1010: metathesis Sep 14, 2017

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Most of the time, when an affix is added to a word, the root word is pronounced the same way. Occasionally, the presence of one sound will influence another, which is why the prefix 'in-' becomes 'il-' in 'illegal', but these changes are fairly predictable and consistent. Other times, the individual sounds of a word will not change, but may shift somewhat due to certain influences. For instance, 'comfort' is usually pronounced /kəmfɚt/ in Standard American English, but despite the spelling, most people with the same accent would pronounce 'comfortable' with the sound represented with R following the sound represented by T, /kəmftɚbəl/. There are a few reasons that this process, known as 'metathesis', occurs, including mishearing the word, but in this case the cause is likely that it is physically easier to say the word as /kəmftɚbəl/, which reduces the number of syllables, and also requires less movement by the tongue. Other metathesized words include 'ask' as /æks/, which has occurred for at least a thousand years in different dialects, and 'pretty' as /pɚdi/ present in Southern American English, with the first vowel shifting towards the front. If you know any yourselves, write a comment.

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