Sandhi

Sound change and alternation
Metathesis (reordering) Quantitative metathesis (vowel length)
Lenition (weakening) Consonant gradation Consonant voicing and devoicing Spirantization (assibilation) Rhotacism (change of [z] or [d] to [r]) L-vocalization (change of [l] to [w]) Debuccalization (loss of place)
Fortition (strengthening)
Elision (loss) Apheresis (initial) Syncope (medial) Apocope (final) Haplology (similar syllables) Fusion Cluster reduction
Epenthesis (addition) Anaptyxis (vowel) Excrescence (consonant) Prosthesis (initial) Paragoge (final) Unpacking Vowel breaking (diphthongization)
Assimilation Coalescence Coarticulation Palatalization (before front vowels) Velarization (before back vowels) Labialisation (before rounded vowels) Initial voicing (before a vowel) Final devoicing (before silence) Metaphony (vowel harmony, umlaut) Consonant harmony
Dissimilation
Cheshirisation (trace remains) Compensatory lengthening Nasalization Tonogenesis Floating tone
Sandhi (boundary change) Liaison, linking R Consonant mutation Tone sandhi Hiatus Synalepha (contraction)  Elision (loss of one vowel) Crasis (writing change) Synaeresis (opposite: diaeresis) Synizesis (no writing change)

Sandhi (Sanskrit: saṃdhi "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 phonology of Indian languages, 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. In Sanskrit it is pronounced [sən̪d̪ʱi]. English pronunciations include /ˈsʌndi/ (identical with "Sunday" for some British English speakers), /ˈsændi/ (like the first name "Sandy"), and /ˈsɑːndi/.

Types

• Internal sandhi features the alteration of sounds within words at morpheme boundaries, as in sympathy (syn- + pathy).
• External sandhi refers to changes found at word boundaries, such as in the pronunciation tem books for ten books in some dialects of English. The Linking R of some dialects of English is a kind of external sandhi, as is the process called liaison in the French language and raddoppiamento fonosintattico in Italian.

While it may be extremely common in speech, sandhi (especially for the 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 both Sanskrit and Tamil, as also in Italian in the case of compound words with lexicalized raddoppiamento fonosintattico). 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 rising ní (but still written nǐ in Hanyu Pinyin).

See also

• Alternation (linguistics)
• Crasis
• Elision
• Liaison (French)
• Linking and intrusive R
• Nu ephelkustikon

External links

• Online tool to perform and undo Sanskrit sandhi effects

als:Sandhi ar:سندهي br:Sandhi cs:Sandhi de:Sandhi myv:Сандхи es:Sandhi ext:Sandhi fr:Sandhi gl:Sandhi ko:연음 hi:संधि (व्याकरण) id:Sandhi ml:സന്ധി (വ്യാകരണം) nl:Sandhi ja:連音 nn:Sandhi pl:Sandhi pt:Sândi ksh:Sandhi ru:Сандхи sl:Sandhi sr:Санди (фонологија) fi:Sandhi sv:Sandhi ta:புணர்ச்சி (இலக்கணம்) th:สนธิ (ไวยากรณ์) uk:Сандгі zh:连音