bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:17 pm
Whimemsz wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:00 pm
(a) do some basic research on what kinds of sound changes are common cross-linguistically -- many of the questions posted in this thread concern
incredibly common types of sound change
As someone who struggles a bit with thinking up interesting yet plausible sound changes, what resources can I use to help with this? The only thing I know about so far is the
Index Diachronica, and that often isn't too good as a resource...
Well, reading up on the historical phonologies of some well-attested languages is useful (which the Index Diachronica can be one source for, but I agree it's not ideal, for multiple reasons), and note which changes and
types of changes recur. For example, you might notice that fronting of [u] to [ʉ] or [ɨ] or [y] or [i] happens in most dialects of English, in Dutch, in Central and Southeastern Yiddish, in Icelandic, in Faroese (kind of), in French, in Greek, in Albanian, in Slavic, in Dhegihan, in Arapahoan and Cheyenne (kind of), in Dogrib, in Dena'ina, and in Tamil (kind of), among others [and according to the ID, in Rhaeto-Romance, Hiw, Caaàc, Nixumwak-Nêlêmwa, Nyelâyu, Tolomako, and Nisenan]. Once you look at enough you can generally get a decent intuitive feel for it, at least in my experience.
I'd also suggest a basic book on historical linguistics that discusses common sound changes. Personally I really like
Hans Heinrich Hock's book which goes quite in-depth on a lot of issues (not just common sound changes). You could also check out Juliette Blevins'
Evolutionary Phonology which is partially predicated on determining which kinds of changes are more natural and common than others. (Some of her
papers available online cover aspects of the theory.) Finally, I suggest just using common sense. If two sounds are very similar to one another, they can generally change to one another (with caveats!). Lenition processes occur most frequently intervocalically; lenition of any fricative to [h] or any stop to [ʔ] are always possible; long vowels can shorten, especially in checked or unstressed syllables; vowels or consonant series can undergo chain shifts; final consonants or vowels can devoice or be lost; vowels can change quality or rounding based on neighboring vowels (e.g. umlaut such as uCi > yCi).
Richard W wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:40 am
Whimemsz wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:00 pm
I'm not sure what Richard W. is talking about because English /ɪ/ is absolutely laxer than /i/ (though it's possible, in other languages, for vowels like [i] to be "lax").
I am an English native speaker of English. I feel more muscular effort in [ɪ] than in [ i]. You do not have permission to dissect me.
Okay, I should modify my statement. I think you were accurate to originally point out that it's better to describe a change like [i: i] > [i ɪ] as being based on length and
quality rather than length and "tenseness." I agree that "tense/lax" are vague terms that are essentially language-specific (as the ridiculous and very confused Wikipedia article you quote makes pretty clear). There is, though, a "tradition" in English phonetics to describe the /i/~/ɪ/ etc. oppositions as either "length" oppositions (which isn't really accurate, certainly not anymore for most dialects) or "tense/lax" oppositions, and in that tradition /i/ is "tense" and /ɪ/ is "lax." English "lax" vowels are more centralized, less diphthongized, slightly shorter, possibly articulated with less muscular tension, and possibly with a more retracted tongue root and wider pharyngeal cavity than English "tense" vowels.
They also apparently differ in their F1 shape(?).
The main salient difference, I would agree, is vowel quality/position/diphthongization (i.e., they're more centralized and they aren't diphthongs), and everything else is sort of secondary, especially since phoneticians seem to disagree on some of these things. (E.g., Ladefoged and Maddieson claim the lax vowels don't have the same sort of retracted tongue root as is found in true [+ATR] vs [-ATR] languages like Igbo -- specifically that in Igbo etc. the tongue height barely varies for [i̘] vs [i̙] while the tongue root position is substantially different as is the expansiveness of the pharyngeal cavity, while in English, the tongue height varies significantly for [i] vs [ɪ] and the tongue root does show some difference but it's less pronounced and more a result of the tongue height than being the primary distinguishing feature of the vowel, and they also actually say that "in English transverse width [of the pharyngeal region below the epiglottis] is negatively correlated with advancement"!) So what I really should have said was something like "English /ɪ/ is classified as laxer than /i/ but these are basically arbitrary terms that just indicate which of two classes the vowel belongs to for purposes of some phonological processes/restrictions related to syllable structure etc."
All that being said, I do have permission to dissect your statement, because unless you've done instrumental studies of yourself to confirm that you actually are using greater muscular tension [or have a more advanced tongue root or more "tense"-like formants or greater vowel length or whatever else] in production of /ɪ/ than of /i/, then it's just your personal impression, which runs counter to what at least *some* actual phoneticians working on English have published, based on actual scientific studies of English speakers.
Richard W wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:40 amI suspect my /i:/ is rather impure. (The vowels of <beat> and <bid> have about the same length in my lect.)
What do you mean by "impure"? And yes I expect they have the same length, because as I said, most English dialects don't actually have a significant "length" distinction between /ɪ/ and "/i:/" anymore. (Although I should temper that a bit, since /i/
is slightly longer than /ɪ/, though context matters: vowels are significantly lengthened before voiced coda consonants, which is why the vowels of /bit/ and /bɪd/ are, at best, about equal in length -- if anything, your "bid" vowel is probably slightly
longer than your "beat" one.)
