Distributional Typology of Contact-Induced Segment Borrowing
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
It is well-known that some languages have very small inventories of distinctive sounds, while others have very large ones, and expectedly, most languages fall somewhere in between (Maddieson 1984, 2013). Moreover, typological studies of sound inventories have established that the composition of sound systems is not random. First, some sounds are cross-linguistically more frequent than others (Maddieson 1983, 2013). Second, it has been argued (e.g., Hyman 2007) that small sound systems tend to include a set of sounds that languages simply prefer not to do without. A variety of factors (articulatory and perceptual constraints, structural considerations, UG) have been offered as explanations for these facts, most of which are ‘functional’ in Bickel’s (2017) sense. However, it is also possible that sound systems show systematic patterns of cross-linguistic variation, due at least in part, to ‘event-based triggers,’ i.e., language contact.
In this course, we will explore this issue in a systematic, empirically-based way, using large-scale databases to evaluate hypotheses about the role of language contact in probabilistically determining the shape of sound systems as they are currently distributed in the languages of the world. Specifically, we will use the World Survey of Segment Borrowing database to evaluate hypotheses about universal biases that result in differential contact-induced phonological change, focusing on borrowed segments. One major hypothesis to be investigated holds that such lexical borrowing is the main way that language contact leads to innovations in segment inventories.For example, Hebrew (Afroasiatic, Israel) acquired the affricates tʃ and dʒ through lexical borrowing from European languages, as in tʃips ‘French fries.’ Urarina (isolate, Peru), Mam (Mayan, Guatemala), and Cupeño (Uto-Aztecan, USA) all acquired /g/ as the result of lexical borrowings from Spanish.. On the other hand, it has been argued (Blevins 2017) that Yurok (Algic, USA) acquired ejectives not through lexical borrowing but by an indirect influence of neighbouring languages on pathways of change.
The World Survey of Segment Borrowing - which currently documents around 600 individual borrowed sounds from around 200 languages from all of the world’s macro-areas - allows us to investigate these hypotheses, but also turns up a wealth of empirical findings, such as borrowability hierarchies, the relative frequency borrowing of particular segment-types, and the dependence on particular types of segment borrowings on areal and historical factors.
This course will include (a) a very brief overview of phonological typology and an introduction to usable phonological databases, (b) the presentation of the main empirical findings about segment borrowing (c) the exploration of several hypotheses about sound borrowing, and their evaluation. Students will get their hands dirty with data-collection and analysis.