Table 3

Elimination of Phonological Processes in Typical Development

Phonological processes are typically gone by these ages (in years ; months)
PHONOLOGICAL PROCESS EXAMPLE GONE BY APPROXIMATELY
Pre-vocalic voicing pig = big 3;0
Word-final de-voicing pig = pick 3;0
Final consonant deletion comb = coe 3;3
Fronting
car = tar
ship = sip
3;6
Consonant harmony
mine = mime
kittycat = tittytat
3;9
Weak syllable deletion
elephant = efant
potato = tato
television =tevision
banana = nana
4;0
Cluster reduction
spoon = poon
train = chain
clean = keen
4;0
Gliding of liquids
run = one
leg = weg
leg = yeg
5;0
Stopping /f/ fish = tish 3;0
Stopping /s/ soap = dope 3;0

Stopping /v/ very = berry 3;6
Stopping /z/ zoo = doo 3;6
Stopping 'sh' shop = dop 4;6
Stopping 'j' jump = dump 4;6
Stopping 'ch' chair = tare 4;6
Stopping voiceless 'th' thing = ting 5;0
Stopping voiced 'th' them = dem 5;0


Table 2
Phonological Processes in Typical Speech Development
Phonological
Process
Example

Description

Pre-vocalic voicing car = gar
A voiceless sound preceding a vowel is replaced
by a voiced sound.
Word final devoicing red = ret
A final voiced consonant is replaced by a
voiceless consonant
Final consonant
deletion
boat = bo
A final consonant is omitted (deleted) from a
word.
Velar fronting car = tar A back sound is replaced by a front sound.
Palatal fronting ship = sip sh or zh are replaced b y s or z respectively
Consonant harmony cup = pup The pronunciation of a word is influenced by one
of the sounds it 'should' contain.
Weak syllable deletion
telephone =
teffone
Weak (unstressed) syllables are deleted from
words of more than one syllable.
Cluster reduction try = ty A cluster element is deleted or replaced.
Gliding of liquids ladder = wadder Liquids are replaced by glides.
Stopping ship = tip A stop consonant replaces a fricative or affricate.

Natural Phonology
I. Introduction
This theory is to be distinguished from the approach known as natural generative phonology (see Natural Generative
Phonology). The speech of very young children is clearly different in certain respects from that of adults speaking the
same language. Natural phonology assumes that childrens speech is governed by a large number of natural phonetic
constraints (see sect. 1), whereas adults have learned to suspend many of these constraints (Sects.2) and there by enjoy
the benefits of a more complex phonological system. In each language, mature speakers have learned to suspend
certain constraints, but leave others unaffected (Sect. 5). The set of unaffected constraints varies from one language to
another; this often has striking effects when a word is borrowed from one language into another (see Sect.6; see also
Loanwords: Phonological Treatment).
II. Processes
Natural phonologists have used the term process to refer to a natural phonetic constraint, i.e., a constraint which simplifies
articulation. Processes are typical of young childrens speech. The following are examples of processes:
(a) Consonant clusters are reduced to single segments (fly [flai] becomes[fai]).
(b) Unstressed syllables are deleted (potato [p teitou] becomes [teitu]).
(c) Voiced stops (e.g., [b], [d]) are made voiceless ([p], [t]) since the airflow required by voicing is interrupted by the fact of
complete closure of the oral tract.
(d) Consonants produced with the tongue body (e.g., [k], [g]) become articulated with the tongue blade ([t], [d] respectively).
Frontness of backness, and lip rounding or spreading, permeate all the segments of a word. The writers son had at one stage
of his development [dadi] Daddy, with frontness ([a].. cardinal vowel no.
4) and nonrounding spreading from the imtial [d] [momu] Mummy, with labiality of initial [m] spreading as rounding and
concomitant backness to the remainder of the word, and [g gw] doggie, with backness and nonlabiality of initial [g] spreading
throughout.
Some of these processes may have the effect of giving rise to sounds which are not to be found in the adult language. The
back unrounded vowel [w] of [g fw] (see (e) above) is a case in point; again, at one stage the same child produced scarf with
the final fricative assimilated to the initial velar plosive; [gax]-the velar fricative [x] did not appear in his parents speech.
Three types of process have been distinguished:
(a) Prosodic: mapping words, phrases and sentences on to basic rhythm and intonaation paatterns.
(b) Fortition: strengthening a sound (e.g. devoicing of obstruents), intensifying the contrast of a sound with a neighboring
sound (dissimilation), adjusting the
timing of movements so as to have the effect of inserting a new sound (sense[sens][sents]) or of making a nonsyllabic
consonant syllabic (prayed [preid] [preid]).
(c) Lenition: weakening a sound (e.g., making a stop into a fricative between vowels), decreasing the contrast of a sound
with a neighboring sound (assimilation, harmony), adjusting the timing of movements so as to have the effect of deleting
a sound (cents [scnts][sens]) or of making a syllabic consonant nonsyllabic (parade [preid][preid]).
It is claimed that fortitions are aimed at increasing intelligibility for the hearer, but that they often have the concomitant effect of
easing pronounccability; lenitions, on the other hand, have this latter effect as their exclusive goal. The effect of fortitions becomes
salient in slower, more formal speech styles, while lenitions are more likely to operate in faster, more colloquial styles.
III. Processes and Rules
Some processes may govern phonological alternations. For example, in German the cool meaning dog is pronounced [hund]
when followed by a suffix beginning with a vowel; Hunde dogs is [hund] followed by plural suffix [a]; in the nominative singular,
however, where there is no suffix, one has Hund [hunt]; this [d]-[t] alternation is brought about by the devoicing process ( c) above
(Sect. 1), which remains operative word-finally in German.
However, not all alternations arise from the operation of processes. Thus, in English, when electric takes the suffixity, its final /k/
becomes /s/ (velar softening) when serene lakes the sulfixity the long [I:] becomes short [e](trisyltabic laxing). The principles
governing these alternations are called rules in the theory. Rules typically operate in selective fashion (not all /k/ phonemes become
/s/ when followed by written i or e-kit, keep), are sensitive to grammatical considerations, and may tolerate exceptions (obese retains
long [I;] in obesity, even though trisyllabic laxing would be expected to occur). Processes, on the other hand operate across the
board with no exceptions. Rules need to be learnt, processes are (at least partially) unlearnt.

Intervocalic alveolar flapping
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Flapping" redirects here. For other uses, see Flap (disambiguation).

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols.
Without proper rendering support, you may see
question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead
of Unicode characters.
Intervocalic alveolar flapping is a phonological process found in many dialects of English, especially North American English (to
varying extents) and Australian English, by which either or both prevocalic (preceding a vowel) /t/ and /d/ surface as the alveolar flap
[] after sonorants other than //, /m/, and (in some environments) /l/.
after vowel: butter
after r: barter
after l: faculty
[citation needed]
(but not immediately post-tonic: alter [t], not [*])
The term "flap" is often used as a synonym for the term "tap", but the two can be distinguished phonetically. A flap involves a rapid
movement of the tongue tip from a retracted vertical position to a (more or less) horizontal position, during which the tongue tip
brushes the alveolar ridge. A tap involves a rapid upward and downward movement of the tongue tip, the upward movement being
voluntary and the lowering involuntary. The sound referred to here is the alveolar tap, not the flap, and hence "tapping" is the correct
term from a phonetic point of view (see also flap consonant). However, no languages are known to contrast taps and flaps (both are
represented in the IPA as ), and the term "flapping" is ingrained in much of the phonological literature,
[1]
so it is retained here.
Flapping/tapping is a specific type of lenition, specifically intervocalic weakening. For people with the merger these following
utterances sound the same or almost the same:
[show]Homophonous pairs
For most (but not all) speakers the merger does not occur when an intervocalic /t/ or /d/ is followed by a syllabic n, so written and
ridden remain distinct. A non-negligible number of speakers (including pockets in the Boston area) lack the rule that glottalizes t and d
before syllabic n, and therefore flap/tap /t/ and /d/ in this environment. Pairs like potent : impotent, with the former having a
preglottalized unreleased t or a glottal stop (but not a flap/tap) and the latter having either an aspirated t or a flap/tap, suggest that the
level of stress on the preceding vowel may play a role in the applicability of glottalization and flapping/tapping before syllabic n.
Some speakers in the Pacific Northwest turn /t/ into a flap but not /d/, so writer and rider remain distinct even though the long i is
pronounced the same in both words.
[citation needed]

Flapping/tapping does not occur in most dialects when the /t/ or /d/ immediately precedes a stressed vowel, as in attack [tk], but
can flap/tap in this environment when it spans a word boundary, as in got over [ov], and when a word boundary is embedded
within a word, as in buttinsky [bnski]. Australian English also flaps/taps word-internally before a stressed vowel in words like
fourteen.
In accents characterized by Canadian raising, such words as riding and writing, both of which have an alveolar flap, continue to be
distinguished by the preceding vowel: though the consonant distinction is neutralized, the underlying voice distinction continues to
select the allophone of the /a/ phoneme preceding it. Thus for many North Americans, riding is [a] while writing is
[].
[citation needed]
Vowel duration may also be different, with a longer vowel before tap realizations of /d/ than before tap
realizations of /t/. At the phonetic level, the contrast between /t/ and /d/ may be maintained by these non-local cues, though as the cues
are quite subtle, they may not be acquired/perceived by others. A merger of /t, d/ can then be said to have occurred in this
context.
[citation needed]

The cluster [nt] can also be flapped/tapped; the IPA symbol for a nasal tap is []. As a result, in quick speech, words like winner and
winter can become homophonous. Flapping/tapping does not occur for most speakers in words like carpenter and ninety, which
instead surface with [d].
[2]

A similar process also occurs in other languages, such as Western Apache (and other Southern Athabaskan languages). In Western
Apache, intervocalic /t/ similarly is realized as [] in intervocalic position. This process occurs even over word boundaries. However,
tapping is blocked when /t/ is the initial consonant of a stem (in other words tapping occurs only when /t/ is stem-internal or in a
prefix). Unlike English, tapping is not affected by suprasegmentals (in other words stress or tone).
Lenition in Irish English

Lenition in Irish English
The lenition cline
References
The term lenition refers to phonetic weakening, that is an increase in sonority with a given segment. In terms of the following
hierarchy, lenition leads to a movement upwards on the scale. If there is no vertical movement, then at least there is a
movement in point of articulation, above all from the oral to the glottal area.

