Metathesis (/məˈtæθəsɪs/mə-TATH-ə-siss; fromGreekμετάθεσις, fromμετατίθημι "to put in a different order";Latin:transpositio) is the transposition ofsounds orsyllables in a word or ofwords in a sentence. Most commonly, it refers to the interchange of two or more contiguous segments or syllables, known asadjacent metathesis[1] orlocal metathesis:[2]
anemone >**anenome (onset consonants of adjacent syllables)
cavalry >**calvary (codas of adjacent syllables)
Metathesis may also involve interchanging non-contiguous sounds, known asnonadjacent metathesis,long-distance metathesis,[1] orhyperthesis,[3] as shown in these examples of metathesis sound change from Latin to Spanish:
Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some even use it as a regular part of their grammar, such asHebrew andFur. The process of metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words inEnglish as well.
The original form before metathesis may be deduced from older forms of words in the language'slexicon or, if no forms are preserved, fromphonological reconstruction. In some cases it is not possible to settle with certainty on the original version.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a historian and scholar inrhetoric living in 1st century BC Greece. He analysed classical texts and applied several revisions to make them sound moreeloquent. One of the methods he used was re-writing documents on a mainlygrammatical level: changing word and sentence orders would make texts more fluent and "natural", he suggested. He called this way of re-writingmetathesis.[citation needed]
InAmerican Sign Language, several signs which have a pre-specified initial and final location in reference to the body of the person signing (such as the signs RESTAURANT, PARENT, or TWINS) can have the order of these two locations reversed in contexts which seem to be purely phonological. While not possible with all signs, this does happen with quite a few. For example, the sign DEAF, prototypically made with the "1" handshape making contact first with the cheek and then moving to contact the jaw (as in the sentence FATHER DEAF), can have these locations reversed if the preceding sign, when part of the sameconstituent, has a final location more proximal to the jaw (as in the sentence MOTHER DEAF). Both forms of the sign DEAF are acceptable to native signers.[4] A proposed prerequisite for metathesis to apply in ASL is that both signs must be within the same region on the body. Constraints on the applications of metathesis in ASL has led to discussions that the phonology breaks down the body into regions distinct from settings.[5]
Amharic has a few minor patterns of metathesis, as shown byWolf Leslau.[6] For example, "matches"[kəbrit] is sometimes pronounced as[kərbit],[mogzit] "nanny" is sometimes pronounced as[mozgit]. The word "Monday" is[säɲo], which is the base for "Tuesday"[maksäɲo], which is often metathesized as[maskäɲo]. All of these examples show a pair of consonants reversed so that the stop begins the next syllable.
The following examples of metathesis have been identified in Egyptian Arabic texts, but are not necessarily more common than their etymological spellings:[8]
The likely cause for metathesis in the word "hospital" is that the result resembles a common word pattern familiar to Arabic speakers (namely a Form X verbal noun).
Perhaps the clearest example of metathesis in Egyptian Arabic is the modern name of the city ofAlexandria: (Al-)Iskandariya (الإسكندرية). In addition to the metathesis ofx /ks/ to /sk/, the initialAl ofAlexandria has been reanalyzed as the Arabic definite article.
Metathesis is responsible for some commonspeech errors, such as children acquiringspaghetti aspasketti. The wordask has the nonstandard variantax pronounced/æks/; the spellingask is found in Shakespeare and in theKing James Bible[9] andax in Chaucer, Caxton, and theCoverdale Bible.[citation needed] The word "ask" derives fromProto-Germanic*aiskōną.[citation needed]
Some other frequent English pronunciations that display metathesis are:
The process has shaped many English words historically.Bird andhorse came fromOld Englishbridd andhros;[citation needed]wasp andhasp were also writtenwæps andhæps.
The Old Englishbeorht "bright" underwent metathesis tobryht, which became Modern Englishbright.
The Old Englishþrēo "three" formedþridda "thrid" andþrēotene "thriteen". These underwent metathesis to forms which became Modern Englishthird andthirteen.
The Old English verbwyrċan "to work" had the passive participleġeworht "worked". This underwent metathesis towroht, which became Modern Englishwrought.
In western dialects ofFinnish, historical stem-final /h/ has been subject to metathesis (it is lost in standard Finnish). That leads to variant word forms:
Sporadic examples include the wordvihreä "green", which derives from olderviherä, and the vernacular change of the wordjuoheva "jovial" tojouheva (also a separate word meaning "bristly").
Etymological metathesis occurs in the following French words:
brebis from popular Latinberbex meaning "sheep" (early 12th century).[13]
fromage from popular Latinformaticus, meaning "formed in a mold" (1135).[14]
moustique (1654) from Frenchmousquitte (1603) by metathesis. From Spanishmosquito ("little fly").[15]
Deliberate metathesis also occurs extensively in the informalFrench pattern of speech calledverlan (itself an example:verlan <l'envers, meaning "the reverse" or "the inverse"). In verlan new words are created from existing words by reversing the order of syllables. Verlanization is applied mostly to two-syllable words and the new words that are created are typically considerably less formal than the originals, and/or take on a slightly different meaning. The process often involves considerably more changes than simple metathesis of two phonemes but this forms the basis for verlan as a linguistic phenomenon. Some of these words have become part of standard French.
