Consonant cluster reduction

Cluster reduction is a phenomenon that GhE shares with other West African Englishes. It will therefore only be mentioned briefly here. There are two basic strategies to reduce consonant clusters. The first, elision of one or more consonants, is the most common strategy in acrolectal speech. It is illustrated in words like hundreds [handrεs] (/dz/ > [z] + final devoicing), artists [atis] (/sts/ > [s]), or texts [tεks] (/ksts/ > [ks]). It also operates across syllable boundaries, e.g. in elec.tricity [elεtrisiti]. It frequently happens that consonants are not elided but only weakened in their realization, cf. access [a^ksεs] or sleeps [sli^ps]. The second strategy is the insertion of epenthetic vowels in the consonant cluster. This is more common with less educated speakers. The principle here is that the tone-bearing vowel of the syllable containing the cluster is copied and inserted between the consonants, resulting in forms like strange  and skin [sⁱkin].