Folia Linguistica Historica XX/1-2 pp.

63-77
© Societas Linguistica Europaea

ON SPIRANTIZATION AND THE MINIMALITY OF

PHONOLOGICAL CHANCE

MARC PICARD

1. Introduction
It has recently been proposed by Scheer (1998) that there are two
different types of diachronic spirantization (or fricativization) processes.
Type l is accompanied by a shift in the place of articulation of the
voiceless and/or voiced stops involved in a sound change while Type 2
evinces no such shift. An example of the former would be /b d g/ > /v z κ/
while the latter can be illustrated by something like /ph th kh/ > /φ θ χ/. In
this paper, I will try to show that each of the examples he presents in
support of this hypothesis is either descriptively inaccurate or incomplete,
and so cannot be used s evidence for his bipartite categorization of
spirantization. I will also argue that the first type of shift wherein
obstruents are deemed to undergo a simultaneous alteration of their place
and manner of articulation is not a possible type of sound change since it
contravenes the universal constraint on the minimality of phonological
change.
2. Spirantizations without place shifts (Type 1)
2.1. Spanish
As an Illustration of "spirantization where the Place of articulation of the
stops and the resulting fricatives remain stable" (1998: 215), Scheer
presents the following data from Spanish:
(1) a. Fricatives occur after vowels
la aqka la banca 'the bank'
la emora la demora 'the delay'
la yana la gana 'the desire'
d. Stops occur elsewhere
1. word initially
baqka banca 'bank'
demora demora 'delay'
gana gana 'desire'

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2. after consonants
ambos ambos 'both'
onda onda 'wave'
aldea aldea 'village'
teqgo tengo have'
These alternations reflect a straightforward change in the manner of
articulation of the voiced stops /b d g/, and there is no problem with this
particular aspect of Scheer's analysis. However, serious difficulties do
arise in the wake of his claim that "the triggering context [of
spirantization] makes reference to sonority: fricatives surface in
postvocalic contexts" (1998: 216).l First of all, he fails to mention what
happens to /b d g/ after /r/, äs in arbol 'tree', pardo 'brown', carga
'load', but it would seem that spirantization is widespread in this
environment, thus contradicting his proposed restriction that "fricatives
appear iff the alternation-site is preceded by a vowel" (216). Secondly, his
claim that spirantization fails to apply after /!/ is only partially accurate
since, äs noted by Archibald, "/d/ remains a stop after a lateral (e.g. aldea
[aldea], 'village') but /b/ and /g/ spirantize in the same environment"
(1998: 87).
In sum, although "much dialectal Variation exists with respect to the
environment that triggers spirantization" (Zampini 1997: 210), it would
appear that "[p]honologists have traditionally described the distribution of
the stop and spirant allophones äs follows: /b d g/ appear äs stops in
absolute initial position, after a nasal segment, and for /d/ only, after a
lateral segment. Spirant phones occur in all other contexts" (21l).2
Consequently, one cannot simply say that "the triggering context is
defmed in terms of sonority" (Scheer 1998: 216) for although it is a

Scheer does not explain why fricatives appear after certain sonorants like vowels but
not others like nasals and laterals. One can only guess that he is proposing that there
are degrees of sonority and that it is only the most sonorous elements that trigger
spirantization.
Similarly, the following distribution (with the dialectal variations omitted) of the
[b~ß], [d~ö] and [g~y] alternations in New World Spanish is provided by Canfield
(1981: 11):
"/b/: [b] initially in breath group and after a nasal, bomba [bomba]; b elsewhere,
cabe [käbe], cave [käbe], la vaca [la bäka], la barba [la bärba], alba [älba]...
/d/: [d] initially in breath group and after /n/ and /!/ (dondejalda)\ d elsewhere...
/g/: [g] initially in breath group and after a nasal [rj]; g elsewhere, la garra, algo,
pargo.. ."

