New perspectives on English sound patterns : "Natural" and "Unnatural" in evolutionary phonology
Contenu
Type de document
article de périodique
Titre
New perspectives on English sound patterns : "Natural" and "Unnatural" in evolutionary phonology Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur
Revue/Ouvrage
Journal of English linguistics
Volume-no
Vol.34, n°1
Auteurs/Editeurs scientifiques
Blevins, Juliette
Nombre de pages
20
Date de publication
mars 2006
Pagination
6-25
Mot-clés
Langue étudiée
Anglais
Langue
ang
ISBN/ISSN
0075-4242
Résumé
Principles of Evolutionary Phonology are applied to a selection of sound changes and stable sound patterns in varieties of English. These are divided into two types: natural phonetically motivated internal changes and all others, which are classified as unnatural. While natural phonetically motivated sound change may be inhibited by external forces, certain phonotactic patterns show notable stability in English and are only eliminated under particular types of contact with languages lacking the same patterns. Within the evolutionary model, this stability is expected since natural sound changes involving wholesale elimination of these patterns are not known.