phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

, apocope () is the omission (

elision In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run to ...

) or loss of a sound or sounds at the end of a word. While it most commonly refers to the loss of a final vowel, it can also describe the deletion of final

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s or even entire

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s. For instance, in many dialects the 't' in words like 'hot' remains unpronounced in contexts like 'hot potato'. Even longer words, such as 'Worcestershire', can undergo apocope, resulting in 'Worcester'. The resulting word form after apocope has occurred is called an .

Etymology

''Apocope'' comes from the Greek () from () "cutting off", from () "away from" and () "to cut".

Historical sound change

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

, ''apocope'' is often the loss of an unstressed vowel.

Loss of an unstressed vowel or vowel and nasal

* Latin → Portuguese (''sea'') * Vulgar Latin → Spanish (''bread'') * Vulgar Latin → French (''wolf'') * Proto-Germanic → Old, Middle, and Modern English ''land'' * Old English → Modern English ''love'' (noun) * Old English → Modern English ''love'' (verb) * The loss of a final unstressed vowel is a feature of southern dialects of Māori in comparison to standard Māori, for example the term ''kainga'' (village) is rendered in southern Māori as ''kaik''. A similar feature is seen in the Gallo-Italic languages.

Loss of other sounds

* Non-rhotic English accents, including British

Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent of British English regarded as the Standard language, standard one, carrying the highest Prestige (sociolinguistics), social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 2 ...

, suppress the final ''r'' in each syllable (except when it is followed by a vowel). (In most accents, the suppressed ''r'' lengthens or modifies the preceding vowel.) * French pronunciation suppresses the final consonant of most words (but it is normally pronounced as a ''liaison'' at the beginning of the following word in the sentence if the latter word begins with a vowel or with an unaspirated 'h').

Case marker

In Estonian and the Sami languages, apocopes explain the forms of grammatical cases. For example, a

nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...

is described as having apocope of the final vowel, but the genitive does not have it. Throughout its history, however, the genitive case marker has also undergone apocope: Estonian ("a city") and ("of a city") are derived from and respectively, as can still be seen in the corresponding Finnish word. In the genitive form, the final , while it was being deleted, blocked the loss of . In Colloquial Finnish, the final vowel is sometimes omitted from case markers.

Grammatical rule

Some languages have apocopations that are internalized as mandatory forms. In Spanish and Italian, for example, some

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

s that come before the

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

lose the final vowel or syllable if they precede a noun (mainly) in the

masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some beh ...

singular form. In Spanish, some

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ...

s and

cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

and

ordinal numbers In set theory, an ordinal number, or ordinal, is a generalization of ordinal numerals (first, second, th, etc.) aimed to extend enumeration to infinite sets. A finite set can be enumerated by successively labeling each element with the leas ...

have apocopations as well. * Adjectives ** ("big, great") → → (

feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

) ("great woman". However, if the adjective follows the noun, the final syllable remains, but the meaning may also change: , meaning "large woman") ** ("good") → → (

) ("good man"; the final vowel remains in , with no accompanying change in meaning) * Adverbs ** ("so much") → ("so") → ("so beautiful") * Cardinal numbers ** ("one, a, an") → → ("a child") ** ("hundred") → → (" One hundred years of solitude") * Ordinal numbers ** ("first") → → ("first prize") ** ("second, according to") → ("according to") → → ("The Gospel according to") ** ("third") → → ("third place") ** ("final") → → ("final day")

References

* Crowley, Terry. (1997) ''An Introduction to Historical Linguistics.'' 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.

External links

{{Wiktionary
World Wide Words: Apocope
Abbreviations Figures of speech Phonology