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3.Phonetics studies sounds as articulatory and acoustic units. Phonology investigates sounds as units which serve people for communicative purposes. It is functional phonetics and investigates the functional side of phonemes, accent, syllable and intonation. Both phonetics and phonology are closely connected. In linguistics, function means discriminatory function – the role of the language elements in the distinguishing of one sequence of sounds from another of different meaning.
4.There are three branches of phonetics. Articulatory phonetics deals with the description and classification of speech sounds articulated by speech apparatus. Acoustic phonetics deals with physical properties of sounds. Auditory phonetics investigates the hearing process. The connection of phonetics with non-linguistic sciences. Psycholinguistics (Psychophonetics) – the study of the relationships between linguistic behaviour and psychological processes, including the process of language acquisition. Sociolinguistics (Sociophonetics) – the study of language in relation to social factors, including differences of regional, class, and occupational dialect, gender differences, and bilingualism.
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6. The connection of phonetics with linguistic sciences (grammar, lexicology and stylistics) is exercised via orthography which in its turn is closely connected with phonetics. Grammar. 1. Morphology. Through the system of rules of reading phonetics helps to pronounce correctly endings -s (-es) of plural forms of nouns, the 3d person singular in Present Simple, Possessive Case: [s] – book-books; [z] – bag-bags; [iz] – box-boxes; the past tense forms and past participles of English regular verbs: [t] – wish-wished; [d] – beg-begged; [id] – want-wanted.
Consonant and vowel interchange helps to differentiate singular and plural forms of nouns: [f-v] – calf-calves; [s-z] – house-houses; [0-ð] – bath-baths; man-men; basis-bases, the tense forms of irregular verbs: sing-sang-sung.Intonation can serve to single out the logical predicate of the sentence: We came to London (Who?); We came to London (Did we come?); We came to London (Where?). In affirmative sentences the rising nuclear tone serves to show that it is interrogation: We came to London. We came to London? Lexicology. Different parts of speech can be formed with the help of vowel and consonant interchange: z ea l-z ea lous, brea th -brea th e. Homographs can be differentiated only due to pronunciation: wind (ветер)- wind (виток).Due to the position of word accent we can distinguish between homonymous words, word groups and free collocations: blackbird (дрозд)- black bird (черная птица).Phonetics distinguishes the sounding form of borrowings, accentual structure and sounding: Бородино - ˌBoro`dino. Stylistics can be traced through intonation and its components: speech melody, word accent, rhythm, pausation and voice timber. Very often the writer helps the reader to interpret his ideas through special words and remarks: angrily, gently, a pause. The theory of sound symbolism is based on the assumption that separate sounds due to their articulatory and acoustic properties may awake certain ideas, perceptions, feelings, images. For example [fl] associates with quick movement: fly, flee, flood; [sk] associates with scraping sounds: scream, scratch. Onomatopoeia is a combination of speech sounds which aims at imitating sounds produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc.), by things (machines or tools, etc.), by people (sighing, laughter, patter of feet, etc.), by animals. There are two varieties of onomatopoeia: direct and indirect. Direct onomatopoeia is contained in words that imitate natural sounds: ding-dong, bang, cuckoo, mew, ping-pong, roar rhythm, may be used as a special device both in poetry and in prose. Alliteration – the repetition of identical or similar sounds helps to impart a melodic effect to the utterance and to express certain emotions. Euphony – harmonious combination of sounds that create a pleasing effect to the ear. Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words.
7. Sound is a material unit, produced by speech organs. In every language the sounds are united in a comparatively small number of sound types, which are capable of distinguishing the meaning and the form of words. Such sound types are called phonemes. Phoneme is the shortest functional unit of a language. Each phoneme exists in speech in the form of mutually non-distinctive speech sounds, its allophones. Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another: p ad- b ad, p i t-p u t. Allophones are qualitative variants or members of one and the same phoneme, which never occur in identical position, but are said to be in complementary distribution. They differ in the articulatory feature and have functionally no significance: the aspirated [k] in kit and the unaspirated [k] in skit are allophones of the phoneme [k].
