Course materials for/by Peter L. Patrick. May contain
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These
notes serve to briefly introduce the phonological linguistic variable of final
/-t, -d/ deletion (consonant cluster simplification) in varieties of English,
describing several of the major linguistic constraints that have been found to
systematically govern variation across all varieties of English.
A
bibliography with comments is available
here. A table
comparing frequencies of 13 classic studies for the two major linguistic
constraints is available here (from Patrick 1999:
162).
1.
Definition of the Variable:
(TD)-deletion
in English is the deletion of apical (=alveolar) stops /t/ and /d/ in final clusters.
You can hear (TD)-Deletion at work in such examples as:
“I don’ know”
“Then he pass’ me
his plate”
It’s
a naturally variable reduction process that all speakers of English do, usually
unconsciously, in frequencies that differ according to a variety of factors:
Linguistic, e.g. the
surrounding sounds or type of word it occurs in;
and Social,
such as speaking style, and speaker sex, age, class, ethnicity.
(TD)-deletion
studies look at the presence or absence of a final /-t/ or /-d/ element in
consonant clusters where it is underlying, and thus expected to occur. Since it
sometimes occurs and sometimes does not, the principal analytical question is:
“What factors
favor the deletion of final /-t/ or /-d/?”
The answers are usually quite predictable in a general way, but allow for subtle and important differences of social, dialectal and individual patterning. Thus, a detailed, quantitative profile of these factors can tell us something about how closely groups of speakers resemble each other.
2.
Exclusions from the Data:
Due
to the nature of the variable there are cases which cannot usefully be looked
at in a variationist, quantitative analysis. These are called the “Don’t-Count”
cases, e.g.
·
Cases where the /t,d/ that might be deleted
is followed by another /t/ or /d/:
·
Cases where preceding /r/ is a
crucial member of the consonant cluster:
·
Cases where a nasal before the (TD)
and a vowel after it allow the rule of “nasal-flapping”:
Wanna
(WaNT A) light? /wa?a lait/
In collecting our corpus of tokens we
systematically excluded these cases.
3.
Explanatory or Independent Linguistic Variables:
(these are often called “Factor Groups” in VarbRul analysis)
The first
type of linguistic factor to consider is phonological environments. Preceding Segment
refers to the class of sounds that occur before the (TD), that is, those
sounds that make up the first part of the cluster. (Naturally, they’re
limited to consonants!)
1)
Sibilants /s, sh, ch, z, zh, j/ Ex.: paST, waSHED,
raZZED, parCHED
2)
Stops /k,
p, g, b/ Ex.: raPT, baGGED,
baKED, naBBED
3)
Fricatives /f, v, th, Th/ Ex.: raFT, depraVED,
baTHED
4)
Nasals /n,
m, ng/ Ex.: waNT, waNED,
baNGED, taMED
5)
Liquids /l/
Ex.: oLD, haLT, caLLED
Following
Segment
refers to the class of sounds that follow
the (TD) -- the sounds that make up the first part of the following morpheme
(including pause, if one occurs).
1)
Consonant (all groups above) Ex.: wanT Some, bakeD
Goods
2)
Glides /y,
w, h/ Ex.: stanD Here, calleD
You
3)
Rhotics /r/ Ex.: tolD Rita, planneD
Reunion
4)
Vowel (all
Eng. vowels) Ex.: calleD A cab,
warneD Us
5)
Pause (i.e.,
silence) Ex.: the enD…, are you
colD?
The second type of linguistic factor
to consider is Grammatical
Category. This refers to the type of morpheme the (TD) cluster
occurs in:
1)
N’T (negative-suffix items) Ex.: caN’T, doN’T, isN’T, aiN’T
(N’T is the most-often-deleted type; some studies exclude it, because of this predictable variation in frequency.)
2)
“Send/Sent” (Irreg. devoicing verbs) Sent/Spent/Lent/Bent/Built
(“Send”-type verbs are quite rare, so they are often not considered either.)
3)
Mono-morphemes
(/-t, -d/ part of stem) Ex.: olD,
bursT, denT
4)
Semi-weak
(Verbs w/vowel-change+TD) Ex.: tol-D,kep-T,mean-T
5)
Past (Regular past verbs) Ex.: pass-ED, bill-ED, tone-D
Bibliography of the (TD) variable
More links about
Language Variation
Back to Peter L. Patrick's homepage
Last updated on 17 November 2003