Th-stopping

The neutralization of /ð/ and /θ/ as /d/ and /t/, e.g. /tiŋ/ thing and /fada/ father, is a common feature of many dialects of Caribbean English as well as in regional, ethnic, and social dialects spoken in North America and Great Britain (which often display reflexes different from those in the Caribbean). This process creates new homonyms in the specific dialects in question. Some of the many examples are: thin-tin [tɪn], faith-fate [fet], though-dough [do], breathe-breed [brid].

Neutralization appears to operate particularly readily in the environment preceding an /r/ in an onset consonant cluster: three-tree [tri:], through-tru [tru:], though often these segments are realized as palatalized allophones [tSru:] or [tSri:]. Sometimes interdental fricatives in metropolitan varieties do not correspond with a stop consonant in Caribbean Englishes. In Kokoy, a variety of Creole English spoken in Dominica, where /θ/ occurs in onset consonant clusters in metropolitan varieties with /r/, the output often becomes [f], e.g. three [fri], through [fru].

Many so-called acrolectal speakers of many varieties of Caribbean Englishes realize interdental fricatives as similarly articulated in metropolitan varieties. In St. Eustatius, many speakers, at all levels of society, display interdental segments, while the stop correspondences are still the preference for most speakers. Cutler (2003) makes a similar observation about this feature in the English of Gran Turk Island as does Williams (2003) about some varieties of English spoken in Anguilla