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In the word often, the labiodental non-sibilant fricative f precedes the alveolar stop t, which is then followed by the vowel e. The Oxford Dictionaries Online offers two accepted pronunciations:

/ˈɒf(ə)n/ /ˈɒft(ə)n/

I would like to describe the phonetic interaction between the f and the t in the pronunciation
/ˈɒf(ə)n/. The sole pronunciation of the archaic oft, leads me to consider that the vowel plays a significant role in silencing the t. Though I doubt it is the standard terminology, I would tend to describe it in laymen's terms with the word picture underlying fricative:

the fricative rubs out the stop in concert with the vowel

If that seems like an acceptable description, I would be content with it, but I would like to know if there is a more precise professional description of that phonetic effect.

ScotM
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    An interesting piece on *Why is “t” often silent?* As Bright explains, the “t” in these words is an acoustically “explosive” one, and to sound it after an “s” or an “f”—both of which expend “considerable breath”—is “especially difficult and obscure.” Consequently the “t” sound is assimilated* into its surroundings and becomes silent* . http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/01/silent-t.html –  May 06 '15 at 19:40
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    I believe that this is called assimilation or coalescence. Other examples include soft, whose t is pronounced, and soften, whose t may be pronounced; and moist and moisten. Similarly, the t of any word ending in -ion will be changed: compare direct with direction, constitute with constitution, and inject with injection. We English speakers evidently dislike the combination dental stop + nasal, and so we change it to sibilant + nasal. – Anonym May 06 '15 at 19:41
  • Also, this has less to do with the vowel, more to do with its absence. If you pronounce the t, you're likely to pronounce the following schwa (here represented with e); if, however, you don't pronounce the t, you're likely to slide into an n behaving both like a consonant and a vowel. In order to slide easily into the special n, you must assimilate the t. – Anonym May 06 '15 at 19:47
  • It is not coalescence. Coalescence happens when /t d s z/ are followed by /j/, which is palatal, in which case they merge with it to produce / tʃ dʒ ʃ ʒ/, such as in the example endure /ɪnˈdjʊə/ or /ɪnˈdʒʊə/. – Ireth Tasartir May 06 '15 at 19:54
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    @Anonym: I agree with you that it's about the syllabic consonant. It doesn't directly relate to it being a nasal, though: we see the same effect in words like wrestle, thistle, whistle. I also think it is only a historical change, not a synchronic one: there is no elision of the t in words like crystal or the name Tristan, although they may be realized with syllabic consonants. – herisson May 06 '15 at 19:57
  • @sumelic, come to think of it, assimilation of dentals also occurs in words like gifts and shifts. Perhaps we simply dislike stops occurring in the middle of complex consonant clusters? – Anonym May 06 '15 at 20:03
  • @Anonym: /t/ can be elided in many clusters (as described in the link below), but in words like "gifts" and "shifts" this elision is optional. Words like "wrestling", on the other hand, are generally never pronounced with a /t/ even in formal speech; the elision has in most standard English dialects caused a phonemic change. https://books.google.com/books?id=0NOidwn8Mf0C&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=elision+of+t+after+s+and+f&source=bl&ots=vj9VQS7XEI&sig=jf3t6BbF-zCqp_gvfKbY_hVjaw4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=53JKVeWrFcrUoAT2_4GwDw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=elision%20of%20t%20after%20s%20and%20f&f=false – herisson May 06 '15 at 20:10
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    Good question. This is all new stuff to me, but I must say, I love just pronouncing that opening doozy. If you don't mind, I think I'd like to try to fit it into a piece of poetry? –  May 06 '15 at 20:40
  • @sumelic, David Stampe says he has given naive speakers nonce words ending in -ft and then asked them what the corresponding verb meaning "make something ...ft" would be, and found that when they add the -n, they lose the t-. This shows, he says, that it is still a rule of English (though not a phonetic process). He would agree with you that the change is phonemic. – Greg Lee May 06 '15 at 21:14
  • @GregLee: that's fascinating actually, since as far as I can tell there are only two actual English words where t is softened after /f/, soften and often. I suppose the speakers might be generalizing from the single pair <soft, soften>, or less likely, <oft, often>. If it's also influenced by the pattern in words like <haste, hasten>, though, it shows a generalization about both of these fricatives + t + syllabic resonant that is still somewhat active as a morphological tendency. – herisson May 06 '15 at 21:28
  • @Greg Lee: there was a discussion somewhere about the pronunciation of wronger: is the 'g' pronounced? There were people saying both "yes" and "no", showing that phonemic rules like this can be internalized and generalized, even with only two examples (longer, stronger). – Peter Shor Jun 11 '15 at 14:16
  • @PeterShor, there's a lesson here, perhaps, if people can make rules without half trying. Maybe SPE is right about the Middle English underlying forms of English, after all. – Greg Lee Jun 11 '15 at 14:42
  • @sumalic, but the reason we can't drop the /t/ in crystal or Tristan is that the /t/ isn't occurring before a morpheme boundary. This is one of the conditions for alveolar stop elision. – Araucaria - Him Jun 11 '15 at 14:48
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    @ScotM: "In the word often, the labiodental non-sibilant fricative f precedes the alveolar stop t" should be "sometimes precedes". It's considered a spelling pronunciation in the US, for instance, and there simply is no /t/ for anything to precede. – John Lawler Jun 11 '15 at 17:41
  • @sumelic I must have been multitasking or something when I wrote that! /t/ basically gets elided because it's surrounded by consonants - and occurs before a morpheme boundary, but there's no consonant after the /t/ in crystal or Tristan, so there's no reason why it should get dropped ... :) – Araucaria - Him Jun 13 '15 at 00:20

