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Glite Dictionary
sound law

sound law

9.8
A regular rule that explains how sounds in a language change over time
  • noun
  • /saʊnd lɔ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : ley fonética
  • In her research, she discovered a sound law that illustrates how vowel shifts occurred in several dialects over time.

Examples

  • Based on these items, and in accordance with Menendez Pidal's sound law, one would posit the diachronic equations shown below:

    Academic text (1998)

  • This phonologically based view dates back to Menendez Pidal, who established a sound law which maintained the following:

    Academic text (1998)

  • The linguist explained the relationship between language changes and the established sound law governing those alterations.

  • According to the sound law formulated by historical linguists, certain consonant sounds consistently changed in grammatical contexts.

Surface Forms

sound law singular
sound laws plural

Morphology

sound + law

Given the provided constituent glosses, 'sound' is presented as 'well-grounded' and 'law' as a general principle, so a B1 learner would most likely interpret 'sound law' as a 'reliable law' rather than a rule about speech sounds. The intended meaning is a technical, discipline-specific sense of 'sound' (speech sound), which is not derivable from the common-word meanings here and therefore requires specialist knowledge.

Etymology

Sound law comes from comparing speech change to a clear rule: sound is the speech part and law means a regular 'rule' that sounds follow. That's why sound law today means a rule that explains how sounds change in a language over time.