Apheresis

As apheresis ( ancient Greek ἀφαιρεῖν aphaireĩn , German , take ' ) is in the linguistics the eradication of a sound or a syllable at the designated letters.

Usually, a (weak) vowel ( Matthias Claudius : “It's war! It's war!”), A diphthong (“ne brisk bee!”) Or even a whole syllable (“out” ) is used at the beginning of a word "Out") is omitted, mostly with the aim of increasing speech dynamics or maintaining the meter . The apheresis occurs very often in colloquial or dialectal forms (as language economy ).

In Latin, the apheresis often concerns the initial e in es or est after the initial vowel or m in the preceding word, whereby the omission can also be done in writing by combining the two words.

Examples:

• Johann Wolfgang Goethe , Heideröslein :

And the wild boy broke

's little rose on the heath.

• Ovid , Metamorphoses , 1,138:

poscebatur humus, sed itum est in viscera terrae

say:

poscebatur humus, sed itumst in viscera terrae

As a rhetorical figure , apheresis is a form of metaplasm and is also known as ablation . As a result of a voice and sound change occurs is also called apheresis Prokopě designated or Anlautschwund.

literature

• Daniela Battisti: Aphaeresis. In: Gert Ueding (Hrsg.): Historical dictionary of rhetoric . Vol. 1. De Gruyter, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-484-68101-2 , Sp. 767-769.
• Helmut Glück (Ed.), With the collaboration of Friederike Schmöe : Metzler Lexikon Sprache. 3rd, revised edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2005, ISBN 3-476-02056-8 , p. 46.