A grand castle and a grand piano!

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Carolina1983

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Hello, all!

How do you pronounce 'grand piano' and 'grand castle'? Do you drop the 'd' altogether?

Thanks, as always! :cool:
 

probus

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Not at all! I always sound the d. I am having a tough time thinking of a case in which such a terminal consonant would be swallowed. Even in very rapid speech when the next word starts with a vowel I think there is still at least a vestige of that final d. In other words, where I live stand up never sounds quite like stan up.
 

Amigos4

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Hello, all!

How do you pronounce 'grand piano' and 'grand castle'? Do you drop the 'd' altogether?

Thanks, as always! :cool:
In AmE the 'd' is definitely pronounced! Why would you think that the 'd' would be dropped?
 

N Senbei

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Hello, Carolina1983.

Alan Cruttenden, in the seventh edition of Gimson’s Pronunciation of English, says:

In addition to the loss of /h/ in pronominal weak forms and other consonantal elisions typical of weak forms (see §11.3), the alveolar plosives are apt to be elided. Such elision appears to take place most readily when /t/ or /d/ is the middle one of three consonants. Any consonant may appear in third position, though elision of the alveolar plosive is relatively rare before /h/ and /j/. Thus elision is common in the sequence voiceless continuant + /t/ or voiced continuant + /d/ (e.g. /-st, -ft, -ʃt, -nd, -ld, -zd, -ðd, -vd/) followed by a word with an initial consonant …

… It will be seen that in many cases, e.g. in I walked back, They seemed glad, elision of word-final /t/ or /d/ eliminates the phonetic cue of past tense, compensation for which is made by the general context. Such is the instability of the alveolar plosives in suck a position of apparent inflexional significance that it can be assumed that the context regularly carries the burden of tense distinction. Where the juxtaposition of words brings together a cluster of consonants (particularly of stops), elision of a plosive medial in three or more is to be expected, since, because of the normal lack of release of a stop in such a situation, the only cue to its presence is likely the be the total duration of closure.


Since I'm just a non-native learner, I can’t say for sure that this applies to “grand castle” and “grand piano”, but at least both seem to meet the above condition, “voiced continuant + /d/ followed by a word with an initial consonant.”
 

Amigos4

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I bet Alan Cruttenden was the life of the party on more than one occasion! :shock: :cool:
 

Carolina1983

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In AmE the 'd' is definitely pronounced! Why would you think that the 'd' would be dropped?


I read that t and d, when they are final and come between consonants, are likely to be dropped. As in next week. Then, I remembered I heard someone say gran for grand and it sounded off to me, hence my question. I guess people sometimes go way off base when it comes to spoken English.

Anyway, thank you so much!
 

Raymott

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In AusE and many dialects, the /d/ is often dropped (or minimized) in common phrases like "grandmother" or "grand piano". "Grand castle" is not a common term, so the /d/ should be pronounced. People are very unlikely to misunderstand 'granmother', but they might have to ask you what a "grancastle" is.
 

emsr2d2

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Frequently dropped or swallowed in BrE.
 
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