraint relative to two or more mutually-rankedconstraints is, at present, unclear. In an ideal world, the requirement of adjacency which the Anttila-Cho model seems to impose is highly desirable. However, in the presence of potentialcounterexamples such as Jakobs', the Reranking Maximality Hypothesis represents a safer alternative.

2. Foot and quantity structure in OEThis section contains a brief overview of the constraint rankings responsible for foot and

quantity structure in OE, thus providing the necessary background for an account of TrisyllabicShortening. In the reconstruction which informs this optimality-theoretic analysis, the bimoric trochee(analogous to the ‘resolved lift’ of the tradition) plays a prominent rôle. In this respect, I follow onthe steps of most scholars working within the generative fold (see e.g. McCully & Hogg 1990,McCully 1992, Dresher & Lahiri 1991, Idsardi 1994, Hutton 1995a,b, 1996a) , who rely on, or agree3

to a large extent with, traditional handbook descriptions such as Campbell (1959). This view of OEfoot structure ultimately stems from Sievers' work on Germanic metrics (Sievers 1885, 1893 a,b).

It must be acknowledged, however, that the traditional reconstruction has lately come underintense scrutiny. Particular concern has been expressed about the empirical and theoretical difficultiesinherent in using evidence from OE metre to reconstruct the stress phonology of the language (seee.g. McCully 1992, Colman 1994). Within this line of inquiry, Minkova & Stockwell (1994) adopta radical stance. On the one hand, they argue that verse evidence is uninformative. On the other hand,they suggest that, by the classical period, syllable weight had ceased to play a significant rôle in OEphonology; the linguistic and poetic patterns where quantity appears to be relevant would constituteno more than prehistoric fossils.

I cannot, within the scope of this paper, assess the damage thus inflicted to the traditionalreconstruction, and to the generative accounts dependent on it. A comprehensive alternative using,say, syllabic trochees or unbounded feet is yet to be developed . My analysis of Trisyllabic Shortening4

will nevertheless suggest that, circa AD 1100, the bimoric trochee was alive and well in Englishphonology.


2.1. Root, prefix, and compound stressThe constraints which regulate foot structure in OE words are largely morphological. Stress

may only occur on the initial syllable of certain morphemes; thus, stressability depends onmorphological class. The class of stressable morphemes includes all lexemes, certain nominal prefixes,and derivational suffixes. Of these, lexical morphemes and stressable nominal prefixes always bearstress on the surface; stress on derivational suffixes, in contrast, depends on the phonologicalenvironment (Colman 1994, Hutton 1995b). When a word contains more than one foot-head, theleftmost one realizes primary stress. Footing is nevertheless non-iterative: only the initial syllables ofmorphemes of the appropriate class may become foot-heads.

In (6), I have provided a short representative list of words containing one or more lexicalmorphemes, stressable or unstressable prefixes, and inflectional affixes. These will help us establishthe basic stress pattern. The rather more complex issue of derivational suffixes will be dealt with in§2.3, after we have discussed the interaction of stress and quantity (§2.2).

(6) scíp ‘ship’lúfu ‘love’éafora ‘son’ánd-sàca (noun) ‘apostate’ on-sácan (verb) ‘deny’ór-þànc (noun) ‘mind’ a-þéncan (verb) ‘devise’góld-smìþ ‘goldsmith’héofon-rìce ‘kingdom of heaven’nórð-scìp-hère ‘attack fleet from the North’ge-mánig-fèaldan ‘cause to become manifold, multiply’

The stress patterns represented in (6) result from the interaction of a number of alignmentconstraints:

Firstly, feet are trochaic: ALIGN (Ft, L; Head(Ft), L) » ALIGN (Ft, R; Head(Ft), R). Hereafter,I will use abbreviations to avoid the cumbersome notation of Alignment Theory. Thus, ALIGN (Ft,L; Head(Ft), L) will be referred to as TROCH.

Secondly, ALIGN (Stressable-morpheme, L; Ft, L), henceforth ALIGN-Morph, requires thatall morphemes of the stressable class should begin with a foot. Note that, according to theconventions of Generalized Alignment Theory, ALIGN-Morph imposes no restrictions on theoccurrence of feet elsewhere. Thus, in order to prevent foot-iteration, we must resort to its mirrorimage, ALIGN (Ft, L; Stressable-morpheme, L), hereafter ALIGN-Ft, which disallows feet unless theyare aligned with the beginning of an appropriate morpheme. ALIGN-Ft must dominate PARSE�

(McCarthy & Prince, 1993:100); its ranking with respect to ALIGN-Morph is not crucial. The non-iteration effect could also be obtained by means of the ranking ALIGN-Morph » *STRUC » PARSE ,Ft �

where *STRUC represents a general ban on feet (Crowhurst & Hewitt 1994, referring to Zoll 1993).Ft

Here, I will adopt the alignment solution, pending the discovery of more evidence that the *STRUC

constraint family is an indispensable component of UG.Thirdly, the metrical subordination of all foot-heads to the leftmost one is effected by ALIGN

(PrWd, L; Head(PrWd), L), henceforth ALIGN-Head. ALIGN-Ft must dominate ALIGN-Head in orderto prevent unstressable prefixes from bearing primary stress.


