PHONETIC PROCESS

Assimilation
Metathesis
Epenthesis
Epithesis

Assimilation
A process by which one speech sound
comes to resemble or become
identical with a neighboring sound
between words or within a word

Types of Assimilation

Regressive
the sound changes because of the the influence
of the following sound
e.g. ten bikes /ten baiks/ /tembaiks/
AS CS

Progressive
the sound changes because of the influence of the
preceding sound
e.g. He left the town /hi lef taun/ /hi lef taun/
CSAS

Reciprocal
There is mutual influence, or fusion, of the sounds
upon each other
e.g. Did You /did ju:/ /did /

Ket CS :Conditioning sound

AS : Assimilated sound

Metathesis

the transposition of speech sound

e.g. tragedy tradegy
aks ask

Epenthesis

The insertion of extra consonant

within a word.
e.g. something /smi/
/smpi/

Epithesis

The addition of an extra consonant

to the end of a word.
e.g. soun /sun/ sound

Elision

Elision is a process where one or more

phonemes are dropped, usually in order
to simplify the pronunciation.
For Example: police, correct or
suppose, friendship being realised as
[pli:s], [kkt] or [spz], [frenip]

<h> is a feature that is very common in

many accents of (especially English or
English-influenced) English.
For example: as in give her/give him,
[gv:]/[gvm] or tell her/tell him, [tl:]/
[tlm] , or forms of the auxiliary have
as in would have, [wdv], should have,
[dv], etc.

Cluster Reduction

When two or more consonants, often of a similar nature, come

together, there is a tendency in English to simplify such a cluster
by eliding one of them.

The longer the cluster, the more of a chance there is of elision.

Cluster reduction can occur in between as well as inside words

and mainly involves the deletion of voiceless oral plosives where
it would otherwise be more difficult to produce two plosives in a
row as this would require two closure phases.

If a reduction occurs inside a word, it may also lead to a

reduction in the number of syllables, such as in the examples
given in the introductory section above, which have become
mono-syllabic.

Elision itself is often a precursor to or occurs in conjunction with

assimilation, which well discuss in one of the next sections.

Aya's Prop/Int to Ling (2)

Example of Cluster Reduction

word/combination

no elision

elision

asked

[:skt]

[:st]

lecture

[lkt]

[lk]

desktop

[dsktp]

[dstp]

hard disk

[h:ddsk]

[h:dsk]

kept quiet

[kptkwat]

[kpkwat]

at least twice

[tli:sttwas]

[tli:stwas]

straight towards

[stettwo:dz]

[stetwo:dz]

next to

[nkstt]

[nkst]

seemed not to notice

[si:mdnttnts]

[si:mntnts]

for the first time

[ff:sttam]
Aya's Prop/Int to Ling (2) [ff:stam]