Sound Change Quickie Thread

[spats]

I hope I can find some reason to make this collapse plausible. Would you know one?

Convenience? (You don't have to justify these things - what you're proposing is completely plausible. I'm just trying to play a little devil's advocate because I like irregularity and I think this is a fun idea.)

subject pronouns

...

So now there's a pronoun that can mean "he" or "her": haj. That's a bit tricky, but it shouldn't lead to ambiguity. There is currently a development in Dutch replacing zij/ze (3pp, subj) with hun (3pp, obj), which is still very much stigmatised. But it's also spreading. So I think I'll include that.

The he/her isn't a big deal, really. I'm more interested in the je vs. jai for 1ps/2ps-NOM. With vowel mergers that could be tricky. Plus words like pronouns tend to wear down faster (you already have "reduced" forms in modern Dutch). So maybe people find a way to distinguish those a little easier, perhaps by substituting a different form or something?

[Grunnen]

I hope I can find some reason to make this collapse plausible. Would you know one?

Convenience? (You don't have to justify these things - what you're proposing is completely plausible. I'm just trying to play a little devil's advocate because I like irregularity and I think this is a fun idea.)

subject pronouns

...

So now there's a pronoun that can mean "he" or "her": haj. That's a bit tricky, but it shouldn't lead to ambiguity. There is currently a development in Dutch replacing zij/ze (3pp, subj) with hun (3pp, obj), which is still very much stigmatised. But it's also spreading. So I think I'll include that.

The he/her isn't a big deal, really. I'm more interested in the je vs. jai for 1ps/2ps-NOM. With vowel mergers that could be tricky. Plus words like pronouns tend to wear down faster (you already have "reduced" forms in modern Dutch). So maybe people find a way to distinguish those a little easier, perhaps by substituting a different form or something?

The vowels I use in the pronouns are the merged vowels. Those I worked out after you suggested it and posted some time ago. So je and jaj will remain distinct, but they are very similar already of course. Perhaps I will toss out the jaj-form and only keep the polite form /y/. But perhaps I can think of something better. Although right now I can't think of anything.

[Grimalkin]

Is a sound change /sp st sk/ > /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ plausible?

[Grunnen]

Is a sound change /sp st sk/ > /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ plausible?

Something like sp > hp > ʰp > pʰ might work I guess. But I'm no expert.

[Ser]

Is a sound change /sp st sk/ > /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ plausible?

Something like sp > hp > ʰp > pʰ might work I guess. But I'm no expert.

Attested in some Andalusian Spanish dialects already...

[TaylorS]

Is a sound change /sp st sk/ > /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ plausible?

Absolutely, it's occurring in some Spanish dialects (those that aspirate coda /s/ into /h/).

[Nortaneous]

Is a sound change /sp st sk/ > /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ plausible?

As with most changes involving reduction of consonant clusters, this is attested in Tsakonian.

[Grimalkin]

Pʰlendid, thanks guys

[8Deer]

This is a sound change I'm not sure about. In my conlang, non-stressed vowels vowels reduce. /a/>/ə/, /i/>/ɪ/, /u/>/ʊ/. /i/>/ɪ/ triggers palatization of the previous consonant, while /u/>/ʊ/ triggers labialization. Then, a later sound change causes all reduced vowels to merge to /ə/.

I like it, since it preserves differences in words even though the vowels become the same. Does it work, or should I get rid of it?

[roninbodhisattva]

It's fine.

[Nortaneous]

That's pretty much how things like that develop in the real world, except I'd expect to see something analogous in stressed syllables also. Or at least, there should be something to create palatalized/labialized consonants in stressed syllables.

[roninbodhisattva]

That's pretty much how things like that develop in the real world, except I'd expect to see something analogous in stressed syllables also. Or at least, there should be something to create palatalized/labialized consonants in stressed syllables.

Yeah, actually I was going to say this as well as an edit. It would remain allophonic in stressed syllables if the vowels didn't merge as /ə/, but that would be fine and interesting.

[Mbwa]

Maybe you could have something where stressed vowels can be either long or short, and short stressed vowels also merge as /ə/.

[Ser]

in some Spanish dialects (those that aspirate coda /s/ into /h/).

Don't make it sound like it's all people who do the /s/ > /h/ thing though, I strongly associate it with certain Spaniards...

[Pogostick Man]

Suppose that a cluster of plosives became a click with the last POA (and/or aspiration, or whatever else) of the final member. Plausible?

[WeepingElf]

Suppose that a cluster of plosives became a click with the last POA (and/or aspiration, or whatever else) of the final member. Plausible?

You mean something like */tk/ > /!/? Seems reasonable to me; but in fact, nobody knows where clicks came from in those few languages that have them (or that is what I have been told) - which led some people to the assumption that clicks existed in Proto-World, and were lost everywhere except in the so-called Khoisan languages (so-called because the unity of this group is questionable). But I think that you should be OK with developing clicks from stop clusters.

[finlay]

Suppose that a cluster of plosives became a click with the last POA (and/or aspiration, or whatever else) of the final member. Plausible?

