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In some cases, the underlying (pre-assimilation) root can be retrieved from related lexical items in the language: e.g. superior "higher"; Sabīni "Samnites"; sopor "(deep) sleep". For some words, only comparative evidence can help retrieve the original consonant: for example, the etymology of annus "year" (as * atnos ) is revealed by ...
Assimilation is a sound change in which some phonemes (typically consonants or vowels) change to become more similar to other nearby sounds. A common type of phonological process across languages, assimilation can occur either within a word or between words. It occurs in normal speech but becomes more common in more rapid speech.
This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form. The correspondence is semantic—in most cases these words are not cognates, but in some cases they are doublets, i.e., ultimately derived from the same root, generally Proto-Indo-European, as in cow and beef, both ultimately from PIE *gʷōus.
The vowel that causes the vowel assimilation is frequently termed the trigger while the vowels that assimilate (or harmonize) are termed targets. When the vowel triggers lie within the root or stem of a word and the affixes contain the targets, this is called stem-controlled vowel harmony (the opposite situation is called dominant). [1]
Voiced alveolar fricative: root zqn זקן = hizdaqqēn הִזְדַּקֵּן ("he grew old"); with assimilation of the T of the conjugation. Voiceless alveolar affricate: root t͡slm צלם = hit͡stallēm הִצְטַלֵּם ("he had a photograph of him taken"); with assimilation (no longer audible) of the T of the conjugation.
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 .
Most commonly, the change is a result of sound assimilation with an adjacent sound of opposite voicing, but it can also occur word-finally or in contact with a specific vowel. For example, the English suffix -s is pronounced [s] when it follows a voiceless phoneme (cats), and [z] when it follows a voiced phoneme (dogs). [1]
Guaraní shows nasal harmony, and certain affixes have alternative forms according to whether the root includes a nasal (vowel or consonant) or not. For example, the reflexive prefix is realized as oral je- before an oral stem like juka "kill", but as nasal ñe- before a nasal stem like nupã "hit".