Sound Change Quickie Thread

Substantial postings about constructed languages and constructed worlds in general. Good place to mention your own or evaluate someone else's. Put quick questions in C&C Quickies instead.
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by salem »

Hallow XIII wrote:
jstups wrote:They're basically (from my attempts at pronouncing them) just long implosives.
I don't think that is very sound evidence you have there.
I don't know. Would it help if I made a recording? http://vocaroo.com/i/s1DmbKhAjj3v
Sorry for the low quality.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Pogostick Man »

KathAveara wrote:What sort of conditions could I use to have both z > ts / _# and z > s / _# (and maybe retention of z in all other cases)?
For z > s / _#, that's just final devoicing. Not sure how z > ts would work. (Are you basing this on Latin <z>? Because I've read it was probably an affricate.)
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by ---- »

jstups wrote:
Hallow XIII wrote:
jstups wrote:They're basically (from my attempts at pronouncing them) just long implosives.
I don't think that is very sound evidence you have there.
I don't know. Would it help if I made a recording? http://vocaroo.com/i/s1DmbKhAjj3v
Sorry for the low quality.
I think you don't understand what Hallow meant. The sound in your recording is definitely an implosive, but we still don't have any reason to believe that that's what denasals are. What if your attempts at pronouncing them aren't successful?

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by salem »

Theta wrote:
jstups wrote:
Hallow XIII wrote:
jstups wrote:They're basically (from my attempts at pronouncing them) just long implosives.
I don't think that is very sound evidence you have there.
I don't know. Would it help if I made a recording? http://vocaroo.com/i/s1DmbKhAjj3v
Sorry for the low quality.
I think you don't understand what Hallow meant. The sound in your recording is definitely an implosive, but we still don't have any reason to believe that that's what denasals are. What if your attempts at pronouncing them aren't successful?
I guess they aren't denasals then! Wikipedia is a dirty liar, evidently. Thanks for the help, and sorry for the trouble.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

Pogostick Man wrote:
KathAveara wrote:What sort of conditions could I use to have both z > ts / _# and z > s / _# (and maybe retention of z in all other cases)?
For z > s / _#, that's just final devoicing. Not sure how z > ts would work. (Are you basing this on Latin <z>? Because I've read it was probably an affricate.)
No, I want final /z/ to go to two different voiceless phones, and I figured [s] and [ts] would work.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Nortaneous »

Kri split final s into r̥ j̥.
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

I'm more interested in the conditioning environments than options for what to turn /z/ into.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Hallow XIII »

jstups wrote:
Theta wrote:
jstups wrote:
Hallow XIII wrote:
jstups wrote:They're basically (from my attempts at pronouncing them) just long implosives.
I don't think that is very sound evidence you have there.
I don't know. Would it help if I made a recording? http://vocaroo.com/i/s1DmbKhAjj3v
Sorry for the low quality.
I think you don't understand what Hallow meant. The sound in your recording is definitely an implosive, but we still don't have any reason to believe that that's what denasals are. What if your attempts at pronouncing them aren't successful?
I guess they aren't denasals then! Wikipedia is a dirty liar, evidently. Thanks for the help, and sorry for the trouble.
What? How does that statement make sense?

Wikipedia says that "denasals" are nasal consonants pronounced without nasal airflow. Your attempts at producing these sounds become implosives because you glottalize to prevent the nasal airflow; when it is pointed out that a person attempting to reproduce a sound he has read about -- but not heard -- is not necessarily a trusty source for phonetic analysis this becomes "Wikipedia is a dirty liar"?

Anyway just on feature-theoretical basis we note that nasals have the features [+voiced][+nasal]; if we remove [+nasal] we are left with [+voiced], not [+voiced][+glottalized]. etc.
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Nortaneous »

There aren't many realistic ways to get /ts/ out of /z/.

z > r > gʟ > kʟ̥ > tɬ > ts
z > r > ð > θ > tθ > ts

Those don't really provide useful conditioning environments.

The best you can do is have z > s followed by s > ts / R_ and loss of some resonants before /ts/.
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Basilius »

KathAveara wrote:I'm more interested in the conditioning environments than options for what to turn /z/ into.
There's a problem, for one of the changes your split presupposes is trivial and easy and the other isn't. Have you already decided on the intermediary stages for your /z/ -> /ts/ change? If not, this subject has to be discussed, sort of, for understanding the mechanics of the change is essential for understanding the environments.

