Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Travis B.]

I somehow suspect that bilabials that would cause preceding consonants to become labialized are themselves phonetically rounded, but this is not typically marked phonemically unless a contrast between unrounded and rounded labials exists.

I need to find a way to develop /Tw Dw kw gw xw Gw/ without /w/ and back vowels, because my ancestor lang does not have enough of the latter and too much of the former
Besides, labialization from following bilabials or such would justify why potential labiovelar-bilabial clusters get metathesized away.

Unfortunately, the most commonly labialized consonants are velar and uvular, not labial, and unless you can find evidence of spontaneous labialization of labial consonants, I would avoid this. Even though you say you do not have many back vowels, if you have any rounded back vowels, one could derive labialization from them through allophonic labialization of preceding consonants, and make that phonemic through syncope.

Also, bilabials seem to be neutral with regard to adjacent vowels frontness/backness.

Clearly, but that doesn't mean the rounded front vowels won't back themselves; rounded front vowels already tend to be more back than their unrounded counterparts.[/quote]
Except the long term outcome of rounded front vowels appears to favor unrounding over backing, at least in the cases where I have seen rounded front vowels being lost.

A rounded labiovelar is redundant, as anything involving the lips is necessarily labialized/rounded

No, since there are [kp gb]. (I cannot write the tie diacritic right now but these are single consonants not consonant pairs.) Also note that there exist contrasts between unrounded and rounded labials in some languages.

Well, [kp gb] are *labial-velar* not labiovelar, very different.

Okay, tis true.

[KathTheDragon]

Except the long term outcome of rounded front vowels appears to favor unrounding over backing, at least in the cases where I have seen rounded front vowels being lost.

E.g. English and Greek, for two pretty well-known examples.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Bloody hell, I never said anything about trying to developed labialized bilabials!
I said I'm trying to develop labialized velar stops, fricatives and dental fricatives.

I have too few /w/s and too many /o u/. I don't want the labial series to be rare, but also not exceptionally common.

Except the long term outcome of rounded front vowels appears to favor unrounding over backing, at least in the cases where I have seen rounded front vowels being lost.

Be that as it may, there is always a language to defy this, and I recall chancing upon this in the Bizarre Sound Changes thread. Right along with bilabials causing labialization of nearby consonants.

[Travis B.]

Bloody hell, I never said anything about trying to developed labialized bilabials!
I said I'm trying to develop labialized velar stops, fricatives and dental fricatives.

I have too few /w/s and too many /o u/. I don't want the labial series to be rare, but also not exceptionally common.

Simple then - have just /u w/ but not /o/ condition labialization in preceding consonants, and then elide some of the /u w/ to make it phonemic. Or to make there be less labialization, make labialization of consonants occur only when the /u w/ is elided, e.g. by unlabializing labialized consonants if they occur before rounded vowels once you have elided some of the /u w/ (and it does occur in languages where labialization is not found before rounded vowels but is found before unrounded vowels).

[Pogostick Man]

I have too few /w/s and too many /o u/. I don't want the labial series to be rare, but also not exceptionally common.

Something like CB{w,j,h} → Cʷ (where B is a back vowel) is attested from some Central or South American language IIRC (can't remember which one it was at the moment).

[Pole, the]

I have read that the Germanic umlaut initially affected only instances of short /ɑ o u/. But Proto-Germanic had no short /o/ at the time. How was it really? Did PGm have only umlauted [æ y] without [ø], or did it also affect the [o] resulting from a-affection?

[Travis B.]

It should be noted that i-umlaut happened quite a bit later than PGmc (e.g. it did not occur in Gothic).

[Nortaneous]

didn't tsakonian have y > u?

[Travis B.]

didn't tsakonian have y > u?

I thought Tsakonian preserved a previous that never changed to [y] as it did in most Greek dialects. (It should be noted that Tsakonian is descended from Doric Greek and not from Koine Greek.)

