Lenition
Template:Short description Template:Also Template:Sound change Template:IPA notice
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin Template:Lang 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a particular point in time) and diachronically (as a language changes over time). Lenition can involve such changes as voicing a voiceless consonant, causing a consonant to relax occlusion, to lose its place of articulation (a phenomenon called debuccalization, which turns a consonant into a glottal consonant like Template:IPAblink or Template:IPAblink), or even causing a consonant to disappear entirely.
An example of synchronic lenition is found in most varieties of American English, in the form of tapping: the Template:IPAslink of a word like wait Template:IPA is pronounced as the more sonorous Template:IPAblink in the related form waiting Template:IPA. Some varieties of Spanish show debuccalization of Template:IPAslink to Template:IPAblink at the end of a syllable, so that a word like Template:Lang "we are" is pronounced Template:IPA. An example of diachronic lenition can be found in the Romance languages, where the Template:IPAslink of Latin Template:Lang ("father", accusative) has become Template:IPAslink in Italian (an irregular change; compare Template:Lang "silk" > Template:Lang) and Spanish Template:Lang (the latter weakened synchronically Template:IPAslink → Template:IPAblink), while in Catalan Template:Lang, French Template:Lang and Portuguese Template:Lang historical Template:IPAslink has disappeared completely.
In some languages, lenition has been grammaticalized into a consonant mutation, which means it is no longer triggered by its phonological environment but is now governed by its syntactic or morphological environment. For example, in Welsh, the word Template:Lang "cat" begins with the sound Template:IPAslink, but after the definite article Template:Lang, the Template:IPAslink changes to Template:IPAblink: "the cat" in Welsh is Template:Lang. This was historically due to intervocalic lenition, but in the plural, lenition does not happen, so "the cats" is Template:Lang, not *Template:Lang. The change of Template:IPAslink to Template:IPAblink in Template:Lang is thus caused by the syntax of the phrase, not by the modern phonological position of the consonant Template:IPAslink.
The opposite of lenition, fortition, a sound change that makes a consonant "stronger", is less common, but Breton and Cornish have "hard mutation" forms which represent fortition.
Types
Lenition involves changes in manner of articulation, sometimes accompanied by small changes in place of articulation. There are two main lenition pathways: opening and sonorization. In both cases, a stronger sound becomes a weaker one. Lenition can be seen as a movement on the sonority hierarchy from less sonorous to more sonorous, or on a strength hierarchy from stronger to weaker.
In examples below, a greater-than sign indicates that one sound changes to another. The notation Template:IPA > Template:IPA means that Template:IPA changes to Template:IPA.
The sound change of palatalization sometimes involves lenition.
Lenition includes the loss of a feature, such as deglottalization, in which glottalization or ejective articulation is lost: Template:IPA or Template:IPA > Template:IPA.
The tables below show common sound changes involved in lenition. In some cases, lenition may skip one of the sound changes. The change voiceless stop > fricative is more common than the series of changes voiceless stop > affricate > fricative.
Opening
In the opening type of lenition, the articulation becomes more open with each step. Opening lenition involves several sound changes: shortening of double consonants, affrication of stops, spirantization or assibilation of stops or affricates, debuccalization, and finally elision.
- Template:IPA or Template:IPA > Template:IPA (shortening, example in Greek)
- Template:IPA > Template:IPA (affrication, for example Template:Langx to Template:Langx)
- Template:IPA or Template:IPA > Template:IPA (spirantization, example in Gilbertese language)
- Template:IPA > Template:IPA; Template:IPA > Template:IPA (debuccalization, example in English or Spanish)
- Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA > ∅ (elision, for example Template:Langx to Template:Langx (cf. Template:Langx))
| geminated stop | → | stop | → | affricate | → | fricative | → | placeless approximant | → | no sound |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| original sound | → | degemination | → | affrication | → | spirantization (deaffrication) |
→ | debuccalization | → | elision |
| Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | (zero) |
| → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | ||||||
| Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | |||
| → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | ||||||
| Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → |
Sonorization
The sonorization type involves voicing. Sonorizing lenition involves several sound changes: voicing, approximation, and vocalization.Template:Clarify
- Template:IPA > Template:IPA (voicing, example in Korean)
- Template:IPA > Template:IPA (approximation, example in Spanish)
- Template:IPA > Template:IPA (vocalization)
Sonorizing lenition occurs especially often intervocalically (between vowels). In this position, lenition can be seen as a type of assimilation of the consonant to the surrounding vowels, in which features of the consonant that are not present in the surrounding vowels (e.g. obstruction, voicelessness) are gradually eliminated.
