Pre-r breaking in Early Modern and Middle English: The diphthongal basis of southern English

Starcevic, Attila (2025) Pre-r breaking in Early Modern and Middle English: The diphthongal basis of southern English. ACTA LINGUISTICA ACADEMICA, 72 (2). pp. 172-199. ISSN 2559-8201

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Abstract

We argue that traditional breaking of the historical long vowels in the predecessor of Southern Standard British English (e.g. Wells 1982, 213ff) is in fact ongliding to (or prevocalisation of) r in jr / wr which has been ongoing starting with (at least) Middle English, continued into Early Modern English and Southern Standard British English. It can be captured as prevocalisation of pharyngeal r before j / w -final diphthongs in terms of gestural phonology, producing sequences like fijər fear , fejər fare . This schwa-like onglide to r allows us to look at Middle English from a different perspective, from the point of view of a ‘tug of war’ between the long monophthongs and diphthongs (inherited from Old English, to which we can add Old French and Norse words) with identical stressed peaks (e.g. ij tile vs iː life , nice ; uː shower vs uw power , etc.). This resulted in a merger favouring a diphthongal basis in the southern varieties of Middle English (as opposed to its northern counterparts, in which a monophthongal basis was established), resulting in fire / shower (< Old English fȳr / scūr ) having ij and uw , respectively, setting the stage for prevocalisation in jr / wr (merging them with original ijə ( r )/ uwə ( r )). We explore some of the consequences of such a supposition.

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