Paragoge is the addition of a sound to the end of a word. Often, this is due to nativization, and a logical counterpart of epenthesis, particularly vocalic epenthesis.

Diachronic paragoge

Some languages have undergone paragoge as a sound change, so that modern forms are longer than the historical forms they are derived from. Italian sono 'I am' from Latin SUM is an example.

Paragoge in loanwords

Languages that do not allow words to end in consonants, or do not allow certain consonants to occur word-finally, will add a dummy vowel to the end of loanwords from other languages that include an illegal final consonant. For example, English rack becomes Finnish räkki and Japanese rakku. Similarly, Arabic ‘araq became raki in Modern Greek.

References

• Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.