Lenition Lenition and Fortition
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syncope involved the loss of
ʊ, ɪ, and a in diphthong oʊ, eɪ, and aɪ in the
participants‟ pronunciation. The first syncope case was the loss of
ʊ in diphthong oʊ. This phenomenon can be viewed in word old [o
ʊld] which included the loss of ʊ sound to be [old]. The loss happened because the participants were accustomed to
the limited set of diphthong in Indonesian language sound system Yulia Ena, 2004. Similar reason was also valid in the second case; the loss of
ɪ sound from e
ɪ diphthong. The monophthongization can be seen in the word make [meɪk]. In this case, the participants tend to pronounce the word make into [mek].
The last one was the loss of a sound in a ɪ diphthong. It can be observed
in the word identify [
aɪ ˈden.tɪ.faɪ]. Most participants pronounced [ɪˈden.tɪ.faɪ] in
this case. Although the case was similar, the valid reason was different from preceding cases. The participants might have associated this word with Indonesian
language word identifikasi [
ɪ
ˈden.tɪ.fɪ.kʌ.sɪ] which does not need any diphthong in pronouncing the word. Then, the valid reason for this case was included in
inappropriate analogy regarding to the words associated to each other.
iii. Cluster Reduction
Cluster reduction became the last phenomenon of lenition in this research findings. The researcher found six cases of cluster reduction in this research.
Those five cases involved the loss of t sound in nt and st clusters, d in nd and d
ʒd clusters, j in dj cluster, and g in ŋg cluster. Yulia and Ena 2004
state that Indonesian speakers tend to drop a sound in a cluster because of the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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unfamiliar sequence of the cluster. The researcher took an example of the cluster in word accent
[ˈæk.sənt]. Indonesian language sound system has no nt cluster
to exist in pronunciation. This resulted into the loss of the last part of the cluster
which was represented in participants‟ pronunciation [ˈek.sən]. b.
Fortition
Fortition is the opposite of lenition; if lenition indicates the weakening sound in pronunciation, fortition refers to a strengthening sound occurred in
pronunciation. There were two cases of fortition discovered in this research. The appearance of fortition can be seen in table 4.1.2.
Table 4.1.2 The Classification of Words Affected by Fortition Words
Longman Dictionary
Participants’ Pronunciation
Changes
Accurate
ˈæk.jʊ.rət
ek.
ʊ.ret Central mid
ə Front
mid e
Arabic
ˈær.ə.bɪk ˈer.e.bɪk
Central mid ə
Front
mid e
Pronunciation pr
ə ˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən proˌnʌn.siˈe.sɪən
Central mid unrounded
ə Low back
rounded o
Recognize
ˈrek.əg.naɪz ˈrɪk.og.naɪs
Central mid unrounded
ə Low back
rounded o
By referring to table 4.1.2, the researcher discovered two cases of fortition
happened in this research. The first was the vowel change from central mid ə
into front mid e as seen in the word accurate [ˈæk.jʊ.rət] and Arabic [ˈær.ə.bɪk].
Both words shared the sound
ə feature in each pronunciation. The participants,
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however, mispronounced the shared sound feature, which resulted to [ek.ʊ.ret]
and
[ˈer.e.bɪk] pronunciations. According to Yulia and Ena 2004, this
phenomenon happened because of the difficulties in pronouncing the neutral schwa vowel
ə which resulted in erroneous sounds. This reason was also valid
with the second case of fortition. The neutral schwa vowel
ə was strongly pronounced to become o. It was conveyed in words recognize
[ˈrek.əg.naɪz]
which changed into [
ˈrɪk.og.naɪs] and pronunciation [prəˌnʌn.siˈe.sɪən] which
changed into [pro ˌnʌn.siˈe.sɪən].