Metathesis (linguistics)
Encyclopedia
Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds
or syllable
s in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:
Metathesis may also involve switching non-contiguous sounds, known as nonadjacent metathesis, long-distance metathesis, or hyperthesis:
Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some use it as a regular part of their grammar (e.g. the Fur language
). The process of metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words in the English language
, as well.
The original form before metathesis changed may be deduced from older forms of words in the language's lexicon
, or, if no forms are preserved, from phonological reconstruction.
was a historian and scholar in rhetoric
living in 1st century BC Greece. He analysed classical texts and applied several revisions to make them sound more eloquent
. One of the methods he used was re-writing documents on a mainly grammatical
level: changing word and sentence orders would make texts more fluent and 'natural', he suggested. He called this way of re-writing metathesis.
s, such as children acquiring spaghetti as pasketti. The metathesized pronunciation of ask as ax /ˈæks/ goes back to Old English
days, when ascian and axian/acsian were both in use.
Some other frequent English pronunciations or pronunciation errors that display metathesis are:
The process has shaped many English words historically. Bird and horse came from Old English bryd and hros; wasp and hasp were also written wæps and hæps. Likewise, it explains why the 'r' moved after the vowel in third and thirteen, even though they originally had it before like three still does.
The Old English beorht "bright" underwent metathesis to bryht, which became Modern English bright.
The Old English þreo "three" formed þrid "third" and þreotene "thriteen". These underwent metathesis to forms which became Modern English third and thirteen.
The Old English verb wyrcan "to work" had the passive participle worht "worked". This underwent metathesis to wroht, which became Modern English wrought.
The Old English þyrl "hole" underwent metathesis to þryl. This gave rise to a verb þrylian "pierce", which became Modern English thrill, and formed the compound nosþryl "nose-hole" which became Modern English nostril.
Metathesis is also a common feature of the West Country dialects
.
makes extensive use of metathesis of syllables through a pattern of informal speech called verlan
(itself an example: verlan ← l'envers, meaning 'reverse'). 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. The process often involves considerably more changes than simple metathesis of two phonemes but this forms the basis for verlan as a linguistic phenomenon.
A few well known examples are:
Some words were metathesized more than once:
Simple metathesis exists as well and shaped some words, such as fromage (from formage, "shaping").
showed occasional metathesis when phonemes not conforming to the usual euphonic constraints were joined. This happened, for example, when a clitic
pronoun was attached to a verb ending: it is attested that forms like dejadle "leave [plural] him" were often metathesized to dejalde (the phoneme cluster /dl/ does not occur elsewhere in Spanish).
Lunfardo
, an argot
of Spanish from Buenos Aires
, is fond of vesre
, metathesis of syllables. The word vesre itself is an example:
Gacería
, an argot of Castile
, incorporates metathesized words:
Some frequently heard pronunciations in Spanish display metathesis:
, the present stem
often consists of the root
with a suffix
of y (ι˰ in Greek). If the root ends in the vowel a or o, and the consonant n or r, the y switches position with the consonant and is written i:
For metathesis of vowel length, which occurs frequently in Attic
and Ionic Greek
, see quantitative metathesis
.
s is an important historical change during the development of the Slavic languages
: a syllable-final liquid metathesized to become syllable-initial, therefore e.g. Polish mleko vs. English milk.
, historical stem-final /h/ has been subject to metathesis (it is lost in standard Finnish). This leads to variant word forms such as:
Some words have been standardized in the metathetized form, e.g:
Another example of metathesis in Finnish is the vernacular change of the word juoheva "jovial" to jouheva (also a separate word meaning "bristly").
nouns, metathesis occurs before accusative case
ending, possessive suffix
es, and in plural
:
Note that in all the examples above, the consonant h is transposed to the end of the stem
.
the verb conjugation (binyan) undergoes metathesis if the first consonant of the root is an alveolar or postalveolar fricative. Namely, the pattern (where the numbers signify the root consonants) becomes hi1ta22ē3. Examples:
In slang, the word for sorry, gomen, is sometimes reversed informally as mengo.
