Relaxed pronunciation (also called condensed pronunciation or word slurs) is a phenomenon that happens when the syllables of common words are slurred together. It is almost always present in normal speech, in all natural languages but not in some constructed languages, such as Loglan or Lojban, which are designed so that all words are parsable.
Some shortened forms of words and phrases, such as contractions or weak forms can be considered to derive from relaxed pronunciations, but a phrase with a relaxed pronunciation is not the same as a contraction. In English, where contractions are common, they are considered part of the standard language and accordingly used in many contexts (except on very formal speech or in formal/legal writing); however, relaxed pronunciation is markedly informal in register. This is also sometimes reflected in writing: contractions have a standard written form, but relaxed pronunciations may not, outside of dialect spelling.
Certain relaxed pronunciations occur only in specific grammatical contexts, the exact understanding of which can be complicated. See trace (linguistics) for some further info.
Read more about Relaxed Pronunciation: English, Dutch, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Turkish, Urdu
Famous quotes containing the word relaxed:
“I don’t think it is always necessary to take up the anti-colonial—or is it post- colonial?—cudgels against English. What seems to me to be happening is that those people who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it—assisted by the English language’s enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)