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Re: THEORY: sound change (was RE: Language revival)

From:And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
Date:Monday, November 29, 1999, 12:14
Nik:
> And Rosta wrote: > > Changes in phonetic realization of phonemes are regular. Changes in > > phonemic incidence (=which phonemes occur in which words in which order) > > are not inherently regular; they can progress word by word, driven > > quite possibly by analogy, among other factors. > > > > So the regularity of sound change remains a fact, provided "sound > > change" is taken in a restricted meaning of "phonetic change". > > Do you mean that changes in allophony are regular,
Yes. Such changes apply to the whole lexicon in one go.
> while changes in the phonemes of words may be irregular?
Such changes may proceed word-by-word. In addition, the conditioning factors may change over time, making the change potentially applicable to more or fewer forms than originally.
> If so, probably quite true, given a note that phonemic change is > *usually* regular.
I don't know enough to say. And there are sufficiently many complicating factors (such as the change in conditioning factors) that it could be hard to say what counts as regular. --And.