Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Zju]

Is ʔ → ɾ / V_V too crazy? Without an intermediate step of VʔV → V.V → VɾV

[missals]

Yeah, I don't think that can happen. Why would [ʔ] become [ɾ]? It's entirely unmotivated; there's no mechanism by which it could happen.

[Vilike]

What happens here is that the intervocalic glottal disappears, leaving a hiatus which is then resolved by the insertion of epenthetic [ɾ]. Is that more believable thus said?

[Pabappa]

I dont think flap insertion can happen quite so easily. The intrusive R in English works because its an approximant .... and I wouldnt be surprised if a uvular R-like sound gets inserted in some language somewhere. But a flap is a normal consonant with full contact, and it's made in a region of the mouth not involved in vowel production. I wouldnt take a bet saying that it hasnt happened absolutely ever, but if it has, it's certainly very rare.

Also perhaps worth noting is that even the intrusive R only appears between certain pairs of vowels. e.g. it doesnt come between /ia/, /ua/, etc. but only between pairs of vowels that we seem to think of as clumsy.

[Nortaneous]

could get it between a nonback vowel and any vowel through hiatus - 0 > j > z > r / V[-back]_V

[mae]

-

[Xwtek]

is a i u > 0 \ C_(#) realistic? I know that Japanese do drop /i/ and /u/ on similar environments.

Also:

Is it realistic that I consider all coda consonants not as single mora by themselves. but as a part of preceeding mora. Because I want to have a mora based tone language, but more like Navajo one, not Japanese one.

And:

Is it realistic for d z > d \ _# (The assumption is that d is pronounced word-finally as [D])

Sorry for using X-SAMPA instead of IPA. I'm currently on an university computer with no IPA IME installed.

[TurkeySloth]

Currently, I have a law that affects every nasal in the protolang named VViqàxùa’s [ˈʙí.ʔɐ̀.Xù.ɐ̀] Law (see below), after the fiendish linguist who discovered it. Should it be broken in half (nasals to voiced plosives; deglottalizations), or is it fine as one? [X] represents Greek lower case chi.

VViqàxùa’s Law: Unconditioned denasalization of original [*m *n *ŋ → b d g], deglottalization of [*mʔ → m], and deglottalization and merger of {*nʔ *ŋʔ → ŋ}

[Kuchigakatai]

is a i u > 0 \ C_(#) realistic? I know that Japanese do drop /i/ and /u/ on similar environments.

Why are there parentheses around the "#" in the condition?

The sound change is basically attested in the development of Modern French, although in the long run.

i e o > zero / C_# happened first, sometime around 600 AD perhaps. E.g. bonum bonī 'good (masc. acc.sg. and nom.pl.) > (with [ɔn] > [õn]) [ˈbõno ˈbõni] > Old French bon bon [bõn bõn] '(id.)', clāvem 'key' > [ˈkle:ve] > Old French clef [klef] '(id.)'. The exceptions are Cr_# and Cl_# where it is retained as [ə] due to phonological constraints, e.g. Orcum (nom. Orcus) 'Hades, the underworld realm or its ruler' > *[ˈɔkru] > *[ˈɔgro] > Old French ogre [ˈɔgrə] 'man-eating giant, ogre; fierce non-Christian'.

a > ə / C_# happens at around the same time. E.g. bonam 'good (fem.acc.sg.) > [ˈbõna] > Old French bone [ˈbõnə].

ə > zero / C_# then happens around 1700. E.g. early modern bonne [ˈbɔnə] 'good (fem.sg.) > modern [bɔn].

In hindsight, this looks like i e o a > zero / C_#, except that the a > zero change happens a lot later. (Due to a widespread loss of final consonants happening near 1500, the difference in timing between i e o > zero and a > zero creates an interesting gender pattern with feminine final consonants, e.g. frigidum > froid [fʁwa] and frigidam > froide [fʁwad].)

Is it realistic that I consider all coda consonants not as single mora by themselves. but as a part of preceeding mora. Because I want to have a mora based tone language, but more like Navajo one, not Japanese one.

What makes you feel you should think about moras? If that's the case, You can probably think of the segment groups that are relevant for the tones as syllables instead.

Is it realistic for d z > d \ _# (The assumption is that d is pronounced word-finally as [D])

I'd think it is, yes, even though I don't know of a natlang example of word-final [z] > [ð].

Currently, I have a law that affects every nasal in the protolang named VViqàxùa’s [ˈʙí.ʔɐ̀.Xù.ɐ̀] Law (see below), after the fiendish linguist who discovered it. Should it be broken in half (nasals to voiced plosives; deglottalizations), or is it fine as one? [X] represents Greek lower case chi.