Lenition normally consists of several steps and diachronically a language may exhibit a shift from stop to zero via a number of
intermediary stages. Attested cases of lenition are represented by the Germanic sound shift (stop to fricative), West Romance
consonantal developments (Martinet 1952) such as lenition in Spanish or more dialectal phenomena such as the gorgia toscana
in Tuscan Italian (Rohlfs 1949; Ternes 1977) or lenition in Canary Spanish (Oftedal 1986).
If one looks at English in this light one can recognise that the alveolar point of articulation represents a favoured site for
phonetic lenition (Hickey 1996, 2009). Alveolars in English can involve different types of alternation (Kallen 2005), three of
which are summarised below, the labels on the left indicating sets of varieties in which these realisations are frequently found.
Variety or group Lenited form of stop Example
American English Tap water [w:]
Urban British English Glottal stop water [w:]
Southern Irish English Fricative water [w:]

Lenition in Irish English

1) Glottalisation of /t/ Glottalisation involves the removal of the oral gesture from a segment. The realisation of /t/ as a glottal
stop [] is a long recognised feature of popular London speech but it is also found widely in other parts of Britain (including
Scotland) as a realisation of intervocalic and/or word-final /t/. This does not hold for supraregional varieties of Irish English,
especially in the south. The south has a fricative [] in these positions while the north frequently has a flap, cf. butter [b]
versus [b]. As a manifestation of lenition, glottalisation occurs in vernacular Dublin English, e.g. butter [b], right [r].
This fact may explain its absence in non-vernacular Dublin English, despite the change in this variety in recent years.
Glottalisation does not occur in southern rural forms of English either. Nor is it found in Irish so that transfer from the
substrate, either historically or in the remaining Irish-speaking areas, does not represent a source.
The Whole Floor is Wet with glottalisation of final /-t/ [-] (local Dublin speaker)

2) Tapping of /t/ Tapping can also be classified as lenition as it is a reduction in the duration of a segment. Tapping can only
occur with alveolars (labials and velars are excluded). Furthermore, it is only found in word-internal position and only in
immediately post-stress environments. As tapping is phonetically an uncontrolled articulation, it cannot occur word-finally
(except in sandhi situations, e.g. at^all) and cannot initiate a stressed syllable. For some younger non-local speakers in
Ireland, it is fashionable to use tapping as an alternative to frication, e.g. better ['be] (Hickey 2005: 77f.).
WATER with intervocalic flap (non-local Dublin speaker)

3) Frication of /t/ Of the three main options for the lenition of /t/ across varieties of English, frication is the most
straightforward in terms of increasing sonority. The alveolar stop shifts to an alveolar fricative with no change in place of
articulation or secondary articulation. The details of this shift will be considered below but before this it is necessary to
understand the context in which this shift takes place, i.e. the set of coronal segments in Irish English.
BIT BET BAT BUT (non-local Dublin speaker)


4) /t/ to [h] Especially in word-internal position local speakers can show the realisation of /t/ as [h], rather than using a glottal
stop. The use of these two sounds would appear to be in free variation, at least there is no sociolinguistic distinction between
these sounds though there is, of course, between both of them and the apico-fricative [] which is typical of non-vernacular
speech throughout Ireland.
LETTER with medial [h] (local Dublin speaker)


5) T-to-R An occasional feature of local Dublin English whereby and intervocalic /t/ can be shifted to [r] as part of lenition.
Normally, local speakers have T-glottalisation, T-tapping or T-deletion intervocalically. However, after a stressed vowel and
before a further closed syllable [r] can be found as in get up! [grp].

The lenition cline

T-lenition is a universal feature of southern Irish English. The fricative t [] occurs (i) intervocalically, as in city [si], and (ii)
word-finally and before a pause as in sit [s]. This apico-alveolar fricative can be further weakened along a cline which, in local
Dublin English, can lead to the deletion of /t/ entirely.

The following tables offer more detailed information about (i) syllable position and lenition in Irish English and (ii) the lenition
alternatives which exist.


A general term in phonetics for the process by which a speech sound becomes similar or identical to a neighboring sound. In the opposite
process, dissimilation, sounds become less similar to one another.
Assimilation is the influence of a sound on a neighboring sound so that the two become similar or the same. For example, the Latin
prefix in- 'not, non-, un-' appears in English as il-, im-. and ir- in the words illegal, immoral, impossible (both m and p are bilabial
consonants), and irresponsible as well as the unassimilated original form in- in indecent and incompetent. Although the assimilation of
the n of in- to the following consonant in the preceding examples was inherited from Latin, English examples that would be
considered native are also plentiful. In rapid speech native speakers of English tend to pronounce ten bucks as though it were written
tembucks, and in anticipation of the voiceless s in son the final consonant of his in his son is not as fully voiced as the s in his
daughter, where it clearly is [z]."
(Zdenek Salzmann, Language, Culture, and Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Westview, 2004)
"Features of adjacent sounds may combine so that one of the sounds may not be pronounced. The nasal feature of the mn
combination in hymn results in the loss of /n/ in this word (progressive assimilation), but not in hymnal. Likewise, the alveolar (upper
gum ridge) production of nt in a word such as winter may result in the loss of /t/ to produce a word that sounds like winner. However,
the /t/ is pronounced in wintry."
(Harold T. Edwards, Applied Phonetics: The Sounds of American English. Cengage Learning, 2003)
Partial Assimilation and Total Assimilation
"[Assimilation] may be partial or total. In the phrase ten bikes, for example, the normal form in colloquial speech would be /tem
baiks/, not /ten baiks/, which would sound somewhat 'careful.' In this case, the assimilation has been partial: the /n/ sound has fallen
under the influence of the following /b/, and has adopted its bilabiality, becoming /m/. It has not, however, adopted its plosiveness.
The phrase /teb baiks/ would be likely only if one had a severe cold! The assimilation is total in ten mice /tem mais/, where the /n/
sound is now identical with the /m/ which influenced it."
(David Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6th ed. Blackwell, 2008)
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Alveolar Nasal Assimilation: "I ain't no ham samwich"
"Many adults, especially in casual speech, and most children assimilate the place of articulation of the nasal to the following labial
consonant in the word sandwich:
sandwich /snw/ /smw/
The alveolar nasal /n/ assimilates to the bilabial /w/ by changing the alveolar to a bilabial /m/. (The /d/ of the spelling is not present for
most speakers, though it can occur in careful pronunciation.)"
(Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck, Linguistics for Everyone. Wadsworth, 2010)
Direction of Influence
"Features of an articulation may lead into (i.e. anticipate) those of a following segment, e.g. English white pepper /wat 'pep/
/wap 'pep/. We term this leading assimilation.

"Articulation features may be held over from a preceding segment, so that the articulators lag in their movements, e.g. English on the
house /n 'has/ /n n 'has/. This we term lagging assimilation.

"In many cases there is a two-way exchange of articulation features, e.g. English raise your glass /'rez j: 'gl:s/ /'re : 'gl:s/.
This is termed reciprocal assimilation."
(Beverley Collins and Inger M. Mees, Practical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Book for Students, 3rd ed. Routledge, 2013)
Elision and Assimilation
"In some situations, elision and assimilation can apply at the same time. For example, the word 'handbag' might be produced in full as
/hndbg/. However, the /d/ is in a site where elision is possible, so the phrase could be produced as /hnbg/. Furthermore, when
the /d/ is elided, it leaves /n/ in a position for place assimilation. So, we frequently hear /hmbg/. In this final example, we see again
that connected speech processes have the potential to influence meaning. Is /hmbg/ a rendition of 'handbag' with elision and
dealveolarisation, or is it simply 'ham bag'? In real life, the context and knowledge of the speaker's habitual patterns and preferences
would help you to decide, and you would probably opt for the most likely meaning. So, in reality, we are rarely confused by CSPs
[connected speech processes], although they do have the potential to cause misunderstandings."
(Rachael-Anne Knight, Phonetics: A Coursebook. Cambridge University Press, 2012)
Assimilation:
There are various types of assimilation, all of which have in common that one sound (the target) copies a feature or features of a sound
in its environment (the source). Assimilation may be classified in a number of ways.
A. By direction
1. Anticipatory (Regressive): The source of the assimilation is the second sound in the sequence. An example from English: n m in the
phrase ten billion tem bljn. Here it is the bilabial place of articulation which has been copied from the following b.
2. Perseverative (Progressive): The source of the assimilation is the first sound in the sequence. An example from English: n m in the
word happen hpm. Here it is the bilabial place of the preceding p which has been copied. Also called carry-over assimilation.
3. Coalescent (bidirectional): two segments combine to give a single output segment. Example from English: dd ju ddu.
B. By distance
1. Contact: the source and target are adjacent, though not necessarily in the same syllable or word. Examples as in A1. and A2. above
2. Distant: the source and target are separated by other segments. This is most common with vowel sounds and is called vowel harmony or
umlaut. Distant assimilation of consonant features does occur in child speech where it is usually called consonant harmony.
C. By feature(s) copied
1. Place: The place of articulation of a sound is altered to agree with some sound in its environment. In English, for example, alveolar
consonants are particularly susceptible targets for this kind of assimilation. An example is good girl gg gl, where the plosive at the end
of the first word copies the velar place of the following consonant.
2. Voice: Examples can be found where voiced consonants become voiceless, or voiceless consonants become voiced, under the influence
of a neighbouring segment. An example of the former change often occurs in the English phrase has to hs tu. An example of the latter
change can be seen in French: as (ace) as, as de pique (ace of spades) az d pik.
3. Manner: The manner of articulation of a sound is altered to agree with the manner of a sound in the environment. An example of this
from English is the occasional copying of nasal manner, as in the phrase good night gn nat.
D. By extent
1. Partial: only some phonetic features are copied from source to target.
2. Complete: the target is changed to become identical with the source. An example of this is the definite article l in Arabic. The final
consonant changes to become identical with the initial consonant of a following noun, if this consonant is apical. Example: d dar the
house.
Assimilation and coarticulation are very similar phenomena. The distinction between them is largely one which rests on the analysts
theoretical outlook. In traditional phonemic phonology, assimilation results in a phoneme different from the target, whereas
coarticulation does not. Also the term assimilation is usually reserved for those changes which are completely optional. Coarticulation
on the other hand is usually deemed to be more or less automatic and obligatory.
An obstruent is a consonant sound such as [k], [d], or [f] that is formed by obstructing airflow, causing a strong gradient of air
pressure in the vocal tract. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction.
Obstruents are subdivided into stops, such as [ p, t, k, b, d, ], with complete occlusion of the vocal tract, often followed by a release
burst; fricatives, such as [f, s, , x, v, z, , ], with limited closure, not stopping airflow but making it turbulent; and affricates, which
begin with complete occlusion but then release into a fricative-like release. Obstruents are prototypically voiceless, though voiced
obstruents are common. This contrasts with sonorants, which are prototypically voiced and only rarely voiceless.
n phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract;
these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like
/m/ and /l/: approximants, nasals, taps, and trills. In the sonority hierarchy, all sounds higher than fricatives are sonorants. They can
therefore form the nucleus of a syllable in languages that place that distinction at that level of sonority; see Syllable for details.
The word resonant is sometimes used for these non-turbulent sounds. In this case, the word sonorant may be restricted to non-vocoid
resonants; that is, all of the above except vowels and semivowels. However, this usage is becoming dated.
Sonorants contrast with obstruents, which do stop or cause turbulence in the airflow. They include fricatives and stops (for example,
/s/ and /t/). Among consonants pronounced in the back in the mouth or in the throat (uvulars, pharyngeals, and glottals), the distinction
between an approximant and a voiced fricative is so blurred that no language is known to contrast them.
A typical sonorant inventory found in many languages comprises the following: two nasals /m/, /n/, two semivowels /w/, /j/, and two
liquids /l/, /r/.
[citation needed]
English has the following sonorant consonantal phonemes: /l/, /m/, /n/, //, //, /w/, /j/.
[1]

