Vowel-Shifting in the English Language
( Topics in English Linguistics TiEL )
Publication series ：Topics in English Linguistics TiEL
Author： Kazmierski Kamil
Publisher： De Gruyter Mouton
Publication year： 2015
E-ISBN: 9783110366099
P-ISBN(Hardback): 9783110369502
Subject： H311 Speech
Keyword： 语言学
Language： ENG
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Description
English has long been suspected to be a vowel-shifting language. This hypothesis, often only adumbrated in previous work, is closely investigated in this book. Framed within a novel framework combining evolutionary linguistics and Optimality Theory, the account proposed here argues that the replacement of duration by quality as the primary cue to signaling vowel oppositions has resulted in the ‘shiftiness’ of many post-medieval English varieties.