In Cruttenden's new Gimson's Pronunciation of English, Routledge (2014), pp. 273-277 are devoted to
the, for the EFL learner/teacher extremely important, topic of English weak and
strong forms. In an improvement on the previous edition, this section now
includes many more weak forms than in the past, several of which are also exemplified
by sentences/phrases transcribed into GB. Some of the weak forms which now
feature in Cruttenden (2014) and which are not to be found in the seventh
edition of the book are:
a) the very common an for and;
b) bt
for but;
c) fm̩
for from, as in The man from the...;
d) ɪz`self
for himself, as in He did it himself;
e) (`)kədnt
for couldn't;
f) (`)ʃədnt
for shouldn't;
g) (`)wədnt
for wouldn't.
On page 275, Cruttenden rightly states that in
English common uses of reduced forms involve auxiliary verb plus not, and that
"a final /t/ may be lost before a word beginning with a vowel (sometimes with assimilation), e.g. /kɑːn `liːv/, /dʌzn `ʃəʊ/, /wəʊŋ `gəʊ/".
Although this kind of reduction in English is
possible, it is probably much more frequent before a word beginning with a
consonant sound, as is clearly indicated by the examples provided in the quote
above.
NB: From now
onwards, posts on this blog will be offered only in English.
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