Gyöngyi Werthmüller
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
Email: werthmuller dot gyongyi at chello dot hu

The number of syllables in ME verse – does it count?

This paper intends to defy two standard ways of looking at ME prosody:

• Generally, Chaucer's (typically pentametric) work is considered, but his contemporary, Gower's (mainly tetrametric) English work is ignored by linguistics. Merely its amount deserves greater awareness than Gower receives currently. Perhaps this is the year he could be brought to the forefront, because of the 600th anniversary of his death.
• Usually, when iambic lines are analysed, only the pentameter is treated.

I shall examine whether the number of syllables has any influence on Chaucer's and Gower's language, and on Halle&Keyser's (1966) theory. I shall criticise the latter, perhaps agreeing with Wimsatt (1970), missing from it "any serious concern for the five stresses" (1970:777).

For instance, Halle&Keyser (1966:194-197) try to prove that a verb, suffixed by the underlyingly disyllabic -inge, has the primary stress on the penult (co-mín-ge), because the last vowel of the word is short, and its penult is heavy ("Romance Stress Rule"=RSR); however, if the schwa of -inge is deleted by the "optional e-dropping rule" (=OEDR, ordered before the RSR), then the RSR assigns primary stress to the stem syllable (có-ming). Halle&Keyser hold that a line containing a trisyllabic form like có-min-ge would be exceptional in Chaucer. This seems redundant – considering Gowerian tetrametric lines as well. If the first syllable of co-min-ge gets stress, so should the third, to satisfy the iambic pattern: but a schwa nucleus is never stressed.

The following should also be observed by a generative theory:

Ayein the cóming(e) of the king (CA2,800) – "before the king's coming"

The scansion shows that coming is front-stressed, so the OEDR has applied. Frequently, a vowel follows such forms, probably to elide the schwa – though (according to Halle&Keyser) the schwa was deleted by the OEDR.

Further instantiations of e-dropping, masculine and feminine endings, the role of the caesura in eliding line-medial e, and possibly lexical differences will also be discussed, focussing on the significance of the number of feet.

References

• Gower, J. Confessio Amantis, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications. ed. R. A. Peck (2000). Available: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm
• Halle , M. &Keyser,S. J. (1966.) Chaucer and the study of prosody. College English, Vol. 28, No. 3. pp. 187-219.
• Wimsatt, W. k. (1970) The Rule and the Norm: Halle and Keyser on Chaucer's Meter. College English, Vol. 31, No. 8. pp. 774-788.

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