ELS 1203: English Phonology and Morphology

Phonological Processes:

Voicing and Coalescence

Prepared by:

Dasig, Jose Antonio

Kwak, Yelin

Numaguchi, Naomi

ELS-1 T/TH 7:30 am – 9:00 am

Submitted to:

Prof. Christy Constantino

 I. Introduction

The phonological processes – Coalescence and Voicing

The phonological processes are the sound patterns that are typically present among
developing children in order to simplify speech as they are learn to speak. These processes
occur due to a lack coordination among speech articulators which is considered as normal
unless they go beyond a certain age. A four - year old, for example, who would still utter “wawa”
instead of “water”, is still using the process of “reduplication” and can be considered delayed
considering this phonological process tends to go away by the age of 3. According to Ingram
(1989), within language acquisition, there are three common theories of child language
perception. One of those three theories is the Global perception theory, which suggests that the
child cannot perceive many adult speech sounds so they use their own system of language
which further leads to the phonological processes. Assimilation is one of common types of
phonological processes by which one sound becomes more similar to other nearby sounds. It is
considered as an everyday occurrence in every human language, and it is particularly common
for nasal sounds (McMahon, 2002, p. 4). This aims to focus on and define the two specific
processes for Assimilation which deals with the sound change of phonemes due to the influence
of its phonological environment commonly referred to as Voicing (Sonorization) and De –
voicing (De-Sonorization). In addition, the paper will also talk about Coalescence which is
considered to also be a process of assimilation involving sound change and how it relates to a
child’s developing phonological capacity.

II. Data

Coalescence – A process of Sound change

Coalescence in linguistics is defined as the phonological process of sound change by

which two neighboring sounds merge into one single sound that has properties of each of the
two original sounds. It can occur for both consonants and vowels. Often, the resulting sound has
the place of articulation of one of the source sounds and the manner of articulation of the other.
In English, coalescence occurs when a morpheme final alveolar plosive or fricative /t, d/ or /s, z/
is followed by [j], a palato – alveolar fricative, results mostly when the segment is followed by
the suffix “-ion” (Eka et al. 2010, p.66). A typical example is ‘televise’ + ‘ion’. In the interaction
between /s/ and /ɪ/, that occurs while turning the verb to the noun form, results in /ʒ/, which
gives /tɛlɪvɪʒn/ (Jolayemi, 2010, p.101). Another example for Coalescence can be found in the
word “sandwich”.

/sænwItʃ/ becomes /sæmItʃ/ when a child utters. Here the new sound, [m], was formed with a
combination of nasal qualities of [n] and the bilabial influence of [w]. In relation to this example,
allowing for the fact that adults tend to speak relatively slowly to young children (Broen,1972), it
can be shown that the young children process speech at phenomenal rate than adults.
Morpheme final /t/, /d/, /s/, and /z/ and a following glide are replaced by the Alveopalatal
fricatives /ʒ/ and /ʃ/.

Examples:

sing /sɪŋ/
graduate /'grædʒu:eɪt/
measure /'mɛʒər/
relation / riˈleɪʃən/
educate /'ɛdʒu:keɪt/

Coalescence is also considered a feature of connected speech as a merger between

two segments can occur between word boundaries. An example for this would be the phrase
“next year” sounding almost identical to “necks cheer”. The final /t/ sound in a word and the
initial /j/ sound in the following word combine to make the /tʃ/ sound. Given below are a few
more examples of Coalescence in connected speech.

Examples:

Lost youth /lɔstʃuθ/

She must use it /mʌstʃuz/

They promised you. /'praməstʃu/

The ‘Yod’ and ‘u’ Coalescence

Throughout history, the alveolar plosives (/t/, /d/) and fricatives (/s/, /z/) have combined
with /j/, as seen with the above examples, in a process referred to as the yod coalescence. It is

a process wherein the clusters /dj, tj, sj, zj/ are palatized into [dʒ, tʃ, ʃ, ʒ] respectively. The first
two given examples are attributed towards affrication.

/tj/ → [tʃ] in most words ending -ture, such as nature [ˈneɪtʃər]

/dj/ → [dʒ] in soldier [ˈsoʊldʒər]

/sj/ → [ʃ] in words ending -ssure, such as pressure [ˈprɛʃər] (also in words ending
consonant+sure, consonant+sion, -tion)

/zj/ → [ʒ] in words ending vowel+sure, such as measure [ˈmɛʒər] (also vowel+sion)

Another coalescence which involves a combination of alveolar plosive/fricative and

usually a <u> in spelling, but without relying on a graphemic indication of an intervening semi –
vowel (e.g. <y>) has been coined as the ‘U – coalescence’ (Weisser, 2013). It naturally occurs
in words like tune, dune, fortune, produce, reduce, deduce, century, nature, natural, unusual,
usual, mixture, texture, picture, pressure, creature, opportunity, situation, actually, pleasure or
treasure. Speech sounds in context are influenced by suprasegmental or prosodic features.
These features, which include pitch, loudness, and tempo, extend over more than one segment.
According to a study conducted by Katie Yeh (2011), the age by which coalescence is
eliminated is not certain. Many children still possess the trait even through adolescence.
However, she did mention that around ages 5 – 7, children tended to shy away from using it as
they begin to develop better articulation for words but the trait is not completely forgotten
(Hanks, 2013).

Consonant Voicing and Devoicing

Voicing (or Sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due
to the influence of its phonological environment, shift in the opposite direction is referred to
as Devoicing (or Desonorization). Most commonly, the change is often attributed to sound
assimilation with an adjacent sound of opposite voicing, but it may also occur at the end of the word
or in contact with a specific vowel (Crystal, 2011).

