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Is there a word to describe the phenomenon where a final sound of a word is linked to the starting sound of the next word?

A couple of examples:

"hold on" sounds like "whole Don"

"this guy" sounds like "the sky"

The Wikipedia article of "liaison" seems to suggest that the process of linking a final consonant to a starting vowel is called "enchaînement". But this is a French word and only describes part of what I was talking about. The second example above is a linking of consonant to consonant. I was reading the Wikipedia article on "Sandhi" as well, but again there is no addition of sounds in my examples, so this term doesn't seem to be suitable as well. So is there an English word to describe this general phenomenon, or is it just called (rather informally) "word linking"? Thank you!

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  • Could you clarify: your examples don't seem to be examples of what you're asking about (or what you're asking about is not you intend with the examples). By “linked to”, do you mean “perceived as being” (the listener thinks the last sound of one word is the first of the next), or do you mean “joined” in some way by the speaker (liaison, sandhi, enchaînement)? From the title I thought it would be about the speaker, about things like “last step” being pronounced “la-step” (though maybe it's only me who does that), but the examples are of the listener mishearing / misinterpreting.
    – ShreevatsaR
    Mar 29 '18 at 17:12
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Seems like you're looking for 'resyllabification'.

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  • This is the most generalized answer. In Spanish (and I believe French linguistics) it's often called chaining.
    – user0721090601
    Mar 29 '18 at 21:04
  • Add Pullet Surprises and Mondegreens maybe?
    – WiccanKarnak
    Apr 3 '18 at 4:30
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Another term which you might find relevant is juncture, in particular, "plus juncture" or "open juncture".

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There's also Mondegreen, if you're talking about mishearing one phrase as the other

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Yes, it's called linking. See this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuh6_d_pBaE

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  • I think this could be expanded. Usually we do not appreciate single-line answers, especially considering that the linked video might be occasionally removed, leaving this post totally useless.
    – bytebuster
    Mar 29 '18 at 23:38

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