Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

Dictionary of language and linguistics 1002 Change of [g] and [k] to sibilants before palatal sounds, e.g. OE cirice>Mod. Eng.church; or Lat. centum (with initial [k])>Fr. cent (with initial [s]). ( also assimilation,sound change)assimilation [Lat. assimilare ‘to make like(to)’]Articulatory adaptation of one sound to a nearby sound with regard to one or morefeatures ( articulation). Assimilation has numerous aspects. (a) Assimilation can be amatter of (i) the place of articulation, e.g. the n in incomplete pronounced as [ŋ]; (ii) themanner of articulation. e.g./in/>[ir] in irregular); or (iii) the glottal state, e.g. thepronunciation of the plural morpheme {-s} in dogs and cats [kæts]. (This is alsocalled ‘voicing assimilation.’) (b) Depending on the direction of influence in a soundsequence, a distinction is drawn between progressive (or perseverative) assimilation, inwhich a following sound adapts itself to a preceding one (as in vowel harmony), andregressive (or anticipatory) assimilation, in which a preceding sound takes on a feature orfeatures of a following sound (as in umlaut). (c) A distinction is also made betweencomplete and partial assimilation. Complete assimilation describes the leveling of twosounds (as in irregular, above), which is always the case if the sounds are differentiatedby only one feature. Partial assimilation refers to the change of only one of severalfeatures (as in incomplete, above). (d) Assimilation can also be reciprocal (also called ‘bidirectional’or ‘fusional’), when a mutual adaptation occurs, and a third sound replacesthe two original sounds: [ti]>[∫] in nation ['nei∫ən]. (e) If the process involves adjacentsounds, it is a case of contact assimilation. Otherwise it is called distant assimilation. (also coarticulation, labialization, monophthongization, palatalization)ReferencesVennemann, T. 1972. Phonetic detail in assimilation. Problems in Germanic phonology. Lg 48.863–92.phonetics, sound change