Talk:Metathesis (linguistics)

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Contents 1 Sign Language section? 2 Other stuff 3 digression 4 Israel and vegetable

[edit] Sign Language section?

I'm thinking of adding a section on metathesis in Sign Language (specifically ASL) but I don't think I have the photos which would be beneficial, if not crucial, to understanding the explanation. I guess even if I had the pictures, I've never tried uploading and linking to photos in wiki. Any help or any comments? --Alex DG 04:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other stuff

This article is part of WikiProject Phonetics, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to phonetics and descriptive phonology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

Spelling changes do not cause phonological changes; the US pronounciation is not a result of a spelling change in "jewelry/jewellery". I pronounce it "julrey", with only two syllables, which I suspect is the most common US prononunciation. (And I pronounce "jewel", normally, with a single long diphthong, in contrast to the usual two-syllable British pronunciation.) I think the spelling change reflects the three -> two syllable change, and not the metathesis "julary". Hence, I'm deleting entirely the comment about spelling. --Tb 00:45 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It struck me also that the pronunciation "julary" is the result of an analogy that likens the word to the many English words that end in -ary or -ery, rather than the result of spelling. -- IHCOYC 15:20 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Definitely. Metathesis is very frequently associated with analogy to other words. --Tb 20:43 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What phonetic transcription is being used in this article? It's not X-SAMPA—I've never heard anyone pronounce "jewelry" with a doubled /o/ sound. — Gwalla | Talk 17:51, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's a proposed representation for English that I created after reading complaints about X-SAMPA being unintelligible, IPA untypeable, and English "phonetic spellings" hard to interpret. See Wikipedia:English phonetic spelling. There seems to be no great haste to adopt it. Smerdis of Tlön 18:05, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you're going to use a nonstandard phonemic representation, please say so somewhere. Frankly, I'd prefer IPA, X-SAMPA, or a set of symbols like those used in dictionary pronunciation keys to a system that uses digraphs confusingly ("ie" for IPA /i/ or English "long e"?). I agree about English "phonetic spellings" being awful—they're frequently confusing and occasionally misleading. — Gwalla | Talk 21:38, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I put in a tag to the page explaining them (EPS) but it seems it was not conspicuous enough. AAR, I have reverted it back to English phonetic spelling like it originally stood; that's probably good enough to get the point across. Smerdis of Tlön 03:02, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Would anyone else agree that the pronunciation 'Febyuary' for February isn't metathesis, but a contraction of the 'r' sound? It doesn't seem to exhibit the same reordering of the other examples. Xyzzyva 19:01, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

I tend to agree; it's syncope instead. -- Smerdis of Tlön 20:01, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think aksian vs. ask and hwat vs. what also belong here, but I'm not sure of their ancient forms. Adam78 13:36, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

hwæt > what is not metathesis. This simply gives two examples of the spelling of aspirated w: hw in OE, wh in Modern English, which is usually pronounced as regular initial w. --Rich 19:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I just added the "wymon for women" example. I think it's a good common example, but as the vowel is also shifted if someone fells strongly elsewise please feel free to remove it. --Zombiejesus 03:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean 'wymon'? Is that a representation of pronunciation? If so, we need some more information to decipher it.

stragety for strategy. witness heqs 18:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Are "realator" and "nucular" really examples of metathesis? I think they're more accurately be described as examples of epenthesis, but certainly not metathesis.

Is "liberry" really metathesis? Seems to me more like an elision of the first r sound. 128.173.157.65

Could someone confirm whether the standard English pronunciation of 'iron' as if it were 'iern' is an example of metathesis (and if so, provide an IPA rendering of the latter)? Stevvers 18:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't provide a source but I think it probably went something like this:

• /ˈaɪron/→ After the Great English vowel shift.
• /ˈaɪrən/→ Vowel reduction.
• /ˈaɪərn/→ Metathesis.
• [ˈaɪɚn]→ While the schwa and /r/ may be seperate phonemically, phonetically they are combined into a rhotic schwa. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:26, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just checked the OED, which claims that "apparently" the sequence was /ˈaɪrən/ → /ˈaɪərən/ → /ˈaɪər(ə)n/ via syncopation, rather than metathesis. (The modern pronunciation that they give is the nonrhotic (British) version: /ˈaɪən/.) Stevvers 00:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That's really odd. I was under the impression that schwa was only epenthisized before an /r/ in the coda, not syllable initial ones. But the OED is the OED. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

How is /ˈkʌmftɚbl̩/ for comfortable metathesis, based on the description here? It looks just like elision of the 'or' to me. Skittle 17:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The pentultimate vowel is ɚ, so a rhotic rather than a plain shwa, so there's metathesis of r and tə.

What I however am having problems understanding are these two:

• /ˈzɹeɪl/ for Israel
• /ˈvɛtʃtɪbl̩/ for vegetable

--Tropylium 12:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] digression

I think the mention of the meaning of metathesis in chemistry is redundant due to the fact that it is mentioned in the disambiguation. The statement in the article ought to be deleted.

The first sentence of the linked scientific paper is plausibly useful -- and on-point: "Derived from the Greek words meta (change) and thesis (position), metathesis is the exchange of parts of two substances. In the reaction, AB + CD → AC + BD, B has changed position with C." In this context, the otherwise abstract concepts of metathesis are especially well-visualized in the unique diplomas which were crafted for King Carl XIV Gustaf to present to the three chemists who shared the Nobel Prize in 2005.

• Metathesis as "dance" -- illustrated in Chauvin diploma, 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Metathesis as "dance" -- illustrated in Grubbs diploma, 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Metathesis as "dance" -- illustrated in Schrock diploma, 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Ooperhoofd 13:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Israel and vegetable

Hello, All.

The article gives these as examples of metathesis in English:

• /ˈzɹeɪl/ for Israel
• /ˈvɛtʃtɪbl̩/ for vegetable

I think they should not be included. I see no transposition of phonemes, only the shortening or omission of sounds.

The first change in Israel is the omission of a sound for the initial I. The several typical variant pronunciations for the rest of the word seem to hing on

(1) whether the speaker believes that the a should be pronounced

[eɪ],

or [ɑ] or [a] (with a [j] or [i] sound to soften the transition to [ɛ] or [ə], for the e),

or [i] (the [i] linking sound, but missing the [ɑ] or [a] that might precede it);

(2) whether the speaker believes that the e should be pronounced [ə] or [ɛ];

and (3) whether the speaker believes that the letters ae should be treated as a single unit pronounced [eɪ], as in Gaelic.

No transposition.

In [ˈvɛtʃtəbəl] and [ˈvɛdʒtəbəl], there is omission of the sound of the medial e, along with, in one case, devoicing of [dʒ] into [tʃ]. Again, no transposition.

I will remove those words from the list.

President Lethe 03:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)