This document discusses various processes that occur in connected speech in English, including blending, linking, assimilation, deletion, and epenthesis. It defines each process and provides many examples to illustrate how they are manifested phonologically. The key points are: blending refers to blurred word boundaries, linking facilitates smooth transitions between words, assimilation involves sounds taking on qualities of neighboring sounds, deletion removes unstressed sounds, and epenthesis inserts sounds to break up clusters. These adjustments help connect words and syllables smoothly in the stream of natural English speech.

1. Connected Speech
From Ch 5 Teaching Pronunciation, 2nd Edition

2. What you know from
consonants & vowels
In Chapters 3 & 4, you went beyond the
citation forms of the vowel and consonant
inventory in American English and considered
the effects of positional variation and
processes.

3. These include...
the effects of positional
variation on consonants
what happens to
consonants in (consonant)
clusters - devoicing, cluster
reductions, unreleased
stops
vowel lengthening in
relation to tense/lax vowels
and the effects of stops
and fricatives
the effects on vowels as a
result of /r/ /l/ and nasal
coloring

4. So quite a lot that can
enable you to do a narrow
transcription, but...
Almost all of this has been at the single word
level, and we rarely say words in isolation.
Instead we need to look at connected speech,
and that entails learning about a few more
processes.

5. Contractions, Blends, &
Reductions

6. Blending refers to “...any two word sequence in which the word boundary is
blurred”. It includes contractions and blends. What’s the difference?
Contractions are blends, but they have a conventionalized WRITTEN form, for
example, we’ve or he’s (letters are removed)
Blends are contracted SPOKEN forms that do NOT have a conventionalized
written form, such as who’ll (from who will) or there’re (from there are). It’s quite
common to say these, but you are very unlikely to see them in written form. Here,
there are reductions and/or deletions.

7. Spoken English has many more phrase reductions, like
wanna (want to), and kinda (kind of), typical of informal
speech.
However, reduced forms affect all areas and all types of
spoken English. Contrary to what may believe, connected
speech is not “slang”. It is important and even necessary to
maintain the natural rhythmic patterns of English

8. Linking

9. Linking (or liaison) is “the ability to
speak English smoothly…the
(appropriate) connecting of the final
sound of one word or syllable to the
initial sound of the next”. This is
often something that is lacking in the
speech of NNS.

10. Just how much linking you’d
find in native-speaker speech
depends on various factors:
● level of formality of the
situation
● rate of speaking
● individual features of the
speaker

11. There are several types of linking:
Insertion of glides with V +
V sequences
Intervocalic consonant
sharing in VC + V
sequences
Resyllabification in CC + V
sequences
Lengthened articulation of
consonants w/germinate
consonants
Unreleased consonants in
stop + stop or stop +
affricate sequences

12. Insertion of glides with V + V sequences
When a word or syllable ENDS in a tense vowel or diphthong and the next word or
syllable BEGINS with a vowel, we typically link with /y/ or /w/:
word internally /y/ being, staying, crying, toying
between words /y/ be͜y
able, stay͜y
up, try͜y
out, Roy͜y
Adams
word internally /w/ bluish, going, however
between words /w/ do͜w
ing, go͜w
away, now͜w
is

13. Intervocalic consonant sharing in VC + V sequences
When a word or syllable ENDING IN A SINGLE CONSONANT is followed by a
word or syllable that BEGINS WITH A VOWEL the consonant is often produced
INTERVOCALICALLY, as if it “straddles” both syllables:
keep out
dream on
McIntosh apple
→
→
→
kee͜ p͜ out
drea͜ m͜ on
McInto͜ sh͜ apple

