# Regularities, Norms and Variation in the Pronunciation of 18 th-Century English as Evidenced by Orthoepic Dictionaries

Jean-Louis Duchet, Sylvie Hanote, Michaël Nauge

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Jean-Louis Duchet, Sylvie Hanote, Michaël Nauge. Regularities, Norms and Variation in the Pronunciation of 18 th-Century English as Evidenced by Orthoepic Dictionaries. Colloque d'avril d'anglais oral, Université Sorbonne Paris-Nord, Villetaneuse, Apr 2022, Villetaneuse, France. halshs-05483988

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Distributed under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 - Universal - International License
Regularities, Norms and Variation in the Pronunciation of 18th-Century English
as Evidenced by Orthoepic Dictionaries

Duchet Jean-Louis, Hanote Sylvie, Nauge Michaël, Videau Nicolas (FoReLLIS, UR 3816,
Université de Poitiers)

Zumstein Franck (CLILLAC-ARP, UR 3967, Université de Paris)

The pronunciation of entries as transcribed in several orthoepic dictionaries of the 18th century are as many interfaces that give us access to late 18th century English phonology, or at least to the phonology the lexicographers adhered to in an age of strong prescriptivism. We thus aim at contributing to a description of the phonology of the time with the help of exhaustive lists of words automatically extracted from wholly digitized dictionaries, descriptions included in the prefatory pages of the dictionaries and systematic comparisons of our results. In turn, we can test the reliability of the data by checking whether the transcriptions are consistent with phonological descriptions or not, throughout the dictionaries. One of the problems is that the transcription systems are specific to each dictionary and far from being as accurate as phonetic transcriptions with today's IPA conventions. Yet it is our contention that it is possible to render precise phonetic realisations since we have access to the phonology and, consequently, to point to regularities but also areas of irregularity and variation. Variation within each dictionary and between dictionaries reveals formal rules and sociolinguistic norms and their violations as they may occur across the whole lexicon. Our study will concentrate on cases of palatalization and synaeresis and the resulting compressions which affect syllable structure and secondary stress placement.

1) Synaeresis vs. diaeresis, and palatalization

In Buchanan (1766) and Sheridan (1780), *laborious* has three syllables, while in Walker (1791) it has four. And Buchanan's and Sheridan's pronunciations of *intermediate* have four syllables while Walker's has five. Similarly, the transcriptions of segments in *morion*, e.g. Buchanan: mō'ryūn, Sheridan: mo²'-ryu¹n, Walker: mo¹'-re¹-u²n, once correctly interpreted, reveal the conflict between Walker's diaeresis on the one hand and Buchanan's and Sheridan's synaeresis on the other hand. A detailed analysis of the data from those dictionaries will be presented and compared to contemporary English (Wells 1990).

2) Consequences of synaeresis and palatalization on rhythm

The syllable compression entailed by synaeresis has consequences on the placement of a hypothetical secondary stress, which was not made explicit by dictionary authors but which was likely to be pronounced after due consideration of the vowel quality of the syllable concerned. For instance, our phonetic transcriptions of the data enable us to show that Buchanan is consistent in his transcription of *partial* [pă'rʃhıl='parʃəl] et *partiality* [pă'rʃhă'lītỳ=par'saləti], while Walker and many authors after him keep a short [i] before the stressed vowel [a] which no longer exists in the deriving adjective *partial*. Such variants may shed light on resulting rhythmic constraints that these differences entail. Walker's diaeresis will in turn justify secondary stress placement on the initial syllable of the derived noun: [pa²-she¹-a⁴l'-le¹-te¹=,pa: rʃi'aləti], a possibility ruled out by Buchanan's syllabic structure of the word.

Our talk for the 20th Villetaneuse Conference aims at giving a full and in-depth account of the
differences between the dictionaries considered in terms of diaeresis, synaeresis and palatalization
by exploring the various contexts in which these processes can be triggered. In doing so, we point
to:

1) inconsistencies: for instance, Sheridan's phonetic transcription of the word *disobedience* [di¹s-ο²-be³'-dye¹nse] is not consistent with the transcription of its root *obedience* [o²-be³'-dʒhe¹ns]. Indeed, in the latter, palatalization occurs whereas in the former only synaeresis occurs,

2) variation: *ordeal* is transcribed [o3r'-de1-a4l] or [o3r'-je1-a4l] in Walker; the same kind of variation can be found in Wells (1990) where the main pronunciation of *sentient* is ['sentʃənt] with the following variants: ['sentʃiənt] and ['sentiənt],

3) possible errors: *patience* is transcribed [paɪʃɪnʃ] but *impatience* is transcribed [ɪmpaɪʃɪnz] by Buchanan.

The final aim of the study is to contribute to computational approaches of language change
with a specific focus on digital corpora of pronouncing dictionaries, resources which may have been
underestimated.

**References :**

**Corpus - Dictionaries:**

Buchanan, James, 1766, *An Essay Towards Establishing a Standard for an Elegant and Uniform Pronunciation of the English Language, throughout the British dominions, as practised by the most learned and polite speakers*, London: E.N.C. Dilly.

Sheridan, Thomas, 1780, *A General Dictionary of the English language. One Main Object of which, is, to Establish a Plain and Permanent Standard of Pronunciation*. London: Charles Dilly in the Poultry.

Walker, John, 1809, *A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language*, London: Sold by G. G. J. and J. Robinfon, Paternofter Row; and T. Cadell in the Strand, 1791; 6th ed. (stereotype), printed for J. Johnson, St Paul's Church-Yard; and Cadell and W. Davies, Strand.

Wells, John Christopher, 1990, *Longman Pronunciation Dictionary*, London: Longman.

**Theoretical references:**

Beal, Joan Christine, 1999, *English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth Century : Thomas Spence's 'Grand Repository of the English Language'*. Oxford : Clarendon Press.

Beal, Joan Christine, 2009, “Pronouncing Dictionaries - I: Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” In Cowie, A. P. (ed.), *The Oxford History of English Lexicography*. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 656-682.

Dunlap, A.R., 1940, “‘Vicious’ Pronunciations in Eighteenth-Century English”, in *American Speech*, Vol. 15 n°4, 364-367.

Glain, Olivier, 2012, “The yod /j/: palatalise it or drop it - How Traditional Yod Forms are Disappearing from Contemporary English”, *Cercles* n° 22, www.cercles.com/n22/glain.pdf, 1-21.

Glain, Olivier, 2018, « Réalisations phonétiques et ambiguïté des représentations phonologiques. Le cas de la palatalisation », in Olivier Glain & Manuel Jobert (dir.), *Phonologies de l'anglais : théories et applications*, Limoges, Lambert Lucas, 2018, 14-37.

Minkova, Donka, 2014, *A Historical phonology of English*, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.

Ohala, John, 1983, “The Origin of Sound Patterns in Vocal Tract Constraints”, in MacNeilage, Peter F. (ed.), *The Production of Speech*, Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 189-216.

Ohala, John, 1989, “Sound change is drawn from a pool of synchronic variation”, in Breivik L. et al. (dir.), *Language Change: Contributions to the study of its causes*, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter, 173-198.
Smith, Jeremy, 2007, *Sound Change and the History of English*, Oxford, Oxford University Press.