[y]→[∅]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 4/5

Close front rounded vowel to Empty sound / Zero

The elision or deletion of the high front rounded vowel [y] (or the palatal glide [j]) is a common form of lenition, typically occurring in unstressed positions or as a result of simplifying complex clusters in connected speech.

Phonetic Effects

Elision, Deletion, Lenition

Language Examples

English (Y-dropping) Germanic

new [nju:]→[nu:]— Widespread dialectal loss of the palatal glide after certain consonants (e.g., in American English dialects).

Latin to Romance Romance

Historical [j]→Ø— Loss of intervocalic palatal segments in the transition from Latin to various daughter languages (e.g., Italian or French).

Related Transformations

Reverse Vocalization Debuccalization

More Romance Shifts

[ã] → [õ] — Raising [a] → [ã] — Assimilatory Nasalization [a] → [∅] — Elision [a] → [ʔ] — Glottalization [a] → [ə] — Vowel Reduction

Sources & References

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