- Unpacking
In
historical linguistics andlanguage contact , unpacking is the separation of the features of a segment into distinct segments.Perhaps the most common example of unpacking is the separation of
nasal vowel s into vowel plus nasal consonant when borrowed into languages which don't have nasal vowels. This can be seen in English borrowings of French and Portuguese words, such as "monsoon" IPA| [mɒnˈsuːn] from Portuguese "monção" IPA| [mõsɐ̃ũ] , but occurs widely, as inLingala IPA| [balansi] from French IPA| [balɑ̃s] "balance". Here the nasality of the vowel is separated out as a nasal consonant. If this didn't happen the nasality would be lost.Consonants may also be unpacked. Basque unpacks
palatal consonant s in Spanish loans, so that for instance "baño" IPA| [baɲo] "bath" appears as "bainu" IPA| [bainu] . Here the palatal feature of the consonant separates out as the palatal vowel IPA| [i] .Unpacking occurs not just in borrowings, but within a language over time.
Sanskrit syllabic ऋ IPA| [r̩] has become IPA| [ɾɪ] in Hindi, which has nosyllabic consonant s; therhotic ity is maintained by the IPA| [ɾ] , while the syllabic feature is separated out as a vowel.ee also
The opposite of unpacking is fusion.
References
*Crowley, Terry. (1997) "An Introduction to Historical Linguistics." 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
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