Yod Coalescence, Elision y Epenthesis en el Inglés Hablado: Fonética y Pronunciación

YOD COALESCENCE (WITH ELISION AND EPENTHESIS)

Language follows two principles: the principle of intelligibility and the principle of economy. The latter is based on assimilations, elisions and epentheses.

Factores que condicionan la pronunciación

The pronunciation of phonemes is always conditioned by two factors: their phonetic environment and the tempo. Many changes that segments undergo when they occur in the stream of speech result from the speaker's need for ease of articulation, a need stemming from the same principle of least effort (economy) that seems to account, at least in part, for historical sound change. This need is more marked when speaking is fast and casual.

Assimilations

Assimilations are changes in the quality of sounds produced due to the company that the sounds keep. They can be phonemic, phonetic or coalescence, that is, the fusion of phonemes. A characteristic feature of English fricatives and affricates is that they arise from the fusion of yod with a preceding alveolar fricative or plosive:

• as in ''miss you'';
• as in ''close your'';
• as in ''statue''; and
• as in ''education''.

Yod Coalescence

This assimilatory process is known as Yod Coalescence, and it accounts for the current pronunciation of ''delicious, measure, picture and soldier''. This process operates both across word boundaries and within words, its incidence being particularly high in the case of /tj/ and /dj/.

In many cases, the coalescence variant is the more common pronunciation in RP, whilst in others the frequency of use of each variant is determined by such factors as the style, the rate of speech and the age of the speaker. By and large, coalescence forms are more common in informal styles, and many coalesced variants with /tj/ and /dj/ tend to be favoured by young speakers.

Elision and Epenthesis

Two of the most important processes that affect the pronunciation of words in connected speech are elision and epenthesis. Elision is the process by which a phoneme is dropped from a word, and we can distinguish between aphaeresis, apocope and syncope. The other side of the coin, the insertion of an extra phoneme, is called epenthesis. We are going to talk about the most typical environments for both processes.

The elision of the plosive portion

The elision of the plosive portion of /tʃ/ and /dʒ/: the first part of the two affricates may undergo elision when it is preceded by /n/.

Within the same syllable, the consonant clusters /nt͡ʃ/ and /nd͡ʒ/ can thus be simplified to /ntʃ/ and /ndʒ/ respectively, as we can see in ''lunch'' and ''change''.

This phenomenon mainly affects alveolar plosives

The alveolar /t/ and /d/ are regularly elided when the following three conditions are met:

1. They must occur second in a syllable-final cluster;
2. /t/ must follow a voiceless consonant and /d/ a voiced consonant; and
3. They must precede a consonant other than /h/.

This kind of elision can be found in a good number of cluster combinations, but is particularly common in /ft, st, ld, nd/. It can occur word-internally or at the end of a word.

Exceptions

Nevertheless, there are two important exceptions to the three conditions above:

1. The conjunction and. The final /d/ may be elided in any environment, as we can see in ''black and white''.
2. All contractions with n't, as in ''don't, doesn't'', except wasn't and weren't. The final /t/ may be elided in any environment, especially before a consonant. For example: ''I don't indulge''.

When these negative contractions are followed by you, the final /t/ is not lost, but fuses with the following semivowel to form an affricate, as in ''don't you''.

With the words want to, go to and ought to, they are often pronounced with only one plosive when they are followed by another verb. The same elision of /t/ occurs in used to, even when it appears clause-finally. However, sometimes the elision of double consonants at word boundaries is not possible, for example: not.

Elision of /k/ and /p/

We can also see elision in /k/ and /p/. The elision of /k/ appears in the past form asked. Thus, speakers elide /k/ and /p/ in consonant sequences, for example: A MANO.

Epenthesis

Another change in words is epenthesis. Epenthetic vowels are found in the well-known dialect pronunciation of film. The phenomenon is more widespread in the case of consonant clusters, since the articulatory movements from one consonant to another are not always continuous. In the transition between them, an extra segment ''copies'' the place of articulation of the first consonant. We can see this in the pronunciation of the word hamster, with /p/ between /m/ and /s/.