Article published in:
Variation in Indigenous Minority LanguagesEdited by James N. Stanford and Dennis R. Preston
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 25] 2009
► pp. 23–45
1. The phonetic and phonological effects of obsolescence in Northern Paiute
Molly Babel | University of California, Berkeley
Structural changes in a language are considered nearly inevitable consequences of language death (Campbell & Muntzel 1989; Wolfram 2002). The literature on sound change in endangered languages has focused on whether the changes are internally or externally motivated and, therefore, the difference between categorical sound shifts and gradient phonetic effects has been overlooked. This paper discusses sound change in Northern Paiute through two experiments that investigate the difference between categorical changes in the phonological inventory and subphonemic variation within a category. The paper argues that sound change in obsolescing languages may take one of two predictable paths: substitution or approximation/expansion of phonological categories in the moribund language.
Published online: 15 April 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.25.03bab
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.25.03bab
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
Babel, Molly, Andrew Garrett, Michael J. Houser & Maziar Toosarvandani
Babel, Molly, Michael J. Houser & Maziar Toosarvandani
Bird, Sonya
Chirkova, Katia
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