cheshirization

English

WOTD – 26 November 2021

Etymology

From Cheshire (cat) (“fictional cat which disappeared leaving only its smile, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by the English author Lewis Carroll (1832–1898)”) +‎ -ization (suffix forming nouns denoting the act, process, or result of doing or making something), coined by the American linguist James Matisoff (born 1937) in a 1991 book chapter entitled “Areal and Universal Dimensions of Grammatization in Lahu”.^[1]

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˌt͡ʃɛʃəɹaɪˈzeɪʃən/, /-ɹə-/, /-ɹɪ-/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Rhymes: -eɪʃən
Hyphenation: che‧shir‧i‧zat‧ion

Noun

cheshirization (uncountable) (American spelling, Oxford British English)

(phonology, rare) Synonym of transphonologization (“a type of sound change whereby a phonemic contrast that used to involve a certain feature evolves in such a way that the contrast is preserved, yet becomes associated with a different feature”) [from 1991]
Synonym: rephonologization
- 2006, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Robert M. W. Dixon, Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance, →ISBN, page 344:
  For example, Mandarin uses the suffix ɚ < ér 兒 'son' while Cantonese employs tone sandhi, changing the citation tone to high rising tone, the cheshirization of an earlier segmental morpheme meaning 'son'.

Alternative forms

cheshirisation (non-Oxford British spelling)
Cheshirisation, Cheshirization

Translations

synonym of transphonologization — see transphonologization

References

^ James Matisoff (1991) “Areal and Universal Dimensions of Grammatization in Lahu”, in Elizabeth [Closs] Traugott and Bernd Heine, editors, Approaches to Grammaticalization (Typological Studies in Language; 19:2), volume II (Types of Grammatical Markers), Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →DOI, →ISBN, page 383.