Abstract
When do the mechanisms of regular sound change fail to apply? What types of languages and situations exhibit and promote phonological stability? I consider these questions using data from the languages of Aboriginal Australia, where there has been debate on this question. I show that the standard explanations are inadequate, and possible solutions have not yet been empirically investigated. Given how many of these languages are already either no longer spoken or severely under threat, it is important to investigate these questions urgently.
Funding source: National Science Foundation
Award Identifier / Grant number: BCS-1423711
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Luisa Miceli, Erich Round, David Nash, Jason Shaw, Peter Austin, and audiences at SUNY Stony Brook and the University of Arizona for discussion of an earlier version of this manuscript.
-
Research funding: This work was funded in part by NSF grant BCS-1423711.
References
Alpher, Barry. 2004. Pama-Nyungan: Phonological reconstruction and status as a phylogenetic group. In Claire Bowern & Harold Koch (eds.), Australian languages: Classification and the comparative method, 93–126. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.249.09alpSuche in Google Scholar
Austin, Peter. 1981. A grammar of Diyari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Austin, Peter. 1988. Phonological voicing contrasts in Australian Aboriginal languages. La Trobe University Working Papers in Linguistics 1. 17–42.Suche in Google Scholar
Austin, Peter. 1990. Classification of Lake Eyre languages. La Trobe University Working Papers in Linguistics 3. 171–201.Suche in Google Scholar
Babinski, Sarah. 2022. Archival phonetics and prosodic typology in 16 Australian languages. New Haven: Yale University PhD dissertation.Suche in Google Scholar
Babinski, Sarah & Claire Bowern. 2018. Mergers in Bardi: Contextual probability and predictors of sound change. Linguistics Vanguard 4(s2).10.1515/lingvan-2017-0024Suche in Google Scholar
Baker, Brett. 2014. Word structure in Australian languages. In Harold Koch & Rachel Nordlinger (eds.), The languages and linguistics of Australia: A comprehensive guide, 139–214. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110279771.139Suche in Google Scholar
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo. 2020. The initiation and incrementation of sound change: Community-oriented momentum-sensitive learning. Glossa 5(1). 121. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.627.Suche in Google Scholar
Birdsell, Joseph B. 1953. Some environmental and cultural factors influencing the structuring of Australian Aboriginal populations. American Naturalist 87(834). 171–207.10.1086/281776Suche in Google Scholar
Black, Paul. 1980. Norman Pama historical phonology. In Bruce Rigsby & Peter Sutton (eds.), Papers in Australian linguistics no. 13: Contributions to Australian linguistics (Pacific Linguistics A-59), 181–239. Canberra: Australian National University.Suche in Google Scholar
Blevins, Juliette. 2001. Where have all the onsets gone? Initial consonant loss in Australian Aboriginal languages. In Jane Simpson, David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin & Barry Alpher (eds.), Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages, 481–492. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Suche in Google Scholar
Bouckaert, Remco R., Claire Bowern & Quentin D. Atkinson. 2018. The origin and expansion of Pama-Nyungan languages across Australia. Nature Ecology & Evolution 1. 741–749.10.1038/s41559-018-0489-3Suche in Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire. 1998. The case of Proto-Karnic: Morphological change and reconstruction in the nominal and pronominal system of Proto-Karnic (Lake Eyre Basin). Canberra: Australian National University BA(Hons) thesis.Suche in Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire. 2006. Another look at Australia as a linguistic area. In Yaron Matras, April McMahon & Nigel Vincent (eds.), Linguistic areas, 244–265. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230287617_10Suche in Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire. 2016. Chirila: Contemporary and historical resources for the Indigenous languages of Australia. Language Documentation & Conservation 10. 1–44.Suche in Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire. 2017. Standard Average Australian. Paper presented at the Association for Linguistic Typology conference. Canberra, December 2017.Suche in Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire & Quentin Atkinson. 2012. Computational phylogenetics and the internal structure of Pama-Nyungan. Language 88(4). 817–845.10.1353/lan.2012.0081Suche in Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire, Patience Epps, Russell Gray, Jane Hill, Hunley Keith, Patrick McConvell & Jason Zentz. 2011. Does lateral transmission obscure inheritance in hunter-gatherer languages? PloS ONE 6(9). E25195.10.1371/journal.pone.0025195Suche in Google Scholar
Busby, P. A. 1980. The distribution of phonemes in Australian Aboriginal languages. In Bruce E. Waters & Peter A. Busby (eds.), Papers in Australian linguistics 14 (Pacific Linguistics A-60), 73–139. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Suche in Google Scholar
