Assimilation – a sound takes on the characteristics
adjectives ending in –ly such as lively or
of a neighboring sound.
Assimilation in the point of articulation: a sound may
change to take on the position of a preceding or
following sound.
Assimilation in the manner of articulation : a sound
may change to take on the manner of articulation of
a preceding or following sound.
Progressive assimilation: the assimilated sound
follows the conditioning sound.
Eg. Pluralizer s : preceded by voiceless /s/, or by
preceded by voiced consonant /d/
Regressive assimilation : the assimilated segment
precedes the conditioning item.
E.g. assimilated negative prefix: indirect
The nasal is the assimilated segment, and first
segment of the word base is the conditioning
segment.
Vowel harmony : the vowel of one syllable take on
the quality of a vowel in another syllable.
Consonant harmony: occurs quite frequently in
phonologies of young children. The initial consonant
is changed to the form of the following consonant.
This is a type of non-contiguous regressive
consonant assimilation.
Dissimilation: refers to the process in which the
segments change to become less like a neighboring
segment.
Neutralization: result in the cancellation of
contrasts between phonological units. Two or more
units that ordinarily contrast lose that contrast in
certain environments. The process changes the form
of one unit to that of the other.
E.g. vowel reduction: vowels in unstressed syllables
may become a schwa.
Deletion: units which occur in some context are lost
in others. Change the syllable structure of a word,
thereby creating preferred types of syllable patterns.
Break consonant cluster
Haplology : an entire syllable is lost when it is
identical to another syllable. It is a process that
causes two identical syllables to become different, in
the sense that one remains intact while the other is
lost. It is referred to as a specialized type of
dissimilation.
e.g.
friendly. (he is a lively person). When these are used
as adverbs, the addition of the normal adverbial
suffix - ly results in two identical syllables –ly-ly.
One of these is deleted, for we do not use adverbial
forms such as livelily but rather would say He
stepped lively.
Several processes referring to the deletion of a vowel
or a syllable when it is unstressed.
Aphesis refers to the loss of an unstressed
initial vowel or syllable.
Eg. ‘ bout for about or ‘round for around and
‘ cause for because
Syncope is the loss of a medial vowel or
syllable.
Eg. Chocolate – choc’late, Evening as ev’ning
, battery as batt’ry
Apocope is the loss of a final vowel or
syllable.
E.g. derivation of sing from old English
singan, or find from finde.
Coalescence: a specialized process which involves
both assimilation and deletion, two or more
segments can be replaced by one segment that
shares characteristics of each of the original
segments.
E.g. attachment of the –ion suffix. ; or SEE
ENGLISH 3 BOOK FOR EXAMPLES.
Epenthesis: inserting a sound segment into a form.
Both vowels and consonants may be inserted .
E.g. buses – b^sIz; dishes – diSIz;
The vowel of /IZ/ is inserted between sibilants.
Metathesis: change of the linear order of segments
by permutations of one type or another. When two
segments reverse.
E.g. ask as aks.
Spoonerisms involved metathesis.