Variation of speech sounds

[Lesley-Neuman, D.F.]

I know of work that has been done on distinctive features rather than on
phonemes:

Jeff Mielke (2008) The Emergence of Distinctive Features. Oxford
University Press.  

In this Mielke describes distinctive features as constituting a complex
system.  If this is indeed so, then like other phenomena in the physical
and social sciences, it the system would obey a Zipfian distribution in
which the frequency of any one distinctive feature would be inversely
proportional to its rank in the frequency table. I do not know if anyone
has checked out this hypothesis. 


Other work was done by the late George Clements.  Clements (2009) The
Role of Features in Phonological Inventories in Raimy  & Cairns (2009).
Based on a survey of 451 inventories he proposes principles Feature
Bounding and Feature Economy.  Unfortunately, I have found from looking
at the historical evolution of Kwa languages in Stewart (1971) and those
noted in the Nilotic literature that the principle of feature economy
does not pan out with regards to historical changes in inventories
common to African languages with vowel harmony. 

San Duanmu at the University of Michigan has been examining Clements
proposals in other languages; he and his student Huili Zhang have upheld
the feature economy principle in an analysis of the historical evolution
of Chinese.  This paper was presented last fall at the Michigan
Linguistic Society, the program of which can be accessed here:

http://ling.lsa.umich.edu/mls2009/program/MLS_Program_Posted.pdf

I know that Dr. Duanmu  has a very strong interest in this area and
would probably gladly participate in a fruitful exchange on this issue.



Diane Lesley-Neuman
PhD Researcher
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics/
Languages and Cultures of Africa
Van Wijkplaats 4 Office 103A
2311 BX Leiden  The Netherlands
Email: d.f.lesley-neuman.2 at hum.leidenuniv.nl
Telephone: +31 71 527-1663