1979/12/01 by John Fought · 6 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Art #Classics #History #Linguistics #Linguistics and language evolution #Literature #Medieval European Literature and History #Philosophy #Phonetics and Phonology Research
paper · doi:10.2307/412747
published in Language 55(4), 842-858 (Linguistic Society of America)
openalex publication_date 1979/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The account given by Joos 1952 of the emergence of a contrast between laminai and apical sibilants in Old French and Old High German, and its reduction in Later Old French and Middle High German, is brought into sharper focus by examining the evidence of a 9th century MS containing a text in Old Picard and one in Old Rhine Franconian written by the same hand. This evidence suggests a re-interpretation of the development of the sibilant systems in these border dialects—and also in the ‘standard ‘literary dialects—in terms of separate features of manner and point of articulation for sibilants; and it raises questions concerning the relationship between contrast and sound change.