What is a common example of assimilation?

Nasal place assimilation is common: the nasal in the English prefix 'in-' is pronounced with the lips before a labial sound, as in 'impossible', taking on the place of articulation of the following consonant.

How does coarticulation differ from assimilation?

Coarticulation is the gradient physical overlap of articulatory movements for adjacent sounds, whereas assimilation is typically treated as a categorical change in which one sound adopts a feature of another.

Assimilation and Coarticulation

Assimilation is a process by which a sound becomes more like a neighboring sound, while coarticulation is the overlapping articulation of adjacent sounds in connected speech.

Definition

The process by which a sound takes on features of a neighboring sound (assimilation) and the gradient articulatory overlap of adjacent sounds (coarticulation).

Scope

This topic covers one of the most common types of phonological process. It treats assimilation in features such as place, voicing, and nasality; the direction of spreading (anticipatory or perseverative); and the distinction between categorical phonological assimilation and gradient phonetic coarticulation, which arises from the physical overlap of articulatory gestures. It illustrates these with cases such as nasal place assimilation and vowel harmony as a long-distance instance. The treatment is descriptive and analytic.

Core questions

What features commonly spread in assimilation?
How does anticipatory assimilation differ from perseverative assimilation?
What distinguishes phonological assimilation from phonetic coarticulation?
How do long-distance processes such as harmony relate to local assimilation?

Key theories

Assimilation as feature spreading: The analysis of assimilation as the spreading of a distinctive feature or articulatory node from one segment to an adjacent one, expressed in autosegmental representations as the linking of a feature to an additional segment.

History

Assimilation has been described since antiquity but was formalized in generative phonology as feature-changing or feature-spreading rules, and recast in autosegmental terms as the spreading of features across a representation. Phonetic study clarified the gradient, coarticulatory basis of many such effects.

Debates

Categorical assimilation versus gradient coarticulation: Researchers debate where to draw the line between discrete phonological assimilation and continuous phonetic coarticulation, since many cases show properties of both and the distinction bears on the phonetics-phonology interface.

Key figures

Bruce Hayes
Michael Kenstowicz
Peter Ladefoged

Seminal works

hayes2009
kenstowicz1994

Frequently asked questions

What is a common example of assimilation?: Nasal place assimilation is common: the nasal in the English prefix 'in-' is pronounced with the lips before a labial sound, as in 'impossible', taking on the place of articulation of the following consonant.
How does coarticulation differ from assimilation?: Coarticulation is the gradient physical overlap of articulatory movements for adjacent sounds, whereas assimilation is typically treated as a categorical change in which one sound adopts a feature of another.