scholarly journals Mergers in Bardi: contextual probability and predictors of sound change

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Babinski ◽  
Claire Bowern
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Minimal Pair ◽  
Functional Load ◽  
Crucial Question ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Pair Density ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Australian Languages

AbstractA crucial question for historical linguistics has been why some sound changes happen but not others. Recent work on the foundations of sound change has argued that subtle distributional facts about segments in a language, such as functional load, play a role in facilitating or impeding change. Thus not only are sound changes not all equally plausible, but their likelihood depends in part on phonotactics and aspects of functional load, such as the density of minimal pairs. Tests of predictability on the chance of phoneme merger suggest that phonemes with low functional load (as defined by minimal pair density) are more likely to merge, but this has been investigated only for a small number of languages with very large corpora and well attested mergers. Here we present work suggesting that the same methods can be applied to much smaller corpora, by presenting the results of a preliminary exploration of nine Australian languages, with a particular focus on Bardi, a Nyulnyulan language from Australia’s northwest. Our results support the hypothesis that the probability of merger is higher when phonemes distinguish few minimal pairs.

scholarly journals Diachronic Study of Phonological Changes in Tiv Language

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Terfa Aor ◽  
Torkuma Tyonande Damkor
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Language Growth ◽  
Observation Method ◽  
Phonological Change

All levels of language analysis are prone to changes in their phonology, morphology, graphology, lexis, semantics and syntax over the years. Tiv language is not an exception to this claim. This study investigates various aspects of phonological or sound changes in Tiv language. This paper therefore classifies sound changes in Tiv; states causes of sound changes in Tiv and explores implications of sound changes. The research design used in this paper is purposive sampling of relevant data. The instrument used in this paper is the observation method in which the author selected words that showed epenthesis, deletion and substitution. It has been noted that the use of archaic spellings in the Modern Tiv literatures shows their ancientness. Phonological change is not a deviation but a sign of language growth and changes in spellings result in changes in sounds. The author recommends that scholars should write papers or critical works on lexical/morphological, syntactic, semantic, graphological changes in Tiv language. Students should write projects, dissertations and theses on language change and diachronic linguistics. This study introduces Tiv historical linguistics and diachronic phonology which serve as catalysts for the study of Tiv language. The understanding of Tiv sound change provides students with a much better understanding of Tiv phonological system in general, of how Tiv phonology works and how the phonemes fit together

Ordering paradoxes in phonology

1971 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. E. Newton
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Traditional Attitude ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Phonological Rules

1. It may be claimed that current views regarding the nature of sound change fall into two broad categories: the more traditional attitude would treat an individual sound change as a complex trend or process taking perhaps several generations to establish itself, and then retaining its activity over a long period of time; whence the characteristic concern of classical historical linguistics with the establishment of absolute and relative termini post and ante quern, i More recently adherents of the generative–transformational school have interpreted sound changes as readjustments in the system of phonological rules; thus Postal (1968: 270) claims:‘What really changes is not sounds but grammars. And grammars are abstract objects – sets of rules represented in human organisms.’

scholarly journals An Inventory of Tibetan Sound Laws

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
NATHAN W. HILL
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Sound Changes

Scholars of Indo-European historical linguistics have long found it convenient to refer to well known sound changes by the name of the researcher who first noticed the correspondences the sound change accounts for. Because of the proven utility of such named sound laws in Indo-European linguistics, the explicit listing and naming of sound laws in the Tibeto-Burman family could be expected to bring similar benefits.

Paradigm Resolution in the Life Cycle of Norse Umlaut

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory K. Iverson ◽  
Joseph C. Salmons
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Base Form ◽  
Phonological Form ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Basic Finding

This paper follows on recent work (Iverson & Salmons 2004, 2007; Kiparsky 2005, 2006) seeking to resolve Kock's 1888 paradox intro-duced in his celebrated “period theory” of Old Norsei-umlaut. The basic finding is this: In paradigms where a phonological innovation has been rendered opaque by the operation of other sound changes, restructuring of the base form incorporates rather than derives the results of the innovation as it dies out; but if the innovation remains transparent in certain other paradigms, its expiration enables reversion to the antecedent phonological form. Both patterns can be subsumed under the traditional rubric of analogy, resulting in allomorphically uniform paradigms, but the former generalizes a sound change to con-texts in which it never occurred naturally, whereas the latter actually undoes, or reverses, a sound change.*

scholarly journals Regional differences in the evolution of the merger of /ʃ/ and /ç/ in Luxembourgish

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
François Conrad
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
The South ◽  
Data Set ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
The North ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Old Men ◽  
Middle Generation

The merger of post-alveolar /ʃ/ and palatal /ç/ into alveolopalatal /ɕ/ has recently gained growing interest in sociophonetic research, especially in the Middle German dialect area. In Luxembourgish, a Continental West Germanic language, the sound change has been linked to age differences, while its origins remain unclear. Two studies with a regional focus are presented in this paper. The first study examines the merger in the Centre and the South of Luxembourg. The acoustic examination of both the spectral peak and the centre of gravity of a spoken data set of five minimal pairs embedded in read and orally translated sentences from 48 speakers (three generations (old generation, 65–91 years; middle generation, 40–64 years; young generation, 20–39 years; each generation, n = 16), men and women) reveals interesting results related to their regional background. In the old generation, the merger is further advanced in the speech of old men from the former mining region in the South compared to their peers in the Centre, the former leading this sound change. On the other hand, young speakers in both regions produce only alveolopalatal /ɕ/, the merger being complete in this generation. The second study presents exploratory data from the East and the North of the country. The analysis of this smaller sample (n = 6 speakers) reveals patterns similar to the central region. Pointing to language contact with Romance in the South as cradle and/or catalyser of the merger, these results not only give further clues as to the development in Luxembourg, but also add to a deeper understanding of sound changes in process in complex sibilant systems.

