The consonants

The consonants show much less variation than the vowels, being mostly shared between Creole and English. As with other Caribbean Creoles, in both Trinidad and Tobago there is the shift to representation of [θ] as [t] and [ð] as [d] across the board, and these features are ceasing to be stigmatized even in pseudo-acrolectal speech. In Winford’s study in the 1970’s he found variation in the alternation among these variables in predictable patterns according to class and style, but in 2002 [t] and [d] as norms are a recognized and accepted part of pseudo-acrolectal speech with these variants having become markers with no censure attached to their use.

Final consonant clusters which exhibit the same voicing quality are reduced in all Caribbean creole varieties and Trinidad and Tobago are no exception. This is particularly the case with final /-t/ or /-d/ (although not [-nt]), and unusual with /-s/ or /-z/. As Labov (1972a) has pointed out for African American and Winford (1972) for Trinidadian, items that omit these behave differently according to their grammatical status, however, and are more likely to be retained when they represent a grammatical meaning, e.g. passed as opposed to past. From Winford’s (1972) data he was able to order such clusters according to frequency, showing some phonological constraint, but also, for speakers in the middle class, grammatical constraint. A variable which shows little social or stylistic stability is final -ng, which is realized word-finally as either [n] or [ŋ].

The consonantal features outlined thus far are becoming increasingly consistent in usage across the social and stylistic board.

Less frequent are the variation between [v] and [b] as in [bεri] for very, and the palatalization involved in the production of [ʧ] for [tr] as in [ʧri] for tree. Metathesis commonly occurs in voiceless clusters like ask which is rendered [aks], and crisp realized as [kips]. For older Indian speakers there is aspiration on voiced stops, as in [b^haji], bhaji, a leafy spinach, cited by Winer (1993: 17) from Mohan and Zador (1986). These sound types have all become stereotypes associated with rural and Indian speech. The variation on /r/, as for example when it is rendered [w], is derived from French Creole and the retroflex flap [ɻ] from Bhojpuri.

Trinidad is distinguished for its non-rhoticity, in this contrasting with neighboring Barbados and Guyana, as well as Jamaica. Wells (1982: 578) has noted that metropolitan English had become non-rhotic at the time when English was established in Trinidad but this connection remains speculative. It is also distinguished by the palatalization of velar consonants /k/ and /g/ so that [kjã] represents can’t and [gja:dεn] represents garden. In this feature there is no clear style or social differentiation (Solomon 1993: 181). But it is found more in rural Indian-rather than rural African speakers, with less clear-cut distinctions in urban areas (Winford 1972; Solomon 1993). Solomon suggests that it is word particular, being obligatory in can’t, and rare in words like calypso and ganja.