Dissimilation

a. Definition
In linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon where two sounds in a given word or phrase
becomes less similar to each other over time. This can apply to sounds that were originally
identical, or sounds that were originally similar. In general, dissimilation refers to a process of
two things becoming increasingly dissimilar.
b. Example
For instance, in many American accents of English an r in the coda of a syllable is often deleted
if the word contains another r (the ultimate dissimilation is the complete loss of one sound
because of its proximity to another similar sound). An example is the pronunciation bzrk
instead of brzrk for the word berserk, "supprise" for surprise, "paticular" for particular, and
"govenor" for governor but this does not affect the pronunciation of government, which has only
one /r/, but English government tends to be pronounced "goverment", dropping out the first n.
another examples are: cate(r)pillar, Cante(r)bury, rese(r)voir, terrest(r)ial, southe(r)ner, and
barbitu(r)ate. (John Algeo and Thomas Pyles, The Origins and Development of the English
Language, 5th ed. Thomson, 2005)
Dissimilation of Liquid Consonants
"Consider [an] example of dissimilation of liquid consonants that took place when the suffix -al
attached to some Latin nouns to make adjectives. The regular suffixation process gives us pairs
like the following: orbit/orbital, person/personal, culture/cultural, electric/electrical. However,
when an /l/ precedes the ending anywhere in the root, the ending is changed from -al to -ar as a
result of dissimilation: single/singular, module/modular, luna/lunar."
(Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck, Linguistics for Everyone. Wadsworth, 2010)
Causes and Effects?
"We say that assimilation and dissimilation are changes that result in an increase or decrease,
respectively, in the degree of phonetic similarity between two segments. It is tempting to think

that such changes in the one segment are somehow caused by the phonetics of the other, and for
generations that is actually how the matter has usually been presented. . . . But this is a confusion
of cause and effect. It is true that the effect of the change is a net increase/decrease of similarity
between two segments, but it is begging the question (to say the least) to assume that the degree
of similarity is also somehow the cause of the change. The fact is that very little is known of the
actual mechanisms of these changes, commonplace as they are."
(Andrew L. Sihler, Language History: An Introduction. John Benjamins, 2000)