Debuccalization or deoralization
Debuccalization is usually seen as a subtype of lenition, which is often defined as a sound change involving the weakening of a consonant by progressive shifts in pronunciation. As with other forms of lenition, debuccalization may be synchronic or diachronic (i.e. it may involve alternations within a language allophone or sound changes across time).
Debuccalization processes occur in many different types of environments such as the following:
Glottal stop
Arabic
is debuccalized to in several Arabic varieties, such as northern [[Egyptian|Egyptian Arabic]], [[Lebanese|Lebanese Arabic]], western [[Syrian|Syrian Arabic]], and urban Palestinian dialects, partially also in [[Jordanian Arabic]] (especially by female speakers).
Indo-European languages
British and American English
Most English-speakers in England and many speakers of
American English debuccalize to a glottal stop in two environments: in word-final position before another consonant (American English IPA)
-
get ready
-
not much
-
not good
-
it says
Before a syllabic following , , , a vowel, or a diphthong. The may then also be
nasal release. (American English IPA)
-
Milton
-
Martin
-
mountain
-
cotton
-
Latin
-
Layton
Cockney English
In Cockney English, is often realized as a glottal stop between vowels,
Liquid consonant, and nasals (notably in the word
bottle), a process called
t-glottalization.
German
The
German language ending
-en is commonly realized as an assimilated
syllabic nasal. Preceding voiceless stops are then glottally released: Latten ('laths'), Nacken ('nape of the neck'). When such a stop is additionally preceded by a homorganic
sonorant, it tends to be debuccalized entirely and create the clusters . For example, Lumpen ('rag'), Banken ('banks').
Voiced stops are not usually debuccalized. However, many Upper German and East Central German dialects merge voiced and unvoiced stops at least word-internally, and the merged consonants may be debuccalized. For example, in Bavarian, both Anten ('ducks') and Anden ('Andes') are pronounced . Speakers are often unaware of that.
However, Standard German spoken in Luxembourg often lacks syllabic sonorants under the influence of Luxembourgish, so that -en is pronounced , rather than or .
Austronesian languages
Indonesian and Malay
In both languages, syllable-final
-k is either realized as or .
Sulawesi languages
Debuccalization is very common in parts of
Sulawesi. Especially in the South Sulawesi branch, most languages have turned word-final
*t and
*k into a glottal stop.
In every Gorontalic language except Buol language and Kaidipang, *k was replaced by a glottal stop, and lost altogether in word-initial position: *kayu → Gorontalo ayu , *konuku → olu'u . However, if it followed *ŋ, then *k voiced into g in Gorontalo ( *koŋkomo → onggomo ).
Debuccalization is also common in the Sangiric branch. In Sangir language and Bantik language, all final voiceless stops were reduced into ʔ ( *manuk → manu' "bird"). Also in Ratahan language, final *t became ʔ ( *takut → taku' "to fear"). In Talaud language, all instances of Proto-Sangiric *k were debuccalized into ʔ except when following *ŋ ( *kiki → i'i "to bite", but *beŋkol → bengkola "bent"). Other newer instances of k resulted from *R when geminated or being word-final ( ʐ elsewhere), e.g. *bəRu → bakku "new", *bibiR → biwikka "lip", *bəŋaR → bangngaka "molar".
Polynesian languages
Many Polynesian languages lost the original glottal stop *ʔ of their ancestor
Proto-Polynesian, but then debuccalized other consonants into a glottal stop . This applied to different consonants depending on the language, for example:
[See p.93-95 of: ]
Glottal fricative
Indo-European languages
Slavic
Older was spirantized and later debuccalized in languages such as Belarusian, the Czech–Slovak languages, Ukrainian, and Upper Sorbian, e.g. Serbian
bog, Russian
box, Czech
bůh, Ukrainian
bih.
English
Scots and Scottish English
In some varieties of
Scots language and
Scottish English, particularly on the West Coast, a non word-final
th shifted to , a process called th-debuccalization. For example, is realized as .
