ABSTRACT
In this chapter I summarize the trends that emerge in my corpus of (mostly) lenition processes and express these as general tendencies of such phenomena. The more significant of these trends are:
Lenition processes are overwhelmingly meaning-maintaining: 92% of such sound changes in the corpus avoid phonological neutralization; even in the case of loss 71% of the processes are non-neutralizing. Furthermore, at almost ¼ of the corpus, 52 processes result in phonetic, but not phonological, neutralization.
Syllable context is significant: processes that are neutralizing are more likely to affect the pre-consonantal position, while processes that affect the pre-vocalic position are less likely to obliterate meaning distinctions.
Contrast maintenance strategies: existing contrasts in a language affect the progress and outcome of phonetically-conditioned processes. Voicing is 79% more common where this feature is not contrastive, and spirantization is 92% more common under the same circumstances. The outcome of the spirantization of alveolar stops depends on the shape of the phonemic inventory in a given language. And the more common distinction maintaining strategies observed in cases of phonetic neutralization and sound mergers involve system-wide changes.
