Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment. A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture sufficient to cause audible turbulence, at one or more points along the vocal tract. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes. ... Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules, or patterned relations, that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. ...

Mutation phenomena are found in languages around the world. The prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages. Initial consonant mutation is found also in Japanese, Indonesian or Malay, in Southern Paiute and in several West African languages such as Fula. Baltic Finnic languages such as Finnish and Estonian have mutation of word-internal consonants. The Nilotic language Dholuo, spoken in Kenya, shows mutation of stem-final consonants, as does English to a small extent. Mutation of initial, medial, and final consonants is found in Modern Hebrew. Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. ... The Malay language, also known locally as Bahasa Melayu, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who are native to the Malay peninsula, southern Thailand, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau islands, and parts of the coast of Borneo. ... The Uto-Aztecan languages are a Native American language family. ... The term African languages refers to the approximately 1800 languages spoken in Africa. ... Categories: Africa-related stubs | Burkina Faso | Cameroon | Ethnic groups of Africa | Fulani Empire | Mali | Nigeria ... Geographical distribution of Finno-Ugric (Finno-Permic in blue, Ugric in green). ... The Nilotic languages are a group of Eastern Sudanic languages spoken across a wide area between southern Sudan and Tanzania by the Nilotic peoples, particularly associated with cattle-herding. ... The Luo are a people of Western Kenya, Central-Northern Uganda, Southern Sudan and Tanzania. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ...

Celtic

For details see the articles on the individual languages: Breton language, Cornish language, Irish initial mutations, Manx language, Scottish Gaelic language, Welsh language. This page is about the Breton language. ... The Cornish language (in Cornish: Kernowek, Kernewek, Curnoack) is one of the Brythonic group of Celtic languages that includes Welsh, Breton, the extinct Cumbric and perhaps the hypothetical Ivernic. ... Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. ... Manx (Gaelg or Gailck), also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Goidelic language spoken on the Isle of Man. ... Scottish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, or just Gaelic (Gàidhlig; IPA: ), is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ...

The Celtic languages are well known for their initial consonant mutations. The individual languages vary on the number of mutations available: Scottish Gaelic and Manx have one, Irish has two, and the Brythonic languages Welsh, Breton and Cornish each have three (but not the same three). Additionally, Irish and the Brythonic languages have so-called "mixed mutations", where a trigger will cause one mutation to some sounds and another to other sounds. The languages vary on the environments for the mutations, though some generalizations can be made. In all languages, feminine singular nouns are mutated after the definite article, and adjectives are mutated after feminine singular nouns. In most languages, the possessive pronouns trigger various mutations. Some examples from Breton, Irish and Welsh: The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family. ... A possessive pronoun is a word that attributes ownership to someone or something without using a noun. ...

Japanese

Rendaku (meaning sequential voicing) is a mutation of the initial consonant of a non-initial component in a Japanese compound word. Some compounds exhibiting rendaku:
nigiri + sushi → nigirizushi ("squeeze" + "sushi" → "hand-shaped sushi")
nigori + sake → nigorizake ("muddy" + "rice wine" → "unfiltered sake")
Rendaku (連濁, lit. ... Sushi variations with Kanji names behind. ... Sake barrels at Itsukushima Shrine Sake (酒; pronounced SAH-KEH [IPA: ] in Japanese, but often SAH-ki by English speakers) is a Japanese alcoholic beverage, brewed from rice. ...

Nigori in "nigorizake" and the daku in "rendaku" are actually different readings of the same kanji 濁, because voiced and unvoiced consonants are described in Japanese as opaque and clear. The characters for Kanji, lit. ...

Indonesian/Malay

The active form of a multisyllabic verb with an initial stop consonant or fricative consonant is formed by prefixing the verb stem with me- and a nasal consonant with the same place of articulation as the initial consonant. A stop, plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Fricative consonants are produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together (e. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... In speech, consonants may have different places of articulation, generally with full or partial stoppage of the airstream. ...

• garuk → menggaruk (= to scratch), hitung → menghitung (= to count),
• beri → memberi (= to give), fitnah → memfitnah (= to falsely accuse),
• cari → mencari (= to search), dapat → mendapat (= to obtain), *jangkau → menjangkau (= to reach)

If the initial consonant is a unvoiced stop or s, it disappears, leaving only the nasal in its place.

• kandung → mengandung (= to contain or to be pregnant),
• putih → memutih (= to turn white),
• satu → menyatu (= to become one / to unite),
• tulis → menulis (= to write).

