Sound Change Quickie Thread

[TinyMusic]

Two questions:

What are the typical conditions for palatalisation, labialisation, and pharyngealisation to happen?
How can stress, openness of syllables, and vowel length affect lenition to happen to a nearby stop?

[R.Rusanov]

I know regressive assimilations are more common, but is it plausible for a nasal to assimilate in place to an obstruent on its left, as in [tm] → [tn]?

Danish had Copenhagen > Koebmhaun so I would say it can happen.

[CatDoom]

Two questions:

What are the typical conditions for palatalisation, labialisation, and pharyngealisation to happen?
How can stress, openness of syllables, and vowel length affect lenition to happen to a nearby stop?

For the first question, palatalization can occur spontaneously in the vicinity of front vowels (especially /i/) or the semivowel /j/. This is an example of assimilation, and can affect consonants before the vowel, after it, or both. Velars (and other sounds, to a greater or lesser extent) are often allophonically palatalized around front vowels,and this palatalization can become phonemic if the vowels change or are elided but the pronunciation of the consonant remains the same.

The story with labialization is pretty similar, except that it usually occurs around rounded vowels and /w/.

I'm less sure about pharyngealization; I think it's attested as a more or less spontaneous development in certain sounds (like the liquids /l/ and /ɹ/ in some varieties of English), and I think that a shift from ejective stops to pharyngealized stops is reconstructed in the history of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Other than that, I would guess that pharyngealization could occur in the vicinity of /ɑ/ since (at least according to Wikipedia), a non-syllabic open back vowel would be pronounced more-or-less the same as a pharyngeal approximant.

For your second question, I think it depends a lot on the particular language. I know that word-final and intervocalic consonants are likely to undergo various kind of lenition, while word-initial consonants and onset consonants following a coda consonant are generally "stronger" and more stable. I've read that in languages that are mora-timed, consonants following a short, stressed, open syllable have been known to geminate, effectively crating a coda consonant for the stressed syllable and thereby maximizing its moraic weight.

[Acid Badger]

I know regressive assimilations are more common, but is it plausible for a nasal to assimilate in place to an obstruent on its left, as in [tm] → [tn]?

Danish had Copenhagen > Koebmhaun so I would say it can happen.

That's also what happens in German: /pən tən kən/ > [pm̩ tn̩ kŋ̩]

[Nannalu]

This may (should?) be obvious but is this plausible as is or would there be another stage?
r̩ > ɚ
l̩ > ɚ
Also, I want to gain the rhotic vowels [a˞] and [ɔ˞], should I continue the same pattern as above with [ar ɔr] > [a˞ ɔ˞] respectfully?

[----]

I can see the first change easily happening, and if you're not convinced of the second one you can do syllabic l > r beforehand.

[Porphyrogenitos]

So...I know that /k/ → /p/ is possible before rounded vowels via /kʷ/, and that /t/ → /k/ is possible when /k/ undergoes glottal replacement. So would /p/ → /t/ be possible as part of the following chain shift?

First, /k/ → /kʷ/ before a rounded vowel.

Then, with /k/ "pulling" the shift: /p/ → /t/ → /k/ → /ʔ/ (or /h/ or whatever else)

Lastly: /kʷ/ → /p/

So would that be plausible?

[StrangerCoug]

I have a few questions.

1. One of my questions is described in detail here, I made that thread before noticing this one existed and would like to apologize.
2. What are some plausible ways to change /ʔ/ besides elision?
3. Suppose language A has an ejective series of consonants but no aspirated series, while language B has an aspirated series but no ejective series. Both A and B have tenuis series. Is it plausible for ejectives in A to become aspirated when B borrows words containing them and vice versa?

[----]

for 3, the answer is absolutely yes. Georgian actually borrows plain stops from other languages as ejectives because in Georgian ejectives are the tenuis series.

[Pogostick Man]

What are some plausible ways to change /ʔ/ besides elision?

ʔ causes a preceding vowel to lengthen, possibly by causing an echo vowel and then dropping
ʔ becomes a semivowel of the same place of articulation as an adjacent vowel
ʔ causes an adjacent stop to become an ejective or an implosive
ʔ glottalizes an adjacent consonant or vowel
ʔ becomes a dorsal nasal or causes a neighboring sound to nasalize (rhinoglottophilia)

[StrangerCoug]

OK, another one: Is it plausible for the distinction between /nʲ/ and /ɲ/ to collapse? If so, which is the more plausible sound to keep (and if it depends, on what)?

[gach]

Contrasting palatals with palatalised coronals is rare to start with so merging these two is a very natural thing to do. Whichever you choose as the merger product is up to your own taste and you can leave it as a matter of variation in the daughter language but palatalisation turning into full blown palatals is a general tendency.

