Phonological grammar and uncovering past language contacts

Presented at the UPLD 2025 workshop, Riga, Latvia

Transcript

1. Phonological grammar and uncovering past language contacts Pavel Iosad UPLD 2025, Rīga 1
2. Claims of this talk • Current understandings of language contact do not have a sufficiently elaborated interface with phonological grammar • Closer scrutiny often weakens the case for phonological interference • Some kinds of contact-induced change in phonology require more theoretical and empirical elaboration 2
3. Claims of this talk • Current understandings of language contact do not have a sufficiently elaborated interface with phonological grammar • Closer scrutiny often weakens the case for phonological interference • Some kinds of contact-induced change in phonology require more theoretical and empirical elaboration 2
4. Claims of this talk • Current understandings of language contact do not have a sufficiently elaborated interface with phonological grammar • Closer scrutiny often weakens the case for phonological interference • Some kinds of contact-induced change in phonology require more theoretical and empirical elaboration 2
5. Language contact and phonological change
6. What is a phonological pattern? • Phonetic categories • Phoneme inventories • Distributions and phonotactics • Patterns of allophony • Morphophonological alternations • Featural representations 3
7. What is a phonological pattern? • Phonetic categories • Phoneme inventories • Distributions and phonotactics • Patterns of allophony • Morphophonological alternations • Featural representations Phonologists care about all of these, but how can we use them to understand language contact? 3
8. What can be transferred? In the widely cited distinction between transfer of matter and transfer of pattern (Sakel 2007), phonological material sits rather uneasily. 4
9. Division of labour and the life cycle An observed ‘sound pattern’ can have multiple ætiologies (Bermúdez-Otero 2015, Natvig 2019): • Universal phonetic pattern, outwith cognitive control Phonetics Outwith cognitive control Phonetic rule Language- specific phonetics Postlexical level Word level Stem level Lexicon Morphology Domain narrowing Domain narrowing Stabilization Phonologization Phonology Rule death Morphologization The life cycle of phonological processes 5
10. Division of labour and the life cycle An observed ‘sound pattern’ can have multiple ætiologies (Bermúdez-Otero 2015, Natvig 2019): • Universal phonetic pattern, outwith cognitive control • Language-specific phonetic rule, under cognitive control but outwith phonological computation Phonetics Outwith cognitive control Phonetic rule Language- specific phonetics Postlexical level Word level Stem level Lexicon Morphology Domain narrowing Domain narrowing Stabilization Phonologization Phonology Rule death Morphologization The life cycle of phonological processes 5
11. Division of labour and the life cycle An observed ‘sound pattern’ can have multiple ætiologies (Bermúdez-Otero 2015, Natvig 2019): • Universal phonetic pattern, outwith cognitive control • Language-specific phonetic rule, under cognitive control but outwith phonological computation • Phonological rule, possibly within a stratal architecture Phonetics Outwith cognitive control Phonetic rule Language- specific phonetics Postlexical level Word level Stem level Lexicon Morphology Domain narrowing Domain narrowing Stabilization Phonologization Phonology Rule death Morphologization The life cycle of phonological processes 5
12. Division of labour and the life cycle An observed ‘sound pattern’ can have multiple ætiologies (Bermúdez-Otero 2015, Natvig 2019): • Universal phonetic pattern, outwith cognitive control • Language-specific phonetic rule, under cognitive control but outwith phonological computation • Phonological rule, possibly within a stratal architecture • Morphological exponent Phonetics Outwith cognitive control Phonetic rule Language- specific phonetics Postlexical level Word level Stem level Lexicon Morphology Domain narrowing Domain narrowing Stabilization Phonologization Phonology Rule death Morphologization The life cycle of phonological processes 5
