Questions: Sound Change Mechanisms and Diachronic Phonology

Question 1

A linguist finds that most words in a cognate set across related languages follow an established sound correspondence, but five words show unexpected forms. The Neogrammarian principle predicts:

• A. The sound law must be revised, since laws that have exceptions are not valid laws.
• B. The five exceptions must have systematic explanations — borrowing after the change, analogical leveling, or dialect mixing — not random irregularity.
• C. These five words are evidence that the sound law applied only to some vocabulary, not categorically.
• D. Sound laws are statistical approximations, so a small percentage of exceptions is acceptable and expected.

Answer: (B)

The Neogrammarian claim — 'sound laws have no exceptions' — means that every word containing the affected sound in the affected environment must undergo the change. Apparent exceptions are not evidence against regularity; they are puzzles with systematic solutions. Loanwords borrowed after the change completed were not present when the change operated. Analogical leveling occurs when morphological pressure kept a form stable against the sound change. Dialect borrowing imports a form from a dialect that didn't undergo the change. Explaining exceptions systematically is what makes the comparative method work — if sound change were partly random, historical reconstruction would be impossible.

Question 2

The English word 'colonel' is pronounced /ˈkɜːrnəl/ with an /r/ sound despite being spelled with two /l/ characters. This is an example of:

• A. Assimilation — one /l/ changed to become more like a nearby sound.
• B. Dissimilation — the two similar /l/ sounds diverged to reduce articulatory interference.
• C. Lenition — one /l/ weakened to /r/ in intervocalic position.
• D. A chain shift — the /l/ moved as part of a broader consonant rotation in Middle English.

Answer: (B)

Dissimilation is the process where two similar sounds in a word diverge to reduce articulatory conflict. When a word contains two occurrences of the same sound, one of them often changes to be less like the other. 'Colonel' entered English from French with two /l/ sounds; one dissimilated to /r/. This is the same mechanism behind the l/r alternation in other English borrowings of Latin words with two /l/ phonemes. Assimilation (option 0) is the opposite process — sounds becoming more similar. Lenition (option 2) is specifically consonant weakening in intervocalic position, which is a different environment and mechanism.

Question 3

The fact that sound changes are exceptionless within their conditioning environment is precisely what allows linguists to reconstruct proto-languages from systematic correspondences across daughter languages.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

If sound change were random or probabilistic, cognate sets would show random variation, and linguists could not project systematic correspondences backward to proto-forms with confidence. Regularity is the foundation of the comparative method: when English 'father,' Latin 'pater,' and Sanskrit 'pitā' show a systematic f/p/p correspondence rather than random variation, that regularity is evidence of a rule-governed change (Grimm's Law) operating from a common ancestor. Reconstruct the rule, reconstruct the proto-form. Remove regularity and the comparative method collapses.

Question 4

Sound changes occur suddenly and categorically — most speakers shift simultaneously — which is what gives sound laws their 'no exceptions' character.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Sound changes proceed gradually through variation in the speech community before categorical adoption. A new variant starts as occasional, then becomes more frequent among certain speakers or in certain environments, then spreads — typically over generations — until it becomes categorical. The 'no exceptions' principle refers to the scope of application (every word in the conditioning environment), not to the speed of the change. The change may spread over a century or more. This gradualism is captured in sociolinguistic research on sound change in progress, which consistently observes variable intermediate stages before categorical establishment.

Question 5

Why do 'exceptions' to sound laws actually support the Neogrammarian claim that sound change is regular, rather than undermining it?

Model answer: Because every apparent exception, when investigated, turns out to have a systematic explanation: the word was borrowed from another language or dialect after the change completed (so it was never subject to the rule), it underwent analogical leveling (morphological pressure kept the form stable against the phonological change), or it was imported from a dialect that underwent different changes. These explanations are themselves rule-governed — they appeal to independently verifiable processes (borrowing histories, morphological paradigms, dialect boundaries). If exceptions were truly random, no systematic explanation would be found. The fact that every exception yields to systematic analysis reinforces, rather than contradicts, the underlying regularity of sound change.

This is the key epistemological move: exceptions become evidence for the rule when they can be systematically explained. Students who focus on the existence of exceptions miss the point — the claim is not that all words always change, but that all words in the conditioning environment change unless another rule (borrowing, analogy) overrides the phonological change. The system of rules is itself regular.