Assimilation

It is common for one sound to be affected by, or assimilate to, a neighboring sound: we saw that nasal stops are homorganic with a following oral stop, a case of regressive assimilation. In the examples below, the nasal consonant takes the place of articulation of the consonant that follows:

The nasal vowels of French have all emerged from an assimilation process, namely nasalization of a vowel in readiness for a nasal consonant. The nasal consonants have subsequently been lost, but remain orthographically: