| Sound change andalternation |
|---|
| Fortition |
| Dissimilation |
Inlinguistics,lenition is asound change that altersconsonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The wordlenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" (fromLatinlēnis 'weak'). Lenition can happen bothsynchronically (within a language at a particular point in time) anddiachronically (as alanguage changes over time). Lenition can involve such changes asvoicing a voiceless consonant, causing a consonant to relaxocclusion, to lose itsplace of articulation (a phenomenon calleddebuccalization, which turns a consonant into aglottal consonant like[h] or[ʔ]), or even causing a consonant to disappear entirely.
An example of synchronic lenition is found in most varieties ofAmerican English, in the form oftapping: the/t/ of a word likewait[weɪt] is pronounced as the more sonorous[ɾ] in the related formwaiting[ˈweɪɾɪŋ]. Some varieties ofSpanish showdebuccalization of/s/ to[h] at the end of asyllable, so that a word likeestamos "we are" is pronounced[ehˈtamoh]. An example of diachronic lenition can be found in theRomance languages, where the/t/ of Latinpatrem ("father",accusative) has become/d/ inItalian (an irregular change; comparesaeta "silk" >seta) and Spanishpadre (the latter weakened synchronically/d/ →[ð̞]), while in Catalanpare, Frenchpère and Portuguesepai historical/t/ has disappeared completely.
In some languages, lenition has been grammaticalized into aconsonant mutation, which means it is no longer triggered by itsphonological environment but is now governed by itssyntactic ormorphological environment. For example, inWelsh, the wordcath "cat" begins with the sound/k/, but after thedefinite articley, the/k/ changes to[ɡ]: "the cat" in Welsh isy gath. This was historically due to intervocalic lenition, but in the plural, lenition does not happen, so "the cats" isy cathod, not *y gathod. The change of/k/ to[ɡ] iny gath is thus caused by the syntax of the phrase, not by the modern phonological position of the consonant/k/.
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.
Lenition involves changes inmanner of articulation, sometimes accompanied by small changes inplace 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 thesonority hierarchy from less sonorous to more sonorous, or on a strength hierarchy from stronger to weaker.
In examples below, agreater-than sign indicates that one sound changes to another. The notation[t] >[ts] means that[t] changes to[ts].
Thesound change of palatalization sometimes involves lenition.
Lenition includes the loss of a feature, such asdeglottalization, in whichglottalization orejective articulation is lost:[kʼ] or[kˀ] >[k].
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.
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 orassibilation of stops or affricates,debuccalization, and finallyelision.
| geminated stop | → | stop | → | affricate | → | fricative | → | placeless approximant | → | no sound |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| original sound | → | degemination | → | affrication | → | spirantization (deaffrication) | → | debuccalization | → | elision |
| [pp]or[ppʰ] | → | [p]or[pʰ] | → | [pɸ] | → | [ɸ] | → | [h] | → | (zero) |
| → | [pf] | → | [f] | → | ||||||
| [tt]or[ttʰ] | → | [t]or[tʰ] | → | [tθ] | → | [θ] | → | |||
| → | [ts] | → | [s] | → | ||||||
| [kk]or[kkʰ] | → | [k]or[kʰ] | → | [kx] | → | [x] | → |
The sonorization type involves voicing. Sonorizing lenition involves several sound changes: voicing, approximation, and vocalization.[clarification needed]
Sonorizing lenition occurs especially often intervocalically (between vowels). In this position, lenition can be seen as a type ofassimilation 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 | ||||
| [p] | → | [b] | → | [β] | → | [β̞] | → | (zero) | ||||
| → | [v] | → | [ʋ] | → | ||||||||
| → | [w] | → | ||||||||||
| [t] | → | [d] | → | [ð] | → | [ð̞] | → | |||||
| → | [z] | → | [ɹ] | → | ||||||||
| → | [r] | → | ||||||||||
| [k] | → | [ɡ] | → | [ɣ] | → | [ɰ] | → | |||||
| → | [j],[w] | → | ||||||||||
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[b] →[β] →[v] and[d] →[ð] →[z]. 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[b] →[v] or[d] →[z].
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. InFrench,l-vocalization of the sequence/al/ resulted in thediphthong/au/, which wasmonophthongized, yielding themonophthong/o/ in Modern French.
| lateral approximant | → | semivowel | → | vowel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [l] | → | [w] [ɰ] | → | [u] [o] |
| → | [j] | → | [i] |
Sometimes a particular example of lenition mixes the opening and sonorization pathways. For example,[kʰ] may spirantize or open to[x], then voice or sonorize to[ɣ].
