Delateralization

Delateralization is a replacement of a lateral consonant by a central consonant.

Yeísmo

Main article: Yeísmo

Arguably, the best known example of this sound change is yeísmo, which occurs in many Spanish and some Galician dialects.

In accents with yeísmo, the palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ merges with the palatal approximant /ʝ/ which, phonetically, can be an affricate [ɟ͡ʝ] (word-initially and after /n/), an approximant [ʝ̞] (in other environments) or a fricative [ʝ] (in the same environments as the approximant, but only in careful speech).

In Romanian, the palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ merged with /j/ centuries ago. The same happened to the historic palatal nasal /ɲ/, although that is an example of lenition.

Arabic Ḍād

Main article: Ḍād

Another known example of delateralization is the sound change that happened to the Arabic ḍād, which, historically, was a lateral consonant, either a pharyngealized voiced alveolar lateral fricative <phonos file="Voiced pharyngealized alveolar lateral fricative.ogg">[ɮˤ]</phonos> or a similar affricated sound [d͡ɮˤ] or [dˡˤ]. The affricated form is suggested by loans of ḍ into Akkadian as ld or lṭ and into Malaysian as dl. However, some linguists, such as the French orientalist André Roman supposes that the letter was actually a pharyngealized voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant [ʑˤ], similar to the Polish ź, which is not a lateral sound.

In modern Arabic, there are three possible realizations of this sound, all of which are central:

• Pharyngealized voiced alveolar stop <phonos file="Voiced_pharyngealized_alveolar_stop.ogg">[dˤ]</phonos>
• Pharyngealized voiced dental stop [d̪ˤ]
• Velarized voiced dental stop [d̪ˠ].