Wiktionary
n. 1 (context linguistics English) The separation of the features of a segment (such as a nasal vowel or palatal consonant) into distinct segments; for example, the separation of a nasal vowel such as /ɑ̃/ into a vowel /ɑ/ and a nasal consonant /n/ (i.e., into /ɑn/) which often occurs when a language which does not use nasal vowels borrows from a language which does use them. 2 The act by which something is unpacked. vb. (present participle of unpack English)
Wikipedia
In historical linguistics and language contact, unpacking is the separation of the features of a segment into distinct segments.
Perhaps the most common example of unpacking is the separation of nasal vowels into vowel plus nasal consonant when borrowed into languages which don't have nasal vowels. This can be seen in English borrowings of French and Portuguese words, such as monsoon from Portuguese monção , but occurs widely, as in Lingala from French "balance". Here the nasality of the vowel is separated out as a nasal consonant. If this didn't happen, the nasality would be lost.
Unpacking occurs not just in borrowings, but within a language over time. Sanskrit syllabic ऋ has become in Hindi, which has no syllabic consonants; the rhoticity is maintained by the , while the syllabic feature is separated out as a vowel.
Usage examples of "unpacking".
Conversely, a more graceful unpacking facilitates further and deeper intuitions, intuitions touching the I and the We and the It domains: not just how to contact the higher Self, but how to see it embraced in culture, embodied in nature, and embedded in social institutions.
Spiritual intuitions do not facilitate the birthing of further intuitions, and thus a special care and thoroughness is required in the unpacking of this Gift of God, this precious spiritual intuition.
The leaflets were beginning to yield some resulys, the five of them worked non-stop, cooking, packing and unpacking the van, delivering, serving and clearing up, taking more bookings.
Idealist movement finally failed, its enduring contributions will, I believe, be part of any graceful unpacking of spiritual intuition for the modern and postmodern world.
Eugenia paused in her unpacking to lean her elbows on the sill and gaze around her.
She put her case down and without unpacking it, went back again out of the hospital and caught a bus out to her home.
You may go upstairs to my room and make sure that Alice is unpacking my case correctly, and when you come down I wish you to get the telephone number of a heart specialist--No, on second thoughts you had better open the letters.
Then he started unpacking some groceries and filling the crate where Timmy had found the candy bars.
He returned to quarters promptly at sixteen hundred and found Scott unpacking the last of his possessions and neatly stowing them away.
The doctor one day was unpacking a book he had bought at Peterborough.
These could also be picked out by their clothing, which was always wrinkled by too many packings and unpackings in airline suitcases too small for all they carried.