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Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 9:15 pm
by Whimemsz
[I was sure there was a thread like this once, but I can't find it]
[[the info in this post is mostly from various articles by Robert Blust, as well as a chapter he authored in Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology]]
[[[also note that in some places in this post I've written [j] as "y", but these cases shouldn't cause any confusion]]]

Most people here probably know that the regular reflex in Armenian of PIE initial *dw is erk (*dw → erk /#__, as in erku "two" from PIE *dwo-), since it's basically the paradigm example of weird correspondences and/or sound changes (though the individual steps the change went through were probably not terrible weird; there's some evidence it went something like *dw- > *dg- > *tk- > *rk- > erk-). But there's plenty more examples! A number of Austronesian languages have had weird or even crazy sound changes. I noted one (Ø → ŋ /#__V) in the correspondence library yesterday (the same change also occurred in some Samoyedic languages as well). But there's others!

For example, in Rennellese, *l became ŋɡ.

The Hawai'ian dialectal unconditioned change of *t → k is well known, but the *t → k change in fact happened at least twenty separate times in different Austronesian subgroups and languages. Most often this occurred following the loss of earlier *k, which freed up space for greater variation in the pronunciation of the phoneme /t/.

In several languages of western Manus Island, word final glides (*w and *j) became p -- for example, Levei op "you" (< Proto-Manus *koe > *kow) and ip "3sg" (< Proto-Manus *ia > *iy). Also puep "crocodile" (Proto-Manus *puaya), peʔep "shark" (Proto-Manus *paʔiwa), etc. These languages have several other odd(ish) changes as well, such as Drehet *t, ndr → kʰ /#__ (in nouns only, because it was conditioned by a preceding noun-marker which was later lost), e.g. kʰa "blood" (Proto-Manus *ndra); kʰu "dugong" (Proto-Manus *ndruyu); etc. Incidentally, the resulting phoneme /kʰ/ is the only aspirated consonant in Drehet (I'll post a phoneme inventory in one of the "interesting natlang features" threads or something).

In some (but not all) words, Sundanese reflects Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) *w and *b as ʧ initially and medially (i.e., *w, *b → ʧ /#__; *w, *b → nʧ /V__V). For example, PMP *sawa "python" > Sundanese sanʧa; PMP *badas "gravel, stony ground" > S. ʧadas; PMP *laban "oppose, opponent" > S. lanʧan; etc.

Robert Blust reports on a change in Northern Batak and Berawan of *b, *d, *ɡ → m, n, ŋ /__#, which he considers quite unusual. It didn't seem that odd to me, though (partly since it's similar to changes I've used in conlangs before). His main point is that final position tends to encourage devoicing, and that it's odd that the voiced stops didn't change in other environments and blah blah blah etc. I don't really buy it, but anyway if anyone was thinking of including this change in a conlang or whatever but were worried it was unnatural, you have a natlang precedent so that's good I GUESS? But for instance, Karo Batak deleŋ "mountain" (Proto-Batak *deleɡ).

Another change that's fairly unusual even if it's not totally bizarre, also occurs in Berawan languages: the onset consonant of open final syllables was geminated (*C → [+long] /$__V#), e.g. Long Terawan bittoh "stone" (PMP(?) *batu), binnəh "husband" (PMP(?) *bana), and sikkoh "elbow" (PMP(?) *siku); compare gitoh "a hundred" (PMP(?) *ʀatus), tana "earth" (PMP(?) *tanaq), or tukon "prop, support" (PMP(?) *tukud).

On the other hand, Berawan also reflects intervocalic *b and (the latter may have been /ʀ/ or /r/) as k(k), for example: Long Jegan bikuj "pig" (PMP *babuj); Long Terawan akkuh "ash" (PMP *qabu); Long Jegan tukkəj "derris fish poison" (PMP *tuba); and Batu Belah dukkih "thorn" (PMP *duʀi) (the result is -kk- rather than -k- in some instances due to the gemination rule described above). This was evidently a several step change: first and *b merged to , which subsequently devoiced ([1]*ʀ → *ɡ, [2] *b → *ɡ /V__V, [3] *ɡ → k /V__V) -- note however that this is still really bizarre on several levels: first, the change from labial to velar POA (but see below), and second, intervocalic devoicing!: *b and / remained voiced in initial position (in final position they became nasals, as described above); it's only intervocalically that they become k(k).