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 65

necessary condition that the segment preceding /b d g/ be a sonorant -

and not just a vowel, s Scheer would have it - in order for these
Segments to spirantize to /β δ γ/, it is not a sufficient condition since
voiced stops fail to undergo this process after nasal consonants, which are
also sonorants; in addition, spirantization never takes place when /d/ is
preceded by a lateral. Thus, in order for spirantization to occur, not only
must the segment preceding a voiced stop be [+sonorant] and
[+continuant], thereby excluding all obstruents and nasals, but in the case
of/d/, this segment must also be [-lateral]. In sum, Spanish cannot serve
s support for Type l spirantization s Scheer has characterized it.
2.2. Tiberian Hebrew
As a second example of spirantization which does not involve a
simultaneous change in place of articulation, Scheer presents the
following data from Tiberian Hebrew wherein voiced and voiceless stops
are fricativized in postvocalic position:
(2) perfective imperfective alternation(s)
Vzkr zaaxar yi-zkor χ~ k 'remember'
Vkpr kaacjmr yi-xpor k - χ, φ ~ ρ 'cover'
Vbdl baa al yi- dal b - β, δ - d 'separate'
Vpth paa6ah yi-<j>tah p ~ φ, θ - t Open'
Vpgf paayaf yi-<|>gof p ~ φ, γ ~ g 'meet'
The problem here is that the postvocalic fricativization of /p t k/ and
/b d g/ does not yield /φ θ χ/ and /β ο γ/ in all forms of Hebrew. As
noted by Faber, for instance (cf. also Sampson 1973, Barkai 1974, Jo on
1993), "the so-called Begad-Kefat letters . . . were, in Biblical Hebrew,
realized post-consonantally s the stops [b, d, g, k, p, t] and post
vocalically (sie) s the fricatives [v, , γ, χ, f, θ]" (1986: 117). Since /p
b/ have switched their place of articulation to /f v/ postvocalically in this
variety, it would seem impossible to assert categorically that "[i]f
Segments of higher sonority assimilate nonsonorant stops to more
sonorant fricatives, the Place of articulation remains the same" (Scheer
1998:216).
Of course, such a claim might be salvageable if one were to assume
that correspondences like /p:f/ and /b:v/ do not represent actual sound
changes. In other words, if it were a property of phonological change that
obstruents could not simultaneously alter their place and manner of
articulation, then one could simply postulate that Biblical Hebrew
underwent two sound shifts, namely:

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66

A - Stops are spirantized postvocalically (manner of articulation)

>* [+continuant] / V
-sonorant]

B - Bilabial fricatives become labio-dental (place of articulation)

c
"+anterior
1 >> [-distributed]
-coronalj

Such a scenario, however, would pose a serious problem for Scheer's

claim that certain spirantization processes are accompanied by a
simultaneous change in place of articulation, äs we will see.

3. Spirantizations with place shifts (Type 2)

3.1. Grimm's Law
According to Scheer, Grimm's Law represents an archetypal case of
spirantization accompanied by a shift in the place of articulation. As he
describes it, "in the first Step, IE non-aspirated unvoiced stops develop
aspiration: IE p, t, k > Germ ph, th, kh. Then, all aspirated stops, voiced or
not, become fricatives: IE ph, th, kh, bh, dh, gh > Germ f/v, /ö, / ... The
crucial features of Grimm's Law to be emphasized are 1) only aspirated
stops spirantize, and 2) the Place of articulation of the stops is always
different from the one of the resulting fricatives (bilabial > labio-dental,
alveolar > interdental, velar > uvular)" (1998: 215).
We can begin by examining the changes in place of articulation that
Scheer alleges have occurred between IE and Germanic. He assumes, for
instance, that IE /th dh/ were alveolar and that Germanic / ö/ were
interdental. However, äs shown by Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996:
143-145), non-sibilant fricatives may be either dental / ö/, interdental /
ö/ or alveolar / ö/ (cf. also Laver 1993: 245, 250-251) so that even if IE
/th dh/ had been alveolar, which appears to be nothing but speculation on
Scheer's part,3 their spirantization would not necessarily have been

3 Given the fact that, in his survey of the phonological Systems of 317 languages,
Maddieson (1984) was unable to determine in 45% of those that had a /t/-type
phoneme whether it was dental or alveolar (cf. 207-210), it should not be too
surprising to find evidence for an alveolar place of articulation in IE hard to come by.

