A question about sound change

[Terra]

Japanese has both [s] and [s`]. Traditionally, one could analyze them as being a single phoneme /s/, which appears as [s] most of the time, but [s`] before and [j]. Japanese also allows the vowel part of a syllable to be a glide [ja], [jo], or [ju]. Thus, you get what could look like a phonemic difference between [s] and [s`], but with gaps at [si] and [s`e]:

Code: Select all

+----+-----+----+-----+----+-----+
|    | a   | i  | u   | e  | o   |
+----+-----+----+-----+----+-----+
| s  | sa  |    | su  | se | so  |
| s` | sja | si | sju |    | sjo |
+----+-----+----+-----+----+-----+

The sound change is still active, so even foreign words with [si] or [sI] still get turned into [s`i].

Sanskrit had something similar, where [k] became [c] before [e] and . Then, [e] collapsed into [a], so there were then instances of both [ka] and [ca].

What other languages have a sound change like this?, where (under some possible interpretation) a new phoneme was born?

[----]

So, you want a sound change where P -> Q1 under Condition 1, and Q2 under Condition 2, but then Conditions 1+2 are neutralized in some cases?
If that's correct, Arapaho did that, although I'm not familiar with the exact history of the change. PA *m went to /b/ before front vowels and /w/ before back vowels, but lots of vowels also ended up getting dropped word finally so they ended up being non-contrastive before high vowels, but are fully distinct word/syllable finally and before /o/ and possibly* /e/. This change still makes an appearance in morphology, cf. nonóóhobé3en 'I see you' vs. nonóóhowó' 'I see her/him'. An example of this occurring word finally is in the word hé3, 'dog'. Possessive forms of animate nouns often get special suffixes, and semantically nouns possessed by a third person must be obviative, so you get neté3ebiib vs. hité3ebiiw -- 'my dog' vs. 'his/her dog'. but then, my plural dogs is neté3ebiiwo'.

Something similar might have happened with *p, which went to /k/ in some cases and /tS/ in others (sth. like *sipi > netS), but I'm not as familiar with the history of that change.


*I've only found a single word in my dictionary that has /we/ and it's a derived form, and the /e/ is long, so I dunno

[Terra]

So, you want a sound change where P -> Q1 under Condition 1, and Q2 under Condition 2, but then Conditions 1+2 are neutralized in some cases?

Yeah, where originally the difference is allophonic, but then some other sound change comes along and makes it phonemic.

[Yng]

I assume a lot of British English's weird vowel phonemes < prerhotic vowels are an example of this

To be honest it would surprise me if any language didn't have at least some examples of this; it's a very common way to develop new phonemes.

[Ambrisio]

Ubykh, perhaps?

[linguoboy]

Voiced fricatives in Germanic.

[finlay]

Japanese has both [s] and [s`]. Traditionally, one could analyze them as being a single phoneme /s/, which appears as [s] most of the time, but [s`] before and [j]. Japanese also allows the vowel part of a syllable to be a glide [ja], [jo], or [ju]. Thus, you get what could look like a phonemic difference between [s] and [s`], but with gaps at [si] and [s`e]:

Code: Select all

+----+-----+----+-----+----+-----+
|    | a   | i  | u   | e  | o   |
+----+-----+----+-----+----+-----+
| s  | sa  |    | su  | se | so  |
| s` | sja | si | sju |    | sjo |
+----+-----+----+-----+----+-----+

The sound change is still active, so even foreign words with [si] or [sI] still get turned into [s`i].

Sanskrit had something similar, where [k] became [c] before [e] and . Then, [e] collapsed into [a], so there were then instances of both [ka] and [ca].

What other languages have a sound change like this?, where (under some possible interpretation) a new phoneme was born?

