Sound Change Quickie Thread

[bradrn]

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)

Creation of a form /riːg/ was exactly what I meant earlier by saying that the inclusive forms could ‘be extended via analogy to cover the other first person forms’.

or alternately, some other forms showing up for 3rd person pronouns to keep the 1st exclusive/exclusive distinction.

What do you mean by ‘other forms’? Do you mean grammaticalisation like Pabappa was writing about for the first person, or do you mean something else? And if you do mean grammaticalisation, then what could some sources for third person pronouns be?

[Knit Tie]

Can tj and t̪j both go to ts, while kj turns into tɕ?

[Kuchigakatai]

Can tj and t̪j both go to ts, while kj turns into tɕ?

Yeah, sure, it's not that different from Italian... statiō > *[esˈtattjo] > stazzo [ˈstattso], bracchium > *[ˈbrakkju] > braccio [ˈbrattʃo].

[Richard W]

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

Words for 'slave' or 'servant' seem quite popular - they're used in Persian and in Tai dialects.

[Kuchigakatai]

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?

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.

On is in fact a catch-all substitute for subject nous, taking singular agreement in the finite verb (below: 1PL sommes, voyons > 3SG est, voit)...

Formal French: nous sommes prêts
Slightly colloquial French: on est prêts
'We are ready.'
(note how the adjective prêts is still supposed to be spelled in the plural form, in spite of the verb being 3rd-person singular!)

At the same time, the reflexive clitic nous is replaced by se.

Formal French: nous nous voyons dans le miroir
Slightly colloquial French: on se voit dans le miroir
'We're seeing ourselves in the mirror.'

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

Some 1st person humble pronouns (although maybe we could call them "forms of self-address"...) that are attested in Literary Chinese are 在下 "be below" (I, who am below you), 愚 "stupid" (I, a stupid one), 鄙人 "low/despised person" (I, a low person), 小女 "small woman" (I, a small woman), 草民 "grass commoner" (I, a rough/worthless commoner).

Kings during the Warring States Period often used 寡人 "lonely person" (more literally, "widowed person") as a 1st person pronoun, as well as 孤 "orphan" with the same metaphor of being alone at the top.

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.

I know nothing about modern (or ancient) Hebrew, but I remember a song from a couple years ago entitled עברי אנכי Ivri Anochi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aii3fDdZnrM

[Whimemsz]

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.

I know nothing about modern (or ancient) Hebrew, but I remember a song from a couple years ago entitled עברי אנכי Ivri Anochi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aii3fDdZnrM

אנוכי and אני both commonly occur in the Biblical Hebrew corpus, but yes, אני is the normal modern Israeli Hebrew one. All Northwest Semitic languages except Aramaic had two 1sg pronouns going back to Proto-NWS *ʔanāku (in all languages but Ugaritic, analogically restructured to *ʔanākī) and *ʔanā [as the Akkadian cognate indicates, both can probably be reconstructed back to Proto-Semitic, though *ʔanāku, AFAIK, doesn't occur in any other Semitic languages, including Old Akkadian. Ancient Egyptian seems to have a cognate form too, though -- jnk *(ʔ)anak -- as does Berber.]. The lyrics in Ivri Anochi are quoting from a line in Jonah (Jonah 1:9), עברי אנכי; ואת-יהוה אלהי השמים, אני ירא Ivri anokhi ve'et YHWH Elohey hashamayim ani yare' (which uses both pronouns), "I am a Hebrew, and The LORD God of the heavens do I fear" (pronounced in (Orthodox) Ashkenazi Hebrew, in the song, as Ivri anoykhi ve'es HaShem Elokey hashamayim ani yore).

[Knit Tie]

Does VjCV, VwCV to VCjV, VCwV metathesis work as a regular sound change?

[cedh]

Does VjCV, VwCV to VCjV, VCwV metathesis work as a regular sound change?

Yes, especially if there's an intermediate stage VCʲV, VCʷV.

[Knit Tie]

Another minor question: can ʈj become ʈʂ, but ʈʂj become tɕ?

[Pabappa]

Im not sure, but retroflexes are pretty hard to palatalize. I'd think you'd have to uncurl the tongue before you palatalized it. So you *could* do it that way, but you might end up also taking /tsj/ or even /tj/ with you.

