A pretty straightforward assignment. We’re to note sound changes we’ve overheard/used in our daily lives. Thus–
Assimilation
-alveolar nasalization: good night –> gunight or g’night
-in preparation for the nasal /n/, the vowel becomes more nasalized than it otherwise would. The nasal /n/ pulls the /d/ back, and the /d/ receives relatively little vocalized attention, and for many speakers, the vowel is shortened, as well.
Palatalization: pulling sounds either forward or backward in the mouth
-residue –> residual
-adding –al changes the /d/ stop to an affricative /dƷ/ by pulling the sound backwards.
-critic –> criticize
-the stop /k/ becomes a fricative /s/ in preparation for the voiced fricative /Ʒ/
-could’ve –> could of (which, I’m sad to report, is an actual example from a past student of mine). But allomorphically, it makes sense, in that ’ve and of can both sound the same (Ʊv).
-natural –> načural
-alveolar consonant and a /y/ glide
-alveolar /t/+/yu/ becomes the affricate consonant /č/
Deletion: dropping a morpheme present at the phonemic level—pronouncing it differently at the phonetic level
-medieval –> medeval
-loss of /i/. The diphthong becomes a monophthong
-chocolate –> choclate
-loss of the unstressed /o/
-Most people, upon abbreviating Marlboro (the cigarette brand), refer to it as Marb.
-loss of /l/
-simplification. It’s easier to transition into the stop /b/ after one liquid instead of two.
-concert tickets –> concertickets
-loss of multiple stops. It’s just easier that way.
Metathesis: switching sounds
-the classic children’s example of pronouncing spaghetti as pisghetti (or pisketti)
-another example is pronouncing prerogative as prerogative
-though the case could be made that this is deletion instead of metathesis; that the first /r/ is being dropped entirely instead of being switched around.
–et cetera becoming ec cetera
-for the record, my mom hates this switch. I used to do it on purpose to bother her, and then, lo and behold, now it bothers me, too.
Fronting: For lack of any better examples, changing the /ŋ/ at the end of present-progressive verbs to /n/
-sleeping –> sleepin, studying –> studyin, ec cetera.
-The velar consonant is changed to an alveolar consonant; the short /I/ vowel is formed in the front of the mouth, as is the alveolar consonant, and is another example of pronunciation convenience.
Multiple-Rule Process: Simplification of consonant clusters
-raspberry –> razberry
-loss of stop multiple stops. The voiceless /p/ is dropped in favor of the voiced /b/.
-From this, the voiceless /s/ is pulled to a voiced /z/ in preparation for the voiced /b/. Deletion, then assimilation.
-The same is going on with pumpkin becoming punkin. Again, we’re seeing the loss of multiple stops, in that the bilabial /p/ is dropped in favor of the velar /k/.
-the /m/, produced at the front of the mouth, is pulled backward to a nasal /n/, produced at the back of the mouth, in preparation of the /k/, which is also produced at the back of the mouth.
-Again, deletion, then assimilation.
Insertion
-gosh –> garsh, and wash –> warsh
-These two courtesy of my Grandma Verna.
– A phenomenon called rhotacization—an /r/ following a vowel, like “I sawr a film today, ol’ boy” or “vodker” or “Canader.” Sometimes called an r-colored vowel.
-Grandma Verna’s case is called medial rhotacization, since it occurs in the middle of a word.
-As I understand it, rhotacization occurs when the tip on the tongue is raised during the pronunciation of a vowel, and there’s some constriction in the throat which produces a rhotacized vowel. The IPA symbol for a rhotacized vowel is ɚ.
*Thanks to Dr. Swain for help with the technical term and pointing me in the right direction with this one.
Matters about Language, Poetics, Meaning, etc. 