Assibilation

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Sound change and alternation
General Metathesis Dissimilation Fortition
Lenition (weakening) Sonorization (voicing) Spirantization (assibilation) Rhotacism (change of [z] or [d] to [r]) L-vocalization (change of [l] to [w]) Debuccalization (loss of place)
Elision (loss) Apheresis (initial) Syncope (medial) Apocope (final) Haplology (similar syllables) Fusion Cluster reduction Compensatory lengthening
Epenthesis (addition) Anaptyxis (vowel) Excrescence (consonant) Prosthesis (initial) Paragoge (final) Unpacking Vowel breaking
Assimilation Coarticulation Palatalization (before front vowels) Velarization (before back vowels) Labialization (before rounded vowels) Initial voicing (before a vowel) Final devoicing (before silence) Metaphony (vowel harmony, umlaut) Consonant harmony
Cheshirisation (trace remains) Nasalization Tonogenesis Floating tone
Sandhi (boundary change) Crasis (contraction) Liaison, linking R Consonant mutation Tone sandhi Hiatus
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In linguistics, assibilation is the term for a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is commonly the final phase of palatalization.

The word "assibilation" itself contains an example of the phenomenon, being pronounced /əsɪbɪleɪʃən/. The classical Latin tio was pronounced as /tio/ (for example, assibilatio was prounounced /asːibilatio/ and attentio /atːentio/). However, in Vulgar Latin it assibilated to /tsio/, and this can still be seen in Italian: attenzione. In French lenition gave /sjə/, which in English then palatalized to the /ʃə/.

For another example, in the history of Finnish, /ti/ changed to /si/. The alternation can be seen in dialectal and inflected word-forms: kielti vs. kielsi "s/he denied"; vesi "water", vetenä "as water".

Assibilation can also occur outside of palatalization. One example is the replacement of th with s or z characterizing a French accent of English.