Syncope (phonology)

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Template:Short description Template:Notconfused Script error: No such module "Sidebar".Script error: No such module "Unsubst". In phonology, syncope (Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".; from Template:Langx) is the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word, especially the loss of an unstressed vowel. It is found in both synchronic and diachronic analyses of languages. Its opposite, whereby sounds are added, is epenthesis.

Synchronic analysis

Synchronic analysis studies linguistic phenomena at one moment of a language's history, usually the present, in contrast to diachronic analysis, which studies a language's states and the patterns of change across a historical timeframe. In modern languages, syncope occurs in inflection, poetry, and informal speech.

Inflections

In languages such as Irish and Hebrew, the process of inflection can cause syncope:

Verbs:

  • Irish: Script error: No such module "Lang". (to play) should become *Script error: No such module "Lang". (I play). However, the addition of the Script error: No such module "Lang". causes syncope and the second-last syllable vowel Script error: No such module "Lang". is lost so Script error: No such module "Lang". becomes Script error: No such module "Lang"..
  • Hebrew: Template:Langx (katav), (he) wrote, becomes Template:Langx (katvu), (they) wrote, when the third-person plural ending Script error: No such module "Lang". (-u) is added.

Nouns:

  • Irish: Script error: No such module "Lang". (island) should become *Script error: No such module "Lang". in the genitive case. However, instead of *Script error: No such module "Lang"., road signs say, Script error: No such module "Lang". (the town of the island). Once again, there is the loss of the second Script error: No such module "Lang"..

If the present root form in Irish is the result of diachronic syncope, synchronic syncope for inflection is prevented.

As a poetic device

Sounds may be removed from the interior of a word as a rhetorical or poetic device: for embellishment or for the sake of the meter.

  • Latin Template:Wikt-lang > poetic Script error: No such module "Lang". ("he had moved")
  • English hastening > poetic hast'ning
  • English heaven > poetic heav'n
  • English over > poetic o'er
  • English ever > poetic e'er, often confused with ere ("before")

Informal speech

Various sorts of colloquial reductions might be called "syncope" or "compression".[1]

Contractions in English such as "didn't" or "can't" are typically cases of syncope.

  • English Australian > colloquial Strine, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English did not > didn't, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English I would have > I'd've, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English going to > colloquial gonna (generally only when unstressed and when expressing intention rather than direction), pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en". or, before a vowel, Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English library pronounced as Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".[2] (haplology)

Diachronic analysis

In historical phonology, the term "syncope" is often limited to the loss of an unstressed vowel, in effect collapsing the syllable that contained it: trisyllabic Latin calidus (stress on first syllable) develops as bisyllabic caldo in several Romance languages.

Loss of any sound

  • Old English Template:Wikt-lang > Template:Wikt-lang > Middle English Script error: No such module "Lang". > Modern English lord, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English Worcester, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English Gloucester, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English Leicester, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English Towcester, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en".
  • English Godmanchester, pronounced Script error: No such module "IPAc-en". (archaic)

Loss of unstressed vowel

A syncope rule has been identified in Tonkawa, an extinct American Indian language in which the second vowel of a word was deleted unless it was adjacent to a consonant cluster or a final consonant.[3]

See also

References

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  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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Sources

  • Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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