Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Darren]

(A similar example from English: the verb help used to have past tense holp, but in modern English the suffix -ed has been generalised, such that the standard past tense form is now helped. Similarly for heave, shave and a bunch of other verbs. But English verbs are complicated enough that analogy can work in the opposite direction too: e.g. bring sometimes gets past tense brang or brung, by analogy with verbs like wring and spring.)

I have heard that English verbs reached peak regularity in the Middle Ages and since then the trend of analogy has been more in favour of strong verbs, although I don't know where they got their figures from.

Huh, really? I’m skeptical.

There's a fair few examples like digged → dug, wreaked → wrought (thus making "wreak" one of English's three suppletive verbs)

[Zju]

It's suppletive from a diachronic point of view, but I wonder if it can be synchronically analysed as suppletive, what with 'seak - sought'; or as one of only three, that is

[Emily]

yeah i'm skeptical too, for every "brung" getting formed there's another "throve" turning into "thrived" due to lack of use and reinforce

[Darren]

I think that "irregular" also includes the numerous analogical -en past forms (gotten, putten, slowen) and -t forms (wet, fit, built) both of which are undoubtedly on the rise.

[Raholeun]

How likely would it be for a regular voicing distinction in stops to unconditionally develop into a contrast stiff vs.slack stops? For example, *p, *b > /p, b̥/. Are there known natural language examples of such a shift?

[Zju]

Javanese?

[dɮ the phoneme]

Is there any language in which stress regularly precedes a heavy syllable?

[Ares Land]

WALS thinks there aren't any: https://wals.info/chapter/15

The universal property of a weight-sensitive system is that in cases (1a) and (1b) stress will always be located on the heavy syllable.

[StrangerCoug]

How plausible is something like /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒ/ word-initially and after sonorant consonants and /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /ʒ/ elsewhere?

[Darren]

How plausible is something like /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒ/ word-initially and after sonorant consonants and /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /ʒ/ elsewhere?

I'd expect /j/ to go along with it but you could probably get away without it if you want.

[StrangerCoug]

How plausible is something like /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒ/ word-initially and after sonorant consonants and /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /ʒ/ elsewhere?

I'd expect /j/ to go along with it but you could probably get away without it if you want.

Yeah, I was thinking of something to accompany /j/ → /ʝ/ → /ʒ/, then /ʒ/ → /d͡ʒ/ word-initially and after sonorant consonants.

[Travis B.]

How plausible is something like /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒ/ word-initially and after sonorant consonants and /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /ʒ/ elsewhere?

I'd expect /j/ to go along with it but you could probably get away without it if you want.

Yeah, I was thinking of something to accompany /j/ → /ʝ/ → /ʒ/, then /ʒ/ → /d͡ʒ/ word-initially and after sonorant consonants.

If you are also changing /j/ in this fashion I would say it's perfectly plausible.

[DorotheaBrooke]

How plausible is something like /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒ/ word-initially and after sonorant consonants and /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /ʒ/ elsewhere?

Seems very plausible to me, though you could easily simplify it; /ɥ/ --> /d͡ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒ/, with an additional lenition to /ʒ/ in the necessary places. Though maybe there's a reason you have that path in relation to other sound changes so in that case fair enough.

[Travis B.]

How plausible is something like /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒ/ word-initially and after sonorant consonants and /ɥ/ → /ʝʷ/ → /ʒʷ/ → /ʒ/ elsewhere?

Seems very plausible to me, though you could easily simplify it; /ɥ/ --> /d͡ʒʷ/ → /d͡ʒ/, with an additional lenition to /ʒ/ in the necessary places. Though maybe there's a reason you have that path in relation to other sound changes so in that case fair enough.

I would personally favor StrangerCoug's sound changes as such because then there is a consistent direction of fortition, which is just taken further in some positions as opposed to others, rather than fortition followed by conditional lenition.

[/ˌnɐ.ˈɾɛn.dɚ.ˌduːd/]

is something like /pʼ tʼ kʼ/ → /pʔ tʔ kʔ/ → /ɸʔ θʔ xʔ/ → /ɸ θ x/ (ejectives become plosive - glottal stop clusters, simplification of plosive clusters, loss of glottal stops in clusters) very plausible?

[bradrn]

is something like /pʼ tʼ kʼ/ → /pʔ tʔ kʔ/ → /ɸʔ θʔ xʔ/ → /ɸ θ x/ (ejectives become plosive - glottal stop clusters, simplification of plosive clusters, loss of glottal stops in clusters) very plausible?

Steps 1 and 3 are fine, but plosives fricativising before glottal stop is quite weird… it seems unmotivated to me. (Though stranger things have happened.)

EDIT: Dennis’s The synchronic and diachronic phonology of ejectives (1998) cites an example of ejective affricates becoming fricatives in Ahtna (p426) and of ejectives becoming laryngealised and then leniting to fricatives in Tsimshian (p425). Both those cases have important differences from yours, but they make it seem plausible that this could happen.

[Travis B.]

is something like /pʼ tʼ kʼ/ → /pʔ tʔ kʔ/ → /ɸʔ θʔ xʔ/ → /ɸ θ x/ (ejectives become plosive - glottal stop clusters, simplification of plosive clusters, loss of glottal stops in clusters) very plausible?

I agree with bradrn -- the other two changes seem very plausible to me, but /pʔ tʔ kʔ/ → /ɸʔ θʔ xʔ/ seems less plausible, as frication of voiceless stops tends to be associated with aspiration in particular (e.g. Greek, what is posited to have happened in Germanic and then again in High German as well), not glottalization, which to me would probably block frication.

[Man in Space]

If they’re postvocalic, I could see preglottal spirantization in that environment.

[ophois]

is something like /pʼ tʼ kʼ/ → /pʔ tʔ kʔ/ → /ɸʔ θʔ xʔ/ → /ɸ θ x/ (ejectives become plosive - glottal stop clusters, simplification of plosive clusters, loss of glottal stops in clusters) very plausible?

I echo the thoughts of others here regarding (im)plausibility but here's an alternative: /p' t' k'/ to /pː tː kː/ is certainly more plausible, and then frication of /pː tː kː/ to /ɸ θ x/ happened in Brythonic.

[Travis B.]

If they’re postvocalic, I could see preglottal spirantization in that environment.

If that were the case I would expect clusters of {p t k}{p t k ʔ} in general to become {ɸ θ x}{p t k ʔ} after vowels.