Linguistics 300, F12, Undergraduate tutorial

Linguistics 300, F12, Assignment 6

Background
Assignment
- Spreadsheet with French loanwords (10 Oct 2012)
- Tips
- Notes on spreadsheet headings
- Introduction to IF statements in Excel
- Sample work in Excel (with calculations using IF and COUNTIF)

Background

In the course of the phonology project, you will be annotating French loanwords into English with various sorts of information. In order to familiarize yourself with the task and the annotation conventions, you'll start by reviewing the data that students in this class have collected in previous years.

A few bits of preliminary information are in order:

The words that we are interested in are borrowings or loanwords from French; the OED sometimes refers to these as adaptations. What we mean by these terms is that the English word has a French etymon or direct historical source. The reason we insist on a direct historical source is that it is also possible for two words from related languages to be related in a more indirect way. In particular, the Germanic languages (including English) and the Romance languages (including French) are both descendants of Indo-European. The Indo-European word for, say, 'mother' has a Germanic descendant, which eventually develops in English mother, and a Romance descendant, which develops via Latin mater into French mère. So English mother and French mère are historically related, but their relationship is a cognate relationship, not the direct source-adaptation relationship that we are interested in for our project.

Given the entire set of French loanwords listed in the OED, our focus in the project is on those with etyma that had than more one stressable syllable. This is for the simple reason that words with only a single stressable syllable in French weren't candidates for stress shift. It's important to bear in mind that whether a word was a candidate for stress shift depends on its etymon, not on its current form in English. For instance, the etymon of English fable was French fable, with an unstressable final syllable. On the other hand, the etymon of English cattle is Old Northern French catel, with a perfectly stressable final syllable. The word underwent stress shift in English, with subsequent or concomitant stress reduction on the final syllable in English. For the purposes of the project, we want to exclude cases like fable and to keep ones like cattle. This issue will become important in connection with determining the number of syllables in a given word (see the note on Syllables below).
For the purposes of the project, I have imposed a cutoff point of 1620 on the loanwords. This is our terminus ante quem, as they say in philology (literally, Latin for 'the time before which (something happens)'). I chose 1620 to roughly coincide with 1616, the year that Shakespeare died, whose writings will provide a major source of evidence. In the interests of completeness, I imposed no early bound (terminus post quem) on the searches. However, we would expect there to be few, if any, French loanwords before 1066, the date of the Norman Conquest.
In order to focus on the development from French to English and to avoid introducing complications related to later developments within English itself, we will study the pronunciation of standard British English (as reported in the OED), which can differ from American (and in particular, U.S.) English with regard to word stress and even the number of syllables in a word.

Assignment

Explore the data in the spreadsheet by sorting it in various ways and applying sanity checks. For example, a possible sanity check would check that the number in the "OED stress" column doesn't exceed the number in the "Syllables" column. Mark any errors or typos that you find, whether on the basis of sanity checks or otherwise, with a suitable note in the "Corrections" column; that way, it is easy for us to find the errors by sorting your assignment on that column. If you have a better for marking the errors, please let us know.
Are there any subsets of the data that follow special rules of their own or that behave categorically or very nearly so (that is, they exhibit no variation or hardly any)?
In later research, we will want to exclude such data. The situation is analogous to excluding be and have from consideration in the study of do support and treating the know class of verbs separately from other verbs.

Tips

	When sorting a spreadsheet, be sure to select the entire worksheet (by clicking on the "<>" in the left upper corner); otherwise, you'll end up with hash.
	As much as possible, cut and paste information into cells rather than typing. Certain OED characters (for instance, long vowels with macrons) can get lost in the process, but cutting and pasting is so much faster, more accurate and more consistent than typing that it's worth any revisions that we may have to make later on.

Notes on spreadsheet headings

The following table explains the spreadsheet headings and the information in the cells of the spreadsheet that you're reviewing. Any information for the columns in gray is given for completeness; for the moment, you shouldn't need to do anything in connection with the gray columns.

