Sound change and alternation

In phonology, epenthesis (/əˈpɛnθəsɪs/; Ancient Greek: ἐπένθεσις) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. The word epenthesis comes from epi (on) + en (in) + thesis (putting). Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis (/ˌænæpˈtɪksɨs/, also svarabhakti) for the addition of a vowel.



Epenthesis may be represented in writing, or may only be a feature of the spoken language.

Separating vowels


  • drawingdrawring

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). 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.

  • somethingsomepthing
  • *a-mrotosambrotos

Breaking consonant clusters

A vowel may be placed between consonants to separate them.

  • HamtramckHamtramick

Other contexts

While epenthesis most often occurs intervocalically or interconsonantally, 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 from -st, as in among (from among + -st), is an example of terminal excrescence.

Epenthesis of a consonant, or excrescence

As a historical sound change

  • Latin tremulare > French trembler ("to tremble")
  • Old English thunor > English thunder
  • French messager, passager > English messenger, passenger
  • (Reconstructed) Proto-Germanic *sēaną > Old English sāwan, Old Saxon sāian ("to sow")
  • (Reconstructed) Proto-Greek *amrotos > Ancient Greek ambrotos ("immortal"; cf. ambrosia)
  • Latin homine(m) > homne > homre > Spanish hombre ("man")

As a synchronic rule




As a poetic device

  • Latin reliquias > poetic relliquias


In informal speech



In Japanese

A limited number of words in Japanese use epenthetic consonants to separate vowels. An example of this is the word harusame (春雨（はるさめ）?, spring rain), which is 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; note that this is a synchronic analysis (using current forms to analyze an irregularity). As for a diachronic (historical) analysis, since epenthetic consonants are not used regularly in modern Japanese, it is possible that this epenthetic /s/ is a holdover from Old Japanese. It is also possible that OJ /ame2/ was once pronounced */same2/, and the /s/ is not epenthetic but simply retained 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- (〜（ま〜）?, pure, complete) + ao (（あお）?, blue). This exhibits epenthesis on both morphemes: ma- (真〜（ま〜）?)ma'- (真っ〜（まっ〜）?, (gemination of following consonant)) is common (occurring before a consonant), while ao (青（あお）?)sao (青（さお）?) occurs only in this example; it can be analyzed as maaomasao (intervocalic) → massao.

The transform /a//wa/ (an epenthetic /w/) occurs in two contexts. In standard Japanese, this occurs regularly in the stem of verbs ending in -u (〜う?), which in the negative form transform to -wa (〜わ?), rather than the regular -a (〜あ?) of other verbs. In some dialects, there are occasional other examples, the most significant of which is baai (場合（ばあい）?, "situation") (ba (場（ば）?, "place") + ai (合い（あい）?, "meet")); in some dialects it is pronounced bawai (ばわい?). The spelling of kawaii (可愛い（かわいい）?, "cute") as 可愛い suggests ka + ai + i with epenthesis, but this is simply ateji spelling: the current form is from older kawayui (かわゆい?), and does not decompose into simpler morphemes.


Epenthesis of a vowel, or anaptyxis


As a historical sound change

At the end of a word



In the middle of a word


Other examples exist in Modern Persian, where former word-initial consonant clusters (which were still extant in Middle Persian) are regularly broken up: Middle Persian brādar > Modern Persian barādar "brother" (a is pronounced [æ]), Middle Persian stūn > Early New Persian sutūn > Modern Persian (Iran) sotūn "column"; modern borrowings are also affected.

At the beginning of a 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.

As a poetic device

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

As a grammatical rule

Epenthesis often breaks up a consonant cluster or vowel sequence that is not permitted by the phonotactics of a language. Sporadic cases can be less obviously motivated, however, such as warsh 'wash' with an extra r in some varieties of American English or Hamtramck being pronounced 'Hamtramick' as if there were an extra i. The Dutch city of Delft is pronounced /DEL-lift/ by its inhabitants. Georgian often breaks up its consonant clusters with schwas.

Regular or semiregular epenthesis commonly occurs in languages that use affixes. For example, a reduced vowel /ɨ/ is inserted before the English plural suffix -/z/ and the past tense suffix -/d/ when the root ends in a similar consonant: glassglasses /ˈɡlæsɨz/ or /ˈɡlɑːsɨz/; batbatted /ˈbætɨd/. This is again a synchronic analysis, as the form with the vowel is the original form and the vowel was later lost in many, but not all cases.

When borrowing words



  • Brazilian Portuguese uses /i/, which in most dialects triggers palatalization of a preceding /t/ or /d/, e.g. "bullying" > [ˈbuʎĩɡi ~ bulẽj]; "nerd" > /nɛʁdʒi/; "stress" > /stɾɛsi/ (which became estresse); "McDonald's" > /makidonaudʒi/ ~ [mɛkˈdonɐwdʒis] with normal vocalization of /l/ to /u/. Most speakers pronounce borrowings with spelling pronunciations, while some others try to approximate the nearest equivalents in Portuguese of the phonemes used in the original language. Compare "anime" /animi/ with animê /anime/.
  • Persian language does not also allow clusters at the beginning of a word, and typically uses /æ/ to break up such clusters in borrowings, except between /s/ and /t/ wherein /o/ is added, as mentioned above.
  • Spanish does not tolerate clusters at the beginning of a word with an /s/ in them, and is well known for adding e- to such words, e.g. especia < "spice", estándar < "standard", estrés < "stress".

In informal speech


  • Certain registers of colloquial Brazilian Portuguese sometimes have [i] between consonant clusters, except those formed 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 and not in the end of the word in nordestino, rare feature in a few others) (pasta), so that words like tsunami, advogado and abdômen are pronounced /tisunami/, /adivoɡadu/ 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 Finnish




In Sign Language

A type of epenthesis occurring in sign language is known as "movement epenthesis," and occurs most commonly during the boundary between signs as the hands move from the posture required by the first sign to the posture required by the next.[3]

Related phenomena

  • Prothesis: the addition of a sound to the beginning of a word.
  • Infixation: the insertion of a morpheme within a word.
  • Metathesis: the reordering of sounds within a word.

See also




External links

  • Definition at BYU