Apophony
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
, apophony (also known as ablaut, gradation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates grammatical information
(often inflectional).
as the internal vowel alternations that produce such related words as
The difference in these vowels marks variously a difference in tense
or aspect
(e.g. sing/sang/sung), transitivity
(rise/raise), part of speech (sing/song, bind/bound), or grammatical number
(goose/geese).
That these sound alternations function grammatically can be seen as they are often equivalent to grammatical suffixes
(an external modification). Compare the following:
The vowel alternation between i and a indicates a difference between present and past tense in the pair sing/sang. Here the past tense is indicated by the vowel a just as the past tense is indicated on the verb jump with the past tense suffix -ed. Likewise, the plural suffix -s on the word books has the same grammatical function as the presence of the vowel ee in the word geese (where ee alternates with oo in the pair goose/geese).
Consonants, too, can alternate in ways that are used grammatically. An example is the pattern in English of verb-noun pairs with related meanings but differing in voicing
of a postvocalic consonant:
Most instances of apophony develop historically from changes due to phonological assimilation
that are later grammaticalized (or morphologized) when the environment causing the assimilation is lost. Such is the case with English goose/geese and belief/believe.
s, consonant
s, prosodic elements (such as tone
, syllable length), and even smaller features, such as nasality
(on vowels).
The sound alternations may be used inflection
ally or derivationally
. The particular function of a given alternation will depend on the language.
(English sing-sang) and Germanic Umlaut
(goose-geese), mentioned above, are well attested examples. Another example is from Dinka
:
The vowel alternation may involve more than just a change in vowel quality. In Athabascan languages, such as Navajo
, verbs have series of stems where the vowel alternates (sometimes with an added suffix
) indicating a different tense-aspect. Navajo vowel ablaut, depending on the verb, may be a change in vowel, vowel length
, nasality
, and/or tone
. For example, the verb stem -kaah/-ką́ "to handle an open container" has a total of 16 combinations of the 5 modes and 4 aspects, resulting in 7 different verb stem forms (i.e. -kaah, -kááh, -kaał, -kááł, -ka’, -ká, -ką́).
Another verb stem -géésh/-gizh "to cut" has a different set of alternations and mode-aspect combinations, resulting in 3 different forms (i.e. -géésh, -gizh, -gish):
, may be found in alternations. For example, Vietnamese
has the following tone alternations which are used derivationally:
Albanian
uses different vowel lengths to indicate number and grammatical gender
on nouns:
English has alternating stress patterns
that indicate whether related words are nouns (first syllable stressed) or verbs (second syllable stressed):
Prosodic alternations are sometimes analyzed as not as a type of apophony but rather as prosodic affix
es, which are known, variously, as suprafixes, superfixes, or simulfixes.
or consonant gradation
. Bemba
indicates causative
verbs through alternation of the stem-final consonant. Here the alternation involves spirantization and palatalization
:
Celtic languages
are well-known for their initial consonant mutations.
linguistics, ablaut is the vowel alternation that produces such related words as sing, sang, sung, and song. The difference in the vowels results from the alternation (in the Proto-Indo-European language
) of the vowel e with the vowel o or with no vowel. For a more detailed explanation see Indo-European ablaut
.
To cite a few other examples of Indo-European ablaut, English
has a certain class of verbs
, called strong verbs, in which the vowel
changes to indicate a different grammatical tense
-aspect
.
As the examples above show, a trade in the vowel of the verb stem creates a different verb form. (Note that some of the verbs also have a suffix
in the past participle form.) (See also English grammar: Irregular verbs.) For a more detailed explanation of how strong verbs are formed in English and related languages, see Germanic strong verb
.
To cite another example of umlaut, some English weak verbs
show umlaut in the present tense.
A-mutation
and U-mutation
are processes analogous to umlaut but involving the influence of an a (or other non-high vowel) or u respectively instead of an i.
Note that in Indo-European historical linguistics the terms ablaut and umlaut refer to different phenomena and are not interchangeable. Ablaut is a process that dates back to Proto-Indo-European
times, occurs in all Indo-European languages, and refers to (phonologically) unpredictable vowel alternations of a specific nature. From an Indo-European perspective, it typically appears as a variation between o, e, and no vowel, although various sound changes result in different vowel alternations appearing in different daughter languages. Umlaut, meanwhile, is a process that is particular to the Germanic languages and refers to a variation between back vowel
s and front vowel
s that was originally phonologically predictable, and was caused by the presence of an /i/ or /j/ in the syllable following the modified vowel.
