Papers in Historical Phonology
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Phonotactics, prophylaxis, acquisitionism and change: *Rime-xxŋ and ash-tensing in the history of English
Get PDFThis article revisits, extends and interrogates the position advocated in Honeybone (2019) — that phonotactic constraints are psychologically real phonological entities (namely: constraints on output-like forms), which have a diachrony of their own, and which can also interfere with diachronic segmental change by inhibiting otherwise regular innovations. I focus in the latter part of the article on the role of one phonotactic constraint in the history of English: *Rime-xxŋ. I argue that we need to investigate the emergence of such constraints in the history of languages and I show how this particular constraint, once innovated (which occurs through constraint scattering), can be understood to have inhibited the patterning of ash-tensing in certain varieties of American English (and also that it may now have been lost in some varieties). To do this, I adopt a phonological model which combines aspects of Rule-Based Phonology and aspects of Constraint-Based Phonology, and which is firmly rooted in the variation that exists when changes are innovated. Finally, I evaluate the extent to which the type of phonotactically-driven process-inhibition that I propose here involves prophylaxis in phonological change (I show that it doesn\u27t), and I consider the interaction of these ideas with the proposal that all change occurs in language acquisition (‘acquisitionism’).  
Testing the predictive strength of the comparative method: an ongoing experiment on unattested words in Western Kho‐Bwa languages
Get PDFAlthough it is well‐known to most historical linguists that the comparative method could in principle be used to predict hitherto unobserved words in genetically related languages, the task of word prediction is rarely discussed in the linguistic literature. Here, we introduce \u27reflex retrodiction\u27 as a new task for historical linguistics and report on an ongoing experiment in which we use a computer‐assisted workflow to retrodict reflexes for so far unobserved words in eight varieties of Western Kho‐Bwa (a subgroup of Sino‐Tibetan). Since, at the time of writing this report, the experiment is still ongoing, we do not report concrete results, but instead provide an estimate of our expectations by testing the performance of the computational part of our workflow on existing language data. Our results suggest that reflex retrodiction has the potential of becoming a useful tool for historically oriented fieldwork
A different path to [f]: labiodentalization in Faifi Arabic
Get PDFThis paper documents historical labiodentalization to [f] in one subvariety of Faifi Arabic (FA), which has not been previously detailed. In this subvariety, spoken in southwestern Saudi Arabia, the sound cognate with the Classical Arabic voiced emphatic (i.e. pharyngealized) dental stop *dˤ (typically realized as [ðˤ] in many Saudi varieties) has the voiceless labiodental reflex [f], but only in root-initial position. Crucial to the understanding of this labiodentalization is that in areas adjacent to where FA is spoken, the pronunciation of historic /dˤ/ is a voiced emphatic lateral fricative [ɮˤ]. We posit that in older FA, *dˤ was pronounced as [ɮˤ]. A general dialect-specific root-initial devoicing (and depharyngealization) process then transformed [ɮˤ] to voiceless [ɬ], which was subsequently perceived as [f] by FA speakers due to perceptual similarity. This misperception of voiceless [ɬ] as [f] is made plausible by the fact that a voiceless lateral fricative was not part of the FA phoneme inventory, and, because of depharyngealization, it was susceptible to being reanalyzed as an allophone of a phoneme that was not pharyngealized. Referencing Honeybone (2016), we maintain that FA labiodentalization instantiates an endogenous (i.e. internally-motivated) regular (i.e. non-sporadic) sound change specific to root-initial position resulting from misperception
The vowel /əː/ ao in Gaelic dialects
Get PDFThis paper examines the development of the Old Irish diphthongs */ai/, */oi/, */ui/ in later varieties of the Gaelic languages. These are generally accepted to have merged as a single phoneme by the end of the Old Irish period (c. 900). In all modern varieties the regular reflex of this phoneme is a long monophthong, represented orthographically as <ao>. There are three main developments: (a) in southern Irish <ao> has merged with /eː/ and/or /iː/; (b) in southern Scottish and Manx varieties <ao> remains a mid-central vowel, may be fairly fronted and may perhaps have weak rounding; and there is merger between /əː/ representing <ao> and reflexes of earlier */aɣ/; (c) in northern Scottish and northern Irish varieties <ao> is realized as a high back unrounded vowel /ɯː/, which is contrastive with mid back unrounded /ɤː/ representing earlier */aɣ/ (these may merge with /iː/ and /eː/ in Ulster). Building on suggestions of earlier scholars, it is argued that it is the developments of */əː/ are explained by its anomalous position in the phonological system of earlier varieties of Gaelic, and its interactions with the palatalization contrast of the consonant system
Gradient dissimilation in Mongolian: implications for diachrony
Get PDFThis paper explores the implications of \u27gradient dissimilation\u27 (Jatteau & Hejná 2016) for the diachronic implementation of long-distance dissimilation (e.g. ChVCh > CVCh). Since dissimilation is usually considered as lexically sporadic, cases where it applies regularly throughout the lexicon should result from lexical diffusion. Against this assumption, we explore the hypothesis that gradient dissimilation may represent the phonetic precursor of completed, regular dissimilatory processes. Such cases might then be reanalysed as Neogrammarian types of change. To assess this question, we gather and analyse new data from Halh Mongolian, a language reported to show gradient dissimilation of the aspiration feature, and compare it to two completed patterns of aspiration dissimilation reconstructed within the Mongolic family: Chahar Mongolian and Monguor. The results suggest that the gradient dissimilation in Halh may represent the phonetic precursor of Chahar, but also that gradient dissimilation may be bidirectional for some speakers. An interesting difference between our Halh Mongolian results and the other patterns of the Mongolic family resides in the behaviour of /s/, which in our data does not pattern as expected with the aspirated stops
