Epenthesis
Encyclopedia
In phonology
, epenthesis (icon; Ancient Greek
: ἐπένθεσις, epenthesis from epi "on" + en "in" + thesis "putting") is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant
, and anaptyxis (ˌ) for the addition of a vowel
.
of a given language may discourage vowels in hiatus
or consonant clusters
, and a consonant or vowel may be added to make pronunciation easier.
is different (e.g., where one consonant is labial
and the other is alveolar
).
, /t/ is inserted in inverted interrogative phrases between a verb ending in a vowel and a pronoun beginning with a vowel, such as il a ('he has') > a-t-il ('has he?'). Here there is no epenthesis from a historical perspective, since the a-t is derived from Latin habet (he has), and the t is therefore the original third person verb inflection. However it is correct to call this epenthesis when viewed synchronically, since the modern basic form of the verb is a, and the psycholinguistic process is therefore the addition of t to the base form.
A similar example is the English
indefinite article a, which becomes an before a vowel. In Old English
, this was ane in all positions, so a diachronic analysis would see the original n disappearing except where a following vowel required its retention: an > a. However a synchronic analysis, in keeping with the perception of most native speakers, would (equally correctly) see it as epenthesis: a > an.
In Dutch
, whenever the suffix -er (which has several meanings) is attached to a word already ending in -r, an additional -d- is inserted in between. For example, while the comparative form of the adjective zoet ("sweet") is zoeter, the comparative of zuur ("sour") is zuurder and not *zurer as would be expected. Similarly, the agent noun of verkopen ("to sell") is verkoper ("salesperson"), but the agent noun of uitvoeren ("to perform") is uitvoerder ("performer").
The three short syllables in reliquias will not fit into dactylic hexameter
because of the dactyl
's limit of two short syllables, so the first syllable is lengthened by adding another l. However, this pronunciation was often not written with double ll, and may have been the normal way of pronouncing a word starting in rel- rather than a poetic modification.
is often added as a transitional sound between the parts of a nasal + fricative sequence:
use epenthetic consonants to separate vowels. An example of this is the word harusame (春雨, spring rain) which is a compound of haru and ame in which an /s/ is added to separate the final /u/ of haru and the initial /a/ of ame; note that this is a synchronic analysis (using current forms to analyze an irregularity). As for a diachronic (historical) analysis, since epenthetic consonants are not used regularly in modern Japanese, it is possible that this epenthetic /s/ is a holdover from Old Japanese
. It is also possible that OJ /ame2/ was once pronounced */same2/, and the /s/ is not epenthetic but simply retained archaic pronunciation. Another example is kosame (小雨, light rain).
Certain word compounds show an epenthetic /w/. One example is the word baai (場合, situation), which is a combination of ba (場, place) and ai (合い, meet): in some dialects it is pronounced bawai.
One hypothesis
argues that Japanese /r/ developed "as a default, epenthetic consonant in the intervocalic position".
identical with phonemic vowels.
of the language so that final clusters are no longer permitted. Something of this sort happened in Sanskrit, with the result that a new vowel -i or -a was added to many words.
Another possibility is when a sound change deletes vowels at the end of a word, a very common sound change. This may well produce impermissible final clusters. In some cases, the problem was resolved by allowing a resonant to become syllabic or inserting a vowel in the middle of a cluster; e.g. Proto-Germanic akraz "field, acre" > Gothic
akrs (syllabic /r/), but Old English æcer (insertion of vowel). In the Gallo-Romance languages
, however, a prop vowel was added, e.g. MONSTRU > /monstr/ > /monstrə/ (French
montre "watch" (clock)).
, which showed a preference for open (vowel-final) syllables in earlier times. An example of this kind is the Proto-Slavic form *gordŭ ("town"), in which the East Slavic languages
inserted an epenthetic vowel to break the cluster -rd-, resulting in *gorodŭ, which became город (gorod) in modern Russian and Ukrainian. The other Slavic languages instead metathesised
the vowel and the consonant, creating *grodŭ (Polish gród, Czech hrad, Serbo-Croatian grad).
