Prothesis (linguistics)

Prothesis (linguistics)

In linguistics, prothesis (from post-classical Latin based on Ancient Greek próthesis 'placing before'), or less commonly prosthesis (from Ancient Greek prósthesis 'addition') is the addition of a sound or syllable at the beginning of a word without changing the word's meaning or the rest of its structure. A vowel or consonant added by prosthesis is called prothetic or prosthetic.

Prothesis is different from the adding of a prefix, which changes the meaning of a word.

Prothesis is a metaplasm, a change in spelling or pronunciation. The opposite process, the loss of a sound from the beginning of a word, is called apheresis or aphesis.