In this example, stress on the prefix ge- is doubly disallowed. Firstly, the prefix does not belong to the appropriate5

morphological class, thus violating ALIGN-Ft. Secondly, it is light, thus failing to fulfil FTBIN (see §2.2).

Diachronically, the vowels of stressed light monosyllables are assumed to have lengthened in North-West or Common6

West Germanic (Lass, 1992:71).

(7) Primary stress in gemanigfealdan

gemanigfealdan ALIGN-Ft ALIGN-Head

[(gé)(mànig)(fèal)dan] *!5

[ge(mànig)(féal)dan] ***!

[ge(mánig)(fèal)dan] � *

Therefore, OE grammar stipulates the following crucial rankings:

(8) ALIGN-Ft/ \

PARSE ALIGN-Head�

2.2. Quantitative balanceOE stressed monosyllables are minimally bimoric: e.g. scip, God. This indicates that both

FTBIN and LX�PR(Word) are crucially active in OE; indeed, they are both surface-unviolated.LX�PR(Word) is a constraint on the morphology/phonology interface requiring that every contentword should correspond to a prosodic word (Prince & Smolensky, 1993:43). By Proper Headedness(Itô & Mester, 1992:12), every prosodic word must in turn contain at least one foot. Consequently,LX�PR(Word) causes the requirements of FTBIN to percolate to content words. Note that, accordingto Itô & Mester (1992:15), the principle of Proper Headedness applies absolutely and inviolably;hence, its status in OT is not that of a constraint, but of a feature of GEN.

FTBIN gives rise to some quantitative alternations in function words, such as stressed ðu: vs.unstressed ðu ‘thou’, swa: vs. swa ‘so’, etc. I assume that, in such alternating pairs, the underlyingvowel is short . To account for the lengthening of ðu in stressed position, FTBIN must outrank DEP ,6 µ

which requires every mora in the output to have an input correspondent.The question of non-finality arises when a stressable syllable occurs in final or penultimate

position. We shall see in §2.3 that NONFIN (in a stronger version than is usually assumed) may indeedblock the stressing of derivational suffixes. In underived words such as scip or lufu, however, therequirements of FTBIN and LX�PR(Word) override NONFIN, resulting in parses such as (scip) and(lufu). Note that non-finality is unable to trigger the lengthening of the root-vowel of lufu, i.e.*(lu:)fu. Hence, DEP must dominate NONFIN. µ


There is a logical possibility that unstressed closed syllables were made to conform with WSP by means of Kagerian7

‘deweighting’ (Kager, 1989). However, I shall not explore this issue further, as deweighting would in any case still fulfilMAX . Note, moreover, that the ranking MAX » WSP » MAX allows degemination as a means of rendering unstressedSeg Seg µ

heavy syllables light, for degemination violates MAX , but respects MAX . This effect is not particularly troublesome in OE,µ Seg

as the vast majority of OE geminates contributed their mora to a stressed syllable. The greatest bulk had been created byWest Germanic Gemination, which only operated after short stressed vowels. Indeed, Kurath (1956:435) claims that "[i]nOE, long consonants are fully established in one and only one position: between a fully stressed or a half-stressed SHORT

vowel (or diphthong) and a following unstressed vowel". Some geminates arose from post-tonic syncopation, giving rise tohypercharacterized stressed syllables (e.g. fe:d-ed-e > fe:dde ‘feed, pret. sg.’), but this only became a shorteningenvironment in ME. In other languages such as early Italian, however, geminates stand in a clear and unambiguous contrastwith long vowels in their resistance to shorten in unstressed environments. The key to this assymmetry lies in the fact that,when a long vowel shortens, it nevertheless remains moric and rhymal; in contrast, when a long consonant degeminates, itloses its single moric attachment and is thereby excluded from the rhyme. There is likely to be a constraint of the IDENT

family which is sensitive to this distinction. For an application of the notion of ‘weight identity’, see Urbanczyk (1995).

(9) LX�PR(Word) FTBIN � � � � � � � � � DEP µ

� � � � �� NONFIN

Since the prehistoric period, long vowels are allowed to surface only in stressed syllables(Campbell, 1959:§§355-9). The effects of this restriction can be most clearly observed in obscuredcompounds. When a compound word loses its semantic and/or morphological transparency, thesecond formative tends to be deprived of its status as a separate lexical root, and hence as a stressablemorpheme. The ensuing loss of stress is accompanied by vowel shortening: e.g. la:reow ‘teacher’,from la:r ‘lore’ plus þe:ow ‘servant’ (Campbell, 1959:§356).

