The directionality of assimilation

Abstract While the contextually determined alternation of the velar and palatal fricatives [x] and [ç] is highly similar in Greek and German, the directionality of assimilation is strikingly different. Whereas Greek opts for anticipatory assimilation, perseveratory assimilation prevails in German. Moreover, this process stays within the confines of the syllable in Greek but may also cross syllable boundaries in German. A lexicon-wide phonotactic analysis reveals that Greek fricatives are mostly restricted to onset positions. By contrast, in German, 75% of the fricative tokens occur as codas and 25% as onsets. It is argued that anticipatory assimilation in Greek results from the restriction of fricatives to onset sites and that perseveratory assimilation in German stems from the preference of fricatives for coda sites. Thus, a probabilistic phonotactic bias leads to a categorical decision on directionality. The strategy of ignoring syllable boundaries allows German to manage with only one type of assimilation.