Undoing a merger?

[Alexis Manaster-Ramer]

On Fri, 27 Nov 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> I agree that [AMR's] interpretation of the Basque case [as involving
> two kinds of [esh] is perfectly possible.
  However, it seems less economical than Michelena's proposal,
> in requiring speakers of the Gipuzkoan dialect to construct and maintain
> a contrast between two different kinds of [esh], a contrast which is not
> observed or recorded in any variety of Basque.
>
> Moreover, such a contrast would have produced an immensely crowded
> sibilant system.
 
I have to agree, barring new evidence.
>
> Yes [re AMR's proposal that we are dealing with dialect interference],
, but we are not here dealing with a handful of exceptional words.
> With just one or two exceptions, like the second <x> in <gixaxo>,
> *every* instance of original (expressive) <x> remained unchanged, while
> *every* instance of non-original <x> underwent backing.
 
Here, I think I did not make myself clear.  What I am saying is
that exceptional-looking expressive phonology is often easily
explained as involving dialect interference.  The Polish example
I cited involves only a few examples in my speech, to be sure,
but there are many other examples that are more productive,
and if fact even in my speech a much more general e -> i
rule exists, along with several other rules, as an expressive
device for mocking "peasant" speech.  There are plenty
of expressive phonological devices in lgs and many must
surely come from dialect or even foreign-lg contact.
 
One last point: the Basque example is NOT an example of
a merger that was undone, because by assumption (Michelena's
and Larry's, not mine) the <x> /s^/ which changed to <j> /x/
and the one did not were the same to begin with.  Rather, if
valid, this would be an example of something else, namely,
the resistance of expressive vocabulary to otherwise
regular sound changes, of which many examples have been
proposed over the years.
 
AMR