Phonological change

In historical linguistics, phonological change is any sound change that alters the distribution of phonemes in a language. In other words, a language develops a new system of oppositions among its phonemes. Old contrasts may disappear, new ones may emerge, or they may simply be rearranged. Sound change may be an impetus for changes in the phonological structures of a language (and likewise, phonological change may sway the process of sound change). One process of phonological change is rephonemicization, in which the distribution of phonemes changes by either addition of new phonemes or a reorganization of existing phonemes. Mergers and splits are types of rephonemicization and are discussed further below. In historical linguistics, phonological change is any sound change that alters the distribution of phonemes in a language. In other words, a language develops a new system of oppositions among its phonemes. Old contrasts may disappear, new ones may emerge, or they may simply be rearranged. Sound change may be an impetus for changes in the phonological structures of a language (and likewise, phonological change may sway the process of sound change). One process of phonological change is rephonemicization, in which the distribution of phonemes changes by either addition of new phonemes or a reorganization of existing phonemes. Mergers and splits are types of rephonemicization and are discussed further below. In a typological scheme first systematized by Henry M. Hoenigswald in 1965, a historical sound law can only affect a phonological system in one of three ways: This classification does not consider mere changes in pronunciation, that is, phonetic change, even chain shifts, in which neither the number nor the distribution of phonemes is affected. Phonetic change can occur without any modification to the phoneme inventory or phonemic correspondences. This change is purely allophonic or subphonemic. This can entail one of two changes: either the phoneme turns into a new allophone—meaning the phonetic form changes—or the distribution of allophones of the phoneme changes. For the most part, phonetic changes are examples of allophonic differentiation or assimilation; i.e., sounds in specific environments acquire new phonetic features or perhaps lose phonetic features they originally had. For example, the devoicing of the vowels /i/ and /ɯ/ in certain environments in Japanese, the nasalization of vowels before nasals (common but not universal), changes in point of articulation of stops and nasals under the influence of adjacent vowels. Phonetic change in this context refers to the lack of phonological restructuring, not a small degree of sound change. For example, chain shifts such as the Great Vowel Shift in which nearly all of the vowels of the English language changed or the allophonic differentiation of /s/, originally *, into , do not qualify as phonological change as long as all of the phones remain in complementary distribution. Many phonetic changes provide the raw ingredients for later phonemic innovations. In Proto-Italic, for example, intervocalic */s/ became *. It was a phonetic change, merely a mild and superficial complication in the phonological system, but when * merged with */r/, the effect on the phonological system was greater. (The example will be discussed below, under conditioned merger.) Similarly, in the prehistory of Indo-Iranian, the velars */k/ and */g/ acquired distinctively palatal articulation before front vowels (*/e/, */i/, */ē/ */ī/), so that */ke/ came to be pronounced * and */ge/ *, but the phones * and * occurred only in that environment. However, when */e/, */o/, */a/ later fell together as Proto-Indo-Iranian */a/ (and */ē/ */ō/ */ā/ likewise fell together as */ā/), the result was that the allophonic palatal and velar stops now contrasted in identical environments: */ka/ and /ča/, /ga/ and /ǰa/, and so on. The difference became phonemic. (The 'law of palatals' is an example of phonemic split.) Sound changes generally operate for a limited period of time, and once established, new phonemic contrasts rarely remain tied to their ancestral environments. For example, Sanskrit acquired 'new' /ki/ and /gi/ sequences via analogy and borrowing, and likewise /ču/, /ǰu/, /čm/, and similar novelties; and the reduction of the diphthong */ay/ to Sanskrit /ē/ had no effect at all on preceding velar stops.