Introduction

The term “lenition” (< L. lenis, ‘weak’) refers to synchronic alternations, as well as diachronic sound changes, whereby a sound becomes “weaker,” or where a “weaker” sound bears an allophonic relation to a “stronger” sound. An explicit, unified characterization of this “weakening” has been a vexed question of phonological theory (see Bauer 1988); but the core idea, as applied to consonants, is some reduction in constriction degree or duration. The term thus uncontroversially includes:

degemination, or reduction of a long consonant to a short one (e.g. t: → t);

flapping, or reduction of a stop to a flap (e.g. t → ɾ);

spirantization, or reduction from a stop (or affricate) to a fricative or approximant continuant (e.g. t → {θ, https://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> θ T https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315023731/b9622830-b831-4769-958e-8135ab388aed/content/figu1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> });

reduction of other consonants to approximants (e.g. r →r, s → https://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> s T https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315023731/b9622830-b831-4769-958e-8135ab388aed/content/figu2_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> );

debuccalization, or reduction to a laryngeal consonant (e.g. t → ʔ, s → h); and, at its most extreme,

complete elision (e.g. t → Ø).