Which term best describes the study of the sound changes such as assimilation, elision, liaison, and juncture?

• A. Features of connected speech
• B. Phonetics
• C. Phonology
• D. Prosody

Answer: (A)

When sounds run together in speech, pronunciation shifts happen across word boundaries. This set of changes is described as features of connected speech. Assimilation makes a nearby sound become more like another sound around it; elision drops a sound entirely because it’s weak or unnecessary; liaison links sounds across words so a boundary sound is heard as part of the next word; juncture concerns how the boundary between words affects where the sounds start and stop. These phenomena focus on how speech actually sounds in natural, fluent use, rather than on the abstract inventory of sounds (phonology), the physical production of sounds (phonetics), or the rhythm and intonation of speech (prosody).