What Do We Do with Irregular Correspondences? The Case of the Khoe Languages

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Abstract
There is nothing that cannot be related directly or indirectly to anything else, and it is this nightmare that is horrifying. There seems to be no precedent for this sort of chaos in the languages of the world… (Traill 1974:251)Regularity of phonological change is considered a basic principle of historico-linguistic reconstruction. In 1876 A. Leskien of the Leipzig school of neogrammarians formulated the postulate of sound change occurring without exception, meaning “that if one assembled all the facts, and analyzed them accurately and thoroughly, one could state exceptionless principles or laws for the development of language” (Lehmann 1973:87). However, it has since been argued on the basis of empirical research that languages are never in complete balance and that, therefore, change is not necessarily constant, nor parallel among groups speaking different languages. Various reasons have been found to account for irregularities in language: the impact of one language on another, the effect of children acquiring their language, etc. Yet before we enter into any etiological discussion of irregular or unstructured phonological change, the area of investigation for the present case study must be introduced, and the characteristic of the problematic nature of the case sketched.

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