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Considering the word "running", would "runnin'" be the result of the elision or assimilation of the "ing" sound?

Specifically /ˈrʌnɪŋ/ being pronounced as /rʌnen/

I believe it's the assimilation, as the actual "ing" sound is partially retained

Freddy Mcloughlan
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  • Are you asking about the written form, or the pronunciation it tries to represent? – Jack O'Flaherty Jun 09 '22 at 03:48
  • To be clear, are you talking about the pronunciation /ˈɹʌnɪŋ/ being realized as something like [ˈɻʌnən]? Where would there be any sort of elision happening here? After all, no sounds have been skipped. As for assimilation, are you proposing regressive assimilation with some later phonological attribute like devoicing moving right-to-left as in have to becoming [ˈhæftə]? Or are you proposing progressive assimilation with some earlier attribute now instead moving left-to-right so that it affects something later in the word's pronunciation like that is /ˈðætɪz/ becoming [ðæts]? – tchrist Jun 09 '22 at 03:50
  • @JackO'Flaherty None of these terms make any sense in writing. Only pronunciation counts. – tchrist Jun 09 '22 at 03:52
  • @tchrist, yes the pronunciation. Specifically /ˈrʌnɪŋ/ being pronounced as /rʌnen/. I'm not sure what you mean by regressive assimilation and devoicing, as I am new to this. - Added to question – Freddy Mcloughlan Jun 09 '22 at 04:10
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    It depends on whether people typically pronounce -ing verb forms /ɪn/ or not. If you say "sittin'", "walkin'", "playin'" and "runnin'", then it's a dialect feature. – Stuart F Jun 09 '22 at 17:57
  • "Losing the G" means using a dental instead of velar nasal finally. I'd say it was assimilation; there's no phonological reason to velarize a final nasal, and if it's always understandable unvelarized, that's enough reason right there. Make it a mark of the upper class, and the G's drop everywhere. – John Lawler Jun 09 '22 at 19:55
  • Elision means gliding into the next word or sound: like Long Island pronounced as Lawn Guylind. Not here. – Yosef Baskin Jun 15 '22 at 15:04

1 Answers1

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It’s not straightforward to explain the variation between [ŋ] and [n] in this context. It doesn’t occur after stressed vowels (e.g. in sing, ring, rung, fang, wrong), and nearly all the cases involve one specific suffix, the ending -ing (exceptions, for some speakers, are nothing, something, pudding). Based on the limited occurrence, it seems possible it might just be lexical variation rather than a phonologically motivated process.

I would not call it either assimilation or elision.

However, if you take the view that word-final [ŋ], although not phonetically a cluster, is phonologically derived from a cluster /ng/, then the change to [n] would constitute elision: the loss of the consonant phoneme /g/.

herisson
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  • Can you elaborate on that view? Do scholars tend to take that view? Is the present participle ending in English 'ing' historically in Germanic a consonant cluster /n/ or /ŋ/ followed by /g/? – Mitch Jun 09 '22 at 15:44
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    @Mitch: I remember writing some more about this topic in response to previous questions. Here is one: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/361756/why-does-ing-go-to-in-in-some-dialects – herisson Jun 09 '22 at 17:05
  • Doesn't that other question make this a duplicate? – Mitch Jun 09 '22 at 20:54
  • @Mitch: Maybe so. The other question doesn't bring up the topic of assimilation. – herisson Jun 10 '22 at 00:24