In a couple Austronesian languages, there has also been a change (independently in each language) whereby obstruents were devoiced following nasals, but not elsewhere (*O → [-voice] /N__), as in Murik lintem "dark" (Proto-Kayan-Murik *lindem). Though it's odd, similar changes have happened in some Bantu languages (e.g. Tswana, see this post).

In a number of Austronesian languages (independently), a prothetic /j/ was added to words beginning with /a/ (*Ø → j /#__a). In several cases, the phoneme *j (< both inherited */j/ and this prothetic /j/) in the given language experienced further changes, creating some odd cognate lists; e.g., in Motu, *j → l, so you've got e.g. lau "I" (Proto-Oceanic [POc] *aku) and lahi "fire" (POc *api).

In Seimat, synchronically, nasalized vowels can occur only after /w/ and /h/. Nasalizing /w/ comes from earlier *mʷ, and nasalizing /h/ from earlier *d, hence, cf. kawã- "forehead" (POc *damʷa) vs. awa- "mouth" (POc *qawaŋ), or hũa "two" (POc *dua) vs. hua "fruit" (POc *puaq). The first part isn't a particularly odd change, though the second is; but in either case the result is a very unusual synchronic nasality system.

In a number of languages, the glides *w and *j underwent fortition -- not a particularly unusual change, but combined with some others (e.g. the loss of unstressed syllables) and the fact that this fortition usually included the automatic glides inserted phonetically in some vowel combinations, leads to some bizarre looking reflexes. For example, Tunjung rəɡa "two" is from Proto-Austronesian (PAn) *dusa, via: *dusa > *duha > *dua > *duwa > *duɡa etc.; and Long Terawan kəʤin "durian fruit" is from PAn *duʀian via *duʀian > *duʀijan > *ʀijan > *ɡijan > *ɡiʤan etc. In the case of Narum, however, only the phonetic glides underwent fortition, and not the inherited phonemic glides! That is, inherited /w j/ remained, but the phonetic transitions between a high vowel and a following unlike vowel became /b/ and /ʤ/, so compare dəbeh "two" (Proto-North-Sarawak [PNS] *dua) and ləʤeəh "ginger" (PNS *lia) with pawaat "fruit bat" (PNS *pawat) and bayeəh "crocodile" (PNS *buaya).

Kiput (I wrote about it in the Correspondence Library here [as did Rorschach here earlier, but he got some things wrong]) exhibits a number of these bizarre and/or unusual and/or interesting changes. It's got glide fortition, for one. The North Sarawak languages, though, also evolved a set of true voiced aspirates -- i.e., the stop begins voiced, but there is a delayed VOT following the stop (they can also be interpreted as stops that begin voiced and end voiceless, since apparently the aspiration is optional). These derive from older geminate stops, which in turn derive from clusters or from stops that directly followed a stressed schwa. The interesting part here is that there is no corresponding voiceless aspirate series, so in those North Sarawak languages which retain the voiced aspirate series, the stop system is: /p t c k/, /b d ɟ ɡ/, /bʰ dʰ ɟʰ ɡʰ/ [look familiar?]. But anyway, Kiput merged all of *bʰ, *dʰ, *ɟʰ into s, which gives us another fun set of reflexes, such as səiʔ "water" from PNS *əbʰak or təsəw "sugarcane" from PNS *təbʰu. Evidently, *bʰ first became *f, which later merged into s. Finally, Kiput also shows intervocalic devoicing as well: intervocalic *v, , and become f, c, and k respectively; this includes *v and *ɟ from earlier glide fortition, so Kiput shows some instances of intervocalic -f- and -c- for PNS hiatuses, as in cəiʔ "good" (< PNS *diaq > *diyaʔ > *diɟaʔ > *dicaʔ etc.) and dufih "two" (PNS *dua).


