Re: Probability of Article Replacement?

>I think one may be discarded by a process of elision.  'the' is doing this
>in some english dialects, especially after a glottal stop.  It usually
>still is there, as a very weak [@]. ie. 'at the pool' [&?@ puM/].
At the risk of making this yet another English dialect discussion, 'the' is
definitely discarded in the North of England (Lancashire/Yorkshire) after a
glottal stop. As far as I can see, the first step is that 'the' is realised
as [?] itself:

'in the car' [In?k_hA:]

but you still get a distinction between this and:

'in a car' [In@k_hA:]

And then if the previous word also ends in a glottal stop, you get elision:

'at the pool' [@?p_huL\]
'at a pool' [@?@p_huL\]

It's a short step from there to re-analysing [@?p_huL\] without an article
at all.

Andrew Smith

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