Lenition can be seen inCanadian andAmerican English, where/t/ and/d/ soften to a tap[ɾ] (flapping) when not in initial position and followed by an unstressed vowel. For example, bothrate andraid plus the suffix-er are pronounced[ˈɹeɪ̯ɾɚ]. The Italian of Central and Southern Italy has a number of lenitions, the most widespread of which is the deaffrication of/t͡ʃ/ to[ʃ] between vowels: post-pausalcena[ˈt͡ʃeːna] 'dinner' but post-vocalicla cena[laˈʃeːna] 'the dinner'; the nameLuciano, although structurally/luˈt͡ʃano/, is normally pronounced[luˈʃaːno]. In Tuscany,/d͡ʒ/ likewise is realized[ʒ] between vowels, and in typical speech of Central Tuscany, the voiceless stops/ptk/ in the same position are pronounced respectively[ɸθx/h], as in/lakasa/ →[laˈhaːsa] 'the house',/buko/ →[ˈbuːho] 'hole'.
Diachronic lenition is found, for example, in the change fromLatin intoSpanish, in which theintervocalic voiceless stops[ptk] first changed into their voiced counterparts[bdɡ], and later into the approximants or fricatives[β̞ð̞ɣ̞]:vita >vida,lupa >loba,caeca >ciega,apotheca >bodega. One stage in these changes goes beyond phonetic to have become aphonological restructuring, e.g./lupa/ >/loba/ (compare/lupa/ in Italian, with no change in the phonological status of/p/). The subsequent further weakening of the series to phonetic[β̞ð̞ɣ̞], as in[loβ̞a] is diachronic in the sense that the developments took place over time and displaced[b,d,g] as the normal pronunciations between vowels. It is also synchronic in an analysis of[β̞ð̞ɣ̞] asallophonic realizations of/b,d,g/: illustrating with/b/,/bino/ 'wine' is pronounced[bino] after pause, but with[β̞] intervocalically, as in[deβ̞ino] 'of wine'; likewise,/loba/ →[loβ̞a].
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 *-t- in*teu̯teh₂ "people" resulted inProto-Celtic*toutā,Primitive Irish*tōθā,Old Irishtúath/t̪ʰuaθ/ and ultimately debuccalisation in most Irish and some Scottish dialects to/t̪ʰuəh/, shift in Central Southern Irish to/t̪ʰuəx/, and complete deletion in some Modern Irish and most Modern Scots Gaelic dialects, thus/t̪ʰuə/.[1]
An example of historical lenition in theGermanic languages is evidenced by Latin-English cognates such aspater,tenuis,cornu vs.father,thin,horn. The Latin words preserved the original stops, which became fricatives in old Germanic byGrimm's law. A few centuries later, theHigh German consonant shift led to a second series of lenitions inOld High German, chiefly of post-vocalic stops, as evidenced in the English-German cognatesripe,water,make vs.reif,Wasser,machen.
Although actually a much more profound change encompassing syllable restructuring, simplification ofgeminate consonants as in the passage from Latin to Spanish such as cuppa >/ˈkopa/ 'cup' is often viewed as a type of lenition (compare geminate-preserving Italian/ˈkɔppa/).
All varieties ofSardinian, with the sole exception ofNuorese, offer an example ofsandhi in which the rule of intervocalic lenition applying to the voiced series /b d g/ extends across word boundaries. Since it is a fully active synchronic rule, lenition is not normally indicated in the standard orthographies.[2]
| /b/ | →[β]:baca[ˈbaka] "cow" →sa baca[saˈβaka] "the cow" |
| /d/ | →[ð]:domu[ˈdɔmu] "house" →sa domu[saˈðɔmu] "the house" |
| /ɡ/ | →[ɣ]:gupu[ˈɡupu] "ladle" →su gupu[suˈɣupu] "the ladle" |
Aseries of synchronic lenitions involving opening, or loss of occlusion, rather than voicing is found for post-vocalic/ptk/ in manyTuscan dialects ofCentral Italy. StereotypicalFlorentine, for example, has the/k/ of/kasa/ as[ˈkaːsa]casa 'house' in a post-pause realization,[iŋˈkaːsa]in casa 'in (the) house' post-consonant, but[laˈhaːsa]la casa 'the house' intervocalically. Word-internally, the normal realization is also[h]:/ˈbuko/buco 'hole' →[ˈbuːho].
