Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Variably by dialect and even word, the / j / in this / j uː / may drop (rune / ˈ r uː n /, lute / ˈ l uː t /), causing a merger with / uː /; in other cases, the /j/ coalesces with the preceding consonant (issue / ˈ ɪ s. j uː / → / ˈ ɪ ʃ uː /), meaning that the silent e can affect the quality of a consonant much earlier in the ...
Changes affect short vowels in many varieties before an /r/ at the end of a word or before a consonant /a/ as in start and /ɔ/ as in north are lengthened. /ɛ, ɪ, ʌ, ʊ/ (the last of these often deriving from earlier /oːr/ after w , as in worm and word ) merge before /r/ , so all varieties of ModE except for some Scottish English and some ...
Words beginning with /sC/ receive an initial supporting vowel [ɪ], unless they are preceded by a word ending in a vowel, as in [ˈskɔla] > [ɪsˈkɔla]. [23] The earliest unambiguous attestations occur in inscriptions of the second century AD. [24] In some languages, such as Spanish, word-initial /sC/ remains phonologically forbidden to this day.
Vowelless proper names from other languages, such as the surname Ng, may retain their original spelling, even if they are pronounced with vowels. In the Middle English period, there were no standard spellings, but w was sometimes used to represent either a vowel or a consonant sound in the same way that Modern English does with y , particularly ...
The affricate [dʒ] was always phonetically long between vowels; [14] it could also occur after /n/ or at the end of a word. There seems to have been no merge between [dʒ] and [j] at the end of a word, so there was a distinction in pronunciation between weġ 'way', pronounced [wej], and weċġ 'wedge', pronounced [wedːʒ] [15] or [wedʒ].
That is reflected in the modern pronunciation of the endings that are spelled -s (the noun plural ending, the 'Saxon genitive' ending and the third-person present indicative ending), which now have the phonemic shape - /z/, having developed in Middle English from - [əs] to - [əz] and then, after the deletion of the unstressed vowel, to - /z ...
The word salve is often pronounced with the /l/; the name Ralph may be /rælf/, /rɑːlf/, /rɑːf/ or /reɪf/. Words like solve were not affected, although golf dropped the /l/ in some British accents. Words with /alm/ and /olm/, which lost the /l/ and lengthened the vowel (the lengthened [oː] later becoming diphthongized in the toe–tow ...
As free written vowels a, e, i, o, u correspond to the spoken vowels / eɪ /, / iː /, / aɪ /, / oʊ /, / uː /; as checked vowels a, e, i, o, u correspond to / æ /, / ɛ /, / ɪ /, / ɒ /, / ʊ /. In spelling free and checked vowels are often called long and short, based on their historical pronunciation, though nowadays some or all of the ...