Conspiracy in historical phonology
Abstract
Historical sound change has been modeled in Optimality Theory as a change in the ranking of constraints. In the simplest case, the surface effects of a constraint reranking can be stated in terms of a single traditional rewrite rule. However, there are also rerankings whose corresponding surface effects are diverse and complex, and cannot be stated as a single rule. It is this consequence of OT which I explore in this dissertation, examining conspiracies of historical sound changes in early Greek (the elimination of *j), in West Germanic (the near elimination of voiced fricatives), and in Slavic (the elimination of syllable codas).
Subject Area
Linguistics
Recommended Citation
Crist, Sean Jacob, "Conspiracy in historical phonology" (2001). Dissertations available from ProQuest. AAI3003613.
https://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3003613