As a consequence, all unstressed syllables had short vowels in the output representation; anunstressed syllable could be heavy only if closed. This pattern indicates that the Weight-to-Stressprinciple (WSP) was active in OE. WSP requires that heavy syllables should be stressed, and thatunstressed syllables should be light (Prince, 1990:358). Since ALIGN-Ft allows only the initial syllablesof morphemes of the appropriate class to be stressed, footing of heavy syllables elsewhere must beblocked by the ranking ALIGN-Ft » WSP. The ranking MAX » WSP » MAX , in turn, causes vowelSeg µ

shortening in unstressed syllables, whilst blocking the deletion of coda consonants .7

It is impossible, within the scope of this paper, to account for all shortening phenomena in OE.I can only point out here that vowels shortened not only in unstressed syllables under the influenceof WSP, but also in secondarily-stressed syllables belonging to derivational suffixes: e.g. -ro:ni > -†


As Hutton (1995b) notes, there is some evidence that the Syllable Integrity Principle may not always have been8

respected, at least in verse. In the classical metre of OE, strong positions or ‘lifts’ must be filled with two morae. Thus, both(H) and (LL) feet occur as lifts (‘resolution’). However, (LH) feet are often treated as constituting a lift followed by a weakmetrical position or ‘drop’ (Kaluza's Law; see Fulk 1992). This implies a misalignment between syllables and metricalconstituents:

Xs Xw metrical positions / \ |µ µ µ morae| \ /� � syllables

Everett (1996) argues for violations of the Syllable Integrity Principle in Banawá.

erne (Old Norse -rœnn), as in sú:þèrne ‘southern’ (Campbell, 1959:§339, §355.5). In classical OE,long vowels were accordingly restricted to the initial syllables of lexical roots and ‘suffixoids’; see§2.3. Similarly, it has been observed that some secondarily-stressed suffixes display the typicalvocalism of unstressed syllables (Fulk, 1992). This fact is not particularly surprising, nor does itnecessarily compromise the reconstruction of suffixal secondary stress. Secondarily-stressed syllableshave been observed to pattern quantitatively and qualitatively with unstressed syllables in numerouslanguages: e.g. Icelandic, Italian and Portuguese, to cite but a few European examples.

In words such as worulde ‘world (inflected)’, ALIGN-Morph and FTBIN have the combinedeffect of creating a trimoric (LH) foot: (worul)de. In this environment, a strictly bimoric foot wouldviolate Prince's Syllable Integrity Principle, represented in OT by the constraint ALIGN (Ft, �): "Everyfoot edge is aligned with some syllable edge" (McCarthy & Prince,1993:99) . WSP would rather8

these (LH) feet were iambic, so TROCH must also crucially dominate WSP.In sum, WSP participates in the following crucial rankings in OE:

(10) ALIGN-Ft MAX TROCH Seg

� � � � � � �� WSP � � � MAXµ

According to the standard view (see references in the introductory paragraph to §2), thesingle, left-aligned trochee characteristic of OE stressable morphemes was maximally bimoric,consisting either of a heavy syllable (H) or of two light syllables (LL), except for the aforementioned(LH) cases. From an optimality-theoretic point of view, this pattern reflects the effect of RHHRM.RHHRM states that if the head of a trochee is heavy, the foot may not have a syllabic weak branch:


This formulation of RHHRM is slightly more general than Prince & Smolensky's (1993:59): *(HL). It is conceived9

of as working in partnership with FTBIN and WSP to control the quantitative balance of the ‘generalized trochee’ (Kager,1992). FTBIN sets (µµ) as the minimal trochee, and (��) as the maximal one. RHHRM disallows heaviness in the head ofa disyllabic trochee, whilst WSP does the same with respect to the dependant.In this sense, RHHRM is ultimately responsible for all instances of Trochaic Shortening (see §3.2). As is well known,Trochaic Shortening effects are absent from languages with ‘syllabic’, rather than ‘moric’, trochees (Hayes, 1995); oneassumes that, in languages analyzed as having ‘syllabic’ or ‘quantity-insensitive’ trochees, RHHRM is ranked low in thehierarchy.

e.g. *(H�) . Thus, if the standard reconstruction is right, RHHRM was surface-unviolated in OE; it9

was not crucially dominated by any other constraint in the hierarchy.In order to achieve its surface-unviolated status, RHHRM, together with MAX , must outrankµ

PARSE . As we have seen, the ranking ALIGN-Ft » PARSE allows no more than one foot per stressable� �

morpheme. PARSE exerts pressure for this foot to expand maximally over the domain in order to�

incorporate all syllables. Superordinate FTBIN sets a limit of two syllables to this expansion. Undersuch circumstances, RHHRM must dominate PARSE in order to prevent (H�) and (H�)� parses.�

Similarly, MAX discards (-H�) and (-H�)�, where -H informally represents an underlyingly heavyµ

syllable which unfaithful mapping allows to surface as light.

(11)

H�H�� FTBIN ALIGN-Ft RHHRM MAX PARSEµ �

(H)� � *

(-H�) *! *

(H�) *!

(H)�� **�

(-H�)� *! *

(H�)� *! *

(H)(��) *! 2 foot?nd

(H��) *! *!

