Assimilation and Dissimilation in language

1. ASSIMILATION AND DISSIMILATION

2. ASSIMILATION
WHEN A WORD’S PRONUNCIATION IS
AFFECTED BY SOUNDS IN A
NEIGHBOURING WORD, WE CAL THIS
PROCESS AS ASSIMILATION.

3. TYPES OF ASSIMILATION

4. DIRECTION OF CHANGE
1) REGRESSIVE : The sounds assimilate dare
influenced by the succeeding sounds.
2) PROGRESSIVE : The sounds assimilated
are affected by the pronunciation on of
the preceding sounds.
3) COALESCENT :The first sound and the
second sound come together to create a
third sound with features from both
original sounds.

5. PROGRESSIVE
The phoneme that comes first affects the
one that comes after it.
EXAMPLE : Those years

6. PRONUNCIATION OF PLURALS
VOICED SOUNDS:
girls
pictures
knees
wives
ourselves

7. UNVOICED SOUNDS :
cups
sports
snakes
reefs
dogs

8. EXCEPTION :
houses
buses
dishes
boxes
dresses

9. REGRESSIVE
The sounds assimilated are influenced by the
following sounds.
EXAMPLE :
This year
Bright colour
Light blue
Newspaper
Gooseberry
Five pence

10. COALESCENT
It is a type of reciprocal assimilation
in which sound A + sound B = sound
C
/S/ + /Y/
Issue
Pleasure
Stature
Procedure

11. CONSONANT CHANGE
1) ASSIMILATION OF VOICING : It consists in the
voicing or devoicing of a segment. Eg : Have to ,
bad tongue, big car.
2) ASSIMILATION MANNER OF ARTICULATION : It
occurs when sound changes the manner of its
articulation to become similar in manner to a
neighbouring sound. Eg : Good night
3) ASSIMILATION PLACE OF ARTICULATION : It is
noticeable in the regressive assimilation of
alveolar consonants.

12. DISSIMILATION
THIS PROCESS OCCURS WHEN ADJACENT
SOUNDS BECOME MORE DIFFERENT FROM
EACH OTHER.

13. LATIN DISSIMILATION RULE:
[ +lateral] in suffix becomes [-lateral] when
the morpheme contains [+lateral] phoneme.
Example : Alternative between alis and aris
navalis ‘naval’ regalis ‘royal’
popularis ‘popular’ stellaris ‘stellar’
Reflected in alternative between al and ar
in english.