Scouse
Pre-pausally, may be debuccalized to h, eg.
it,
lot,
that,
what pronounced .
Proto-Greek
In Proto-Greek, shifted to initially and between
(
,
liquid consonant, and
nasal consonant).
Intervocalic had been lost by the time of Ancient Greek, and vowels in hiatus were synaeresis in the Attic Greek dialect.
Before a liquid or nasal, an was assimilated to the preceding vowel in Attic-Ionic and Doric Greek and to the following nasal in Aeolic Greek. The process is also described as the loss of and the subsequent lengthening of a vowel or consonant, which kept the syllable the same syllable weight (compensatory lengthening).
-
PIE → Proto-Greek *ehmi → Attic-Ionic (εἰμί) : Aeolic (ἔμμι) "I am"
Indo-Aryan
Sanskrit
In
Sanskrit, becomes (written in transliteration) before a
pausa: e.g. ('desire'), ('again') become , .
Additionally, the Proto-Indo-European aspirated voiced palato-velar *ǵʰ became through successive affrication, assibilation and debuccalization: e.g. "arm" becomes Sanskrit .
Bengali
In many
Eastern Bengali dialects, the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant can become debuccalized to glottal or , e.g. "wife's brother" is , and "sea" is . The tenuis and aspirated forms of the labial stop and velar stop can get lenited to and respectively, but also be further debuccalized to or , e.g. "mad" is and "beggar, faqir" is . In some cases, even the glottal fricative is dropped, e.g. "(he / she / it) came" is .
West Iberian
Spanish
A number of
Spanish language dialects debuccalize to or at the
syllable coda of a
syllable or intervocalically in certain instances.
Galician
In many varieties of Galician, as well as in
Castrapo, the phoneme may debuccalize (
gheada) to in most or all instances; and are also possible realizations. There is also an inverse
hypercorrection process of older or less educated Galician speakers replacing the phoneme of the Spanish language with , which is called gueada.
Portuguese
Portuguese is much less affected by debuccalization, but it is especially notable in its Brazilian variety.
Throughout Brazil, the phoneme (historically an alveolar trill that moved to an uvular position) has a rather long inventory of allophones: . Only is uncommon. Few dialects, such as sulista and fluminense, give preference to voiced allophones; elsewhere, they are common only as coda, before voiced consonants.
In such dialects, especially among people speaking an educated variety of Portuguese, it is usual for the rhotic coda in the syllable rhyme to be an alveolar tap, as in European Portuguese and many registers of Spanish, or to be realized as or . In the rest of the country, it is generally realized as , even by speakers who either do not normally use that allophone or delete it entirely, as is common in the vernacular.
However, in some Minas Gerais]]- and mineiro-influenced fluminense rural registers, is used but as an allophone of (rhotic consonants are most often deleted), a mar-mal merger, instead of the much more common and less-stigmatized nocat=yes merger characteristic of all Brazilian urban centers except for those bordering Mercosur countries, where coda was preserved, and the entire North and Northeast regions. Its origin is the replacement of indigenous languages and línguas gerais by Portuguese, which created , and r-colored vowel as allophones of both (now mostly ) and (now mostly ) phonemes in the coda since Native Brazilians could not easily pronounce them (caipira dialect). The later Portuguese influence from other regions made those allophones become rarer in some areas, but the mar-mal merger remained in a few isolated villages and towns.
Finally, many fluminense registers, especially those of the poor and of the youth, most northern and northeastern dialects, and, to a much minor degree, all other Brazilian dialects, debuccalize but less so than in Spanish. However, a mar-mas merger or even a mar-mais merger occurs: mas mesmo assim "but even so" or mas mesma, sim "though, right, the same (f) one" ; mais light "lighter, more slim", or also "less caloric/fatty" ; mas de mim, não "but from me, no" or mais de mim, não "not more from me" . A coda rhotic in the Brazilian dialects in the Centro-Sul area is hardly ever glottal, and the debuccalized is unlikely to be confused with it.
