Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Tropylium]

I keep wondering if there really are two entirely unrelated changes creating /ʃ/ there, or if we have instead the following:
1) s > ʃ / _C
2) k > ∅ / ʃ_
(If the second had a stage /ʃx/ similar to Dutch /sx/, that could also explain where the spelling "sch" came from.)

[Travis B.]

The problem with that is that the change of sk > ʃ occurs somewhere between Old High German and Middle High German, while the change of s > ʃ / _{p t m n l w} (and a similar change occurs after certain consonants as well, e.g. in falsch) occurs somewhere between Middle High German and Early New High German.

One way to treat this is to say that ⟨s⟩ was actually apical, i.e. /s̺/, and ⟨ȥ⟩ was actually laminal, i.e. /s̻/, and, dialects that had merged the two already aside, /s̺/ merged conditionally with either /s̻/ or /ʃ/ (it should be remembered that /s̺/ tends to sound more like /ʃ/ than /s̻/ does) depending on position, i.e. whether it was in a cluster or not.

[Sglod]

What could I turn [ɬ] into?
I want to avoid any liquids.

[Matrix]

Directly, it could become something like [ʃ], [ɕ], or [ç] - perhaps even more than one of them, depending on the surrounding environment - and from there there are of course many ways those consonants could go.

Also, there is a certain tendency - at least among English speakers, not sure about other languages - for others to hear [ɬ] and [tɬ] as a velar, so perhaps the sounds could mutate in that direction? I'm not entirely sure.

[Sglod]

Directly, it could become something like [ʃ], [ɕ], or [ç] - perhaps even more than one of them, depending on the surrounding environment - and from there there are of course many ways those consonants could go.

Also, there is a certain tendency - at least among English speakers, not sure about other languages - for others to hear [ɬ] and [tɬ] as a velar, so perhaps the sounds could mutate in that direction? I'm not entirely sure.

Cheers, I hadn't thought about those! I couldn't conjure up anything except a liquid.

Klingon's name is an example of the velarisation.

[vokzhen]

/s/ is attested in Hebrew, /t/ (or /tʰ) is attested in some Southern Bantu. Ugric languages took Proto-Ularic *s *š and merged them with outcomes of Mansi /t/, Khanty /t/ or /l/, and Hungarian null, and /ɬ/ is one likely intermediary. Pretty sure I've seen >h and/or >null elsewhere as well. I've heard that /ɬ tɬ/ in some Northeast Caucasian languages corresponds regularly to /x k/ or something similar (prevelars, uvulars) in others, and Archi seems to represent a midstate as their lateral fricatives/affricates are all prevelar.

[Zaarin]

If I recall correctly, ɬ>θ may be attested in a Muskogean language.

[Shemtov]

Is this sound change plausible given a few thousand years of development: j>ʒ>ʃ>s

[Pole, the]

Definitely.

[hwhatting]

Is this sound change plausible given a few thousand years of development: j>ʒ>ʃ>s

Something like that happened in Yakut (Common Turkic /j/ > /s/, probably via /ʒ/ as in Kazakh), and it took only a few hundred (500 - 600?) years.

[----]

j > s has happened many times in languages throughout the world, it's not unusual at all.

[Nannalu]

What could /ʂ/ change to? Esh?

[vokzhen]

/ʃ s x/ seem to be fairly common outcomes; unless I'm mistaken about development I believe /s/ happened in a lot of Chinese languages, and /x/ is well-known from Slavic and some Indo-Iranian (and similarly in Spanish with /ʃ/). Retroflex-palatal mergers don't seem too uncommon either, unless they're highly areal to SEA, though the outcome more often seems to be a retroflex; simply taking retroflex to palatal happens too. Pashto has a whole bunch of different outcomes: ʂ ʐ stays the same in some dialects, including the prestige, but others have /ç ʝ/ /ç g/ /x g/ or /ʃ ʒ/.

[Shemtov]

Can aspiration become pharyngealazation?
Also, what's a good way to split /l/ into /l/ and /r/?

[Travis B.]

Can aspiration become pharyngealazation?

There have been cases of h > ħ, e.g. in the Finnish example people tend to mention.

Also, what's a good way to split /l/ into /l/ and /r/?

One way to do it may be to conditionally l > lˠ or l > lʲ, and then do l > r, and then do lˠ or lʲ > l.

[vokzhen]

Can aspiration become pharyngealazation?
Also, what's a good way to split /l/ into /l/ and /r/?

I've seen several instances of glottalization > pharyngealization, but never aspiration > pharyngealization. I could see it possibly happening from the other direction, where /r/ is backed and devoiced so that you end up with clusters like [tħ] that some dialects resolve through aspiration, some through pharyngealization.

Can aspiration become pharyngealazation?

There have been cases of h > ħ, e.g. in the Finnish example people tend to mention.

In Finnish it's specifically in the context of /ɑ/, just POA assimilation.

It's common for /l/ to become a tap intervocally. Before or after consonants as well, Portuguese <obrigado> "obliged" or Romanesco <arto> "alto/tall" being two examples Wikipedia gives. From there you can delete certain consonants or vowels to make it phonemic, or add another source of /r/ like intervocal /n/ or /z/.

[CatDoom]

I'm probably not the first to have asked this, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any precedent for vowel nasalization changing into some other vowel-marking of syllable-level feature, like tone or phonation. I know I've seen this in some conlangs, but are there any real-world cases where this is believed to have happened?

[WeepingElf]

I'm probably not the first to have asked this, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any precedent for vowel nasalization changing into some other vowel-marking of syllable-level feature, like tone or phonation. I know I've seen this in some conlangs, but are there any real-world cases where this is believed to have happened?

In Lithuanian, nasal vowels have become long vowels (the language already had long vowels before). This change was fairly recent, happening after the orthography was laid down (the formerly nasal vowels, but no other long vowels, are written with an ogonek).

[Zaarin]

This is kind of a specific question. I want to nativize the name "Geneviève" [ʒanviɛv] in one of my conlangs. This conlang has no /ʒ/ but it does have /ʃ/, [v] is only a post-vocalic allophone of /b/ (but it also has /ɸ~f/ and /w/), and it doesn't allow VV sequences. So I was thinking something like Šanbyeḇ [ʃanˈbjev] or Šanbiyeḇ [ʃanbiˈjev], but I could also see Šanwiyeḇ [ʃanwiˈjev] or Šanf(i)yeḇ [ʃanɸiˈjev~ʃanˈɸjev]. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Nortaneous]

unless I'm mistaken about development I believe /s/ happened in a lot of Chinese languages

some dialects of Mandarin merge the retroflexes into the alveolars, yes.

Hanoi Vietnamese merged s` ts` r\` into s c z

[Tropylium]

Also, what's a good way to split /l/ into /l/ and /r/?

IIRC a number of Bantu languages had *l > ɽ before the close-most vowels /i u/, sometimes followed by phonemicization due to ɪ ʊ > i u.

Relatedly but in the other direction: Ossetian has *rj > l, Middle Persian has †rd > l. I wonder how this happened phonetically; maybe with [ɾ] as an intermediate?

[Nortaneous]

don't some nor/swe dialects have ON rð > ɽ?

anyway, ld > ll, l > r / V_[V #], ll > l, but that doesn't give you a contrast word-initially unless you drop some initial vowels somehow.

[Pogostick Man]

†rd

What does the † mean?

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Is /θ ð/ > /w/ possible (with or without intermediate steps)?

[hwhatting]

Is /θ ð/ > /w/ possible (with or without intermediate steps)?

With enough intermediate steps, everything is possible.
/θ ð/ > /f v/ is attested, and you could take it from there.