The production and perception of sub-phonemic vowel contrasts and the role of the listener in sound change

2012 ◽  
pp. 77-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Grosvald ◽  
David P. Corina
Keyword(s):  
Sound Change

scholarly journals An experimental study of the role of social factors in language change: The case of loanword adaptations

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiri Lev-Ari ◽  
Sharon Peperkamp
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
Semantic Domain ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThere is great variation in whether foreign sounds in loanwords are adapted or retained. Importantly, the retention of foreign sounds can lead to a sound change in the language. We propose that social factors influence the likelihood of loanword sound adaptation, and use this case to introduce a novel experimental paradigm for studying language change that captures the role of social factors. Specifically, we show that the relative prestige of the donor language in the loanword’s semantic domain influences the rate of sound adaptation. We further show that speakers adapt to the performance of their ‘community', and that this adaptation leads to the creation of a norm. The results of this study are thus the first to show an effect of social factors on loanword sound adaptation in an experimental setting. Moreover, they open up a new domain of experimentally studying language change in a manner that integrates social factors.

scholarly journals Sound Change and Grammaticalization in Japanese Verb Morphology

1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 429
Author(s):  
Natasha Warner
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
General Session ◽  
Verb Morphology

Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on The Role of Learnability in Grammatical Theory (1996)

The role of educational factors in the development of lexical splits

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-72
Author(s):  
Yuhan Lin
Keyword(s):  
Education System ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Time Analysis ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Potential Factors ◽  
Statistical Results

Abstract While variationist literature on sound change has mostly focused on chain shifts and mergers, much less is written about splits (Labov, 1994, 2010). Previous literature shows that the acquisition of splits is unlikely unless motivated by social factors (Labov, 1994). The current study presents an apparent time analysis on the development of two phonemic splits, the initial /s/-/ʂ/ contrast and the initial /ɻ/-/l/ contrast, in Xiamen Mandarin, a contact variety of Putonghua, the official language in China. Statistical results showed similar patterns for both variables: younger speakers and female speakers are leading the change; the distinction between two phonemes are more distinct in wordlist than in the sociolinguistic interview. By examining the sociolinguistic situation in Xiamen, the paper discusses two potential factors that have led to these sound changes: the regional campaign for Putonghua and the emphasis of Pinyin, a phonetically-based orthography, in the education system.

The adaptation of French liquids in Haitian

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-410
Author(s):  
Benjamin Storme
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Loanword Adaptation ◽  
Perceptual Asymmetry ◽  
The Way

Abstract Haitian, a French-lexifier creole with a Gbe substrate, shows an asymmetry in the way it has adapted French liquids: the French lateral was maintained in postvocalic coda position in Haitian, but the French rhotic was systematically deleted in this position. This paper presents the results of a perception study showing that the lateral is generally more perceptible than the rhotic in coda position in Modern French. The hypothesis that perception played a role in the phonological asymmetry in Haitian is compatible with these results. The paper sketches an analysis of how the perceptual asymmetry between French coda laterals and rhotics resulted in the emergence of a new phonological grammar, distinct from both the grammar of the substrate and superstrate languages. This analysis is in line with previous works on the role of perception in second language acquisition, loanword adaptation, creolization, and sound change more generally.

scholarly journals Exploring the role of token frequency in phonological change: evidence from TH-Fronting in east-central Scotland

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
LYNN CLARK ◽  
GRAEME TROUSDALE
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
Lexical Frequency ◽  
East Central ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Motivating Factor ◽  
Phonological Change ◽  
The Relationship

Recent research on frequency effects in phonology suggests that word frequency is often a significant motivating factor in the spread of sound change through the lexicon. However, there is conflicting evidence regarding the exact nature of the relationship between phonological change and word frequency. This article investigates the role of lexical frequency in the spread of the well-known sound change TH-Fronting in an under-researched dialect area in east-central Scotland. Using data from a corpus of conversations compiled over a two-year period by the first author, we explore how the process of TH-Fronting is complicated in this community by the existence of certain local variants which are lexically restricted, and we question to what extent the frequency patterns that are apparent in these data are consistent with generalisations made in the wider literature on the relationship between lexical frequency and phonological change.

scholarly journals Emphatic consonants beyond Arabic: The emergence and proliferation of uvular-pharyngeal emphasis in Kumzari

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 275-328
Author(s):  
Erik Anonby
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
European Language ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
Languages In Contact ◽  
Semitic Language ◽  
Strait Of Hormuz ◽  
Sound Changes

AbstractThe complex and cross-linguistically uncommon phonological phenomenon of “emphasis” is best known from Central Semitic languages such as Arabic and Aramaic. It is, however, found to varying degrees in a number of non-Semitic languages in contact with Arabic. This paper describes how in Kumzari, an Indo-European language spoken around the Strait of Hormuz, uvular-pharyngeal emphasis has arisen through language contact and has proliferated through language-internal processes. Beginning with the retention of emphatic consonants in a direct, extensive lexification by Arabic dating back at least 1300 years, emphasis has progressively penetrated the language by means of lexical innovations and two types of sound changes in both borrowed and inherited vocabulary: (i) analogical spread of emphasis onto plain but potentially emphatic consonants; and (ii) a sound change in which z has been invariably recast as an emphatic ẓ with no plain counterpart. The role of the back consonants w, x, q and ḥ, which induce emphasis on potentially emphatic consonants in diachronic processes but not synchronically, highlights the unique way in which this complex phenomenon operates in one non-Semitic language in contact with Arabic.

scholarly journals Charting the rise and demise of a phonotactically motivated change in Scots

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-59
Author(s):  
Warren Maguire ◽  
Rhona Alcorn ◽  
Benjamin Molineaux ◽  
Joanna Kopaczyk ◽  
Vasilios Karaiskos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Internal Position ◽  
Natural Sound ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Complex Patterns

Abstract Although Old English [f] and [v] are represented unambiguously in Older Scots orthography by <f> and <v> (or <u>) in initial and morpheme-internal position, in morpheme-final position <f> and <v>/<u> appear to be used interchangeably for both of these Old English sounds. As a result, there is often a mismatch between the spellings and the etymologically expected consonant. This paper explores these spellings using a substantial database of Older Scots texts, which have been grapho-phonologically parsed as part of the From Inglis to Scots (FITS) project. Three explanations are explored for this apparent mismatch: (1) it was a spelling-only change; (2) there was a near merger of /f/ and /v/ in Older Scots; (3) final [v] devoiced in (pre-)Older Scots but this has subsequently been reversed. A close analysis of the data suggests that the Old English phonotactic constraint against final voiced fricatives survived into the pre-Literary Scots period, leading to automatic devoicing of any fricative that appeared in word-final position (a version of Hypothesis 3), and this, interacting with final schwa loss, gave rise to the complex patterns of variation we see in the Older Scots data. Thus, the devoicing of [v] in final position was not just a phonetically natural sound change, but also one driven by a pre-existing phonotactic constraint in the language. This paper provides evidence for the active role of phonotactic constraints in the development of sound changes, suggesting that phonotactic constraints are not necessarily at the mercy of the changes which conflict with them, but can be involved in the direction of sound change themselves.

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