In theCeltic languages, the phenomenon of intervocalic lenition historically extended across word boundaries. This explains the rise ofgrammaticalised initialconsonant mutations in modern Celtic languages through the loss of endings. AScottish Gaelic example would be the lack of lenition inam fear/əmfɛr/ ("the man") and lenition ina' bhean/əvɛn/ ("the woman"). The following examples show the development of a phrase consisting of a definite article plus a masculine noun (taking the ending-os) compared with a feminine noun taking the ending-a. The historic development of lenition in those two cases can be reconstructed as follows:
Synchronic lenition in Scottish Gaelic affects almost all consonants (except/l̪ˠ/, which has lost its lenited counterpart in most areas).[3] Changes such as/n̪ˠ/ to/n/ involve the loss ofsecondary articulation; in addition,/rˠ/ →/ɾ/ involves the reduction of atrill to atap. The spirantization of Gaelic nasal/m/ to/v/ is unusual among forms of lenition, but it is triggered by the same environment as more prototypical lenition. (It may also leave a residue ofnasalization in adjacent vowels.)[4] The orthography shows that by inserting anh (except afterl n r).
Spirantization[edit] | ||
| /p/ | →/v/ | bog/pok/ "soft" →glé bhog/kleːvok/ "very soft" |
| /pj/ | →/vj/ (before aback vowel) | beò/pjɔː/ 'alive' →glé bheò/kleːvjɔː/ 'very alive' |
| /kʰ/ | →/x/ | cas/kʰas̪/ "steep" →glé chas/kleːxas̪/ "very steep" |
| /kʰʲ/ | →/ç/ | ciùin/kʰʲuːɲ/ "quiet" →glé chiùin/kleːçuːɲ/ "very quiet" |
| /t̪/ | →/ɣ/ | dubh/t̪uh/ "black" →glé dhubh/kleːɣuh/ "very black" |
| /tʲ/ | →/ʝ/ | deiseil/tʲeʃal/ "ready" →glé dheiseil/kleːʝeʃal/ "very ready" |
| /k/ | →/ɣ/ | garbh/kaɾav/ "rough" →glé gharbh/kleːɣaɾav/ "very rough" |
| /kʲ/ | →/ʝ/ | geur/kʲiaɾ/ "sharp" →glé gheur/kleːʝiaɾ/ "very sharp" |
| /m/ | →/v/ | maol/mɯːl̪ˠ/ "bald" →glé mhaol/kleːvɯːl̪ˠ/ "very bald" |
| /mj/ | →/vj/ (before a back vowel) | meallta/mjaul̪ˠt̪ə/ "deceitful" →glé mheallta/kleːvjaul̪ˠt̪ə/ "very deceitful" |
| /pʰ/ | →/f/ | pongail/pʰɔŋɡal/ "exact" →glé phongail/kleːfɔŋɡal/ "very exact" |
| /pʰj/ | →/fj/ (before a back vowel) | peallagach/pʰjal̪ˠakəx/ "shaggy" →glé pheallagach/kleːfjal̪ˠakəx/ "very shaggy" |
Loss of secondary articulation[edit] | ||
| /n̪ˠ/ | →/n/ | nàdarra/n̪ˠaːt̪ərˠə/ "natural" →glé nàdarra/kleːnaːt̪ərˠə/ "very natural" |
| /rˠ/ | →/ɾ/ | rag/rˠak/ "stiff" →glé rag/kleːɾak/ "very stiff" |
| /l̪ˠ/ | →/lˠ/ | lag/l̪ˠak/ "weak" →glé lag/kleːlˠak/ "very weak" (inHarris Gaelic only) |
Debuccalization[edit] | ||
| /s̪/ | →/h/ | sona/s̪ɔnə/ "happy" →glé shona/kleːhɔnə/ "very happy" |
| /ʃ/ | →/h/ | seasmhach/ʃes̪vəx/ "constant" →glé sheasmhach/kleːhes̪vəx/ "very constant" |
| /ʃ/ | →/hj/ (before a back vowel) | seòlta/ʃɔːl̪ˠt̪ə/ "sly" →glé sheòlta/kleːhjɔːl̪ˠt̪ə/ "very sly" |
| /t̪ʰ/ | →/h/ | tana/t̪ʰanə/ "thin" →glé thana/kleːhanə/ "very thin" |
| /tʰʲ/ | →/h/ | tinn/tʲiːɲ/ "ill" →glé thinn/kleːhiːɲ/ "very ill" |
| /tʰʲ/ | →/hj/ (before a back vowel) | teann/tʰʲaun̪ˠ/ "tight" →glé theann/kleːhjaun̪ˠ/ "very tight" |
Elision[edit] | ||
| /f/ | → Ø | fann/faun̪ˠ/ "faint" →glé fhann/kleːaun̪ˠ/ "very faint" |
| /fj/ | →/j/ (before a back vowel) | feòrachail/fjɔːɾəxal/ "inquisitive" →glé fheòrachail/kleːjɔːɾəxal/ "very inquisitive" |
Reduction of place markedness[edit] | ||
| In the modernGoidelic languages, grammatical lenition also triggers the reduction ofmarkedness in theplace of articulation ofcoronalsonorants (l,r, andn sounds). In Scottish Gaelic,/n/ and/l/ are the weak counterparts of palatal/ɲ/ and/ʎ/. | ||
| /ɲ/ | →/n/ | neulach/ɲial̪ˠəx/ "cloudy" →glé neulach/kleːnial̪ˠəx/ "very cloudy" |
| /ʎ/ | →/l/ | leisg/ʎeʃkʲ/ "lazy" →glé leisg/kleːleʃkʲ/ "very lazy" |
Some languages which have lenition have in addition complex rules affecting situations where lenition might be expected to occur but does not, often those involvinghomorganic 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:[5]
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:[5]
In modern Scottish Gaelic this rule is onlyproductive 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, whileaon still invokes the rules of blocked lenition, a noun followed by an adjective generally no longer does so. Hence:[5]
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:[5]
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-tensecopulabu, which inCommon Celtic had a final -t. In terms of blocked lenition, it continues to behave as a dental-final particle invoking blocked lenition rules:[5]
In Brythonic languages, only fossilized vestiges of lenition blocking occur, for example in Welshnos da 'good night' lenition is blocked[6] (nos as a feminine noun normally causes lenition of a following modifier, for exampleGwener 'Friday' yieldsnos Wener 'Friday night'). Within Celtic, blocked lenition phenomena also occur in Irish (for exampleaon doras 'one door',an chéad duine 'the first person') andManx (for exampleun dorrys 'one door',yn chied dooinney 'the first man') however.
