Trudgill (2004) has suggested a few factors that might affect the size of phoneme inventory of a language. His arguments are interesting, but by his own admission, his arguments are at best suggestive because our current knowledge about the relationship between social factors and the sound system of a language is quite limited.

Still, let's think about the relationship between the two. Do you think that it is reasonable to believe, as Trudgill does, that there are at least some social factors that affect some aspects of the sound system of a language? (e.g., how many sounds a language has in its phoneme inventory, which consonants and vowels a language has, whether a language has tones or not, whether a language has a simple syllable structure or a complex syllable structure.)

Which of the factors Trudgill (2004) suggests seems most relevant? What other social factors might be relevant? Or, do you think that social factors are irrelevant to the sound system of a language? What are your thoughts about this question? Why?