- For other uses of the word syncope, see Syncope
| Sound change and alternation |
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General
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Lenition (weakening)
Consonant gradation
Sonorization (voicing) Spirantization (assibilation) Rhotacism (change of [z] or [d] to [r]) L-vocalization (change of [l] to [w]) Debuccalization (loss of place) |
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Elision (loss)
Apheresis (initial)
Syncope (medial) Apocope (final) Haplology (similar syllables) Fusion Cluster reduction Compensatory lengthening |
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Epenthesis (addition)
Anaptyxis (vowel)
Excrescence (consonant) Prosthesis (initial) Paragoge (final) Unpacking Vowel breaking (diphthongization) |
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Coalescence
Coarticulation Palatalization (before front vowels) Velarization (before back vowels) Labialisation (before rounded vowels) Initial voicing (before a vowel) Final devoicing (before silence) Metaphony (vowel harmony, umlaut) Consonant harmony |
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Cheshirisation (trace remains)
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Sandhi (boundary change)
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In phonology, syncope (pronounced /ˈsɪŋkəpiː/, Greek syn- + kopein “to strike”) is the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word; especially, the loss of an unstressed vowel.
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Syncope as a historical sound change
In historical phonetics, the term "syncope" is often but not always limited to the loss of an unstressed vowel:
The loss of any sound
- Old English hláford > English lord
- English Worcester, pronounced /ˈwʊstər/
- English Gloucester, pronounced /ˈɡlɒstər/
The loss of an unstressed vowel
- Latin cál[i]dum > Italian caldo "hot"
- Latin óc[u]lum > Italian occhio "eye"
- Latin trem[u]láre > Italian tremare "to tremble"
Syncope as a poetic device
Sounds may be removed from the interior of a word as a rhetoric or poetic device, whether for embellishment or for the sake of the meter.
- Latin commo[ve]rat > poetic commorat ("he had moved")
- English hast[e]ning > poetic hast'ning
- English heav[e]n > poetic heav'n
- English over > poetic o'er
Syncope in informal speech
Various sorts of colloquial reductions might be called "syncope". It is also called compression.[1]
Forms such as "didn't" that are written with an apostrophe are, however, generally called contractions:
- English [Au]stra[lia]n > colloquial Strine
- English go[i]n[g t]o> gonna
- English wan[t t]o > wanna
- English did n[o]t > didn't
- English do[n't k]no[w] > dunno
- English I [woul]d [ha]ve > I'd've
See also
- Apocope
- Aphesis
- Clipping (lexicography)
- Clipping (phonetics)
- Elision
- Relaxed pronunciation
- Synalepha
- Synaeresis
- Vowel reduction
- Deletion
References
- Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
- ^ Wells, John C. (2000). Longman Pronouncing Dictionary (2nd ed. ed.). Longman. pp. 165-6. ISBN 978-0-582-36467-7.
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