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Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.

Mutation phenomena are found in languages around the world. The prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages. Initial consonant mutation is found also in Southern Paiute and in several West African languages such as Fula. Baltic Finnic languages such as Finnish and Estonian have mutation of word-internal consonants. The Nilotic language Dholuo, spoken in Kenya, shows mutation of stem-final consonants, as does English to a small extent. Mutation of initial, medial, and final consonants is found in Modern Hebrew.

Celtic

For details see the articles on the individual languages: Breton language, Cornish language, Irish initial mutations, Manx language, Scottish Gaelic language, Welsh language.

The Celtic languages are well known for their initial consonant mutations. The individual languages vary on the number of mutations available: Scottish Gaelic and Manx have one, Irish has two, and the Brythonic languages Welsh, Breton and Cornish each have three (but not the same three). Additionally, Irish and the Brythonic languages have so-called "mixed mutations", where a trigger will cause one mutation to some sounds and another to other sounds. The languages vary on the environments for the mutations, though some generalizations can be made. In all languages, feminine singular nouns are mutated after the definite article, and adjectives are mutated after feminine singular nouns. In all languages, the 3rd person possessive pronouns for 'his', 'her', and 'their' are homophonous and distinguished from each other only on the basis of which mutation they trigger. Some examples from Irish and Welsh:

Southern Paiute

In Southern Paiute, there are three consonant mutations, which are triggered by different word-stems. The mutations are Spirantization, Geminatation, and Prenasalization:

For example, the absolutive suffix -pi appears in different forms, according to which noun stem it is suffixed to:

• movi-ppi 'nose'
• sappI-vi 'belly'
• aŋo-mpi 'tongue'

Fula

The Gombe dialect of Fula, spoken in Nigeria, shows mutation triggered by declension class. The mutation grades are Fortition and Prenasalization:

For example, the stems rim- 'free man' and ɣim- 'person' have the following forms:

• rimɓe (class 2), dimo (class 1), ndimon (class 6)
• ɣimɓe (class 2), gimɗo (class 1), ŋgimkon (class 6)

Finnish

In Finnish (and related languages such as Estonian), stem-medial consonants undergo mutation (usually called gradation in the literature). There is only one mutation, known as weakening.

For example, nouns and adjectives in the genitive singular generally have weakened versions of stem-medial consonants:

• lappu 'piece of paper' (nom.), lapun (gen.)
• halpa 'cheap' (nom.), halvan (gen.)
• kota 'Lappish tent' (nom.), kodan (gen.)
• suka 'brush' (nom.), suan (gen.)

Dholuo

Dholuo shows alternations between voiced and voiceless states of the final consonant of a noun stem. In the construct state (the form that means 'hill of', 'stick of', etc.) the voicing of the final consonant is switched from the absolute state. (There are also often vowel alternations that are independent of consonant mutation.)

• gɔt 'hill' (abs.), god (const.)
• lʊθ 'stick' (abs.), luð (const.)
• kɪdo 'appearance' (abs.), kit (const.)
• tʃogo 'bone' (abs.), tʃok (const.)
• buk 'book' (abs.), bug (const.)
• kɪtabu 'book' (abs.), kɪtap (const.)

English

English has a no longer productive process of voicing stem-final fricatives, which is encountered both in noun-verb pairs and in the formation of plural nouns.

• belief - believe
• life - live
• proof - prove
• strife - strive
• thief - thieve
• ba - bae
• brea - breae
• mou (n.) - mou (vb.)
• shea - sheae
• wrea - wreae
• choie - chooe
• houe (n.) - houe (vb.)
• ue (n.) - ue (vb.)

The voicing alternation found in plural formation is losing ground in the modern language, and of the alternations listed below many speakers retain only the pattern, which is supported by the orthography.

• knife - knives
• leaf - leaves
• self - selves
• shelf - shelves
• wharf - wharves
• wife - wives
• wolf - wolves
• ba - bas
• mou - mous
• oa - oas
• pa - pas
• you - yous
• houe - houes

Modern Hebrew

Modern Hebrew shows a limited set of mutation alternations, involving spirantization only. The consonants affected may be stem-initial, stem-medial, or stem-final.

For example, some verbs show mutation between tenses and conjugation classes:

• katav 'he wrote', yixtov 'he will write'
• tiba 'he sank' (intransitive), tava 'he sank' (transitive)

Some nouns show mutation between masculine and feminine, between singular and plural, or after prepositions:

• melex 'a king', malka 'a queen'
• dov 'a bear', dubim 'bears'
• bayit 'a house', be-vayit 'in a house'

But not all words have alternations:

• xatav 'he hacked', yaxtav 'he will hack'
• zikef 'he put up', zakaf 'he raised'
• tov 'good', tuvim 'goods'
• kibuc 'a kibbutz', be-kibuc 'in a kibbutz'

Sindarin

The Sindarin language created by J. R. R. Tolkien has mutation patterns inspired by those of Welsh. The first letter of a noun usually undergoes mutation when the noun follows a closely associated word such as an article or preposition. Thus, we get certh, rune, and i gerth, the rune. Also, second elements of compounds and direct objects of verbs undergo mutation.

Mutation vs. sandhi

Initial consonant mutation must not be confused with sandhi, which can refer to word-initial alternations triggered by their phonological environment, unlike mutations, which are triggered by their morphosyntactic environment. Some examples of word-initial sandhi are listed below.

• Spanish: , occurring after nasal consonants and pause, alternate with , occurring after vowels and liquid consonants. Example: un arco 'a boat', mi arco 'my boat'.
• Scottish Gaelic: stops in stressed syllables are voiced after nasals, e.g. 'a cat', 'the cat'.
• Nivkh: stops become fricatives after vowels, and fricatives become stops after other fricatives. Examples:
  • 'neck', 'neck of a reindeer'
  • 'shoot', 'to shoot a bear'

Sandhi effects like these (or other phonological processes) are usually the historical origin of morphosyntactically triggered mutation. For example, the English fricative mutation described above originates in an allophonic alternation of Old English, where a voiced fricative occurred between vowels (or other voiced consonants), and a voiceless one occurred initially or finally, and also when adjacent to voiceless consonants. Old English infinitives ended in -(i)an and plural nouns (of one very common declension class) ended in -as. Thus, hūs 'a house' had , while hūsas 'houses' and hūsian 'to house' had . After most endings were lost in English, and the contrast between voiced and voiceless fricatives phonemicized (largely due to the influx of French loanwords), the alternation was morphologized.

Bibliography

• Arnott, D. W. The Nominal and Verbal Systems of Fula. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.
• Blevins, Juliette. "Gilyak lenition as a phonological rule." Australian Journal of Linguistics 13 (1993): 1–21
• Branch, Michael. "Finnish." In The World's Major Languages, edited by Bernard Comrie, 593-617. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Fife, James, and Gareth King. "Celtic (Indo-European)." In The Handbook of Morphology, edited by Andrew Spencer and Arnold M. Zwicky, 477–99. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
• Glinert, L. The Grammar of Modern Hebrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• Gruzdeva, Ekaterina. "Aspects of Nivkh morphophonology: initial consonant alternation after sonants." Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 87 (1997): 79–96.
• Sapir, Edward. "The Southern Paiute Language (Part I): Southern Paiute, a Shoshonean Language." Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 65 (1930): 1–296.

See also

• Rendaku: mutation in Japanese

• Celtic languages
• Linguistic morphology
• Phonology
• Syntax