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Phonetic and Phonemic Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

A. A. Hill
A. A. Hill*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

The theory of phonemes has received a great deal of attention from linguists within the last few years, and the applications of the theory to descriptive linguistics have become reasonably clear, though there still remain problems in need of further study. However, there has been less interest in the theory on the part of students of the history of language, many of whom practically ignore the theory altogether; or assume, on the other hand, that the sound changes which we can prove to have taken place in the past were practically coextensive with phonemic shifts. It seems, therefore, worth while to attempt a tentative examination and classification of the relations between sound change and phonemic change in the hope that the applications of the theory of phonemes to the historic study of language may be to some extent clarified.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 12 , Issue 1-Part1: January-March , March 1936 , pp. 15 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © 1936 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 This seems to be the attitude of Bloomfield, Language, N. Y., 1933. In his chapters on Phonetic Change and on the Comparative Method he makes quite clear that in general the formulae in which historic states of language are summed up indicate historic phonemic rather than narrowly phonetic structure. He does not, however, give any detailed discussion of the exceptions to this rule, or of the relations of the two types of change.

2 Cf. Luick, Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache 374–9, Tauchnitz, Leipzig, 1921.

3 The best descripton of the phonetic rules governing NE vowel length is to be found in E. A. Meyer, Englische Lautdauer, Uppsala, 1903.

4 Sievers-Cook, Grammar of Old English 51, Ginn and Company, N. Y., 1903.

5 Grammont, Traité de Phonétique 186–7, Delagrave, Paris, 1933.

6 The pronunciations [kæridʒ] for cartridge, and [pæsl̩] for parcel, common in New England, are not examples of the reverse confusion, but of early loss of [r] before dentals.

7 Cf. the spellings collected by Wyld, A History of Modern Colloquial English 312–13, E. P. Dutton, N. Y., 1920.