Introduction: what are mergers and can they be reversed?

Maguire, Warren; Clark, Lynn; Watson, Kevin

doi:10.1017/s1360674313000014

Cited by 23 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…[f] so that the difference between /f/ and /v/ was hard to discern and scribes could use the same symbols for both. This explanation, which has not been suggested before for this feature, relies on the notion of 'near merger' (Labov 1994: 293-418; see also Maguire et al 2013). In situations of near merger, the pronunciations of two phonemes become almost identical and may overlap to a large degree.…”

Section: Developments Of Oe /F/ In Scotsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…In cases of variation between [f] (/f/) and [v] (/v/), i.e. in LUFU, LIF+ and LUFU+ , it is possible for speakers to generalise one or the other of the variants, since they have only variably merged (Maguire et al 2013). Thus in these groups, variation between [f] and [v] was ultimately simplified to pronunciation with [v] only.…”

Section: Hypothesis (3) Final [V] Devoiced To [F] In Pre-oscmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Charting the rise and demise of a phonotactically motivated change in Scots

et al. 2019

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Although Old English [f] and [v] are represented unambiguously in Older Scots orthography by <f> and <v> (or <u>) in initial and morpheme-internal position, in morpheme-final position <f> and <v>/<u> appear to be used interchangeably for both of these Old English sounds. As a result, there is often a mismatch between the spellings and the etymologically expected consonant. This paper explores these spellings using a substantial database of Older Scots texts, which have been grapho-phonologically parsed as part of the From Inglis to Scots (FITS) project. Three explanations are explored for this apparent mismatch: (1) it was a spelling-only change; (2) there was a near merger of /f/ and /v/ in Older Scots; (3) final [v] devoiced in (pre-)Older Scots but this has subsequently been reversed. A close analysis of the data suggests that the Old English phonotactic constraint against final voiced fricatives survived into the pre-Literary Scots period, leading to automatic devoicing of any fricative that appeared in word-final position (a version of Hypothesis 3), and this, interacting with final schwa loss, gave rise to the complex patterns of variation we see in the Older Scots data. Thus, the devoicing of [v] in final position was not just a phonetically natural sound change, but also one driven by a pre-existing phonotactic constraint in the language. This paper provides evidence for the active role of phonotactic constraints in the development of sound changes, suggesting that phonotactic constraints are not necessarily at the mercy of the changes which conflict with them, but can be involved in the direction of sound change themselves.

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Section: Developments Of Oe /F/ In Scotsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Hypothesis (3) Final [V] Devoiced To [F] In Pre-oscmentioning

confidence: 99%

Charting the rise and demise of a phonotactically motivated change in Scots

et al. 2019

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“…The possibility of the split of a merger is disputed in the literature under the conventions of Garde's Principle, which holds that once a merger has occurred, it will persist, and Herzog's Principle, which states that mergers expand at the expense of distinctions (Labov, 1994). However, a growing number of studies demonstrate that, with adequate dialect contact, a split may occur (Johnson, 2010;Maguire, 2008;Maguire, Clark, & Watson, 2013;Nycz, 2011Nycz, , 2013Trudgill, Schreier, Long, & Williams, 2003;Yao & Chang, 2016). Nevertheless, the variationist literature informing theories on mergers and splits is biased towards the phonology of English, specifically vowels (Gordon, 2013(Gordon, :204, 2015.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The findings that several communities have shifted from ceceo to distinción have led scholars to suggest that the demerger of for the split of a complete merger due to dialect contact. Specifically, studies have documented the split of the COT-CAUGHT merger among Canadians in NYC (Nycz, 2011(Nycz, , 2013, COT-CAUGHT merger among mobile New Englanders (Johnson, 2010), =w=-=v= merger in lesser-known Englishes (Trudgill et al, 2003), NURSE-NORTH merger in Tyneside English (Maguire, 2008;Maguire et al, 2013;Watt, 1998), and =ɛ= merger into =ɛ=-=e= in Shanghainese due to language contact with Mandarin (Yao & Chang, 2016). Maguire et al (2013:234) posited that Labov's claim that no split has occurred at the level of a language is too strong (also Nycz, 2013:328) and that, instead of speaking about languages, one should speak about individual phonological systems, as intra-and interspeaker variability impacts an individual's phonological knowledge.…”

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confidence: 99%

The split of a fricative merger due to dialect contact and societal changes: A sociophonetic study on Andalusian Spanish read-speech

Regan

2020

Lang Var Change

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In line with a growing body of literature suggesting that mergers are reversible given the adequate dialect contact and social context, the present study examines the phonetic split of the Andalusian Spanish merger of ceceo into the Castilian Spanish feature of distinción. Specifically, the study analyzes 19,420 coronal fricatives produced by 80 Western Andalusian speakers from the city of Huelva and the nearby town of Lepe using a reading passage and wordlist. The analyses find that leaders of this change are younger speakers, women, those with more educational attainment, those of service and professional occupations, and those from Huelva. The implications are that large-scale societal changes have allowed for the split of the ceceo merger into distinción in both speech communities, albeit at different rates of change due to their unique socioeconomic histories, demonstrating that a split is possible given the right social context.

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“…Even when spectral dynamics are taken into consideration, phonetic merger is often equated with phonemic merger. However, as Maguire et al (2013), for instance, note in a squib focusing on defining merger, phonetic merger is not the same as phonemic merger. They discuss a number of non-categorical phenomena, including "inter-speaker variability, intra-speaker variability, partial merger, near merger, and merger in production but not perception," that researchers often mistakenly equate with phonemic merger (p. 233).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of duration in the perception of vowel merger

Wade

2017

Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology

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Speakers with vowel categories that are considered merged by traditional measures (e.g., F1 and F2 measurements at a single time point) may contrast vowel classes in dimensions beyond vowel quality, such as duration. Durational differences among vowel classes have been observed to persist even in cases of spectral overlap (e.g., Fridland et al., 2014;Labov & Baranowski, 2006), suggesting that duration may serve as a contrastive cue among spectrally-merged or near-merged vowel classes. This paper examines the role of duration in perception in two communities: Youngstown, OH, which exhibits multiple patterns of merger and distinction among pool-, pull-, and pole-class words, and Burlington, VT, whose residents are largely unmerged. This paper presents the results of a forced-choice identification task consisting of lexical stimuli with synthetically manipulated vowel-liquid durations, analyzed in light of participants' production data. Results indicate that duration influences vowel categorization and is utilized more extensively when spectral cues are diminished or unavailable.

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Introduction: what are mergers and can they be reversed?

Cited by 23 publications

References 10 publications

Charting the rise and demise of a phonotactically motivated change in Scots

Charting the rise and demise of a phonotactically motivated change in Scots

The split of a fricative merger due to dialect contact and societal changes: A sociophonetic study on Andalusian Spanish read-speech

The role of duration in the perception of vowel merger

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