Re: Language Change

Michael Mouatt wrote:
> Do I create all the phonological rules for these descendant langs
> completely from scratch and apply phonological change, or do I form them
> from the parent lang?
You have to create them from the parent lang, and apply sound changes to
that.  You might have a particular "style" in mind for a descendant, so
you can tailor the changes to fit.  For instance, if you decide that you
want some nasalized vowels, simply create a rule that nasal consonants
create nasalized vowels, that is, VN --> V~ (where N = nasal consonant)

> I have been using the SPE system to map the parent lang and I've been
> having difficulty trying to determine how subtle or obvious the changes
> should be.
What does SPE mean?  And what do you mean by "map the parent lang"?  How
"subtle or obvious", if I understand you correctly, depends on how much
time has passed, and just how much change you want.  Individual changes
are usually pretty simple, such as "/t/ --> /tS/ before front vowels",
the accumulation of a lot of these changes are what make the overall
changes greater.

> Also, what other considerations should I have with language change with
> respect to morphemes and words in general?
Well, some words tend to change in meaning over time, and ordering can
change as well.  For instance, adjectives may move from being before the
noun to being after, or the other way around, postpositions may become
prepositions, also morphemes may be lost, a word might die out, or an
affix become unproductive (like the for- in "forgive", "forlorn",
"forbid", etc.).  A word might also evolve into an affix, like -man in
English, or, recently, -person.  AFMC, in a later, post-Classical stage,
the verb labi' (give) evolved into an affix, -bbi' (thru -lbi'),
Classical W. had a number of idioms with noun + labi' replacing certain
verbs, for instance, wazaka' labi' (literally, "to give light") was used
for "illuminate", this became the verb zaka'bbi' (wa- was a
gender-prefix).

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