Sound changes boogle me

[linguistcat]

I'm not always the best with sound changes so I've been looking through things like index diachronica to get a handle on the types of sound changes are likely to happen, ranging from one offs with one sound changed in a specific context to a set of phonemes sharing some trait in a set of similar contexts and everything in between. Of course, some more basic sound changes that use general traits of the sounds involved are pretty easy to wrap my head around (voicing unvoiced consonants between vowels, devoicing voiced sounds near unvoiced sounds or at the ends of words, l > ɬ in certain environments), but even going by this there seem to be some odd exceptions in most sets of sound changes.

For example, I saw β ð ɣ → f θ k / _{p,t,k,s}; which means these voiced fricatives become unvoiced before unvoiced plosives+/s/, but /ɣ/ then also becomes a stop. Which isn't too weird, but still maybe not what would be expected. In a grouping like this, is it just more likely for ɣ to do this than fricatives further forward? Is it likely for velars in general to act weirdly in these situations? At least I can set up a general rule that a common sound change for voiced plosives or fricatives put next to unvoiced ones is that one will affect the other's voicing. But are some fricatives more likely to become stops when voiced than just be an unvoiced fricative?

I guess I'm just wondering if there are sound changes that are likely to affect certain phones in different ways than the rest of a set they might be in. Or if these changes that seem out of place are more random and it would be up to my instincts to throw them in when they feel right.

Also, for people who used to have a bad grasp on sound changes, what helped you get them a bit better? Do you stick to certain rules? Would you throw in changes like the one above or go for the expected β ð ɣ → f θ x / _{p,t,k,s} ?

[Richard W]

For example, I saw β ð ɣ → f θ k / _{p,t,k,s}; which means these voiced fricatives become unvoiced before unvoiced plosives+/s/, but /ɣ/ then also becomes a stop. Which isn't too weird, but still maybe not what would be expected. In a grouping like this, is it just more likely for ɣ to do this than fricatives further forward? Is it likely for velars in general to act weirdly in these situations? At least I can set up a general rule that a common sound change for voiced plosives or fricatives put next to unvoiced ones is that one will affect the other's voicing. But are some fricatives more likely to become stops when voiced than just be an unvoiced fricative?

I suspect that what we're seeing here is the effect of a neutralisation of the contrasts kt ~ xt and ks ~ xs, which may have been in place before assimilation. So, backness is probably relevant, but this weirdness might actually reflect a neutralisation and the convention used to resolve such ambiguities.

[linguistcat]

For example, I saw β ð ɣ → f θ k / _{p,t,k,s}; which means these voiced fricatives become unvoiced before unvoiced plosives+/s/, but /ɣ/ then also becomes a stop. Which isn't too weird, but still maybe not what would be expected. In a grouping like this, is it just more likely for ɣ to do this than fricatives further forward? Is it likely for velars in general to act weirdly in these situations? At least I can set up a general rule that a common sound change for voiced plosives or fricatives put next to unvoiced ones is that one will affect the other's voicing. But are some fricatives more likely to become stops when voiced than just be an unvoiced fricative?

I suspect that what we're seeing here is the effect of a neutralisation of the contrasts kt ~ xt and ks ~ xs, which may have been in place before assimilation. So, backness is probably relevant, but this weirdness might actually reflect a neutralisation and the convention used to resolve such ambiguities.

Someone mentioned on another board that something like that was probably true. I checked the context for that change, and while I couldn't find a starting phonology, it seems like nothing became /x/ and there was no other mention of /x/ before that change. But later some /k/ and some /ŋ/ both became /x/. So I think it was probably a case where [k~x] were both heard as /k/ for a while and then [x] split off as its own phoneme later, which I suppose is something to keep in mind.

[Ares Land]

Also, for people who used to have a bad grasp on sound changes, what helped you get them a bit better? Do you stick to certain rules? Would you throw in changes like the one above or go for the expected β ð ɣ → f θ x / _{p,t,k,s} ?

From what I gather, sound changes are part ease of articulation and part fashion. So I use sound changes that seem natural and expected, but I don't bother too much if I want to put in something weirder.

There are plenty of unexpected change in natlangs anyway. On the face of it changes like k > ʃ /_a or t > t͡ʃ /_a are a little unexpected, but they do occur.

What helps is having a good idea of the "target" phonology. Looking at sound changes from natlangs helps too. There are some common sound changes that I'd never would have guessed (like ŋ > ʔ which is surprisingly common).

