umlaut (
m`lout) [Ger.,=transformed sound], in inflection inflection, in grammar. In many languages, words or parts of words are arranged in formally similar sets consisting of a root, or base, and various affixes. Thus walking, walks, walker have in common the root walk and the affixes -ing, -s, and
..... Click the link for more information. , variation of vowels of the type of English man to men. In this instance it is the end product of the effect of a y (long since disappeared) that was present in the plural; the y caused the vowel before the n to be pronounced higher and more forward in the mouth in the plural than in the singular; eventually there was replacement of the vowel in the plural. Other examples are mouse, mice; tooth, teeth; to fall, to fell; doom, deem. Umlaut is also called mutation and inflection. For the variation of sing, sang, see ablaut ablaut [Ger.,=off-sound], in inflection, vowel variation (as in English sing, sang, sung, song) caused by former differences in syllabic accent. In a prehistoric period the corresponding inflected forms of the language (known through internal reconstruction)
..... Click the link for more information. . Umlaut is also the name for the diacritical symbol placed above a vowel to indicate a sound change in Germanic languages, as in the German Fräulein and the Swedish fröken (see accent accent, in speech, emphasis given a particular sound, called prosodic systems in linguistics. There are three basic accentual methods: stress, tone, and length.
..... Click the link for more information. ).
Umlaut
m`lout) [Ger.,=transformed sound], in inflection inflection, in grammar. In many languages, words or parts of words are arranged in formally similar sets consisting of a root, or base, and various affixes. Thus walking, walks, walker have in common the root walk and the affixes -ing, -s, and ..... Click the link for more information. , variation of vowels of the type of English man to men. In this instance it is the end product of the effect of a y (long since disappeared) that was present in the plural; the y caused the vowel before the n to be pronounced higher and more forward in the mouth in the plural than in the singular; eventually there was replacement of the vowel in the plural. Other examples are mouse, mice; tooth, teeth; to fall, to fell; doom, deem. Umlaut is also called mutation and inflection. For the variation of sing, sang, see ablaut ablaut [Ger.,=off-sound], in inflection, vowel variation (as in English sing, sang, sung, song) caused by former differences in syllabic accent. In a prehistoric period the corresponding inflected forms of the language (known through internal reconstruction)
..... Click the link for more information. . Umlaut is also the name for the diacritical symbol placed above a vowel to indicate a sound change in Germanic languages, as in the German Fräulein and the Swedish fröken (see accent accent, in speech, emphasis given a particular sound, called prosodic systems in linguistics. There are three basic accentual methods: stress, tone, and length.
..... Click the link for more information. ).
Umlaut
a phonetic change in the timbre of the vowels a, o, and u under the influence of the vowel i in the following syllable. In the Germanic languages, this change is influenced by certain other vowels in the following syllable as well. The term “umlaut” was introduced by J. Grimm.
The umlaut is a regressive assimilation of vowels. The conditioned variants occurring as a result of the umlaut may become independent phonemes, and their alternation (the grammatical umlaut) may become a morphological feature. For example, in modern German the umlaut is often a grammatical means for forming the plural of nouns, both when the environment determining the conditioned variant is absent and in many analogous forms, as in Gast-Gäste and Mutter-Mütter.
REFERENCE
Steblin-Kamenskii, M. I. “Chto takoe ‘umlaut’?” In Materialy pervoi nauchnoi sessii po voprosam germanskogo iazykoznaniia. Moscow, 1959. Pages 52–63.Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content.
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