Experimental Evidence for Sound Change

This course is a seminar on how experimental work can provide evidence for sound change, both to shed light on the general mechanisms of how sound changes occur and also what specific developments are plausible, particularly when the comparative evidence is ambiguous or the phonetic characteristics of the reconstructed categories are under consideration. The course explores the processes that lead to changes, including biases that exist in perception and production and shifts in how the phonology maps onto the phonetic details, and what predictions they make. We will examine some of the experimental methods that provide evidence for sound change, and discuss which aspects of these approaches parallel diachronic change and what aspects are limitations for the parallel.