Coarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound. There are two types of coarticulation: ''anticipatory coarticulation,'' when a feature or characteristic of a speech sound is anticipated (assumed) during the production of a preceding speech sound; and ''carryover'' or ''perseverative coarticulation,'' when the effects of a sound are seen during the production of sound(s) that follow. Many models have been developed to account for coarticulation. They include the look-ahead, articulatory syllable, time-locked, window, coproduction and articulatory phonology models.
Coarticulation in phonetics refers to two different phenomena:
*the
assimilation
Assimilation may refer to:
Culture
* Cultural assimilation, the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs
** Language shift, also known as language assimilation, the prog ...
of the
place of articulation of one
speech sound to that of an adjacent speech sound. For example, while the sound of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
normally has an
alveolar place of articulation, in the word ''tenth'' it is pronounced with a
dental place of articulation because the following sound, , is dental.
*the production of a
co-articulated consonant, that is, a consonant with two simultaneous places of articulation. An example of such a sound is the
voiceless labial-velar plosive found in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali ...
n languages.
The term coarticulation may also refer to the transition from one articulatory
gesture
A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or ...
to another.
References
*Crowley, Terry. (1997) ''An Introduction to Historical Linguistics.'' 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
Phonetics
Assimilation (linguistics)
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