Phonemic differentiation

Phonemic differentiation is the phenomenon of a phoneme in a language splitting into two phonemes over time, a process known as a phonemic split. The opposite of a phonemic split is a phonemic merger, in which two phonemes become one over time.

These splits and mergers may be complete or conditioned, that is limited to certain phonemic contexts. In the former case, all minimal pairs for the two phonemes in a splitting accent will be homophones in a merging accent; in the latter case, only some pairs will be homophones. For example, the father-bother merger completely merges /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, whereas the horse-hoarse merger merges /ɔː/ and /oʊ/ (or /əʊ/) only before a lexical r (for example bought and boat remain distinct).

Sometimes a phonemic merger causes a certain phoneme to become a restricted phoneme. For example, the fill-feel merger causes /iː/ to become a restricted phoneme that cannot occur before /l/, although the contrast between /iː/ and /ɪ/ is maintained elsewhere, as in beat /biːt/ vs. bit /bɪt/.

It is sometimes difficult to determine whether a split or a merger has happened in cases where one dialect has two phonemes corresponding to a single phoneme in another dialect; diachronic research is usually required to determine which dialect is the conservative and which is the innovative. It is also important to note that while some splits and mergers are considered to be part of standard languages, others are not considered standard and may be stigmatized. For example, the fleece merger is considered to be standard, but the line-loin merger is usually stigmatized. In descriptive linguistics, however, the question of which splits and mergers are prestigious and which are stigmatized is irrelevant.

Occasionally, speakers of one accent may believe the speakers of another accent to have undergone a merger, when in fact there has been a chain shift. For example, an American may hear an Irish person use pronunciations like [bɑɹn] for born, [fɑɹm] for form, and [kɑɹd] for cord and incorrectly conclude that Hiberno-English has undergone the card-cord merger. In fact, there is no merger in Hiberno-English: the words barn, farm, and card are pronounced [bæɹn, fæɹm, kæɹd].

Phonemic differentiation in English

The various accents of English are characterized by various splits and mergers. Listed below are cases where a single phoneme of Early Modern English has split in two or more accents of Modern English, and cases where two phonemes of Middle English have merged in two or more accents of Modern English. Splits and mergers that affect only one accent (or have failed to affect only one accent) are discussed in the article on the accent in question (see the list of English accents and dialects at the right).

Many mergers and splits have their own articles and thus are not discussed here:

Card-cord merger

The card-cord merger (known by Wells as the start-north merger) is a merger of Early Modern English [ɑr] with [ɒr], resulting in homophony of pairs like card/cord, barn/born and far/for. The merger is found in some Caribbean English accents, in some versions of the West Country accent in England, and in some Southern and Western U.S. accents. ^[1],^[2]. Areas where the merger occurs includes St. Louis and central Texas.

Fern-fir-fur merger

The Fern-fir-fur merger (known by Wells as the first nurse merger) is the merger of the Middle English vowels /ɪ, ɛ, ʊ/ into [ɜ] when followed by [r] in the coda of the syllable. As a result of this merger, the vowels in fern, fir and fur are the same in almost all accents of English; the exceptions are Scottish English and some varieties of Hiberno-English. The vowel quality is preserved when vowel-initial suffixes are added to words that came to end in [ɜr] by this merger, so furry has the same vowel as fur and stirring has the same vowel as stir. Otherwise the merger did not happen when the [r] sound was intervocalic, so that mirror, very, and furrow still have distinct vowels.^[3]

Fill-feel and Fell-fail mergers

The fill-feel merger is a conditioned merger of the vowels /ɪ/ and /iː/ before /l/ that occurs in some dialects of American English. The merged vowel is usually closer to [ɪ] than [i:]. The heavest concentration of the merger is found in Southern American English. People who show complete merger are in the Southern States, concentrated in two main areas: central and western North Carolina and central and west Texas.^[4] The same two regions show a closely related merger, namely the fell-fail merger of /ɛ/ and /eɪ/ before /l/ that occurs in some varieties of Southern American English making fell and fail homophones.^[5],^[6] In addition to North Carolina and Texas, these mergers are found sporadically in other Southern states and in the Midwest and West.

Fleece merger

The fleece merger (also called meet-meat merger) is the merger of the Early Modern English vowel /eː/ (usually spelled ea, as in meat, peace, sea, receive) with the vowel /iː/ (as in meet, piece, see, believe)^[7]. The merger is complete outside the British Isles and virtually complete within them. Some speakers in Northern England distinguish [ɪə] in the first group of words from [iː] or [əi] in the second group. Old-fashioned varieties of Hiberno-English and the West Country accent preserve the Early Modern English /eː/–/iː/ contrast, but it is rare in these accents nowadays. A handful of words (such as break, steak, great) escaped the fleece merger in the standard accents and are thus have the same vowel as words like brake, stake, grate in almost all varieties of English.

