Summary of observations on my posting

[Bh. Krishnamurti]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 Iam submitting a summary of the comments received on my posting 
‘Typology
and regular sound change’, which was circulated on Histling on January 28/29. 

        Joel Rini gave me the reference of an article by Etnst Pulgram. Kevin
Tuite agreed with the hypothesis and wondered if it fell under the
dichotomy of Labov’s ‘Neogrammarian change vs. lexical diffusion’. I have
explained to him that, for me, the neogrammarian regularity is the end
result of several processes like lexical diffusion, typological triggering
and not a process by itself. Betty Phillips referred me to her discussion
of the unrounding of high and mid front rounded vowels in two of her papers
(1984, 2001) within the framework of lexical diffusion in terms of the
phenomenon of frequency of text occurrence. After some discussion, I
noticed that it is a good example in support of my hypothesis, since the
marked segments are replaced by unmarked ones without residue, over a
period of about three or four centuries. [I am indebted to her sending me
an offprint of her 2001 paper]. I have independently discussed the issue
with other members of the list: my teacher Henry Hoenigswald, David Stampe,
Mieko Ogura and Robert Blust. I am grateful to all those who have
participated in the discussion and enlightened me.  Many thanks to Dorothy
Disterheft for approving my abstract for posting on the list. 

Krishnamurti
Bh. Krishnamurti
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