Sound change: the regular, the unconscious, the mysterious

1
Sound change the regular, the unconscious, the
mysterious
W. Labov, U. of Pennsylvania
Colloquy on Hermann Paul FRIAS/HPCL
May 15, 2009
2
www.ling.upenn.edu/labov
PowerPoint available on
3
Herman Paul
PRINCIPLES OF THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE BY HERMANN
PAUL TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND EDITION OF THE
ORIGINAL BY H. A. STRONG, M. A., LL.D. NEW
YORK MACMILLAN CO. 1889
4
Summary of the critique of Paul in WLH 1968
the sole theoretically grounded object of
linguistic study is the idiolect, but there is no
explanation as to how community consensus is
achieved. change may come about when an
individual skews the distribution of his
performance to seek more comfortable behavior
patterns, but this key term is not defined, nor
is their any accounting of the sporadic character
of this adjustment. the grouping of idiolects
with respect to features shows no organization
that would prefer one grouping rather than
another.
5
Summary of the appreciation of Paul in WLH 1968
Pauls Principien may be said to reflect the best
achievements of Neogrammarian linguistics.
maximum rigor of formulation of the regularity
principle an intensive interest in recurrent
regularities a concern with phonetic detail
a feeling for the atypicality of standardized
languages among the totality of languages a
desire to portray as many-sidedly as possible
the conditions of the life of language
Sprachleben. recognition of the
dialectological point of view on language change.
6
regularity
7
The Neogrammarian position
Every sound change, inasmuch as it occurs
mechanically, takes place according to laws that
admit no exception. --Ostoff and Brugmann 1878
8
Paul on uniformity
We have now to answer the important question,
which has been in recent times the subject of so
much dispute Can we assert uniformity of
sound-laws? . . Sound-law does not pretend to
state what must always under certain general
conditions regularly recur, but merely express
the reign of uniformity within a group of
definite historical phenomena. PHL 56-57.
9
Paul on the regularity of sound change
It must either happen, therefore, that where the
same sound existed previously, the same sound
always remains in the later stages of development
as well or, where a separation into different
sounds has occurred, there must be a special
reason to be assigned and further, a reason of
a kind affecting sound alone PHL p. 58
10
Twentieth century formulation of the
Neogrammarian position
Sound-change is merely a change in the speakers
manner of producing phonemes and accordingly,
affects a phoneme at every occurrence, regardless
of the nature of any particular linguistic form
in which the phoneme happens to occur. . . The
whole assumption can be briefly put into the
words phonemes change. --Bloomfield
1933353-4
11
Lexical diffusion
The phonetic law does not affect all items at the
same time some are designed to develop quickly,
others remain behind, some offer strong
resistance and succeed in turning back any effort
at transformation. --Gauchat (cited in Dauzat
1922)
We hold that words change their pronunciations by
discrete, perceptual increments (i.e.,
phonetically abrupt) but severally at a time
(i.e., lexically gradual) --Wang and Chen
1977150.
12
Exemplar theory and lexical diffusion
The assumption that people learn phonetic
categories by remembering many labeled tokens of
these categories explains . . . why leniting
historical changes are typically more advanced
for high-frequency words than low-frequency
words. -- Pierre-Humbert Exemplar dynamics word
frequency, lenition and contrast (2000). To
appear in J. Bybee and P. Hopper (eds.),
Frequency effects and emergent grammar.
13
Resolving the Neogrammarian Controversy (Labov
1981)
Regular sound change is the result of a gradual
transformation of a single phonetic feature of a
phoneme in a continuous phonetic space.
Lexical diffusion is the result of the abrupt
substitution of one phoneme for another in words
that contain that phoneme.
14
The English Great Vowel shift (Jespersen)
/i/ iy
uw /u/ /e/ /o/
/æ/ ay aw
/?/
15
Ogura on lexical diffusion in the English Great
Vowel Shift
The data in Appendix B clearly show that the
change of ME i does not simultaneously occur but
gradually extends its scope across the lexicon)
We have claimed that the processes of the
development of ME i and u have propagated
themselves gradually from morpheme to morpheme.
