Epenthesis

Separating vowels

A consonant may be added to separate vowels in hiatus. This is the case with linking and intrusive R.

• drawing → drawring

Bridging consonant clusters

A consonant may be placed between consonants in a consonant cluster where the place of articulation is different (e.g., where one consonant is labial and the other is alveolar).

• something → somepthing
• *a-mrotos → ambrotos (see below)

Breaking consonant clusters

A vowel may be placed between consonants to separate them.

• Hamtramck → Hamtramick

Regular examples in English are -i-, used in forming Latinate words such as equidistant, and -o-, used in forming words on Greek roots or general compounds, as in speedometer.

Other contexts

While epenthesis most often occurs between two vowels or two consonants, it can also occur between a vowel and a consonant, or at the ends of words. For example, the Japanese prefix ma- (真〜（ま〜）, pure …, complete …) transforms regularly to ma'- (真っ〜（まっ〜）, (gemination of following consonant)) when followed by a consonant, as in masshiro (真っ白（まっしろ）, pure white). The English suffix -t, often found in the form -st, as in amongst (from among + -st), is an example of terminal excrescence.

Historical sound change

• Latin tremulare > French trembler ("to tremble")
• Old English thunor > English thunder
• French messager, passager > English messenger, passenger
• French message, messager > Portuguese mensagem, mensageiro
• (Reconstructed) Proto-Germanic *sēaną > Old English sāwan, Old Saxon sāian ("to sow")
• (Reconstructed) Proto-Greek *amrotos > Ancient Greek ἄμβροτος ámbrotos ("immortal"; cf. ambrosia)
• Latin homine(m) > homne > homre > Spanish hombre ("man")
• (Reconstructed) Common Slavic *kupjǫ > Old Church Slavonic куплѭ kupljǫ, Russian куплю kuplju ("I will buy")

Synchronic rule

In French, /t/ is inserted in inverted interrogative phrases between a verb ending in a vowel and a pronoun beginning with a vowel: il a ('he has') > a-t-il ('has he?'). There is no epenthesis from a historical perspective since the a-t is derived from Latin habet ('he has'), and so the t is the original third-person verb inflection. However it is correct to call it epenthesis when viewed synchronically since the modern basic form of the verb is a and so the psycholinguistic process is therefore the addition of t to the base form.

A similar example is the English indefinite article a, which becomes an before a vowel. It originated from Old English ān ("one, a, an"), which retained an n in all positions, so a diachronic analysis would see the original n disappearing except if a following vowel required its retention: an > a. However, a synchronic analysis, in keeping with the perception of most native speakers, would (equally correctly) see it as epenthesis: a > an.

In Dutch, whenever the suffix -er (which has several meanings) is attached to a word already ending in -r, an additional -d- is inserted in between. For example, the comparative form of the adjective zoet ("sweet") is zoeter, but the comparative of zuur ("sour") is zuurder and not the expected *zurer. Similarly, the agent noun of verkopen ("to sell") is verkoper ("salesperson"), but the agent noun of uitvoeren ("to perform") is uitvoerder ("performer").

Variable rule

In English, a stop consonant is often added as a transitional sound between the parts of a nasal + fricative sequence:

• English hamster /ˈhæmstər/ often pronounced with an added p sound, GA: [ˈhɛəmpstɚ] or RP: [ˈhampstə]
• English warmth /ˈwɔːrmθ/ often pronounced with an added p sound, GA: [ˈwɔɹmpθ] or RP: [ˈwoːmpθ]
• English fence /ˈfɛns/ often pronounced [ˈfɛnts]
• English else /ˈɛls/ by some speakers pronounced [ˈɛɫts]

Poetic device

• Latin reliquiās "remnants, survivors" (accusative plural) > poetic relliquiās

The three short syllables in reliquiās do not fit into dactylic hexameter because of the dactyl's limit of two short syllables so the first syllable is lengthened by adding another l. However, the pronunciation was often not written with double ll, and may have been the normal way of pronouncing a word starting in rel- rather than a poetic modification.

In Japanese

A limited number of words in Japanese use epenthetic consonants to separate vowels. An example is the word harusame (春雨（はるさめ）, spring rain), a compound of haru and ame in which an /s/ is added to separate the final /u/ of haru and the initial /a/ of ame. That is a synchronic analysis. As for a diachronic (historical) analysis, since epenthetic consonants are not used regularly in modern Japanese, the epenthetic /s/ could be from Old Japanese. It is also possible that Old Japanese /ame₂/ was once pronounced */same₂/; the /s/ would then be not epenthetic but simply an archaic pronunciation. Another example is kosame (小雨（こさめ）, "light rain").

