Cover not available
Article published In:
Diachronica
Vol. 39:3 (2022) ► pp.409–448

Liquid polarity, positional contrast, and diachronic change

Clear and dark /r/ in Latin

ORCID logo | University of Sheffield
| Cambridge University

Apparently disparate sound changes in Latin, involving both vowels and consonants but sensitive to /r/, can be explained by reconstructing a positional clear/dark contrast in /r/, motivated by the seldom-mentioned “liquid polarity” effect. Examining these diachronic processes together allows us to see a larger picture, providing evidence for the reconstruction of successive past synchronic states. Latin /r/ mirrored the behaviour of Latin /l/ up to the first century BC: /l/ was dark and /r/ was clear in codas, and /r/ was dark and /l/ was underspecified for tongue body position in onsets. Darkness in /r/ was partly implemented through the selection of r-type: dark onset approximant and clear coda tap. Later, coda /r/ became an approximant like onset /r/, and subsequently both became trills, resulting in the erosion of the positional contrast and the liquid polarity effect.

Keywords: Latin, historical phonology, phonetic reconstruction, clear and dark resonance, liquid polarity, positional contrast, rhotics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Clear and dark /l/
  • 3.Prehistoric Latin: *s and *ð > /b/ when next to /r/
  • 4.Dark, approximant onset /r/
    • 4.1Rhotacism
    • 4.2Vowel reduction
    • 4.3Vowel lowering in initial syllables
    • 4.4Secondary syllabic *r̩
    • 4.5Metathesis
  • 5.Clear, tap coda /r/
    • 5.1Failure of onset /r/ phenomena
    • 5.2Pre-coronal fronting
    • 5.3Raising of /e/
    • 5.4Raising of *ō
    • 5.5Evidence for a tap
  • 6.Imperial Latin erosion of clear/dark /r/ distinction
    • 6.1Vowel lengthening
    • 6.2Imperial vowel lowering before /r/
    • 6.3Grammarians
  • 7.Liquid polarity and positional contrast
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 21 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.17032.sen
References
Adams, James N.
1977 The Vulgar Latin of the Letters of Claudius Terentianus (P. Mich. VIII, 467 – 72 ). Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
2007 The regional diversification of Latin, 200 BC – AD 600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
AE
L’Année Épigraphique.
Allen, W. Sidney
1989 Vox Latina. The pronunciation of Classical Latin. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barry, William J.
1997 Another r-tickle. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 271. 35–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo
2015 Amphichronic explanation and the life cycle of phonological processes. In Patrick Honeybone & Joseph C. Salmons (eds.), The Oxford handbook of historical phonology, 374–399. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bhat, D. N. S.
1974 The phonology of liquid consonants. Working Papers on Language Universals 161. 73–104.Google Scholar
Bladon, R. Anthony W. & Ameen Al-Bamerni
1976 Coarticulation resistance in English /l/. Journal of Phonetics 41. 137–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blevins, Juliette & Andrew Garrett
1998 The origins of consonant-vowel metathesis. Language 741. 508–556. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bowman, Alan & David Thomas
1994 The Vindolanda writing tablets (Tabulae Vindolandenses II). London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Camodeca, Giuseppe
1999 Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum. Edizione critica dell’archivio puteolano dei Sulpicii. Rome: Quasar.Google Scholar
Carter, Paul
2003 Extrinsic phonetic interpretation: Spectral variation in English liquids. In J. K. Local, R. A. Ogden & R. A. Temple (eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology 6: Phonetic Interpretation, 237–252. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carter, Paul & John Local
2007 F2 variation in Newcastle and Leeds English liquid systems. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 371. 183–199. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Catford, John C.
