Grimm’s Law was highly successful at predicting the forms of Germanic words but there were many exceptions. However, the discovery of Verner’s Law showed that exceptions might just be apparent; sound change is still ‘regular and exceptionless’, you just have to look a bit closer for the regularities.
An example of one such ‘exception’ is father, from above.
Note how Latin pater (which retains the /p/ and /t/ from PIE) shows up as father in English. IE /p/ > Gmc /f/ as predicted by Grimm’s Law, but IE /t/ has not come out as /θ/ instead we find /ð/. More telling are examples of related words which have the predicted sound in some cases but not in others! For example, English birthandburden are both related but show different outcomes of what was historically the same consonant.
Karl Verner noticed, however, that the unpredictable instances correlated with the position of accent in PIE. Sanskrit retains much of the earlier accent system which Germanic has subsequently changed. Sanskrit pater retains the accent following the /t/. Verner noticed that Germanic results from Law A were voiced unless they were immediately preceded by an accented syllable (in which case they would be voiceless) – this is Verner’s Law. Subsequently many of these Germanic voiced fricatives became voiced stops (thus leading to birthandburden). Germanic also underwent an Accent Shift whereby the position of accent changed. This annihilated the conditions for Verner’s Law but left the results of it unchanged, i.e. the results went from being conditioned and predictable (phonetic) to unconditioned and unpredictable (phonemic).
Verner’s Law also helped to explain cases of /s/-/r/ alternations, so called rhotacism. That is /s/ was pronounced as [z] by Verner’s Law unless preceded by accent. This [z] sound then underwent rhotacism to become /r/. Old Latin shows flos-floris‘flower’, English shows was-were etc. Many of the results of Verner’s Law have, however, been lost through analogical levelling. Latin underwent levelling to yield flor-floris‘flower’ and many English dialects have levelled the was-wereparadigm (as has Modern German), i.e. you might hear people saying ‘we was, you was, they was’.
Verner’s Law was and is a fantastic example of how powerful the comparative method is when applied carefully and rigorously. It also gave a great confidence boost to the Neogrammarian Hypothesis which says that sound change is regular and exceptionless. But that is not the end of Verner’s Law…it’s still around in places. When you next come across execute and executor/executive, think carefully about where the stress falls and how you are pronouncing the <x> in those cases – you might just see Verner’s Law in action!
Grimm’s Law (also called the First Germanic Sound Shift) refers to changes which affected the stop consonants in what became the Germanic subgroup of the Indo-European language family (Proto-Germanic being the ancestor of all Germanic languages, i.e. Gothic, German, Yiddish, Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch, Afrikaans, Old English, English etc.). There are in fact three series of changes which changed some aspect of the articulation of the IE stop consonants whilst retaining the same number of distinctions (number of phonemes).
Law A: IE /p t k/ > Gmc /f θ x/
Law B: IE /b d g/ > Gmc /p t k/
Law C: IE /bh dh gh/ > Gmc /β ð γ/ (which later became /b d g/)
Exactly when this happened is not known but we can at least work when the Laws may have taken effect relative to each other, e.g. Law A cannot have happened after Law B because otherwise we would expect IE /b d g/ to show up as /f θ x/ in Germanic.
For example:
Latinpater > Englishfather, German Vater(German orthographic <v> is pronounced /f/)
Greektri > English three
Latincord- > English heart (English /h/ descends from earlier /x/)
Sanskritbhratar > English brother, German Bruder
These are standard but selective examples. Standard in the sense that you’ll find them in text books; selective in that we cannot simply look at one language and expect it to faithfully represent changes which happened hundreds of years ago. Latin, Greek and Sanskrit have undergone changes since Proto-Indo-European and English and German have undergone changes since Proto-Germanic. Modern German shows evidence of a Second Germanic Sound Shift which changed the Germanic stop consonants again! English did not undergo this change as it had already separated from the language that was to become German (compare threeanddrei,daughterandTochteretc.).
We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no! We don’t talk about Bruno… but
The more I play this song in my head, the more impressed I am with the rhyme schemes.
It was my weddingday It was our weddingday We were getting ready, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky No clouds allowed in the sky
Bruno walks inwith a mischievous grin- Thunder!! You telling this story,oramI? I’m sorry, mi vida, go on
Bruno says, “Itlookslikerain” Why did he tell us? In doing so, he floodsmybrain Abuela, get the umbrellas Married in a hurricane What a joyous day… but anyway
We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no! We don’t talk about Bruno!
Pepa and Felix, aside from interrupting one another (Pepa’s side-eye!), get some nice internal and partial rhymes in: ‘wedding-getting-ready’, ‘clouds-allowed’. I love the that ‘umbrellas’ is rhymed with ‘he tell us’, and partly echoed in ‘Abuela’, and the sort of echo between ‘married’ and ‘hurricane’, while ‘looks like rain’ and ‘floods my brain’ plays on sound, rhyme and the watery imagery.
Hey!Grew to live in fearofBrunostutteringorstumbling I could always hearhim sort of mutteringandmumbling I associate him with the sound of falling sand, ch-ch-ch It’s a heavy lift, with a giftsohumbling AlwaysleftAbuela and the familyfumbling Grappling with prophecies they couldn’t understand Do you understand?
This bit of Dolores’ is wonderfully complex. ‘Fear-stuttering-stumbling’ and ‘hear-muttering-mumbling’ has rhyme and alliteration across and within lines. I also think ‘fear/hear’ is also dimly echoed by the ‘-ering’ in ‘stuttering/muttering’ because then a similar pattern is repeated with ‘lift-gift-humbling’ and ‘left-family-fumbling’. There’s some great assonance with ‘associate-sound-sand’, and then some partial alliteration with ‘grappling-prophecies’.
A seven-foot frame Rats along his back When he calls your name Itall fades to black Yeah, he sees your dreams And feastson your screams (hey!)
I’ve highlighted the stressed vowels in Camilo’s part. English spelling obscures some of the phonological patterns, but using a rough phonetic transcription, it’s perhaps easier to see the same vowels pop up over and over, with the high front vowel /i/ in ‘sees-dreams-feasts-screams’ building some tension at the end.
ɛ-ʊ-eɪ
a-ɔ-a
ɔ-ɔ-eɪ
ɔ-eɪ-a
i-ɔ-i
i-ɔ-i
We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no! (We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no!) We don’t talk about Bruno (we don’t talk about Bruno!)
He told me my fish would die The next day: dead! (No, no!) He told me I’d grow a gut! And just like he said… (no, no!) He said that all my hair would disappear, now look at my head (no, no! Hey!) Your fate is sealed when your prophecy is read!
Not much to say about the bit above - maybe that’s why Lin-Manuel Miranda gave it to the townsfolk!
He told me that the life of my dreams would be promised, and someday be mine He told me that my power would grow, like the grapes that thrive on the vine Óye, Mariano’s on his way
He told methat the man of my dreams would be just out of reach Betrothed to another It’s like I hear him now Hey sis, I wantnot a sound out of you (it’s like I can hear him now) I can hear him now
These two bits contrast with one another in the music itself, and mirror each other in the language. It’s neat that for Isabela’s line with ‘me-dreams-promised-someday’, the syllable with /m/ and/or /i/ is sung on a higher note that the surrounding syllables, while in the corresponding line for Dolores’ part ‘me-man-dreams-reach’, the /m/ and/or /i/ is generally on a lower note than the surrounding syllables. Then there is also some alliteration ‘grow-grapes’ and even ‘thrive-vine’, ‘betrothed-another’ and ‘want-not-sound’.
Rhyme scheme nerdfest over … for now. That’s what you get for talking about Bruno!
“Catching weary waterfowl on thin ice gives surly polar bears huge pleasure and ensures they enjoy good meat unharmed.”
—
A panphone (sentence that contains every phoneme in the English language, at least for the composer’s dialect) by Richard Gunton on Literal Minded. You may need to adjust slightly for your own dialect, but the post about it provides an interesting place to start.
(Compare with pangrams, i.e. sentences that contain every letter in a given alphabet.)
Explore Bruce Myhre’s photos on Flickr. Bruce Myhre has uploaded 251 photos to Flickr.
