|
|
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
What's the name for the process by which a phrase gets changed by having a consonant replaced, making it easier to say? For example "home in on" is now widely said "hone in on", no doubt because having all n's makes it easier to say than with a lone 'm' stuck in the middle. What is the process called?
Last edited by sjmaxq; 01/22/07 06:31 PM.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Could it be metathesis? Or is that too specific...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Or either that or it sounds like it might could come under the general heading of assimilation, one. Usually you see examples of assimilation where the sounds are butted right up next to each other, like illegal from the prefix in slapped onto legal, or impossible from in + possible, but maybe it's still assimilation in a case like this. FWIW, Wikipedia refers to it as Anticipatory Assimilation at a Distance. But you don't have to take Wiki's word for it. There's also mention of anticipatory assimilation here. It also appears to be called regressive assimilation.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
sj: I'm still working on this one but will let you know if I find a better word
dalehileman
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
Quote:
sj: I'm still working on this one but will let you know if I find a better word
The ones my friends have provided are perfectly adequate.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 293
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 293 |
Quote:
FWIW, Wikipedia refers to it as Anticipatory Assimilation at a Distance.
AAD. Isn't that the acronym for The American Dyslexia Association?
"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world" -Michael Crichton
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
The ones my friends have provided are perfectly adequate.
Alas, I'm devastated
However, for what it's worth, which isn't much, "metathesis" must be a very abstruse word indeed, because not only isn't it in the msn thesaurus, but the word completely flummoxes its software. Here's what it returns:
No results found for "metathes..."
Tempting me to make another unkind remark about Bill Gates, but I won't do so here because protocol has ignominiously relegated that sort of thing to another Forum at the very bottom of the Index
dalehileman
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
Quote:
Quote:
The ones my friends have provided are perfectly adequate.
Alas, I'm devastated
However, for what it's worth, which isn't much, "metathesis" must be a very abstruse word indeed, because not only isn't it in the msn thesaurus...
oh dale, your plaintive plaints are so tortured. you will, of course, have known that metathesis gets 32 hits at OneLook dictionaries, two of which are AHD and MW-CD.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Well, metathesis is rather easy to look up. And, for those who are not about to click, here's a short definition: "Transposition within a word of letters, sounds, or syllables, as in the change from Old English brid to modern English bird or in the confusion of modren for modern." [A-H] As nearly anybody can see from that quoted definition, metathesis it ain't.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
tsu: Thank you for that as I never would have thought of using OneLook
More to the point:
metathesis intitle:synonyms
gets 100 GHits
Try it
dalehileman
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Quote:
Well, metathesis is rather easy to look up. And, for those who are not about to click, here's a short definition: "Transposition within a Wword of letters, sounds, or syllables, as in the change from Old English brid to modern English bird or in the confusion of modren for modern." [A-H] As nearly anybody can see from that quoted definition, metathesis it ain't.
What is it, then, Nuncle? As I suggested in my first post, "metathesis" may be too specific for what Max wants, since there's no switching of consecutive sounds involved. Or has the term become somewhat broader these days, AHD notwithstanding? In which case your subtle subject line would indeed be an example thereof? Huh? Huh??
(I kinda like "anticipatory assimilation" my own sef)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Faldo's anticipatory assimilation works well enough for me. There's a kind of assimilation at a distance in Hungarian and Turkish called vowel harmony, and there's even a Wikipedia entry for consonant harmony. In assimilation, the sound don't just change, it becomes more like one it's assimilating to. There's also dissimilation, where two sounds are alike, and one changes so as to be less alike. You see this in Romance languages where there might be two rs in a Latin word in adjacent syllables, and one dissimilates to an l. (I'll try to find an example later this evening.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Yes! Mr von Fong came up with an example of that in Spanish: inmoral. I'd love to see other examples. I don't think dissimilation occurs in Port.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
TEd
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Quote:
You have to be at sea?