Applied to verbs starting with a vowel, the nasal consonant is realized as ng ([ŋ]). Monosyllabic verbs add an epenthetic vowel before prefixing, producing the prefix menge-. In linguistics, an epenthetic vowel breaks up a consonant cluster that is not permitted by the phonotactics of a language. ...

• bor (= boring tool / drill) → mengebor (= to make a hole with drill).

Verbs starting with a nasal or approximant consonant do not add the mutant nasal at all, just me-. Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ...

Examples adapted from Wikibooks:Indonesian_prefix_me (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Indonesian_prefix_me)

Southern Paiute

In Southern Paiute, there are three consonant mutations, which are triggered by different word-stems. The mutations are Spirantization, Geminatation, and Prenasalization:

For example, the absolutive suffix -pi appears in different forms, according to which noun stem it is suffixed to:

• movi-ppi 'nose'
• sappI-vi 'belly'
• aŋo-mpi 'tongue'

Fula

The Gombe dialect of Fula, spoken in Nigeria, shows mutation triggered by declension class. The mutation grades are Fortition and Prenasalization: In linguistics, declension is a feature of inflected languages: generally, the alteration of a noun to indicate its grammatical role. ...

For example, the stems rim- 'free man' and ɣim- 'person' have the following forms:

• rimɓe (class 2), dimo (class 1), ndimon (class 6)
• ɣimɓe (class 2), gimɗo (class 1), ŋgimkon (class 6)

Finnish

In Finnish (and related languages such as Estonian), stem-medial consonants undergo mutation (usually called gradation in the literature). One of the mutations is known as weakening; here is a partial list:

For example, nouns and adjectives in the genitive singular generally have weakened versions of stem-medial consonants: Hiatus (derives from Latin : gap; cf. ...

• lappu 'piece of paper' (nom.), lapun (gen.)
• halpa 'cheap' (nom.), halvan (gen.)
• kota 'Lappish tent' (nom.), kodan (gen.)
• suka 'brush' (nom.), suan (gen.)
• puku "a suit", puvun (gen.)

Sandhi effects often cause word-final consonant mutations in speech, but this is not spelled out in standard language. Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ... A standard language (also standard dialect or standardized dialect) is a particular variety of a language that has been given either legal or quasi-legal status. ...

Dholuo

The Dholuo language (also named as the Luo language) shows alternations between voiced and voiceless states of the final consonant of a noun stem. In the construct state (the form that means 'hill of', 'stick of', etc.) the voicing of the final consonant is switched from the absolute state. (There are also often vowel alternations that are independent of consonant mutation.) Luo (also known als Dholuo) is a Western Nilotic language spoken by the Luo people, numbering about 3 million. ...

• gɔt 'hill' (abs.), god (const.)
• lʊθ 'stick' (abs.), luð (const.)
• kɪdo 'appearance' (abs.), kit (const.)
• tʃogo 'bone' (abs.), tʃok (const.)
• buk 'book' (abs.), bug (const.)
• kɪtabu 'book' (abs.), kɪtap (const.)

English

English has a no longer productive process of voicing stem-final fricatives, which is encountered both in noun-verb pairs and in the formation of plural nouns. In the English language, nouns are inflected for grammatical number—that is, singular or plural. ...

• belief - believe
• life - live
• proof - prove
• strife - strive
• thief - thieve
• ba [θ] - ba [ð]e
• brea [θ] - brea [ð]e
• mou [θ] (n.) - mou [ð] (vb.)
• shea [θ] - shea [ð]e
• wrea [θ] - wrea [ð]e
• choi [s]e - choo [z]e
• hou [s]e (n.) - hou [z]e (vb.)
• u [s]e (n.) - u [z]e (vb.)

The voicing alternation found in plural formation is losing ground in the modern language, and of the alternations listed below many speakers retain only the [f-v] pattern, which is supported by the orthography. The orthography of a language is the set of rules of how to write correctly in the writing system of a language. ...

• knife - knives
• leaf - leaves
• self - selves
• shelf - shelves
• wharf - wharves
• wife - wives
• wolf - wolves
• ba [θ] - ba [ð]s
• mou [θ] - mou [ð]s
• oa [θ] - oa [ð]s
• pa [θ] - pa [ð]s
• you [θ] - you [ð]s
• hou [s]e - hou [z]es

Modern Hebrew

Modern Hebrew shows a limited set of mutation alternations, involving spirantization only. The consonants affected may be stem-initial, stem-medial, or stem-final.