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 67

accompanied by a change in place of articulation. He further posits that

velar /kh g h / were uvularized to / / in Germanic but, just äs in the case
of the putative IE alveolars /th dh/, no evidence is provided to justify such
an assumption. He seems to have read too much into the fact that the
Germanic voiceless velar fricative is sometimes transcribed / / without
there being any intention of qualifying it äs anything other than a velar.4
This leaves /ph/ and /bh/ (< IE *p, *b) äs the only segments that can
be unequivocally demonstrated to have changed their place of articulation
in Germanic. However, there is no need to assume that these segments
shifted directly to /f v/. In fact, this would appear to be rather improbable
given the likelihood that /th d h / and /kh g h / maintained the same place of
articulation during spirantization. A much more plausible scenario is that,
just äs in the case of Hebrew, the bilabial stops first spirantized to / /,
5
and only subsequently shifted to /f v/. In the next section, I will try to
show that there are principled reasons why such developments would be
expected to have taken place.

4. Conditions and constraints on phonological change

4.1. The minimality of phonological change
As outlined in Picard 1994b (cf. also Picard 1984, 1990, 1994a), any
historical linguist who seeks to reconstitute some part of the phonological
history of a language is continually faced with the following question:
does a particular sound correspondence represent an actual sound change,
or is it the result of two or more such changes? Now if it were the case
that any phonetic segment could shift to any other, e.g., /s/ > /a/, /w/ >
/p/, /!/ > /x/, etc., there would be no way of retracing the most probable
diachronic path of any sound correspondence. Any correspondence A:B

For example, Beekes (1995: 130) transcribes the products of Grimm's Law äs/ />
but there is no intimation that the last of these consonants was uvular. Moreover, in
an appendix where he provides a list of phonetic Symbols (270), he transcribes uvular
fricatives äs /x g/. Note also that according to Maddieson's survey (see note 3), /x/ is
three times more common than / / (cf. 1984: 232-233).
The commonness of such shifts from [-strident] to [+strident] fricatives appears to
result from the fact that "[t]he Implementation of [+continuant] is clearly
strengthened if the frication noise is of high intensity", something which is achieved
by "directing the airstream against the lower teeth or against the upper lip, that is, by
the feature [+strident]" (Stevens - Keyser 1989: 91). This is probably why
Maddieson found in his survey (see note 3) that /v/ was over twice äs common äs /ß/,
and /f/ over seven times äs common äs / / (cf. 1984: 226-227).

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68

could be the result of any number of different historical changes, each one
being äs likely and äs plausible äs any other.
Luckily, this is not the case, for there are very specific conditions and
constraints on phological change which serve to considerably limit the
number of processes a given segment can undergo. These processes,
which are deemed to be "caused by universal articulatory and acoustic
constraint" (Ohala 1974: 253-254), constitute the set of natural sound
changes. In order for a phonological process to be natural, it must first
and foremost be minimal. This is because "processes represent responses
to phonetic difficulties... and each process makes substitutions by altering
a single phonetic property to remedy the difficulty. Since the substituted
sound should, in each case, be äs perceptually similar the original target
äs possible, it follows that the changes processes make will be minimal"
(Donegan - Stampe 1979: 136-137). Thus, one must continually be alert
to the fact that "apparent two-feature changes [can] take place in two
Steps - for example, a change in which [u] —> [ ] is in fact [ ] —» [i] ->

This concept of the minimality of phonological change is shared by

Bynon, who states that "looked at from the viewpoint of the maintenance
of communication between the different generations of Speakers in a
Community, phonological change is potentially destructive and constraints
would appear necessary both in order to limit the degree of change
affecting individual sounds over a given period of time and to preserve
the phonological oppositions within the System. The first of these
requirements, namely that changes in the realization of particular sounds
must be small enough for Speakers using both the old and the new
realizations still to be able to recognize lexical items, is self-evident. This
is why it is usual for change to proceed in small Steps which involve the
alternation of only one feature at a time" (1977: 86). What this entails, inter
alia, is that any shift from one obstruent to another can never
simultaneously involve more that one of its three major phonetic properties,
viz., voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation.6

Note, however, that the shift from obstruent to sonorant or vice versa can involve a
simultaneous change in voicing and manner of articulation, e.g., /!/ > /t/, /i/ > /!/. This
is is presumably because the feature "[-fsonorant] is enhanced by [+voice] while
[-sonorant] is enhanced by [-voice]" so that "the feature [voice] should take on the
same value äs the feature [sonorant] if the latter feature is to be implemented with
maximum strength" (Stevens - Keyser 1989: 89).

