| Sound change andalternation |
|---|
| Fortition |
| Dissimilation |
Rhotacism (/ˈroʊtəsɪzəm/ROH-tə-siz-əm)[1] orrhotacization is asound change that converts one consonant (usually a voicedalveolar consonant:/z/,/d/,/l/, or/n/) to arhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of/z/ to/r/.[2] When a dialect or member of a language family resists the change and keeps a/z/ sound, this is sometimes known aszetacism.
The term comes from theGreek letterrho, denoting/r/.
The southern (Tosk) dialects, the base ofStandard Albanian, changed/n/ to/r/, but the northern (Gheg) dialects did not:[2]
InAramaic,Proto-Semiticn changed tor in a few words:
Aquitanian *l changed to thetappedr between vowels inBasque.[3] It can be observed in words borrowed from Latin; for example, Latincaelum (meaning "sky, heaven") becamezeru in Basque (caelum >celu >zeru; comparecielo in Spanish). The originall is preserved in theSouletin dialect:caelum >celu >zelü.
Western dialects ofFinnish are characterised by the pronunciation/r/ or/ɾ/ of the consonant writtend in Standard Finnishkahden kesken- kahren kesken (two together = one on one).[example needed] The reconstructed older pronunciation is*ð.
InManx,Scottish Gaelic and some dialects ofIrish,/n/ becomes/r/ in a variety of consonant clusters, often with nasalization of the following vowel. For example, the/kn/ cluster developed into/kr/, as in Scottish Gaeliccnoc[krɔ̃xk] ‘hill’.[2] Within Ireland, this phenomenon is most prevalent in northern dialects and absent from the most southern dialects. Some examples of rhotacized clusters include/kn/ (cnó),/mn/ (mná),/ɡn/ (gnó), and/tn/ (tnáith), while/sn/ (snámh) is never rhotacized even in the most innovative dialects. This can lead to interesting pairs such as nominativean sneachta/əˈʃnʲæːxt̪ˠə/ versus genitivean tsneachta/əˈt̪ɾʲæːxt̪ˠə/.
All survivingGermanic languages, which are members of theNorth andWest Germanic families, changed/z/ to/r/, implying a more approximant-like rhotic consonant inProto-Germanic.[4] As attested byrunes, the shift affectedOld Norse later than the Continental Germanic languages. Some languages later changed all forms tor, butGothic, an extinctEast Germanic language, did not undergo rhotacism.
| Proto-Germanic | Gothic | Old Norse | (Old English) Modern English | Old Frisian[5] | Dutch | (Old High German) Modern German |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *was,1st/3rd sg *wēzum1st pl | was, wēsum | var, várum | (wæs, wǣron) was, were | was, wēren | was, waren | (was, wārum) war, waren |
| *fraleusaną,inf *fraluzanazp.part. | fraliusan, fralusans | — | (forlēosan, forloren) forlese, forlorn | urliāsa, urlāren | verliezen, verloren | (farliosan, farloren) verlieren, verloren |
Note that the Modern German forms have levelled the rhotic consonant to forms that did not originally have it. However, the original sound can still be seen in some nouns such asWesen, "being" (from the same root aswar/waren) as well asVerlust, "loss" andVerlies, "dungeon" (both from the same root asverlieren/verloren).
Because of the presence of words that did not undergo rhotacisation from the same root as those that did, the result of the process remains visible in a few modern English word pairs:
Intervocalic/t/ and/d/ are commonly lenited to[ɾ] in most accents ofNorth American andAustralian English and some accents ofIrish English andEnglish English,[6] a process known as tapping or less accurately asflapping:[7]got a lot of/ˈɡɒtəˈlɒtə/ becomes[ˈɡɒɾəˈlɒɾə]. Contrast is usually maintained with/r/, and the[ɾ] sound is rarely perceived as/r/.[2]
InCentral German dialects, especiallyRhine Franconian andHessian,/d/ is frequently realised as[ɾ] in intervocalic position. The change also occurs inMecklenburg dialects. CompareBorrem (Central Hessian) andBoden (Standard German).
Reflecting a highly-regular change in pre-Classical Latin, intervocalic/s/ inOld Latin, which is assumed to have been pronounced[z], invariably becamer, resulting in pairs such as these:
Intervocalics in Classical Latin suggests either borrowing (rosa) or reduction of an earlierss after a long vowel or a diphthong (pausa <paussa,vīsum <*vīssum <*weid-tom). Thes was preserved initially (septum) and finally and in consonant clusters.
