27.445, Diss: Historical Ling, Phonetics, Phonology, Typology: E-Ching Ng: 'The Phonology of Contact: Creole Sound Change in Context'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-445. Fri Jan 22 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.445, Diss: Historical Ling, Phonetics, Phonology, Typology: E-Ching Ng: 'The Phonology of Contact: Creole Sound Change in Context'

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Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 11:32:31
From: E-Ching Ng [ng.eching at gmail.com]
Subject: The Phonology of Contact: Creole Sound Change in Context

 
Institution: Yale University 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2015 

Author: E-Ching Ng

Dissertation Title: The Phonology of Contact: Creole Sound Change in Context 

Dissertation URL:  http://www.eching.org/#diss

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Phonetics
                     Phonology
                     Typology


Dissertation Director(s):
Stephen R. Anderson
John Victor Singler
Claire Bowern

Dissertation Abstract:

Using a database of 77 language contact situations and a literature survey, I
identify three typological differences between creoles, other language contact
(e.g. loanword adaptation, L2 acquisition), and ‘normal’ sound change.

(1) The merger bias: creoles vs. other language contact
As a rule, French /y/ merges with /i/ in all creoles worldwide, e.g. plume >
/plim/. However, merger with /u/ is also well-attested in other forms of
language contact, including francophone West Africa.

(2) The assimilation bias: creoles vs. non-creoles
In creoles the quality of the stressed vowel often spreads to unstressed
vowels, e.g. Spanish dedo > Papiamentu /dede/ ‘finger’. The opposite sound
change is not found in creoles, but is well attested among non-creoles, e.g.
German umlaut and Romance metaphony. 

(3) The epenthesis bias: contact vs. ‘normal’ change
Word-final consonants are often preserved in language contact by means of
vowel insertion (epenthesis), e.g. English big > Sranan bigi, but in normal
language transmission this sound change is said not to occur word-finally.

In principle, there are two possible explanations for these typological
asymmetries. One is sample bias: certain sound changes may be rare in certain
types of language transmission because the relevant phonetic precursors happen
to be lacking in the languages involved. This appears to be responsible for
the assimilation bias (2): due to historical accident, the substrate languages
involved in creolisation generally had less strongly marked phonetic stress
than the lexifiers, encouraging reanalysis of reduced unstressed vowels.

A second possibility is that certain sound changes may be obstructed not by
accidental selection, but by the mode of language transmission itself, as
stated in (4) below.

(4) The transmission bias hypothesis
The sociohistorical circumstances defining each type of language transmission,
e.g. age of learner or nature of input, can produce strong biases which block
or disfavour certain linguistic changes.

Transmission bias is indeed the best explanation in two case studies. The
merger bias (1): I suggest that when language transmission is more complete,
as in child acquisition and creolisation, loss of lip rounding (y > i) will be
dramatically more frequent than changes in tongue position (y > u). The
epenthesis bias (3): word-final consonant release is a common phonetic
precursor of word-final vowel epenthesis (e.g. Blevins 2004). I propose that
such effortful speech arises from hypercorrection in L2 acquisition, hence the
resulting epenthesis is characteristic of certain language contact situations.

The transmission bias hypothesis departs from the current literature on
language contact by focusing on diachronic differences rather than synchronic
simplicity, markedness or perceptual similarity. By contrasting data from
multiple types of transmission that are not usually considered together, these
case studies deepen our understanding of language contact and sound changes.
It is also possible that this approach may uncover other micro-typologies in
future.




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