Soinnillistuvat

Soinnillistuvat is a Finnish linguistic term used to describe the process by which voiceless consonants become voiced under certain phonological conditions. It refers to a form of voicing assimilation in which the articulation of a consonant shifts from voiceless to voiced, typically due to the influence of surrounding voiced sounds.

The mechanism generally involves regressive or progressive assimilation across segmental boundaries. In practical terms, a consonant such as a voiceless plosive or fricative may take on voicing when it appears in environments with neighboring voiced segments, such as between vowels or before a voiced consonant or vowel in rapid speech or within certain dialects. The result is a phonetic realization where the segment is pronounced with voicing, even if its underlying phoneme is voiceless.

The phenomenon is most often discussed in the context of dialectal variation, historical phonology, or phonetic reduction, rather than as a universal feature of Standard Finnish. In different languages and dialects, the specific environments and the range of affected consonants can vary. Some analyses distinguish between temporary, allophonic voicing in connected speech and more regular, morpheme-bound voicing changes that persist in the spoken form.

Example illustrations are typically hypothetical or comparative, showing how, in the presence of voiced surroundings, a voiceless [p], [t], or [k] might be realized as [b], [d], or [ɡ]. Soinnillistuvat therefore denotes a broader class of processes centered on the acquisition or perception of voicing in consonants rather than a single uniform rule.