Deletion

 DELETION

Phonological rules can be roughly divided into four types: assimilation, dissimilation, insertion, and deletion. In this discussion, we would like to tell about deletion phonological rules. Phonological rules may add or delete entire segments. Segment deletion rules are commonly found in many language and are more prevalent than segment insertion rules. In linguistics the deletion also called ellison. It is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in word or phrase. Sometimes are deleted to make a word easier to pronounce. One such rule occurs in casual or rapid speech. We often delete the unstressed vowels that are shown in bold type in word like the following:

 mystery general memory funeral vigorous Barbra

These words in cassual speech sound as if they were written:

mystry general memry funeral vigorous Barbra

Another example :

A		B
Sign	[sãin]	Signature	[sIgnƏtʃƏr]
Design	[dƏzãiIn]	Designation	[dƐzIgneʃƏn]
Paradigm	[phærƏdãIm]	Paradicmatic	[phærƏdIgmærƏk]

In column A is there a phonetic [g], but in each corresponding word in column B [g] occurs. Our knowledge of English phonology accounts for these phonetic differences.

 

 The “[g] ------ no [g]” alternation is regular, and we apply it to words that we never heard. Delete a /g/ when it occurs before a syllable-final nasal consonant.

This more general rule may be stated as :

Delete a /g/ word initially before a nasal consonant or before a syllable-finalnasal consonant.

·      When a sound, such as a stressless syllable or a weak consonant, is not pronounced; for example, most American English speakers do not pronounce the [d] in "handbag".

·      A simple way to alter the structure of a word is to omit particular speech segments. There are two main speech segments that are typically deleted: (a) consonants, and (b) weak syllables.

 a.      Consonant Deletion

Consonant deletion occurs whenever a consonant in syllable-initial or syllable-final position is omitted. Consonant deletion is a typical phonological process for children between the ages of 2;00-3;06 years. Children may delete sounds at the beginning of words (initial consonant deletion), e.g. cat becomes at, boat becomes oat or at the ends of words (final consonant deletion), e.g. lid becomes li, cup becomes cu.

b.   Weak Syllable Deletion

Weak syllable deletion occurs whenever the unstressed or weak syllable of a multi-syllabic word is omitted. In this process whole syllables are deleted. These are typically unstressed syllables (e.g. the ‘ba’ in banana; the ‘to’ in octopus). So, for example, banana may become nana; octopus may become ocpus.

Refrencess :

Chomsky, N., and M. Helle. 1968. The sound pattern of English, New York: Harper & Row.

Philip Carr (1993), phonology-

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