| stop | → | voiced stop | → | continuant (fricative, trill, etc.) |
→ | approximant | → | no sound | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| original sound | → | voicing (sonorization) |
→ | spirantization, trilling | → | approximation | → | elision | ||||
| Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | (zero) | ||||
| → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | ||||||||
| → | Template:IPA | → | ||||||||||
| Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | |||||
| → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | ||||||||
| → | Template:IPA | → | ||||||||||
| Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA | → | |||||
| → | Template:IPA | → | ||||||||||
Some of the sounds generated by lenition are often subsequently "normalized" into related but cross-linguistically more common sounds. An example would be the changes Template:IPA → Template:IPA → Template:IPA and Template:IPA → Template:IPA → Template:IPA. Such normalizations correspond to diagonal movements down and to the right in the above table. In other cases, sounds are lenited and normalized at the same time; examples would be direct changes Template:IPA → Template:IPA or Template:IPA → Template:IPA.
Vocalization
L-vocalization is a subtype of the sonorization type of lenition. It has two possible results: a velar approximant or back vowel, or a palatal approximant or front vowel. In French, l-vocalization of the sequence Template:IPA resulted in the diphthong Template:IPA, which was monophthongized, yielding the monophthong Template:IPA in Modern French.
| lateral approximant | → | semivowel | → | vowel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA Template:IPA |
→ | Template:IPA Template:IPA |
| → | Template:IPA | → | Template:IPA |
Mixed
Sometimes a particular example of lenition mixes the opening and sonorization pathways. For example, Template:IPA may spirantize or open to Template:IPA, then voice or sonorize to Template:IPA.
Lenition can be seen in Canadian and American English, where Template:IPA and Template:IPA soften to a tap Template:IPA (flapping) when not in initial position and followed by an unstressed vowel. For example, both rate and raid plus the suffix -er are pronounced Template:IPA. The Italian of Central and Southern Italy has a number of lenitions, the most widespread of which is the deaffrication of Template:IPA to Template:IPA between vowels: post-pausal Template:Lang Template:IPA 'dinner' but post-vocalic Template:Lang Template:IPA 'the dinner'; the name Template:Lang, although structurally Template:IPA, is normally pronounced Template:IPA. In Tuscany, Template:IPA likewise is realized Template:IPA between vowels, and in typical speech of Central Tuscany, the voiceless stops Template:IPA in the same position are pronounced respectively Template:IPA, as in Template:IPA → Template:IPA 'the house', Template:IPA → Template:IPA 'hole'.
Effects
Diachronic
Diachronic lenition is found, for example, in the change from Latin into Spanish, in which the intervocalic voiceless stops Template:IPA first changed into their voiced counterparts Template:IPA, and later into the approximants or fricatives Template:IPA: Template:Lang > Template:Lang, Template:Lang > Template:Lang, Template:Lang > Template:Lang, Template:Lang > Template:Lang. One stage in these changes goes beyond phonetic to have become a phonological restructuring, e.g. Template:IPA > Template:IPA (compare Template:IPA in Italian, with no change in the phonological status of Template:IPA). The subsequent further weakening of the series to phonetic Template:IPA, as in Template:IPA is diachronic in the sense that the developments took place over time and displaced Template:IPA as the normal pronunciations between vowels. It is also synchronic in an analysis of Template:IPA as allophonic realizations of Template:IPA: illustrating with Template:IPA, Template:IPA 'wine' is pronounced Template:IPA after pause, but with Template:IPA intervocalically, as in Template:IPA 'of wine'; likewise, Template:IPA → Template:IPA.
