elision/assimilation here?

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legendany

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Hi! I have the following utterance here:

[. . .] to advertise, market and distribute tobacco products to our kids...

/ˈdɪstrɪbjuːt təˈbækəʊ/

Is there any connected speech phenomena applying here regarding the /t/ sound? Because I don't pronounce both /t/ sounds, just one of them, but how do i transcribe it then? /ˈdɪstrɪbjuː təˈbækəʊ/ or /ˈdɪstrɪbjuːt əˈbækəʊ/? I know I should maybe write it in one word, but my lecturer don't want us to.

I'm thankful for every help that I get. I'm sorry if my English is not good.
 

MikeNewYork

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There are three T's in "distribute tobacco". When I speak the phrase, I pronounce all of them.
 

Skrej

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It's hard to say without hearing your actual pronunciation. A phonetic transcription would depend on your pronunciation.

You say you don't pronounce some of the /t/ sounds. Is that because you're leaving them out (elision), or because the sound of /t/ is changed because it has merged with another sound (assimilation)? Which /t/ do you leave out? Transcription will need to reflect which /t/ is missing.

Many times, the two go hand in hand. If you elide a phoneme, then the phonemes on either side of that missing sound may start to assimilate, which is different than assimilating one pair of the three phonemes.

In other words, with assimilation, a sound sort of just gets (well) hidden or covered up, where with elision it's completely lost.

Although since your native language is German, I'm betting it's more likely elision with the particular set of words. German tends to elide /t/ when it occurs in multi-sibilant plosive combinations, which is what you've got in 'distribute tobacco'. That phrase is full of sibilants and stops.

I'd wager that you're eliding that 2nd /t/ in distribute, but that's just a guess based on a few beers.
 

legendany

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Yes, Skrej, you're right. It's the second "t" which I'm eliding. So you pronounce all of them? That would mean that there's no phenomenom at all :D But it sounds so weird to me.
 
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