bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Some cross-linguistic differences in diphthongs
Authors: Lindau Mona , Norlin Kjell , Svantesson Jan-Olof
Published: February 2009

In this paper we will discuss some phonetic differences that are found in the production of diphthongs. The study is of a limited scope and may be considered a pilot study. The kinds of questions that will be addressed have to do with the specification of timing in speech production. Are the vowel elements of diphthongs joined in language-specific ways, or can they be joined by more general principles, such as the assumption of a fairly constant transition duration, so that the transition rate will be faster if the distance between onset - and offset - vowels is greater? This kind of principle was proposed by Kent and Moll (1972) for some types of vowel-to-vowel sequences. Or does the duration of the transition lengthen as the distance of the transition increases, keeping the transition rate fairly constant? If any of these principles are at work, then their effects will show up acoustically in the transition duration, particularly of F2. If the Kent and Moll principle is applicable, it would for example operate as a tendency towards similar F2 transition durations in different languages for the ‘same’ diphthongs.
What do we symbolize? Thoughts prompted by bilabial and labiodental fricatives
Authors: Ladefoged Peter
Published: February 2009

The contrast between bilabial and labiodental fricatives is comparatively rare in the world's languages. In his survey of 317 languages Maddieson (1984) notes only one that has the full set of voiced and voiceless sounds [φ, β, f, v], and only four other languages that contrast just the voiced pair. There is no doubt that these contrasts do occur, and that phonologists such as Sagey (1986) are wrong in neglecting to provide for them. This note will provide further particulars of the contrast in languages in which it has not been so well documented in the general linguistic literature. It will also suggest that this contrast may not be made in the same way in all languages, and discuss the implications for the IPA and for theories of phonetic description.
Misarticulations of Two Jordanian Children
Authors: Mitleb Fares
Published: February 2009

This paper examines the speech of two functionally misarticulating Jordanian children and illustrates the variability of misarticulation patterns as well as the failure of markedness to account for them. The presentation is very similar to work by Gierut describing misarticulating English-learning children (Gierut 1984, 1985), but in this case the children are learning Arabic. The term ‘functional misarticulation’ is typically used to describe the speech of speakers whose chronic articulatory errors cannot be attributed to any obvious organic disorder such as hearing impairment or cleft palate (Ingram 1976, Compton 1970). The basic assumption of much of the work done on speech misarticulations is that children's knowledge is identical to that of the ambient speech community (Compton 1975, Lorentz 1976). Within this framework, misarticulators are viewed as a homogenous group. Any discrepancy between the misarticulators' system and the ambient system is described as a ‘process’ (Shriberg & Kwiatkowski 1982). However, the many diverse phonological rules that have been posited to derive the misarticulators' surface structure from underlying structure make it difficult to arrive at any but gross commonalities across functional misarticulation systems (Ingram 1976). Such an assumption is a clear misrepresentation of the apparent differences across the misarticulation systems (Dinnsen, Elbert & Weismer 1980).
Are Measured Differences Between the Formants of Men, Women and Children Due to F0 Differences?
Authors: Maurer Dieter , Cook Norman , Landis Theodor , d'Heureuse Christian
Published: February 2009

Formant measurements show sex and age differences in the formant patterns of a single vowel category. Comparisons of the formant frequency values of men, women and children indicate low, middle and high values, respectively (Chiba & Kajiyama 1941, Potter & Steinberg 1950, Peterson & Barney 1952). The differences are found for all vowel categories, and they have generally been interpreted as a consequence of different vocal tract size.
Palatogram Reading as a Phonetic Skill: a Short Tutorial
Authors: Byrd Dani
Published: February 2009

Dynamic electropalatography (EPG) (also known as dynamic palatography or palatometry) is a system for recording information about the tongue's contact with the hard palate over time. It is relatively inexpensive and technologically accessible. EPG is safe, provides spatial information on the shape of constriction contact, and allows the collection of reasonable acoustic data. Multiple sessions with a subject are possible and replicable. For these reasons, this method may be of interest to phoneticians. The purpose of this note is to serve as an introduction to interpreting palatograms. Much in the same way that phonetics students learn to read spectrograms, reading palatograms is a skill which can be honed by practice and experience. And just as looking at spectrograms of an unknown utterance can develop increased sensitivity to acoustic facts, reading palatograms can enhance awareness of details of articulation.
Computer Codes for Phonetic Symbols
Authors: Esling John H. , Gaylord Harry
Published: February 2009

