Assimilation (linguistics)

phonological process in linguistics

sound change in vowels in certain languages, most known from but not exclusive to Finnish

metaphony in which a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel

In phonetics, nasalisation (or nasalization in American English) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .

Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Consonants pronounced this way are said to be labialized and are usually transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by affixing a superscript w, , to the base letter. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.

distinction between two groups of Arabic consonants

Coarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound. There are two types of coarticulation: anticipatory coarticulation, when a feature or characteristic of a speech sound is anticipated (assumed) during the production of a preceding speech sound; and carryover or perseverative coarticulation, when the effects of a sound are seen during the production of sound(s) that follow. Many models have been developed to account for coarticulation. They include the look-ahead

sound change that either results in a palatal or palatalized consonant or a front vowel

sound change where phonological segments with distinctive features blend into a single segment

In Slavic languages, iotation ( or ) is a form of palatalization that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with the palatal approximant from the succeeding phoneme. The is represented by iota (ι) in the early Cyrillic alphabet and the Greek alphabet on which it is based. For example, ni in English onion has the sound of iotated n. Iotation is a phenomenon distinct from Slavic first palatalization in which only the front vowels are involved, but the final result is similar.

In historical linguistics, metaphony is a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. The sound change is normally "long-distance" in that the vowel triggering the change may be separated from the affected vowel by several consonants, or sometimes even by several syllables.

phonetic sound change

A labio-palatalized sound is one that is simultaneously labialized and palatalized. Typically the roundedness is compressed, like , rather than protruded like . The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for this secondary articulation is , a superscript , the symbol for the labialized palatal approximant. If such sounds pattern with other, labialized, consonants, they may instead be transcribed as palatalized consonants plus labialization, , as with the = of Abkhaz or the = of Akan and Siberian Ingrian Finnish.

metaphony in Germanic languages, occurring around 450–500, in which vowels are raised or fronted when the following syllable contains /i(ː)/ or /j/; e.g. Engl. foot → feet

long-distance phonological assimilation involving consonants