Papers in Historical Phonology
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The typology of the distribution of Edge: the propensity for bipositionality
Get PDFWe discuss the grammatical conditions that can be imposed between segmental content (features) and syllable structure (positions) and how a representational preference can influence diachronic development. The discussion centers on the co-distribution of two properties: occlusivity and bipositionality. The first is the phonological feature that induces occlusivity and reduces amplitude (that is: |ʔ|, which we will refer to as Edge(*)), the second is the autosegmental structural property of belonging to multiple positions (which we refer to as ‘C.C’). Edge(*) and bipositionality have a universal affinity but they are not reducible to each other. Instead, the inherent diachronic tendency to preserve Edge(*) in bipositional structures can become grammaticalised through licensing conditions that dictate the alignment of the two properties. This can be expressed bidirectionally, forming two major language types. Type A has the condition stated from the featural perspective (Edge(*) must be found in C.C). While, Type B comes from the other direction (C.C must contain Edge(*)). Crucially, the same structure is diachronically stable: (Edge(*)-C.C). What varies is the distribution of those properties elsewhere (given the direction of licensing condition). Type A excludes Edge(*) from {#__,V_V}, while Type B excludes C.Cs without Edge(*). Although there is variation on this point, there is a UG component, because there are no anti-Type A/B languages where Edge(*) repels bipositionality
System complexity and (im)possible sound changes
Get PDFIn the acquisition of phonological patterns, learners tend to considerably reduce the complexity of their input. This learning bias may also constrain the set of possible sound changes, which might be expected to contain only those changes that do not increase the complexity of the system. However, sound change obviously involves more than just pattern learning. This paper investigates the role that inductive biases play by assessing the differences in system complexity of a small number of attested sound changes: the evolution of the obstruent and vowel inventories from Old English to Modern English, and the First Germanic Consonant Shift
Historical phonology and morphology in the nineteenth century: abstractness vs. empiricism
Get PDFIn the first half of the nineteenth century comparative and historical linguistics focused mainly on morphological structure. Although important phonological discoveries were made, phonology played a subsidiary role to morphology. What could be called the models of language were all theories of morphology. These speculations were targets the Neogrammarians attacked vigorously, mainly in the spirit of uniformitarianism. Phonology was different in terms of abstractness. Sounds were treated in a superficially abstract manner, but this was based on the phonetically imprecise littera-tradition, the emphasis on correspondences, the focus on dead languages, and the impact of the Indian tradition. The Neogrammarians, by contrast, strove to make phonology more phonetic and more rigorous and, paradoxically, earned the contempt of their opponents for introducing a different kind of abstractness by reconstructing a segment not attested in unchanged form in any of the Indo-European languages. In turn, while the Neogrammarians admitted that de Saussure’s analysis in the Mémoire is highly logical, they dismissed it as lacking sufficient empirical motivation. It appears that the argument reminded them of the analyses of the previous generation, and de Saussure’s formulation, which they found unduly abstract, was superficially just the kind they wanted to purge linguistics of at last
Tracing L-vocalisation in early Scots
Get PDFThis paper provides novel evidence for the frequency and spatio-temporal distribution of the earliest instances of Scots L-vocalisation. This so-called “characteristic Scots change” (McClure 1994: 48) entails the loss of coda-/l/ following back vowels, with concomitant vocalic lengthening or diphthongisation (e.g. OE healf > OSc hawff; OE bolster > OSc bouster; OE full > OSc fow, cf. Johnston 1997: 90). Using data from the Linguistic Atlas of Older Scots (LAOS), spanning 1380-1500, we reassess the claims for the emergence of L-vocalisation in the early 15th century (Aitken & Macafee 2002: 101-4) and for its completion by the beginning of the 16th (cf. Stuart-Smith et al. 2006, Bann & Corbett, 2015). Based on attestations of <l>-less forms and reverse spellings, we map the spread of <l>-loss over time and space. Emphasis is placed on the relative chronologies and lexical and geographic distributions of the change in different phonological contexts, including morpheme-final, pre-labial, pre-velar and (more lexically sporadic) pre-alveolar. Particular attention is also paid to the under-explored /l/~Ø alternation in borrowed items from (Norman) French (cf. realme~reaume ‘realm’) and their potential influence on the development of coda-/l/ in Scots. The results show low-level presence of the phenomenon throughout our corpus, but no signs of a categorical change in any of the target contexts
The emergence of the concept of \u27morphologically conditioned sound changes\u27
Get PDFOne of the more controversial ideas in historical linguistics in the 1960s and 1970s was that of \u27morphologically conditioned sound changes.\u27 While Neogrammarians like Paul (1920) and Structuralists like Bloomfield (1933) had argued that sound change was exclusively conditioned by phonetic/phonological factors, some generativists (e.g. Postal 1968) rejected this claim in favor of the idea that sound change could also be morphologically conditioned. While the idea of \u27morphologically conditioned sound changes\u27 clearly resonated with many historical linguists at the time (e.g. King 1969 endorses the idea), others, like Jasanoff (1971), rejected it. More recent work on historical linguistics, e.g. Sihler (2000) and Campbell (2013), has also moved away from this idea somewhat. In this paper, I situate this idea within the history of historical linguistics in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on generative approaches to historical linguistics. The development of the idea of morphologically conditioned sound change can be traced a number of currents in the field. Among others, it reflects (1) the increasing emphasis within phonological theory on rules over representations and (2) the intellectual heritage of the scholars involved.
