Consonants

Consonant cluster reduction

Although consonant cluster reduction is normal in fast speech in many L₁ dialects of English, the process appears to be particularly characteristic of MalE. Clusters of three consonants may be reduced medially to two as in the following examples:

The reduction of tri-consonantal clusters is even more common in final position:

[glims] ‘glimpse’ (mps > ms)

[mids] ‘midst’ (dst > ds)

In clusters of two consonants, /l/ is frequently deleted if it is the first consonant:

Loss of final /t/, /d/ or /θ/ in clusters can be seen in the following: