Which term describes assimilation?

Which term describes assimilation?

• A. The process by which a sound changes to another due to a neighboring sound (e.g., /n/ → /m/ before /b/)
• B. Elision
• C. Inversion
• D. Metathesis

Answer: (A)

Assimilation is when a sound becomes more like a neighboring sound, so the articulation flows more easily and the features line up with nearby sounds. In this example, the nasal phoneme [n] changes to [m] before the following bilabial stop [b], so its place of articulation shifts to match the upcoming sound. This is a straightforward case of place assimilation, often called regressive assimilation because the influence comes from the sound that follows onto the preceding one. The other terms describe different processes: elision is the omission of a sound, inversion is reversing order, and metathesis is swapping the order of sounds within a word.

Assimilation is when a sound becomes more like a neighboring sound, so the articulation flows more easily and the features line up with nearby sounds. In this example, the nasal phoneme [n] changes to [m] before the following bilabial stop [b], so its place of articulation shifts to match the upcoming sound. This is a straightforward case of place assimilation, often called regressive assimilation because the influence comes from the sound that follows onto the preceding one. The other terms describe different processes: elision is the omission of a sound, inversion is reversing order, and metathesis is swapping the order of sounds within a word.