Dissimilation can be gradient: evidence from Aberystwyth English
Get PDFDissimilation is classically considered as a phonetically categorical sound change. In contrast to this assumption, this paper presents evidence for a phonetically gradient pattern of aspiration dissimilation found in Aberystwyth English (Wales): an aspiration feature is consistently reduced in the vicinity of another aspiration feature. Two other patterns of gradient aspiration dissimilation have been reported, in Halh Mongolian and in Georgian, which suggests that it may actually be a more general phenomenon. The Aberystwyth data are however better controlled for phonological contexts and lexical regularity than the Mongolian and the Georgian data. The results can then be discussed in light of the two available theories of dissimilation, Ohala’s (1981) hypercorrection theory, and the traditional link with speech errors. Importantly, a number of arguments support Garrett’s (2015) hypothesis that gradient dissimilation might be a(nother) precursor to complete dissimilation. The pattern thus shows how the use of careful phonetic inspection can lead to a reanalysis of our understanding of well-established diachronic processes.
Towards a definition of an Egyptian Greek variety
Get PDFIn this paper I study the possibility of an Egyptian Greek variety that — on the phonological level — developed from the 2nd century CE onward, and which has so far not been defined as an independent language variety. Some preliminary remarks on this have been made, based on the great amount of features present in Greek in Egypt potentially stemming from the contact with Egyptian. Greek texts from Egypt display a substantial amount of nonstandard variation on all linguistic levels. In this paper I investigate the phonological level, concentrating on vowel orthography. Preliminary results of my study indicate Coptic phonological influence in, for example, the allophonic distribution of unstressed vowels, the tendency for consonant-to-vowel coarticulatory effects, and transfer of the Egyptian stress system. Parallel material can be found in the nonstandard usage of Greek loanwords in Coptic, which are used as a comparison for the Greek nonstandard writing forms. In order to be able to differentiate between Coptic impact and Greek internal phonological variation in the analysis of the phonetic variants, Coptic phoneme qualities are compared to the nonstandard renderings of Arabic loanwords in Coptic which display the same phenomena as the Greek ones
Synchronic stratum-specific rates of application reflect diachronic change: morphosyntactic conditioning of variation in English /l/-darkening
Get PDFPhonological processes that exhibit morphosyntactic sensitivity can provide evidence of historical processes which have ascended through the grammar over time. English /l/-darkening shows such effects. Although syllable-based accounts state that light [l] occurs in onsets (e.g. light) and dark [ɫ] in codas (e.g. dull), several studies report overapplication of darkening to onset /l/ in certain morphosyntactically defined positions: e.g. word-finally in phrases such as heal it, and stem-finally before a suffix in words such as heal-ing. Although many phonological theories attempt to account for such opacity, they cannot adequately account for the potential variability in application alongside this.The present paper explores these ideas through modelling data on /l/- darkening in English taken from Hayes’s (2000) Optimality Theoretic study. It is argued that a combined Stochastic Stratal OT approach to the data is an improvement over a parallel stochastic model (e.g. Boersma & Hayes 2001) because it avoids fixed innate constraint rankings, which are required to prevent the prediction of impossible grammars. Moreover, it is shown that observations about the diachronic life cycle of phonological processes enable us to deduce quantitative predictions about rates: should apply with lower frequency in smaller morphosyntactic domains
Are there impossible changes? θ > f but f ≯ θ
Get PDFOne question that historical phonology should reasonably seek to answer is: are there impossible changes? That is: are there plausible changes that we could reasonably expect to occur in the diachrony of languages’ phonologies, but which nonetheless do not ever occur? In this paper I seek to spell out what it really means to consider this question and what we need to do in order to answer it for any specific case. This will require a consideration of some fundamental issues in historical phonology, including the distinction between exceptionless and lexically-specific/sporadic changes (which I call ‘N-changes’ and ‘A-changes’), and the connection between that distinction and the ‘misperception’ model of phonological change. It will involve an analysis of aspects of the phonological history of Pulo Annian, Arabic, Italic, Spanish and several varieties of English. I argue that the current state of evidence indicates that there are indeed impossible changes (which I symbolise using ‘x ≯ y’ to represent that ‘x cannot change into y’) in a very specific but phonologically real way, and that f ≯ θ is one
Diachronic dynamics of Middle English phonotactics provide evidence for analogy effects among lexical and morphonotactic consonant clusters
Get PDFConsonant clusters that rarely occur lexically (i.e. within morphemes) may function as complexity markers when they span a morpheme boundary, i.e. when they occur morphonotactically. In this study we observe patterns in the diachronic dynamics of Middle English which hint at mutually beneficial effects between morphonotactic and lexical clusters. We suggest that the patterns revealed can be explained by frequency-based analogy effects in language acquisition