Affection (linguistics)

In Celtic linguistics, affection (also known as vowel affection or infection) is the change in the quality of a vowel under the influence of the vowel of the following, final syllable. Subsequently, the vowel triggering the change was normally lost.

The two main types of affection are a-infection and i-infection. i-infection is an example of i-mutation, and may be compared to Germanic umlaut. More rarely, the term "affection" (like "umlaut") may be heard applied to other languages, and is then a synonym for i-mutation generally.

See also

• Apocope
• Metaphony
• I-mutation