[s]→[z]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 5/5
Voiceless alveolar fricative to Voiced alveolar fricative
The shift from the voiceless alveolar sibilant [s] to its voiced counterpart [z] is a standard form of voicing lenition. It typically occurs when the fricative is positioned between two voiced sounds (usually vowels), causing it to adopt the voicing of its environment to minimize articulatory effort.
Phonetic Effects
Voicing, Lenition
Language Examples
casa [s]→casa [z] (Italian/French/Old Spanish)— Intervocalic voicing of the sibilant is widespread in Romance languages.
rosa→rose [z]— Common sibilant voicing in French and Italian.
houses [s]→[ˈhaʊzɪz]— Voicing of the sibilant in specific phonetic contexts (pluralization).
vas [s]→vaz-ban [z]— Regressive voicing assimilation: /s/ becomes voiced [z] before a voiced consonant.
[s] (morpheme-final fricative)→[z]— In Western Nuer, morpheme-final fricatives including /s/ undergo voicing lenition in intervocalic position as a morphologically conditioned process. The fricative phonemes alternate between voiceless and voiced allophones depending on morphological boundary position, with [z] appearing in morpheme-final (weak) position between voiced segments.
Related Transformations
More Romance Shifts
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