Unpacking
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| Sound change and alternation |
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General
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Lenition (weakening)
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 |
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Coarticulation
Palatalization (before front vowels) Velarization (before back vowels) Labialization (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 historical linguistics and language 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 vowels 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 [mɒnˈsuːn] from Portuguese monção [mõsɐ̃ũ], but occurs widely, as in Lingala [balansi] from French [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 consonants in Spanish loans, so that for instance baño [baɲo] "bath" appears as bainu [bainu]. Here the palatal feature of the consonant separates out as the palatal vowel [i].
Unpacking occurs not just in borrowings, but within a language over time. Sanskrit syllabic ऋ [r̩] has become [ɾɪ] in Hindi, which has no syllabic consonants; the rhoticity is maintained by the [ɾ], while the syllabic feature is separated out as a vowel.
[edit] See also
The opposite of unpacking is fusion.
[edit] References
- Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
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