The process of assigning computer codes to phonetic symbols began when the 1989 Kiel Convention of the International Phonetic Association was called to revise the Association's alphabet. The Workgroup on Computer Coding formed at that time had the task of determining how to represent the IPA alphabet numerically, and of developing a set of numbers referring to IPA symbols unambiguously. This involved assembling phoneticians who work with computer representations of phonetic symbols, and communicating with specialists in computer coding to gauge the fit between the phonetician's perspective on symbol usage and the non-phonetician's understanding of how to identify and use phonetic symbols. Prior to Kiel, a collection of practical approaches to coded representations was outlined in JIPA (Esling 1988), which dealt mainly with keyboard assignments of characters.
A Mid-18th-Century Use of [ə], [ɔ], and [ʞ] as Phonetic Symbols
Authors: MacMahon Michael K. C.
Published: February 2009

According to Sweet, the German linguist Johann Andreas Schmeller was the first to use [ə] as a phonetic symbol (Sweet 1877: 175). (Although Sweet gives no bibliographical reference, the work he must have had in mind was Schmeller's Die Mundarten Bayerns of 1821; cf. also Ellis 1874: 1357.) Schmeller uses [ə] for the ‘dumpfe Vocallaut’ in words like Semmel, Nennen, Wetter, and for the second element of various diphthongs, e.g. in dialectal pronunciations of Not(h), Bruder, etc. (Schmeller 1821: 25, 72, 141, and passim). According to Abercrombie (1946), an earlier use of [ə] than Schmeller's is to be found in William Thornton's Cadmus of 1793, for the vowel in run, come, etc. However, neither the original nor the reprint of Cadmus uses a [ə], but the symbol [ℶ].
Palatogram Reading as a Phonetic Skill: a Short Tutorial
Authors: Byrd Dani
Published: February 2009

Dynamic electropalatography (EPG) (also known as dynamic palatography or palatometry) is a system for recording information about the tongue's contact with the hard palate over time. It is relatively inexpensive and technologically accessible. EPG is safe, provides spatial information on the shape of constriction contact, and allows the collection of reasonable acoustic data. Multiple sessions with a subject are possible and replicable. For these reasons, this method may be of interest to phoneticians. The purpose of this note is to serve as an introduction to interpreting palatograms. Much in the same way that phonetics students learn to read spectrograms, reading palatograms is a skill which can be honed by practice and experience. and just as looking at spectrograms of an unknown utterance can develop increased sensitivity to acoustic facts, reading palatograms can enhance awareness of details of articulation.
Hindi
Authors: Ohala Manjari
Published: February 2009

The variety described here is Standard Hindi used in everyday casual speech by educated speakers in cities such as Varanasi, Lucknow, Delhi, etc. Although there are a few differences in pronunciation among speakers of these cities, the differences are minimal. The transcription is based on a recording of a female third generation speaker of Standard Hindi who grew up mostly in Uttar Pradesh before moving to Delhi. For a detailed analysis of Hindi segments see Dixit (1963) and Ohala (1983).
A psychoacoustical explanation for the number of major IPA vowels
Authors: Iivonen Antti
Published: February 2009

Christoph Friedrich Hellwag was probably the first scholar who tried to show the auditory relationships and the relative distances of the vowels (Hellwag [1791] 1991). He described the vowels in a space in which the vowels formed a triangle (He didn't actually use the word ‘triangle,’ but spoke instead about a ‘scale,’ ‘ladder,’ ‘stairs,’ or ‘symmetric scheme’ (Monin 1991: 22)). The cardinal vowel system, created by Daniel Jones, has been a valuable frame work for vowel quality description, but it is partly articulatory, partly auditory.
Taba
Authors: Bowden John , Hajek John
Published: February 2009

Taba (also known as ‘East Makian’ or ‘Makian Dalam’) is an Austronesian language spoken in northern Maluku province, Indonesia. It is spoken on Makian, Moti and Kayoa islands and also in a few villages on other nearby islands. The speech recorded here is from the village of Ngofakiaha on Makian island. Slight dialectal variations are to be found in most villages where the language is spoken.
Bulgarian Speech Rhythm: Stress-Timed or Syllable-Timed?
Authors: Dimitrova Snezhina
Published: February 2009

Experimental work on Bulgarian speech rhythm has failed to determine which of the two “traditional” rhythmic categories the language belongs to. Using the model put forward by Dauer (1987), the present paper attempts to characterise the rhythm of Bulgarian in scalar rather than in dichotomous terms. For such an assessment, six of the components proposed by Dauer are relevant. Bulgarian is assigned two pluses (for intonation and function of accent), two zeros (for vowel duration and vowel quality) and two minuses (for syllable structure and consonant quality). According to the model, the more pluses a language has, the more likely it is that this language is “stress-timed”. From the relative rhythm “score” obtained for Bulgarian one can predict that, on a scale of rhythm, the language will occupy an intermediate position. This accounts for the contradictory conclusions reached in earlier studies. Dauer's model thus provides a useful starting point for a study of the rhythm of a given language, but it can be further improved, for example by adding zero marks for some of the components.
On the Interpretation of Vowel “Quality”: The Dimension of Rounding
Authors: Lisker Leigh
Published: February 2009

The usual description of vowels in respect to their “phonetic quality” requires the linguist to locate them within a so-called “vowel space,” apparently articulatory in nature, and having three dimensions labeled high-low (or close-open), front-back, and unrounded-rounded. The first two are coordinates of tongue with associated jaw position, while the third specifies the posture of the lips. It is recognized that vowels can vary qualitatively in ways that this three-dimensional space does not account for. So, for example, vowels may differ in degree of nasalization, and they may be rhotacized or r-colored. Moreover, it is recognized that while this vowel space serves important functions within the community of linguists, both the two measures of tongue position and the one for the lips inadequately identify those aspects of vocal tract shapes that are primarily responsible for the distinctive phonetic qualities of vowels (Ladefoged 1971). With all this said, it remains true enough that almost any vowel pair of different qualities can be described as occupying different positions with the space. Someone hearing two vowels in sequence and detecting a quality difference will presumably also be able to diagnose the nature of the articulatory shift executed in going from one vowel to the other.
Does the ‘voiced epiglottal plosive’ exist?
Authors: Laufer Asher
Published: February 2009

In the IPA 1989 Kiel Convention it was decided to include the voiced epiglottal plosive in the IPA chart in the ‘Other symbols’ section (IPA 1989: 69). Accordingly [ʡ] “voiced epiglottal plosive” appears in the published chart in the middle page of the same issue under ‘Other symbols’. I claim that a “voiced epiglottal plosive” is an ‘impossible’ sound.
The Development of Fundamental Frequency in 6- to 10-Year Old Children: A Brief Study
Authors: Whiteside S. P. , Hodgson C.
Published: February 2009

This brief study investigates the development of fundamental frequency (FO) in pre-adolescent children as a function of age and sex. The children who took part in the study were divided into three age groups: 6, 8 and 10 years. Each group consisted of three males and three females. Each subject produced nine target phrases with [] in phrase-final position, which were elicited via a picture-naming task. FO was estimated for the nine target utterances and the following FO parameters were derived: mean FO for the whole phrase; FO range for the whole phrase; standard deviation values of FO for the whole phrase and mean FO for the phrase-final vowel [α:]. Results indicated that FO parameters generally decreased with age, and by age 10 years the males had lower values than the females for all four parameters. Results also indicated that the mean standard deviation of FO across the phrase was significantly higher for the females compared to that for the males.
Towards a broadening of the concept of religious experience: some phenomenological considerations
Authors: WYNN MARK
Published: February 2009

The recent philosophical literature on religious experience has mostly been concerned with experiences which are taken by the subject of the experience to be directly of God or some other supernatural entity, or to involve some suspension of the subject–object structure of conventional experience. In this paper I consider a further kind of experience, where the sense of God is mediated by way of an appreciation of the existential meanings which are presented by a material context. In this way the paper aims to extend the standard philosophical concept of religious experience so as to take account of phenomenological treatments of sacred place, and to give more prominence to the materially mediated or sacramental character of much religious experience.
Natural invariant measures, divergence points and dimension in one-dimensional holomorphic dynamics
Authors: INGLE WILLIAM , KAUFMANN JACIE , WOLF CHRISTIAN
Published: February 2009

In this paper we discuss the dimension-theoretical properties of rational maps on the Riemann sphere. In particular, we study the existence and uniqueness of generalized physical measures for several classes of maps including hyperbolic, parabolic, non-recurrent and topological Collet–Eckmann maps. These measures have the property that their typical points have maximal Hausdorff dimension. On the other hand, we prove that the set of divergence points (the set of points which are non-typical for any invariant measure) also has maximal Hausdorff dimension. Finally, we prove that if (fa)ais a holomorphic family of stable rational maps, then the dimensiond(fa) is a continuous and plurisubharmonic function of the parametera. In particular,d(f) varies continuously and plurisubharmonically on an open and dense subset ofRatd, the space of all rational maps with degreed≥2.
The growing burden of foodborne outbreaks due to contaminated fresh produce: risks and opportunities
Authors: LYNCH M. F. , TAUXE R. V. , HEDBERG C. W.
Published: February 2009