Butcher, Andrew. 2006. Australian Aboriginal languages: Consonant salient phonologies and the “place-of-articulation imperative”. In Jonathan Harrington & Marija Tabain (eds.), Speech production: Models, phonetic processes, and techniques, 187–210. New York: Psychology Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Capell, Arthur. 1956. A new approach to Australian linguistics (Handbook of Australian languages, part 1) (Oceania Linguistic Monographs 1). Sydney: University of Sydney.Suche in Google Scholar
Crowley, Terry. 1976. Phonological change in New England. In Robert M. W. Dixon (ed.), Grammatical categories in Australian languages (Linguistic Series 22), 19–50. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies & Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Dench, Alan. 2001. Descent and diffusion: The complexity of the Pilbara situation. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon (eds.), Areal diffusion and genetic inheritance: Problems in comparative linguistics, 105–133. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198299813.003.0005Suche in Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. 1980. The languages of Australia (Cambridge Language Surveys). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. 1991. Mbabaram. In Robert M. W. Dixon & Barry J. Blake (eds.), The handbook of Australian languages, vol. 4, 349–402. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. 1997. The rise and fall of languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511612060Suche in Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. 2001. The Australian linguistic area. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon (eds.), Areal diffusion and genetic inheritance: Problems in comparative linguistics, 64–104. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1017/9781316135716.020Suche in Google Scholar
Douglas, Wilfrid H. 1971. Dialect differentiation in the Western Desert: A comment. Anthropological Forum 3(1). 79–82.10.1080/00664677.1971.9967259Suche in Google Scholar
Ennever, Thomas, Felicity Meakins & Erich R. Round. 2017. A replicable acoustic measure of lenition and the nature of variability in Gurindji stops. Laboratory Phonology. Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology 8(1). 20.10.5334/labphon.18Suche in Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas. 2005. Australian languages reconsidered: A review of Dixon (2002) [Review article]. Oceanic Linguistics 44(1). 242–286.10.1353/ol.2005.0020Suche in Google Scholar
Fleming, Luke. 2014. Australian exceptionalism in the typology of affinal avoidance registers. Anthropological Linguistics 56(2). 115–158.10.1353/anl.2014.0006Suche in Google Scholar
Fletcher, Janet & Andrew Butcher. 2014. Sound patterns of Australian languages. In Harold Koch & Rachel Nordlinger (eds.), The Languages and linguistics of Australia: A comprehensive guide. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110279771.91Suche in Google Scholar
Garrett, Andrew. 2015. Sound change. In Claire Bowern & Bethwyn Evans (eds.), The Routledge handbook of historical linguistics, 227–248. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315794013.ch9Suche in Google Scholar
Gasser, Emily & Claire Bowern. 2014. Revisiting phonotactic generalizations in Australian languages. In Proceedings of the 2013 annual meeting on phonology.10.3765/amp.v1i1.17Suche in Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth Locke. 1976. Phonological developments in particular Northern Paman languages. In Peter Sutton (ed.), Languages of Cape York (Australian Aboriginal Studies: Research and Regional Studies 6), 7–40. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Suche in Google Scholar
Hale, Mark. 2014. The comparative method: Theoretical issues. In Claire Bowern & Bethwyn Evans (eds.), The Routledge handbook of historical linguistics, 146–160. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Hamilton, Philip James. 1996. Phonetic constraints and markedness in the phonotactics of Australian Aboriginal languages. Toronto: University of Toronto PhD dissertation. https://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/article/download/6520 (accessed 2 August 2018).Suche in Google Scholar
Harvey, Mark. 2011. Prepalatals in Arandic. Australian Journal of Linguistics 31(1). 79–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2011.532858.Suche in Google Scholar
Harvey, Mark, Ben Davies, Susan Lin, Myf Turpin, Alison Ross & Katherine Demuth. 2015. Contrastive and non-contrastive pre-stopping in Kaytetye. Australian Journal of Linguistics 35(3). 232–250.10.1080/07268602.2015.1023170Suche in Google Scholar
Heath, Jeffrey. 1978. Linguistic diffusion in Arnhem Land (Australian Aboriginal Studies: Research and Regional Studies 13). Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Suche in Google Scholar
Hercus, Luise. 1972. The pre-stopped nasal and lateral consonants of Arabana-Waŋgaŋuru. Anthropological Linguistics 14. 293–305.Suche in Google Scholar
Hercus, Luise. 1979. In the margins of an Arabana-Wangganguru dictionary: The loss of initial consonants. In Stephen A Wurm (ed.), Australian linguistic studies (Pacific Linguistics C-54), 621–651. Canberra: Australian National University.Suche in Google Scholar