Foot-strut split

The foot-strut split is the split of /ʊ/ into two distinct phonemes /ʊ/ and /ʌ/ that occurs in most accents of English; the most notable exception is Northern England. In non-splitting accents, cut and put rhyme, putt and put are homophonous as /pʊt/, and pudding and budding rhyme. Failing to make this split is stigmatized in Northern England, and speakers of non-splitting accents often try to introduce it into their speech, sometimes resulting in hypercorrections such as pronouncing pudding /pʌdɪŋ/.^[8]

Kit-bit split

The kit-bit split (known by Wells as the kit split) is a split of EME /ɪ/ found in South African English, where kit [kɪt] and bit [bət] do not rhyme ^[9],^[10]. It is not clear whether this is a true phonemic split, since the distribution of the two sounds is predictable: [ɪ] is used adjacent to velars (kiss, gift, lick, big, sing, kit), after /h/ (hit), word-initially (inn), generally before /ʃ/ (fish), and by some speakers before /tʃ, dʒ/; [ə] is used elsewhere (limb, dinner, limited, bit). Nevertheless because of the phonetic similarity of the two vowels in a word like dinner [ˈdənə], Wells argues that they belong to the same phoneme /ə/, while the vowel of kiss, big, hit, inn etc. belongs to the phoneme /ɪ/.

Line-loin merger

The line-loin merger is a merger between the diphthongs /aɪ/ and /ɔɪ/ that occurs in some accents of Southern English English, Hiberno-English, Newfoundland English, and Caribbean English. Pairs like line/loin, bile/boil, imply/employ are homophones in merging accents.^[11]

Long mid mergers

The earliest stage of Early Modern English had a contrast between the long mid monophthongs /ɛː, oː/ (as in pane, toe) and the diphthongs /ɛi, ɔu/ (as in pain, tow). In the vast majority of Modern English accents these have been merged; whether the outcome is monophthongal or diphthongal depends on the accent. But in a few regional accents, including some in Northern England, East Anglia, South Wales, and even Newfoundland, the merger has not gone through (at least not completely), so that pairs like pane/pain and toe/tow are distinct. Also in Northern England, Middle English /ɛi/ and /ɛix/ are often kept distinct, so that way [weː] is distinct from weigh [wɛɪ] and late [leːt] does not rhyme with eight [ɛɪt]. ^[12]

Lot-cloth split

The lot-cloth split is the result of a late seventeenth-century sound change that lengthened /ɒ/ to [ɒː] before voiceless fricatives, and also before /n/ in the word gone. In some accents, the lengthened [ɒː] was raised, merging with the /ɔː/ of words like thought. Words that entered the language later, or words that were used more in writing than speech, were often exempt from the lengthening, so that joss and Goth still have the short vowel.^[13]

As a result of the lengthening and raising, in the above-mentioned accents cross rhymes with sauce, and soft and cloth also have the vowel [ɔː]. Accents affected by this change include American English and, originally, RP, although today words of this group almost always have short [ɒ] in RP.

In American English the raising was extended to the environment before [ŋ] and in a few words to the environment before [k, g] as well, giving pronunciations like /lɔŋ/ for long, /tʃɔklət/ for chocolate, and /dɔg/ for dog. Obviously, in accents of American English that are subject to the cot-caught merger, there is no difference between words that did and those that did not undergo the change.

Near-square merger

The near-square merger is the merger of the Early Modern English sequences [iːr] and [eːr], which is found in some accents of modern English. Some speakers in New York City and New Zealand merge them in favor of the near vowel, while some speakers in East Anglia and South Carolina merge them in favor of the square vowel.^[14]

Nurse-square merger

The nurse-square merger is a merger of /ɜː(r)/ with /ɛə(r)/ that occurs in some accents (for example Liverpool, Dublin, and Belfast) that makes homophonous pairs such as fur/fair, spur/spare, and curd/cared.^[15]

Tower-tire, tower-tar, and tire-tar mergers

The tower-tire and tower-tar mergers are vowel mergers in some accents of Southern British English (including many types of RP, as well as the accent of Norwich) that causes the triphthong /aʊə/ of tower to merge either with the /aɪə/ of tire (both surfacing as diphthongal /ɑə/) or with the /ɑː/ of tar. Some speakers merge all three sounds, so that tower, tire, and tar are all homophonous as /tɑː/.^[16]

The tire-tar merger, with tower kept distinct, is found in some Midland and Southern U.S. accents.^[17]

Phonemic differentiation in Spanish

Two well-known mergers in Spanish^[18] are:

The merger, in most dialects, of the palatal lateral and non-lateral consonants [ʎ] and (historical) [j] into a single non-lateral consonant, generally a palatal fricative (but also postalveolar and/or affricate in some dialects). This merger is called yeísmo (from the name of the letter y).
The merger of the dental and alveolar fricatives, [θ] and [s]. In many dialects of Spain and most of Latin America, these have merged into the latter. See also ceceo.

