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, 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.

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 variet ...

English accents, including British

Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geog ...

, 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, 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 Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

word. In the genitive form, the final , while it was being deleted, blocked the loss of . In

Colloquial Finnish Colloquial or spoken Finnish () refers to the unstandardized spoken variety of the Finnish language, in contrast with the standardized form of the language (). It is used primarily in personal communication and varies somewhat between the differen ...

, the final vowel is sometimes omitted from case markers.

Grammatical rule

Some languages have apocopations that are internalized as mandatory forms. In

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

, 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 ma ...

s that come before the

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

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 ...

s and cardinal and

ordinal numbers In set theory, an ordinal number, or ordinal, is a generalization of ordinal numerals (first, second, th, etc.) aimed to extend enumeration to infinite sets. A finite set can be enumerated by successively labeling each element with the least ...

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