Romanian
In the Moldavian dialect of Romanian, is debuccalized to and so, for example, să fie becomes să hie. The same occurred in
Old Spanish, Old
Gascon language, and still occurs in
Sylheti language.
Goidelic languages
In
Scottish Gaelic and
Irish language,
s and
t changed by
lenition to , spelled
sh and
th.
Faliscan
Inscription in Faliscan from the 4th century BC on show occasional debuccalization of to (e.g.
hileo : Latin
filius). Whether the shift is displayed in the inscriptions is highly irregular, with some forms even showing an ostensibly opposite shift of written
f in place of an expected
h (e.g.
fe : Latin
hic), possibly by means of
hypercorrection.
Austronesian languages
Malay
In several Malay dialects in the peninsular, final
-s is realized as .
Batak languages
In the
Batak languages branch, all southern languages (but not the northern ones including Karo), have debuccalized
*k into
h, except when word-final or followed
*ŋ. Both
Angkola language and Mandailing have restored
k within the sequence
hVhV (Angkola
kehe, Mandailing
ke, but Toba
hehe), or when following a consonant in Mandailing (
ala "scorpion" →
par kalahan). Mandailing, however has also further deleted
*h (
*kalak →
alak "person"), except in the sequence
-aha- (
dahan "mushroom", not
*dan).
[Adelaar, K. A. (1981). "Reconstruction of Proto-Batak Phonology". In Robert A. Blust (ed.), Historical Linguistics in Indonesia: Part I, 1–20. Jakarta: Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya.]
Polynesian languages
Polynesian languages commonly reflect debuccalization not only into a glottal stop , but also into a glottal fricative . The exact distribution depends on the language:
-
most languages reflect a regular change *s >
-
in several languages, the outcome of PPn *f is irregular across the lexicon, with no obvious conditioning:
PPn *f > Tahitian , ; Māori , ; Hawaiian , , etc.
Other families
Yoruboid languages
Debuccalization occurs extensively within the dialectal continuum of Yoruboid languages, particularly among the
Olukumi language,
Igala language, the Northeast Yoruba dialect known as
Okun people, and Southeastern dialects of the Yoruba language, such as
Okitipupa. Many of these shifts came from Proto-Yoruboid language (or its descendant language, Proto-Edekiri), and descendant languages shifted from to . In other cases shifts from to also occur from Proto-Yoruboid to Standard
Yoruba language. Many other alternatives shift from to , but it is unclear if that process is associated with the debuccalization occurring.
Debuccalization also occurs in other Volta-Niger languages, including Igbo language, the Ayere-Ahan languages, and the Edo language.
Japanese
In Early Modern Japanese, the labial fricative (derived from Old Japanese *) was debuccalized to when followed by one of the vowels . (It remained labial before , and was palatalized to before .) In some modern dialects, such as the Kansai dialect, /s/ is sometimes debuccalized to /h/.
Dravidian
In
Old Kannada between 10th and 14th centuries, most of the initial debuccalized into a e.g. OldKn.
pattu, Kn.
hattu "ten" and disappeared in many Kannadoid languages e.g. Sholaga
attu. Many of the Proto Dravidian *c- spirantized, debuccalization and disappeared in the descended languages through c > s > h > ∅, e.g. PD. *cīntu > Ta. īñcu "date fruit". Various Central Indian Dravidian languages are in various stages of it like Gondi languages have
sindi, hīndi, īndi. Intervocalic /k/ has debuccalized for many spoken Tamil speakers, e.g. Std Tamil pakai > pɐhɛ.
[ ]
Slavey
All coda consonants in
Slavey language must be glottal. When a non-glottal consonant would otherwise be positioned in a syllable coda, it debuccalizes to :
-
→ ('hat')
-
→ ('scar')
-
→ ('rope')
Loanwords
Debuccalization can be a feature of
loanword phonology. For example, debuccalization can be seen in Indonesian loanwords into
Selayar language.
Bibliography
External links
