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Sandhi ( ; , ) is any of a wide variety of changes that occur at or word 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 to .

Sandhi occurs in many languages, e.g. in the phonology of Indian languages (especially , , , , , , , , , Assamese and ). Many dialects of show linking and intrusive R.

A subset of sandhi called more specifically refers to tone changes between words and syllables. This is a common feature of many tonal languages such as and .


Types

Internal and external sandhi
Sandhi can be either:
  • internal, at morpheme boundaries within words, such as syn- + pathy: sympathy, or
  • external, at word boundaries, such as the pronunciation " tem books" for ten books in some dialects of . The linking process of some dialects of English (" I saw-r-a film" in ) is a kind of external sandhi, as are liaison (pronunciation of usually silent final consonants of words before words beginning with vowels) and raddoppiamento fonosintattico (lengthening of initial consonants of words after certain words ending in vowels).

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 between a and an; the prefixes con-, en-, in- and syn-, whose n assimilates to m before p, m or b). Sandhi is, however, reflected in the orthography of , , , , and some other Indian languages, as with Italian in the case of compound words with syntactic gemination.

External sandhi effects can sometimes become morphologised (apply only in certain morphological and environments) as in

(1999). 9780521640749, Cambridge University Press. .
and, over time, turn into consonant mutations.


Tone sandhi
Most tonal languages have in which the tones of words alter according to certain rules. An example is the behavior of ; 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 (with two words containing underlying tone 3), which is in practice pronounced . The first word is pronounced with tone 2, but the second is unaffected.


Examples

Celtic languages
In Celtic languages, the consonant 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:

woman/wife
big
the big woman
cat
his cat
her cat
their cat


Portuguese
When two words belonging to the same phrase are pronounced together, or two 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 , and the unstressed final vowels .


Consonant sandhi
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 or as alveolar . At the end of words, the default pronunciation for a sibilant is voiceless, , but in connected speech the sibilant is treated as though it were within a word (assimilation):

  • If the next word begins with a voiceless consonant, the final sibilant remains voiceless ; bons tempos ('good times').
  • If the next word begins with a voiced consonant, the final sibilant becomes voiced as well /z, ʒ/; bons dias ('good days').
  • If the next word begins with a vowel, the final sibilant is treated as intervocalic, and pronounced z; bons amigos ('good friends').

When two identical sibilants appear in sequence within a word, they reduce to a single consonant. For example, na scer, de o, e xcesso, e xsudar are pronounced with s by speakers who use alveolar sibilants at the end of syllables, and di sjuntor is pronounced with 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 , whereas the latter speakers will pronounce the first examples with s if they are from Brazil or if from Portugal (although in relaxed pronunciation one of the siblants may be dropped). This applies also to words that are pronounced together in connected speech:

  • sibilant + /s/, e.g., a s sopas: either s (most of Brazil); ʃs (Portugal, standard)
  • sibilant + /z/, e.g., a s zonas: either z (mostly in Brazil); ʒz (Portugal, standard)
  • sibilant + /ʃ/, e.g., a s chaves: always ʃ;
  • sibilant + /ʒ/, e.g., o s genes: always ʒ.


Vowel sandhi
Normally, only the three vowels /ɐ/, /i/ (in BP) or /ɨ/ (in EP), and /u/ occur in unstressed final position. If the next word begins with a similar vowel, they merge with it in connected speech, producing a single vowel, possibly (). Here, "similar" means that nasalization can be disregarded, and that the two central vowels /a, ɐ/ can be identified with each other. Thus,

  • /aa, aɐ, ɐa, ɐɐ/ → a(ː) (henceforth transcribed a); toda a noite or ('all night'), nessa altura or ('at that point').
  • /aɐ̃, ɐɐ̃/ → ã(ː)) (henceforth transcribed ã); a antiga ('the ancient one') and à antiga ('in the ancient way'), both pronounced or . The open nasalized ã appears only in this environment.
  • /ii, iĩ/ → i(ː), (henceforth transcribed i); de idade ('aged').
  • /ɨɨ/ → ɨ; fila de espera ('waiting line') (EP only).
  • /uu, uũ/ → u(ː), (henceforth transcribed u); todo o dia ('all day').

If the next word begins with a dissimilar vowel, then /i/ and /u/ become approximants in Brazilian Portuguese ():

  • /i/ + V → jV; durante o curso ('during the course'), mais que um ('more than one').
  • /u/ + V → wV; todo este tempo ('all this time') do objeto ('of the object').

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:

  • ; se a vires ('if you see her'), mais que um ('more than one').
  • ; todo este tempo ('all this time'), do objeto ('of the object').

