Theme: The process of assimilation, dissimilation and other combinatory changes

Assibilation

• In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization.

Epenthesis

• In phonology, epenthesis (/ɪˈpɛnθəsɪs, ɛ-/; Greek ἐπένθεσις) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word (at the beginning prothesis and at the end paragoge are commonly used). The word epenthesis comes from epi- "in addition to" and en "in" and thesis "putting". Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant, and svarabhakti, or anaptyxis (/ˌænəpˈtɪksɪs/), for the addition of a vowel. The opposite process, where one or more sounds are removed, is referred to as elision.

Lenition

• In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin lenis "weak"). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a particular point in time) and diachronically (as a language changes over time). Lenition can involve such changes as voicing a voiceless consonant, causing a consonant to relax occlusion, to lose its place of articulation (a phenomenon called debuccalization, which turns a consonant into a glottal consonant like [h] or [ʔ]), or even causing a consonant to disappear entirely.