Sound Change Quickie Thread

[bradrn]

If the voice distinction is lost in stops, how likely is that a short vowel would lengthen after one of them at the start of a word?

By ‘one of them’, I assume you mean a voiced stop, right?

[Richard W]

If the voice distinction is lost in stops, how likely is that a short vowel would lengthen after one of them at the start of a word?

It could happen as a result of induced tone distinctions. However, it seems to be a rare effect.

[alice]

If the voice distinction is lost in stops, how likely is that a short vowel would lengthen after one of them at the start of a word?

By ‘one of them’, I assume you mean a voiced stop, right?

Sigh; I garbled that, yet again. I don't know why the ZBB does this to me. I'll have another go. Assume the following:

1. The voicing distinction is lost in stops.
2. The potential ambiguity caused by the loss of voicing is compensated for word-initially by lengthening the following vowel. (Is this even possible?)
3. Would the lengthening be more likely to occur after a voiced or a voiceless stop prior to devoicing?

Put schematically, which of the following is more likely?

1. #ta, #da -> #ta, #taa
2. #ta, #da -> #taa, #ta

[Chengjiang]

Maybe if you have vowel sequences, do things like /tuV nuV/ > /kʷ ŋʷ/. Then, dispose of /pʷ mʷ/ by shifting them back to ordinary labials. I've done similar things in conlangs.

That could work. Ideally I’d like something that just splits existing velar consonants into plain and labialized series, but [puV tuV] > [pwV twV] > [pʷV tʷV] > [pV kʷV] does work and I think all the steps are attested. (Can’t quite think of an example for [tʷ] > [kʷ], but it seems like it should work.) I was also considering [tʷ] or [tw] > [p], as in Latin, to get rid of the coronals, or just having both labials and coronals lose contrastive labialization fairly quickly while velars retain it. I think that’s attested but I’m not sure.

Anyone know anything about the diachronics between Proto-Semitic and Ge’ez? I know that innovated labialized velars.

[Chengjiang]

Anyone know anything about the diachronics between Proto-Semitic and Ge’ez? I know that innovated labialized velars.

Never mind, I found a summary of some sound changes to Ge’ez myself and it has exactly what I was looking for: short /u/ > /ə/, with labialization of the preceding consonant if said consonant is velar, which became contrastive immediately because short /i/ also became /ə/.

[Chengjiang]

Sigh; I garbled that, yet again. I don't know why the ZBB does this to me. I'll have another go. Assume the following:

1. The voicing distinction is lost in stops.
2. The potential ambiguity caused by the loss of voicing is compensated for word-initially by lengthening the following vowel. (Is this even possible?)
3. Would the lengthening be more likely to occur after a voiced or a voiceless stop prior to devoicing?

Put schematically, which of the following is more likely?

1. #ta, #da -> #ta, #taa
2. #ta, #da -> #taa, #ta

I have to admit neither of these seems very likely as a single-step change. There’s no clear motivating factor for the vowel’s length to change based on the voicing of the preceding consonant. That said, I could see vowels after voiced obstruents developing a low tone, which becomes contrastive after the loss of the voicing contrast. (This appears to be most likely if your voiced obstruents are phonetically breathy or slack voiced.) At that point, I think there’s natlang precedent for vowels gaining a length distinction based on tone, but I don’t know the details. At a guess, it might involve one of the tones becoming a creaky voiced phonation, which then breaks into a sequence of vowel and glottal stop, which then deletes the glottal stop and compensatorily lengthens the vowel. This is just a stab in the dark, though; I’d like to hear from someone with more knowledge of tone/vowel phonation diachronics.

[Ares Land]

If the voice distinction is lost in stops, how likely is that a short vowel would lengthen after one of them at the start of a word?

By ‘one of them’, I assume you mean a voiced stop, right?

Sigh; I garbled that, yet again. I don't know why the ZBB does this to me. I'll have another go. Assume the following:

1. The voicing distinction is lost in stops.
2. The potential ambiguity caused by the loss of voicing is compensated for word-initially by lengthening the following vowel. (Is this even possible?)
3. Would the lengthening be more likely to occur after a voiced or a voiceless stop prior to devoicing?

Put schematically, which of the following is more likely?

1. #ta, #da -> #ta, #taa
2. #ta, #da -> #taa, #ta

I don't know if it helps but voiced stops tend to lengthen the preceding vowel:
ie. at, ad -> at, aat
That's actually attested.

Other than that... What if voiceless stops were aspirated as well? Then part of the following vowel would be voiceless (or the onset of voicing for these voicing would be delayed), and vowels following voiceless/aspirate stops would be perceived as shorter.
So you'd end up with 1. ta, da > ta, taa. I have no idea if anything like this is attested anywhere, but it doesn't seem too unlikely.

[Kuchigakatai]

Sigh; I garbled that, yet again. I don't know why the ZBB does this to me.

'Tis for those awful occasions that I figured out these recovery steps~~

[not]

Is a sound change in which all fricatives (and only fricatives) voice in all syllable coda positions at all plausible? (The language in question has a CV(C) syllable structure, and the change would include fricatives that come before other unvoiced consonants.) I am imagining it could happen via some sort of delay in voice offset time. Is there any real-life precedent for such a change?

