ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the following questions: What are phoneme variations in connected speech (CS)? How do consonant variations (aspiration, flaps, and glottal stops) work? How do vowels vary between strong and weak forms of words? How do vowels differ in stressed and unstressed syllables (tense vowels, vowel quality continuum, and vowels and syllabic consonants)? The chapter covers consonant variations and vowel variations with relevance to the production of CS in North American English (NAE), as well as strong and weak forms of whole words. Many words in NAE include flaps when they are pronounced in CS. Though clearly present in the speech of native speakers of NAE, the variations presented in this chapter are likely to receive less focus in the classroom.