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 69

Returning to Scheer's analysis of spirantization in Germanic, it will be

recalled that although there were good reasons to be skeptical about bis
proposal for a simultaneous change in place and manner of articulation in
the apical and dorsal stops, there was no doubt that /p b/ had evolved to
/f v/ (via /ph bh/). However, because of the universal minimality constraint
on phonological change, this could not have occurred in one feil swoop
since it would entail that a bilabial stop had shifted to a labio-dental
fricative or, in other terms, that a [-continuant, +distributed] segment had
become [+continuant, -distributed] all at once. Consequently, there must
have been an intermediate stage of development, one that was either
[-continuant, -distributed] or [+continuant, +distributed]. The first
possibility is eliminated by virtue of the fact that labio-dental stops are not
known to exist,7 thus leaving the bilabial fricatives / / äs the only
candidates and showing that / ~ / and /b~ß/ alternations like those in
Tiberian Hebrew and Spanish are the natural ones.
Although the commonly observed evolution of /b/ to /v/ does not
appear to require more than one intermediary stage, namely /ß/,8 the
same cannot be said of /p/ to /f/ for, apart from the obligatory
intervening / /, there exists compelling evidence to the effect that the
spirantization process must stem from aspirated voiceless stops. All
observations of manifestly recent changes of this type clearly show this
aspirate/fricative connection. A particularly illustrative case can be
found in Haie (1967), äs shown below:

As pointed out by Scheer, "some Places of articulation lack stops (whereas there is no
Place for which only stops exist to the exclusion of fricatives): labio-dental
(corresponding to [f v]), interdental (corresponding to [ ö]), alveo-palatal
(corresponding to [f 3]) or pharyngeal (corresponding to [h T]) stops are unknown"
(1998:217).
Similarly, any observed /d~z/ and /g~K/ alternations must be deemed to have gone
through an intermediate /ö/ and / / stage. It should also be noted that these relatively
non-strident bilabial, interdental and velar fricatives are quite unstable with the result
that they frequently undergo a shift to a more strident place of articulation like
labio-dental, dental/alveolar and uvular (cf. note 5), or they are deleted altogether.
French is particularly interesting in this regard since Latin /b/ generally went to /ß/
and then to /v/, Q.g.,faba >feve 'bean', whereas /ö/ (< /d/) and / / (< /g/) were lost,
e.g., nüda > nue 'nude' (fern.), rüget > rue 'street' (cf. Pope 1952: 136-140).

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70

Kiowa-Tanoan Kiowa Taos Tewa Jemez

*P P P P P
*t t t t t
*k k k k k
*p' p' p' p' p'
*t' t' t' t' t'
*k' k' k' k' k'
*ph ph ph f 0
h h h
*t t t θ s
*kh kh χ χ h

As can be seen, none of the daughter languages have spirants

emanating from the original Kiowa-Tanoan plain and glottalized stops
whereas three of them have developed fricatives from the aspirated stops,
thus yielding the following correspondences:

Taos
*kh:x
Tewa
*ph:f> *th:0, *kh:x
Jemez
*ph:0> *th:s, *kh:h9

So far, then, we have seen that due to the constraint on the minimality
of phonological change, diachronic sound correspondences like /p/:/f/
must be presumed to have gone through two intermediate stages so that,
even in the absence of direct historical evidence, the developments /p/ >
/ph/ > /φ/ > /f/ should always be posited s a matter of course. I would
now like to suggest that there is yet another stage of development in this
type of spirantization process, one which reduces the phonetic distance
between aspirates and fricatives. Although this stage generally appears to
be a transient one, there are solid phonetic grounds for surmising that
voiceless aspirated stops must first go through a phase of affrication before
turning into full-fledged fricatives. In other terms, I wish to propose that
/ph th kh/ must go through /ρΦ t9 kx/ on their way to /φ θ χ/.

Note that the reflexes of the aspirates in Jemez can be easily accounted for if we see
them s more evolved forms of those found in Tewa. Thus, /f/ (< *p) was first
deoralized to /h/ and then deleted, /Θ/ was most probably strengthened to /s/ and then
shifted to /s/, and /x/ was weakened to /h/. All of these processes have been observed
in many other languages.

