Sound Change Quickie Thread

[KathTheDragon]

How plausible is an unconditional shift of [h] to [ʔ]?

[sangi39]

How plausible is an unconditional shift of [h] to [ʔ]?

I think Nort has said that this might not be entirely plausible (I seem to remember asking about lenition once, and this may have been his response). Honestly, myself, I don't know, but I thought I'd point out a possible source of information

[sangi39]

I don't think it's going to affect your triconsonantal system too much (just look at palatalisation in the Semitic languages of Ethiopia or the loss of /n/ in certain verb forms in Hebrew. It causes a change in some parts of the system, but it works more or less the same way it did before. A chain shift would hardly touch triconsonantalism as a whole).

Mutual intelligibility, though, would likely become an issue here very quickly. Loss of uvularisation (but maintaining voiclessness of Vrkhazhian uvularised consonants, and keeping uvulars as uvulars) after allophonic vowel lowering might not be too much of an issue, especially if the same allophony occurs in Uzerian without loss of uvularisation.

A chain shift, though, might mess that up. De-uvularisation would cause one merger, but I don't think it would be that bad overall, since the vowel lowering in some forms would match up with allophonic lowering in Uzerian (so, say you've got a form that generally speaking is CiCuCa, but appeaars as CeCuCa if the first consonant is uvularised, CiCoCa if it's the second and so on. The Uzerian listener might fine the consonants of the Mukhebic speaker weird, but the vowels might compensate for that somewhat). However, once you, say, shift voiceless plosives to voiced plosives and pre-aspirated plosives to voiceless plosives, that level of predictability and intelligibility might decrease, especially if it's an unconditional shift.

I just had a thought. Would Yng be worth getting in contact regarding this? Their information on the triconsonantal thread in the L&L Museum seems pretty awesome. I would have suggested Mecislau, but they've not logged in in like a year.

[Nortaneous]

i said interchange of glottal consonants is rare, but didn't it happen one way or the other in quechua?

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I don't think it's going to affect your triconsonantal system too much (just look at palatalisation in the Semitic languages of Ethiopia or the loss of /n/ in certain verb forms in Hebrew. It causes a change in some parts of the system, but it works more or less the same way it did before. A chain shift would hardly touch triconsonantalism as a whole).

Mutual intelligibility, though, would likely become an issue here very quickly. Loss of uvularisation (but maintaining voiclessness of Vrkhazhian uvularised consonants, and keeping uvulars as uvulars) after allophonic vowel lowering might not be too much of an issue, especially if the same allophony occurs in Uzerian without loss of uvularisation.

A chain shift, though, might mess that up. De-uvularisation would cause one merger, but I don't think it would be that bad overall, since the vowel lowering in some forms would match up with allophonic lowering in Uzerian (so, say you've got a form that generally speaking is CiCuCa, but appeaars as CeCuCa if the first consonant is uvularised, CiCoCa if it's the second and so on. The Uzerian listener might fine the consonants of the Mukhebic speaker weird, but the vowels might compensate for that somewhat). However, once you, say, shift voiceless plosives to voiced plosives and pre-aspirated plosives to voiceless plosives, that level of predictability and intelligibility might decrease, especially if it's an unconditional shift.

I decided to cast of the notion of prenasalized stops and fricatives. This makes the phonemic inventory of Mukhebic relatively simpler than Uzerian. I might instead opt for the development of a voiced uvular fricative and perhaps opt for having implosive voiced stops instead of prenasal.
Here is what the translation of the UDHR would be like between the two;

Uzerian:
ʔaçol xaβad pulqam ʔiɸbiʝen laβ ʔiɸçimeɬʲ liθ maseɣɹad laβ liθ n̥ubad | ʔuparlasim pʶal sapanʝun laβ saχadn̩ laβ pʶal çaɹmaxeç liθ ʔaʰtʔu wae̯jadanun ɟ͡ʝiʝqanam

Mukhebic
ʔaçul xavad pulgem ʔifbiʝin lav ʔifçimiɬʲ lid masiɣɹad lav lid n̥ubad | ʔubarlasim bel sabanʝun lav saχadn̩ lav bel çaɹmaxiç lid ʔatʔu wae̯jadanun ɟ͡ʝiʝgenam

