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'Sandhi' (Sanskrit '' संधि "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries (thus belonging to what is called ''morphophonology''). Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words. It occurs particularly prominently in Sanskrit phonology, hence its naming with a word from that language, but most languages have it.
As a non-English word, the pronunciation of the word "sandhi" is rather diverse among English speakers. According to Sanskrit phonology it can be pronounced . Acceptable English pronunciations include , ("sandy"), and among others.

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Types of sandhi

See also

External links

Types of sandhi

★ 'Internal sandhi' features the alteration of sounds within words at morpheme boundaries, as in ''sympathy'' (''syn- + pathy'').

★ 'External sandhi' refers to changes found at word boundaries, such as in the pronunciation for ''ten books''. The ''Linking R'' of some dialects of English is a kind of external sandhi, as is the process called ''liaison'' in the French language.
While it may be extremely common in speech, sandhi (especially external) is typically ignored in spelling, as is the case in English, with the exception of the distinction between "a" and "an" (sandhi is, however, reflected in the writing system of Sanskrit). External sandhi effects can sometimes become morphologized (i.e. apply only in certain morphological and syntactic environments) and, over time, turn into consonant mutations.
Most tonal languages have 'tone sandhi', in which the tones of words alter according to pre-determined rules. For example: Mandarin has four tones: a high monotone, a rising tone, a falling-rising tone, and a falling tone. In the common greeting ''nǐ hǎo'', both words in isolation would normally have the falling-rising tone. However, this is difficult to say, so the tone on ''nǐ'' is pronounced as ''ní'' (but still written nǐ in Hanyu Pinyin).

See also

★ Alternation (linguistics)

★ Crasis

★ Liaison (French)

★ Linking consonant

External links

★ Online tool to perform and undo Sanskrit sandhi effects