| Sound change andalternation |
|---|
| Fortition |
| Dissimilation |
Sandhi (/sænˈdiː/san-DEE;Sanskrit:सन्धि,lit. 'joining',pronounced[sɐnˈdʱi]) is any of a wide variety ofsound changes that occur atmorpheme orword boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on nearby sounds or the grammatical function of the adjacent words. Sandhi belongs tomorphophonology.
Sandhi occurs in many languages, e.g. in the phonology ofIndian languages (especiallySanskrit,Tamil,Sinhala,Telugu,Marathi,Hindi,Pali,Kannada,Bengali,Assamese andMalayalam). Many dialects ofBritish English showlinking and intrusive R.
Tone sandhi in particular defines tone changes affecting adjacent words and syllables. This is a common feature of many tonal languages such asBurmese andChinese.
Sandhi can be either:
It may be extremely common in speech, but sandhi (especially external) is typically ignored in spelling, as is the case in English (exceptions: the distinction betweena andan; the prefixescon-,en-,in- andsyn-, whosenassimilates tom beforep,m orb). Sandhi is, however, reflected in the orthography ofSanskrit,Sinhala,Telugu,Marathi,Pali and some other Indian languages, as with Italian in the case of compound words withlexicalisedsyntactic gemination.
External sandhi effects can sometimes become morphologised (apply only in certainmorphological andsyntactic environments) as inTamil[1][2] and, over time, turn intoconsonant mutations.
Mosttonal languages havetone sandhi in which the tones of words alter according to certain rules. An example is the behavior ofMandarin Chinese; in isolation, tone 3 is often pronounced as a falling-rising tone. When a tone 3 occurs before another tone 3, however, it changes into tone 2 (a rising tone), and when it occurs before any of the other tones, it is pronounced as a low falling tone with no rise at the end.
An example occurs in the common greeting你好nǐ hǎo (with two words containing underlying tone 3), which is in practice pronouncední hǎo. The first word is pronounced with tone 2, but the second is unaffected.
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In Celtic languages, theconsonant mutation sees the initial consonant of a word change according to its morphological or syntactic environment. Following are some examples from Breton, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh:
| Breton | Welsh | Irish | Scottish Gaelic | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| gwreg | gwraig | bean | bean* | woman/wife |
| bras | mawr | mór | mòr | big |
| arwregvras | ywraigfawr | anbheanmhór | a'bheanmhòr | the big woman |
| kazh | cath | cat | cat | cat |
| egazh | eigath | achat | achat | his cat |
| hec'hazh | eichath | acat | acat | her cat |
| oc'hazh | eucath | agcat | ancat | their cat |
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When two words belonging to the same phrase are pronounced together, or twomorphemes are joined in a word, the last sound in the first may be affected by the first sound of the next (sandhi), either coalescing with it, or becoming shorter (a semivowel), or being deleted. This affects especially the sibilant consonants/s/,/z/,/ʃ/,/ʒ/, and the unstressed final vowels/ɐ/,/i,ɨ/,/u/.
As was mentioned above, the dialects of Portuguese can be divided into two groups, according to whether syllable-final sibilants are pronounced as postalveolar consonants/ʃ/,/ʒ/ or as alveolar/s/,/z/. At the end of words, the default pronunciation for a sibilant is voiceless,/ʃ,s/, but in connected speech the sibilant is treated as though it were within a word (assimilation):
When two identical sibilants appear in sequence within a word, they reduce to a single consonant. For example,nascer, desço, excesso, exsudar are pronounced with [s] by speakers who use alveolar sibilants at the end of syllables, anddisjuntor is pronounced with[ʒ] by speakers who use postalveolars. But if the two sibilants are different they may be pronounced separately, depending on the dialect. Thus, the former speakers will pronounce the last example with[zʒ], whereas the latter speakers will pronounce the first examples with [s] if they are from Brazil or[ʃs] if from Portugal (although inrelaxed pronunciation one of the siblants may be dropped). This applies also to words that are pronounced together in connected speech:
Normally, only the three vowels /ɐ/, /i/ (in BP) or /ɨ/ (in EP), and /u/ occur inunstressed final position. If the next word begins with a similar vowel, they merge with it in connected speech, producing a single vowel, possiblylong (crasis). Here, "similar" means that nasalization can be disregarded, and that the two central vowels /a, ɐ/ can be identified with each other. Thus,
If the next word begins with a dissimilar vowel, then /i/ and /u/ becomeapproximants in Brazilian Portuguese (synaeresis):
In careful speech and in with certain function words, or in some phrase stress conditions (see Mateus and d'Andrade, for details), European Portuguese has a similar process:
But in otherprosodic conditions, and in relaxed pronunciation, EP simply drops final unstressed/ɨ/ and /u/ (elision), though this is subject to significant dialectal variation:
Aside from historical setcontractions formed by prepositions plusdeterminers or pronouns, likeà/dà, ao/do, nesse, dele, etc., on one hand and combinedcliticpronouns such asmo/ma/mos/mas (it/him/her/them to/for me), and so on, on the other,Portuguese spelling does not reflect vowel sandhi. In poetry, however, an apostrophe may be used to showelision such as ind'água.
