Must sound change be phonetically motivated?

Bob Blust

University of Hawai`i at Manoa

There is virtually universal agreement that most sound changes are phonetically motivated. Almost all scholars who have expressed a view on the matter, however, extrapolate from these tractable cases to a claim that true sound change (as opposed to e.g. analogical levelling) must be phonetically motivated. This is a simplifying assumption, and one which has an undeniable heuristic value. However, the issue that it raises is an empirical one, and so should be decided by close examination of a wide range of attested historical changes. The focus of the talk will be on three consonant changes in Austronesian languages which at the very least are very difficult to reconcile with the widely- shared assumption that sound change must be phonetically motivated.