, 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, prefix (3i object pronoun) usually occurs before , as in
However, when occurs with the prefixes and , the metathesizes with , leading to an order of , as in
instead of the expected *adinisbąąs (a-di-ni-sh-ł-bąąs) (note also that 'a- is reduced to '-).
of Rotuman Island
(a part of Fiji
) uses metathesis as a part of normal grammatical structure by inverting the ultimate vowel with the immediately preceding consonant.
. The actual aspect is most often translated into English as a be ... -ing progressive. The actual aspect is derived from the "nonactual" verb form by a CV → VC metathesis process (i.e. consonant metathesizes with vowel).
See Montler (1986), Thompson & Thompson (1969) for more information.
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, but Telugu
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. These statements and the resulting sequences of vowel contraction may be summed up as follows:
Type 1: V1C1-C² > C1V1-C²C²
Type 2: V1C1-V²- > C1V1-
Examples:
, several signs which have a pre-specified initial and final location can have the order of these two locations reversed in contexts which seem to be purely phonological. 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 same constituent
, 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. (This information has not been cited. Use with caution. Please, refer to Linguistics of American Sign Language: An Introduction (1995, pp. 43–44), C. Valli & C. Lucas, Gallaudet University Press
.)
, Lt. Commander Data
explains the meaning of metathesis after Captain Picard
mistakenly calls Lt. Barclay
"Mr. Broccoli
". After Barclay leaves, Data says to the captain, "metathesis is one of the most common of pronunciation errors, sir; a reversal of vowel and consonant; 'barc' to broc'...". Data mispronounces the word 'metathesis', stressing the third rather than the second syllable.
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
or syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:
- foliage → **foilage
- cavalry → **calvary
Metathesis may also involve switching non-contiguous sounds, known as nonadjacent metathesis, long-distance metathesis, or hyperthesis:
- Latin parabola > Spanish palabra 'word'
- Latin miraculum > Spanish milagro 'miracle'
Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some use it as a regular part of their grammar (e.g. the Fur language
Fur language
All sounds are spelt with their IPA symbols except for the following: j = , ñ = and y = . Arabic consonants are sometimes used in loanwords.The vowels are as in Latin: a e i o u...
). The process of metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words in the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, as well.
The original form before metathesis changed may be deduced from older forms of words in the language's lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
, or, if no forms are preserved, from phonological reconstruction.
Rhetorical metathesis
Dionysius of HalicarnassusDionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...
was a historian and scholar in rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
living in 1st century BC Greece. He analysed classical texts and applied several revisions to make them sound more eloquent
Elocutio
Elocutio is the term for the mastery of stylistic elements in Western classical rhetoric and comes from the Latin loqui, "to speak". Although today we associate the word elocution more with eloquent speaking, for the classical rhetorician it connoted "style".It is the third of the five canons of...
. One of the methods he used was re-writing documents on a mainly grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
level: changing word and sentence orders would make texts more fluent and 'natural', he suggested. He called this way of re-writing metathesis.
English
Metathesis is responsible for the most common types of speech errorSpeech error
Speech errors, commonly referred to as slips of the tongue , are conscious or unconscious deviations from the apparently intended form of an utterance. They can be subdivided into spontaneously and inadvertently produced speech errors and intentionally produced word-plays or puns...
s, such as children acquiring spaghetti as pasketti. The metathesized pronunciation of ask as ax /ˈæks/ goes back to Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
days, when ascian and axian/acsian were both in use.
