Commentary on Crowley

1. Commentary on Crowley Chapter Three – Expressing Sound Changes

2. FIVE ASPECTS OF CHAPTER 3 • Unconditioned change • Conditioned change • The form of historical phonological rules • a) “rounded brackets” (parentheses) • b) “curley brackets” { } • Rule ordering • Exercises

3. Unconditioned Change • This is actually pretty rare. Most famous case is Grimm’s Law. • http://www-personal.umich.edu/~clunis/wow/grimm/reverse-frames.html • In fact, however, Grimm’s Law had a lot of exceptions. Or at least so it seemed at the time. But who ever expected otherwise?

4. Grimm’s Famous Law ...was discovered by studying ancient written texts, comparing ancient Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Old Church Gothic texts—none of them a living language. The study of living languages indicates that Grimm’s Law is most likely the summation of numerous changes that took place over many centuries, all tending in the same direction, in the end giving the impression of “unconditioned change”.

5. Verner’s Law • Karl Verner explained most of the exceptions by positing a “Second Consonant Shift” in Germanic involving conditioned change. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aal9VSPkf5s

6. Verner’s Law When surrounded by voiced sounds and preceded by an unaccented vowel (i.e. / V︣__V), f > b / V︣__V ð > d / V︣__V h > g / V︣__V s > r / V︣__V (alveolar trill)  

7. Since Verner The fundamental principle of Historical Phonology: • Bloomfield: “Phonemes change.” • Interpretation: Sound change takes place by allophones. • IOW: Sound change is conditioned change.

8. Practice Writing Simple Rules, p. 70 1. Intervocalic /s/ undergoes rhoticism while /s/ before a consonant is deleted. 2. Word-initial consonants undergo weakening to [j] (=[y]) 3. An epenthetic o is added between the two members of a word final consonant cluster.

9. Parenthesis Notation In Enggano, vowels are nasalized following a nasal vowel, whether or not there is an intervening consonant. V > [+nas] / V (C) ___ [+nas]

10. Curly Brackets Notation Motu palatalization: t became s before either i or e IOW: t > s / __ i AND t > s / __e. IOW using curly brackets: t > s / i e

11. Reconstructing the Order of Changes Hawaiian example, textbook, p. 66. Consider two possible outcomes for the two changes t > k and k > ɂ. Proto Oceanic t>k>ɂ k>ɂ, t>k *taŋi *kaso *takele *aka *pito *paki *tapu *taŋata *isu *sika

12. Reconstructing the Order of Changes Hawaiian example, textbook, p. 66. Consider two possible outcomes for the two changes t > k and k > ɂ. Proto Oceanic *t>k>ɂ T1 *k>ɂ T2 *t>k *taŋi ɂaŋi kaŋi *kaso ɂaso ɂaso *takele ɂaɂele taɂele kaɂele *aka aɂa aɂa *pito piɂo piko *paki paɂi paɂi *tapu ɂapu kapu *taŋata ɂaŋaɂa kaŋaka *sika siɂa siɂa

13. Exercises, pp. 70-71 • Ex. 2 • Ex. 3 • Ex. 4 • Ex. 5