Old Latinhonos becamehonor inLate Latin by analogy with the rhotacised forms in other cases such as genitive, dative and accusativehonoris,honori,honorem.[9]
Another form of rhotacism in Latin wasdissimilation ofd tor before anotherd and dissimilation ofl tor before anotherl, resulting in pairs such as these:
The phenomenon was noted by the Romans themselves:
In many words in which the ancients saids, they later saidr... foedesum foederum, plusima plurima, meliosem meliorem, asenam arenam
— Varro,De lingua Latina, VII, 26, In multis verbis, in quo antiqui dicebants, postea dicuntr... foedesum foederum, plusima plurima, meliosem meliorem, asenam arenam
InNeapolitan, rhotacism affects words that etymologically contained intervocalic or initial/d/, when this is followed by a vowel; and when/l/ is followed by another consonant. This last characteristic, however, is not very common in modern speech.
InGalician-Portuguese, rhotacism occurred from/l/ to/r/, mainly in consonant clusters ending in/l/ such as in the wordsobrigado, "thank you" (originally from "obliged [in honourably serving my Sir]");praia, "beach";prato, "plate" or "dish";branco, "white";prazer/pracer, "pleasure";praça/praza, "square". Compare Spanishobligado (obliged),playa, plato, blanco, placer, plaza from Latinobligatus, plagia, platus, blancus (Germanic origin),placere (verb),platea.
In contemporaryBrazilian Portuguese, rhotacism of/l/ in thesyllable coda is characteristic of theCaipira dialect. Further rhotacism in the nationwide vernacular includesplanta, "plant", as[ˈpɾɐ̃tɐ],lava, "lava", as/ˈlarvɐ/ (then homophonous withlarva, worm/maggot),lagarto, "lizard", as[laʁˈɡaʁtu] (in dialects with guttural codar instead of atap) andadvogado, "lawyer", as[ɐ̞de̞vo̞ʁˈɡadu]. The nonstandard patterns are largely marginalised, and rhotacism is regarded as a sign of speech-language pathology or illiteracy.
Rhotacism, inRomanesco, shiftsl tor before a consonant, like certain Andalusian dialects of Spanish. Thus, Latinaltus (tall) isalto inItalian but becomesarto in Romanesco. Rhotacism used to happen whenl was preceded by a consonant, as in the wordingrese (English), but modern speech has lost that characteristic.
Another change related tor was the shortening of thegeminatedrr, which is not rhotacism. Italianerrore,guerra andmarrone "error", "war", "brown" becomeerore,guera andmarone.
InRomanian, rhotacism shifted intervocalicl tor andn tor.
Thus, Latincaelum ‘sky; heaven’ became Romaniancer, Latinfenestra ‘window’ Romanianfereastră and Latinfelicitas ‘happiness’ Romanianfericire.
Some northern Romanian dialects andIstro-Romanian also changed all intervocalic[n] to[ɾ] in words of Latin origin.[10] For example, Latinbonus became Istro-Romanianbur: compare to standard Daco-Romanianbun.
Rhotacism is particularly widespread in the island ofSicily, but it is almost completely absent in theSicilian varieties of the mainland (Calabrese andSalentino). It affects intervocalic and initial/d/:cura from Latincaudam,peri from Latinpedem,'reci from Latindecem.
InAndalusian Spanish, particularly inSeville, at the end of a syllable before another consonant,l is replaced withr:Huerva forHuelva. The reverse occurs inCaribbean Spanish:Puelto Rico forPuerto Rico (lambdacism).
Rhotacism (mola >mora,filum >fir,sal >sare) exists in someGallo-Italic languages as well:Lombard (Western andAlpine [lmo;it]) andLigurian.
InUmbrian but notOscan, rhotacism of intervocalics occurred as in Latin.[11]
Among theTurkic languages, theOghur branch exhibits/r/, opposing to the rest of Turkic, which exhibits/z/. In this case, rhotacism refers to the development of*-/r/,*-/z/, and*-/d/ to/r/,*-/k/,*-/kh/ in this branch.[12]
(This section relies on the treatment in Greenberg 1999.[13])
In someSouth Slavic languages, rhotacism occasionally changes a voiced palatal fricative[ʒ] to a dental or alveolar tap or trill[r] between vowels:
The beginning of the change is attested in theFreising manuscripts from the 10th century AD, which show both the archaism (ise 'which' < *jь-že) and the innovation (tere 'also' < *te-že). The shift is also found in individual lexical items inBulgarian dialects,дорде 'until' (< *do-že-dĕ) andMacedonian,сеѓере (archaic: 'always' <*vьsegъda-že). However, the results of the sound change have largely been reversed by lexical replacement in dialects in Serbia and Bosnia from the 14th century.
Dialects inCroatia andSlovenia have preserved more of the lexical items with the change and have even extended grammatical markers in-r from many sources that formally merged with the rhotic forms that arose from the sound change: Slovene dialectnocor 'tonight' (< *not'ь-sь-ǫ- +-r-) on the model ofvečer 'evening' (< *večerъ). The reversal of the change is evident in dialects in Serbia in which the-r- formant is systematically removed: Serbianveče 'evening'.