Table of consonant manners
Obstruents Stops p b t d k g ?
Fricatives f v th s z zh
Affricates t dzh
Sonorants Nasals m n ng
Liquids r l
Glides j w

Obstruent voicing and devoicing
The phenomenon to be considered in this paper is the voicing alternation that obstruents
display in different phonological environments. Example (1) illustrates that voiced
obstruents may alternate with voiceless ones in
English, German, Dutch, and Polish. In the
words below, orthographic representations are given except for the relevant obstruents,
which are given in phonetic transcription within square brackets. Polish data are from
Gussmann (1992).
(1)
a.
English:
scri
[b]e
scri[pt]ure
b.
German:
bewei[z]en
to prove
Bewei[s]
proof
c.
Dutch:
bewij[z]en
to prove
bewij[s]
proof
d.
Polish:
wa[d]a
fault
wa[t]
fault
-
gen.pl.
Example (1a) illustrates that word
-
final obstruents may be voiced i
n English and that that
they can alternate with voiceless obstruents in some morphological contexts (i.e. when
immediately followed by a voiceless obstruent within the same word). Examples (1b
-
d)
show that in German, Dutch, and Polish, word
-
final obstruent
s are invariably voiceless. In
some morphological environments, adjacent obstruents in English must agree in voicing
(1a,
2a), but not in compounds (see 2b). In German, adjacent obstruents need not agree in
voicing (2c). Dutch and Polish are similar to Ger
man in that word
-
final obstruents are
voiceless in these languages (see 1b,c,d), but they differ from German in that obstruent
clusters always agree in voicing (see 2d,e).
(2)
a.
English:
lose [lu:z]
lo[st]
b.
hou[s]e, dog
hou[s.d
]
og
c.
German:
bewei[z]en
to prove
bewei[s.b]ar
1
provable
d.
Dutch:
bewij[z]en
to prove
bewij[z.b]aar
provable
e.
Polish:
z

a[b]a
frog
z

a[pk]a
frog
-
dim.
The next subsection considers a traditional rule
-
based account for the lack of
syllable
-
final
devoicing and the occurrence of voicing assimilation in certain contexts in English.
Subsequently, we discuss syllable
-
final devoicing and the absence of voicing assimilation in
German and, finally, we consider Dutch, which exhibits both wo
rd
-
final devoicing and
voicing assimilation.
1
Here and in subsequent
examples, syllable boundaries are indicated by a dot.
SFB 282 w
orking
paper n
o. 116, 2000, 'Two papers on constraint domains
.
'
HHU Dsseldorf
3
2.1
English voicing assimilation
The morpheme that expresses plural in English is realised as the voiced fricative [z] after
a
vowel (3a), a sonorant consonant (3b), or a voiced obstruent (3c). After a voice
less
obstruent, it is voiceless (3d). This process is known as progressive voicing
assimilation.
(3)
a.
bee
+ /z/

bee[z]
b.
lion
+ /z/

lion[z]
c.
dog
+ /z/

dog[z]
d.
cat
+ /z/

cat[s]
A morpheme that ends in a voiced obstruent in isolation is realised with a voiceless
obstruent before a suffix that consists of
-
or begins wi
th
-
a voiceless obstruent and this
process is called regressive voicing assimilation:
(4)
a.
fi/v/
+ /
T
/

fi[f
T
]
fifth
b.
wi/d/
+ /
T
/

wi[t
T
]
width
In traditional generative phonology, phonological processes are captured by rules of the
form A

B / C
---
D, i.e. an element A changes to
B in between the elements C
and D. To describe the devoicing process in (3d), one may suggest a so
-
called rewrite
rule that assigns the feature [
-
voice] to an obstruent which is immediately preceded by a
voiceless obstruent (5a). Similarly, the ph
onological rule for the devoicing process in (4a,b)
assigns the feature [
-
voice] to an obstruent which is immediately followed by a voiceless
obstruent (5b).
(5)
a.
progressive assimilation:
[
-
son]

[
-
voice] / [
-
son
,
-
voice]
---
b.
regressive assimilation:
[
-
son]

[
-
voice] /
---
[
-
son,
-
voice]
These two rules miss important generalisations. First, the rules suggested above miss the
generalisation that adjacent obstruents mu
st agree in voicing. Second, we need two rules
that both assign the same feature value, viz. [
-
voice] and we thus miss the generalisation that
obstruents tend to be voiceless. These generalisations or conspiracies can be expressed
as constraints against
marked structure. Constraint (6a) says that neighbouring obstruents
must have the same specification for the feature [voice] (see e.g. Lombardi 1996, 1999)
and constraint (6b) says that obstruents may not be specified for [+voice].
(6)
a.
AGREE:
C
C
b.
* C
[
-
sonorant]
\
/
|
[

voice]
[+voice]
SFB 282 w
orking
paper n
o. 116, 2000, 'Two papers on constraint domains
.
'
HHU Dsseldorf
4
In what follows, I show that the rules formulated in (5a) and (5b) are language specific,
whereas the constraints in (6a) and (6b) e
xpress universal tendencies. Furthermore, I show
that these generalisations also emerge as the unmarked case in child language and in
second
language acquisition.
The constraints in (6a) and (6b) are not absolute in the sense that they have to be
satisfie
d in all surface representations. Rather, the assumption in OT is that constraints
express tendencies and languages may choose to assign more weight to some constraints
and less weight to others. In English combinations of an obstruent final root and an
ob
struent initial affix, constraints (6a) and (6b) are satisfied and both obstruents are
voiceless in the surface form (see 4a,b). In English compounds, adjacent obstruents may
differ in their voicing specification in violation of (6a). Similarly, syllable
-
f
inal obstruents are
voiceless in German, even when a voiced obstruent follows, so that constraint (6a) is
violated in those cases as well.
2.2
German syllable
-
final devoicing
In German, obstruents which are voiced word
-
internally are realised as voicele
ss
obstruents in word
-
final position (see Wiese 1996 and references cited there):
(7)
a.
Hunde
-
Hun[t]
dogs

dog
b.
Diebe
-
Die[p]
thieves

thief
c.
Berge
-
Ber[k]
mountains

mountain
d.
Mu[z]e
-
Mau[s]

mice

mou
se
Furthermore, all syllable
-
final obstruents are voiceless, irrespective of the voicing
specification of the neighbouring segment.
(8)
a.
Freun[d]e
-
freun[t.l]ich
friends

friendly
b.
Lie[b]e
-
Lie[p.l]ing
love

beloved, darling
c.
bie
[g]en
-
bie[k.z]am
to bend

flexible
d.
bewei[z]en
-
bewei[s.b]ar
to prove

provable
We may formulate devoicing of syllable
-
final obstruents as a phonological rule that assigns the
feature [
-
voice] to an obstruent in syllable final position (
9). Alternatively, one may suggest a
so
-
called delinking rule which deletes the feature [+voice] from an underlying
representation
(cf. Lombadi 1995), or one may formulate a constraint which says that syllable
-
final
obstruents are not voiced (10).
(9)
Final devoicing:
[
-
son]

[
-
voice] /
Consonant voicing and devoicing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sound change and alternation
Metathesis[show]
Lenition[show]
Fortition
Epenthesis[show]
Elision[show]
Cheshirization[show]
Assimilation[show]
Dissimilation
Sandhi[show]
Other types[show]
v
t
e
In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its
phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most commonly, the change is
a result of sound assimilation with an adjacent sound of opposite voicing, but it can also occur word-finally or in contact with a
specific vowel.
For example, English suffix -s is pronounced [s] when it follows a voiceless phoneme (cats), and [z] when it follows a voiced
phoneme (dogs).
[1]
This type of assimilation is called progressive, where the second consonant assimilates to the first; regressive
assimilation goes in the opposite direction, as can be seen in have to [hft].
Contents
1 English
2 Syllabic voicing and devoicing
o 2.1 Voicing assimilation
o 2.2 Final devoicing
3 Sound change
4 References
5 Bibliography
English
English no longer has a productive process of voicing stem-final fricatives when forming noun-verb pairs or plural nouns.
belief - believe
life - live
proof - prove
strife - strive
thief - thieve
ba[] - ba[]e
brea[] - brea[]e
mou[] (n.) - mou[] (vb.)
shea[] - shea[]e
wrea[] - wrea[]e
hou[s]e (n.) - hou[z]e (vb.)
u[s]e (n.) - u[z]e (vb.)
Synchronically, the assimilation at morpheme boundaries is still productive, such as in:
[2]

cat + s cats
dog + s do[z]
miss + ed mi[st]
whizz + ed whi[zd]
The voicing alternation found in plural formation is losing ground in the modern language,
[citation needed]
, and of the alternations listed
below many speakers retain only the [f-v] pattern, which is supported by the orthography. This voicing is a relic of Old English, the
unvoiced consonants between voiced vowels were 'colored' with voicing. As the language became more analytic and less inflectional,
final vowels/syllables stopped being pronounced. For example, modern knives is a one syllable word instead of a two syllable word,
with the vowel 'e' not being pronounced. However, the voicing alternation between [f] and [v] still occurs.
knife - knives
leaf - leaves
wife - wives
wolf - wolves
The following mutations are optional
[citation needed]
:
ba[] - ba[]s
mou[] - mou[]s
oa[] - oa[]s
pa[] - pa[]s
you[] - you[]s
hou[s]e - hou[z]es
Sonorants (/l r w j/) following aspirated fortis plosives (that is, /p t k/ in the onsets of stressed syllables unless preceded by /s/) are
devoiced such as in please, crack, twin, and pewter.
[3]