scholarly journals Distinctive Features Analysis of Foreign Language Borrowing Words in Javanese Language Found in Panjebar Semangat Magazine

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Linda Aprillianti
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Phonological Rule ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Phonological Rules ◽  
Phonological System

The Javanese language belongs to language which has unique phonological system. There are so many foreign language has influenced the development of Javanese. This study is intended to examine the sound change of borrowing word of foreign language in Javanese which is found in Panjebar Semangat magazine. The data is taken from Panjebar and checked using old Javanese dictionary. This study belongs to descriptive qualitative research and used Simak method and Non Participant Observation in collecting the data. The data analysis is done by using Padan method. The result of the study reveals three sound changes of vowels sound and four phonological rules. Then, there are four types of sound change and four phonological rule of consonant sound. The result showed that the sound change of borrowing word in Javanese is influenced by the differences of phonological system between Javanese and the foreign language.

scholarly journals AL-AKHTHA’ FII IKTISAB AL-TSUNAIYAT AL-SHUGHRA

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miftahul Huda
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Error Analysis ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Minimal Pair ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Child Age

Language acquisition starts from the ability of listening basic letter(iktisab al-ashwat) since child age. The letter of a language is limited in number, and sometimes there is similarity of letters among languages. The similarity of letters in two languages make it easy to learn the language. On the contrary, the obstacle of language learning can be caused by different letters between two languages (mother tongue and second/foreign language). The problem may be caused by minimal pairs (tsunaiyat al-shughro). This research aims at finding out the error of minimal pair acquisition, with the subject of Indonesian students in Jami’ah Malik Saud Saudi Arabia, with the method of error analysis. The study concludes that in iktisab al-ashwat of minimal pairs, the error is around 3,3 %-58,3%. Second: the error on minimal pairs occurs on the letters shift ?? ?? ? to be ? , letter ? to be ? , letter ? to be ? , letter ? to be ? , letter ? to be ?? , and letter ? to be ?.

Learning to talk Philadelphian: Acquisition of short a by preschool children

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Roberts ◽  
William Labov
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Stable Variation

ABSTRACTRecent work in the acquisition of variation has shown that children begin to learn patterns of stable variation at a very early age. In fact, it appears that they acquire variable rules at about the same time as they are acquiring related categorical rules. Little is known, however, about the transmission from generation to generation of features undergoing sound change in progress. Therefore, this study examines the acquisition of the Philadelphia short a pattern by 18 3- and 4-year-old children. Even though this pattern of the raising and tensing of short a is a complex one, the children had, for the most part, acquired it. In almost all cases, the children matched the short a distribution both of their parents and a group of adult Philadelphians who were interviewed in the mid 1970s and described in Labov (1989b). These results indicate that even the youngest members of the speech community are actively participating in ongoing sound change.

Women and sound change: Conservative and innovative behavior by the same speakers

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. Maclagan ◽  
Elizabeth Gordon ◽  
Gillian Lewis
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Innovative Behavior ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Community People

In this article we address Labov's claim that sound changes that are not stigmatized are led especially by young women who are the “movers and shakers” in the community, people with energy and enterprise. Such young women, at the same time, are conservative with respect to sound changes or stable linguistic variables that are stigmatized. We investigated this claim by comparing the pronunciation of the non-stigmatized front vowels /I/, /ε/, and /æ/ with that of the stigmatized diphthongs /ai/ and /a[inverted omega]/ in New Zealand English. When we considered the pronunciation of each variable, the young women did not unequivocally support Labov's claim. However, when we examined the behavior of individual speakers across the two sets of variables, Labov's claim was supported. This result leads us to emphasize the importance of considering the behavior of individual speakers in a more holistic way rather than focusing only on the averaged data for single variables.

The role of educational factors in the development of lexical splits

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-72
Author(s):  
Yuhan Lin
Keyword(s):  
Education System ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Time Analysis ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Potential Factors ◽  
Statistical Results

Abstract While variationist literature on sound change has mostly focused on chain shifts and mergers, much less is written about splits (Labov, 1994, 2010). Previous literature shows that the acquisition of splits is unlikely unless motivated by social factors (Labov, 1994). The current study presents an apparent time analysis on the development of two phonemic splits, the initial /s/-/ʂ/ contrast and the initial /ɻ/-/l/ contrast, in Xiamen Mandarin, a contact variety of Putonghua, the official language in China. Statistical results showed similar patterns for both variables: younger speakers and female speakers are leading the change; the distinction between two phonemes are more distinct in wordlist than in the sociolinguistic interview. By examining the sociolinguistic situation in Xiamen, the paper discusses two potential factors that have led to these sound changes: the regional campaign for Putonghua and the emphasis of Pinyin, a phonetically-based orthography, in the education system.

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