Historical Phonology Research Articles

Evolution of the Burmese Vowel System

AbstractTibeto‐Burman historical linguistics has relied heavily on the spelling of Burmese and Tibetan words as found in standard modern dictionaries, at the expense of the earliest attested records. This examination of the development of the Burmese vowel system, in the light of early Burmese philological data and comparisons to Old Chinese and Old Tibetan, facilitates a refined understanding of Burmese historical phonology and the reconstruction of Tibeto‐Burman.

The Design Concept and the Phonological System of Huangji Jingshi: Shengyin Changhe Tu: On the Influence of Image-Number Yijing Studies on the Creation of the Korean Alphabet

Among the extant rhyme tables of the Song Dynasty, Shao Yong’s (1011–1077) Huangji Jingshi: Shengyin Changhe Tu is the most unique. It is different from other phonological tables, such as Yunjing and Qiyin Lue, that were designed for the interpretation of fanqie formulae in terms of arrangement and phonological terminology. However, most contemporary scholars have failed to notice the unique design in Shengyin Changhe Tu and merely follow Karlgren’s paradigm, which contends that a phonological table objectively reflects certain dialectal phonological features through the prism of historical phonology. Instead, the present paper approaches the question of how the rhyme table is structured from the perspective of the history of phonological philosophy rather than historical phonology. By so doing, the role of philologists is reconsidered as that of a rhyme designer constructing an ideal sound system, rather than that of a dialectologist investigating a real sound system. The following questions are then discussed: What is the purpose for compiling such a work as Shengyin Changhe Tu and what are its design motivations? Can other scholars’ reconstructions of the sound system and sound values of Shengyin Changhe Tu be considered reasonable? In addition to Shengyin Changhe Tu, did the Image-Number Yijing School have any impact on the design of the later phonological tables? In this way the author wishes to develop a new humanistic approach toward understanding of the rhyme tables in order to correct the blind spots and flaws resulting from an overly extreme tendency toward scientism.

Natural Sound Change and Its Patterns: The Case of the Lateral Approximant l

In light of Chinese historical phonology, modern dialects, languages of Chinese minorities and field phonetics, this paper discusses (1) the development of the Yi-initial words from Old Chinese to Middle Chinese, (2) the development of the Lai-initial words from Middle Chinese to modern dialects, (3) the phonological behavior of segment l in different syllabic positions from the perspective of evolutionary phonology. Such evolutionary developments as palatalization, velarization, nasalization, labiodentalization, fricativization, strengthening and so on can be identified for approximant l. This provides an important panchronic and typological perspective for the interpretation of both diachronic changes and synchronic variation.

針對韓國學生的漢語音韻學教材研究

The aim of this article is to suggest to design a new textbook of Chinese historical phonology for Korean students. First, based on the property of the textbook itself, the problems in the recent education and the characteristic of Korean students, four principles of the textbook were proposed. Second, five currently available textbooks were analyzed and evaluated according to the four criteria. On the basis of the results of this study, this article proposed the specific contents and framework of a new textbook of Chinese historical phonology for Korean students.

Approaching the historical phonology of three highly eroded Sino-Tibetan languages

Naxi, Na and Laze are three languages whose position within Sino-Tibetan is controversial. We propose that they are descended from a common ancestor (‘Proto-Naish’). Unlike conservative languages of the family, such as Rgyalrong and Tibetan, which have consonant clusters and final consonants, Naxi, Na and Laze share a simple syllabic structure (consonant+glide+vowel+tone) due to phonological erosion. This raises the issue of how the regular phonological correspondences between these three languages should be interpreted, and what phonological structure should be reconstructed for Proto-Naish. The regularities revealed by comparing the three languages are interpreted in light of potential cognates in conservative languages. This brings out numerous cases of phonetic conditioning of vowels by place of articulation of a preceding consonant or consonant cluster. Overall, these findings warrant a relatively optimistic conclusion concerning the feasibility of unraveling the phonological history of highly eroded language subgroups within Sino-Tibetan.

Dempwolff Reinvented: A Review of Wolff (2010)

This ambitious study, the result of over forty years of intermittent labor, essentially attempts to restart Austronesian comparative linguistics from the ground up. It rejects several key distinctions made by Dempwolff and accepted by virtually all subsequent scholars, and proposes a number of modifications to the phoneme inventory and word structure that reportedly are motivated at least in part by the author’s belief that Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan are branches of a larger language phylum. The body of the work contains sketches of the historical phonology of 37 languages reaching from Taiwan to Polynesia. These vary greatly in quality, accuracy, and relevance. The book concludes with a glossary of around 1,760 reconstructions, about 95 percent of which are drawn from Dempwolff or from Blust and Trussel’s more recent Austronesian Comparative Dictionary .

Local dialects, supralocal writing systems

In historical sociolinguistics, it is often assumed that ego-documents such as private letters represent the spoken language of the past as closely as possible. In this paper, we will try to determine the degree of orality of seventeenth-century Dutch private letters: the degree to which the spoken local dialect is represented in these texts, and at the same time, the extent to which scribes possibly converged towards supralocal writing systems. We study the orthographical representation of four phonemes in a corpus of letters from the provinces of Holland and Zeeland. Clear cases of local writing practices are revealed, contributing to our knowledge of the spoken language in the past, as well as to the different ways in which it was represented in written language. However, the degree to which local features appear in the corpus is remarkably low. Only a minority of the letters contains localizable features, and if a letter contains these, it is usually only in a minority of the positions which, historically, were phonologically possible. We conclude that, in general, scribes did not aim to write their local dialect, but employed an intended supraregional variety instead. Keywords: Historical sociolinguistics; Dutch, seventeenth century; ego-documents; letters; writing systems; historical phonology; language from below; orality

Totozoquean

This paper uses the comparative method of historical linguistics to investigate the hypothesis that languages of two well-established families of Mesoamerica, Totonacan and Mixe-Zoquean, are related in a larger genetic grouping dubbed Totozoquean. Proposed cognate sets comparing words reconstructed for Proto-Totonacan (PTn) and Proto-Mixe-Zoquean (PMZ) show regular sound correspondences attesting to the descent of these two languages from Proto-Totozoquean (PTz). Identification of sound correspondences facilitates reconstruction of PTz’s phonological inventory and vocabulary. The PMZ words used in the comparison are from Wichmann (1995). The PTn words are reconstructed by the authors, who provide the Totonacan cognate sets on which these reconstructions are based, as well as discussion of the classification and phonological history of Totonacan languages. Evidence is cited indicating that Totozoquean is comparable to Indo-European in chronological depth.

The Basque Language: History and Origin

How do we discover the origin and history (and prehistory) of a language, even when there are no written records of earlier stages? The methods of historical linguistics analyze the following components: Basic vocabulary (lexicon); Morphology (grammar); Phonology (sound system); and Cultural vocabulary (words passed from culture to culture). The first three components tell us about the “genetic” origin of a language, while the fourth, cultural vocabulary, tells us about cultural contacts. The analysis of these components of the Basque language leads to the conclusion that its deep “genetic” lexical and grammatical structure is of Dene-Caucasian origin, while cultural contacts have included Semites, Egyptians, Celts, Germans, as well as the well-known contacts with early Latin (Roman Empire) and later forms of Latin (Romance languages). Key Words: genetic classification of languages, historical linguistics, basic vocabulary, cultural vocabulary, historical morphology, historical phonology, linguistic contact doi: 10.4314/ijma.v1i4.3

On one more source of Old Japanese i 2

The goal of this article is to provide further and systematic evidence for an idea suggested only in passing that the Old Japanese vowel i2 derives diachronically not only from *əy and *uy, as traditionally believed, but also from *oy. This solution proves to be a key to solving some puzzles in the phonological history of a number of common Old Japanese words.