Some other frequent English pronunciations or pronunciation errors that display metathesis are:
- asterisk → asterix /ˈæstərɪks/
- cavalry → calvary /ˈkælvəri/
- comfortable → comfterble /ˈkʌmftərbəl/
- foliage → foilage /ˈfɔɪlɪdʒ/
- introduce → interduce /ɪntərˈdjuːs/
- integral → intergal /ˈɪntərɡəl/ or intregal /ˈɪntrɪɡəl/
- nuclear → nucularNucularNucular is an ad hoc spelling of a metathetic mispronunciation of the word nuclear, representing the pronunciation or of that word instead of the standard pronunciation, ....
/ˈnjuːkjələr/ (re-analysed as nuke + -cular suffix in particular, binocular) - pretty → purty /ˈpərti/
- relevant → revelant /ˈrɛvələnt/
The process has shaped many English words historically. Bird and horse came from Old English bryd and hros; wasp and hasp were also written wæps and hæps. Likewise, it explains why the 'r' moved after the vowel in third and thirteen, even though they originally had it before like three still does.
The Old English beorht "bright" underwent metathesis to bryht, which became Modern English bright.
The Old English þreo "three" formed þrid "third" and þreotene "thriteen". These underwent metathesis to forms which became Modern English third and thirteen.
The Old English verb wyrcan "to work" had the passive participle worht "worked". This underwent metathesis to wroht, which became Modern English wrought.
The Old English þyrl "hole" underwent metathesis to þryl. This gave rise to a verb þrylian "pierce", which became Modern English thrill, and formed the compound nosþryl "nose-hole" which became Modern English nostril.
Metathesis is also a common feature of the West Country dialects
West Country dialects
The West Country dialects and West Country accents are generic terms applied to any of several English dialects and accents used by much of the indigenous population of South West England, the area popularly known as the West Country....
.
French
Modern FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
makes extensive use of metathesis of syllables through a pattern of informal speech called verlan
Verlan
Verlan is an argot in the French language, featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a long French tradition of transposing syllables of individual words to create slang words...
(itself an example: verlan ← l'envers, meaning 'reverse'). 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. The process often involves considerably more changes than simple metathesis of two phonemes but this forms the basis for verlan as a linguistic phenomenon.
A few well known examples are:
- laisse → laisse
- →
- →
Some words were metathesized more than once:
- aa → →
Simple metathesis exists as well and shaped some words, such as fromage (from formage, "shaping").
Spanish
Old SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
showed occasional metathesis when phonemes not conforming to the usual euphonic constraints were joined. This happened, for example, when a clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
pronoun was attached to a verb ending: it is attested that forms like dejadle "leave [plural] him" were often metathesized to dejalde (the phoneme cluster /dl/ does not occur elsewhere in Spanish).
Lunfardo
Lunfardo
Lunfardo is a dialect originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in Buenos Aires and the surrounding Gran Buenos Aires, and from there spread to other cities nearby, such as Rosario and Montevideo, cities with similar socio-cultural situations...
, an argot
Argot
An Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job,...
of Spanish from Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, is fond of vesre
Vesre
Vesre is one of the features of Rioplatense Spanish slang. Natives of Buenos Aires and Uruguay use vesre sparingly in colloquial speaking, and never in formal circumstances...
, metathesis of syllables. The word vesre itself is an example:
- → "back, backwards"
Gacería
Gacería
Gacería is the name of a slang or argot employed by the trilleros and the briqueros in the village of Cantalejo, in the Spanish province of Segovia...
, an argot of Castile
Castile (historical region)
A former kingdom, Castile gradually merged with its neighbours to become the Crown of Castile and later the Kingdom of Spain when united with the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre...
, incorporates metathesized words:
- criba → brica
Some frequently heard pronunciations in Spanish display metathesis:
- calcomanía → calcamonía
- dentífrico → dentrífico
- croqueta → cocreta
Greek
In GreekAncient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, the present stem
Word stem
In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
often consists of the root
Proto-Indo-European root
The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots always have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run", as opposed to nouns , adjectives , or other parts of speech. Roots never occur alone in the language...
with a suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
of y (ι˰ in Greek). If the root ends in the vowel a or o, and the consonant n or r, the y switches position with the consonant and is written i:
- *cháryō → chaírō "I am glad" — echárē "he was glad"
- *phányō → phaínō "I reveal" — ephánē "he appeared"
For metathesis of vowel length, which occurs frequently in Attic
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
and Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, see quantitative metathesis
Quantitative metathesis
Quantitative metathesis is a specific form of metathesis or transposition involving quantity or vowel length...
