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Dissimilation
In phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon whereby similar consonants or vowels in a word become less similar or elided. In English, dissimilation is particularly common with liquid consonants such as and when they occur in a sequence. The phenomenon is often credited to '' horror aequi'', the principle that language users avoid repetition of identical linguistic structures. Examples Dropped initial /r/ in /r..r/ sequence (r-deletion) When an sound occurs along with another in the middle of a word in rhotic dialects of English, the most weakly-stressed tends to drop out, as in "" for ''berserk,'' "" for ''surprise,'' "" for ''particular'', and "" for ''governor'' – this does not affect the pronunciation of ''government,'' which has only one , but English ''government'' tends to be pronounced "", dropping out the first ''n''. This phenomenon will also not affect the unstressed syllable in words like ''surfer'' or ''brother'' s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Law
In historical linguistics, a sound change 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 depen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grassmann's Law
Grassmann's law, named after its discoverer Hermann Grassmann, is a dissimilatory phonological process in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit which states that if an Aspiration (phonetics), aspirated consonant is followed by another aspirated consonant in the next syllable, the first one loses the aspiration. The descriptive linguistics, descriptive version was given for Sanskrit by Pāṇini. Here are some examples in Greek of the effects of Grassmann's law: * 'I sacrifice (an animal)'; 'it was sacrificed' * 'hair'; 'hairs' * 'to bury (present)'; 'a grave' In reduplication, which forms the perfect tense in both Greek and Sanskrit, if the initial consonant is aspirated, the prepended consonant is unaspirated by Grassmann's law. For instance 'I grow' : 'I have grown'. The fact that deaspiration in Greek took place after the change of Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European to (PIE ''*bʰn̥ǵʰús'' > (''pakhús'') not ''bakhús'' but Sanskrit (''bahú'') ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhotacism (sound Change)
Rhotacism ( ) or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language family resists the change and keeps a sound, this is sometimes known as ''zetacism''. The term comes from the Greek letter ''rho'', denoting . Albanian The southern ( Tosk) dialects, the base of Standard Albanian, changed to , but the northern ( Gheg) dialects did not: * vs. 'the voice' * vs. 'the knee' * vs. 'Albania' * vs. 'Albania' (older name of the country) * vs. 'burnt' * vs. 'wood' * vs. 'did' * vs. 'caught' * vs. 'dust' * vs. 'love' Aramaic In Aramaic, Proto-Semitic ''n'' changed to ''r'' in a few words: * ''bar'' "son" as compared to Hebrew בֵן ''ben'' (from Proto-Semitic *''bnu'') * ''trên'' and ''tartên'' "two" (masculine and feminine form respectively) as compared to Demotic Arabic ''t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haplology
Haplology (from Greek "simple" and , "speech") is, in spoken language, the elision (elimination or deletion) of an entire syllable or a part of it through dissimilation (a differentiating shift that affects two neighboring similar sounds). The phenomenon was identified by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in the 20th century. Linguists sometimes jokingly refer to the phenomenon as "haplogy", an autology. As a general rule, haplology occurs in English adverbs of adjectives ending in "le", for example ''gentlely'' → ''gently''; ''ablely'' → ''ably''. Examples * Basque: → ('apple cider') * German: → (female 'wizard' or 'magician'; male: der Zauberer; female ending -in); this is a productive pattern applied to other words ending in (spelt) ''-erer''. * Dutch: → ('narcissism') * French: → ('femininity') * English: ** Old English → ''Engle lond'' → ''England'' (expected form would be *''Engelland'') ** Old English ''cyning'' → English ''king'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Spanish
Old Spanish (, , ; ), also known as Old Castilian or Medieval Spanish, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance spoken predominantly in Castile and environs during the Middle Ages. The earliest, longest, and most famous literary composition in Old Spanish is the (c. 1140–1207). Phonology Vowels Monophthongs Diphthongs Consonants ( and were apico-alveolar.) and These were still distinct phonemes in Old Spanish, judging by the consistency with which the graphemes and were distinguished. Nevertheless, the two could be confused in consonant clusters (as in ~ “dawn”) or in word-initial position, perhaps after or a pause. and appear to have merged in word-initial position by about 1400 and in all other environments by the mid–late 16th century at the latest. At an archaic stage, the realizations of (from Latin ) would have been approximately as follows: * before or * before or * or before By early Old Spanish, had been replaced with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Aequi
