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Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 42:3 (2018) ► pp.562–599

Areal sound change and the distributional typology of affricate richness in Eurasia

| Hebrew University of Jerusalem
| Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This paper makes a contribution to phonological typology by investigating the distribution of affricate-rich languages in Eurasia. It shows that affricate-rich and affricate-dense languages cluster areally within Eurasia and have area-specific histories. In particular, the affricate-rich areas of western Eurasia – a ‘European’ area and a Caucasian area – are not the result of contact-induced sound changes or borrowing, while the two affricate-rich areas of eastern Eurasia – the Hindukush area and the Eastern Himalayan area – are the result of contact. Specifically, affricate-dense areas depend on the emergence of retroflex affricates. Moreover, languages outside these affricate-dense areas tend to lose retroflex affricates.

Keywords: language typology, distributional typology, phonology, areal linguistics, areal sound change, language contact, historical phonology, consonant inventories, affricates
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Affricate richness in the languages of the world and in Eurasia
    • 2.1The overall distribution
      • 2.1.1Affricate richness in the world’s languages
      • 2.1.2Affricate-rich languages in Eurasia
      • 2.2The European area
      • 2.3The Caucasian area
      • 2.4The Hindukush linguistic area
      • 2.5The Eastern Himalayan linguistic area
      • 2.6Affricate-rich areas and retroflex affricates
  • 3.Sound-change processes giving rise to affricate-rich areas
    • 3.1The Hindukush area
    • 3.2The Eastern Himalayan area
    • 3.3Retroflex affricates outside the Hindukush and the Eastern Himalayan area: Uralic and Slavic languages
      • 3.3.1Uralic
      • 3.3.2Slavic
  • 4.Languages outside the Hindukush and the Eastern Himalayan linguistic areas tend to lose retroflex affricates
    • 4.1Croatian
    • 4.2Uralic
    • 4.3Lisu
    • 4.4Chinese
      • 4.4.1Loss of retroflex affricates in non-Mandarin varieties
      • 4.4.2Loss of retroflex affricates in varieties of Mandarin Chinese
        • 4.4.2.1Retroflex initials in the Mandarin varieties of Yunnan
        • 4.4.2.2The fate of retroflex affricates in Xi’an, Hefei, and Yangzhou
      • 4.4.3Retroflex affricates in Chinese, an overview
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.17043.nik
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