yod coalescence
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.80 in modern English
24
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
6
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A process in English phonology whereby the clusters [dj], [tj], [sj], and [zj] become [dʒ], [tʃ], [ʃ], and [ʒ], respectively, through mutual assimilation.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Some English dialects with /dj/ and /tj/ within a morpheme have gradient amounts of affrication, from [dj] in careful speech to extreme “yod coalescence” approximating [dʒ][…]."
- "In words such as nature this process is long complete; but there are many other words where this ‘yod coalescence’ is still variable."
- "In the sequence would you, the female speaker uses yod coalescence: The alveolar plosive /d/ and the palatal approximant, /j/, merge to form the affricate [dʒ]."
- "Awareness of the fact that Yod Coalescence is somewhat stigmatized leads to hypercorrection in would-be elegant speech, with the use of [tj, dj] in place of [tʃ, dʒ] in words such as chew, June."
- "In this investigation, the linguistic context is restricted to /j/ after /t, d/ in stressed syllables within a word (e.g. tune, duke). This is the environment in which Yod Coalescence is not (yet) fully acceptable within RP."
- "EE speakers typically use Yod Coalescence in stressed syllables as in Tuesday [ˈtʃuːzdeɪ] or duke [ˈdʒuːk]."