14. Resyllabification in CC + V sequences
When a word or syllable that ends in a consonant cluster is followed by a word
or syllable beginning with a vowel, the final consonant “migrates”, and is
pronounced as part of the following syllable. This is resyllabification.
lef/t ͜ arm /lefˑtɑrm/ push/ed ͜ up /pʊʃˑtʌp/
wep/t ͜ over /wɛpˑtowvər/ las/t ͜ ing /læsˑtɪŋ/
fin/d͜ our /faynˑdawt/ adap/t ͜ able /əˑdæpˑtəbl/
hat/s ͜ off /hætˑsɔf/

15. Lengthened articulation of consonants w/germinate
consonants
Geminates are two identical consonants - when they come together due to
juxtaposition of two words, there is one single elongated articulation of the
consonant:
stop͜ pushing [pː] Rob͜ Bill [bː]
short͜ time [sː] bad͜ dog [dː]
quick͜ cure [kː] big͜ gap [gː]
classroom͜ management [mː] less͜ serious [sː]

16. Unreleased consonants in stop + stop or stop + affricate
sequences
Whenever a stop is followed by another stop or by an affricate, the first stop is
unreleased in order to make a smooth transition between the two. Use the
“degree” diacritic [̊] to show this process.
pet cat [t ̊k] big dipper [g ̊d]
soap dish [p ̊d] good jury [d ̊dʒ]
black board [k ̊b] big church [g ̊tʃ]

17. Assimilation

18. Assimilation

19. In assimilation, a given sound
takes on the characteristics of
the neighboring sound.
There are 3 types of
assimilation:
● progressive assimilation
● regressive assimilation
● coalescent assimilation

20. Progressive assimilation
Here the conditioning sound PRECEDES and affects the FOLLOWING sound.
Our rules for the final -s and -ed morphemes are a good examples of progressive
assimilation...the condition here is VOICING
Conditioned Sound Assimilated Sound
-s ending:
bags
backs
/g/
/k/
/bæg → z/
/bæk → s/
-ed ending
moved
fished
/v/
/ʃ/
/muwv→d/
/fɪʃ→t/

21. Regressive assimilation
This type of assimilation is more common. Here, it is the sound the PRECEDES
that is affected by the conditioning sound which FOLLOWS.
Conditioning - place of
articulation
Across syllables (no
spelling change)
Across words (no
spelling change)
/n/ become /m/ grandpa /græmpɑ/ can buy /kæmbay/
/n/ becomes /ŋ/ pancake /pæŋkeyk/ can go /kæŋgow/

22. Allomorphic forms of English negative prefix
In this example of regressive assimilation, the negative prefix in- is also often
reflected in spelling (but not always…):
In-
(stays “in”)
Im-
(place of
articulation)
Il-
(manner of
articulation)
Ir-
(manner of
articulation)
Inoperative
Inflexible
Indifferent
Inexcusable
intangible
Impossible
Imbalanced
Immeasurable
Immoble
impartial
Illogical
Illegal
Illegitimate
Illegible
illiberal
Irreplaceable
Irresponsible
Irrelevant
Irrational
irregular

23. Coalescent assimilation
In this last type of assimilation, the first and second sounds in
a sequence influence each other and TOGETHER condition
the creation of a THIRD SOUND - one that has features from
both the first and second sounds. The most comon type of
coalescent assimilation is palatalization. Here final alveolar
consonants /s, z, t, d/ or alveolar sequences /ts, dz/ are
followed by initial palatal /y/. The result is the alveolar sounds
become palatalized fricatives.

24. Palatalization - how it works:
Rule Examples
/s/ + /y/ → /ʃ/ issue He’s coming this year.
/z/ + /y/ → /ʒ / pleasure Does your mother know.
/t/ + /y/ → /tʃ/ stature Is that your dog?
/ts/ + /y/ → /tʃ/ He hates your mother. She lets you stay up late.
/d/ + /y/ → /dʒ/ Procedure Would you mind moving?
dz/ + /y/ → /dʒ/ She needs your help. He never heeds your advice.

25. Deletion

26. Deletion is another common
process in connected speech.
Here, sound disappear or are
not clearly articulated in
certain contexts. Sometimes,
this is reflected in spelling as
in deletion in contracted
forms of auxiliary verbs like .

