Why are some sounds heard and pronounced more clearly than others? Why does English spelling include letters that represent no sounds? Do all unaccented vowels stand for the same indistinct sound? Why is the adverb far not a good rhyme for the musical note fa in General American English, though it is in British English? Why does Standard English have hour [aEe-] but house [haEe-]? How did it come about that we pronounce learned in two ways? Such questions are all related to the general notion of phonological weakness in English. This volume offers a broad spectrum of first-rate scholarly discussion of these and many more questions regarding the way in which English speakers identify and process specific speech sounds. The reader will also find much new data on the history and present-day status of weak segments in Standard English and its regional varieties, as well as original and compelling new interpretations of their behaviour.

Donka Minkova is Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.