Dropping final consonants

[Alice Faber]

AAllan at AOL.COM said:
>A non-linguist colleague of mine declares that he hears students dropping
>final consonants. He puts it this way:
>
><<Perhaps it is only my imagination, but are younger people leaving final
>
>consonants off words?  Many students, it seems to me, are saying "buh" for
>
>"but," "wha'" for "what," "tha" for "that," etc.  Have you noticed anything
>
>like this?  If it is occurring, what could be the cause?>>
>
>and then he followed up with
>
><<Ten minutes ago, toward the end of a twenty minute
>
>conversation with a fine student, I said to myself, "I wish Allan were here
>to
>
>listen to this."  She is highly intelligent, focused, etc., but she repeatedly
>
>dropped the last consonant from words.  About two minutes ago another
>student,
>
>a fellow, dropped by, and he did the same in about five instances.  (Maybe
>
>it's my hearing!)>>
>
>Anything new to this? Is it just a matter of hearing what has been happening
>all along?

I'd like to see more examples. These examples all end with /t/, and
this might be a matter of "glottal replacement". Or the stops might
just be unreleased. I hear both variants frequently, at all levels of
formality. It's extremely variable by speaker, and, for some
speakers, there appears to be prosodic conditioning as well.
--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963