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Lecture #15 April 6th, 2009

Some unfinished business from last Transition time: ¾ Phonetics is the study of speech sounds in ¾ Two sounds (often a and a glide) human language. may combine together to form a ¾ There are two types of sounds: consonants and (that is, a compound vowel). . Examples of diphthongs in English are ¾ Consonants are described in terms of place of given below: articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing. [aj] as in die [aw] as in now ¾ Vowels are described in terms of tongue height, tongue advancement, lip rounding, and [çj] as in toy tenseness or laxness of the vocal tract.

English vowel chart Phonetic Transcription

Word Transcription raining [®enIŋ]

lecture [lEktSə®] or [lEkSə®]

sounds [sawndz]

??? [fənEtIks]

1 Speech production and : Regressive

¾ So far, we described sounds as if they are articulated in isolation. Of course, this is ¾ Assimilation is an articulatory process not the case in . Sounds whereby a sound is made “similar” to a are typically produced while more than neighboring sound. one articulator are active. ¾ Vowel in English is an ¾ As a result of coarticulation, sounds may instance of regressive assimilation: get to affect other sounds in speech. h can’t [k æ)nt] ¾ These are called articulatory processes.

Assimilation: Progressive Assimilation in voicing

¾ Assimilation may also take place in voicing features. In English, liquids and glides get ¾ Assimilation can also be progressive, as “devoiced” after voiceless stops. Devoicing is in nasalization in Scots Gaelic: marked by a “ • ” underneath the sound: [ne):l] “cloud” please [pl•iz] proud [pr•awd]• [mu:] “about” ¾ Similarly, voiceless sounds may become voiced ) in the neighborhood of voiced sounds, e.g., Dutch af [Af] (=“over”) is pronounced with a [v] in the words afbellen (=cancel) and afdekken (=cover).

Assimilation in place of articulation Assimilation in place of articulation

¾ Nasal consonants typically assimilate to the ¾ Now, let’s look at these German data: place of articulation of the following sound. From Careful speech Informal speech English: laden [la:dən] Æ [la:dn] “to invite” possible Æ impossible [mp] loben [lo:bən] Æ [lo:bm] “to praise” tangible Æ intangible [nt] backen [bakən] Æ [bakŋ] “to bake” complete Æ incomplete [ŋk] ¾ Question: Is this a case of regressive or ¾ What’s going on here? progressive assimilation?

2 Deletion

¾ Deletion is a process which removes a ¾ Dissimilation is an articulatory process sound from certain phonetic contexts. whereby two sounds are made less From English: similar. From English: suppose [səphoèwz] Æ [spoèwz] fifths [fIfθs] Æ [fIfts] ¾ Deletion may also occur as an alternative to dissimilation for some speakers in words like fifth: fifths [fıfθs] Æ [fıfs]

Epenthesis

¾ is a process that inserts a sound within an existing string of sounds. From ¾ Metathesis is a process that changes the English: order of sounds, e.g., something [s mθıŋ] Æ [s mpθıŋ] √ √ “comfortable” pronounced as [kʌmftərbəl] length [lEŋθ] Æ [lEŋkθ] ¾ Children learning English will typically ¾ In Turkish, a sequence of two initial consonants produce metathesis forms, e.g., is not allowed. As a result, a vowel is epenthesized to break the consonant cluster: spaghetti pronounced as [pəskERi]. “train,” which is borrowed from English, is pronounced as [tiren]

Vowel reduction

¾ In many , vowels in unstressed ¾ As it turns out, phonological change in syllables undergo reduction, typically human languages happens due to one or appearing instead as the weak vowel [ə]: more of these articulatory processes. h Canada [k æ)nədə] ¾ Let’s look at examples. Canadian [kh)ənejdiən]

3 Assimilation Dissimilation

Late Latin [amna] Æ Spanish [alma] “soul” Old Spanish [semda] Æ Modern Spanish [senda] “path” Early Latin [inpossiblis] Æ Late Latin [impossiblis] Latin [arbor] Æ Spanish [arbol] “tree” Early OE [stefn] Æ Later OE [stemn] “stem” Italian [albero] (but cf. French arbre).

Epenthesis Metathesis

Earlier OE [ganra] Æ Late OE [gandra] “gander” Earlier OE [waps] Æ Late OE [wasp] “wasp”

Latin [schola] Æ Spanish [escuela] “school” ¾ Also at a distance: Latin mīra#culum Æ Spanish milagro

Vowel deletion Consonant deletion

¾ A vowel may be deleted from a word, ¾ Consonants may also delete from a word giving resulting in (if the vowel is final) rise to another instance of phonological change: or (if the vowel is medial): Old and Middle English had [kn] and [gn], but the ¾ Apocope: initial consonant underwent deletion. Latin [ōrmáre] Æ French [orner] “decorate” ¾ And of course French provides a great example of loss of word-final consonant deletion: ¾ Syncope: gros [gro] “large” Latin [pérdere] Æ French [perdre] “lose” chaud [šo] “warm”

