phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, apocope () is the loss ( elision) of a word-final vowel. In a broader sense, it can refer to the loss of any final sound (including consonants) from a word.

Etymology

''Apocope'' comes from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

() from () "cutting off", from () "away from" and () "to cut".

Historical sound change

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

, ''apocope'' is often the loss of an unstressed vowel.

Loss of an unstressed vowel or vowel and nasal

* Latin → Portuguese (''sea'') * Vulgar Latin → Spanish (''bread'') * Vulgar Latin → French (''wolf'') * Proto-Germanic → Old,

Middle Middle or The Middle may refer to: * Centre (geometry), the point equally distant from the outer limits. Places * Middle (sheading), a subdivision of the Isle of Man * Middle Bay (disambiguation) * Middle Brook (disambiguation) * Middle Creek (d ...

, and Modern English ''land'' * Old English → Modern English ''love'' (noun) * Old English → Modern English ''love'' (verb) * The loss of a final unstressed vowel is a feature of southern dialects of Māori in comparison to standard Māori, for example the term ''kainga'' (village) is rendered in southern Māori as ''kaik''. A similar feature is seen in the dialects of

Northern Italy Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative Regions ...

Loss of other sounds

Non-rhotic Rhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic varieti ...

English accents, including British Received Pronunciation, suppress the final ''r'' in each syllable (except when it is followed by a vowel). (In most accents, the suppressed ''r'' lengthens or modifies the preceding vowel.) * French pronunciation suppresses the final consonant of most words (but it is normally pronounced as a ''liaison'' at the beginning of the following word in the sentence if the latter word begins with a vowel or with an unaspirated 'h'). * Latin → Spanish

Case marker

In Estonian and the

Sami languages Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...

, apocopes explain the forms of grammatical cases. For example, a nominative is described as having apocope of the final vowel, but the genitive does not have it. Throughout its history, however, the genitive case marker has also undergone apocope: Estonian ("a city") and ("of a city") are derived from and respectively, as can still be seen in the corresponding Finnish word. In the genitive form, the final , while it was being deleted, blocked the loss of . In Colloquial Finnish, the final vowel is sometimes omitted from case markers.

Grammatical rule

Some languages have apocopations that are internalized as mandatory forms. In Spanish and Italian, for example, some

adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...

s that come before the noun lose the final vowel or syllable if they precede a noun (mainly) in the masculine singular form. In Spanish, some

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering q ...

s and cardinal and ordinal numbers have apocopations as well. * Adjectives ** ("big, great") → → ( feminine) ("great woman". However, if the adjective follows the noun, the final syllable remains, but the meaning may also change: , meaning "large woman") ** ("good") → → ( masculine) ("good man"; the final vowel remains in , with no accompanying change in meaning) * Adverbs ** ("so much") → ("so") → ("so beautiful") * Cardinal numbers ** ("one, a, an") → → ("a child") ** ("hundred") → → (" One hundred years of solitude") * Ordinal numbers ** ("first") → → ("first prize") ** ("third") → → ("third place") ** ("final") → → ("final day")

References

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

External links

{{Wiktionary
World Wide Words: Apocope
Abbreviations Figures of speech Phonology