From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 42674
Date: 2005-12-31
----- Original Message -----
From: "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2005 3:56 PM
Subject: [tied] Must sound change be linguistically motivated?
> Thanks to P. Manansala for the Abstract.
>
> M. Kelkar
>
>
> Must sound change be linguistically motivated?
>
> Author: Blust, Robert A.1
>
> Source: Diachronica, Volume 22, Number 2, 2005, pp. 219-269(51)
>
> Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
>
> Abstract:
>
> A number of well-documented sound changes in Austronesian languages do
> not appear to be either phonetically or phonologically motivated.
> Although it is possible that some of these changes involved
> intermediate steps for which we have no direct documentation, the
> assumption that this was always the case appears arbitrary, and is in
> violation of Occam's Razor. These data thus raise the question whether
> sound change must be phonetically motivated, as assumed by the
> Neogrammarians, or even linguistically motivated, as assumed by
> virtually all working historical linguists.
***
Patrick:
In the past, I innocently suggested that a part of the explanation might lie
in actual physical changes in the architecture of the mouth, and was accused
of 'racism', which is an easy out for a difficult question.
***