You are correct about the voicing of voiceless plosives:
√dẕ - ideas relating to separating
√hdẕ - to cleave
√dʾẕ - to separate, isolate, part
√dẕd - to cut
√dẕy - to segregate
√dẕg - to cast out
√dẕl - to fear
√dẕr - to disperse
√dgẕ - to shrink, to reduce
√dmẕ - to separate for a long time
√dpẕ - to be calm
√dṉẕ - to divide

√tẕ - ideas relating to separating
√ʾtẕ- to alienate
√mtẕ - to disagree
√tẕl - to cut/divide into six
√tẕr - to fall apart
√tẕw - to prune
√twẕ - to strip away
√ttẕ - to discriminate
√qtẕ - to distinguish

[sangi39]

I don't think it's going to affect your triconsonantal system too much (just look at palatalisation in the Semitic languages of Ethiopia or the loss of /n/ in certain verb forms in Hebrew. It causes a change in some parts of the system, but it works more or less the same way it did before. A chain shift would hardly touch triconsonantalism as a whole).

Mutual intelligibility, though, would likely become an issue here very quickly. Loss of uvularisation (but maintaining voiclessness of Vrkhazhian uvularised consonants, and keeping uvulars as uvulars) after allophonic vowel lowering might not be too much of an issue, especially if the same allophony occurs in Uzerian without loss of uvularisation.

A chain shift, though, might mess that up. De-uvularisation would cause one merger, but I don't think it would be that bad overall, since the vowel lowering in some forms would match up with allophonic lowering in Uzerian (so, say you've got a form that generally speaking is CiCuCa, but appeaars as CeCuCa if the first consonant is uvularised, CiCoCa if it's the second and so on. The Uzerian listener might fine the consonants of the Mukhebic speaker weird, but the vowels might compensate for that somewhat). However, once you, say, shift voiceless plosives to voiced plosives and pre-aspirated plosives to voiceless plosives, that level of predictability and intelligibility might decrease, especially if it's an unconditional shift.

I decided to cast of the notion of prenasalized stops and fricatives. This makes the phonemic inventory of Mukhebic relatively simpler than Uzerian. I might instead opt for the development of a voiced uvular fricative and perhaps opt for having implosive voiced stops instead of prenasal.
Here is what the translation of the UDHR would be like between the two;

Uzerian:
ʔaçol xaβad pulqam ʔiɸbiʝen laβ ʔiɸçimeɬʲ liθ maseɣɹad laβ liθ n̥ubad | ʔuparlasim pʶal sapanʝun laβ saχadn̩ laβ pʶal çaɹmaxeç liθ ʔaʰtʔu wae̯jadanun ɟ͡ʝiʝqanam

Mukhebic
ʔaçul xavad pulgem ʔifbiʝin lav ʔifçimiɬʲ lid masiɣɹad lav lid n̥ubad | ʔubarlasim bel sabanʝun lav saχadn̩ lav bel çaɹmaxiç lid ʔatʔu wae̯jadanun ɟ͡ʝiʝgenam

You are correct about the voicing of voiceless plosives:
√dẕ - ideas relating to separating
√hdẕ - to cleave
√dʾẕ - to separate, isolate, part
√dẕd - to cut
√dẕy - to segregate
√dẕg - to cast out
√dẕl - to fear
√dẕr - to disperse
√dgẕ - to shrink, to reduce
√dmẕ - to separate for a long time
√dpẕ - to be calm
√dṉẕ - to divide

√tẕ - ideas relating to separating
√ʾtẕ- to alienate
√mtẕ - to disagree
√tẕl - to cut/divide into six
√tẕr - to fall apart
√tẕw - to prune
√twẕ - to strip away
√ttẕ - to discriminate
√qtẕ - to distinguish

Note, if you're working with a chain shift "√tẕl - to cut/divide into six" and "√dẕl - to fear" wouldn't merge. However, there would be a fair degree of confusion. Assuming the two roots inflect in the same way, then, yeah, there's going to be a fair degree of unintelligibility between the two. You're more or less, probably, looking at what affect Grimm's Law would have had on intelligibility between Proto-Germanic and related languages,

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Well, I expect unintelligiblility. I imagined that the intelligibility between the two dialects would be like Spanish and Portuguese? Similar enough, that with a bit of learning, to be easy to understand, but different enough that the two dialects aren't like British and American. Something like some Arabic dialects... or Scottish Gaelic to Irish Gaelic.