Hercus, Luise. 1987. Linguistic diffusion in the Birdsville area. In Donald C. Laycock & Werner Winter (eds.), A world of language: Papers presented to Professor S. A. Wurm on his 65th birthday (Pacific Linguistics C-100), 245–255. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.Suche in Google Scholar
Hercus, Luise. 1994. A grammar of the Arabana-Wangkangurru language, Lake Eyre Basin, South Australia (Pacific Linguistics C-128). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Suche in Google Scholar
Hock, H. H. & B. D. Joseph. 2009. Language history, language change, and language relationship: An introduction to historical and comparative linguistics, 2nd edn. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110214307Suche in Google Scholar
Johnson, Steve. 1991. Patterns of change in an unstratified Aboriginal society. In Philip Baldi (ed.), Patterns of change – change of patterns: Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, 419–434. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110871890.203Suche in Google Scholar
Kakadelis, Stephanie M. 2018. Phonetic properties of oral stops in three languages with no voicing distinction. New York: CUNY PhD dissertation.Suche in Google Scholar
Koch, Harold. 1997. Pama-Nyungan reflexes in the Arandic languages. In Darrell Tryon & Michael Walsh (eds.), Boundary rider: Essays in honour of Geoffrey O’Grady (Pacific Linguistics C-136), 271–302. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.Suche in Google Scholar
Macklin-Cordes, Jayden, Claire Bowern & Erich R. Round. 2021. Phylogenetic signal in phonotactics. Diachronica 38(2). 210–258. https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.20004.mac.Suche in Google Scholar
Mansfield, John. 2014. Polysynthetic sociolinguistics: The language and culture of Murrinh Patha youth. Canberra: Australian National University PhD thesis.Suche in Google Scholar
Mansfield, John. forthcoming. Sociolinguistic variation. In Claire Bowern (ed.), The Oxford guide to Australian languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
McConvell, Patrick & Claire Bowern. 2011. The prehistory and internal relationships of Australian languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 5(1). 19–32.10.1111/j.1749-818X.2010.00257.xSuche in Google Scholar
Meakins, F. 2008. Land, language and identity. In Miriam Meyerhoff & Naomi Nagy (eds.), Social lives in language: Sociolinguistics and multilingual speech communities; Celebrating the work of Gillian Sankoff, 69–94. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/impact.24.08meaSuche in Google Scholar
Miller, Wick R. 1971. Dialect differentiation in the Western Desert language. Anthropological Forum 3. 61–78.10.1080/00664677.1971.9967258Suche in Google Scholar
Milroy, J. 1992. Social network and prestige arguments in sociolinguistics. In Kingsley Bolton & Helen Kwok (eds.), Sociolinguistics today: International perspectives, 146–162. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Milroy, James & Lesley Milroy. 1985. Linguistic change, social network and speaker innovation. Journal of Linguistics 21(2). 339–384. https://doi.org/10.2307/4175792.Suche in Google Scholar
Milroy, Lesley & James Milroy. 1992. Social network and social class: Toward an integrated sociolinguistic model. Language in Society 21(1). 1–26. https://doi.org/10.2307/4168309.Suche in Google Scholar
Moran, Steven, Eitan Grossman & Annemarie Verkerk. 2020. Investigating diachronic trends in phonological inventories using BDPROTO. Language Resources and Evaluation 55. 79–103.10.1007/s10579-019-09483-3Suche in Google Scholar
Nettle, Daniel. 1999a. Linguistic diversity. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198238584.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Nettle, Daniel. 1999b. Is the rate of linguistic change constant? Lingua 108(2). 119–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0024-3841(98)00047-3.Suche in Google Scholar
O’Grady, Geoffrey N. & K. L. Hale. 2004. The coherence and distinctiveness of the Pama-Nyungan language family within the Australian linguistic phylum. In Claire Bowern & Harold Koch (eds.), Australian languages: Classification and the comparative method (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 249), 69–92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.249.08ogrSuche in Google Scholar
Ohala, John J. 1989. Sound change is drawn from a pool of synchronic variation. In Leiv Egil Breivik & Ernst Håkon Jahr (eds.), Language change: Contributions to the study of its causes, 173–198. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110853063.173Suche in Google Scholar
Round, Erich R. 2009. Kayardild morphology, phonology and morphosyntax. New Haven: Yale University PhD dissertation.Suche in Google Scholar
Round, Erich R. forthcoming-a. Segment inventories in Australian languages. In Claire Bowern (ed.), The Oxford guide to Australian languages. Oxford: University University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Round, Erich R. forthcoming-b. Phonotactics in Australian languages. In Claire Bowern (ed.), The Oxford guide to Australian languages. Oxford: University University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1919. Die Gliederung der australischen Sprachen: Geographische, bibliographische, linguistische Grundzüge der Erforschung der australischen Sprachen. Vienna: Mechitharisten-Buchdruckerei.Suche in Google Scholar