[Darren]

Would it be at all conceivable to have the change VnV → VŋglV (through something like VnV → Vɾ̃V → ṼɾV → VŋɾV → VŋlV → VŋglV)? Maybe parallel VmV → VŋgwV ?

[Pabappa]

No, I dont think that would be a good idea. imagine if every intervocalic /n/ in Spanish or Japanese was suddenly /ŋgl/. changes like that tend to be highly conditional. e.g. perhaps the first step is unconditional, but then the nasalization disappears in unaccented syllables, and then each of the other steps has conditions as well.

[Moose-tache]

Well, it wouldn't be every intervocal n in Spanish becoming ŋgl, it would be every ŋl becoming ŋgl; sound changes don't have memory. There are plenty of cases of nr/mr/nl/ml taking an intrusive d or b to break up the sonorants: it's happened in English! Probably the iffiest step is substantiating the nasalization as an actual nasal in the presence of a flap, but even that's probably not unprecedented. An important question would be: is this the only source of vowel nasalization? Or does V~r contrast with V~?

If it results in constant ŋgl every few seconds then maybe it will quickly break down into V~l or something. But the steps that take you there are all fine.

[Darren]

Well, it wouldn't be every intervocal n in Spanish becoming ŋgl, it would be every ŋl becoming ŋgl; sound changes don't have memory. There are plenty of cases of nr/mr/nl/ml taking an intrusive d or b to break up the sonorants: it's happened in English! Probably the iffiest step is substantiating the nasalization as an actual nasal in the presence of a flap, but even that's probably not unprecedented. An important question would be: is this the only source of vowel nasalization? Or does V~r contrast with V~?

If it results in constant ŋgl every few seconds then maybe it will quickly break down into V~l or something. But the steps that take you there are all fine.

It wouldn't be unconditional; it'll probably only be following a stressed penult. The only other source of nasalisation is VnC → V~C, which doesn't give ~ɾ as previous nr sequences became ndr. My excuse for substituting a nasal consonant for the nasal vowel is that the stressed open vowels (the only vowels which would be nasalised before ɾ) gain a schwa offglide, then nasalisation is lost from the nucleus and /ə̯̃/ shifts to /ŋ/. I might also have -nd- and -nt- shift under the same circumstances.

[dɮ the phoneme]

(I may have asked this before at some point? I work on things so sporadically I can't remember anymore) In a language with moraic trochees, how plausible is deletion of short vowels following the main stressed syllable when said syllable is light. In other words, CV́CV > CV́C, or (ĹL) > (H́). This would always make the stressed syllable heavy, and would presumably be motivated by a constraint against a light syllable bearing main stress. I'm aware of such constraints in languages with iambic stress, but I'm not sure if they're attested with trochaic stress. Footing is parsed from the right edge and final consonants are extrametrical, so the rule gives the following results.

when the penult is light there's alternation of root-final vowels before certain suffixes:

kedemas → ke.(dé.ma)s > ke.(dé.m)s = kedems
kedemahi → (ke.de)(má.hi) > (ke.de)(máh) = kedemah

when the penult is heavy there is none:

beboqtes → be(bóq)tes > be(bóq)tes = beboqtes
beboqtehi → be(boq)(té.hi) > be(boq)(téh) = beboqteh

[Pabappa]

I like it but 2 things I see:

1) H is a weak consonant so I'd expect it to defy this rule.
2) /kedems/ has a superheavy syllable, it might also be an exception, although Estonian has done it.

More later when I get home

[dɮ the phoneme]

1) H is a weak consonant so I'd expect it to defy this rule.

In this context 'H' refers to a heavy syllable

[Pabappa]

In this context 'H' refers to a heavy syllable

i was on my phone sorry .... i meant /h/ but its hard sometimes to type just a single lowercase letter. im just going to write the whole post from scratch now, not that there was much of it to begin with.

