Assimilation of alveolar fricatives

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Assimilation

Daniel Jones defines assimilation as “the process of replacing a sound by another under the influence of a third sound which is near to it in the word or sentence”. Assimilations are of two chief kinds, historical and contextual. By a historical assimilation we mean an assimilation which has taken place in the course of development of a language, and by which a word which was once pronounced in a certain way came to be pronounced subsequently in another way, e.g. 

  . By a contextual assimilation we mean one which is occasioned when words are juxtaposed in a sentence, or in the formation of compounds, and by which a word comes to have a pronunciation different from that which it has when said by itself, e.g. 

     .

Source: Jones, Daniel An Outline of English Phonetics- 9th Edition 11th printing Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1993

Assimilation of Alveolar Fricatives

    +          

The palatal semivowel influences the fortis voiceless alveolar fricative so that the fortis voiceless alveolar fricative becomes the fortis voiceless palato-alveolar fricative due to regressive assimilation of place.



The fortis voiceless palato-alveolar fricative influences the palatal semivowel and it becomes the fortis voiceless palato-alveolar fricative due to progressive assimilation of place(from a palatal sound to a palato-alveolar sound); progressive assimilation of manner (from a semivowel- produced by means of a glide- to a fricative- produced by means of a narrowing-); and progressive assimilation of voicelessness (from a voiced consonant -  - to a voiceless consonant -   -).



In this case, one of the identical sounds can be elided (we can also speak of a coalesced sound) because grammar is not involved and the syllable containing the palatal semivowel is not stressed.

     

The palatal semivowel influences the lenis voiced alveolar fricative so that the lenis voiced alveolar fricative becomes the lenis voiced palato-alveolar fricative due to regressive assimilation of place.



The lenis voiced palato-alveolar fricative influences the palatal semivowel and it becomes the lenis voiced palato-alveolar fricative due to progressive assimilation of place(from a palatal sound to a palato-alveolar sound); progressive assimilation of manner (from a semivowel- produced by means of a glide- to a fricative- produced by means of a narrowing-); in this case assimilation of voicelessness does not occur because both sounds are voiced.



In this example, one of the identical sounds can’t be elided because the syllable containing the palatal semivowel is stressed.

    +        

The fortis voiceless palato-alveolar fricative influences the fortis voiceless alveolar fricative and it becomes the fortis voiceless palato-alveolar fricative due to regressive assimilation of place.



In this case one of the identical sounds can’t be elided because the syllable containing the fortis voiceless palato-alveolar fricative is stressed.

    

 

The fortis voiceless palato-alveolar fricative influences the lenis voiced alveolar fricative and it becomes the lenis voiced palato-alveolar fricative



due to regressive assimilation of place. At the same time, there is regressive assimilation of voicelessness so both sounds become voiceless.



In this case, one of the identical sounds can be elided because grammar is not involved and the syllable containing the fortis voiceless palato-alveolar fricative is not stressed.

N. B. When we say that grammar is not involved we mean that the     do not carry grammatical meaning (plurality, the third person singular inflection for the

Present Simple Tense, the inflection for the Genitive Case, and the contracted form of the verb “to be”).

Phonology and Diction II Prof. Adriana Joaquina Falconi