13. Division of labour and the life cycle An observed ‘sound pattern’ can have multiple ætiologies (Bermúdez-Otero 2015, Natvig 2019): • Universal phonetic pattern, outwith cognitive control • Language-specific phonetic rule, under cognitive control but outwith phonological computation • Phonological rule, possibly within a stratal architecture • Morphological exponent • Historical remnant Phonetics Outwith cognitive control Phonetic rule Language- specific phonetics Postlexical level Word level Stem level Lexicon Morphology Domain narrowing Domain narrowing Stabilization Phonologization Phonology Rule death Morphologization The life cycle of phonological processes 5
14. An example: stop preaspiration Stage UR SR Phonetics Example Phonologization /p t k/ [p t k] Nʰp ʰt ʰkN Faroese, Ulster Ir- ish, Sea Sámi 6
15. An example: stop preaspiration Stage UR SR Phonetics Example Phonologization /p t k/ [p t k] Nʰp ʰt ʰkN Faroese, Ulster Ir- ish, Sea Sámi Stabilization /p t k/ [hp ht hk] Nhp ht hkN Icelandic, North- ern Sámi, Argyll Gaelic 6
16. An example: stop preaspiration Stage UR SR Phonetics Example Phonologization /p t k/ [p t k] Nʰp ʰt ʰkN Faroese, Ulster Ir- ish, Sea Sámi Stabilization /p t k/ [hp ht hk] Nhp ht hkN Icelandic, North- ern Sámi, Argyll Gaelic Lexicalization /hp ht hk/ [hp ht hk] Nhp ht hkN South Sámi, Här- jedalen Swedish 6
17. An example: stop preaspiration Stage UR SR Phonetics Example Phonologization /p t k/ [p t k] Nʰp ʰt ʰkN Faroese, Ulster Ir- ish, Sea Sámi Stabilization /p t k/ [hp ht hk] Nhp ht hkN Icelandic, North- ern Sámi, Argyll Gaelic Lexicalization /hp ht hk/ [hp ht hk] Nhp ht hkN South Sámi, Här- jedalen Swedish In what sense can we call ‘preaspiration’ a contact or areal phenomenon if it’s not even a single phenomenon? 6
18. Phonological change and agentivity
19. Where does phonology sit? • Can phonological patterns transfer? 7
20. Where does phonology sit? • Can phonological patterns transfer? Yes! (Thomason & Kaufman 1988) 7
21. Where does phonology sit? • Can phonological patterns transfer? Yes! (Thomason & Kaufman 1988) • How does phonology interact with the two different modes of agentivity? (van Coetsem 1988, Winford 2005) 7
22. Where does phonology sit? • Can phonological patterns transfer? Yes! (Thomason & Kaufman 1988) • How does phonology interact with the two different modes of agentivity? (van Coetsem 1988, Winford 2005) • L1 agentivity: yes, although the degree of integration matters. 7
23. Where does phonology sit? • Can phonological patterns transfer? Yes! (Thomason & Kaufman 1988) • How does phonology interact with the two different modes of agentivity? (van Coetsem 1988, Winford 2005) • L1 agentivity: yes, although the degree of integration matters. • L2 agentivity: yes, sound patterns are generally involved, but social evaluation seems to matter a lot. 7
24. Where does phonology sit? • Can phonological patterns transfer? Yes! (Thomason & Kaufman 1988) • How does phonology interact with the two different modes of agentivity? (van Coetsem 1988, Winford 2005) • L1 agentivity: yes, although the degree of integration matters. • L2 agentivity: yes, sound patterns are generally involved, but social evaluation seems to matter a lot. • What even counts as a phonological pattern? (Natvig 2019) 7
25. Phonology and language contact in the past • The sociohistorical circumstances should match the transfer mechanism, but phonology can be involved in both modes • Phonological change by itself is not easily diagnostic for recovering the type of contact. 8
26. Contact-induced change and transfer As with other abstract, tightly integrated subsystems, not all change in sound patterns that is induced by contact can be conceptualized as transfer or copying • Compromise and interlanguage systems (Kehoe 2015, Andersson, Sayeed & Vaux 2017) • Loss of marked structures / reversion to the typological mean • Simultaneous innovation 9
27. Contact-induced change and transfer As with other abstract, tightly integrated subsystems, not all change in sound patterns that is induced by contact can be conceptualized as transfer or copying • Compromise and interlanguage systems (Kehoe 2015, Andersson, Sayeed & Vaux 2017) • Loss of marked structures / reversion to the typological mean • Simultaneous innovation And conversely, some changes that involve sharing of patterns are not necessarily contact-induced • Genuine random parallels • Endogenous developments downstream of contact events (Blevins 2017) • Drift (Joseph 2013) 9
28. The problem with phonology We don’t know enough about possible and/or probable phonological changes, but we know something, and tend to have strong intuitions (Kümmel 2007, Cser 2015) 10
