Article published In:
Journal of Historical Linguistics: Online-First ArticlesBalancing social determinism vs. sound change
The case of Fang
This paper investigates the relationship between social and phonetic motivations for language change in Fang (Bantoid). While previous research has proposed that innovations in Fang arose due to social need and lack phonetic motivation (Mve et al. 2019; Good, Di Carlo & Tschonghongei 2020), I propose that there is a phonetic motivation and the social situation, at best, was a pathway for the innovation to gain wider adoption in the population. I provide comparative and language-internal evidence that the Fang innovations are driven by two interconnected processes, palatalization and spirantization, triggered by high vowels. These processes have been obscured synchronically in part due to the phonemic merger of *i > ə in some parts of the paradigm, thus making the alternations look phonetically unmotivated.
Keywords: sound change, regularity hypothesis, social motivation, palatalization, Bantoid, labial-velars
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1The Fang language
- 2.2Regional diffusion vs. genetic affiliations
- 3.Reconstructing Fang’s Morphological Paradigms
- 3.1Prior reconstruction of the components of possessive pronouns
- 3.2Comparative analysis of Fang
- 3.3Discussion
- 4.Phonetic pathways favoring labial-velar simplification
- 4.1Palatalization
- 4.2Spirantization
- 4.3Summary
- 5.Closing
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
Published online: 18 September 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.22012.bur
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.22012.bur
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