I'm tired of writing, now. Share your own and so on blah blah blah blah, I'll post some Plains Algonquian stuff tomorrow

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 9:34 pm
by Soap
Thank you. Are you studying Oceanic languages in detail now, or just happened to have the book handy?

http://kneequickie.com/kq/Most_wanted_sound_changes has some interesting ones, some of which you've already mentioned and some of which are new.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 1:59 am
by Ser
It all depends on what you understand as "bizarre", but:

Spanish dialects in Central America, the Caribbean area and southern Spain have n > ŋ / _#, and word-finally ONLY. Historically, Spanish also had intervocalic lj > ʎ > ʒ, e.g. Lat. *aliu [ˈalju] > *ˈaʎo > Old Spanish aio [ˈaʒo]. Historically, Spanish voiced fricatives devoiced in intervocalic position, to the death of said phonemes: both osso [ˈoso] 'bear' and oso [ˈozo] 'I dare to (do)' became [ˈoso]. s, z > s / V_V; ts, dz > ts / V_V; ʃ, ʒ > ʃ / V_V. Some dialects have fortition of [ʝ] to [dʒ], e.g. ya [dʒa], allá [aˈdʒa]. Southern Spaniard Spanish also has st > ht / V_V; then ht > tʰ / V_V, e.g. costo [ˈkotʰo]. Central and Northern Spaniard Spanish has kθ > θː / V_V e.g. acción [aθˈθjon], and it's getting so much prestige news broadcasters can already be heard doing it. Madrid Spanish at least also has s > ɾ / _θ, e.g. doscientos [doɾˈθjentos, ð̞-], though it's nowhere near prestigious against [sθ].

Galician has g > ħ (gheada).

Plenty of Italians have s > j / _#, e.g. 1st c. BC Latin post [pɔst] > *pɔs > Italian poi [pɔj].

Pizzonese Italian has #pl- > #kj-, e.g. Lat. plūs [pluːs] > chiù [kju]. (Though according to the link, pʲ > kʲ is attested in dialects of Romanian...)

French has instances of labials + [j] > palatoalveolar fricatives: Lat. sapeās [ˈsapɛaːs] > Fr. saches [saʃ], Lat. sīmia [ˈsiːmɪa] > Fr. singe [sæ̃ːʒ], Lat. rabia [ˈrabɪa] > Fr. rage [ʁaːʒ]. The changes probably go somewhere along the lines of ˈsapɛaːs > ˈsapɛas > *ˈsapjas > *ˈsapjəs > *ˈsaptʃəs (fortition of [j] after labials) > Old French saches [ˈsatʃəs] > ˈsaʃə ~ saʃ.

Historically, English had i: > aɪ and uː > aʊ...

