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| Sound change and alternation |
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| Fortition |
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In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization.
A characteristic of Mashreqi varieties of Arabic (particularly Levantine and Egyptian) is to assibilate the interdental consonants of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in certain contexts (defined more culturally than phonotactically). Thus, ṯāʾ , pronounced [ θ ] in MSA, becomes [ s ] (as MSA /θaqaːfah/ → Levantine /saqaːfeh/ "culture"); ḏāl , pronounced [ ð ] in MSA, becomes [ z ] (as MSA /ðanb/ → Levantine /zamb/ "guilt"); and ẓāʾ , pronounced [ ðˤ ] in MSA, becomes [ zˤ ] (as MSA /maħðˤuːðˤ/ → Levantine /maħzˤuːzˤ/ "lucky").
Diachronically, the phoneme represented by the letter ǧīm has, in some dialects, experienced assibilation as well. The pronunciation in Classical Arabic is reconstructed to have been [ɡʲ] or [ ɟ ] (or perhaps both dialectically); it is cognate to [ ɡ ] in most other Semitic languages, and it is understood to be derived from that sound in Proto-Semitic. It has experienced extensive change in pronunciation over the centuries, and is pronounced at least six different ways across the assorted varieties of Arabic. A common one is [ ʒ ], the result of a process of palatalization starting with Proto-West Semitic [ ɡ ], then [ɡʲ] or [ ɟ ], then [ d͡ʒ ] (a pronunciation still current) and finally [ ʒ ] (in Levantine and non-Algerian Maghrebi). The last pronunciation is considered acceptable for use in MSA, along with [ ɡ ] and [ d͡ʒ ].
In the history of several Bantu groups, including the Southern Bantu languages, the Proto-Bantu consonant *k was palatalised before a close or near-close vowel. Thus, the class 7 noun prefix *kɪ̀- appears in e.g. Zulu as isi-, Sotho as se-, Venda as tshi- and Shona as chi-.
Finnic languages (Finnish, Estonian and their closest relatives) had *ti changed to /si/. The alternation can be seen in dialectal and inflected word forms: Finnish kieltää "to deny" → kielti ~ kielsi "s/he denied"; vesi "water" vs. vete-nä "as water".
An intermediate stage /ts/ is preserved in South Estonian in certain cases: tsiga "pig", vs. Finnish sika, Standard (North) Estonian siga.
In the High German consonant shift, voiceless stops /p, t, k/ spirantized to /f, s, x/ at the end of a syllable. The shift of /t/ to /s/ (as in English water, German Wasser) is assibilation.
Assibilation occurs without palatalization for some speakers of African American Vernacular English in which /θ/ is alveolarized to /s/ when it occurs at the end of a syllable and within a word before another consonant, leading to such pronunciations as the following: [1]
| bathroom | - /ˈbæs.ruːm/ |
| birthday | - /ˈbɝs.deɪ/ |
In Proto-Greek, the earlier combinations *ty, *thy and *dy assibilated to become alveolar affricates, *ts and *dz, in what is called the first palatalization. Later, a second round of palatalization occurred and initially produced geminate palatal *ťť and *ďď from various consonants, followed by *y. The former was depalatalised to plain geminate tt in some dialects and was assibilated to ss in others. The latter evolved into an affricate dz in all Greek dialects:
Some Greek dialects later underwent yet another round of assibilation. *ti shifted to /si/ finally in Attic and Ionic [2] but not in Doric. [3]
The word "assibilation" itself contains an example of the phenomenon, as it is pronounced /əˌsɪbɪˈleɪʃən/ . The Classical Latin -tio was pronounced /tioː/ (for example, assibilatio was pronounced /asːiːbilaːtioː/ and attentio/atːentioː/). However, in Vulgar Latin, it assibilated to /tsioː/, which can still be seen in Italian: attenzione.
In French, lenition then gave /sj/ (like attentionmodern/a.tɑ̃.sjɔ̃/)., which was further palatalized in the English derived words to /ʃ/ (like attention/əˈtɛn.ʃən/).
Most dialects of Quebec French apply a more recent assibilation to all dental plosive consonants immediately before high front vowels and associated semivowels, so that the sequences /di dj dy dɥ ti tj ty tɥ/ become pronounced /dzi dzj dzy dzɥ tsi tsj tsy tsɥ/ respectively.
Assibilation can occur in some varieties of Spanish such as in Ecuador and Mexico. It is closely related to the phonetic term sibilation. [4]
Palatalization effects were widespread in the history of Proto-Slavic. In the first palatalization, various consonants were converted into postalveolar fricatives and affricates, while in the second and third palatalizations, the results were alveolar.
Some Slavic languages underwent yet another round of palatalisation. In Polish, in particular, dental consonants became alveolo-palatal fricatives and affricates when followed by a front vowel.
