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.