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 5:17 am
by Cedh
Whimemsz wrote:These languages have several other odd(ish) changes as well, such as Drehet *t, ndr → kʰ /#__ (in nouns only, because it was conditioned by a preceding noun-marker which was later lost), e.g. kʰa "blood" (Proto-Manus *ndra); kʰu "dugong" (Proto-Manus *ndruyu); etc. Incidentally, the resulting phoneme /kʰ/ is the only aspirated consonant in Drehet (I'll post a phoneme inventory in one of the "interesting natlang features" threads or something).
Is it known what the shape of that preceding noun marker was? This particular change might actually have been the result of cluster simplification.
Whimemsz wrote:In some (but not all) words, Sundanese reflects Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) *w and *b as ʧ initially and medially (i.e., *w, *b → ʧ /#__; *w, *b → nʧ /V__V). For example, PMP *sawa "python" > Sundanese sanʧa; PMP *badas "gravel, stony ground" > S. ʧadas; PMP *laban "oppose, opponent" > S. lanʧan; etc.
If you take into account another development which you mentioned independently, namely "In a number of Austronesian languages (independently), a prothetic /j/ was added to words beginning with /a/ (*Ø → j /#__a). In several cases, the phoneme *j (< both inherited */j/ and this prothetic /j/) in the given language experienced further changes, creating some odd cognate lists", and suppose that this glide insertion also happened before medial *a when preceded by a labial, then this development is very similar to the Latin > French change *pj bj > ʃ ʒ just mentioned by Serafín...
Whimemsz wrote:Robert Blust reports on a change in Northern Batak and Berawan of *b, *d, *ɡ → m, n, ŋ /__#, which he considers quite unusual. It didn't seem that odd to me, though (partly since it's similar to changes I've used in conlangs before). His main point is that final position tends to encourage devoicing, and that it's odd that the voiced stops didn't change in other environments and blah blah blah etc. I don't really buy it, but anyway if anyone was thinking of including this change in a conlang or whatever but were worried it was unnatural, you have a natlang precedent so that's good I GUESS? But for instance, Karo Batak deleŋ "mountain" (Proto-Batak *deleɡ).
I've used this exact change in a conlang (Cəssın). It doesn't seem all that weird to me, especially if the language in question has a word-final voicing contrast in plosives when the change happens: sustaining voice in word-final position is a lot easier with nasals than with oral stops.
Whimemsz wrote:On the other hand, Berawan also reflects intervocalic *b and (the latter may have been /ʀ/ or /r/) as k(k), for example: Long Jegan bikuj "pig" (PMP *babuj); Long Terawan akkuh "ash" (PMP *qabu); Long Jegan tukkəj "derris fish poison" (PMP *tuba); and Batu Belah dukkih "thorn" (PMP *duʀi) (the result is -kk- rather than -k- in some instances due to the gemination rule described above). This was evidently a several step change: first and *b merged to , which subsequently devoiced ([1]*ʀ → *ɡ, [2] *b → *ɡ /V__V, [3] *ɡ → k /V__V) -- note however that this is still really bizarre on several levels: first, the change from labial to velar POA (but see below), and second, intervocalic devoicing!: *b and / remained voiced in initial position (in final position they became nasals, as described above); it's only intervocalically that they become k(k).
Again, this is something I have used myself (in Doayâu); the labial > velar part of the shift went *b > *β > *w > *ɣ > ɡ (taking along original *w).

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 9:15 am
by Yaali Annar
cedh audmanh wrote:
Whimemsz wrote:These languages have several other odd(ish) changes as well, such as Drehet *t, ndr → kʰ /#__ (in nouns only, because it was conditioned by a preceding noun-marker which was later lost), e.g. kʰa "blood" (Proto-Manus *ndra); kʰu "dugong" (Proto-Manus *ndruyu); etc. Incidentally, the resulting phoneme /kʰ/ is the only aspirated consonant in Drehet (I'll post a phoneme inventory in one of the "interesting natlang features" threads or something).
Is it known what the shape of that preceding noun marker was? This particular change might actually have been the result of cluster simplification.
IIRC, the Proto Austronesian form of blood and dugong is *daRaq and *duRung. There's also noun marker *n-

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 9:18 am
by Mr. Z
@Serafín: Handy Kneequickie page! Never noticed it. The interesting thing about it is that it includes a sound change y > u, which I originally used in one of my conlangs, until everybody here told me it has no natlang support and I ditched it in favor of something else (the original shift was i > y > u, and I changed it to i > ɯ > u until I could think of something better).
@Whimemsz: Very intriguing sound changes... The Armenian one is the best.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 9:22 am
by sirdanilot
Biblical Hebrew had *w -> y /#_ (word initially; also this is american IPA notation). I have no idea what would cause such a change, but it happened (ie. Ethiopian /wald/, Hebrew /ˈyɛlɛd/ ; child). It also results in odd verb forms where w, out of initial position due to prefixes or different vowels, didn't change to y, such as /yaː'θar/ (he left) vs. /wayːiwːaˈθeːr/ (and he was left). Or even: /yaːˈʃav/ 'he sat' but (*hawˈʃiv) -> /hoːˈʃiv/ 'he caused to sit' !