As an underlying H� sequence never ends up forming a foot, the relative ranking of RHHRM

and MAX is never put to the test. If an input sequence H� surfaced as (H�), then MAX wouldµ µ

dominate RHHRM. If, on the contrary, underlying H� surfaced as (-H�), then RHHRM woulddominate MAX . As it happens, H� always surfaces as (H)�, and the ranking is non-crucial.µ

2.3. Suffixal secondary stress


The scope of this paper does not allow me to investigate the available metrical evidence concerning stress on10

concatenations of bound morphemes, as in menn-isc-ness ‘incarnation’ (Colman, 1994:169-170), hla:f-ord-le:as (< hla:f-weard-le:as) ‘lordless’, or ha:l-i(:)g-ness ‘holiness’. My analysis, as it stands, predicts secondary stress on all non-finalheavy suffixes preceded by a bimoric base: e.g. mén.nìsc.nès.e, hlá:.fòrd.leas, há:.lì(:)g.ness, há:.lì(:)g.nès.se. Hutton(1995b:36) notes that the suffix -i(:)g- in the word haligness functions in verse sometimes as a lift and sometimes as a drop.This is perfectly compatible with the hypothesis that it bears linguistic stress; indeed, it is the expected result. It is notdisputed that the root-syllable of the second element of a compound bears secondary stress, yet such syllables are very oftentreated as drops in verse scansion.

The class of stressable morphemes in OE included a relatively heterogeneous assortment ofbound morphemes which may be loosely described, in synchronic terms, as derivational suffixes.Some of the members of this group had originally been true bound morphemes: e.g. -ing, -ung and-ness (Campbell, 1959:§89). Others were ‘suffixoids’ (Lass, 1994:94), i.e. former lexical rootsproviding the second element of compounds whose structure had over time ceased to be transparent:e.g. -do:m, -ræ:den, -full (Campbell, 1959:§88). The history of this group is one of progressiveattrition, with members losing their stressability during OE and ME at different rates.

According to the analysis developed in this paper, ALIGN-Morph requires that all thesemorphemes should be aligned with a foot-head for as long as they remain in the crucial morphologicalclass. However, whether or not they do surface bearing stress depends on the phonologicalenvironment. Stress is obviously always secondary, as these morphemes attach to the right of a lexicalroot. There are three conditions on suffixal secondary stress:

(i) The stress-bearing syllable of the morpheme must not be word-final. This condition istrivially satisfied by disyllabic morphemes such as -ræ:den or -bæ:re. In the case of monosyllabicsuffixes, however, stress is conditional upon the presence of further morphological material, normallyan inflectional ending : e.g. æðeling (nom./acc. sg.), but æðelìnges (gen.sg.) ‘prince’. In verse,10

suffixoids occasionally break this rule, thus behaving like the original lexical roots; see Hutton(1995b:28) for examples. In general, the treatment of bound morphemes in OE poetry is oftengrammatically anachronistic (McCully & Hogg 1990, Fulk 1992, Hutton 1995b).

(ii) The stress-bearing syllable of the morpheme must be heavy (McCully & Hogg 1990;Hutton 1995b). Again, this rule may be superficially broken by the archaic conventions of verse. Inclassical OE, the class II verbal suffix -od- was short-vowelled, and accordingly unstressable; indeed,the vowel shows the vacillating quality typical of unstressed syllables: -od-, -ad-, -ud-, -ed-(Campbell, 1959:§757, §385). In verse, however, this suffix is regularly treated as though it boresecondary stress, conventionally reflecting a bygone historical stage when it had displayed a longvowel: -o:d-. Similarly, disyllabic short-vowelled suffixoids such as -scipe may be treated as ictic in†

verse on the strength of their former status as lexical roots.(iii) Suffixal secondary stress is impossible if the base is monomoric: e.g. æ.ðe.lìn.ges, but

cy.nin.ges ‘king’ (gen.sg.); sin.gèn.de ‘sing’ (pres. ptc.), but we.sen.de ‘be’ (pres. ptc.). In verse,poetic licence may again override this restriction.

These three conditions reflect a remarkably complex web of constraint interactions:I take the first condition to constitute a straightforward non-finality effect. To capture it,

however, we need a stronger version of NONFIN than is generally assumed (cf. Prince & Smolensky,1993:52):


(12) NONFIN

No foot may be final in the prosodic word.

Prince & Smolensky's weaker statement of NONFIN only bars the head-foot of the prosodic word (or,failing that, the head-syllable) from final position; thus, word-final feet are allowed, provided that theydo not bear primary stress. In OE, this would incorrectly predict forms such as *[(wi:s)(do:m)] or*[(æðe)(ling)]. Prince & Smolensky support their weak version of NONFIN with evidence from CreticShortening in Pre-Classical, or ‘Plautinian’, Latin (see Mester, 1994:30-37). In proparoxytonic wordssuch as /di:kito:/ ‘say’ (imper. fut.), the heavy antepenultimate syllable constitutes by itself the head-foot of the prosodic word. The remaining two syllables are grouped together in a ‘subsidiary foot’(Mester, 1994:34), which is quantitatively optimized by shortening the final syllable: [(di:)(cito)].Cretic Shortening, in this sense, is a form of Brevis Brevians affecting the subsidiary foot of Latinproparoxytones (for Brevis Brevians, see Mester 1994:11-20). Crucially, if NONFIN disallowed thefooting of final syllables absolutely, the environment for Cretic Shortening would never arise.

