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Vowel Shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language. The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vowel shift near the beginning of the Common Era, which included iotacism. Among the Semitic languages, the Canaanite languages underwent a shift in which Proto-Semitic *ā became ō in Proto-Canaanite (a language likely very similar to Biblical Hebrew). A vowel shift can involve a merger of two previously different sounds, or it can be a chain shift. US examples One of the several major vowel shifts that is currently underway in the US is the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. This change pattern is characterized by the longer and lower vowels moving forward and upward, while the shorter vowels move downward and backward. This vowel rotation, for example, is noticeable as the vowel sound in “coffee” is moving toward the vowel in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Change
A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic change) or a more general change to the speech sounds that exist ( phonological change), such as the merger of two sounds or the creation of a new sound. A sound change can eliminate the affected sound, or a new sound can be added. Sound changes can be environmentally conditioned if the change occurs in only some sound environments, and not others. The term "sound change" refers to diachronic changes, which occur in a language's sound system. On the other hand, " alternation" refers to changes that happen synchronically (within the language of an individual speaker, depending on the neighbouring sounds) and do not change the language's underlying system (for example, the ''-s'' in the English plural can be pronounced differently depending ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geographically neutral, how many speakers there are, whether sub-varieties exist, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard and how the accent has changed over time. The name itself is controversial. RP is an accent, so the study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation; other areas relevant to the study of language standards such as vocabulary, grammar and style are not considered. History RP has most in common with the dialects of South East Midlands, namely London, Oxford and Cambridge. By the end of the 15th century, "Standard English" was established in the City of London, though it did not begin to resemble RP until the late 19th century. The introduction of the term ''Received Pronunciation'' is usually credited to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantitative Metathesis
Quantitative metathesis (or transfer of quantity)Smyth, ''Greek Grammar''paragraph 34on CCEL: transfer of quantity is a specific form of '' metathesis'' or ''transposition'' (a sound change) involving ''quantity'' or vowel length. By this process, two vowels near each other – one long, one short – switch their lengths, so that the long one becomes short, and the short one becomes long. In theory, the definition includes both :long-short → short-long and :short-long → long-short, but Ancient Greek, which the term was originally created to describe, displays only the former, since the process is part of long-vowel shortening. Ancient Greek In the Attic and Ionic dialects of Ancient Greek, ''ēo'' and ''ēa'' often exchange length, becoming ''eō'' and ''eā''. This quantitative metathesis is more accurately described as one form of long-vowel shortening. Usually if quantitative metathesis affects a word, other kinds of shortening do as well, in the forms where quantitat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compensatory Lengthening
Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered by consonant loss may be considered an extreme form of fusion (Crowley 1997:46). Both types may arise from speakers' attempts to preserve a word's moraic count. Examples English An example from the history of English is the lengthening of vowels that happened when the voiceless velar fricative and its palatal allophone were lost from the language. For example, in the Middle English of Chaucer's time the word ''night'' was phonemically ; later the was lost, but the was lengthened to to compensate, causing the word to be pronounced . (Later the became by the Great Vowel Shift.) Both the Germanic spirant law and the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law show vowel lengthening compensating for the loss of a nasal. Non-rhotic forms of Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raising (phonology)
In phonology and phonetics, raising is a sound change in which a vowel or consonant becomes higher or raised, meaning that the tongue becomes more elevated or positioned closer to the roof of the mouth than before. The opposite effect is known as lowering. Raising or lowering may be triggered by a nearby sound, when it is a form of assimilation, or it may occur on its own. In i-mutation, a front vowel is raised before or , which is assimilation. In the Attic dialect of Ancient Greek and in Koine Greek, close-mid were raised to . The change occurred in all cases and was not triggered by a nearby front consonant or vowel. Later, Ancient Greek was raised to become Koine Greek and then . For more information, see In Czech, the alveolar trill was raised before to become the raised alveolar trill , spelled as in . That is a form of palatalization, and it also occurred in Polish in which it became a simple sibilant fricative (spelled or ) around the 16th century. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fronting (phonology)
In phonology, fronting is a sound change in which a vowel or consonant becomes fronted, advanced or pronounced farther to the front of the vocal tract than some reference point. The opposite situation, in which a sound becomes pronounced farther to the back of the vocal tract, is called backing or retraction. Fronting may be triggered by a nearby sound, in which case it is a form of assimilation, or may occur on its own. Examples Assimilation In i-mutation and Germanic umlaut, a back vowel is fronted under the influence of or in a following syllable. This is assimilation. Vowel shifts In the Attic and Ionic dialects of Ancient Greek, Proto-Greek close back were fronted to . This change occurred in all cases and was not triggered by a nearby front consonant or vowel. In Old English and Old Frisian, the back vowels were fronted to in certain cases. For more information, see First a-fronting and Second a-fronting. In many dialects of English, the vowel is front ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palatalization (sound Change)
Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation of a consonant or, in certain cases, a front vowel. Palatalization involves change in the place or manner of articulation of consonants, or the fronting or raising of vowels. In some cases, palatalization involves assimilation or lenition. Types Palatalization is sometimes an example of assimilation. In some cases, it is triggered by a palatal or palatalized consonant or front vowel, but in other cases, it is not conditioned in any way. Consonant Palatalization changes place of articulation or manner of articulation of consonants. It may add palatal secondary articulation or change primary articulation from velar to palatal or alveolar, alveolar to postalveolar. It may also cause a consonant to change its manner of articulation from stop to affricate or fricative. The change in the manner of articulation is a form of lenition. However, the lenition is frequently accompan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I-mutation
I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or i/j-umlaut) is a type of sound change in which a back vowel is fronted or a front vowel is raised if the following syllable contains , or (a voiced palatal approximant, sometimes called ''yod'', the sound of English in ''yes''). It is a category of regressive metaphony, or vowel harmony. The term is usually used by scholars of the Germanic languages: it is particularly important in the history of the Germanic languages because inflectional suffixes with an or led to many vowel alternations that are still important in the morphology of the languages. Germanic languages ''I-mutation'' took place separately in the various Germanic languages from around 450 or 500 AD in the North Sea area and affected all the early languages except for Gothic. It seems to have taken effect earliest and most completely in Old English and Old Norse. It took place later in Old High German; by 900, its effects are co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germanic Umlaut
The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel ( fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to ( raising) when the following syllable contains , , or . It took place separately in various Germanic languages starting around AD 450 or 500 and affected all of the early languages except Gothic. An example of the resulting vowel alternation is the English plural ''foot ~ feet'' (from Proto-Germanic , pl. ). Germanic umlaut, as covered in this article, does not include other historical vowel phenomena that operated in the history of the Germanic languages such as Germanic a-mutation and the various language-specific processes of u-mutation, nor the earlier Indo-European ablaut (''vowel gradation''), which is observable in the conjugation of Germanic strong verbs such as ''sing/sang/sung''. While Germanic umlaut has had important consequences for all modern Germanic langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germanic A-mutation
''A''-mutation is a metaphonic process supposed to have taken place in late Proto-Germanic (c. 200). General description In ''a''-mutation, a short high vowel ( or ) was lowered when the following syllable contained a non-high vowel (, or ).Gordon 1957, § 32. Thus, since the change was produced by other vowels besides */a/, the term ''a''-mutation is something of a misnomer. It has also been called "''a''-umlaut", "''a''/''o''-umlaut", "velar umlaut" and, formerly, "Brechung".Lloyd (1966), p. 738. (This last was Grimm's term, but nowadays German ''Brechung'', and its English equivalents ''breaking'' and ''fracture'', are generally restricted in use to other unrelated sound-changes which later affected individual Germanic languages.) :* *''hurną'' > Old English ''horn'' "horn" :* *''wiraz'' > Old English ''wer'' "man" The high vowel was not lowered, however, if intervened between it and the following non-high vowel. An intervening nasal consonant followed by a consonant of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern American English
Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by White Southerners. In terms of accent, its most innovative forms include southern varieties of Appalachian English and certain varieties of Texan English. Popularly known in the United States as a Southern accent or simply Southern, Southern American English now comprises the largest American regional accent group by number of speakers. Formal, much more recent terms within American linguistics include Southern White Vernacular English and Rural White Southern English. History and geography A diversity of earlier Southern dialects once existed: a consequence of the mix of English speakers from the British Isles (including largely Southern English and Scots-Irish immigrants) who migrated to the American South in the 17th and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trisyllabic Laxing
Trisyllabic laxing, or trisyllabic shortening, is any of three processes in English in which tense vowels (long vowels or diphthongs) become lax (short monophthongs) if they are followed by two or more syllables, at least the first of which is unstressed, for example, ''grateful'' vs ''gratitude'', ''profound'' vs ''profundity''. By a different process, laxing is also found in disyllabic and monosyllabic words, for example, ''shade'' vs ''shadow'', ''lose'' vs ''lost''. Trisyllabic laxing Trisyllabic laxing is a process which has occurred at various periods in the history of English: #The earliest occurrence of trisyllabic laxing occurred in late Old English and caused stressed long vowels to become shortened before clusters of two consonants when two or more syllables followed. #Later in Middle English, the process was expanded to all vowels when two or more syllables followed. #The Middle English sound change remained in the language and is still a mostly-productive process in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
