Teacher Discussion Forums

For some reason I've just discovered that Saint Elmo is San Telmo in Spanish, which reminded me of words where a letter gets moved to or from their beginning. I seem to remember that "a norange" (Sp naranja) changed to "an orange". The same is true of "a newt" I think.

Anyway, is there a word for this?

Yes, "a newt" was ineed originally "an ewt." I've got a feeling that this process can also work in reverse but I can't think of any examples off hand.

I'm not sure what it's called either but I've got that "tip of my tongue" feeling.
I may get back to you on this.

Is it something close to "illision"? I remember vaguely something in my French lessons that sounded like that phenomenon.

I found out that it's called "misdivision" and here thanks to Google and

http://wso.williams.edu/~jkossuth/work/ ... sions.html

is another: nick-name (ekename).
Presumably in this list the words that begin with vowels have lost a letter, probably n? And the ones that start with n have picked it up? And the ones that begin with l must have picked them up from French? So it works both ways.

I think it's elision if you go from The One to Th'one to T'one to Tone /twun/.
But it's very similar and I'm not sure if I can tell the difference beteween tone and tother.

See also apheresis and aphesis.

It all reminds me of the judge who after hearing an expert witness said "I am none the wiser" to which the lawyer (probably FE Smith) said "No m'lud but you are better informed"

Ah, thanks for the link. "nickname" was the word that went the other way that I couldn't quite remember. (From "an ickname") Perhaps the association of "Old Nick" as the devil is what drove this one the other way.

Hey Sally,

In French it's called "la liaison", in case you were wondering. My French-English dictionary says its the same in English.

I'm not sure but I think liaison in French is the need to pronounce a final consonant (one that you wouldn't otherwise pronounce) because the next word begins with a vowel:

Il est /i:l ei/ versus Est-il? /eit i:l/ (very approximately)

Is it called that in English? BrE can do it with final r's: "over (R) a barrel". Though I prefer "under (R) a barrel"

I'm not sure but I think liaison in French is the need to pronounce a final consonant (one that you wouldn't otherwise pronounce) because the next word begins with a vowel:

Il est /i:l ei/ versus Est-il? /eit i:l/ (very approximately)

Is it called that in English? BrE can do it with final r's: "over (R) a barrel". Though I prefer "under (R) a barrel"

The liason is inherent in the French language, I believe all (or most) speakers of French dialects wouldn't pronounce the 't' in il est facteur, although similar in English the /r/ that is kept in fouR o'clock is found in some dialects even within Britain, at least that's what I was taught.

What do you think?

José

Just so everybody knows, I was helping Sally identify what she had in mind. I really don't know what the phenomenon is called that Juan mentioned.

Juan's example demonstrates exactly what la liaison does in French. But Meta's example isn't quite right because the 't' in 'est' is followed by a consonant: "il est facteur". But to use your example, Meta, you could say "Il est un employé" and the article 'un' starts with a vowel. Therefore the 't' in 'est is pronounced.

But what Juan is trying to identify is a form of lexical adoption that Anglophones did when incorporating Spanish names. I guess the term to represent this concept would have to be for this specific type of action: San Telmo becomes Saint Elmo as its brought into English. But I haven't the slightest idea what that could be called.

I believe all (or most) speakers of French dialects wouldn't pronounce the 't' in il est facteur...

That's exactly what I meant, I only spotted the difference in English and French because some dialects of English don't pronounce the letter 'r' if it's not followed by a vowel or at the end of a word, whereas if the next words starts with a vowel the 'r' will show up to link the words, this is only to see if one can call this phenomenon in English 'liason'.

José

Sorry Meta, you were right. My bad.

I reckon that San Telmo to Saint Elmo (or vice versa? ) is a clear case of misdivision.

Liaison seems to be the term used in English for the pronunciation of otherwise unpronounced final consonants. Here's another massive pdf:

http://www.let.uu.nl/~Koen.Sebregts/per ... riptie.pdf

and Google Scholar has plenty more.

Is it only "r" ? I suppose the w of " now and then" gets a bit more heard than it does in plain "now".

Ah very interesting JuanTwoThree--I glanced at the giant pdf, and of course it makes a lot of sense. I never thought of it before because I pronounce the "r" at the end of words too.

The same thing happens with other consonants that appear at the end of one syllable and connect to the vowel of the next syllable or word. For example, the final /z/ sound in words generally fades off into an /s/ -- it doesn't end with a strong buzz. (Have a native speaker say "buzz" and you can see what I mean.) However, if there is a vowel following, it's much stronger. (For example, buzzing).

Metanalysis, coined in 1914 by Otto Jespersen, can be broadly defined as 'a reinterpretation of the division between words or syntactic units'.

Because of "A/AN" this type only happens with words that used to begin with an "N" transferring the "N" to the article, or words that had an initial vowel taking the "N" from the article. Why these ones?

You've mentioned ekename>nickname, eft/ewt>newt, and the other way round naranj > orange (but also French, Dutch etc. why?)
also:
napron > apron (cf. napkin)
nadder > adder (but related natterjack toad kept the "N")
nonpair (not partial) nompair> umpire

see:
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.p ... e=19970908