This question isn't answered here:    That question asks about what happens when the following word begins with a consonant in general. This one is asking about the various possibilities for an intervocalic tap if a following word is an unstressed function word beginning with /t/. It's also asking whether there's any possibility for regressive assimilation here.  I read this in American accent book. I quote the text exactly how it is written in the book:  The suffix -ed is not pronounced precisely when it is linked to another consonant. For example, mailed the sounds very much like mail the in the following sentences:  I already mailed the letter. I will mail the letter.  The suffix -ed is not heard at all when it is linked to /t/ or /d/. For example talked to sounds identical to talk to in the following sentences:  I talked to her yesterday. I talk to her every day.   Okay but then my question is, how do Americans distinguish between these two sentences:  I try to call you. I tried to call you.  In the first sentence the /t/ will be realised by a voiced tap because it occurs between two vowels. In the second will we get a regular [t] and then a voiced tap? Will we get a double tap or a double length tap? Or will we just get a single tap? Or maybe here we will just get two regular /t/s? Do native speakers differentiate between &quot;I tried to call you&quot; and &quot;I try to call you&quot; from the context?
122056
How can we distinguish, for example, these two sentences just by listening to the pronunciation?        They first kill the trees.   They first killed the trees.      When pronouncing kill the trees, we have one [d] that is for the. When pronouncing killed the trees, we have two [d] that is for killed and the.  Native speakers pronounce both sentences so that we just hear one [d], so we don't know  the tense by pronunciation in these cases. Am I right?  Is there any special stress or extension of a sound that signals the difference between them?
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This might just be  on my part, but it seems to me that if a verb ends is a "d" sound then it's a lot more likely to have an irregular past tense than an average verb picked out at random.  Examples include "feed/fed", "stand/stood", "rend/rent", "tread/trod", "betide/betid".  So, is this an actual pattern, or am I just imagining it?    And if it is a real pattern, what's the explanation?
106576
I've read , yet I'm still irresolute about the exposition/logic behind the pronunciation of subtle. Why is the b not pronounced?    subtle = subtil(e) in French, in which the b is pronounced. That website avers:     "By the 18th century, however, they smartly dropped the silent b in dette, and doute, and decided to begin pronouncing it in subtil.   The deletion of b in these French nouns may explain the silent b in debt and doubt in English. Yet why does this not extend to "su*b*tle"?  In French, dette and doute have no b (and thus b sound). Would this explain the silent b in "debt" and "doubt"?  In French, the b in subtil(e) is pronounced. Yet the b in "subtle" isn't? Why does this differ?
75395
Initially, my question was: is "focussed" or "focused" the correct past tense of "focus", but since this applies to a lot of words, I would like to generalize and ask: is there supposed to be a rule when to double the consonant?
83426
I am working on my accent and pronunciation. I use  and it says that in spoken English, speakers usually run words together.  For example, "Run them all together" turns into "Runnemalld'gether." I have two questions here.   Is there any rule when we can reduce th sound?  Is it acceptable in business meeting and academic speaking to reduce th and running word together?
64185
When you pronounce the phrase "I got a message you wanted to see me", is the "t" usually deleted in the word "wanted"? Thank you.
36050
I just wrote  in an ELL chat room. But looking at it (or more accurately, listening to my "inner voice" trying to "read it aloud"), I find it bothers me a lot.  A quick check on Google Books finds a claimed 432 written instances of , and 910 instances of , which suggests a significant minority of writers don't have a problem with the fact that the two different read's don't sound the same.  When I check the same construction with other verbs that don't have the same written form for past participle and present tense, it seems people nearly always include both (e.g. :1230, :8; :357, :7).  I'm not usually a big fan of "grammatical rules", but it seems to me there "ought" to be a rule that you shouldn't delete one instance of the verb unless it's "the same" as the one you're keeping. And it also seems to me that since language is primarily spoken, "the same" ought to mean "sounds the same when spoken", not "looks the same when written".  Can anyone who knows more than me about formal rules of grammar settle this one?    As an aside, offhand I can't think of any verb where the past participle and present tense sound the same but are written differently (maybe there aren't any), but would deletion be okay in that case?