Another option would be to have both f θ x and f θ k. They could be different dialects or sister languages. Or maybe the x > k change is sporadic. In French for instance there a quite a few words were the change k > ʃ /_a (what actually happened is that they were borrowed from dialects that didn't have the change).

[Kuchigakatai]

Someone mentioned on another board that something like that was probably true. I checked the context for that change, and while I couldn't find a starting phonology, it seems like nothing became /x/ and there was no other mention of /x/ before that change. But later some /k/ and some /ŋ/ both became /x/. So I think it was probably a case where [k~x] were both heard as /k/ for a while and then [x] split off as its own phoneme later, which I suppose is something to keep in mind.

I have this suspicion that velar consonants are sometimes able to undergo distinct sound changes compared to /p b t d/ due to articulatory reasons I can only speculate on... In your case, as you explained, it seems to be partly because of a lack of a pre-existing /x/, but I think this kind of thing happens elsewhere too. (By the way, what is that language you're speaking about?)

Your example there BTW, β ð ɣ → f θ k / _{p,t,k,s}, reminds me of H13, who is a native speaker of the Basel dialect of Swiss German, and who IIRC once said he has [pʰ tʰ] > [pf ts] but not [kʰ] > [kˣ] (unlike other dialects of Swiss German), but rather [kʰ] has stayed with normal aspiration like that. Instead, this [kʰ] has now merged with the [kʰ] that resulted from the [bəh gəh] > [pʰ kʰ] / #_ sound change, fed further by [pʰ tʰ kʰ] in borrowings from Standard German. In contrast, other forms of Swiss German distinguish /kh/ [kʰ] and /kˣ/ [kˣ]. I imagine this has to do with the auditory similarity between the two, while [pf ts] vs. [pʰ tʰ] are more distinct.

There are plenty of unexpected change in natlangs anyway. On the face of it changes like k > ʃ /_a or t > t͡ʃ /_a are a little unexpected, but they do occur.

In the case of Latin ka > Old French cha at least, it helped that this /a/ was fronted in pre-French, something suggested by both this palatalization, and its diphthongization to [ai] ([æi]?) in open syllables before nasals, becoming [æi]? > [e:] in open syllables before non-nasals... cattus > *[ˈkʲættos] > chaz [tʃæts], panem > pain, mare > *[ˈmeːɾe] > mer [mer] (today [mɛʁ]). This palatalization also combines with the raising to [e:] to produce [ka] > [kʲæ] > [kʲæi]? > [tʃje:]... canem > chien, calet > *[kʲe:let] > chielt.

What helps is having a good idea of the "target" phonology. Looking at sound changes from natlangs helps too. There are some common sound changes that I'd never would have guessed (like ŋ > ʔ which is surprisingly common).

Nortaneous likes to say that this is because [ŋ] can be the "glottal nasal" structurally/psychologically, which makes sense to me, as we otherwise don't have articulatory means of producing true glottal nasals. For that, we'd need the vocal cords to be on a separate air channel than that of the nose, and that would mean a different anatomy of the throat.

[Kuchigakatai]

(By the way, what is that language you're speaking about?)

I looked it up and it was Old Norse.

[Nortaneous]

Your example there BTW, β ð ɣ → f θ k / _{p,t,k,s}, reminds me of H13, who is a native speaker of the Basel dialect of Swiss German, and who IIRC once said he has [pʰ tʰ] > [pf ts] but not [kʰ] > [kˣ] (unlike other dialects of Swiss German), but rather [kʰ] has stayed with normal aspiration like that. Instead, this [kʰ] has now merged with the [kʰ] that resulted from the [bəh gəh] > [pʰ kʰ] / #_ sound change, fed further by [pʰ tʰ kʰ] in borrowings from Standard German.

Not too surprising - [f s] are strident and [x] isn't. Strident fricatives are more common and in some sense 'simpler', and affricates in particular are usually strident. This predicts that /pf/ should be more common than it is, but Tropylium (iirc) had the hypothesis that, since agriculture-induced dietary changes seem to have triggered changes in the layout of the teeth which made labiodentals more common, labiodental affricates just haven't reached crosslinguistic equilibrium yet.

Nortaneous likes to say that this is because [ŋ] can be the "glottal nasal" structurally/psychologically, which makes sense to me, as we otherwise don't have articulatory means of producing true glottal nasals. For that, we'd need the vocal cords to be on a separate air channel than that of the nose, and that would mean a different anatomy of the throat.

Right - I can't find the paper on this that I got the idea from but there's an overview along similar lines here.