, or avoidance of identity, is a linguistic principle that language users have psychological or physiological motives or limits on cognitive planning to avoid repetition of identical linguistic structures. The term originated in 1909 in Karl Brugmann, who used it to explain dissimilation, the tendency for similar consonants or vowels in a word to become less similar, which can often be chalked up to simply "euphony". Today, however, the term is usually applied instead to grammatical elements or structures. One of the most widely cited definitions is that of Günter Rohdenburg: "the ''horror aequi'' principle involves the widespread (and presumably universal) tendency to avoid the use of formally (near-)identical and (near-)adjacent (non-coordinate) grammatical elements or structures." In the study of phonology, such avoidance falls under the obligatory contour principle, which holds that certain consecutive identical sounds are not permitted (such as in Mandarin Chinese, wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhotic Dialect
The distinction between Rhotic consonant, rhoticity and non-rhoticity is one of the most prominent ways in which varieties of English, varieties of the English language are classified. In rhotic accents, the sound of the historical English rhotic consonant, , is preserved in all phonetic environments. In non-rhotic accents, speakers no longer pronounce in postvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. For example, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the words ''hard'' and ''butter'' as and , but a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the sound and pronounces them as and . When an ''r'' is at the end of a word but the next word begins with a vowel, as in the phrase "bette''r a''pples," most non-rhotic speakers will preserve the in that position (the linking R), because it is followed by a vowel. The rhotic dialects of English include most of those in Scottish English, Scotland, Irish English, Ireland, the American Englis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Etcetera
''Et cetera'' (, ), abbreviated to ''etc.'', ''et cet.'', ''&c.'' or ''&c'', is a Latin expression that is used in English to mean "and all the rest". "&" is a ligature of "et." Translated literally from Latin, can mean , while can mean ; thus, the expression translates to . ''Et cetera'' is a calque (loanword/phrase) of the Koine Greek () meaning 'and the other things'. The typical Modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ... form is (), 'and the remainder'. Spelling and usage The one-word spelling ''etcetera'' appears in some dictionaries. The abbreviated form ''&c.'' or ''&c'' is still occasionally used—the ampersand ⟨&⟩, derives from a Typographic ligature, ligature of . The phrase ''et cetera'' is often used to denote the logical continuatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pharyngealization
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated by one of two methods: #A tilde or swung dash (IPA Number 428) is written through the base letter (typographic overstrike). It is the older and more generic symbol. It indicates velarization, uvularization or pharyngealization, as in , the guttural equivalent of . #The symbol (IPA Number 423) – a superscript variant of , the voiced pharyngeal approximant – is written after the base letter. It indicates specifically a pharyngealized consonant, as in , a pharyngealized . Computing codes Since Unicode 1.1, there have been two similar superscript characters: IPA () and Semiticist (). U+02E4 is formally a superscript (, = reversed glottal stop), and in the Unicode charts looks like a simple superscript , though in some f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German (the final consonant of '' Bach''); or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh (appearing twice in the name '' Llanelli''). This turbulent airflow is called frication. A particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants. When forming a sibilant, one still is forcing air through a narrow channel, but in addition, the tongue is curled lengthwise to direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English , , , and are examples of sibilants. The usage of two other terms is less standardized: "Spirant" is an older term for fricatives used by some American and European phoneticians and phonologists for non-sibilant fricatives. "Strident" could mean just "sibilant", but some authors include also lab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion, diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age#South Asia, Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a lingua franca, link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting effect on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Indo-Aryan languages# ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Language
Greek (, ; , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic languages, Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy (in Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, Caucasus, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the list of languages by first written accounts, longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon. Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