Foodborne outbreaks from contaminated fresh produce have been increasingly recognized in many parts of the world. This reflects a convergence of increasing consumption of fresh produce, changes in production and distribution, and a growing awareness of the problem on the part of public health officials. The complex biology of pathogen contamination and survival on plant materials is beginning to be explained. Adhesion of pathogens to surfaces and internalization of pathogens limits the usefulness of conventional processing and chemical sanitizing methods in preventing transmission from contaminated produce. Better methods of preventing contamination on the farm, or during packing or processing, or use of a terminal control such as irradiation could reduce the burden of disease transmission from fresh produce. Outbreak investigations represent important opportunities to evaluate contamination at the farm level and along the farm-to-fork continuum. More complete and timely environmental assessments of these events and more research into the biology and ecology of pathogen-produce interactions are needed to identify better prevention strategies.
Galleries of modern art in nineteenth-century Paris and London: their location and urban influence
Authors: Lorente Jesús-Pedro
Published: February 2009

Museums of contemporary art tend to be exclusive landmarks of great capitals. We are used to finding art galleries in the most prominent of locations, either in old palaces, or in purpose-built museum buildings. For the special case of galleries of contemporary art, however, it is also a common policy to provide space at the middle of an out-of-town park, or else into the heart of an urban renewal area, using modern arts as ‘flagships’ of city regeneration. This article strives to show that today's dilemmas and choices about the siting of galleries of art are a legacy of the nineteenth century, recalling the lively controversies concerning the urban setting of the ParisianMusée des Artistes Vivantsand its London equivalents. The different national cases are explored, to reveal several distinct models of gallery formation.
Georg Simmel and the Berlin Trade Exhibition of 1896
Authors: Rowe Dorothy
Published: February 2009

In tracing a theoretical history of modernity peculiar to Imperial Berlin after 1871, the urban themes developed in the writings of the German social theorist, Georg Simmel, have proved to be particularly pertinent. The exhibition of 1896 provides Simmel with a major site of investigation into the visible effects of the commodified urban sphere upon the individual city dweller which finds one of its most spectacular forms in the rise of the mid-nineteenth-century ‘World Exhibition’. The paper outlines aspects of Simmel's theories of the differentiation of the individual in the capitalist metropolis as a background to an investigation into the various functions assigned to the 1896 Berlin Trade Exhibition both by its organizers and by Simmel.
Art and urban regeneration
Authors: Miles Malcolm
Published: February 2009

The case for art in urban regeneration is widely promoted. Some local authorities and development corporations see it as a means of access to an international cultural map; others see it as enabling the construction of identities for communities. The case remains speculative. The model of post-Enlightenment cities is one of exclusion and confinement, whereby ‘awkward’ aspects of the city, such as the insane or vagrant, are excluded from view and confined in institutions. This compartmentalization of the city extends into policies for single use zoning and a general retreat from public space. If there is a role for art in urban renewal, it is in reclaiming the decorative as an aspect of public space, not in replicating monuments which affirm the dominant, divisive culture.
Urban Archaeology in Britain: A review of recent progress
Authors: Palliser D. M.
Published: February 2009

Urban archaeology, long familiar in Germany and Scandinavia, has come relatively late to Britain, but is rapidly making up for lost time. Evidence is being discovered or re-interpreted for all periods from Roman to Georgian, and the discoveries are especially exciting for the crucial, and usually undocumented, periods when towns were first founded. Publication is not, however, keeping pace with discovery. A few excavations are quickly encapsulated in definitive reports, and others are made available in annual interim reports (e.g. Winchester and York in the Antiquaries Journal, and Oxford in Oxoniensia). For many others, however, scholars have to rely at best on the brief annual surveys in Britannia, Medieval Archaeology and Post-Medieval Archaeology. The Editor believes, as I do, that the importance of recent work justifies a regular review which will attempt to summarize the most significant discoveries for the benefit of urban historians. This first review covers excavations especially of the early 1970s, with a few of slightly earlier date, especially those at Winchester. The terminal date is the time of writing (July 1974), but not all reports drawn on can be equally up-to-date, and there will inevitably be some chronological overlap with the next report.
Some Reflections on the Pre-Industrial City
Authors: Burke Peter
Published: February 2009

In the last few years, a new word has gained popularity among historians: ‘pre-industrial’. Specialists in the social and economic history of Europe before 1800 have become increasingly aware that the object of their studies is simply one case among others of what sociologists call ‘traditional society’, and that it is easier to understand traditional or pre-industrial Europe if it is compared and contrasted with other societies of this type. Thus Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane have illuminated English witchcraft by making comparisons with witchcraft in African tribal societies, while Frédéric Mauro and Witold Kula, among others, have compared the economies of early modern Europe with those of the developing countries today. Even Richard Cobb, no great friend to the social sciences, has recorded that he came to understand eighteenth-century Paris better after visiting contemporary Calcutta. In fact, the city is an obvious and splendidly tangible unit of comparison, and it is not surprising that the term ‘pre-industrial city’ is passing into general use.
Building History from Fire Insurance Records: An autobiographical fragment
Authors: Beresford M. W.
Published: February 2009

