Episode 9: Sandhi School

Today, Matt and Rowan talk about every sort of flavor in the ice cream Sandhi bar (ow! Rowan! that hurts!)

Sandhi is an umbrella term for phonological processes that occur at boundaries - between words (external sandhi, like in Sanskrit vowel blending) or within a word between morphemes (internal sandhi, like in Latin assimilation)

It can occur between two vowels (Sanskrit vowel blending, Latin elision, English intrusive R), between two consonants (Latin assimilation), between vowels and consonants together (French and Korean liaison, English linking R), between two tones (Mandarin tone sandhi), a weird mix of tones and syllable boundaries (Soyaltepec Mazatec tone sandhi), or even between two tones depending on consonants in between (Taiwanese Hokkien tone sandhi)

References:

Beal, Heather D. "The segments and tones of Soyaltepec Mazatec." (2012).