Dentalization:

To reiterate, assimilation occurs when one sound is altered owing to the

influence of a neighboring segment. In the previous example we saw how
alveolars may be dentalized across a word boundary when followed
immediately by a dental sound. A further example should serve to
consolidate this concept:

hot thing /hɒt θɪŋ/

In the phrase hot thing the word boundary occurs between the first word
hot and the immediately following word thing. The first word hot ends
with the alveolar sound /t/. This sound, therefore, precedes the word
boundary. The first sound following the word boundary is the dental
consonant /θ/ in the word thing. The alveolar sound before the word
boundary is, consequently, dentalized in anticipation of the upcoming
dental sound that occurs immediately after the word boundary, i.e.

hot thing /hɒt θɪŋ/ → [hɒt̪ θɪ̃ŋ]

Note that in this example the dentalized [t̪] is produced without

aspiration as it is unreleased. That is to say, the oral cavity is occluded to
create the stop consonant but there is no audible release in the plosive
phase of its production. Unreleased plosives are marked in IPA with the
diacritic [ ̚], i.e.

hot thing /hɒt θɪŋ/ → [hɒt̪̚ θɪ̃ŋ]

Further examples of dentalization across word boundaries include the

following:

hit this /hɪt ðɪs/ → [hɪt̪̚ ðɪs]

ten things /tɛn θɪŋz/ → [tɛ̃ n̪ θɪ̃ŋz̥ ]

tell that /tɛl ðæt/ → [tɛl̪ ðæʔ]

In summary, we see that as well as dentalization occurring within words,

this process can also operate in connected speech across word
boundaries. The above examples demonstrate how alveolars before a
word boundary are dentalized if the initial sound of the next word is a
dental. Under these circumstances, the alveolar assimilates the place of
articulation of the dental. We can summarize this into a rule about
dentalization across word boundaries:

The brown vertical line represents a word boundary and the rule is read
as:

‘If the sound in word-final position of the word preceding the word
boundary is an alveolar /t, d, n, s, z, l/ and if the sound in word-initial
position in the word immediately following the word boundary is a dental
/θ, ð/ then the alveolar is dentalized.’

Some further examples should make this clear:

can they? /kæn ðeɪ/ → [k̟ ʰæ̃n̪ ðeɪː]

this thing /ðɪs θɪŋ/ → [ðɪs̪ θɪ̃ŋ]

those things /ðəʊz θɪŋz/→ [ðəʊːz̪̪̊ θɪ̃ŋz̥ ]

all those /ɔɫ ðəʊz/ → [ɔːɫ̪ ðəʊːz̥ ]

Each instance is an example of allophonic assimilation because the newly

assimilated sound is an allophone of the transformed phoneme. This
process of allophonic assimilation can be summarized in the following
statement.
Word-final alveolars are dentalized before dental fricatives.

As well as dentalization, the assimilatory process of labialization can also

occur across word boundaries.