A few well known examples are:
laissetomber >laissebéton
lourd >relou
louche >chelou
français >céfran
Some Verlan words are metathesized more than once:
InGreek, the presentstem often consists of theroot with asuffix ofy (ι˰ in Greek). If the root ends in the vowela oro, and the consonantn orr, they exchanges position with the consonant and is writteni:
InHebrew theverb conjugation (binyan)hitpaēl (התפעל) undergoes metathesis if the first consonant of the root is an alveolar or postalveolar fricative. Namely, the patternhiṯ1a22ē3 (where the numbers signify the root consonants) becomeshi1ta22ē3. Examples:
No metathesis: rootlbšלבש =hitlabbēšהִתְלַבֵּש ("he got dressed").
Voiceless postalveolar fricative: rootšdlשׁדל =hištaddēlהִשְׁתַּדֵּל ("he made an effort").
Voiced alveolar fricative: rootzqnזקן =hizdaqqēnהִזְדַּקֵּן ("he grew old"); with assimilation of the T of the conjugation.
Voiceless alveolar affricate: roott͡slmצלם =hit͡stallēmהִצְטַלֵּם ("he had a photograph of him taken"); with assimilation (no longer audible) of the T of the conjugation.
Hebrew also features isolated historical examples of metathesis. For example, the wordsכֶּֽבֶשׂkeves[16] andכֶּֽשֶׂבkesev[17] (meaning "lamb") both appear in the Torah.
The other instances areboholy [intestinal] villus/fluff/fuzz/nap vs.bolyhok,moholy vs.molyhos down/pubescence [on plants], and the obsoletevehem animal's fetus (cf.vemhes "pregnant [animal]"). The first of them is often used in the regular form (bolyh).
The following are examples of argot used in the entertainment industry.
/neta/ for/tane/ (種), the former meaning "content [of news article]", "food ingredient", "material (for joke or artwork)", the latter "seed", "species","source"[21]
/sisu/ for/susi/
The word for "sorry",gomen, is sometimes inverted tomengo (backslang).
Metathesis is relatively common in Kildin Sami: some consonant clusters can have a metathetic option, and both forms oftentimes are considered to be equal variants of one another.
In Kurdish no example has been found according to which sounds exchange places and this, in turn, clarifies the claim that metathesis in Kurdish is sporadic and irregular.[22]
Loanwords can also be products of metathesis. The wordtembikai "watermelon" is a metathesis ofmendikai borrowed fromTamil:கொம்மட்டிக்காய்,romanized: kommaṭṭikkāy.[24]
InNavajo, verbs have (often multiple) morphemes prefixed onto the verb stem. These prefixes are added to the verb stem in a set order in a prefix positional template. Although prefixes are generally found in a specific position, some prefixes change order by the process of metathesis.
For example, prefixa- (3i object pronoun) usually occurs beforedi-, as in
adisbąąs "I'm starting to drive some kind of wheeled vehicle along" [ <'a- +di- +sh- +ł +-bąąs].
However, whena- occurs with the prefixesdi- andni-, thea- metathesizes withdi-, leading to an order ofdi- +a- +ni-, as in
diʼnisbąąs "I'm in the act of driving some vehicle [into something] and getting stuck" [ <di-ʼa-ni-sh-ł-bąąs <'a- +di- +ni- +sh- +ł +-bąąs]
instead of the expected *adinisbąąs (a-di-ni-sh-ł-bąąs) (a- is reduced to-).
Metathesis has been used to explain the development ofthorn clusters inProto-Indo-European (PIE). It is hypothesised in the non-Anatolian and non-Tocharian branch, a coronal followed by a dorsal *TK first assimilated to *TsK, and thereafter underwent metathesis to *KTs, so *TK > *TsK > *KTs.[25]
Similar to the Frenchverlan is theTotoiana, a speech form spoken in the village ofTotoi inRomania. It consists in the inversion of syllables of Romanian words in a way that results unintelligible for other Romanian speakers. Its origins or original purpose are unknown. Its current use is recreative.[26][27][28]
TheRotuman language ofRotuman Island (a part ofFiji) uses metathesis as a part of normal grammatical structure by inverting the ultimate vowel with the immediately preceding consonant.
Regular metathesis ofliquid consonants is an important historical change during the development of theSlavic languages: a syllable-final liquid (*r or *l), preceded by a short vowel (*e or *o), metathesized to become syllable-initial. However, the exact outcome of the change varies across the different Slavic languages.
Old Spanish showed occasional metathesis when phonemes not conforming to the usual euphonic constraints were joined. This happened, for example, when aclitic pronoun was attached to a verb ending: it is attested that forms likedejadle "leave [plural] him" were often metathesized todejalde (the phoneme cluster/dl/ does not occur elsewhere in Spanish). The Spanish name for Algeria (Argelia) is likely a metathesis of the Arabic name for the territory (al-Jazāʼir).