Nevertheless, the special status of subsidiary feet in Latin proparoxytones casts doubt on thegenerality of Prince & Smolensky's argument. The manifestation of such subsidiary feet was purelyquantitative: their heads were not grid-prominent, nor are they supposed to have borne phoneticsecondary stress. In contrast, the heads of subsidiary feet in Old English were audibly prominent:

(13) * * * *[(di:)(cito)] [(æðe)(lin)ges]

In this sense, the facts of Cretic Shortening are compatible with the strong version of NONFIN

formulated in (12), provided that the term ‘foot’ is understood as referring specifically to audibly-headed, grid-mark projecting feet. On a more general level, Prince & Smolensky, referring to Hindi,admit the possibility that NONFIN may need to be parametrized (1993:52, footnote 33).

The ability of NONFIN to render suffixes unstressable indicates that NONFIN outranks ALIGN-Morph. Nevertheless, NONFIN cannot render lexical roots unstressable, as simplex words such as scípand lúfu, and compounds such as góldsmìþ, indicate. This is because NONFIN is itself dominated byLX�PR(Word); see diagram (8). There is some evidence that each element of a transparent compoundconstitutes a separate lexical word, and forms a prosodic word of its own: [[(gold)][(smiþ)]]. Theprocess of Fricative Voicing, for example, treats boundaries between compound-formatives as wordboundaries; see also Colman (1994; 170).

The second condition, namely that the stress-bearing syllable must be heavy, reflects thecumulative influence of NONFIN, FTBIN and DEP . Consider some examples, such asµ

[(hierd)(ræ:)den] ‘guardianship’ or [(wi:s)(do:)mes] ‘wisdom’ (gen. sg.). Since NONFIN renders theinflectional syllable unfootable, the two morae required by FTBIN must be provided by the suffix.Bimoricity, however, may not be attained through lengthening, as DEP outranks NONFIN; seeµ

diagram (9).Constraint-interaction is at its most spectacular in effecting the third condition, namely that

the base must be bimoric. In [(cynin)ges], the suffix -ing may not be stressed, despite ALIGN-Morph,because this would render the foot aligned with the root monomoric, thus violating FTBIN:*[(cy)(nin)ges]. Note the contrast with [(æðe)(lin)ges]. The same principle underlies the operation


of the so-called Arab Rule in Present-day English: the second syllable of the word Arab may bearsecondary stress only in those idiolectal pronunciations where the initial primarily-stressed syllablecontains a long vowel (see Pater 1995). One might wish to ask what makes [(cynin)ges] moreharmonic than *[cy(nin)ges], since both candidates involve a violation of ALIGN-Morph. The answeris that, if there is a choice between footing the root and footing a suffix, ALIGN-Head always prefersthe root to bear stress, as it lies closer to the left edge of the prosodic word. This is the caseregardless of the relative rank of ALIGN-Morph and ALIGN-Head.

Thus, we obtain the following hierarchy:

(14) LX�PR(Word) FTBIN � � � � � � � � � DEP µ

� � � � �� NONFIN � � �� PARSE ALIGN-Morph�

Campbell (1959: 34, footnote 4) suggests that surface vowel length in suffixoids may besubject to alternation depending on whether or not the suffixoid is in word-final position. Thus, heobserves that, in the Latin compositions of OE poets, the a of Ælfstan (a proper name) scans as shortin Ælfstan, but as long in inflected Ælfstanus. It is assumed that the element -stan (from the wordsta:n ‘stone’) behaves here as an underlyingly long-vowelled bound morpheme. Thus, in finalposition, the suffixoid is unstressable, and WSP causes the vowel to surface as short: /ælf-sta:n/ �[(ælf)stan]; see §2.2 and diagram (10). In the presence of an inflection, however, the suffixoidacquires stress, and shortening is not required: /ælf-sta:n-us/ � [(ælf)(sta:)nus].

2.4. SummaryThe following diagram summarizes my analysis of the constraints on foot and quantity

structure in OE. Those constraints which will play an active rôle in Trisyllabic Shortening arehighlighted in bold typeface.


(15)

LX�PR(Word) FTBIN RHHRM TROCH MAX ALIGN-Ft Seg

� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �� DEP � WSP ALIGN-Head µ

� � � � � � � � �� NONFIN � MAXµ

� � � � � � �� ALIGN-Morph PARSE��

From a theoretical point of view, the most interesting property of this sytem is the non-uniformity between root and suffixal stress. As we have noted, root-initial syllables are stressedregardless of their position in the word, whilst suffix-initial syllables become unstressable in word-final position. Similarly, stressed root-syllables may be light or heavy, whereas only heavy derivationalsuffixes may be footed. A very similar problem arises in Present-day English, where primary stressassignment is quantity-sensitive, but secondary stress has often been analyzed as quantity-insensitive(see Pater 1995 for details).

