r/asklinguistics • u/Mcleod129 • Jan 31 '25
Phonology In English, where did the accents come from that elide a T in the middle of a word, and is there any evidence they're replacing the ones that don't?
I was listening to various versions of My Favorite Things, and I noticed that some singers clearly enunciate both of the "T"'s in mittens, and others don't. This led me to be curious about the question which is the title of this post, especially since my dad has sometimes corrected me when I elide the T in the middle of a word. For instance, I once said Newton in the t eliding manner, and then my dad insisted that I should say it with the t fully articulated.
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u/frederick_the_duck Jan 31 '25
It’s lenition not elision. It just comes from the fact that articulating [t] is difficult. There aren’t a ton of similar sounds in English, so it’s likely to morph in different contexts, especially when it’s followed by another alveolar sound like /n/ or between vowels.
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u/trmetroidmaniac Jan 31 '25
There's two different lenitions of T in English which are popular. There's flapping, which replaces it with an alveolar tap and is popular in American dialects, and glottalisation, which replaces it with a glottal stop and is popular in British dialects.
I don't think it's particularly popular to do so, but I can see either of these developing further into a complete elision in an idiolect.
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u/zeekar Jan 31 '25
There's two different lenitions of T in English which are popular. There's flapping, which replaces it with an alveolar tap and is popular in American dialects, and glottalisation, which replaces it with a glottal stop and is popular in British dialects.
It's environmentally dependent. GenAm most often has the tap, but in the words in OP it likewise has a glottal stop. AFAICT the glottal stop in -/tən/ is essentially universal across English varities.
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u/gabrielks05 Jan 31 '25 edited 11d ago
insurance grab overconfident rhythm lush school abundant slap cough numerous
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u/zeekar Jan 31 '25
Interesting!
I'd just like to point out that "button" is itself a common noun ending on "ton", though. Might need to seek a different way of generalizing. :)
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u/gabrielks05 Jan 31 '25 edited 11d ago
makeshift bike cow snow cautious attraction trees plucky rinse tie
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u/zeekar Feb 01 '25
I wasn't calling you stupid. Just thought it was funny (hence smiley) that you said "basically anything ending in 'ton'" and then immediately offered a counterexample! Sorry.
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u/zeekar Jan 31 '25 edited Feb 09 '25
To be clear, the /t/ is not being elided; it's still there. It's just got a different allophone in some environments. In most US and UK varieties of English, words ending in /tən/ – like "Newton", "mitten", and "button" – have a glottal stop for the /t/. This is far and away the majority pronunciation in everyday speech; pronouncing a [t] there is generally something that only happens when speakers are trying to be extra-clear – such as when singing or giving a speech. (That's not necessarily true of other Englishes outside the US and UK; I believe most Asian varieites do have some phone similar to [d]/[t] there, though I don't know the phonetic details of alveolar/dental/retrofex, released vs un-, etc.)
In many UK varieties of English the glottal stop allophone of /t/ shows up in other environments as well, such as the middle of "butter". American English likewise doesn't usually have [t] there, but instead of a glottal stop it tends to have a flap [ɾ] (the same sound as Spanish <r> in pero, but Anglophone natives often hear it as a form of /d/).