2 Answers2

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The usual linguistic term for the complete loss of a sound is elision; in this case, the sound /t/ was elided when it came after a fricative and before a homorganic syllabic consonant [n̩] or [l̩] (which are usually analyzed phonemically as /ən/ and /əl/, and pronounced that way for some speakers).

The Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language describes the situation as follows (it's mostly concerned with the orthography, however, not the phonology):

[T is] elided after s following a stressed vowel: before /l/, especially in the terminal syllable -le, as in castle, nestle, pestle, trestle, wrestle, [...], rustle; before n, especially the terminal element -en, in chasten, hasten, fasten, christen, glisten, listen, moisten; and in isolated words such as Christmas, postman, waistcoat. (3) Elided after f in soften and often in often.

It may be worth noting that some of these words, for example "glisten", did not in fact originally have a /t/ sound in Old English; the fact that it is spelled with a "t" might be due to the sound change that occurred and the subsequent reanalysis of the spelling -sten as a representation of word-final /sn̩/, and -stle as a representation of word-final /sl̩/.

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herisson
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I think the term you are looking for is assimilation:

  • Assimilation has a very precise meaning when it’s related to studies of languages. Is a common phonological process bye which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like another segment in a word. In other words it’s when a letter (sound) is influenced by the letter (sound) before or after it so that it changes its sound and/or spelling. The word assimilation it self it’s said to be assimilated; it is derived from the latin prefix ad- meaning to and simil- meaning like but, instead of being adsimilated, it has the easier pronunciation of assimilated.

(phonetics-and-phonology)

Often: as explained in the following extract by James W. Bright:

  • “often,” the word can be properly pronounced either with or without a “t” sound. The “t” had long been silent but it came back to life in the 19th century with the rise of literacy, when people seemed to feel that each letter in a word should be sounded.

  • The article, “On ‘Silent T’ in English,” by James W. Bright, appeared in the journal Modern Language Notes in January 1886.

  • As Bright explains, the “t” in these words is an acoustically “explosive” one, and to sound it after an “s” or an “f”—both of which expend “considerable breath”—is “especially difficult and obscure.” Consequently the “t” sound is assimilated into its surroundings and becomes silent.

  • However, the “t” sound persists in some other words spelled with “-stl” and “-ftl,” like “lastly,” “justly,” “mostly,” “shiftless,” “boastless,” and others.

  • Bright explains that such words “are, with most persons familiar with their use, conscious compounds; as they become popular words, and therefore subject to unstudied pronunciation, they conform to the regular rule. It is only after administered caution that we learn to make t audible in wristband.”

(grammarphobia.com)

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