Possible phonological changes (was: Rate of change)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

[ moderator edited ]

In a message dated 6/13/2001 11:41:57 PM, anaikio at mail.student.oulu.fi writes:

<< Most examples of bizarre changes that I know are from various Samoyedic
languages, e.g. *w- > q-, *j- > q-, *V- > ngV-, *mp > ngf and even *s- > k-
before /e/ and /i/! But I'd be most interested in other examples of uncommon
phonetic developments.... >>

A catalogue of some "unusual sound shifts" by Benji Ward is on the web
somewhere (I've lost the URL) as part of a public list, in the course of
which he brought up some issues that might be of interest: (this is part of
what I saved)

   "[It's not apparent] that "t > h" via the route evident for Sabaki recurs
    elsewhere.  However, that does not convince me that it should be considered
    an unusual sound change in the manner of the arch example of the
    correspondence between Armenian [erk] and IE *dw.  Incidentally, Marc
    Picard cautioned me to distinguish between "correspondences" and "changes".
    But I didn't understand the point until I thought of this example (he
    remained abstract).  I still don't know how this correspondence came about,
    because even though it recurs ad nauseam in the literature, it is always to
    make Marc's point, and I guess it is only explained in specialist
    discussions.  It is obviously not a sound change, but at best a
    coincidental series of such things.  In contrast, the following is about
    sound changes.  The main question is: why should there be an "unusual"
    sound change?  If a sound change CAN occur, why doesn't it occur more
    often?  There will be hints about the answer to this mystery below.

    Many of the messages were about the Irish and Gaelic change of t > h,
    apparently via the stage theta. Strictly speaking, then, this is not the
    "same" as the Bantu *t > h change, since it was clear from my introductory
    discussion that the Bantu change was from post-alveolar rather than dental
    "t" (because I mentioned that the intermediate voiceless /r/ was attested).
    Nevertheless, I appreciated the example, and could not fault the
    respondents, since dental and alveolar t's are both t's, as far as "t > h"
    is concerned.

    In fact, whether the *t is dental or not, the principle may be more or less
    the same.  First it weakens to something retaining some of the buccal
    features, and the voicelessness, and finally it weakens to the ultimate
    voiceless segment /h/.  Meanwhile, the dental t also made me wonder what
    happened in the course of Germanic, because Grimm's law shows that original
    *t was dental, but the t that comes from IE *d has become alveolar in
    Germanic, for the most part.  Why?...

    Similarly with interest in the intermediate stages, which are indeed of
    central importance to understanding *t > h (and any other "unusual"
    change), Marc Picard pointed out that stages of the Bantu change occur
    independently elsewhere.  Thus, he recognised the tapped American English
    /t/ as akin to the flap that I described for the voiceless /r/ intermediate
    stage (or more similar to the occasional flapped "t" in Mombasa Swahili).
    Then he went on to point out that European Portuguese has the rolled r, but
    (Northern) Brazilian Portuguese has an /h/ reflex of /r/, to which I added
    that the Puerto Rican Spanish rolled ("double") rr is often pronounced as a
    velar like in French etc.  The implication is that Brazilian may have
    passed through this stage in the evolution of r > h.

    This might seem to support what I understood to be his thesis that the
    Machame R (Parisian voiceless R) should be counted as a stage in *t > h
    even in Sabaki.

    I had suggested this for Siha (and will back off that below), but I
    disagreed for Sabaki since no R stage is attested. I don't see why there
    had to be one.  That is, a velar or uvular does not seem to be a necessary
    waystation to /h/.  That doesn't happen with s > h, and obviously wasn't
    happening in the Charmey theta-h variation, so why should it be necessary
    with hr > h?

    In essence, my objection is that Occham's razor should not be applied to
    THEORIES about possible paths, but to EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, there being no
    empirical evidence for a R intermediate stage between hr and h in Sabaki.

    Yes, I realise that that's a strong statement for people doing historical
    reconstruction, but all the better for us sound change in progress
    devotees..."

As for a hypothetical chain of possible changes, from a quoted post in the
same message:

   "Likewise, note the change of /dh/ > /gh/ is attested in Gaelic (????), and
    the change of /gh/ > /y/ in the Ripuarian, Brandenburgian, etc., dialects
    of German including those of the cities of Berlin, Magdeburg, Cologne, and
    Aachen (Zhirmunskij 1956:284-285).  Hence, there is a sequence of sound
    changes in the languages of the world which can get us from /dh/ to /y/."

Steve Long