Intervocal 'D' and Hypercorrections
"en vida de extincion"
In Costa Rica, as in an increasing number of place in the Spanish-speaking world, the intervocal
'd' (a 'd' between two vowels) is not pronounced. 'Comida' ('food' in English), is often
said [comía]. This pronunciation is quite common in rural areas of Costa Rica, and bears the same
sound as the word 'comía', the imperfect form of 'to eat', meaning 'I used to eat'.
The most common examples of this omition of the intervocal 'd' come from the past participles t]hat
have the '-ado' and '-ido' endings. These suffixes effectively become the
pronounced [ao] and [ío].
Once I was in a meeting at an environmental conference in Costa Rica and someone displayed what
was a hypercorrection of this common intervocal 'd' omition. The person tried to write 'on the path
to extinction', but wrote 'en vida de extinción'. Instead of writing to proper word 'vía,
she wrote 'vida'. This mistake was probably a subconscious correction of what is commonly
the unpronounced 'd'. However, in this case there is no 'd' so it is a hypercorrection.
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