All Questions
Tagged with sound-change phonology
33 questions
2
votes
1
answer
108
views
Do liquid consonants ever become dental fricatives?
Is a sound change from /l/ or /r/ to a voiced dental fricative attested in any languages?
(Furthermore is there some database for searching sound changes?)
- 576
2
votes
1
answer
225
views
Pronunciation of ‘hₐ’ in PIE
I have tried to find the sound hₐ-, for example "hₐeust(e)ro" engl. 'east', or hₐel, 'burn' , but also example hₐner, 'man' pronunciation, but I can't find it anywhere on the internet, ...
- 23
2
votes
3
answers
263
views
Is there any sound change that can result in /ɞ/?
I am making a conlang where one of the distinctive sounds is /ɞ/. It is a rare vowel sound, and I searched Index Diachronica but couldn't find a sound change that results in it. The sound also does ...
- 123
1
vote
2
answers
101
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What is the term for the phones or phonemes after a synchronic or diachronic sound change or allophony rule?
If you have a sound change or allophony rule such as:
X -> Y / _Z
Is there a common term for X and Y?
- 287
1
vote
1
answer
97
views
Establishing criteria for sounds likely to facilitate phonological mergers around them
I know extremely little about the history of sound changes in languages other than English, so that will be the source of my examples. However, I’m asking this question for a more general, cross-...
- 724
2
votes
1
answer
128
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About phonological history of Middle French
Schwa in hiatus dwindled in French a few centuries ago. Compare the example "saputum > sëu > su" at
Wikipedia/History of French
Does anyone know WHEN this sound change occurred? I ...
- 51
5
votes
1
answer
554
views
Phonological Development from PIE to Greek
I found the following phonological development (from PIE to Greek) patterns very interesting.
*kw>t / __ {e, i}
(e.g., *penkwe- > πέντε)
*gw>d / __ e
(*gwelbhu- > δελψύς)
*gwh>th / ...
- 125
8
votes
2
answers
1k
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How did Latin "aqua" became Sardinian "abba" and Romanian "apă"?
The way I believe it happened was by the change of "w" into "v" and the fall of the velar "k". Furthermore, betacism caused the change of "v" to "b" ...
- 189
-3
votes
1
answer
153
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Do Polish 'rz' /ž š/ and rhotic English have something in common? [closed]
This is a bit of a silly question that will need an explanation of the background that motivates this question.
Background. I met a man named Andrzej. He was called approximately An-jay /dʒ/, or ...
- 1,391
5
votes
0
answers
90
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How diachronically stable is release type?
Are there examples of languages completely shifting from (vocalic) release of all coda stops to, say, nasal release?
I imagine substrate effects could account for some of these cases (cf. unreleased ...
- 51
0
votes
2
answers
664
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How to read sound change transcriptions? [closed]
https://chridd.nfshost.com/diachronica/
I don't understand what most of these transcriptions mean. I only know what #, #, and _x mean.
- 111
6
votes
4
answers
1k
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What is the name of this sound change, and do we have it in English?
I'm a Persian, I'm from Iran, and I speak Farsi.
Here, we have a very strange rule that we turn آ into و in informal conversations.
For example:
خانه = house (formal) /kh a ne/
خونه = house (informal) ...
- 1,387
2
votes
2
answers
668
views
I have read that in Mishnaic Hebrew, some pronounced the 6th letter as waw/w and some as vav/v What is the evidence of this?
I have read that in Mishnaic Hebrew, some pronounced the 6th letter as waw/w and some as vav/v What is the evidence of this?
I see it mentioned here https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%D7%95-vav-...
- 299
0
votes
1
answer
106
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What might explain this change in place of articulation? [closed]
I'd like to know if there's anything about /patitʰin/ that suggests itself as a reason why it might sometimes be pronounced [patikʰin]. I don't know what other words to look at to see if there's a ...
- 465
13
votes
1
answer
2k
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Have ejective consonants ever arisen on their own?
In an old comment on another question, jlawler mentions in passing:
Much the same can be said about ejective consonants -- other languages can pick them up, but nobody knows where they come from. ...
- 69.6k
7
votes
2
answers
1k
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What is the best linguistic term for describing the kw > p / gw > b change, and its usual companion s > h
Celtic, Italic, Greek and several other IE languages have a P- and a Q-variety (from kw > p and gw > b). The P-variety usually also has h for ancient s.
