Phonology (II) Consonant Clusters, Assimilation, Metathesis

Reported by: Kevin Cedrick R. Castro

two or more consonants in a sequence without any vowels between them

Consonant Clusters

Examples:

Consonant clusters Words

/sp/ speak, spot

/skr/ scrape, scream

/st/ question, investigation

/ry/ crying, trying

/nt/ meant, development

/ld/ child, bald

Consonant Clusters

Two (2) ways in which children may simplify consonant clusters:

◦ Omission of one or more consonants

◦ Operation of a type of feature synthesis

Consonant Clusters

◦ /s/ + consonant consonant

◦ consonant + /lrwj/ consonant

◦ /s/ + consonant + /lrwj/ consonant

Consonant Clusters

Voiceless fricative

+Laterality

voiceless lateral fricative

Voiceless fricative

+Nasality

voiceless nasal fricative

Consonant Clusters

[wim]

[fim]

[sfim]

[swim]

Consonant Clusters

Consonant Clusters

Consonant Clusters

[fim] /s/ [sfim]

Consonant Clusters

[swim]

process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighboring sound

Assimilation

Trigger Target

Assimilation

Anticipatory Coarticulation

• Anticipating the gesture for next sound

• pen [peb]

Perseverative Assimilations

• Perseveres from the sound that has already occurred

• shopping [pᴐpin]

Assimilation

Partial assimilation

• Target acquires SOME of the feature of the trigger

• book [bugu]

Total assimilation

• Trigger become identical to the target

• mother [mama]

Assimilation

◦ Bonds between consonant and vowel

◦ Vowel harmony

◦ Consonant harmony

Assimilation

Place of articulation

Manner of articulation

interchanging of sounds

Metathesis

◦ Synchronic ~ Diachronic

◦ Adjacent ~ Nonadjacent

◦ Regular ~ Sporadic

◦ Abrupt ~ Gradual

Metathesis

Synchronic

Occurs within one

chronological period

Diachronic

takes places from one time

to another

Metathesis

Adjacent

two contiguous sounds are transposed

Nonadjacent

transposed sounds may be separated by one or more

intervening sounds

Metathesis

Regular

applies consistently to many different

words

Sporadic

restricted to only a few words

and occurs haphazardly

Metathesis

Abrupt

completely transposes sound in

a single step

Gradual

uses one or more intermediate stages between the original order and the final transposed order

Metathesis

alveolar consonant to be delayed

Metathesis

Metathesis

Metathesis can involve an interchange between adjacent consonants in a cluster but it may also involve an interchange of consonants across a vowel. In such cases vowels in successive syllables generally remain correctly ordered so that we cannot say that the transposition of whole syllable is involved.

Metathesis

Metathesis occurs more frequently in words of more than two syllables, where the burden on either memory or planning is obviously greater.