LSA.218 | Sound Change in Progress

William Labov
MW 8:15-9:55
location: 32-123
course web site: http://mv.ezproxy.com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/Class/218

The course will review the history of the search for the causes of sound change and proceed to the general constraints that can be inferred from the study of completed changes in the historical record. The major focus of the course will be on the analysis of sound change in progress, drawing data from sociolinguistic studies of speech communities in various languages and from the recently completed Atlas of North American English. Topics will include the regularity of change; the principles governing chain shifts, mergers and splits; the identification of triggering events; the social motivation of change. Students will use large-scale data bases to trace the effects of sound change in individual vowel systems and map regional patterns. Final assignments will call for the application of current phonological theory to the analysis of these data.

Text: Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. 1: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.