Toward an individual-difference perspective on phonologization

Phonologization is often understood to be a process along the pathway of sound change where low-level physiological or perceptual variation that gives rise to sound patterns is explicitly encoded in the grammar. The nature of this transition and how it comes about remain largely unclear. The broad theoretical goal of this paper is to argue that phonologization should be defined at the level of the individual; it takes place whenever an individual acquires a so-called “phonetic precursor” as an intended, and controlled, pattern in the language, even if the pattern exhibits gradient properties. To illustrate this perspective, a case study on the nature of individual variation in vowel duration as a function of vowel height in Cantonese is presented, offering evidence that some Cantonese speakers have phonologized the height-dependent vowel duration effect and discussing the implications of this result for understanding intrinsic vowel duration as a phonetic precursor to sound change. The article closes with a discussion regarding the current proposal in relation to past models of phonologization and offers suggestions for future directions in phonologization research.