| 词组 | metathesis |
| 释义 | metathesis The process whereby a sound hops out of its proper place, so to speak, and pops up elsewhere in the word, or switches places with another sound in the word, is called metathesis (\\\\ma-'tath-ǝ-sǝs\\\\). A good example of metathesis is one pronunciation of integral, in which the \\\\r\\\\ has moved from after the \\\\g\\\\ to after the \\\\t\\\\, thus yielding \\\\in-trǝ-gǝl\\\\, as though the word were spelled "intregal." We have recorded this pronunciation from numerous educated speakers over the years, including former President Gerald Ford, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, broadcaster Edward R. Mur-row, and professors Lionel Trilling and Marvin Harris. The reason for this alteration in the sequence of sounds is probably attraction to the pattern exemplified by such words as intricate, introvert, and (in one pronunciation variant) interesting, and also, at one remove, by words like gentrified and centrally. It is not a matter of \\\\intr-\\\\ being simply "easier to say" than \\\\int... r-\\\\, since under different accentual conditions that cluster is sometimes broken up in relaxed pronunciation: thus introduced commonly becomes \\\\,int-ǝr-'düst\\\\, in which form the first \\\\t\\\\, no longer protected by an immediately following \\\\r\\\\, drops out, and the word is pronounced as though spelled "innerduced." Again, such variations come from the lips of quite well-educated speakers; we have recorded \\\\känt-ǝr-'byü-shǝn\\\\ from no less a figure than Mitford M. Mathews, author of A Dictionary of Americanisms. In the above examples, a single consonant has hopped out of place. But consonants can also exchange places, as in the mispronunciation of relevant as \\\\rev-ǝ-lǝnt\\\\ Once again we apparently have a case of attraction to pattern: compare reveille, revel(ing), and more distantly, envelope, invalid (noun), and revelation. When we hear such shifts occurring sporadically around us, they may sound to some like gross and hopeless slipups that could never become standard in the language. But the products of metathesis have indeed been taken up over the course of history. One notorious variant of ask, \\\\'aks\\\\, in effect goes all the way back to Old English, where axian and ascian existed side by side, and it is only by comparison with cognate forms in other languages that we can deduce that -sk- is the historically earlier order. In the case of wasp, it is rather the meta-thesized form that has become standard, since while Old English has both waesp and wxps and Latin has vespa, overall comparative evidence points to a prehistoric -psas original. Similar vicissitudes mark the history of bird, hasp, and tamarisk. In the latter case the metathesis took place within the development of Latin, tamariscus out of earlier tamarix (where sc — \\\\sk\\\\ and x = \\\\ks\\\\), and English simply took over the result. Both metathe-sized and unmetathesized forms are visible in English scintilla, taken direct from the classical Latin scintilla "spark," and stencil, borrowed (via French) from a Vulgar Latin form we reconstruct as stincilla. Palaver and parabola are likewise metathetic doublets, though further sound change has obscured the relationship between them. See also calvary, cavalry; irrelevant. |
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