Elision refers to when a sound or syllable is lost or omitted. It particularly affects; (a) consonant clusters, (b) weakly stressed syllables that are not especially missed and (c) words that end in an alveolar consonant and that are immediately followed by a word beginning with a consonant. The sounds that are elided are those sounds that are so weakly artculated that they no longer have any auditory significance. Contracted forms of words are caused by elision.