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Learning Sound Patterns
Five fictional sound patterns from made-up languages are described below. All of them are highly regular, but some are more “natural,” or more likely to appear in a real language, than others. How would you classify each of the patterns? What reasoning would you give for your classification? Which patterns would your predict would be the most learnable?
A.
The sounds [f, θ, s, ʃ] are only found after the sounds [p, t, k] at the beginning of a syllable. The sounds [v, ð, z, ʒ] can’t occur after [p, t, k] at the beginning of a syllable, but can be found anywhere else.
Examples:
pʃivan
kfet
zov
mvulazig
kθobzad
gveʒ
tsinaðu
bzonð
B.
The sounds [m, l, p, z, g] can occur at the beginning of a word, but only if the next syllable contains one of the sounds [d, ʃ, k]; if that is the case, no other consonants can occur at the beginning of the word.
Examples:
melnik
*patnos (note that the symbol * indicates that this is not a possible word)
gondup
lastoʃk
*blinad
zivaʃk
*mosk
pondi
C.
The suffixes –et (plural) and –in (possessive) are pronounced as [–ot] and [–un] respectively, if the vowel in the previous syllable is either [u] or [o].
Examples:
blaget “dogs”
blagin “dog’s”
misumpot “children”
misumpun “child’s”
avindet “schools”
avindin “school’s”
gostot “tables”
gostun “table’s”
D.
The consonants [b, d, g, f, ð, z, ʒ, m, l] cannot occur at the end of a word. If a consonant appears at the end of a word, it must be one of [p, t, k, v, θ, s, ʃ, n, r].
Examples:
kadigonit
doʃan
favolur
nisivop
anak
goθ
iniluʃ
miguv
ðulis
E.
The consonants [p, t, s] can only appear after the vowels [i, e, u] and the consonants [b, d, z] can only occur after the vowels [o, a, ɛ].
Examples:
odadnip
rusmod
mitɛb
okepno
lepnip
groz
amrab
fodnut