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Sandhi |
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This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (April 2007) |
| Historical sound change |
|---|
| General |
| Metathesis |
| Dissimilation |
| Fortition |
| Lenition (weakening) |
| Sonorization (voicing) |
| Spirantization (assibilation) |
| Rhotacism (change of [z] to [r]) |
| L-vocalization (change of [l] to [w]) |
| Debuccalization (loss of place) |
| Elision (loss) |
| Apheresis (initial) |
| Syncope (medial) |
| Apocope (final) |
| Haplology (similar syllables) |
| Fusion |
| Cluster reduction |
| Compensatory lengthening |
| Epenthesis (addition) |
| Anaptyxis (vowel) |
| Excrescence (consonant) |
| Prosthesis (initial) |
| Paragoge (final) |
| Unpacking |
| Vowel breaking |
| Assimilation |
| Coarticulation |
| Palatalization (before front vowels) |
| Velarization (before back vowels) |
| Labialization (before rounded vowels) |
| Initial voicing (before a vowel) |
| Final devoicing (before silence) |
| Vowel harmony |
| Consonant harmony |
| Cheshirisation (trace remains) |
| Nasalization |
| Tonogenesis |
| Floating tone |
| Sandhi (boundary change) |
| Crasis (contraction) |
| Liaison, linking R |
| Consonant mutation |
| Tone sandhi |
| Hiatus |
Sandhi (Sanskrit saṃdhi संधि "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries (thus belonging to what is called morphophonology). Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words. Sandhi occurs particularly prominently in Sanskrit phonology, hence its name, but many other languages have it.
As a non-English word, the pronunciation of the word "sandhi" is rather diverse among English speakers. According to Sanskrit phonology it can be pronounced [sən̪d̪ʱi]. English pronunciations include /ˈsʌndi/ (identical with "Sunday" for some British English speakers), /ˈsændi/ (like "sandy"), and /ˈsɑːndi/.
While it may be extremely common in speech, sandhi (especially external) is typically ignored in spelling, as is the case in English, with the exception of the distinction between "a" and "an" (sandhi is, however, reflected in the writing system of Sanskrit). External sandhi effects can sometimes become morphologized (i.e. apply only in certain morphological and syntactic environments) and, over time, turn into consonant mutations.
Most tonal languages have tone sandhi, in which the tones of words alter according to pre-determined rules. For example: Mandarin has four tones: a high monotone, a rising tone, a falling-rising tone, and a falling tone. In the common greeting nǐ hǎo, both words in isolation would normally have the falling-rising tone. However, this is difficult to say, so the tone on nǐ is pronounced as ní (but still written nǐ in Hanyu Pinyin).
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