(But as a quick and dirty solution: /nz/ -> /ndz/ -> ... , then perhaps delete /n/ in codas, leaving behind nasalization or whatever... in surface phonology, that "whatever" thing will work as the conditioning factor.)
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

I was thinking maybe /z/ > /dz/ > /ts/, linking with final devoicing for /z/ > /s/. Also, word-final /z/ occurs after /n/ and vowels.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Basilius »

Nortaneous wrote:r > gʟ
θ > tθ
For a dumb reader like me, the mechanics and conditioning environments for these^ bits may demand a lengthy explanation :)

Also, another Q&D solution for KathAveara: claim that your /z/ was formerly /dz/, then went [dz] -> [z] (-> [s]) in one set of environments and remained [dz] (->[ts]) in another. Since the different bit, [dz] -> [z], is essentially a lenition, you may think of any environment that facilitates consonant lenitions (after long vowels, in unstressed syllables, ...). Or, conversely, of environments that make lenitions less probable (for [ts]).
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

Well, I know that it comes from /s/, so I can't... Unless I unconditionally shift /z/ to /dz/ which strikes me as highly improbable.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

is /ð/ > /dz/ > /ts/ possible?
also /k/ > /q/ after /l/?
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by ---- »

Basilius wrote:
Nortaneous wrote:r > gʟ
θ > tθ
For a dumb reader like me, the mechanics and conditioning environments for these^ bits may demand a lengthy explanation :)
Nort is just an Austronesian fanboy. r > gʟ is an attested (unconditional?) sound change from Hiw and if I remember correctly, one or two other languages.

θ > tθ honestly doesn't seem that weird to me at all.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Nortaneous »

Pretty sure it's unconditional. /r/ is easy to get and there aren't really any other ways to get a velar from it, so it's useful. (There's one language where /gʟ/ devoices word-finally -- or maybe it was just /ʟ/, but the velar lateral is more often prestopped than not.)

θ > tθ seems pretty weird to me.

Ahzoh: I don't know about the first one. As for the second, I'd expect /q/ to have other sources, but if /l/ is uvularized, that feature could spread.
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by ---- »

Nortaneous wrote:θ > tθ seems pretty weird to me.
I disagree; from a theoretical perspective it's pretty unremarkable. It is a "weird" change in that it isn't well-attested in real life, but I think that's just because dental fricatives are relatively rare to begin with. Outside of that limitation, it's just basic fortition.

Are there examples of changes like s > ts or even s > tS in certain environments in languages (other than after resonants cf. English), like word-initially or at the beginning of stressed syllables or something? I know s > t is attested from a couple languages. If there are, then θ > tθ is the exact same process so there's nothing really wrong with it.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

Theta wrote:
Nortaneous wrote:θ > tθ seems pretty weird to me.
I disagree; from a theoretical perspective it's pretty unremarkable. It is a "weird" change in that it isn't well-attested in real life, but I think that's just because dental fricatives are relatively rare to begin with. Outside of that limitation, it's just basic fortition.
I'm not sure it's that rare. I've heard [tθ] for initial /θ/ in English, even.
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by jmcd »

Speaking of fortition into affricates, try z > dz > ts. If you can accept θ > tθ, then you can accept z > dz too.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Hallow XIII »

z > dz > ts #_
z > r otherwise

ne: if z does not occur initially z > dz {n l r}_ might also work but I don't know about devoicing there unless you do not otherwise have voiced stops
Last edited by Hallow XIII on Sat May 10, 2014 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

Would that also work word-finally? And what would be word-final environments where /z/ would not undergo the fortition?

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Hallow XIII »

O right word-finally

z > dz {n l r}_
z > h
dz > ts _#

optionally h > x/ħ/whatever _C, #
Last edited by Hallow XIII on Sat May 10, 2014 4:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Hallow XIII »

or h > ʔ

which everybody keeps telling me is a very rare sound change (as well as ʔ > h) but there are enough languages where h and ʔ alternate in different dialects, especially in the syllable coda, to make me think that it is less rare than one would think
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by Nortaneous »

such as?

re fortition:
The /s/ of the Manchu language is peculiar in that many speakers habitually affricated it, pronouncing it like [ts] in some or all contexts.
one of my conlangs has s > ts / #_ _#
but if
KathAveara wrote:word-final /z/ occurs after /n/ and vowels
then nz > dz, z dz > s ts

what are the vowels? are there any mergers in the diachronics? are there any diphthongs?
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Re: Sound Change Quickie Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

Standard /a e i o u/ plus length. Diphthongs are /ai au oi eu/. Only recent mergers did not affect word-final vowels.

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