Assibilation

In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization. In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization. A characteristic of Mashreqi varieties of Arabic (particularly Levantine and Egyptian) is to assibilate the interdental consonants of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in certain contexts (defined more culturally than phonotactically). Thus, ṯāʾ, pronounced in MSA, becomes (as MSA /θaqaːfah/ → Levantine /saqaːfeh/ 'culture'); ḏāl, pronounced in MSA, becomes (as MSA /ðanb/ → Levantine /zamb/ 'guilt'); and ẓāʾ, pronounced in MSA, becomes (as MSA /maħðˤuːðˤ/ → Levantine /maħzˤuːzˤ/ 'lucky'). Diachronically, the phoneme represented by the letter ǧīm has in, some dialects, experienced assibilation as well. The pronunciation in Classical Arabic is reconstructed to have been or (or perhaps both dialectically); it is cognate to in most other Semitic languages, and it is understood to be derived from that sound in Proto-Semitic. It has experienced extensive change in pronunciation over the centuries, and is pronounced at least six different ways across the assorted varieties of Arabic. A common one is , the end result of a process of palatalization starting with Proto-West Semitic , then or , then (a pronunciation still current) and finally (in Levantine and non-Algerian Maghrebi). The last pronunciation is considered acceptable for use in MSA, along with and . In the history of several Bantu groups, including the Southern Bantu languages, the Proto-Bantu consonant *k was palatalised before a close or near-close vowel. Thus, the class 7 noun prefix *kɪ̀- appears in e.g. Zulu as isi-, Sotho as se-, Venda as tshi- and Shona as chi-. Finnic languages (Finnish, Estonian and their closest relatives) had *ti changed to /si/. The alternation can be seen in dialectal and inflected word forms: Finnish kieltää 'to deny' → kielti ~ kielsi 's/he denied'; vesi 'water' vs. vete-nä 'as water'. An intermediate stage /ts/ is preserved in South Estonian in certain cases: tsiga 'pig', vs. Finnish sika, Standard (North) Estonian siga. In the High German consonant shift, voiceless stops /p, t, k/ spirantized to /f, s, x/ at the end of a syllable. The shift of /t/ to /s/ (as in English water, German Wasser) is assibilation. Assibilation occurs without palatalization for some speakers of African American Vernacular English in which /θ/ is alveolarized to /s/ when it occurs at the end of a syllable and within a word before another consonant, leading to such pronunciations as the following: In Proto-Greek, the earlier combinations *ty, *tʰy and *dy assibilated to become alveolar affricates, *ts and *dz, in what's known as the first palatalization. Later, a second round of palatalization occurred, initially producing geminate palatal *ťť and *ďď from various consonants followed by *y. The former was depalatalised to plain geminate tt in some dialects, and assibilated to ss in others. The latter evolved into an affricate dz in all Greek dialects. Some examples: