Grammatical Change through Lexical Accumulation: Voicing Cooccurrence Restrictions in Afrikaans

Two explanations are offered in the literature for the origin of lexical patterns of consonantal voicing cooccurrence: (i) speaker-oriented: a cooccurrence pattern may result from voicing assimilation under ease-of-articulation pressures, and (ii) listener-oriented: a cooccurrence pattern may result from systematic misperception by listeners. This article argues for a third possible origin of such patterns: (iii) lexical accumulation: a series of unrelated sound changes may conspire to create a lexical pattern of voicing cooccurrence. Once introduced into the lexicon of some language through any of these three routes, speakers can elevate such a pattern to a grammatical principle. A new voicing cooccurrence pattern in Afrikaans is presented as an example of a pattern that arose via this third route of lexical accumulation. Evidence is also presented that this pattern is being learned as a grammatical constraint by Afrikaans speakers.