What is strengthening in language?
Fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a stop (i.e. [v] becomes [b] or [r] becomes [d]).
What is Degemination and example?
degemination (countable and uncountable, plural degeminations) (phonetics, uncountable) The inverse process of gemination, when a spoken long consonant is pronounced for an audibly shorter period. (countable) A particular instance of such change.
What is lenition example?
Lenition can be seen in Canadian and American English, where [t] and [d] soften to a tap [ɾ] (flapping) when not in initial position and followed by an unstressed vowel. For example, both rate and raid plus the suffix -er are pronounced [ˈɹeɪ̯ɾɚ].
What is an example of devoicing?
DEVOICING. In PHONETICS, the process by which SPEECH sounds that are normally voiced are made voiceless immediately after a voiceless obstruent: for example, the /r/ in cream /kriːm/ and the /w/ in twin /twɪn/.
What is Epenthesis linguistics?
Epenthesis Vowel epenthesis is a low-level phonetic rule which is used to break up clusters of consonants which are unacceptable in a certain language or variety.
What is an example of an Apocope?
Examples and Observations “Loss of sounds from the end of a word is known as apocope, as in the pronunciation of child as chile.” “After he left the city, thousands of people toasted him with beer at a barbie, an Australian barbecue.”
What is devoicing in linguistics?
In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization.
What are examples of epenthesis?
The addition of an i before the t in speciality is an example. The pronunciation of jewelry as ‘jewelery’ is a result of epenthesis, as is the pronunciation ‘contentuous’ for contentious. Other examples of epenthesis: the ubiquitous ‘relitor’ for realtor and that favorite of sports announcers, ‘athalete’ for athlete.
What causes epenthesis?
Epenthesis arises for a variety of reasons. The phonotactics of a given language may discourage vowels in hiatus or consonant clusters, and a consonant or vowel may be added to make pronunciation easier. Epenthesis may be represented in writing, or it may be a feature only of the spoken language.
What is an example of palatalization?
Palatalization also refers to the process of sound change in which a nonpalatal consonant, like k, changes to a palatal consonant, like ch or sh; e.g., French chaîne (pronounced with an initial sh sound) developed from Latin catena (pronounced with an initial k sound).