Juliette Blevins
List of John Benjamins publications in which Juliette Blevins is involved.
2024 Variant patterns of sibilant debuccalization in Camuno: Phonetic implications of Eastern Lombard s > h for sound change typology Journal of Historical Linguistics: Online-First Articles | Article
Some varieties of Camuno, an Eastern Lombard variety spoken in Valcamonica, Italy, show clear evidence of what appears to be an unconditioned sound change of S > h, where S had [s] and [θ] variants (Bonfadini 1995a; Cresci 2014). However, neighboring varieties in the upper parts of the valley… read more
2024 Diachrony and Diachronica: 40@40 Diachronica 41:1, pp. 127–140 | Editorial
2021 Statistical evidence for the Proto-Indo-European-Euskarian hypothesis: A word-list approach integrating phonotactics Diachronica 38:4, pp. 506–564 | Article
Based on a new reconstruction of Proto-Basque, and regular sound correspondences between this Proto-Basque and Proto-Indo-European as standardly reconstructed, Blevins (2018) argues that Proto-Basque and Proto-Indo-European have a common ancestor that pre-dates the two proto-languages. Part of… read more
2019 Evolutionary phonology as human behavior Columbia School Linguistics in the 21st Century, Stern, Nancy, Ricardo Otheguy, Wallis Reid and Jaseleen Sackler (eds.), pp. 281–300 | Chapter
In this chapter I compare Columbia School Phonology as first sketched in Diver (1974, 1979) to Evolutionary Phonology (Blevins, 2004a, 2005a, 2006a, 2008, 2009a, 2015, 2017), highlighting similarities and differences between the two approaches. Where Columbia School Phonology grazes the surface of… read more
2019 Deconstructing markedness in sound change typology: Notes on θ > f and f > θ Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change: Studies in honor of Henning Andersen, Heltoft, Lars, Iván Igartua, Brian D. Joseph, Kirsten Jeppesen Kragh and Lene Schøsler (eds.), pp. 107–122 | Chapter
Many sound changes have been attributed to misperception (Ohala 1981, 1993). When two sounds A and B are perceptually similar, A can be misperceived as B and vice versa. One sound change attributed solely to perceptual similarity is θ > f (Blevins 2004). Misperception of [θ] as [f] yields θ > f,… read more
2018 Chapter 1. Evolutionary Phonology and the life cycle of voiceless sonorants Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony, Cristofaro, Sonia and Fernando Zúñiga (eds.), pp. 31–58 | Chapter
In this chapter I examine the phonetic origins of voiceless sonorants cross-linguistically within the general framework of Evolutionary Phonology (Blevins 2004; 2006; 2008b; 2015). In terms of a general hierarchy of contrast, we observe that: voiceless obstruents are common; voiceless sonorant… read more
2017 Chapter 3. What are grammars made of? Beyond Markedness in Formal Phonology, Samuels, Bridget D. (ed.), pp. 47–68 | Chapter
The 21st century has brought major advances in our understanding of sound patterns, their phonetic basis, and their cross-linguistic diversity. Properties that were once thought to be universal, from phonological features to prosodic units like the syllable, have shown themselves to be highly… read more
2009 Inhibited sound change: An evolutionary approach to lexical competition Diachronica 26:2, pp. 143–183 | Article
The study of regular sound change reveals numerous types of exceptionality. The type studied here has the profile of regular sound change, but appears to be inhibited where homophony would result. The most widely cited cases of this phenomenon are reviewed and new cases presented. If sound change… read more
2008 Natural and unnatural sound patterns: A pocket field guide Naturalness and Iconicity in Language, Willems, Klaas and Ludovic De Cuypere (eds.), pp. 121–148 | Article
Natural sound patterns are those grounded in physical properties of speech, while unnatural sound patterns arguably have no such physical basis. This study provides a brief history of the study of natural and unnatural sound patterns from antiquity forward. Definitions of natural and unnatural… read more
2008 Phonetic explanation without compromise: The evolution of Mussau syncope Diachronica 25:1, pp. 1–19 | Article
Blust (2005, 2007a, 2007b) questions the phonetic motivation of a number of well-attested sound changes. One sound change in this class is the purported case of stressed vowel syncope in Mussau, an Oceanic language (Blust 1984, 2001, 2007a). Regular syncopes typically target unstressed vowels. By… read more
2006 Nikolaus Ritt (2004). Selfish sounds and linguistic evolution: A Darwinian approach to language change Studies in Language 30:3, pp. 633–640 | Miscellaneous
2005 Understanding antigemination Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories, Frajzyngier, Zygmunt, Adam Hodges and David S. Rood (eds.), pp. 203–234 | Article