Of(t)en

[Laurence Horn]

Mark Mandel writes:
>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")

The alternation Mark alludes to is real, but its characterization isn't
quite right; it has to be morphological/morphophonemic, not simply
phonological.  No one (in the dialects with which I'm familiar) would
pronounce (Sonny) Liston's name homophonously with lis(t)en, and I could
describe myself as "wastin'" away, but not as "wasin'" away (as in
chasten/hasten).  So it's not syllabic -n per se, but... Well, I'm sure
someone has the right characterization somewhere.

Larry