Assimilation

Assimilation is a sound change process by which one (neighboring) segment causes another segment to become phonetically more similar to it in some way.

Example
In English the alveolar nasal of the prefix /in-/ changes to [l] in illegal (complete convergence) and to [m] in input (partial convergence). In the latter case the change is from alveolar to labial under influence of the neighbouring labial segment [p]. When assimilation takes place between two vowels it is more commonly referred to as vowel harmony.

Term properties
The relational adjective is assimilatory.

Subtypes
Assimilatory changes can be classified according to the following dichotomies:


 * partial assimilation vs. total assimilation
 * progressive assimilation vs. regressive assimilation
 * contact assimilation vs. distant assimilation

Other languages
German Assimilation (de)

Links

 * Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics
 * Audiodemonstration