A similar development occurred in the Celtic languages, where non-geminate intervocalic consonants were converted into their corresponding weaker counterparts through lenition (usually stops into fricatives but also laterals and trills into weaker laterals and taps), and voiceless stops became voiced. For example, Indo-European intervocalic Template:Lang in Template:Lang "people" resulted in Proto-Celtic Template:Wikt-lang, Primitive Irish Template:Lang, Old Irish Template:Wikt-lang Template:IPA and ultimately debuccalisation in most Irish and some Scottish dialects to Template:IPA, shift in Central Southern Irish to Template:IPA, and complete deletion in some Modern Irish and most Modern Scots Gaelic dialects, thus Template:IPA.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
An example of historical lenition in the Germanic languages is evidenced by Latin-English cognates such as Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang vs. father, thin, horn. The Latin words preserved the original stops, which became fricatives in old Germanic by Grimm's law. A few centuries later, the High German consonant shift led to a second series of lenitions in Old High German, chiefly of post-vocalic stops, as evidenced in the English-German cognates ripe, water, make vs. Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang.
Although actually a much more profound change encompassing syllable restructuring, simplification of geminate consonants as in the passage from Latin to Spanish such as cuppa > Template:IPA 'cup' is often viewed as a type of lenition (compare geminate-preserving Italian Template:IPA).
Synchronic
Allophonic
All varieties of Sardinian, with the sole exception of Nuorese, offer an example of sandhi in which the rule of intervocalic lenition applying to the voiced series Template:IPA extends across word boundaries. Since it is a fully active synchronic rule, lenition is not normally indicated in the standard orthographies.<ref>Mensching, G. (1992). Einführung in die Sardische Sprache, Romanistischer Verlag, Bonn</ref>
| Template:IPA | → Template:IPA: Template:Lang Template:IPA "cow" → Template:Lang Template:IPA "the cow" |
| Template:IPA | → Template:IPA: Template:Lang Template:IPA "house" → Template:Lang Template:IPA "the house" |
| Template:IPA | → Template:IPA: Template:Lang Template:IPA "ladle" → Template:Lang Template:IPA "the ladle" |
A series of synchronic lenitions involving opening, or loss of occlusion, rather than voicing is found for post-vocalic Template:IPA in many Tuscan dialects of Central Italy. Stereotypical Florentine, for example, has the Template:IPA of Template:IPA as Template:IPA Template:Lang 'house' in a post-pause realization, Template:IPA Template:Lang 'in (the) house' post-consonant, but Template:IPA Template:Lang 'the house' intervocalically. Word-internally, the normal realization is also Template:IPA: Template:IPA Template:Lang 'hole' → Template:IPA.
Grammatical
In the Celtic languages, the phenomenon of intervocalic lenition historically extended across word boundaries. This explains the rise of grammaticalised initial consonant mutations in modern Celtic languages through the loss of endings. A Scottish Gaelic example would be the lack of lenition in Template:Lang Template:IPA ("the man") and lenition in Template:Lang Template:IPA ("the woman"). The following examples show the development of a phrase consisting of a definite article plus a masculine noun (taking the ending Template:Lang) compared with a feminine noun taking the ending Template:Lang. The historic development of lenition in those two cases can be reconstructed as follows:
- Proto-Celtic Template:Lang IPA: Template:IPA → Old Irish Template:Lang Template:IPA → Middle Irish Template:Lang Template:IPA → Classical Gaelic Template:Lang Template:IPA → Modern Gaelic Template:Lang Template:IPA
- Proto-Celtic Template:Lang IPA: Template:IPA → Old Irish Template:Lang Template:IPA → Middle Irish Template:Lang Template:IPA → Classical Gaelic Template:Lang Template:IPA → Modern Gaelic Template:Lang Template:IPA
Synchronic lenition in Scottish Gaelic affects almost all consonants (except Template:IPA, which has lost its lenited counterpart in most areas).<ref name="Oftedal">Oftedal, M. (1956) The Gaelic of Leurbost Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, Oslo</ref> Changes such as Template:IPA to Template:IPA involve the loss of secondary articulation; in addition, Template:IPA → Template:IPA involves the reduction of a trill to a tap. The spirantization of Gaelic nasal Template:IPA to Template:IPA is unusual among forms of lenition, but it is triggered by the same environment as more prototypical lenition. (It may also leave a residue of nasalization in adjacent vowels.)<ref>Ternes, E. (1989) The Phonemic Analysis of Scottish Gaelic Helmut Buske Verkag, Hamburg</ref> The orthography shows that by inserting an Template:Lang (except after Template:Lang).
