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TYPES OF SOUN D C
HA NGE 49 1 3
. What is the difference between assimilation at a distance and immediate assimilation? 14 . What is palata
li
zation
, and how can this be viewed as assimilation? 15.
What is final devo icing
, and how can we view this as assimilation? 16. What is vowel or consonant harmony
? 17. What is meant by the term "
umlaut
"?
18. What is Gra
ss
mann 's Law
? What sort of sound change does this involve
? 19. How does high tone develop
? Exercises 1 . Some of the ph
o
netic changes described in this chapter can be regarded as belonging to m
o
re than one of the named categories of changes
. For instance
, final devoicin
g was described in sec
. 2
.
6 as a kind of assimilation
, while devoicing in ge
neral was described in sec. 2.1 as lenition or weakening. Can you find any other kinds of sound change that can be described under two different he
a
din
gs? 2.
What do yo
u think the spelling of the following words indicates about the phonetic history of English: l
a
mb
, sing, night
, rough
, stone, mate
, tune
, Christmas. Describe any changes that might have taken place in terms of the kinds of sound changes described in this chapter
.
3.
Many place names in England have spellings th
a
t do not reflect their actual pronunciations. From the following li s t
, suggest the kinds of phonetic c
hange s that m
ay have taken pl
ace as suggested by the original s
pellings
: Cirencester [s
ɪ
st
ə
]
S
a
' sbury [s
ɒ
lzb
ɹ
i] Barnoldswick [ba:
lɪ
k] Leicester [1
ɛ
s
t
ə
] Chiswick [t
ʃɪ
z
ɪ
k] C
holmonde ly [
t
ʃʌ
m
li] Gloucester [gl
ɒ
st
ə
] 4.
Speakers of English for whom Engli
s
h is their first language pronounc
e the following words as shown: society [
s
ə
sai
ə
t
i] soc
ial [
so
ʃə
l] t
axa
tion [t
æ
ks
e
ɪ
ʃə
n] decision [
dəsɪʒ
ə
n]
50 AN I N TRO D U C TI O N TO H I S TO RI C AL LI N G U I S TI C S Papua New Guineans speaking English frequently pronounce these words as [s
ə
sai
ə
iti]
, [
ʃ
ou
ʃə
l], [tæk
ʃeiʃə
n], and [d
əʃɪʒə
n], respectively. What kind of phonetic changes do these pronunciations involve
? 5.
The following changes have taken place in Romanian. Should we describe
these changes as phonetic unpacking or as vowel breaking
? Why
?
*p
ɔ
t
e > pwat
e ' he is able
' *p
ɔ
rta > pwa
rtə
'
door '
*
nɔ
kt
e > nwapt
e
'
n
ig
ht '
I 6.
The following changes took place in some dialect
s of Old English. Should we describe these as phonetic unpacking or as vowel breaking?
*kald > k
e
ald 'cold'
*
.
er
a
>
e
or
a
'
earth
' *lirnjan > liornjan 'learn
'
*m
e
lkan > m
e
olkan ' milk
' 7.
In the following data from the northern dialect of Paamese (Vanuatu)
, why do we say that assimilation has taken place? What particular kind of assimilation is involved?
*kail > keil ' they '
*aim > eim 'house '
*haih > heih ' pandanus '
*auh > ouh '
yam'
*sautin > soutin '
distant'
*h
a
ulu > houlu ‘
many' 8.
In the following data from Toba Batak (Sumatra)
, what kind of assimilation has taken place?
*hentak > ottak '
knock
'
*kimpal > hippal 'lump of eart '
*cintak > sittak '
draw sword
'
*ci
ŋ
k
ə
p > sikkop 'enough
'
*pintu
>
p
·
itt
u I
'
door' *flor
e
> flwar
ə
' flower' I
*ora
> war
ə
' hour ' I
*
e
ska > jask
ə
' bai
t
'
*
ɛ
rb
a > jarb
ə
' grass'
TYPES OF SOUND C H
AN
G
E 51
9.
In the following Italian data
, what kind of assimilation has taken place
?
noktem
> notte
'
night'
faktum
> fatto
'
done'
ruptum
> rotto
'
broken
'
septem
> sette
'
seven ' aptum
> atto
'apt
'
somnus
> sonno
'
sleep' 10. In the following Banoni forms
, there is evidence of more than one pattern of assimilation having taken place . What are these patterns?
