ASSIMILATION

A. Definitions

Assimilation refers to the process by which new objects, events, experiences, or information is incorporated into existing schemas. It is Jean Piaget‒s theory of cognitive development which refers to a process of adaptation to interactions with the environment through which individuals add new experiences to their base of knowledge

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Assimilation is a term used in industrial psychology that refers to a type of rating error in which raters base their rating (of an employee during one rating period) on the ratings the raters gave during a previous period.

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Assimilation is a term used in Piaget's theory of cognitive development that refers to the process of incorporating objects, knowledge or new events into existing schemes or taking in new information that is compatible with what one already knows.
Moreover, Assimilation is a Piagetian term for mental adaptation to one’s environment by incorporating experiences; a Piaget’s term for the process by which children interpret new experiences by incorporating them into their existing schemes.

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Assimilation is a term used in psychology of language that refers to a phonological process in which one speech sound is replaced by another that is similar to sounds elsewhere in the utterance.

Assimilation has a very precise meaning when it’s related to studies of languages. Is a common phonological process bye which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like another segment in a word. In other words it’s when a letter (sound) is influenced by the letter (sound) before or after it so that it changes its sound and/or spelling. The word assimilation it self it’s said to be assimilated; it is derived from the latin prefix ad- meaning to and simil- meaning like but, instead of being adsimilated, it has the easier pronunciation of assimilated.

A common example of assimilation is “don’t be silly” where the /n/ and /t/ are assimilated to /m/ by the following /b/, in many accents the natural sound is “dombe silly”.

Assimilation can be synchronic being an active process in a language at a given point in time or diachronic being a historical sound change. There are 4 configurations found: the increase in phonetic similarity may be between adjacent segments or between segments separated by one or more intervening segments; the changes could be in reference to a preceding segment or a following one. Even when all four occur, it changes in regard to a following adjacent segment account for virtually all assimilatory changes. Assimilation to an adjacent segment are vastly more frequent than assimilation to a non-adjacent one.

If a sound changes with reference to a following segment, it is called “regressive assimilation”, the changes with reference to a preceding segment are called “progressive assimilation”. A lot of people find these terms very confusing because they seem to mean the opposite of the intended meaning. To avoid the problem exist a variety of alternative terms. “Regressive assimilation” is also known as right to left, leading or reciprocal assimilation. “Progressive assimilation” is known as left to right or preservative, lagging or lag assimilation.

Occasionally two sounds may influence one another in 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 fusion.

1. / t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p /

2. / d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p /

3. / n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p /

4. / t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/

5. / d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g /

6. / n / changes to /ŋ/ before / k / or / g /

7. / s / changes to /ʃ/ before /ʃ/ or / j /

8. / z / changes to /ʒ/ before /ʃ/ or / j /

9. /θ/ changes to / s / before / s /

Assimilation occurs when one speech segment is transformed into another owing to the influence of a neighboring segment. A relatively common assimilation in children up to about the age of 3;00 years is word-final de-voicing.

word-final de-voicing

To understand this process we need to be clear about the distinction between a voiced consonant and a voiceless consonant. Simply, a voiced consonant is one which is made with the vocal folds (vocal cords) vibrating (e.g. ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘g’, ‘z’, ‘v’) and a voiceless consonant without vibration (e.g. ‘p’, ‘t’, ‘k’, ‘f’, ‘s’). It is relatively easy to determine which is which by simply placing your fingers on your voice box (larynx) whilst you say the sound. If the sound is voiced you will feel the vibrations caused by the moving vocal folds in your fingers. Of course, if it is voiceless you will not feel any vibrations.

Now, children between the ages of 2;00-3;00 years of age seem to find the production of voiceless consonants simpler than the production of voiced consonants when they occur at the ends of words. So, the word bed may be said as bet. Here the word-final voiced consonant ‘d’ is assimilated into its voiceless counterpart ‘t’. Other examples include bag being said as bak, and lab being said as lap.

Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary). A common example of assimilation would be "don't be silly" where the /n/ and /t/ in "don't" are assimilated to /m/ and /p/ by the following /b/, where said naturally in many accents and discourse styles ("dombe silly"). Assimilation can be synchronic being an active process in a language at a given point in time or diachronic being a historical sound change.

A related process is coarticulation where one segment influences another to produce an allophonic variation, such as vowels acquiring the feature nasal before nasal consonants when the velum opens prematurely or /b/ becoming labialised as in "boot". This article will describe both processes under the term, assimilation.

