Thursday, February 8, 2018

Vowel Alternation in Languages

Vowel alternation is a common process in many languages. This alternation often occurs in nouns and verbs. Here are examples from English and other languages:

decide decision
give gave
long length
volcano volcanic
wide width

Dutch

vier (four) veertien (fourteen) veertig (forty)

French

six (six) soixante (sixty)

German

beginnen (begin) begonnen (begun)

Italian

dieci (ten) undici (eleven)

Spanish

joven (young) juventud (youth)
seis (six) sesenta (sixty)
siete (seven) setecientos (seven hundred)

Vowel alternation can be observed in not only English but in many languages. Vowels have a relatively free airflow and less precise point of articulation than consonants. This may be the reason that vowels are more likely to alternate than consonants.


No comments:

Featured Post

Finding the Proto-Form

Related languages have a number of words which are similar to one another. In the branch of linguistics known as historical linguistics, the...