With you, TEd, I usually am at sea...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
Quote:
tsu: Thank you for that as I never would have thought of using OneLook
More to the point:
metathesis intitle:synonyms
gets 100 GHits
Try it
why would I want to? onelook is a better tool for the purpose; but if I was truly stuck on googling, I'd try "define metathesis" or "thesaurus metathesis". the first page of hits should get me anything I need.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
During my commute to work this morning, I remembered the classic case of assimilation in Romance: Engish pilgrim from Old French peligrin from Late Latin pelegrinus from Latin peregrinus 'foreigner' (cf Italian pelegrino). Here the two rs are in different syllables. Another example of anticipatory assimilation is umlaut in Germanic languages (e.g., man ~ men, foot ~ feet :- the umlaut is because the low or mid vowel is assimilating to the high front vowel which then disappeared in the final syllable (i.e., the plural ending). Umlaut also appears in other languages, e.g., Ligurian Italian dialects, man ~ moen 'hand(s)', can ~ chen 'dog(s). [Added following text.] I found a nice lecture on language change at the UPenn linguistics website. Mark Liberman of Language Log is teaching the class.
Last edited by zmjezhd; 01/22/07 06:13 PM.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
Quote:
I found a nice lecture on language change at the UPenn linguistics website. Mark Liberman of Language Log is teaching the class.
Grazie, zio.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Quote:
Yes! Mr von Fong came up with an example of that in Spanish: inmoral. I'd love to see other examples. I don't think dissimilation occurs in Port.
My first thought on this was that, e.g., inmoral was the original so that it was not an example of dissimilation, but in this and other inm- examples from Spanish the assimilation had already occurred in the Latin. I'd have some trouble believing that this was a learned conceit, not unlike the s in English island or the b in doubt, so perhaps it is dissimilation. Any thoughts on that, nuncle?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Grazie, zio.
Prego, nipote.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
I'd have some trouble believing that this was a learned conceit, not unlike the s in English island or the b in doubt, so perhaps it is dissimilation.
It's a good question. It's either--as you suggest--dissimilation or some kind of learned retro-etymological restructuring. My library is in upheaval (shelves moved and such), but I looked quickly in Menéndez Pidal's Orígenes del Español (which I did find), but didn't see anything apropos. I'll ask around.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
It's only inm- words in Spanish. I did a little browse through my diccionario usual and found e.g., ilegal, imposible, and imbecilidad. It might could be just the Spanish disinclination to use double letters except where they represent a different sound as in ll, rr or cc where the second c is followed by an i or e but that doesn't explain why not, e.g., imortal. And we also have such words as innegable.
Go figure.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
tsu: '...or "thesaurus metathesis". ' Thank you, I will try that
dalehileman
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427 |
Er... the negative prefix in Spanish is "in-", so derivations such as "inmoral", "innegable", "intranquilo", "incorregible", "indecente", "inquieto", "ingobernable" are merely following the grammatical pattern. There is no dissimilation here. A special case, as with many other languages, is that of the liquid consonants "r" and "l", which often modify preceding sounds. Because of the presence of these sounds we get words like "ilegal" and "irregular", where what happens is, in fact, assimilation of "in-", where the "n" disappears. In "irregular" the double consonant appears so that the lexeme "regular" can retain its initial-"r" sound, which is strongly rolled, as opposed to mid-word "r" which is softer. In the case of "ilegal", the "n" simply disappears. And finally, the other case for exception to the rule is that of the combination "np" and "nb", which in Spanish is always "mp" and "mb" (the "n" sound becomes a bilabial in order to be closer to the "p" and "b"). It is a rule of spelling, so it doesn't only happen with the prefix "in-", but in every other instance too. However, I'd like to propose the concept of "euphonic assimilation" for the inital question in this thread. I guess it's more or less what y'all were proposing, but I kinda like the name...  I really hope I explained myself adequately above (and I hope I'm saying something relevant); if not, do ask me to clarify and I'll do my best.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 557
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 557 |
Quote:
Er... the negative prefix in Spanish is "in-", so derivations such as "inmoral", ... are merely following the grammatical pattern. There is no dissimilation here.