2001 On Rs, rhotacism and paleophony. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 31(2). 171–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cathcart, Chundra
2012 Articulatory variation of the alveolar tap and implications for sound change. UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Reports 8(8). 76–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Matthew. Y. & William. S. Wang
1975 Sound change: Actuation and implementation. Language 51(2). 255–281. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
CIL
= 1862– Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum. Berolini: Apud Georgium Reimerum & Walter De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Clackson, James & Geoffrey Horrocks
2011 The Blackwell history of the Latin language. Malden (MA), Oxford & Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Delattre, Pierre & Donald C. Freeman
1968 A dialect study of American r’s by x-ray motion picture. Linguistics 441. 29–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Vaan, Michiel A. C.
2008 Etymological dictionary of Latin and the other Italic languages. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Flemming, Edward S.
2003 The relationship between coronal place and vowel backness. Phonology 201. 353–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gurevich, Naomi
2011 Lenition. In Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume & Keren Rice (eds.), The Blackwell companion to phonology, 1559–1575. Malden (MA), Oxford & Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Matthew K.
2016 Phonological typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall, Tracy A. & Silke Hamann
2010 On the cross-linguistic avoidance of rhotic plus high front vocoid sequences. Lingua 1201. 1821–1844. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hartmann, Markus
2005 Die frühlateinischen Inschriften und ihre Datierung. Eine linguistisch-archäologisch-paläographische Untersuchung. Bremen: Hempen Verlag.Google Scholar
Hassall, Mark W. C. & Roger S. O. Tomlin
1977 Inscriptions. Britannia 81. 426–449. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heid, Sebastian & Sarah Hawkins
2000 An acoustical study of long domain /r/ and /l/ coarticulation. Proceedings of the 5th ISCA Seminar on Speech Production: Models and Data, 77–80.Google Scholar
Herman, József
2000 Vulgar Latin. Translated by Roger Wright. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Honeybone, Patrick
2012 Lenition in English. In Terttu Nevalainen & Elizabeth Traugott (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of English, 773–787. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huld, Martin E.
2011 Was there an Indo-European word for ‘pear’? Journal of Indo-European Studies 391. 380–394.Google Scholar
Jackson, Kenneth H.
1953 Language and history in early Britain: A chronological survey of the Brittonic languages, first to twelfth century A.D. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Juret, Abel-Claude
1938 La phonétique latine. Second edition. Paris: Société d’Édition les Belles Lettres.Google Scholar
Kavitskaya, Darya
2002 Compensatory lengthening: Phonetics, phonology, diachrony. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keil, Heinrich
1855–1880 Grammatici Latini. Eight volumes1. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.Google Scholar
Kelly, John & John Local
1989 Doing phonology: Observing, recording, interpreting. Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Kent, Roland G.
1932 The sounds of Latin. A descriptive and historical phonology. Baltimore: Waverly Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter & Ian Maddieson
1996 The sounds of the world’s languages. Oxford & Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lawson, Eleanor, Jane Stuart-Smith, James M. Scobbie, Malcah Yaeger-Dror & Margaret Maclagen
2011 Liquids. In Marianna di Paolo & Malcah Yaeger-Dror. (eds.), Sociophonetics: A student’s guide, 72–86. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Leumann, Manu
1977 Lateinische Laut- und Formenlehre. Second edition. München: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.Google Scholar
Lindau, Mona
1985 The story of /r/. In Victoria A. Fromkin. (ed.), Phonetic Linguistics. Essays in honor of Peter Ladefoged, 157–168. London: Academic Press Inc.Google Scholar
LIV
= Helmut Rix & Martin Kümmel 2001 Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. Second edition. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.Google Scholar
Maniet, Albert
1957 L’évolution phonétique et les sons du latin ancien dans le cadre des langues indo-européennes. Third edition. Louvain & Paris: Éditions Nauwelaerts & Béatrice-Nauwelaerts.Google Scholar
Meiser, Gerhard
1998 Historische Laut- und Formenlehre der lateinischen Sprache. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm
2009 Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Seventh edition. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.Google Scholar
Monteil, Pierre
1970 Éléments de phonétique et morphologie du latin. Paris: Fac. Fernand Nathan.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Alan J.