29. The problem with phonology We don’t know enough about possible and/or probable phonological changes, but we know something, and tend to have strong intuitions (Kümmel 2007, Cser 2015) Phonological change and grounding Phonology is about externalization and subject to extremely strong substantive biases. 10
30. The problem with phonology We don’t know enough about possible and/or probable phonological changes, but we know something, and tend to have strong intuitions (Kümmel 2007, Cser 2015) Phonological change and grounding Phonology is about externalization and subject to extremely strong substantive biases. This makes distinguishing between ‘endogenous’ and ‘contact-induced’ change especially difficult 10
31. Types of contact-induced phonological change
32. Convergence under L1 multilingualism? Perhaps the most straightforward type of contact-induced change in phonology, commonly held responsible for many well-known ‘areal sound patterns’ • South Asian retroflexes (Emeneau 1956) • Jewish North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic in contact with Gorani and Kurdish (Khan & Mohammadirad 2024) • Slavic and Baltic in the Great Duchy of Lithuania convergence zone (Sudnik 1975, Erker & Wiemer 2011) 11
33. Convergence under L1 multilingualism? Perhaps the most straightforward type of contact-induced change in phonology, commonly held responsible for many well-known ‘areal sound patterns’ • South Asian retroflexes (Emeneau 1956) • Jewish North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic in contact with Gorani and Kurdish (Khan & Mohammadirad 2024) • Slavic and Baltic in the Great Duchy of Lithuania convergence zone (Sudnik 1975, Erker & Wiemer 2011) These cases are especially well known where the outcome is total convergence of (sub)systems, but the exact mechanism rarely comes under sustained scrutiny. 11
34. Convergence under L1 multilingualism? Perhaps the most straightforward type of contact-induced change in phonology, commonly held responsible for many well-known ‘areal sound patterns’ • South Asian retroflexes (Emeneau 1956) • Jewish North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic in contact with Gorani and Kurdish (Khan & Mohammadirad 2024) • Slavic and Baltic in the Great Duchy of Lithuania convergence zone (Sudnik 1975, Erker & Wiemer 2011) These cases are especially well known where the outcome is total convergence of (sub)systems, but the exact mechanism rarely comes under sustained scrutiny. A common claim is that unadapted lexical borrowings provide the vector 11
35. Long-term convergence: a closer look An areal pattern in Ireland • Southern Irish English: /t d/ tin den ≠ /t̪ d̪/ thin then (Kallen 2013) • Irish: /t d/ team deck [tiːmʲ dɪkʲ] ≠ /t̪ d̪/ tinn ‘ill’ [t̪ʲiːɲ] doigh [d̪ʌ] ‘pain’ (Ó Curnáin 2007) • Pre-/r/ dentalization: [t̪r d̪r], *[tr dr] • Irish English, north and south (Kallen 2013, Maguire 2020) • Irish: [t̪ d̪] in trail, motor, history… 12
36. Long-term convergence: a closer look An areal pattern in Ireland • Southern Irish English: /t d/ tin den ≠ /t̪ d̪/ thin then (Kallen 2013) • Irish: /t d/ team deck [tiːmʲ dɪkʲ] ≠ /t̪ d̪/ tinn ‘ill’ [t̪ʲiːɲ] doigh [d̪ʌ] ‘pain’ (Ó Curnáin 2007) • Pre-/r/ dentalization: [t̪r d̪r], *[tr dr] • Irish English, north and south (Kallen 2013, Maguire 2020) • Irish: [t̪ d̪] in trail, motor, history… • English [θ ð] > Irish English [t̪ d̪] usually analysed as L2 imposition (Filppula 1999), but could be simplification / markedness reduction • English [t d] was borrowed as [t̪ d̪] prior to the growth of English competence in the community: separate L1-actuated transfer • Dentalization: not Irish > English substrate (Maguire 2020) 12
37. Problems with directionality: the Balkan schwa • Many languages of the Balkan Sprachbund have undoubtedly phonemic central non-low vowels • Romanian câmp < campum ‘field’, fără < forās ‘without’, văzduh < Slavic *vъzduxъ ‘sky’ • Bulgarian zəb < *zǫbъ ‘tooth’ • Albanian këngë < Latin canticam ‘song’ • Macedonian (Vidoeski 1999) • Northern dialects: sən ‘dream’ < *sъnъ, dən ‘day’ < *dьnь • South-eastern dialects: vək ‘wolf’ < *vl̥kъ 13