Stevens, Mary & Jonathan Harrington. 2014. The individual and the actuation of sound change. Loquens 1(1). 003.10.3989/loquens.2014.003Suche in Google Scholar
Sutton, Peter & Harold Koch. 2008. Australian languages: A singular vision. Journal of Linguistics 44(2). 471–504.10.1017/S0022226708005185Suche in Google Scholar
Sutton, Peter & Bruce Rigsby. 1979. Linguistic communities and social networks on Cape York Peninsula. In Stephen A. Wurm (ed.), Australian linguistic studies (Pacific Linguistics C-54), 713–732. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Suche in Google Scholar
Tabain, Marija. forthcoming. Articulatory and acoustic phonetics: The place-of-articulation imperative. In Claire Bowern (ed.), The Oxford guide to Australian languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Tabain, Marija & Andrew Butcher. 2014. Pitjantjatjara. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 44(2). 189–200.10.1017/S0025100314000073Suche in Google Scholar
Vaughan, Jill. 2018. “We talk in saltwater words”: Dimensionalisation of dialectal variation in multilingual Arnhem Land. Language & Communication 62. 119–132.10.1016/j.langcom.2017.10.002Suche in Google Scholar
Voegelin, Florence M., Stephen Wurm, Geoffrey O’Grady, Tokuichiro Matsuda & Charles F. Voegelin. 1963. Obtaining an index of phonological differentiation from the construction of non-existent minimax systems. International Journal of American Linguistics 29(1). 4–28.10.1086/464707Suche in Google Scholar
Walsh, Michael & Colin Yallop. 1993. Language and culture in Aboriginal Australia. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Wedel, Andrew, Abby Kaplan & Scott Jackson. 2013. High functional load inhibits phonological contrast loss: A corpus study. Cognition 128(2). 179–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.03.002.Suche in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Introduction to sound change in endangered or small speech communities
- Where have all the sound changes gone? Phonological stability and mechanisms of sound change
- Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
- Cross-dialectal synchronic variation of a diachronic conditioned merger in Tlingit
- Vowel harmony in Laz Turkish: a case study in language contact and language change
- The evolution of tonally conditioned allomorphy in Triqui: evidence from spontaneous speech corpora
- Sound change and gender-based differences in isolated regions: acoustic analysis of intervocalic phonemic stops by Bora-Spanish bilinguals
- Place uniformity and drift in the Suzhounese fricative and apical vowels
- Flexibility and evolution of cue weighting after a tonal split: an experimental field study on Tamang
- The emergence of bunched vowels from retroflex approximants in endangered Dardic languages
- The expanding influence of Thai and its effects on cue redistribution in Kuy
- Speech style variation in an endangered language
- Sound change in Aboriginal Australia: word-initial engma deletion in Kunwok
- The dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun: loss, preservation, and extension
- Sound change or community change? The speech community in sound change studies: a case study of Scottish Gaelic
- Phonetic transfer in Diné Bizaad (Navajo)
- The evolution of flap-nasalization in Hoocąk
- Sound change and tonogenesis in Sylheti
- Exploring variation and change in a small-scale Indigenous society: the case of (s) in Pirahã
- Rhotics, /uː/, and diphthongization in New Braunfels German
- Generational differences in the low tones of Black Lahu
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Introduction to sound change in endangered or small speech communities
- Where have all the sound changes gone? Phonological stability and mechanisms of sound change
- Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
- Cross-dialectal synchronic variation of a diachronic conditioned merger in Tlingit
- Vowel harmony in Laz Turkish: a case study in language contact and language change
- The evolution of tonally conditioned allomorphy in Triqui: evidence from spontaneous speech corpora
- Sound change and gender-based differences in isolated regions: acoustic analysis of intervocalic phonemic stops by Bora-Spanish bilinguals
- Place uniformity and drift in the Suzhounese fricative and apical vowels
- Flexibility and evolution of cue weighting after a tonal split: an experimental field study on Tamang
- The emergence of bunched vowels from retroflex approximants in endangered Dardic languages
- The expanding influence of Thai and its effects on cue redistribution in Kuy
- Speech style variation in an endangered language
- Sound change in Aboriginal Australia: word-initial engma deletion in Kunwok
- The dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun: loss, preservation, and extension
- Sound change or community change? The speech community in sound change studies: a case study of Scottish Gaelic
- Phonetic transfer in Diné Bizaad (Navajo)
- The evolution of flap-nasalization in Hoocąk
- Sound change and tonogenesis in Sylheti
- Exploring variation and change in a small-scale Indigenous society: the case of (s) in Pirahã
- Rhotics, /uː/, and diphthongization in New Braunfels German
- Generational differences in the low tones of Black Lahu