Sound Change Quickie Thread

[sangi39]

I think this is plausible (the individual steps, IIRC, are all attested), but I just wanted a second opinion:

[l:] > [dl] > [tl] > [tɬ] > [tʃ]


This one I'm not so sure about, though:

[l:] > [ld] > [d:]

[Nortaneous]

is dl > ld attested?

[Pole, the]

is dl > ld attested?

Well, it's a simple metathesis. It should have appeared here and there.

[----]

I think this is plausible (the individual steps, IIRC, are all attested), but I just wanted a second opinion:

[l:] > [dl] > [tl] > [tɬ] > [tʃ]


This one I'm not so sure about, though:

[l:] > [ld] > [d:]

Sardinian(?) went through the change l: > ɖ: so it's not unbelievable.

The first one looks fine, too.

EDIT: Sicilian was the one I was thinking of. However, Sardinian has the same change as well as ld, nd > ɖ: ; that's even more evidence for its plausibility.

[Nortaneous]

keep in mind that that whole family does completely inexplicable things with geminates

[TaylorS]

Is /kɻ/ and /ɻk/ > /ʈ/ a plausible future sound change for English?

And what could /pɻ/ and /ɻp/ turn into?

[Pogostick Man]

Is /kɻ/ and /ɻk/ > /ʈ/ a plausible future sound change for English?

Hmm…seems plausible but unlikely, if that makes sense. Then again it wouldn't surprise me if it happened.

And what could /pɻ/ and /ɻp/ turn into?

/(p)ʂ ʂ(p)/ or maybe /ʂʷ ʂʷ/? Then do stuff from there.

[Burke]

is dl > ld attested?

I thought this occurred in Spanish resulting words like "tilde" and the ilk.

[Nortaneous]

Is /kɻ/ and /ɻk/ > /ʈ/ a plausible future sound change for English?

And what could /pɻ/ and /ɻp/ turn into?

Tibetan turned all Pr sequences into retroflex plosives.

For English, I'd say merge all Vr sequences into ɚ (but ir and maybe er > jɚ) and figure out what to turn ɚ into.

[zyxw59]

What can I do with /ə̯ɨ/?
The vowels I have are:
/ə̯i ə̯ɨ ə̯u/
/eə̯ əː oə̯/
/ea̯ oa̯/
/aːj aː aːw/

/i ɨ u/
/e ə o/
/ɛ ɔ/
/aj a aw/

The changes I have are:
/ə̯i ə̯u/ > /aj aw/
/eə̯ oə̯/ > /jo we/
/ea̯ oa̯/ > /ja wa/

[Nortaneous]

Keep it parallel, ə̯i ə̯ɨ ə̯u > aj aɰ aw. (Why isn't ɉ used for the semivowel equivalent of ɨ? It should be.) Then figure out what to do with aɰ -- could turn it to a: or ə:, or lose length to become a or ə.

[CatDoom]

Would it be plausible to have a language in which vowel reduction has taken place within polysyllabic morphemes but not across morpheme boundaries? For instance, the root baˈba would reduce to bəˈba, but the prefix ba- would remain ba-, so you could have inflected words like ba-bəˈba or ba-ˈba.

[Pogostick Man]

Would it be plausible to have a language in which vowel reduction has taken place within polysyllabic morphemes but not across morpheme boundaries? For instance, the root baˈba would reduce to bəˈba, but the prefix ba- would remain ba-, so you could have inflected words like ba-bəˈba or ba-ˈba.

Seems to me like the language would have had to have been isolating originally, and then, after the phonetic changes, it was reanalyzed as synthetic or whatever.

[CatDoom]

Makes sense. I was also thinking that I could just have the reduction depend on stress position; maybe only the vowel immediately preceding the stressed syllable undergoes reduction, or something like that.

[sangi39]

Once again trying something ablaut-y

More: show

Code: Select all

V:
/i u/
/e o/
/a/

C:
P: /p t k q b d g s/
G: /h m n w r l j/

CV(C)

1) Stress is universally penultimate (monosyllabic words could be either stressed or unstressed)

2) Stressed vowels lengthen open syllables: /i u e o a/ > [i: u: e: o: a:]

3) Quality differences begin to appear alongside vowel length (similar to Vulgar Latin) :
[i: i u: u e: e o: o a: a] > 
[i: ɪ u: ʊ e: ɛ o: ɔ ɑ: æ]

4) The long high-mid vowels became diphthongs [e: o:] > [ie uo]

5) Unstressed vowels remained short, undergoing the following quality changes:
/i u e o a/ >
[ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ ɑ]

6) Stressed moved backwards to the antepenultimate syllable, remaining on the penultimate only if:
a) it was the first syllable of the word, or
b) if it was closed.