Other examples exist in Modern Persian
, where former word-initial consonant clusters (which were still extant in Middle Persian) are regularly broken up: Middle Persian brādar > Modern Persian barādar "brother", Middle Persian stūn > Early New Persian sutūn > Modern Persian (Iran) sotūn "column"; modern borrowings are also affected.
, an epenthetic vowel was inserted at the beginning of any word that began with /s/ and another consonant: Latin spatha "sword" > Spanish/Portuguese espada, Catalan espasa, Old French espede > modern épée.
requires "umbrella" to be pronounced with four syllables, um-buh-rel-la, so that "any umbrellas" has the meter ány úmberéllas. The same thing occurs in the song Umbrella
.
or vowel sequence that is not permitted by the phonotactics
of a language. Sporadic cases can be less obviously motivated, however, such as warsh 'wash' with an extra r in some varieties of American English
or Hamtramck being pronounced 'Hamtramick' as if there were an extra i.
Regular or semiregular epenthesis commonly occurs in languages which use affix
es. For example, a reduced vowel /ɨ/ is inserted before the English plural suffix -/z/ and the past tense suffix -/d/ when the root ends in a similar consonant: glass → glasses /ˈɡlæsɨz/ or /ˈɡlɑːsɨz/; bat → batted /ˈbætɨd/.
s that are not permitted in the borrowing language, though this is not always the cause.
Languages use various vowels for this purpose, though schwa is quite common when it is available. For example,
between the /d/ and the /w/, and many speakers insert schwa between the /l/ and /t/ of realtor. Epenthesis is sometimes used for humorous or childlike effect. For example, the cartoon character Yogi Bear
says "pic-a-nic basket" for "picnic basket." Another example is to be found in the chants of England
football fans in which England
is usually rendered as [ˈɪŋɡələnd], or the pronunciation of "athlete" as "ath-e-lete". Some apparent occurrences of epenthesis, however, have a separate cause: the pronunciation of nuclear as arises out of analogy with other -cular words (binocular, particular, etc.), rather than epenthesis.
, there are two epenthetic vowels and two nativization vowels. One epenthetic vowel is the preceding vowel, found in the illative case
ending -(h)*n, e.g. maahan, taloon. The second one is [e], connecting stems that have historically been consonant stems to their case endings, e.g. nim+n → nimen.
In standard Finnish, consonant clusters may not be broken by epenthetic vowels; foreign words undergo consonant deletion rather than addition of vowels (e.g. ranta ("shore") from Germanic strand). However, modern loans may not end in consonants. Even if the word, such as a personal name, is not loaned, a paragogic vowel
is needed to connect a consonantal case ending to the word. The vowel is /i/, e.g. (Inter)net → netti, or in the case of personal name, Bush + -sta → Bushista "about Bush".
Finnish has mora
ic consonants, of which L, H and N are of interest in this case. In standard Finnish, these are slightly intensified when preceding a consonant in a medial cluster, e.g. -hj-. Some dialects, like Savo and Ostrobothnian, employ epenthesis instead, using the preceding vowel in clusters of type -lC
- and -hC
-, and in Savo, -nh-. (In Finnish linguistics this phenomenon is often referred to as švaa; the same word can also mean schwa
, but it is not a phoneme
in Finnish, so usually there is no danger of confusion.) For example, Pohjanmaa "Ostrobothnia" → Pohojammaa, ryhmä → ryhymä, and Savo vanha → vanaha. Ambiguities may result: salmi "strait" vs. salami
. (An exception is that in Pohjanmaa, -lj- and -rj- become -li- and -ri-, respectively, e.g. kirja → kiria. Also, in a small region in Savo, the vowel /e/ is used in the same role.)
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, epenthesis (icon; Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
: ἐπένθεσις, epenthesis from epi "on" + en "in" + thesis "putting") is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
, and anaptyxis (ˌ) for the addition of a vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
.
Uses
Epenthesis arises for a variety of reasons. The phonotacticsPhonotactics
Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...
of a given language may discourage vowels in hiatus
Hiatus (linguistics)
In phonology, hiatus or diaeresis refers to two vowel sounds occurring in adjacent syllables, with no intervening consonant. When two adjacent vowel sounds occur in the same syllable, the result is instead described as a diphthong....
or consonant clusters
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
, and a consonant or vowel may be added to make pronunciation easier.
