What is assimilation?

Assimilation is a common process by which the sound of the ending one word blends into
the sound of the beginning of the following word. This is the process of simplification by
which a speech sound is influenced by the surrounding sounds to make them more
similar. Every human language frequently experiences assimilation, which is especially
common for nasal sounds.
Phonetic assimilation might be challenging to notice, it can be heard if you pay close
attention. When we talk quickly because sounds can merge into one another, phonetic
assimilation happens, where sounds are changed to sound more like their surroundings.
What is assimilated sound in English?
The pronunciation of a consonant is modified under the influence of a preceding or
following consonant.
Types of assimilation
1. Assimilation of place.
“Assimilation of place” is the team used to describe when a sound changes its point of
articulation to another place. Assimilation of place has three types: Alveolar stops,
alveolar fricatives and alveolar nasals.
Alveolar Stops Assimilation
The articulation points for the sounds /t/, /d/, and /n/ frequently move to be close to the
subsequent sound.
 They may become bilabial if followed by bilabial consonants /p, b, m/; ( t  p) (d
 b) (n m)
Ex: “bad person” /bæd ˈpɜːsn/ becomes /bæp ˈpɜːsn/
 Become velar stops if they are followed by velars /k, g/
Ex: “white coat” /waɪt kəʊt/ becomes /waɪk kəʊt/
Assimilation affecting the point of articulation occurs when the alveolar variants of /t, d,
n, l, s, z/ are replaced by their subsidiary dental are situated near dental consonant
phonemes /θ, ð/
Ex: “wealth” /welθ/ ; “tenth” /tenθ/
Alveolar Fricatives Assimilation
 The alveolar stop /s/ could change into post alveolar fricative /ʃ/
Ex: “this year” /ðɪs jɪə/ becomes /ðɪʃ jɪəː/
 /z/ could change into /ʒ/ if followed by the palatal approximant /j/
Ex: “those years” /ðəʊz jɪəz/ becomes /ðəʊːʒ jɪəːz̥/
Alveolar syllabic Nasal Assimilation
 /n/ could change bilabial /m/ when preceded by a bilabial /p, b, m/
Ex: “handbag” /hændbæɡ/ becomes [hæmbæɡ]
 /n/ could change velar /ŋ/ if preceded by a velar plosive in the same word and
followed by a consonant in the same or next word or by a pause
Ex: “bacon” / 'beɪkən/ becomes /'beɪkŋ/

2. .Assimilation of Manner
Assimilation of manner refers to two adjacent sounds becoming similar in their manner
of articulation. This happens in coalescence when, in connected speech, two neighboring
sounds in connected speech combine to create a new sound.
Assimilation of manner is much less noticeable, it is often heard in very rapid speech, or
very informal situation and it can be either progressive or regressive.
It is possible to come across situations when a final plosive changes into a fricative or
nasal, although this is quite unusual.
Examples:
“Good morning” /gʊd mɔnɪŋ/  /gʊm mɔnɪŋ/
“give me” /giv mi  gim mi/ ( in this example assimilation also affect the position of the
soft palate”
3. Assimilation of Voice
 Under the effect of the neighboring voiced consonant, a voiceless consonant may
turn into a voiced one.
Ex: The voiceless /s/ in “goose” /gu:s/ is replaced by the voice /z/ in the compound noun
“goose berry” /’guz bəri/ under the influence of the voiced /b/ in “berry”
 Under the effect of the neighboring voiceless consonant, a voiced consonant may
be replaced by a voiceless one.
The /v/ in “Have” /hæv/ have been replaced by the voiceless consonant /f/ before “to” in
“Have to” /hæf tu:/
 When the vowel /i/ in the verb form “is” /iz/ is omitted in rapid colloquial speech
and /z/ finds itself preceded by a voiceless consonant other than /s/, /ʃ/, /ʧ/, it is
replaced by /s/ under of the influence of the preceding voiceless consonant
Ex: “What is this?” /wɒt ɪz ðɪs/  “What’s this?” /wɒts ðɪs/

Types of assimilation
a) Progressive assimilation
 In progressive assimilation, the preceding consonant has an impact on the
assimilated consonant.
 The articulators preserve the production of the phoneme to maintain that particular
posture for the later phoneme.
 Commonly seen with words that end with –s and -ed
Ex: The /s/ sound is influenced by the previous sound and changes to a /z/ sound. /bægs/
(bags) → /bægz/ (bagz)
b) Regressive assimilation (anticipatory assimilation)
Regressive assimilation occurs when following sound in a word influences the preceding
sound. The anticipation of articulation is occurring later in time.
Examples:
The /z/ sound is influenced by the following sound and changes to an /m/ sound.
“news” /nju:z/  “newspaper” /nju:speipə/
c) Reciprocal assimilation
Very rarely, two sounds (always nearby) may have an impact on one another through
reciprocal assimilation. When such a change results in a single segment with some of the
features of both components, it is known as coalescence or fusions.
In reciprocal assimilation, two adjacent consonants are influenced each other.
Ex: “man” /A/  [A] /
The [A] in /mAn/ is nasalized by its neighboring [m] and [n].

Forms of assimilation
1. Full assimilation
Full assimilation is the process by which the consonant sound and letter at the end of the
prefix completely match those at the beginning of the stem. When two sounds are close to
each other, they are completely impacted by one another and merge into one another.
Example: /ðɪs ʃuː/ (this shoe) → /ðɪʃʃuː/ (thish-shoe)
2. Partial assimilation
If the assimilated sound retains at least one of its original phonetic features and adopts
only some of the phonetic features of another sound, this process is called partial
assimilated.
Example : “ten pikes” /ten baiks/  /tembaiks/ in informal speech
The alveolar sound /n/ becomes /m/ - a bilabial sound under the impact of another
bilabial sound /b/.

Assimilation contrast between English and Vietnamese

Vietnamese vowels must be pronounced with an inherent tone. Tones differ in length,
pitch contour, pitch height, and articulation. Tones are indicated by diacritics/ marks
placed above or below vowels to show different sounds, and belong to syllables.
There are six different tones in the standard northern dialect.
Vietnamese uses tones as phonemes since a change in tone make a change in meaning.
Tones in Vietnamese carry lexical meaning and are required in the syllable structure. On
the contrary, English doesn’t have this features, English is a non-tone language, so it has
nearly all the typical characteristics of this type.
As I said above, Vietnamese is a tonal language and contain lexical meaning. Each word
in Vietnamese has so much weight to ensure the pronunciation of tones is correct, or else
the meaning of the word or the sentence will completely change. As the consequence,
assimilation rarely occurs in Vietnamese.