A complex example of epenthesis is massao (真っ青（まっさお）, deep blue, ghastly pale), from ma- (真〜（ま〜）, pure, complete) + ao (青（あお）, blue). It exhibits epenthesis on both morphemes: ma- (真〜（ま〜）) → ma'- (真っ〜（まっ〜）, (gemination of following consonant)) is common (occurring before a consonant), and ao (青（あお）) → sao (青（さお）) occurs only in the example; it can be analyzed as maao → masao (intervocalic) → massao; akin to kirisame (霧雨（きりさめ）, drizzle, light rain) from kiri (霧（きり）, fog, mist) + ame (雨（あめ）, rain).

One hypothesis argues that Japanese /r/ developed "as a default, epenthetic consonant in the intervocalic position".^[1]

Historical sound change

Beginning of word

In the Western Romance languages, a prothetic vowel was inserted at the beginning of any word that began with /s/ and another consonant: Latin spatha "sword" > Spanish/Portuguese espada, Catalan espasa, Old French espede > modern épée (see also espadon, the swordfish).

French has a three level use of initial epenthesis depending on the time of incorporation:

• developing /e/ and dropping /s/ for the earliest: être < stare; école < schola
• developing /e/ and keeping /s/: espèce < species; espace < spatium
• not developing /e/ for the latest: spécial < species; scolaire < schola; spatial < spatium

Poetic device

An example in an English song is "The Umbrella Man" whose meter requires "umbrella" to be pronounced with four syllables, um-buh-rel-là so "any umbrellas" has the meter ány úmberéllas. The same occurs in the song "Umbrella".

Grammatical rule

Epenthesis often breaks up a consonant cluster or vowel sequence that is not permitted by the phonotactics of a language. Regular or semi-regular epenthesis commonly occurs in languages with affixes. For example, a reduced vowel /ɪ/ or /ə/ (here abbreviated as /ᵻ/) is inserted before the English plural suffix -/z/ and the past tense suffix -/d/ when the root ends in a similar consonant: glass → glasses /ˈɡlæsᵻz/ or /ˈɡlɑːsᵻz/; bat → batted /ˈbætᵻd/. That is again a synchronic analysis, as the form with the vowel is the original form and the vowel was later often lost.

Borrowed words

Vocalic epenthesis typically occurs when words are borrowed from a language that has consonant clusters or syllable codas that are not permitted in the borrowing language.

Languages use various vowels, but schwa is quite common when it is available:

• Hebrew uses a single vowel, the schwa (pronounced /ɛ/ in Israeli Hebrew).
• Japanese generally uses /u/ except after /t/ and /d/, when it uses /o/, and after /h/, when it uses an echo vowel. For example, the English word street becomes ストリート /sutoɾiːto/ in Japanese; the Dutch name Gogh becomes ゴッホ /ɡohho/, and the German name Bach, バッハ /bahha/.
• Korean uses [ɯ] except after borrowed /ʃ/, which takes a following /i/ at the end of the word or /ju/ otherwise. For example, English strike becomes 스트라이크 /sɯtʰɯɾaikɯ/, with three epenthetic vowels and a split of English diphthong /aɪ/ into two syllables.
• Brazilian Portuguese uses /i/, which, in most dialects, triggers palatalization of a preceding /t/ or /d/: bullying > [ˈbulĩ ~ bulẽj]; nerd > /nɛʁdʒi/; stress > /istɾɛsi/ (which became estresse); McDonald's > /makidonaudʒis/ ~ [mɛkiˈdõnəwdʑis] with normal vocalization of /l/ to /u/. Most speakers pronounce borrowings with spelling pronunciations, and others try to approximate the nearest equivalents in Portuguese of the phonemes in the original language. Compare anime /a'nimi/ with animê /ani'me/ (but the word may also be pronounced /a'nimi/ and written anime).
• Classical Arabic does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word, and typically uses /i/ to break up such clusters in borrowings: ‏صِرَاط‎ /siraːtˤ/ "street" < Latin strāta.
• Persian also does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word and typically uses /æ/ to break up such clusters in borrowings except between /s/ and /t/, when /o/ is added.
• Spanish does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word with an /s/ in them and adds e- to such words: especie < species, estándar < standard, estrés < stress.
• Turkish prefixes close vowels to loanwords with initial clusters of alveolar fricatives followed by another consonant: Isparta < Greek Σπάρτη (Sparti), setuskur < set screw, uskumru < Greek σκουμπρί (skoúmbri), Üsküdar < Byzantine Greek Σκουτάριον (Skoutárion), istimbot < steamboat, İskoçya < Scotland, istavrit < Greek σταυροειδής (stavridís), İzmir < Greek Σμύρνη (Smírni). The practice is no longer productive as of late 20th century and a few such words have changed back: spor < ıspor < French sport.

