Sound Change Sound Change Mechanization Mechanization Some work-in-progress notes Some work-in-progress notes Tiago Tresoldi DLCE department meeting, MPI-SHH, Jena, 18/02/2020 2 

What I will talk about What I will talk about History of sound change mechanization Formalized notation Two different tasks The AlteruPhono package Current status and plans What it would (hopefully) allow 3 . 1 

Caveats Caveats Segments as units composed of bundles of (distinctive) features Not (necessarily) phonemes, but a “useful descriptive fiction” Sound changes alone don’t explain all of history 3 . 2 

Background Background Sound change mechanization proposed in the 50s (Gleason 1959), started in the 60s and 70s (Kay 1964, Hewson 1977) 4 . 1 

Diachrony replaced by synchrony Informed edit distance (Damerau, 1975) Phonological distance (Wieling et Nerbonne, 2015) Likelihood of correspondence (Bouchard-Côté et al., 2013) Sequence alignment (List, 2014) Ancestral State Reconstruction (Jäger et List, 2018) 4 . 2 

(Milky Way from Pakistan’s Karakoram Range, Anne 4 . 3 

( ) bitacoradegalileo.com 4 . 4 

Good and preferable solution for tasks such as cognate detection Observation before inference But algorithms connecting French là and Hawaiian laila (“there”), while missing German da and English there, unsettle linguists (List et al., 2017) 4 . 5 

“All /e/ become /i/ when preceded by a consonant” /tade/ turns into /tadi/ /pepe/ turns into /pipi/ /emu/ stays as /emu/ 4 . 6 

XKCD 1831, “Here to help” 4 . 7 

Problem #1: Formal notation Problem #1: Formal notation The pattern of A > B / C (“A turns into B in context C”) is but a blueprint: Footnotes and comparative prose Conventions (∅, #, etc.) Ad hoc solutions (shifts, alternatives, etc.) Implicitness (e.g. coronal plosives) IPA issues (and “e” is not necessarily /e/!) 5 . 1 

Proto-Omotic to North Omotic e → i / #l_{P,C[+voiced]} e(:) → i(:) / #C[+sibilant]_{d,n,r} {u,a,i} → ∅ / _% (when stressed) Classical Arabic to Hadhrami Arabic dˤ q → ðˤ ɡ 5 . 2 

Problem #2: Typological research Problem #2: Typological research Insufficient empirical probabilities Database of sound changes Growing body of supporting research (Blevins 2004, Kümmel 2007, Bybee 2015, Hruschka et al. 2015) Case of Index Diachronica 6 

Task #1: Forwards Reconstruction Task #1: Forwards Reconstruction Smith (1969), PIE → Russian /aŋgʷʰi/(“worm, snake”) -> уж /uʂ/ (“adder”) Mignani (1971), P.-Romance → Franco-Provençal Burton-Hunter (1976), Latin → Old French Eastlack (1977), Latin → Spanish Bátori (1982), Proto-Uralic → Finnish/Hungarian 7 . 1 

Hartman (2003), a de facto programming language Generative phonology Remarkably powerful Notation very different from the usual 7 . 2 

No content

$1: A_Coloring «/aw/, /aj/ > /ow/, /ej/» A: +syll (*) +low (*) -cons (*+1) -syll (*+1) +high (*+1) 1: -low (*) 2: back (*) = back (*+1) 3: round (*) = round (*+1) END: A_Coloring 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 . 3 

Task #2: Backwards Task #2: Backwards Reconstruction Reconstruction Hewson (1977) on Algonquian each lexeme handled on average 21 potential proto-forms Lowe & Mazaudon (1994), Oakes (2000), Kondrak et al. (2007) 7 . 4 

Even a simple rule as b > p applied to /papa/ yields four alternatives /baba/, /bapa/, /paba/, /papa/ Rosenfelder’s SCA² on Portuguese “distrito” (cf. Sims-Williams, 2018) distrito districtus distriptus (dozen others) diiistericto divivistriviviptus 7 . 5 

AlteruPhono AlteruPhono Both a Python library and a web tool Intended for usage also without installing Formalization of notation (database, CLTS) PEG grammar Forwards and backwards direction https://github.com/tresoldi/alteruphono 8 . 1 

Currently Currently Python library usable by programmers 800 test rules (“stress tests”), (B)IPA features Real data (on-going) Proto-Algonquian to Shawnee (48 rules) Conversion of Hartman’s LS (1,800 forms) Toy dataset of PIE to RP English (10 words) */kʷetwṓr/ ➞ /fɔː/ (“four”) */h₂ḱowsyónom/ ➞ /hiə/ (“hear”) 8 . 2 

8 . 3 

Example #1, Simple rule Example #1, Simple rule a ➞ e / _ # papa pape pape *papa *pape 9 . 1 

Example #2, Sound classes Example #2, Sound classes b ➞ β / V _ V ibaba iβaβa iβaβa *ibaba *iβaba *ibaβa *iβaβa 9 . 2 

Example #3, Back-references Example #3, Back-references k V ➞ @2 / # _ kira ira ira *kira *ira koke oke oke *koke *oke 9 . 3 

Example #4, Back-references with Example #4, Back-references with changes and alternatives changes and alternatives p|k ➞ @1[+voiced] / V _ V apakak abagak abagak *abagak *apagak *abakak *apakak 9 . 4 

Example #5, sets and mappings, Example #5, sets and mappings, alternatives alternatives {a,e,u} ➞ {e,i,o} / r _ | _ r areru eriro eriro *eriro *ariro *erero *eriru *arero *ariru *ereru *areru 9 . 5 

Multitiers Multitiers Approach to tiers as extensions to alignments and features (List et Chacon, 2015; Tresoldi et al., 2018) “initial /t/ becomes /n/ if there is a nasal consonant anywhere in the word” tata ➞ tata taɲa ➞ naɲa tatatataɲatata ➞ natatataɲatata 10 . 1 

Tier Seg-1 Seg-2 Seg-3 Seg-4 sound t a t a sound t a ɲ a 10 . 2 

Tier Seg-1 Seg-2 Seg-3 Seg-4 sound t a t a nasal_in_word False False False False sound t a ɲ a nasal_in_word True True True True t[nasal_in_word] > n / # _ 10 . 3 

Roadmap Roadmap Get usable library and tool Consolidate notation Double implementation, JSON Feature system agnostic (BIPA default) Write paper for review and feedback Bootstrapping for other projects on hold inference of sound changes from cognates catalog attenuate homoplasy from sounds as states 11 

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