Contact-induced sound change: analysis of the alveolar lateral fricative in Yami

Abstract

Language change manifests itself in various ways. The majority of studies on language change in Yami, an endangered Austronesian language spoken on Orchid Island, Taiwan, have centered on the rapid language shift from Yami to Mandarin within the speech community (Chen 1998, Li and Ho 1988, Lin 2007, Rau 1995). The present study, however, aims to explore whether the sound change of [ɮ] to [l] in Yami (e.g., soli [ʂuɮi] > [ʂuli] 'taro') is triggered by language contact between Mandarin and Yami. Three variables were considered: Mandarin competence, Mandarinspeaking frequency, and social network integration. The results showed that the three variables were strongly correlated with sound change. Participants possessing advanced Mandarin competence, higher Mandarin-speaking frequency, and/or weaker social network integration into the Yami community (i.e., greater exposure to Mandarin) tended to exhibit the highest rate of sound change, which might be attributed to a cross-linguistic influence from Mandarin to Yami through extensive language contact.

Tonal Hybridization in Yami-Mandarin Contact

“…While these rubrics make no direct predictions for higher levels of prosody, there is a growing body of research showing that higher level prosody is in fact permeable under contact. Likewise, Yami has revealed signs of contact-induced segmental [4,5] and prosodic variation [6,7] under long-standing Mandarin hegemonic language policies .…”

The effect of speaker gender and talker proficiency on the realization of Taiwan Min /dz/ among young speakers

“…The latter is used before a high vowel /i/ and the former is realized elsewhere. This distinction is disappearing for speakers below age 40 (Lai and Hsu 2013). 10 Results of the female speakers have already been reported in a dialectal study of /dz/ in .…”

“…This shows that the effect of proficiency for Taiwan Min might be more complicated than what was found for Yami [cf. Lai and Hsu (2013)]. …”

The spread of raised (ay) and (aw) in Yami: From regional distinctiveness to ethnic identity marker

“…The diffusion of nucleus raising has gone beyond the intervillage setting, evidenced by the fact that despite geographic origin, younger speakers showed a higher inclination for adopting the innovative, raised forms (see also Lai & Gooden, 2016b, 2017). There is strong evidence for contact-induced segmental change in Yami where the voiced alveolar lateral fricative [ɮ] has largely been replaced by the plain lateral [l] among younger speakers due to heavy contact with Mandarin (Lai & Hsu, 2013; Lai & Gooden, 2014). However, transfer from Mandarin cannot be the source of nucleus raising as it is difficult to explain why the raised variants are extensively used on the north coast, where Yami is best preserved (Li & Ho, 1988; Rau, 1995; Chen, 1998; Rau & Chang, 2006; Lin, 2007; Rau et al 2009; Lai, 2011), and only sporadically used in the south area, where the speakers are undergoing rapid language shift toward Mandarin.…”