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 9:32 am
by Miekko
sirdanilot wrote:Biblical Hebrew had *y -> w /#_ (word initially; also this is american IPA notation). I have no idea what would cause such a change, but it happened (ie. Ethiopian /wald/, Hebrew /ˈyɛlɛd/ ; child). It also results in odd verb forms where w, out of initial position due to prefixes or different vowels, didn't change to y, such as /yaː'θar/ (he left) vs. /wayːiwːaˈθeːr/ (and he was left). Or even: /yaːˈʃav/ 'he sat' but (*hawˈʃiv) -> /hoːˈʃiv/ 'he caused to sit' !
American IPA notation?

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 9:47 am
by dhok
I think he means that by <y> he means /j/, not the normal IPA /y/. This never causes problems because front rounded vowels are almost entirely absent from the Americas- according to WALS, the only one that has them north of Mexico, Hopi, doesn't have /y/, and there are only three others in the entire New World that have them (though they both have /y/)- Chinantec in southern Mexico and Wari' and Aikaná, both in western Brazil.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 12:27 pm
by Pole, the
French has instances of labials + [j] > palatoalveolar fricatives: Lat. sapeās [ˈsapɛaːs] > Fr. saches [saʃ], Lat. sīmia [ˈsiːmɪa] > Fr. singe [sæ̃ːʒ], Lat. rabia [ˈrabɪa] > Fr. rage [ʁaːʒ]. The changes probably go somewhere along the lines of ˈsapɛaːs > ˈsapɛas > *ˈsapjas > *ˈsapjəs > *ˈsaptʃəs (fortition of [j] after labials) > Old French saches [ˈsatʃəs] > ˈsaʃə ~ saʃ.
That reminds me of mʲ pʲ bʲ vʲ > mɲ pɕ bʑ vʑ in some Polish dialects.

I'd also add ns > nc > ɟ in Magyar.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 12:33 pm
by Miekko
dhokarena56 wrote:I think he means that by <y> he means /j/, not the normal IPA /y/. This never causes problems because front rounded vowels are almost entirely absent from the Americas- according to WALS, the only one that has them north of Mexico, Hopi, doesn't have /y/, and there are only three others in the entire New World that have them (though they both have /y/)- Chinantec in southern Mexico and Wari' and Aikaná, both in western Brazil.
Is it a typo for APA? Is it something else?

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 12:49 pm
by Mecislau
sirdanilot wrote:Biblical Hebrew had *y -> w /#_ (word initially; also this is american IPA notation). I have no idea what would cause such a change, but it happened (ie. Ethiopian /wald/, Hebrew /ˈyɛlɛd/ ; child). It also results in odd verb forms where w, out of initial position due to prefixes or different vowels, didn't change to y, such as /yaː'θar/ (he left) vs. /wayːiwːaˈθeːr/ (and he was left). Or even: /yaːˈʃav/ 'he sat' but (*hawˈʃiv) -> /hoːˈʃiv/ 'he caused to sit' !
Nitpick: You have it backwards. *w was the original, and Hebrew underwent *w -> y/ #_.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 12:50 pm
by Whimemsz
Miekko, yes, he just means Americanist notation.
Feles wrote:
French has instances of labials + [j] > palatoalveolar fricatives: Lat. sapeās [ˈsapɛaːs] > Fr. saches [saʃ], Lat. sīmia [ˈsiːmɪa] > Fr. singe [sæ̃ːʒ], Lat. rabia [ˈrabɪa] > Fr. rage [ʁaːʒ]. The changes probably go somewhere along the lines of ˈsapɛaːs > ˈsapɛas > *ˈsapjas > *ˈsapjəs > *ˈsaptʃəs (fortition of [j] after labials) > Old French saches [ˈsatʃəs] > ˈsaʃə ~ saʃ.
That reminds me of mʲ pʲ bʲ vʲ > mɲ pɕ bʑ vʑ in some Polish dialects.
Yeah, that sort of thing is actually a pretty common change -- it's just that palatalized labials aren't particularly common so there aren't too many examples of it.

Also I edited the first post to add in some other Kiput stuff I was too tired to add in last night

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 1:01 pm
by Mr. Z
sirdanilot: I don't think I've heard the word /ja:Tar/... Care for Hebrew transcription? I think I know the root (because your other word of the same root is familiar), but that particular form must have disappeared from the modern language...

