Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Travis B.]

How plausible is debaucalization of voiceless coda stops to [ʔ] only in post-vocalic position? So [pot] > [poʔ] but [post] > [post].

Many dialects of English, my own for instance, do exactly that. (Well, with the caveat that /t/ is usually debuccalized after a resonant, too.)

In careful speech in my English dialect this is precisely what happens (whereas in very careful speech /t/ does not debuccalize at times by itself). On the other hand, in everyday speech, final /st/ frequently is reduced to [s], and before a vowel or approximant /t/ by itself is frequently lost.

[holbuzvala]

Hi all,

This is my first post here on ZBB. I'm looking for ideas for how /tʰ/ can change in different environments. I currently have /tʰ/ changing to /r̥/ when word-initial, word-final, and intervocalically

/tʰan natʰ atʰa/ -> /r̥an nar̥ ar̥a/

But my current issue concerns how /tʰ/ will change in consonant clusters, both within word-roots and across word boundaries when words collapse together. The phonological inventory is:

/p t k pʰ tʰ kʰ pʲ tʲ kʲ pʷ tʷ kʷ/
/s t͡s/
/m n ŋ/
/r l ɣ/

Below is a list of all the clusters I'm currently dealing with.

More: show

Code: Select all

ktʰ
kʰtʰ
lstʰ
ltʰ
mstʰ
nstʰ
ntʰ
ptʰ
pʰtʰ
rstʰ
rtʰ
stʰ
tstʰ
ttʰ
tʰk
tʰkʰ
tʰkʰʲ
tʰkʰʷ
tʰkʲ
tʰkʷ
tʰl
tʰm
tʰp
tʰpʰ
tʰpʰʲ
tʰpʰʷ
tʰpʲ
tʰpʷ
tʰr
tʰs
tʰsʲ
tʰsʷ
tʰŋ
tʰɣ
ŋstʰ
ɣstʰ
ɣtʰ

I currently have /pʰ/ turning to /f~ɸ/ more or less everywhere, and /kʰ/ leniting to /x/ which itself becomes /ɣ/ intervocalically, and /h/ elsewhere. Would this suggest having /tʰ/turn to /s/ in most of the cluster environments?

Any help in this regard would be most appreciated.


[Edit: P.S. I'm disinclined to blithely lose the aspiration word-finally, as this would/could create push-/pull-chains with the unaspirated series. But I'm open to suggestions.]

[cedh]

/tʰ/ > /s/ in most cluster environments would indeed make a lot of sense if /pʰ/ and /kʰ/ also usually become fricatives. I'd personally tend to include a few exceptions though, for instance /tʰ/ > /t/ when adjacent to at least /s/ but quite possibly all coronal consonants, and/or /tʰ/ > /r̥/ > /r/ when followed by a voiced consonant (and maybe have /rl/ > /ll/ after that).

A nice additional possibility for your list of clusters might be fortition of /ɣ/ > /ɡ/ > /k/ in clusters before any other changes, which might result in something like e.g. /tʰɣ ɣtʰ/ > /sk ks/.

[mèþru]

Has /tʰ/ > /s/ ever happened withut an intermediary non-sibilant fricative?

Also welcome holbuzvala! Have some pickles and tea!

[Vijay]

Has /tʰ/ > /s/ ever happened withut an intermediary non-sibilant fricative?

Isn't that kind of what happened to Hebrew words in Yiddish?

EDIT: Also Finnish: root vete- 'water' → vesi

[mèþru]

Hebrew never had /tʰ/, and Hebrew did have at one point non-sibilant coronal fricatives

[Vijay]

But it did have /t/, which changed to /s/ in Yiddish without an intermediary non-sibilant fricative, didn't it? Why should it make a difference whether it had /t/ as opposed to /tʰ/ or whether it had non-sibilant coronal fricatives?

[Pabappa]

I had always assumed that the change in Hebrew was /t/ > /θ/, and then /θ/ > t in Sephardic pronunciation while /θ/ > s in Ashkenazi. Yiddish, I dont know about, but I assume it borrowed the pronunciation of Ashkenazi. Possibly both under influence of surrounding languages (no /θ/ in German or most European langs). Do we know whether the original /t/ sound was dental? if it was dental it almost certainly would have shifted to /θ/.

The Finnish change had a palatal intermediate, i think. There is /t/ > /ts/ > /s/ all over the place in German, though.

[dhok]

Has /tʰ/ > /s/ ever happened withut an intermediary non-sibilant fricative?

Isn't that kind of what happened to Hebrew words in Yiddish?

EDIT: Also Finnish: root vete- 'water' → vesi

This is a general process of *t -> s before /i/ and likely went through /ts/.

[Nortaneous]

Has /tʰ/ > /s/ ever happened withut an intermediary non-sibilant fricative?

