Journal of Historical Linguistics - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2016

This article is a suggested explanation for the multiple variants of the forms of some Malayo-Polynesian pronouns that have been characterized as the result of drift. The explanation that is given is referred to here as paradigmatic instability, a phenomenon not previously discussed with reference to these problems. In the cases discussed in this article it is the avoidance of forms that are semantically or pragmatically inappropriate within the context of the paradigm in which they occur which renders the forms morphologically variable and the paradigms in which they occur unstable. In Malayo-Polynesian languages, it is the avoidance of a form that is reconstructed as a plural pronoun in Proto-Austronesian but which in all Malayo-Polynesian daughter languages is found as a singular pronoun. Where this form is retained as part of some other plural forms, it has been lost or modified in a wide range of variants in the daughter languages.

This study aims to track diachronic semantic shift in a small set of monomorphemes collected from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), carrying the initial fl- phonestheme, such as flounder, flummox, flail, etc. The purpose is to determine the semantic behavior of fl- monomorphemes by identifying OED key words, which are then classified into eleven conceptual categories of semantic features. Five features of the eleven are conjectured as major on the basis of frequency of occurrence and frequency of combination with other features. Features which share similar progression rates are hypothesized to be linked through the natural process of metonymy (MTA, SV, SBT). Early emergent features are viewed as primary (MTA and MTL). From there, directionality of shift is assessed by comparing co-emergent with post-attestation features. Although no general pattern is discernible on this scale, several case studies of unexpected semantic shift towards minor features as in flummer and flourish show promising results for the field of historical lexical semantics.

This study is an investigation of the phonetic causes of stressed mid and low vowel raising and diphthongization before single palatal consonants and [jC] sequences in the Early Romance languages, as for example [a] raising in Spanish leche derived from Latin [ˈlakte] ‘milk’. The initial hypothesis put to test is that the chances that vowel assimilation applies should increase with the prominence of the anticipatory consonant-to-vowel effects in tongue dorsum raising and fronting and in the second formant (F2) frequency. In accordance with this prediction, vowel assimilatory processes were found to operate most often before [j] + dentoalveolar sequences and single palatals involving maximal dorsal contact in the case of [a] (and to some extent for [ɛ ɔ] as well), and before single palatals rather than before consonant sequences with [j] in the case of [o]. Moreover, assimilation was more prone to affect [ɛ a ɔ o] than the mid high front vowel [e]. The phonetic account of vowel raising and diphthongization reported in the present study complements other explanatory proposals based on chronological and etymological factors. It also supports the notion that the categorization of segmental coarticulatory effects as assimilatory increase with coarticulation size, and that the diachronic vowel changes in question occurred at a time when palatal consonants were in the process of gaining stability.

This article shows that Yukaghir underwent a regular sound change whereby all word-internal and word-final w phonemes became j, probably in Early Proto-Yukaghir. After degemination had occurred, possibly in Middle Proto-Yukaghir, any j in an intervocalic position of disyllabic roots was followed by an epenthetic l, as it still is in the modern Yukaghir languages. Palatalization, labialization, uvularization, and assimilative effects finally formed the Late Proto-Yukaghir forms from which the modern languages have arisen. Word-class prosody controls epenthesis, vowel lengthening, and any further word-final vowel changes. Identifying these historical processes also strengthens the evidence that Yukaghir is genealogically related to Uralic. The Uralic and Yukaghiric correspondences are carefully analyzed as to phonology and semantics, resulting in over fifty new or revised cognate suggestions. Further, Yukaghiric shows a trend towards a reduction of the number of root syllables in the comparison. The semi-vowel w remained unchanged word-initially in Tundra Yukaghir and has thus been a continuous part of the Yukaghir phonemic register. Lexemes containing the semi-vowel w found in modern Yukaghir in word-internal and final positions arose from other sources only after the semi-vowel alternation sound change rule.

Some languages use a special form of the noun, a “numerative”, after some or all numerals. In such languages, a distinct numerative is typically not available for all nouns, but rather only for a small subset, forming a morphological “minor category” ( Corbett 2000 ). We examine how such a system emerges and disintegrates diachronically, looking in detail at Welsh, a language in which a distinct numerative emerged as the result of the phonological attrition of plural suffixes and analogical extension of new plural suffixes to all relevant syntactic environments except after numerals. Nouns with distinct numeratives tend to be animate and to denote units frequently counted, an association previously noted also for minor duals ( Plank 1996 ). We suggest that this association arose in Welsh via differential analogical extension in two directions: animates resisted analogical extension of the pattern numeral + singular noun; and animates were most receptive to extension of the pattern numeral + numerative. We show that the loss of the numerative proceeded the same way in reverse: numeratives were first reanalyzed as special plurals, and this pattern, numeral + plural noun, resisted analogical spread of the dominant numeral + singular pattern most robustly with kinship terms and a unit of time, namely ‘year’. These developments show much commonality with other cases where the diachrony of the numerative is known, confirming the observation that numeratives typically emerge from the disintegration of a major category, such as plural or dual, and that they are diachronically unstable, liable ultimately to analogical elimination.