[Richard W]

Is a sound change in which all fricatives (and only fricatives) voice in all syllable coda positions at all plausible? (The language in question has a CV(C) syllable structure, and the change would include fricatives that come before other unvoiced consonants.) I am imagining it could happen via some sort of delay in voice offset time. Is there any real-life precedent for such a change?

There's precedence for final fricatives voicing before vowels (Ecuadorian Spanish) and also before sonorants (West Flemish) while remaining unvoiced intervocally within words. I've seen a bald claim that Old Norse final fricatives were voiced, but I can't verify or refute that statement.

[dɮ the phoneme]

I feel like I read somewhere that there was some Germanic language in which (i-)umlaut only affected the stressed vowel, i.e. the stressed vowel assimilated to a following /i j/ but other vowels didn't. But I haven't been able to find it again. Does anybody have a source?

[Estav]

I feel like I read somewhere that there was some Germanic language in which (i-)umlaut only affected the stressed vowel, i.e. the stressed vowel assimilated to a following /i j/ but other vowels didn't. But I haven't been able to find it again. Does anybody have a source?

Is there any Germanic language that regularly shows umlaut in unstressed vowels? Unstressed syllables in Germanic languages tend to occur in prefixes or suffixes, not in roots (which are mostly monosyllabic, or sesquisyllabic with a "second syllable" that contains a syllabic liquid or nasal, not an umlautable vowel) and umlaut only affects the vowel in the root to which the suffix is attached, not affecting any preceding vowels (whether stressed, as in compounds or words with stressed prefixes such as Unfall/Unfälle, or unstressed, as in words with unstressed prefixes such as umläuft).

The only example of umlaut in an unstressed syllable that I can think of is English woman/women (in only certain accents), which is clearly not an example of any synchronic phonological process (it comes from reduction after compounding of the originally stressed vowel in the man/men word).

[Travis B.]

I don't know if it helps but voiced stops tend to lengthen the preceding vowel:
ie. at, ad -> at, aat
That's actually attested.

E.g. in English.

[Travis B.]

The only example of umlaut in an unstressed syllable that I can think of is English woman/women (in only certain accents), which is clearly not an example of any synchronic phonological process (it comes from reduction after compounding of the originally stressed vowel in the man/men word).

Just for the record, ModE woman comes from OE wīfmann, literally wīf "woman" plus mann "person".

[Qwynegold]

Sigh; I garbled that, yet again. I don't know why the ZBB does this to me.

'Tis for those awful occasions that I figured out these recovery steps~~

This needs to be plastered somewhere.

[dɮ the phoneme]

I vaguely feel like I've asked this before? But I can't find it anywhere so who knows. Is there an attested case of a language (possibly over the course of multiple changes) deleting all vowels in word-final syllables?

[bradrn]

I vaguely feel like I've asked this before? But I can't find it anywhere so who knows. Is there an attested case of a language (possibly over the course of multiple changes) deleting all vowels in word-final syllables?

If the Index Diachronica is to be trusted, this is very common, e.g. in Abenaki, Munsee Delaware, Nixumwak-Nêlêmwa, Marshallese, (Middle) Welsh… There’s also some Nilo-Saharan languages where final vowels tend to be devoiced (Ik is the one I remember, also possibly Kambaata–Alaaba–Kʼabeena) — perhaps that’s an intermediate stage in the process?

[dɮ the phoneme]

I vaguely feel like I've asked this before? But I can't find it anywhere so who knows. Is there an attested case of a language (possibly over the course of multiple changes) deleting all vowels in word-final syllables?

If the Index Diachronica is to be trusted, this is very common, e.g. in Abenaki, Munsee Delaware, Nixumwak-Nêlêmwa, Marshallese, (Middle) Welsh… There’s also some Nilo-Saharan languages where final vowels tend to be devoiced (Ik is the one I remember, also possibly Kambaata–Alaaba–Kʼabeena) — perhaps that’s an intermediate stage in the process?

I don't just mean vowels in absolute final position, but all vowels in word-final syllables (including before a coda)

[Richard W]

I vaguely feel like I've asked this before? But I can't find it anywhere so who knows. Is there an attested case of a language (possibly over the course of multiple changes) deleting all vowels in word-final syllables?

I've a feeling I've answered it before. French deleted all final vowels but /a/ and the vowels of monosyllables early on. The exceptional /a/ was reduced to schwa and written <e>. Much later, this final <e> was dropped.

[bradrn]

I vaguely feel like I've asked this before? But I can't find it anywhere so who knows. Is there an attested case of a language (possibly over the course of multiple changes) deleting all vowels in word-final syllables?

If the Index Diachronica is to be trusted, this is very common, e.g. in Abenaki, Munsee Delaware, Nixumwak-Nêlêmwa, Marshallese, (Middle) Welsh… There’s also some Nilo-Saharan languages where final vowels tend to be devoiced (Ik is the one I remember, also possibly Kambaata–Alaaba–Kʼabeena) — perhaps that’s an intermediate stage in the process?

I don't just mean vowels in absolute final position, but all vowels in word-final syllables (including before a coda)

Hmm, so you want e.g. /panaɾ/ → /panɾ/? That doesn’t sound at all likely to me… it would end up with your language gaining a lot of strange consonant clusters.