The Factors Affecting the Direction of Assimilation in Iranian South western Languages Based on Sibawayh Approach

This study is concerned with the factors affecting the direction of assimilation in Iranian south western languages based on Sibawayh approach. To do this, five different assimilation processes were studied in these languages. According to Dabirmoghadam (2013), the Iranian south western group of languages is divided into 7 languages which are Farsi, Davani, Lori, Delvari, Larestani, Laraki and Bakhtiari. The data were gathered using several fieldwork and printed sources. Among the achievements is, the dominance of inherent features in assimilation which inherited to some consonants related to their place and manner of articulation as “inherent strength”, such as [+strident] and [+nasal]. The other dominant factor is the “positional strength” of “onset” rather than “coda” which determines the direction in assimilation. While these two factors, compete in a context, no assimilation occurs and “neutralization” will take place. Another achievement is that in these studied languages, the assimilation processes mainly occur progressively than regressively.