.
Slavic languages
Metathesis of liquid consonantLiquid consonant
In phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:...
s is an important historical change during the development of the Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
: a syllable-final liquid metathesized to become syllable-initial, therefore e.g. Polish mleko vs. English milk.
Finnish
In western dialects of FinnishFinnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, historical stem-final /h/ has been subject to metathesis (it is lost in standard Finnish). This leads to variant word forms such as:
- orhi "stallion" (standard *orih > ori)
- sauhu "smoke" (standard *savuh > savu)
- valhe "lie" (standard *valeh > vale)
- venhe "boat" (standard *veneh > vene)
Some words have been standardized in the metathetized form, e.g:
- *mureh > murhe "sorrow"
- *pereh > perhe "family"
- *uroh > urho "hero"
- *valehellinen > valheellinen "untrue"
Another example of metathesis in Finnish is the vernacular change of the word juoheva "jovial" to jouheva (also a separate word meaning "bristly").
Hungarian
In case of a very narrow range of HungarianHungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
nouns, metathesis occurs before accusative case
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
ending, possessive suffix
Possessive suffix
In linguistics, a possessive affix is a suffix or prefix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive suffixes are found in some Uralic, Altaic, Semitic, and Indo-European languages...
es, and in plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
:
- kehely, kelyhet, kelyhem, kelyhek – chalice, chalice (accusativeAccusative caseThe accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
), my chalice, chalices - teher, terhet, terhed, terhek – burden, burden (accusativeAccusative caseThe accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
), your burden, burdens - pehely, pelyhet, pelyhe, pelyhek – flake, flake (accusativeAccusative caseThe accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
), his/her flake, flakes
Note that in all the examples above, the consonant h is transposed to the end of the stem
Word stem
In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
.
Hebrew
In HebrewHebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
the verb conjugation (binyan) undergoes metathesis if the first consonant of the root is an alveolar or postalveolar fricative. Namely, the pattern (where the numbers signify the root consonants) becomes hi1ta22ē3. Examples:
- No metathesis: root lbš = ("he got dressed").
- Voiceless alveolar fricative: root skl = histakkēl ("he looked [at something]").
- Voiceless postalveolar fricative: root šdl = hištaddēl ("he made an effort").
- Voiced alveolar fricative: root zqn = hizdaqqēn ("he grew old"); with assimilation of the T of the conjugation.
- Voiceless velarized alveolar fricative: root = ("he had a photograph of him taken"); with assimilation of the T of the conjugation.
Japanese
- /fuiNki/ for /fuNiki/ (雰囲気), meaning "atmosphere" or "mood"
- /neta/ for /tane/ (種), the former meaning "evidence", the latter "rice plant"
In slang, the word for sorry, gomen, is sometimes reversed informally as mengo.
Navajo
In NavajoNavajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
, 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, prefix (3i object pronoun) usually occurs before , as in
- 'I'm starting to drive some kind of wheeled vehicle along' [ < ].
However, when occurs with the prefixes and , the metathesizes with , leading to an order of , as in
- 'I'm in the act of driving some vehicle (into something) & getting stuck' [ < ]
instead of the expected *adinisbąąs (a-di-ni-sh-ł-bąąs) (note also that 'a- is reduced to '-).
Rotuman
The Rotuman languageRotuman language
Rotuman, also referred to as Rotunan, Rutuman or Fäeag Rotuma, is an Austronesian language spoken by the indigenous people of the South Pacific island group of Rotuma, an island with a Polynesian-influenced culture that was incorporated as a dependency into the Colony of Fiji in 1881...
of Rotuman Island
Rotuman
Rotuman may refer to:*anything related with the island Rotuma*Rotuman people*Rotuman language...
