Place of articulation shifts in sound change: A gradual road to the unmarked

Abstract This paper investigates place of articulation shifts involving heterosyllabic C [non-coronal] [coronal] clusters. Such phenomena are found, among other languages, in the diachrony Italiot Greek, where three typologically different historical stages observed: (a) no shifts; (b) dorsal > labial shift; (c) dorsal, coronal shift. Drawing on Rice's (1994) model Place node and markedness hierarchy ≺ (with “≺” denoting ‘more marked than’) (de Lacy 2002), I maintain that these reduce codas. The gradual typological changes accounted for terms Property Theory (Alber & Prince 2015).