Finnish Phonology - Sandhi

Sandhi

Finnish sandhi is extremely frequent, appearing between many words and morphemes, in formal standard language and in everyday spoken language. In most registers, it is never written down; only dialectal transcriptions preserve it, the rest settling for a morphemic notation. There are two processes. The first is simple assimilation with respect to place of articulation (e.g. np → mp). The second is predictive gemination of initial consonants on morpheme boundaries.

Simple phonetic incomplete assimilations include:

• /n + k/ → /ŋk/, velarization due to 'k', e.g. sen kanssa /seŋ kɑnsːɑ/
• /n + p/ → /mp/, labialization due to 'p' e.g. menenpä /menempæ/
• /V + V/ → /VʔV/, dissimilation of a sequence of individual vowels (compared to diphthongs) by adding a glottal stop, e.g. kuorma-auto /kuo̯rmɑʔɑwto/ (not obligatory)

Gemination of a morpheme-initial consonant occurs when the morpheme preceding it ends in a vowel and belongs to one of certain morphological classes:

• nouns in -e (apart from some new loanwords)

e.g. hakelava /hɑkelːɑʋɑ/ "open-box bed for wood chips"

• imperatives and connegative imperatives of the second-person singular, as well as the negative form of the present indicative (these three are always similar to each other)
• connegative imperatives of the third-person singular, first-person plural, second-person plural and third-person plural.

älkää tehkökään sitä 'actually, don't do it' /tehkøkːæːn/

• first infinitives (the dictionary form)

e.g. täytyy mennä käymään /tæɥtyːmenːækːæɥmæːn/

• noun cases in -e: allative -lle as well as the more marginal sublative -nne (as in tänne) and prolative -tse (as in postitse); not the instructive, though
• some other words such as kai 'probably', luo 'to, towards (a person, a place)', tai 'or'

The gemination can occur between morphemes of a single word as in /minulːe/ + /kin/ → /minulːekːin/ 'to me, too' (orthographically minullekin), between parts of a compound word as in /perhe/ + /pɑlɑʋeri/ → 'family meeting' (orthographically perhepalaveri), or between separate words as in /tule/ + /tænːe/ → 'Come here!'. In elaborate standard language, the gemination affects even morphemes with a vowel beginning: /otɑ/ + /omenɑ/ → or 'Take an apple!'. In casual speech, this is however often rendered as without a glottal stop.

These rules are generally valid for the standard language, although many Southwestern dialects, for instance, do not recognise the phenomenon at all. Even in the standard language there is idiolectal variation (disagreement between different speakers); e.g., whether kolme 'three' should cause a gemination of the following initial consonant or not: or 'three crows'. Both forms occur and neither one of them is standardised, since in any case it does not affect writing. In some dictionaries compiled for foreigners or linguists, however, the tendency of geminating the following consonant is marked by a superscript x as in perhex.

Historically, morpheme-boundary gemination is the result of regressive assimilation. The preceding word originally ended in /h/. For instance, the modern Finnish word for 'boat' vene used to be veneh (a form still existing in the closely related Karelian language). At some point in time, these /h/'s were assimilated by the initial consonant of a following word, e.g., veneh kulkevi 'the boat is moving'. Here we get the modern Finnish form (orthographically vene kulkee), even though the independent form has no sign of the old final consonant /h/.

In many Finnish dialects, including that of Helsinki, the gemination at morpheme boundaries has become more widespread due to the loss of additional final consonants, which appear only as gemination of the following consonant, cf. French liaison. For example, the standard word for 'now' nyt has lost its t and become ny in Helsinki speech. However, /ny/ + /se/ 'now it ' is pronounced and not * (although the latter would be permissible in the dialect of Turku).

Similar remnants of a lost word final /n/ can be seen in dialects, where e.g. the genitive form of the first singular pronoun is regularly /mu/ (standard language minun): /se/ + /on/ + /mu/ → 'It is mine'. Preceding an approximant, the /n/ is completely assimilated: 'my wife'. Preceding a vowel, however, the /n/ however appears in a different form: /mu/ + /omɑ/ → or even 'my own'.