[Nortaneous]

κύριος ~ ˈtɕuri
τυρός ~ cuˈre
ρυάκι ~ ˈʒatɕi
λύκος ~ ˈʎuko

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Well there I go: bilabials can round vowels and then those can become more backed.

I still think bilabials consonants like /b p m/ causing labializationon preceding consonants is still sensible...

[KathTheDragon]

I have read that the Germanic umlaut initially affected only instances of short /ɑ o u/. But Proto-Germanic had no short /o/ at the time. How was it really? Did PGm have only umlauted [æ y] without [ø], or did it also affect the [o] resulting from a-affection?

It should be noted that there were two "phases" of umlaut - one in Proto-Germanic that only affected short *e, and other than only occurred after the break-up of West-Germanic that took place everywhere but Gothic. At this point, *o was plentiful.

[Pole, the]

It should be noted that i-umlaut happened quite a bit later than PGmc (e.g. it did not occur in Gothic).

I am talking about PGm after the East Germanic split. A-mutation didn't occur in Gothic either.

It should be noted that there were two "phases" of umlaut - one in Proto-Germanic that only affected short *e, and other than only occurred after the break-up of West-Germanic that took place everywhere but Gothic. At this point, *o was plentiful.

Were there other sources of short non-final /o/ prior to the a-mutation?

[hwhatting]

It should be noted that there were two "phases" of umlaut - one in Proto-Germanic that only affected short *e, and other than only occurred after the break-up of West-Germanic that took place everywhere but Gothic. At this point, *o was plentiful.

Were there other sources of short non-final /o/ prior to the a-mutation?

I remember reading that all cases of German short "o" umlauting to "ö" are analogical, as there was no a-colouring in positions where i-umlaut could happen, so the historically regular umlaut vowel for short "o" is "ü" (e.g. Gold - gülden); the umlaut "o" - "ö" is historically regular only for long "o" (/o:/), which normally goes back to PG /au/; based on this, it later was extended to words with short "o" (e.g. Dorf - Dörfer).
If I find time tomorrow, I'll check whether I can find more detailed information.

[Xenops]

If I may break the conversation flow to ask a quick question,

I am interested in learning more about sound changes, but my book, "Historical Linguistics: And Introduction" by Lyle Campbell only has about thirty pages about the types of sound changes (which, considering the scope of the book, makes sense). What books should I look at, especially books that cover non-Indo-European languages?

Thank you in advance.

[Pole, the]

I remember reading that all cases of German short "o" umlauting to "ö" are analogical, as there was no a-colouring in positions where i-umlaut could happen, so the historically regular umlaut vowel for short "o" is "ü" (e.g. Gold - gülden); the umlaut "o" - "ö" is historically regular only for long "o" (/o:/), which normally goes back to PG /au/; based on this, it later was extended to words with short "o" (e.g. Dorf - Dörfer).
If I find time tomorrow, I'll check whether I can find more detailed information.

Ok, thank you. That answers my question.

[hwhatting]

Ok, thank you. That answers my question.

I checked my copy of Krahe-Meid's "Germanische Sprachwissenschaft", there's no good candidate for short /o/ that could undergo i-umlaut. There is the Gothic change /u/ > /o/ (written "au") before /r/ and /h/, but "Classical" Gothic didn't undergo i-umlaut (Krim Gothic, IIRC, did, but that must have been later). According to Krahe-Meid, u-umlaut (which created /o/ from /a/ in Norse) is later than i-umlaut. So the statement you quote in your first post, "the Germanic umlaut initially affected only instances of short /ɑ o u/", seems indeed to be wrong.

[8Deer]

If I may break the conversation flow to ask a quick question,

I am interested in learning more about sound changes, but my book, "Historical Linguistics: And Introduction" by Lyle Campbell only has about thirty pages about the types of sound changes (which, considering the scope of the book, makes sense). What books should I look at, especially books that cover non-Indo-European languages?

Thank you in advance.