38. Problems with directionality: the Balkan schwa • Many languages of the Balkan Sprachbund have undoubtedly phonemic central non-low vowels • Romanian câmp < campum ‘field’, fără < forās ‘without’, văzduh < Slavic *vъzduxъ ‘sky’ • Bulgarian zəb < *zǫbъ ‘tooth’ • Albanian këngë < Latin canticam ‘song’ • Macedonian (Vidoeski 1999) • Northern dialects: sən ‘dream’ < *sъnъ, dən ‘day’ < *dьnь • South-eastern dialects: vək ‘wolf’ < *vl̥kъ • A skeptical view (Joseph 2009): • Different historical sources • No obvious mechanisms beyond unadapted borrowings, which does not seem that powerful, even where plausible 13
39. Shared sound change under L1 agentivity Some possible sources of convergence: 14
40. Shared sound change under L1 agentivity Some possible sources of convergence: • Perceptual magnet effects (Blevins 2017) 14
41. Shared sound change under L1 agentivity Some possible sources of convergence: • Perceptual magnet effects (Blevins 2017) • Shared sound change 14
42. Shared sound change under L1 agentivity Some possible sources of convergence: • Perceptual magnet effects (Blevins 2017) • Shared sound change Co-territorial vernaculars with parallel outcomes of the nasal schwa (Marković 2007, Friedman 2018): • *ə̃ > ɔ in SE Macedonian and Meglenoromanian • > ə(N) in Albanian, Aromanian, W Macedonian • > ɔ̃ > ɔN in Albanian, SW Macedonian 14
43. Shared sound change under L1 agentivity Some possible sources of convergence: • Perceptual magnet effects (Blevins 2017) • Shared sound change Co-territorial vernaculars with parallel outcomes of the nasal schwa (Marković 2007, Friedman 2018): • *ə̃ > ɔ in SE Macedonian and Meglenoromanian • > ə(N) in Albanian, Aromanian, W Macedonian • > ɔ̃ > ɔN in Albanian, SW Macedonian Shared sound change? If anything, we should expect multilingual speakers to do this! 14
44. How pervasive is shared change? Proto-Balto-Slavic Lithuanian Latvian Latgalian Gloss *rankāˀ ra[ŋ]kà r[uo]ka rūka ‘hand’ *źansís ž[aː]sìs z[uo]ss zūss ‘goose’ *pénki pe[ŋ]kì pieci pīci ‘five’ Standard account: • Latvian and Latgalian: loss of nasal with lengthening and raising > diphthongization • Lithuanian: • VN > Ṽ > Vː except before stops • Before stops: coda place assimilation 15
45. A provocation Lithuanian dialect outcomes • Why not VN > Ṽː > raising 16
46. A provocation Lithuanian dialect outcomes • Why not VN > Ṽː > raising • > denasalization 16
47. A provocation Lithuanian dialect outcomes • Why not VN > Ṽː > raising • > denasalization • > VN before stops 16
48. A provocation Lithuanian dialect outcomes • Why not VN > Ṽː > raising • > denasalization • > VN before stops • …the latter is, uncontroversially, exactly what happened in Polish 16
49. How pervasive is shared change? • Other possible examples are not very difficult to find • Long vowel diphthongizations in Polabian and Wendland/Altmark German (Wiesinger 2004) • Pharyngealization segmentation in Neo-Aramaic, Gorani and Kurdish (Khan & Mohammadirad 2024) • Retroflexion of *ll > ɖɖ in Southern Italian and local Greek (Falcone 1973) • Vowel developments in Romance and Western South Slavic (Vermeer 1989) 17
50. How pervasive is shared change? • Other possible examples are not very difficult to find • Long vowel diphthongizations in Polabian and Wendland/Altmark German (Wiesinger 2004) • Pharyngealization segmentation in Neo-Aramaic, Gorani and Kurdish (Khan & Mohammadirad 2024) • Retroflexion of *ll > ɖɖ in Southern Italian and local Greek (Falcone 1973) • Vowel developments in Romance and Western South Slavic (Vermeer 1989) • Long-term balanced bilingualism that enables such change does not seem as common in (ahem) Western Eurasia as elsewhere • Even for established Sprachbünde like the Balkans the situation may need some nuance (Sobolev 2021) • We need much more work on diverse contexts that centres the multilingual repertoire 17
51. Convergence of systems • Shared sound changes explain synchronically converged systems primarily through diachrony • This is in line with much current thinking in phonology (Blevins 2004) and typology (Cristofaro 2019) • Can this explain all instances of phonological convergence? 18
52. Homoplasy What is shared is not the changes but the system that the changes bring about (Hock 2022: 682 on Indo-Aryan retroflexes) • Homoplasy: different diachrony, convergent synchrony (Lass 1997, Van de Velde & van der Horst 2013) • Possible explanations: 19
53. Homoplasy What is shared is not the changes but the system that the changes bring about (Hock 2022: 682 on Indo-Aryan retroflexes) • Homoplasy: different diachrony, convergent synchrony (Lass 1997, Van de Velde & van der Horst 2013) • Possible explanations: • Importation via lexical borrowings 19