Historically, Spanish also merged voiced and voiceless fricatives (modern Spanish only has phonemically voiceless fricatives, though voiced stops are realized as voiced fricatives in many phonological contexts).

For details, see Spanish phonology.

Phonemic differentiation in German

The Middle High German vowel pairs [ei]/[iː] and [ou]/[uː] have merged to [ai] and [au] respectively in modern standard German, although many dialects retain the distinction. For example, while heiß 'hot' (MHG heiz) and Eis 'ice' (MHG îs) rhyme in the standard language, they do not in the Austro-Bavarian dialects (hoaß/äis) and in the Alemannic German dialects (heiß/iis), nor in the Yiddish language (heys/ayz), also a descendant of Middle High German.

Another merger found in many accents of German is that of /ɛː/ (spelled ä(h)) with /eː/ (spelled e, ee, or eh). Some speakers merge the two everywhere, some distinguish them everywhere, others keep /ɛː/ distinct only in conditional forms of strong verbs (for example they distinguish ich gäbe 'I would give' vs. ich gebe 'I give', but not Bären 'bears' vs. Beeren 'berries').

Another common merger is the merger of /g/ at the end of a syllable with /ç/. In the case of the ending -ig, this pronunciation is prescribed by the Siebs standard, for instance wichtig [ˈvɪçtɪç]. The merger is found in Northern German. It occurs neither in Southern standard German nor in Southern German dialects.

Phonemic differentiation in the history of Hebrew

As Biblical Hebrew (BH) evolved from Proto-Semitic (PS) it underwent a number of mergers^[19],^[20]:

PS */ð/ and */z/ merged as BH /z/
PS */θ/ and */š/ merged as BH /š/
PS */θ̣/, */ɬ̣/, and
/ṣ/ merged as BH /ṣ/
PS */s/ and */ɬ/ merged as BH /s/ (but were spelled with different letters, samekh and sin respectively)
PS */ɣ/ and */ʕ/ merged as BH /ʕ/
PS */x/ and
/ḥ/ merged as BH /ḥ/

Standard (non-Oriental) Israeli Hebrew (SIH) has undergone a number of splits and mergers in its development from Biblical Hebrew^[21].

BH /b/ had two allophones, [b] and [v]; the [v] allophone has merged with /w/ into SIH /v/
BH /k/ had two allophones, [k] and [x]; the [k] allophone has merged with /q/ into SIH /k/, while the [x] allophone has merged with /ḥ/ into SIH /x/
BH /t/ and /ṭ/ have merged into SIH /t/
BH /ʕ/ and /ʔ/ have merged into SIH /ʔ/
BH /p/ had two allophones, [p] and [f]; the incorporation of loanwords into Modern Hebrew has probably resulted in a split, so that /p/ and /f/ are separate phonemes.

Mergers in the breakup of Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European is generally reconstructed with the following stop consonants:

	Labials	Coronals	Palatovelars	Plain velars	Labiovelars
Voiceless stops	p	t	ḱ	k	k^w
Plain voiced stops	b	d	ǵ	g	g^w
Voiced aspirated stops	b^h	d^h	ǵ^h	g^h	g^wh

The daughter branches have reduced this system through various mergers:

The centum group of languages merged the palatovelars /ḱ, ǵ, ǵ^h/ with the plain velars /k, g, g^h/.
The satem group of languages merged the labiovelars /k^w, g^w, g^wh/ with the plain velars /k, g, g^h/.
Proto-Celtic, Proto-Balto-Slavic, Albanian, and Proto-Iranian merged the voiced aspirated series /b^h, d^h, ǵ^h, g^h, g^wh/ with the plain voiced series /b, d, ǵ, g, g^w/.

^[22]

Notes

^ http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phonoatlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch8/Ch8.html
^ . ISBN 0-521-22919-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-24224-X (vol. 2), ISBN 0-521-24225-8 (vol. 3). {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help), pp. 158, 160, 347, 483, 548, 576–77, 582, 587.
^ http://www.merriamwebster.com/help/pronguide.htm
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 245–47.
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 339–40, 419
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 199–203, 407, 444
^ http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map4.html
^ http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map7.html
^ http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phonoatlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch9/Ch9.html
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 140, 194–96
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 132, 196–99; 351–53
^ http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/87/VARS/KITetc.htm
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 612–13
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 208–210
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 192–94, 337, 357, 384–85, 498
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 136–37, 203–6, 234, 246–47
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 338, 512, 547, 557, 608
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 372, 421, 444
^ Wells, op.cit., pp. 238–42, 286, 292–93, 339
^ {{cite book}}: Empty citation (help), p. 122
^ . ISBN 1-57473-018-5. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
^ {{cite book}}: Empty citation (help)
^ G. Bergsträsser. (1983). Introduction to the Semitic Languages. Translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
^ Robert Hetzron. (1987). Hebrew. In The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-520521-9.
^ . ISBN 90-272-2150-2 (Europe), ISBN 1-55619-504-4 (U.S.). {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)