| content |
| Historical sound change |
|---|
| General |
| Metathesis |
| Dissimilation |
| Fortition |
| Lenition (weakening) |
| Sonorization (voicing) |
| Spirantization (assibilation) |
| Rhotacism (change of [z] to [r]) |
| L-vocalization (change of [l] to [w]) |
| Debuccalization (loss of place) |
| Elision (loss) |
| Apheresis (initial) |
| Syncope (medial) |
| Apocope (final) |
| Haplology (similar syllables) |
| Fusion |
| Cluster reduction |
| Compensatory lengthening |
| Epenthesis (addition) |
| Anaptyxis (vowel) |
| Excrescence (consonant) |
| Prosthesis (initial) |
| Paragoge (final) |
| Unpacking |
| Vowel breaking |
| Assimilation |
| Coarticulation |
| Palatalization (before front vowels) |
| Velarization (before back vowels) |
| Labialization (before rounded vowels) |
| Initial voicing (before a vowel) |
| Final devoicing (before silence) |
| Vowel harmony |
| Consonant harmony |
| Cheshirisation (trace remains) |
| Nasalization |
| Tonogenesis |
| Floating tone |
| Sandhi (boundary change) |
| Crasis (contraction) |
| Liaison, linking R |
| Consonant mutation |
| Tone sandhi |
| Hiatus |
In historical linguistics, vowel breaking is the change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong.
Contents |
Breaking in Southern American English
This is characteristic of the "Southern drawl" of Southern American English, where the short front vowels have developed a glide up to [j], and then in some areas back down to schwa: pat [pæjət], pet [pɛjət], pit [pɪjət].
Breaking in Old English
Proto-Germanic stressed short i, e, æ become ie,eo, ea regularly in Old English when followed by h or by r, l + another consonant, and long "i, e, æ" become "îo, êo, êa" before "h"
Examples are:
- PG *fallan > feallan "fall"
- PG *erþō > eorþe "earth"
Reference: Robert B. Howell 1991. Old English breaking and its Germanic analogues (Linguistische Arbeiten, 253.). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer
Breaking in Old Norse
Proto-Germanic stressed short e becomes ja or (before u) jǫ regularly in Old Norse except after w, r, l. Examples are:
- PG *ek(a) "I" > (east) ON jak, Swedish jag, Danish jeg (but Jutlandic æ, a, Icelandic ek > ég, Norwegian eg)
- PG *hertōn "heart" > ON hjarta, Swedish, Faroese hjarta, Danish hjerte
- PG *erþō "earth" > Proto-Norse *erþū > ON jǫrð, Swedish, Danish jord, Faroese jørð
According to some scholars,[1] the diphthongisation of e is an unconditioned sound change, whereas other scholars speak about epenthesis[2] or umlaut.[3]
Breaking in Proto-Indo-European
Some scholars[4] believe that PIE i, u has a kind of breaking before an original laryngeal in Greek, Armenian and Tocharian, whereas the other Indo-European languages have monophthongs. Typical examples are:
- PIE *gʷih3wos > *gʷioHwos "alive" > Gk. ζωός, Toch. B śāw-, śāy- (but Skt. jīvá-, Lat. vīvus)
- PIE *protih3kʷom > *protioHkʷom "front side" > Gk. πρόσωπον "face", Toch. B pratsāko "breast" (but Skt. prátīka-)
- PIE *duh2ros > *duaHros "long" > Gk. δηρός, Arm. *twār > erkar (Skt. dūrá-, Lat. dūrus).
However, the hypothesis is not adopted by most handbooks.
References
- Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
- ^ J. Svensson, Diftongering med palatalt förslag i de nordiska språken, Lund 1944.
- ^ H. Paul, "Zur Geschichte des germanischen Vocalismus", Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Kultur 6 (1879) 16-30.
- ^ K. M. Nielsen, Acta Philologica Scandinavica 24 (1957) 33-45.
- ^ F. Normier, in: Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 91 (1977) 171-218; J.S. Klein, in: Die Laryngaltheorie und die Rekonstruktion des indogermanischen Laut- und Formensystems, Heidelberg 1988, 257-279; J.E. Rasmussen, in: Selected Papers on Indo-European Linguistics, Copenhagen 1999, 442-458.