Outside Celtic, inSpanish orthographic b d g are retained as[b,d,ɡ] following nasals rather than their normal lenited forms[β,ð,ɣ].
In the modern Celtic languages, lenition of the "fricating" type is usually denoted by adding anh to the lenited letter. In Welsh, for example,c,p, andt change intoch,ph,th as a result of the so-called "aspirate mutation" (carreg, "stone" →ei charreg "her stone"). An exception isManx orthography, which tends to be more phonetic, but in some cases, etymological principles are applied. In theGaelic script, fricating lenition (usually called simplylenition) is indicated by adot above the affected consonant, and in the Roman script, the convention is to suffix the letterh to the consonant, to signify that it is lenited. Thus,a ṁáṫair is equivalent toa mháthair. InMiddle Irish manuscripts, lenition ofs andf was indicated by the dot above, and lenition ofp,t, andc was indicated by the postposedh; lenition of other letters was not indicated consistently in the orthography.
Voicing lenition is represented by a simple letter switch in theBrythonic languages, for instancecarreg, "stone" →y garreg, "the stone" in Welsh. InIrish orthography, it is shown by writing the "weak" consonant alongside the (silent) "strong" one:peann, "pen" →ár bpeann "our pen",ceann, "head" →ár gceann "our head" (sonorization is traditionally called "eclipsis" in Irish grammar).
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 exampletaigh[t̪ʰɤj] "house" →an taigh[ən̪ˠˈd̪ʱɤj] "the house".[3][7]
The phenomenon of consonant gradation inFinnic languages is also a form of lenition.
An example withgeminate consonants comes fromFinnish, where geminates become simple consonants while retaining voicing or voicelessness (e.g.katto →katon,dubbaan →dubata). It is also possible for entire consonant clusters to undergo lenition, as inVotic, where voiceless clusters become voiced, e.g.itke- "to cry" →idgön.
If a language has no obstruents other than voiceless stops, other sounds are encountered, as in Finnish, where the lenited grade is represented bychronemes,approximants,taps or eventrills. For example, Finnish used to have a complete set of spirantization reflexes for/ptk/, though these have been lost in favour of similar-sounding phonemes. In theSouthern Ostrobothnian,Tavastian andsouthwestern[8] dialects of Finnish,/ð/ mostly changed into/r/, thus the dialects have a synchronic lenition of an alveolar stop into an alveolar trill/t/→/r/. Furthermore, the same phoneme/t/ undergoesassibilation/t/ →/s/ before the vowel/i/, e.g. rootvete- "water" →vesi andvere-. Here,vete- is the stem,vesi is its nominative, andvere- is the same stem under consonant gradation.
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.Januarius with initial/j/ >gennaio, with[dʒ]) and synchronically (e.g.,/ˈkaza/ "house, home" →[ˈkaːza] but/aˈkaza/ "at home" →[aˈkːaːza]).
Catalan is among numerous Romance languages with diachronicword-final devoicing (frigidus >*/ˈfɾɛd/ >fred[ˈfɾɛt]. Fortition also occurs in Catalan for/bdɡ/ in consonant clusters with a lateral consonant (Lat.populus >poble[ˈpɔbːɫə] or[ˈpɔpːɫə].
Word-medially,/lː/ is subject to fortition in numerous Romance languages, ranging from[ɖː] or[dː] in manyspeech types on Italian soil to[dʒ] in some varieties of Spanish.