English Pronunciation Tip of the Day
Tip 61
Category:
Connected speech features
Author: JAM
Disappearing /t/
We saw in Tip 35 that <t> is silent in some word endings. The sound /t/ tends to be unstable in many words and phrases. Sometimes it's there. Sometimes it isn't. There is a process called elision which deletes /t/ when it is preceded by a voiceless consonant (/f T s S tS p t k/) and followed by any consonant except /h/. Here are some examples:
| last week | /lA:st wi:k/ | OR | /lA:s wi:k/ |
| most people | /m@Ust pi:pl/ | OR | /m@Us pi:pl |
| act sensibly | /{kt sens@bli/ | OR | /{k sens@bli/ |
| software | /sQftwe@/ | OR | /sQfwe@/ |
Apart from those words which we mentioned in Tip 35, there are some others where <t> is always silent. Christmas = /"krIsm@s/ is a good example.