ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on changes in phonological systems across generations of speakers of the same language community. In contrast to phonetic changes, phonological changes are not directly observable, because they involve a change in the mental representations of sounds. The emergence of a new phonemic contrast is a detectable case of phonological change. The chapter examines ideas of the Generative tradition in employing a modular view of the grammar to describe the life cycle of a sound change. The change from voicing to tone contrast shows that phonological changes often start out as phonetic variation: according to Larry M. Hyman, some languages choose to enlarge the intrinsic tone-lowering quality of voiced obstruents, which can then be picked up as a phonological quality associated with the following vowel. The chapter describes with experimental methods and computer simulations of sound change, and can be placed in the tradition of Laboratory Phonology, with its focus on empirical studies to support theoretical assumptions.
