- This article is about Apophony as a general linguistic term. For Ablaut in a specifically Indo-European context, see Indo-European ablaut.
In linguistics, apophony (also ablaut, gradation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection) is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates grammatical information (often inflectional).
| Table of Contents |
Apophony is exemplified in English as the internal vowel alternations that produce such related words as
- sing, sang, sung, song
- rise, raise
- bind, band
- goose, geese
The difference in these vowels marks variously a difference in tense or aspect (for example - sing/sang/sung), transitivity (rise/raise), part of speech (sing/song, bind/band), or grammatical number (goose/geese).
Similarly, there are consonant alternations which are also used grammatically:
- belief, believe
- house (noun), house (verb) (phonetically: [haʊs] (noun), [haʊz] (verb))
That these sound alternations function grammatically can be seen as they are oftentimes equivalent to grammatical suffixes (an external modification). Compare the following:
Present Tense Past Tense jump jumped sing sang Singular Plural book books goose geese
The vowel alternation between i and a indicates a difference between present and past tense in the pair sing/sang. Here the past tense is indicated by the vowel a just as the past tense is indicated on the verb jump with the past tense suffix -ed. Likewise, the plural suffix -s on the word books has the same grammatical function as the presence of the vowel ee in the word geese (where ee alternates with oo in the pair goose/geese).
Most instances of apophony develop historically from changes due to phonological assimilation that are later grammaticalized (or morphologized) when the environment causing the assimilation is lost. Such is the case with English goose/geese & belief/believe.
Types of apophonyApophony may involve various types of alternations, including vowels, consonants, prosodic elements (such as tone, syllable length), and even smaller features, such as nasality (on vowels).
The sound alternations may be used inflectionally or derivationally. The particular function of a given alternation will depend on the language.
Vowel apophony (ablaut)- Related article: Indo-European ablaut
Apophony oftentimes involves vowels. Indo-European ablaut (also commonly called Indo-European vowel gradation) is very well known. The English example previously cited above demonstrates vowel ablaut. Another example is from Dinka:
Singular Plural gloss vowel alternation dom dum 'field/fields' (o-u) kat kɛt 'frame/frames' (a-ɛ)
- (Bauer 2003:35)
The vowel alternation may involve more than just a change in vowel quality. In Athabascan languages, such as Navajo, verbs have series of stems where the vowel alternates (sometimes with an added suffix) indicating a different tense-aspect. Navajo vowel ablaut, depending on the verb, may be a change in vowel, vowel length, nasality, and/or tone. For example, the verb stem -kaah/-ką́"to handle an open container" has a total of 16 combinations of the 5 modes and 4 aspects, resulting in 7 different verb stem forms (i.e. -kaah, -kááh, -kaał, -kááł, -ka', -ká, -ką́).
| Imperfective | Perfective | Progressive- Future | Usitative- Iterative | Optative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Momentaneous | kaah | ką́ | kááł | kááh | kááł |
| Continuative | ká | ką́ | kaał | kaah | kaał |
| Distributive | ka' | ką́ | kaał | kaah | ka' |
| Conative | kááh | - | - | - | - |
Anotherverbstem-géésh/-gizh"tocut" has a different set of alternations and mode-aspect combinations, resulting in 3 different forms (i.e. -géésh, -gizh, -gish):
| Imperfective | Perfective | Progressive- Future | Usitative- Iterative | Optative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Momentaneous | géésh | gizh | gish | gish | géésh |
| Continuative | gizh | gizh | gish | gish | gizh |
| Semelfactive | gish | gish | gish | gish | gish/géésh |
Various prosodic elements, such as tone, syllable length, & stress, may be found in alternations. For example, Vietnamese has the following tone alternations which are used derivationally:
tone alternation đây "here" đấy "there" (ngang tone-sắc tone) bây giờ "now" bấy giờ "then" (ngangtone-sắc tone) kia "there" kìa "yonder" (ngang tone-huyền tone) cứng "hard" cửng "(to) have anerection" (sắc tone-hỏi tone)
- (Nguyễn 1997:42-44)
Albanianusesdifferentvowellengths toindicate number & grammatical gender on nouns:
[ɡuːr] "stone" [ɡur] "stones" [dy] "two(masculine)" [dyː] "two (feminine)"
- (Asher 1994:1719)
Englishhasalternatingstresspatterns thatindicate whether related words are nouns (first syllable stressed) or verbs (second syllable stressed):
noun verb pérvert pervért ínsult insúlt pérmit permít cónvict convíct
Prosodicalternationsaresometimesanalyzedasnot as a type of apophony but rather as prosodic affixes, which are known, variously, as suprafixes, superfixes, or simulfixes.
