Phonological process involving the addition of one or more sounds to a word
In
phonology
,
epenthesis
(
;
Greek
?π?νθεσι?
) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable (
prothesis
) or in the ending syllable (
paragoge
) or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word
epenthesis
comes from
epi-
'
in addition to
'
and
en-
'
in
'
and
thesis
'
putting
'
. Epenthesis may be divided into two types:
excrescence
for the addition of a
consonant
, and for the addition of a
vowel
,
svarabhakti
(in Sanskrit) or alternatively
anaptyxis
(
). The opposite process, where one or more sounds are removed, is referred to as
elision
.
Uses
[
edit
]
Epenthesis arises for a variety of reasons. The
phonotactics
of a given language may discourage vowels in
hiatus
or
consonant clusters
, and a consonant or vowel may be added to make pronunciation easier. Epenthesis may be represented in writing, or it may be a feature only of the spoken language.
Separating vowels
[
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]
A consonant may be added to separate vowels in hiatus, as is the case with
linking and intrusive R
in English.
Bridging consonant clusters
[
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]
A consonant may be placed between consonants in a consonant cluster where the
place of articulation
is different (such as if one consonant is
labial
and the other is
alveolar
).
- something
→
some
p
thing
- hamster
→
ham
p
ster
- *a-mrotos
→
am
b
rotos
(see
below
)
Breaking consonant clusters
[
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]
A vowel may be placed between consonants to separate them.
Other contexts
[
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]
While epenthesis most often occurs between two vowels or two consonants, it can also occur between a vowel and a consonant or at the ends of words. For example, the Japanese prefix
ma-
(
??(ま?)
, 'pure …, complete …')
transforms regularly to
ma'-
(
?っ?(まっ?)
, (gemination of following consonant))
when it is followed by a consonant, as in
masshiro
(
?っ白(まっしろ)
, 'pure white')
. The English suffix
-t
, often found in the form
-st
, as in
amongst
(from
among
+
-st
), is an example of terminal excrescence.
Excrescence
[
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]
Excrescence
is the epenthesis of a consonant.
Historical sound change
[
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]
- Latin
tremulare
> French
trembler
(
'
to tremble
'
)
- Old English
þunor
> English
thunder
- French
messager
,
passager
> English
messenger
,
passenger
- French
message
,
messager
> Portuguese
mensagem
,
mensageiro
- (Reconstructed)
Proto-Germanic
*s?an?
> Old English
s?wan
, Old Saxon
s?ian
(
'
to sow
'
)
- (Reconstructed)
Proto-Greek
*
amrotos
>
Ancient Greek
?μβροτο?
ambrotos
(
'
immortal
'
; cf.
ambrosia
)
- Latin
homine(m)
>
homne
>
homre
>
Spanish
hom
b
re
(
'
man
'
)
- Latin
audire(m)
>
ouir
>
Portuguese
ou
v
ir
(
'
to hear
'
)
Synchronic rule
[
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]
In
French
,
/t/
is inserted in inverted interrogative phrases between a verb ending in a vowel and a pronoun beginning with a vowel:
il a
('he has') >
a-t-il
('has he?'). There is no epenthesis from a historical perspective since the
a-t
is derived from Latin
habet
('he has'), and so the
t
is the original third-person verb inflection. It is incorrect to call it epenthesis unless viewed
synchronically
since the modern basic form of the verb is
a
and so 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. It originated from
Old English
?n
(
'
one, a, an
'
), which retained an
n
in all positions, so a
diachronic
analysis would see the original
n
disappearing except if a following vowel required its retention:
an
>
a
. However, a synchronic analysis, in keeping with the perception of most native speakers, would (though incorrectly) 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, the comparative form of the adjective
zoet
(
'
sweet
'
) is
zoeter
, but the comparative of
zuur
(
'
sour
'
) is
zuur
d
er
and not the expected **
zurer
. Similarly, the agent noun of
verkopen
(
'
to sell
'
) is
verkoper
(
'
salesperson
'
), but the agent noun of
uitvoeren
(
'
to perform
'
) is
uitvoer
d
er
(
'
performer
'
).
Variable rule
[
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]
In English, a
stop consonant
is often added as a transitional sound between the parts of a nasal + fricative sequence:
- English
hamster
often pronounced with an added
p
sound,
GA
:
[?h??mpst?]
or
RP
:
[?hampst?]