10.3.5.2 Proto-New Caledonia to Jawé t̪ t̪ʰ t tʰ → t tʰ c s
30.3.1.1.3 Proto-Gbe to Proto-Fon {ts,tʰ} {dz,dʱ} → s z
30.3.1.1.5 Proto-Gbe to Proto-Phla-Pherá {ts,tʰ} {dz,dʱ} → s z
39.1 Proto-Tanoan to Jimez {tʰ,tsʰ} → ʃ

[Whimemsz]

I had always assumed that the change in Hebrew was /t/ > /θ/, and then /θ/ > t in Sephardic pronunciation while /θ/ > s in Ashkenazi. Yiddish, I dont know about, but I assume it borrowed the pronunciation of Ashkenazi. Possibly both under influence of surrounding languages (no /θ/ in German or most European langs). Do we know whether the original /t/ sound was dental? if it was dental it almost certainly would have shifted to /θ/.

The Finnish change had a palatal intermediate, i think. There is /t/ > /ts/ > /s/ all over the place in German, though.

Yes, the Hebrew > Yiddish t > s change was via the begadkefat [θ]. This is why it doesn't occur initially (e.g., "Torah" is Toyre, not *Soyre.)

(Also, remember that [even ignoring the primarily German base] Yiddish is not a linear descendant of spoken Biblical Hebrew in the sense of inheriting sound changes from it normally; the Hebrew/Aramaic component of Yiddish is Hebrew/Aramaic words pronounced with an Ashkenazi accent beginning a millennium and a half after Hebrew ceased to be a living spoken language, and borrowed into Yiddish--they're loan words).

[Vijay]

Has /tʰ/ > /s/ ever happened withut an intermediary non-sibilant fricative?

Isn't that kind of what happened to Hebrew words in Yiddish?

EDIT: Also Finnish: root vete- 'water' → vesi

This is a general process of *t -> s before /i/ and likely went through /ts/.

But /ts/ isn't a fricative and mèþru didn't say anything about needing an unconditional change.

[Zaarin]

Hebrew never had /tʰ/, and Hebrew did have at one point non-sibilant coronal fricatives

There's good reason to believe the non-emphatic unvoiced plosives in Phoenician and Akkadian were aspirated; I wouldn't be surprised the same was true in Biblical Hebrew.

[holbuzvala]

@cedh, methru, Vijay, Pabappa, dhok, Nortaneous, Whimemsz

Thanks for the feedback! If I have /tʰ/ go to /s/, it'll probably be via a dental fricative to it doesn't create a push chain with the already extant /ts/. But, I'll also allow the voiceless trill in some cluster environments because I think that'd be fun.

[bradrn]

I have a rule where phonation spreads forwards in consonant clusters for all clusters, e.g. akda→akta, iɹkə→iɹgə. Is this plausible? If so, then what should happen to consonants like /ʔ/, /ɹ/, /m/, /l/, which may not have a voiced or voiceless counterpart in the language? (I know that I could just posit allophonic [ɹ̥], [m̥] etc. in clusters, but a cluster like /ɣʔ/ is still problematic since /ʔ/ doesn’t really have a voiced counterpart.)

[dɮ the phoneme]

I have a rule where phonation spreads forwards in consonant clusters for all clusters, e.g. akda→akta, iɹkə→iɹgə. Is this plausible? If so, then what should happen to consonants like /ʔ/, /ɹ/, /m/, /l/, which may not have a voiced or voiceless counterpart in the language? (I know that I could just posit allophonic [ɹ̥], [m̥] etc. in clusters, but a cluster like /ɣʔ/ is still problematic since /ʔ/ doesn’t really have a voiced counterpart.)

It's perfectly realistic for the voicing/devoicing rule to only apply to non-glottal obstruents or something, leaving /ʔ m n ɹ l/ unchanged. edit: if you want, you could also just delete /ʔ/ in clusters.

[bradrn]

It's perfectly realistic for the voicing/devoicing rule to only apply to non-glottal obstruents or something, leaving /ʔ m n ɹ l/ unchanged

Well, that’s what I’m doing now, but I wanted to know if there’s any alternatives.

edit: if you want, you could also just delete /ʔ/ in clusters.

I quite like that solution! I might end up doing that.

[Pabappa]

In Poswa historically all liquids were devoiced after a voiceless stop (almost always /p/). This wouldnt make any difference, even to native speakers, since it never produced any new phonemes. howewver it interplays with a later sound change where /l r/ > /ž b/ in most environments but shift to /š p/ instead if they are voiceless. thus, i wouldn t worry too much about this rule unless you either want a very detailed writeup or are planning to make use of allophonic variation to derive later phonemic shifts.

[Raphael]

What's more likely in a word-final situation?

/(V) r p/ ---> /(V) r/

or

/(V) r p/ ---> /(V) p/

[Xwtek]

What's more likely in a word-final situation?

/(V) r p/ ---> /(V) r/

or

/(V) r p/ ---> /(V) p/

Did you mean

Vrp# > Vr

vs

Vrp# > Vp?