8352
Swedish writing conventions states that in compound words, when three successive identical consonants occur, one of them should be omitted. An example of this is glass (ice cream) and strut (cone), which form the compound word glasstrut (ice cream cone), not glassstrut.  Another example is ägg and gula, which forms äggula (egg yolk), not ägggula.  It might seem like a strange rule, and sometimes it creates strange results. As an example, it is impossible to distinguish between the written words glass-strut (ice cream cone) glass-trut (a gull made of ice cream) and glas-strut (a cone made of glass), but most words don't have this ambiguity (äggula can't mean anything else besides egg yolk regardless how it's pronounced).  However, if a hyphenation occur between the two consonants, the third one should be added. This means that äggula should be hyphenated as ägg-gula. Other examples would be till-låta, till-lämpa, topp-position.  Is it possible to achive this kind of hyphenation with Latex? Ideally, I am searching for a solution both for the whole document (like \hyphenation works, for i.e. äggula) and in the text, for cases like glasstrut which could be hyphenated differently depending on the meaning (glass-strut, glass-trut).  Testing shows that none of the above words gets correct hyphenation (using Polyglossia and Xelatex). If I add an entry manually with \hyphenation, I get the hyphenation at the correct place, but I don't know how I could add the "missing" letter.   \documentclass{article} \usepackage{polyglossia} \setmainlanguage{swedish} \begin{document} \hyphenation{glass-trut} Oh Norrmalmsregleringen, ho samt Västerbron och Tranebergsbron. glasstrut krigsåren var Larsson även en ledande nordisk  \end{document}   (Hyphenation should occur in the word "glasstrut", the other words are just there for filling)
117926
In mathematics, we like talking about idempotent matrices. In a masters program that I am currently enrolled in, I have heard one professor pronounce it one way, and another professor pronounce it another way. The  explains it better than I could:  Is there a correct pronunciation for idempotent? Is it like omnipotent (om-nip-o-tent), so id-EMP-o-tent, or is it more like the two seperate words idem + potent I'd say EYE-dm-POT-nt, but then I speak Brit. Charles Matthews 07:57, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC) Ditto, but then I speak Australian ;) Dysprosia 08:01, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC) Actually the British is more like EYE-dm-PO-tnt, I guess. Charles Matthews I'd just like to pedantically point out that it would be pronounced i-DEM-po-tent because because syllable onsets are maximized. daesotho 20:33, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC) The American pronunciation puts primary stress on the second syllable ('dem') and secondary stress on the fourth syllable ('tence'). Could somebody more familiar with IPA than I am please add this to the article as an accepted pronunciation? My American dictionary says |ˈīdemˌpōtənt| for the adjective. I speak American (non-natively) and I wouldn't stress the second syllable for itempotence. My only question is, right now it says /ˌaɪdɪmˈpoʊtəns/ -- but can't it be stressed on the first syllable too? Should we add /'aɪdɪmˌpoʊtəns/ as an alternative? -- 87.160.141.177 (talk) 14:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC) And by the way I think it's silly giving a pronounciation guide as this is just imposing a particular accent. (For what it's worth I pronounce idempotent with a short 'i', as in the word 'id'). Alex Selby I agree with Alex Selby - the pronunciation guide should be extended to show the variation, or removed. Strictly, there's no reason for the first i to be long (neuter idem has a short first syllable in Latin), and I can't find any authoritative source which advocates the pronunciation given. Ms7821 (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2015 (UTC)  Is there a &quot;correct&quot; pronunciation for this word?
76363
I have been studying the pronunciation of Greek-derived words in English, and I've found an odd anomaly. There are (at least) two possible pronunciation patterns for plural word-forms that end in -&#8288;mata (which correspond to singular word-forms that end in -&#8288;ma).   Antepenult stress (expected)  It appears that it is always possible to place the stress on the antepenult (third-to-last) syllable, such as:    /ˈlɛmə/, /ˈlɛmətə/  /ˈskiːmə/, /ˈskiːmətə/  /ˌtɛrəˈtoʊmə/, /ˌtɛrəˈtoʊmətə/~/ˌtɛrəˈtɒmətə/  /ˈstɪɡmə/, /ˈstɪɡmətə/   This is what would be expected from  (I believe most or all of these words came through Latin before entering English), since the penultimate "a" in the original Greek words is short.  Maybe Latin vowel quality and stress rules are not very relevant; certainly, few English speakers know about them nowadays. And even with antepenult stress, some of these pronunciations do not seem to follow all of the traditional rules for pronouncing Latin-derived terms in English. I was reminded by some comments in this  that  in antepenult stressed syllables, we would expect tense ("long") vowels to be shortened due to  (TSL), yielding pronunciations like /ˌtɛrəˈtɒmətə/ (which I just noticed is in fact listed in the Oxford English dictionary) and ?/ˈskɛmətə/ (which is not). (Compare to genus~genera /dʒiːnəs/~/dʒɛnərə/, and perhaps opus~opera /oʊpəs/~/ɒpərə/). However, there are other Latinate plural forms that typically don't have trisyllabic laxing (matrices, also I think helices), or where both the lax- and tense-voweled pronunciations coexist (codices, apices), so I guess the apparent lack of it in schemata should not be surprising. (There are even some exceptions to TSL in singular nouns like obesity.)  Penult stress (unexpected)  The other pronunciation seems to exist only for a couple of words, in which the penultimate "a" is commonly stressed and broadened: stigma ~ stigmáta  (listed by both the Merriam-Webster dictionary and the ), and also sometimes schéma ~ schemáta /skiːˈmɑːtə/ (listed only by the ). (Neither the Merriam-Webster dictionary nor the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries list *"lemmáta").  I'm wondering why this pronunciation exists. It's an irregular plural either way, and putting the stress on the penultimate syllable creates a stress change between the singular and the plural forms.  (It's true that all of these words are rare, and some people might pronounce some of their plurals differently. The pronunciations I give here are simply the ones listed in dictionaries.)  The plural form "stigmata" is probably most common in religious or theological contexts (where it refers to the wounds of Christ), so at first I wondered if the penultimate stress was supposed to be closer to the original Greek pronunciation, but according to , the stress is on the antepenult in Greek as well.  So, what's up with this? Did the stress perhaps change in Latin over time, is this a tradition of Greek accentuation that I'm not familiar with, is this a simple matter of ignorance of the original position of the stress that has now become entrenched with time and usage, or is this somehow explainable by established English stress patterns? (For example, do English speakers have some natural preference for a penultimate stress on polysyllabic words?)  If nobody knows of a reason, I suppose I can just put it down to people encountering the word mainly in text, not knowing which syllable to stress, and choosing the penult because it sounds better to them.  (I asked this question a while back on , but nobody knew of any reason.)
