Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Techniques that involve semantics and the choosing of words. Anglish: a writing using exclusively words of Germanic origin; Auto-antonym: a word that contains opposite meanings; Autogram: a sentence that provide an inventory of its own characters; Irony; Malapropism: incorrect usage of a word by substituting a similar-sounding word with ...
Most commonly, the change is a result of sound assimilation with an adjacent sound of opposite voicing, but it can also occur word-finally or in contact with a specific vowel. For example, the English suffix -s is pronounced [s] when it follows a voiceless phoneme (cats), and [z] when it follows a voiced phoneme (dogs). [1]
Variably by dialect and even word, the / j / in this / j uː / may drop (rune / ˈ r uː n /, lute / ˈ l uː t /), causing a merger with / uː /; in other cases, the /j/ coalesces with the preceding consonant (issue / ˈ ɪ s. j uː / → / ˈ ɪ ʃ uː /), meaning that the silent e can affect the quality of a consonant much earlier in the ...
Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs, where the tongue or other speech organs do not move and the syllable contains only a single vowel sound. For instance, in English, the word ah is spoken as a monophthong (/ ɑː /), while the word ow is spoken as a diphthong in most varieties (/ aʊ /). Where two adjacent vowel sounds occur in different ...
συλλαβή means "the taken together", referring to letters that are taken together to make a single sound. [3] συλλαβή is a verbal noun from the verb συλλαμβάνω syllambánō, a compound of the preposition σύν sýn "with" and the verb λαμβάνω lambánō "take". [4]
Some words contain silent letters, which do not represent any sound in modern English pronunciation. Examples include the l in talk , half , calf , etc., the w in two and sword , gh as mentioned above in numerous words such as though , daughter , night , brought , and the commonly encountered silent e (discussed further below).
In Standard Yoruba, the consonants m and n may be syllabic and carry tone like vowels. However, they always stand alone as syllables and cannot stand as syllable nuclei. In Baoulé, m or n may be syllabic. As a stand-alone word, it means 'I' (first person subject pronoun), as in N ti baule [n̩̄ tɪ̄ bāūlē] 'I speak Baoulé'.
The English words sphere /ˈsfɪər/ and sphinx /ˈsfɪŋks/, Greek loanwords, break the rule that two fricatives may not appear adjacently word-initially. Some English words, including thrash, three, throat, and throw, start with the voiceless dental fricative /θ/, the liquid /r/, or the /r/ cluster (/θ/+/r/).