--Mieko Ogura 1987. Historical English Phonology
A Lexical Perspective. Tokyo Kenkyusha. p. 45)
16
Phonetic realizations of M.E. u words in the
Survey of English Dialects
17
Multi-dimensional scaling of all M.E. i words
18
The i2 class
(i2) M.E. short i followed by a velar consonant
and /t/ in right, night, fight, sight, etc. In
the history of the best known dialects, the velar
was first realized as a voiceless palatal and
then disappeared, with compensatory lengthening
of the vowel.
19
The i3 class
(i3) long e followed by g in Old English in
lie, fly, die, and long ? in eye, etc. The /g/
has been lenited in all the dialects covered by
the Orton Atlas, but the raising of the vowel to
i did not occur in all dialects.
20
Muli-dimensional scaling of core M.E. i words
21
Reports of lexical diffusion, 1970-1997
1970 Cheng, Chin-Chuan, and Wang, Wm. S-Y. 1970.
Phonological change of Middle Chinese initials.
University of California (Berkeley) Dept. of
Linguistics. Project on Linguistic Analysis,
Second Series, 10 CW1 - CW69. 1973 Sherman, D.
1973. Noun-verb stress alternation an example of
the lexical diffusion of sound change in English.
Project on Linguistic Analysis, Reports, Second
Series, 17 46-81. 1976 Barrack, C. M. 1976.
Lexical diffusion and the High German consonant
shift. Lingua 40151-75. Toon, Thomas E. 1976.
The variationist analysis of Early Old English
manuscript data. In W. M. Christie Jr. (ed.),
Proceedings of the Second International
Conference on Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam
North Holland. Pp. 71-81. Toon, Thomas E.. 1976.
The actuation and implementation of an Old
English sound change. In R. J. Di Pietro E. L.
Blansitt (eds.), The Third Lacus Forum. Pp.
614-622. Columbia, SC Hornbeam Press,
Inc. 1977 Cheng, Chin-chuan and William S.-Y.
Wang. 1977. Tone change in Chaozhou Chinese a
study of lexical diffusion. In W. S-Y. Wang
(ed),The Lexicon in Phonological Change. The
Hague Mouton Pp. 86-100. Wang, William S.-Y. and
C.-C. Cheng. 1977. Implementation of phonological
change the Shaungfeng Chinese case. In W. S-Y.
Wang (ed.),The lexicon in phonological change.
The Hague Mouton.

22
Reports of lexical diffusion, 1977-1982
1977 Janson, Tore. 1977. Reversed lexical
diffusion and lexical split Loss of -d in
Stockholm. In Wang (ed.), The Lexicon in
Phonological Change. The Hague Mouton. Pp.
252-65. Lyovin, Anatole. 1977. Sound change,
homophony, and lexical diffusion. In W. Wang
(ed.), The Lexicon in Phonological Change. The
Hague Mouton. Pp. 120-32. 1978 Krishnamurti,
Bh. 1978. Areal and lexical diffusion of sound
change. Language 54. 1-20. Toon, Tomas E. 1978.
Lexical diffusion in Old English. CLS. Papers
from the Parasessions on the Lexicon. 1979 Wang,
William S.-Y. 1979. Language change--a lexical
perspective. Ann. Rev. Anthropol. 8353-71.
1980 Milroy, James. 1980. Lexical alternation
and the history of English evidence from an
urban vernacular. In E. Traugott et al. (ed.,
Papers from the 4th International Conference on
Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam John
Benjamins. Phillips, B. S. 1980. Lexical
diffusion and Southern Tune, Duke, News. American
Speech 5672-78. 1981 Wallace, Rex. 1981. The
variable deletion of final s in Latin. Ohio State
M.A. Thesis. Bauer, Robert S. 1982. Cantonese
sociolinguistic patterns correlating social
characteristics of speakers with phonological
variables in Hong Kong Cantonese. U. of
California Berkeley dissertation.

23
Reports of lexical diffusion, 1982-1987
1982 Li, Paul Jen-Kuei . 1982. Linguistic
variations of different age groups in the
Atayalic dialects. The Tsing Hua Journal of
Chinese Studies, new series, 14167-191. Chan,
Marjorie K. M. 1983. Lexical diffusion and two
Chinese case studies re-analyzed. Acta Orientalia
44117-52. 1983 Phillips, Betty S. 1983. Middle
English diphthongization, phonetic analogy, and
lexical diffusion. WORD 34.1 11-23. April
1983. 1984 Phillips, B. S. 1984. Word frequency
and the actuation of sound change. Language
60320-42. Wallace, Rex. 1984. Variable deletion
of -s in Latin Its consequences for Romance. In
Baldi, P. (ed), Papers from the XIIth Linguistic
Symposium on Romance Languages. Philadelphia J.,
Benjamins. Pp. 565-577. 1985 Fagan, D. S. 1985.
