weak form

One of two possible pronunciations for a WORD, in the context of CONNECTED SPEECH, the other being STRONG. The weak form is that which is the result of a word being UNSTRESSED, as in the normal pronunciation of of in cup of tea, and in most other GRAMMATICAL WORDS. Several words in English have more than one weak form, e.g. and [ænd] can be , [n], etc. The notion is also applied to SYNTACTICALLY conditioned forms, such as my (weak) v. mine (strong).