What would be the best linguistic term for ...
4
votes
1
answer
140
views
*through* vs. *tough*: ME*-ough* /uːx/ > –? How are the sound shifts from ME -ough explained?
How is it explained that the sound sequence /uːx/ -ough has developed so differently in different words?
Not-dipthongized in through, shortened and unrounded and retained fricative in tough, lowered ...
9
votes
2
answers
1k
views
How did Latin get its stress pattern?
As far as I know, Latin had a word-initial accent for some time of its history after losing the Indo-European accent. I am wondering why Latin then switched to an ante-/pen-ultima stress pattern.
3
votes
2
answers
434
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How these close sounds are distinguished in native language
This is not a comprehensive list but just a few snippets from languages that have a few consonants that sound pretty much the same to me. I wanted to ask how I can learn to hear the difference between ...
- 4,438
7
votes
1
answer
844
views
Why did German <d> and <t> flip over?
I speak English and Norwegian and a little German and a little Dutch and I discovered a pattern while thinking about words which are obviously cognate. The pattern is wherever English, Norwegian and ...
- 4,688
6
votes
1
answer
1k
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s / h change in Indo-European languages
There are many words where Latin and Germanic begin with s– but the Greek begins with an aspirate (h–). How does this shift come about? They do not seem to be formed in the same part of the mouth at ...
- 61
2
votes
0
answers
136
views
Arabic sin and shin sounds in Classical times
What sounds did س and ش make in (early) Classical Arabic?
I have heard that maybe they were not [s] and [ʃ]. Is that a widely accepted truth? If that's true, what is the evidence for that?
2
votes
3
answers
600
views
Voicing as lenition
Why is voicing considered lenition under phonological criteria?
To me voiced consonants seem stronger in articulation, therefore voicing should be considered fortification.
- 1,426
4
votes
1
answer
444
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Languages showing affricate-to-plosive fortition (especially diachronically)
It is well known that consonant lenition or weakening tends to be far more common cross-linguistically than the opposite process called fortition or strengthening. Now, some languages have been ...
- 992
8
votes
1
answer
752
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What is the approximate time of the loss of the intervocalic /s/ in Greek?
Teachers of Ancient Greek at my university have always been emphasising the importance of being aware of the loss of the intervocalic sigma in the language's history, because it helped to understand ...
- 1,426
0
votes
3
answers
7k
views
Determining underlying representation
I'm really confused about how to determine underlying representation. Every thing I read seems to contradict the last.
Trying desperately to solve this problem and I just seem to be going in circles ...
1
vote
0
answers
188
views
R before TH sound?
Most of time when I say a word with r before θ or ð, my tongue slides on my palate and it goes to down mouth, behind my lower teeth. This movement produce a sound similar with tap or click, sometimes ...
- 175
5
votes
2
answers
402
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Sound change charts/lists
I am looking for a summary of sound change laws of various language families. For example for Indo-European, Uralic, N. Caucasian, Semitic but also within Indo-European e.g. Germanic, Greek etc. Is ...
- 2,572
13
votes
2
answers
846
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Dental fricatives for Brazilian Portuguese speakers
Whenever I observe my fellow Brazilian countrymen learning to speak English, a clear sound change pattern stands out:
[θ] → [f]
[ð] → [d], syllable-initial
[f], syllable-final
So, for example,...
- 8,228
7
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Grimm's law: what motivates stop -> fricative sound change?
I am trying to understand the sound change that brought PIE *dent- to P.Gmc. *tanth-. Grimm's law seems to be the culprit for the consonant changes:
Initial voiced stop /d/ devoiced to /t/
Terminal ...
- 286
25
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Do onomatopoeias resist sound change?
Regular sound changes can of course affect phonemes used in onomatopoeias. For example, consider a language containing /mjaw/, referring to the call of a cat. Suppose that final /w/ is sound-changed ...
- 3,274
20
votes
7
answers
3k
views
What about the sound change initial n -> initial l?
While learning (a little) Cantonese, I was annoyed by the fact that every initial [n] was converted to [l], so that the word "you", written
néih hóu
in guidebooks is universally pronounced
léih ...
18
votes
6
answers
870
views
Which phenomena compensate for sound losses in languages?
There is a tendency in all of the world’s languages to drop word sounds, especially unstressed syllables. One example is the word for “winter” in Proto-Algonquian, “peponwi”, which developed into “aa” ...
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