Machine learning in diachronic corpus phonology: mining verse data to infer trajectories in English phonotactics
Get PDFMachine learning is a powerful method when working with large data sets such as diachronic corpora. However, as opposed to standard techniques from inferential statistics like regression modeling, machine learning is less commonly used among phonological corpus linguists. This paper discusses three different machine learning techniques (K nearest neighbors classifiers; Naïve Bayes classifiers; artificial neural networks) and how they can be applied to diachronic corpus data to address specific phonological questions. To illustrate the methodology, I investigate Middle English schwa deletion and when and how it potentially triggered reduction of final /mb/ clusters in English
Effects of laryngeal features on vowel duration: implications for Winter’s Law
Get PDFVowels are longer before voiced than voiceless obstruents in many languages. Work on how this effect interacts with aspiration has been limited. This study presents data from Hindi and Telugu on vowel duration and other acoustic characteristics as influenced by following consonants. Hindi vowels were significantly longer before voiced stops than voiceless stops, with no significant effect of aspiration. Telugu vowels were only slightly longer before voiced than voiceless stops; more crucially, they were shorter before aspirated stops than unaspirated stops. The Telugu results provide a parallel demonstrating the phonetic plausibility of the sound change proposed in Winter’s Law, with vowel lengthening before voiced unaspirated stops but not before voiced aspirated stops in Proto-Balto-Slavic. While the exact processes causing the voicing and aspiration effects remain unclear, this data contributes to evaluating the phenomenon. Phonetic differences between in Hindi and Telugu may also suggest characteristics of how the Proto-Balto-Slavic stop contrasts were realized
The phonetics of NCh in Tumbuka and its implications for diachronic change
Get PDFThe phonetic motivation for the synchronic and diachronic development of post-nasal voicing (*NT > ND) is well understood. Less well understood is the phonetic motivation for other common synchronic and diachronic developments from *NT, widely attested in Bantu languages, such as aspiration of the voiceless plosive and subsequent loss of either the nasal or the plosive portion of the sequence: *NT > NTh > Th, Nh. In this paper we first review the existing (scarce) phonetic literature on these developments. Then we present the results of a phonetic study of NC sequences in Tumbuka, a Bantu language where NT > NTh, as a way of exploring how the acoustic and perceptual properties of NTh sequences could motivate the development, found in other Bantu languages, of Th or Nɦ from NTh. We conclude by proposing that a perceptual cue approach, rather than a gestural or other articulatory approach, provides the most persuasive phonetic account, not only of the motivation for post-nasal aspiration of voiceless stops, but also for the instability of nasals and of voiceless stops in the NTh context which leads to other sound changes
The Anatolian Dissimilation Rule Revisited
Get PDFThe Anatolian Dissimilation Rule (ADR) was first introduced in an oral presentation by us in 2006 and first published by us in 2012, though it had, in several fundamental aspects, been prefigured in articles by, e.g., Gillian Hart and Birgit Olsen. The ADR expresses the following sound change(s): Proto-Indo-European *h3 > {Hittite š; Luvian t/d; Lycian, Milyan t; Lydian s} / ## __ X Labiovelar Y, where X and Y are arbitrary (possibly null) phone strings and X does not contain #. There are five PIE roots/words with attested reflexes in Anatolian that are subject to the ADR, and all of them exhibit the appropriate outcomes: *h3okw- ‘eye’, *h3ēh2u̯r̥ ‘urine’, *h3n̥gwh- ‘fingernail, toenail’, *h3óngwn̥ ‘fat, butter, oil, salve’, *h3(o)rh2u̯ent- ‘innards, intestine(s)’. The ADR covers all relevant items exceptionlessly; nevertheless, it has not been widely accepted. Potential reasons—both Anatolian-specific and more generally phonological—will be discussed and rebutted below, in the light of our previous arguments/suggestions and some newly added and upgraded ones
Aspiration in Basque
Get PDFThe distribution of aspiration in Basque — with ‘aspiration’ referring to both the occurrence of [h] and of aspirated stops — shows some puzzling aspects. In some words, aspiration is ancient, in the sense that it must be assumed for the earliest reconstructable stage. In some other instances, however, it has arisen seemingly ex nihilo, as can be observed in borrowings from Latin and Romance, e.g. Latin/Romance īra > Basque hira ‘ire’, Romance taula > Basque thaula ‘board’. Most surprisingly, in some words aspiration has developed after a sonorant consonant, e.g. Romance solatz > Basque solhas ‘conversation’. Aspiration may also continue intervocalic /n/, e.g. Latin anāte > Basque ahate ‘duck’. Another unusual development is the phonologization of the contrast between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops triggered by a shift of the stress in some words without affecting the properties of consonants. Finally, an interdialectal alternation /k-/ ~ /g-/ ~ /h-/ ~ Ø in demonstratives and related adverbs appears to have involved fortition, contrary to initial expectations. Here we describe the environments in which aspiration is found in Basque and discuss the most likely historical developments that could have given rise to the state of affairs that we find, paying particular attention to what would appear to be unusual or unnatural sound changes. We build on prior scholarship, but this paper also contains some new hypotheses, especially regarding the aspiration in words like ahate ‘duck’. We have also tried to contribute to the dating of the different processes and to the understanding of in their causes