If a phonetic change has given to some words two forms without any difference in signification, the same alternation may be extended to other cases in which the sound in question has a different origin (‘phonetic analogy’). An undoubted instance is the unhistoric r in recent English. When the consonantal [r] was dropped finally and before a consonant while it was retained before a vowel, and words like better, here thus came to have two forms [betə, hiə] and [betər (ɔf), hiər (ən ðɛ·ə)] better off, here and there, the same alternation was transferred to words like idea, drama [ai'diə, dra·mə], so that the sound [r] is now very frequently inserted before a word beginning with a vowel: I’d no idea-r-of this, a drama-r-of Ibsen (many references MEG i. 13. 42). In French final t and s have become mute, but are retained before a vowel: il est [ɛ] venu, il est [ɛt] arrivé; les [le] femmes, les [lez] hommes; and now vulgar speakers will insert [t] or [z] in the wrong place between vowels: pa-t assez, j’allai-t écrire, avant-z-hier, moi-z-aussi; this is called ‘cuir’ or ‘velours.’
In course of time a ‘phonetic law’ may undergo a kind of metamorphosis, being extended to a greater and greater number of combinations. As regards recent times we are sometimes able to trace such a gradual development. A case in point is the dropping of [j] in [ju·] after certain consonants in English (see MEG i. 13, 7). It began with r as in true, rude; next came l when preceded by a consonant, as in blue, clue; in these cases [j] is never heard. But after l not preceded by another consonant there is a good deal of vacillation, thus in Lucy, absolute; after [s, z] as in Susan, resume there is a strong tendency to suppress [j], though this pronunciation has not yet prevailed,[70] and after [t, d, n], as in tune, due, new, the suppression is in Britain only found in vulgar speakers, while in some parts of the United States it is heard from educated speakers as well. In the speech of these the sound law may be said to attack any [ju·] after any point consonant, while it will have to be formulated in various less comprehensive terms for British speakers belonging to older or younger generations. It is extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to reconcile such occurrences with the orthodox ‘young grammarian’ theory of sound changes being due to a shifting of the organic feeling or motor sensation (verschiebung des bewegungsgefühls) which is supposed to have necessarily taken place wherever the same sound was under the same phonetic conditions. For what are here the same phonetic conditions? The position after r, after l combinations, after l even when standing alone, after all point consonants? Each generation of English speakers will give a different answer to this question. Now, it is highly probable that many of the comprehensive prehistoric sound changes, of which we see only the final result, while possible intermediate stages evade our inquiry, have begun in the same modest way as the transition from [ju·] to [u·] in English: with regard to them we are in exactly the same position as a man who had heard only such speakers as say consistently [tru·, ru·d, blu·, lu·si, su·zn, ri'zu·m, tu·n, du·, nu·] and who would then naturally suppose that [j] in the combination [ju·] had been dropped all at once after any point consonant.
XV.—§ 11. Spreading of Sound Change.
Sound laws (to retain provisionally that firmly established term) have by some linguists, who rightly reject the comparison with natural laws (e.g. Meringer), been compared rather with the ‘laws’ of fashion in dress. But I think it is important to make a distinction here: the comparison with fashions throws no light whatever on the question how sound changes originate—it can tell us nothing about the first impulse to drop [j] in certain positions before [u·]; but the comparison is valid when we come to consider the question how such a change when first begun in one individual spreads to other individuals. While the former question has been dealt with at some length in the preceding investigation, it now remains for us to say something about the latter. The spreading of phonetic change, as of any other linguistic change, is due to imitation, conscious and unconscious, of the speech habits of other people. We have already met with imitation in the chapters dealing with the child and with the influence exerted by foreign languages. But man is apt to imitate throughout the whole of his life, and this statement applies to his language as much as to his other habits. What he imitates, in this as in other fields, is not always the best; a real valuation of what would be linguistically good or preferable does not of course enter the head of the ‘man in the street.’ But he may imitate what he thinks pretty, or funny, and especially what he thinks characteristic of those people whom for some reason or other he looks up to. Imitation is essentially a social phenomenon, and if people do not always imitate the best (the best thing, the best pronunciation), they will generally imitate ‘their betters,’ i.e. those that are superior to them—in rank, in social position, in wealth, in everything that is thought enviable. What constitutes this superiority cannot be stated once for all; it varies according to surroundings, age, etc. A schoolboy may feel tempted to imitate a rough, swaggering boy a year or two older than himself rather than his teachers or parents, and in later life he may find other people worthy of imitation, according to his occupation or profession or individual taste. But when he does imitate he is apt to imitate everything, even sometimes things that are not worth imitating. In this way Percy, in Henry IV, Second Part, II. 3. 24—
was indeed the glasse
Wherein the noble youth did dresse themselues.
He had no legges, that practic’d not his gate,
And speaking thicke[71] (which Nature made his blemish)
Became the accents of the valiant.
For those that could speake low and tardily,