Competing sound change via lexical diffusion in a
Portuguese dialect. Sezione Romanza 27263-92.,.
1986 Bauer, Robert S. 1986. The microhistory of
a sound change in progress in Hong Kong
Cantonese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics
141-41. 1987 Lien, Chinfa. 1987. Coexistent
tone systems in Chinese dialects. Berkeley
University of California dissertation.

24
Reports of lexical diffusion, 1987-1991
1987 Gamble, G. 1987. Nootkan glottalized
resonsants in Nitinat a case of lexical
diffusion. In W. Wang (ed.), The Lexicon in
Phonological Change. The Hague Mouton. Pp.
266-278. Ogura, Mieko. 1987. Historical English
Phonology A Lexical Perspective. Tokyo
Kenkyusha. 1989 Harris, John. 1989. Towards a
lexical analysis of sound change in progress.
Journal of Linguistics 2535-56. Labov, William.
1989. The exact description of the speech
community short a in Philadelphia. In R. Fasold
D. Schiffrin (eds.),Language Change and
Variation. Washington, Georgetown U.P. Pp. 1-57.
Phillips, Betty S. 1989. The Diffusion of a
Borrowed Sound Change. JENGL 22.2,
October 1990 Shen, Zhongwei. 1990. Lexical
diffusion a population perspective and a
numerical model. Journal of Chinese Linguistics
18159-200. 1991 Ogura, Mieko, William S.-Y.
Wang and L. L. Cavalli-Sforza. 1991. The
development of ME i in England a study in
dynamic dialectology. In P. Eckert (ed.), New
Ways of Analyzing Sound Change. New York
Academic Press, pp. 63-106. .

25
Reports of lexical diffusion, 1993-2006
1993 Wang, William S.-Y. and Chinfa Lien 1993.
Bidirectional diffusion in sound change. In
Charles Jones (ed.), Historical Linguistics
Problems and Perspectives. London Longman Ltd.
Pp. 345-400. 1997 Krishnamurti, Bh. 1997.
Regularity of sound change through lexical
diffusion (A study of s gt h gt zero in Gondi
dialects. Paper presented to the Panel on Lexical
Diffusion at the 16th Intwernational Congress of
Linguists, Paris, July 21. 1998 Krishnamurti,
Bh. 1998. Regularity of sound change through
lexical diffusion A study of s gt h gt 0 in Gondi
dialects. Language Variation and Change
10193-220. 2006 Phillips, Betty S. 2006. Word
frequency and lexical diffusion. New York
Palgrave Macmillan. .

26
ANAE
Atlas of North American EQnglish
27
ANAE
Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. III
Chapter 13 Words floating on the surface of
sound change
28
Fronting of /ow/ in North America
29
Distribution of /ow/ vowels for all of North
America. N8313.Vowels before /l/ are shown in
black N1577.
30
Absence of fronting of Vw in vowel system of Alex
S., 42, Providence, RI TS 474.
31
Fronting of all Vw in the vowel system of Danica
L., 37, Columbus, OH, TS 737.
32
34 most frequent /ow/ words in the Brown and
Telsur corpora
33
Regression coefficients for the fronting of /ow/
in ANAE data N7796
p lt.00001 lt.001 lt.05
34
Surviving regression coefficients in both halves
of a random split in the /ow/ tokens even
3927, odd 3869F1/F2 position of 348 no tokens
in /ow/ distribution N8296
no
home
p lt.00001 lt.001 lt.05
35
Fronting of /ow/ for words before /l/ and others
for all of North America and for the Southeast
(South and Midland). Words selected by regression
analysis at p lt.001 level as ahead of
phonological prediction, light blue behind,
yellow.
36
Paul on the fluctuation of words
Vacillations of pronunciation caused by quicker
or slower, louder or gentler, more careful or
more negligent utterances, will always affect the
same element in the same manner, no matter in
what word it may occur --PHL 59
37
Absence of fronting of Vw in vowel system of Alex
S., 42, Providence, RI TS 474.