1999 *Jocidus: an account of the Latin adjectives in -idus . In Heiner Eichner & Hans Christian Luschützky (eds.), Compositiones Indogermanicae in memoriam Jochem Schindler, 377–419. Praha: Enigma Corporation.Google Scholar
2016 A note on Latin syllables and anaptyxis. In Andrew M. Byrd, Jessica DeLisi & Mark Wenthe (eds.), Tavet Tat Satyam: Studies in honor of Jared S. Klein on the occasion of his 70th birthday, 214–227. Ann Arbor & New York: Beech Stave Press.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J.
2003 Phonetics and historical phonology. In Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda (eds.), The handbook of historical linguistics, 669–686. Maldon (MA), Oxford & Victoria: Blackwell Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ohala, John J. & Maria-Josep Solé
2010 Turbulence and phonology. In Susanne Fuchs, Martine Toda & Marzena Zygis (eds.), Turbulent sounds: An interdisciplinary guide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 37–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
OLD
= P. G. W. Glare (ed.) 1996 Oxford Latin dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Olive, Joseph P., Alice Greenwood & John Coleman
1993 Acoustics of American English speech: A dynamic approach. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Painter, Robert K.
2011 Acoustic and perceptual explanations for rhotacism in Latin and Germanic. PhD dissertation, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
Parker, Holt N.
1988 Latin *sisō >serō and related rules. Glotta 661. 221–241.Google Scholar
Petolescu, Constantin C.
1985 Valerius Vivianus, Biercus. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 611. 238.Google Scholar
Phillips, Betty S.
2006 Word frequency and lexical diffusion. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pighi, Giovanni B.
1964 Lettere latine d’un soldato di Traiano. PMich 467–472. Bologna: Zanichelli Editore.Google Scholar
Powell, Jonathan G. F.
2007 A new text of the Appendix Probi. Classical Quarterly 571. 687–700. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pultrová, Lucie
2013 On the phonetic nature of the Latin R. Eruditio Antiqua 51. 21–29.Google Scholar
Recasens, Daniel
2006 Gradient weakening of syllable-final /s, r/ in Majorcan Catalan consonant clusters. In H. C. Yehia, D. Demolin, & R. Laboissiere (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th International Seminar on Speech Production, 11–18. Cefala: Belo Horizonte.Google Scholar
2012 Coarticulation in Catalan dark [ɫ] and the alveolar trill: General implications for sound change. Language and Speech 561. 45–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Recasens, Daniel, Jordi Fontdevila & Maria Dolors Pallarès
1995 Velarization degree and coarticulatory resistance for /l/ in Catalan and German. Journal of Phonetics 23(1,2). 37–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Recasens, Daniel & Maria Dolors Pallarès
1999 A study of /ɾ/ and /r/ in the light of the ‘DAC’ coarticulation model. Journal of Phonetics 271. 143–169. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Recasens, Daniel, Maria Dolors Pallarès & Jordi Fontdevila
1997 A model of lingual coarticulation based on articulatory constraints. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 1021. 544–561. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
RIB
= R. G. Collingwood & R. P. Wright 1965 The Roman inscriptions of Britain. 1, Inscriptions on stone. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ritchie, James A.
1999 R-Myth-athesis: A perception-based approach at understanding some r-related sound changes. In Irmengard Rauch & Gerald F. Carr (eds.), New insights in Germanic linguistics I, 211–222. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Rix, Helmut
1995 Einige lateinische Präsensstammbildungen zur Seṭ-Wurzeln. In Wojciech Smoczyński (ed.), Kuryłowicz memorial volume. Part One, 399–408. Krakow: Universitas.Google Scholar
Romero, Joaquín & Sidney Martín
2003 Articulatory weakening as basis of historical rhotacism. In Maria-Josep Solé, Daniel Recasens & Joaquin Romero (eds.), 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain, August 3–9, 2003, 2825–2828. Barcelona: IPA.Google Scholar
Scobbie, James M., Reenu Punnoose & Ghada Khattab
2013 Articulating five liquids: A single speaker ultrasound study of Malayalam. In Lorenzo Spreafico & Alessandro Vietti (eds.), Rhotics: New data and perspectives, 99–124. Bolzano: Bozen-Bolzano University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Ranjan