Corrections Make a note about any errors that you find. Assume the worst-case scenario: some reader is trying to make sense of your note in 2020, and you haven't left a forwarding address.
Investigator Last name of the student responsible for collecting and analyzing the data
Class Year in which the word was added to the spreadsheet
Headword Headword from the OED (that is, the English word that was borrowed from French). If there is more than one headword with the same spelling, identify the one of interest in the same way that the OED does (including any following digits and/or parts of speech). Cutting and pasting is best if the browser lets you.
Usage Records whether a word is obsolete, archaic, rare, restricted to various dialects, and so on. Enter this information only if it applies to the entire entry (rather than only to some senses).
In general, the OED indicates words that are obsolete by the note "Obs." and a dagger preceding the headword, but sometimes only the dagger is used. In the interests of uniformity, use "Obs." for both cases.
OED date Date of earliest attestation, along with modifiers, such as question marks or abbreviations, such as a (= ante 'before') or c (= circa 'around'). The current OED site facilitates finding the date of earliest attestation, as you'll see once you begin searching for words, and you shouldn't have to review a word's full entry. If you do end up reviewing the entire entry for a word, you should be aware that the date of earliest attestation is not always the first date that you see. (If you're not sure which of two or more dates is earlier (easily the case in connection with a and c), simply list all of the relevant dates.)
Effective date Sometimes the date of earliest attestation is not a simple year, but a range of years, an approximation, or a time period like l(ate) O(ld) E(nglish). Eventually, such information is turned into a single number so that it can be manipulated arithmetically, but you don't need to focus on this now.
Etymon What is the French source of the loanword? The main purpose of this column is to ensure that we are including only borrowings, and not cognates.
If there is more than one French form listed as the source, it's fine to just include the first one.
We are interested only in words of unquestioned French etymology, not in words where it is uncertain whether they were borrowed from French or Latin. If the etymon is listed as "probably" or "perhaps" French, or if the OED indicates that the word might have been borrowed from French or from Latin, be sure that information is included in the relevant place (in the "Corrections" column if you are correcting someone else's work, or in the "Etymon" column once you start working on words of your own).
Later on, we will use the information in the "Etymon" column to exclude borrowings where the etymon had only a single stressable syllable. As mentioned earlier, in such cases, the stress can't shift, and so these cases are of no interest to use.
Syllables Sometimes, it is not clear how many syllables a word has. The difficult cases generally involve

a potential medial glide,
a potential medial schwa, or
a syllabic final consonant.

For potential medial glides (a.li.en or al.yen?), the potential glide is counted as the nucleus of a syllable if it appears in the OED's IPA transcription as a vowel (including schwa). It is not counted as the nucleus of a syllable if it appears in the IPA transcription as a glide (j, w). So alien comes out as having 3 syllables rather than 2 (we disregard the disyllabic U.S. pronunciation since our focus is on British English).

For potential medial schwa (gar.de.ner or gard.ner?), the potential schwa is counted as the nucleus of a syllable if it appears in the IPA transcription (possibly in parentheses). So gardener comes out as having 3 syllables rather than 2.

Words with final syllabic consonants (fable, cattle) are the most difficult case. If the syllabic final consonant is already part of the etymon (spelled in French as -le, -re, etc.), it is treated as extrametrical (that is, disregarded for the purposes of syllable count and stress assignment). This is because the stress couldn't have fallen on the syllable with the syllabic consonant. On the other hand, if the syllabic final consonant corresponds to an ordinary syllable in French (spelled as -el, -er, etc.), and the syllabic final consonant developed only after the word was borrowed into English, then the consonant counts as the nucleus of a syllable since it would have borne the stress in the etymon and when the word was first borrowed.
By these criteria fable comes out as having 1 syllable (there should be no such cases in the spreadsheet you are reviewing), whereas cattle comes out as having 2 syllables and having undergone a stress shift of one syllable to the left.
If you're in doubt about whether an entry in this column is an error, err on the side of caution and make an entry in the "Corrections" column.