You mean something like */tk/ > /!/? Seems reasonable to me; but in fact, nobody knows where clicks came from in those few languages that have them (or that is what I have been told) - which led some people to the assumption that clicks existed in Proto-World, and were lost everywhere except in the so-called Khoisan languages (so-called because the unity of this group is questionable)

I don't buy that at all: to me they're simply a highly unusual and areal feature which arose before languages were documented. It'd be just as well to say that we don't know where PIE ablaut (or any other feature we know about IE languages in general which doesn't necessarily apply to any other family) arose from, and it therefore must have arisen from proto-world. The other thing is this seems to appeal to some sense that the 'Khoisan' hunter-gatherers are somehow more primitive than the rest of us, which seems a bit insulting and colonial to me.

[WeepingElf]

Suppose that a cluster of plosives became a click with the last POA (and/or aspiration, or whatever else) of the final member. Plausible?

You mean something like */tk/ > /!/? Seems reasonable to me; but in fact, nobody knows where clicks came from in those few languages that have them (or that is what I have been told) - which led some people to the assumption that clicks existed in Proto-World, and were lost everywhere except in the so-called Khoisan languages (so-called because the unity of this group is questionable)

I don't buy that at all: to me they're simply a highly unusual and areal feature which arose before languages were documented. It'd be just as well to say that we don't know where PIE ablaut (or any other feature we know about IE languages in general which doesn't necessarily apply to any other family) arose from, and it therefore must have arisen from proto-world. The other thing is this seems to appeal to some sense that the 'Khoisan' hunter-gatherers are somehow more primitive than the rest of us, which seems a bit insulting and colonial to me.

AMEN. The idea that the "Khoisan" people represent proto-humans, in both linguistic and other way, is bullshit bordering on racism. Like you, I don't buy the "proto-click" hypothesis at all. Clicks are simply an areal feature of two particular parts of Africa (the second part consists of Hadza, Sandawe and Dahalo in East Africa), and there really is NO EVIDENCE that the languages in these two parts of Africa alone have retained an otherwise lost feature of Proto-World. It is indeed quite likely that the clicks evolved from consonant clusters involving a velar and another consonant with a more forward articulation.

[finlay]

That said, it is an interesting mystery, and I can certainly buy that it has some kind of advantage towards the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Also, they did find some genetic evidence that proto-humans evolved in the general location of the ethnic groups with clicklangs in Tanzania, apparently... yet that doesn't mean that they've always had clicks, which seems like mere coincidence.

[the duke of nuke]

How likely is it that a language with both faucalised /p t ts k/ and glottal/glottalised /? n_? l_? r_?/ (not sure of the correct X-SAMPA) would merge them into a single series, and if so, what would be feasible outcomes? Could they become a glottalised series?

[WeepingElf]

How about /k_w/ > /q/, and accordingly, its voiced and aspirated counterparts?

The protolanguage has four stop series - labial, dental, velar and labialized velar. Does it make sense to shift the latter unconditionally to a uvular series?

[Cedh]

How about /k_w/ > /q/, and accordingly, its voiced and aspirated counterparts?

The protolanguage has four stop series - labial, dental, velar and labialized velar. Does it make sense to shift the latter unconditionally to a uvular series?

Yes, I think /k kʷ/ > /kʲ k̠/ > /k q/ is entirely plausible. (It might not be too likely, but that's another matter.)

How likely is it that a language with both faucalised /p t ts k/ and glottal/glottalised /? n_? l_? r_?/ (not sure of the correct X-SAMPA) would merge them into a single series, and if so, what would be feasible outcomes? Could they become a glottalised series?

Yes, I think so... /p* t* ts* k*/ (using * as an ad-hoc faucalised diacritic) could probably become either of ejectives or implosives, and I can imagine /nˀ lˀ rˀ/ turning into /ɗ/ which might then merge with whatever /t*/ has become. If the glottalised resonants remain what they are, analysing them into "the same series" as glottalised plosives probably depends on what other phonemes exist in the language. For instance, if the entire consonant inventory was something like /p t ts k ʔ s n l r p’ t’ ts’ k’ nˀ lˀ rˀ/, where only /ʔ s/ do not have a counterpart with the opposite glottalisation value, you could definitely analyse all [+glottal] consonants as a single series.

[WeepingElf]

How about /k_w/ > /q/, and accordingly, its voiced and aspirated counterparts?

The protolanguage has four stop series - labial, dental, velar and labialized velar. Does it make sense to shift the latter unconditionally to a uvular series?

Yes, I think /k kʷ/ > /kʲ k̠/ > /k q/ is entirely plausible. (It might not be too likely, but that's another matter.)

I forgot to mention that the velar series of the protolanguage "probably" resulted from the merger of a velar and a uvular series in an earlier stage, while the labialized velars came from labialized uvulars (and no labialized velars were present in the pre-protolanguage). Hence, the labialized velars may have been articulated a bit further back than the plain velars in the protolanguage.

[----]

manəs > manəh > man̥ > ma̤n

Is this a reasonable sound change?

[Whimemsz]

yes