The phonological history of English includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
H-cluster reductions
The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, involving consonant clusters beginning with that have lost the (or become reduced to ) in some or all dialects.
Reductions of /hw/
The cluster (spelled ⟨wh⟩ since Middle English) has been subject to two kinds of reduction: Reduction to before /uː/ (due to being perceived as a with the labialization characteristic of that environment). This occurred with the word how in the Old English period, and with who, whom and whose in Middle English (the latter words having had an unrounded vowel in Old English). Reduction to , a development that has affected the speech of the great majority of English speakers, causing them to pronounce ⟨wh-⟩ the same as ⟨w-⟩ (sometimes called the wine–whine merger or glide cluster reduction). The distinction is maintained, however, in Scotland, most of Ireland, and some Southern American English.
Reduction of /hl/, /hr/ and /hn/ The Old English consonant clusters , and were reduced to , , and in Middle English. For example, Old English , and become loaf, ring and nut in Modern English.
Reduction of /hj/ In some dialects of English the cluster is reduced to , leading to pronunciations like for huge and for human, and making hew, hue, and Hugh homophones of ewe, yew, and you. This is sometimes considered a type of glide cluster reduction, but it is much less widespread than -reduction, and is generally stigmatized where it is found. Aside from accents with general H-dropping, in the United States this reduction is mostly found in accents of Philadelphia and New York City; it also occurs in Cork accents of Irish English. In other dialects of English, hew and yew remain distinct; however, the cluster of hew, human, etc. is often reduced from to just (a voiceless palatal fricative).
Y-cluster reductions
Y-cluster reductions are reductions of clusters ending with the palatal approximant , which is the sound of in yes, and is sometimes referred to as "yod", from the Hebrew letter yod(h), which has the sound . Many such clusters arose in dialects in which the falling diphthong (the product of the merger of several Middle English vowel sequences) became the rising diphthong . (For more information, see Phonological history of English high back vowels.) They were thus often found before the vowel , as in cube – which was in some cases modified to or before (historical) , as in cure, or weakened to or as in argument. They also occurred in words ending in -ion and -ious, such as nation and precious.
This change from to , which had occurred in London by the end of the 17th century, did not take place in all dialects. A few dialects, notably in Wales, as well as in some parts of northern England, New England, and the American South, still retain a (falling) diphthong where standard English has – these dialects therefore lack the clusters with and have not been subject to the reductions described here.
The diphthongs or are most commonly indicated by the spellings , , (where C is any consonant and V is any vowel), and , as in feud, few, mute, cue and suit, while the historical monophthong is commonly indicated by the spellings and , as in moon and soup.
Yod-dropping Yod-dropping is the elision of the from certain syllable-initial clusters of the type described above. Particular cases of yod-dropping may affect all or some of the dialects that have the relevant clusters.
The change of to in these positions (as described above) produced some clusters which would have been difficult or impossible to pronounce, which led to what John Wells calls "early yod dropping" in which the was elided in the following environments:.
After , for example chute , chew , juice After , for example yew (compare in some conservative dialects) After , for example rude After stop+ clusters, for example blue
The previously mentioned accents that did not have the → change were not subject to this process. Thus, for example, in much Welsh English pairs like chews/choose, yew/you and threw/through remain distinct: the first member of each pair has the diphthong , while the second member has :. chews , choose yew , you threw , through Conversely, an initial does not appear in Welsh English before in words such as yeast and yield.
Many varieties of English have extended yod-dropping to the following environments if the is in the same syllable as the preceding consonant: After , for example suit After , for example lute After , for example Zeus After , for example enthuse
Yod-dropping in the above environments used to be considered nonstandard in England but now also occurs by educated RP-speakers.. (The after is not normally dropped in RP in medial positions, however: compare pursuit .) In General American, yod-dropping is found not only in the above environments but also after , and (for example, tune , dew , and new ).
The lack of yod-dropping in those contexts has occasionally been held to be a shibboleth distinguishing Canadians from Americans. However, in a survey conducted in the Golden Horseshoe area of Southern Ontario in 1994, over 80% of respondents under the age of 40 pronounced student and news without yod. Excerpts from:
General American thus undergoes yod-dropping after all alveolar consonants. A few accents of American English, such as working-class Southern American English, however, preserve the distinction in pairs like do/dew because, like in the Welsh English dialects discussed above, they retain a diphthong in words in which RP has : , , etc.
However, in words like annual, menu, volume, Matthew, continue, etc., with a syllable break before the , there is no yod-dropping. The same applies accordingly to British and other accents; the yod is often dropped after initial , for example, but it is not dropped in words like volume or value. (British speakers omit the in figure, but most Americans retain it.)
Additionally, there is no in British pronunciations of coupon and Pulitzer, and respectively, but many American speakers keep the yod, realizing them as and , although Pulitzer with the pew sound is widely incorrect.
In New Zealand and to some extent Australian English, debut is mainly pronounced without the yod as .
