Zompist Bboard Again

No, sorry, it's a discussion specifically about palatalisation.

x --> some more anterior fricative before front vowels is certainly common, yes, just as any sort of fronting of dorsal consonants before front vowels is. It's unconditional x --> ʃ that seems to be relatively uncommon, for whatever reason. (But again, not unattested, so go ahead and use it.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2019 12:55 am

akam chinjir wrote: ↑Sun Sep 22, 2019 11:46 pm I've just noticed that Hall, The Phonology of Coronals, 77, calls x → ʃ / _i, e common, fwiw.

Thank you! But does it say anything about that change happening unconditionally?

In much of High German there has been x > ç / _[-BACK], i.e. everywhere except before back vowels. And furthermore in many northwestern dialects thereof there is an unconditional change of ç > ʃ (albeit one that is sometimes reversed, oftentimes with hypercorrection).

Why is it that h → x is attested, but ʔ → k is not?

I think /ʔ/ > /k/ is attested conditionally, but I suspect it's much rarer than the corresponding fricative shift. I dont have a good technical explanation, but I think it's a lot harder to get from silence to a stop than from a fricative to another fricative. Remember the glottal stop is not like other stops ... it's just the sound you make when you stop speaking for a very short period of time.

But, perhaps that's not the reason.... another idea is that /h/ is capable of taking on various allophones, whereas with /ʔ/ it is pretty much stuck there unless the sound jumps all at once to the new location. /h/ > /x/ can be done in slow, sliding steps, but there's no way to gradually inch up on /k/.

Zju wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2019 2:18 pm Why is it that h → x is attested, but ʔ → k is not?

I asked a very similar question (also about ʔ → k) earlier in this thread. The most helpful comments for me were:

Whimemsz wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2019 3:55 pm Yeah, debuccalization is extremely common but the reverse essentially never happens. (For glottal stops anyway; [h] can change to a glide or take on some of the features of neighboring vowels so become a fricative at a different POA, and a glide or non-glottal fricative can then undergo fortition to an occlusive, though that's not an especially common change, and seems to be most common word-initially when it does happen.)

(I think that one actually answers your question as well!)

Pabappa wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2019 4:03 pm I wouldnt say /ʔ/ > /k/ is impossible, but it's certainly more rare than /k/ > /ʔ/ because it's not a symmetric change .... /k/ has one articulator, /ʔ/ has none.

What are some ways I might go about a dental/alveolar split in the coronals? I think I remember from the last thread that a palatalization/velarization split can do this allophonically, but I'd like other ideas in case I decide this is not where I want to start.

StrangerCoug wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:51 pm What are some ways I might go about a dental/alveolar split in the coronals? I think I remember from the last thread that a palatalization/velarization split can do this allophonically, but I'd like other ideas in case I decide this is not where I want to start.

Interdental fricatives > dental stops, alongside preexisting alveolar stops.

StrangerCoug wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:51 pm What are some ways I might go about a dental/alveolar split in the coronals? I think I remember from the last thread that a palatalization/velarization split can do this allophonically, but I'd like other ideas in case I decide this is not where I want to start.

t d > t̪ d
P B > P
NP > M, st̪ > s̪, or similar

It seems plausible that linguolabials could become interdentals, so C[labial] > C[linguolabial] / _{i e j} followed by C[linguolabial] > C[dental] could also work.

In Malayalam, we had something like *nr > ndr > nd > n̪d̪ > n̪n̪, resulting in a new phoneme /n̪n̪/ (geminate dental nasal) contrasting with /nn/ (geminate alveolar nasal), if that helps.

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:10 pm t d > t̪ d
P B > P
NP > M, st̪ > s̪, or similar

What do the abbreviations here mean?

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2019 6:53 pm

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:10 pm t d > t̪ d
P B > P
NP > M, st̪ > s̪, or similar

What do the abbreviations here mean?

1) /t/ becomes dental, but /d/ remains alveolar
2) voiced and voiceless plosives merge, so *p *b > p, *k *g > k, but *t̪ *d > t̪ t
3a) nasal + plosive sequences coalesce into nasals at the plosive's POA (so *nt *nd > *nt̪ *nd > n̪ n)

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:10 pm NP > M

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2019 7:59 pm 3a) nasal + plosive sequences coalesce into nasals at the plosive's POA (so *nt *nd > *nt̪ *nd > n̪ n)

Well that's a clever notation. I don't know that I've ever seen that before.

How plausible would it be to have a change affect only words with a certain minimum number of syllables? That is, a shortening of, say, words with four syllables by losing the vowel of the second or third syllable?

Do you have stress? If you do, that should provide some ways to get what you want. Something like: target unstressed syllables, but exempt initial or final syllables. E.g., suppose you've got primary stress on the second syllable. Then you could have a change that deletes the vowel in the third syllable when it's non-final. (Maybe the final syllable is exempt because deleting that vowel would create illegal word-final consonant clusters; or maybe the final syllable is always stressed, even if that creates a stress clash.)

Thank you!

How plausible would it be to lengthen vowels? And how plausible would it be to shorten them?

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:28 am How plausible would it be to have a change affect only words with a certain minimum number of syllables? That is, a shortening of, say, words with four syllables by losing the vowel of the second or third syllable?

English monomorphemic ˈCVCVCVC > ˈCVCCVC might be regular (at least if C3 isn't a semivowel?) but I haven't looked into this at all

Would a simultaneous lengthening of stressed short vowels and shortening of unstressed long vowels be plausible?