As Pater (1995:3) observes, such non-uniformity effects are difficult to handle in frameworkswhere rules or constraints must be fully satisfied:

Nonuniformity is problematic because of the usually implicit tenet of full satisfaction,or inviolability, which claims that when a linguistic principle is in force, it is neverviolated. A theory based on this tenet often has little to say about a principle that isonly satisfied in certain contexts. Under full satisfaction, nonuniformity in the datatends to lead to the following theoretical consequences:

i. the proliferation of otherwise unmotivated derivational stages or levelsbetween which the principle (rule/constraint/condition) is turned on and off.ii. a lack of generality in constraint or rule formulation: nonuniformity issimply stipulated.iii. descriptive gaps: nonuniformity is simply ignored.

Indeed, such proves to be the case in OE. Working with a lexicalist model of metrical phonology,Hutton (1996a) must assign root and suffixal stress to different strata in order to handle their non-uniformity:


The outline of stress assignment in OE proposed here has concluded that stress mustbe assigned on two separate levels. Primary stress is cyclic and assigned at the leftedge of the domain. Secondary stress is non-cyclic and assigned to the penultimatesyllable under certain morphophonological conditions. It was argued above thatprimary and secondary stress cannot be assigned on a single level because ofphonological differences between them. The different levels of parsing -syllabic forprimary stress and moraic for secondary stress- also reflect this.

Hutton (1996a:31)

We have shown, however, that it is perfectly possible to produce a natural, non-derivationalanalysis of OE word-stress. The optimality-theoretic principles of constraint ranking and minimalviolation render devices such as cyclicity and level-ordering redundant. For the historical linguist, thisis a particularly valuable result, since it is not altogether clear that the diachronic evolution of stratalsystems may be constrained in a natural way. The various hypothesized stratal organizations ofPresent-day English lexical phonology, for example, appear to bear little relationship to the stratalsystems postulated for OE by Suphi (1988) or Hutton (1996a).

3. Trisyllabic Shortening in the Germanic word-stock

3.1. Trisyllabic Shortening in the Germanic word-stock of EnglishIn late OE or early ME, the native word-stock of the language came to be affected by a sound

change known as Trisyllabic Shortening, whereby long vowels shortened in stressed antepenultimatesyllables, as in the following words:

(16) æ:mette ‘ant’æ:rende ‘errand’bre:ðeren ‘brethren’ha:ligdæg ‘holiday’la:ferce ‘lark’su:þerne ‘southern’

According to Jordan (1934[1974]:§24), the change must have been already active before AD 1100because in some word-forms it preceded the raising of /æ:/ and /�:/.

I shall henceforth refer to this sound change as Germanic Trisyllabic Shortening (abbreviatedGmc TSS), in order to distinguish it from the well-known analogous process that affected Romanceloans, producing alternations such as s/a:/ne vs. s/a/nity (hereafter Romance Trisyllabic Shortening,or Rom TSS). There are reasons to believe that, historically, Gmc TSS was largely independent fromRom TSS. As (11) shows, the list of instances of Gmc TSS includes many OE words with thequantitative pattern HH�. In the Romance word-stock, words with this structure would neverundergo TSS, as they would show penultimate, rather than antepenultimate, stress. Consequently,Gmc TSS must have taken place before the readjustment of the English stress system (unless, ofcourse, one assumes lexical segregation of Germanic and Romance items in ME, with lexically-


Such an assumption would run against the latest developments in our understanding of ME stress, which suggest11

that the conflict between the stress patterns of the Germanic and Romance vocabulary was less dramatic than previouslybelieved (Lass 1992, Minkova 1995).

The problem of the exceptions to MEOSL has been solved by Minkova's (1982) compensatory account (see also12

Hayes 1989). Minkova'a analysis, however, does not account for the shortening of the root vowel in chicken. One optioncould be to assume some sort of irregularity in non-finality, allowing ci:cen to undergo Trochaic Shortening (see Myers1987, and §3.2).

specific constraint rankings for each group; see Pater 1995) . Indeed, by the time the stress system11

had been readjusted, the environment of Gmc TSS had probably been extensively destroyed by theinstability of final schwa. Jordan's chronology does suggest that Gmc TSS was well under way beforethe post-Conquest influx of Romance loans could be fully incorporated into the ME grammar on apar with the native vocabulary.

Since Luick (1914/41[1964]), the acknowledgement of Gmc TSS has been standard practiceamong English language historians. The change has figured prominently in Lass's (1992) and Lahiri's(1995) accounts of quantitative change in ME and other Germanic dialects. Nonetheless, Ritt (1994)doubts that Gmc TSS ever happened. He suggests that it can be viewed as a Neogrammarianconcoction designed to provide analogical explanations for a few anomalous shortenings inuninflected disyllabic word-forms: e.g. OE ci:cen ‘chicken’ would have developed the short vowelwith which it appears in Present-day English on the analogy of the trisyllabically-shortened pluralform cicenu. The failure of another traditional Lautgesetz, Open Syllable Lengthening (henceforthMEOSL), in a substantial class of disyllabic words would be similarly explained through analogy withinflected forms . Ritt's suspicions are warranted on two counts. Firstly, the late OE word-stock had12

a relative dearth of morphologically-simple trisyllabic word-forms. In particular, uncompoundedunderived HL� words were rather rare owing to the operation of Syncope: e.g. dryhten (nom. sg.),dryhtnes (gen. sg.) ‘lord’ (see Lass, 1994:98-102). Secondly, in the word-based morphology of ME,the direction of paradigm levelling was from base to inflected or derived form, rather than the otherway around, in the overwhelming majority of cases. Nonetheless, the evidence against Gmc TSS isunconvincing: the history of word-forms such as those in (16) appears otherwise inexplicable.

