Word.ws English Dictionary

yod coalescence

yod coalescence noun: a process in English phonology whereby the clusters [dj], [tj], [sj], and [zj] become [dʒ], [tʃ], [ʃ], and [ʒ], respectively, through mutual assimilation.

Noun (1)

yod coalescence (uncountable)

  1. A process in English phonology whereby the clusters [dj], [tj], [sj], and [zj] become [dʒ], [tʃ], [ʃ], and [ʒ], respectively, through mutual assimilation.
    • 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][…].1995, James M. Scobbie, “What Do We Do When Phonology is Powerful Enough to Imitate Phonetics? Comments on Zsiga”, in Bruce Connell, Amalia Arvaniti, editors, Phonology and Phonetic Evidence...
    • In words such as nature this process is long complete; but there are many other words where this ‘yod coalescence’ is still variable.2006, J. C. Wells, “British English Pronunciation Preferences: A Changing Scene”, in Kingsley Bolton, Braj B. Kachru, editors, World Englishes, Routledge, →ISBN, page 236

Noun (2) capitalized: Yod Coalescence

Yod Coalescence (uncountable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of yod coalescence.
    • 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.1982, J. C. Wells, Accents of English 2: The British Isles, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 331
    • 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.2003, Ulrike Altendorf, Estuary English, Gunter Narr Verlag, →ISBN, page 68

Noun (3) capitalized: Yod coalescence

Yod coalescence (uncountable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of yod coalescence.
    • As for the native speakers of English, the only phonostylistic processes all three of them applied…were the following: nasal assimilation in triumph and palatalization (“Yod coalescence”) in Tell me what you want.1990, Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, “Phonostylistics and Second Language Acquisition”, in Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, volume 25, pages 76–77
    • London and Southeastern English accents have variable Yod dropping and Yod coalescence.2004, Ulrike Altendorf, Dominic Watt, “The Dialects in the South of England: Phonology”, in Edgar W. Schneider et al., editors, A Handbook of Varieties of English, volume 1, Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN...

Forms of yod coalescence

alternative formyod-coalescence
alternative formYod coalescence
alternative formYod Coalescence

Questions about yod coalescence

What does yod coalescence mean?
Yod coalescence means a process in English phonology whereby the clusters [dj], [tj], [sj], and [zj] become [dʒ], [tʃ], [ʃ], and [ʒ], respectively, through mutual assimilation.
What part of speech is yod coalescence?
Yod coalescence is a noun.

Words near yod coalescence in the dictionary

  1. yoctosecond
  2. yoctoseconds
  3. Yocum
  4. Yocums
  5. yod
  6. yod coalescence
  7. yod dropping
  8. yod-coalescence
  9. yod-dropper
  10. yod-droppers
  11. yod-dropping

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yod coalescence (page history and authors); Yod Coalescence (page history and authors); Yod coalescence (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “yod coalescence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yod_coalescence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.