Talk:Metathesis (linguistics)

message: I think the mention of the meaning of metathesis in chemistry is redundant due to the fact that it is mentioned in the disambiguation. The statement in the article ought to be deleted.
:The first sentence of the linked scientific paper is plausibly useful -- and on-point: "Derived from the Greek words meta (change) and thesis (position), metathesis is the exchange of parts of two substances. In the reaction, AB + CD → AC + BD, B has changed position with C."  In this context, the otherwise abstract concepts of metathesis are especially well-visualized in the unique diplomas which were crafted for King Carl XIV Gustaf to present to the three chemists who shared the Nobel Prize in 2005.
:* Metathesis as "dance" -- illustrated in Chauvin diploma, 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
:* Metathesis as "dance" -- illustrated in Grubbs diploma, 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
:* Metathesis as  "dance" -- illustrated in Schrock diploma, 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
:Ooperhoofd 13:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  digression 

message: Hello, All.
The article gives these as examples of metathesis in English:
*  for Israel
*  for vegetable
I think they should not be included. I see no transposition of phonemes, only the shortening or omission of sounds.
The first change in Israel is the omission of a sound for the initial I. The several typical variant pronunciations for the rest of the word seem to hing on
:(1) whether the speaker believes that the a should be pronounced
::[eɪ],
::or [ɑ] or [a] (with a [j] or [i] sound to soften the transition to [ɛ] or [ə], for the e),
::or [i] (the [i] linking sound, but missing the [ɑ] or [a] that might precede it);
:(2) whether the speaker believes that the e should be pronounced [ə] or [ɛ];
:and (3) whether the speaker believes that the letters ae should be treated as a single unit pronounced [eɪ], as in Gaelic.
No transposition.
In  and , there is omission of the sound of the medial e, along with, in one case, devoicing of [dʒ] into [tʃ]. Again, no transposition.
I will remove those words from the list.
President Lethe 03:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Israel'' and ''vegetable'' 

message: How sure are we about this one? I could envision a series such as this:
miraculo > *miragulo > *miraglo > *miragro > miraglo
with plain ol' liquid dissimilation. Step 3 could come about if it was reached after gl- >> ll had started.
--Tropylium (talk) 17:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Milagro 

message: Can anyone recommend good references for metathesis in Greek and Latin?--Meieimatai 04:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Greek and Latin

message: In the section about Spanish, it was written:
* murciégalo for murciélago
implying that "murciégalo" (the non-standard variant) is a metathesis of "murciélago" (the standard variant, "blessed" by the Spanish Royal Academy). In fact, this is not true. In this case, it is the standard variant that is a methatesis of the variant contemporarily considered as non-standard. To see this, look up "murciélago" in the Spanish Royal Academy dictionary and check its etymology. --Antonielly (talk) 13:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Murciélago (Spanish)

message: The example in the introduction (pronouncing 'comfortable' as if it was spelt 'comfterble') is surely an example of elision and not metathesis — in fact, it is even used as an example in the elision article. —Stephen Morley (talk) 14:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We've gone over this before. comfortable → comfterble --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 11:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We're talking about  versus  — the difference I see is an elided schwa. There are much better examples we can use — the asterisk example further down the article is an indisputable case of metathesis. —Stephen Morley (talk) 14:35, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: And in rhotic accents (as noted!), it's from  to . But you're right, a better example would work for non-rhotic accents too. A medial case appears to be more typical than the ks/sk change (cf. the other languages) — I'll go with "foilage" since there's no contending definition. Strictly speaking it's not a simple phoneme reversal tho, but there's no need to get pedantic about it there.--Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 09:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

text: If there's agreement about this can we take it out? As noted above this seems to be an example of a schwa elision and calling it metathesis is dubious at best. Fysidiko (talk) 15:17, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poor example 

message: This triplet is given as an example of metathesis in English. I doubt it, because this particular example could be simply a manifestation of phonological evolution in English. Compare Latin: tres (three), tertius (third). Has Latin undergone a similar metathesis? I have seen that the words *treyes (three) and *trtyos (third) are posited for the Proto-Indo-European with the syllabic -r- in the second word. Then historical evolution explains why we have tres but tertius (not tretius) in Latin, and likewise, in English. We want a specific example on metathesis in English, not one which illustrates the evolution of non-vocalic syllablic sounds r, l, m and n.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.19.234.131 (talk) 22:40, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Third, Thirteen and Three

message: Hi!
Data didn't mispronounce it and nor is the IPA pronunciation given the 'correct' (i.e. only) pronunciation, by a long chalk.  Stressing of syllables is especially variable in English speakers even moving from dialect to dialect throughout the UK.  Considered across all of the English speaking populations this is even more the case. Indeed, the listed pronunciation is one which seems least like to me (a native English speaker, travelled widely), as it happens.
/'mɛtɘθiːsɘz/ and /mɛtɘ'θiːsɪs/ for example are two pronunciations which I can attest and which are both far more likely than a 'schwa'd initial ee combined with a strongly stressed second syllable, in my opinion.
In any case, there is no way it can be argued that it was mispronounced, as is currently stated, when used in ST:TNG.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.200.208.164 (talk) 15:19, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The pronunciations métathesis and metathésis are correct based on English rules of accent, which place accent on the first syllable of each part of a compound word. Here the parts are meta and thesis, and each of these two pronunciations accent one of these parts. But historically the accenting of the word metathesis has been based on Latin rules of accent, which place accent on the third syllable from the end unless the second syllable from the end is long (heavy). So based on English rules of accent mètathésis is the correct pronunciation, but based on Latin rules metáthesis is correct. — Eru·tuon 02:53, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation of metathesis 

