LINGUIST List 13.1912

Sat Jul 13 2002

Qs: Phonetics, Phrase Terminal Tags

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  • Remy Viredaz, Phonetics: s/z/h Alteration
  • Stephen Levey, phrase terminal tags and stuff like that

    Message 1: Phonetics: s/z/h Alteration

     Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 14:43:07 +0000
    From: Remy Viredaz <remy.viredazbluewin.ch>
    Subject: Phonetics: s/z/h Alteration


    After my Summary <http://linguistlist.org/issues/13/13-1596.html>; appeared, I was made aware of a few corrigenda and addenda. (Quotations below are not verbatim.)

    Paul Kiparsky <kiparskycsli.Stanford.EDU>: Charles Ferguson, "From esses to aiches: identifying pathways of diachronic change", in W. Croft et al. (eds), Studies in Typology and Diachrony (Benjamins 1990), argues that there are two basic types of s > h sound change. [In some languages such as Ancient Greek and modern Yakut, the change begins in V_V position and spreads to #_V and possibly other contexts; in Spanish, on the contrary, it begins in syllable-final position and extends to word-final.]

    Ross Clark (FOA DALSL) <r.clarkauckland.ac.nz>: The change s > h in Polynesian is not limited to the East Polynesian subgroup but also affects Tongan and its close relative Niuean. Tongan has a new /s/, as a result of a recent change of *t before i; 18th and 19th sources still show an affricate, written ch or j, for that sound, whereas s > h was already completed. A similar situation obtains in Niuean.

    Marc Picard <picardvax2.concordia.ca>: The change *s > *h > ... > n in initial position in Arapaho was first recognized and explained (as *h > *รง > *y > *l > n) by Marc Picard, "On the evidence of PA *s to Arapaho /n/", International Journal of American Linguistics 60, 1994, 295-299. Pentland 1998 added some more examples of that change.

    I do thank these authors for the information.

    Message 2: phrase terminal tags and stuff like that

     Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 16:17:58 +0000
    From: Stephen Levey <stve123hotmail.com>
    Subject: phrase terminal tags and stuff like that


    As part of a sociolinguistic investigation, I am looking at variation in children's use of phrase terminal tags e.g. 'and stuff like that', 'and everything', etc, appended to phrases. I am interested in the occurrence of similar phenomena in languages other than English, particularly non-Western ones. Does anyone have any examples?