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 71

Phonetically, äs noted by Laver, "[a]n affricated voiceless stop where

the affrication in the overlap phase before a voiced vocoid is also
voiceless, äs in English cheap [tjip], simultaneously also satisfies the
technical conditions for aspiration, in that the normal voicing for the
vocoid is audibly delayed beyond the release of the stop" (1994: 366).
This entails that each of the proposed intermediate segments / t9 kx/
can be viewed äs "an instance of the overlap phase between a stop and a
resonant displaying both affrication and aspiration, in that it is
characterized both by momentarily audible friction (homorganic with the
stop) and by voice-onset delay beyond the release of the stop" (366). In
addition, since "affricates are described äs a sequence of stop and
fricative stricture in the same segment" (Williamson 1977: 857), they
surely constitute the most natural way of getting from a stop to a
fricative.10
Another sound reason for positing an affricate stage of development
between aspirates and fricatives is that it can account most naturally for
two different series of developments. Consider, first of all, that
"[ajffricate releases may involve only a slight widening of the articulatory
constriction of the stop, so that stop and fricative components have
identical place of articulation" (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996: 90).
This type is represented by / kx/, for instance. However, "[s]ome
affricates . . . involve a small forward or backward adjustment of the
active articulation position" (90). Examples are /pf ts k*/, and such
segments are found in German word initially (though /k V is restricted to
certain dialects).
Now since these affricates developed from stops, äs a comparison
with English demonstrates (cf. Lehmann 1992: 125-126):
English pool tongue cow
German Pfuhl Zunge Kxü (Swiss)
and since, moreover, there was a subsequent "post-vocalic conversion of
affricates to simple spirants" (Foley 1970: 12), e.g.:
English hope/up water/it cake/book
German hoffen/auf Wasser/es Kuchen/Buch

10 In fact, äs Scheer himself points out, "the most common pattern of spirantization
found in diachrony . . . is stop > affricate > fricative" (1998: 219)

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72

the presupposition that the spirantization of voiceless stops must include a

stage of homorganic affrication allows us to account most naturally and
minimally for the possible bidirectional evolution of voiceless stops into
strident fricatives:
/φ θ Χ/
/p t k/ -> /ph th kh/ -> /ρφ s χ/

4.2. Voicing and spirantization

If we express the gradual spirantization of voiceless stops in terms of
distinctive features, we obtain the following sequences of minimal
changes:11
A - Spirantization via nonstrident fricatives
/p t k/ => /ph t h k h / => /p* t kx/ => /φ θ x/ => /f s χ/
-continuant -continuant -continuant +continuant +continuant
-spread glottis +spread glottis 0 spread glottis 0 spread glottis 0 spread glottis
—delayed release —delayed release +delayed release 0 delayed release 0 delayed release
0 strident 0 strident -strident -strident +strident

B - Spirantization via strident affricates

/p t k/ => /ph t h k h / => l\ kx/ /pf tS k*/ /f s χ/
—continuant —continuant —continuant —continuant +continuant
-spread glottis +spread glottis 0 spread glottis 0 spread glottis 0 spread glottis
-delayed release -delayed release +delayed release 0 delayed release 0 delayed release
0 strident 0 strident -strident +strident +strident

11 Distinctive features preceded by 0 are irrelevant for that particular class of segments.
As pointed out by Hyman, for example, "[t]he feature Delayed Release contrasts
only in sounds produced with a complete closure in the vocal tract, that is, stops vs.
affricates" (1975: 52). Similarly, [spread glottis] does not pertain to affricates and
(oral) fricatives while [strident] does not apply to stops since "the feature [+strident]
can only occur if frication noise is generated at a constriction" (Stevens and Keyser
1989: 91). It should also be noted that I have represented affricates with the feature
[delayed release] despite the fact that, in recent years, they have increasingly been
analyzed s "contour segments, that is, segments containing sequences (or
'contours') of different features" (Clements - Hume 1995:254). However, this
approach has proven quite problematic in many respects with the result that "[t]he
formal analysis of affricates remains an unresolved question at the present time ..."
(256).

