Assimilation Assimilation is a process whereby adjacent consonants become more similar to each other in manner or place of articulation in order to facilitate pronunciation. It can work in both directions, but the anticipatory (or regressive) type is usually assumed to be more common than the perseverative (or progressive) type. In the former, the first consonant becomes more similar to the following one, while in the latter, it is exactly the other way round..

Anticipatory Assimilation As the name implies, in this type of assimilation a consonant changes so as to prepare for/facilitate the pronunciation of the following one. This change may be either in its manner or place of articulation. The following table gives some examples of this type of assimilation, first showing some of intra- word assimilation and then of inter-word assimilation in common combinations of words.

word/co mbinatio n no assimilat ion assimilat ion type of change trigger apprenti ceship [əp ɹɛ nt ɪ s ʃɪ p] [əp ɹɛ nt ɪʃʃ ɪ p alveolar fricative ⇒ palato- alveolar fricativ palato- alveolar fricative

good bye [g ʊ dba ɪ ][g ʊ bba ɪ ] alveolar plosive ⇒ bilabial plosive bilabial plosive good point [g ʊ dp ɔɪ nt][g ʊ bp ɔɪ nt] alveolar plosive ⇒ bilabial plosive bilabial plosive

Ten points [t ɛ np ɔɪ nts] [t ɛ mp ɔɪ nts] alveolar nasal bilabial nasal bilabial plosive thin coat [θ ɪ nkə ʊ t] [θ ɪ ŋkə ʊ t] alveolar nasal velar nasal velar plosive

give me [g ɪ vmi:][g ɪ mm ɪ ] labio- dental fricative ⇒ bilabial nasal bilabial nasal The final example in the table above shows fairly clearly how certain types of assimilation may also become reflected in spelling, i.e. that is represented as.

Perseverative Assimilation Assimilation that ‘goes in the other direction’, i.e. perseverative assimilation, is often said to be rarer than the anticipatory type. However, I am not aware of any study that has actually ever tried to quantify this exactly and the assumption may simply be based on the misleading fact that there are more opportunities for different consonants to assimilate in an anticipatory manner, i.e. that we have a fairly large number of potential types of similar processes.

However, since perseverative assimilation tends to occur with certain highly frequent grammatical features or combinations of function words, we may have a smaller number of types, but actually a very high number of incidences (tokens).

Grammatical Perseverative Assimilation’ The classic examples for this type of assimilation are: the different ‘shapes’ of the plural morpheme {s}, e.g. dogs [d ɒ gz] vs. docks [d ɒ ks] (vs. horses [ho:s ɪ z]), the reduced form of the third person singular form of be, e.g. he’s [hi:z] vs. it’s [ ɪ ts] the possessive marker, e.g. John’s [d ʒɒ nz] vs. Jack’s [d ʒ aks] (vs. Chris’ [k ɹɪ s ɪ z]), the past tense {ed}-form, e.g. carved [k ɑ :vd] vs. worked [w ɜ :kt] (vs. planted [pl ɑ :nt ɪ d]).

th-Dropping’ Another type of perseverative assimilation occurs with high frequency function words, generally determiners, that start with a weak fricative /ð/. As you can see in the table below, this type of assimilation occurs predominantly in a nasal environment, i.e. when the preceding (trigger) consonant is a nasal, although non-nasal consonants may also be involved. The main difference here seems to be that nasal consonants seem to favour a kind of ‘persistent’ assimilation that causes a gemination of the nasal consonant, whereas a non-nasal trigger often only provides a ‘temporary’ basis for later elision of the geminated consonant.

combinat ion no assimilati on assimilati on changetrigger it wasn't there [ ɪ tw ɒ zntð ɛ ə] [ ɪ tw ɒ znn ɛ ə] dental fricative ⇒ alveolar nasal alveolar nasal

in that case [ ɪ nðatke ɪ s] [ ɪ nnakke ɪ s] dental fricative ⇒ alveolar nasal alveolar nasal in this way [ ɪ nð ɪ swe ɪ ] [ ɪ nn ɪ swe ɪ ] dental fricative ⇒ alveolar nasal alveolar nasal

give them [g ɪ vðəm][g ɪ vvəm] dental fricative ⇒ labio- dental fricative labio- dental fricative tell them [t ɛɫ ðəm][t ɛɫɫ əm] dental fricative ⇒ alveolar lateral alveolar lateral