turkish phonology and morphology (türkçe ses ve b‹ç‹mb‹lg‹s‹)

ASSIMILATION
Assimilation is a phonological process whereby one sound becomes like the
neighboring sound. Two types of assimilation processes -- place of articulation
assimilation and voicing assimilation -- are discussed below.
Place of Articulation Assimilation
Consider the following example, ‘Yar›n ‹stanbul’a gidiyorum.’ Focus on the word
‘‹stanbul’. As you say ‘‹stanbul’, notice that the alveolar nasal /n/ preceding the
bilabial stop /b/ is pronounced as a bilabial nasal /m/. If you say the word too
slowly, you probably would not produce a bilabial nasal, but in casual speech
(i.e., at a normal speed) the alveolar nasal is produced as a bilabial nasal. If you
cannot notice it in your own speech, ask someone to say the sentence and watch
their lip as they produce ‘‹stanbul’. /n/ preceding /b/ becomes /m/ due to
coarticulation. In speech, we anticipate (begin to form) a sound while producing
the preceding sound. In this case, while producing /n/ we begin to form /b/ for
which lips come together, resulting in /m/.
There are other such examples where /n/ becomes /m/ when preceding a
bilabial stop:
(8) penbe → pembe anbar → ambar
saklanbaç → saklambaç cünbüfl → cümbüfl
As seen in these examples, this process is reflected in the orthography. ‘‹stanbul’
is an exception as it is written with the letter ‘n’ but this could be because ‘‹stanbul’
is a proper noun.
These are examples of place of articulation assimilation. Place of articulation
assimilation, then, means that the place of articulation of one sound becomes like
the neighboring sound. In words such as ‘sand›k’, ‘tand›r’, ‘mendil’ /n/ is followed
by an alveolar stop. As both /n/ and /d/ are alveolar sounds, there is no change
in the realization of /n/, it remains as an alveolar nasal. When /n/ is followed by
a velar stop /k/ or /g/, /n/ is realized as /N/. Because /N/ is not a distinct phoneme
in Turkish, realization of /n/ as a velar nasal is not reflected in the orthography. If
you say the following words ‘nankör’, ‘dengi’, ‘sanki’, paying attention to what
you are doing with your tongue, you should notice that the back of your tongue
is at the velum for closure thus producing /N/. ‘Antalya’ and ‘Ankara’ may better
illustrate the difference between the two /n/’s. You should notice that the closure
you form for the two /n/ ’s is in different places. The /n/ in Antalya is formed at
the front of the mouth, at the alveolar ridge, while /n/ in Ankara is formed at the
back of the mouth – at the velum (see the section on ‘Allophones of Turkish
Consonants’).
As you may have noticed the examples presented so far are words containing
nasals. That is because place of articulation assimilation is most evident in nasals.
Furthermore, it is the alveolar nasal which undergoes the assimilation process.
Bilabial nasal does not assimilate to the following sound.
(9) fiam –da not * fian –da
kalem –de not * kalen –de
Unit 4 - Phonological Processes in Turkish
Place of articulation assimilation in Turkish is regressive (from right to left;
going backward) in that the consonant following the nasal determines the place of
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