Reddit mentions of Historical Linguistics: Toward a Twenty-First Century Reintegration (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

I usually like what you post, but I had to downvote this because it's got no citations, and largely wrong.

You use "ease of pronunciation" to explain lenition; is there any way you can empirically justify claiming /b/ is easier to pronounce than /p/, given that it requires more to produce (specifically, it is exactly the same, but with the addition of voice)? How can you motivate saying /f/ is easier to pronounce than /p/? Why do we not see fs first, or more often, in the early stages of native language acquisition then? How are you defining ease? Why is there not then simply one process, rather than /p/ sometimes becoming /b/ and sometimes becoming /f/ if it all boils down to ease, since given a choice, either /b/ or /f/ has to be easier than the other, no?



>I think generally speaking, consonant sounds weaken over time by becoming produced with less and less build up of air.

So k>ʔ has less buildup of air??? How are you defining buildup of air? Does /k^h / have a greater buildup of air, in your opinion? What about /ʕ/?


>With all that stuff happening, it would seem that all languages should be approaching having no sounds, but compound words, fusion of different morphemes, and loanwords can help stave it off and create new environments - whether it be consonant clusters that weren't previously present (English <breakfast, schtick>), new phonemes (English <genre>), or new vowel environments (Eastern American English <Haas> has /ɑ/ which is normally only present before /s/ in multisyllabic words like <possible>).

None of this explains, for instance, how English acquired /ʒ/ (hint: words from French like "rouge," were "borrowed," after English developed /ʒ/).

>There's also additions of sounds for one reason or another. German has gained a (currently considered non-phonemic) glottal stop at the beginning of words that historically started with vowels. English words like <stance> have changed from [stans] to [stants] because it's easier to go from a nasal stop to a voiceless stop, then to a voiceless voiceless fricative than it is to go straight from a nasal stop to voiceless fricative.

Again, how are you defining ease? Addition of a segment seems like it's not easier. Taking my example from my response to the OP, can you motivate a rational for claiming /mpft/ is easier than /mft/? What about metathesis? How is that easier?

>Spanish added /e/ to words beginning in clusters with /s/ like <especies> because it made the clusters easier to pronounce

Citation?!

Bottom line, "ease of articulation," is a very tempting hypothesis, especially when we're talking about layman speculation, but I would expect better in this sub. As I posted elsewhere, spreading along phonological tiers and articulatory (timing) misfires go much farther toward explaining sound change than "laziness," or "ease of articulation," especially when you consider things like epenthetic consonants, or mergers (how is the pin-pen merger easier, given that both sounds are retained in other environments, and the merged phoneme is arguably the harder one to pronounce?).

EDIT: TL;DR this is dangerously close to /r/badlinguistics territory, and I highly recommend Ringe 2013 for a much more detailed treatment of the causes of sound change -- although he does expect a familiarity with types of sound change to begin with, so Trask or Crowley would be a good place to start.

EDIT 2: took out some stuff about Hindi that wasn't relevant to my point. Wanted to mention aspiration≠buildup of air.