From a diachronic
(historical) perspective, the distinction between ablaut and umlaut is very important, particularly in the Germanic languages, as it indicates where and how a specific vowel alternation originates. It is also important when taking a synchronic
(descriptive
) perspective on old Germanic languages such as Old English, as umlaut was still a very regular and productive process at the time. When taking a synchronic perspective on modern languages, however, both processes appear very similar. For example, the alternations seen in sing/sang/sung and foot/feet both appear to be morphologically conditioned (e.g. the alternation appears in the plural or past tense, but not the singular or present tense) and phonologically unpredictable.
By analogy, descriptive linguists discussing synchronic grammars sometimes employ the terms ablaut and umlaut imprecisely, using ablaut to refer to morphological vowel alternation generally (which is unpredictable phonologically) and umlaut to refer to any type of regressive vowel harmony (which is phonologically predictable). Ambiguity can of course be avoided by using alternative terms (apophony, gradation, alternation, internal modification for ablaut, vowel harmony for umlaut) for the broader sense of the words.
:
Here the singular/plural distinction is indicated through ablaut and additionally by a suffix -er in the plural form. English also displays similar forms with a -ren suffix in the plural and a -en suffix in the past participle forms along with the internal vowel alternation:
A more complicated example comes from Chickasaw
where the positive/negative distinction in verbs displays vowel ablaut along with prefixation (ak-) and infixation (-'-):
root-and-pattern morphology of the Afro-Asiatic languages
is sometimes described in terms of apophony. The alternation patterns in many of these languages is quite extensive involving vowels and consonant gemination
(i.e. doubled consonants). The alternations below are of Modern Standard Arabic (the symbol ⟨ː⟩ indicates gemination on the preceding consonant):
For other examples, see archaic plurals in Amharic, Broken plural
, Triconsonantal root.
Other analyses of these languages consider the patterns not to be sound alternations, but rather discontinuous roots with discontinuous affixes, known as transfix
es (sometimes considered simulfix
es or suprafix
es). Some theoretical perspectives call up the notion of morphological
templates or morpheme
"skeletons".
Note that it would also be possible to analyze English in this way as well, where the alternation of goose/geese could be explained as a basic discontinuous root g-se that is filled out with an infix
-oo- "(singular)" or -ee- "(plural)". Many would consider this type of analysis for English to be less desirable as this type of infixal morphology is not very prevalent throughout English and the morphemes -oo- and -ee- would be exceedingly rare.
This usage of the term morpheme
(which is actually describing a replacement process, and not a true morpheme), however, is more in keeping with Item-and-Process models of morphology instead of Item-and-Arrangement models. (See Morphology (linguistics)
for further discussion of morphological models.)
of "expressives" in English (such as onomatopoeia or ideophone
s). Examples of these include:
Here the words are formed by a reduplication
of a base and an alternation of the internal vowel. (See English reduplication).
Some examples in Japanese:
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, apophony (also known as ablaut, gradation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates grammatical information
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
(often inflectional).
Description
Apophony is exemplified in EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as the internal vowel alternations that produce such related words as
- sing, sang, sung, song
- rise, raise
- bind, bound
- goose, geese
The difference in these vowels marks variously a difference in tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
or aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
(e.g. sing/sang/sung), transitivity
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
(rise/raise), part of speech (sing/song, bind/bound), or grammatical number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
(goose/geese).
That these sound alternations function grammatically can be seen as they are often equivalent to grammatical suffixes
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
(an external modification). Compare the following:
| Present Tense | Past Tense |
|---|---|
| jump | jumped |
| sing | sang |
| Singular | Plural |
| book | books |
| goose | geese |
The vowel alternation between i and a indicates a difference between present and past tense in the pair sing/sang. Here the past tense is indicated by the vowel a just as the past tense is indicated on the verb jump with the past tense suffix -ed. Likewise, the plural suffix -s on the word books has the same grammatical function as the presence of the vowel ee in the word geese (where ee alternates with oo in the pair goose/geese).