A Preliminary Study of Tanhai Konyak historical phonology

Cet article presente une description partielle de la phonologie synchronique du Tanhai, une langue sinotibetaine du groupe naga du nord parlee au Nagaland, en Inde. Elle s'accompagne d'une analyse de la phonologie historique du Tanhai basee sur la comparaison avec le Wancho et le Wakching, les deux langues deja decrites qui lui sont le plus proches.

Phonological Traits of Hangzhou Dialect from the Perspective of Comparative Phonology

From the perspective of Chinese historical phonology, we observe that Hangzhou dialect in Zhejiang Province exemplifies the dualism of innovation and conservatism in terms of phonological evolution. Using the comparative method, three strata are recognized: 1. the conservative layer from Qieyun which also appears in modern Wu dialects; 2. the layer of Mandarin from the period of the late Tang Dynasty to Northern Song, which composes the main body of Hangzhou phonology; and 3. the innovative layer of post-Qieyun times both in Hangzhou and other Wu dialects.

Selected Pashto Problems II. Historical Phonology 1: On Vocalism and Etyma

AbstractThis study presents a new, systematic treatment of the Pashto continuations of the Old Iranian vocalism. The analysis is accompanied by an assessment of the etymology of the Pashto forms mentioned in George Morgenstierne's Etymological Vocabulary of Pashto (EVP) and its postumously revised New Etymological Vocabulary of Pashto (NEVP). This contribution has also implications for our understanding of the historical morphology, notably the case system, of Pashto.

Appendix to Approaching the historical phonology of three highly eroded Sino-Tibetan languages: Naxi, Na and Laze

Naxi, Na and Laze are three languages whose position within Sino-Tibetan is controversial. We propose that they are descended from a common ancestor (‘Proto-Naish’). Unlike conservative languages of the family, such as Rgyalrong and Tibetan, which have consonant clusters and final consonants, Naxi, Na and Laze share a simple syllabic structure (consonant+glide+vowel+tone) due to phonological erosion. This raises the issue of how the regular phonological correspondences between these three languages should be interpreted, and what phonological structure should be reconstructed for Proto-Naish. The regularities revealed by comparing the three languages are interpreted in light of potential cognates in conservative languages. This brings out numerous cases of phonetic conditioning of vowels by place of articulation of a preceding consonant or consonant cluster. Overall, these findings warrant a relatively optimistic conclusion concerning the feasibility of unraveling the phonological history of highly eroded language subgroups within Sino-Tibetan.

The origin of the reflexive prefix in Rgyalrong languages

AbstractIn the Sino-Tibetan family, reflexivity is either not expressed in the verb, as in Chinese or Tibetan, or expressed by means of a “middle” marker, as in Dulong or Kiranti languages. Among the morphologically rich languages of this family, only Rgyalrong languages have distinct and unambiguous reflexive and reciprocal markers on the verb. This paper shows that the reflexive prefix in Rgyalrong languages has two possible origins. It could come from a fusion of the third person singular marker and the root meaning “self” or, alternatively, come from the free third person pronoun. Both hypotheses are compatible with our understanding of Rgyalrong historical phonology.

A Preliminary Phonological History of the Sogeram Languages of Papua New Guinea

While scholars agree that Z'graggen's lexicostatistical subgrouping of the South Adelbert languages is inaccurate in many respects, to date there has been no published subgrouping based on application of the comparative method. In this paper, I examine the history of a subset of eight South Adelbert languages, for which I propose the name Sogeram. I reconstruct the phonological system and 102 lexemes of Proto-Sogeram and argue, primarily on the basis of shared phonological innovations, for a tripartite split into West, Central, and East Sogeram branches, and for subsequent splits and developments within each branch. One innovation of potential theoretical interest is the loss of all word-initial consonants, regardless of place or manner of articulation, from polysyllabic words in West Sogeram.

