Reversal of merger

[Bh.Krishnamurti]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Recent postings on the above theme have not shown a genuine case of reversal
of merger.

1. Most mergers create homonyms. In other words two or more words which contrast
in a pair of  phonemes will become homophonous when one of the phonemes
merges with the other through sound change. After this event, no subsequent
sound change will ever retrieve the two distinct words by recreating the
lost contrast. If there are attested instances which appear to restore the
lost contrast, that can happen through borrowing from an older or a
different dialect which was not affected by the sound change in question. As
an example, Early Telugu had CV.., and CrV... (C-= obstruent); a sound
change occurred in Middle Telugu by which all instances of Cr- became C-
(loss of r or merger of r with zero), pra:ta > pa:ta 'old', krotta > kotta
'new', gruDDu > guDDu 'eyeball' (which became homophonous with guDDu 'egg').
Some modern Telugu writers occasionally use the r-forms under the influence
of the classical dialect but it is not a case of reversal of merger.

The question is: Is there any language in which mergers which created
homonyms were undone by a subsequent sound change.  Henry Hoenigswald in his
posting of Nov 27 clarified that in the neogrammarian framework, 'there is
no room for reversal of merger by 'sound-change'..'there was either no
merger, or there is more than one line of descent'. Here lines of descent
refer to different lines of transmission, either inheritance or borrowing.

2. Reference has been made to the variability between merged and unmerged
entities in the aftermath of a sound change. In all cases of lexical
diffusion of a sound change, this happens normally. In certain Gondi
dialects word initial s becomes h, and later h becomes 0. As we go through
the affected lexical items, this two-step sound change is attested as
s,s/h,h, h/0,0, in different words, in different social groups and in
different areas. The variable items attest to the fact that the sound change
is in progress. In the Southern dialects only 0 forms occur with the change
totally accomplished and completely regular. This problem is treated in
detail in a paper of mine which is published in *Language Variation and
Change* 10:2.193-220. But please note a there is no case of reversal of a
merger, i.e. s/h goes later to h and not to s, similarly, h/0 goest to 0 and
not to h.

3. Phoneme-like units in expressives, in my view, do not belong to the
normal phonlogical system of a language.

Bh.K.
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Bhadriraju Krishnamurti
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