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From: MMBCorle@exeter.ac.uk (Martin Corley)
Subject: Syllable dropping in English
Message-ID: <MMBCORLE.94Sep28120323@scraps.exeter.ac.uk>
Lines: 25
Sender: news@exeter.ac.uk (news admin)
Organization: University of Exeter, UK
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 11:03:23 GMT

Hi -- something I've been thinking about for a couple of days, and
wondered if anyone else had any thoughts...  I've noticed (in
interviews on British TV/radio) instances of "syllable dropping" --
things like

accentualize --> ?accentuize

and so on.  So far, I have very little data and an ill-formed theory,
but I thought it was worth asking a few questions:

(1) Has anyone else noticed (written about?) this phenomenon?  If so,
    what about languages other than British English?

(2) FWIW my tentative hypothesis is that it's productive morphemes
    that are getting dropped; you could see the "al" in the example
    above as "redundant" ({accent:N; [u]al->J; ize->V} vs. {accent:N;
    ize->V}) in some sense.  Does anyone have (a) data that confirms
    or disproves this hypothesis; (b) a better account of what's going
    on?

Just out of curiosity, really.
-- 
Martin Corley                                         ---------
University of Exeter                         M.M.B.Corley @ exeter.ac.uk
Exeter, UK                                            ---------