Blocked lenition
Some languages which have lenition have in addition complex rules affecting situations where lenition might be expected to occur but does not, often those involving homorganic consonants. This is colloquially known as 'blocked lenition', or more technically as 'homorganic inhibition' or 'homorganic blocking'. In Scottish Gaelic, for example, there are three homorganic groups:<ref name="Blas">Template:Cite book</ref>
- d n t l s (usually called the dental group in spite of the non-dental nature of the palatals)
- c g (usually called the velar group)
- b f m p (usually called the labial group)
In a position where lenition is expected due to the grammatical environment, lenition tends to be blocked if there are two adjacent homorganic consonants across the word boundary. For example:<ref name=Blas/>
- Template:Lang 'one' (which causes lenition) → Template:Lang 'one leg' vs Template:Lang 'one house' (not Template:Lang)
- Template:Lang 'on the' (which causes lenition) → Template:Lang 'on the big leg' vs Template:Lang "on the brown house" (not Template:Lang)
In modern Scottish Gaelic this rule is only productive in the case of dentals but not the other two groups for the vast majority of speakers. It also does not affect all environments any more. For example, while Template:Lang still invokes the rules of blocked lenition, a noun followed by an adjective generally no longer does so. Hence:<ref name=Blas/>
- Template:Lang "hat" (a feminine noun causing lenition) → Template:Lang "a brown hat" (although some highly conservative speakers retain Template:Lang)
- Template:Lang "girl" (a feminine noun causing lenition) → Template:Lang "a smart girl" (not Template:Lang)
There is a significant number of frozen forms involving the other two groups (labials and velars) and environments as well, especially in surnames and place names:<ref name=Blas/>
- Template:Lang 'Montgomery' (Template:Lang + Template:Lang) vs Template:Lang 'MacDonald (Template:Lang + Template:Lang)
- Template:Lang 'Campbell' (Template:Lang 'crooked' + Template:Lang 'mouth') vs Template:Lang 'Cameron' (Template:Lang + Template:Lang 'nose')
- Template:Lang 'Sgian-dubh' (Template:Lang 'knife' + Template:Lang '1 black 2 hidden'; Template:Lang as a feminine noun today would normally cause lenition on a following adjective) vs Template:Lang "a black knife" (i.e., a common knife which just happens to be black)
Though rare, in some instances the rules of blocked lenition can be invoked by lost historical consonants, for example, in the case of the past-tense copula Template:Lang, which in Common Celtic had a final -t. In terms of blocked lenition, it continues to behave as a dental-final particle invoking blocked lenition rules:<ref name=Blas/>
- Template:Lang "bad was the food" versus Template:Lang 'great was the pity
In Brythonic languages, only fossilized vestiges of lenition blocking occur, for example in Welsh Template:Lang 'good night' lenition is blocked<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (Template:Lang as a feminine noun normally causes lenition of a following modifier, for example Template:Lang 'Friday' yields Template:Lang 'Friday night'). Within Celtic, blocked lenition phenomena also occur in Irish (for example Template:Lang 'one door', Template:Lang 'the first person') and Manx (for example Template:Lang 'one door', Template:Lang 'the first man').
Outside Celtic, in Spanish orthographic b d g are retained as Template:IPA following nasals rather than their normal lenited forms Template:IPA.