With documentary sources, as with one's friends, it is never easy to recall exactly when mere acquaintance passed into familiarity. I am somewhat shaken to see from its footnotes that when I wrote my chapter for the Chapman symposium in 1969–70 that I made no use of fire insurance policies for the dating of house-building, relying mainly on conveyances, estate-plans, rate books, press advertisements and family papers; the same range of sources employed over a far wider geographical area in Christopher Chalklin's recent study. My love affair with insurance policies is therefore relatively recent, and that of an ageing researcher, not to be compared with the amatory techniques of others who were using them for industrial history well before 1971. I have been an old man in a hurry, a scanner rather than a scholar; and these practical notes from a scanner will be superseded if the S.S.R.C. project for an index to the main registers is ever realized.
House-ownership from Rate Books
Authors: Daunton M. J.
Published: February 2009

Professor Marion Bowley, writing of the housing boom of the 1930s which was uniquely based upon sales to owner-occupiers, remarked that ‘we have no means of knowing statistically the extent of owner-occupation before the Great War…Actually, it is more important to know why the change occurred [in the inter-war period] than to know its actual size, and there is no need to be led astray in a futile search for non-existent statistics’. The same ban would seem to extend to analysis of investment ownership of housing before 1914. What I want to suggest is that it is indeed possible to obtain statistics relating not only to owner occupation but also to the overall structure of the urban housing market; and that far from leading us astray, it is in fact important to acquire precise figures in order to understand with more certainty the structure of the nineteenth-century housing market – something of which we have remarkably little knowledge.
Urban History in North America
Authors: Miller Zane L. , Griffen Clyde , Stelter Gilbert
Published: February 2009

History is a tricky business, if only because history, as a phenomenon of the present, subject to scrutiny and manipulation, does not exist: it is, in a very real sense, made up. The study of the history of historical writing is a doubly tricky business because it is not merely what really happened in the past which determined the way people acted and wrote history, but also the way in which people perceived what happened. These complications require that one not only take into account what historians have said but also their perceptions of reality in their own times and the way that perception defined their conception of what was real in the past. Definition becomes the crux of the matter, for the way our predecessors wrote urban history depended upon their definition of their subject matter.
Municipal Socialism, Enterprise and Trading in the Victorian City
Authors: Kellett J. R.
Published: February 2009

By the closing decades of the nineteenth century the continued and rapid growth of cities had given rise to acute problems of municipal policy on both sides of the Atlantic. America had come to its urban experience relatively late – the population of Chicago at the time the Liverpool & Manchester Railway opened was 50 people – but between 1880 and 1910 the critical shift had taken place in the United States to a population which was over 50 per cent urban. The fifty million town dwellers in America not merely outnumbered the whole population of the UK, but included a large number of recent immigrants from the poorer, non-English speaking countries.
Politics and the Victorian City
Authors: Fraser Derek
Published: February 2009

Urban history progresses through the work of many different types of historian. Some think of themselves as primarily urban historians, the zealots in a novel faith. Others explore problems that happen to have occurred in cities, potential converts by association. Still more have an ambit that is society-wide and ‘pass through’ cities haphazardly, the casual visitors. All have something to say to us. This is especially true in the study of urban politics, where until recently it has been the ‘politics’ and not the ‘urban’ which has been the point of focus. The student of urban politics may be confronted with books on re- ligion, class, values, institutions and political systems, none of which may be primarily urban in orientation. But all of them may be grist to his mill.
Growth and Decay in English Towns 1500–1700
Authors: Dyer Alan
Published: February 2009

During the past thirty years the study of English early modern urban history has concentrated on the detailed examination of individual towns. Some very useful works have been produced, but each has treated the town in isolation, not daring to venture beyond its protective walls to speculate on the wider implications of its discoveries. Enough has now been written to encourage a recent wave of attempts at a more general view of the subject, in which,for the first time, certain generalizations are advanced which claim to summarize the characteristics of most, if not all, urban communities. Such enterprises demand much courage, for large sections of the field have still not been examined in detail, and in the reduction of the rich diversity of English urban experience to some sort of general principles lies the greatest challenge of all. It would be churlish not to pay tribute to the value of these syntheses, but equally unwise to claim that in the present state of our knowledge they can be regarded as definitive. The purpose of this essay is to examine critically three recently published studies which seek to establish general concepts of urban growth and decline in this period and to suggest alternative approaches to the problem.
The urban historian and the political will
Authors: Checkland S. G.
Published: February 2009