[Qwynegold]

Having a common five vowel systems, what can I do with vowels that involves stress? Is there anything besides laxing unstressed vowels, or tensing stressed vowels?

[Pogostick Man]

Umlaut, maybe? Or have unstressed vowels assimilate in height?

[Qwynegold]

Umlaut, maybe? Or have unstressed vowels assimilate in height?

Umlaut? I don't how that would involve stress. But your other suggestion gave me an idea. I'll raise/lower mid vowels when followed by a stressed high/low vowel. Thanks!

I'll still consider other changes too if anyone has any more suggestions.

[CatDoom]

Umlaut most frequently involves features spreading from unstressed vowels to stressed vowels, and is often associated with vowel reduction and syncope.

[Quantum]

What methods are there, if any, of developing nasal vowels without surrounding nasal consonants? Also, how (a)typical is it for languages with nasal vowels to have nasal codas?

[----]

voiced stops, glottal sounds, and spontaneous nasalization of low vowels are all possible sources. From there you could have different vowel shifts or just have the nasalization spread to surrounding syllables to make the system more robust.

I would say it is pretty typical for langs to have both nasal vowels and codas.

[Qwynegold]

Umlaut most frequently involves features spreading from unstressed vowels to stressed vowels, and is often associated with vowel reduction and syncope.

Hmm? I thought it just involved features spreading to adjacent vowels, regardless of stress.

[sangi39]

Is (C)VʔC > (C)ʔVC plausible, possibly with some middle step?

[StrangerCoug]

Is (C)VʔC > (C)ʔVC plausible, possibly with some middle step?

It is to me. It's a simple metathesis, and some languages don't allow vowel-initial syllables, using an epenthetic glottal stop for the required initial consonant. I think Arabic has this rule, but anybody is free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[Pogostick Man]

Is (C)VʔC > (C)ʔVC plausible, possibly with some middle step?

It is to me. It's a simple metathesis, and some languages don't allow vowel-initial syllables, using an epenthetic glottal stop for the required initial consonant. I think Arabic has this rule, but anybody is free to correct me if I'm wrong.

That's pretty much correct, but some of these glottal stops IIRC are not phonemic and are subject to elision in certain circumstances (like if someone is actually pronouncing the case endings, in which case you get an essentially French-like elision liaison).

[StrangerCoug]

What are some plausible ways, preferably conditional, to have codas of /k kʰ ɡ ŋ t tʰ d n p pʰ b m s r/ alter the vowel height or backness of /a aː i iː u uː/? The vowels /i iː/ are occuring after /tʃ tʃʰ dʒ nʒ̃/ with too high a frequency to my liking and I want to decrease the relative frequency of those two vowels occuring after affricates relative to other vowels, especially back vowels.

[CatDoom]

Lemme see... coda /r/ could shift to /ɹ/, which could become labialized and retracted as in English before finally shifting to /w/. You could then, for instance, have /iw/ simplify to /uː/ or something similar.

Vowels before nasal codas are likely to be allophonically nasalized, and as I understand it nasalized close vowels are prone to lowering. /i(ː)/ and /u(ː)/ could therefore plausibly become /e(ː)/ and /o(ː)/ before nasal codas.

Vowels might theoretically undergo labialization before labial consonants... something similar happened in the Costanoan languages, though in that case the change was limited to /ɨ(ː)/ > /u(ː)/ next to /m/. Similar changes are probably attested in other languages, though other than examples involving a labial secondary articulation, I'm not thinking of any at the moment.

Finally, some or all of the coda stops (velars and coronals seem more prone to this than labials) could debuccalize to /ʔ/, which could subsequently become creaky voice on the preceding vowel. Likewise, coda /s/ and possibly coda aspirated stops could become /h/ and then turn into breathy voice. Due to effects of voice quality on vocal tract length, breathy-voiced vowels tend to become higher and backer, while creaky-voiced vowels tend to become lower and fronter. Furthermore, voice quality distinctions may not be sustained for the entire duration of a long vowel, which can cause them to break into diphthongs. Following these vowel shifts, the voice quality distinction could be lost, as happened in Khmer.

[vokzhen]

Umlaut most frequently involves features spreading from unstressed vowels to stressed vowels, and is often associated with vowel reduction and syncope.

Hmm? I thought it just involved features spreading to adjacent vowels, regardless of stress.

Impressionistically, umlaut tends to happen in languages with strong (and often initial) stress though. Old Irish, Germanic, Chechen, and it appears a similar correlation was mentioned by Tropylium over in this thread concerning Finnic. I wouldn't be too surprised to learn if it existed in a language with weak or no stress, but I think it's safe to say they would be in the minority.

Another option might be breaking, stressed vowels gain onglides as Latin e/o did in Spanish.