Universal 1283:
- Original
- Standardized
- 1. TARGETS OF PALATALIZATION
a. in terms of place of articulation:
IF a less back consonant is palatalized, THEN all more back consonants are also palatalized.
(BACK-to-FRONT scale: velar > dental > labial).
b. in terms of manner of articulation:
IF a less sonorant consonant is palatalized, THEN all more sonorant consonants are also palatalized.
(SONORITY scale: sonorant > sibilant > stop / non-strident).2. TRIGGERS OF PALATALIZATION
a. in terms of place of articulation:
IF a less high front vowel palatalizes a preceding consonant, THEN all more high vowels also palatalize this consonant.
b. in terms of consonantality:
IF a nuclear vowel palatalizes a preceding consonant, THEN a corresponding glide also palatalizes this consonant.
(e.g., [y] > [i]) - Keywords
- palatalization
- Domain
- phonology
- Type
- implication
- Status
- unclear whether diachronic or achronic
- Quality
- absolute?
- Basis
- languages mentioned in Chen 1973, survey of 600 Chinese dialects in Chen 1974
- Source
- Chen 1973a: 240, Chen 1973b: 177, 181, 182, Chen 1974: 910, Hajek 1997: 5
- Counterexamples
- Mentioned by Chen himself (personal communication with Margaret Langdon, Samuel S. Keyser, and Joseph Malone):dental palatalization without concomitant palatalization of velars: Cocopa (Hokan), Canadian French (Italic, Indo-European), Ma¿úla Amharic (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic)
Chen is ambivalent between a diachronic and an achronic interpretation of his implications (steps in the historical spread of palatalization vs. universal constraints on phoneme systems valid at all times, regardless of the history of a language). However, since he suggests that counterexamples (on the achronic interpretation) can possibly be explained away by assuming successive cycles of palatalization, his implications are probably to be read diachronically as determining the historical spread of (a single cycle of) palatalization.