Vol. 11:3 (2021) ► pp.457–498
Reviewing the history and development of aspiration in Eastern Balochi
This paper examines the history of aspiration in Eastern Balochi and aims to posit the course of its development and the extent to which it can be said to be contrastive. It uses primary data obtained by the author directly from various locales and compares sets of these data with the secondary data available on Balochi from 19th and early 20th century material. I maintain that, historically, voiceless aspiration arose word-initially in Eastern Balochi, in the sounds /p t č k/, and spread from there to other positions. In the discussion of aspiration, literature on Balochi has seen the question of influence from the neighbouring Indo-Aryan languages as an important problem. In this paper it is argued that equally relevant to the issue are two other important historical phenomena: post-vocalic lenition of stops and affricates, and gemination, a widely found but less well explored feature of Balochi. Also observed in Eastern Balochi, but less frequently remarked upon, is the breathiness found in voiced stops and affricate, a feature hitherto understood to be restricted to a small lexicon borrowed from Indo-Aryan. Focusing on a large number of Eastern Balochi varieties rather than seeing it as a unified whole, I attempt to show that contrastive status of aspiration appears to be gradually developing in these varieties. Many processes are leading in this direction, such as degemination and fortition of fricatives; among these one important diagnostic for the ultimate status of aspiration, I propose, is the transposition of glottal fricative.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Main objectives
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Background of research on Balochi
- 5.EBal: A diachronic overview
- 5.1Lenition
- 5.1.1Lenition of stops and affricates in EBal
- 5.1.2Clusters as exceptions to lenition in EBal
- 5.1.3Geminates as exception to lenition in EBal
- 5.2Fronting of ū to ī
- 5.1Lenition
- 6.Voiceless aspiration in EBal
- 6.1Variation in voiceless aspiration in EBal
- 6.1.1Differences in voiceless aspiration in word-final position in EBal
- 6.1.2Spread of voiceless aspiration in EBal?
- 6.1Variation in voiceless aspiration in EBal
- 7.Revisiting lenition in EBal
- 7.1Some hypothetical effects of lenition on verbal morphology
- 7.2The development of a stop-fricative contrast
- 7.3Aftereffects of the post-vocalic stop-fricative contrast in EBal
- 7.3.1Non-grammaticalisation of lenition and effects on the verb system
- 7.3.2Word-initial voiceless aspiration
- 7.3.3Gemination
- 7.4Reaction to lenition as the basis of classification of EBal varieties
- 7.4.1The earliest EBal types
- 7.4.2Merger of dental fricatives, and type 3
- 8.More contact, more loanwords, and more contrasts in EBal
- 8.1Contact in a northwestern Indo-Aryan neighbourhood
- 8.2Voiceless aspiration in Indo-Aryan loanwords
- 8.3Breathy voice sounds in Indo-Aryan loanwords
- 8.4Discussion of voiceless and breathy voiced aspiration in EBal
- 9.Further lenition and fortition in EBal
- 9.1Voicing of the voiceless fricatives
- 9.2Breathy voicing of fricatives
- 10.The case for voiceless and breathy voiced aspiration in EBal
- 10.1Transposition of glottal fricative
- 10.1.1Breathy voiced stops and affricate
- 10.1.2Breathy voiced sonorant sounds
- 10.2Transposition of aspiration
- 10.2.1Transposition of aspiration in EBal
- 10.2.2The case of ǰak h- ~ ǰɦakθ- alternation
- 10.3Voiceless aspiration from degemination in EBal
- 10.4Voiceless aspiration from fortition of voiceless fricatives in EBal
- 10.5Mutual borrowing among varieties
- 10.1Transposition of glottal fricative
- 11.Discussion
- 11.1Summary of the development of aspiration in EBal
- 11.2Discussion on the development of aspiration
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
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References
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.19010.bir