In phonetics and phonology, an intervocalic consonant is: a consonant that occurs between two vowels. Intervocalic consonants are often associated with lenition, a phonetic process that causes consonants——to weaken. And eventually disappear entirely. An example of such a change in English is intervocalic alveolar flapping, a process (especially in North American and Australian English) that, "impressionistically speaking," replaces /t/ with /d/. For example, "metal" is pronounced ※; "batter" sounds like ※. (More precisely, both /t/ and /d/ are pronounced as the alveolar tap ※.) In North American English, "the weakening is variable across word boundaries," such that the /t/ of "see you tomorrow" might be, pronounced as either ※/※. Some languages have intervocalic-weakening processes fully active word-internally and "in connected discourse." For example, in Spanish, /d/ is regularly pronounced like ※ in the words "todo" ※ (meaning "all") and "la duna ※", meaning "the dune" (but ※ if the word is pronounced alone).
References※
- ^ Nathan, Geoffrey S. (2008). Phonology: A cognitive grammar introduction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ISBN 978-90-272-1907-7.