Consonant apophony (mutation)- Main article: Consonant mutation
Consonant alternation is commonly knownasconsonant mutation. Bemba indicates causative verbs through alternation of the stem-final consonant. Here the alternation involves spirantization and palatalization:
Intransitive Verb Causative Verb lua "to be lost" lufya "to causeto be lost" koma "to be deaf" komya "to causeto be deaf" pona "to fall" ponya "to cause tofall" enda "to walk" ensha "to cause towalk" lunga "to hunt" lunsha "to cause tohunt" kula "to grow" kusha "to cause togrow"
- (Kula 2000:174)
Celticlanguagesarewell-knownfor theirinitial consonant mutations.
Stem alternations and other morphological processesStem modifications (i.e. apophony) may co-occur with other morphological processes, such as affixation. An example of this is in the formation of plural nouns in German:
Singular Plural Buch "book" Bücher "books" Haus "house" Häuser "houses"
Here the singular/pluraldistinctionisindicatedthrough ablaut & additionally by a suffix -er in the plural form. English also displays similar forms with a -ren suffix in the plural and a -en suffix in the past participle forms along with the internal vowel alternation:
child (singular) [ʧaɪld] children (plural) [ʧɪldrən] drive (infinitive) [draɪv] driven (past participle) [drɪvən]
A more complicatedexamplecomesfromChickasaw where the positive/negative distinction in verbs displays vowel ablaut along with prefixation (ak-) and infixation (-'-):
Positive Negative hilhali "I'm dancing" akhi'lho "I'm not dancing"
In Indo-European linguistics, ablaut is the vowel alternation that produces such related words as sing, sang, sung, and song. The difference in the vowels results from the alternation (in the Proto-Indo-European language) of the vowel e with the vowel o or with no vowel. For a more detailed explanation see Indo-European ablaut.
To cite a few other examples of Indo-European ablaut, English has a certain class of verbs (i.e. strong verbs) in which the vowel changes to indicate a different grammatical tense-aspect.
Infinitive Preterite Past
Participlevowel alternation swim swam swum (i-a-u)
phonetically:fall fell fallen (a-e-a)
phonetically: [ɔ-ɛ-ɔ]drive drove driven (i-o-i)
phonetically: [aɪ-o-ɪ]
As the examplesaboveshow,achange in the vowel of the verb stem creates a different verb form. (Note that some of the verbs also have a suffix in the past participle form.) (See also English grammar: Irregular verbs.) For a more detailed explanation of how strong verbs are formed in English & related languages, see Germanic strong verb.
In Indo-European linguistics, umlaut is the vowel alternation that produces such related words as foot & feet or tell and told. The difference in the vowels results from the influence (in Proto-Germanic or a later Germanic language) of an i or y (which has since been lost) on the vowel which (in these examples) becomes e. For a more detailed explanation see Germanic umlaut or I-mutation.
To cite another example of umlaut, some English weak verbs show umlaut in the present tense.
Infinitive Preterite
Past Participlevowel alternation bring brought (i-ou)
phonetically:[ɪ-ɔ]
A-mutation and U-mutationareprocessesanalogueousto umlaut but involving the influence of an a (or other non-high vowel) or u respectively instead of an i.
Note that in Indo-European historical linguistics the terms ablaut and umlaut refer to different phenomena. They are not interchangeable. The same terms are also used in linguistics to generally refer to analogueous processes as described in the ablaut vs. umlaut section below.
Apophony vs. transfixation (root-and-pattern)The nonconcatenative root-and-pattern morphology of the Afro-Asiatic languages is sometimes described in terms of apophony. The alternation patterns in many of these languages is quite extensive involving vowels & consonant gemination (i.e. doubled consonants). The alternations below are of Modern Standard Arabic (the symbol < ː > indicates gemination on the preceding consonant):
word gloss alternation pattern katab "to write" (a - a) kataba "he wrote" (a- a - a) kaatab "to correspond with" (aa - a) kattab "tocause to write" (a - kuttib "to be caused to write" (u -ːi) kitaab "book" (i - aa) kutub "books" (u - u) kaatib "writer" (aa - i) kuttaab "writers" (u -
For other examples,seearchaicpluralsin Amharic, Broken plural, Triconsonantal root.
A diagram of an autosegmental representationof the Arabic word muslim within linguistic theory. This differs from an analysis based on apophony.Other analyses of these languagesconsiderthe patterns not to be sound alternations, but rather discontinuous roots with discontinuous affixes, known as transfixes (also simulfixes or suprafixes). Some theoretical perspectives call up the notion of morphological templates or morpheme "skeletons".
Note that it would also be possible to analyze English in this way as well, where the alternation of goose/geese could be explained as a basic discontinuous root g-se that is filled out with an infix -oo- "(singular)" or -ee- "(plural)". Many would consider this type of analysis for English to be less desirable as this type of infixal morphology is not very prevalent through out English and the morphemes -oo- and -ee- would be exceedingly rare.
