Ling Fridays: Natvig on sound change

What chain shifts tell us about phonological substance in sound change

Linguistics Fridays Colloquia talk

David Natvig, University of Stavanger – Norway

Note time and location change!

Hybrid modality: in person in Van Hise 201, and will also (hopefully) be livestreamed online.

I discuss in this talk phonetic and phonological change, with a focus on chain shifts because they center a tension between surface-level changes and the preservation of phonemic contrasts. Acoustic data from chain-shifting Norwegian back vowels among European Norwegian and North American Norwegian heritage speakers show cohesive phonetic advancement of shifting vowels, despite the distinct sociolinguistic contexts of Norwegian use. I then present how opposing views on the substance of phonology – e.g., exemplar vs. substance-free theories – approach these patterns and argue in favor of viewing sound change in terms of a change in the structural organization of substance.