- English
warmth
often pronounced with an added
p
sound, GA:
[?w??mpθ]
or RP:
[?w?ːmpθ]
- English
fence
often pronounced
[?f?nts]
Poetic device
[
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]
- Latin
reliqui?s
'
remnants, survivors
'
(accusative plural) > poetic
relliqui?s
The three short syllables in
reliqui?s
do 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, the 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 Japanese
[
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]
A limited number of words in
Japanese
use epenthetic consonants to separate vowels. An example is the word
harusame
(
春雨
(はるさめ)
, 'spring rain')
, 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
. That is a
synchronic
analysis. As for a diachronic (historical) analysis, since epenthetic consonants are not used regularly in modern Japanese, the epenthetic
/s/
could be from
Old Japanese
. It is also possible that Old Japanese /ame
2
/ was once pronounced */same
2
/; the
/s/
would then be not epenthetic but simply an archaic pronunciation. Another example is
kosame
(
小雨
(こさめ)
, 'light rain')
.
A complex example of epenthesis is
massao
(
?っ?
(まっさお)
, 'deep blue, ghastly pale')
, from
ma-
(
?
?(ま?)
, 'pure, complete')
+
ao
(
?
(あお)
, 'blue')
. It exhibits epenthesis on both morphemes:
ma-
(
??(ま?)
)
→
ma'-
(
?っ?(まっ?)
, (gemination of following consonant))
is common (occurring before a consonant), and
ao
(
?(あお)
)
→
sao
(
?(さお)
)
occurs only in the example; it can be analyzed as
maao
→
masao
(intervocalic) →
massao
; akin to
kirisame
(
霧雨
(きりさめ)
, 'drizzle, light rain')
from
kiri
(
霧
(きり)
, 'fog, mist')
+
ame
(
雨
(あめ)
, 'rain')
.
One
hypothesis
argues that Japanese
/r/
developed "as a default, epenthetic consonant in the intervocalic position".
[1]
Anaptyxis
[
edit
]
Epenthesis of a vowel is known as
anaptyxis
(
, from Greek
?ν?πτυξι?
'
unfolding
'
). Some accounts distinguish between "intrusive" optional vowels, vowel-like releases of consonants as phonetic detail, and true epenthetic vowels that are required by the phonotactics of the language and are
acoustically
identical with
phonemic
vowels.
Historical sound change
[
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]
End of word
[
edit
]
Many languages insert a so-called
prop vowel
at the end of a word, often as a result of the common sound change where vowels at the end of a word are deleted. For example, in the
Gallo-Romance languages
, a prop
schwa
/?/
was added when final non-open vowels were dropped leaving /Cr/ clusters at the end, e.g. Latin
nigrum
'(shiny) black' > *
[?negro]
>
Old French
negre
/?negr?/
'black' (thus avoiding the impermissible
/negr/
, cf.
carrum
>
char
'cart').
Middle of word
[
edit
]
Similarly as above, a vowel may be inserted in the middle of a word to resolve an impermissible word-final consonant cluster. An example of this can be found in
Lebanese Arabic
, where
/??al?b/
'heart' corresponds to
Modern Standard Arabic
???
/qalb/
and
Egyptian Arabic
/?ælb/
. In the development of
Old English
,
Proto-Germanic
*akraz
'field, acre' would have ended up with an impermissible
/kr/
final cluster (
*
æcr
), so it was resolved by inserting an
/e/
before the
rhotic consonant
:
æcer
(cf. the use of a
syllabic consonant
in
Gothic
akrs
).
Vowel insertion in the middle of a word can be observed in the history of the
Slavic languages
, which had a preference for
open syllables
in medieval times. An example of this is the
Proto-Slavic
form
*
gord?
'town', in which the
East Slavic languages
inserted an epenthetic
copy vowel
to open the
closed syllable
, resulting in
городъ
(
gorod?
), which became
город
(
gorod
) in modern Russian and Ukrainian. Other Slavic languages used
metathesis
for the vowel and the syllable-final consonant, producing *
grod?
in this case, as seen in Polish
grod
,
Old Church Slavonic
градъ
grad?
, Serbo-Croatian
grad
and Czech
hrad
.
Another environment can be observed in the history of Modern
Persian
, in which former word-initial consonant clusters, which were still extant in
Middle Persian
, are regularly broken up: Middle Persian
br?dar
'brother' > modern
Iranian Persian
?????
bar?dar
/bær??dær/
, Middle Persian
st?n
'column' >
Early New Persian
????
sut?n
> modern Iranian Persian
????
sotun
/so?tun/
.