54. Homoplasy What is shared is not the changes but the system that the changes bring about (Hock 2022: 682 on Indo-Aryan retroflexes) • Homoplasy: different diachrony, convergent synchrony (Lass 1997, Van de Velde & van der Horst 2013) • Possible explanations: • Importation via lexical borrowings • Perceptual magnet effects (Blevins 2017) 19
55. Homoplasy What is shared is not the changes but the system that the changes bring about (Hock 2022: 682 on Indo-Aryan retroflexes) • Homoplasy: different diachrony, convergent synchrony (Lass 1997, Van de Velde & van der Horst 2013) • Possible explanations: • Importation via lexical borrowings • Perceptual magnet effects (Blevins 2017) • Convergence/transfer of synchronic pattern? Often argued to be difficult/impossible! 19
56. An example: High Latvian vowel ‘reduction’ • High Latvian (Seržant 2010) *a [ˈvodu͡ot] ‘drive.inf’ ∼ [ˈpovada] ‘reins’ *o absent in native vocabulary • East Slavic: *a [traˈva] ‘grass’ ∼ [ˈtravi̵] ‘grass.pl’ *o [vaˈda] ‘water’ ∼ [ˈvodi̵] ‘water.pl’ *e [sʲasˈtra] ‘sister.nom’ ∼ [ˈsʲestrʲin] ‘sister.adj’ 20
57. An example: High Latvian vowel ‘reduction’ • High Latvian (Seržant 2010) *a [ˈvodu͡ot] ‘drive.inf’ ∼ [ˈpovada] ‘reins’ *o absent in native vocabulary • East Slavic: *a [traˈva] ‘grass’ ∼ [ˈtravi̵] ‘grass.pl’ *o [vaˈda] ‘water’ ∼ [ˈvodi̵] ‘water.pl’ *e [sʲasˈtra] ‘sister.nom’ ∼ [ˈsʲestrʲin] ‘sister.adj’ • Both languages end up with [ˈo] ∼ [a] alternations: why? 20
58. Vowel reduction: diachrony • Diachrony of High Latvian 1. *a > o except before front vowels/palatal consonants 2. Allophonic alternation, with /o/ in the elsewhere context • Compare with Standard Latvian gads ∼ gadi… • gods ‘year.nom.sg’ ∼ gadi ‘year.nom.pl’ 3. *ɛ > a in non-palatal contexts leads to phonemicization: /a/ ≠ /o/ 21
59. Vowel reduction: diachrony • Diachrony of High Latvian 1. *a > o except before front vowels/palatal consonants 2. Allophonic alternation, with /o/ in the elsewhere context • Compare with Standard Latvian gads ∼ gadi… • gods ‘year.nom.sg’ ∼ gadi ‘year.nom.pl’ 3. *ɛ > a in non-palatal contexts leads to phonemicization: /a/ ≠ /o/ • Diachrony of East Slavic • The usual interpretation is *o, e > a in unstressed syllables • If true, nothing like High Latvian: lowering not raising • Admittedly there is a dissident view that treats East Slavic as raising sensitive to the right-hand context (Shevelov 1964, Wexler 1977, Nuorluoto 2006) 21
60. Vowel reduction: diachrony • Diachrony of High Latvian 1. *a > o except before front vowels/palatal consonants 2. Allophonic alternation, with /o/ in the elsewhere context • Compare with Standard Latvian gads ∼ gadi… • gods ‘year.nom.sg’ ∼ gadi ‘year.nom.pl’ 3. *ɛ > a in non-palatal contexts leads to phonemicization: /a/ ≠ /o/ • Diachrony of East Slavic • The usual interpretation is *o, e > a in unstressed syllables • If true, nothing like High Latvian: lowering not raising • Admittedly there is a dissident view that treats East Slavic as raising sensitive to the right-hand context (Shevelov 1964, Wexler 1977, Nuorluoto 2006) • Either the ‘dissidents’ are right and then we do have shared change… 21
61. Vowel reduction: diachrony • Diachrony of High Latvian 1. *a > o except before front vowels/palatal consonants 2. Allophonic alternation, with /o/ in the elsewhere context • Compare with Standard Latvian gads ∼ gadi… • gods ‘year.nom.sg’ ∼ gadi ‘year.nom.pl’ 3. *ɛ > a in non-palatal contexts leads to phonemicization: /a/ ≠ /o/ • Diachrony of East Slavic • The usual interpretation is *o, e > a in unstressed syllables • If true, nothing like High Latvian: lowering not raising • Admittedly there is a dissident view that treats East Slavic as raising sensitive to the right-hand context (Shevelov 1964, Wexler 1977, Nuorluoto 2006) • Either the ‘dissidents’ are right and then we do have shared change… • …or we have a convergence of synchronic systems that does not (yet) fit into our typology 21
62. Contact-induced non-divergence Varieties that exist in contact with other languages can fail to participate in innovations found in non-contact varieties • Pyrenean Romance pleká ‘fold’ < plĭcare, saper ‘know’ < sapēre vs. Spanish llegar, saber: cf. Basque katea ‘chain’ < catēnam, bake ‘peace’ < pācem (Jungemann 1950) 22
