<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;">It would be helpful to know what the original segment and the two subsequent ‘things’ are in your Tibetan case, especially if the developments involve retaining the original segment in some environments but not in others – say, in nouns but not in verbs. In many cases, sounds may resist – or, fail to undergo – change in order to preserve structural disambiguation. Here is a relevant example from the history of Greek:</span></font><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;">In the Medieval period, many varieties of Greek underwent a very widespread loss of word-final [-n]. -<i>n</i> was, however, retained in quite a few environments, and especially before vowels and stops, to avoid morphosyntactic ambiguity. The case of Ancient/Hellenistic Greek </span></font><i style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">mɛːlo-</i><b style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; ">n</b><span style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; "> ‘apple’ is quite telling, in that connection: notice in (1) how the change affects the nominative/accusative singular forms but not the genitive plural form.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; "><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">(1)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Hellenistic Greek<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Medieval Greek</span></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>SG<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>NOM/ACC<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></font><i style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">mɛːlo<b>n</b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>milo<b>∅</b></i></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>GEN<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></font><i style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">mɛːluː<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>milu</i></div><div><i style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; "><br></i></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>PL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>NOM/ACC<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><i>mɛːla<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>mila</i></span></font></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>GEN<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><i>meːlɔː<b>n</b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>milo<b>n</b></i></span></font></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;">If the change had affected the genitive plural form, we would have had an instance of trans-number syncretism: </span></font><i style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">meːlɔːn </i><span style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">‘apple.GEN.PL’ > <i>milo</i></span><i style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">∅ = milo</i><span style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">∅ ‘apple.NOM/ACC.SG’. </span><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;">As a matter of fact, the genitive plural morpheme -</span></font><i style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">ɔːn </i><span style="font-family: Brill; font-size: 18px; ">> -<i>on</i> is one of the environments that have retained word-final -<i>n</i> across the board in many Greek varieties to block this from happening.</span></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Hope this helps a little bit.</span></font></div><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Petros Karatsareas<br></span></font><div><font face="Brill"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br></span></font><div><div>On 30 Nov 2012, at 13:48, John Hewson <<a href="mailto:jhewson@mun.ca">jhewson@mun.ca</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><br>This is an interesting question which should indeed be discussed.<br><br>There is, in the tradition, the observed phenomenon of paradigmatic resistance to sound change which affects only paradigms. And there is change of paradigmatic elements such as the 3rd sing verb inflection -th of Old and Middle English becoming -s in Early Modern, a change still not complete in Shakespeare's day:<br><br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.<br><br>(from Portia's court speech in the Merchant of Venice).<br><br>There may be a justification for this change, but if there is, it must be a very subtle one!<br><br>John Hewson<br><br><br>On Fri, 30 Nov 2012, Nathan Hill wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite">Dear Historical Linguists,<br><br>In a paper about Tibetan I am criticizing someone for proposing that<br>the same segment became one thing in nouns and another thing in verbs.<br>My neogrammarian heart tells me that sound changes are aware of<br>phonetic environments only and not part of speech categories. Such a<br>thing is thus only possible if verbs are phonetically different than<br>nouns in a systematic way (which is of course possible).<br><br>Anyhow, a reviewer tells me that proto-Uto-Aztecan initial *p becomes<br>zero in Nahuatl nouns but is preserved in verbs and cites the pair<br>(.-tl "water" vs -<a href="http://p.ca">p.ca</a> "to wash"). The reviewer does not cite a<br>discussion of this and I am totally at sea in the Uto-Aztecan<br>literature. But, if this is an uncontroversial part of Uto-Aztecan<br>historical phonology surely it has given rise to the same<br>methodological concerns that I raise (sound change should apply<br>blindly).<br><br>I would be very grateful for any discussion of this or advice on<br>treatments of this question in literature.<br><br>with gratitude,<br>Nathan<br>_______________________________________________<br>Histling-l mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Histling-l@mailman.rice.edu">Histling-l@mailman.rice.edu</a><br>https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l<br><br></blockquote><br><br>*******************************************************************************<br>John Hewson, FRSC tel: (709)753-8434<br>Henrietta Harvey Professor Emeritus fax: (709)737-4000<br>Memorial University of Newfoundland<br>St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9<br>*******************************************************************************<br><br>This electronic communication is governed by the terms and conditions at<br><a href="http://www.mun.ca/cc/policies/electronic_communications_disclaimer_2012.php">http://www.mun.ca/cc/policies/electronic_communications_disclaimer_2012.php</a><br>_______________________________________________<br>Histling-l mailing list<br>Histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br>https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l<br></blockquote></div><br></div></div></body></html>