Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Hallow XIII]

congratulations, you have discerned the joke

[Boehijt]

If a language would have ʃ as its only sibilant fricative, would it shift to s? Or would it stay ʃ?

[Thry]

It could show allophony between those or others, e.g. /s/ realized as [s] before back vowels sand as [ʃ] before front vowels.

Japanese has /s/ with [ʃ] before i [ʃi] <shi>, iirc.

[Drydic]

If a language would have ʃ as its only sibilant fricative, would it shift to s? Or would it stay ʃ?

It could shift. But it doesn't hafta shift.

[The Hanged Man]

What would be a better (more likely) set of sound changes happening to diphtongs [ie] and [ue] in a language, that already has phonemic vowel length?

option #1:
ie → je
ue → we

option #2:
ie → jeː
ue → weː

[Pole, the]

What would be a better (more likely) set of sound changes happening to diphtongs [ie] and [ue] in a language, that already has phonemic vowel length?

option #1:
ie → je
ue → we

option #2:
ie → jeː
ue → weː

Either one of them or the other.

[Thry]

If you say [ie] is already a diphthong (namely [i̯e],... or do you mean [ie̯]??) in the first stage of that language, what changes exactly to [je], other than your transcription choice?

[The Hanged Man]

@Thry: [ie] is a sequence of two vowels, resulting from disappearance of a consonant between them. My idea was to change it to a sequence of a glide and a vowel, with whole segment preserving length, or not. I think there is a difference between [ie] and [je], and if I remember correctly, I have also read somewhere on Wikipedia that vowel sequencies and vowel+glide sequencies may be considered different by language users. Perhaps I'm missing something...

[Thry]

Sure, [i.e] and [i̯e]-[je] are different, that's just me being nitpicky - not on the representation, though, but on your calling it a diphthong, which is what struck me as weird.

In my opinion, here lengthening is plausible along with the diphthongization because of morae compensation, but of course it's not mandatory.

[Izambri]

Do we know any language that has tonic → [a] or [æ] while atonic → or [ɐ]?

[Thry]

...Eng...maybe English? In some dialect? Given intermediates xD?

[Izambri]

...Eng...maybe English? In some dialect? Given intermediates xD?

It would be an interesting English dialect then! XD

[jmcd]

u > U > V > 6

[Nortaneous]

u > əu > au > æu > æ

[Izambri]

u > əu > au > æu > æ

This is what I have for [u:] in my new conlang, yep.

[Tropylium]

In my opinion, here lengthening is plausible along with the diphthongization because of morae compensation, but of course it's not mandatory.

There are more precedents for the long vowel option than the short vowel option, I think?

The latter could happen too though, but it might make more sense if analyzed as syncope rather than a diphthong stress shift. Something like *ie > *[ije] > je?

[Benturi]

How do you derive retroflex consonants, especially stops or affricates? Based on the RUKI-rule, I'm considering /kt/ > /ʈ/ or /ʈ͡ʂ/. How plausible is this?

BTW, the Wikipedia article on Yaqui says it has a coarticulated alveolar-velar stop /k͡t/, and that this sound “is found in many other Uto-Aztecan languages”. Do you know in which ones? Because I’ve searched in most of the Wikipedia articles about Uto-Aztecan languages (especially those closer to Yaqui) and can’t find it.

[Nortaneous]

How do you derive retroflex consonants, especially stops or affricates? Based on the RUKI-rule, I'm considering /kt/ > /ʈ/ or /ʈ͡ʂ/. How plausible is this?

Should be fine. Or t before back vowels, or Cr clusters.

BTW, the Wikipedia article on Yaqui says it has a coarticulated alveolar-velar stop /k͡t/, and that this sound “is found in many other Uto-Aztecan languages”. Do yo know in which ones? Because I’ve searched in most of the Wikipedia articles about Uto-Aztecan languages (especially those closer to Yaqui) and can’t find it.

It's bullshit.

[Benturi]

Thanks!

It's bullshit.

The part about /k͡t/ in Yaqui too? Does this phoneme exist somewhere? Googling "alveolar-velar" wasn't very helpful, but I found out that, according to PHOIBLE, Nivaclé (Ashuslay) has a simultaneous alveolar/velar voiceless lateral fricative /ɬʟ̥͓/.

[----]

That could very easily just be an alveolar lateral fricative with velarization.

[Quantum]

Seems unlikely being that there are no other velarized consonants in the inventory.

Also, the presence of /kɬ/ (for all intents and purposes, a coarticulated alveolar-velar lateral affricate) might suggest that a sequence /xɬ/ existed at some point. Later becoming /ɬʟ̥͓/...

Or some other batshittery. I don't see why you have to throw in velarization.

[Nortaneous]

The source is UPSID. It's described elsewhere as a plain lateral.

I'd bet the author of UPSID's source didn't do any articulatory analysis, though I can't find it (and it's in Spanish anyway) so I can't say for sure.

[Drydic]

Seems unlikely being that there are no other velarized consonants in the inventory.

Also, the presence of /kɬ/ (for all intents and purposes, a coarticulated alveolar-velar lateral affricate) might suggest that a sequence /xɬ/ existed at some point. Later becoming /ɬʟ̥͓/...

Or some other batshittery. I don't see why you have to throw in velarization.

English has no other velarized consonant than [ɫ]...and not even that one all the time in every dialect. Polish too, before ł shifted to [w].
People get hung up on there being series of <insert articulation here> in a language...sure that's the most common, but it doesn't mean instances of one (or two) of a given articulation in a language are all but nonexistent.

[Buran]

What can be done to create (and later dispose of) pharyngealisation of consonants? I have a couple of ideas, but are they any good, and how many alternatives are there?

I have one idea for pharyngealising consonants:

tC > ʕC or ʔC > Cˤ

I could use other voiceless stops in addition to /t/.

As for getting rid of pharyngealised consonants, I've had fewer ideas. Is it possible for them to become unconditionally voiced? How likely is it that they'll simply merge into their non-pharyngealised counterparts?

[Drydic]

Where did t voice?