Jan. 19-26: Phonological change

• Read: Ch. 3-4 of Trask.
• Assignment 2: due Jan. 24.

1. Phonetic change.
   • Articulatory and acoustic properties of speech.
   • Features.
   • Prosodic structure: syllables, stress, tone.
   • The International Phonetic Alphabet.

2. Types of natural sound change and their explanation in speech production and perception.
   • Lenition and fortition.
   • Assimilation.
   • Prosodic and prosodically conditioned changes.
   • The regularity of sound change and the neogrammarian exceptionlessness hypothesis; its theoretical implications.
   • Lexical diffusion.

3. Change in phonological systems.
   • Phonemes as contrastive elements.
   • Merger.
   • The origin of contrast: secondary split.
   • Chain shifts.
   • Phonological alternations: rules and constraints.
   • The life-cycle of phonological processes.
   • Summary: Change as a source of evidence for the theory of language. The diachronic commitments and motivations of linguistic theories.