Consonant sequences: Deletion and insertion

Vernacular NfldE exhibits extensive consonant cluster reduction. As in many other varieties, /t/ and /d/ deletion is frequent in syllable-coda position following a homorganic obstruent, nasal or liquid, e.g. just, breakfast, went, ground, wild. For some old-fashioned or “deep” vernacular speakers, this reduction applies not only in pre-consonant or pre-pause position, but also before vowels, suggesting absence of final stops in such clusters in underlying lexical entries, particularly when these are not subject to the effects of a following morpheme boundary. Single consonants in syllable-coda position are also subject to deletion in a number of (unstressed) words, notably with, of, give. (In a handful, however, /t/ may be added, as in cliff pronounced [klɪft] and skiff, [skɪft].) In syllable onsets following an obstruent, liquids may undergo deletion, particularly when the syllable is unstressed: thus from may be pronounced [fəm] , and /l/ may be absent in the first syllable of the place-name Placentia.

Certain consonant sequences, on the contrary, tend to promote vowel epenthesis in conservative NfldE. These include non-homorganic syllable-coda clusters consisting of /l/ + non-coronal, as in elm pronounced ellum and kelk (a regional English word meaning ‘stone’) pronounced [k^hεlək] (‘a stone anchor’). The syllable-final clusters -sp, -st, -sk may display epenthetic [ə] insertion before the noun plural marker in the speech of conservative rural Newfoundlanders, so that desk may be pronounced [dεskəz] (with alternative realizations, through deletion/assimilation, of [dεs(:)əz] and even unmarked [dεs:]). More rarely, epenthesis is found after /r/, as in the conservative Irish Avalon disyllabic pronunciation of barm (‘yeast’).