53503
There is a Cambridge American English Dictionary web-site. I was checking pronunciation on some words that have a common sound "æ". Although the sound supposed to be the same, its pronunciation differs in my opinion. I splitted two groups based on how the words sound.  The web-site I used is .  The first is group:  , , ,   The second one is:  , , ,   First question, does the sound really differ or it is me hearing it differently for some reason?  If it is different in the recordings, should that sound sound the same in all the words?  If it should sound the same, may it possibly differ in the recordings because they were taken from people living in different parts of America?  UPDATE:    Here is my recording in which I read the words from the list by two ways:  1) the one I heard in an American English phonetics video and from a girl living in Minnesota.  2) the one I taught in school and heard from one guy living in Michigan that said that the first option is more Canadian or something.  Are they both possible ways of saying it and I can choose any? If not, what is most correct way of saying it? And please tell me what sounds I make in the terms of transcription. Thanks!
35248
I've seen that some words in English are pronounced with the /ɪ/ sound when the vowel is not stressed.  Some examples include: pocket /ˈpɒkɪt/, comet /ˈkɒmɪt/. But hundred /ˈhʌndrəd/.  Is there any pronunciation rule here when the words end in /t/?
41395
In linguistics, is there a term describing this phenomenon, i.e., when the syllables of two words are slurred together in the spoken language?  They are not contractions. While contractions are acceptable in any register, this combination of words is very informal and hardly ever found in formal writing.  kinda (kind of)   sorta (sort of)   coulda (could have)   shoulda (should have)   lotta (lot of)   oughta (ought to)   betcha (bet you)   lemme (let me)   tseasy (it's easy)   willya (will you)  Inasmuch as English Language speakers (just like the speakers of any natural language) have a tendency to join word sounds in speech, examples abound and a complete list would be hard to produce. I’m looking for a word or phrase describing this linguistic phenomenon as it occurs in speech.
88641
In Anne Tyler’s , one character comments on the name of another     Carla Carlucci: alliteration. Or something more than alliteration, but I don’t know the term for it.    is     the use of the same consonant (consonantal alliteration) or of a vowel, not necessarily the same vowel (vocalic alliteration), at the beginning of each word or each stressed syllable in a line of verse, as in around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.   Collins    is      the use of word-endings that are similar or the same, either intentionally for rhetorical effect or by mistake during copying of text.   Collins  An example is found in Ursula K. LeGuin's      He arrived at ideas the slow way, never skating   over the clear, hard ice of logic, nor soaring   on the slipstreams of imagination, but slogging,   plodding along on the heavy ground of existence.   Obviously there is alliteration present in Ms. Tyler’s example, but it does seem like something more, deserving of its own nomenclature. Is there a standard term for the repeated use of a syllable at the beginning of successive words?
115060
SO here is the rule I find about doubling consonant     if a word ends with a short vowel sound plus a consonant, and the stress is on the last syllable, then the final consonant is doubled if you add an ending that starts with a vowel.    I find this rule to be much more powerful than the one I learned at school, aka:V+C, But the rule doesn't seem to apply to cooking, which is not doubled. Is this a contradiction of the rule I quoted above? (I am not so sure about the short vowel but, but simple Google tells me that ʊ in cooking is indeed a short vowel. )  Also, if cooking is indeed an exception to this rule, are there any other similar exceptions that I should be aware of?
47133
If I say two words consecutively, with the first ending in a vowel sound and the second starting with one, when is it correct to include a non-existent r between those two words?  Examples from phrases I've heard:        I saw (r)a movie   They saw (r)us   Law (r)and order   That's the idea, (r)anyway.      I heard the last one in the movie Edge of Tomorrow yesterday.  Is this grammatically correct? If so, is the omission of the r grammatically incorrect? Are there any rules regarding this?
100891
How do you pronounce &quot;it would&quot;, &quot;it was&quot;, etc. in American English? That is, how do you pronounce the T when it precedes a semi-vowel such as &quot;w&quot;? Is there a stop T or not when the words are pronounced fast? I know, when followed by a vowel, it's a flap T (as in &quot;it is&quot;), and, when followed by a consonant, it's a full T (as in &quot;it looks&quot;). Yet, I can't put my finger on this.