The physiological or psychological mechanisms of coarticulation are unknown, but we often loosely speak of a segment as "triggering" an assimilatory change in another segment. In assimilation, the phonological patterning of the language, discourse styles and accent are some of the factors contributing to changes observed.

B. Configurations

There are four configurations found in assimilations: the increase in phonetic similarity may be between adjacent segments, or between segments separated by one or more intervening segments; and the changes may be in reference to a preceding segment, or to a following one. Although all four occur, changes in regard to a following adjacent segment account for virtually all assimilatory changes (and most of the regular ones). Also, assimilations to an adjacent segment are vastly more frequent than assimilations to a non-adjacent one. (These radical asymmetries might contain hints about the mechanisms involved, but they are unobvious.)

If a sound changes with reference to a following segment, it is traditionally called "regressive assimilation"; changes with reference to a preceding segment are traditionally called "progressive". Many find these terms confusing, as they seem to mean the opposite of the intended meaning. Accordingly, a variety of alternative terms have arisen—not all of which avoid the problem of the traditional terms. Regressive assimilation is also known as right-to-left, leading or anticipatory assimilation. Progressive assimilation is also known as left-to-right or perseveratory or preservative, lagging or lag assimilation. The terms anticipatory and lag will be used here.

Very occasionally two sounds (invariably adjacent) may influence one another in 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 fusion.

Some authorities distinguish between partial and complete assimilation, i.e., between assimilatory changes in which there remains some phonetic difference between the segments involved, and those in which all differences are obliterated. There is no theoretical advantage to such a classification, as one of the following examples will show.

Tonal languages may exhibit tone assimilation (tonal umlaut, in effect), while sign languages also exhibit assimilation when the characteristics of neighboring phonemes may be mixed.

a. Anticipatory assimilation to a contiguous segment

This is the most common type of assimilation by far, and typically has the character of a conditioned sound change, i.e., it applies to the whole lexicon. For example, in English, the place of articulation for nasal consonants assimilates to that of a following stop consonant (bank is pronounced [bæŋk], handbag in rapid speech is pronounced [hæmbæg]). In Italian, voiceless stops assimilate to a following /t/: Latin okto "eight" > It. otto, Latin lectus "bed" > letto, suptus "under" > sotto.

b. Anticipatory assimilation at a distance

Rare, and usually merely an accident in the history of a specific word. Old French cercher "to search" /ser.tʃer/ > Modern Fr. chercher /ʃɛʁ.ʃe/. However, the diverse and common assimilations known as umlaut, wherein the phonetics of a vowel are influenced by the phonetics of a vowel in a following syllable, are both commonplace and in the nature of sound laws. Such changes abound in the histories of Germanic Languages, Romanian, Old Irish, and many others. Examples: in the history of English, a back vowel becomes front if a high front vocoid (*i, ī, y) is in the following syllable: Proto-Germanic *mūsiz "mice" > Old English mýs /myːs/ > mice; PGmc *batizōn- "better" > OE bettre; PGmc *fōtiwiz "feet" > OE fét > feet. Contrariwise, Proto-Germanic *i and *u > e, o respectively before *a in the following syllable: PGmc *nistaz > OE nest. Another example of a regular change is the sibilant assimilation of Sanskrit, wherein if there were two different sibilants as the onset of successive syllables, a plain /s/ was always replaced by the palatal /ɕ/: Proto-Indo-European *smeḱru- "beard" > Skt. śmaśru-; *ḱoso- "gray" > Skt. śaśa- "rabbit"; PIE *sweḱru- "husband's mother' > Skt. śvaśrū-.

c. Lag assimilation to a contiguous segment

Tolerably common, and often has the nature of a sound law. Proto-Indo-European *-ln- > -ll- in both Germanic and Italic. Thus *ḱļnis "hill" > PreLat. *kolnis > Lat. collis; > PGmc *hulniz, *hulliz > OE hyll /hyl/ > hill. The enclitic form of English is, shedding the vowel, becomes voiceless when adjacent to a word-final voiceless non-sibilant.

d. Lag assimilation at a distance

Rare, and usually sporadic (except when part of something bigger, as in the Skt. śaśa- example, above): Greek leirion > Lat. līlium "lily". In vowel harmony, a vowel's phonetics is often influenced by that of a preceding vowel. Thus for example most Finnish case markers come in two flavors, with /a/ and /æ/ (written ä) depending on whether the preceding vowel is back or front. However, it's a difficult question to know just where and how in the history of Finnish an actual assimilatory change took place. The distribution of pairs of endings in Finnish is just that, is not in any sense the operation of an assimilatory innovation (though probably the outbirth of such an innovation in the past).