Epenthesis

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In phonology, epenthesis (/ɪˈpɛnθəsɪs, ɛ-/; Greek ἐπένθεσις) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word (at the beginning prothesis and at the end paragoge are commonly used). The word epenthesis comes from epi- "in addition to" and en- "in" and thesis "putting". Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence for the addition of a consonant, and for the addition of a vowel, svarabhakti (in Hindi, Bengali and other North Indian languages, stemming from Sanskrit) or alternatively anaptyxis (/ˌænəpˈtɪksɪs/). The opposite process, where one or more sounds are removed, is referred to as elision.

Uses[]

Epenthesis arises for a variety of reasons. The phonotactics of a given language may discourage vowels in hiatus or consonant clusters, and a consonant or vowel may be added to make pronunciation easier. Epenthesis may be represented in writing or be a feature only of the spoken language.

Separating vowels[]

A consonant may be added to separate vowels in hiatus. This is the case with linking and intrusive R in English.

• drawing → draw-r-ing

Bridging consonant clusters[]

A consonant may be placed between consonants in a consonant cluster where the place of articulation is different (e.g., where one consonant is labial and the other is alveolar).

• something → somepthing
• hamster → hampster
• *a-mrotos → ambrotos (see below)

Breaking consonant clusters[]

A vowel may be placed between consonants to separate them.

• Hamtramck → Hamtramick

Other contexts[]

While epenthesis most often occurs between two vowels or two consonants, it can also occur between a vowel and a consonant, or at the ends of words. For example, the Japanese prefix ma- (真〜（ま〜）, pure …, complete …) transforms regularly to ma'- (真っ〜（まっ〜）, (gemination of following consonant)) when followed by a consonant, as in masshiro (真っ白（まっしろ）, pure white). The English suffix -t, often found in the form -st, as in amongst (from among + -st), is an example of terminal excrescence.

Excrescence[]

Excrescence is the epenthesis of a consonant.

Historical sound change[]

• Latin tremulare > French trembler ("to tremble")
• Old English thunor > English thunder
• French messager, passager > English messenger, passenger
• French message, messager > Portuguese mensagem, mensageiro
• (Reconstructed) Proto-Germanic *sēaną > Old English sāwan, Old Saxon sāian ("to sow")
• (Reconstructed) Proto-Greek *amrotos > Ancient Greek ἄμβροτος ámbrotos ("immortal"; cf. ambrosia)
• Latin homine(m) > homne > homre > Spanish hombre ("man")

Synchronic rule[]

In French, /t/ is inserted in inverted interrogative phrases between a verb ending in a vowel and a pronoun beginning with a vowel: il a ('he has') > a-t-il ('has he?'). There is no epenthesis from a historical perspective since the a-t is derived from Latin habet ('he has'), and so the t is the original third-person verb inflection. However, it is correct to call it epenthesis when viewed synchronically since the modern basic form of the verb is a and so the psycholinguistic process is therefore the addition of t to the base form.

A similar example is the English indefinite article a, which becomes an before a vowel. It originated from Old English ān ("one, a, an"), which retained an n in all positions, so a diachronic analysis would see the original n disappearing except if a following vowel required its retention: an > a. However, a synchronic analysis, in keeping with the perception of most native speakers, would (equally correctly) see it as epenthesis: a > an.

In Dutch, whenever the suffix -er (which has several meanings) is attached to a word already ending in -r, an additional -d- is inserted in between. For example, the comparative form of the adjective zoet ("sweet") is zoeter, but the comparative of zuur ("sour") is zuurder and not the expected **zurer. Similarly, the agent noun of verkopen ("to sell") is verkoper ("salesperson"), but the agent noun of uitvoeren ("to perform") is uitvoerder ("performer").

Variable rule[]

In English, a stop consonant is often added as a transitional sound between the parts of a nasal + fricative sequence:

• English hamster /ˈhæmstər/ often pronounced with an added p sound, GA: [ˈhɛəmpstɚ] or RP: [ˈhampstə]
• English warmth /ˈwɔːrmθ/ often pronounced with an added p sound, GA: [ˈwɔɹmpθ] or RP: [ˈwɔːmpθ]
• English fence /ˈfɛns/ often pronounced [ˈfɛnts]

Poetic device[]

• Latin reliquiās "remnants, survivors" (accusative plural) > poetic relliquiās

The three short syllables in reliquiās do not fit into dactylic hexameter because of the dactyl's limit of two short syllables so the first syllable is lengthened by adding another l. However, the pronunciation was often not written with double ll, and may have been the normal way of pronouncing a word starting in rel- rather than a poetic modification.

In Japanese[]

A limited number of words in Japanese use epenthetic consonants to separate vowels. An example is the word harusame (春雨（はるさめ）, spring rain), a compound of haru and ame in which an /s/ is added to separate the final /u/ of haru and the initial /a/ of ame. That is a synchronic analysis. As for a diachronic (historical) analysis, since epenthetic consonants are not used regularly in modern Japanese, the epenthetic /s/ could be from Old Japanese. It is also possible that Old Japanese /ame₂/ was once pronounced */same₂/; the /s/ would then be not epenthetic but simply an archaic pronunciation. Another example is kosame (小雨（こさめ）, "light rain").

A complex example of epenthesis is massao (真っ青（まっさお）, deep blue, ghastly pale), from ma- (真〜（ま〜）, pure, complete) + ao (青（あお）, blue). It exhibits epenthesis on both morphemes: ma- (真〜（ま〜）) → ma'- (真っ〜（まっ〜）, (gemination of following consonant)) is common (occurring before a consonant), and ao (青（あお）) → sao (青（さお）) occurs only in the example; it can be analyzed as maao → masao (intervocalic) → massao; akin to kirisame (霧雨（きりさめ）, drizzle, light rain) from kiri (霧（きり）, fog, mist) + ame (雨（あめ）, rain).

One hypothesis argues that Japanese /r/ developed "as a default, epenthetic consonant in the intervocalic position".^[1]

Anaptyxis[]

Epenthesis of a vowel is known as anaptyxis (/ˌænəpˈtɪksɪs/, from Greek ��νάπτυξις "unfolding"). Some accounts distinguish between "intrusive" optional vowels, vowel-like releases of consonants as phonetic detail, and true epenthetic vowels that are required by the phonotactics of the language and are acoustically identical with phonemic vowels.

Historical sound change[]

End of word[]

Many languages insert a so-called prop vowel at the end of a word, often as a result of the common sound change where vowels at the end of a word are deleted. For example, in the Gallo-Romance languages, a prop schwa /ə/ was added when final non-open vowels were dropped leaving /Cr/ clusters at the end, e.g. Latin nigrum '(shiny) black' > *[ˈnegro] > Old French negre /ˈnegrə/ 'black' (thus avoiding the impermissible /negr/, cf. carrum > char 'cart').

Middle of word[]

Similarly as above, a vowel may be inserted in the middle of a word to resolve an impermissible word-final consonant cluster. An example of this can be found in Lebanese Arabic, where /ˈʔalɪb/ 'heart' corresponds to Modern Standard Arabic قلب /qalb/ and Egyptian Arabic /ʔælb/. In the development of Old English, Proto-Germanic *akraz 'field, acre' would have ended up with an impermissible /kr/ final cluster (*æcr), so it was resolved by inserting an /e/ before the rhotic consonant: æcer (cf. the use of a syllabic consonant in Gothic WIKI