2009 Syllable and segment in Latin. D. Phil. thesis, Oxford University.
2012 Reconstructing phonological change: Duration and syllable structure in Latin vowel reduction. Phonology 291. 465–504. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 Syllable and segment in Latin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sihler, Andrew
1995 New comparative grammar of Greek and Latin. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Solé, Maria-Josep
2002 Aerodynamic characteristics of trills and phonological patterning. Journal of Phonetics 301. 655–688. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 Effects of syllable position on sound change: An aerodynamic study of final fricative weakening. Journal of Phonetics 381. 289–305. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Solin, Heikki & Paola Caruso
2014 Dai nomi alle aree sepolcrali. Memorie beneventane in epigrafi note e inedite. Oebalus. 91. 63–89.Google Scholar
Spajić, Siniša, Peter Ladefoged & Peri Bhaskararao
1996 The trills of Toda. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 261. 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sproat, Richard & Osamu Fujimura
1993 Allophonic variation in English /l/ and its implications for phonetic implementation. Journal of Phonetics 211. 291–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steriade, Donca
2001 Directional asymmetries in place assimilation: A perceptual account. In Elizabeth V. Hume & Keith Johnson (eds.), The role of speech perception in phonology, 220–250. San Diego; London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane
2004 Phonetics and philology: Sound change in Italic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sturtevant, Edgar H.
1968 The pronunciation of Greek and Latin. Second edition. Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis N. V. Publishers.Google Scholar
Tunley, Alison
1999 Coarticulatory influences of liquids on vowels in English. PhD dissertation, Cambridge University.
Vijūnas, Aurelijus
2018 The mechanism for rhotacism re-visited: A typological parallel from East Asia. In Dieter Gunkel, Stephanie W. Jamison, Angelo O. Mercado & Kazuhiko Yoshida (eds.), Vina diem celebrent: Studies in linguistics and philology in honor of Brent Vine, 415–425. Ann Arbor & New York: Beech Stave Press.Google Scholar
Weiss, Michael
2009 Outline of the historical and comparative grammar of Latin. Ann Arbor & New York: Beech Stave Press.Google Scholar
Forthcoming. Pig, cake and sun: Observations on the iúvila inscriptions. In Satoko Hisatsugi ed. Die italischen Sprachen – neue Aspekte in linguistischer und philologischer Hinsicht. Zur Erinnerung an Albert Debrunner Hamburg Baar-Verlag
West, Paula
1999 Perception of distributed coarticulatory properties of English /l/ and /ɹ/. Journal of Phonetics 271. 405–426. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Westbury, John R., Michiko Hashi & Mary J. Lindstrom
1998 Differences among speakers in lingual articulation for American English /ɹ/. Speech Communication 261. 203–226. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiese, Richard
2011 The representation of rhotics. In Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume & Keren Rice (eds.), The Blackwell companion to phonology, 711–729. Malden (MA), Oxford & Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, David R. & Richard Pearson Wright
1968 Roman Britain in 1967. Journal of Roman Studies 581. 176–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wright, Richard
2004 A review of perceptual cues and cue robustness. In Bruce Hayes, Robert Kirchner & Donca Steriade (eds.), Phonetically based phonology, 34–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zair, Nicholas
2017 The origins of urC for expected orC in Latin. Glotta 931. 255–289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zawadzki, Paul A. & David P. Kuehn
1980 A cineradiographic study of static and dynamic aspects of American English /r/. Phonetica 37(4). 253–266. DOI logoGoogle Scholar