Chain shift
Encyclopedia
In phonology
, a chain shift is a phenomenon in which several sounds move stepwise along a phonetic scale. 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 like before the change. The rules making up a chain shift are said to be in counterfeeding order.
For example, if in some language the three vowel phonemes /æ ɛ e/ undergo a change such that /e/ becomes /i/, /ɛ/ becomes /e/, and /æ/ becomes /ɛ/, those three changes would constitute a chain shift and could be summarized as
A pull chain is a chain shift in which the phoneme at the "leading" edge of the chain changes first. In this example, the chain shift would be a pull chain if /e/ changed to /i/ first, opening up a space at the position of [e] which /ɛ/ then moved to fill. A push chain is a chain shift in which the phoneme at the "end" of the chain moves first: in this example, if /æ/ moved toward [ɛ], creating a "crowding" effect and causing /ɛ/ to move toward [e], and so forth.
is the Great Vowel Shift
of the 15th century, which can be summarized as follows:
A chain shift may affect only one regional 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 the Northern Cities Vowel Shift
, which is confined to the "Inland North
" region of the United States. Other examples in North America are the California vowel shift, Southern vowel shift
(in the Southern United States
) and the Canadian Shift
. In England, the Cockney
vowel shift among working-class Londoners is familiar from its prominence in plays such as George Bernard Shaw
's Pygmalion
(and the related musical My Fair Lady
):
Many chain shifts are vowel shift
s, 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 or Grimm's Law
, in which the Proto-Indo-European
voiceless
stop consonant
s became fricatives, the plain voiced
stops became voiceless, and the breathy voice
d stops became plain voiced:
Another is the High German consonant shift
which separated Old High German
from other West Germanic dialects
such as Old English, Old Frisian
, and Old Saxon
:
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 termed lenition
, which affected stop consonant
s between vowels:
In this case, each sound became weaker (or more "lenited").
of a language as it exists at a single point in time.
Nzebi (or Njebi), a Bantu language
of Gabon
, has the following chain shift, triggered morphophonologically by certain tense/aspect suffixes:
Examples (Guthrie 1968) follow:
Another example of a chain from Bedouin Hijazi Arabic involves vowel raising and 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 is Xiamen tone or Taiwanese tone sandhi
:
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 of phonological opacity. Although easily accounted for in a derivational rule-based phonology, its analysis in standard parallel Optimality Theory
is problematic.
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, a chain shift is a phenomenon in which several sounds move stepwise along a phonetic scale. 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 like before the change. The rules making up a chain shift are said to be in counterfeeding order.
For example, if in some language the three vowel phonemes /æ ɛ e/ undergo a change such that /e/ becomes /i/, /ɛ/ becomes /e/, and /æ/ becomes /ɛ/, those three changes would constitute a chain shift and could be summarized as
- æ → ɛ → e → i
A pull chain is a chain shift in which the phoneme at the "leading" edge of the chain changes first. In this example, the chain shift would be a pull chain if /e/ changed to /i/ first, opening up a space at the position of [e] which /ɛ/ then moved to fill. A push chain is a chain shift in which the phoneme at the "end" of the chain moves first: in this example, if /æ/ moved toward [ɛ], creating a "crowding" effect and causing /ɛ/ to move toward [e], and so forth.
Diachronic shifts
A well-known chain shift in the history of EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is the Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen , a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....
of the 15th century, which can be summarized as follows:
- (aː →) æː → eː → iː (→ əi) → ai and ɔː → oː → uː (→ əu) → au
A chain shift may affect only one regional 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 the Northern Cities Vowel Shift
Northern cities vowel shift
The Northern cities vowel shift is a chain shift in the sounds of some vowels in the dialect region of American English known as the Inland North.-Geography:...
, which is confined to the "Inland North
Inland Northern American English
The Inland North dialect of American English is spoken in a region that includes most of the cities along the Erie Canal and on the U.S. side of Great Lakes region, reaching approximately from Utica, New York to Green Bay, Wisconsin, as well as a corridor extending down across central Illinois from...
" region of the United States. Other examples in North America are the California vowel shift, Southern vowel shift
Southern American English
Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...
(in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
) and the Canadian Shift
Canadian Shift
The Canadian Shift is a linguistic vowel shift found in Canadian English. It was first described by Clarke, Elms and Youssef in 1995, based on impressionistic analysis....
. In England, the Cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
vowel shift among working-class Londoners is familiar from its prominence in plays such as George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
(and the related musical My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
):
- iː → ei → ai → ɔi → oi
Many chain shifts are vowel shift
Vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century...
s, 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 or Grimm's Law
Grimm's law
Grimm's law , named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European stops as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC...
, in which the Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
voiceless
Voice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
stop consonant
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
s became fricatives, the plain voiced
VOICED
Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
stops became voiceless, and the breathy voice
Breathy voice
Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
d stops became plain voiced:
- bh → b → p → f
- dh → d → t → θ
- gh → g → k → h,x
Another is the High German consonant shift
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost...
which separated Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
from other West Germanic dialects
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
such as Old English, Old Frisian
Old Frisian
Old Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine and Weser on the European North Sea coast. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland also spoke Old Frisian but no medieval texts of this area are known...
, and Old Saxon
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...
:
- d → t → ts,s
- (g →) k → kx,x
- (b →) p → pf,f
The Romance languages to the north and west of central Italy (e.g. French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
and various northern Italian languages) are known for a set of chain shifts collectively termed lenition
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
, which affected stop consonant
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
s between vowels:
- pp → p → b → β,v
- tt → t → d → ð (or vanishes)
- kk → k → g → ɣ,j (or vanishes)
In this case, each sound became weaker (or more "lenited").
Synchronic shifts
It is also possible for chain shifts to occur synchronically, within the phonologyPhonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
of a language as it exists at a single point in time.
Nzebi (or Njebi), a Bantu language
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
of Gabon
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
, has the following chain shift, triggered morphophonologically by certain tense/aspect suffixes:
| a | → | ɛ | → | e | → | i |
| ə | → | i | ||||
| ɔ | → | o | → | u |
Examples (Guthrie 1968) follow:
| 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:
| 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 is Xiamen tone or Taiwanese tone sandhi
Sandhi
Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
:
| 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 of phonological opacity. Although easily accounted for in a derivational rule-based phonology, its analysis in standard parallel Optimality Theory
Optimality theory
Optimality theory is a linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the interaction between conflicting constraints. OT models grammars as systems that provide mappings from inputs to outputs; typically, the inputs are conceived of as underlying representations, and...
is problematic.