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In linguistics, assibilation is the term for a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is commonly the final phase of palatalization.

The word "assibilation" itself contains an example of the phenomenon, being pronounced /əsɪbɪleɪʃən/. The classical Latin tio was pronounced /tio/ (for example, assibilatio was prounounced /asːibilatio/ and attentio /atːentio/). However, in Vulgar Latin it assibilated to /tsio/, and this can still be seen in Italian: attenzione. In French lenition gave /sjə/, which in English then palatalized to the /ʃə/.

For another example, in the history of Finnish, /ti/ changed to /si/. The alternation can be seen in dialectal and inflected word-forms: kielti vs. kielsi "s/he denied"; vesi "water", vetenä "as water".

Assibilation can also occur outside of palatalization. One example is the replacement of th with s or z characterizing a French accent of English.

[edit] See also

• Assimilation (linguistics)

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