Separating vowels
A consonant may be added to separate vowels in hiatus. This is the case with linking and intrusive R.- drawing → drawring
Bridging consonant clusters
A consonant may be placed between consonants in a consonant cluster where the place of articulationPlace of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
is different (e.g., where one consonant is labial
Labial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
and the other is alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
).
- *a-mrotos → ambrotos
Breaking consonant clusters
A vowel may be placed between consonants to separate them.- Hamtramck → Hamtramick
As a historical sound change
- LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
tremulare > French trembler ("to tremble") - Old English thunor > English thunder
- (Reconstructed) Proto-Greek *amrotos > Ancient GreekAncient GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
ambrotos ("immortal") - Latin homine(m) > homne > homre > SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
hombre ("man")
As a synchronic rule
In FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, /t/ is inserted in inverted interrogative phrases between a verb ending in a vowel and a pronoun beginning with a vowel, such as il a ('he has') > a-t-il ('has he?'). Here there is no epenthesis from a historical perspective, since the a-t is derived from Latin habet (he has), and the t is therefore the original third person verb inflection. However it is correct to call this epenthesis when viewed synchronically, since the modern basic form of the verb is a, and the psycholinguistic process is therefore the addition of t to the base form.
A similar example is the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
indefinite article a, which becomes an before a vowel. In Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
, this was ane in all positions, so a diachronic analysis would see the original n disappearing except where a following vowel required its retention: an > a. However a synchronic analysis, in keeping with the perception of most native speakers, would (equally correctly) see it as epenthesis: a > an.
In Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, whenever the suffix -er (which has several meanings) is attached to a word already ending in -r, an additional -d- is inserted in between. For example, while the comparative form of the adjective zoet ("sweet") is zoeter, the comparative of zuur ("sour") is zuurder and not *zurer as would be expected. Similarly, the agent noun of verkopen ("to sell") is verkoper ("salesperson"), but the agent noun of uitvoeren ("to perform") is uitvoerder ("performer").
As a poetic device
- Latin reliquias > poetic relliquias
The three short syllables in reliquias will not fit into dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin, and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry...
because of the dactyl
Dactyl (poetry)
A dactyl is a foot in meter in poetry. In quantitative verse, such as Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight...
's limit of two short syllables, so the first syllable is lengthened by adding another l. However, this pronunciation was often not written with double ll, and may have been the normal way of pronouncing a word starting in rel- rather than a poetic modification.
In informal speech
In English, a stop consonantStop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
is often added as a transitional sound between the parts of a nasal + fricative sequence:
- English "hamster" ˈ often pronounced with an added "p" sound, GAGeneral AmericanGeneral American , also known as Standard American English , is a major accent of American English. The accent is not restricted to the United States...
: [ˈhæˑmpstɚ] or RPReceived PronunciationReceived Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
: [ˈhæmpstə] - English "warmth" ˈ often pronounced with an added "p" sound, GA: [ˈwɔɹmpθ] or RP: [ˈwɔːmpθ]
- English "fence" ˈ often pronounced [ˈfɛnts]
In Japanese
A limited number of words in JapaneseJapanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
use epenthetic consonants to separate vowels. An example of this is the word harusame (春雨, spring rain) which is a compound of haru and ame in which an /s/ is added to separate the final /u/ of haru and the initial /a/ of ame; note that this is a synchronic analysis (using current forms to analyze an irregularity). As for a diachronic (historical) analysis, since epenthetic consonants are not used regularly in modern Japanese, it is possible that this epenthetic /s/ is a holdover from Old Japanese
Old Japanese
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language.This stage in the development of Japanese is still actively studied and debated, and key Old Japanese texts, such as the Man'yōshū, remain obscure in places.-Dating:...
. It is also possible that OJ /ame2/ was once pronounced */same2/, and the /s/ is not epenthetic but simply retained archaic pronunciation. Another example is kosame (小雨, light rain).
Certain word compounds show an epenthetic /w/. One example is the word baai (場合, situation), which is a combination of ba (場, place) and ai (合い, meet): in some dialects it is pronounced bawai.
One hypothesis
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose". For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it...
argues that Japanese /r/ developed "as a default, epenthetic consonant in the intervocalic position".