In Spanish, as a phonetic detail, it is usual to find a
schwa
vowel in sequences of a consonant followed by a flap. For instance,
vinagre
'vinegar' may be
[bi?na??e]
but also
[bi?na???e]
.
[
citation needed
]
Many
Indo-Aryan languages
carry an inherent vowel after each consonant. For example, in
Assamese
, the inherent vowel is "o" (
?
), while in
Hindi
and
Marathi
, it is "a" (
?
). Sanskrit words like
maaŋsa
(
'
meat
'
,
????
),
ratna
(
'
jewel
'
,
????
),
yatna
(
'
effort
'
,
????
),
padma
(
'
lotus
'
,
????
),
harsha
(
'
joy
'
,
????
),
dvaara
(
'
door
'
,
?????
) etc. become
moŋoh
(
????
>
???
),
roton
(
????
>
???
),
zoton
(
????
>
???
),
podum
(
????
>
????
),
horix
(
????
>
????
),
duwar
(
?????
>
?????
) etc. in Assamese.
[2]
Other, non-
Tatsama
words also undergo anaptyxis, for example, the English word
glass
becomes
gilas
(
?????
).
Beginning of word
[
edit
]
In the
Western Romance languages
, a prothetic vowel was inserted at the beginning of any word that began with
/s/
and another consonant, e.g. Latin
spatha
'two-edged sword, typically used by cavalry' becomes the normal word for 'sword' in Romance languages with an inserted
/e/
: Spanish/Portuguese
espada
, Catalan
espasa
, Old French
espede
> modern
epee
(see also
espadon
'
swordfish
').
French in fact presents three layers in the vocabulary in which initial vowel epenthesis is or is not applied, depending on the time a word came into the language:
- insertion of epenthetic
/e/
in inherited and commonly-used learned and semi-learned words, which then drop the following
/s/
after the medieval period: Latin
st?lla, *st?la
>
Old French
esteile
> modern
etoile
'star',
studium
> Old French
estude
> modern
etude
'study',
schola
> OF
escole
> modern
ecole
'school'
- insertion of
/e/
and keeping
/s/
in learned words borrowed during the
Middle Ages
or the
Renaissance
:
speci?s
>
espece
,
spatium
>
espace
- then in the modern period,
/e/
is not inserted and uncommon old learned borrowings are remolded to look more like Latin:
schol?ris
>
scolaire
,
spati?lis
>
spatial
,
speci?lis
> learned Old French
especiel
> remolded to modern
special
Additionally, at some point in the
Proto-Armenian language
and
Classical Armenian
, the prothetic vowel
?
was placed at the beginning of the word before the sound
?
, leading to words like
????
(
'
animal mouth
'
,
erax
) from Iranian
rax
(
'
animal mouth
'
), or
????
(
'
dream
'
,
eraz
) from Iranian
raz
(
'
mystery
'
).
Grammatical rule
[
edit
]
Epenthesis often breaks up a
consonant cluster
or vowel sequence that is not permitted by the
phonotactics
of a language. Regular or semi-regular epenthesis commonly occurs in languages with
affixes
. For example, a
reduced vowel
/?/
or
/?/
(here abbreviated as
/?/
) is inserted before the English plural suffix
-/z/
and the past tense suffix
-/d/
when the root ends in a similar consonant:
glass
→
glasses
/??læs?z/
or
/??l?ːs?z/
;
bat
→
batted
/?bæt?d/
. However, this is a
synchronic
analysis as the vowel was originally present in the suffix but has been lost in most words.
Borrowed words
[
edit
]
Vocalic epenthesis typically occurs when words are borrowed from a language that has consonant clusters or
syllable codas
that are not permitted in the borrowing language.
Languages use various vowels, but schwa is quite common when it is available:
- Hebrew
uses a single vowel, the
schwa
(pronounced
/?/
in
Israeli Hebrew
).
[
citation needed
]
- Japanese
generally uses
/?/
except after
/t/
and
/d/
, when it uses
/o/
, and after
/h/
, when it uses an
echo vowel
. For example, English
cap
becomes
キャップ
/kjapp?/
in Japanese; English
street
,
ストリ?ト
/s?to?iːto/
; the
Dutch
name
Gogh
,
ゴッホ
/?ohho/
; and the
German
name
Bach
,
バッハ
/bahha/
.
