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Internal Reconstruction of Phonemic Split

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

James W. Marchand
James W. Marchand*
Affiliation:
Washington University
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Abstract

[The paper evolves a set of premises for the internal reconstruction of phonemic split, outlines a practical procedure for application to concrete problems, and supplies examples to illustrate the procedure.]

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 32 , Issue 2-Part1: April-June , June 1956 , pp. 245 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 by the Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 I am indebted to H. M. Hoenigswald and K. L. Pike for valuable suggestions.

2 Following the practice of H. M. Hoenigswald, I use the abbreviation IR for internal reconstruction.

3 E. Hermann, Über das Rekonstruieren, KZ 41.1–69 (1911); H. M. Hoenigswald, Internal reconstruction, SIL 2.78–87 (1944); id., Sound change and linguistic structure, Lg. 22.138–143 (1946) ; J. H. Bonfante, On reconstruction and the linguistic method, Word 5.83–91, 132 ff. (1947) ; R. A. Fowkes, Synchronic method and Welsh consonantism, Word 9.142–5 (1950); Carl H. Borgström, Internal reconstruction of Pre-Indo-European word-forms, Word 10.257–88 (1954).

4 Hoenigswald, Lg. 22.142.

5 Bonfante 83 f.; Hoenigswald, Lg. 22.142; Borgström 276.

6 Cf. Eugene Nida, Morphology2 (Ann Arbor, 1949) : ‘The test of such a reconstruction is in the number and significance of the correlations which may be discovered.’ Cf. further A. Meillet, Introduction à Vétude comparative des langues indo-européennes 8 32 (Paris, 1938) : ‘La preuve la meilleure qu'une langue appartient à une famille donnée consiste à montrer que cette langue conserve, à titre d'anomalies, des formes qui, dans la période de communauté initiale, ont été normales.’

7 Bloomfield, Language 215: ‘If the language does not show parallel cases which warrant our describing the deviant form in terms of phonetic modification, an alternant of this sort is said to be suppletive . . .‘

8 Roman Jakobson, Prinzipien der historischen Phonologie, TCLP 4.252 (1931).

9 Cf. van Ginneken's remark in TCLP 4.297 (1931) : ‘M. van Ginneken se demande si on peut parler de l'identité d'un morphème dans les cas où la plupart des phonèmes qui le composent alternent.‘

9a Commas in the transcription denote palatalization.

10 Jakobson (252–3) cites Polivanov and van Ginneken to this effect. He himself is some what more cautious ; he says : ‘Tatsächlich ist das Identitätsverhältnis zwischen A und B anscheinend ausgeschlossen. . . . Meistens sind A und B kombinatorische Varianten.‘ He does not qualify his statement.

11 Jakobson 251–3.

12 Cf. H. Penzl, Umlaut and secondary umlaut in Old High German, Lg. 25.223–39 (1949), especially 224 on the use of the term i-sound.

13 W. F. Twaddell, A note on Old High German umlaut, Monatshefte 30.180–1 (1938).

14 Ibid.; Penzl 224–5.

15 Jakobson 261 (citation from Polivanov) : ‘in einer ungeheuren Masse der Fälle wird die Divergenz (Phonologisierung) von der einen oder andern Konvergenz (Entphonologisierung) begleitet und wird dabei von ihr diktiert.’ Jakobson comments: ‘Hier ist die Phonologisierung kombinatorischer Varianten gemeint und in Anwendung auf diese ist das Gesetz ausnahmslos richtig.’

16 Cf. Nida, Morphology 26 ff.

17 Cf. Bonfante, passim.

18 Cf. W. G. Moulton, The phonemes of Gothic, Lg. 24.82 (1948). In this and the following statements, some simplification has been made; the material has not been essentially altered.

19 /ra/ represents a normal trilled r-sound, /ri/ a palatalized trilled r-sound, /ru/a trilled r-sound with simultaneous lip-rounding; cf. R. Thurneysen, Handbuch des Altirischen 1.96 ff. (Heidelberg, 1909).

20 Thurneysen 93 ff.; 'H. Lewis and H. Pedersen, A concise comparative Celtic grammar 96 ff. (Göttingen, 1937).