Sound Change Quickie Thread

[bradrn]

Pharyngeal sound usually either lowers the vowel, lengthen the vowel, and (paradoxially) fronten the vowel. Then it's usually deleted or turned into glottals.

Just to clarify, are you responding to my first or second question here?

Note that pharyngeal sound doesn't necessarily pattern with phyaryngealized vowel. In Arabic, /a/ next to pharyngeal consonant is /æ/, but next to pharyngealized consonant is /ɑ/

Your point definitely holds for /æ/, but I would argue that /ɑ/ is about as pharyngealised a vowel as you could get: it’s the vocalic version of the semivowel /ʕ/!

[Xwtek]

Pharyngeal sound usually either lowers the vowel, lengthen the vowel, and (paradoxially) fronten the vowel. Then it's usually deleted or turned into glottals.

Just to clarify, are you responding to my first or second question here?

Second. I don't know about the answer of the first question. But I expect the answer should be similar to other lenition sound changes.

Note that pharyngeal sound doesn't necessarily pattern with phyaryngealized vowel. In Arabic, /a/ next to pharyngeal consonant is /æ/, but next to pharyngealized consonant is /ɑ/

Your point definitely holds for /æ/, but I would argue that /ɑ/ is about as pharyngealised a vowel as you could get: it’s the vocalic version of the semivowel /ʕ/!

Sorry, I mistyped. I meant pharyengalized consonant

[Xwtek]

Is it realistic with this sound change. The notation is: S is stressed syllable and s is unstressed syllable, then the unstressed syllable in SsS word doesn't get reduced but the first unstressed syllable in SssS vowel gets reduced? So the language tries as far as possible to have exactly one unstressed syllable between stressed syllables? Also, is it realistic to have stress related sound change in a tonal language?

[axolotl]

Change of [ø] to a back rounded vowel?

It seems reasonable enough given that the first vowel in the famous Danish phrase "rødgrød med fløde" is quite a bit more low and back than [ø] - probably closer to something like a rounded [ä] really. Just wanted to check to see if anyone knows of an attested change (rather than just an allophone that occurs adjacent to the rhotic).

[Darren]

According to the Index Diachronica, there's ø → oː in the sound changes from Proto-Turkic to Sakha, but I can't find a reference to that in the sources they give. There's also y → u in Tsakonian which IIRC is much better attested, and in Scots there's apparently øː → (j)u, (j)ʌ. Of course, with intermediates, there are lots more options.

[Xwtek]

Change of [ø] to a back rounded vowel?

Who asks this?

[Richard W]

Also, is it realistic to have stress related sound change in a tonal language?

ํYes. Thai shows stress-based reduction of polysyllabic loanwords, and the dramatic reduction of classificatory prefixes is just about visible enough not to be supposition. The Tai-Kadai family also shows the reduction of (para-?)Austronesian CVCVC to CəCVC to C(C)VC; how this has overlapped with East Asian (Chinese, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien and Vietnamese) tonogenesis may be unknowable. A recent, apparently failed, sound change in Siamese is the shift of unstressed rising tone syllables to high syllable tones - this mainly manifests itself in the informal pronunciation of a couple of first person pronouns (ผม, ฉัน) and the interrogative particle (ใหม).

[Whimemsz]

Is it realistic with this sound change. The notation is: S is stressed syllable and s is unstressed syllable, then the unstressed syllable in SsS word doesn't get reduced but the first unstressed syllable in SssS vowel gets reduced? So the language tries as far as possible to have exactly one unstressed syllable between stressed syllables?

I would think so. You could justify it as a "conspiracy" as you allude to, or maybe just by the fact that the unstressed vowel which is lost is further from the end of the word (if the primary stress is word-final?)

[Këkkytir]

I have two questions:

1. Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely.
2. Suppose that I want to introduce voicing contrast, but only for a few specific consonants. Would it make sense to turn an aspiration contrast into a voicing contrast? For example: t~d → d, t^h~d^h → t ? Are there other good ways to introduce voicing contrast but only for a few select consonants?

[Pabappa]

/f/ > /p/ is very difficult. My method would be to start with /f/ > /v/, then do /v/ > /b/, and then /b/ > /p/. For some reason, voiced fricatives seem to tend to be more likely to harden into stops than voiceless ones are. But proposing three unconditional shifts in a row is a problem of its own.

/s/ > /t/ and /x/ > /k/ are similarly difficult, but you could use the same strategy here if you were willing to wipe away any preexisting sounds that got in the way. Alternatively, /s/ > /θ/ > /t/, with /t/ being dental for at least the immediate aftermath of the shift. You could even have two /t/'s that way, if you wanted.

[Whimemsz]

Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely.

You can get away with it, particularly with intermediate steps, which Pabappa gave some examples of. One other possibility would be for the fricatives to become affricates, then stops (f > pf > p, etc.). Although you said you wanted it to be unconditional, if you wanted to go this route you might want to have them become affricates only in certain environments--say, after short vowels, fricatives lengthen, and then [f:] > [pf] (> [p]), etc., which could result in some fun alternations you could play with, if you wished. (And you could get rid of the remaining fricatives in other ways.)

Suppose that I want to introduce voicing contrast, but only for a few specific consonants. Would it make sense to turn an aspiration contrast into a voicing contrast? For example: t~d → d, t^h~d^h → t ? Are there other good ways to introduce voicing contrast but only for a few select consonants?

