2002/10/10 by Mark J. Jones · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Mathematics · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Linguistics and language evolution #Lexicography and Language Studies #Linguistics #Vowel #Realization (probability) #Allomorph #Middle English #Phenomenon #History #Sound change #Mathematics #Philosophy #Statistics #Morpheme
paper · doi:10.1017/s1360674302000266
openalex publication_date 2002/10/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The phenomenon of Definite Article Reduction (DAR) is the realization of the definite article in northern British English dialects in a range of vowel-less forms, usually written t' in literature. The origin of DAR is assumed to be the assimilation of the initial fricative of the Middle English definite article þe to produce a te form, a sound change recorded for many dialects of Middle English. This article examines the validity of this hypothesis by analysing the distribution of fricative allomorphs in the modern dialects in comparison with the details of the Middle English change. The predicted distribution of fricative forms is not found at most localities, indicating that the development hypothesis is incorrect, but the available data are too scanty to suggest an alternative model.