38
Fronting of all Vw in the vowel system of Danica
L., 37, Columbus, OH, TS 737.
39
Is home a lexical exception to the fronting of
/ow/?
40
The /h_m/ effect on the fronting of /ow/
41
the unconscious
42
Paul on the unconscious character of sound change
. . . there is no such thing as a conscious
effort to prevent sound change. For those who are
affected by the chnge have no suspicion that
there is anything to guard against, and they pass
their lives always in the simple belief that they
speak today as they spoke years ago, and that
they will continue to the end to speak in the
same way. PHL 48.
43
Conscious correction of a completed change
reading and word lists in New York City
We chased him with a ba--a baseball bat and yell,
Bad boy! bad, bad! but he was too. . fast, only
my aunt could catch him.
Paul all ball awful coffee office chalk chocolate
chock
44
Project on Cross-Dialectal Comprehension Gating
Experiment 2
Word Phrase
Sentence 1. _________ ________________
___________________________ 2. _________
________________ ___________________________ 3.
_________ ________________ ____________________
_______ 4. _________ ________________
___________________________ 5. _________
________________ ___________________________ 6.
_________ ________________ ____________________
_______
45
The Northern Cities Shift
desk
busses
mat
head
block socks
boss
46
Percent correct in Gating Experiments by city and
educational level in Cross Dialectal
Comprehension study block
block living on
Senior citizens
one block living on one block
47
Formant measurements of word lists read by
advanced speakers in Birmingham B, ChicagoC
and Philadelphia P
48
Adult change in real time?
Were anyone able to compare the movements which
his organs made in the utterance of a word many
years before with those which he makes at
present, he would most likely find a striking
difference. But to make any such real comparison
would be an impossibility. PHL 48
49
Real time changes in the lenition of (ch) in
Panama City in Cedergrens trend study, 1969-1982
50
Model of generational change of (ch) in Panama
City with no age-grading
51
Regression analyses of fronting of (aw) of men
and women by decade in the Philadelphia
Neighborhood Study N112
52
Lifespan trajectory of a hypothetical sound
change for females born in 1962, 1970, 1986 with
no adult increment (Labov 1994)
b. 1986
b. 1970
b. 1962
53
The critical period revised possible models of
adult participation in sound change
Stable
Linear
Inverse power
54
Lifespan trajectory of a hypothetical sound
change for females born in 1962, 1970, 1986 with
progressively diminishing adult incrementation
cut-off point 17 years
b. 1986
b. 1970
r2.998
b. 1962
55
mysteries
56
The individual and the community
all purely psychical reciprocal operation comes
to its fulfillment in the individual mind alone.
PHL xxxvii All that we imagine that we know about
the ideas of another individual depends
exclusively upon conclusions drawn from our own.
PHL xxxix The great resemblance of all linguistic
processes n the most different individuals is the
most essential foundation for an exact scientific
knkowledge of these processes. PHL xlv
57
The enigma of uniformity
It is by intercourse, and nothing else, that the
language of the individual is generated.
PHL23 If we start with the undeniable truth that
each individual has his or her own language, and
that each such language has its own history, the
problem is not so much how from a language
essentially uniform different dialects arise. .
The problem which challenges solution is this
How comes it that while the language of each
individual has its own special history, this
degree of agreement--a certain greater or
less--maintains itself within this
miscellaneously constituted group of individuals?
PHL23
58
Auer and Hinskens (2005) The role of
interpersonal accommodation in a theory of
language change
accommodation by the socially integrated speakers
of type A. . . is often surpassed by type D
speakers. . . with loose and ephemeral network
contacts who are highly dissatisfied with their
social life. . . It appears that the best
predictor of accommodation is not frequency of
interaction but instead a strong attitudinal
orientation towards the group with whom one wants
to associate -- p. 356
59
Auer and Hinskens (2005) conclusion
. . .we certainly cannot exclude the possibility
that participants in the interaction accommodate
to each others behavior nor can we exclude the
possibility that the frequency of exposure to a
new, spreading feature through intensive network
contacts with its users can lead to the adoption
of this variable.