63. Contact-induced non-divergence Varieties that exist in contact with other languages can fail to participate in innovations found in non-contact varieties • Pyrenean Romance pleká ‘fold’ < plĭcare, saper ‘know’ < sapēre vs. Spanish llegar, saber: cf. Basque katea ‘chain’ < catēnam, bake ‘peace’ < pācem (Jungemann 1950) • Breton hañv ‘summer’, deñved ‘sheep.pl’ vs. Welsh haf, defaid < *samos, *damatī (Jackson 1967): cf. nasal vowels in Gallo-Romance 22
64. Contact-induced non-divergence Varieties that exist in contact with other languages can fail to participate in innovations found in non-contact varieties • Pyrenean Romance pleká ‘fold’ < plĭcare, saper ‘know’ < sapēre vs. Spanish llegar, saber: cf. Basque katea ‘chain’ < catēnam, bake ‘peace’ < pācem (Jungemann 1950) • Breton hañv ‘summer’, deñved ‘sheep.pl’ vs. Welsh haf, defaid < *samos, *damatī (Jackson 1967): cf. nasal vowels in Gallo-Romance • English is the only Germanic language to have maintained both PGmc [θ] and [w], both segments also present in Welsh (Tolkien 1963) 22
65. Contact-induced non-divergence Varieties that exist in contact with other languages can fail to participate in innovations found in non-contact varieties • Pyrenean Romance pleká ‘fold’ < plĭcare, saper ‘know’ < sapēre vs. Spanish llegar, saber: cf. Basque katea ‘chain’ < catēnam, bake ‘peace’ < pācem (Jungemann 1950) • Breton hañv ‘summer’, deñved ‘sheep.pl’ vs. Welsh haf, defaid < *samos, *damatī (Jackson 1967): cf. nasal vowels in Gallo-Romance • English is the only Germanic language to have maintained both PGmc [θ] and [w], both segments also present in Welsh (Tolkien 1963) How to approach this? • This situation seems not uncommon, but how do we handle it beyond vague appeal to ‘reinforcement’? • Historical linguists tend to prefer synapomorphy to symplesiomorphy, but are we losing information here? 22
66. Dealing with retentions • In general, the answer has to be aggregating the data with typological methods (Sinnemäki et al. 2024) 23
67. Dealing with retentions • In general, the answer has to be aggregating the data with typological methods (Sinnemäki et al. 2024) • The specific problem in phonology is the high probability of parallel developments: 23
68. Dealing with retentions • In general, the answer has to be aggregating the data with typological methods (Sinnemäki et al. 2024) • The specific problem in phonology is the high probability of parallel developments: • Phonetic grounding of sound change 23
69. Dealing with retentions • In general, the answer has to be aggregating the data with typological methods (Sinnemäki et al. 2024) • The specific problem in phonology is the high probability of parallel developments: • Phonetic grounding of sound change • Lineage-specific trends, i. e. drift 23
70. L1 agentivity and contact in phonology: summary • Many aspects where the framework is a good fit • L1 agentivity conducive to maintaining or increasing complexity • Non-canonical structures can be acquired/transferred via L1 learning mechanisms • Perpetuation of structures via shared sound change • Issues that require more work • Contact-driven non-divergence • Homoplasy • Do we always have the stable multilingual context to support these convergences? 24
71. Shift-induced interference in phonology • This sounds like it should be unproblematic: subversion effects under conditions of language shift • Especially phonetic detail is widely understood to be L2-hard and subject to imposition • No shortage of proposals in the literature ascribing sound change to substrates/language shift 25
72. How does phonological imposition happen? • Three mechanisms for propagation of L2-driven phonological change • Ethnolectalization: contact-influenced variety stabilizes as distinct • Users of contact-influenced variety are a majority in the community • De-ethnolectalization and spread of originally contact-influenced features via community-internal dynamics 26
73. How does phonological imposition happen? • Three mechanisms for propagation of L2-driven phonological change • Ethnolectalization: contact-influenced variety stabilizes as distinct • Users of contact-influenced variety are a majority in the community • De-ethnolectalization and spread of originally contact-influenced features via community-internal dynamics • Does this happen? • Ethnolectalization: Hebridean English, post-Sámi Northern Norwegian • Numerical preponderance: requires particular sociohistorical situations: Southern Irish English (Filppula 1999) • De-ethnolectalization 26
