Vowel Alternations
The most important alternations are those of short and long phonemes. Some of these alternations are correlative, i.e. the phonemes in pairs differ in their length only. Due to historical changes in some phonemes (/oː/ → /uː/, /uː/ → /ou̯/), some alternations are disjunctive, i.e. the phonemes in pairs are different in more features. These alternations occur in word roots during inflections and derivations, and they also affect prefixes in derivations.
| Short phoneme | Long phoneme | Examples, notes |
|---|---|---|
| /a/ | /aː/ | zakladatel (founder) – zakládat (to found) |
| /ɛ/ | /ɛː/ | letadlo (airplane) – létat (to fly) |
| /ɪ/ | /iː/ | litovat (be sorry) – lítost (regret) vykonat (to perform) – výkon (performance) |
| /o/ | /uː/ | koně (horses) – kůň (horse) |
| /u/ | /uː/ | učesat (to comb) – účes (hair style) (in initial positions in morphemes only) |
| /u/ | /ou̯/ | kup! (buy!) – koupit (to buy) (in other positions) |
Some other disjunctive vowel alternations occur in word roots during derivations (rarely also during inflections):
- |a/ɛ|: šťastný (happy) – štěstí (happiness); vejce (egg) – vajec (gen. pl.)
- |ɛ/o|: veze (is carrying) – vozí (carries)
- |aː/iː|: hřát (to warm) – zahřívat (to warm up)
- |aː/ɛ|: otřást (to shake) – otřes (tremor)
- |aː/o|: vyrábět (to produce) – výroba (production)
- |ɛ/iː|: zaječice (doe) – zajíc (hare)
Emergence/disappearance alternations also take place, i.e. vowels alternate with null phonemes. In some allomorphs, /ɛ/ is inserted between consonants in order to make the pronunciation easier:
- |ɛ/∅|: matka (mother) – matek (gen. pl.); lež (lie) – lži (lies)
It also occurs in some prepositions which have vocalised positional variants: v domě – (in a house) – ve vodě (in water); s tebou (with you) – se mnou (with me), etc.
Some other alternations of this type occur, but they are not so frequent:
- |ɪ/∅|: vypsat (to write out, to extract) – výpis (abstract, extract)
- |ɪː/∅|: vytknout (to reproach once) – vytýkat (to reproach); ubrat (to take away once) – ubírat (to take away)(examples of verb pairs with perfective and imperfective aspects)
- |u/∅|: suchý (dry) – schnout (to become dry)
Read more about this topic: Czech Phonology, Morphophonology
Famous quotes containing the word vowel:
“Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)