VViqàxùa’s Law: Unconditioned denasalization of original [*m *n *ŋ → b d g], deglottalization of [*mʔ → m], and deglottalization and merger of {*nʔ *ŋʔ → ŋ}

Not really. It is certainly reminiscent of Grimm's law in the Germanic languages, which is a consonant shift that doesn't have two steps (like VViqaxua's law) but three steps:

step 1: p t k kw > f θ x xw
step 2: b d g gw > p t k kw
step 3: bh dh gh gwh > b d g gw

[Xwtek]

Why are there parentheses around the "#" in the condition?

whoops, that's originally (#,C). But I decided only to drop /i/ and /u/ at that environment.

i e o > zero / C_# happened first, sometime around 600 AD perhaps. E.g. bonum bonī 'good (masc. acc.sg. and nom.pl.) > (with [ɔn] > [õn]) [ˈbõno ˈbõni] > Old French bon bon [bõn bõn] '(id.)', clāvem 'key' > [ˈkle:ve] > Old French clef [klef] '(id.)'. The exceptions are Cr_# and Cl_# where it is retained as [ə] due to phonological constraints, e.g. Orcum (nom. Orcus) 'Hades, the underworld realm or its ruler' > *[ˈɔkru] > *[ˈɔgro] > Old French ogre [ˈɔgrə] 'man-eating giant, ogre; fierce non-Christian'.

a > ə / C_# happens at around the same time. E.g. bonam 'good (fem.acc.sg.) > [ˈbõna] > Old French bone [ˈbõnə].

ə > zero / C_# then happens around 1700. E.g. early modern bonne [ˈbɔnə] 'good (fem.sg.) > modern [bɔn].

In hindsight, this looks like i e o a > zero / C_#, except that the a > zero change happens a lot later. (Due to a widespread loss of final consonants happening near 1500, the difference in timing between i e o > zero and a > zero creates an interesting gender pattern with feminine final consonants, e.g. frigidum > froid [fʁwa] and frigidam > froide [fʁwad].)

The problem is that /ɛ/ and /o/ is preserved and /e/, while is not preserved, it's not deleted, but instead merged to /ɛ/. So the "cardinal" vowels are dropped but the mid vowels are not. The final /i/, /u/, and /a/ in the "modern" language comes from glottal stop deletion (which also affects tone), and final shortening.

What makes you feel you should think about moras? If that's the case, You can probably think of the segment groups that are relevant for the tones as syllables instead.

My language has 2 tones, high and low. There is also a possibility of downstep between two high toned morae. I think it's weird to associate tone with individual vowel phoneme. On the other hand, I don't want to associate tone with a coda consonant, especially because most checked coda is closed with obstruents, and rarely a nasal. Liquid is also devoiced at that context. The only voiced coda is /d/ which is pronounced as [ð]

[Arzena]

What are some funky things that devoicing consonants can do to vowel quality/quantity besides tone?

For example we have /tʃi/ and /dʒi/; under Shtasa's original sound changes, both are to merge as [tʃi]. Boring! I know that vowel length can increase before voiced consonants (cf American English <mat> and <mad>). The production of an off-glide schwa sounds appealing but I've never read of that happening after a voiced obstruent.

[Nortaneous]

What are some funky things that devoicing consonants can do to vowel quality/quantity besides tone?

register -> height contrast, see Khmer
Adjarian's Law: Dha > Ta[+ATR] > Te

[bradrn]

I’m making a set of sound changes for a language which currently has the following pronouns, with an exclusive/inclusive distinction in the first perso:

	s	d	p
1	ʒaːg	ʒaːganik/riːganik	ʒaːgik/riːgik
2	woːg	woːganik	woːgik
3	jaːg	jaːganik	jaːgik

However, I have a sound change {z,ʒ} → {l,j} (I believe I asked about this a couple of posts earlier). I have just realised that this sound change causes the first and third person pronouns to merge, except for the first person inclusive pronouns. Would if be plausible for the inclusive forms (with /riː-/) to be extended via analogy to cover the other first person forms? Or would something else happen to distinguish first and third person?

[Arzena]

Expanding the pronouns via analogy doesn't strike me as too odd.

You might consider the route French has taken and elevate the 3rd person singular to cover for the 1st person plural à la on.

[bradrn]

You might consider the route French has taken and elevate the 3rd person singular to cover for the 1st person plural à la on.

I know very little about French — could you explain this in more detail?

[Pabappa]

it means human and is used in phrases like ici on parle francais "here we speak French". But judsging from the wiktionary entry i think the syntax might be different ... it isnt just a catch-all substitute for nous.

in Spanish, this would be a passive verb .... aquí se habla español ... which makes me wonder if there's ever been a language where the passive verbs have fallen out of use as passives because they got repurposed to fill a gap in the normal verb conjugation. maybe your 1st & 3rd person could be identical, but one of them uses a historically passive conjugation?

this isnt my personal favorite solution, though ...i would just go ahead and derive a new 1st person pronoun, a priori, and then lose the exclusivity distinction in the dual & plural.