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 73

If we now compare these results with those we obtained in the case of

voiced stops, viz.:
/b d g/ => /β δ γ/ => /v z κ/
-continuant +continuant -fcontinuant
0 strident -strident +strident
we are faced with the problem of accounting for the difference between
the spirantization process of voiced and voiceless stops. The simple fact
is that there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that voiced stops must
go through the same intermediate aspirate and affricate stages s
voiceless stops. That being the case, one must try to find an explanation,
and I think that explanation lies in the fact that the two spirantization
processes are triggered by fundamentally different mechanisms. The
spirantization of voiceless stops, which was shown to have occurred in
Germanic, is initially an instance of context-free fortition whereas the
spirantization of voiced stops, s we observed in the case of Spanish, is a
context-sensitive process which involves an assimilation to adjacent
[-fcontinuant] segments. In essence, then, "[t]he Germanic shift is a
strengthening of consonants, the Spanish shift a weakening of
consonants" (Foley 1970: 12), and there is every reason to believe that
these cases are typical of what takes place generally.
4.3. Voiced and voiceless aspirated stops
In the previous section, it was claimed that the spirantization of /b d g/
does not go through an aspirate phase whereas the fricativization of /p t k/
must include such a stage. Both of these assertions, however, would
appear to be disconfirmed by some of the data that was presented by
Scheer. Recall, first of all, that his account of Grimm's Law was that,
inter alia, "all aspirated stops, voiced or not, become fricatives: IE ph, th,
k h , bh, dh, g h > Germ f/v, θ/δ, χ/κ . . ." (1998: 215). Now if it were the
case that voiced aspirated stops could spirantize, this would have to be
worked into our Schema somehow.
As it turns out, however, Scheer's scenario is a controversial one
within Indo-European studies. Meillet, for one, does not buy it, stating
unequivocally that "le traitement b γ ... n'est atteste nulle part comme
un taitement general des sonores aspirees; il ne Test pas pour le
germanique . . . ; il ne Test pas davantage pour une autre langue
indo-europeenne quelconque. Le traitement spirant apparait partout
comme un affaiblissement propre certaines positions, notamment a la
Position intervocalique . . . II n'y a donc pas raison de croire que *5/i,

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74

*d&, *gh sont representes par des spirantes en germanique commun; l

ου Γόη rencontre des spirantes, des faits connus de phonetique generale
permettent de les expliquer aisement en partant de , d, g germaniques
communs" (1950: 75, 90). In sum, there is every reason to believe that
only plain voiced stops can be spirantized, and that, with the exception of
Sanskrit, IE *bh, *dh, *gh were either simply deaspirated, s in most
daughter languages (cf. Meillet 1964: 88), or eise devoiced to *ph, *th,
*kh, s in Greek and Latin (with further developments in the latter).12
Secondly, in the following alternations from Tiberian Hebrew that
Scheer presents s an Illustration of Type l spirantization:

(3) perfective imperfective alternation(s)

Vzkr zaaxar yi-zkor χ ~ k 'remember'
Vkpr kaa§ar yi-xpor k ~ χ, φ - p 'cover'
Λ/pth paa6ah yi-<j>tah p ~ Φ, θ ~ t Open'

one fmds no surface manifestation of the aspirates that were claimed

above to constitute an obligatory transitional stage between plain stops
and fricatives. However, it is most interesting to find that for Biblical
Hebrew, Jo on seriously entertains "the possibility of the existence of an
aspirated p with a puff like the English syllable-initial p s in pot s
against spot. . . This was most likely true of /k/ and /t/ s well . . . Thus
one is probably dealing with three phonetic triads: /p/ (plosive) - /p V - /f/
(spirant or fricative); /k/ - /h/ - /q/ (emphatic); /t/ - /tV - /t/" (1993: 31).

5. Conclusion
From the evidence that has been brought forth in this study, it seems
obvious that Scheer's attempt to establish a distinction between two
different types of spirantization processes does not stand up to close
scrutiny. Apart from the numerous factual inaccuracies that m r his
descriptions of spirantization in Spanish, Hebrew and Germanic, which
are used to exemplify the dichotomy that is purported to exist between
spirantizations that involve manner of articulation alone and those that
evince a simultaneous change of place and manner of articulation, his
analysis is even more seriously flawed by its infringement of the
naturalness of phonological change which stipulates, inter alia, that only

12 More specifically, s outlined by Meillet, "[e]n grec on trouve les sourdes aspirees φ,
θ, χ, et en italique les spirantes sourdes */ (anciennement bilabiale), *φ, *x, qui, en
latin de Rome, ont abouti a f,f, h l'initiale" (1964: 88).

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 75

the voicing or the place of articulation or the manner of articulation of an

obstruent may change at any one time. In sum, there can only be one type
of spirantization, that being the one which complies with the universal
principle governing the minimality of phonological change.
MARC PICARD
260 Sherbrooke, E. #425
MONTREAL, QC
H2X l El
CANADA
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