APOCOPE

In phonetics, 'apocope' (Greek ''apokoptein'' “cutting off” from ''apo-'' “away from” and ''koptein'' “to cut”) is the loss of one or more sounds from the end of a word; especially, the loss of an unstressed vowel.

Contents

Apocope as a historical sound change

Loss of an unstressed vowel (with nasal)

Loss of other sounds

Apocope as a grammatical rule

Apocope as a poetic device

Apocope in informal speech

See also

External sources

Apocope as a historical sound change

In historical phonetics, the term "apocope" is often but not always limited to the loss of an unstressed vowel.

Loss of an unstressed vowel (with nasal)

★ Vulgar Latin ''pan[em]'' > Spanish ''pan'' "bread"

★ Vulgar Latin ''lup[um]'' > French ''loup'' "wolf"

★ Latin ''strat[am]'' > English ''street''

Loss of other sounds

★ Latin ''illu[d]'' > Spanish ''ello''

Apocope as a grammatical rule

Some languages have apocopations internalized as mandatory forms. In Spanish, for example, many adjectives that come before the noun lose the final vowel when they precede a noun in the masculine singular form. The word ''uno'' (one) thus becomes ''un'' and ''grande'' (big/great) becomes ''gran''. In these cases, one would say ''un mundo'' (one world) rather than ''uno mundo'', and ''gran aventura'' (great adventure) rather than ''grande aventura''.

Apocope as a poetic device

★ German ''ich gebe'' > poetic ''ich geb' "I give"

Apocope in informal speech

Various sorts of informal abbreviations might be classed as "apocope".

★ English ''photograph'' > ''photo''

★ French ''réactionnaire'' > ''réac'' "reactionary"

★ English ''animation'' > Japanese ''anime-shon'' > ''anime''

★ English ''synchronization'' > ''sync''

★ English ''Alexander'' > ''Alex'' and so on with other diminutives
For a list of similar apocopations in the English language, see List of English apocopations.
These processes are also linguistically subsumed under a process called truncation.

See also

★ Syncope

★ Apheresis

★ Elision

★ Abbreviation

★ Acronym

★ contraction

★ Initialism

External sources

★ World Wide Words: Apocope