Introduction to Russian phonology and word structure Ch 9: Assimilation, part 2: Hardness, softness, and place of articulation

Q&A 2. Which consonants are most likely to cause and undergo assimilative softening and why does this make sense?

Q&A 2. Which consonants are most likely to cause and undergo assimilative softening and why does this make sense? –The dentals and labiodentals are most likely to undergo it, and they along with the palatals are most likely to cause it. This makes sense because sounds at the edges of the mouth are less likely to assimilate to the central palate.

Q&A 3. What can we say about hardness assimilation and Russian orthography?

Q&A 3. What can we say about hardness assimilation and Russian orthography? –Hardness assimilation is always spelled and doesn’t have to concern us at this point in the course

Q&A 4. Where does assimilation of place of articulation occur in Russian? (Hint: try to think about this in terms of natural classes of sounds.)

Q&A 4. Where does assimilation of place of articulation occur in Russian? –Dental fricatives assimilate to palatals and alveopalatals.

Discussion 5. Linguists would call Hamilton’s “discrepancies between spelling and sound” (pp ) instead “consonant cluster simplifications”. Can you explain what sort of cluster simplifications we see here?

Even more fun with transcription 9. Let’s do this on the board…