Tuesday 1 December 2009

JOINED-UP SPEECH

A s s i m i l a t i o n

As we know assimilation is a part of Joined-up speech, is phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word. A common example of assimilation would be "don't be silly" where the /n/ and /t/ in "don't" are assimilated to /m/ and /p/ by the following /b/, where said naturally in many accents and discourse styles "dombe silly".

In assimilation, the phonological patterning of the language, discourse styles and accent are some of the factors that contribute to changes. If a sound changes with reference to a following segment, it is traditionally called "regressive assimilation", the changes with reference to a preceding segment are traditionally called "progressive". Many find these terms confusing, as they seem to mean the opposite of the intended meaning. Regressive assimilation is also known as right-to-left, leading or anticipatory assimilation. Progressive assimilation is also known as left-to-right or preservative, lagging or lag assimilation.

Direction of assimilation:

Regressive assimilation: this is leftward assimilation; the phone assimilates to a preceding phone.

Progressive assimilation: this is rightward assimilation; the phone assimilation to a following phone

The sound that changes is called the assimilated sound.

The sound that causes the change is called the conditioning sound

Progressive Assimilation

Conditioning Sound Visitar http://electrocor.webcindario.com Assimilated Sound

Regressive Assimilation

Assimilated Sound Conditioning Sound

Let’s see some examples of assimilation in place of articulation to the following consonants:

  1. / t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p /
  2. / d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p /
  3. / n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p /
  4. / t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/
  5. / d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g /
  6. / n / changes to /ŋ/ before / k / or / g /
  7. / s / changes to /ʃ/ before /ʃ/ or / j /
  8. / z / changes to /ʒ/ before /ʃ/ or / j /
  9. /θ/ changes to / s / before / s /

/ t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p /

best man

pocket money

cat burglar

post mortem

cigarette paper

pot plant

coconut butter

court martial

/ d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p /

bad pain

ground plan

blood bank

hold back

good morning

grand master

/ n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p /

action planning

iron man

American plan

open market

brown bear

open book

/ t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/

credit card

short cut

cut glass

fat girl

/ d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g /

bad girl

hard cash

bird call

slide guitar

closed game

red carpet

/ n / changes to /ŋ/ before / k / or / g /

action group

open court

common good

roman calendar

common ground

roman catholic

/ s / changes to /ʃ/ before /ʃ/ or / j / followed by a rounded vowel sound

bus shelter

nice yacht

dress shop

space shuttle

/ z / changes to /ʒ/ before /ʃ/ or / j / followed by a rounded vowel sound

cheese shop

where's yours?

rose show

these sheep

/θ/ changes to / s / before / s /

bath salts

earth science

bath seat

fifth set

birth certificate

fourth season

both sexes

fourth summer

Bibliography

http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/assimilation.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimilation_(linguistics)

1 comment:

  1. Hi Brenda,

    Thanks for your comprehensive explanation of assimilation - but please do remember to use your own words where possible.

    Do you know of any websites where we can hear examples of assimilation? It would be useful to be able to hear some examples in order to understand what happens to the phonemes.

    ReplyDelete