The Initiation of Sound Change
Perception, production, and social factors
Editors
The origins of sound change is one of the oldest and most challenging questions in the study of language. The goal of this volume is to examine current approaches to sound change from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives, including articulatory variation and modeling, speech perception mechanisms and neurobiological processes, geographical and social variation, and diachronic phonology. This diversity of perspectives contributes to a fruitful cross-fertilization across disciplines and represents an attempt to formulate converging ideas on the factors that lead to sound change. This book is addressed to scholars in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, and phonology as well as to researchers in speech production and perception, cognition and modeling. Given the theoretical and methodological interest of the contributions as well as the novel instrumental techniques applied to the study of sound change, this volume will interest professionals teaching language typology, laboratory phonology, sound change, phonetics and phonological theory at the graduate level.
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 323] 2012. x, 250 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Foreword and acknowledgements | pp. vii–viii
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List of contributors and discussion participants | pp. ix–x
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Editors’ introduction | pp. 1–18
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Part I. Perception
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The listener as a source of sound change: An updateJohn J. Ohala | pp. 21–36
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Perception grammars and sound changePatrice Speeter Beddor | pp. 37–56
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A phonetic interpretation of the sound changes affecting dark /l/ in RomanceDaniel Recasens | pp. 57–76
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The production and perception of sub-phonemic vowel contrasts and the role of the listener in sound changeMichael Grosvald and David P. Corina | pp. 77–100
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Part II. Production
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The coarticulatory basis of diachronic high back vowel frontingJonathan Harrington | pp. 103–122
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Natural and unnatural patterns of sound change?Maria-Josep Solé | pp. 123–146
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The gaits of speech: Re-examining the role of articulatory effort in spoken languageMarianne Pouplier | pp. 147–164
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Part III. Social factors, structural factors and the typology of change
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Prosodic skewing of input and the initiation of cross-generational sound changeJoseph C. Salmons, Robert Allen Fox and Ewa Jacewicz | pp. 167–184
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Social and personality variables in compensation for altered auditory feedbackSvetlin Dimov, Shira Katseff and Keith Johnson | pp. 185–210
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Patterns of lexical diffusion and articulatory motivation for sound changeJoan L. Bybee | pp. 211–234
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Foundational concepts in the scientific study of sound changeMark Hale | pp. 235–246
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Index of subjects and terms | pp. 247–250
“The study of sound change has a venerable history, dating from the first half of the 19th century, and can be said to have put linguistics on a solid footing as a scientific enterprise. Yet many controversies have remained over the years, making this area still one of the liveliest domains of investigation in historical linguistics and in phonology and phonetics more generally. The present volume adds to the discussion in important and meaningful ways with papers by significant thinkers who insightfully tie the phonetic, the phonological, and the diachronic together, yielding impressive results that draw on the latest theoretical, typological, historical, and experimental approaches”
Brian D. Joseph, The Ohio State University
“Sound change is one of the most recalcitrant puzzles in the study of language and has attracted the attention of researchers from many different perspectives. This volume contains an impressive selection of high quality research by leading scholars on sound change. It is a must-have for all students of sound change, phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and historical linguistics.”
Alan C. L. Yu, University of Chicago
“[T]he contributions put forward powerful arguments, almost all of which are backed by innovative empirical studies. The significance of these arguments shines through due to the care the authors take to situate their work within the relevant broader scholarship. [...] As a result of these efforts, the contributions speak to specialists within the particular subfields as well as to linguists working in other areas.”
Matthew J. Gordon, University of Missouri, on Linguist List Vol. 23-3334 (2013)
Cited by (10)
Cited by ten other publications
Josserand, Mathilde, Marc Allassonnière‐Tang, François Pellegrino, Dan Dediu & Bart de Boer
2024. How Network Structure Shapes Languages: Disentangling the Factors Driving Variation in Communicative Agents. Cognitive Science 48:4 
Mackenzie, Ian
2022. The Genesis of Spanish /θ/: A Revised Model. Languages 7:3 ► pp. 191 ff.
Rost Bagudanch, Assumpció
2022. More on Sibilant Devoicing in Spanish Diachrony: An Initial Phonetic Approach. Languages 7:1 ► pp. 27 ff.
Esling, John H., Scott R. Moisik, Allison Benner & Lise Crevier-Buchman
2019. Voice Quality,
Fertig, David
2016. Mechanisms of paradigm leveling and the role of universal preferences in morphophonological change. Diachronica 33:4 ► pp. 423 ff.
Stevens, Mary & Jonathan Harrington
2014. The individual and the actuation of sound change. Loquens 1:1 ► pp. e003 ff.
Beddor, Patrice Speeter, Kevin B. McGowan, Julie E. Boland, Andries W. Coetzee & Anthony Brasher
2013. The time course of perception of coarticulation. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 133:4 ► pp. 2350 ff.
[no author supplied]
2013. Reference Guide for Varieties of English. In A Dictionary of Varieties of English, ► pp. 363 ff.
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
2023. References. In Sounds of English Worldwide, ► pp. 354 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFH: Phonetics, phonology
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General