CHAPTER 2:

ARTICULATORY PHONETICS
Coarticulation
• Highly variable and overlapping motor movements
• Phonetic contexts influence each other
• We are preparing for the next sounds as we are completing current
sounds
• Articulators are continually moving into position
• Think about your tongue position and your lip position:
• “pay”/”play”, “sue”/”see”
• We are anticipating the upcoming sounds and timing our
movements as we speak.
Assimilation (harmony) processes
• Adaptive articulatory changes
• One sound becomes similar or even identical to a neighboring
sound
• Part of typical speech development
• Occur naturally
• Change to one or more of a sound’s phonetic
constituents:
• Active and passive articulators (place)
• Manner
• Voicing
Types and degrees of assimilation
• Types
• Contact/contiguous
• Remote/noncontiguous
• Progressive/perseverative
• Regressive/anticipatory

• Degree
• Total
• Sounds become identical
• Partial
• Sound changes to match characteristics of other sound
Contact vs Remote
• Contiguous
• Changed segment is directly adjacent to the influencing
segment

• “skunk”
• /skʌŋk/ becomes [stʌŋk]
• Velar /k/ becomes alveolar [t] due to influence of
alveolar /s/ before it
• Progressive
• Partial
s t i
Contact vs Remote
• Non-contiguous
• At least one other segment in between the changed
segment and the influencing segment

• “yellow”
• /jɛ.lo͡ʊ/ becomes [lɛ.lo͡ʊ]
• /j/ becomes [l] due to influence of /l/ that is at the end of
the syllable
• Regressive
• Total
Assimilation: Progressive and Regressive
• Assimilation: sounds become more similar to each other
• Progressive
• “skunk” becomes “stunk”
• Perseverative assimilation
• Sound segment influences the following sound
• left to right movement
• Previous sound segment changes an upcoming sound
• Regressive
• “yellow” becomes “lellow”
• Anticipatory assimilation
• Sound segment influences a preceding sound
Progressive
• Perseverative
• Changed segment is influenced by the sound that came
before it

• “jumping”
• /d͡ʒʌm.pɪŋ/ becomes [d͡ʒʌm.bɪŋ]
• Voiceless /p/ becomes voiced [b] due to influence of
voiced /m/
• Contact
• Partial
Regressive
• Anticipatory
• Changed segment is influenced by the sound that will
come after it

• “pumpkin”
• /pʌm.kɪn/ becomes [pʌŋ.kɪn]
• Bilabial /m/ becomes velar [ŋ] due to influence of velar /k/
• Contact
• Partial
Assimilation: Total vs Partial
• Assimilation: sounds become more similar to each other
• Total = Exactly alike
• “yellow” becomes “lellow”
• The changed sound and the influencing segment become exactly
alike
• Partial = kind of alike (but not identical)
• “skunk” becomes “stunk”
• The changed sound and the influencing segment become similar in
one or more characteristics, but NOT the exact same sound
Practice

Create a list of two examples for each of the assimilation

patterns below:
• remote progressive total assimilation
• remote progressive partial assimilation
• contact progressive total assimilation
• contact progressive partial assimilation
• remote regressive total assimilation
• remote regressive partial assimilation
• contact regressive total assimilation
• contact regressive partial assimilation