[ʃ]→[θ]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 2/5

Voiceless postalveolar fricative to Voiceless dental fricative

The shift from the postalveolar fricative [ʃ] to the voiceless interdental fricative [θ] is a form of fronting and depalatalization. It involves moving the tongue tip forward from the postalveolar region to the teeth. This is common in developmental speech and was a factor in several historical sibilant mergers.

Phonetic Effects

Fronting, Depalatalization, Lisping

Language Examples

Child Phonology Universal

shoe [ʃ]→[θuː]— Developmental fronting: replacing a hushing sibilant with an interdental fricative.

fish→fith

Spanish (Historical) Romance

medieval sibilants [ʃ]→[θ] (Castilian)— Part of the complex 16th-century readjustment where earlier coronal fricatives moved forward to the interdental position.

Related Transformations

Reverse

More Romance Shifts

[ã] → [õ] — Raising [a] → [ã] — Assimilatory Nasalization [a] → [∅] — Elision [a] → [ə] — Vowel Reduction [ai] → [e] — Monophthongization

Sources & References

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