3.2. Trisyllabic Shortening as Trochaic ShorteningThe standard view of TSS in contemporary metrical theory is that it constitutes a particular

instance of a general process of Trochaic Shortening (Myers 1987, Prince 1990, Hayes 1995).According to this approach, underlying H� sequences, particularly HL, pose a problem to quantity-sensitive trochaic systems, i.e. to systems using the ‘moric trochee’ (Hayes, 1995) as a ‘parsing foot’(Kager, 1992). Firstly, (HL) parses are suboptimal because the foot exceeds the bimoric target.Allegedly, trochaic feet are preferably quantitatively-balanced: i.e. either (H) or (LL); see Prince(1990:359) and Hayes (1995). In OT terms, (HL) violates RHHRM (see §2.2). Secondly, a (H)L parseleaves a stray syllable, thereby violating PARSE . The way out of this dilemma is to shorten the heavy�

syllable: (-HL). Trochaic Shortening, however, usually comes at the cost of a faithfulness violation,generally of MAX .µ

In languages such as English, Trochaic Shortening applies to words with antepenultimatestress (TSS), but is blocked in paroxytones. In derivational versions of metrical theory, this is


Yet see the remark made on this matter in Jordan (1934[1974]:§24), as well as our observations on ci:cen > chicken13

in the previous footnote.

explained by means of a rule of Final Syllable Extrametricality. Thus, in a (H)<L> structure, the finalL is not visibly stray, and there is no pressure for it to be incorporated into the preceding foot.Supporting this analysis, Myers (1987) notes that, in Present-day English, those affixes whichexceptionally escape extrametricality trigger Trochaic Shortening in paroxytones: e.g. state vs. static.However, OT has replaced extrametricality with the concept of non-finality. In an OT framework wemust consequently assume that Trochaic Shortening is blocked in words with penultimate stress whenNONFIN outranks PARSE .�

3.3. Constraint rerankingI suggest that Gmc TSS was brought about by the demotion of MAX with respect to PARSEµ �

in the constraint hierarchy of late OE or early ME. To ascertain that this reranking produces thedesired effect, compare the bottom section of tableau (11) above, where MAX » PARSE , withµ �

tableau (17) below, where PARSE » MAX .� µ

(17)

la:ferce FTBIN ALIGN-Ft RHHRM PARSE MAX� µ

(la:)ferce *!*

(lafer)ce � * *

(la:fer)ce *! *

(la:)(ferce) *! *! (2 foot)nd

(la:ferce) *! *!

(laferce) *! *

The fact that a word such as su:þerne underwent TSS indicates that, circa AD 1100, thesuffix no longer bore secondary stress: [(su:)(þer)ne] > [(su:)þerne] > [(suþer)ne]. Similarly, theformative -dæg in ha:ligdæg no longer enjoyed the status of a separate lexical root, in contrast withOE [[(ha:)lig][(dæg)]]. In this sense, Gmc TSS was fed by compound obscuration and by the decayof suffixal secondary stress; see §2.3.

The hierarchy represented in (17) is obviously incomplete. Although it works for trisyllabicwords, it makes the wrong predictions for disyllabic H� inputs, since it evaluates a (-H�) output asmore harmonic than (H)�. We have already established that disyllabic words did not become subjectto Trochaic Shortening : e.g. OE bi:dan > ME bi:den ‘experience’ (infinitive). However, this13

prediction is rectified by the ranking NONFIN » PARSE , which already obtained in OE.�


(18)

bi:den FTBIN RHHRM NONFIN PARSE MAX� µ

(bi:)den � *

(biden) *! *

(bi:den) *! *

(bi)den *! * *

Furthermore, we have already seen that, in OE, NONFIN failed to trigger lengthening in disyllabicinputs with a light first syllable: e.g. /lufu/�*[(lu:)fu] (§2.2). This state of affairs endured in ME: e.g.[(po.pi)] ‘poppy’. Note that MEOSL must not be regarded as complementary to TSS: it is triggered,independently from NONFIN, by the loss of final schwa (Minkova 1982). Accordingly, the rankingof LX�PR(Word), FTBIN and DEP above NONFIN is also retained; see diagram (9).µ

One further observation is in order. Although long vowels shortened in stressedantepenultimate syllables, coda consonants were preserved. A (-H�)� parse must accordingly berejected if -H surfaces with an unparsed post-nuclear consonant. To this effect, MAX must beSeg

ranked above PARSE , as shown in (19) for ME answare ‘answer’. Note, however, that this ranking�

was again already in place in OE; see (15).