And how would the two verbs not merge when there aren't going to be prenasal stops in the Mukhebic. The chain shift ends at voicedness.

[sangi39]

Well, I expect unintelligiblility. I imagined that the intelligibility between the two dialects would be like Spanish and Portuguese? Similar enough, that with a bit of learning, to be easy to understand, but different enough that the two dialects aren't like British and American. Something like some Arabic dialects...

From that I can gather, the level of intelligibility between Spanish and Portuguese isn't as high as is often portrayed. Spanish merged a fair number of phonemes together which remain distinct together, Portuguese has nasalisation which doesn't exist in Spanish and there's a degree of semantic shift that leads to false friends. Their similar to each other than, say, Italian and Spanish, but they don't seem to be mutually intelligible enough to be considered dialects of the same language (dialects of Spanish and Portuguese, on the hand, are said to show a degree of intelligibility in such a way that Spanish and Portuguese might represent "ends" of a dialect continuum).

And how would the two verbs not merge when there aren't going to be prenasal stops in the Mukhebic. The chain shift ends at voicedness.

I mentioned this over on the CBB, the chain shift might end with pre-nasalised stops, but only Vrkazhian voiced stops resulted in Mukhebic pre-nasalised voiced stops. Mukhebic voiced stops would come from Vrkhazhian voiceless stops (and possibly Vrkhazhian uvularised stops depending on whether you have uvularise stops shift to voiceless or voiceless stops). Vrkhazhian √tẕl - shifts to Mukhebic √dẕl while Vrkhazhian √dẕl shifts Mukhebic to √ⁿdẕl,

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I mentioned this over on the CBB, the chain shift might end with pre-nasalised stops, but only Vrkazhian voiced stops resulted in Mukhebic pre-nasalised voiced stops. Mukhebic voiced stops would come from Vrkhazhian voiceless stops (and possibly Vrkhazhian uvularised stops depending on whether you have uvularise stops shift to voiceless or voiceless stops).

But, as I'm saying, I decided not to have prenasal voiced stops and fricatives. Yes, the uvularized consonants will shift to voiced So √ⁿdẕl does not exist in Mukhebic.

[sangi39]

I mentioned this over on the CBB, the chain shift might end with pre-nasalised stops, but only Vrkazhian voiced stops resulted in Mukhebic pre-nasalised voiced stops. Mukhebic voiced stops would come from Vrkhazhian voiceless stops (and possibly Vrkhazhian uvularised stops depending on whether you have uvularise stops shift to voiceless or voiceless stops).

But, as I'm saying, I decided not to have prenasal voiced stops and fricatives. Yes, the uvularized consonants will shift to voiced.

Fair enough, but I don't think that changes what I said here, albeit replacing uvularised > voiceless to uvularised > voiced. The chain shift was only proposed as a way of derived pre-nasalised plosives.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I mentioned this over on the CBB, the chain shift might end with pre-nasalised stops, but only Vrkazhian voiced stops resulted in Mukhebic pre-nasalised voiced stops. Mukhebic voiced stops would come from Vrkhazhian voiceless stops (and possibly Vrkhazhian uvularised stops depending on whether you have uvularise stops shift to voiceless or voiceless stops).

But, as I'm saying, I decided not to have prenasal voiced stops and fricatives. Yes, the uvularized consonants will shift to voiced.

Fair enough, but I don't think that changes what I said here, albeit replacing uvularised > voiceless to uvularised > voiced. The chain shift was only proposed as a way of derived pre-nasalised plosives.

Of course, just that there will be a merge of the d-zh family with the now voiced t-zh family. Be that as it may, I still like the chain shift, even if not for establishing prenasals.

[sangi39]

I mentioned this over on the CBB, the chain shift might end with pre-nasalised stops, but only Vrkazhian voiced stops resulted in Mukhebic pre-nasalised voiced stops. Mukhebic voiced stops would come from Vrkhazhian voiceless stops (and possibly Vrkhazhian uvularised stops depending on whether you have uvularise stops shift to voiceless or voiceless stops).

But, as I'm saying, I decided not to have prenasal voiced stops and fricatives. Yes, the uvularized consonants will shift to voiced.

Fair enough, but I don't think that changes what I said here, albeit replacing uvularised > voiceless to uvularised > voiced. The chain shift was only proposed as a way of derived pre-nasalised plosives.