For example, some verbs show mutation between tenses and conjugation classes:

• katav 'he wrote', yixtov 'he will write'
• tiba 'he sank' (intransitive), tava 'he sank' (transitive)

Some nouns show mutation between masculine and feminine, between singular and plural, or after prepositions:

• melex 'a king', malka 'a queen'
• dov 'a bear', dubim 'bears'
• bayit 'a house', be-vayit 'in a house'

But not all words have alternations:

• xatav 'he hacked', yaxtav 'he will hack'
• zikef 'he put up', zakaf 'he raised'
• tov 'good', tuvim 'goods'
• kibuc 'a kibbutz', be-kibuc 'in a kibbutz'

Sindarin

The Sindarin language created by J. R. R. Tolkien has mutation patterns inspired by those of Welsh. The first letter of a noun usually undergoes mutation when the noun follows a closely associated word such as an article or preposition. Thus, we get certh, rune, and i gerth, the rune. Also, second elements of compounds and direct objects of verbs undergo mutation. Sindarin is an artificial language (or conlang) developed by J. R. R. Tolkien. ... J. R. R. Tolkien in 1916, wearing his British Army uniform in a photograph from the middle years of WW1. ...

American English

A case of grammatically triggered consonant mutation is the fusion of "you" [ju:] into "cha" [t:Sa] before a [t], e.g. what you → whatcha [wat ju:] → [wat:Sa]. Fusion may refer to: the merging of two or more entities into a single one For the combining of two atomic nuclei into a single nucleus (with possible emission of radioactivity), see nuclear fusion cold fusion refers to a controversial form of nuclear fusion which has recently (April/May 2005...

Mutation vs. sandhi

Initial consonant mutation must not be confused with sandhi, which can refer to word-initial alternations triggered by their phonological environment, unlike mutations, which are triggered by their morphosyntactic environment. Some examples of word-initial sandhi are listed below. Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ... Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), or phonemics, is a subfield of grammar (see also linguistics). ...

• Spanish: [b, d, g], occurring after nasal consonants and pause, alternate with [β, ð, ɣ], occurring after vowels and liquid consonants. Example: un [b]arco 'a boat', mi [β]arco 'my boat'.
• Scottish Gaelic: stops in stressed syllables are voiced after nasals, e.g. [k^haht] 'a cat', [əŋ g^haht] 'the cat'.
• Nivkh: stops become fricatives after vowels, and fricatives become stops after other fricatives. Examples:
  • [q^hos] 'neck', [c^holŋi χos] 'neck of a reindeer'
  • [χa-] 'shoot', [c^hxəf q^ha-] 'to shoot a bear'

Sandhi effects like these (or other phonological processes) are usually the historical origin of morphosyntactically triggered mutation. For example, the English fricative mutation described above originates in an allophonic alternation of Old English, where a voiced fricative occurred between vowels (or other voiced consonants), and a voiceless one occurred initially or finally, and also when adjacent to voiceless consonants. Old English infinitives ended in -(i)an and plural nouns (of one very common declension class) ended in -as. Thus, hūs 'a house' had [s], while hūsas 'houses' and hūsian 'to house' had [z]. After most endings were lost in English, and the contrast between voiced and voiceless fricatives phonemicized (largely due to the influx of French loanwords), the alternation was morphologized. A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Liquid consonants, or liquids, are speech sounds; more specifically, they are approximant consonants that are not classified as semivowels (glides) because they do not correspond phonetically to specific vowels (in the way that, for example, the initial [j] in English yes corresponds to [i]). The class of liquids can be... Nivkh or Gilyak (ethnonym: Nivxi) (language, нивхгу - Nivxgu) is a language spoken in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun, a tributary of the Amur, along the lower reaches of the Amur and on the northern half of Sakhalin. ... In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Bibliography

• Arnott, D. W. The Nominal and Verbal Systems of Fula. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.
• Blevins, Juliette. "Gilyak lenition as a phonological rule." Australian Journal of Linguistics 13 (1993): 1–21
• Branch, Michael. "Finnish." In The World's Major Languages, edited by Bernard Comrie, 593-617. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Fife, James, and Gareth King. "Celtic (Indo-European)." In The Handbook of Morphology, edited by Andrew Spencer and Arnold M. Zwicky, 477–99. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
• Glinert, L. The Grammar of Modern Hebrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• Gruzdeva, Ekaterina. "Aspects of Nivkh morphophonology: initial consonant alternation after sonants." Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 87 (1997): 79–96.
• Sapir, Edward. "The Southern Paiute Language (Part I): Southern Paiute, a Shoshonean Language." Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 65 (1930): 1–296.