But in other prosodic conditions, and in relaxed pronunciation, EP simply drops final unstressed and /u/ (), though this is subject to significant dialectal variation:

  • durante o curso ('during the course'), este inquilino ('this tenant').
  • todo este tempo ('all this time'), disto há muito ('there's a lot of this').

Aside from historical set contractions formed by prepositions plus or pronouns, like à/dà, ao/do, nesse, dele, etc., on one hand and combined pronouns such as mo/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 show such as in d'água.


German dialects
In various or the spoken one can find phonological processes that can be analysed as Sandhi. For example some varieties of 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 HG hingehen ("go towards") (hin corresponds to hiː in Hessian) or kən for HG kein einziger ("no single thing").


English
In English phonology, rhotic sandhi can be seen in non-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 and China" pronounced as əmɛrikəɹənʧɑjnə
(2025). 9783030043575, Palgrave Macmillan. .
(see linking and intrusive R)


French
French liaison and enchaînement can be considered forms of external sandhi.

In enchaînement, 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 () is pronounced and unique () is pronounced ; sens unique (, as a street) is pronounced .

Liaison is a similar phenomenon, applicable to words ending in a consonant that was historically pronounced but that, in , 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 () is pronounced with a silent , and quatre hommes () is pronounced , but deux hommes () is pronounced .


Japanese
In Japanese phonology, sandhi is primarily exhibited in (consonant mutation from unvoiced to voiced when not word-initial, in some contexts) and conversion of つ or く (, ) to a geminate consonant (orthographically, the 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 , , making the relation clear. It also occurs much less often in 連声, where, most commonly, a terminal on one morpheme results in an (or ) being added to the start of the next morpheme, as in 天皇: てん + おう → てんのう ( + = ), 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 root 읽 , meaning ‘read’, is pronounced before a consonant, as in 읽다 , but is pronounced like before vowels, as in 읽으세요 , meaning ‘please read’. Some roots can also aspirate following consonants, denoted by the letter ㅎ (hieut) in the final consonant. This causes 다 to become in 않다 , ‘to not be’.


Tamil
As Tamil is strongly characterised by : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status, a high register and a low one.Arokianathan, S. Writing and Diglossic: A Case Study of Tamil Radio Plays . ciil-ebooks.net This in turn adds an extra layer of complexity forming Sandhi.
(1998). 9780521640749, Cambridge University Press. .
Tamil employs Sandhi for certain morphological and structures.


Vowel position
The vowel sandhi occurs when words or morphemes ending in certain vowels are followed by morphemes beginning with certain vowels. Consonant glides ( and ) are then inserted between the vowels in order to 'smooth the transition' from one vowel to another.

"The choice of whether the glide inserted will be ( and ) in Tamil is determined by whether the vowel preceding the glide is a front vowel such as or a back vowel, such as ."


Examples in Spoken Tamil


Sandhi following front vowels
+ !Vowel Ending !Noun !Grammatical Suffix !Result
Interrogative,
Interrogative,
No literary Tamil word ends in எ
No literary Tamil word ends in ஏ
Interrogative,


Sandhi following back vowels
Interrogative,Usually deleted, or added later after sandhi rules have applied. A few exceptions:
Interrogative,
Doesn't occur in Spoken Tamil, but might occur in loan word
Interrogative,
Affirmative,
Interrogative,
Doesn't occur in Spoken Tamil
In rapid speech, especially in polysyllabic words: may become — , which may then be further simplified to .


Consonant sandhi
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).


Elision
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 example of (female gender marker) are deleted: (To indicate the omitted stop-consonant is covered in parantheses): .


Noun cases
In some nouns, sandhi is triggered by the addition of a ending to the stem.


Sanskrit
No other language has so formalized and systematized sandhi changes as has Sanskrit; notably, 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 of . External sandhi occurs at word boundaries and between members of compounds.
(2025). 9788120833753, Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

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.

The number of sandhi changes in Sanskrit is extensive, these are described in various books on Sanskrit grammar and most notably, in the Aṣṭādhyāyī grammar by Pāṇini. A couple of examples are given in the following sections to illustrate the kind of changes which occur.


Examples of external vowel sandhi
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 and the second word begins with /i, u/ they become , eg. mahā-utsava > mahotsava; if the latter vowel is long, it becomes /ai, au/, eg. pra-ūḍha > prauḍha.


Examples of external consonant sandhi
The ('ः' ) becomes a /r/ before voiced phones, eg. duḥ-labha > durlabha. + plosive makes it a homorganic nasal, before a fricative or /r/ it nasalizes the previous vowel and before it nasalizes the .

In come compounds s follows the RUKI rule, eg. vi-sama > viṣama, pitr-svaseya > pitrṣvaseya.


See also


External links

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