Principles of Sound Change
The following statements are used as heuristics in formulating sound changes as understood within the Neogrammarian model. However, for modern linguistics, they are not taken as inviolable rules; rather, they are seen as guidelines.
Sound change has no memory: Sound change does not discriminate between the sources of a sound. If a previous sound change causes X,Y > Y (features X and Y merge as Y), a new one cannot affect only original X's.
Sound change ignores grammar: A sound change can only have phonological constraints, like X > Z in unstressed syllables. It cannot, for example, only affect adjectives. The only exception to this is that a sound change may or may not recognise word boundaries, even when they are not indicated by prosodic clues. Also, sound changes may be regularized in inflectional paradigms (such as verbal inflection), in which case the change is no longer phonological but morphological in nature.
Sound change is exceptionless: If a sound change can happen at a place, it will. It affects all sounds that meet the criteria for change. Apparent exceptions are possible, due to analogy and other regularization processes, or another sound change, or an unrecognized conditioning factor. This is the traditional view, expressed by the Neogrammarians. In past decades it has been shown that sound change doesn't necessarily affect all the words it in principle could. However, when a sound change is initiated, it often expands to the whole lexicon given enough time, though not always. For example, in Spanish the fronting of Vulgar Latin before seems to have reached every possible word it could, but the change involving voicing of word-initial Latin to as in colaphus > golpe and cattus > gato did not, e.g. canna > caña. See also lexical diffusion.
Sound change is unstoppable: All languages vary from place to place and time to time, and neither writing nor media prevent this change.
Read more about this topic: Sound Change
Famous quotes containing the words principles of, principles, sound and/or change:
“The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)
“Magic is akin to science in that it always has a definite aim intimately associated with human instincts, needs, and pursuits. The magic art is directed towards the attainment of practical aims. Like other arts and crafts, it is also governed by a theory, by a system of principles which dictate the manner in which the act has to be performed in order to be effective.”
—Bronislaw Malinowski (1984–1942)
“He seems determined to make a trumpet sound like a tin whistle.”
—Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960)
“That those tribes [the Sac and Fox Indians] cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)