Place of articulation shifts in sound change: A gradual road to the unmarked

Abstract

This paper investigates place of articulation shifts involving heterosyllabic C[non-coronal]C[coronal] clusters. Such phenomena are found, among other languages, in the diachrony of Italiot Greek, where three typologically different historical stages are observed: (a) no shifts; (b) dorsal > labial shift; (c) dorsal, labial > coronal shift. Drawing on Rice's (1994) model of the Place node and the markedness hierarchy dorsal ≺ labial ≺ coronal (with “≺” denoting ‘more marked than’) (de Lacy 2002), I maintain that these shifts reduce the markedness of codas. The gradual typological changes are accounted for in terms of Property Theory (Alber & Prince 2015).