Editing Trisyllabic laxing (section)

==Disyllabic laxing==
Several now-defunct Middle English phonological processes have created an irregular system of ''disyllabic laxing''; unlike trisyllabic laxing which was one phonological change, apparent disyllabic laxing in Modern English is caused by many different sound changes:

* ''pl'''ea'''se'' → ''pl'''ea'''sant'' {{IPA|/ˈpl'''iː'''z, ˈpl'''ɛ'''zənt/}}<!--also mead, meadow, but that's rather obscure-->
* ''sh'''a'''de'' → ''sh'''a'''dow'' {{IPA|/ˈʃ'''eɪ'''d, ˈʃ'''æ'''doʊ/}}
: ''p'''a'''le'' → ''p'''a'''llid'' {{IPA|/ˈp'''eɪ'''l, ˈp'''æ'''lɪd/}}
* ''ch'''i'''ld'' → ''ch'''i'''ldren'' {{IPA|/ˈtʃ'''aɪ'''ld, ˈtʃ'''ɪ'''ldrən/}}
: ''d'''i'''ne'' → ''d'''i'''nner'' {{IPA|/ˈd'''aɪ'''n, ˈd'''ɪ'''nər/}} <!--though note the unchanged vowels in the internally-derived ''dining'' and ''diner''-->
: ''div'''i'''de'' → ''div'''i'''sion'' {{IPA|/dɪˈv'''aɪ'''d, dɪˈv'''ɪ'''ʒən/}}
* ''s'''ou'''th'' → ''s'''ou'''thern'' {{IPA|/ˈs'''aʊ'''θ, ˈs'''ʌ'''ðərn/}} <!-- also abound, abundant-->
: '''''ou'''t'' → '''''u'''tter'' {{IPA|/ˈ'''aʊ'''t, ˈ'''ʌ'''tər/}}
* ''g'''oo'''se'' → ''g'''o'''sling'' {{IPA|/ˈɡ'''uː'''s, ˈɡ'''ɒ'''zlɪŋ/}}
: ''f'''oo'''l'' → ''f'''o'''lly'' {{IPA|/ˈf'''uː'''l, ˈf'''ɒ'''li/}}
: ''f'''oo'''d'' → ''f'''o'''dder'' {{IPA|/ˈf'''uː'''d, ˈf'''ɒ'''dər/}}<!--also soup, supper and school, scholar, but these are probably parallel loanwords-->
* ''c'''o'''ne'' → ''c'''o'''nic'' {{IPA|/ˈk'''oʊ'''n, ˈk'''ɒ'''nɪk/}} (and other words in ''-ic'')
: ''dep'''o'''se'' → ''dep'''o'''sit'' {{IPA|/dᵻˈp'''oʊ'''z, dᵻˈp'''ɒ'''zɪt/}}

Many cases of disyllabic laxing are due, as in ''southern'' and ''shadow'' above, to Middle English having had more unstressed {{IPA|/ə/}} sounds than Modern English: ''sutherne'' {{IPA|/suðərnə/}}, ''schadowe'' {{IPA|/ʃadəwə/, /ʃadou̯ə/}}. Cases such as ''please'', ''pleasant'' and ''dine'', ''dinner'' come from how French words were adapted into Middle English: a stressed French vowel was borrowed into English as an equivalent long vowel. However, if the stressed English vowel was originally an unstressed vowel in French, the vowel was not lengthened;<ref>Harrison, Thomas Carlton. ''Robert Robinson's alphabet and seventeenth-century English phonetics'' (1978), pg. 23</ref> examples of this which did not create an alteration are Old French ''pitee'' {{IPA|/piˈte/}} → Middle English ''pite'' {{IPA|/ˈpiteː/}} and Old French ''plais-'' {{IPA|/plɛz-/}} (stem of ''plaire'') → Middle English ''plesen'' {{IPA|/ˈplɛːzən/}}, ''plaisant'' {{IPA|/plɛˈzãnt/}} → ''plesaunt'' {{IPA|/ˈplɛzau̯nt/, /ˈplɛzənt/}}.

Some Latinate words, such as ''Saturn'', have short vowels where from syllable structure one would expect a long vowel. Other cases differentiate [[Comparison of General American and Received Pronunciation|British and American English]], with more frequent disyllabic laxing in American English – compare RP and GA pronunciations of ''era'', ''lever'', ''patent'', ''primer'' (book) and ''progress'' (noun), though there are exceptions such as ''leisure'', ''produce'' (noun), ''Tethys'', ''yogurt'' and ''zebra'' that have a short vowel in RP. On the other hand, American English is ''less'' likely to have trisyllabic laxing, for example in words such as ''dynasty'', ''patronize'', ''privacy'' and ''vitamin''. Much of this irregularity is due to [[morphological leveling]].