africation of alveolars

Wolfrum   Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:44 am GMT
I was reading a book on fast speech english phonology, wherein the following is listed.

t/d + sh = ch what + shud = whachud, did +she = dichi
l + sh = lch will +she = wilchi
n + sh = nch when +should = whenchud

Do any native speakers observe these assimilation of alveolars like d, t, n, l into affricates like ch?
feati (not a native speak   Sat Sep 19, 2009 8:23 am GMT
I think it's more common to insert a t between n/l and s but a t between n/l and sh (t+sh=ch) sounds perfectly normal to me, too. However, I've heard people claim they don't do either of these assimilation, that "prints" and "prince" don't rhyme for them. But those people seem to be a minority.

Interestingly, this kind of assimiliation is also common in German. People who use a pure palatal affricative [C] for the consonant at the end of the word "ich" pronounce the word "Milch" [mIlC]. Those who use an alveolo-palatal consonant [s\] (which is not uncommon) pronounce it [mIlts\] - with an inserted t.
This is the only example where this assimilation really stands out. I'm hardly able to hear a difference between [mEnS] and [mEntS] ("Mensch") and I assume the same goes for most native English speakers.
Pedro   Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:40 pm GMT
what's + your = whacher

t + (s+y) = t +sh = ch
feati   Sun Sep 20, 2009 6:47 am GMT
That's no affrication of alveolars (it's palatalization) but still a common form of assimilation. I also have to disagree with you on "what's your" becoming "wacher". It's "what your" that becomes "wacher".

what your: "ty" = [tj] assimilated to [tS] = "ch" -> "wacher"
what's your: "sy" = [sj] assimilated to [s\j] = similar to "sh+y" [Sj] -> something similar to"wachyer"

In the second case, the t doesn't really take part in the assimilation process. The same thing happens with "this year" (no t), which becomes something similar to "thishyear" but with [s\] instead of [S].

[S] (wikipedia page + sound sample):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_postalveolar_fricative
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Voiceless_postalveolar_fricative.ogg

[s\] (wikipedia page + sound sample):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_fricative
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_fricative.ogg