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 3:06 pm
by Nortaneous
Hiw had r > ɡ͡ʟ, followed by ɡ͡ʟ > ɣ.

As for y > u, didn't English have that in some environments, with y > ju followed by yod-dropping?
Whimemsz wrote:
Feles wrote:
French has instances of labials + [j] > palatoalveolar fricatives: Lat. sapeās [ˈsapɛaːs] > Fr. saches [saʃ], Lat. sīmia [ˈsiːmɪa] > Fr. singe [sæ̃ːʒ], Lat. rabia [ˈrabɪa] > Fr. rage [ʁaːʒ]. The changes probably go somewhere along the lines of ˈsapɛaːs > ˈsapɛas > *ˈsapjas > *ˈsapjəs > *ˈsaptʃəs (fortition of [j] after labials) > Old French saches [ˈsatʃəs] > ˈsaʃə ~ saʃ.
That reminds me of mʲ pʲ bʲ vʲ > mɲ pɕ bʑ vʑ in some Polish dialects.
Yeah, that sort of thing is actually a pretty common change -- it's just that palatalized labials aren't particularly common so there aren't too many examples of it.
Right. Didn't Greek have something like mʲ pʲ bʲ > mn pt bd? EDIT: something like that also happened in Sotho I think: /pʃʼ pʃʰ bʒ fʃ/ are considered single consonants and sometimes pronounced as just palatalized, but sometimes also as palatal stops, and /pʃʼ/ can be [ptʃʼ], which reminds me of Kinyarwanda, where <rw> is /ɾɡw/, <bw> is /bg/, etc.)

Also, re: Feles' French examples, Tsakonian did worse with its palatalization: p t k g m n > c c tɕ dz n ɲ / _V[+front] (also l r > ʎ ʒ in that environment, but that's kind of boring... not sure what happened to /b d/); also note that κύριος > τζιούρη [ˈtɕuri] and τυρός > κιουρέ [cuˈre] -- there's that y > u!

More Tsakonian:
l > 0 "before back and central vowels"
r > ʃ / #_
and I can't really be bothered to type more up so just go here.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 3:23 pm
by Shrdlu
Well... Piitish failed on every possible point. It changed Swedish definite singular -en to-a(which happens to be the verification in Swedish), got an -e as the verbification, then lost the -er infinitive and finally changed non-infinitive -er to -en.

The result is that Piitish when spoken sounds like cut-off opposite-day-Swedish with /w/....

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 4:10 pm
by Miekko
Shrdlu wrote:Well... Piitish failed on every possible point. It changed Swedish definite singular -en to-a(which happens to be the verification in Swedish), got an -e as the verbification, then lost the -er infinitive and finally changed non-infinitive -er to -en.

The result is that Piitish when spoken sounds like cut-off opposite-day-Swedish with /w/....
Are those actual sound changes all of them?

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 4:29 pm
by Shrdlu
In real Piitish it is. Not in the version many speaks today. I think this is what has perpetuated the myth about "those farmers in northern Sweden who speaks funny".

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 4:59 pm
by Qwynegold
Whimemsz wrote:I noted one (Ø → ŋ /#__V) in the correspondence library yesterday (the same change also occurred in some Samoyedic languages as well).
Maybe it was like Ø > ʔ > ŋ / #_V?
Whimemsz wrote:Another change that's fairly unusual even if it's not totally bizarre, also occurs in Berawan languages: the onset consonant of open final syllables was geminated (*C → [+long] /$__V#), e.g. Long Terawan bittoh "stone" (PMP(?) *batu), binnəh "husband" (PMP(?) *bana), and sikkoh "elbow" (PMP(?) *siku); compare gitoh "a hundred" (PMP(?) *ʀatus), tana "earth" (PMP(?) *tanaq), or tukon "prop, support" (PMP(?) *tukud).
YES!!! I recently did this in a conlang without knowing of proper precedence.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 6:09 pm
by TaylorS
Nobody mentioned Western European /r/ > /R/, yet???

