midness

English

Etymology

Synchronically, by surface analysis, mid ‎ -ness; diachronically, known to have an equivalent etymon in Old English and probably never absent from the language since then, albeit rare.

Noun

midness (uncountable)

1. (rare) The state or quality of being mid.
   • 2021 [1985], Beat Glauser, “7: Linguistic Atlases and Generative Phonology”, in Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics‎^[1], volume 26, Taylor & Francis, page 118:

     Rule (11) formulates that short, non-high vowels that agree in backness, roundness and midness (/a/: [- mid, - back, - round]; 10/: [ mid, back, round]) are lengthened before voiceless fricatives.

   • 2003, Kimary N. Shahin, Postvelar Harmony‎^[2], John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 69:

     After Bauer (1926/70:11) and Cantineau (1960:111), I analyse this mid height as the result of lowering conditioned by postvelars. It is phonetic because the high vowels are gradiently mid, their degree of midness depending on their degree of proximity to the postvelar. This is illustrated by (30a-b) in which, while the first-syllable vowels are [ɛ], the second-syllable vowels are perceptually a short diphthong from mid [ɛ] to high [ɪ].

   • 2014, Jacques Durand, Generative and Non-Linear Phonology‎^[3], Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 81:

     The curly brackets are necessary because notions such as non-lowness, midness, etc. are not accessible, as such but only implicit in the naming.

Related terms

• mediocrity
• middle
• middleness
• middlingness