Does the /n/ change into /m/ when it is followed by /b/ in your languages?
This happens in Arabic and in English sometime, but does it happen in other languages?
In Arabic, and especially in Qur'an, if we say من بعد /min baʕd/ [ which means after], the /n/ sound would change into /m/ so that it would be easier for pronounciation since both /m/ and /b/ share the same place of articulation.
It is also used in colloguial Arabic as in جنبي /d͡ʒanbi:/ [which means next to me]. In colloquial Arabic and in this example, the /n/ is also changed into /m/ when it is followed by /b/
The same can be said about English. You know that the morphemes which are used as prefixes to form the negative [in, ir, il, im] belong to the same familiy, and that the original one among which is actually /in/ but the /n/ would change or assimilate according to the segments that the following word starts with.
Thus, the /n/ would change to /m/ if the word begins with /b/. As an example, let's take the case of the word 'balance.' If we want to form the negative of 'balance,' we would use [imbalance] and not [inbalance, irbalance, ilbalance].
If some of you ask about /un/ and whether it can be used with 'balance,' my answer would be yes, but /un/ belongs to a different group.
We would use im to form the negative of balance when it is a noun ONLY!
We would use /un/ to form the negative of 'balance' when it's an ajdective for example, but not when it's a noun.
Back to square one and back to the first question, does the same process occur or take place in your languages? If it does, can you give me examples?
Even I forget that it's question. Lol!
It's an interesting article!
Below are more examples taken from: http://www.ipedr.com/vol68/021-ICLLL2013-A10013.pdf
(1) Bilabial Stop /p/, /b/
/p/ in- + possible → impossible, in- + polite → impolite
/b/ in- + balance → imbalance, in- + becile → imbecile
in- + moral → immoral, in- + morta l→ immortal
(3) Alveolar Lateral Liquid /l/
in- + legible → illegible, in- + licit → illicit
(4) Alveolar Retroflex Liquid /r/
in- + rational → irrational, in- + relevant → irrelevant
In Croatian happens as well.
For example: the word 'stan' in Croatian means 'flat', 'residence', so when you want to make an adjective 'residential' the process goes like this: stan - stanbeni - stambeni
Excellent rule in phonetics! I think in English there is sth similar to this phonatic rule, assimilation; when the sound/s/ is followed by /j/ sound, for example this year, it's pronounced as /ش/ sound.
Sorry I couldn't type the /ش/ sound using phonetic transcription, because it's not available in phones keyboards.
