Chapter Two TYPES OF SOUND CHANGE Commentary on Crowley
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- Slide 1
- Chapter Two TYPES OF SOUND CHANGE Commentary on Crowley
- Slide 2
- TWO PARAMETERS FORTITION / LENITION UNIVERSAL SONORITY SCALE
Crowley attempts to treat them as somehow related, as if
fortition/lenition can be derived from the Sonority Scale. This
approach has long been abandoned. It confuses synchronic and
diachronic principles, which Saussure warned us about. Thus
Crowleys discussion of *p>f in this chapter is incoherent,
according to me. (Do you agree?)
- Slide 3
- Saussurean Conundrums Revisited Consider the common change *p
> f. Crowley says it exemplifies lenition on the one hand, while
implying an increase in sonority on the other. How to reconcile
these two statements? Do they refer to the speaker or the hearer?
Do they refer to articulation or perception? Do they refer to
universal (synchronic) principles or a language-specific
(historical) tendency?
- Slide 4
- According to Elizabeth Selkirk (1984) Fortition/Lenition is
best considered as a language-specific phenomenon. In North
American English, for example, of the set /p t k/, /t/ is by far
the most subject to weakening when before an unstressed vowel.
Witness the American pronunciation of /t/ as a flap in later, but
normally no weakening of /p/ in caper or of /k/ in faker).
- Slide 5
- Reference Selkirk, Elizabeth (1984). "On the major class
features and syllable theory". In Aronoff, Mark & Oehrle,
Richard, Language sound structure. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
- Slide 6
- Universal Sonority Scale In principle the SS is
straightforward. It is a purely auditory concept, and it is
universal rather than language-specific. The SS says that sounds
can be arranged according to relative sonority, or loudness. Thus
/a/ is the loudest sound, and voiceless stops including // are the
least loud (nearest to silence).
- Slide 7
- Rejang Infixation: Selection of Allomorphs Follows the Sonority
Scale (adapted from Blevins 1995, 2004:159) HIGH LOW low V > mid
V > high V > glides > liquids > nasals > fricatives
> affricates > oral stops 32 1 The choices among the three
allomorphs of active (- m- ~ m- ~ m -) and passive (- n- ~ n- ~ n
-) are each governed by a continuous segment of the Sonority Scale,
and all other affixes are likewise accounted for. Infixation (- m-,
- n-)t- m-im ak, s- n-im et, c- n-rito, d- m-uley. Prefixation (m
-, n -) m -lie, m -wakea, n -ma, n -luo, n -ribut Prefix V Del (m-,
n-) m-onoa, n-acap, n-acaw, m-ad a.
- Slide 8
- Hole in the sonority scale account: no evidence of infixed p-,
b- yielding p- m -... and b- m -... HIGH LOW low V > mid V >
high V > glides > liquids > (nasals) > fricatives >
affricates > oral stops 32 1 Infixation selects continuum 1 (c-
m-rito), with the following interesting proviso: there is no
evidence of a word (native or borrowed) where p-, b- licenses an
infix. Bases that begin with p- and b- are opaque to infixation;
they select simple prefixation, exactly like sonorant-initial bases
and minimal words. Thus e.g. m - bur w is treated exactly like m -
lil y, except that m -bur w co-varies with mur w, thus
foreshadowing emergent back-formation, yielding synchronic free
variation (m baco ~ mac y ). (EP approach: Synchronic rules can
ignore this whole issue because there is a historical change
explaining it.)
- Slide 9
- How to dominate the conversation with linguistic terminology
rhoticism: English was ~ were alternation reflects a change in
Germanic *s > z > r/V__V which occurred as part of Verners
Law.
