Re: Language change that complicates the syllable structure

Arnt Richard Johansen sikyal:

> What are some plausible diachronic processes that can expand the syllable
> structure of a language?
> [snip]
>
> What little I've read of historical linguistics suggests that weakening
> and elision of consonants is much more common than elision of
> vowels and epenthetical insertion, which by the way are the only two
> syllable-complicating processes I know of.
I would say that this is incorrect. It is not at all uncommon for vowels
to be reduced to schwa, then elided. Every language I can think of has
some process of vowel elision in its recent past. A quick rundown:

* English final vowels going to schwa (by Middle English) and then nothing
(by Modern English). This is where we get our silent e's. Oh and also from
French.
* French doing exactly the same thing to most of its final vowels.
* Spanish apocope of post-tonic unstressed vowels. E.g. Latin fabulare >
Sp hablar. The medial /u/ and final /e/ were lost.
* Japanese devoicing of final /u/, leading to the currently-ongoing loss
of those vowels. In a generation or two, expect Japanese to have coda
consonants, if not already.
* All sorts of Slavic languages losing the weak vowels called 'yers'. This
is called "The Fall of the Yers", and is responsible for the famous Slavic
consonant clusters.

In short, vowel reduction and loss is every bit as common as consonant
reduction and loss. The midpoint is mildly different, however: as
consonants reduce, they tend to go through [?] or [h], while vowels tend
to go through [@].

The basic recipe for vowel loss, then, is the following:

1) Assign stress. Construe "stress" however you'd like.
2) Drop unstressed vowels. Complicate this as much as you'd like.

After you've done (2), you'll have all sorts of consonant clusters that
you can pick through and use to make the new syllable structure.
Alternately, you can use the desired syllable structure to contstrain
vowel deletion. Frex, "Drop unstressed vowels so long as the resulting
consonant clusters don't put more than two stops adjacent." This sort of
this is also very common in natlangs.

> Can other kinds of language
> change (ie. non-phonological) influence the syllable structure in a
> complicating way? The arise of compounding? Cliticization of particles,
> and subsequent incorporation in an inflectional/derivational system?
This is pretty rare. I can't think of a single instance where
morphological considerations affected syllable structure. Usually it's the
other way around.

> I know many of you have started out with a present-time language, and
> worked youselves backwards to a proto-language. That seems difficult,
> almost impossible. Tell me how you did it!
I am one such person. This is very difficult. It helps to have or invent
some idea of what the proto-language looked like, then look as hard as you
can to find ways that the observed modern language could have come from
the proto-language. Don't be afraid to let this get complicated, since
real language evolution is also quite complicated. Get as much regularity
as posssible, but be sure to let a few irregular quirks slip through.
It'll be fun.


--
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"

Replies