variation deals with the area in which the local people may have variation in speech. For example, the word often
may be uttered as ˈ fən, ˈ ftən, ˈɔːfən, and ˈɔːftən in some British Area while ˈɔːfən, ˈ ːfən, ˈɔːftən, ˈ ːftən,
ːfən, ːftən, fn, ftn, fən, ɔːfn, ɔːftn, ɔːftən, ɔːfən, and ˈ ːfən are pronounced in some other dialects Jones, 1919: 17. For this study, the variant-
dependent of deletion is taken from the pronunciation of the LPD that depends on the phonetic transcriptions provided in the dictionary. It is basically in the form of
British English and American English General American.
5. Phonological Rule
In English, different phonemes mean distinctive sounds. For instance, n and ŋ are separate phonemes since they create different meaning in the words.
Furthermore, in creating word, phonology may impact to the restriction of the sounds permitted in the word-utterance. For example, the phoneme n cannot be
substituted by ŋ for the word not because there is no a word pronounced as ŋot and moreover, the phonological rules restricts to permit such word in English
Poole, 1999: 59. Similarly, the word knot which in the past was pronounced as kn
ːt is presently no longer anymore. It is because the phonological environment that affects the phoneme in such cluster cannot be occurred in English as well as
the phones interaction sound cluster in a word-utterance. In this respect, the phonological rule is the stating process which takes place
in the structure of a particular language in a specific context McMahon, 2002: 44. In the rule, there will be a surface representation followed by the underlying
representation. It is usually illustrated as below.
Figure 1.
Phonological Rule Form O’Grady et al., 2005: 92 A B X ____ Y
In the above figure, A means the element in the underlying representation of
the input of the process, the arrow
stands for ‘becomes’ or ‘is rewritten as’, B
means the change it undertakes or for the output of the rule, the environment bar
means ‘in the following environment’, while X and Y mean the conditioning
environment or the specification of the change that takes place. So, the above rule can be simply stated as ‘A becomes B in the environment between X and Y’.
6. Phonological Analysis
Phonology is complemented by phonetics. That is, the study of physical characteristics of sounds. The term ‘sounds’ is a reminder that speech is intended
to be heard or perceived and that it is therefore possible to focus on the way in which a hearer analyses or processes a sound. Moreover, it deals with the system
and patterning of sounds in a language. Hence, it connects with the ways in which humans produce and hear speech. It describes the systems and patterns of sounds
that occur in a language. It is also associated with the study of higher level of speech organization Finch, 2000: 2; Clark Yallop 1990: 1-2; Ladefoged, 1993:
296. In this study, the phonological analysis is done in examining the data since
they consist of speech sounds. In this sense, phonological analysis can be stated as the study of phonological data. It observes the practice of language organization,
involving the use of sounds and the relationships among them. There are certain types of ordinary occasions that demonstrate how humans actually use language.
It can also connect with the observation of the combinations of letters in its relation to sequence of sounds in a particular language Wolfram Johnson,
1982: 1-2.
7. Licit Consonant Clusters in English
