Re: [tied] Re: Satem shift

>its later stages, however, sound change often develops a social
>significance ...a change in full swing creates forms that may be utilised
>as a means of social bonding and regarded as prestigious or >deprecated

This is precisely what is happening to intervocalic "t" in British English
at the moment. It is being replaced by "?" amongst the younger speakers. I
am tempted to suggest the psychological need that drives them to this, but
that would only show my own prejudices.

Piotr's whole post survives below for those who need reminding.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: 21 July 2001 14:32
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Satem shift


According to sociolinguistically minded scholars like William Labov (who has
studied many an ongoing sound change and measured its progress), sound
change is typically initiated as a gradual transformation of the phonetic
features of a phoneme without regard to lexical or grammatical factors (thus
displaying mechanical "Neogrammarian" regularity). It usually occurs below
the level of social awareness (and so is "imperceptible"). In its later
stages, however, sound change often develops a social significance and
spreads by lexical and social diffusion -- word by word and speaker by
speaker, prone to lexical, grammatical and socio-stylistic conditioning. It
is no longer imperceptible, may affect salient distinctive features
simultaneously and consist in abrupt phonemic replacement. Lexical diffusion
often fails to affects all the target words and leaves messy exceptions even
in the long run.

What you call shibbolethisation is possible at that late stage. What I mean
is that no-one ever starts a sound change deliberately, but a change in full
swing creates forms that may be utilised as a means of social bonding and
regarded as prestigious or deprecated. There may have been a time when
pre-Proto-Indo-Iranians who still labialised their /kW/'s were scorned by
their neighbours. "For Diwos sake, what do you mean by speaking like that?
Did you hear him, lads? He said [k_W_etwores], like a bloody Proto-Greek.
[kWetwores], would you believe it? He's a refayned person. He thinks he's
smarter than us Aryas."

Piotr



----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 12:10 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Satem shift


So, I hear: a linguistic development dividing two languages, rules
leaving a few stragglers behind...
I wonder if the shibbolethisation mechanism I proposed

http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Shibbolethisation.html

might come in handy to explain the centum/satem thing?