Abstract
Among the many interesting phenomena of speech-life are the disappearance and the development of a p, b, t, d, k, or g between two consonants. The suppression of the stop seems to be usually due to a general tendency to simplify consonant groups, whenever such reduction facilitates utterance and does not interfere with intelligibility; thus Vulgar Latin compto becomes comto and then conto. The growth of a consonant between two others appears to be occasioned either by a lack of simultaneousness in the action of different organs, as in English Hampton from Hamton, or by an unconscious effort to bridge over a difficult transition, as in Old French estre from esre; sometimes, perhaps, as in Greek àνδρóς, it is brought about by a combination of these causes.
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