Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
IMPLICATIONAL LAWS - Coggle Diagram
IMPLICATIONAL LAWS
Reasons why some sounds are more common than others are:
More common sounds tend to be more stable and resist change.
A less common sound, if any sound is going to be lost in language change, it is more likely to be a less common one.
Children learning a language will acquire the use of more common sounds earlier in their lives because they are easier to learn.
A common sound will have a wider distribution in the language and appear in more phonetic environments than the less common one.
The four most and least common speech sounds are differentiated into:
More common sounds have a wider distribution within a language - i.e., they are used in more phonetic environments than less common sounds.
Observations about more common and less common speech sounds.
Less common
Pharyngeal fricatives ([ħ] and [ʕ]), voiceless vowels, and clicks (tsk, tsk!) are less common in languagues.
More common
[p], [t], and [a] are more common in languages.
If a language uses a less common sound, one of its more common counterparts will also be used. Example: the more common counterpart of a voiceless vowel is a voiced vowel, the more common counterpart of a voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a voiceless velar fricative.
Commonness is relative -one sound is more common compared to another, and less common compared to yet another
The aspects of more common and less common speech sounds are:
Sound Inventories
This type of observation is called an implicational law because the presence of the less common sound implies that the more common sound will also be used in the language.
Frequency and Distribution
This observation is related to the degree to which sounds will be used in a particular language and to the range of distribution of the sounds in the words of the language.
More common sounds also have a wider distribution within a language —i.e., they are used in more phonetic environments than less common sounds.
Acquisition of Sounds
The most common sounds are usually acquired easily and more quickly by any language learner.
For example
, when a child says [dɪs] instead of [ðɪs], it is because he has not yet acquired [ð], but he does know [d], which is the most common counter art of [ð].
Sound Change
The last type of observation related to more common and less common sounds involves language change: less common sounds tend to be less stable than more common ones.