Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The English values of the letters a, e, i, o, u used to be similar to the values those letters had in Spanish, French or Italian, namely , , , , . The Great Vowel Shift leading to Early Modern English gave current English "long vowels" values that differ markedly from the "short vowels" that they relate to in writing.
This applies especially to the -ing ending of verbs, but also in other words such as morning, nothing, ceiling, Buckingham, etc. G-dropping speakers may pronounce this syllable as [ɪn] or [ən] (reducing to a syllabic [n] in some cases), while non-G-dropping speakers have /ɪŋ/ (/əŋ/ with the weak vowel merger) or /iŋ/.
The preterite and past participle forms of irregular verbs follow certain patterns. These include ending in -t (e.g. build, bend, send), stem changes (whether it is a vowel, such as in sit, win or hold, or a consonant, such as in teach and seek, that changes), or adding the [n] suffix to the past participle form (e.g. drive, show, rise ...
Differences in pronunciation between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) can be divided into . differences in accent (i.e. phoneme inventory and realisation).See differences between General American and Received Pronunciation for the standard accents in the United States and Britain; for information about other accents see regional accents of English.
The Modern English-ing ending, which is used to form both gerunds and present participles of verbs (i.e. in noun and adjective uses), derives from two different historical suffixes. The gerund (noun) use comes from Middle English-ing, which is from Old English-ing, -ung (suffixes forming nouns from verbs).
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
The letters A, E, I, O, and U are considered vowel letters, since (except when silent) they represent vowels, although I and U represent consonants in words such as "onion" and "quail" respectively. The letter Y sometimes represents a consonant (as in "young") and sometimes a vowel (as in "myth").
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase.However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run together by the omission of a final sound. [1]