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Chapter Two TYPES OF SOUND CHANGE Commentary on Crowley

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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?)

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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?

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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).

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Reference Selkirk, Elizabeth (1984). "On the major class features and syllable theory". In Aronoff, Mark & Oehrle, Richard, Language sound structure. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

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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).

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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Five Kinds of Phonological Change Broadly Considered Sounds (consonants & vowels) are subject to: Loss Addition Rearrangement Assimilation Dissimilation

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Loss AphaeresisInitial sound disappears ApocopeFinal sound disappears SyncopeMedial vowel disappears Cluster ReductionCC > C HaplologyMedial CV(C) disappears

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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)

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Addition ProthesisInitial sound added ParagogeFinal sound added ExcrescenceMedial sound added Epenthesis (Anayptyxis)CC > CVC Vowel BreakingV > VV or V V

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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 ]

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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.)

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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)

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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

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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]

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Dissimilation Psycholinguistic test: Say Peggy Babcock five times, and observe the result.

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Dissimilation Grassmans Law PIE *bho:dha > bo:dha bidSanskrit PIE *phewtho > pewtho bidGreek Question: How would you describe Grassmans Law?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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HISTORY RULES ! LING 485/585 Winter 2009