Papers in Historical Phonology
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Sociolinguistic motivations in sound change: on-going loss of low tone breathy voice in Shanghai Chinese
Get PDFThis study focuses on the on-going disappearance of low tone breathiness in Shanghai Chinese. In the change from a voicing contrast to a tone register contrast in Sinitic languages, the ancient voiced series was characterised by a breathy voice quality, which remained as a secondary and redundant cue of low tones in Shanghai Chinese. This study, using transversal production data from 12 young and 10 elderly speakers, shows that low tone breathiness is better preserved by elderly than young speakers, and by male than female speakers. We predict a future loss of this secondary cue, which is speeding up due to the interference with Standard Chinese. We also found that the disappearance is more advanced in female speakers, which might be explained by female speakers’ stronger adherence to Standard Chinese as the prestigious form. Indeed, our young female speakers reported more frequent usage of Standard Chinese than Shanghai Chinese and higher competence in Standard Chinese than in Shanghai Chinese, whereas young male speakers were more confident in their usage of Shanghai Chinese
Examining the life cycle of phonological processes: considerations for historical research
Get PDFThe life cycle of phonological processes (e.g. Bermúdez-Otero 2015) provides an account of how a sound change might develop over the history of a language, from its beginnings in the pressures of speaking and hearing, through its progress to a cognitively-controlled process and maturation into a categorical phenomenon, to its final resting-place as a lexical or morphological pattern. It has been the subject of increased research in recent times, but has faced strikingly few challenges to its diachronic aspects, notably its predictions of unidirectionality and cycle-based dialectal splits. Furthermore, the cognitive mechanisms rooted in morpheme-based learning which are required to predict domain narrowing (phrase > word > stem) rather than broadening need to be tested through child (and adult) acquisition studies. This paper examines how a historical phonologist might go about interrogating the life-cycle model using extensive historical data spanning several centuries, and methodically ascertaining what the model predicts in order to know what to look for. The paper concludes by briefly addressing some of the many other questions raised by the model which have faced comparatively little investigation given the purported pervasiveness of the life cycle
From phonetic enhancement to phonological underspecification: hybrid voicing contrast in European Portuguese
Get PDFLaryngeal contrast in European Portuguese has typically been described in the phonological literature in terms of an opposition between [+voice] and [–voice]. However, a number of phonetic studies have revealed that lenis fricatives in European Portuguese tend not to exhibit consistent, robust voicing. Focusing on the sibilant system, this paper has a three-fold goal. Firstly, we present results of a phonetic study designed to test the realisation of sibilants both in contrast and neutralisation contexts. Secondly, we propose a reanalysis of synchronic laryngeal contrast couched in the laryngeal realist tradition. Our claim is that an analysis in which fortis fricatives are specified for [spread glottis] makes more accurate phonetic predictions than alternative approaches. Our analysis entails the secondary claim that European Portuguese exemplifies what we term a hybrid voicing system: whilst [spread glottis] is the key contrast feature for the fricative series, the stop series can be best handled by assuming that lenis stops are specified for [voice]. Thirdly, we develop a possible diachronic scenario for how such a hybrid system may have emerged diachronically as the result of phonological changes the history Portuguese
The origins of Japanese h from an element-based perspective
Get PDFThis paper examines the historical and phonological properties of Japanese h in an Element Theory approach (Nasukawa 2005, Backley 2012). It argues that the element |U| is naturally weak in Japanese, which accounts for two synchronic idiosyncrasies — the restricted distribution of labials and rounded vowels, and the patterning of h with labials. The analysis also offers insights into how diachronic change may be implemented. In modern Japanese, labiality is phonetically weak: the ‘rounded’ segments u/w are produced as unrounded [ɯ]/[ɰ], while labial p is banned from certain contexts. These facts suggest that |U| is also phonologically weak in Japanese, which is expressed in terms of structural headedness: headed (strong) |U| represents labials while non-headed (weak) |U| represents velars (Backley & Nasukawa 2009). Moreover, Japanese |U| has become weak, giving it unrestricted distribution in (non-headed) velars but a contextually conditioned distribution in (headed) labials. The restriction on labials is captured by claiming that for headed |U| to be realised, it must co-occur with another ‘dark’ element. The division between dark {|A|, |U|, |L|} and light elements {|I|, |H|, |Ɂ|} is grounded in acoustics but also has an impact on phonological patterns cross-linguistically, such as the behaviour of h and labials in Japanese