Balancing social determinism vs. sound change

IF 0.5 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Journal of Historical Linguistics Pub Date : 2023-09-18 DOI:10.1075/jhl.22012.bur

Roslyn Burns

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between social and phonetic motivations for language change in Fang (Bantoid). While previous research has proposed that innovations in Fang arose due to social need and lack phonetic motivation ( Mve et al. 2019 ; Good, Di Carlo & Tschonghongei 2020 ), I propose that there is a phonetic motivation and the social situation, at best, was a pathway for the innovation to gain wider adoption in the population. I provide comparative and language-internal evidence that the Fang innovations are driven by two interconnected processes, palatalization and spirantization, triggered by high vowels. These processes have been obscured synchronically in part due to the phonemic merger of *i > ə in some parts of the paradigm, thus making the alternations look phonetically unmotivated.

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平衡社会决定论与声音变化

摘要本文探讨了班托伊语语言变化的社会动机和语音动机之间的关系。虽然之前的研究表明，方语的创新是由于社会需求和缺乏语音动机而产生的(Mve等人，2019;很好，迪卡洛。tschonghonggei 2020)，我认为存在语音动机和社会情况，充其量是创新在人群中获得更广泛采用的途径。我提供了比较和语言内部的证据，证明方语的创新是由两个相互关联的过程驱动的，腭化和螺旋化，由高元音触发。由于*i >的音位合并，这些过程被同步地掩盖了。在范例的某些部分，从而使这些变化在语音上看起来没有动机。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Historical Linguistics LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS-

CiteScore

1.30

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Historical Linguistics aims to publish, after peer-review, papers that make a significant contribution to the theory and/or methodology of historical linguistics. Papers dealing with any language or language family are welcome. Papers should have a diachronic orientation and should offer new perspectives, refine existing methodologies, or challenge received wisdom, on the basis of careful analysis of extant historical data. We are especially keen to publish work which links historical linguistics to corpus-based research, linguistic typology, language variation, language contact, or the study of language and cognition, all of which constitute a major source of methodological renewal for the discipline and shed light on aspects of language change. Contributions in areas such as diachronic corpus linguistics or diachronic typology are therefore particularly welcome.