74. How does phonological imposition happen? • Three mechanisms for propagation of L2-driven phonological change • Ethnolectalization: contact-influenced variety stabilizes as distinct • Users of contact-influenced variety are a majority in the community • De-ethnolectalization and spread of originally contact-influenced features via community-internal dynamics • Does this happen? • Ethnolectalization: Hebridean English, post-Sámi Northern Norwegian • Numerical preponderance: requires particular sociohistorical situations: Southern Irish English (Filppula 1999) • De-ethnolectalization • Much more work required on what exactly gets imposed in what situation (Natvig 2019) 26
75. Phonologically invisible language shifts • There are plenty of arguments in the literature reconstructing past contacts from phonological evidence, but do we have documentation? 27
76. Phonologically invisible language shifts • There are plenty of arguments in the literature reconstructing past contacts from phonological evidence, but do we have documentation? • In documented cases of complete language shift, phonological influence seems quite elusive 27
77. Phonologically invisible language shifts • There are plenty of arguments in the literature reconstructing past contacts from phonological evidence, but do we have documentation? • In documented cases of complete language shift, phonological influence seems quite elusive • Latin: plenty of evidence for individual bilingualism (Adams 2003), but clear substrate effects in phonology are rare to non-existent! (Adams 2007) 27
78. Phonologically invisible language shifts • There are plenty of arguments in the literature reconstructing past contacts from phonological evidence, but do we have documentation? • In documented cases of complete language shift, phonological influence seems quite elusive • Latin: plenty of evidence for individual bilingualism (Adams 2003), but clear substrate effects in phonology are rare to non-existent! (Adams 2007) • Ulster English: no strong evidence for Irish substrate in the phonology (Maguire 2020) 27
79. Phonologically invisible language shifts • There are plenty of arguments in the literature reconstructing past contacts from phonological evidence, but do we have documentation? • In documented cases of complete language shift, phonological influence seems quite elusive • Latin: plenty of evidence for individual bilingualism (Adams 2003), but clear substrate effects in phonology are rare to non-existent! (Adams 2007) • Ulster English: no strong evidence for Irish substrate in the phonology (Maguire 2020) • Similar absences in Manx English (Lewin 2017), Cornish English (Wakelin 1975) 27
80. What’s going on? • In these well-documented cases, language shift is slow (See Maguire 2020: for detailed argumenation for Ulster) • The community shifts over time, but at any given stage the proportion of shifters is low • Phonetic-phonological non-target forms may attract a social penalty in a way that grammatical features do not (On this difference see Eckert & Labov 2017) • Social dynamics rarely conducive to propagation of contact-induced features 28
81. What’s going on? • In these well-documented cases, language shift is slow (See Maguire 2020: for detailed argumenation for Ulster) • The community shifts over time, but at any given stage the proportion of shifters is low • Phonetic-phonological non-target forms may attract a social penalty in a way that grammatical features do not (On this difference see Eckert & Labov 2017) • Social dynamics rarely conducive to propagation of contact-induced features The take-away Whole-community L2-driven phonological change may be quite a bit rarer than we think! (For similar skepticism, see Salmons 2015) 28
82. Areal effects and drift Some ‘areal’ effects in northern Europe • Preaspiration • Sonorant preocclusion: *nn > dn • Tonal accents • Initial stress (Salmons 1992) • Contrastive quantity (Ewels 2009) 29
83. Areal effects and drift Some ‘areal’ effects in northern Europe • Preaspiration • Sonorant preocclusion: *nn > dn • Tonal accents • Initial stress (Salmons 1992) • Contrastive quantity (Ewels 2009) • The languages are in contact, but the sociohistorical situation does not allow for L2-actuated phonological change: instead, many of the parallels emerge from the operation of the life cycle on similar starting points • This is a theory of drift (Joseph 2013) 29
