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A Problem in Phonological Alternation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Morris Swadesh  and
C. F. Voegelin
Morris Swadesh
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
C. F. Voegelin
Affiliation:
DePauw University
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Abstract

One may expect to find instances of phonologic (morpho-phonemic) alternation in almost any language. In English there are changes in consonants, vowels, and stress, insertions, and elisions; and many of these are conditioned only by the phonetic surroundings of the morphemes. An example is the possessive suffix, which is -əz (or - 𝚤z) after a sibilant, -z after a voiced non-sibilant, -s after a voiceless non-sibilant.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 15 , Issue 1-Part1: January-March , March 1939 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © 1939 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 See Palmer, A Grammar of Spoken English 7–12, Heffer, 1924; Bloomfield, The Structure of Learned Words, Institute for Research in English Teaching 1938, 17–23.

2 We use the term phonology to refer to alternations (synchronic phonology) or changes (historical, diachronic phonology) in sounds, rather than for the theory of the nature and permutations of the sounds. The latter we call phonemics. Those who use ‘phonology’ in this sense, probably in imitation of French phonologie, deprive themselves of a convenient means of distinguishing two fundamentally distinct subjects.

The phonemic point of view is essential to a proper understanding of the phonology, both synchronic, as will be seen in this paper, and historical, as is nicely shown in F. W. Twaddell's A Note on OHG Umlaut, Monatshefte 30:177 ff.

3 We omit mention of the irregularity that certain stems use a different formation, as oxen, men, children.

4 Voegelin, Tübatulabal Grammar, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 34.55ff. See also Voegelin, On Being Unhistorical, Am. Anthropologist 38.344–50; and Whorf, Notes on the Tübatulabal Language, ibid. 38.341–44.

5 See Sapir-Swadesh, Nootka Texts, Linguistic Society of America, 1938, pp. 236–9.

6 The reader is asked to disregard capital letters and other special symbols until they are explained later.