Chaucer stress, verse-medial Disregard for now.
Chaucer stress, in rhyme
Chaucer comments
Shakespeare stress
Shakespeare comments
OED stress Primary stress in British usage, which may differ from U.S. usage.
Stress is indicated in the OED by an apostrophe preceding the stressed syllable. It is generally recorded on the IPA transcription, but sometimes on the headword itself (especially when the word is obsolete).
In order to make later calculations easier, stress is recorded from right to left. That is, 1 corresponds to stress on the last syllable, 2 to stress on the penultimate, 3 to stress on the antepenultimate, and so on.
Sometimes the OED records no stress, but gives the stress recorded in the New English Dictionary (NED). It is fine to use that stress pattern, but make a note in the "Corrections" column if you are correcting someone else's work, and in the "Other comments" columns in the case of your own work. In cases where the OED gives no stress information at all (for instance, if the word is completely obsolete), the stress should be recorded as "n/a". Finally, the OED sometimes gives information about word stress in earlier stages of the language, in poetry, and so on, which should be recorded under "Corrections" or "Other comments", as appropriate.
In some cases, the OED records two stress patterns in British usage. Such cases should be recorded as "var(n,m)" with the variants in the order listed in the OED. For instance, admirative has the entry "var(4,3)", reflecting the usual 'admirative and the variant ad'mirative.
Don't confuse variant stress with secondary stress, which we disregard.
Prefix 1 First of two prefixes, or only prefix.
Prefix 2 Second of two prefixes.
Suffix 2 First of two suffixes.
Suffix 1 Second of two suffixes, or only suffix.
Phrasal etymon? Disregard for now.
Initial epenthesis?
Final syllabic C?
Consistent with Quantity-Based Stress Rule?
Consistent with Latin or Greek etymon?
Otherwise rule-governed?
Other comments Record any notes, questions, uncertainties, and so on regarding the word. It's better to record too many comments than too few. Please keep similar comments consistent in order to facilitate later sorting.
"Ante" offset Disregard for now.