Syllabic voicing and devoicing
Voicing assimilation
Main article: Assimilation (linguistics)
In many languages including Polish and Russian, there is anticipatory assimilation of unvoiced obstruents immediately before voiced
obstruents. For example, Russian 'request' is pronounced [prozb] (instead of *[prosb]) and Polish proba 'request' is
pronounced [prba] (instead of *[prba]). This process can cross word boundaries as well, for example Russian [dod
b] 'daughter would'.
Final devoicing
Main article: Final-obstruent devoicing
Final devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as German, Dutch, Polish, and Russian, among
others. In these languages, voiced obstruents in the syllable coda or at the end of a word become voiceless.
Sound change
Voicing of initial letter is a process of historical sound change where voiceless consonants become voiced at the beginning of a word.
For example, modern German sagen [zan], Yiddish [zn], and Dutch zeggen [z] (all "say") all begin with [z], which
derives from [s] in an earlier stage of Germanic, as still attested in English say, Swedish sga [sja], and Icelandic segja [seija].
Some English dialects were affected by this as well, but it is rare in Modern English. One example is fox (with the original consonant)
compared to vixen (with a voiced consonant)
Final-obstruent devoicing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve
this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2009)
Sound change and alternation
Metathesis[show]
Lenition[show]
Fortition
Epenthesis[show]
Elision[show]
Cheshirization[show]
Assimilation[show]
Dissimilation
Sandhi[show]
Other types[show]
v
t
e
Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as German,
Dutch, Russian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voiced obstruents become voiceless before voiceless consonants and in pausa.
Contents
1 German
2 Dutch
3 Russian
4 English
5 Differences between languages
6 Languages with final-obstruent devoicing
o 6.1 Germanic languages
o 6.2 Romance languages
o 6.3 Slavic languages
o 6.4 Other languages
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
German
In the southern varieties of German, the contrast between homorganic obstruents is rather an opposition of fortis and lenis than an
opposition of voiceless and voiced sounds. Therefore, the term devoicing may be misleading, since voice is only an optional feature of
German lenis obstruents. Likewise, the German term for the phenomenon, Auslautverhrtung, does not refer to a loss of voice and is
better translated as 'final hardening'. However, the German phenomenon is similar to the final devoicing in other languages in that the
opposition between two different kinds of obstruents disappears at the ends of words. The German varieties of the north, and many
pronunciations of Standard German, do distinguish voiced and voiceless obstruents however.
Some examples from German include:
Nouns Verbs
Singular Translation Plural Imperative Translation Infinitive
Bad [bat] bath Bder [bd] red! [et] talk! reden [edn]
Maus [mas] mouse Muse [mz] lies! [lis] read! lesen [lezn]
Raub [ap] robbery Raube [ab] reib! [ap] rub! reiben [abn]
Zug [tsuk] train Zge [tsy] sag! [zak] say! sagen [zan]
Fnf [ff] five Fnfen [fvn]

Dutch
In Dutch and Afrikaans, terminal devoicing results in homophones such as hard 'hard' and hart 'heart' as well as differences in
consonant sounds between the singular and plural forms of nouns, for example golf-golven (Dutch) and golf-golwe (Afrikaans) for
'wave-waves'.
The history of the devoicing phenomenon within the West Germanic languages is not entirely clear but the discovery of a runic
inscription from the early fifth century that shows devoicing
[1]
suggests that its origins are Frankish. Of the old West Germanic
languages, Old Dutch, a descendant of Frankish, is the earliest to show any kind of devoicing, and final devoicing had also occurred in
Frankish-influenced Old French.
Russian
Final-obstruent devoicing can lead to the neutralization of phonemic contrasts in certain environments. For example, Russian
('demon', phonemically /bes/) and ('without', phonemically /bez/) are pronounced identically in isolation as [bes].
The presence of this process in Russian is also the source of the seemingly variant transliterations of Russian names into "-off"
(Russian: -), especially by the French.
English
English does not have phonological final-obstruent devoicing of the type that neutralizes phonemic contrasts; thus pairs like bad and
bat are distinct in all major accents of English. Nevertheless voiced obstruents are devoiced to some extent in final position in English,
especially when phrase-final or when followed by a voiceless consonant (for example, bad cat [bd kt]).
Differences between languages
Devoicing is lexicalized in some languages, purely phonological in others. In Dutch, for example, words that are devoiced in isolation
retain that final devoicing when they are part of a compound: badwater "bath water" has a voiceless /t/, like bad "bath" does by itself,
though the plural baden "baths" has a voiced /d/. Similarly, avondzon "evening sun" has /ts/, though avonden "evenings" has /d/. In
contrast, Slovene does not do this: Voicing depends solely on position and on assimilation with adjacent consonants.
Languages with final-obstruent devoicing
Germanic languages
All modern continental West Germanic languages developed final devoicing, the earliest evidence appearing in Old Dutch around the
9th or 10th century. Gothic (an East Germanic language) also developed final devoicing independently.
Afrikaans
Dutch (also Old and Middle Dutch)
Old and Middle English (for fricatives)
[citation needed]

German and varieties (also Middle High German
[2]
)
Gothic (for fricatives)
Limburgish (for z, g and v)
Low German (also Middle Low German)
Luxembourgish
Of the North Germanic languages Danish, the closest to German, has final devoicing, while Norwegian and Swedish do not. Icelandic
devoices all stops completely, but still has word-final voiced fricatives.
Romance languages
Among the Romance languages, word-final devoicing is common in the Gallo-Romance languages, which tend to exhibit strong
Frankish influence (itself the ancestor of Old Dutch, above).
Catalan
Old French (preserved in certain Modern French inflections such as -if vs. -ive)
Lombard
Occitan
Romansh
Romanian does not have it. Other Romance languages such as Italian rarely have words with final voiced consonants.
Slavic languages
Most Slavic languages exhibit final devoicing, but notably Serbo-Croatian (the tokavian dialect) and Ukrainian do not.
Belarusian
Bulgarian
Czech
Macedonian
Polish
Russian
Serbo-Croatian (Kajkavian and akavian dialects)
Slovak
Slovene
Sorbian
Other languages
Armenian (for stops)
Azerbaijani
Cypriot Greek as opposed to Standard Modern Greek
Georgian (for stops)
Korean (nuanced; see Korean phonology)
Lithuanian
Maltese
Marshallese (in common articulation only; there is no phonemic contrast between voiceless and voiced obstruents)
Mongolian
[citation needed]

Tok Pisin
Turkish (for stops)
Yaghnobi
Note: Hungarian, which lies geographically between Germanic and Slavic languages, does not have it.
See also
Initial-consonant voicing
Surface filter
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with
vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other.
he term vowel harmony is used in two different senses.
In the first sense, it refers to any type of long distance assimilatory process of vowels, either progressive or regressive. When used in
this sense, the term vowel harmony is synonymous with the term metaphony.
In the second sense, vowel harmony refers only to progressive vowel harmony (beginning-to-end). For regressive harmony, the term
umlaut is used. In this sense, metaphony is the general term while vowel harmony and umlaut are both sub-types of metaphony. The
term umlaut is also used in a different sense to refer to a type of vowel gradation. This article will use "vowel harmony" for both
progressive and regressive harmony.
"Long-distance"
Harmony processes are "long-distance" in the sense that the assimilation involves sounds that are separated by intervening segments
(usually consonant segments). In other words, harmony refers to the assimilation of sounds that are not adjacent to each other. For
example, a vowel at the beginning of a word can trigger assimilation in a vowel at the end of a word. The assimilation occurs across
the entire word in many languages. This is represented schematically in the following diagram:
before
assimilation

after
assimilation
V
a
CV
b
CV
b
C V
a
CV
a
CV
a
C (V
a
= type-a vowel, V
b
= type-b vowel, C = consonant)
In the diagram above, the V
a
(type-a vowel) causes the following V
b
(type-b vowel) to assimilate and become the same type of vowel
(and thus they become, metaphorically, "in harmony").
The vowel that causes the vowel assimilation is frequently termed the trigger while the vowels that assimilate (or harmonize) are
termed targets. When the vowel triggers lie within the root or stem of a word and the affixes contain the targets, this is called stem-
controlled vowel harmony (the opposite situation is called dominant).
[1]
This is fairly common amongst languages with vowel
harmony
[citation needed]
and may be seen in the Hungarian dative suffix:
Root Dative Gloss
vros vros-nak 'city'
rm rm-nek 'joy'
The dative suffix has two different forms -nak/-nek. The -nak form appears after the root with back vowels (The vowel expected to be
used is a but this is a front vowel, therefore the vowel must be pronounced as an because and o are both back vowels). The -nek
form appears after the root with front vowels ( and e are front vowels).
Features of vowel harmony
Vowel harmony often involves dimensions such as
Vowel height (i.e. high, mid, or low vowels)
Vowel backness (i.e. front, central, or back vowels)
Vowel roundedness (i.e. rounded or unrounded)
Tongue root position (i.e. advanced or retracted tongue root, abbrev.: ATR)
Nasalization (i.e. oral or nasal) (in this case, a nasal consonant is usually the trigger)
In many languages, vowels can be said to belong to particular sets or classes, such as back vowels or rounded vowels. Some languages
have more than one system of harmony. For instance, Altaic languages are proposed to have a rounding harmony superimposed over a
backness harmony.
Even amongst languages with vowel harmony, not all vowels need participate in the vowel conversions; these vowels are termed
neutral. Neutral vowels may be opaque and block harmonic processes or they may be transparent and not affect them.
[2]
Intervening
consonants are also often transparent.
Finally, languages that do have vowel harmony often allow for lexical disharmony, or words with mixed sets of vowels even when an
opaque neutral vowel is not involved. van der Hulst & van de Weijer (1995) point to two such situations: polysyllabic trigger
morphemes may contain non-neutral vowels from opposite harmonic sets and certain target morphemes simply fail to harmonize.
[3]

Many loanwords exhibit disharmony. For example, Turkish vakit, ('time' [from Arabic waqt]); *vakt would have been expected.
Harmony processes are "long-distance" in the sense that the assimilation involves sounds that are separated by intervening segments
(usually consonant segments). In other words, harmony refers to the assimilation of sounds that are not adjacent to each other. For
example, a vowel at the beginning of a word can trigger assimilation in a vowel at the end of a word. The assimilation sometimes
occurs across the entire word. This is represented schematically in the following diagram:
before
assimilation

