Week 5 Flashcards
Loss of a consonant sound:
Positions: 3
Initial: apheresis
Medial: syncope
Final: apocope
Merger is
‘the collapse of two or more sounds into one’.
Merger in unstressed syllables:
Esp. in
inflectional endings.
Merger in unstressed syllables:
Consequence: 3
metanalysis, juncture, metathesis of juncture: instability of final -n > shifts in boundaries»_space; reinterpretation of etymology; e.g. OF a naperon > Eng. an apron
Addition of a consonant (intrusion); esp. to
ease articulation.
Metathesis =
‘reversal or reordering of two sounds’.
Metathesis: esp.
liquids and vowels, or fricatives and stops.
Assimilation is typically motivated by
ease of articulation.
Voicing =
the addition of vocal cord vibration to a voiceless sound.
Vocalisation =
‘a phonological process in which a consonant becomes a semivowel or vowel’.
Excrescent (t) →
at end of word (it is a simple addition of the sound).
Assimilation =
an articulatory change in which a sound becomes similar or identical to an adjacent sound in voicing, manner of articulation or place of articulation.
Types of assimilation and dissimilation:
partial vs complete; progressive vs regressive
Dissimilation is typically motivated by
the need for perceptual clarity.
Vowel reduction =
MOSTLY ABOUT SCHWA. In unstressed syllables.
Vowel changes
Two types of changes:
- Qualitative changes: changes in the place of articulation.
- Quantitative changes: changes in length.
Lengthening:
homorganice, OSL.
Shortening:
of unstressed long vowels, pre-cluster, trisyllabic.
DIPHTHONGS ARE IN OLD ENGLISH BUT NOT
IN MIDDLE ENGLISH, ALL DIPHTHONGS BECOME
MONOTHONGS.
Short vowels (a, o, u, o) are all reduced to
schwa.
Monophthongisation and merger →
the 2 long OE diphthongs disappear.
This reduction of all unstressed vowels to schwa or I was
one factor in the ultimate loss of most English
inflections.
Vowel reduction: examples
(11th C.): spelling or sound.
CAUTION: simplification of a cluster vs.
loss of a sound.