Chaucer stress, in rhyme
Corrections	Make a note about any errors that you find. Assume the worst-case scenario: some reader is trying to make sense of your note in 2020, and you haven't left a forwarding address.
Investigator	Last name of the student responsible for collecting and analyzing the data
Class	Year in which the word was added to the spreadsheet
Headword	Headword from the OED (that is, the English word that was borrowed from French). If there is more than one headword with the same spelling, identify the one of interest in the same way that the OED does (including any following digits and/or parts of speech). Cutting and pasting is best if the browser lets you.
Usage	Records whether a word is obsolete, archaic, rare, restricted to various dialects, and so on. Enter this information only if it applies to the entire entry (rather than only to some senses). In general, the OED indicates words that are obsolete by the note "Obs." and a dagger preceding the headword, but sometimes only the dagger is used. In the interests of uniformity, use "Obs." for both cases.
OED date	Date of earliest attestation, along with modifiers, such as question marks or abbreviations, such as a (= ante 'before') or c (= circa 'around'). The current OED site facilitates finding the date of earliest attestation, as you'll see once you begin searching for words, and you shouldn't have to review a word's full entry. If you do end up reviewing the entire entry for a word, you should be aware that the date of earliest attestation is not always the first date that you see. (If you're not sure which of two or more dates is earlier (easily the case in connection with a and c), simply list all of the relevant dates.)
Effective date	Sometimes the date of earliest attestation is not a simple year, but a range of years, an approximation, or a time period like l(ate) O(ld) E(nglish). Eventually, such information is turned into a single number so that it can be manipulated arithmetically, but you don't need to focus on this now.
Etymon	What is the French source of the loanword? The main purpose of this column is to ensure that we are including only borrowings, and not cognates. If there is more than one French form listed as the source, it's fine to just include the first one. We are interested only in words of unquestioned French etymology, not in words where it is uncertain whether they were borrowed from French or Latin. If the etymon is listed as "probably" or "perhaps" French, or if the OED indicates that the word might have been borrowed from French or from Latin, be sure that information is included in the relevant place (in the "Corrections" column if you are correcting someone else's work, or in the "Etymon" column once you start working on words of your own). Later on, we will use the information in the "Etymon" column to exclude borrowings where the etymon had only a single stressable syllable. As mentioned earlier, in such cases, the stress can't shift, and so these cases are of no interest to use.
Syllables	Sometimes, it is not clear how many syllables a word has. The difficult cases generally involve a potential medial glide, a potential medial schwa, or a syllabic final consonant. For potential medial glides (a.li.en or al.yen?), the potential glide is counted as the nucleus of a syllable if it appears in the OED's IPA transcription as a vowel (including schwa). It is not counted as the nucleus of a syllable if it appears in the IPA transcription as a glide (j, w). So alien comes out as having 3 syllables rather than 2 (we disregard the disyllabic U.S. pronunciation since our focus is on British English). For potential medial schwa (gar.de.ner or gard.ner?), the potential schwa is counted as the nucleus of a syllable if it appears in the IPA transcription (possibly in parentheses). So gardener comes out as having 3 syllables rather than 2. Words with final syllabic consonants (fable, cattle) are the most difficult case. If the syllabic final consonant is already part of the etymon (spelled in French as -le, -re, etc.), it is treated as extrametrical (that is, disregarded for the purposes of syllable count and stress assignment). This is because the stress couldn't have fallen on the syllable with the syllabic consonant. On the other hand, if the syllabic final consonant corresponds to an ordinary syllable in French (spelled as -el, -er, etc.), and the syllabic final consonant developed only after the word was borrowed into English, then the consonant counts as the nucleus of a syllable since it would have borne the stress in the etymon and when the word was first borrowed. By these criteria fable comes out as having 1 syllable (there should be no such cases in the spreadsheet you are reviewing), whereas cattle comes out as having 2 syllables and having undergone a stress shift of one syllable to the left. If you're in doubt about whether an entry in this column is an error, err on the side of caution and make an entry in the "Corrections" column.
Chaucer stress, verse-medial	Disregard for now.
Chaucer comments
Shakespeare stress
Shakespeare comments
OED stress	Primary stress in British usage, which may differ from U.S. usage. Stress is indicated in the OED by an apostrophe preceding the stressed syllable. It is generally recorded on the IPA transcription, but sometimes on the headword itself (especially when the word is obsolete). In order to make later calculations easier, stress is recorded from right to left. That is, 1 corresponds to stress on the last syllable, 2 to stress on the penultimate, 3 to stress on the antepenultimate, and so on. Sometimes the OED records no stress, but gives the stress recorded in the New English Dictionary (NED). It is fine to use that stress pattern, but make a note in the "Corrections" column if you are correcting someone else's work, and in the "Other comments" columns in the case of your own work. In cases where the OED gives no stress information at all (for instance, if the word is completely obsolete), the stress should be recorded as "n/a". Finally, the OED sometimes gives information about word stress in earlier stages of the language, in poetry, and so on, which should be recorded under "Corrections" or "Other comments", as appropriate. In some cases, the OED records two stress patterns in British usage. Such cases should be recorded as "var(n,m)" with the variants in the order listed in the OED. For instance, admirative has the entry "var(4,3)", reflecting the usual 'admirative and the variant ad'mirative. Don't confuse variant stress with secondary stress, which we disregard.
Prefix 1	First of two prefixes, or only prefix.
Prefix 2	Second of two prefixes.
Suffix 2	First of two suffixes.
Suffix 1	Second of two suffixes, or only suffix.
Phrasal etymon?	Disregard for now.
Initial epenthesis?
Final syllabic C?
Consistent with Quantity-Based Stress Rule?
Consistent with Latin or Greek etymon?
Otherwise rule-governed?
Other comments	Record any notes, questions, uncertainties, and so on regarding the word. It's better to record too many comments than too few. Please keep similar comments consistent in order to facilitate later sorting.
"Ante" offset	Disregard for now.