4 Substitution Phonological Shift

¾ A phonological shift is a change in which a series of sounds is systematically modified so ¾ Substitution involves the replacement of that their organization with respect to each other one sound with another similar sound: is altered. MidE [x] Æ ModE [f] in “laugh” ¾ A well known example of this phonlogical Standard English [ ] Æ Cockney [f] in “thin” change is the so-called (GVS) T in the history of English, where the seven long vowels underwent the series of modifications between 1400-1600, as shown in the following table:

The Great Vowel Shift The Great Vowel Shift

i: u: Shift Example MidE ModE MidE ModE aj aw [i:] Æ [aj] [mi:s] Æ [majs] “mice” [u:] Æ [aw] [mu:s] Æ [maws] “mouse” e: o: [e:] Æ [i:] [ge:s] Æ [gi:s] “geese” [o:] Æ [u:] [go:s] Æ [gu:s] “goose” [E:] Æ [e:] [brE:k] Æ [bre:k] “break” E: ç: [ç:] Æ [o:] [brç:k] Æ [bro:k] “broke” a: [a:] Æ [e:] [na:m´] Æ [ne:m] “name”

The Great Vowel Shift The Great Vowel Shift

¾ We can see effects of the GVS in the ¾ The alternation is the result of the GVS alternation between long and short vowels taking place after the Early Middle English in word pairs like those below: Vowel Shortening rule affected the second please-pleasant word in each pair. When the GVS serene-serenity occurred, it affected only the first word of each pair since it was the one that had the sane-sanity long vowel by then. crime-criminal

5 Spread of change through the language ¾ A good example of lexical diffusion from English has to do with an ongoing change in the stress ¾ A linguistic change may manifest itself at pattern of words such as convert, which can be first in a few words, and then gradually either a noun or a verb. ¾ Originally, the stress fell on the second syllable spreads through the vocabulary of the of such words, regardless of their lexical language. We call this lexical diffusion. category. ¾ In the second half of the 16th century, three words, rebel, outlaw, and record, came to be pronounced with the stress on the first syllable when used as nouns. And this stress shift has “diffused” ever since.

Non-gradual Diffusion: Cuban Diffusion of stress shift in English Spanish ¾ But not all phonological changes involve gradual 160 diffusion. Some changes affect all instances of 140 the sounds involved rather immediately. 120 ¾ For example, the weakening in Cuban Spanish 100 of [s] to [h] in syllable final-position applies to all 80 instances where [s] occurs in that position: 60 Spanish Spanish Cuban Spanish 40 [filismente] [filihmente] “happily” 20 0 [estilo] [ehtilo] “type” 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000

Spread of change through the Spread of change through the population population ¾ For a language change to take place, the ¾ Social pressures often play an important innovation must be accepted by the role in the spread of a particular linguistic community. innovation. ¾ So, even though children acquiring English ¾ For example, when a change takes place produce goed, the form was never in the speech of a high prestige group, it accepted. may gradually start spreading to other ¾ Similarly, throve is not accepted as the past tense form of thrive (cf. drive-drove). groups, and ultimately to the whole linguistic community.

6 Spread of change through the Spread of change through the population population ¾ The loss of postvocalic [r] along the east coast of ¾ But social pressures also limited the spread of that the US is a famous example. innovation. ¾ In Pennsylvania and other Midland states the most ¾ Pronunciations such as [fa:] for [fa:r] originated th th prestigious group of settles were Quakers from northern in parts of England in the 17 and 18 centuries. England, an area that retained postvocalic [r]. ¾ It spread along the east coast of the US by the ¾ Similarly, in Canada, the influence of Scottish and Irish children of the New England gentry who brought settlers, whose dialect retained the [r], limited the spread these pronunciations back with them from British of the innovation to those areas there were in contact schools, as well as the newly arrived immigrants with New England, e.g., Nova Scotia and New who enjoyed high social status as colonial Brunswick. ¾ Interestingly, now it’s looking like “r-less” pronunciations administrators and church officials. have become stigmatized and we see an opposite trend ¾ As a result, the innovation was widely imitated for [r] restoration. and spread along much of the east coast and the south.

Summary of language change and Next class agenda transition to “reconstruction” ¾ To sum up, a language undergoes change in its ¾ How to reconstruct ancient languages? lexicon as well as all components of grammar (morphology, syntax, phonology, and Read Fromkin et al’s section on this. semantics). ¾ Why do languages change? Read the last ¾ Over time, these changes might become considerable enough to the point where we few sections of Baker’s Chapter 7. Also, become unable to tell if two historical varieties of read the section in Fromkin et al’s chapter the same language are actually related. Luckily, though, historical linguists developed ways to on “Why do languages change?”. establish historical relations among languages. We discuss this on Wednesday.

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