60
The fronting of (aw) shown by increase of the
second formant with diminishing age in the
Philadelphia Neighborhood Study N112
61
Figure 5. The curvilinear pattern for social
class in the fronting of (aw) in south, down,
out, etc. in Philadelphia
Celeste 2578 Hz
62
The communication index C5
Combines answers to questions about the density
of communication on the block How many
people on the block do you say hello
to? have coffee with? ask
for advice?. . . with the proportion of friends
who live off the block.
63
Scattergram of the fronting of (aw) by the
communication index C5 for women in four
Philadelphia neighborhoods
64
Sociometric position of Celeste S. in the Clark
St. network(Upper figure advancement of change,
lower figure, C5 index).
65
The two-step flow of communication
(Katz and Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence)
66
Fronting of /ey/ (F2) in closed syllables in
made, pain, lake, etc. by age with partial
regression lines for 6 socioeconomic groups in
Philadelphia N112
Fronting of (aw) for 112 speakers in the
Philadelphia Neighborhood Study by age and social
class
67
On the negative effects of sound change
Thus the symmetry of any system of forms meets in
sound change an incessant and aggressive foe. It
is hard to realize how disconnected, confused,
and unintelligible language would gradually
become if it had patiently to endure all the
devastations of sound change. Paul 1891
68
Natural misunderstanding cat gt cod
Neither my boyfriend Dave nor I are natives to
Michigan, and we are not NCS speakers. Dave had
the following misunderstanding happen three times
in the Lansing area, at two different grocery
stores, with two different workers he asked for
'catfish' and the man behind the counter gave him
cod, thinking he said 'codfish.
69
Natural misunderstanding pets gt pots
Telephone surveyor Chicago Do you have any
pets in the house? Brian T. Eastern US gt pots.
thought that 'pot' was not likely since everyone
has pots and pot marijuana was too personal
asked for repetition several times until
understood.
70
Map 11.8. North American dialects
71
The U.S. at Night
72
U.S. at Night
The Inland North
Grand Rapids
Milwaukee
Syracuse
Rochester
Chicago
Flint
Buffalo
Detroit
Cleveland
Kenoshat
Joliet
Toledo
73
Settlement patterns 1800-1850 (Kniffen and
Glassie 1966)
74
Figure 3.2. Relationships among Americas Most
Populous Metropolitan Areas
75
Caption for Figure 3.2.
Relationships among Americas Most Populous
Metropolitan Areas. Heavy lines indicate the
largest outflows of interstate telephone calls
for a sample period in 1968. Light lines indicate
largest or second largest outflows of air
passengers from SMSAs over 250,000. The flows
mapped from open city symbols are primary flows
flows mapped from solid city symbols are second
largest outflows or traffic shadow assignments if
they are within about 100 miles of their
superordinate. With the exception of places very
close to one of the 20 study regions, almost all
of the places east of the Mississippi for which
secondary flows are indicated sent their primary
outflow to New York City. Sources Telephone
call data American Telephone and Telegraph
Company. Air Passenger Data courtesy of
Professor Michael O. Filani, University of Ibadan.
76
Figure 9. The UD measure of the Northern Cities
Shift
77
Summary of the appreciation of Paul in WLH 1968
Pauls Principien may be said to reflect the best
achievements of Neogrammarian linguistics.
maximum rigor of formulation of the regularity
principle an intensive interest in recurrent
regularities a concern with phonetic detail
a feeling for the atypicality of standardized
languages among the totality of languages a
desire to portray as many-sidedly as possible
the conditions of the life of language
Sprachleben. recognition of the
dialectological point of view on language change.
78
Summary of the critique of Paul in WLH 1968
the sole theoretically grounded object of
linguistic study is the idiolect, but there is no
explanation as to how community consensus is
achieved. change may come about when an
individual skews the distribution of his
performance to seek more comfortable behavior
patterns, but this key term is not defined, nor
is their any accounting of the sporadic character
of this adjustment. the grouping of idiolects
with respect to features shows no organization
that would prefer one grouping rather than
another.
v the answer must lie in transmission among
children, but there is some evidence for an
ideological substratum among adults v principle
of maximal dispersion combined with general
principles governing chain shifting v some
progress on the actuation problem in searching
for triggering events in both linguistic and
social context v ANAE defines dialects by the
active chain shifts in progress, in a phonology
organized as hierarchical sets of subsystems in
the framework of Martinet and Weinreich