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Presentation Elision

Elision refers to the omission of sounds in connected speech. It most commonly involves dropping /t/ and /d/ sounds at the end of syllables and the dropping of /ə/ and /h/ sounds in certain environments. Elision is an important aspect of listening and speaking skills for language learners. Drilling elided forms can help learners with pronunciation. The document then provides examples of elision occurring with /t/, /d/, /ə/, and /h/ sounds in English.

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Azhar Munir
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592 views

Presentation Elision

Elision refers to the omission of sounds in connected speech. It most commonly involves dropping /t/ and /d/ sounds at the end of syllables and the dropping of /ə/ and /h/ sounds in certain environments. Elision is an important aspect of listening and speaking skills for language learners. Drilling elided forms can help learners with pronunciation. The document then provides examples of elision occurring with /t/, /d/, /ə/, and /h/ sounds in English.

Uploaded by

Azhar Munir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Elision

PRESENTED BY
MS. KANWAL SHAHZADI
Definition

 Elisionrefers to the phonological process which


omission of one or more sounds (such as a
vowel, a consonant or a whole syllable) in a
word or phrase (Sheroz, 2013).
Explanation

 Elision is an important area in listening skills, as learners


are often unable to hear elided words correctly, especially if
they have little contact with native speakers. Word counting
and dictations are two activities that practice recognition,
whilst at the production stage drilling elided forms such as
contracted forms is common.
There are three main phonetic environments
where elision occurs:
a) Syllable-final clusters involving /t, d/

Alveolar Plosive /t/ and /d/ are the most unstable consonants in English. As we said,
elision means not to pronounce a phoneme, to drop it. It’s the easiest thing in the world,
very convenient when that sound is difficult to produce because of the other sounds that
surround it. There is a general rule that /t/ and /d/ are frequently dropped when they
are found between consonants.

Conscripts is pronounced /ˈkɒnskrɪps/


facts is pronounced /fæks/
the fact that is pronounced /ðə fæk ðət/
Helen’s machine stopped printing is pronounced /ˈhlənz məˈʃiːn ˈstɒp ˈprɪntɪŋ/
The elision of /ə/

This can occur in several environments. In connected speech /ə/ can easily disappear at
word boundaries when the sound comes at the start of a word, positioned between two
stressed syllables, as in:
go away /ˈgəʊ_əweɪ/ /ˈgəʊ_ˈweɪ/
Or when it is followed by a stressed syllable beginning with /r/ or /l/
police /pəliːs/ /pliːs/
Elision can also occur when the sound comes in the middle or final combinations as in:
preferable /prɛ́frəbəl/ /prɛ́frəbl/
library /ˈlaɪbrəɪ/ /ˈlaɪbrɪ/
(c)The loss of /h/

/h/ is lost in pronominal weak forms (i.e. the weak form of the pronoun) when they
don’t occur at the start of an utterance. As you can see from the example below,
the /h/ of the two masculine pronouns is retained at the beginning of the sentence –
‘He’, but gets elided when it occurs for a second time, in the middle of the sentence.

 He passed his exam is pronounced /hɪ ˈpaːst ɪz ɪgˈzæm/


 What have you been doing? is pronounced /wɒt æv juː biːn ˈduːɪŋ?/

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