(I may have asked this before at some point? I work on things so sporadically I can't remember anymore) In a language with moraic trochees, how plausible is deletion of short vowels following the main stressed syllable when said syllable is light. In other words, CV́CV > CV́C, or (ĹL) > (H́). This would always make the stressed syllable heavy, and would presumably be motivated by a constraint against a light syllable bearing main stress. I'm aware of such constraints in languages with iambic stress, but I'm not sure if they're attested with trochaic stress. Footing is parsed from the right edge and final consonants are extrametrical, so the rule gives the following results.

when the penult is light there's alternation of root-final vowels before certain suffixes:

kedemas → ke.(dé.ma)s > ke.(dé.m)s = kedems
kedemahi → (ke.de)(má.hi) > (ke.de)(máh) = kedemah

when the penult is heavy there is none:

beboqtes → be(bóq)tes > be(bóq)tes = beboqtes
beboqtehi → be(boq)(té.hi) > be(boq)(téh) = beboqteh

I dont think /h/ would obey this rule. it's just a feeling .... when i say /ehi/ and try to swallow the /i/ i think the result would at the very least be something like /eç/ or /eš/. THough i could also see the /h/ dropping entirely and leaving you with a diphthong /ei/ or a loing vowel /e:/. Also you could go like Romanian/Malagasy/Estonian and have palatalization of consonants before a disappearing /i/, possibly also labialization of consonants before a disappearing /u/.

Even though you said final consos are extrasyllabic, i still would ocnsider avoiding words like /kedems/ with a superheavy syllable. Though as I said, there are several and possibly quite many languages that have done just that, so there's nothing stopping you. Basically, I would be more cautious about /kedemah/ than about /kedems/, but both caught my eye.

[Kuchigakatai]

(I may have asked this before at some point? I work on things so sporadically I can't remember anymore) In a language with moraic trochees, how plausible is deletion of short vowels following the main stressed syllable when said syllable is light. In other words, CV́CV > CV́C, or (ĹL) > (H́). This would always make the stressed syllable heavy, and would presumably be motivated by a constraint against a light syllable bearing main stress. I'm aware of such constraints in languages with iambic stress, but I'm not sure if they're attested with trochaic stress. Footing is parsed from the right edge and final consonants are extrametrical, so the rule gives the following results.

when the penult is light there's alternation of root-final vowels before certain suffixes:

kedemas → ke.(dé.ma)s > ke.(dé.m)s = kedems
kedemahi → (ke.de)(má.hi) > (ke.de)(máh) = kedemah

when the penult is heavy there is none:

beboqtes → be(bóq)tes > be(bóq)tes = beboqtes
beboqtehi → be(boq)(té.hi) > be(boq)(téh) = beboqteh

I like that and find it perfectly naturalistic. I imagine that the -i of beboqtéh shows up when further suffixes attach or something? Say, "beboqtehinít". I don't have a problem with /ems#/ or /h/ either.

I don't know of any language that works like that, but then I don't claim to know about the morphophonology of many languages. Early Middle English and the Late Latin ancestor of Gallo/Italo-Romance and Dalmatian forbid CVCV with a short V1, but they force the V1 to lengthen (> CV:CV), e.g. OE duru [ˈduru] > ME dore [ˈdo:rə] 'door', Anglian OE wicu [ˈwiku] > ME weke [ˈwe:kə] 'week', Old Latin fidem [ˈfidem] > Late Latin [ˈfeːde] > early Old French feid [feiθ], Dalmatian [faid] 'faith'.

[dɮ the phoneme]

I like that and find it perfectly naturalistic.

Thanks!

I dont think /h/ would obey this rule. it's just a feeling .... when i say /ehi/ and try to swallow the /i/ i think the result would at the very least be something like /eç/ or /eš/. THough i could also see the /h/ dropping entirely and leaving you with a diphthong /ei/ or a loing vowel /e:/. Also you could go like Romanian/Malagasy/Estonian and have palatalization of consonants before a disappearing /i/, possibly also labialization of consonants before a disappearing /u/.

There is actually quite extensive palatalization and lenition going on as well that I left out mostly because I felt it would obscure the examples and isn't really related to the metrical issue, but yes, "beboqteh" and "kedems" do actually come out as something more like [bʲævottʃeʃ] and [tʃædʒæms~tʃjæms] in the end, if I remember all my other diachronics correctly.