Replacive morphemes & apophonyAnother analytical perspective on sound alternations treats the phenomena not as merely alternation but rather a "replacive" morpheme that replaces part of a word. In this analysis, the alternation between goose/geese may be thought of as goose being the basic form where -ee- is a replacive morpheme that is substituted for oo.
- goose → g-ee-se
This usage of the term morpheme(which is actually describing a replacement process, and not a true morpheme), however, is more in keeping with Item-and-Process models of morphology instead of Item-and-Arrangement models. (See Morphology (linguistics) for further discussion of morphological models.)
Ablaut vs. umlaut- Main article: Umlaut
The Germanic scholars who coinedtheterms ablaut & umlaut in the 19th century used them to distinguish two types of vowel alternation patterns with differing origins & differing reflexes in the modern languages. In this usage, umlaut is a specific case of vowel alternation that has developed from a historical instance of regressive vowel harmony. Indo-European ablaut is a different vowel alternation of uncertain origin. In purely descriptive (synchronic) terms, Germanic umlaut is a regular system that always involves vowel fronting, whereas in the modern languages ablaut appears to have no regularity.
This traditional distinction is retained by historical (diachronic) linguists, and is particularly important in the context of Indo-European evolution. It is rather less important for descriptive studies, where for most purposes the vowel alternation in foot/feet is analogueous to that in sing/sang/sung. However, the regularity of Germanic umlaut means that this distinction remains standard in textbooks for learners of German, Dutch and Scandinavian languages. (As an illustration, the preceding examples translate as follows into German: Fuß/Füße [Umlaut], singen/sang/gesungen [Ablaut].)
Later linguists have broadened the meaning of ablaut to refer to vowel alternation generally, and of umlaut to refer also to other types & instances of regressive vowel harmony. When the terminology is used in this more inclusive way, umlaut is considered a sub-set of ablaut. Ambiguity can of course be avoided by using alternative terms (apophony, gradation, alternation, internal modification) for the broader sense of the word.
Ablaut-motivated compoundingAblaut reduplication or ablaut-motivated compounding is a type of word formation of "expressives" in English (such as onomatopoeia). Examples of these include:
- tick-tock
- criss-cross
- cling-clang
- snip-snap
Here the words are formed bya reduplication of a base and an alternation of the internal vowel. (See English reduplication).
More available info- Indo-European ablaut
- Consonant mutation
- Umlaut
- Nonconcatenative morphology
- Morphology (linguistics)
- Anderson, StephenR. (1985). Inflectional morphology. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (Vol. 3, pp. 150-201). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Especially section 1.3 "Stem modifications").
- Asher, R. E. (Ed.). (1994). The Encyclopedia of language & linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press. IS Book Number 0-08-035943-4.
- Bauer, Laurie. (2003). Introducing linguistic morphology (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
- Bauer, Laurie. (2004). A glossary of morphology. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
- Haspelmath, Martin. (2002). Understanding morphology. London: Arnold.
- Kula, Nancy C. (2000). The phonology/morphology interface: Consonant mutations in Bemba. In H. de Hoop & T. van der Wouden (Eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2000 (pp. 171-183). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1997). Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt khôngson phấn.Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. IS Book Number 1-55619-733-0.
- Sapir, Edward. (1921). Language: An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
- Spencer, Andrew; & Zwicky, Arnold M. (Eds.). (1998). The handbook of morphology. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Young, Robert W., & Morgan, William, Sr. (1987). The Navajo language: A grammar & colloquial dictionary (rev. ed.). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. IS Book Number 0-8263-1014-1.
- Article
- Discussion
- Current article revision
- All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.)
- This page was last modified by Admin. Previous modification to this article was done on 10:52, 29 Nov 2006 by Wikipedia user Rob Burbidge. Based on work by Wikipedia user(s) SmackBot, FilipeS, John Riemann Soong, Ananiaszaap, RussBot, Doric Loon, Welsh, Tawkerbot2, AlexKarpman, Gurch, Chris83, Deville, Gandalf1491, Ish ishwar, AnonMoos, Jorge Stolfi, TEB728, Garzo, Hede2000 and SimonP and Anonymous user(s) of Wikipedia. Click here to view authors profile Pub date - 2009-05-15 10:20:10 Related resources:
- apophony
- Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:17:27 GMT - ninjawords | tfd | etymonline | dictionary | mw | ud | wikipedia | google.
- apophony loves me
- Sun, 02 Mar 2008 03:29:00 GMT - that seemed to fill apophony with an implosion of ecstasy that forced its way out through his eyes & made them shine in mine. this was the bliss. before it grew legs & became cancerous, personified, displaced ...