Epenthesis of a vowel, or anaptyxis
Epenthesis of a vowel, or anaptyxis (ἀνάπτυξις, "growth" in Greek), is also known by the Sanskrit term svarabhakti. Some accounts distinguish between "intrusive vowels", vowel-like releases of consonants as phonetic detail, and true epenthetic vowels, which are required by the phonotactics of the language and acousticallyAcoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
identical with phonemic vowels.
At the end of a word
Many languages insert a so-called prop vowel at the end of a word to avoid the loss of a non-permitted cluster. This cluster can come about due to a change in the phonotacticsPhonotactics
Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...
of the language so that final clusters are no longer permitted. Something of this sort happened in Sanskrit, with the result that a new vowel -i or -a was added to many words.
Another possibility is when a sound change deletes vowels at the end of a word, a very common sound change. This may well produce impermissible final clusters. In some cases, the problem was resolved by allowing a resonant to become syllabic or inserting a vowel in the middle of a cluster; e.g. Proto-Germanic akraz "field, acre" > Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
akrs (syllabic /r/), but Old English æcer (insertion of vowel). In the Gallo-Romance languages
Gallo-Romance languages
The Gallo-Romance branch of Romance languages include French and the other langue d'oïl dialects, Occitan , Catalan, Franco-Provençal, Gallo-Italic, and other languages - Other possible classifications :...
, however, a prop vowel was added, e.g. MONSTRU > /monstr/ > /monstrə/ (French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
montre "watch" (clock)).
In the middle of a word
Examples of this kind are common in many Slavic languagesSlavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, which showed a preference for open (vowel-final) syllables in earlier times. An example of this kind is the Proto-Slavic form *gordŭ ("town"), in which the East Slavic languages
East Slavic languages
The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. It is the group with the largest numbers of speakers, far out-numbering the Western and Southern Slavic groups. Current East Slavic languages are Belarusian, Russian,...
inserted an epenthetic vowel to break the cluster -rd-, resulting in *gorodŭ, which became город (gorod) in modern Russian and Ukrainian. The other Slavic languages instead metathesised
Metathesis (linguistics)
Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...
the vowel and the consonant, creating *grodŭ (Polish gród, Czech hrad, Serbo-Croatian grad).
Other examples exist in Modern Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, where former word-initial consonant clusters (which were still extant in Middle Persian) are regularly broken up: Middle Persian brādar > Modern Persian barādar "brother", Middle Persian stūn > Early New Persian sutūn > Modern Persian (Iran) sotūn "column"; modern borrowings are also affected.
At the beginning of a word
In the Western Romance languagesWestern Romance languages
The Western Romance languages are one of the primary subdivisions of the Romance languages. They include at least the following:* The Pyrenean–Mozarabic group consists of two languages in two separate branches:**Aragonese**Mozarabic...
, an epenthetic vowel was inserted at the beginning of any word that began with /s/ and another consonant: Latin spatha "sword" > Spanish/Portuguese espada, Catalan espasa, Old French espede > modern épée.
As a poetic device
An example in an English song is "The Umbrella Man", where the meterMeter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
requires "umbrella" to be pronounced with four syllables, um-buh-rel-la, so that "any umbrellas" has the meter ány úmberéllas. The same thing occurs in the song Umbrella
Umbrella (song)
"Umbrella" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna, featuring a rap verse by Jay-Z. The song was written by The-Dream, Christopher Stewart, Kuk Harrell and Jay-Z, and was produced by Stewart and The-Dream for Rihanna's third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad...
.
As a grammatical rule
Epenthesis often breaks up a consonant clusterConsonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
or vowel sequence that is not permitted by the phonotactics
Phonotactics
Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...
of a language. Sporadic cases can be less obviously motivated, however, such as warsh 'wash' with an extra r in some varieties of American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
or Hamtramck being pronounced 'Hamtramick' as if there were an extra i.
Regular or semiregular epenthesis commonly occurs in languages which use affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es. For example, a reduced vowel /ɨ/ is inserted before the English plural suffix -/z/ and the past tense suffix -/d/ when the root ends in a similar consonant: glass → glasses /ˈɡlæsɨz/ or /ˈɡlɑːsɨz/; bat → batted /ˈbætɨd/.
