Zompist Bboard Again

Darren wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 5:16 pm I'm probably over-thinking this, let's just list it as a change and note Donohue's comment about "did not apply uniformly in time to the whole linguistic community".

Yeah, good idea.

On that note, I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to allow grouping sound changes? Since at the moment the two changes *ɡʷ→*ɡ and *ɡ→*j are treated separately, yet they do belong to a single chain shift.

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 6:26 pm

Darren wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 5:16 pm I'm probably over-thinking this, let's just list it as a change and note Donohue's comment about "did not apply uniformly in time to the whole linguistic community".

Yeah, good idea.

On that note, I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to allow grouping sound changes? Since at the moment the two changes *ɡʷ→*ɡ and *ɡ→*j are treated separately, yet they do belong to a single chain shift.

Clearly marking chain shifts as such is probably a good idea.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 8:05 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 6:26 pm

Darren wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 5:16 pm I'm probably over-thinking this, let's just list it as a change and note Donohue's comment about "did not apply uniformly in time to the whole linguistic community".

Yeah, good idea.

On that note, I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to allow grouping sound changes? Since at the moment the two changes *ɡʷ→*ɡ and *ɡ→*j are treated separately, yet they do belong to a single chain shift.

Clearly marking chain shifts as such is probably a good idea.

So the question then is: what would be the best approach for doing so?

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 9:26 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 8:05 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 6:26 pm

Yeah, good idea.

On that note, I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to allow grouping sound changes? Since at the moment the two changes *ɡʷ→*ɡ and *ɡ→*j are treated separately, yet they do belong to a single chain shift.

Clearly marking chain shifts as such is probably a good idea.

So the question then is: what would be the best approach for doing so?

Marking them as, say, *a → *b → *c in contrast to *a → *b and *b → *c, which would stand for two separate changes occurring one after another (equivalent to *a → *c and *b → *c from the endpoint POV).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 9:36 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 9:26 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 8:05 pm

Clearly marking chain shifts as such is probably a good idea.

So the question then is: what would be the best approach for doing so?

Marking them as, say, *a → *b → *c in contrast to *a → *b and *b → *c, which would stand for two separate changes occurring one after another (equivalent to *a → *c and *b → *c from the endpoint POV).

Yeah, of course that’s the obvious approach, now that you mention it!

(Though I do wonder how flexibly it can be extended to more complex chain shifts, such as the Great Vowel Shift. Perhaps it’s just not worth giving such shifts any special representation?)

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 9:36 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 9:26 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 8:05 pm

Clearly marking chain shifts as such is probably a good idea.

So the question then is: what would be the best approach for doing so?

Marking them as, say, *a → *b → *c in contrast to *a → *b and *b → *c, which would stand for two separate changes occurring one after another (equivalent to *a → *c and *b → *c from the endpoint POV).

Hold on… on reflection, this seems confused. A chain shift would surely be *b→*c then *a→*b, right? *a→*b→*c is simply an ordinary sound change with an intermediate step, so not a chain shift at all.

I finally got around to transcribing a few more of these sound changes (to Sangke, Wutung and Proto-Vanimo). But now I have some queries:

Darren wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 8:56 pm *ɵ → e (listed in tables, but later noted that "*ʉ merg[es] with *ɵ, which splits depending on nasality")

On p182 he specifies that ‘square brackets (“[ ]”) are used to indicate a form that is not cognate’, and indeed /e/ in Table 21 is in square brackets, so I presume this actually isn’t a real sound change (but *ʉ→*ɵ is).

*b → w, p (for reflex w only, "innovatio[n] borrowed from Vanimo")
*b → m /_V[+nasal] ("innovatio[n] borrowed from Vanimo")

I believe this can be refined: *b→w only when the following vowel is not nasalised, while *b→p competes with both pathways.

*ɵ̃ → ũ
*ɵ → i (otherwise)

I can’t find this in the paper. Rather, Table 26 suggests non-nasalised *ɵ→ɵ.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 9:46 pm I finally got around to transcribing a few more of these sound changes (to Sangke, Wutung and Proto-Vanimo). But now I have some queries:

Darren wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 8:56 pm *ɵ → e (listed in tables, but later noted that "*ʉ merg[es] with *ɵ, which splits depending on nasality")

On p182 he specifies that ‘square brackets (“[ ]”) are used to indicate a form that is not cognate’, and indeed /e/ in Table 21 is in square brackets, so I presume this actually isn’t a real sound change (but *ʉ→*ɵ is).

*b → w, p (for reflex w only, "innovatio[n] borrowed from Vanimo")
*b → m /_V[+nasal] ("innovatio[n] borrowed from Vanimo")

I believe this can be refined: *b→w only when the following vowel is not nasalised, while *b→p competes with both pathways.

*ɵ̃ → ũ
*ɵ → i (otherwise)

I can’t find this in the paper. Rather, Table 26 suggests non-nasalised *ɵ→ɵ.

Thanks, you're right in all cases. I should check more carefully.

After a long hiatus I tried to resume transcribing these changes, and almost immediately ran into issues with *ɡʷ in Sangke:

Darren wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 8:56 pm *gʷ → tʃ (in bound prefixes, free pronouns and nouns)
*gʷ → f (in free pronouns)

The issue for the first change here is that he actually gives quite a different chronology:

Donohue wrote: The loss of the *j triggered a move to replace the palatals, and so *gʷ shifted to become a palatal stop, **j.¹⁶ This change spread through the Proto–West Coast community, and simplified to tʃ in Proto-Border.

---

¹⁶. The other high voiced stop, *g, had already been lost by this time; it is likely that the Proto–West Coast *gʷ phoneme had first lost its rounding—see 5.1.4.

So it would seem that he’s actually suggesting *ɡʷ→*ɡ→*j in Proto-West Coast, then *j→tʃ in Proto-Border. And, in fact, we’ve already transcribed these sound changes as such! So it seems like there’s no need for *gʷ→tʃ in Sangke specifically.

EDIT: And now that I think of it, this means that your *tʃ→t in Sangke is also problematic, because it would yield *gʷ→t too. In fact, I can’t find anything at all in Donohue’s paper mentioning any *tʃ.

As for *ɡʷ→f, I can’t find any place where he suggests such a change. Where did you see it? EDIT: never mind, found it in Table 16.