Re: commonness of sound changes (was: Question re historical sound changes)

Eric Christopherson wrote:

> Tristan, Roger, et al. -- I had some further questions about
> long voiced stops. I thought I would reword them a bit and
> see if I get a response:
>
> 1. Am I correct in saying that, to produce a very long
> voiced stop, you start by saying a very long vowel...
no need for a long vowel, any type vowel will do.

...and then
> close off the POA, while basically continuing what you were
> doing with your voice before that closure, then holding it,
> and finally releasing it?
that's it.
>
> 2. When I attempt [ag:::::::::::a] (using the technique
> described in 1), it feels like I get the "hum" of
> the [g:::] for a few seconds, then am unable to make *any*
> sound, and then eventually I release it.
>
> In that silent period it's voiceless, but once I
> release it it *feels* voiced again (as I feel my throat for
> vibration)
that's true for me too. My thought was that the vocal cords remain in tension,
even though they can't vibrate, until the closure is released into the voiced [a].
But I'm not sure of that, and don't know how one would test for it.

 -- so why would the sound be transcribed as
> [ag::::k::::::a] instead of [ag:::k:::ga], or [ag:::_}
> ga]? (I'm not sure of a symbol for a silent pause, so
> I'm just using several spaces.)
I'm not sure how the super-long stop would be notated. Possibly: use the
"unreleased" diacritic (call it " | ", then maybe [ag|::::::a] or [ag|::::::ga] to
show the release, but there's only one [g] articulation.
>
> 3. What do we make of the assertion that "voiced"
> stops in English are only partially voiced, as opposed to
> e.g. French? Does that mean /b/ in French is pronounced
> something more like [b:]?
I only know what I've been told: Engl. vd.stops are non-tense, in French they're
tense--and I think in French the entire vocal tract is more tensed in speech than
we're accustomed to in Engl., but don't quote me on that. When I speak French to a
French person they either look perplexed or reply in English  :=)))
>
> I have two reasons that might not be so: a) Voiced
> geminates are uncommon in languages. b) it doesn't sound
> long enough to be a geminate; perhaps it's only
> half-long ([b:\]).
It's certainly not a geminate.

It's possible too that in French, voicing onset is immediate, whereas there can be
a bit of a lag in Engl. (hence the half-voiced impression). Final vd.stops in
Engl. definitely trail off into voicelessness.