At the Leicester urban history conference in 1966 there was very little discussion of the relationship between public policy and urban history. There were some points at which linkages were implied, but these arose merely incidentally. There was no attempt to adopt public policy as a general perspective on urban development. Reciprocally, the planners paid no attention to the historians: Jim Dyos remarked that the largest part of ‘research and policy making is taking place without reference to the historians’. The picture has not greatly changed over the past 14 years. There have indeed been studies in which policy, its formation and limitations, have been implicit, but few in which they have played a central part.
Decline and decay in late medieval towns: a look at some of the concepts and arguments
Authors: Reynolds Susan
Published: February 2009

The fortunes of late medieval towns seem to have become rather a contentious topic. That is probably a good thing. It is a poor historical proposition that cannot be illustrated bysomeevidence, but proof of an historical phenomenon like general decline or decay requires something more than illustration and something that argument may help to secure. So far, however, as S. H. Rigby points out, the debate has suffered from an uncertainty over terms that may frustrate the advance of knowledge and understanding. Two words which he did not mention but which seem to me particularly unclear are ‘decline’ and ‘decay’ themselves. Until they are examined more closely we may not be sure enough of what anyone is trying to prove to know whether he has succeeded or not.
The topography of seventeenth-century London: a review of maps
Authors: Glanville Philippa
Published: February 2009

Since the mid-sixteenth century London has received attention from many map-makers and publishers. Before the arrival of the Ordnance Survey, however, only a handful of London maps are both topographically reliable (in terms of contemporary technical ability) and based on original surveys. These are: the lost mid-Tudor copper-engraved map, original of the so-called ‘Agas’ woodcut map, Hollar's uncompleted map of 1661–6, Rocque's maps of London and its environs of the 1740s, and the two post-Fire maps considered here. Of this group only ‘Agas’ and Rocque's maps are familiar and fairly widely used by historians, although, one has to say, more often as book-illustrations for their ornamental and quaint character than for the information they give.
The early modern town—its history and historians: a review article
Authors: Burke Peter
Published: February 2009

Twenty-five years ago, when Jean Delumeau published his study of sixteenth-century Rome, contributions to the social (as opposed to the institutional) history of early modern towns were still rare events. Since about 1960, the trickle has become a flood. Historians from different countries have contributed to this development to varying degrees and in different ways; the French, with a shelf of massive doctoral theses; the Italians, with multi-volume histories of specific cities; the Germans, with symposia on small towns, and so on. The virtually simultaneous publication of three monographs on provincial English towns, one of them by an American scholar (J. T. Evans), prompts a question about the place of Anglo-American research in this picture. Are there distinctive English and American schools of preindustrial urban history? If so, is this because the towns studied are different, or the historical traditions of the students?
Twelve years on: urban history in India
Authors: Gupta Narayani
Published: February 2009

The peasant continues to be the favourite subject for research in India, but urban history has made considerable progress in the last few years. In 1969, when the Yearbook was a slim Newsletter, I had contributed a bibliographical essay on ‘Urban History in India’ which also indicated the abundant raw material available and suggested possible lines of enquiry. The present report will cover briefly issues raised in writings and at seminars in the last few years.
The shaping of urban morphology
Authors: Gordon George
Published: February 2009

Alexander Pope unwittingly offered valuable solace and encouragement to students of urban morphology when he observed, inAn Essay on Man, ‘A mighty maze! but not without a plan’. The search for guiding principles shaping morphology, for the formative, generative and adaptive processes operating in space and through time, is a major goal in the field of urban investigation. Every settlement consists of a number, or a mosaic, of distinct morphological units. These units can be classified on various dimensions such as period of development, building style or functional use. The units vary in size and complexity, or heterogeneity, of elements. On occasion, complexity was incorporated into the original design, as in the case of the Georgian New Town of Edinburgh. More commonly, complexity emerged as a result of subsequent adaptation, alteration and partial or total replacement of elements such as plots, blocks, frontages or townscapes. A fundamental, though rather neglected, concern of the morphologist is the identification of formative, generative and adaptive processes and the establishment of a relational model incorporating all of the interactive components, i.e. factors, processes, morphological elements and agents involved in the decision-making process.
Directories as sources in urban history: a review of British and Canadian material
Authors: Shaw Gareth
Published: February 2009

Directories have had a somewhat chequered history, both in terms of their original production, and also in their subsequent use as sources of information. To a large extent these two aspects are closely related, as is illustrated by the reluctance of some urban historians to use directories because of doubts over their reliability. A further factor determining the extent to which directories have been utilized, has been the availability of other information. In Britain it has been the relative abundance of small area census data that has had an important effect on directing research in urban history, by drawing much attention away from the exploration and use of other sources. This is certainly the case with directories, which for many researchers have served only as a ‘stop-gap’, being used when nothing else was available and then often with a sceptical attitude. Recently, some of these views have started to change as a growing number of urban historians make more use of directory material, particularly in the study of urban systems and changes in commercial structures.
Urban decline in the later middle ages: the reliability of the non-statistical evidence
Authors: Rigby S. H.
Published: February 2009

