Syncope (phonology)

Template:Short description Template:Notconfused Template:Sound changeTemplate:More citations needed In phonology, syncope (Template:IPAc-en; from Template:Langx) is the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word, especially the loss of an unstressed vowel. It is found in both synchronic and diachronic analyses of languages. Its opposite, whereby sounds are added, is epenthesis.

Synchronic analysis

Synchronic analysis studies linguistic phenomena at one moment of a language's history, usually the present, in contrast to diachronic analysis, which studies a language's states and the patterns of change across a historical timeframe. In modern languages, syncope occurs in inflection, poetry, and informal speech.

Inflections

In languages such as Irish and Hebrew, the process of inflection can cause syncope:

Verbs:

• Irish: Template:Lang (to play) should become *Template:Lang (I play). However, the addition of the Template:Lang causes syncope and the second-last syllable vowel Template:Lang is lost so Template:Lang becomes Template:Lang.
• Hebrew: Template:Langx (katav), (he) wrote, becomes Template:Langx (katvu), (they) wrote, when the third-person plural ending Template:Lang (-u) is added.

Nouns:

• Irish: Template:Lang (island) should become *Template:Lang in the genitive case. However, instead of *Template:Lang, road signs say, Template:Lang (the town of the island). Once again, there is the loss of the second Template:Lang.

If the present root form in Irish is the result of diachronic syncope, synchronic syncope for inflection is prevented.

As a poetic device

Sounds may be removed from the interior of a word as a rhetorical or poetic device: for embellishment or for the sake of the meter.

• Latin Template:Wikt-lang > poetic Template:Lang ("he had moved")
• English hastening > poetic hast'ning
• English heaven > poetic heav'n
• English over > poetic o'er
• English ever > poetic e'er, often confused with ere ("before")

Informal speech

Various sorts of colloquial reductions might be called "syncope" or "compression".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Contractions in English such as "didn't" or "can't" are typically cases of syncope.

• English Australian > colloquial Strine, pronounced Template:IPAc-en
• English did not > didn't, pronounced Template:IPAc-en
• English I would have > I'd've, pronounced Template:IPAc-en
• English going to > colloquial gonna (generally only when unstressed and when expressing intention rather than direction), pronounced Template:IPAc-en or, before a vowel, Template:IPAc-en
• English library pronounced as Template:IPAc-en<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (haplology)

Diachronic analysis

In historical phonology, the term "syncope" is often limited to the loss of an unstressed vowel, in effect collapsing the syllable that contained it: trisyllabic Latin calidus (stress on first syllable) develops as bisyllabic caldo in several Romance languages.

Loss of any sound

• Old English Template:Wikt-lang > Template:Wikt-lang > Middle English Template:Lang > Modern English lord, pronounced Template:IPAc-en
• English Worcester, pronounced Template:IPAc-en
• English Gloucester, pronounced Template:IPAc-en
• English Leicester, pronounced Template:IPAc-en
• English Towcester, pronounced Template:IPAc-en
• English Godmanchester, pronounced Template:IPAc-en (archaic)

Loss of unstressed vowel

• Latin Template:Wikt-lang > Italian Template:Wikt-lang Template:IPA "hot"
• Latin Template:Wikt-lang > Italian Template:Wikt-lang Template:IPA "eye"
• Proto-Norse Template:Lang > Old Norse Template:Lang "arm"
• Proto-Norse Template:Lang > Old Norse Template:Lang "books"
• Proto-Germanic Template:Lang > Old Norse Template:Lang "heavens"

A syncope rule has been identified in Tonkawa, an extinct American Indian language in which the second vowel of a word was deleted unless it was adjacent to a consonant cluster or a final consonant.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

• Apheresis (linguistics)
• Apocope
• Clipping (morphology)
• Clipping (phonetics)
• Deletion (phonology)
• Elision
• Epenthesis, the addition of sounds to the interior of a word
• Poetic contraction
• Synaeresis
• Synalepha
• Syncopation in music
• Vowel reduction

Sources

• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite book