Evolutionary Phonology

This path-breaking book explores the nature of sound patterns and sound change in human language over the last 7000-8000 years, the time depth for which the comparative method is reasonably reliable. It presents a new approach to the problem of how genetically unrelated languages, from families as far apart as Native American, Australian Aboriginal, Austronesian and Indo-European, can often show similar sound patterns, and also tackles the converse problem of why there are notable exceptions to most of the patterns that are often regarded as universal tendencies or constraints.Blevins, Juliette is the author of 'Evolutionary Phonology', published 2007 under ISBN 9780521043649 and ISBN 0521043646.