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That has nothing to do with the C memory model, but how the CPU is structured. No modern CPU has an interface for bit-address accessing as far as I am aware...

C makes no assumptions about the size of a byte

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C doesn't really know about bytes. It has chars, but I believe there are some constraints on char, specifically, they have to be big enough to hold the ASCII charset. (I'm pulling real deep here, someone correct me if I'm wrong)

C11 3.6p1 byte "addressable unit of data storage large enough to hold any member of the basic character set of the execution environment"

If I remember correctly, it assumes the size of a char is greater than or equal to seven bits, and a char is defined to be the smallest addressable unit.

C does not support bit-addressing.

The width is defined as CHAR_BIT >= 8 (C11 5.2.4.2.1p1). The size, sizeof (char), is always 1.

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