Prof Francisco Zabala - 2016 Chameleonic phonemes: Assimilation Some phonemes change one of its three distinctive features to resemble a neighbouring sound As a result, they turn into another phoneme In English, it’s mostly the frequent syllable-final alveolar s+
c+
m that adopt the place of articulation of a following consonant .s Can become bilabial before a bilabial o+
a+
l (or even v for some people) Can become velar before a velar j+
f+
M Can coalesce (i.e merge) with a following i and the result is .c Can become bilabial before a bilabial o+
a+
l (or even v for some people) Can become velar before a velar j+
f+
M Can coalesce (i.e merge) with a following i and the result is .m Can become bilabial before a bilabial o+
a+
l (or even v for some people) Can become velar before a velar j+
f+
M .r Can become palato-alveoalar before a palato-alveolar R+
Y+
sR+
cY+
i Can coalesce (i.e merge) with a following i and the result is .y Can become palato-alveoalar before a palato-alveolar R+
Y+
sR+
cY+
i Can coalesce (i.e merge) with a following i and the result is Transcribe these sentences and find possible cases of assimilation Colour them It was a great game _ They’d been playing for hours when it began to rain _ In my opinion, she did quite well in Maths and Chemistry _ Did you understand what your Dad proposed? _ It wasn’t my brother who pulled you! _ This show can’t be cancelled yet _ This year, the board members haven’t made much progress _ They can’t be in bed by now _ In contrast with what you have said, I don’t believe John could kill me _ 10 I miss your hilarious jokes _ 11 Does she understand Greek? _ 12 Was she in court, by the way? _