Alternation (linguistics)

In linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a phoneme or morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant. The variation may be conditioned by the phonological, morphological, and/or syntactic environment in which the morpheme finds itself.

Alternations provide linguists with data that allow them to determine the allophones and allomorphs of a language's phonemes and morphemes and to develop analyses determining the distribution of those allophones and allomorphs.

Phonologically conditioned alternation

Alternation related to meaning

Morphologically conditioned alternation

yntactically conditioned alternation

Syntactically conditioned alternations can be found in the Insular Celtic languages, where words undergo various initial consonant mutations depending on their syntactic position. [cite journal |last=Green |first=Antony D. |year=2006 |title=The independence of phonology and morphology: The Celtic mutations |journal=Lingua |volume=116 |pages=1946–85 |issn=0024-3841 |url=http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/652-0404/652-GREEN-0-0.PDF |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2004.09.002] For example, in Irish, an adjective undergoes lenition after a feminine singular noun:
*unmutated "mór" IPA| [mˠoːɾˠ] "big", mutated in "bean mhór" IPA| [bʲan woːɾˠ] "a big woman"In Welsh, a noun undergoes soft mutation when it is the direct object of a finite verb:
*unmutated "beic" IPA| [bəik] "bike", mutated in "Prynodd y ddynes feic" IPA| [ˈprənoð ə ˈðənɛs vəik] "The woman bought a bike"

ee also

* Sandhi
* Allophone

References

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Alternation — may refer to:*Alternation (card game) *Alternation (linguistics), a variation in the phonological form of a morpheme *Diathesis alternation *Alternation (algorithms), see Alternating Turing machine *R/N alternation, see Rhotacism * AlterNation, a … Wikipedia
linguistics — /ling gwis tiks/, n. (used with a sing. v.) the science of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and historical linguistics. [1850 55; see LINGUISTIC, ICS] * * * Study of the nature and structure of… … Universalium
Diathesis alternation — In linguistics the term diathesis alternation or verb alternation[1] refers to the fact that verbs can be used in different subcategorization frames where they slightly change their semantic meaning. It is a hard problem for theoretical… … Wikipedia
Metathesis (linguistics) — Sound change and alternation Metathesis Quantitative metathesis … Wikipedia
Tone (linguistics) — Not to be confused with intonation (linguistics). Top tone ◌̋ ˥ … Wikipedia
Stress (linguistics) — In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.Types of… … Wikipedia
Assimilation (linguistics) — Sound change and alternation Metathesis Quantitative metathesis … Wikipedia
Hiatus (linguistics) — Sound change and alternation Metathesis Quantitative metathesis … Wikipedia
Apophony — In linguistics, apophony (also ablaut, gradation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection) is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates… … Wikipedia
Allomorph — This article is about a linguistic term. See Pseudomorph for another meaning of the word. An allomorph is a linguistics term for a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when a unit of meaning can vary in sound (phonologically) without… … Wikipedia

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Alternation (linguistics)

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