Here's a piece from an underground, um, yeah, let's call it so,
an underground English language course:
_Some words would only be affected by assimilation, and some
words would only be affected elision. But many words would be
affected both by assimilation and by elision. And when a word is
affected by assimilation as well as elision, its shape changes not
just a little, but considerably.
Thus, for example, in "went back", the 't' gets elided, and the
sequence becomes "wen' back". Now the sound 'n' occurs before the
sound 'b'. So the 'n' readily assimilates to 'm'. And the sequence
then becomes "wem' back". Similarly, the word group "He isn't
coming" becomes "He isn' coming" through the elision of 't', and
then becomes "He isng' coming" through the assimilation of 'n'. In
the same way, the word "handbag" becomes "han'bag" through the
elision of 'd', and then "ham'bag" through the assimilation of
'n'.
Here's another example: The word "remember" in "I can't remember
where it is" becomes "rememb" by the elision of 'er' before the
word 'where'. Then "rememb" becomes "remem' " by the elision of 'b'
between 'm' and 'w'. And in fast speech, "remem" becomes "remm",
especially if you're speaking casually. Thus, the word group "I
can't remember where it is" becomes "I can't remm' where it is" in
fast casual speech._