In variousGerman dialects or the spokenStandard German one can find phonological processes that can be analysed as Sandhi. For example some varieties ofCentral Hessian show a vowel length alternation where, if the same long vowel were else to repeat in two consecutive syllables, the vowel is shortened/reduced in the first, but maintained in the second. Examples are [hɪɡiː] for HGhingehen ("go towards") (hin corresponds to [hiː] in Hessian) or [kən aːnʒ̊ə] for HGkein einziger ("no single [thing]").
InEnglish phonology, rhotic sandhi can be seen innon-rhotic dialects, when a word ends in a vowel followed by /r/, and the next word starts with a vowel as well, a [ɹ] (voiced alveolar approximant) sound will be inserted between the word, see for example, in Standard Southern British English "law and order" pronounced as [lo:rəno:də], "America andChina" pronounced as [əmɛrikəɹənʧɑjnə][3] (seelinking and intrusive R)
Frenchliaison andenchaînement can be considered forms of external sandhi.[4]
Inenchaînement, a word-final consonant, when followed by a word that starts with a vowel, is articulated as though it is part of the following word. For example,sens ('direction') is pronounced/sɑ̃s/ andunique ('unique') is pronounced/ynik/;sens unique ('one-way', as a street) is pronounced/sɑ̃‿synik/.
Liaison is a similar phenomenon, applicable to words ending in a consonant that was historically pronounced but that, inModern French, is normally silent when occurring at the end of a phrase or before another consonant. In some circumstances, when the following word starts with a vowel, the consonant may be pronounced, and in that case is articulated as if part of the next word. For example,deux frères ('two brothers') is pronounced/døfʁɛʁ/ with a silent⟨x⟩, andquatre hommes ('four men') is pronounced/kat‿ʁɔm/, butdeux hommes ('two men') is pronounced/dø‿zɔm/.
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InJapanese phonology, sandhi is primarily exhibited inrendaku (consonant mutation from unvoiced to voiced when not word-initial, in some contexts) and conversion ofつ orく (tsu,ku) to ageminate consonant (orthographically, thesokuonっ), both of which are reflected in spelling – indeed, theっ symbol for gemination is morphosyntactically derived fromつ, and voicing is indicated by adding two dots as inか／がka,ga, making the relation clear. It also occurs much less often inrenjō (連声), where, most commonly, a terminal/n/ on one morpheme results in an/n/ (or/m/) being added to the start of the next morpheme, as in天皇: てん ＋ おう → てんのう (ten +ō =tennō), meaning "emperor"; that is also shown in the spelling (the kanji do not change, but the kana, which specify pronunciation, change).
Korean has sandhi which occurs in the final consonant or consonant cluster, such that a morpheme can have two pronunciations depending on whether or not it is followed by a vowel. For example, the root읽/ik/, meaning ‘read’, is pronounced/ik/ before a consonant, as in읽다/ik.ta/, but is pronounced like/il.g/ before vowels, as in읽으세요/il.gɯ.se̞.jo/, meaning ‘please read’. Some roots can also aspirate following consonants, denoted by the letterㅎ (hieut) in the final consonant. This causes다/tɐ/ to become/tʰɐ/ in않다/ɐntʰɐ/, ‘to not be’.[5]
Tamil 'punarchi' (புனர்ச்சி) or sandhi has been rigorously and exhaustively documented in Tamil grammar texts since the early centuries AD. As modern Tamilis strongly characterised bydiglossia: there are two separate registers varying by speech context, a high register and a low one.[6][7] This in turn presents two corresponding domains for forming Sandhi.[8] Tamil employs Sandhi for certainmorphological andsyntactic structures.[1][2]
The vowel sandhi occurs when words or morphemes ending in certain vowels are followed by morphemes beginning with certain vowels. Consonant glides (Tamil:ய்,romanized: Y andTamil:வ்,romanized: V) are then inserted between the vowels in order to 'smooth the transition' from one vowel to another.[8]
"The choice of whether the glide inserted will be (ய்,Y andவ்,V) in Tamil is determined by whether the vowel preceding the glide is a front vowel such asTamil:இ, ஈ, எ, ஏ or ஐ,romanized: i, ī, e, ē or ai or a back vowel, such asTamil:உ, ஊ, ஒ, ஓ, அ or ஆ,romanized: u, ū, o, ō, a or ā."[8]
| Vowel Ending | Noun | Grammatical Suffix | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| இ | Tamil:நரி,romanized: Nari,lit. 'Fox' | Interrogative,Tamil:ஆ,romanized: Ā | Tamil:நரியா,romanized: Nariyā,lit. 'A fox?' |