Consonants, too, can alternate in ways that are used grammatically. An example is the pattern in English of verb-noun pairs with related meanings but differing in voicing
Voice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
of a postvocalic consonant:
| Verb voiced |
Noun unvoiced |
|---|---|
| believe | belief |
| give | gift |
| house (phonetically: [haʊz]) | house (phonetically: [haʊs]) |
| live | life |
| rive | rift |
| use (phonetically: [juz]) | use (phonetically: [jus]) |
Most instances of apophony develop historically from changes due to phonological assimilation
Assimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
that are later grammaticalized (or morphologized) when the environment causing the assimilation is lost. Such is the case with English goose/geese and belief/believe.
Types of apophony
Apophony may involve various types of alternations, including vowelVowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s, consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s, prosodic elements (such as tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
, syllable length), and even smaller features, such as nasality
Nasality
In normal speech, nasality is referred to as nasalization and is a linguistic category that can apply to vowels or consonants in a specific language. The primary underlying physical variable determining the degree of nasality in normal speech is the opening and closing of a velopharyngeal...
(on vowels).
The sound alternations may be used inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
ally or derivationally
Derivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
. The particular function of a given alternation will depend on the language.
Vowel apophony (vowel gradation)
Apophony often involves vowels. Indo-European ablautIndo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
(English sing-sang) and Germanic Umlaut
Germanic umlaut
In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...
(goose-geese), mentioned above, are well attested examples. Another example is from Dinka
Dinka language
This article is about the language, for the ethnic group see Dinka.Dinka, or , is a Nilotic dialect cluster spoken by the Dinka people, the major ethnic group of South Sudan. There are five main varieties, Ngok, Rek, Agaar, Twic / Tuic East, and Bor, which are distinct enough to require separate...
:
| Singular | Plural | gloss | vowel alternation |
|---|---|---|---|
| dom | dum | 'field/fields' | (o-u) |
| kat | kɛt | 'frame/frames' | (a-ɛ) |
- (Bauer 2003:35)
The vowel alternation may involve more than just a change in vowel quality. In Athabascan languages, such as Navajo
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
, verbs have series of stems where the vowel alternates (sometimes with an added suffix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
) indicating a different tense-aspect. Navajo vowel ablaut, depending on the verb, may be a change in vowel, vowel length
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
, nasality
Nasality
In normal speech, nasality is referred to as nasalization and is a linguistic category that can apply to vowels or consonants in a specific language. The primary underlying physical variable determining the degree of nasality in normal speech is the opening and closing of a velopharyngeal...
, and/or tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
. For example, the verb stem -kaah/-ką́ "to handle an open container" has a total of 16 combinations of the 5 modes and 4 aspects, resulting in 7 different verb stem forms (i.e. -kaah, -kááh, -kaał, -kááł, -ka’, -ká, -ką́).
| Imperfective | Perfective | Progressive- Future |
Usitative- Iterative |
Optative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Momentaneous | kaah | ką́ | kááł | kááh | kááł |
| Continuative | ká | ką́ | kaał | kaah | kaał |
| Distributive | ka’ | ką́ | kaał | kaah | ka’ |
| Conative | kááh | - | - | - | - |
Another verb stem -géésh/-gizh "to cut" has a different set of alternations and mode-aspect combinations, resulting in 3 different forms (i.e. -géésh, -gizh, -gish):
| Imperfective | Perfective | Progressive- Future |
Usitative- Iterative |
Optative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Momentaneous | géésh | gizh | gish | gish | géésh |
| Continuative | gizh | gizh | gish | gish | gizh |
| Semelfactive | gish | gish | gish | gish | gish/géésh |
Prosodic apophony
Various prosodic elements, such as tone, syllable length, and stressStress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
, may be found in alternations. For example, Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
has the following tone alternations which are used derivationally:
| tone alternation | ||
|---|---|---|
| đây "here" | đấy "there" | (ngang tone-sắc tone) |
| bây giờ "now" | bấy giờ "then" | (ngang tone-sắc tone) |
| kia "there" | kìa "yonder" | (ngang tone-huyền tone) |
| cứng "hard" | cửng "(to) have an erection" | (sắc tone-hỏi tone) |
- (Nguyễn 1997:42-44)
Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
uses different vowel lengths to indicate number and grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
on nouns:
| [ɡuːr] "stone" | [ɡur] "stones" |
| [dy] "two (masculine)" | [dyː] "two (feminine)" |
- (Asher 1994:1719)
English has alternating stress patterns
Initial-stress-derived noun
Initial-stress derivation is a phonological process in English, wherein stress is moved to the first syllable of any of several dozen verbs when they become nouns or adjectives. This is called a suprafix in linguistics...
