What is a chain shift in linguistics?
A chain shift refers to a set of phonetic changes that affect a group of phonemes so that as one phoneme moves in phonetic space, another phoneme moves toward the phonetic position abandoned by the first; a third may take over the original position of the second, and (perhaps) so on.
What is a push chain?
A push chain is a chain shift in which the phoneme at the “end” of the chain moves first: in this example, if /a/ moved toward [e], a “crowding” effect would be created and /e:/ would thus move toward [i], and so forth.
What is the difference between a vowel merger and a chain shift?
Both involve the encroachment of one phoneme into the phonolo- gical space of another. If the second phoneme changes so that the distinction between the two is maintained, then the result is a chain shift. If, however, the second phoneme does not change, the distinction is lost, and a merger occurs.
What caused the Great Vowel Shift?
The greatest changes occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries. Population migration: Some scholars have argued that the rapid migration of peoples from northern England to the southeast following the Black Death caused a mixing of accents that forced a change in the standard London vernacular.
What is vowel merger?
Low back vowels The cot–caught merger is a phonemic merger that occurs in some varieties of English causing the vowel in words like cot, rock, and doll to be pronounced the same as the vowel in the words caught, talk, law, and small.
Which of the following is a problem that linguists have with Prescriptivism?
Which of the following is a problem that linguists have with prescriptivism? It clashes with the descriptive nature of science. It tends to ignore, if not actively resist, language change. It prohibits many non-standard words, such as “gonna,” rather than explaining how they are used.
What is the southern shift?
Based on the work of Labov (1991, 1994) and Feagin (1986), it has been suggested that the Southern Shift involves changes in both the front vowels and the back vowels, with the tense and lax front vowel nuclei essentially switching places and the back vowels moving forward.
What is Canadian raising linguistics?
Canadian raising is a phonological process characteristic of one variety of Canadian English, in which the onsets of the diphthongs /ay/ and /aw/ raise to mid vowels when they precede voiceless obstruents (the sounds /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, and /f/).
How long did the Great Vowel Shift take?
“The evidence of spellings, rhymes, and commentaries by contemporary language pundits suggest that [the Great Vowel Shift] operated in more than one stage, affected vowels at different rates in different parts of the country, and took over 200 years to complete,” (David Crystal, The Stories of English.
What is the evidence for the Great Vowel Shift?
A geographic examination of Survey of English Dialects data provides evidence in favor of a push-chain analysis of the Great Vowel Shift, in which the Middle English high-mid long vowels raised before the high long vowels were diphthongized.
What is a phonemic split?
Phonemic splits In a phonemic split, a phoneme at an earlier stage of the language is divided into two phonemes over time. Usually, it happens when a phoneme has two allophones appearing in different environments, but sound change eliminates the distinction between the two environments.
What is Prescriptiveness in linguistic?
1. a. Relating to or making rules, laws, or directions: prescriptive pronouncements. b. Linguistics Based on or establishing norms or rules indicating how a language should or should not be used rather than describing the ways in which a language is used.