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| Sound change andalternation |
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| Fortition |
| Dissimilation |
Final-obstruent devoicing orterminal devoicing is a systematicphonological process occurring in languages such asCatalan,German,Dutch,Quebec French,Breton,Russian,Polish,Lithuanian,Turkish, andWolof. In such languages,voicedobstruents in final position (at the end of a word) become voiceless before voiceless consonants and inpausa. The process can be written as *C[+ obstruent, +voice] → C[-voice]/__#.[1]
Most modern continentalWest Germanic languages developed final devoicing, the earliest evidence appearing in Old Dutch around the 9th or 10th century.
In contrast to other continental West Germanic languages, (Eastern)-Yiddish notably does not alter final voiced sounds; this appears to be a later reversal, most probably underSlavic influence. In its earliest recorded example (Yiddish, written evidence), it has final-obstruent devoicing (טַק "tak" instead of "tag" for day.)
North Germanic languages generally lack devoicing.Norwegian andSwedish do not have final devoicing, andDanish does not even have voiced obstruents that could be devoiced. As in Danish,Icelandic stops are voiceless, but it has voiced fricatives which may also occur word-finally.
Gothic (anEast Germanic language) also developed final devoicing independently, but only for fricatives.
Among theRomance languages, word-final devoicing is common in theGallo-Romance languages, some of which tend to exhibit strongFrankish influence (itself the ancestor of Old Dutch, above).
MostSlavic languages exhibit final devoicing, but notably standard (Štokavian)Serbo-Croatian andUkrainian,Upper Sorbian do not.
InDutch andAfrikaans, terminal devoicing results in homophones such ashard 'hard' andhart 'heart' as well as differences in consonant sounds between the singular and plural forms of nouns, for examplegolf–golven (Dutch) andgolf–golwe (Afrikaans) for 'wave–waves'.
The history of the devoicing phenomenon within theWest Germanic languages is not entirely clear, but the discovery of arunic inscription from the early fifth century suggests that this terminal devoicing[7] originated in Frankish. Of the old West Germanic languages, Old Dutch, a descendant of Frankish, is the earliest to show any kind of devoicing, and final devoicing also occurred in Frankish-influencedOld French.
Amelands, spoken on theWadden Sea island ofAmeland, is the only Dutchdialect that does not feature final-obstruent devoicing.[8]
Standard varieties ofEnglish do not have phonological final-obstruent devoicing of the type that neutralizes phonemic contrasts; thus pairs likebad andbat are distinct in all majoraccents of English. Nevertheless, voiced obstruents are devoiced to some extent in final position in English, especially when phrase-final or when followed by a voiceless consonant (for example,bad cat[bæd̥kʰæt]). Additionally, the voiced alveolar stop /d/ is regularly devoiced inAfrican-American Vernacular English (AAVE).[9]
Old English had final devoicing of/v/, although the spelling did not distinguish[f] and[v]. It can be inferred from the modern pronunciation ofhalf with a voiceless/f/, from an originally voiced fricative[β] in Proto-Germanic*halbaz (preserved in Germanhalb and Gothichalba). There was also final devoicing of[ɣ] to[x] finally, evidenced by spellings likeburh alongsideburg.
Final-obstruents devoicing occurs in the varieties from Northern Germany.[10] The German contrast betweenhomorganic obstruents is more properly described as afortis and lenis opposition than an opposition of voiceless and voiced sounds. Therefore, the termdevoicing may be misleading, since voice is only an optional feature of German lenis obstruents. By contrast, the German term for the phenomenon,Auslautverhärtung ("final-sound hardening"), refers tofortition rather than devoicing. However, the German phenomenon is similar to the final devoicing in other languages in that the opposition between two different kinds of obstruents disappears at the ends of words, and in fact at the ends of all syllables,[11] making homophones of such pairs asRad ("wheel") andRat ("council, counsel"), both pronounced[ʁaːt]. The German varieties of the north, and many pronunciations of Standard German, involve voice in the distinction between fortis and lenis obstruents however. Final devoicing applies to all plosives, affricates and fricatives, and to loan words as well as native words.
Some examples from Northern German include:
| Nouns | Verbs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Translation | Plural | Imperative | Translation | Infinitive |
| Bad[baːt] | bath | Bäder[ˈbɛːdɐ] | red![ʁeːt] | talk! | reden[ˈʁeːdn̩] |
| Raub[ʁaʊ̯p] | robbery | Raube[ˈʁaʊ̯bə] | reib![ʁaɪ̯p] | rub! | reiben[ˈʁaɪ̯bn̩] |
| Zug[t͡suːk] | train | Züge[ˈt͡syːɡə] | sag![zaːk] | say! | sagen[ˈzaːɡn̩] |
| Archiv[ʔaʁˈçiːf] | archive | Archive[ʔaʁˈçiːvə] | |||
| Maus[maʊ̯s] | mouse | Mäuse[ˈmɔʏ̯zə] | lies![liːs] | read! | lesen[ˈleːzn̩] |
| Orange[ʔoˈʁaŋʃ] | orange (colour) | Orange[ʔoˈʁaŋʒə] | manage![ˈmɛnətʃ] | manage! | managen[ˈmɛnədʒən] |
Final-obstruent devoicing can lead to theneutralization ofphonemic contrasts in certain environments. For example, Russianбес ('demon', phonemically/bʲes/) andбез ('without', phonemically/bʲez/) are pronounced identically in isolation as[bʲes].
The presence of this process in Russian is also the source of the seemingly variant transliterations of Russian names into-off (Russian:-ов), especially by the French, as well as older English transcriptions.
In compounds, the behaviour varies between languages:
The process is not productive in English; however, seeConsonant voicing and devoicing.