that indicate whether related words are nouns (first syllable stressed) or verbs (second syllable stressed):
| noun | verb |
|---|---|
| pérvert | pervért |
| ínsult | insúlt |
| pérmit | permít |
| cónvict | convíct |
| récord | recórd |
Prosodic alternations are sometimes analyzed as not as a type of apophony but rather as prosodic affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es, which are known, variously, as suprafixes, superfixes, or simulfixes.
Consonant apophony (mutation)
Consonant alternation is commonly known as consonant mutationConsonant mutation
Consonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...
or consonant gradation
Consonant gradation
Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades". It is found in some Uralic languages such as Finnish, Estonian, Northern Sámi, and the Samoyed language Nganasan. In addition, it has been reconstructed for Proto-Germanic, the parent...
. Bemba
Bemba language
The Bemba language, ChiBemba , is a major Bantu language spoken primarily in north-eastern Zambia by the Bemba people and as a lingua franca by about 18 related ethnic groups, including the Bisa people of Mpika and Lake Bangweulu, and to a lesser extent in Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the...
indicates causative
Causative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
verbs through alternation of the stem-final consonant. Here the alternation involves spirantization and palatalization
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
:
| Intransitive Verb | Causative Verb |
|---|---|
| luba "to be lost" | lufya "to cause to be lost" |
| koma "to be deaf" | komya "to cause to be deaf" |
| pona "to fall" | ponya "to cause to fall" |
| enda "to walk" | ensha "to cause to walk" |
| lunga "to hunt" | lunsha "to cause to hunt" |
| kula "to grow" | kusha "to cause to grow" |
- (Kula 2000:174)
Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
are well-known for their initial consonant mutations.
Indo-European ablaut
In Indo-EuropeanIndo-European studies
Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. Its goal is to amass information about the hypothetical proto-language from which all of these languages are descended, a language dubbed Proto-Indo-European , and its speakers, the...
linguistics, ablaut is the vowel alternation that produces such related words as sing, sang, sung, and song. The difference in the vowels results from the alternation (in the Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
) of the vowel e with the vowel o or with no vowel. For a more detailed explanation see Indo-European ablaut
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
.
To cite a few other examples of Indo-European ablaut, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
has a certain class of verbs
English verbs
Verbs in the English language are a part of speech and typically describe an action, an event, or a state.While English has many irregular verbs , for the regular ones the conjugation rules are quite straightforward...
, called strong verbs, in which the vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
changes to indicate a different grammatical tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
-aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
.
| Imperative | Preterite | Past Participle | vowel alternation |
|---|---|---|---|
| swim | swam | swum | (i-a-u) phonetically: ɪ-æ-ʌ |
| fall | fell | fallen | (a-e-a) phonetically: /ɔː-ɛ-ɔː/ |
| drive | drove | driven | (i-o-i) phonetically: /aɪ-oʊ-ɪ/ |
As the examples above show, a trade in the vowel of the verb stem creates a different verb form. (Note that some of the verbs also have a suffix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
in the past participle form.) (See also English grammar: Irregular verbs.) For a more detailed explanation of how strong verbs are formed in English and related languages, see Germanic strong verb
Germanic strong verb
In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is one which marks its past tense by means of ablaut. In English, these are verbs like sing, sang, sung...
.
Ablaut versus umlaut
In Indo-European linguistics, umlaut is the vowel alternation that produces such related words as foot and feet or strong and strength. The difference in the vowels results from the influence (in Proto-Germanic or a later Germanic language) of an i or y (which has since been lost) on the vowel which (in these examples) becomes e.To cite another example of umlaut, some English weak verbs
Germanic weak verb
In Germanic languages, including English, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.-General description:...
show umlaut in the present tense.
| Imperative | Preterite Past Participle | vowel alternation |
|---|---|---|
| bring | brought | (i-ou) phonetically: /ɪ-ɔː/ |
A-mutation
A-mutation
A-mutation is a metaphonic process supposed to have taken place in late Proto-Germanic .-General description:In a-mutation, a short high vowel was lowered when the following syllable contained a non-high vowel . Thus, since the change was produced by other vowels besides */a/, the term a-mutation...
and U-mutation
A-mutation
A-mutation is a metaphonic process supposed to have taken place in late Proto-Germanic .-General description:In a-mutation, a short high vowel was lowered when the following syllable contained a non-high vowel . Thus, since the change was produced by other vowels besides */a/, the term a-mutation...
are processes analogous to umlaut but involving the influence of an a (or other non-high vowel) or u respectively instead of an i.
