The early influence of phonology on a phonetic change

Language

Abstract

The conventional wisdom regarding the diachronic process whereby phonetic phenomena become phonologized appears to be the ‘error accumulation’ model, so called by Baker, Archangeli, and Mielke (2011). Under this model, biases in the phonetic context result in production or perception errors, which are misapprehended by listeners as target productions, and over time accumulate into new target productions. In this article, I explore the predictions of the hypocorrection model for one phonetic change (prevoiceless /ay/-raising) in detail. I argue that properties of the phonetic context underpredict and mischaracterize the contextual conditioning on this phonetic change. Rather, it appears that categorical, phonological conditioning is present from the very onset of this change.

Citation

BibTeX citation:

@article{fruehwald2016,
  author = {Fruehwald, Josef},
  title = {The Early Influence of Phonology on a Phonetic Change},
  journal = {Language},
  volume = {92},
  number = {2},
  pages = {376-410},
  date = {2016},
  url = {https://muse.jhu.edu/article/621188},
  doi = {10.1353/lan.2016.0041},
  langid = {en},
  abstract = {The conventional wisdom regarding the diachronic process
    whereby phonetic phenomena become phonologized appears to be the
    “error accumulation” model, so called by Baker, Archangeli, and
    Mielke (2011). Under this model, biases in the phonetic context
    result in production or perception errors, which are misapprehended
    by listeners as target productions, and over time accumulate into
    new target productions. In this article, I explore the predictions
    of the hypocorrection model for one phonetic change (prevoiceless
    /ay/-raising) in detail. I argue that properties of the phonetic
    context underpredict and mischaracterize the contextual conditioning
    on this phonetic change. Rather, it appears that categorical,
    phonological conditioning is present from the very onset of this
    change.}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Fruehwald, Josef. 2016. “The Early Influence of Phonology on a Phonetic Change.” Language 92 (2): 376–410. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2016.0041.