Re: Legitimate word forms?
Posted: September 5th, 2018, 4:12 pm
On system and phonology, there are myriad examples.
In Greek, there was a great vowel shift 3cBCE-1cBCE that spread around the Mediterranean in the world after Alexander the Great. The following vowels merged:
ει and ι
αι and ε
ω and ο
οι and υ
Phonologically, what explains all of these mergers? There is a single feature that can explain this. Length dropped out of the system, leaving seven vowel qualities. In addition, the dropping of length caused some diphthongs to be fit into the system as vowel + consonant. So ευ, αυ, and ηυ eventually became homophonic with εβ, αβ, and αβ. These changes often took centuries to work out world-wide. As final changes, η merged with ει/ι and then οι/υ merged with ει/ι, producing the "modern" five-vowel system by the second half of the first millenium.
A similar mass of change happened in English after the black death of 1350. People moved around in new patterns and over the following three centuries the modern English vowel system developed (although the spelling remains Chaucerian). Again, the changes took time to work out and develop through stages into the new system. However, there are dialects where the new changes were resisted. Many little layers can be traced in dialects among the 11 or so vowels in English. See the Midland American English article in Wiki for the briefest of intros to this.
In Greek, there was a great vowel shift 3cBCE-1cBCE that spread around the Mediterranean in the world after Alexander the Great. The following vowels merged:
ει and ι
αι and ε
ω and ο
οι and υ
Phonologically, what explains all of these mergers? There is a single feature that can explain this. Length dropped out of the system, leaving seven vowel qualities. In addition, the dropping of length caused some diphthongs to be fit into the system as vowel + consonant. So ευ, αυ, and ηυ eventually became homophonic with εβ, αβ, and αβ. These changes often took centuries to work out world-wide. As final changes, η merged with ει/ι and then οι/υ merged with ει/ι, producing the "modern" five-vowel system by the second half of the first millenium.
A similar mass of change happened in English after the black death of 1350. People moved around in new patterns and over the following three centuries the modern English vowel system developed (although the spelling remains Chaucerian). Again, the changes took time to work out and develop through stages into the new system. However, there are dialects where the new changes were resisted. Many little layers can be traced in dialects among the 11 or so vowels in English. See the Midland American English article in Wiki for the briefest of intros to this.