Assibilation

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Assibilation is the introduction of sibilance to a sound, to produce a sibilant consonant.

For example, there is a sound change currently in progress in Finnish, where a word-final syllable /ti/ preceding a liquid (or even a long vowel) changes to /si/: kielti → kielsi, or by some speakers sääti → sääsi.

The word "assibilation" itself contains an example of the phenomenon. The classical Latin "tio" pronouced as "tee-o" (assibilatio--"ahsibilaTEEO"; attentio--"ahtenTEEO") assibilates in English to "shuh" (assibilation becomes "assibilashun") in Italian to "tsee-o" or "jee-o"--attenzione; reggio. The process describes a linguistic change in which a consonant followed by an "i" or "e" becomes a sibilant or fricative with loss of the following "i" or "e" (for example, the modern Italian pronunciation of "medio" as "medjo" or "metso".) The process is probably universal in human languages. There are other interesting, related phenomena--for example Piacenza from classical Latin Placentia ("plakenteea")--not only assibilation in the last two syllables (in the Italian form), but the replacement of a liquid for a semi-vowel in the first!