Principle Cases of Assimilation are:

1.The alveolar consonants [ t, d, l , n, s, z ] are replaced by their dental variants before the interdental [ T ], [ D ]:

e.g.all this, tenth, at the table, read this, eighth;

2.The alveolar consonants [ t, d, l , n, ] become post-alveolar before the postalveolar [r] both within a word and at the word junction:

e.g. trip, true, drink, all right, try, Henry, already;

3. The post-alveolar consonant phoneme [ r ] becomes alveolar after the interdental [ T ], [ D ] ( both within the same word and at the junction of words):

e.g. three, with Russian.

4. Loss of plosion. At the junction of two stops [ p, b, t, d, k, g] or a stop and an affricate [ C ], [G] the first consonant loses its plosion ( both within the

same word and at the junction of words):

e.g. glad to see you; sit down; midday, black chair; picture, what kind, stop talking, fact;

5. Nasal plosion takes place at the junction of a stop consonant phoneme and the nasal sonorants [m, n]:

e.g. garden, help me, bitten, get more;

6. Lateral plosion takes place at the junction of a stop (usually [ t ] and [ d ] ) and the lateral sonorant [ l ] . This assimilation occurs within a word and at the word boundaries:

e.g. little; that lesson; middle, needle ;

7. Partial devoicing. The English sonorants [ m, n, l, r, w, j] are partially devoiced after voiceless consonants (usually within a word):

e.g. try, clean, sleep, prey, price, swim, floor, small;

At word boundaries the sonorants [l, r, w] are slightly devoiced if the words form a phrase, e.g. at rest.

8.Loss of aspiration. The aspirated English stop phonemes [ p, t, k] lose their aspiration after [ s ] and before a stressed vowel:

e.g. speak, skate, style, sky, style, stake;

9.Labialization. Consonant phonemes are labialized before the sonorant [ w ] of

the same word.

e.g. swim, queen, dwell, twins. But: read well.

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