Sound Change Quickie Thread

[akam chinjir]

No, sorry, it's a discussion specifically about palatalisation.

[Whimemsz]

x --> some more anterior fricative before front vowels is certainly common, yes, just as any sort of fronting of dorsal consonants before front vowels is. It's unconditional x --> ʃ that seems to be relatively uncommon, for whatever reason. (But again, not unattested, so go ahead and use it.)

[Travis B.]

I've just noticed that Hall, The Phonology of Coronals, 77, calls x → ʃ / _i, e common, fwiw.

Thank you! But does it say anything about that change happening unconditionally?

In much of High German there has been x > ç / _[-BACK], i.e. everywhere except before back vowels. And furthermore in many northwestern dialects thereof there is an unconditional change of ç > ʃ (albeit one that is sometimes reversed, oftentimes with hypercorrection).

[Zju]

Why is it that h → x is attested, but ʔ → k is not?

[Pabappa]

I think /ʔ/ > /k/ is attested conditionally, but I suspect it's much rarer than the corresponding fricative shift. I dont have a good technical explanation, but I think it's a lot harder to get from silence to a stop than from a fricative to another fricative. Remember the glottal stop is not like other stops ... it's just the sound you make when you stop speaking for a very short period of time.

But, perhaps that's not the reason.... another idea is that /h/ is capable of taking on various allophones, whereas with /ʔ/ it is pretty much stuck there unless the sound jumps all at once to the new location. /h/ > /x/ can be done in slow, sliding steps, but there's no way to gradually inch up on /k/.

[bradrn]

Why is it that h → x is attested, but ʔ → k is not?

I asked a very similar question (also about ʔ → k) earlier in this thread. The most helpful comments for me were:

Yeah, debuccalization is extremely common but the reverse essentially never happens. (For glottal stops anyway; [h] can change to a glide or take on some of the features of neighboring vowels so become a fricative at a different POA, and a glide or non-glottal fricative can then undergo fortition to an occlusive, though that's not an especially common change, and seems to be most common word-initially when it does happen.)

(I think that one actually answers your question as well!)

I wouldnt say /ʔ/ > /k/ is impossible, but it's certainly more rare than /k/ > /ʔ/ because it's not a symmetric change .... /k/ has one articulator, /ʔ/ has none.

[StrangerCoug]

What are some ways I might go about a dental/alveolar split in the coronals? I think I remember from the last thread that a palatalization/velarization split can do this allophonically, but I'd like other ideas in case I decide this is not where I want to start.

[Travis B.]

What are some ways I might go about a dental/alveolar split in the coronals? I think I remember from the last thread that a palatalization/velarization split can do this allophonically, but I'd like other ideas in case I decide this is not where I want to start.

Interdental fricatives > dental stops, alongside preexisting alveolar stops.

[Nortaneous]

What are some ways I might go about a dental/alveolar split in the coronals? I think I remember from the last thread that a palatalization/velarization split can do this allophonically, but I'd like other ideas in case I decide this is not where I want to start.

t d > t̪ d
P B > P
NP > M, st̪ > s̪, or similar

It seems plausible that linguolabials could become interdentals, so C[labial] > C[linguolabial] / _{i e j} followed by C[linguolabial] > C[dental] could also work.

[Vijay]

In Malayalam, we had something like *nr > ndr > nd > n̪d̪ > n̪n̪, resulting in a new phoneme /n̪n̪/ (geminate dental nasal) contrasting with /nn/ (geminate alveolar nasal), if that helps.

[bradrn]

t d > t̪ d
P B > P
NP > M, st̪ > s̪, or similar

What do the abbreviations here mean?

[Nortaneous]

t d > t̪ d
P B > P
NP > M, st̪ > s̪, or similar

What do the abbreviations here mean?

1) /t/ becomes dental, but /d/ remains alveolar
2) voiced and voiceless plosives merge, so *p *b > p, *k *g > k, but *t̪ *d > t̪ t
3a) nasal + plosive sequences coalesce into nasals at the plosive's POA (so *nt *nd > *nt̪ *nd > n̪ n)

[Whimemsz]

.

[dɮ the phoneme]

NP > M

3a) nasal + plosive sequences coalesce into nasals at the plosive's POA (so *nt *nd > *nt̪ *nd > n̪ n)

Well that's a clever notation. I don't know that I've ever seen that before.

[Raphael]

How plausible would it be to have a change affect only words with a certain minimum number of syllables? That is, a shortening of, say, words with four syllables by losing the vowel of the second or third syllable?

[akam chinjir]

Do you have stress? If you do, that should provide some ways to get what you want. Something like: target unstressed syllables, but exempt initial or final syllables. E.g., suppose you've got primary stress on the second syllable. Then you could have a change that deletes the vowel in the third syllable when it's non-final. (Maybe the final syllable is exempt because deleting that vowel would create illegal word-final consonant clusters; or maybe the final syllable is always stressed, even if that creates a stress clash.)

[Raphael]

Thank you!

[Raphael]

How plausible would it be to lengthen vowels? And how plausible would it be to shorten them?

[Nortaneous]

How plausible would it be to have a change affect only words with a certain minimum number of syllables? That is, a shortening of, say, words with four syllables by losing the vowel of the second or third syllable?

English monomorphemic ˈCVCVCVC > ˈCVCCVC might be regular (at least if C3 isn't a semivowel?) but I haven't looked into this at all

[Raphael]

Would a simultaneous lengthening of stressed short vowels and shortening of unstressed long vowels be plausible?