On Teaching "Consonant Assimilation" in Phonetics in Turkish Language

Traditional Turkish Language grammar teaching is carried out under four chapters; namely, phonetics, morphology, lexicology (word class), and syntax. One of the most important subjects of the chapter called phonetics is sound changes. Sound changes are assessed under two headers which are sound changes related to consonants and sound changes related to vowels. One of the sound changes related to the consonants is consonant assimilation. Teaching of consonant assimilation is carried out through optional allomorphs of Turkish in primary and secondary education. According to this approach, when an affix starting with consonants "b, c, d, g" is attached at the end of a word ending with one of the consonants "ç, f, h, k, p, s, ş, t (Fıstıkçı Şahap)" in Turkish, those consonants are transformed into consonants "p, ç, t, k" which are their strong counterparts. This change is called consonant assimilation. The abovementioned approach is commonly seen in academic grammar works/teaching. This approach which originally considers the affixes of Turkish Language voiced is problematic in terms of simultaneous teaching of grammar. According to this approach, the mentioned affixes are attached to the words in their voiced forms and, then, these voiced forms become unvoiced by being assimilated by the last voice of the word. In other words, strong consonant at the end of the word assimilates the soft consonant at the start of the affix and makes it unvoiced and, thus, juxtapositional and progressive consonant assimilation appears. It does not seem easy to reconcile such an indirect process with the nature of the language/language user tending to prefer less effort. In our opinion, it is not a sound assimilation arising out of interactive effect of the sounds sharing the same environment (çenber>çember, etmek>ekmek) but the preference of the language user for sounds in harmony by moving from his/her cognitive codes regarding to the system of his/her mother tongue. It is not observed in strings of only consonants but also vowels. If consonant harmonies are called assimilation, it shall be required to refer all vowel harmonies (back-front/dark-slender; unrounded-rounded/labialization) as consonant assimilation. In fact, sound harmony and sound assimilation are the concepts which have nuance. While sound harmony is a matter of fact, sound assimilation is an event. It is possible to consider every sound assimilation as a sound harmony. However, in our opinion, it is not a correct approach to refer all sound harmonies as sound assimilation. It is not easy to explain the approach which considers the affixes of Turkish Language voiced according to the diachronic information. Sources show that multi-formation in current affixes has appeared in the recent periods of Turkish Language and the affixes with "c" which are shown as an example to consonant assimilation/stiffening had been used only with "ç" for a long time. In this study, after it is shown how the subject is approached in academic and National Education sources, recommendations related to its teaching are made.

Keywords

sound changes, consonant assimilation, consonant harmony