Alveolarization in Hong Kong Cantonese : a sociophonetic study of neogrammarian and lexical diffusion models of sound change
This thesis is a quantitative study of sociophonetic variation which focuses on the Hong Kong Cantonese velar coda consonants -<b>&eta;</b> and -<b>k</b>. These codas have, under certain linguistic contexts, become increasingly realized as alveolar nasal and oral stop consonants, [-n] and [-t], respectively. For the purpose of this thesis, the phenomenon of sound shift from -<b>&eta;</b> and -<b>k</b>, to [-n] and [-t] respectively will be termed 'alveolarization'. Insofar as the language of a speech community is a shared vehicle for communication and sound changes are constrained by the need for mutual intelligibility, the central aim of this thesis is to uncover the factors which contribute the most to driving this sound change. In describing the variation in these consonants, I examine the concomitant social and linguistic factors which might help explain it. While this study focuses on one specific set of linguistic variables, it aims to analyse a broad set of factors to obtain a picture of the complexity of this sound change. The sound change is of theoretical interest as it provides an opportunity to evaluate the neogrammarian regularity hypothesis and the lexical diffusion model of sound change. The
Chan, May T. M.
Linguistics ; Sociophonetics
Alveolarization in Hong Kong Cantonese : a sociophonetic study of neogrammarian and lexical diffusion models of sound change. This thesis is a quantitative study of sociophonetic variation which focuses on the Hong Kong Cantonese velar coda consonants -<b>&eta;</b> and -<b>k</b>. These codas have, under certain linguistic contexts, become increasingly realized as alveolar nasal and oral stop consonants, [-n] and [-t], respectively. For the purpose of this thesis, the phenomenon of sound shift from -<b>&eta;</b> and -<b>k</b>, to [-n] and [-t] respectively will be termed 'alveolarization'. Insofar as the language of a speech community is a shared vehicle for communication and sound changes are constrained by the need for mutual intelligibility, the central aim of this thesis is to uncover the factors which contribute the most to driving this sound change. In describing the variation in these consonants, I examine the concomitant social and linguistic factors which might help explain it. While this study focuses on one specific set of linguistic variables, it aims to analyse a broad set of factors to obtain a picture of the complexity of this sound change. The sound change is of theoretical interest as it provides an opportunity to evaluate the neogrammarian regularity hypothesis and the lexical diffusion model of sound change. The
hong_kong cantonese sociophonetic study lexical diffusion model sound_change quantitative_study sociophonetic variation focus hong_kong cantonese velar coda consonant coda certain_linguistic context become_increasingly realize nasal oral stop consonant respectively purpose phenomenon sound shift respectively term insofar language speech_community share vehicle communication sound_change constrain need mutual intelligibility central aim_uncover factor_contribute drive sound_change describe variation consonant examine concomitant social linguistic_factor might help_explain study_focus specific set linguistic_variable aim_analyse broad set factor obtain picture complexity sound_change sound_change theoretical interest provide_opportunity evaluate regularity hypothesis lexical diffusion model sound_change