after
assimilation

V
a
CV
b
CV
b
C V
a
CV
a
CV
a
C
(Va = type-a vowel, Vb = type-b vowel, C =
consonant)
In the diagram above, the V
a
(type-a vowel) causes the following V
b
(type-b vowel) to assimilate and become the same type of vowel
(and thus they become, metaphorically, "in harmony").
The vowel that causes the vowel assimilation is frequently termed the trigger while the vowels that assimilate (or harmonize) are
termed targets. In most languages, the vowel triggers lie within the root of a word while the affixes added to the roots contain the
targets. This may be seen in the Hungarian dative suffix:
Root Dative Gloss
vros vros-nak "city"
rm rm-nek "joy"
The dative suffix has two different forms -nak/-nek. The -nak form appears after the root with back vowels (a and o are both back
vowels). The -nek form appears after the root with front vowels ( and e are front vowels).
Another example: Turkish araba (car) pluralises to arabalar but tren (train) pluralises to trenler.
Harmony assimilation may spread either from the beginning of the word to the end or from the end to the beginning. Progressive
harmony (a.k.a. left-to-right harmony) proceeds from beginning to end; regressive harmony (a.k.a. right-to-left harmony) proceeds
from end to beginning. Languages that have both prefixes and suffixes often have both progressive and regressive harmony.
Languages that primarily have prefixes (and no suffixes) usually have only regressive harmony and vice versa for primarily
suffixing languages.
Features of vowel harmony
Vowel harmony often involves dimensions such as
Vowel height (i.e. high, mid, or low vowels)
Vowel backness (i.e. front, central, or back vowels)
Vowel roundedness (i.e. rounded or unrounded)
tongue root position (i.e. advanced or retracted tongue root, abbrev.: ATR)
Nasalization (i.e. oral or nasal) (in this case, a nasal consonant is usually the trigger)
In many languages, vowels can be said to belong to particular classes, such as back vowels or rounded vowels, etc. Some languages
have more than one system of harmony. For instance, Altaic languages have a rounding harmony superimposed over a backness
harmony.
In some languages, not all vowels participate in the vowel conversions these vowels are termed either neutral or transparent.
Intervening consonants are also often transparent. In addition to these transparent segments, many languages have opaque vowels that
block vowel harmony processes.
Finally, languages that do have vowel harmony sometimes have words that fail to harmonize. This is known as disharmony. Many
loanwords exhibit disharmony, either within a root (e.g., Turkish/Turkic vakit/waqit, "time" [from Arabic waqt], where vak?t/waq?t
would have been expected) or in suffixes (e.g., Turkish saat-ler "(the) hours" [hour-PL, from Arabic s`a], where saat-lar would have
been expected). In Turkish, disharmony tends to disappear through analogy, especially within loanwords. Suffixes drop disharmony to
a lesser extent, e.g. Hsn (a man's name) < previously Hsni, from Arabic husn; mslmn "Moslem, Muslim (adj. and n.)" <
mslimn, from Arabic muslim).
Vowel harmony & umlaut terminology
The term vowel harmony is used in two different senses, explained below.
In the first sense, vowel harmony refers to any type of vowel harmony: that is, both progressive and regressive vowel harmony. When
used in this sense, the term vowel harmony is synonymous with the term metaphony.
In the second sense, vowel harmony refers only to progressive vowel harmony (beginning-to-end). For regressive harmony, the term
umlaut is used. In this sense, metaphony is the general term while vowel harmony and umlaut are both sub-types of metaphony. (Note
that the term umlaut is also used in a different sense to refer to a type of vowel gradation.)
Vowel harmony is a type of assimilatory phonological process involving vowels separated by consonantsi. e., not adjacent to each
otherthat occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found in
adjacent or succeeding syllables. For example, a vowel at the beginning of a word can trigger assimilation in a vowel at the end of a
word. The Uralic group (like Finnish and Hungarian) and Turkic (like Turkish and Tatar) are prominent instances of language families
with vowel harmony. Thus in Hungarian, vros city has the dative form vrosnak, whereas rm joy has rmnek: the dative suffix
has two different forms -nak/-nek. The -nak form appears after the root with back vowels (a and o are both back vowels), whereas -nek
appears after the root with front vowels ( and e are front vowels).
English does not have vowel harmony as a regular phenomenon, but a trace of this process may account for the strange case of the
common mispronunciation in both British and American English of the verb lambaste as [lambst], which is a compound consisting of
the verbs lam and baste, both of which mean to beat soundly, thrash, cudgel. Since the pronunciation of the second unit baste is
invariably [byst], the pronunciation of the compound ought not to vary from [lambyst], but does anyway. Only vowel harmony,
where the vowel of lam influences that of baste, suggests itself as an explanation for this deviation.
- See more at: http://languagelore.net/?p=2463#sthash.2kEV3VPY.dpuf



Umlaut may refer to:
Umlaut (linguistics), a sound change where a vowel was modified to conform more closely to the vowel in the next syllable
o I-mutation, a specific type of umlaut triggered by a following high front vowel, e.g. /i/
Germanic umlaut, a prominent instance of i-mutation in the history of the Germanic languages
o Umlaut vowel, any front rounded vowel (because such vowels appeared in the Germanic languages as a result of
Germanic umlaut)
o A-mutation and u-mutation (disambiguation), other umlaut processes operating in the history of various Germanic
lanuages
Umlaut (diacritic), a pair of dots () above a vowel, used in various languages; originally used to indicate vowels resulting from
Germanic umlaut
o Metal umlaut, the same diacritic in names of heavy metal or hard rock bands for effect
Lars Umlaut, a character playable in the Guitar Hero series of music video games
Umlut (born 1968), Clinton McKinnon's experimental Australian rock band
Umlaut (software), an open source link resolver front-end for libraries
mlaut (band), a band on CrimethInc

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umlaut
Define
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umlaut
Define
Relate
List
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Hear
Love
Definitions
from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
n. A change in a vowel sound caused by partial assimilation especially to a vowel or semivowel occurring in the following syllable.
n. A vowel sound changed in this manner. Also called vowel mutation.
n. The diacritic mark () placed over a vowel to indicate an umlaut, especially in German.
transitive v. To modify by umlaut.
transitive v. To write or print (a vowel) with an umlaut.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
n. An assimilatory process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vocoid that is separated by one or more consonants.
n. The umlaut process (as above) that occurred historically in Germanic languages whereby back vowels became front vowels when
followed by syllable containing a front vocoid (e.g. Germanic lsi > Old English ls(i) > Modern English lice).
n. A vowel so assimilated.
n. The diacritical mark ( ) placed over a vowel, usually when it indicates such assimilation.
v. To place an umlaut over a vowel.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
n. The euphonic modification of a root vowel sound by the influence of a, u, or especially i, in the syllable which formerly followed.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
n. In philology, the German name, invented by Grimm, for a vowel-change in the Germanic languages, brought about by the influence of
a vowel in the succeeding syllable: namely, of the vowel i, modifying the preceding vowel in the direction of e or i, and of the vowel u,
modifying the preceding vowel toward a or u.
In philology, to form with the umlaut, as a form; also, to affect or modify by umlaut, as a sound.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
n. a diacritical mark (two dots) placed over a vowel in German to indicate a change in sound
Etymologies
German : um-, around, alteration (from Middle High German umb-, from umbe, from Old High German umbi) + Laut, sound (from Middle High
German lt, from Old High German hlt).
(American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
From German Umlaut, from um ("around") + Laut ("sound"), from Old High German hlut. (Wiktionary)
Examples
What happens in umlaut is that a back vowel is modified so as to have the form of the corresponding front vowel when there is
a front vowel in the following syllable; this typically happens in plural forms of nouns, comparative forms of adjectives, and
other words that have suffixes, so Mann (man) becomes Mnner (men), lang (long) becomes lnger (longer), and Tod (death)
becomes tdlich (deathly, lethal).
Umlaut
The preposition um means around or surrounding, but as a prefix the word has the idea of changing or modifying; laut means
sound, so an umlaut is a modified sound.
Umlaut
a mark () used as a diacritic over a vowel, as , , , to indicate a vowel sound different from that of the letter without the diacritic,
especially as so used in German.
Compare dieresis.
2.
Also called vowel mutation. (in Germanic languages) assimilation in which a vowel is influenced by a following vowel or semivowel.
verb (used with object)
3.
to modify by umlaut.
4.
to write an umlaut over.
Origin
1835-1845
1835-45; < German, equivalent to um- about (i.e., changed) + Laut sound
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2014.
Cite This Source
Examples from the web for umlaut
Provision is made for an umlaut and other diacritical marks, but these are dropped in common usage.
British Dictionary definitions for umlaut
Umlaut
Palatal umlaut
Palatal umlaut is a process whereby short e, eo, io appear as i (occasionally ie) before final ht, hs, h. Examples:
riht "right" (cf. German recht)
cniht "boy" (mod. knight) (cf. German Knecht)
siex "six" (cf. German sechs)
briht, bryht "bright" (cf. non-metathesized Old English forms beorht, (Anglian) berht, Dutch brecht)
hlih "(he) laughs" < *hleh < *hlhi + i-mutation < Proto-Germanic *hlahi (cf. hliehhan "to laugh" < Proto-Germanic *hlahjan)

/mlat/
noun
1.
the mark () placed over a vowel in some languages, such as German, indicating modification in the quality of the vowel Compare
diaeresis
2.
(esp in Germanic languages) the change of a vowel within a word brought about by the assimilating influence of a vowel or
semivowel in a preceding or following syllable
Word Origin
C19: German, from um around (in the sense of changing places) + Laut sound
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cite This Source
Word Origin and History for umlaut
n.
1852, from German umlaut "change of sound," from um "about" (see ambi- ) + laut "sound," from Old High German hlut (see listen ).
Coined 1774 by poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803) but first used in its current sense 1819 by linguist Jakob Grimm (1785-
1863).

Now an umlaut is masculine, but an accent mark ...?
An Open Letter to David Horowitz

Okay, so they're spelling it differently (the umlaut is a nice touch, I must admit) ... but still!
Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch
"The computer thought the umlaut was the last letter in the alphabet and removed everyone else's names," he said.
The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed
Probably because of that strange little trema (a French kind of umlaut or diaeresis) over the "e".
Brooks Peters: Le Mot Juiced
Everywhere that his name appears in the printed text, the letter "u" is marked with two dots above it (called an 'umlaut') to
show that it is pronounced differently from the way the unmarked vowel is normally pronounced.
George Mller of Bristol And His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God
For those of you unfamiliar with German diacritics, "umlaut" is the name for the two dots above a vowel.
Express Milwaukee
#458783: Doesn't start if installed into a directory with an "umlaut"
GnuCash News
By the way, there is no "umlaut" ) in the name Under Byen - we don't have umlauts in Danish ;-)
Music While Painting

Related Words
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synonyms (2)
Words with the same meaning
1. trema
2. vowel harmony
hypernyms (2)
Words that are more generic or abstract
1. diacritic
2. diacritical mark
tags (1)
Free-form, user-generated categorization
1. vccvvc
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reverse dictionary (15)
Words that contain this word in their definition
1. umlaut
2. modify
3. mutation
4. umlaut
5. umlaut
6. umlaut
7. umlauted
8. mutation
9. Oe
some English language terms have letters with diacritical marks.
[1]
Most of the words are loanwords from French, with others
coming from Spanish, German, or other languages.
[2]
Some are however originally English, or at least their diacritics are.
10. Proper nouns are not generally counted as English terms except when accepted into the language as an eponym - such as
Geiger-Mller tube, or the English terms roentgen after Wilhelm Rntgen, and biro after Lszl Br, in which case any
diacritical mark is often lost.
11. umlaut n., v.t., umlaut-mark n.
12. from Umlaut "change of sound": also called vowel modification, mutation or inflection; the change of a vowel sound (e.g.,
mousemice, goosegeese, langlauflanglufer); the vowel altered in this way; the diacritical mark consisting of two dots
() over a modified vowel; to modify by umlaut; to write an umlaut over. [German < um- "about, changed" < Middle High
German umbe < Middle High German umbi + Laut "sound" < Middle High German lut, coined by Jacob Grimm of the
Brothers Grimm.] This entry suggested by Aldorado Cultrera.
The diacritic marks umlaut and dieresis [chiefly Am.] (also spelled diaeresis [chiefly Br.]) are identical in appearance but
different in function. The dieresis (Greek "to take apart") indicates that the vowel so marked is to be pronounced separately
from the one preceeding it (e.g., nave, Nol) or that the vowel should be sounded when it might otherwise be silent (e.g.,
Bront).
The origin of the German umlaut is an abbreviated "e", i.e. the vowel is influenced by the following (semi-)vowel "e" in a
process called apophany, therefore the correct transliteration of an umlaut is to use an "e" after the vowel. Umlauts occur
mostly in Germanic languages but also for example in Finnish. When German words with umlauts are assimilated into the
English language, they sometimes keep their umlauts (e.g., doppelgnger, Flgelhorn, fhn, Der Freischtz, fhrer, jger,
kmmel, Knstlerroman, schweizerkse, ber-), but often are simply written without the diacritic (e.g., doppelganger,
flugelhorn, Der Freischutz, yager), and less often are correctly transliterated using an "e" (e.g., foehn, fuehrer, jaeger, loess).
Of course, sometimes more than one spelling makes its way into English. Muesli could have originated from Mesli or Msli,
so it's not clear if the umlaut was lost or transliterated.




