On the cognitive basis of contact-induced sound change: Vowel merger reversal in Shanghainese

Yao, Y.; Chang, C. B.

Abstract

This study investigated the source and status of a recent sound change in Shanghainese (Wu, Sinitic) that has been attributed to language contact with Mandarin. The change involves two vowels, /e/ and /ɛ/, reported to be merged three decades ago but produced distinctly in contemporary Shanghainese. Results of two production experiments showed that speaker age, language mode (monolingual Shanghainese vs. bilingual Shanghainese-Mandarin), and crosslinguistic phonological similarity all influenced the production of these vowels. These findings provide evidence for language contact as a linguistic means of merger reversal and are consistent with the view that contact phenomena originate from cross-language interaction within the bilingual mind.

Citation

Yao, Y., & Chang, C. B. (2016). On the cognitive basis of contact-induced sound change: Vowel merger reversal in Shanghainese. Language, 92(2), 433-467. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2016.0031

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jul 27, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 12, 2025
• Journal: Language
• Print ISSN: 0097-8507
• Electronic ISSN: 1535-0665
• Publisher: Linguistic Society of America
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 92
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 433-467
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2016.0031
• Publisher URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_NoAiLQlnkSE1Lbzd0ZWFoWDQ/view?usp=sharing
• Related Public URLs: https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/08_92.2Yao_2.pdf; https://muse.jhu.edu/article/619543/pdf