Apocope

In phonology, apocope (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell)Template:RefnTemplate:Refn 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.

For instance, in many dialects the 't' in words like 'hot' remains unpronounced in contexts like 'hot potato'. Even longer words, such as 'Worcestershire', can undergo apocope, resulting in 'Worcester'.

The resulting word form after apocope has occurred is called an apocopation.

Etymology

Apocope comes from the Greek (Template:Transliteration) from (Template:Transliteration) 'cutting off', from (Template:Transliteration) 'away from' and (Template:Transliteration) 'to cut'.

Historical sound change

In historical linguistics, 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 Template:Wikt-lang → Old, Middle, and Modern English land
• Old English Template:Wikt-lang → Modern English love (noun)
• Old English Template:Wikt-lang → 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 Gallo-Italic languages.

Loss of other sounds

• Non-rhotic English accents, including British Received Pronunciation, 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').

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 word.

In the genitive form, the final , while it was being deleted, blocked the loss of . In Colloquial Finnish, the final vowel is sometimes omitted from case markers.

Grammatical rule

Some languages have apocopations that are internalized as mandatory forms. In Spanish and Italian, for example, some adjectives that come before the noun lose the final vowel or syllable if they precede a noun (mainly) in the masculine singular form. In Spanish, some adverbs and cardinal and ordinal numbers 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")
  • ("second, according to") → ("according to") → → ("The Gospel according to")
  • ("third") → → ("third place")
  • ("final") → → ("final day")

See also

• Abbreviation
• Acronym and initialism
• Apheresis (linguistics)
• Clipping (morphology)
• Contraction (grammar)
• Elision
• Syncope (phonetics)

References

• Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.

External links

• World Wide Words: Apocope