Investigating universals of sound change: the effect of vowel height and duration on the development of distinctive nasalization

摘要: In a series of studies in the 1970s, small group linguists investigating possibleuniversals sound change (Schourup, 1973, Chen, 1972-, Chen & Wang, 1975, Lightner,1973, Ruhlen, and Foley, 1977) examined detail development distinctivenasalization, i.e. VN > V)N V), across languages. All concluded independently that thedevelopment some or all parts distinctive nasalization process occurspreferentially context low vowels before spreading gradually to mid thenfinally high when adjacent nasal consonants, as (I):(I) Vowel Height Parameter (VHP)low >> highAt first glance, such claim seems uncontroversial, appears have been acceptedby many linguists, both phonologists (e.g. Dinnsen, 1981) phoneticians Beddor,1993) alike - on basis what be very convincing textual/philological,cross-linguistic/typological, phonological phonetic evidence. However, closerinspection reported bases for are found problematic byHajek (1992, 1993, 1997) below. We hypothesize instead existence twocompeting differently motivated universals provide cross-linguistic phoneticevidence support hypothesis.