Re: THEORY: derivation question

Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
> In an Austronesian language
> called Skikun, it seems that all instances of word-final /-p/ have
> been changed to /-k/ in the space of two generations.
Interesting phenomenon.  Change is often fastest where there is a schism
between the younger speakers and the older speakers (presumably due to
the fact that a person's language has the greatest changes in early
adulthood, and many such changes are abandoned due to the influence of
older people).  I wonder if this is happening here?

> Rather, a change --- often phonetically abrupt --- starts in a small
> number of words, with a small number of speakers, and spreads through
> both the population and the lexicon.
Frequently, but not always.  There are cases where phonemes are changed
almost without exception across the lexicon.  For instance, some Spanish
dialects change syllable-final /s/ to /h/, this seems to have occurred
quickly, without intermediate stages of some words doing that and others
not.

But, it's true that changes usually diffuse.  A great example is the
English shifting of the stress of two-syllable nouns.  Many two-syllable
nouns were originally stressed on the final syllable, for instance, the
noun "rebel" was pronounced like the verb "rebel".  Then, in three
nouns, rebel, outlaw, and something else (I forget what), the stress
shifted to the first syllable.  So, we now say "a REBel reBELS".  This
has spread to many other nouns, but not all, so that some people still
say "aDRESS", while others say "ADress".  AFAIK, everyone says "reVIEW",
I don't know of any dialects that pronounce the noun "review" with
initial stress.  /u/ --> /U/ is another example.  Originally, all "oo"
were pronounced /u/, thus /buk/, /but/, /sut/, /ruf/.  Now, some of
those are pronounced with /U/, thus /bUk/, but still /but/.  And "roof"
varies by dialect between /ruf/ and /rUf/.

--
"It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father
was hanged." - Irish proverb
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-name: NikTailor