E. H. Carr once admitted his envy of medieval historians who have a manageable body of evidence to deal with but found consolation in the belief that their competence was, in a sense, based on ignorance. Students of the English town in the later middle ages may soon be in the ‘enviable’ position of having no reliable sources at all with which to judge progress of urban life. The use of the statistical evidence of lay subsidy returns of 1334 and 1524 and the lists of admissions of freemen to late medieval towns as indicators of the prosperity of England's towns in the later middle ages has been questioned and the meaning of these sources is open to doubt. Yet much of the evidence for urban decline comes from impressionistic sources, sources which were often compiled by townsmen with a vested interest in pleading poverty in order to obtain financial relief. The value of this evidence has also been challenged.
Civic ceremony in early modern London
Authors: Berlin Michael
Published: February 2009

The ceremonial life of the early modern town has emerged as an important area of study for urban historians. Ever since the publication of Charles Phythian-Adams' innovative study, attention has focused on the elaborate series of processions, pageants and rites of passage which were a constant feature of the yearly cycle of town life. In the wake of his work other studies of the ceremonial life of late medieval and early modern towns have added to the urban historian's awareness of the importance of ritualized forms of behaviour as a symbolic thread which helped bind together the social fabric of the townscape. The research done thus far forms one of those areas of scholarship in which the cross-fertilization of the interdisciplinary approach, so beloved of the ‘new’ urban history, has proved particularly fruitful. It might be surprising then that London, the largest of English towns, has yet to receive similar treatment. There have been, of course, several important studies of the capital in the early modern period, and they have something to say about the ceremonial life of the city. These have largely concentrated on topics such as the structure of government, the nature of London's ruling elite, and social mobility within the city's craft organizations. While providing important sidelights on ceremony, these treatments have tended to place ceremonial events in the background, as the ‘icing on the cake’. At the same time there have been many important studies by art and literary historians of ceremonial occasions such as coronations, royal entries or the Lord Mayors' Shows, but these have tended to concentrate on ceremony as an expression of dynastic propaganda or as a development in dramatic form rather than as part of the social history of the city. The object of this article will be to attempt to rectify this gap in our knowledge by applying some of the framework bequeathed by Phythian-Adams, and so try to assess the relevence of his conclusions about urban society in this period to the particular case of London.
The ‘habitual criminal’ in nineteenth-century England: some observations on the figures
Authors: Stevenson S. J.
Published: February 2009

The history of crime, penal policy and policing is currently enjoying a vogue — and not least fashionable among the topics under discussion has been the question of the nineteenth-century English ‘criminal class’, the origins of the term and its social significance. Critics are divided more or less equally into quantifiers and phenomenologists, optimists and pessimists about real trends. Few are the questions about the known facts but no agreement appears in sight on the subject of their interpretation. The principal reason for disagreement, as it appears to the present writer, is the central dominance of predicative, mono-thematic perspectives and explanations — any of which will fit the facts quite well but all of which seem insusceptible to conclusive proof. First let us consider the range of dispute among the phenomenologists — each of whom may also be characterized as a univer-salist, in the sense that they seem to believe the possible range of criminal events illimitable and the figures on crime merely a reflection of external social reactions rather than evidence of any upward or downward trend in measurable events.
Growth and development in a regional urban system: the country towns of eastern Yorkshire, 1700–1850
Authors: Noble M.
Published: February 2009

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as many as one-half of the urban inhabitants of England and Wales lived in small towns. In 1801 62 per cent of all towns with populations of 2,500 or more contained fewer than 5,000 inhabitants and in 1901 30 per cent of all towns still contained less than 10,000 persons. Yet despite the strength of small towns within the national urban system these communities are far from proportionately represented in the large body of academic literature directed towards analysing towns and urban growth. Our knowledge and understanding of the forces of change acting upon towns at the lower end of the urban size hierarchy in this critical transitional period of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries remains relatively undeveloped, and this is especially true for rural areas untouched by the main wave of industrialization.
Urban electric railway management and operation in Britain and America 1900–14
Authors: Reilly M. D.
Published: February 2009

The debate about the comparative performance of the British and American economies around the turn of the century has involved most industrial sectors. In the case of the railways, the argument goes back at least to 1887, when a critical analysis of English railway operations compared to those of the United States was published. For British railway companies, the years after 1900 were a particularly difficult time especially in the capital market, and many new investment projects were abandoned, although not solely because of adverse conditions in the capital market. A substantial number of these projects were probably of a marginal nature but the eighteen-year period between 1890 and 1908 also saw the development of a new type of railway – the urban rapid transit system. This was in response to two very different factors – the continuing growth of cities and the application of electric power in a form suitable for railway use. The spread of these systems in Britain paralleled their expansion in the United States.
Urban History: prospect and retrospect
Authors: Rodger Richard
Published: February 2009

