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Article published In: Journal of Historical Linguistics
Vol. 15:1 (2025) ► pp.132–172

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Balancing social determinism vs. sound change

The case of Fang

ORCiD logo with link | Yale University
Published online: 18 September 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.22012.bur
Abstract
This paper investigates the relationship between social and phonetic motivations for language change in Fang (Bantoid). While previous research has proposed that innovations in Fang arose due to social need and lack phonetic motivation (Mve, Patrick, Nelson Tschonghongei, Pierpalo Di Carlo & Jeff Good. 2019. Cultural Distinctiveness and Linguistic Esoterogeny: The Case of the Fang Language of the Lower Fungom, Cameroon. Engagement with Africa: Linguistic essays in honor of Ngessimo M. Mutaka ed. by Pius W. Akumbu & Esther P. Chie, 163–178. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Good, Jeff, Pierpaolo Di Carlo & Nelson Tschonghongei. 2020. The Causes and Consequences of Deliberate Language Change in the Cameroonian Grassfields. Presentation at the Linguistics Society of America Annual Meeting. New Orleans, LA, January 2–5.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), I propose that there is a phonetic motivation and the social situation, at best, was a pathway for the innovation to gain wider adoption in the population. I provide comparative and language-internal evidence that the Fang innovations are driven by two interconnected processes, palatalization and spirantization, triggered by high vowels. These processes have been obscured synchronically in part due to the phonemic merger of *i > ə in some parts of the paradigm, thus making the alternations look phonetically unmotivated.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1The Fang language
    • 2.2Regional diffusion vs. genetic affiliations
  • 3.Reconstructing Fang’s Morphological Paradigms
    • 3.1Prior reconstruction of the components of possessive pronouns
    • 3.2Comparative analysis of Fang
    • 3.3Discussion
  • 4.Phonetic pathways favoring labial-velar simplification
    • 4.1Palatalization
    • 4.2Spirantization
    • 4.3Summary
  • 5.Closing
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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