When borrowing words
Vocalic epenthesis typically occurs when words are borrowed from a language that has consonant clusters or syllable codaSyllable coda
In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a rime. Some syllables consist only of a nucleus with no coda...
s that are not permitted in the borrowing language, though this is not always the cause.
Languages use various vowels for this purpose, though schwa is quite common when it is available. For example,
- HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
uses a single vowel, the schwaSchwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
(though pronounced /ɛ/ in Israeli Hebrew). - JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
generally uses /u/ except following /t/ and /d/, when it uses [o], and after /h/, when it uses an echo vowelEcho vowelIn speech, an echo vowel is a vowel that repeats the final vowel in a word. For example, in Chumash, when a word ends with a glottal stop and comes at the end of an intonation unit, the final vowel is repeated after the glottal stop, but is whispered and faint, as in for "arrow" . In Rukai , echo...
. For example, the English word street becomes ストリート /sutoɾiːto/ in Japanese; the DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
name Gogh becomes ゴッホ /ɡohho/, and the GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
name Bach, バッハ /bahha/. - KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
uses [ɯ], except when borrowing [ʃ], which takes a following [i] if the consonant is at the end of the word, or /ju/ otherwise. - Brazilian PortugueseBrazilian PortugueseBrazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
uses /i/, which in some dialects triggers palatalizationPalatalizationIn linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
of a preceding /t/ or /d/, e.g. McDonald's > /makidonaudʒi/ with normal vocalization of /l/ to /u/. - Classical ArabicClassical ArabicClassical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...
does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word, and typically uses /i/ to break up such clusters in borrowings, e.g. /siraːtˤ/ "street" < Latin STRĀTA. - SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
does not tolerate clusters at the beginning of a word with an /s/ in them, and is well-known for adding e- to such words, e.g. espáis < "spice", estrés < "stress".
In informal speech
Epenthesis most often occurs within unfamiliar or complex consonant clusters. For example, the name Dwight is commonly pronounced with an epenthetic schwaSchwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
between the /d/ and the /w/, and many speakers insert schwa between the /l/ and /t/ of realtor. Epenthesis is sometimes used for humorous or childlike effect. For example, the cartoon character Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear is a fictional bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than...
says "pic-a-nic basket" for "picnic basket." Another example is to be found in the chants of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
football fans in which England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
is usually rendered as [ˈɪŋɡələnd], or the pronunciation of "athlete" as "ath-e-lete". Some apparent occurrences of epenthesis, however, have a separate cause: the pronunciation of nuclear as arises out of analogy with other -cular words (binocular, particular, etc.), rather than epenthesis.
- Certain registers of colloquial Brazilian PortugueseBrazilian PortugueseBrazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
sometimes have [i] between consonant clusterConsonant clusterIn linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s, except those formed with /l/ (atleta) or /r/ (prato) or final /s/ (/ʃ/ in cariocaCariocaCarioca is a Portuguese adjective or demonym that is used to refer to the native inhabitants of the city of Rio de Janeiro - capital of the homonym state , in Brazil...
dialect) (pasta), so that words like psicologia and advogado are pronounced /pisikoloʒiɐ/ and /adivoɡadu/. Some regional dialects also use [e] for voiced consonant clusters. - In SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
it is usual to find epenthetic or svarabhakti vowels in the groups of plosive + flap + vowel or labiodental fricative + flap + vowel, normally in non-emphatic pronunciation: For instance in pronouncing vinagre instead of the usual [biˈnaɣɾe] we find [biˈnaɣ(ə)ɾe].
In Finnish
In FinnishFinnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, there are two epenthetic vowels and two nativization vowels. One epenthetic vowel is the preceding vowel, found in the illative case
Illative case
Illative is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "into ". An example from Hungarian is "a házba"...
ending -(h)*n, e.g. maahan, taloon. The second one is [e], connecting stems that have historically been consonant stems to their case endings, e.g. nim+n → nimen.
In standard Finnish, consonant clusters may not be broken by epenthetic vowels; foreign words undergo consonant deletion rather than addition of vowels (e.g. ranta ("shore") from Germanic strand). However, modern loans may not end in consonants. Even if the word, such as a personal name, is not loaned, a paragogic vowel
Paragoge
Paragoge , adj. paragogic , is the addition of a sound to the end of a word. Often, this is due to nativization. It is a type of epenthesis, most commonly vocalic epenthesis.-Diachronic paragoge:...
is needed to connect a consonantal case ending to the word. The vowel is /i/, e.g. (Inter)net → netti, or in the case of personal name, Bush + -sta → Bushista "about Bush".
