Talk:Aphesis
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[edit] Apheresis vs. Shortening, Blending
- bus from omnibus
- cello from violoncello
- blog from web log
"Omnibus" to "bus" and "violoncello" to "cello" are 4+ sounds. I would quantify these phenomena as shortening, rather than simple apheresis. "Web log" to "blog", I would specify as apheresis of /wɛb/ to /b/, and then blending of /b/ and /lɑg/ to /blɑg/. Anyone agree? Hotchy 04:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
- My examples of phone from telephone and plane from aeroplane are similarly shorteneings, not pure aphesis. Carcharoth 17:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
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- Indeed. These are usually considered clipping or ellision. (It would be nice if linguistic terminology were a little more stable, but it isn't.) I would say the same applies to lone from alone, since it's apparent that the real historical event there is metanalysis, that is moving the morpheme boundary from all-one to a-lone (parallel to alive, aloft, afoot, abroad and so on where the a- is in fact a prefix (or what is left of a prefix, actually several different prefixes)). I would take plane to be just like lab except for starting at the other end.
- An interesting example of phonologically regular aphaeresis is the treatment of the (Latin) prefix dis- in Italian: smorzare 'to tone down', smuovere 'displace', snaturato 'unnatural', sleale 'disloyal', sfavorire 'to treat unfairly' (often with doublets in actual dis-, as dislaeale with the same meaning as sleale). Alsihler 19:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
