Examples of voiceless stop insertion

Question

Hi!

 

1.) I need 5 examples of voiceless stop insertions other than dance, strength, and hamster. Please help!!

 

2.) I need 5 examples of voicing assimilation. 

 

Thank you!

Answer 1

For voiceless stop insertions:

1. Prince
2. This ends up pronounced like 'prints' with an inserted [t].
3. Something
4. Similar to 'hamster,' this ends up with [p] inserted because the articulators are attempting to move from the bilabial nasal to the voiceless interdental fricative.
5. Tense
6. This is pronounced the same as 'tents,' showing that there is a [t] sound inserted between the nasal and [s].

These are the only other examples I can think of without getting into examples that simply rhyme with ones that you have already come up with, i.e. 'prance' or 'romance.'

Notice something in common with all of these? They've all got a nasal segment followed by a fricative, and the voiceless stop is inserted when the articulators move from one to the other. This is a pretty common phonological rule.

And for voicing assimilation:

1. Dogs
2. Here, we have 's' orthographically but [z] is articulated instead.
3. Cannons
4. Again, any time you have a plural 's' next to a voiced consonant, you are likely to see voicing assimilation.
5. Capped
6. Here, a similar phenomenon is occurring because we've got the past tense '-ed' ending combining with a voiceless consonant, and the ending devoices to fit with the adjacent [p]. Other verbs that have a regular past tense ending but end in a voiceless consonant behave similarly.
7. Tacked
8. As with 'capped,' combining the voiceless [k] with the voiced past tense ending results in the latter devoicing to assimilate with the preceding sound.
9. Houses
10. When the two [s] sounds are next to each other, a schwa is added in a process called epenthesis. After this, the plural marker becomes voiced in assimilation with the vowel.

I hope this was helpful!