Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

A-Z 265
The treatment of [a] in the above examples is intended to be indicative of the kind of
regularity found in phonological change but is not meant to be exhaustive.
PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES
The mechanisms by which phonological modifications occur entail changes in the
features of a sound (e.g. voiceless, voiced, plosive, fricative) or the addition, loss or
movement of sound segments. Many such changes are of an anticipatory nature whereby
a modification takes place under the influence of a following sound. For example, the
assimilation of [k]>[t]/__[t] in Latin octo [okto] to Italian otto is of this type, in which
the feature velar is changed to dental before a following dental sound. Compare:
[K] [t]
voiceless voiceless
plosive plosive
velar dental
Other processes of this type include nasalization as in Latin bonum to Portugese bom
[bõ], where a non-nasal vowel acquires the nasality of a following nasal consonant.
Often a velar consonant becomes a palatal consonant under the influence of a
following front vowel that pulls the highest point of the tongue from the velar forward
into the palatal zone as in Old English kin [kIn] and Modern English chin or Latin
centum [kentum] and Italian cento .
A specific kind of assimilation, referred to as sonorization, involves the voicing of
voiceless consonants and appears to be motivated primarily by voiced surroundings. For
example, voiceless [p], [t] and [k] become [b], [d] and [g] in the environment between
vowels, as in the following examples:
Latin >Spanish
cupa cuba [‘kúba] [p]>[b]
vita vida [‘bida] [t]>[d]
arnica amiga [a’miga] [k]>[g]
Assimilation may take place over syllable boundaries, as occurs through the process of
umlaut, or, as it is sometimes called, mutation. The Proto-Germanic form [*musiz] gave
Old English [ ], (Modern English mice), when the vowel in the first syllable was
drawn forward through the influence of the front vowel in the second syllable. Similarly,
Latin feci gave rise to Spanish hice when the influence of the Latin vowel [i] raised [e] to
[i] through assimilation. Final [i] subsequently lowered to [e]. Compare also Latin veni
and Spanish vine.
The opposite of assimilation, dissimilation, modifies a segment so that it becomes less
like another, often neighbouring segment, in the word. Dissimilation is less frequent than
assimilation in the known histories of the world’s languages. The conditioning factor may
be juxtaposed to the sound which undergoes change or may operate at a distance. The