[
citation needed
]
- Korean
uses
/?/
in most cases.
/i/
is used after borrowed
/?/
,
/?/
,
/t?/
,
/d?/
, or
/c/
, although
/u/
may also be used after borrowed
/?/
depending on the source language.
/u/
is used when
/?/
is followed by a consonant or when a syllable ends with
/?/
. For example, English
strike
becomes
스트라이크
/s?.t??.?a.i.k??/
, with three epenthetic
/?/
vowels and a split of English diphthong
into two syllables.
[
citation needed
]
- Brazilian Portuguese
uses
/i/
, which, in most dialects, triggers
palatalization
of a preceding
/t/
or
/d/
:
nerd
>
/?n??d?i/
;
stress
>
/is?t??si/
;
McDonald's
>
/m?ki?donawd?is/
with normal
vocalization
of
/l/
to
/w/
. Most speakers pronounce borrowings with
spelling pronunciations
, and others try to approximate the nearest equivalents in Portuguese of the phonemes in the original language. The word
stress
became
estresse
as in the example above.
[
citation needed
]
- Classical Arabic
does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word, and typically uses
/i/
to break up such clusters in borrowings: Latin
str?ta
>
??????
/s?iraːt?/
'street'. In
Modern Standard Arabic
and
Egyptian Arabic
, copy vowels are often used as well, e.g. English/French
klaxon
(car horn) > Egyptian Arabic
????
/kæ?læks/
'car horn', but note French
blouse
> Egyptian Arabic
?????
/be?luːzæ/
(where
/e/
corresponds to Modern Standard Arabic
/i/
). Many other modern varieties such as
North Levantine Arabic
and
Moroccan Arabic
allow word-initial clusters, however.
- Persian
also does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word and typically uses
/æ/
to break up such clusters in borrowings except between
/s/
and
/t/
, when
/o/
is added.
[
citation needed
]
- Spanish
does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word with an
/s/
in them and adds
e-
to such words: Latin
species
>
especie
, English
stress
>
estres
.
[
citation needed
]
- Turkish
prefixes
close vowels
to loanwords with
initial
clusters
of
alveolar
fricatives
followed by another consonant:
Isparta
< Greek
Σπ?ρτη
(
Sparti
),
setuskur
<
set screw
,
uskumru
< Greek
σκουμπρ?
(
skoumbri
),
Uskudar
< Byzantine Greek
Σκουτ?ριον
(
Skoutarion
),
istimbot
<
steamboat
,
?skocya
<
Scotland
,
istavrit
< Greek
σταυροειδ??
(
stavridis
),
?zmir
< Greek
Σμ?ρνη
(
Smirni
). The practice is no longer productive as of late 20th century and a few such words have changed back:
spor
<
ıspor
< French
sport
.
[
citation needed
]
Informal speech
[
edit
]
Epenthesis most often occurs within unfamiliar or complex consonant clusters. For example, in English, the name
Dwight
is commonly pronounced with an epenthetic
schwa
between the
/d/
and the
/w/
(
[d??wa?t]
), and many speakers insert a schwa between the
/l/
and
/t/
of
realtor
.
[3]
Irish English
and
Scottish English
are some of the dialects that may insert a schwa between
/l/
and
/m/
in words like
film
(
[?f?l?m]
) under the influence of
Celtic languages
, a phenomenon that also occurs in
Indian English
due to the influence of
Indo-Aryan languages
like
Hindi
.
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 found in the chants of
England
football fans in which England is usually rendered as
[??ŋ??l?nd]
or the pronunciation of
athlete
as "ath-e-lete". Some apparent occurrences of epenthesis, however, have a separate cause: the pronunciation of
nuclear
as
nucular
(
/?n(j)ukj?l?/
) in some North American dialects arises out of analogy with other -
cular
words (
binocular
,
particular
, etc.) rather than from epenthesis.
In colloquial registers of Brazilian Portuguese,
[i]
is sometimes inserted between consonant clusters except those with
/l/
(
atleta
),
/?/
(
prato
) or syllable-ending
/s/
(
pasta
; note syllable-final
/s/
is pronounced
[?]
in a number of dialects). Examples would be
tsunami
/tisu?nami/
,
advogado
/adivo??adu/
and
abdomen
[abi?dom?j]
. Some dialects also use
[e]
, which is
deemed as stereotypical
of people from lower classes, such as those arriving from
rural flight
in internal migrations to cities such as
Rio de Janeiro
,
Brasilia
and
Sao Paulo
.
