1861.1 361 [Combinations. 



duced the French zh in j, ge, and gi, to the same standard as in just, 

 general, gist. In ce and ci in centre, civil, &c., the French sound of 

 c, viz., .S-, was retained. 



There are thus found in the English language of the present day, 

 1, the Anglo-Saxon assibilation of c into tsh, and of g into dzh, 

 which reduced to the same standard the French sh and zh, and 2, 

 the French assihilation of c into .s; but in addition to these there is 

 3, the English assibilation, which is a product of the more modern 

 times. This third process is promoted by the modern English ten- 

 dency of making the accented syllable of a word prominent, and 

 passing quickly over the unaccented syllables. It is by no means as 

 energetic as the previous processes by which the Latin and Anglo- 

 Saxon gutturals were transformed into dentals, and it exercises its 

 influence only upon the dental hard and soft consonants, which it 

 assibilates into ish and dzh, and upon the letter s, which it thickens 

 into the rough sibilant sh. The efficient cause of this assibilation is 

 again i in machine hardened into i/, or the short first member of the 

 long sound of ?«, developed into the same letter, acting upon the pre- 

 ceding t, d, and s. 



The first step in the modern English assibilation of t and d con- 

 sists in imparting to / in ?)i«c/i/?/e the sound of y; the conditions 

 under which this is effected have been specified above (§ 27), 

 where it was stated that when i in machine, before another vowel, is 

 emphasized and pronounced hurriedly, it is developed into y. The 

 second step consists in i/ being assibilated into sh, when preceded by 

 f, and into zh, when preceded by d. In accented syllables t and d 

 remain in the first state of assibilation, as in tube and dew or duke ; 

 in deio we recognize a decided y, but in tube its vowel-element is al- 

 most entirely extinguished by the aspirate following the hard conso- 

 nant. In unaccented syllables y manifests a decided tendency to 

 become assibilated, as in cordial, gradual, nature, virtue ; indeed, 

 popular pronunciation makes it a general rule to assibilate those let- 

 ters under these circumstances. In polite pronunciation, however, 

 this tendency of assibilating those letters is checked, and while popular 

 pronunciation is in favor of sounding cclestshal, courtshous, te-dzhous, 

 verdzhiire, polite pronunciation says celesti/al, courtyous, te-dyous, 

 verdyure ; nay, some orthoepists deny entirely the existence of y in 

 these words, and maintain that i in celestial is i in pit. 



Walker makes the following remarks on this subject (§ 293) : 

 '' The tendency of the vowels i o u to coalesce after a dental, and 

 draw it to aspiration, makes us hear tedious, odious, and insidious, 