Informal speech

Epenthesis most often occurs within unfamiliar or complex consonant clusters. For example, the name Dwight is commonly pronounced with an epenthetic schwa between the /d/ and the /w/, and many speakers insert a schwa between the /l/ and /t/ of realtor. Irish English and Scottish English are some of the dialects that may insert a schwa between /l/ and /m/ in words like film, under the influence of Celtic languages.

Epenthesis is sometimes used for humorous or childlike effect. For example, the cartoon character Yogi Bear says "pic-a-nic basket" for "picnic basket." Another example is found in the chants of England football fans in which England is usually rendered as [ˈɪŋɡələnd] or the pronunciation of "athlete" as "ath-e-lete". Some apparent occurrences of epenthesis, however, have a separate cause: the pronunciation of nuclear as nucular arises out of analogy with other -cular words (binocular, particular, etc.) rather than from epenthesis.

Certain registers of colloquial Brazilian Portuguese sometimes have [i] between consonant clusters except those with /l/ (atleta), /ɾ/ (prato) or syllable-ending /s/ (produced [ʃ] in a number of dialects, always postalveolar in fluminense and florianopolitano and before voiceless consonants that are not in the end of the word in nordestino, a rare feature in a few others) (pasta) and so words like tsunami, advogado and abdômen are pronounced /tisuˈnami/, /adivoˈɡadu/ and [abiˈdomẽj]. Some dialects also use [e] for voiced consonant clusters, which is deemed as stereotypical of the lower classes: people who arrived from rural flight or internal migrations in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and São Paulo.

In Spanish, it is usual to find epenthetic vowels in sequences of plosive, flap, and vowel or labiodental fricative, flap, and vowel, normally in a non-emphatic pronunciation. For instance, vinagre has the usual [biˈnaɣɾe] being replaced by [biˈnaɣ(ə)ɾe].

In Finnish

In Finnish, there are two epenthetic vowels and two nativization vowels. One epenthetic vowel is the preceding vowel, found in the illative case ending -(h)*n: maa → maahan, talo → taloon. The second is [e], connecting stems that have historically been consonant stems to their case endings: nim+n → nimen.

In Standard Finnish, consonant clusters may not be broken by epenthetic vowels; foreign words undergo consonant deletion rather than addition of vowels: ranta ("shore") from Proto-Germanic *strandō. However, modern loans may not end in consonants. Even if the word, such as a personal name, is native, a paragogic vowel is needed to connect a consonantal case ending to the word. The vowel is /i/: (Inter)net → netti, or in the case of personal name, Bush + -sta → Bushista "about Bush" (elative case).

Finnish has moraic consonants: l, h and n are of interest. In Standard Finnish, they are slightly intensified before a consonant in a medial cluster: -hj-. Some dialects, like Savo and Ostrobothnian, have epenthesis instead and use the preceding vowel in clusters of type -lC- and -hC-, in Savo also -nh-. (In Finnish linguistics, the phenomenon is often referred to as švaa; the same word can also mean schwa, but it is not a phoneme in Finnish so there is usually no danger of confusion.)

For example, Pohjanmaa "Ostrobothnia" → Pohojammaa, ryhmä → ryhymä, and Savo vanha → vanaha. Ambiguities may result: salmi "strait" vs. salami. (An exception is that in Pohjanmaa, -lj- and -rj- become -li- and -ri-, respectively: kirja → kiria. Also, in a small region in Savo, /e/ is used instead.)^[2]

In Lojban

Lojban is a constructed language that seeks logically-oriented grammatical and phonological structures. It uses a number of consonant clusters in its words, and since it is designed to be as universal as possible, it allows a type of anaptyxis called "buffering" to be used if a speaker finds a cluster difficult or impossible to pronounce. A vowel sound that is nonexistent in Lojban is added between two consonants to make the word easier to pronounce. Despite altering the phonetics of a word, the use of buffering is completely ignored by grammar. Also, the vowel sound used must not be confused with any existing Lojban vowel.

An example of buffering in Lojban: if a speaker finds the cluster [ml] in the word mlatu ("cat") (pronounced ['mlatu]) hard or impossible to pronounce, the vowel [ɐ] can be pronounced between the two consonants, resulting in the form [mɐ'latu]. Nothing changes grammatically, including the spelling and the syllabication of the word.