| Lemma | neo-grammarian hypothesis |
|---|---|
| Categoria grammaticale | N |
| Lingua | inglese |
| Sigla | Bloomfield (1935) |
| Titolo | Language |
| Sinonimi | |
| Rinvii | |
| Traduzioni | |
| Citazioni | The neo-grammarian hypothesis implies that sound-change is unaffected by semantic features and concerns merely the habits of articulating speech-sounds. If residual forms are characterized by some semantic feature, then their deviation must be due not to sound-change, but to some other factor of linguistic change - to some factor which is connected with meanings. The neo-grammarians define sound-change as a purely phonetic process; it affects a phoneme or a type of phonemes either universally or under certain strictly phonetic conditions, and is neither favored nor impeded by the semantic character of the forms which happen to contain the phoneme. |