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Merger (phonology)
In historical linguistics, phonological change is any sound change that alters the distribution of phonemes in a language. In other words, a language develops a new system of oppositions among its phonemes. Old contrasts may disappear, new ones may emerge, or they may simply be rearranged. Sound change may be an impetus for changes in the phonological structures of a language (and likewise, phonological change may sway the process of sound change). One process of phonological change is ''rephonemicization'', in which the distribution of phonemes changes by either addition of new phonemes or a reorganization of existing phonemes. Mergers and splits are types of rephonemicization and are discussed further below. Types In a typological scheme first systematized by Henry M. Hoenigswald in 1965, a historical sound law can only affect a phonological system in one of three ways: * Conditioned merger (which Hoenigswald calls "primary split"), in which some instances of phoneme A be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 # to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and to determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families ( comparative linguistics) # to develop general theories about how and why language changes # to describe the history of speech communities # to study the history of words, i.e. etymology Historical linguistics is founded on the Uniformitarian Principle, which is defined by linguist Donald Ringe as: History and development Western modern historical linguistics dates from the late-18th century. It grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. At first, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of comparative linguistics, primarily as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phone (phonetics)
In phonetics and linguistics, a phone is any distinct speech sound or gesture, regardless of whether the exact sound is critical to the meanings of words. In contrast, a phoneme is a speech sound in a given language that, if swapped with another phoneme, could change one word to another. Phones are absolute and are not specific to any language, but phonemes can be discussed only in reference to specific languages. For example, the English words ''kid'' and ''kit'' end with two distinct phonemes, and , and swapping one for the other would change one word into a different word. However, the difference between the sounds in ''pun'' (, with aspiration) and ''spun'' (, without aspiration) never affects the meaning or identity of a word in English. Therefore, cannot be replaced with (or vice versa) and thereby convert one word to another. That causes and to be two distinct phones but not distinct phonemes in English. In contrast to English, swapping the same two sounds in Hindu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alternation (linguistics)
In linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant. The variation may be conditioned by the phonological, morphological, and/or syntactic environment in which the morpheme finds itself. Alternations provide linguists with data that allow them to determine the allophones and allomorphs of a language's phonemes and morphemes and to develop analyses determining the distribution of those allophones and allomorphs. Phonologically conditioned alternation An example of a phonologically conditioned alternation is the English plural marker commonly spelled ''s'' or ''es''. This morpheme is pronounced , , or ,The vowel of the inflectional suffix - may belong to the phoneme of either or depending on dialect, and is a shorthand for "either or ". This usage of the symbol is borrowed from the ''Oxford English Dictionary''. depending on the nature of the preceding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhoticity In English
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 varieties, the historical English sound is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic varieties, speakers no longer pronounce in postvocalic environments—that is, when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. For example, in isolation, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the words ''hard'' and ''butter'' as and , whereas a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the sound, pronouncing them as and . When an ''r'' is at the end of a word but the next word begins with a vowel, as in the phrase "bette''r a''pples", most non-rhotic speakers will pronounce the in that position (the linking R), since it is followed by a vowel in this case. The rhotic varieties of English include the dialects of South We ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language In England
The English language spoken and written in England encompasses a diverse range of accents and dialects. The language forms part of the broader British English, along with other varieties in the United Kingdom. Terms used to refer to the English language spoken and written in England include: English English and Anglo-English. The related term ''British English'' has many ambiguities and tensions in the word ''British'', so it can be used and interpreted in multiple ways, but it is usually reserved to describe the features common to Anglo-English, Welsh English and Scottish English (England, Wales and Scotland are the three traditional countries on the island of Great Britain; the main dialect of the fourth country of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, is Ulster English, which is generally considered a dialect of Hiberno-English). General features There are many different accents and dialects throughout England and people are often very proud of their local accent o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Father-bother Merger
The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, as well as more recent developments such as the ''cot–caught'' merger. Overview Old and Middle English In the Old English vowel system, the vowels in the open back area were unrounded: . There were also rounded back vowels of mid-height: . The corresponding spellings were and , with the length distinctions not normally marked; in modern editions of Old English texts, the long vowels are often written , . As the Old English (OE) system developed into that of Middle English (ME), the OE short vowel merged with the fronted to become a more central ME . Meanwhile, the OE long vowel was rounded and raised to ME . OE short remained relatively unchanged, becoming a short ME vowel regarded as , while OE long beca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken varieties are often grouped together under a single category. Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, with British spellings of certain words (e.g., ''colour'') being favored in more formal settings and in Canadian print media; for some other words the American spelling prevails over the British (e.g., ''tire'' rather than ''tyre''). Dialects of American English spoken by United Empire Loyalists who fled the American Revolution (1775–1783) have had a large influence on Canadian English from its early roots. Some terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in Canada and the United States (for example, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vowel Reduction
In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic ''quality'' of vowels as a result of changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for the Creek language), and which are perceived as "weakening". It most often makes the vowels shorter as well. Vowels which have undergone vowel reduction may be called ''reduced'' or ''weak''. In contrast, an unreduced vowel may be described as ''full'' or ''strong''. Transcription There are several ways to distinguish full and reduced vowels in transcription. Some English dictionaries mark full vowels for secondary stress, so that e.g. is a full unstressed vowel while is a reduced, unstressed ''schwi''. Or the vowel quality may be portrayed as distinct, with reduced vowels centralized, such as full vs reduced or . Since the IPA only supplies letters for two reduced vowels, open and mid , transcribers of languages such as RP English and Russian that have more than these ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech apparatus) moves during the pronunciation of the vowel. In most varieties of English, the phrase "no highway cowboy" () has five distinct diphthongs, one in every syllable. Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs, where the tongue or other speech organs do not move and the syllable contains only a single vowel sound. For instance, in English, the word ''ah'' is spoken as a monophthong (), while the word ''ow'' is spoken as a diphthong in most varieties (). Where two adjacent vowel sounds occur in different syllables (e.g. in the English word ''re-elect'') the result is described as hiatus, not as a diphthong. (The English word ''hiatus'' () is itself an example of both hiatus and diphthongs.) Diphthongs often form when separate vowels are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Analogy
Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject (the analog, or source) to another (the target), or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. In a narrower sense, analogy is an inference or an argument from one particular to another particular, as opposed to deduction, induction, and abduction, in which at least one of the premises, or the conclusion, is general rather than particular in nature. The term analogy can also refer to the relation between the source and the target themselves, which is often (though not always) a similarity, as in the biological notion of analogy. Analogy plays a significant role in problem solving, as well as decision making, argumentation, perception, generalization, memory, creativity, invention, prediction, emotion, explanation, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion, diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age#South Asia, Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a lingua franca, link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Indo-Aryan languages#Old Indo- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palatalization (sound Change)
Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation of a consonant or, in certain cases, a front vowel. Palatalization involves change in the place or manner of articulation of consonants, or the fronting or raising of vowels. In some cases, palatalization involves assimilation or lenition. Types Palatalization is sometimes an example of assimilation. In some cases, it is triggered by a palatal or palatalized consonant or front vowel, but in other cases, it is not conditioned in any way. Consonant Palatalization changes place of articulation or manner of articulation of consonants. It may add palatal secondary articulation or change primary articulation from velar to palatal or alveolar, alveolar to postalveolar. It may also cause a consonant to change its manner of articulation from stop to affricate or fricative. The change in the manner of articulation is a form of lenition. However, the lenition is frequently accompan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
