Benny
Consonant/Consonant Linking (Assimilation)
It goes without saying that most native speakers of English link two words together in fast speech.
Here are patterns that I'm aware of,

T+Y = CH as in "Don't you"
D+Y = J as in "Did you"
S+Y = SH as in "Bless you"
Z+Y = ZH as in "How's your day?"

However, yesterday I came across the unfamiliar cases of consonant linking as below,

1./ t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p /
as in "that man", "set back" and "last post"

2./ d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p /
as in "good morning", "blood bank" and "bad pain"

3./ n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p /
as in "one me", "open book" and "pen pal"

4./ t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/
as in "credit card" and "cut glass"

Here is the Youtube video from BBC English that explained how people pronounced "credit card"

5./ d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g /
as in "cold call" and bad girl"

My question to native speakers of English
Do you really speak like that or it's common only in British English?

Thank you very much in advance. Your answer will be highly appreciated.
Aug 20, 2019 2:29 AM
Comments · 14
4
Another interesting post, Benny.

You have some good examples of assimilation there.There's only one which I'm not sure about: I'm not convinced that /d/ can change to /b/. I think #2 is a case of elision rather than assimilation: in 'Good morning', the 'd' is elided, so it becomes 'Goo'morning'. I can't see how or why a /b/ would be produced. Some of the others could arguably also be seen as elision.

I don't think it's an either/or situation when it comes to elision/assimilation. Elision is a very common phenomenon, and in some (but not all) cases, this can result in assimilation. The key factor is the nature of the following consonant.

Take a look at what Adrian Underhill says:


August 20, 2019
3
It’s the same in America. Most natives speakers do indeed assimilate these consonants, but only in very rapid speech (as well as in some fixed expression). However, native speakers who have not studied phonetics will swear that they never assimilate these consonants. Tim is quite brave to shine a light on this. By the way, note that in accents of southeast England, such as Tim’s, there’s a strong general tendency to pronounce syllable-final T (and P and K in less standard speech) as a glottal stop (Americans do so before /n/, but not in most positions), so the assimilation is not that surprising. Unless these assimilations are interfering with your listening skill, you probably do not need to deliberately imitate them.

EDIT: I had accidentally typed "southwest", when my reference was of course to the "southeast" (the part of England London is in). Also, in case my wording was ambiguous, Americans, unlike some accents in England, rarely reduce P to a glottal stop and never reduce K to a glottal stop; only the T can be affected that way in America (before N, and less commonly, other sonorants).
August 20, 2019
2
1.To determine the ending sound of the -ed ending in past tense form, you have to consider the sound, not the letter itself right?

Absolutely right. This is a phonological issue, unrelated to spelling.

2. For American English, I always hear "work don". Is it the letter that links, not the sound?

No, it isn't. The d-like sound that you hear has nothing to do with the 'd' that we write. I think it's more like the American English alveolar flap which /t/ usually becomes when it's before a vowel - similar to the flap in 'pretty'. It isn't a /d/, but that's how we hear it, because it's the nearest standard sound.

This will vary from speaker to speaker. I'd say "workton", but many other British English speakers may well produce a sound which is perceived as being closer to a /d/. The alveolar flap is often heard in the UK these days, especially among younger speakers.

August 21, 2019
2
Hello again, Benny.

After reading Chris's post, I looked at those examples more closely, and I've come to the conclusion that there probably is very little in the way of assimilation going on. I agree with Chris that it's mainly unreleased consonants, glottal stops, or elision.

I have a standard southern England accent ( modern RP) and when I experimented with these combinations of words I found that I either elided or 'glottal-stopped' most of the final consonants - they were inaudible rather than changed into other sounds. For example, "thaʔ man" ( not "thap man") , "las'post" (not "lasp post").

The only one where I was aware of assimilation was #3, especially 'pen pal' and 'open book', where the juxtaposition of /n/ and bilabial plosive creates an /m/. Many of us naturally say 'pempal', for example, just as we say 'handbag' --> "han'bag" [elision] --> "hambag" [assimilation], or 'sandwich' --> "san'wich" --> "samwich".
August 20, 2019
2
Hi @Phil Thanks so much for your info.

My observations: The 5 assimilation rules tend to be discussed (on Youtube) among linguists and British English speakers. And, 2 rules involve the T sound and 2 rules involve the D sound.

I dug deeper and found another video about T AND D Elision (in British English.)

Here is anothe video that says T and D are deleted.

"most popular" - Rule 1 T before P ->T is totally deleted.
"hand bag" - Rule 2 D before B ->D is totally deleted.

Is it possible that, some people use Assimilation but other people use Elision?

Thanks so much for your comment.
August 20, 2019
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Benny
Language Skills
English, Other
Learning Language
English
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