- Slide 10
- Five Kinds of Phonological Change Broadly Considered Sounds
(consonants & vowels) are subject to: Loss Addition
Rearrangement Assimilation Dissimilation
- Slide 11
- Loss AphaeresisInitial sound disappears ApocopeFinal sound
disappears SyncopeMedial vowel disappears Cluster ReductionCC >
C HaplologyMedial CV(C) disappears
- Slide 12
- Loss AphaeresisRejang: sudo ~ udo already ApocopeAAVE desk >
des; hold > ___ SyncopeBrit: secretary > secretary Cluster
Reductionoften > often; Belawi tukat = Matu-Daro tu k t
HaplologyWorcestershire sauce > (wooster or worstersher)
- Slide 13
- Addition ProthesisInitial sound added ParagogeFinal sound added
ExcrescenceMedial sound added Epenthesis (Anayptyxis)CC > CVC
Vowel BreakingV > VV or V V
- Slide 14
- Addition Prothesisschool > [iskul] Paragoge (rhymes with dog
> doggy; ding- pedagogy) dong > dinka-donka Excrescence*emty
> empty; warmth > [warmpth] Epenthesis (Anayptyxis) film >
fil m Vowel Breakingmule > [mi ul] (myule); Tuesday > [ti
usday] (Tyuesday); both > [b u ]
- Slide 15
- Rearrangement UnpackingComplex sound > two simpler sounds
FusionTwo simple sounds > one complex sound Metathesis (rare)
Adjacent sounds exchange places SpoonerismInitial sounds of whole
words exchange places. (Not a type of sound change,
fortunately.)
- Slide 16
- Rearrangement UnpackingBislama: aksida > aksido
FusionRejang: *tanda > tan o sign Metathesis (rare) *brid >
bird; *flutterby > butterfly Spoonerism "Is it kisstomary to
cuss the bride? (customary to kiss)
- Slide 17
- Assimilation ProgressiveA sound following a phoneme assimilates
a feature from a preceding sound. (This is relatively rare.) e.g.
xy > xx RegressiveA sound preceding a phoneme assimilates a
feature from a following sound. (This is anticipatory.) e.g. xy
> yy
- Slide 19
- Assimilation ProgressiveIn Indonesian, the name Amran has no
nasal vowels, Arma n has one nasal vowel, and Na w a w i has all
nasal vowels. Regressive inconsistent > [ kns stnt]
- Slide 20
- Dissimilation Psycholinguistic test: Say Peggy Babcock five
times, and observe the result.
- Slide 21
- Dissimilation Grassmans Law PIE *bho:dha > bo:dha
bidSanskrit PIE *phewtho > pewtho bidGreek Question: How would
you describe Grassmans Law?
- Slide 22
- Unnatural Sound Changes Spurious, resolved by discovery of (a
chain of) intermediate natural changes. Interesting, because they
offer (counter-) evidence bearing on hypotheses with respect to
established universals.
- Slide 23
- Unnatural Sound Changes All natural: *t > w in Trukese looks
unnatural at first. The historical facts prove otherwise: *t >
> f > v > w Interesting: Consider the Rejang change:
*-mb-, *-nd- > m , n which occurred / V__V.
- Slide 24
- An Interesting Syllable Structure The result was an unnatural
syllable structure for Rejang, given Donca Steriades implicational
universal: If a sound cannot begin or end a word, it cannot begin
or end a syllable.
- Slide 25
- An Interesting Syllable Structure If a sound cannot begin or
end a word, it cannot begin or end a syllable. This universal
applies pretty well to languages with medial consonant clusters
e.g. CVC 1. C 2 VC. That is, if a sound cannot begin a word it also
cannot begin a syllable (=. C 2). But Rejang is a language with no
consonant clusters.
- Slide 26
- An Interesting Syllable Structure Rejang is a language with no
consonant clusters. The fusion of *-mb- and *-nd- as barred nasals,
becoming m and n respectively, resulted in a so-called unnatural
syllable structure. jambu > [ja.m w]guava fruit *tanda >
[ta.n o]sign Thus m and n cannot begin a word, but they can and
must begin a syllable. The distribution follows naturally from the
history.
- Slide 27
- HISTORY RULES ! LING 485/585 Winter 2009