I saw this visualisation of the IPA consonant symbols located in the mouth reblogged elsewhere today. I’ve succeeded in locating down the designer and hi-Res versions. Yipee! It seems to be part of an “Introduction to Phonetics” pack.
Cool! These might also be useful, made by awesome Mikael Parkvall
We were intrigued by this play rendered in phonetics (“eminently suitable for foreign students of English” according to the introduction). And we were amused by the contrast between the standard English used in the stage directions and the phonetically-rendered dialogue, especially in the highlighted couplet.
A couple explanations of what might be going on. From The Verge:
The secret is frequency. The acoustic information that makes us hear Yanny is higher frequency than the acoustic information that makes us hear Laurel. Some of the variation may be due to the audio system playing the sound, Reicke says. But some of it is also the mechanics of your ears, and what you’re expecting to hear.
Older adults tend to start losing their hearing at the higher frequency ranges, which could explain why Riecke could only hear Laurel, but his eight-year-old daughter could hear Yanny. It’s a phenomenon you can mimic on a computer, he says: if you remove all the low frequencies, you hear Yanny. If you remove the high frequencies, you hear Laurel.
Here’s what I think is going on. In the first syllable, there’s only one major spectral peak below 2.5kHz. It has a wide bandwidth, which is consistent with an F1 and F2 very close together: an /ɑ/ (for “Laurel”).
The higher spectral prominence dips down about halfway through the word, between the two syllables. If the lower spectral prominence is F1 & F2, then the higher one must be F3. A low F3 = /ɹ/!
But what if we treat that higher spectral prominence as an F2, rather than an F3? Then we have a very high F2 in the first syllable, consistent with a front vowel or approximant, e.g. /j/. The F2 stays pretty high and the F1 gradually rises, giving a percept of /jæ/
The fall of the F2 between the two syllables is then consistent with an /n/, although we don’t see the general amplitude dampening that we normally associate with nasals. The F2 rises and F1 falls again at the end, resulting in /jæni/ overall.
Probably my new go-to audio illusion to show people! I particularly liked Dr. Turnbull’s explanation, linked to above. If you haven’t heard this already, give it a try!
It’s not often that a horror movie manages to snag the top spot at the box office, and even rarer that it should reclaim first place in its third weekend, after having dropped down to number two. But that’s exactly what John Krasinki’s new film A Quiet Place pulled off, to the tune of a 50 million dollar opening, and over 200 million worldwide. What’s more remarkable, though, is that such a mainstream movie would commit so steadfastly to its premise — where any sound made can attract the attention of deadly monsters — and silently render almost every word of dialogue in American Sign Language (ASL). And as a result, actress Millicent Simmonds explains, the film winds up being especially significant for the deaf community.
Simmonds, who is deaf herself, actually spent time on set helping the other actors learn ASL, which generally goes underrepresented in mainstream cinema. And the importance of casting a deaf actor and using genuine sign language is something she’s been quick to underscore. “I think it’s important in the deaf community to advocate for and be a representative for this story,” she says, “a story that might inspire directors and other screenwriters to include more deaf talent and be more creative in the way you use deaf talent.” “What I hope is that I can show [my community] you can do anything,“ she goes on to explain, “not only become an actor, but a writer, a teacher, a pilot, anything you want to do is possible.”
And for those who’ve now seen the film, there’s yet another linguisticky easter egg to be found, around which the whole final act of the movie turns. So if you don’t want to be spoiled, be sure to stop reading right now, because principle plot points abound below the fold! ^_^
A cool discussion of A Quiet Place from our staff writer Stephan! There’s some good explanation under the fold, too, but it is spoiler-y. Still, I learned a bunch!
telling ppl about how my parents dont put a pause if they’re saying “twelve thirty one” to mean around 12:30/1 such that it’s homophonous with 12:31 and getting a bunch of “that doesn’t make sense that’s so unclear” like buddy, that’s language
It’s for a story, so although I’m limited in orthographic choices because it has to phonetically sort of make sense to a proficient english speaker who’s never seen it before, I’m really enjoying making it! Here’s a sample in case anyone’s interested
