Sometimes a segment is made dissimilar to a contiguous segment because the language does not like identical or similar sounds next to each other. Apocope Apocope is the deletion of an unaccented vowel at the end of a word. Epenthesis Epenthesis is the insertion of a vowel, usually between consonants that are not allowed to stand together by the phonotactic rules , rules which determine the possible sequences of sounds in a language.
Liquid metathesis is probably the most common form.
It involves the exchange of places of a liquid and a following or preceding vowel. Old Slavic xlad 'cold' Haplology Haplology is the deletion of a segment or syllable that is identical or similar to an adjacent syllable or segment in that syllable.