Of course, just that there will be a merge of the d-zh family with the now voiced t-zh family.

I may be missing this, but how? Neither of those, as far as you presented them, include phonemes that would merge, according to sound changes proposed by either myself or Vokzhen.

[Zaarin]

How plausible is an unconditional shift of [h] to [ʔ]?

I'm not sure about unconditional, but in certain environments this happened in several Semitic languages.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I mentioned this over on the CBB, the chain shift might end with pre-nasalised stops, but only Vrkazhian voiced stops resulted in Mukhebic pre-nasalised voiced stops. Mukhebic voiced stops would come from Vrkhazhian voiceless stops (and possibly Vrkhazhian uvularised stops depending on whether you have uvularise stops shift to voiceless or voiceless stops).

But, as I'm saying, I decided not to have prenasal voiced stops and fricatives. Yes, the uvularized consonants will shift to voiced.

Fair enough, but I don't think that changes what I said here, albeit replacing uvularised > voiceless to uvularised > voiced. The chain shift was only proposed as a way of derived pre-nasalised plosives.

Of course, just that there will be a merge of the d-zh family with the now voiced t-zh family.

I may be missing this, but how? Neither of those, as far as you presented them, include phonemes that would merge, according to sound changes proposed by either myself or Vokzhen.

The phonemes won't merge, but these voiceless alveolar plosive will become voiced.
tuzhal duzhal "to divide into six"
duzhal "to fear"
They are homonyms now.

[sangi39]

[
Fair enough, but I don't think that changes what I said here, albeit replacing uvularised > voiceless to uvularised > voiced. The chain shift was only proposed as a way of derived pre-nasalised plosives.

Of course, just that there will be a merge of the d-zh family with the now voiced t-zh family.

I may be missing this, but how? Neither of those, as far as you presented them, include phonemes that would merge, according to sound changes proposed by either myself or Vokzhen.

The phonemes won't merge, but these voiceless alveolar plosive will become voiced.
tuzhal duzhal "to divide into six"
duzhal "to fear"
They are homonyms now.

So not within the same language, but across related languages/dialects (as we presented)? Is that within the definition of homophony?

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

The phonemes won't merge, but these voiceless alveolar plosive will become voiced.
tuzhal duzhal "to divide into six"
duzhal "to fear"
They are homonyms now.

So not within the same language, but across related languages/dialects (as we presented)? Is that within the definition of homophony?

Homophony would imply they are spelled different, but pronounced the same (bowl and bull), homonyms are spelled the same as well as pronounced the same.
Within Mukhebic, d-zh-l "to fear" and d-zh-l "to cut into six" will be homonyms, because the /t/ became voiced. Uzerian still has d-zh-l and t-zh-l...

[sangi39]

The phonemes won't merge, but these voiceless alveolar plosive will become voiced.
tuzhal duzhal "to divide into six"
duzhal "to fear"
They are homonyms now.

So not within the same language, but across related languages/dialects (as we presented)? Is that within the definition of homophony?

Homophony would imply they are spelled different, but pronounced the same (bowl and bull), homonyms are spelled the same as well as pronounced the same.
Within Mukhebic, d-zh-l "to fear" and d-zh-l "to cut into six" will be homonyms, because the /t/ became voiced. Uzerian still has d-zh-l and t-zh-l...

That still doesn't make sense, according to the sound changes that have been proposed, which have involved no such mergers between d-zh-l and t-zh-l, which suggest, instead, that Ubezian t-zh-l and d-zh-l, would correspond to Mukhebic d-zh-l and nd-zh-l.

If you're dropping pre-nasalisation, then what's the problem, since the chain shift wouldn't even be a thing?

[KathTheDragon]

How plausible is an unconditional shift of [h] to [ʔ]?

I'm not sure about unconditional, but in certain environments this happened in several Semitic languages.

The stop isn't already present in the language in question, by the way.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

@Sangi: I thought the chain shift would still be a thing, minus the shifting of voiced to prenasal... Don't want prenasals developed this way because it would create difficult clusters and I have little idea what they sound even like.

Eh...
I'll just have:
ʰP P
UV PʶV PV BV, where U = uvularized stop.
M H, where M = mid vowel, H = high vowel
D M, where D = dipthong

And think of other complex things... how about /k g/ becoming /c͡ç ɟ͡ʝ/ near /i/ and maybe /u/? I've heard of /k/ turning in /tʃ/...
And looking at Egyptian Arabic, there is a chance that voiced become voiceless and voiceless become voiced, unconditionally perhaps?.

