1. Introduction
Metathesis is described by Blevins and Garret (1998) as a reorganization of local or nonlocal segments within a word. Over twelve decades, metathesis was interpreted as a mere accommodation of sounds that would assist speakers during pronunciation by providing much more favorable outcomes of syllable structures. Some of the motivation that might have contributed to the lack of analyses on metathesis is the fact that metathesis is not used, in any language, to express and modify conceptual categories (Payne, 2006, p.53). In addition, metathesis has been approached from a phonological point of view in the literature, as processes such as place assimilation had been used to account for cases of metathesis in several languages.
The present work proposes to compilate three studies that argue in favor of a more consistent view of metathesis that are demonstrated to possess natural, phonetic bases and fundamental commonalities (Blevins and Garret, 1998). Firstly, a presentation of Blevins and Garret’s (1998) analyses of regular synchronic and diachronic metathesis will be reviewed along with Hume’s (2001) and Blust’s (2012) investigations of vowel and consonant metathesis in the background section. Secondly, a brief comparison of Blevins and Garret’s (1998), Hume’s (2001) and Blust’s (2012) major findings will be explored in the discussion and critique section in order to bring the current accounts of language arbitrariness and morphological constraints to such phenomenon.
2. Background
Metathesis is a phonological??? Process that for decades? Has been identified as a reorganization of neighboring sounds that, according to Hume (2001) happen to alternate positions….
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To examine the plural making rules of H.K, six nonsense words were used. These words were assigned to imaginary animals pictures. The nonsense words used in this project were bleem, foo, niss, muzz, brop, and dit. He was expected to pronounce bleems as /bli:mz/, foos as /fu:z/, nisses as /nɪsəz/, muzzes as /m⋀zəz/, brops as /brops/, and dits as /dɪts/.
Evidence for the existence of the phonological loop comes from Baddeley (1966 in Passer, 2009) They examined the word length effect in which they presented participants with visual presentations of word lists and asked them to write t...
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As anthropologists seek to understand the culture that they are studying they must overcome the language barrier. Similar to the concept of culture, “people use language to encode their experiences, to structure their understanding of the world and themselves, and engage with on...
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Analogical change can also occur on the morphological markers of a word, such as verb agreements. This change can be observed between the Old English and Modern English conjugation of the verb to sing and impacts the complexity of the paradigm, making the Modern English form recognisably more uniform.
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