On the exceptions to the Germanic and High German consonant shifts and sp, st, sk in english1

Abstract

Abstract The exceptions to the Germanic and High German sound shifts were recently explained in terms of archiphonemes. The present paper aims at showing that such an explanation is neither probable nor necessary, and that the value of an archiphonemic interpretation of English (s)p, (s)t, (s)k, used in support of the above explanation, is questionable. Instead, the exceptions to the two sound shifts are seen as examples of ‘split plus merger’.