This document discusses various phonological processes including assimilation, dissimilation, elision, metathesis, apocope, syncope, prothesis, and epenthesis. Assimilation is when a sound changes to become more like an adjacent sound, such as /n/ becoming dental before another dental sound. Dissimilation is the opposite process. Elision, metathesis, apocope, and syncope refer to the loss or reordering of sounds. Prothesis and epenthesis involve adding sounds, such as adding a vowel to break up consonant clusters. Secondary articulations like labialization, palatalization, and velarization can help explain many phonological processes.

1. Phonological Processes

2. • A- Assimilation:
• Definition:
• The process whereby one sound changes to
become more like another sound in its
environment.
• It may involve the realisation of a phoneme by one
allophone rather than another
• (e.g. /n/ is realised as a dental when it occurs
before another dental sound, as in tenth
[ten̪θ](Remember that the place of articulation
of/n/ is ‘alveolar’ and here it has another
secondary articulation that we call dentalisation.
The /n/ is dentalised. Notice the diacritic below it.

3. • Other examples of Assimilation:
• /l/ is realised with labiolisation when it occurs next
to a rounded vowel,e.g. in lose and fool transcribed
phonetically as:
• [l̫u:z] [fu:l ̫]
• A vowel may be realised as voiceless when it occurs
between two voiceless sounds in an unstressed
syllable (remember that all vowels are by nature
voiced): e.g. in the word potato, the first vowel is a
schwa and placed between 2 Voiceless sounds: /p/
and /t/; therefore, it will be devoiced: /pə̥teitəu/
(Notice the small circle, as a diacritic below /ə/ to
show its devoicing).

4. • Assimilation may involve the replacement of one
phoneme by another when a word appears in
certain environments:
• For example:
• ten eggs / ten egz/ but ten minutes /tem minits/,
ten keys /teŋ ki:z/
• I have /ai hӕv/ but I have to /ai hӕf tu/;
• You did /ju: did/ but did you /didʒu:/

5. • Assimilation may be progressive when a sound
changes to become more like a preceding sound
(e.g. did you /didʒu:/
• Or
• It may also be Regressive (anticipatory) when one
sound changes to become more like a following
sound (e.g. /haf tu/).

6. • B- Dissimilation:
• The process whereby one sound changes to become
more unlike (different from) a sound in its
environment. E.g. a voiceless bilabial or velar stop
may be replaced by a glottal stop when the
following sound is also a bilabial or velar stop:
• Soap powder /souʔ paudə/
• Dissimilation may also be progressive or regressive.
• Examples: Back garden that target

7. • A great number of phonological processes can
be explained through secondary articulations.
• Therefore, we will present some of the
secondary articulations that will help us
understand these processes and the
formulation of the phonological rules
embodying them.
•

8. • DEFINITION:
• By secondary articulation it is meant that the
basic speech sounds may be modified in
various ways. These modifications which are
imposed on the primary articulation of a
sound are called secondary articulations.
• eg. Aspiration of voiceless stops is one of
them.

9. • Secondary Articulations:
• 1- labialization:
• It involves lip rounding and a high back tongue
position. Labializing a consonant causes it to take
on a w-like quality. The words ‘quench, quick and
quart all begin with K’s which are labialized.
• Labialization is represented by a superscript [ʷ ].
• In our examples the first sound will be transcribed
phonetically as [kʷ ͪ]; it is both labialized and
aspirated.
• Note: the adjectives labialized and labial must be
kept distinct. The stop /p/ is labial but not
labialized. In ‘pueblo’ it is aspirated and labialized
[pʷ ͪ].

10. • 2- Palatalization
• Consonants may also be modified by extending the
body of the tongue into the high front position.
• This produces a y-like modification called
palatalization.
• Examples:
• The initial sounds of few, hue and mule are all
produced in this manner.
• Compare these sounds with the initial sounds of
fool, hoot, cool, and moon, all of which are made
without palatalization.
• A raised ʸ directly after a symbol indicates
palatalization. The palatalized consonants in our
examples will be represented as: [fʸ], [hʸ],[mʸ]

11. • 3- velarization
• Definition: It is achieved by raising the back of the
tongue toward the velum during articulation.
• Example:
• In English the /l/ sound is pronounced in different
ways according to the environment where it is
found.
• In leap and late it is clear ( a pure alveolar lateral)
but in people it is dark ;it is modified in the way
specified in the definition.
• Velarized sounds are represented by adding the
diacritic [ ̃] or a slash mark to the symbol for the
sound in question. Thus [ ɫ ] and [ Ɨ] indicate a
velarized /l/.

12. • 4- Pharyngealization
• Definition:
• Consonant sounds may be modified by constricting
the pharynx during articulation. This secondary
articulation is called pharyngealization.
• When a secondary pharyngeal constriction is
superimposed upon a consonant articulation, the
diacritic symbol [ ̃] is used. This is the same diacritic
used to denote velarization. It is possible to use the
same diacritic for these two secondary articulations
because velarized and pharyngealized sounds are
very similar and do not seem to be differentiated in
any language. Some put a dot below pharyngealized
sounds: [ḷ]

13. • C- Elision
• This is the process whereby one or more segments
are omitted in certain contexts. The elided segment
may be a consonant (last night /la:s nait/) or a
vowel (police /pli:s/) or a sequence of both (library
/laibri/).
• Consider know, knife,whistle.

14. • D- Metathesis
• It is the process whereby the relative order of
two segments gets reversed, as in slips of the
tongue like /wɔps/ for / wɔsp/ or /ӕminl/ for
/ӕniml/
• Consider Moroccan Arabic words such as:
• /Zəmʕakin/ for /Zəʕmakin/ and /ʕmak/ for
/mʕak/

15. • E- Apocope and Syncope
• The outright loss of segments, particularly in
unstressed syllables, is also a common
process. Different names are given to this
process depending on where in the word it
occurs.

16. • A- Apocope is the loss of a segment or
segments at the end of a word.
• The loss of final ‘r’ in British English and
American English in parts of the East is an
example of Apocope: storing /stɔriŋ/ but store
/stɔ/.

17. • B- Syncope is the loss of a segment or segments
from some part of the word other than the end.
• Compare English words such as: apostle Vs apostolic
; angel Vs angelic
• Apocope and syncope often serve to reduce the
length of clusters.
• For example, in most English dialects, the /sts/
cluster created by suffixing the plural to words such
as post, test is reduced to /ss/ in rapid speech.
• In a number of dialects final ‘pt’ and ‘ct’ /kt/
clusters are simplified by dropping the ‘t’: /slep/
‘slept’; /fӕk/ ‘fact’

18. • F- Prothesis and Epenthesis
• Another way of simplifying clusters is to insert a
vowel between adjacent consonants or to add a
vowel at the beginning or end of a word so as to
create an extra syllable.
• The process which adds a vowel in initial position is
called prothesis.
• That which adds a vowel or consonant in any other
position is known as epenthesis.

19. • Spanish has a prothesis rule that adds /e/ to
prevent the occurrence of word initial sp, st, and
sc clusters.
• Thus, we have espanol ‘spanish’, establir
‘establish’, and escuela ‘school’.
• English has an epenthesis rule that inserts /ə/
between a stem final ‘t’ or ‘d’ and the ‘d’ of the
past tense or past participle ending: added and
rested

20. • Some epenthesis rules insert a consonant rather
than a vowel.
• The /p/ of assumption, redemption, and
warmth/wɔrmpθ/ is such a consonant:
• compare assume, redeem, and warm.
• Though the inserted consonant seems to lengthen
the cluster, it does not make it less natural.