In Finnish
[
edit
]
In
Finnish
, there are two epenthetic vowels and two nativization vowels. One epenthetic vowel is the
preceding vowel
, found in the
illative case
ending
-(h)*n
:
maa
→
maahan
,
talo
→
taloon
. The second is
[e]
, connecting stems that have historically been consonant stems to their case endings:
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:
ranta
(
'
shore
'
) from Proto-Germanic
*strand?
. However, modern loans may not end in consonants. Even if the word, such as a personal name, is native, a
paragogic vowel
is needed to connect a consonantal case ending to the word. The vowel is
/i/
:
(Inter)net
→
netti
, or in the case of personal name,
Bush
+
-sta
→
Bushista
'
about Bush
'
(
elative case
).
Finnish has
moraic
consonants:
l
,
h
and
n
are of interest. In Standard Finnish, they are slightly intensified before a consonant in a medial cluster:
-
h
j-
. Some dialects, like
Savo
and
Ostrobothnian
, have epenthesis instead and use the preceding vowel in clusters of type
-l
C
-
and
-h
C
-
, in Savo also
-nh-
. (In Finnish linguistics, the phenomenon is often referred to as
?vaa
; the same word can also mean
'
schwa
'
, but it is not a
phoneme
in Finnish so there is usually no danger of confusion.)
For example,
Pohjanmaa
'
Ostrobothnia
'
→
Pohojammaa
,
ryhma
→
ryhyma
, 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:
kirja
→
kiria
. Also, in a small region in Savo,
/e/
is used instead.)
[4]
In constructed languages
[
edit
]
Lojban
, a
constructed language
that seeks
logically
-oriented grammatical and phonological structures, uses a number of consonant clusters in its words. Since it is designed to be as universal as possible, it allows a type of anaptyxis called "buffering" to be used if a speaker finds a cluster difficult or impossible to pronounce. A vowel sound that is nonexistent in Lojban (usually /?/ as in
'
hit
'
) is added between two consonants to make the word easier to pronounce. Despite altering the phonetics of a word, the use of buffering is completely ignored by grammar. Also, the vowel sound used must not be confused with any existing Lojban vowel.
An example of buffering in Lojban is that if a speaker finds the cluster
[ml]
in the word
mlatu
(
'
cat
'
) (pronounced
['mlatu]
) hard or impossible to pronounce, the vowel
[?]
can be pronounced between the two consonants, resulting in the form
[m??latu]
. Nothing changes grammatically, including the word's spelling and the
syllabication
.
In sign language
[
edit
]
A type of epenthesis in
sign language
is known as "movement epenthesis" and occurs, most commonly, during the boundary between signs while the hands move from the posture required by the first sign to that required by the next.
[5]
Related phenomena
[
edit
]
- Infixation
: the insertion of a
morpheme
within a word
- Metathesis
: the reordering of sounds within a word
- Paragoge
: the addition of a sound to the end of a word
- Prothesis
: the addition of a sound to the beginning of a word
- Tmesis
: the inclusion of a whole word within another one
See also
[
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]
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
Labrune 2012
, 3.13 /r/, pp. 92?95, citing unpublished "The phonology of Japanese /r/: a panchronic account" by same author, originally from Ph.D. thesis
Le statut phonologique de /r/ en japonais et en coreen : histoire, typologie, structure interne des segments
["The Phonological Status of /r/ In Japanese and in Korean: History, Typology, Internal Structure of Segments"], Paris 7 University, 1993.
- ^
Deka, Dharma Singha (2019).
Rosona Bisitra
.
Guwahati
: Assam Book Depot. pp. 3?4.
ISBN
978-93-82384-00-7
.
- ^
Thompson, Phil; Armstrong, Eric (March 15, 2010).
Glossonomia: Episode 7: Schwa [?]
(Podcast).
York University
. Retrieved
March 31,
2024
.
- ^
Savolainen, Erkki (1998).
"Valivokaali"
.
Suomen murteet
(in Finnish). Internetix
. Retrieved
2010-08-26
.
- ^
Liddell, Scott; Johnson, Robert (2011), "American Sign Language: The Phonological Base", in
Valli, Clayton
;
Lucas, Ceil
; Mulrooney, Kristin; et al. (eds.),
Linguistics of American Sign Language
(5 ed.), Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, pp. 315?316,
ISBN
9781563685071
General and cited sources
[
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]
External links
[
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]