The elision of unstressed vowels before the Latin sequence /ka/ in Western Romance languages

The distribution of French voiced and voiceless reflexes of L. /k/ in intervocalic position before /a/ is an interesting problem of Romance historical phonology that has received little attention so far. This paper analyzes previous attempts to explain that distribution, demonstrates that they are ultimately inadequate, and shows that in order to account for the phenomenon adequately data from other Western Romance languages and particularly the diachronic stability of the vowels preceding /ka/ need to be taken into consideration. A (set of) sound law(s) is proposed, which describes the chronological unfolding of vowel elision, and the geographical distribution of its effects is analyzed. It is demonstrated how the distribution of voiced and voiceless reflexes of L. /k/ before /a/ may be used as a criterion for classifying Western Romance languages.

Palauan Historical Phonology: Whence the Intrusive Velar Nasal?

One of the more striking features in the historical phonology of Palauan is the addition of a velar nasal before word-initial vowels. Because final vowels were unstressed, and almost always disappeared, it is difficult to determine whether a velar nasal would also have been added after final vowels had they been retained. However, a number of loanwords, mostly from Spanish and English, show the addition of a velar nasal after word-final vowels. The change in native vocabulary is exceptionless, while that in loanwords is irregular. Moreover, the two changes appear to be historically disconnected, yet they suggest a common canonical target that persisted over many generations of speakers.

Die Präferenztheorie in der historischen Phonologie aus junggrammatischer Perspektive

AbstractThe paper deals with the so-called Preference Theory developed in the works of Theo Vennemann and Robert Murray within the scope of historical phonology. The first part of the paper examines the constituting assumptions and claims of the theory. The goal of the preference-based historical phonology – uncovering the motivation for sound changes which the Neogrammarian methodology can merely describe – will be achieved only if the universal preferences are reliably established. It is shown that the procedures which are employed to extract the universal preferences from empirical data do not lead to reliable results. The reason for this is the failure of the Preference Theory to distinguish in a non-arbitrary way between the alleged universally preferred structures and the mere by-products of sound changes with different or unknown motivation. The second part of the paper examines a recently suggested modification of the traditional notion of the exceptionlessness of sound changes. According to Vennemann, the traditional exceptionless sound changes are in fact to be considered as non-exclusive tendencies towards universally more preferred phonological structures. The paper shows that this position is neither based on the core assumptions of the Preference Theory nor supported by the adduced empirical evidence.

Sound change or analogy? Monosyllabic lengthening in German and some of its consequences

Although the vowels of many monosyllabic words have been lengthened from Middle High German to Modern Standard German (e.g., [glas] > ‘glass’), it has only recently (and sporadically) been considered that the lengthened forms might be due to a phonological change (cf. Naiditsch and Kusmenko 1992; Page 2001, 2007). Traditionally, vowel length in the relevant cases is explained on the basis of analogical-morphological principles such as paradigm uniformity. In the present paper we will defend the view that vowel length is the result of a genuine phonological change, namely monosyllabic lengthening. It will be argued that monosyllabic lengthening plays a crucial role in most High German dialects and the standard language, as positive evidence in favor of monosyllabic lengthening can be collected from all major dialect areas, not only from Upper German relic dialects. Furthermore, we will propose a typology of High German quantity developments based on five parameters (monosyllabic lengthening, open syllable lengthening, final degemination, total degemination, positional moraicity of coda consonants). This typology accounts for the dialect-specific outcomes of monosyllabic lengthening in words ending in a singleton, geminate, or cluster. Under this view, monosyllabic lengthening and open syllable lengthening are analyzed as two independent innovations which originated in different areas. If the proposal is correct, a number of interesting consequences for German historical phonology in general follow, such as the crucial role of moraicity of consonants, the irrelevance of voicing contrasts, the importance of word minimality, and the motivation for eliminating either consonantal or vocalic quantity contrasts. We conclude that the voicing contrast in Modern Standard German is a relatively recent re-instantiation of a former quantity contrast, most likely under the influence of Low German pronunciation.