Lunfardo, anargot of Spanish fromBuenos Aires, is fond ofvesre, metathesis of syllables. The wordvesre itself is an example:
revés >vesre "back, backwards"
Gacería, an argot ofCastile, incorporates metathesized words:
criba >brica
Some frequently heard pronunciations in Spanish display metathesis:
In theSalishan languagesNorthern Straits andKlallam, metathesis is used as a grammatical device to indicate "actual"aspect. The actual aspect is most often translated into English as abe ... -ing progressive. The actual aspect is derived from the "nonactual" verb form by a CV → VC metathetic process (i.e., consonant metathesizes with vowel).Examples from theSaanich (SENĆOŦEN) dialect of Northern Straits:
T̵X̱ÉT "shove"(nonactual)
→
T̵ÉX̱T "shoving"(actual)
ṮPÉX̱ "scatter"(nonactual)
→
ṮÉPX̱ "scattering"(actual)
T̸L̵ÉQ "pinch"(nonactual)
→
T̸ÉL̵Q "pinching"(actual)
See Montler (1986,[30] 1989,[31] 2015[32]) and Thompson & Thompson (1969)[33] for more information.
From a comparative study ofDravidian vocabularies, one can observe that the retroflex consonants (ʈ,ɖ,ɳ,ɭ,ɻ) and the liquids of the alveolar series (r,ɾ,l) do not occur initially in common Dravidian etyma, butTelugu has words with these consonants at the initial position. It was shown that the etyma underwent a metathesis in Telugu, when the root word originally consisted of an initial vowel followed by one of the above consonants. When this pattern is followed by a consonantal derivative, metathesis has occurred in the phonemes of the root-syllable with the doubling of the suffix consonant (if it had been single); when a vowel derivative follows, metathesis has occurred in the phonemes of the root syllable attended by a contraction of the vowels of root and (derivative) suffix syllables.[34] These statements and the resulting sequences of vowel contraction may be summed up as follows:
Two types of metathesis are observed inTurkish. The examples given are from Anatolian Turkish, though the closely relatedAzerbaijani language is better known for its metathesis:
Metathesis is described by the character Data in the episode "Hollow Pursuits" in the television seriesStar Trek: The Next Generation after Captain Picard accidentally addresses Lieutenant Barclay as "Mr. Broccoli".
^For a variety of examples see:Franz Miklosich,Vergleichende Lautlehre der slavischen Sprachen. Erster Band: Lautlehre, Wien, 1879, andRajko Nahtigal,Slovanski jeziki, Ljubljana, 1952, pp. 188–189.
^For further examples see:Стефан Младенов,История на български език, София, 1979, pp. 161–162.
^For further examples see:August Leskien,Grammatik der serbo-kroatischen Sprache. 1. Teil: Lautlehre, Stammbildung, Formenlehre, Heidelberg, 1914, pp. 98–99.
^For further examples see:Юрій Шевельов,Історична фонологія української мови, Харків, 2002, pp. 947–948.
Hume, E., & Seyfarth, S. (2019). "Metathesis". In M. Aronoff (ed.),Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0242.
Montler, Timothy. (1986).An outline of the morphology and phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish. Occasional Papers in Linguistics (No. 4). Missoula, Montana: University of Montana Linguistics Laboratory. (Revised version of the author's PhD dissertation,University of Hawaiʻi).
Thompson, Laurence C.; Thompson, M. Terry (1969). "Metathesis as a grammatical device".International Journal of American Linguistics.35 (3):213–219.doi:10.1086/465056.S2CID143798020.
^Sandler, Wendy (2006).Sign Language and Linguistic Universals. Cambridge University Press. pp. 124, 179.ISBN978-0521483957.
^pages 27, 28. Wolf Leslau. 1995.Reference Grammar of Amharic. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden.
^Hinds, Martin; Badawi, El-Said, eds. (1986).A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic. Lebanon: Librairie du Liban. p. 175.{{cite encyclopedia}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)
^El-Farnawany, Refaat (1980).Ägyptisch-Arabisch als geschriebene Sprache: Probleme der Verschriftung einer Umgangssprache [Egyptian Arabic as a written language: the problems of spelling a colloquial language] (Thesis) (in German). Erlangen-Nürnberg: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität. p. 158.
^Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd. ed., under "ask".
^Младеновъ, Стефанъ (1941). "гавранъ".Етимологически и правописенъ речникъ на българския книжовенъ езикъ. София: Книгоиздателство Христо Г. Дановъ - О.О. д-во. p. 95.
^Montler, Timothy R. 1986. An outline of the morphology and phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish. Missoula: University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics No. 4.
^Montler, Timothy. 1989. Infixation, Reduplication, and Metathesis in the Saanich Actual Aspect. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 9.92-107.
^Montler, Timothy. 2015. Klallam Grammar. Seattle:University of Washington Press.
^Thompson, Laurence C. and M. Terry Thompson. 1969. Metathesis as a grammatical device. International Journal of American LinguisticsVolume 35, Number 3 (July 1969), pages 213–219
