Evolutionary phonology : the emergence of sound patterns

Bibliographic Information

Evolutionary phonology : the emergence of sound patterns

Juliette Blevins

Cambridge University Press, 2004

  • : hardback
  • : pbk

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Paperback: Description based on: 2007

Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-356) and indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Evolutionary Phonology is a theory of sound patterns which synthesizes results in historical linguistics, phonetics and phonological theory. In this book, Juliette Blevins explores the nature of sounds patterns and sound change in human language over the past 7000-8000 years, the time depth for which the comparative method is reasonably reliable. This book presents an approach to the problem of how genetically unrelated languages, from families as far apart as Native American, Australian Aboriginal, Austronesian and Indo-European, can often show similar sound patterns, and also tackles the converse problem of why there are notable exceptions to most of the patterns that are often regarded as universal tendencies or constraints. It argues that in both cases, a formal model of sound change that integrates phonetic variation and patterns of misperception can account for attested sound systems without reference to markedness or naturalness within the synchronic grammar.

Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Acknowledgements
  • Part I. Preliminaries: 1. What is evolutionary phonology? 2. Evolution in language and elsewhere
  • 3. Explanation in phonology: a brief history of ideas
  • Part II. Sound Patterns: 4. Laryngeal features
  • 5. Place features
  • 6. Other common sound patterns
  • 7. The evolution of geminates
  • 8. Some uncommon sound patterns
  • Part III. Implications: 9. Synchronic phonology
  • 10. Diachronic phonology
  • 11. Beyond phonology
  • References
  • Language index
  • Subject index.

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