message: I can't cite a source or I'd just edit the article, but I'm quite certain that /ˈkʌmftəɹbl/ (which the article gives as /ˈkʌmftərbəl/, a pronunciation I'm pretty sure does not occur) is not an example of metathesis.  It represents an intrusive /ɹ/ as a hypercorrection of the non-rhotic contraction /ˈkʌmftəbl/.  The /ɹ/ does not exchange positions with any other phoneme.  Expected metathetic forms for "comfortable" would be */ˈkʌmfrətəbl/ or */ˈkʌmfətəɹbl/, neither of which exists, as far as I know.
Jdcrutch (talk) 19:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the article's analysis is metathesis of the sequence /ər/ (then deletion of /ə/): /-fəɹtəbəl/ → */-ftəɹəbəl/ → /-ftəɹbəl/. /əl/ isn't that odd; it's just another way of phonemically analyzing syllabic /l̩/. — Eru·tuon 22:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

text: That's how I pronounce it, and my dialect is rhotic.  may not be the most obvious example of metathesis, but in a rhotic dialect I don't know how else you'd characterize it. — kwami (talk) 02:32, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

text: If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that since the dialect of origin is non-rhotic, the careful pronunciation of the word should be /'kʌmfɜtɨbl/ . . . so, were I English, my not-so-careful pronunciation might be /'kʌmfətəbl/, which could then be skinnied down to /'kʌmftəbl/. I think this might actually be an instance of elision and Cheshirization. Uuords (talk) 09:52, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

text: The example was recently removed. User:TSP, it is true that in non-rhotic accents comfortable → comfterble is just deletion of schwa, but in rhotic accents it is deletion and metathesis. But it's a confusing and contentious enough example that I don't want to reintroduce it. — Eru·tuon 03:06, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  /ˈkʌmftərbəl/ Not an Example of Metathesis 

message: I think not enough explanation is given on the reasons metathesis takes place - i.e. a clear distinction needs to be made in cases of natural progression in the development of a language (i.e. like the Spanish milagro (miracle) or Argelia (Algeria)), and completely intentional examples such as verlan. It could even be mentioned that spoonerisms are an example of metathesis (originally unintentional; subsequently - intentionally comic), rather than simply having it in the see also section. BigSteve (talk) 12:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural/Conscious etc 

message: Are proper names significant, such as Brett Favre ()?    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 20:01, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proper names 

message: Illustrative and useful would be info by a linguist on hm -> mh metathesis (intermediate? – phonetic but not yet in orthography) in Indic languages (quick search shows it applies at least for Bengali, Marathi, and even Hindi), an example could be brahma. —Mykhal (talk) 22:56, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indic "hm" to "mh" 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: "moustique from Spanish mosquito (1654); originally pronounced and written as "mousquitte" (1603)."  This timeline seems impossible as written, as 'mousquitte' (1603) appears to be a French form.  Perhaps what's intended is a  French (1603) to Spanish (1654) to French (current) transition series.    Heavenlyblue (talk) 23:10, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: From Latin 'musca' ('fly') to Spanish 'mosca' ('fly'), then Spanish 'mosquito' ('little fly')  to French 'mousquitte' (1603)  to French 'moustique'  (1654) by metathesis.       https://stripscience.cafe-sciences.org/articles/moustiqueorthographie-1603-mousquitte-puis-1654-moustique-pa/     Heavenlyblue (talk) 23:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed.    Heavenlyblue (talk) 23:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates? 

message: First impulse: 
In dyslexicography, metathesis (...) is the transposition of sounds or syllables in a word or of words in a sentence.
It would be nice to tag the lead sentence with: In somefield, ...
But what? Phonology, syntax, lexicography? 
My first impulse wins the thread, but it's not suitable here. — MaxEnt 20:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dyslexicography 

message: Why do we have
* foliage > **foilage
as an example in the lede, but show the reverse direction 
* foilage > foliage
in the English example section? And what are the two asterisks in front of foilage supposed to mean (in the lede)? Phlar (talk) 12:00, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed the example in the lede and kept the (contradictory) example in the body text since it cites sources. It’s worth noting that neither of the sources state that this is an example of metathesis, so this might be an instance of WP:OR, but the same could be said for most of the other examples in this article. Phlar (talk) 00:38, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

text: The Merriam-Webster source describes "foilage" as a "non-standard spelling" of foliage, before bringing up the "foille" etymology. I recommend moving this from the pronunciation section down to the "The process has shaped many English words historically." section. Lebonk (talk) 06:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foliage 

message: Shouldn't this be mentioned somewhere in the article as an example? I mean the entire community, not to mention the world at large struggles with the distinction - and there's a "word" for that!
No mention at mw:Differences between Wikipedia, Wikimedia, MediaWiki, and_wiki either. GregRundlett (talk) 15:38, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  MediaWiki, WikiMedia and WikiPedia not even given as an example?