Investigation of Dropped Syllables

DROPPED  SYLLABLES

The linguistic term for the loss of a syllable in spoken word is syncope, but It simply refer as dropped syllables.

Dropped syllables are syllables which are not pronounced. For example the word "chocolate" would appear to have 3 syllables but in fact the middle syllable is dropped and we only pronounce the first and the last.

example; choc -late

Other examples of dropped syllables are the words every, favorite, and different.

That was:

   ev-er-y =        /ˈev.ri/ ----- ---ev-ry
   fav-o-rite =   /ˈfeɪ.vr.ɪt/------  fav-rite
  dif-fer-ent =  /ˈdɪf. r.ə nt/  ----  diff-rent

Dropping syllables occurs mostly on high-frequency words, and dictionaries are pretty good about showing both options when two choices of pronunciation are available.

The syllable that can be dropped, not surprisingly, follows a pattern. The syllables before or after a stressed syllable in a word are often unstressed. (This is opposed to a secondary stress that can occur two syllables apart from a stressed syllable.) Only the vowel sounds of unstressed syllables can get dropped, and usually the original word needed to have at least three syllables to begin with.