Of(t)en

[Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM]

Mike Salovesh asks about the pronunciation of "often" with /t/.

As I recall learning, this is a reading pronunciation, at least in origin...
maybe influenced by the poetic "oft". Sorry, I can't give a citation, but I
recall that the loss of /t/ after voiceless fricatives and before syllabic /n/
was a general process. As evidence, with
     of(t)en   (but poetic ofT)
          ("(t)" silent, "T" pronounced)
cf.
     sof(t)en  (but sofT)
     lis(t)en  (but poetic lisT)
     has(t)en  (but hasTe)
     mus(t)n't (but musT)
     chas(t)en (but chasTe)
     fas(t)en  (but fasT as in "hold fast")

We may see a related process in
     rus(t)le, rus(t)ler
     bus(t)le
     cas(t)le
The generalization of the right-hand context would be: voiced apical continuant.

Hmm, why in epis(t)le but not pisTol?

-- Mark

   Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist and Manager of Acoustic Data
         Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Dragon Systems, Inc.
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com