As Faldage tried to point out, "immortal-", etc. pre-existed Spanish in Latin, to come back to "inmortal-" seems to re-inventing the square wheel. (^_^)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
I spoke with a friend who is a linguistics professor. She's says that forms like inmoral are just plan old dissimilation, and not some kind of learned reverse engineering. (As both Myridon and Faldo say, the Latin forms, showing assimilation of n to m, preceed the Spanish ones.) She's not sure when it took place, but it precedes the composition of El Cid. (She did research on early Spanish phonology.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
It would have to be after the split of Spanish and Portuguese, unless Portuguese re-assimilated them.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Whatever happened, the words home and hone have very different meanings and substituting hone for home has completely changed the meaning of the phrase.
I think sloppy enunciation or mis-hearing may have been responsible.
To "home in on" meand to go directly to the point of a matter.
"To hone in on" makes no sense because hone means a stone, a whetstone, whine or pine for, grumble, moan, and as a 4th definition on Shorter OED as : sharpen on a whetsone ,sharpen, streamline, focus.
That sound you hear, dear MaxQ, is the sound of standards crashing all around us!
Last edited by wow; 01/25/07 06:56 PM.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 456
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 456 |
Therein lies the better assessment. Rather than assuming the apologist role, the more cynical [and we all know who they are] are more inclined to ascribe some aberrations to dialects such as Hillbilly. They need not be driven by an inability to articulate. One might consider the possibility that the source is merely a dearth of coherent thought.  The bungler of speech cares little that an utterance makes no sense, perhaps considering it a "mute point".
ÅΓª╥┐↕§
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
Quote:
as a 4th definition on Shorter OED as : sharpen on a whetsone ,sharpen, streamline, focus.
That sound you hear, dear MaxQ, is the sound of standards crashing all around us!
Sorry, WOW, you just shot yourself in the foot by conceding that the dictionary lists "focus" as a defintion of "hone". Then there's the obvious mental link in the "hone in on", with its imagery of sharpening, pointing, etc. I am, however, far too nice to say that your argument is nice.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Quote:
Whatever happened, the words home and hone have very different meanings and substituting hone for home has completely changed the meaning of the phrase.
What's good about good-bye?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
'Honing Pidgin' One of the best I've seen!  (Though this whole thread is full of good ones!)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
inmoralMy friend just sent me a followup on dissimilation in Spanish with another prefix: "I completely forgot to add the words with the prefix cum- 'with,' which include the pleonastic conmigo 'with me' from cum- + mecum! There are 38 such words [in the Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española], such as conmutar 'commute' (a sentence, not commute to work) and conmover 'move to pity.'" (Edit: the things you find via Wikipedia: DRAE online.)
Last edited by zmjezhd; 01/26/07 03:16 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427 |
Right, sorry, I thought y'all were referring to contemporary Spanish when I made my comment. I don't know that much about Latin-to-Spanish linguistic change.
If you're checking out the DRAE online, take a look at the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas on the same site. It's brilliant for those word questions one never seems to be able to settle.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Quote:
If you're checking out the DRAE online, take a look at the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas on the same site. It's brilliant for those word questions one never seems to be able to settle.
The Dudes' Panhispanic Dictionary?! I'm in!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Um, can I ask a question having to do with the original post?
I've never heard "hone in on" only "home in on" as in to take bearings until you figure out the location of what you are looking for.
Is that what you meant Max?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
In reality, it's not a linguistic shift. It's IGNORANCE dammit.
TEd
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
Quote:
In reality, it's not a linguistic shift. It's IGNORANCE dammit.
Surely you mean "damn it"?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427 |
Nah, he meant "Dam it!", as in "STOP the ignorance!" 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Quote:
In reality, it's not a linguistic shift. It's IGNORANCE dammit.
This is an inportant[sic] point.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,328
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
738
guests, and
0
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
