{"id":4040,"date":"2012-05-02T16:02:10","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T15:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/?page_id=4040"},"modified":"2012-05-02T16:05:16","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T15:05:16","slug":"merger","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/?page_id=4040","title":{"rendered":":Merger:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Any change in pronunciation over time which destroys the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/?page_id=707\">contrast <\/a>between two or more segments.  A simple example is the loss of contrast in many English accents between <span style=\"color: navy;\"><strong>\u028d<\/strong><\/span> (as in <em>which<\/em>, <em>what<\/em>, <em>when <\/em>etc.) and <span style=\"color: navy;\"><strong>w<\/strong><\/span>.  In this case, the merger results in the simple loss of a sound leaving only one of the original original members of the contrasting pair.  Mergers can also result in the appearance of a new sound.  An example of this is the merging of the vowels <span style=\"color: navy;\"><strong>\u026a e \u028c<\/strong><\/span> into <span style=\"color: navy;\"><strong>\u025c\u02d0<\/strong><\/span> in many English accents.  This merger took place immediately before a word-final or pre-consonantal <span style=\"color: navy;\"><strong>r<\/strong><\/span>.  Compare Scottish English <em>herd <\/em>and <em>word<\/em> (<span style=\"color: navy;\"><strong>herd w\u028crd<\/strong><\/span>) where the merger has not taken place with GB <span style=\"color: navy;\"><strong>h\u025c\u02d0d w\u025c\u02d0d<\/strong><\/span> where it has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Any change in pronunciation over time which destroys the contrast between two or more segments. A simple example is the loss of contrast in many English accents between \u028d (as in which, what, when etc.) and w. In this case, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/?page_id=4040\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":201,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4040"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4040"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4057,"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4040\/revisions\/4057"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogjam.name\/sid\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}