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| Sound change andalternation |
|---|
| Fortition |
| Dissimilation |
Inhistorical linguistics, achain shift is a set ofsound changes in which the change in pronunciation of onespeech sound (typically, aphoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds.[1] The sounds involved in a chain shift can be ordered into a "chain" in such a way that after the change is complete, each phoneme ends up sounding like what the phoneme before it in the chain sounded likebefore the change.[specify] The changes making up a chain shift, interpreted as rules ofphonology, are in what is termedcounterfeeding order.[clarification needed]
A well-known example is theGreat Vowel Shift, which was a chain shift that affected all of thelong vowels inMiddle English.[2] The changes to thefront vowels may be summarized as follows:
Adrag chain orpull chain is a chain shift in which the phoneme at the "leading" edge of the chain changes first.[3] In the example above, the chain shift would be a pull chain if/i:/ changed to/aɪ/ first, opening up a space at the position of[i], which/e:/ then moved to fill. Apush chain is a chain shift in which the phoneme at the "end" of the chain moves first: in this example, if/aː/ moved toward[eː], a "crowding" effect would be created and/e:/ would thus move toward[i], and so forth.[3] It is not known which phonemes changed first during the Great Vowel Shift; many scholars believe thehigh vowels such as/i:/ started the shift, but some suggest that thelow vowels, such as/aː/, may have shifted first.[4]
During the Great Vowel Shift in the 15th and 16th centuries, all of the long vowels of Middle English, which correspond totense vowels in Modern English, shifted pronunciation. The changes can be summarized as follows:[1][2]
| Front vowels | eːⓘ →i:ⓘ →aɪⓘ |
|---|---|
| ɛ:ⓘ →i:ⓘoreːⓘ | |
| Back vowels | ɔːⓘ →oːⓘ →uːⓘ →aʊⓘ |
| aːⓘ →eːⓘ |
Most vowels shifted to a higherplace of articulation, so that the pronunciation ofgeese changed from/ɡeːs/ to/ɡiːs/ andbroken from/brɔːken/ to/broːkən/. The high vowels/iː/ and/uː/ becamediphthongs (for example,mice changed from/miːs/ⓘ to/maɪs/ⓘ), and the low back vowel/aː/ wasfronted, causingname to change from/naːmə/ⓘ to/neːm/ⓘ.[2]
The Great Vowel Shift occurred over centuries, and not allvarieties of English were affected in the same ways. For example, some speakers inScotland still pronouncehouse similarly to its sound in Middle English before the shift, as[hu(ː)s].[4]
A chain shift may affect only oneregional dialect of a language, or it may begin in a particular regional dialect and then expand beyond the region in which it originated. A number of recent regional chain shifts have occurred in English. Perhaps the most well known is theNorthern Cities Vowel Shift, which is largely confined to the "Inland North" region of the United States. Other examples in North America are thePittsburgh Vowel Shift, theSouthern Vowel Shift (in theSouthern United States), and theLow-Back-Merger Shift. In England, theCockney vowel shift among working-class Londoners is familiar from its prominence in plays such asGeorge Bernard Shaw'sPygmalion (and the related musicalMy Fair Lady):[citation needed]
Many chain shifts arevowel shifts, because many sets of vowels are naturally arranged on a multi-value scale (e.g.vowel height or frontness). However, chain shifts can also occur in consonants. A famous example of such a shift is the well-known First Germanic Sound Shift orGrimm's Law, in which theProto-Indo-Europeanvoicelessstop consonants becamefricatives, the plainvoiced stops became voiceless, and thebreathy voiced stops became plain voiced:
Another is theHigh German consonant shift which separatedOld High German from otherWest Germanic dialects (namelyOld English,Old Frisian,Old Saxon, andOld Low Franconian).
Note that the rightmost development in the table is the oldest (drag chain). The degrees to which High German dialects have completed these changes vary vastly (seeRhenish fan).
The Romance languages to the north and west of central Italy (e.g.French,Spanish,Portuguese,Catalan and various northern Italian languages) are known for a set of chain shifts collectively termedlenition, which affectedstop consonants between vowels:[citation needed]
In this case, each sound became weaker (or more "lenited").
It is also possible for chain shifts to occur synchronically, within thephonology of a language as it exists at a single point in time.[5]
Nzebi (or Njebi), aBantu language ofGabon, has the following chain shift, triggered morphophonologically by certain tense/aspect suffixes:
| a | → | ɛ | → | e | → | i |
| ə | → | i | ||||
| ɔ | → | o | → | u |
Examples follow:[6]
| Underlying form | Chain-shifted form |
|---|---|
| sal "to work" | sal-i →sɛli |
| βɛɛd "to give" | βɛɛd-i →βeedi |
| bet "to carry" | bet-i →biti |
| bis "to refuse" | bis-i →bisi |
| kolən "to go down" | kolən-i →kulini |
| tɔɔd "to arrive" | tɔɔd-i →toodi |
| suɛm "to hide oneself" | suɛm-i →suemi |
Another example of a chain from Bedouin Hijazi Arabic involves vowel raising and deletion:[5]
| a | → | i | → | deletion |
In nonfinal open syllables,/a/ raises to/i/ while/i/ in the same position is deleted.
Synchronic chain shifts may be circular. An example of this isXiamen tone orTaiwanese tonesandhi:[5]: fn 348 [better source needed]
| 53 | → | 44 | → | 22 | → | 21 | → | 53 |
The contour tones are lowered to a lower tone, and the lowest tone (21) circles back to the highest tone (53).
Synchronic chain shifts are an example of the theoretical problem ofphonological opacity. Although easily accounted for in a derivational rule-based phonology, its analysis in standard parallelOptimality Theory is problematic.[5]