Rhotacism (/rotszm/)
[1]
may refer to an excessive or idiosyncratic use of the letter r, the inability to pronounce (or difficulty in
pronouncing) r, or the conversion of another consonant into r.
The term comes from the Greek letter rho, denoting "r"
In linguistics, rhotacism or rhotacization is the conversion of a consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant /z/, /d/, /l/, or /n/) to a rhotic
consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of /z/ to /r/.
[2]
English
Pronouncing the letter "r" is common in many dialects of American, Canadian, Irish, Welsh and Scottish English and less common in
the English of most of England, Australia, and New Zealand. Lenition of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to [d] or [] is also common in many
modern English dialects (e.g. <got a lot of> (phonemically /gt lt/) becoming [gd ld] or [g l]). Contrast is maintained
with // because it is never realized as a flap in these dialects of English.
[2]
hotacism (countable and uncountable, plural rhotacisms)
1. An exaggerated use of the sound of the letter R.
2. (countable, linguistics): A linguistic phenomenon in which a consonant changes into an R, such as Latin flos becoming florem
in the accusative case.
3. Inability to pronounce the letter R; derhotacization. [ quotations ]

rhotacism
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Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
n. An exaggerated use of the sound of the letter R.
n. : A linguistic phenomenon in which a consonant changes into an R, such as Latin flos becoming florem in the accusative case.
n. Inability to pronounce the letter R; derhotacization.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
n. An oversounding, or a misuse, of the letter r; specifically (Phylol.), the tendency, exhibited in the Indo-European languages, to change
s to r, as wese to were.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
n. Too frequent use of r.
n. Erroneous pronunciation of r; utterance of r with vibration of the uvula.
n. Conversion of another sound, as s, into r.
n. Also spelled rotacism.
Etymologies
From New Latin rhotacismus ("excessive or peculiar use of [r], especially the conversion of another sound (usually [s] or [z]) to [r]"), from Ancient
Greek * , from (rhotakiz, "I incorrectly use "), from (rh, "rho (the Greek equivalent of r)") (Wiktionary)
Examples
Sounds like proper Ringlish if you'll excuse an exaggerated intervocalic rhotacism.
languagehat.com: UNCLEFTISH BEHOLDING.
Since then he's discussed rhotacism in Venezuela (eg \er negro\ for el negro 'the black one'), lesmo in Madrid (the use of the
indirect pronoun as a direct object), and Occitan/Provenal, among other things.
languagehat.com: ROMANIKA.
They comprise chiefly: sigmatism or imperfect pronunciation of s; rhotacism or imperfect pronunciation of r; lambdacism or
imperfect pronunciation of l; gam -
The Montessori Method
They show more plainly (at least concerning rhotacism) than my own notes, some imperfections of articulation of the child in
the second year, which occur, however, only in single individuals.
The Mind of the Child, Part II The Development of the Intellect, International Education Series Edited By William T. Harris,
Volume IX.
She also speaks with a rhotacism, mirroring that 'classless' pronunciation of Jonathan Ross and David Bellamy.
Anorak News


ld English phonology is necessarily somewhat speculative since Old English is preserved only as a written language. Nevertheless, there is a very
large corpus of the language, and the orthography apparently indicates phonological alternations quite faithfully, so it is not difficult to draw
certain conclusions about the nature of Old English phonology.
Consonant allophones
The sounds marked in parentheses in the table above are allophones:
[d] is an allophone of /j/ occurring after /n/ and when geminated
o For example, senan "to singe" is [sendn] < *sangijan
o and bry "bridge" is [brydd] < /bryjj/ < *bruggj < *bruj
*+ is an allophone of /n/ occurring before /k/ and //
o For example, hring "ring" is [ri]; *+ did not occur alone word-finally in Old English as it does in Standard Modern English.
(Some dialectal forms of Modern English, e.g. in Northern England, retain the Old English pattern.)
[v, , z] are allophones of /f, , s/ respectively, occurring between vowels or voiced consonants.
o For example, stafas "letters" is [stvs] < /stfs/, smias "blacksmiths" is [smis] < /smis/, and hses "house (genitive)" is
[huzes] < /huses/.
[, x] are allophones of /h/ occurring in coda position after front and back vowels respectively. The evidence for the allophone [] after
front vowels is indirect, as it is not indicated in the orthography. Nevertheless, the fact that there was historically a fronting of *k to /t/
and of * to /j/ after front vowels makes it very likely. Moreover, in late Middle English, /x/ sometimes became /f/ (e.g. tough, cough),
but only after back vowels, never after front vowels. This is explained if we assume that the allophone [x] sometimes became [f] but the
allophone [] never did.
o For example, cniht "boy" is [knit], while eht "thought" is [jeoxt]
The sequences /hw hl hn hr/ were realised as [ l n r].
[] is an allophone of // occurring after a vowel or liquid. Historically, [] is older, and originally appeared in word-initial position as
well; for Proto-Germanic (PGmc) and probably the earliest Old English it makes more sense to say that [] is an allophone of // after a
nasal or when geminated. But after [] became [] word-initially, it makes more sense to treat the stop as the basic form and the
fricative as the allophonic variant.
o For example, dagas "days" is [ds] and burgum "castles (dative)" is [burum]
/l/ and /r/ apparently had velarized allophones [] and [], or similar, when followed by another consonant. This conclusion is based on
the phenomena of breaking and retraction, which appear to be cases of assimilation to a following velar consonant.
Vowels
Monophthongs
Most dialects of Old English had 7 vowels, each with a short and long version, for a total of 14 monophthongs. Certain dialects add an
eighth vowel, for a total of 16.

Front Back
unrounded rounded unrounded rounded
Close i i y y

u u
Mid e e ( )

o o
Open



The front mid rounded vowels /()/ occur in some dialects of Old English, but not in the best attested Late West Saxon dialect.
This latter dialect also contained the monophthongization of the ie/e diphthong (of disputed pronunciation), which was normally
written y (e.g. gelfan "to believe" from earlier elefan), although sometimes written with an i known as an unstable i (note variant
spelling elfan). Next to c, g and h, unstable i is the normal outcome (e.g. ifan "to give" from earlier iefan). This produced
additional instances of y, alongside those that developed from i-mutation and from sporadic rounding of i in certain circumstances
(e.g. mc el "much" from earlier mc el, with rounding perhaps triggered by the rounded /m/).
There is also historical evidence suggesting that short /e/ and /o/ were phonetically lower and/or more centralized (perhaps [] and [])
than the corresponding long ones; likewise // may have been pronounced [].
Diphthongs
Old English in the late West Saxon dialect had three diphthongs, each with short and long versions, for a total of 6.

Short
(monomoraic)
Long
(bimoraic)
First element is close iy/ie
2
iy/ie
Both elements are mid eo eo
Both elements are open
2. ^ It is uncertain whether the diphthongs spelt ie/e were pronounced [i()y] or [i()e]. The fact that this diphthong was merged with /y()/ in many dialects could
be interpreted to suggest the former, although even the monophthong i was often spelt as y in latter Old English writings.
Distribution of velars and palatals
The pairs /k/~/t/ and //~/j/ are almost certainly distinct phonemes synchronically in late West Saxon, the dialect in which the
majority of Old English documents are written. This is suggested by such near-minimal pairs as:
drincan *drikn] "to drink" vs. drenan [drentn] "to drench"
gs [es] "geese" vs. [je] "you"
Nevertheless there are few true minimal pairs, and velars and palatals often alternate with each other in ways reminiscent of
allophones, for example:
osan [teozan] "to choose" vs. curon [kuron] "chose (pl.)"
otan [jeotan] "to pour" vs. guton [uton] "poured (pl.)"
Standard Old English spelling used the same letter c for both /k/ and /t/, and g for both // and /j/. In the standardized orthography
used on this page, the velar and palatal variants are distinguished with a diacritic: c stands for /k/, for /t/, g for // and [], and for
/j/ and [d]. The geminates of these are spelled cc, , cg, . This diacritic was not written in the original sources.
The PGmc ancestor of both c and is *k. The ancestor of both g and is *g, which had two allophones: [g] when following /n/ or
when geminated, and [] everywhere else. (In the following text, we note both allophones, for easier understanding of the sound
changes; likewise for the allophones [d] and [] of *d, and [b] and [] of *b.) Palatalization of *k to and of *g to were generally
triggered by a nearby *i, * or *j and sometimes by other front vowels, with [] palatalized in more environments than [k] or [g].
Palatalization happened in the following environments:
before PGmc high vowels (*i, *) as well as PGmc *j
o Examples: if "(he) gives" < *iii, dan "to chide" < *kan; non-initially b "books" < *bkiz, san "seek" < *skijan,
bry "bridge" < West Germanic *bruggj < PGmc *bruj
before PGmc nonlow front vowels (*e, *, *eu), only when word-initial for [k] but in all environments for []
o Examples: eorl "churl" < *kerlaz, oce "cheek" < *keukN
before OE /, , , / < PGmc *a, , *au by Anglo-Frisian brightening and breaking (but not before OE /, / < PGmc *a, by a-
restoration): only when word-initial for [k] but in all environments for []
o Examples:
Before /, /: eaf /jf/ "gave" < *a
Before // From PGmc *au: as "chose (sg.)" < *kaus, at "poured (sg.)" < *aut, ace /tke/ "cheek" < *kaukN
Before / /: eald "cold" < *kaldaz, eard "yard" < *araz
after OE /i, i/, unless a back vowel followed
o Examples: i "I" < PGmc *ik, d "ditch, dike" < PGmc *dkaz (but wicu "weak")
For [] only, after OE /e, e/ and /, /, unless a back vowel followed
o Examples: we "way" < PGmc *weaz, nl "nail" < PGmc *nalaz, m "relative" < PGmc *maz (but wegas [wes] "ways")
Palatalization happened before i-mutation (umlaut); hence it was not triggered by front vowels that resulted from i-mutation:
cyning "king" < *kuningaz
gs "geese" < *si < *ansiz
cemban "to comb" < *kambijan
Palatalization was undone before consonants in OE:
sc "he seeks" < *s < *ski
seng "he singes" < *sen < *sangi
The palatalization of PGmc *sk to OE // (spelt s) is much less restricted: word-initially it is found before back vowels and r as well
as in the environments where and are found.
[1]

