In phonetics

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...

, clipping is the process of shortening the articulation

Manner of articulation

In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the...

 of a phonetic segment, usually a vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

. A clipped vowel is pronounced more quickly than an unclipped vowel, and these clipped vowels are often also reduced. In English, clipping without vowel reduction most often occurs in a stressed syllable before a voiceless consonant, and clipping with vowel reduction occurs in many unstressed syllables.

See also

• Aphesis
  Aphesis
  In phonetics, apheresis is the loss of one or more sounds from the beginning of a word, especially the loss of an unstressed vowel.-Apheresis as a historical sound change:...
  
  
• Clipping (morphology)
  Clipping (morphology)
  In linguistics, clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts . Clipping is also known as "truncation" or "shortening."...
  
  
• Syncope (phonetics)
• Vowel reduction
  Vowel reduction
  In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word , and which are perceived as "weakening"...