In
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
and
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
, apheresis (; ) is a sound change in which a word-initial vowel is lost, e.g., ''American'' > ''
'Merican''. In a broader sense, it can refer to the loss of any initial sound (including consonants) from a word or, in a less technical sense, to the loss of one or more sounds from the beginning of a word.
The more specific term aphesis (and its adjective ''aphetic'') is sometimes used to refer to the loss of
unstressed vowels.
Etymology
The term ''apheresis'', attested since at least 1550 in English, comes from Latin ''aphaeresis'', from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
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 of all kno ...
ἀφαίρεσις ''aphairesis'', "taking away" from ἀφαιρέω ''aphaireo'' from ἀπό ''apo'', "away" and αἱρέω ''haireo'', "to take".
The
hyponyms
Hypernymy and hyponymy are the semantic relations between a generic term (''hypernym'') and a more specific term (''hyponym''). The hypernym is also called a ''supertype'', ''umbrella term'', or ''blanket term''. The hyponym names a subtype of ...
''aphesis'' () and ''aphetic'', coined in 1880 by
James Murray, are inspired by Greek ἄφεσις ''aphesis'', "letting go" from ἀφίημι ''aphiemi'' from ἀπό ''apo'', "away" and ἵημι ''híemi'', "send forth".
Historical sound change
In historical phonetics and phonology, the term "apheresis" is often limited to the loss of an unstressed vowel. The ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' gives that particular kind of apheresis the name aphesis (; from Greek ἄφεσις).
Loss of unstressed vowel
* >
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. ''Vulgar Latin'' a ...
: *''(e)biscopus'' > 'bishop'
*
English: ''acute'' > ''cute''
*English: ''because'' → informal ''
'cause''
* > 'Gypsy'
[Online Etymology Dictionary]
Gypsy
Retrieved 2010-07-13.
*English: ''alone'' > ''lone''
*English: ''amend'' > ''mend''
* > Middle English: 'vanish'
*
*
*
Loss of any sound
*English: ''
ife'' →
*
Portuguese: ''está'' > colloquial ''tá''
*
Proto-Norse
Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic; Danish and ; ; ; ) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a c ...
: ''
* tanda >'' > 'beach'
* > 'Spain'
*Old English: > English: ''knee'' →
Poetic device
*English ''it is'' > poetic ''
'tis''
*English ''upon'' > ''
'pon''
*English ''eleven'' > ''
'leven''
Informal speech
Synchronic apheresis is more likely to occur in informal speech than in careful speech: scuse me'' vs. ''excuse me'', and ''How 'bout that?'' vs. ''How about that?'' It typically supplies the input enabling acceptance of apheresized forms historically, such as ''especially'' > ''specially''. The result may be
doublets, such as ''especially'' and ''specially'', or the pre-apheresis form may fail to survive (Old French > English ''scarce''). An intermediate status is common in which both forms continue to exist but lose their transparent semantic relationship: ''abate'' 'decrease, moderate', with ''bate'' now confined to the locution ''with bated breath'' 'with breath held back'.
See also
*
Apocope
In phonology, apocope () is the omission (elision) or loss of a sound or sounds at the end of a word. While it most commonly refers to the loss of a final vowel, it can also describe the deletion of final consonants or even entire syllables.
...
*
Elision
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run to ...
*
Initial dropping
*
List of phonetics topics
A
* Acoustic phonetics
* Active articulator
* Affricate
* Airstream mechanism
* Alexander John Ellis
* Alexander Melville Bell
* Alfred C. Gimson
* Allophone
* Alveolar approximant ()
* Alveolar click ()
* Alveolar consonant
* Alveolar e ...
*
Syncope
References
Notes
{{reflist
Bibliography
*Alexander, James D. 1988. Aphesis in English. ''Word'' 39.29-65
*Crowley, Terry (1997). ''An Introduction to Historical Linguistics.'' 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
Figures of speech
Sound changes
Phonotactics