suldor "shoulder" < *skuldr
sort "short" < *skurtaz
srd (mod. "shroud") "dress" < *skr
Non-initially palatalization to s is found before PGmc front vowels and j, and after front vowels in OE, but not before an OE back
vowel
fis "fish" < *fiskaz
scian "ask" < *aiskn
In addition to /j/ from the palatalization of PGmc *, Old English also has /j/ from PGmc *j, which could stand before back vowels:
eong /jun/ "young" < PGmc *jungaz
eoc /jok/ "yoke" < PGmc *juk
Many instances where a /c, /g, or s/sc alternation would be expected within a paradigm, it was levelled out by analogy at some
point in the history of the language. For example, the velar of sc "he seeks" has replaced the palatal of san "to seek" in Modern
English; on the other hand, the palatalised forms of besan have replaced the velar forms, giving modern beseech.
Phonological processes
See also: Phonological history of the English language
A number of phonological processes affected Old English in the period before the earliest documentation. These processes especially
affected vowels, and are the reason why many Old English words look significantly different from related words in languages such as
Old High German, which is much closer to the common West Germanic ancestor of both languages. The processes took place
chronologically in the order described below (with uncertainty in ordering as noted).
Various conventions are used below for describing Old English words, reconstructed parent forms of various sorts, and reconstructed
Proto-West-Germanic (PWG), Proto-Germanic (PG) and Proto-Indo-European (PIE) forms:
Forms in italic denote either Old English words as they appear in spelling, or reconstructed forms of various sorts. Where phonemic
ambiguity occurs in Old English spelling, extra diacritics are used (, , , , , , , , ).
Forms between /slashes/ or [brackets] indicate, respectively, broad (phonemic) or narrow (allophonic) pronunciation. Sounds are
indicated using standard IPA notation.
The following table indicates the correspondence between spelling and IPA pronunciation:
Sound Spelling Pronunciation
Short vowels o e etc. /o e/ etc.
Short nasal vowels etc. / / etc.
Long vowels etc. /o e/ etc.
Long nasal vowels
etc.
/ / etc.
Overlong vowels /o e/
Overlong nasal vowels / /
"Long" diphthongs a o o e /a eo iu iy/
"Short" diphthongs ea eo io ie // ([]) / y/
Unpalatalized velars in Old English
1
c sc g ng gg /k sk/ [ ng gg]
Palatalized velars in Old English
1
s n /t / [j nd dd]
Proto-Germanic velars
2
k sk g sometimes also /k sk/ [g,]
Proto-Germanic voiced stops/fricatives
2
b d g sometimes also *b,+ *d,+ *g,]
1
See the section on consonant allophones for a description of the allophones of g and and when they occurred.
2
Proto-Germanic /b d g/ had two allophones each: stops [b d g] and fricatives [ ]. The stops occurred:
1. following a nasal;
2. when geminated;
3. word-initially, for /b/ and /d/ only;
4. following /l/, for /d/ only.
(By West Germanic times, /d/ was pronounced as a stop [d] in all positions.) The fricative allophones are sometimes indicated in
reconstructed forms, to make it easier to understand the development of Old English consonants.
A-fronting ("Anglo-Frisian brightening"), part 1
The Anglo-Frisian languages underwent a sound change in their development from Proto-West Germanic by which [], unless
followed by /n, m/ or nasalized, was fronted to [].
[2]
This is part of a process known in the literature as Anglo-Frisian
brightening. Note that nasalized was unaffected, and was later raised to (see below). Similarly, the sequences n, m were
unaffected and later raised to n, m. (It can be assumed, therefore, that a nasal consonant n, m caused a preceding long vowel to
nasalize.)
Monophthongization of /ai/
Proto-Germanic /ai/ was monophthongized to /a/ ([]).
[3]
This occurred after the fronting of West Germanic [] to [] by Anglo-
Frisian brightening. Examples are numerous, e.g. stn "stone" Proto-Germanic *stainaz (cf. Old Frisian stn vs. Gothic stin, Old
High German stein). In many cases the resulting [] was later fronted to [] by i-mutation, e.g. dlan "to divide" (cf. Old Frisian
dla vs. Gothic diljan, Old High German teilen).
A-fronting ("Anglo-Frisian brightening"), part 2
Part two of a-fronting (or "Anglo-Frisian brightening") is very similar to part one except that it affects short a [] instead of long
[]. a [] is fronted to [] unless followed by /n, m/ or nasalized the same conditions as applied in part one.
[4]

See a-restoration below for examples.
Importantly, a-fronting was blocked by n, m only in stressed syllables, not unstressed syllables. This accounts for forms like efen
(archaic efn) "given" from Proto-Germanic *gebanaz. However, the infinitive efan retains its back vowel because it was followed
by a nasal vowel in Proto-Germanic, which blocked the fronting: *geban. This provides evidence that the fronting occurred before
the loss of final -, which occurred before the earliest written records of any West Germanic language.
Diphthong height harmonization
Diphthongs in most languages are of the "closing" type, where the second segment is higher (if possible) than the first, e.g. Modern
English /ai, au, oi, ei, ou/. Proto-Germanic likewise had /ai, au, eu/ and [iu] ([iu] was an allophone of /eu/ when an /i/ or /j/ followed in
the next syllable). Old English, however, had unusual "harmonic" diphthongs, where both segments were of the same height: ea //,
eo /eo/, io /iu/, ie /iy/. Note that all of these diphthongs could occur both short (monomoraic), i.e. /, , , y/, and long (bimoraic),
i.e. /a, eo, iu, iy/. Note also that the spelling of the diphthongs differs somewhat from their assumed pronunciation. The
interpretations ea /a/ and eo /eo/ are generally accepted (evidence for the former comes from various sources, e.g. the behavior of
breaking and back mutation [see below]) and the Middle English development of ea into the short low-central vowel /a/). However,
the interpretations io /iu/ and especially ie /iy/ are controversial, with many (especially more traditional) sources assuming that the
pronunciation matched the spelling, i.e. io /io/ and ie /ie/ that is, these diphthongs were of the "opening" rather than harmonic type.
The process that produced harmonic diphthongs from earlier closing diphthongs is called diphthong height harmonization.
Specifically, the second segment of a diphthong was changed to be the same height as the first segment. Proto-Germanic diphthongs
were affected as follows:
/ai/ [i] had earlier been monophthongized to /a/ ([]).
/au/ [u] was fronted by a-fronting (aka Anglo-Frisian brightening) to /u/, and then harmonized to //, spelled ea
/eu/ [eu] was harmonized to eo /eo/
[iu] was already harmonic; it became phonemic, and remained as io /iu/ (this interpretation is somewhat controversial; see above)
Note that the remaining Old English diphthongs were due to other processes, such as breaking, back mutation and i-mutation.
Late in the development of the standard West Saxon dialect, io (both long and short) became eo, merging with existing eo. This is in
fact one of the most noticeable differences between early Old English (c. 900 AD) and late Old English (c. 1000 AD).
Breaking and retraction
Breaking in Old English is the diphthongization of the short front vowels /i, e, / to short (monomoraic) /, , / when followed
by /h/, /w/ or by /r/ or /l/ plus another consonant.
[5]
Long , similarly broke to iu, ea, but only when followed by /h/. Note that /l/ in
coda position has a velar quality (the "dark l" allophone in present-day English all, cold), and is therefore indicated as []. The
geminates rr and ll usually count as r or l plus another consonant, although ll produced by West Germanic gemination doesn't count.
(More correctly, /i/ or /j/ in the following syllable prevents breaking from occurring.)
Note that /, iu/ were lowered to /, eo/ in late Old English (see above).
The exact conditions for breaking vary somewhat depending on the sound being broken:
Short // breaks before h, rC, lC, where C is any consonant.
Short /e/ breaks before h, rC, lh, lc, w, i.e. compared to // it's also broken before w, but is broken before l only in the combination lh
and sometimes lc.
Short /i/ breaks before h, rC, w. However, breaking before wi does not happen, and in the Anglian dialect breaking before rCi happens
only in the combination *rzi (e.g. Anglian iorre "anger" from *irzij but afirran from *a+firrijan).
Long and break only before h.
Examples:
weorpan *wrpn] "to throw" < */werpan/
wearp *w rp] "threw (sing.)" < */wrp/
feoh *fx+ "money" < */feh/
feaht *f xt+ "fought (sing.)" < */fht/
healp *h p] "helped (sing.)" < */hlp/ (but no breaking in helpan "to help" because the consonant after /l/ is not /h/)
feorr *frr+ "far" < */ferr/
feallan *f lln] "to fall" < */fllan/ (but tellan < earlier */tlljan/ is not broken because of the following /j/)
eolh *x] "elk" < */elh/
liornian, leornian *lrnin+, *lrnin] "to learn" < earlier */lirnojan/
nah "near" [nx] (cf. "nigh") < */nh/
lon "to lend" [leon] < */liun/ < */liuhan/ < */lihan/
The i-mutation of broken /iu, eo, a/ (whether long or short) is spelled ie (possibly /iy/, see above).
Examples:
hwierf "turns" (intr.) < /hwrfi/ + i-mutation < /hwirfi/ + breaking < Proto-Germanic *hwirbii < early Proto-Germanic *hwerbii
hwierfan "to turn" (tr.) < /hw rfijan/ + i-mutation < /hwrfijan/ + breaking < /hwarfijan/ + a-fronting < Proto-Germanic *hwarbijan
nehst "nearest" (cf. "next") < /nahist/ + i-mutation < /nhist/ + breaking < /nahist/ + a-fronting < Proto-Germanic *nhist
lehtan "to lighten" < /liuhtijan/ + i-mutation < /lihtijan/ + breaking < Proto-Germanic *lhtijan
Note that in some dialects // was backed (retracted) to /a/ (//) rather than broken, when occurring in the circumstances described
above that would normally trigger breaking. This happened in the dialect of Anglia that partially underlies Modern English, and
explains why Old English ceald appears as Modern English "cold" (actually from Anglian Old English cald) rather than "*cheald" (the
expected result of ceald).
Both breaking and retraction are fundamentally phenomena of assimilation to a following velar consonant. Note that /w/ is in fact a
velar consonant, while /h/, /l/, and /r/ are less obviously so. It is therefore assumed that, at least at the time of the occurrence of
breaking and retraction, /h/ was pronounced [x] or similar at least when following a vowel and /l/ and /r/ before a consonant had
a velar or retroflex quality and were pronounced [] and [], or similar. Breaking and retraction occurred several hundred years before
recorded Old English. However, based on evidence from Middle and Modern English, it is assumed that /l/ and /r/ maintained the
same velar/retroflex allophones in the same contexts into recorded Old English. As for /h/, the later changes of h-loss and
palatalization indicate that some changes occurred in the allophones of /h/; see above.
A-restoration
After breaking occurred, short // (and in some dialects long // as well), was backed to /a/ (//) when there was a back vowel in the
following syllable.
[6]
This is called "a-restoration" because it partly restored original /a/, which had earlier been fronted to // (see
above). (Note: The situation is complicated by a later change in some dialects called "Second Fronting" that fronted short restored /a/
to // for the second time, while raising // to /e/. This did not affect the standard West Saxon dialect of Old English.)
Because strong masculine and neuter nouns have back vowels in the plural, alternations like // in the singular vs. /a/ in the plural are
common in this noun class:
//~/a/ alternation in masculine and neuter strong nouns
Case
Masculine Neuter

