lenition

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lenition

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Analyzable as lenis +‎ -ition,^[1] or as if from Latin lēnīt(us) + -ion,^[2] or Latin lēnītiō (“softening”) from lēniō (“soften”) +‎ -tiō (action noun suffix) (attested since at least the 1500s, the same timeframe lenition is first attested in English with the sense "assuaging"^[2]). Modelled on German Lenierung.^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /lɪˈnɪʃən/, /liːˈnɪʃən/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ləˈnɪʃən/, /liˈnɪʃən/

lenition (countable and uncountable, plural lenitions)

1. (phonetics, phonology) A weakening of articulation causing a consonant to become lenis (soft).

   Antonym: fortition

   Coordinate term: assimilation

   • 2001, Robert Stockwell, Donka Minkova, English Words: History and Structure, page 104:

     One of these processes, the process of T-Lenition, is extremely common, even though it takes place only when the input consonant is adjacent to a small number of affixes. In this change, a stopped consonant, [p t k b d g], becomes a fricative, [s, z, š, ž]. This process is called lenition, or weakening.

   • 2001, Lisa M. Lavoie, Consonant Strength: Phonological Patterns and Phonetic Manifestations, page 7:

     Environments are an essential part of any discussion of lenition. Textbooks often describe lenition as occurring in the weak intervocalic or word-final environments. The canonical examples of lenition given earlier in (1) through (3) all occur either between vowels or between sonorants.

   • 2008, Krzysztof Jaskula, Celtic, Joaquim Brandão de Carvalho, Tobias Scheer, Philippe Ségéral (editors), Lenition and Fortition, Studies in Generative Grammar: 99, page 347,

     As for Goidelic languages, the situation is clearer because Lenition III in this subfamily consisted in losing the same property as the first two lenitions, namely stopness.

   • 2011, Naomi Gurevich, 66: Lenition, Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth V. Hume, Keren Rice (editors), The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, Volume III: Phonological Processes, page 1573,

     Five general patterns of lenitions – all based to some extent on empirical data – are identified.

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