Diachronic Explanations of Sound Patterns
نویسنده
چکیده
Phonological systems show clear signs of being shaped by phonetics. Sound patterns are overwhelmingly phonetically ‘natural’, in that they reflect the influence of physical constraints on speech production and perception, and categorical phonological processes often mirror low-level gradient phonetic effects. The question of how best to explain and model the influence of phonetics on phonology has been approached in different ways, one of which situates the locus of explanation in the diachronic domain of language change, in particular sound change. On this view, recurrent sound patterns merely reflect recurrent sound changes with phonetic origins, typically in speech perception. Explicit models of sound change are reviewed and illustrated, in particular Ohala’s listener-based model and Blevins’ Evolutionary Phonology framework, and the relevance of exemplar-based models of speech production and perception is also noted. Current issues of controversy regarding the adequacy of diachronic vs. synchronic explanations for the typology of sound patterns are surveyed.
منابع مشابه
Title : Mimetic gemination in Japanese : A challenge for Evolutionary Phonology
Blevins’s Evolutionary Phonology attempts to derive most if not all synchronic phonological patterns from diachronic changes: “[R]ecurrent synchronic sound patterns are a direct reflection of their diachronic origins, and, more specifically...regular phonetically based sound change is the common source of recurrent sound patterns. Evolutionary Phonology...investigates this hypothesis and explor...
متن کامل1 Reply to Commentaries
The primary goal of Evolutionary Phonology is to explain recurrent sound patterns in spoken languages across time and space. One domain of explanation is diachronic, and much of my own work has focused on diachronic explanations (e.g. Blevins 2004, 2006a, To appear a, To appear b, To appear c, this volume). Another domain of explanation is synchronic. A range of synchronic factors, from the mec...
متن کاملOn the use of Evolutionary Phonology for phonological theory
Theoretical phonology centrally focuses on representing the implicit knowledge that speakers have of the sound patterns in their language, as Blevins (this volume) points out on the first page of her synopsis. Equally important, according to Blevins, is it to provide explanations for the distribution of sound patterns across attested spoken languages. While this has been aimed at in numerous st...
متن کاملReply to commentaries
The primary goal of Evolutionary Phonology is to explain recurrent sound patterns in spoken languages across time and space. One domain of explanation is diachronic, and much of my own work has focused on diachronic explanations (e.g. Blevins 2004, 2006a, to appear a, to appear b, to appear c, this volume). Another domain of explanation is synchronic. A range of synchronic factors, from the mec...
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In this programmatic paper, I argue that the universal constraints of Optimality Theory (OT) need to be complemented by a theory of diachronic adaptation. OT constraints are traditionally stipulated as part of Universal Grammar, but this misses the generalization that the grammatical constraints normally correspond to constraints on language use. As in biology, observed adaptive patterns in lan...
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ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- Language and Linguistics Compass
دوره 2 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2008