Regular Sound Change

The systematic, conditioned modification of speech sounds over time, and the recurrent types of change such as assimilation, lenition, and metathesis.

Definition

Regular sound change is the systematic alteration of a language's speech sounds over time, applying uniformly to all instances of a sound in a given phonetic environment within a speech community and period.

Scope

This topic surveys the principal types of sound change (assimilation, dissimilation, lenition and fortition, deletion, epenthesis, metathesis, and shifts in vowels and consonants), the distinction between conditioned and unconditioned change, the notion of a sound law, and the phonetic mechanisms thought to give rise to recurrent changes.

Core questions

• What are the principal recurrent types of sound change?
• What is the difference between conditioned and unconditioned sound change?
• What phonetic mechanisms give rise to sound change?
• What is meant by a sound law, and why is regularity central?
• How do regular sound changes underpin reconstruction and classification?

Key theories

Phonetic basis of sound change

Ohala argued that many recurrent sound changes originate in the listener's misperception or reanalysis of inherent phonetic variation, grounding the typology of sound change in articulation and perception.

Conditioned and unconditioned change

Sound changes may apply unconditionally to all instances of a sound or only in specific phonetic environments; this distinction structures the typology of change and the correspondences used in reconstruction.

History

The regularity of sound change was first systematized in nineteenth-century studies such as Grimm's Law for the Germanic consonant shift, with Verner's Law later resolving its apparent exceptions. The Neogrammarians elevated regularity to a principle, and later phonetic and laboratory work, notably by Ohala, sought to explain why particular changes recur.

Debates

Phonetic versus structural explanations of change

There is debate over whether sound change is best explained by phonetic factors (articulation, perception) or by pressures within the phonological system, with most accounts drawing on both.

Key figures

• Jacob Grimm
• Karl Verner
• John Ohala

Seminal works

• campbell2013
• hock1991

Frequently asked questions

What is Grimm's Law?

Grimm's Law describes a systematic set of consonant shifts that distinguish the Germanic languages from the rest of Indo-European, such as Proto-Indo-European *p becoming Germanic f, as in Latin 'pater' versus English 'father.'

What is the difference between assimilation and dissimilation?

Assimilation makes a sound more similar to a neighboring sound, while dissimilation makes it less similar; both are common types of conditioned sound change.