Examples:

belief – believe bath ([θ]) - bathe ([ð])

dog + s → dogs ([ɡz]) miss + ed → missed ([st])

life – live breath ([θ]) - breathe ([ð])

The diacritic /t̬ / is used when a voiceless phoneme is produced with partial voicing. Words such

as “better” - /bɛt̬ ɚ/ and “kitty” - /kɪt̬ i/. These words showcase that the voiceless /t/ becomes
partially voiced due to the voiced environment provided by the its surrounding phonemes. The
assimilation however, does not result in a voiced /d/ (Hoff, 2013). On the other hand, within
certain phonemic environments, phonemes that are normally voiced become less voiced. This
sound change is called devoicing. Phonemes that are devoiced are not completely voiceless
since some voicing are still attributed to them. Devoicing occurs when one of the

approximants /w, r or j/ follows a voiceless consonant. Examples for this include “pray” - /pr̥eɪ/,
“few” - /fj̥u/, “clip” - /kl̥ ɪp/ and “queen” - /kw̥in/. Words that end with a voice fricative or an
affricate may also become devoiced if silence follows the word, that is, if they are at the end of

an utterance (Cruttenden, 2001). E.g. /bædʒ̥/, /wʌz̥/, /lʌv̥/. With regards to connected
speech, when a word ends with a voiced fricative is followed by a word that starts with a
voiceless consonant, the fricative also may become voiced (Cruttenden, 2001).

Context-sensitive Voicing and word – final devoicing

Children between the ages of 2~3 years appear to find it easier to produce voiced
consonants when they appear before a vowel. The reason for this is thought to be because the
voicing of the consonant anticipates the immediately following voicing of the vowel. The child
appears abler to commence and sustain the vibration of the vocal folds for the consonant when
this is carried through into the immediately succeeding vowel. It is potentially easier for a young
child to say /bi/ than /pi/ because both the /b/ and /i/ are voiced in /bi/ whereas there is a change
from voiceless /p/ to voiced /i/ in /pi/.

Example:

Tea /ti/  /di/

Thin /θɪn/  /ðɪn/
Sun /sʌn/  /zʌn/

In contrast to this, children of the same age seem to find the production of voiceless
consonants simpler than the production of voiced consonants when they occur at the end of
words. Accordingly, the young child may find it easier to say /kæp/ than /kæb/. The final
consonant /b/ has been devoiced to its voiceless counterpart /p/. In sum, this is an anticipatory
(regressive) process in which the affected segment anticipates the influence of the upcoming
segment that will cause the assimilation. As with context-sensitive voicing, word-final de-voicing
is also eradicated in most children by 3 years of age (Williamson, G. 2016).

Examples:
bed /bɛd/  /bɛt/
nose /nəʊz/  /nəʊs/
bag /bæg/  /bæk/

With regards to phonological rules, ‘s’ is pronounced as /s/ after all voiceless consonants
and pronounced /z/ after all voiced sounds. When two consonants are together in a word, they
match in terms of voicing. Children seem to be aware of this phonological property of English at
a young age. In an experiment conducted by Jean Berko (1958), he presented children with
novel words like wug and rick and found that, by the age of 4, children were able to correctly
indicate that the plural of wug was wug + /z/ and that the past tense of rick was rick + /t/.
Children have been noted to follow this rule even when get the rest of the word wrong.

III. Conclusion

With the data gathered from the different researches we could see that children do indeed
possess an unconscious knowledge towards the phonological aspects of English. Many
factors might affect this such as their education and social environment. We could also
surmise that when an adults know a language, they know, among other things, what sounds
their language uses, what sound distinctions, signal meaning distinctions, and what

sequences for sounds can be used. To be able to discuss the phonological development
among children, we need to ask is when do children acquire these aforementioned traits.
When a child begins to speak, phonological development follows and therefore guidance is
albeit necessary for these critical ages for learning a language. Phonological processes are
here to show us how children learn a language. They are patterns for us to study and be
able to help children in developing their speech. Through these processes we could
diagnose whether a child has a phonological disorder through excessive use of these
processes. In the case of voicing and coalescence, children tend to have the phonological
rules from the moment of speech but they lack properly developed articulators. Targeting a
specific phonological process that a child has difficulty with can be beneficial in the long run
as one phonological problem may lead to another because of the connected nature of
speech.
References:

Bauman-Waengler, J. (2009). Introduction to phonetics and phonology: from

concepts to transcription.
Boston, MA: Pearson.Carr, P. (2008). A glossary of phonology. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Crystal, D. (2011). A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.Knight, R.-A. (2012). Phonetics: a coursebook. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Saxton, M. (2017). Child language: acquisition and development. London: SAGE
Publications Ltd.Small
L. H. (2019). Fundamentals of phonetics: a practical guide for students. Boston:
Pearson Education, Inc.
Hoff – Ginsberg (2013). Language Development. Cengage Learning Ltd.
Cruttenden, A. (1994). Gimson’s Pronunciation of English (5th ed.). London:
Edward Arnold.
Ingram, D (1989). First language acquisition: method, description, and
explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Hanks, H. (2013). What are phonological processes? Retrived from:
http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/?p=2158

Williamson G. (2016). Voicing Change. Retrieved from:

https://www.sltinfo.com/phon101-voicing-change/

Weisser, M. (2013). Coalescence. Retrieved from:

http://martinweisser.org/courses/phonetics/connect/coalescence.html
Exercises for the Phonological Processes.

Coalescence:

Give an example (1 word) for both Yod and /u/ coalescence.

Transcribe then underline where the sound - change
occurred.
Example: graduate - /'grædʒu:eɪt/

Voicing:

Identify if the given transcriptions are voiced or devoiced.

1. /kw̥in/ - queen
2. /pɛs̬tɚ/ - pester
3. /bæʤ̥/ - badge (used at the end of an utterance)