Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

The loss of a word-medial vowel, or syncope, occurs in English in words such as
vegetable [ ] where the unaccented second syllable lost the vocalic segment. The
process does not commonly occur in English, however, but appears much more readily in
the Romance languages.
Latin Spanish French
viride verde vert
lepore liebre lievre
calidu caldo chaud
A change in the relative position of sounds, probably caused by a kind of anticipation, is
referred to as metathesis. Adjacent sounds may be affected, as in the West Saxon dialect
of Old English, where [ks] became [sk] in words such as axian>ask. Sounds separated by
some phonetic distance may also undergo metathesis as: for example, popular Latin
mirac(u)lu became Spanish milagro through the transposition of [l] and [r].
A number of other processes are often at work in language change. Stated briefly,
some further changes that affect consonants are:
aspiration [t]>[t h ]
affrication [t]>[ts]
labialization [t]>[t w ]
prenasalization [t]>[nt]
glottalization [t]>[t’]
velarization [t]>[ŧ]
rhotacization [z]>[r]
or the opposite—de-aspiration, de-affrication, etc.
Further processes observed among vocalic segments are:
raising [e]>[i]
lengthening
A-Z 267
lowering [i]>[e]
fronting [o]>[e]
backing [e]>[o]
rounding [i]>[u]
unrounding [u]>[i]
[a]>[ ]
shortening
[ ]>[a]
diphthongization [e]>[ie]
monophthongization [ie]>[e]