7) Vowel length is dropped:
[i: ɪ u: ʊ ie ɛ uo ɔ ɑ: æ] > 
[i  ɪ u  ʊ iə ɛ uə ɔ ɑ  æ]

8) Vowels then began to merge, reducing the number of distinct vowel qualities:
[i ɪ u ʊ iə ɛ uə ɔ ɑ æ]>
[i e u o i  ɛ u  ɑ ɑ ɛ]

9) Unstressed vowels further reduced, becoming:
[i e u o ɛ ɑ] > 
[i e u o a a]

10) Pre-tonic and post-tonic vowels and vowels in word-final syllables reduced even further to:
[i e u o a] > 
[ɪ ə ʊ ɵ ɐ]

11) [ə ɵ] are lost:
a) before /m n r l w j a/, resulting in syllabic /m n r l ɪ ʊ ɐ/ or
b) in word-final, open syllables.

12a) If [ə ɵ] would otherwise not disappear, then they merge with [ɐ].
12b) If the loss of word-final [ə ɵ] in open syllables results in a word-final consonant cluster then an epenthetic [ɐ] is inserted between the first and second consonant, e.g. [kɑrtə] > [kɑrɐt].

13a) Allophonic vowel length reappears in stressed open syllables: /i e u o ɛ ɑ/ > [i: e: u: o: ɛ: ɑ:]

13b) These long vowels diphthongised:
[i: e: u: o: ɛ:    ɑ:   ] >
[ie ei uo ou ɛa~ɪa ɔɑ~ʊa]

13c) These dipthongs then became long vowels:
[ie ei uo ou ɪa ʊa] >
[e: ɛ: o: ɑ: i: u:]

The processes of stage 13 also affected:
a) /ji ij wu uw/, associating them with 13a [i: u:]
b) /je ej wo ow/, associating them with 13b [ie ei uo ou] and
c) /jɑ~ja wɑ~wa/, associating them with 13c [ɪa ʊa]

Final instances of [ɪ ʊ ɐ] in open syllables following a post-tonic syllable are dropped, if not followed by a consonant cluster.

*mal     : ['mɑl] ~ [mḷ]           "good"
*mali    : ['mʊɑlɪ]   > ['mu:lɪ]   "I am good"
*malin   : ['mʊɑlṇ]   > ['mu:lṇ]   "he is good"
*maldi   : ['mɪɑlɐd]  > ['mi:lɐd]  "I was good"
*maldin  : ['mɛldṇ]                "they were good"

*nimal   : ['niemḷ]   > ['ne:mḷ]   "not good"
*nimali  : ['neɪmɐl]  > ['na:mɐl]  "I am not good"
*nimalin : ['neɪmɐlṇ] > ['ne:mɐlṇ] "he is not good"
*nimalti : [ṇ'mɪɑlɐd] > [ṇ'mi:lɐd] "I was not good"
*nimaltin: [ṇ'mɛldṇ]               "he was not good"

Not a short one, to be fair, but I'm fairly confident most of the sound changes make sense, at least up until towards the end

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Is it plausible to insert an epenthetic [h] into words that end in vowels when applying a suffix?
also back vowels front vowels next to /r/?

[WeepingElf]

Is it plausible to insert an epenthetic [h] into words that end in vowels when applying a suffix?

Epenthesis of [h] to avoid vowel hiatus is not uncommon.

also back vowels front vowels next to /r/?

I don't see how /r/ should exert a palatalizing effect on vowels, but I have seen weirder things.

[salem]

Would voiceless nasals nasalized voiceless fricatives and voiced nasals denasals implosives be at all plausible?

[Pogostick Man]

also back vowels front vowels next to /r/?

I don't see how /r/ should exert a palatalizing effect on vowels, but I have seen weirder things.

Maybe if the /r/ were more postalveolar in articulation.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

also back vowels front vowels next to /r/?

I don't see how /r/ should exert a palatalizing effect on vowels, but I have seen weirder things.

Maybe if the /r/ were more postalveolar in articulation.

Should clarify, by /r/ I mean [ɹ~ɾ] so /oɾ/ becomes /eɾ/ and /uɾ/ becomes /iɾ/

[WeepingElf]

Would voiceless nasals nasalized voiceless fricatives and voiced nasals denasals implosives be at all plausible?

Voicedless nasals > nasalzed voiceless fricatives seems fine to me. But what are "denasals"? Do you mean prenasalized stops? If yes, that is not implausible, but probably restricted to particular contexts.

[salem]

Would voiceless nasals nasalized voiceless fricatives and voiced nasals denasals implosives be at all plausible?

Voicedless nasals > nasalzed voiceless fricatives seems fine to me. But what are "denasals"? Do you mean prenasalized stops? If yes, that is not implausible, but probably restricted to particular contexts.

Denasals are nasals pronounced with no actual nasal airflow. They're basically (from my attempts at pronouncing them) just long implosives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denasal

Which is probably just what I should be calling them. Is nasals long implosives implosives plausible?

[Pogostick Man]

Is nasals long implosives implosives plausible?

I'd rather think nasal voiced stop implosive would be more plausible, but while nasal voiced stop is attested, I don't think it'd be very common. Plus you'd be dumping pretty much all the voiced stops into implosives, unless you were dealing with context, in which case it'd be slightly more plausible IMO.

[Hallow XIII]

They're basically (from my attempts at pronouncing them) just long implosives.

I don't think that is very sound evidence you have there.

[KathTheDragon]

What sort of conditions could I use to have both z > ts / _# and z > s / _# (and maybe retention of z in all other cases)?