Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Thry]

Would it be possible for a language that has /tk/ as an allowable internal cluster to simplify it, except in proper names? Or would names that have it have to be borrowed from another language with this cluster?

Aren't names words that evolve a lot? Iohannes > Jean, John, Juan, João, Joan, Giovanni...
Maybe you could borrow it from an earlier stage of the same language, Idk, it may become popular afterwards.

Well, proper names may resist orthographic reforms, so you could get that result in a number of proper names as a spelling pronunciation.

But this is true too.

[Tropylium]

Aren't names words that evolve a lot? Iohannes > Jean, John, Juan, João, Joan, Giovanni...

Personal names yes, placenames or such not so much.

[Thry]

Aren't names words that evolve a lot? Iohannes > Jean, John, Juan, João, Joan, Giovanni...

Personal names yes, placenames or such not so much.

Really?

(From my country)

Emerita > Mérida
Onuba > Huelva
??? > Valladolid
??? > Madrid
Barcinona /k/ > Barcelona /T/
Valencia > Valencia
Gades > Cádiz
Toletum > Toledo

These don't seem any less evolved than common words, some even more so.

[Tropylium]

No as in, placenames don't tend to diverge into half a dozen different variations within the *same* lang via loaning back and forth and back again.

[Thry]

No as in, placenames don't tend to diverge into half a dozen different variations within the *same* lang via loaning back and forth and back again.

Mmm, okay. But my example was from different languages actually:

Iohannes (Greek>Latin) > Jean (French), John (English), Juan (Spanish), João (Portuguese), Joan (Catalan/Valencian), Giovanni (Italian), Xoan (Galician)...

[Whimemsz]

All of the following are perfectly English names by this point: John, Jean, Joan, Jane, Sean, Ian, Evan, and Joanna; Ivan and Juan (and maybe Johan/Hans) are possible but really only (at least in my experience) for people who are ethnically/culturally Slavic and Hispanic (and German), respectively: in general, Anglos don't name their kids Juan, but plenty of people of non-Irish ancestry name their kids Sean and of non-French ancestry name their kids Jean.

[LinguistCat]

Ok, so names are weird and I can probably get away with it as long as I have some reason for it.

Another question: Is umlaut more likely to affect long vowels, short vowels or both in a language with both? I'd suspect short, or that it would be as likely to affect both as one or the other...

[Thry]

Ok, so names are weird and I can probably get away with it as long as I have some reason for it.

Another question: Is umlaut more likely to affect long vowels, short vowels or both in a language with both? I'd suspect short, or that it would be as likely to affect both as one or the other...

I don't see any reason why it would favor one over the other. Finnish has both IIRC.

[Herr Dunkel]

Ok, so names are weird and I can probably get away with it as long as I have some reason for it.

Another question: Is umlaut more likely to affect long vowels, short vowels or both in a language with both? I'd suspect short, or that it would be as likely to affect both as one or the other...

Both unless the qualities differ.
Then you'd likely get those other qualities to shift, as well.

[Whimemsz]

The most reliable correlation would seem to be that umlaut is far more likely to affect stressed vowels than unstressed vowels (in part because it generally becomes phonemic [and more distinct by polarization] through the weakening and/or loss of neighboring unstressed vowels). So the answer to your question depends on to what extent stress and length correspond in the language in question.

Finnish isn't a perfect example in any case because it's an example of vowel harmony, and not merely umlaut.

[Herr Dunkel]

Finnish also is a bad example because for many of the fronted vowels, they're even reconstructed as that in PU - we can't know where they come from.

[Thry]

Do all vowel harmonies begin as umlaut?

[Herr Dunkel]

Doubtful, as Finnish vowel harmony is actually a progressive vowel harmony, and the Germanic umlaut is the exact opposite - recessive harmony!

I mean, progressive harmony could occur if vowels that caused umlaut collapsed into a very simple system, then harmonised with the first vowels, and that would fit well with initial stress, but, meh, I can't really say much on that.

Though, umlaut cannot come from vowel harmony in an initial-stress system (because of duh initiality).

[Tropylium]

The example of the other Ugric languages suggests that Hungarian at some point lost vowel harmony (if there originally was any) due to vowel reduction, then reacquired it by assimilation of *ə and *a into o/ø/e and ɒ/ɛ, by Turkic influence.

Also are we talking about i-umlaut in particular, any kind of vowel assimilations in general, or even anything that creates "umlauted" (front rounded/back unrounded) vowels? I don't think I've seen a particular length preference for any of those.

Livonian is an example where i-umlaut only applies to short vowels, tho. Also I'd assume that there might be a language out there where long vowels might only umlaut "partially" (something like *aːCi aeCi; it's possible that Samic *oːCa oaCi went like this but there's no short counterpart to compare with).

[Qwynegold]

Which one of these is most plausible:
1. ʔC > C[+glottalized]
2. Cʔ > C[+glottalized]
3. Both

Or can I just pick any of these three options?

Anyone who can help me with this? I've been searching Wikipedia and KneeQuickie, but damnit I can't find anything at all about the origin of glottalized consonants.

[Nortaneous]

Either will work, and glottalized consonants (especially the ones that aren't stops) are sometimes realized as either.

[LinguistCat]

Also I'd assume that there might be a language out there where long vowels might only umlaut "partially" (something like *aːCi aeCi; it's possible that Samic *oːCa oaCi went like this but there's no short counterpart to compare with).

I don't know why I hadn't thought of this, but it's pretty cool. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Herr Dunkel]

/ae/ is pretty unstable, will likely collapse to /ai/

[Qwynegold]

Either will work, and glottalized consonants (especially the ones that aren't stops) are sometimes realized as either.

OK, thanks!

[Whimemsz]

/ae/ is pretty unstable, will likely collapse to /ai/

There's nothing wrong with /ae/ -- maybe in the long run it's likely to change to something else*, but there's no issue with making it an acceptable sequence in your language.


*I'm not sure about this, but the main problem is just that /ae/ isn't all that common as a diphthong, so it's hard to make generalizations about its stability. I mean, it's certainly accurate to say it's uncommon and can often change into other things, but that's not the same as saying that it's unreasonable to have it as a contrastive diphthong in your inventory.

[----]

Khmer has /ae/ contrastive with /aj/, and also /ao/ contrastive with /aw/.

[finlay]

as does japanese.

[jmcd]

There are also instances of ai>ae rather than the other way round in some speakers of English and German.

[Thry]

Spanish also has /ae/

[Herr Dunkel]

Never said it's not frequent, it's just that, in languages without /ai/, ae > ai happens more often than not, to maximise the distinction.