Modern Hebrew is phonetically simpler than Biblical Hebrew and has fewer phonemes, but it is phonologically more complex. It has 25 to 27 consonants and 5 to 10 vowels, depending on the speaker and the analysis.
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation. It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, and, often spelled ch and j, respectively.
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, and genre. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to denote the sibilant sounds in these words are, respectively,. Sibilants have a characteristically intense sound, which accounts for their paralinguistic use in getting one's attention.
A caron, háček or haček also known as a hachek, wedge, check, kvačica, strešica, mäkčeň, varnelė, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, flying bird, inverted chevron, is a diacritic mark (◌̌) commonly placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation.
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme, or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined.
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening". Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically. Lenition can involve such changes as voicing a voiceless consonant, causing a consonant to relax occlusion, to lose its place of articulation, or even causing a consonant to disappear entirely.
The phonology of Catalan, a Romance language, has a certain degree of dialectal variation. Although there are two standard varieties, one based on Central Eastern dialect and another one based on South-Western or Valencian dialect, this article deals with features of all or most dialects, as well as regional pronunciation differences. Various studies have focused on different Catalan varieties; for example, Wheeler and Mascaró analyze Central Eastern varieties, the former focusing on the educated speech of Barcelona and the latter focusing more on the vernacular of Barcelona, and Recasens does a careful phonetic study of Central Eastern Catalan.
The first Slovak orthography was proposed by Anton Bernolák (1762–1813) in his Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum, used in the six-volume Slovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian Dictionary (1825–1927) and used primarily by Slovak Catholics.
The phonology of the Hungarian language is notable for its process of vowel harmony, the frequent occurrence of geminate consonants and the presence of otherwise uncommon palatal stops.
Ancient Greek phonology is the reconstructed phonology or pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This article mostly deals with the pronunciation of the standard Attic dialect of the fifth century BC, used by Plato and other Classical Greek writers, and touches on other dialects spoken at the same time or earlier. The pronunciation of Ancient Greek is not known from direct observation, but determined from other types of evidence. Some details regarding the pronunciation of Attic Greek and other Ancient Greek dialects are unknown, but it is generally agreed that Attic Greek had certain features not present in English or Modern Greek, such as a three-way distinction between voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; a distinction between single and double consonants and short and long vowels in most positions in a word; and a word accent that involved pitch.
The phonological system of the Polish language is similar in many ways to those of other Slavic languages, although there are some characteristic features found in only a few other languages of the family, such as contrasting postalveolar and alveolo-palatal fricatives and affricates. The vowel system is relatively simple, with just six oral monophthongs and arguably two nasals in traditional speech, while the consonant system is much more complex.
There is significant phonological variation among the various Yiddish dialects. The description that follows is of a modern Standard Yiddish that was devised during the early 20th century and is frequently encountered in pedagogical contexts.
The phonological system of the modern Belarusian language consists of at least 44 phonemes: 5 vowels and 39 consonants. Consonants may also be geminated. There is no absolute agreement on the number of phonemes; rarer or contextually variant sounds are included by some scholars.
The phonology of Sesotho and those of the other Sotho–Tswana languages are radically different from those of "older" or more "stereotypical" Bantu languages. Modern Sesotho in particular has very mixed origins inheriting many words and idioms from non-Sotho–Tswana languages.
Lithuanian has eleven vowels and 45 consonants, including 22 pairs of consonants distinguished by the presence or absence of palatalization. Most vowels come in pairs which are differentiated through length and degree of centralization.
Begadkefat is the name given to a phenomenon of lenition affecting the non-emphatic stop consonants of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not geminated. The name is also given to similar cases of spirantization of post-vocalic plosives in other languages; for instance, in the Berber language of Djerba. Celtic languages have a similar system.
The central northeastern dialect of Brazilian Portuguese is a dialect spoken in the central part of the Northeast Region, Brazil, in all the states of Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Alagoas and Sergipe, much of the state of Pernambuco, north of Bahia, south of Ceará, southeastern of Piauí and a few regions of Maranhão. It has roughly about 53,078,137 native speakers and varies within the region. This dialect shares similarities between north coast, Baiano and Recifense dialects.
Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation of a consonant or, in certain cases, a front vowel. Palatalization involves change in the place or manner of articulation of consonants, or the fronting or raising of vowels. In some cases, palatalization involves assimilation or lenition.
Kurdish phonology is the sound system of the Kurdish dialect continuum. This article includes the phonology of the three largest Kurdish dialects in their respective standard descriptions. Phonological features include the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops, and the large phoneme inventories.
The Cornish language separated from the southwestern dialect of Common Brittonic at some point between 600 and 1000 AD. The phonological similarity of the Cornish, Welsh, and Breton languages during this period is reflected in their writing systems, and in some cases it is not possible to distinguish these languages orthographically. However, by the time it had ceased to be spoken as a community language around 1800 the Cornish language had undergone significant phonological changes, resulting in a number of unique features which distinguish it from the other neo-Brittonic languages.