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 6:21 pm
by ----
Vietnamese went through a couple weird changes when all the initial clusters disappeared/merged and then there were further mergers as the language progressed. From Proto-Viet-Muong to Northern (Hanoi) Vietnamese, all of pr, br, tr, dr, kr, gr merged with /s/, and pl, bl, and kj all merged into /z/. kl and gl turned into /c/, and ml turned into /ɲ/.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 6:54 pm
by Whimemsz
Serafin, I'm surprised you didn't mention the fairly common Western Romance palatalization/fortition of initial l and/or geminate -ll-. In Standard Spanish it only happened to intervocalic geminate ll, but in a number of other varieties, all initial l also became ʎ (and in some cases [including languages where this initial palatalization didn't happen] /ʎ/ underwent fortition to some sort of non-lateral stop or affricate), e.g. Mirandese ʎuna "moon" (< luna); dialectal Gascon betɛt, betɛc and betɛʧ "calf" (VL *vetɛllo); Catalan ʎop, Asturian ʎobu "wolf" (VL *lopo); dialectal western Leonese ʎeiti and tseiti "milk" (< *lajte).
Qwynegold wrote:
Whimemsz wrote:I noted one (Ø → ŋ /#__V) in the correspondence library yesterday (the same change also occurred in some Samoyedic languages as well).
Maybe it was like Ø > ʔ > ŋ / #_V?
M...aybe? That's still pretty weird though.

EDIT:
Yaali Annar wrote:
cedh audmanh wrote:
Whimemsz wrote:These languages have several other odd(ish) changes as well, such as Drehet *t, ndr → kʰ /#__ (in nouns only, because it was conditioned by a preceding noun-marker which was later lost), e.g. kʰa "blood" (Proto-Manus *ndra); kʰu "dugong" (Proto-Manus *ndruyu); etc. Incidentally, the resulting phoneme /kʰ/ is the only aspirated consonant in Drehet (I'll post a phoneme inventory in one of the "interesting natlang features" threads or something).
Is it known what the shape of that preceding noun marker was? This particular change might actually have been the result of cluster simplification.
IIRC, the Proto Austronesian form of blood and dugong is *daRaq and *duRung. There's also noun marker *n-
Yes, it was the n-marker. Really the change was more like, e.g., *na topu "sugarcane" > *ntopu > > kʰuh, but again, that's still pretty weird.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 7:05 pm
by Drydic
sirdanilot wrote:Biblical Hebrew had *y -> w /#_ (word initially; also this is american IPA notation). I have no idea what would cause such a change, but it happened (ie. Ethiopian /wald/, Hebrew /ˈyɛlɛd/ ; child). It also results in odd verb forms where w, out of initial position due to prefixes or different vowels, didn't change to y, such as /yaː'θar/ (he left) vs. /wayːiwːaˈθeːr/ (and he was left). Or even: /yaːˈʃav/ 'he sat' but (*hawˈʃiv) -> /hoːˈʃiv/ 'he caused to sit' !

There is no such thing as 'American IPA notation', you're just using the IPA and using <y> instead of <j>. There is a pretty standard transcription for Semitic languages, and Hebrew in particular; you should just use that with no //, or the IPA with no substitutions. Especially since you're mixing various stages of Hebrew.

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 7:11 pm
by Whimemsz
Jesus, guys, it's obvious he meant "Americanist Phonetic Notation," in which <y> is /j/, why is this such a big deal?

Re: Bizarre Sound Changes

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 9:25 pm
by Jetboy
Whimemsz wrote:In a number of Austronesian languages (independently), a prothetic /j/ was added to words beginning with /a/ (*Ø → j /#__a).
This one reminds me of the fact that Ancient Greek had a prothetic /h/ inserted before initial /y/, apparently just because there were already a large number of words beginning with /hy/.
For a lot of those other changes, though, one wonders how much it's the reconstruction that makes these things appear odd.
Also, if anyone feels like cutting out steps, Latin -> colloquial Spanish has /s/ -> /e/ #_C.

Could "American IPA" represent a shift in meaning of "IPA" from "International Phonetic Alphabet" to "Symbols we use for phonetic transcription," perhaps?