Sandhi ( sa,
सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of
sound
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' b ...
changes that occur at
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on nearby sounds or the grammatical function of the adjacent words. Sandhi belongs to
morphophonology.
Sandhi occurs in many languages, particularly in the phonology of
Indian languages (especially
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
,
Tamil,
Sinhala,
Telugu,
Marathi,
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
,
Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...
,
Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
,
Bengali,
Assamese,
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...
). Many dialects of
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
show
linking and intrusive R
Linking R and intrusive R are sandhi or ''linking'' phenomena involving the appearance of the rhotic consonant (which normally corresponds to the letter ) between two consecutive morphemes where it would not normally be pronounced. These phenomen ...
.
A subset of sandhi called
tone sandhi
Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes.
It usually simplifies a bidirectional tone into a ...
more specifically refers to tone changes between words and syllables. This is a common feature of many tonal languages such as
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
.
Types
Internal and external sandhi
Sandhi can be either
* internal, at
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
boundaries within words, such as ''syn- + pathy'': ''sympathy'', or
* external, at word boundaries, such as the pronunciation "''tem books''" for ''ten books'' in some dialects of
English. The
linking process of some dialects of English ("''I saw-r-a film''" in
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
) is a kind of external sandhi, as are
French ''
liaison
Liaison means communication between two or more groups, or co-operation or working together.
Liaison or liaisons may refer to:
General usage
* Affair, an unfaithful sexual relationship
* Collaboration
* Co-operation
Arts and entertainment
* Li ...
'' (pronunciation of usually silent final consonants of words before words beginning with vowels) 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 ...
''
raddoppiamento fonosintattico'' (lengthening of initial consonants of words after certain words ending in vowels).
It may be extremely common in speech, but sandhi (especially external) is typically ignored in spelling, as is the case in English (exceptions: the distinction between ''a'' and ''an''; the prefixes ''syn-'', ''in-'', ''en-'', and ''con-''). Sandhi is, however, reflected in the orthography of
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
,
Sinhala,
Telugu,
Marathi,
Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...
and some other Indian languages, as with Italian in the case of compound words with
lexicalised syntactic gemination.
External sandhi effects can sometimes become morphologised (apply only in certain
morphological and
syntactic environments) as in
Tamil and, over time, turn into
consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment.
Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all ...
s.
Tone sandhi
Most
tonal language
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...
s have
tone sandhi
Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes.
It usually simplifies a bidirectional tone into a ...
in which the tones of words alter according to certain rules. An example is the behavior of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
; in isolation, tone 3 is often pronounced as a falling-rising tone. When a tone 3 occurs before another tone 3, however, it changes into tone 2 (a rising tone), and when it occurs before any of the other tones, it is pronounced as a low falling tone with no rise at the end.
An example occurs in the common greeting (with two words containing underlying tone 3), which is in practice pronounced . The first word is pronounced with tone 2, but the second is unaffected.
Examples
Celtic languages
In Celtic languages, the
consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment.
Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all ...
sees the initial consonant of a word to change according to its morphological or syntactic environment.
Following are some examples from Breton, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh:
French
The French
liaison
Liaison means communication between two or more groups, or co-operation or working together.
Liaison or liaisons may refer to:
General usage
* Affair, an unfaithful sexual relationship
* Collaboration
* Co-operation
Arts and entertainment
* Li ...
, in which a word-final consonant that is normally silent when occurring at the end of a phrase or before another consonant, is pronounced as if part of the next word when followed by a vowel, can be considered a form of external sandhi. For example, (two brothers) is pronounced with a silent , and (four men) is pronounced , but (two men) is pronounced .
Japanese
In
Japanese phonology, sandhi is primarily exhibited in
rendaku
is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of a non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. In modern Japanese, ''rendaku'' is common but at times unpredictable, with certain words un ...
(
consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment.
Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all ...
from unvoiced to voiced when not word-initial, in some contexts) and conversion of or (, ) to a
geminate consonant (orthographically, the
sokuon
The is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana '' tsu''. In less formal language it is called or , meaning "small ''tsu''". It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing.
Appearance
In both hiragana and katakana, ...
), both of which are reflected in spelling – indeed, the symbol for gemination is morphosyntactically derived from , and voicing is indicated by adding two dots as in , , making the relation clear. It also occurs much less often in , where, most commonly, a terminal on one morpheme results in an (or ) being added to the start of the next morpheme, as in ( + = ); that is also shown in the spelling (the kanji do not change, but the kana, which specify pronunciation, change).
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
has sandhi which occurs in the final consonant or consonant cluster, such that a morpheme can have two pronunciations depending on whether or not it is followed by a vowel. For example, the root "읽" /ik/, meaning read, sounds like /iɾk/ before vowels, such as in, 읽으세요 /iɾkɯse̞jo/, meaning please read. Some roots can also aspirate following consonants, denoted by the letter
ㅎ (hieut) in the final consonant. This causes "다" /tɐ/ to become /tʰɐ/ in 않다 /ɐntʰɐ/ (to be not).
See also
*
Alternation (linguistics)
*
Crasis
Crasis (; from the Greek , "mixing", "blending"); cf. , "I mix" ''wine with water''; '' kratēr'' "mixing-bowl" is related. is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong, making one word out of ...
*
Elision
*
Liaison (French)
*
Linking and intrusive R
Linking R and intrusive R are sandhi or ''linking'' phenomena involving the appearance of the rhotic consonant (which normally corresponds to the letter ) between two consecutive morphemes where it would not normally be pronounced. These phenomen ...
*
Movable nu
In ancient Greek grammar, movable nu, movable N or ephelcystic nu ( grc, νῦ ἐφελκυστικόν ''nû ephelkustikón'', literally "nu dragged onto" or "attracted to") is a letter nu (written ; the Greek equivalent of the letter ''n'') pl ...
References
External links
{{Wiktionary, sandhi
Sandhi Calculator by Vedic Society
Morphophonology
Sanskrit words and phrases
Vyakarana
Phonaesthetics