Assimilation

Main Theoretical Concepts:

Assimilation which occurs in everyday speech in the present - day pronunciation is called living.

Assimilation which took place at an earlier stage in the history of the language is called historical.

e.g. question ['kwestjǝn] → ['kwesʧn]

As far as the direction of assimilation is concerned it can be:

1. progressive (A → B), when the 1^st of the 2 sounds affected by the assimilation makes the second sound similar to itself

e.g. what's this - [z] is replaced by [s] under the influence of [t]

2. regressive (A←B), when the preceding consonant is influenced by the one following it.

e.g. news, newspaper - [z] → [s] under the influence of [p]

3. reciprocal, double (A↔B), when two adjacent consonants influence each other

e.g. twenty ['twentI] - [t] becomes labialized under the influence of [w]. [w] is assimilated to the voiceless plosive [t] and is partly devoiced.

Assimilation may be of three degrees:

1. complete: the articulation of the assimilated consonant fully coincides with that of the assimilating one

e.g. horse - shoe (horse + shoe) - [s] changes into [s]

does she - [z] → [S] in rapid speech

2. partial: the assimilated consonant retains its main phonemic features and becomes only partly similar in some feature of its articulation to the assimilating sound.

e.g. [t, d, n, l, s, z] are assimilated to the dental consonants [t, d]

3. intermediate: the assimilated consonant changes into a different sound but does not coincide with the assimilating consonant.

e.g. goose, gooseberry - [s] [z] under the influence of [b]

Assimilation is called contextual if the articulation of a word is changed in combination with other words

e.g. news, newspaper, horse-shoe, etc.

The modification can be conditioned: a) by the complementary distribution of the phonemes; b) by the contextual variations in which phonemes may occur at the junction of words; c) by the style of speech: official or rapid colloquial.

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