Sandhi Forms in English
Jose Pablo Corrales (BIN-02, 3rd Quarter 2010) is asking about why some words have more than one correct pronunciation. The reason why this is happening in English is due to Sandhi Forms. Sandhi Forms refer to alternative ways of pronouncing words, which are accepted by native speakers, at times as non-standard ways of pronunciation, but valid in any case.
Jose Pablo points out why words such as where have these double forms: /hwɛǝr/ and /wɛǝr/. The reason for this duality relies on the fact that some native speakers in American English pronounce /hwɛǝr/ as the standard way, yet there are others who pronounce /wɛǝr/, as a non-standard way but accepted. For this particular issue, as an English language learner, the student should learn one of the two ways to pronounce the word and use it confidently. This rule applies for other words such as what, where, when, why, whale, wheat, etc.
| Word | Standard Form | Sandhi Form |
| what | /hwat/ | /wat/ |
| where | /hwɛǝr/ | /wɛǝr/ |
| when | /hwɛn/ | /wɛn/ |
| why | /hway/ | /way/ |
| whale | /hweyl/ | /weyl/ |
| which | /hwıtʃ/ | /wıtʃ/ |
| wheat | /hwiyt/ | /wiyt/ |
Some of these forms become homophonic forms for other words in terms of non-standard American pronunciation. For instance the words wear and where become homophones. And this is the same case for witch and which.
Finally, some pronunciation manuals use /ɔy/ to indicate the pronunciation of words such as boy, soy, toy, Troy, etc. Some other manuals use /oy/. Why is this incongruence happening? This is pointing back to what we were discussing above: Sandhi Forms. Vowel clarity differs from region to region in the United States; that is, pronunciation changes slightly or very much depending where the people are settled. It should not surprise you to find people who pronounce boy as /bɔy/ (with an open “o”) and others who pronounce the same word as /boy/. At the end, the language student must decide which of these forms is the one he/she wants to use.
| Word | Standard Form | Sandhi Form |
| soy | /sɔy/ | /soy/ |
| toy | /tɔy/ | /toy/ |
| boy | /bɔy/ | /boy/ |
| Troy | /trɔy/ | /troy/ |
| Floyd | /flɔyd/ | /floyd/ |
| destroy | /dıs’trɔy/ | /dıs’troy/ |
| annoy | /ǝ’nɔy/ | /ǝ’noy/ |
For the Pronunciation course at the university, we tend to use the /oy/ in our transcriptions.
