Sound changes

Question 1

What is assimilation?

Answer 1

Means becoming similar. Two neighbouring sounds will change in such a way that they will be pronounced in a similar way. It becomes closer to the pronounciation of the other sound: SCAMT becomes SCANT
BREATH becomes breEthø

Question 2

What is assimilation?

Answer 2

A sound change. It means becoming similar. Two neighbouring sounds will change in such a way that they are pronounced in the same way. It becomes closer to the other sound.
EX. Scamt becomes scant
It happens because of the principal of minimal effort. It is easier.

Question 3

What is palatalisation

Answer 3

Assimilation of place of articulation. A voicless K next to a front vowel i or e is moved towards the front of the mouth and becomes tj. ex. OE circe becomes church with tj.

or a voiced velar plosive g occur next to a front vowel is fronted to j, so weg becomes way.

Palatalisation was typical in old english but not in old norse ?

Ex: OE cirice is fronted to tj as in modern english church. Oe weg is fronted to modern english way.

Question 4

When can voicless consonants become voiced?

Answer 4

Yes, when voicless consonants are surrounded by vowels, they can assimilate and become voiced. The /t/ in a word such as spagetti start to sound more like a /d/

Question 5

What is dissimilation?

Answer 5

When there are too many sounds of the same kind in a row. For instance in fifths, many speakers make the middle fricative /ø/ into a stop. >They can also apply deletion to fifths and pronounce like /fifs/

Question 6

What is insertion or epenthesis?

Answer 6

Addition of a sound.

Eks. Punor becomes thunder

Question 7

What is deletion

Answer 7

omission of a sound, words loose sounds

eks. hlaford becomes lord

Question 8

What is metathesis?

Answer 8

Reverseal of neighbouring sounds. They swap places. 
Swapping -a vowel plus /r/ .
A diphtong counts as a vowel. 
Eks. beornan becames brennen
beorht becomes bright
acs becomes ask
hros becomes horse

Question 9

What is rhotacism

Answer 9

Is a process involving the sound /r/ and the change of certain consonants into /r/
You can see rhotacism in the alternation between wars and were, rise and rear, opus and opera

Question 10

What is the characteristics of an analytic language?

Answer 10

Use of prepositions, “the leg of the table”
use of word order to indicate subject “The man saw his friend”
no markings on verbs to indicate subject but frequent pronouns “They leave tomorrow”

Question 11

What is the characteristics of a synthetic language?

Answer 11

Use of endings “the table’s leg”
use of case to indicate subject
verb is marked for subject, and pronoun may be therer