VOICE ASSIMILATION IN MARATHI

Abstract

This article discusses voice assimilation phenomenon in Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. The goals of this study are three-fold: i) to provide empirical evidence for regressive assimilation in Marathi as claimed in previous studies by Junghare (1969), ii) to check whether obstruents and breathy voice can undergo and/or trigger voice assimilation, iii) to investigate what type of language Marathi belongs to based on Wetzels and Mascaro’s (2001) language typology. The results show that Marathi exhibits voice assimilation as stipulated by Junghare, and it belongs to type II languages that have voice assimilation and no word-medial and word-final devoicing.