Yod-dropping after , , and was also a traditional feature of Cockney speech, which continues to be the case after , but now, after and , yod-coalescence is now more common..
Some East Anglian accents such as Norfolk dialect extend yod-dropping not only to the position after , or but also to the position after nonalveolar consonants as well: pairs like beauty/booty, mute/moot, cute/coot can then be homophonous.. A well-known series of British television advertisements beginning in the 1980s featured Bernard Matthews, who was from Norfolk and described his turkeys as "bootiful" (for beautiful). Such accents pronounce a in words like "use", "unit", etc. only if there is no consonant before the .
Homophonous pairs after j, r, ʃ, and tʃ IPA Notes brewed brood brume broom chews choose chute shoot drupe droop rheum room rude rood rue roo ruse roos threw through yew you yule you'll Homophonous pairs after l and s IPA Notes Blume bloom glume gloom Lewis Louis lieu loo lieu Lou Luke look With foot–goose merger. lune loon lute loot slew slough slue slough sue Sioux suit soot With foot–goose merger. Homophonous pairs after d, n, and t IPA Notes adieu ado dew do Dewar doer due do dune Doon knew nu new nu tune toon Homophonous pairs after other consonants IPA Notes beaut boot beauty booty butte boot cue coo cute coot feud food few foo fuel fool With vile–vial merger. hew who hews who's hews whose hue who hues who's hues whose Hugh who Hughes who's Hughes whose Kew coo kyu coo mew moo mew moue mewed mood muse moos muse moues mute moot pew poo pule pool pure poor Q; cue coo que coo queue coo
Yod-coalescence Yod-coalescence is a process that fuses the clusters into the sibilants respectively (for the meanings of those symbols, see English phonology). The first two are examples of affrication.
Unlike yod-dropping, yod-coalescence frequently occurs with clusters that would be considered to span a syllable boundary and so commonly occurs before unstressed syllables. For example, in educate, the cluster would not usually be subject to yod-dropping in General American, as the is assigned to the previous syllable, but it commonly coalesces to . Here are a few examples of yod-coalescence universal in all English dialects:
in most words ending -ture, such as nature in soldier in words ending with -ssure such as pressure (also in words ending with consonant+sure, consonant+sion, -tion) in words ending vowel+sure such as measure (also vowel+sion, r+sion)
In some other words, the coalesced pronunciation is common in English dialects around the world, but an older non-coalesced form still exists among some speakers of Received Pronunciation (RP): educate (also in RP: ) azure (also in RP ) issue (also in RP ), the intermediate form being also common
Coalescence can even occur across word boundaries, as in the colloquial "gotcha" (for got you ) and "whatcha" (for what're you ).
In certain English accents, yod-coalescence also occurs in stressed syllables, as in tune and dune. That occurs in Australian, Cockney, Estuary English, Zimbabwean English, Newfoundland English, South African English, and to a certain extent in New Zealand English, Scottish English, Hiberno-English, RP, and even some Asian varieties of English, like Philippine English (for many speakers, because of the influence of the phonology of their mother languages). This results in pronunciations such as the following:
dew/due (traditional RP: ) tune (traditional RP: )
In certain varieties such as Australian, Ugandan, and some RP, stressed can also coalesce: resume (RP: ) assume (RP: )
That can lead to additional homophony; for instance, dew and due come to be pronounced the same as Jew.
Yod-coalescence has traditionally been resisted in Received Pronunciation. It has certainly become established in words of the first group listed above (nature, soldier etc.) as well as in those of the second group (educate, azure etc.). It also generally occurs in those of the third group (dew, tune etc.)..Gimson, A. C. (2008). Pronunciation of English. London: Hodder Education. Page: 81.
In the table below, denotes a historical consonant + yod pair (such as or ), while denotes a consonant that was already palatal(ised) (such as or ).
Homophonous pairs IPA Notes deuce juice dew, due Jew dewed Jude dual, duel jewel duke juke duly Julie dune June duty Judy With intervocalic alveolar flapping. sue shoe, shoo This pronunciation of sue can be considered dated. suit shoot, chute This pronunciation of suit can be considered dated. -tude chewed
Other initial cluster reductions
Reduction of /wr/ and /wl/ Old and Middle English had an initial cluster (/r/ does not denote here), hence the spelling of words like write and wrong. This was reduced to just , apparently during the 17th century. An intermediate stage may have been an with lip rounding.Jespersen, O., A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, vol. 1, 12.81-82.
As a result of this reduction, pairs of words like rap and wrap, rite and write, etc. are homophones in practically all varieties of Modern English. They remain distinct in the Doric dialect of Scots, where the wr- cluster is pronounced . Alexander John Ellis reported distinctions between wr and r in Cumbria and in several varieties of Scots in the nineteenth century.
Old English also had a cluster , which reduced to during Middle English. For example, the word lisp derives from Old English wlisp(ian).
Reduction of