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Plan
1. 
General characteristics of changes.
2. 
Assimilation
3. 
Other combinatory changes.
 
 
Speech sounds, i.e. phones representing phonemes, are combined in strict order to form 
words, morphemes, word combinations and sentences which influence each other, as a result of 
which their articulatory – acoustic features may be changed and modified. These changes in 
pronunciation, which depend on the way they influence one another, their position and stress - 
are called combinatory – positional changes (or “combinatory phonetics”). They are classified 
into assimilation, accommodation, dissimilation metathesis, sandhi, haplology, reduction and 
elision. Combinatory-positional changes are connected with the historical development of a 
language and its phonetic structure in particular. The fluency of speech, the unstressed position 
in words and word junction are the favorable conditions under which assimilation and reduction 
find their expression. These factors accelerate assimilation and reduction, though the cause of 
these phonetic changes cannot be explained from a narrow viewpoint. 
Some linguists explain combinatory-positional changes as the result of speech effort 
economy or the tendency ease of pronunciation which occurs in pronunciation, owing to the fact 
that speakers try to obtain maximum effect with minimum effort. For example, in rapid speech 
the word ninth \n\ 
naңnθ is pronounced as a dental allophone owing to the influence of the 
dental (interdental) \ 
θ\. It is easierto articulate two dental consonants than pronounce alveolar 
and dental consonant. Such cases may often be observed in pronunciation.
There are some attempts to interpret combinatory-positional changes from the phonological 
point of view. According to Ch.A. Ferguson: “Phonology is variable. Variation has to be 
included in any type of phonological theory. It is important to study how phonology works”.