implicational laws

implicational laws

1. Recurring Phonological Patterns

   • Human languages ​​use a wide variety of sounds. Despite this variety, some sounds are more common than others.
     • almost all languages ​​use stop consonants [p] and [t] and the vowel [a],
     • less common speech sounds
       • fricatives, voiceless vowels and clicks

2. Sound Inventories

   • if a language uses a less common sound, it is generally the case that one of its more common counterparts will also be used.
     • Less common [ã] [ḁ] [x] [s] [d] [ð] voiced stops
       • More common [a] [a] [k] or [s] [k] or [s] [k] or [t] [t] [d] or [z] voiceless stops
     • fricatives in place X stops in place X Implicational laws can be stated for natural classes of sounds in addition to individual pairs of sounds
   • anguage that uses a particular sound
     • that sound is contrastive.

3. Frequency and Distribution

   • the pharyngeal fricative will have limited use compared to the velar fricative.
   • The sound [ð] can be classified as less common because it is relatively rare in the world's languages,

4. Acquisition of Sounds

   • children learning a language acquire the use of more common sounds before acquiring the use of less the common ones
     • This order in the acquisition of sounds is relatively constant for children around the world
   • implicative laws capture a generalization about language: namely, that the acquisition of a relatively less common

5. Sound Change

   • in the course of language change, if any sound is to be missed
   • in the word gentleman there was a voiceless veil fricative [x] between the vowel and the [t]
     • During the development of English, this velar fricative was lost
     • This observation fits with the Implicational law that says that fricatives are less common than stops.

6. Explaining Implicational Laws

   • Therefore, ease of production is an explanation for at least some of implicative laws.
     • if you can't tell the difference between consonants and vowels, then communication through the use of language is likely to be very ineffective.
       • to acquire the more common sounds before the less common ones, and that less common sounds are unstable in the face of language change

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