My advice would be to find a language/language family that you are really interested in and then look up its phonological history. For example, "The Austronesian Languages" by Robert Blust (there's a pdf online if you google it) has a great summary of sound changes in those languages.

[Xenops]

My advice would be to find a language/language family that you are really interested in and then look up its phonological history. For example, "The Austronesian Languages" by Robert Blust (there's a pdf online if you google it) has a great summary of sound changes in those languages.

Thank you. I'm looking at the vastness of the PDF: what a lovely (free) resource! And you suggestion also gives me direction: I think I might explore Turkish and its relatives more (it is my current language crush).

[Das Baron]

What was the reason/mechanism whereby certain *s became <sch> in modern German?

[Pole, the]

Die althochdeutsche Lautverbindung sk wurde zu sch. So entstand zum Beispiel aus dem althochdeutschen Wort scōni die mittelhochdeutschen schōne und schœne (beide Wörter – schon und schön – haben im heutigen Deutschen dieselbe Herkunft).
Der Konsonant s wandelte sich zu sch, wenn er vor l, m, n, w, p, t stand. Diesem Wandel verdanken wir die mittelhochdeutschen (und heutigen) Formen wie schwimmen, schmerz, schlange, schnē, die aus den althochdeutschen swimmen, smerz, slange und snē entstanden. In der Rechtschreibung war diese Änderung allerdings nicht sofort sichtbar: zuerst wurde im Mittelhochdeutschen zum Beispiel swimmen geschrieben und schwimmen gesprochen. Bei den Buchstabenverbindungen st und sp ist der Unterschied zwischen der Aussprache und Schreibweise bis heute geblieben – vgl. die Aussprache der Wörter stehen, spielen.

[Das Baron]

Die althochdeutsche Lautverbindung sk wurde zu sch. So entstand zum Beispiel aus dem althochdeutschen Wort scōni die mittelhochdeutschen schōne und schœne (beide Wörter – schon und schön – haben im heutigen Deutschen dieselbe Herkunft).
Der Konsonant s wandelte sich zu sch, wenn er vor l, m, n, w, p, t stand. Diesem Wandel verdanken wir die mittelhochdeutschen (und heutigen) Formen wie schwimmen, schmerz, schlange, schnē, die aus den althochdeutschen swimmen, smerz, slange und snē entstanden. In der Rechtschreibung war diese Änderung allerdings nicht sofort sichtbar: zuerst wurde im Mittelhochdeutschen zum Beispiel swimmen geschrieben und schwimmen gesprochen. Bei den Buchstabenverbindungen st und sp ist der Unterschied zwischen der Aussprache und Schreibweise bis heute geblieben – vgl. die Aussprache der Wörter stehen, spielen.

So *s became <sch> before l m n w p t. Is there a specific reason why it changed in those environments, or was it just a random change?

[jmcd]

To hazard a guess, I'd first take into account that not all phonemes can follow /s/ in OHG: I certainly wouldn't except /sb/ or /sf/ in OHG for example. Heck, it may well be that p, t, k, m, n, l, w are the only consonants that can follow /s/. Perhaps /j/ existed as well and is the only one to escape the change?

[WeepingElf]

To hazard a guess, I'd first take into account that not all phonemes can follow /s/ in OHG: I certainly wouldn't except /sb/ or /sf/ in OHG for example. Heck, it may well be that p, t, k, m, n, l, w are the only consonants that can follow /s/. Perhaps /j/ existed as well and is the only one to escape the change?

I can't think of any German word with sj or schj in the onset. This combination doesn't occur. (It does occur across morpheme boundaries, such as Bundesjugendspiele, but in such contexts, /s/ always stays /s/ anyway, no matter what follows.)

[jmcd]

In Neuhochdeutsch dachte ich das schon aber ich dachte, dass diese hypothetische Wörter im Althochdeutsch konnten einen anderem Lautwechsel unterliegen.

In New High German I thought that already but I thought that these hypothetical words in Old High German could have undergone another sound change.