A change of an aspiration to a voicing contrast is definitely plausible, yes. (Though keep in mind that "voiced aspirates" aren't actual aspirates--except in a couple languages in uhhh Sarawak or something, where they're [bp^h]--they're breathy-voiced stops. So I would just say t, t^h > d, t. [Greek did turn breathy voiced consonants into voiceless aspirates, of course--probably--so you can have that as an intermediate step if your language has distinctive breathy voice already.] But the pathway you seem to be laying out of it beginning with optional and later obligatory voicing of original voiceless unaspirated stops, which makes the aspiration on the aspirated stops secondary/superfluous and thus either optional or eventually lost, is a good way to go about it.)

[Nortaneous]

[*] Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely.

f > p and x > k are very unlikely, but s > t is attested in Vietnamese and Marshallese.

[axolotl]

[*] Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely.

f > p and x > k are very unlikely, but s > t is attested in Vietnamese and Marshallese.

I suppose if you really, really wanted x > k you could claim the presence of a sudden large number of non-native speakers. Basically invoking a "Lock Ness" effect. That's the only way such a change would ever really happen.

[Nortaneous]

[*] Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely.

f > p and x > k are very unlikely, but s > t is attested in Vietnamese and Marshallese.

I suppose if you really, really wanted x > k you could claim the presence of a sudden large number of non-native speakers. Basically invoking a "Lock Ness" effect. That's the only way such a change would ever really happen.

x > w > g > k (^:

[cedh]

Huishu has created word-final dorsal stops out of nothing after a high vowel, almost certainly with a fricative intermediate:
i u > ih uh > iç ux > ic uk / _#

Another plausible environment for conditioned fortition would be following a nasal:
mf ns ŋx > mpf nts ŋkx > mp nt ŋk (and possibly further > p t k, or else > b d ɡ, or else > m n ŋ)

[KathTheDragon]

[*] Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely.

f > p and x > k are very unlikely, but s > t is attested in Vietnamese and Marshallese.

I believe s > t is also attested in some subset of Uralic (I couldn't tell you exactly).

[Kuchigakatai]

Korean /s s͈/ become [t̚] (i.e. unreleased [t]) in syllable-final position. This effectively means you get morphophonological alternations like:

비 bi [pì] 'a broom'
빗 bis [pìt̚] 'a comb'
빗어 bis-'ʌ [pìzʌ] 'comb (non-polite informal non-past)'
빗기 bis-gi [pìt̚ki] 'comb (informal verbal noun)'
빗습니다 bis-sɯb-ni-da [pìs͈:ɯmnida] 'comb (polite formal non-past)' (/s.s/ gains tenseness because [t̚.s] > [s͈:])
빗느냐 bis-nɯ-nja [pìn:ɯɲja] 'comb (neutral formal interrogative non-past)'

있어 is͈-'ʌ [is͈ʌ] 'be somewhere; have sth (non-polite informal non-past)'
있기 is͈-gi [it̚ki] 'be somewhere; have sth (informal verbal noun)'
있습니다 is͈-sɯb-ni-da [is͈:ɯmnida] 'be somewhere; have sth (polite formal non-past)'
있느냐 is͈-nɯ-nja [in:ɯɲja] 'be somewhere; have sth (neutral formal interrogative non-past)'

[Këkkytir]

Thank you very much for the help! You've given me some great ideas I can work with.

[Këkkytir]

Under what realistic conditions can fricatives become related stops (or nasals)? Examples: f → p, s → t, x → k. I want to get rid of most of the fricatives in my conlang somehow but I was told that an unconditional change into stops is very unlikely.

You can get away with it, particularly with intermediate steps, which Pabappa gave some examples of. One other possibility would be for the fricatives to become affricates, then stops (f > pf > p, etc.). Although you said you wanted it to be unconditional, if you wanted to go this route you might want to have them become affricates only in certain environments--say, after short vowels, fricatives lengthen, and then [f:] > [pf] (> [p]), etc., which could result in some fun alternations you could play with, if you wished. (And you could get rid of the remaining fricatives in other ways.)

I like the idea of f > pf > p, because I also want geminated stops, so I can even do f > pf > p: in a similar vein.

Suppose that I want to introduce voicing contrast, but only for a few specific consonants. Would it make sense to turn an aspiration contrast into a voicing contrast? For example: t~d → d, t^h~d^h → t ? Are there other good ways to introduce voicing contrast but only for a few select consonants?

A change of an aspiration to a voicing contrast is definitely plausible, yes. (Though keep in mind that "voiced aspirates" aren't actual aspirates--except in a couple languages in uhhh Sarawak or something, where they're [bp^h]--they're breathy-voiced stops. So I would just say t, t^h > d, t. [Greek did turn breathy voiced consonants into voiceless aspirates, of course--probably--so you can have that as an intermediate step if your language has distinctive breathy voice already.] But the pathway you seem to be laying out of it beginning with optional and later obligatory voicing of original voiceless unaspirated stops, which makes the aspiration on the aspirated stops secondary/superfluous and thus either optional or eventually lost, is a good way to go about it.)

This is a pretty good explanation of how a sound change like this might come about. Thank you!

[Knit Tie]

Would people say that /u/ fortitioning to /kw/ word-finally and before voiceless consonants is a good idea?