From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pure vowel sound
A
monophthong
(
MON
-?f-thong,
MON
-?p-
; from
Ancient Greek
μον?φθογγο?
(monophthongos)
'one sound',
[1]
from
μ?νο?
(monos)
'single', and
φθ?γγο?
(phthongos)
'sound') is a pure
vowel
sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not
glide up or down
towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with
diphthongs
, where the vowel quality changes within the same syllable, and
hiatus
, where two vowels are next to each other in different syllables. A vowel sound whose quality does not change over the duration of the vowel is called a pure vowel.
Sound changes
[
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]
The conversions of monophthongs to diphthongs (diphthongization), and of diphthongs to monophthongs (monophthongization), are major elements of
language change
and are likely the cause of further changes.
In some languages, due to monophthongization,
graphemes
that originally represented diphthongs now represent monophthongs.
See also
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]
References
[
edit
]
Look up
monophthong
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.