The appearance ofUrban Historyas a journal marks a further stage in the progression fromNewslettertoYearbookand now to a semi-annual periodical. The timing is apt since it coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of the first issue of theUrban History Newsletter, and the enthusiasm surrounding the production and publication ofUrban Historyis a continuing sign of the vigour and confidence expressed by H.J. Dyos thirty years ago, and again in 1974, when theYearbookfirst appeared. The current academic self-confidence is matched by a commercial one from the new publishers, Cambridge University Press.
An English small town in the later Middle Ages: Loughborough
Authors: Postles David
Published: February 2009

The thesis of ‘urban decline’ in the late Middle Ages has been largely based on changes within incorporated boroughs. Loughborough was a small town in Leicestershire, closely involved in intra-regional exchange between three different farming regions. By the late fourteenth century, if not before, its central precinct had a definite urban form, including a specialized marketing form. Indicators (such as demographic estimates, litigation, and property-holding) suggest that the town did not suffer any substantial decline in the late Middle Ages. Structural changes in the countrysides, with a greater emphasis on specialization of production, may have maintained the town as a centre of exchange and consumption.
Vox populi: popular autobiographies as sources for early modern urban history
Authors: Amelang James S.
Published: February 2009

This article reviews research on autobiographical texts written by artisans and other members of the urban popular classes during the early modern era. After reviewing some of the ways in which urban history has incorporated personal literature by authors from diverse social backgrounds, it explores the meaning of the term ‘popular autobiography’. After examining the contribution of this unique historical source to the study of urban politics, society and culture, the essay then focuses on the specific question of what autobiography can reveal about the study of popular sociability. A preliminary list of popular autobiographers figures in the appendix.
The Guild of Help and the changing face of Edwardian philanthropy
Authors: Laybourn Keith
Published: February 2009

The Guild of Help was formed at Bradford in 1904 with the idea of introducing a new, more community-based, approach to deal with the increasingly important problem of poverty. It emerged to overcome the failures of charity and the threat of increased state intervention, seeking instead to get all the community to take responsibility for the poor. The movement spread rapidly and soon became a major constituent of voluntary urban relief in Britain. Yet, in the end, its community approach failed, largely because solving the problem of poverty was well beyond its means, and intent, but also because it was unable to draw the churches, the working classes and charities into working with the well-regulated system of help for the poor which it envisaged.
Urban history and social class: two paradigms
Authors: Savage Mike
Published: February 2009

For much of the 1970s and early 1980s historians using an urban focus to analyse social class, social stratification and political conflict led the field. The work of John Foster, Geoffrey Crossick, Robert Gray, Patrick Joyce and others helped set an agenda to which all social historians responded. Today research of a similar type can easily be found, but even whilst this shows a high degree of conceptual sophistication and empirical rigour it seems less central to the discipline and to the broad concerns of social history than was the case even a decade ago. In this speculative paper I reflect on some of the reasons for this and consider the contemporary prospects for studies of the relationship between urban history and social class.
Clandestine marriages in London: an examination of a neglected urban variable
Authors: Boulton Jeremy
Published: February 2009

This article sets out the incidence of clandestine marriage in Restoration London. Analysis of parish registers of large suburban parishes suggests that such private unions peaked twice in the capital's history, immediately after the Restoration and again in the first half of the eighteenth century. Understanding the phenomenon is important since the increase in private weddings on the scale encountered was unique to London. Historians have failed to explain the growth in such unions satisfactorily. The practice is unlikely to be explained by the growth of religious dissent, by a desire to save money or to circumvent parish or parental control over choice of spouse. The custom's popularity can be explained more convincingly by reference to wealthier Londoners′ traditional predilection for private weddings, which was sanctioned by the church, and to emulation of the habit by those lower in the social scale. Adoption of the practice was further facilitated by increasing levels of disposable income and by the commercialization of the wedding ceremony after the Restoration.
The capital rediscovered: archæology in the City of London
Authors: Schofield John
Published: February 2009

This article reports on the contribution made by almost twenty years of archaeological excavations to the historical outline of the City of London from earliest times to c. 1800. It seeks to familiarize historians with programmes of excavation and publication, and argues that the regional implications extend well beyond the confines of the metropolis.
Communicating London's early history
Authors: Harding Vanessa
Published: February 2009

In an age of ‘performance indicators’, how does society measure museums′ presentation of history, and does this affect the manner in which history is communicated? The internal conflicts between presenting history and preserving research integrity are the context for this review of recent curatorial and archæological work in London.