27. Some examples of deletion NOT reflected in spelling
● Loss of /t/ when /nt/ is between two vowels or before a syllabic [l]. Note the
strike though for the /t/ in each word below:
● Loss of /t/ or /d/ when the occur SECOND in sequence or cluster of 3
cosonants:
winter Toronto enter mantle
/t/ restless listless exactly
/d/ windmill kindness hands

28. Deletion & Resyllabification
A word-final /t/ or /d/ in clusters of two at a word boundary is deleted when the
following word begins with a consonant cluster except /h, y, w, r/. When the
following word begins with a vowel, resyllabification occurs in place of deletion:
Deletion of /t, d/ No deletion
(before /h, y, w, r/
Resyllabification
(before vowel)
East side East hill Eas/t͜ end
Blind man blind youth blin/d͜ eye
Wild boar wild woman wil/d͜ ass
Old boyfriend wld rags ol/d͜ age

29. Deletion - Syncope
Although you may not be familiar with this term, you likely do this type of deletion
frequently. Syncope is the loss of an unstressed medial vowel /ə/ /ɪ/ following
a strong stressed syllable in multisyllabic words. Note: Deleted sounds are shown
in faded grey:
chocolate
every
evening
camera
mystery
history
vegetable
comparable
laboratory
interesting
miserable
generally
aspirin
different
favorite
restaurant
beverage
family
reasonable
emerald

30. Deletion: Aphesis
Aphesis is a comon type of deletion that occurs in very informal speech, as in
‘cause, ‘bout, ‘round. Why does this happen? Simply put, it’s easier not to
produce a consonant than to produce it.
Loss of first non-initial /r/ in a word that has another /r/ in a
following syllable (disappearing /r/)
February, governor, surprise,
temperature
Loss of final /v/ in of (and reduction to schwa) before words with
initial consonants
Lots of money, waste of time
/ə/ /ə/
Loss of initial /h/ and /ð/ in pronominal forms in connected speech ask her, help him, tell them

31. Epenthesis

32. Epenthesis is the opposite of
deletion. Here a vowel or
consonant in inserted into an
existing sequence.
There are two types of
epenthesis:
● Word-internal
● word-external

33. Word-internal epenthesis:
We can see how word-internal epenthesis works in the inflectional morphemes -s
and -ed when the insertion of schwa /ə/ breaks up clusters of sibilants or alveolar
stops:
/e/ used to break up sibilant clusters with -s classes, buzzes, britches, judges
/e/ used to break up alveolar stops with -ed patted, granted, graded, branded

34. Word-internal epenthesis (cont)
We also see epenthesis used to facilitate the pronunciation of consonant clusters
in connected speech.
Note: NNS sometimes erroneously use epenthesis to simplify clusters:
In a voiced nasal + voiceless fricative sequence
● Insert voiceless stop [t] to facilitate cluster /ns/
● Insert voiceless stop [p] to facilitate cluster /mf/
prince → /prɪnts/
comfort → /kʌmpfərt/
Misuse of word-internal epenthesis film → /fɪləm/
please → /pəliyz/
judgment → /dʒʌdʒəmənt/

35. Native English speakers use all five types of
adjustments in connected speech - linking,
assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, & epenthesis - in
an attempt to connect words & syllables smoothly in
the normal stream of speech (often unconsciously)
and to maintain the regular rhythmic beat that typifies
English. The motivations are
1. ease of articulation for the speaker
2. preservation of the preferred English syllable
structure
3. preservation of grammatical information

36. Word-external epenthesis
The best examples of word-external epenthesis come from transfer of
phonological rules from NNS’s L1s:
Word-initially before -s consonant clusters in Spanish &
Persian
school → /ɛskuwl/
sport → /ɛspɔrt/
In languages that do not normally permit closed syllables
as in Japanese (word-internally & word-finally)
club → /kurabu/