Note that in Indo-European historical linguistics the terms ablaut and umlaut refer to different phenomena and are not interchangeable. Ablaut is a process that dates back to Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
times, occurs in all Indo-European languages, and refers to (phonologically) unpredictable vowel alternations of a specific nature. From an Indo-European perspective, it typically appears as a variation between o, e, and no vowel, although various sound changes result in different vowel alternations appearing in different daughter languages. Umlaut, meanwhile, is a process that is particular to the Germanic languages and refers to a variation between back vowel
Back vowel
A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
s and front vowel
Front vowel
A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...
s that was originally phonologically predictable, and was caused by the presence of an /i/ or /j/ in the syllable following the modified vowel.
From a diachronic
Diachronic
Diachronic or Diachronous,from the Greek word Διαχρονικός , is a term for something happening over time. It is used in several fields of research.*Diachronic linguistics : see Historical linguistics...
(historical) perspective, the distinction between ablaut and umlaut is very important, particularly in the Germanic languages, as it indicates where and how a specific vowel alternation originates. It is also important when taking a synchronic
Synchronic
Synchronic may refer to:*Synchronicity*Synchronic analysis, in linguistics * Synchronic, an adjective referring to a quality of music....
(descriptive
Descriptive linguistics
In the study of language, description, or descriptive linguistics, is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is spoken by a group of people in a speech community...
) perspective on old Germanic languages such as Old English, as umlaut was still a very regular and productive process at the time. When taking a synchronic perspective on modern languages, however, both processes appear very similar. For example, the alternations seen in sing/sang/sung and foot/feet both appear to be morphologically conditioned (e.g. the alternation appears in the plural or past tense, but not the singular or present tense) and phonologically unpredictable.
By analogy, descriptive linguists discussing synchronic grammars sometimes employ the terms ablaut and umlaut imprecisely, using ablaut to refer to morphological vowel alternation generally (which is unpredictable phonologically) and umlaut to refer to any type of regressive vowel harmony (which is phonologically predictable). Ambiguity can of course be avoided by using alternative terms (apophony, gradation, alternation, internal modification for ablaut, vowel harmony for umlaut) for the broader sense of the words.
Stem alternations and other morphological processes
Stem modifications (i.e. apophony) may co-occur with other morphological processes, such as affixation. An example of this is in the formation of plural nouns in GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
:
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
| Buch "book" | Bücher "books" |
| Haus "house" | Häuser "houses" |
Here the singular/plural distinction is indicated through ablaut and additionally by a suffix -er in the plural form. English also displays similar forms with a -ren suffix in the plural and a -en suffix in the past participle forms along with the internal vowel alternation:
| child (singular) ˈtʃaɪld | children (plural) /ˈtʃɪldrən/ |
| drive (imperative) /ˈdraɪv/ | driven (past participle) /ˈdrɪvən/ |
A more complicated example comes from Chickasaw
Chickasaw language
The Chickasaw language is a Native American language of the Muskogean family. It is agglutinative and follows the pattern of subject–object–verb. The language is closely related to, though perhaps not entirely mutually intelligible with, Choctaw...
where the positive/negative distinction in verbs displays vowel ablaut along with prefixation (ak-) and infixation (-'-):
| Positive | Negative |
|---|---|
| hilhali "I'm dancing" | akhi'lho "I'm not dancing" |
Apophony versus transfixation (root-and-pattern)
The nonconcatenativeNonconcatenative morphology
Nonconcatenative morphology, also called discontinuous morphology and introflection, is a form of word formation in which the root is modified and which does not involve stringing morphemes together...
