Abstract This article considers the interaction of phonotactics and diachrony. I argue two things: (i) language-specific phonotactic constraints on phonological forms can inhibit otherwise regular innovations, and (ii) the fact that such phonotactically-motivated process inhibition occurs in historical phonology is itself evidence for the reality of phonotactic constraints. I assume that there is a difference between those gaps in a language’s lexicon which are due to chance (‘A-gaps’) and those which are ruled out by the grammar (‘S-gaps’) and I consider some evidence in favour of this view. I consider two case studies where an understanding of phonotactics is necessary to analyse the patterning of change: Mid-Scots θ-debuccalisation and a late Middle English syncope. I ground the discussion in arguments about what phonotactic constraints are, and how they can be involved in diachrony. This involves a consideration of a number of examples from English, including onset-OCP-related constraints, the OCP (sibilance) constraint, and the constraint which imposes the defective distribution of [h].

中文翻译：

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音律约束可以抑制节段变化吗？解放与晕厥的论点

摘要本文考虑了音韵学与历时的相互作用。我有两点争论：（i）对语音形式的特定语言音位限制可以抑制其他形式的常规创新，以及（ii）历史音系中发生这种由音位驱动的过程抑制这一事实本身就证明了音位限制的现实。我假设语言词典中的那些由于偶然性（“ A差距”）和被语法排除的差距（“ S差距”）之间存在差异，并且我认为一些证据支持这个观点。我考虑了两个案例研究，其中需要对音韵学的理解来分析变化的模式：苏格兰中部θ脱盲和中晚期英语晕厥。我将讨论放在关于什么是音韵约束的争论上，以及他们如何参与历时。这涉及到许多来自英语的示例的考虑，包括与OCP相关的约束，OCP（sibilance）约束以及强加[h]分布的约束。