(a part of Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
) uses metathesis as a part of normal grammatical structure by inverting the ultimate vowel with the immediately preceding consonant.
Straits Saanich
In Straits Saanich metathesis is used as a grammatical device to indicate "actual" aspectGrammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
. The actual aspect is most often translated into English as a be ... -ing progressive. The actual aspect is derived from the "nonactual" verb form by a CV → VC metathesis process (i.e. consonant metathesizes with vowel).
| T̵X̱ÉT 'shove' (nonactual) | → | T̵ÉX̱T 'shoving' (actual) |
| ṮPÉX̱ 'scatter' (nonactual) | → | ṮÉPX̱ 'scattering' (actual) |
| T̸L̵ÉQ 'pinch' (nonactual) | → | T̸ÉL̵Q 'pinching' (actual) |
See Montler (1986), Thompson & Thompson (1969) for more information.
Telugu
From a comparative study of DravidianDravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
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, but Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
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. These statements and the resulting sequences of vowel contraction may be summed up as follows:
Type 1: V1C1-C² > C1V1-C²C²
Type 2: V1C1-V²- > C1V1-
Examples:
- lē = lēta (young, tender) <
- rē = rēyi (night) < *ira
- rōlu (mortar)<
Turkish
Two types of metathesis are observed in Turkish. The examples given are from the Turkish of Turkey but Azerbaijani Turkish is best known for its metatheses:- Close type:
- köprü = körpü "bridge"
- toprak = torpak "ground"
- kirpi = kipri "hedgehog"
- kibrit = kirbit "match"
- komşu = koşnu "neighbour"
- kimse = kisme "nobody"
- bayrak = baryak "flag"
- ekşi = eşki "sour"
- Distant type:
- bulgur = burgul "parched crushed wheat"
- ödünç = öndüç "loan"
- lanet = nalet "curse"
American Sign Language
In ASLAmerican Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
, several signs which have a pre-specified initial and final location can have the order of these two locations reversed in contexts which seem to be purely phonological. 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 same constituent
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down...
, 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. (This information has not been cited. Use with caution. Please, refer to Linguistics of American Sign Language: An Introduction (1995, pp. 43–44), C. Valli & C. Lucas, Gallaudet University Press
Gallaudet University Press
Gallaudet University Press is a publisher that focuses on issues relating to deafness and sign language. It is a part of Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., and was founded in 1980 by the university's Board of Trustees.-External links:*...
.)
Popular culture
In the "Hollow Pursuits" episode of Star Trek: The Next GenerationStar Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
, Lt. Commander Data
Data (Star Trek)
Lieutenant Commander Data is a character in the fictional Star Trek universe portrayed by actor Brent Spiner. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek...
explains the meaning of metathesis after Captain Picard
Jean-Luc Picard
Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a Star Trek character portrayed by Patrick Stewart. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis...
mistakenly calls Lt. Barclay
Reginald Barclay
Lieutenant Reginald Endicott "Broccoli" Barclay III, played by Dwight Schultz, is a recurring character in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation...
"Mr. Broccoli
Broccoli
Broccoli is a plant in the cabbage family, whose large flower head is used as a vegetable.-General:The word broccoli, from the Italian plural of , refers to "the flowering top of a cabbage"....
". After Barclay leaves, Data says to the captain, "metathesis is one of the most common of pronunciation errors, sir; a reversal of vowel and consonant; 'barc' to broc'...". Data mispronounces the word 'metathesis', stressing the third rather than the second syllable.
External links
- Paul D. Wegner, A student's guide to textual criticism of the Bible: its history, methods, and results, InterVarsity Press, 2006, p. 48.
- Ohio State University Dept. of Linguistics Metathesis Page
- Compare: 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry – metathesis process