Orthography
Template:See also In the modern Celtic languages, lenition of the "fricating" type is usually denoted by adding an h to the lenited letter. In Welsh, for example, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, and Template:Lang change into Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang as a result of the so-called "aspirate mutation" (Template:Lang, "stone" → Template:Lang "her stone"). An exception is Manx orthography, which tends to be more phonetic, but in some cases, etymological principles are applied. In the Gaelic script, fricating lenition (usually called simply lenition) is indicated by a dot above the affected consonant, and in the Roman script, the convention is to suffix the letter Template:Lang to the consonant, to signify that it is lenited. Thus, Template:Lang is equivalent to Template:Lang. In Middle Irish manuscripts, lenition of Template:Lang and Template:Lang was indicated by the dot above, and lenition of Template:Lang, Template:Lang, and Template:Lang was indicated by the postposed Template:Lang; lenition of other letters was not indicated consistently in the orthography.
Voicing lenition is represented by a simple letter switch in the Brythonic languages, for instance Template:Lang, "stone" → Template:Lang, "the stone" in Welsh. In Irish orthography, it is shown by writing the "weak" consonant alongside the (silent) "strong" one: Template:Lang, "pen" → Template:Lang "our pen", Template:Lang, "head" → Template:Lang "our head" (sonorization is traditionally called "eclipsis" in Irish grammar).The Irish orthographic convention was adopted by Breton grammarians in the late 19th century, but dropped again in the mid 20th.
Although nasalization as a feature also occurs in most Scottish Gaelic dialects, it is not shown in the orthography on the whole, as it is synchronic (the result of certain types of nasals affecting a following sound), rather than the diachronic Irish type sonorization (after historic nasals). For example Template:Lang Template:IPA "house" → Template:Lang Template:IPA "the house".<ref name=Oftedal/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Consonant gradation
Template:Main The phenomenon of consonant gradation in Finnic languages is also a form of lenition.
An example with geminate consonants comes from Finnish, where geminates become simple consonants while retaining voicing or voicelessness (e.g. Template:Lang → Template:Lang, Template:Lang → Template:Lang). It is also possible for entire consonant clusters to undergo lenition, as in Votic, where voiceless clusters become voiced, e.g. Template:Lang "to cry" → Template:Lang.
If a language has no obstruents other than voiceless stops, other sounds are encountered, as in Finnish, where the lenited grade is represented by chronemes, approximants, taps or even trills. For example, Finnish used to have a complete set of spirantization reflexes for Template:IPA, though these have been lost in favour of similar-sounding phonemes. In the Southern Ostrobothnian, Tavastian and southwestern<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> dialects of Finnish, Template:IPA mostly changed into Template:IPA, thus the dialects have a synchronic lenition of an alveolar stop into an alveolar trill Template:IPA. Furthermore, the same phoneme Template:IPA undergoes assibilation Template:IPA → Template:IPA before the vowel Template:IPA, e.g. root Template:Lang "water" → Template:Lang and Template:Lang. Here, Template:Lang is the stem, Template:Lang is its nominative, and Template:Lang is the same stem under consonant gradation.
Fortition
Template:Main Fortition is the opposite of lenition: a consonant mutation in which a consonant changes from one considered weak to one considered strong. Fortition is less frequent than lenition in the languages of the world, but word-initial and word-final fortition is fairly frequent.
Italian, for example, presents numerous regular examples of word-initial fortition both historically (Lat. Template:Lang with initial Template:IPA > Template:Lang, with Template:IPA) and synchronically (e.g., Template:IPA "house, home" → Template:IPA but Template:IPA "at home" → Template:IPA).
Catalan is among numerous Romance languages with diachronic word-final devoicing (Template:Lang > Template:IPA > Template:Lang Template:IPA. Fortition also occurs in Catalan for Template:IPA in consonant clusters with a lateral consonant (Lat. Template:Lang > Template:Lang Template:IPA or Template:IPA.
Word-medially, Template:IPA is subject to fortition in numerous Romance languages, ranging from Template:IPA or Template:IPA in many speech types on Italian soil to Template:IPA in some varieties of Spanish.
See also
- Apophony
- Begadkefat
- Chain shift
- Consonant mutation
- Germanic spirant law
- Grimm's Law
- High German consonant shift
- Historical linguistics
- Rendaku – a similar phenomenon in the Japanese language
- Tuscan gorgia – a specific form of lenition found in the Tuscan dialect of Italian
References
Citations
General references
- Crowley, Terry (1997). An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
- Template:Cite book