Two nitpicks: Japanese sh is not retroflex but either s\ or S, and the syllable /Se/ can be used for loanwords (eg shefu (chef), shea (share), sheri: (sherry), she:ku (shake), she:bingu (shaving)). Whether you want to call it /Se/ or /sje/ is kinda up for debate I guess, but for two things: /je/ doesn't exist as an independent syllable, and for other consonants you can't really get away with doing this so easily – in particular, t and tS are now completely phonemic except for older speakers who still can't pronounce ti, because ti and che are used in nativized loanwords (chekku from check, pa:ti: from party, etc). Similarly, ts can be used before any vowel now, although not as commonly, and again some people don't pronounce it quite "correctly", especially if they're older. Morphologically and orthographically, tSi is represented as ti, though, and when you type on a computer, ti gives ち or チ (/tSi/). Basically these things, even when you have a full set of possible syllables for both 'phonemes', aren't so cut-and-dry.

[R.Rusanov]

This is like, 50% of all sound changes, diachronically. Frankly I'm shocked it's anything new to you, theta.

[Nortaneous]

Warlpiri /ŋumpaɳa/ and /puɭka/ are cognate to Kaytetye /əmpʷəɳə/ and /əɭkʷə/. Leaving aside initial consonant loss (and the fact that there's a good case to be made that Kaytetye, like Arrernte, is VC so those final schwas aren't really phonemic), what happened here is that /u/ transferred its rounding onto the following consonant -- so (not sure about the order here) *ŋumpaɳa > *umpəɳə > *umpʷəɳə > əmpʷəɳə.

[----]

This is like, 50% of all sound changes, diachronically. Frankly I'm shocked it's anything new to you, theta.

I'm not sure how you got the impression that it was. Maybe Arapaho seems like a strange place for getting examples but that's just the first language that I thought of, that I also knew the phonological history of.

[Terra]

Two nitpicks: Japanese sh is not retroflex but either s\ or S, and the syllable /Se/ can be used for loanwords (eg shefu (chef), shea (share), sheri: (sherry), she:ku (shake), she:bingu (shaving)). Whether you want to call it /Se/ or /sje/ is kinda up for debate I guess, but for two things: /je/ doesn't exist as an independent syllable, and for other consonants you can't really get away with doing this so easily – in particular, t and tS are now completely phonemic except for older speakers who still can't pronounce ti, because ti and che are used in nativized loanwords (chekku from check, pa:ti: from party, etc). Similarly, ts can be used before any vowel now, although not as commonly, and again some people don't pronounce it quite "correctly", especially if they're older. Morphologically and orthographically, tSi is represented as ti, though, and when you type on a computer, ti gives ち or チ (/tSi/). Basically these things, even when you have a full set of possible syllables for both 'phonemes', aren't so cut-and-dry.

I meant s\, I just messed up the x-sampa for it.

As for [ti], isn't "team" borrowed as chimu though? I didn't think of "party" as pa:ti: though.

This all reminds me of Israeli Hebrew and how the phonemic status of p/f, t/T, k/x was affected by loanwords.

[Astraios]

This all reminds me of Israeli Hebrew and how the phonemic status of p/f, t/T, k/x was affected by loanwords.

My turn to nitpick: the interdental fricatives aren't affected by that, they simply merge with the dental stops.

[Terra]

This all reminds me of Israeli Hebrew and how the phonemic status of p/f, t/T, k/x was affected by loanwords.

My turn to nitpick: the interdental fricatives aren't affected by that, they simply merge with the dental stops.

Hmm, okay.

[finlay]

Team was borrowed before the sound change, or whatever you want to call it. You can often tell the age of a loanword by what sounds were borrowed as what: f is more likely to be borrowed as h if you look at older loanwords. Or ti as chi, or di as ji, etc.

[Terra]

f is more likely to be borrowed as h if you look at older loanwords.

Examples? kohi for "coffee"? Or is f not phonemic at all?

[finlay]

f is more likely to be borrowed as h if you look at older loanwords.

Examples? kohi for "coffee"? Or is f not phonemic at all?

Exactly. Kohi, hoiru for foil, homu from platform, there are at least a few more. I'd say now /p\/ is phonemic, though, because newer borrowings reflect it in at least the spelling (eg family, face are written ファミリー and フェイス instead of ハミリー and ヘイス and pronounced accordingly). It's not really a sound change as such, and as with all the examples of this, there seems to be a kind of generation gap in who pronounces it correctly.