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Title:
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The Phonetic Representation of ME ì in Some Norfolk Works of the Late Fifteenth Century
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Permalink:
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http://hdl.handle.net/10446/19440
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| Suggested citation: | MACI, STEFANIA MARIA, (2006). The Phonetic Representation of ME ì in Some Norfolk Works of the Late Fifteenth Century. English Studies (2/87), 148- 168. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10446/19440 |
| Author⁄s: | MACI, STEFANIA MARIA |
| Type of content: | journal article - articolo |
| Language: | eng |
| Date issued: | 2006 |
| Is part of: | English Studies |
| Issue: | 2/87 |
| From p. : | 148 |
| to p. : | 168 |
| Keywords (Italian): | Great Vowel Shift;ME i;Diphthongization;Phonetical graphemes;Norfolk dialect |
| Abstract: | The Hymn to the Virgin is the play taken by modern editors and philologists as an example of the earliest proof which testifies to the diphthongization process of Middle English (henceforth ME) ì. They claim that, by writing , the Welsh scribe who copied that play was trying to represent the sound of late ME ì. In some Norfolk plays of the late 15th century, too, there
is evidence of the occurrence of the diagraph in some words (but not all) which have radical ME ì. Assuming that the -type spelling revealed a diphthongized pronunciation of the result of ME ì, I will try to investigate when such an -grapheme occurred and why it appeared in few words of these 15th century Norfolk works.
In order to carry out this study, I analyzed four plays taken from the Bodleian Digby MSS 133 which seem to belong to the East Anglian dialect, and more precisely to the Norfolk county: The Conversion of St Paul, Mary Magdalene, The Killing of the Children, and Wisdom. I then compared the results I had found in these plays with those of the Paston Letters, a collection of family letters written in the Norfolk dialect throughout the 15th century. The data I obtained seem to cast a new light on the Great Vowel Shift (henceforth GVS) phenomenon, as it appears that the diphthongization of ME ì may have been helped by a phonetic coarticulation process
induced by the consonant which follows the radical vowel and which, apparently, had a fundamental role in the development of a centralized and lowered diphthongal onset. |
| Other info: | L’analisi presentata nell’articolo si inserisce in
ambito internazionale per il trattamento del topic,
Great Vowel Shift, di cui molto ancora rimane da
esplorare. Nella preparazione del lavoro, molti sono stati i contatti con eminenti studiosi stranieri (tra i quali il Prof. R. Lass dell’Università di Cape Town – Dept. of Linguistics – e la Dr M. Laing dell’Università di Edimburgo – Institute for Historical Dialectology-Linguistics and English Language) che hanno attivamente partecipato ad uno scambio interculturale e interdisciplinare con l’autrice. L’accettazione del lavoro da parte di una rivista internazionale di grande risonanza sottolinea il carattere e l’ interesse internazionale del lavoro stesso. |
| In: | Journal contributions - Contributi su rivista scientifica
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