84. L2 agentivity and contact in phonology: summary • L2-driven phonological change clearly exists at the individual level • Community-wide phonological imposition requires very specific sociohistorical circumstances, which may be relatively rare • Even for languages in contact, ‘substrate’ influence may not be visible in phonology 30
85. Microvariation in related languages Mid vowel changes/alternations in Slavic • Backing in non-palatal right-hand contexts • Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, Sorbian: e > o / {j č ž š}_ • Belarusian, Russian, (some?) Ukrainian, Sorbian: Ce > Cʲo • Polish: e > o, ä > a, ę > ǫ / _[coronal] • Eastern Bulgarian, Czech: ä > a • Fronting/raising in palatal right-hand contexts • Bulgarian: ä > e • Czech: ä > ě • Fronting in soft left-hand contexts • East Slavic dialectal ę > (ä >) e / Cʲ_ • Northern Russian CʲaCʲ > CʲeCʲ • Czech přehláska: u o > i e / Cʲ_ 31
86. Microvariation and the life cycle • The changes are similar, but not inherited as such • Differences in conditioning • Late chronology • ‘Common phonetic tendencies’ (Andersen 1998): but what does that mean? • Within the life cycle: inherited phonetic rule, parallel stabilization (see for this argument applied to Finnic and Sámi consonant gradation Iosad forthcoming) 32
87. Inherited phonetic rules • Iskarous & Kavitskaya (2018): patterns of palatalization across Slavic follow from synchronic phonetic variability, as observed in conservative languages • Low-level, but non-trivial and lineage-specific • Slavic: following hard coronals cause backing/inhibit fronting • East Slavic C₁ьRC₂ > CʲoRC when C₂ is coronal, similar in Polish • Lechitic umlaut • Czech dialects: following hard coronal blocks t d > tʲ dʲ before front vowels • Jakubinskij’s Law in Čakavian: ě > i except before coronal followed by back vowel • Another inherited phonetic rule with variation in stabilization • Not trivial at all typologically: if anything, coronals often affiliate with front vowels (Hume 1996)! 33
88. What does this mean for language contact? • Apparently convergent developments need significant care • Inferring population contact needs to be balanced against • Possibilities of parallel development • Sociohistorical context NB! I am not saying that any internal explanation is better than a contact explanation! • In particular, non-trivial phenomena do carry some signal, if we can interpret it • Do the similarities with High Latvian provide an argument for the raising theory of East Slavic akan’e? • Can we revisit Balkan Romance ‘breaking’ in light of the Slavic preglas? 34
89. Some conclusions • The study of language contact is very exposed to the lack of communication between theoretical phonology and historical-typological linguistics 35
90. Some conclusions • The study of language contact is very exposed to the lack of communication between theoretical phonology and historical-typological linguistics • Phonology is special in ways that create challenges for this research programme 35
91. Some conclusions • The study of language contact is very exposed to the lack of communication between theoretical phonology and historical-typological linguistics • Phonology is special in ways that create challenges for this research programme • Both of these are crucial to future progress: • Theoretically informed approach to what a sound pattern is • Serious engagement with the sociohistorical context 35
92. Some conclusions • The study of language contact is very exposed to the lack of communication between theoretical phonology and historical-typological linguistics • Phonology is special in ways that create challenges for this research programme • Both of these are crucial to future progress: • Theoretically informed approach to what a sound pattern is • Serious engagement with the sociohistorical context • Some important things that I think are true • Contact-induced change in phonological systems is rarer than we think • The place to look is often very localized contact between vernaculars • … and we need a much broader view of what is possible in terms of social interaction in diverse communities 35
93. In sum: let’s talk! Thank you! Paldies! pavel.iosad@ed.ac.uk https://www.anghyflawn.net Bluesky @anghyflawn.net Thanks to: Joana Počopkaitė, Warren Maguire, Dmitry Nikolaev, the audience at the 2024 Angus McIntosh Symposium, The British Academy for Mid-Career Fellowship funding 35