root-and-pattern morphology of the Afro-Asiatic languages
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
is sometimes described in terms of apophony. The alternation patterns in many of these languages is quite extensive involving vowels and consonant gemination
Gemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
(i.e. doubled consonants). The alternations below are of Modern Standard Arabic (the symbol ⟨ː⟩ indicates gemination on the preceding consonant):
| word | gloss | alternation pattern |
|---|---|---|
| katab | "to write" | (a - a) |
| kataba | "he wrote" | (a - a - a) |
| kaatab | "to correspond with" | (aː - a) |
| kattab | "to cause to write" | (a - ːa) |
| kuttib | "to be caused to write" | (u - ːi) |
| kitaab | "book" | (i - aː) |
| kutub | "books" | (u - u) |
| kaatib | "writer" | (aː - i) |
| kuttaab | "writers" | (u - ːaː) |
For other examples, see archaic plurals in Amharic, Broken plural
Broken plural
In linguistics, a broken plural is an irregular plural form of a noun or adjective found in the Semitic languages and other Afroasiatic languages such as Berber. Broken plurals are formed by changing the pattern of consonants and vowels inside the singular form...
, Triconsonantal root.
Transfix
In linguistic morphology, a transfix is a discontinuous affix, which occurs at more than one position in a word. The prototypical example comes from the Semitic languages, where nearly all word derivation and inflection involves the interdigitation of a discontinuous root with a discontinuous affix...
es (sometimes considered simulfix
Simulfix
In linguistics, a simulfix is a type of affix that changes one or more existing phonemes in order to modify the meaning of a morpheme.Examples of simulfixes in English are generally considered irregularities, all of which left over from pluralization rules that existed before the Great Vowel Shift...
es or suprafix
Suprafix
In linguistics, a suprafix is a type of affix where a suprasegmental change modifies an existing morpheme's meaning. In many languages, they are used to differentiate between otherwise identical lexemes, but in some they are used derivationally or inflectionally.An example in English is the...
es). Some theoretical perspectives call up the notion of morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
templates or morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
"skeletons".
Note that it would also be possible to analyze English in this way as well, where the alternation of goose/geese could be explained as a basic discontinuous root g-se that is filled out with an infix
Infix
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the end of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Indonesian:...
-oo- "(singular)" or -ee- "(plural)". Many would consider this type of analysis for English to be less desirable as this type of infixal morphology is not very prevalent throughout English and the morphemes -oo- and -ee- would be exceedingly rare.
Replacive morphemes and apophony
Another analytical perspective on sound alternations treats the phenomena not as merely alternation but rather a "replacive" morpheme that replaces part of a word. In this analysis, the alternation between goose/geese may be thought of as goose being the basic form where -ee- is a replacive morpheme that is substituted for oo.- goose → g-ee-se
This usage of the term morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
(which is actually describing a replacement process, and not a true morpheme), however, is more in keeping with Item-and-Process models of morphology instead of Item-and-Arrangement models. (See Morphology (linguistics)
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
for further discussion of morphological models.)
English ablaut-motivated compounding
Ablaut reduplication or ablaut-motivated compounding is a type of word formationWord formation
In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word. Word formation is sometimes contrasted with semantic change, which is a change in a single word's meaning...
of "expressives" in English (such as onomatopoeia or ideophone
Ideophone
Ideophones are words used by speakers to evoke a vivid impression of certain sensation or sensory perceptions, e.g. smell, color, shape, sound, action, or movement. Ideophones are attested in all languages of the world, however, languages differ in the extent to which they make use of them...
s). Examples of these include:
- tick-tock
- criss-cross
- cling-clang
- snip-snap
Here the words are formed by a reduplication
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
of a base and an alternation of the internal vowel. (See English reduplication).
Some examples in Japanese:
- kasa-koso (rustle)
- gata-goto (rattle)
See also
- Alternation (linguistics)Alternation (linguistics)In linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a phoneme or morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant...
- Consonant mutationConsonant mutationConsonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...
- MetaphonyMetaphonyIn historical linguistics, metaphony is a general term for a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation....
- Morphology (linguistics)Morphology (linguistics)In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
- Nonconcatenative morphologyNonconcatenative morphologyNonconcatenative morphology, also called discontinuous morphology and introflection, is a form of word formation in which the root is modified and which does not involve stringing morphemes together...
- References for ablaut