[bradrn]

this isnt my personal favorite solution, though ...i would just go ahead and derive a new 1st person pronoun, a priori, and then lose the exclusivity distinction in the dual & plural.

What are some sources for a first person pronoun? The only one I can think of is ‘this one’ or something similar.

[Pabappa]

depends. how polite is your society? there might be some good ideas at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/I/translations#Pronoun if they have the etymologies listed. Japanese uses "watashi", which I think is historically an adjective meaning "private", but also has a bunch of others depending on the social status of the speaker and listener. the use of /watashi/ may have been helped by the existence of a simpler pronoun /wa/ in old Japanese, or it might be a coincidence. a third possibility is that Im wrong about it originally meaning "private" and that they just used the kanji. after all, Japanese adjectives dont normally end in -shi, as far as i know.

Aromanian seems to have repurposed the accusative as the nominative. There might be a few languages that started out using a construction like "my soul", "my mind", etc ... Inuktitut uses https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%90%8 ... #Inuktitut which might even be a verb meaning "Im here" used attirbutively as "i who am here"....though Im a bit out on a limb there, as I havent studied Inuktitut beyond what Ive needed for working on conlangs.

hebrew https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%90%D ... %99#Hebrew might have an interesting story, but wiktionary doesnt know what it is.

in Poswa, I derived the verbal markings from evidentials, but I dont know of any natlang that has done that, and they are not pronouns, in any case. in Pabappa, the 1st person pronoun comes from a verb meaning "(one) speaking", just as the 2nd person comes from a verb meaning "(one) listening". But I dont know of any natlang that has done that either and I suspect that there isnt one .... my conlangs are spoken by people with flat social hierarchies and their speech would sound impolite to us.

[bradrn]

depends. how polite is your society?

Not a clue… I’m still stuck on my geography.

there might be some good ideas at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/I/translations#Pronoun if they have the etymologies listed. Japanese uses "watashi", which I think is historically an adjective meaning "private", but also has a bunch of others depending on the social status of the speaker and listener. the use of /watashi/ may have been helped by the existence of a simpler pronoun /wa/ in old Japanese, or it might be a coincidence. a third possibility is that Im wrong about it originally meaning "private" and that they just used the kanji. after all, Japanese adjectives dont normally end in -shi, as far as i know.

But isn’t there some debate about whether Japanese even has pronouns at all?

Aromanian seems to have repurposed the accusative as the nominative.

I don’t see how this relates to pronouns, but this does sound very interesting! Do you have any resources on how this happened?

There might be a few languages that started out using a construction like "my soul", "my mind", etc ... Inuktitut uses https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%90%8 ... #Inuktitut which might even be a verb meaning "Im here" used attirbutively as "i who am here"....though Im a bit out on a limb there, as I havent studied Inuktitut beyond what Ive needed for working on conlangs.

That sounds like a nice source for pronouns, and I might use this under other circumstances. But with my current language, “I’m here” would be too long for use as a pronoun: shehii wa zhaadi ‘here-DAT at 1s-exists’. “I who am here” would be even longer: shehii wa yaadinem zhaag ‘[here-DAT at 3s-exists]=REL 1s’.

hebrew https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%90%D ... %99#Hebrew might have an interesting story, but wiktionary doesnt know what it is.

I’m not too good at Hebrew, but I’ve never heard אנוכי being used as a first-person pronoun — only אני. But you’re right in that the given etymology doesn’t help too much.

in Poswa, I derived the verbal markings from evidentials, but I dont know of any natlang that has done that, and they are not pronouns, in any case. in Pabappa, the 1st person pronoun comes from a verb meaning "(one) speaking", just as the 2nd person comes from a verb meaning "(one) listening". But I dont know of any natlang that has done that either and I suspect that there isnt one .... my conlangs are spoken by people with flat social hierarchies and their speech would sound impolite to us.

‘One who speaks’ would actually work pretty well for me, since it’s only a single word when represented as a headless relative clause: yaagzhoomnem ‘3s-say=REL’. But evidentials to pronouns sounds very, very odd — the closest you could get is possibly an auditory evidential, which simply states that you know a sentence is a true proposition because you heard it happen. I’m not quite sure how that could become a pronoun.

[linguistcat]

... a third possibility is that Im wrong about it originally meaning "private" and that they just used the kanji. after all, Japanese adjectives dont normally end in -shi, as far as i know.

Verb-like adjectives in Classical Japanese did end with -shi (or in some cases -shiku) and it later changed to -i (or -shii). While "watai" doesn't seem to have survived as "private" in the modern language, Kantou dialect seems to use "watai" as a first person pronoun according to jisho.org, but it is noted as archaic.

In any case, bradrn, I could see it going either way, with the ri:- forms taking over as first person pronouns (maybe even creating the form ri:g by analogy), or alternately, some other forms showing up for 3rd person pronouns to keep the 1st exclusive/exclusive distinction.