[vokzhen]

@Sangi: I thought the chain shift would still be a thing, minus the shifting of voiced to prenasal... Don't want prenasals developed this way because it would create difficult clusters and I have little idea what they sound even like.

They're pretty much just clusters of nasal + voiced stop that act as unitary phonemes: they can occur initially or finally when clusters are forbidden, intervocally they don't make the previous syllable heavy because it's a single phoneme and not a coda+onset, etc. A lot like how the affricate /ts/ is generally identical to the cluster /t/+/s/, so while English and Italian both have the word pizza, in the former it acts like a cluster but in the latter it acts like a single phoneme. They can contrast with nasal+voiced stop, in which case the prenasal is of shorter duration. Wikipedia gives the example of Sri Lankan Malay where open syllables can be long but closed syllables can't, so you can determine where prenasals are versus nasal+stop clusters. I don't think that's common, though, and often prenasalization is just a detail of voicing: my understanding is that French /b d g/ can be prenasalized, in modern Greek /b d g/ are largely in free variation between voiced and prenasalized (due to their history, they come from clusters of /mp nt nk/), and Austronesian languages and Old Japanese have a "voiced" set that varies between voiced and prenasalized.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

@Sangi: I thought the chain shift would still be a thing, minus the shifting of voiced to prenasal... Don't want prenasals developed this way because it would create difficult clusters and I have little idea what they sound even like.

They're pretty much just clusters of nasal + voiced stop that act as unitary phonemes: they can occur initially or finally when clusters are forbidden, intervocally they don't make the previous syllable heavy because it's a single phoneme and not a coda+onset, etc. A lot like how the affricate /ts/ is generally identical to the cluster /t/+/s/, so while English and Italian both have the word pizza, in the former it acts like a cluster but in the latter it acts like a single phoneme. They can contrast with nasal+voiced stop, in which case the prenasal is of shorter duration. Wikipedia gives the example of Sri Lankan Malay where open syllables can be long but closed syllables can't, so you can determine where prenasals are versus nasal+stop clusters. I don't think that's common, though, and often prenasalization is just a detail of voicing: my understanding is that French /b d g/ can be prenasalized, in modern Greek /b d g/ are largely in free variation between voiced and prenasalized (due to their history, they come from clusters of /mp nt nk/), and Austronesian languages and Old Japanese have a "voiced" set that varies between voiced and prenasalized.

The Wikipedia only told me what they are and how they differ, but I have to look up Sinhala videos which don't tell much on them.
With what Vrkhazhian would have, we have such words as /no^mb.ⁿdos/ which is a difficult cluster of prenasal. In fact any instance where a consonant precedes a prenasal would be difficult. Difficult, because it would be hard to retain the phonetic shortness of the prenasalization without corrupting them to become ordinary nasal + stop clusters...

Unrelatedly, I'm thinking of adding a voiced alveolar affricate and a voiced uvular fricative.
I have the idea of /d/ becoming this before /u/, though /t/ might have to affricate as well. Looking for other ideas and ideas regarding the uvular voiced fricative (which is not to be derived from the uvular trill)
Also, I wanna do what Egyptian Arabic does and cause voicing-devoicing of voiceless and voiced consonants in matching environments.

[sangi39]

Looking for other ideas and ideas regarding the uvular voiced fricative (which is not to be derived from the uvular trill)

Voicing and frication of /q/, voicing of the voiceless uvular fricative or backing of the voiced velar fricative?

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Going back on chain shifts, surely it would work if instead of prenasals, there was breathy voiced instead?

hP > P > B > BH

[Nortaneous]

re: intelligibility, how mutually intelligible are the dialects of Armenian?

[sangi39]

I can't entirely remember if I've asked this before, and it doesn't turn up in search results, but would the following sound changes be plausible:

Code: Select all

DVN (where D is a voiced plosive N is a nasal coda and V is a vowel)
> DV~D
   > DV~D
      > NV~D
         > NVD

...?

I'd assume that if this is plausible, then N>D between vowels might also be possible as well, but I thought I'd have a quick check

Generally speaking, I'm aiming for a correspondence like /madʊ/ vs. /bɛno/ between two related languages.