(19)

answare RHHARM MAX PARSE MAXSeg � µ

(an)sware � **

(aswa)re *! * *

We can therefore represent Gmc TSS diagrammatically as follows:


(20) Gmc TSSGa

LX�PR(Word) FTBIN ALIGN-Ft RHHRM MAX Seg

� � � � � � � � � � � DEP � � �µ

� � � � � �� NONFIN � � MAX µ

� � � � � � � � �� PARSE�

Gb


� � � � � � � � � � � DEP � � �µ

� � � � � �� NONFIN � � � � � � � � � � � �� PARSE�

� � � MAX µ

The dominance relationships represented under G are a proper subset of those established in (15).a

The function G �G demotes MAX relative to PARSE , leaving the rest of the hierarchy untouched.a b µ �

Thus, the change affects the ranking of just one constraint. I conclude, therefore, that Gmc TSSrespects the Reranking Maximality Hypothesis.

We may wish to assume that a period of free variation intervened between the non-variatingstates embodied in G and G . In the Anttila-Cho model (see §1.2), such a free-variating systema b


would correspond to the hierarchy represented in (21), where PARSE and MAX are mutually� µ

unranked.

(21) Hypothetical intermediate period of free variation


� � � � � � � � � � � DEP � � �µ

� � � � � �� NONFIN � � � � � � � � � � � �� PARSE MAX � µ

Alternatively, free variation may be conceived of as a period of competition between G and G ina b

(20).

3.4. The health of the bimoric trochee in late OEIn the introduction to §2, we mentioned that, according to Minkova & Stockwell (1994), the

bimoric trochee has no rôle to play in the phonology of classical OE. They suggest that a stresssystem based on the bimoric trochee could not be learned, because quantity-sensitive alternations suchas High Vowel Deletion (see e.g. Dresher & Lahiri 1991) had become non-productive in the historicalperiod, and the evidence they yielded was consequently too degraded. Thus, Minkova & Stockwellargue that the obsolescence of the bimoric trochee deprived poetic resolution of its linguisticunderpinnings, leading to the unmitigated collapse of classical OE metre at the time of the Conquest.

Our analysis indicates, however, that, regardless of the fate of OE metre, the bimoric trocheewas alive and well in the phonology of the language circa AD 1100. As we have established, TSS isan instance of Trochaic Shortening. Trochaic Shortening is, in turn, unequivocally associated in UGwith the bimoric trochee. Thus, the fact that a form of Trochaic Shortening affected the native word-stock of English soon after the Conquest can only be explained if the bimoric trochee was active inthe phonology precisely at that time. In an optimality-theoretic framework, Minkova & Stockwell'slearnability argument carries relatively little weight. According to the Completeness Hypothesis, allgrammars include all members of CON (see §1.1). Therefore, quantitative constraints such as RHHRM

and WSP are permanently available to learners of languages with a syllable weight distinction, evenin the absence of robust quantity-sensitive alternations: they are constantly ‘waiting in the wings to


be made use of by the grammar’, to borrow Yip's metaphor (Yip, 1994:308). As Yip shows, amodicum of surface evidence suffices to activate the prosodic templates supplied by UG.

4. ConclusionThe historical linguist working with an optimality-theoretic model of grammar enjoys two

advantages:Firstly, OT is singularly efficient in accounting for phonological patterns which exhibit ‘non-

uniformity’ in the sense of Pater (1995). As a result, OT can prove extremely useful in providingsynchronic analyses of apparently troublesome reconstructed languages. Most importantly, OTrelieves the historical linguist of the task of attempting to constrain the diachronic evolution ofstratified phonological grammars. I have illustrated this point with my account of stress and quantityin OE, where various non-uniformity effects may be observed. Most strikingly, NONFIN can renderderivational suffixes unstressable, but not lexical roots; similarly, it only allows heavy derivationalsuffixes to be stressed, whilst stressed root-syllables may be light or heavy.

Secondly, OT opens up the possibility of devising a truly restrictive, and hence explanatory,model of language change in generative grammar. Since in an optimality-theoretic framework changeconsists primarily of constraint-reranking, OT can narrow the scope of language change directly bylimiting the number of constraints that may be reranked at any one time. In the strongest form of thisstrategy, UG only allows a single constraint to be reranked at any one time (Reranking MaximalityHypothesis). I have shown that even a superficially complex sound change such as Gmc TSS, wherenumerous constraints are simultaneously involved, respects the Reranking Maximality Hypothesis.

Only further research can determine whether or not the Reranking Maximality Hypothesis maybe elevated into a principle of the diachronic component of UG. In any event, the RerankingNaturalness Hypothesis will give us the measure of how well available instantiations of OT principleswork in the historical realm. These hypothesis can thus be seen as performing an evaluative functionin diachronic OT, similar to that of factorial typologies in synchronic theory.

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Stress and quantity in Old and early Middle English

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