*
manuk
> manu
ɣ
a '
bird
' *kulit > ɣ
uritsi '
skin sugarcane
'
*jalan
>
s
anana
'
r
oa
d
'
*ta
ŋ
is > ta
ŋ
i
s
i '
cry '
*p
w
ekas > b
e
ɣ
asa '
feces
' *
boRok
> boro
ɣ
o 'pig ' 11 . Old English had a causative suffix of the form [-j] and _
a n infinitive suffix of the form [-an], both of which have been lost in Modern English
, and their original functions are now expressed in different ways. Examine the pair of words below from an earlier stage of English
:
drink-an 'to drink
'
drank-j-an 'to cause (someone) to dr
i
nk
'
The modern words drink and dr
e
nch, respectively, evolved from these
.
two
:.
words
. What sort of change has been involved to derive the final consonant
of drench
?
12.
. In the Marshallese language of Micronesia
, the following changes have taken place
:
*mata
ɲ
a
>
med
an
'his/her
eye'
*dam
w
apa > dem
wan
' h
i
s/her
forehead
*masakit > metak ' pain
'
*madralis > metal 'smooth'
*sakaRu > tekaj ' reef'
*madama
>
m
....
,
e
.
ram
'
lig
ht '
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52 AN I N T RO D U C TIO N TO H I STO RI CA L LI N G U I S TI C
S How
would
you
characterize
the
change
s
that
have affected
the
vowels in Marshallese?
13.
In Dataset I, a series of sound changes in Palauan is presented
. Try to classify these changes according to the types of sound change discussed in this chapter.
14.
Examine the forms in Nganyaywana in Dataset 2. The original forms are given on the left. Try to classify the changes that have t
ake
n place
.
I 5
. Refer to the forms in Mbabaram in Dataset 3. Try to describe the kinds of changes that have taken place.
16. From the data in Yimas and Karawari given in Dataset 4, what kind
s of changes would you say had taken place in each of these two languages?
I 7
. Assume that in some la
nguage
, the following sound changes took pl
ac
e. These changes all appear to be quite abnormal in that there is no simple change of features from one stage to the other. Can you suggest a succession of more reasonable sounding intermediate steps to account for these unusual results
?
*b > h
*e > l *k > r
*k > s
*p > w *
l
> i *k > h
*y > ? *s > ?
*s > r
*t > f
*b > l I 8. Can we argue that there is some kind of "conspiracy" in languages to produce CV syllable structures? What kinds of sound changes produce this kind of syllable structure? What kinds of sound changes destroy this kind of syllable structure?
19 . In the Rotuman language (spoken near Fiji) words appearing in citation (i.e. when the word is being quoted rather than being used in a sentence) differ in shape from words that occur in a natural context. Some of these different forms are presented below
. Assuming that the contextual forms are historically derived from the citation forms
, what sort of change would you say has taken place ?
TYPES OF SOUND C
HANG
E 53 Citation Form Contextual Form
laje laej '
cora l'
kami kaim
'dog'
rako
raok
'learn
' maho
maoh
'get cold '
tepi teip
'slow'
hefu heuf 'star'
lima liam 'five'
tiko
tiok
'
flesh ' hosa
hoas
'flower
' mose moes
'
sleep' pure
puer
' rule' 20.
In Bislama (Vanuatu), the word for ' rubbish tin' is generally pronounced as [pubel]
. Some speakers pronounce this in Bislama as [kubel)
. What sort of change is involved here
?
21.
Compare the forms i
n Standard French and the French that is spoken in rural Quebec in Dataset 12
. Assuming that the Standard French forms represent the original situation, what kinds of changes have taken place in the French that is spoken in Quebec?
Further Reading
Hans Henrich Hock , Principle
s of Histori
c
al Linguistic
s
, chapters 5-7 on sound change, pp. 61-147. Leonard Bloomfield , Language, chapter 21 , " Ty pes of Phonetic Change
," pp
. 369
- 91.
Robert J. Jeffers and Ilse Lehiste
, Principl
e
s and Meth o
d
s for Historical Lingui s
ti
cs, chapter I , "Phonetic Change
," pp
. 1
- 16 . Hans Henrich Hock and Brian D. Joseph
, Languag
e Histor
y, Lan
g
uag
e Ch
a
nge, and Language Relationship, chap t
er 4
, " Sound Change
," pp. 111 --48
. Robert Blust, "Must Sound Change Be Linguistically Motivated ?" 22(2)
: 219-
69.
Brian Joseph and Richard Janda
, Handbook of Hi
s
torical Linguisti
cs, sound change, pp
. 311--422 . (Many of the articles in this book will provide more advanced reading on historical linguistics) . ·
Juliette Blevins and Andrew Garrett , "The Origins of Conson a
nt-Vowel Metathesis. "