Finnish has mora
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
ic consonants, of which L, H and N are of interest in this case. In standard Finnish, these are slightly intensified when preceding a consonant in a medial cluster, e.g. -hj-. Some dialects, like Savo and Ostrobothnian, employ epenthesis instead, using the preceding vowel in clusters of type -lC
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
- and -hC
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
-, and in Savo, -nh-. (In Finnish linguistics this phenomenon is often referred to as švaa; the same word can also mean schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
, but it is not a phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
in Finnish, so usually there is no danger of confusion.) For example, Pohjanmaa "Ostrobothnia" → Pohojammaa, ryhmä → ryhymä, and Savo vanha → vanaha. Ambiguities may result: salmi "strait" vs. salami
Salami
Salami is cured sausage, fermented and air-dried meat, originating from one of a variety of animals. Historically, salami has been popular among Southern European peasants because it can be stored at room temperature for periods of up to 10 years, supplementing a possibly meager or inconsistent...
. (An exception is that in Pohjanmaa, -lj- and -rj- become -li- and -ri-, respectively, e.g. kirja → kiria. Also, in a small region in Savo, the vowel /e/ is used in the same role.)
Related phenomena
- ProthesisProsthesis (linguistics)In linguistics, prosthesis is the addition of a sound or syllable at the beginning of a word without changing the word's meaning or the rest of its structure. The alternative spelling prothesis was first used in post-classical Latin, based on Greek próthesis "placing before" or "in public"...
: the addition of a sound to the start of a word. - ParagogeParagogeParagoge , adj. paragogic , is the addition of a sound to the end of a word. Often, this is due to nativization. It is a type of epenthesis, most commonly vocalic epenthesis.-Diachronic paragoge:...
: the addition of a sound to the end of a word. - InfixInfixAn infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the end of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Indonesian:...
ation: the insertion of a morphemeMorphemeIn linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
within a word. - TmesisTmesisTmesis is a linguistic phenomenon in which a word or set phrase is separated into two parts, with other words occurring between them.-Verbs:...
: the inclusion of a whole word within another one. - MetathesisMetathesis (linguistics)Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...
: the reordering of sounds within a word.
See also
- AssibilationAssibilationIn linguistics, assibilation is the term for a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is commonly the final phase of palatalization.-Romance languages:...
- AssimilationAssimilation (linguistics)Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
- CoarticulationCoarticulationCoarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound...
(Co-articulated consonantCo-articulated consonantCo-articulated consonants or complex consonants are consonants produced with two simultaneous places of articulation. They may be divided into two classes, doubly articulated consonants with two primary places of articulation of the same manner , and consonants with secondary articulation, that is,...
, Secondary articulationSecondary articulationSecondary articulation refers to co-articulated consonants where the two articulations are not of the same manner. The approximant-like secondary articulation is weaker than the primary, and colors it rather than obscuring it...
) - Consonant harmonyConsonant harmonyConsonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation akin to the similar assimilatory process involving vowels, i.e. vowel harmony.-Examples:...
- CrasisCrasisCrasis is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong — making one word out of two. Crasis occurs in Portuguese and Arabic as well as in Ancient Greek, where it was first described.-French:...
- DissimilationDissimilationIn phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon whereby similar consonant or vowel sounds in a word become less similar...
- LabialisationLabialisationLabialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.The most common...
- Language gameLanguage gameA language game is a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to the untrained ear. Language games are used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their conversations from others...
- LenitionLenitionIn linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
- MetathesisMetathesis (linguistics)Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...
- PalatalizationPalatalizationIn linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
- PharyngealisationPharyngealisation-Further reading:*Ian Maddieson, -See also:*Velarization*Creaky voice *Pharyngeal consonant*Epiglottal consonant*Pharynx...
- SandhiSandhiSandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
- VelarizationVelarizationVelarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:...
- Vowel harmonyVowel harmonyVowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....