| ஈ | Tamil:தீ,romanized: Tī,lit. 'Fire' | Interrogative,Tamil:ஆ,romanized: Ā | Tamil:தீயா,romanized: Tīyā,lit. 'Fire?' |
| எ | No literary Tamil word ends in எ | ——— | ——— |
| ஏ | No literary Tamil word ends in ஏ | ——— | ——— |
| ஐ | Tamil:யானை,romanized: Yāṉai,lit. 'Elephant' | Interrogative,Tamil:ஆ,romanized: Ā | Tamil:யானையா,romanized: Yāṉaiyā,lit. 'An elephant?' |
| Vowel Ending | Noun | Grammatical Suffix | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| உ | Tamil:குரு,romanized: Kuru,lit. 'Guru, teacher' | Interrogative,Tamil:ஆ,romanized: Ā | Usually deleted, or added later after sandhi rules have applied. A few exceptions:Tamil:குருவா,romanized: Kuruvā,lit. 'A guru?' |
| ஊ | Tamil:பூ,romanized: Pū,lit. 'Flower' | Interrogative,Tamil:ஆ,romanized: Ā | Tamil:பூவா,romanized: Pūvā,lit. 'A flower?' |
| ஒ | Doesn't occur in Spoken Tamil, but might occur in loan word | ——— | ——— |
| ஓ | Tamil:இளங்கோ,romanized: Iḷaṅkō,lit. 'Ilango (a name)' | Interrogative,Tamil:ஆ,romanized: Ā | Tamil:இளங்கோவா,romanized: Iḷaṅkōvā,lit. '(Do you mean) Ilango?' |
| அ | Tamil:இருக்க,romanized: Irukka,lit. 'To be, to sit (Sri Lankan Tamil resp.Old/Middle Tamil)' | Affirmative,Tamil:ஏ,romanized: Ē | Tamil:இருக்கவே,romanized: Irukkavē,lit. 'It's there, all right!' |
| ஆ | Tamil:விழா,romanized: Viḻā,lit. 'A festival' | Interrogative,Tamil:ஆ,romanized: Ā | Tamil:விழாவா,romanized: Viḻāvā,lit. 'A festival?' |
| ஔ | Doesn't occur in Spoken Tamil | ——— | ——— |
In rapid speech, especially in polysyllabic words:Tamil:இந்த்யாவுலேருந்து,romanized: Intyāvulēruntu,lit. 'From India' may become —இந்த்யாலெருந்து,Intyāleruntu, which may then be further simplified toஇந்த்யாலெந்து,Intyālentu.[8]
In lateral-stop clusters, the lateral assimilates to the stop's manner of articulation, before c, ṇ too becomes ṭ, eg. nal-mai, kal-kaḷ, vaṟaḷ-ci, kāṇ-ci, eḷ-ney > naṉmai, kaṟkaḷ, vaṟaṭci, kāṭci, eṇṇey (ṟ was historically a plosive).
In Spoken Tamil the final laterals, nasals or other sonorants may lose the final position. The final retroflex laterals for pronouns and their PNG markers for exampleTamil:ள்,romanized: ḷ of (female gender marker) are deleted: (To indicate the omitted stop-consonant is covered in parantheses):Tamil:அவ(ள்) போறா(ள்),romanized: Ava(ḷ) pōṟā(ḷ),lit. 'She goes'.[8]
In some nouns, sandhi is triggered by the addition of acase ending to the stem.
Sanskrit has formalized and systematized sandhi changes; like in all Indian languages, the sandhi changes are also recorded in the written language. There are two categories of sandhi in Sanskrit: internal and external sandhi. Internal sandhi takes place within words, at the junctures ofmorphemes. External sandhi occurs at word boundaries and between members of compounds.[9]
The basic rule is to make it easier to pronounce words and sentences. Therefore, clashing consecutive sounds are avoided as much as possible. In the case of internal and external vowel sandhi, this means, generally speaking, that two vowels should not come into direct contact. This is avoided by the combination of the two consecutive vowels into a single sound. That can happen in three different ways: by coalescence of the two vowels, by changing the first vowel to a consonant, or by dropping one of the vowels. Similarly to vowels, clashing consonants are avoided by assimilation of either one or both of the juxtaposed sounds.[9]
The number of sandhi changes in Sanskrit is extensive, these are described in various books on Sanskrit grammar[9] and most notably, in theAṣṭādhyāyī grammar byPāṇini. A couple of examples are given in the following sections to illustrate the kind of changes which occur.
In compounding, if the first word ends with /i, u/ and the second word starts with a vowel, the i, u become glides y, v, e.g. su-āgata > svāgata. If a word ends with/a,aː/ and the second word begins with /i, u/ they become/eː,oː/, eg. mahā-utsava > mahotsava; if the latter vowel is long, it becomes /ai, au/, eg. pra-ūḍha > prauḍha.
Thevisarga ('ः'[h]) becomes a /r/ before voiced phones, eg. duḥ-labha > durlabha.Anusvara + plosive makes it a homorganic nasal, before a fricative or /r/ it nasalizes the previous vowel and before/j,ʋ/ it nasalizes the/j,ʋ/.
In come compounds s follows theRUKI rule, eg. vi-sama > viṣama, pitr-svaseya > pitrṣvaseya.