Singular Plural Singular Plural

Nominative d dagas ft fatu

Accusative d dagas ft fatu

Genitive des daga ftes fata

Dative de dagum fte fatum

A-restoration occurred before the * of the weak verb suffix *-j-, although this surfaces in Old English as the front vowel i, as in
macian "to make" < *makjan-.
Breaking (see above) occurred between a-fronting and a-restoration. This order is necessary to account for words like slan "to slay"
(actually pronounced /sln/) from original *slahan: /slahan/ > /slhan/ (a-fronting) > /slhn/ (breaking; inhibits a-restoration) >
/sln/ (h-loss) > /sln/ (vowel coalescence, compensatory lengthening).
A-restoration interacted in a tricky fashion with a-fronting (Anglo-Frisian brightening) to produce e.g. brecan "to break" from Proto-
Germanic *brekan but brecen "broken" from Proto-Germanic *brekanaz. Basically:
Step "to break" "broken" Reason
1 /brekan/ /brekanaz/ original form
2 /brekan/ /brekana/ loss of final z
3 /brekn/ /brekn/ Anglo-Frisian brightening
4 /brekan/ /brekn/ a-restoration
5 /brekan/ /brekn/ loss of final short vowels
6 /brekan/ /breken/ collapse of unstressed short front vowels to /e/
7 brecan brecen spelled normally
Note that the key difference is in steps 3 and 4, where nasalized is unaffected by a-fronting even though the sequence an is in fact
affected, since it occurs in an unstressed syllable. This leads to a final-syllable difference between a and , which is transferred to the
preceding syllable in step 4.
Palatalization
Palatalization of velars occurred before, and sometimes after, front vowels. This occurred after a-restoration and before i-mutation, but
it is unclear whether it occurred before or after h-loss. Thus, it did not occur in galan "to sing" (cf. modern English "regale"), with the
first /a/ backed from // due to a-restoration. Similarly, palatalization occurred in d "day" but not in a-restored dagas "days" (cf.
dialectal English dawes "days") or in OE dagung "dawn", where the w is the modern reflex of unpalatalized //. Nor did it occur in
cyning "king", with front /y/ developed from /u/ due to i-mutation.
The exact circumstances in which palatalization occurred are complicated; see the above section on the distribution of velars and
palatals for more information. However, the following summary is largely accurate:
When palatalized, /k/, //, //, /sk/ became /t/, /d/, //, //. // later becomes /j/, but not before the loss of older /j/ below.
Generally, the velar stops /k/, // were palatalized by a following /i()/ or /j/; by a preceding /i()/ (possibly with an intervening /n/),
unless the velar stop was followed by a back vowel; and by other front vowels following a specifically word-initial /k/. (At this point,
there was no word-initial //.)
// was palatalized in somewhat broader circumstances: By any following front vowel, as well as by a preceding front vowel when a
vowel did not immediately follow the //.
/sk/ is palatalized in almost all circumstances. PG *skipaz > NE ship (cf. skipper < Dutch schipper, where no such change happened), but
West Frisian skip. PG *skurtijaz > OE scyrte > NE shirt, but > ON skyrt > NE skirt.
[1]
An example of retained /sk/ is PG *aiskn > OE ascian
> NE ask.
Palatal sounds reverted to their non-palatal equivalents when they came to stand immediately before a consonant, even if this occurred
at a significantly later period (e.g. sc "(he) seeks" < *si). The resulting alternation between e.g. san "to seek" and sc "(he)
seeks", followed by the differing operation of analogy, is why we have "to seek" but "to beseech" in modern English, which both
originally had the same verb root.
Second fronting

10 Poems that Written by Filipino Writers
Saturday, September 25, 2010
10 Poems that Written by Filipino Writers

1.

Last Love


by: J.D. Mariposa


Best of friends
together took a leap
Now true friends
ahh! feelings run deep
Two hearts fused
hands ever entwined



Ti's all worth the wait
to care for one as kindly
Never never too late
to love but not blindly


So, to you my friend first,
my last love, i say
I'll be true every and
each of my waking day!


2.
Last Piece in the Puzzle of My life
Vic P. Yambao

The sweetness of your Voice
Your soul searching eyes
Throw in the smiling lips
Makes my life complete


Missing you,when you're gone
But frozen stiff
when you're around
As my worthless life
is now complete
This dream might end...
if I'll stir...


3.
Who Am I
Brian Joseph Sy

Who am I to blindly believe that
I can become parcel of this sacred ground?
To pretend that I am a strong wind
to guide your ever sturdy wings

Who am I to change this persistent blue rain?
To pretend that I can wash the sorrows away
from your ever beating heart

Who am I to care for this mortified soul?
To pretend that sanctity ascends in my
figureless touch

I am none. Transcending only the littlest of
existence only meager eyes could see.
In the skies I plead alms
to catch your merciful grace;

To rescue me from this
lonesome cloud of misery
that I call self


4.
Tracing You
Kristina Aquino

Imagine the train tracks,
the train speeding away from you.
We were somewhere
and someone else a minute ago.

So I give you this,
the poet, the imagined martyr,
unmoving in her seat--she is one
of the firsts, she is daybreak today--
it does nothing but stare back.
She is so still the train stops with her.
"Cubao", she mouths.

Imagine the train tracks,
the train speeding away from
you, Cubao.
We were with you
some minute ago.

There are buildings
on the way to the end of the line,
but structure
eliminates the idea of a horizon.
It is sad when imagined things
start dying, too.


5.
Friendship
Vener Santos

Days will pass,
And things will grow old.
Flowers will bloom,
And soon will decay.
But when friendship starts,
All of the year it will remain fresh.

Friends will grow old,
But friendship will never.
As long as we both care,
It will remain young forever.
Death will separate it on earth,
But it will reborn in heaven.


6.
No rest
Kyo Zapanta

It's time for me to rest for a while
My condition is not that good
But hell, I can't seem to leave behind
Whatever it is that I must do

c pI know its been in overtime
I shouldnt be here anymore
But that workaholiart of me
Seem to like the stress in store

But then again by heads in pain
My body is just saying no
My eyes are swollen and tears are forming
I could cry in stress ever so

But I wouldnt cry even if I feel it
For when I do Ill be okay
Then I would again want to work
And Ill be working for the rest of the day


7.
Distillation
Jan L. Velasco
Watching the rain spilling down,
drowning the earth below,
reminds me of
life's perpetual change.

The storm that we dread,
is a sea of kindness
that lifts--the mask
of (world's) avarice and sufferings
and fills the thirst, up to the brim of our souls.


8.
Now I Know
Jose Paulo Tolentino
Seven months felt like seven years
and now I face my greatest fears
Why before I could never wait
but now I know the heavy weight.

In a strange world, a mad city,
it is tough to be an adult
you take responsibility
to bear frustration and insult

There are days I would like to die
life is not pretty as it seem
Leave this and what do I redeem?
many I have learned is just a lie

They say I should create a goal
Love and life is what you make it
but somehow it just could not fit
All I have is a hollow soul

From here I don't know where to go
Being an adult, now I know.


9.
Hot
Karlo Pineda
A wrinkled forehead
alters your fair face.
Furious stares nest
in your eyes--sanctuaries
for nothing save fears and fires.

By this time
you are a swollen sun
ready to punish
my city with the scorching
of twin hells.

And in your mad radiation
I am a giant sunburn.

As I write this poem
my heart has already exploded
to myriad embers.
10.
My unfinished verse
Ulysses Palmones

You were sitting on the coach, you stole my glance
My heart leaps, nowhere to run
I tried to hide, pretended and lied
You were just a dream
Part of my foolish game.

How can I disguise those sleepless nights?
Where silhouette of thy beauty
Humming to my serenity
A glowing ember
A feeling next to never.

Chasing my illusion, my eventual desperation
Tasted the nectar of bitterness
and plan tomorrow, how to clean my mess
A test to my sanity
Or maybemy stupidity..

Will you came to unlock my chain?
Maybe a piece of gem
To replace the wedding ring
A cradle to my loneliness
and craziness.







Posted by Suzette Caryl at 1:33 AM 2 comments:
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Intro (play twice):
Dm - C - G
C - G/B - Am

Verse:
C Am
I will never find another lover sweeter than
F G
you, sweeter than you
C Am
I will never find another lover more precious than
F G
you, more precious than you
C
Girl You are Close to me you're like my mother,
Am
Close to me you're like my father,
F
Close to me you're like my sister,
G
Close to me you're like my brother
Am Dm F G
You are the only one my everything and for you this song I sing

Chorus:

Dm C G C Am
All my life, I pray for someone like you,
Dm C G C Am
I thank God that I, that I finally found you
Dm C G Em Am
All my life I pray for someone like you
F G C G/B Am
And I hope that you feel the same way too
F G
Yes, I pray that you do, love me too

Interlude:
C - Am - F - G (2x)

Verse #2:
C Am
Said I promised to never fall in love with a stranger,
F G
You're all I'm thinking of I praise the Lord above,
C Am F
For sending me your love, I cherish every hug,
G
I REALLY LOVE YOU!!!


Chorus #2:

Dm C G C Am
All my life, I pray for someone like you,
Dm C G C Am
I thank God that I, that I finally found you
Dm C G Em Am
All my life I pray for someone like you
F G C G/B Am
And I hope that you feel the same way too
F G
Yes, I pray that you do, love me


Bridge:

Dm G
You're all that I've ever known, your smile on your face,
C G/B Am
all I see is a glow,
Dm G C G/B Am
You turned my life around, You picked me up when I was down,
Dm G
You're all that I've ever known, when you smile your face glows,
C G/B Am
You picked me up when I was down
Dm G
You're all that I've ever known, when you smile your face glows,
C G/B Am F G
You picked me up when I was down & I hope that you feel the same way
C G/B Am
too,
F G C G/B Am
Yes I pray that you do love me too

Dm C G C Am
All my life, I pray for someone like you,
Dm C G C Am
I thank God that I, that I finally found you

No guitars here anymore - a capella:

All my life I pray for someone like you
I hope that you feel the same way too
Yes, I pray that you do, love me too
All my life I pray for someone like you

Chords (normal tuning):
EADGBe
Dm: xx0231
C: x32010
G: 320033
G/B: x2003x
Am: x02210
F: 133211
O ang babae 'pag minamahal
May kursunada'y aayaw-ayaw
'Pag panay ang dalaw ay nayayamot
Huwag mong dalawin, dadabog-dabog
Huwag mong suyuin ay nagmamaktol
'Pag iyong iniwan, hahabol-habol


Mayroong bata akong nililigawan
Na kung aking pinapanhik ng bahay
Nagatatago at ayaw malapitan
Kung may pag-ibig
Ay di ko malaman
O, ang babae 'pag minamahal
Maloloko ka ng husto sa buhay