As in these examples, sound segments typically assimilate to a following sound,The physiological or psychological mechanisms of coarticulation are unknown; coarticulation is often loosely referred to as a segment being "triggered" by an assimilatory change in another segment. Assimilation occurs in two different types: complete assimilation, in which the sound affected by assimilation becomes exactly the same as the sound causing assimilation, and partial assimilation, in which the sound becomes the same in one or more features, but remains different in other features. For example, in English, the place of articulation of nasals assimilates to that of a following stop (handkerchief is pronounced [hæŋkɚtʃif], handbag in rapid speech is pronounced [hæmbæɡ]). Examples include the following.The rule that we have been considering here can be summed up in the following statement.Word-final /d/ becomes nasal before a nasal, at the same place of articulation as the nasal.As well as word-final /d/ becoming nasal before a nasal, word-final /v/ follows a similar pattern, i.e.Word-final /v/ becomes nasal before a nasal, at the same place of articulation as the nasal. : The assimilation of ethnic Germans in the US was accelerated by the two world wars. In the opposite process, dissimilation, sounds become less similar to one another.

When such a change results in a single segment with some of the features of both components, it is known as coalescence or fusion.

Although all four occur, changes in regard to a following adjacent segment account for virtually all assimilatory changes (and most of the regular ones).If a sound changes with reference to a following segment, it is traditionally called "regressive assimilation"; changes with reference to a preceding segment are traditionally called "progressive".Occasionally, two sounds (invariably adjacent) may influence one another in reciprocal assimilation.
In assimilation, the phonological patterning of the language, discourse styles and accent are some of the factors contributing to changes observed.


There are four configurations found in assimilations:

Assimilation can be viewed as a reduction or loss of the assimilation target’s place cue (/n/ in ten), and simultaneously as an enhancement of the assimilation trigger’s place cue (/b/ in bucks) by spreading its place cue earlier in the signal.

We will consider three types of assimilation of place: assimilation to bilabial place © Another example of a regular change is the sibilant assimilation of Lag assimilation at a distance is rare, and usually sporadic (except when part of something bigger, as in the Sanskrit "Assimilation (linguistics)" redirects here. Nasal place assimilation, one of the more common phonological processes found in natural languages, occurs when a nasal phoneme assimilates the place features of another consonant in its environment. / əˌsɪm.əˈleɪ.ʃ ə n / assimilation noun [U] (INTO GROUP) the process of becoming a part, or making someone become a part, of a group, country, society, etc. However, the diverse and common assimilations known as Examples: in the history of English, a back vowel becomes front if a high front vowel or semivowel (*i, ī, j) is in the following syllable, and a front vowel becomes higher, if it is not already high: For assimilation of speakers of two different languages, see

In fact, these assimilations of place and manner occur whenever a word-final /d/ appears before a nasal across a word boundary.

As we pointed out in the introduction to this section, as well as assimilation of voice and assimilation of place, it is also possible to find examples of the assimilation of manner of articulation. Assimilation is a general term in phonetics for the process by which a speech sound becomes similar or identical to a neighboring sound. Anticipatory assimilation to an adjacent segment is the most common type of assimilation by far, and typically has the character of a conditioned sound change, i.e., it applies to the whole lexicon or part of it. SLTinfo The term "assimilation" comes from the … Consider the following phrase:In a context such as this, in which /d/ appears word-finally immediately prior to a nasal across a word boundary, the /d/ becomes a nasal, i.e.Note that this assimilatory process creates new phonemes at the same place of articulation as the nasal. Hence, a voiced alveolar plosive is transformed through an assimilatory process into a voiced bilabial nasal.

One of the most pervasive types of phonemic assimilation that involves assimilations of place is de-alveolar assimilation. Anticipatory assimilation at a distance is rare, and usually merely an accident in the history of a specific word.



This can be summarized as follows. 2008 - 2020 This occurs when an alveolar sound in word-final position is followed across a word boundary by a consonant in word-initial position.