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articulatory phonetics The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics that studies articulation and ways that humans produce speech. Articulatory phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological struc ...
, fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common
lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
. For example, a
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 ...
or an
approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do prod ...
may become a stop (i.e. becomes or becomes ). Although not as typical of sound change as lenition, fortition may occur in prominent positions, such as at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable; as an effect of reducing
markedness In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...
; or due to morphological leveling.


Examples

The extremely common approximant sound is sometimes subject to fortition; since it is a
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y ...
, almost any change to the sound other than simple deletion would constitute fortition. It has changed into the voiced fricative in a number of indigenous languages of the
Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...
, such as the Eskimo–Aleut languages and Ket, and also in some varieties of Spanish. In the Southern Ryukyuan language Yonaguni, it has changed word-initially into . Via a voiceless palatal approximant, it has turned in some
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...
into , the voiceless equivalent of and also cross-linguistically rare though less so than . Another change turned to an affricate during the development of the
Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
from Latin. Fortition of the cross-linguistically rare interdental fricatives and to the almost universal corresponding stops and is relatively common. This has occurred in most continental
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...
and several
English dialects Dialects are linguistic varieties that may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling, and other aspects of grammar. For the classification of varieties of English in pronunciation only, see regional accents of English. Overview Dialect ...
, several Uralic languages, and a few
Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...
, among others. This has the result of reducing the
markedness In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...
of the sounds and . Fortition also frequently occurs with voiceless versions of the common
lateral Lateral is a geometric term of location which may also refer to: Biology and healthcare * Lateral (anatomy), a term of location meaning "towards the side" * Lateral cricoarytenoid muscle, an intrinsic muscle of the larynx * Lateral release ( ...
approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do prod ...
, usually sourced from combinations of with a voiceless
obstruent An obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well ...
. The product is a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative . In Welsh, words inherited from
Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the hypothetical ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed throu ...
with initial or hardened to and , respectively. Examples: Old Welsh ''lau'' to Modern Welsh ; Old Welsh ''ros'' to Modern Welsh . In the Cushitic language Iraqw, *d has lenited to between vowels, but *r has undergone fortition to word initially. In Friulian, > : ''yoyba'', ''jobia'' > ''dobia'', ''doba''; ''gel'' > ''dal''; Lat. ''iuvenis'' > ''doven''; Lat. ''iunius'' > ''dun''. Gemination of word-initial consonants occurs in Italian if a word-final stressed vowel precedes without intervening pause, in a process known as syntactic gemination. Final stressed vowels are by nature short, and short stressed vowels precede a consonant within a (phonetic) word only if that consonant ends the syllable. An item such as ''comprò'' 's/he bought' thus triggers
gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
of the following consonant, whereas ''compra'' 's/he buys/is buying' does not: ''comprò la pasta'' 's/he bought the pasta' but ''compra la pasta'' 's/he buys/is buying the pasta'. In addition to language-internal development, fortition can also occur when a language acquires loanwords. Goidelic languages frequently display fortition in loanwords as most initial
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 ...
s (except for , and ) are disallowed in the
citation form In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (: lemmas or lemmata) is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' are forms of the ...
of Goidelic words. Thus initial fricatives of loanwords are strengthened to the corresponding unlenited variant or the nearest equivalent if the fricative is not part of the phoneme inventory. Examples from
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
:


Post-nasal fortition

Post-nasal fortition is very common in
Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...
. For example, Swahili and become after a nasal prefix, and becomes ; voiceless stops become aspirated. In Shambala, and become , and and become and as well. In Bukusu, and become , becomes , and become . In other languages, voiceless fricatives become affricates ; see for example Xhosa.Jeff Mielke, 2008. ''The emergence of distinctive features'', p 139''ff'' This is similar to the epenthetic stop in words like ''dance'' () in many dialects of English, which effectively is fortition of fricative to affricate {{IPA, s}.


See also

*
Consonant mutation Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment. Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of al ...
* Final-obstruent devoicing *
Grimm's law Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or First Germanic Sound Shift, is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first d ...
*
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 ...
* Sesotho nasalization


References

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