8. Phoneme as a functional, material and abstract linguistic unit. The founder of the phoneme theory was the Russian scientist, representative of the Kazan linguistics school I.A. Baudauin de Courtenay. L.V. Shcherba separated phonetics from phonology. He took the positive ideas from his teacher I.A. Baudauin de Courtenay, overcame the drawbacks of his theory and worked out a truly materialistic theory of phoneme. According to L.V. Shcherba the phoneme may be viewed as a functional, material and abstract unit. These three aspects are concentrated in the definition of the phoneme suggested by Shcherba’s disciple V.A. Vassilyev who wrote that a phoneme is a dialectical unity of three aspects: 1) material, real and objective; 2) abstract; 3) functional. I. As material, real and objective linguistic unit it realized in speech of all English-speaking people in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The sets of speech sounds, that is, allophones belonging to the same phoneme, are not identical in their articulatory content though there remains some phonetic similarity between them. II. Phoneme is a functional unit. In phonetics function is usually understood to mean discriminatory function, that is the role of the various components of the phonetic system of the language in distinguishing one morpheme from another, one word from another, one utterance from another. The opposition of phonemes in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes, words and sometimes the whole phrase. III. Phoneme is an abstract language unit. The native speakers do not notice the difference between the allophones of one and the same phoneme if this does not distinguish the meaning. They abstract themselves from the difference between the allophones because it has no functional value. Allophones of each phoneme possess a bundle of distinctive features that makes this phoneme functionally different from all other phonemes of the language. This functionally relevant bundle of articulatory features is called the invariant of the phoneme. Neither of the articulatory features that form the invariant of the phoneme can be changed without affecting the meaning. The articulatory features which form the invariant of the phoneme are called distinctive or relevant. The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant. Irrelevant features: partial devoicing of terminal voiced consonants, variation in the positional length of vowels, aspiration, palatalization, velarization, nasalization, clear [l], dark [ł].In speech the phoneme serves to perform three functions: Constitutive function – the function to constitute the material forms of morphemes, words and sentence; Distinctive function – it is manifested most conspicuously in minimal pairs when the opposition of speech sounds is the only phonetic means of distinguishing one member of that pair from another; Recognitive – allophones help to recognize words, phrases and sentences.
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10.Acoustic aspect of speech sounds Acoustically, speech sounds is a physical phenomenon produced by the vibration of the vocal cords and perceived due to the vibrations of the layers which occur at the rate of 16-20 thousand times per second (the limit of human hearing).Physical properties of sounds: Frequency. The number of vibrations per second and is measured in cycles per second. The greater the frequency, the higher the pitch and vice versa. The frequency depends on certain physical properties of the vibrator: mass, length, tension. Intensity. Changes in intensity are perceived as variation in the loudness of a sound. The greater the amplitude of vibration, the greater the intensity of a sound. The greater the pressure on the ear-drums, the louder the sound. Duration. Length or quantity of time during of which the same vibratory motion is maintained.The sound waves produced by the vibration of the whole body are fundamental waves and are perceived as fundamental tones.Waves, produced by parts of the body are partial waves and are perceived as partial tones, or overtones, or harmonics.
11.Articulatory and physiological aspect of speech sounds Speech is impossible without the following mechanisms:The power mechanism consists of the diaphragm, the lungs, the bronchi, the windpipe (trachea), the glottis, the larynx, the mouth cavity, the nasal cavity.The vibrator (voice producing) mechanism consists of the vocal cords. The resonator mechanism consists of the pharynx, the larynx, the mouth cavity, and the nasal cavity.The obstructor mechanism consists of the tongue, the lips, the teeth, the soft palate with the uvula, the hard palate, the alveolar ridge.The four mechanisms work simultaneously.The organs of speech are divided into active (movable) and passive (fixed). The movable speech organs take an active part in the articulation of speech sounds. They are: lips, the tongue, and the soft palate with the uvula, the vocal cords, and the pharynx. The fixed organs of speech with which the active organs form an obstruction serve as points of articulation. They are: the teeth, the alveolar ridge, the hard palate. When the air from the lungs gets into the larynx, it makes the vocal cords vibrate and produce voiced consonants and vowels. The air may pass through the larynx, when the vocal cords don’t vibrate and are taken apart. In this case voiceless consonants are produced. When, in the production of consonants, voice prevails over noise, sonants are produced.Having passed through the vocal cords, the air gets into the pharynx and then, if the soft palate is raised and the way to the nasal cavity is closed, it gets into the mouth cavity. If the soft palate is lowered, and the passage to the stream of the air through the mouth cavity is closed, it passed out of the nasal cavity.
12.Notation. Transcription is a set of symbols representing speech sounds. The symbolization of sounds differs according to whether the aim is to indicate the phoneme or to reflect the modifications of its allophones. I. The Broad or phonemic transcription provides special symbols for all the phonemes of a language and mainly used for practical purposes.Phonemic transcription is based on the principle “one symbol per phoneme”. A phoneme is reflected in this transcription as an abstraction and generalization. The symbols are usually placed between two slanting lines: /p/, /b/, /i/, /u: / etc. II. The Narrow or allophonic transcription is based on the principle “one symbol per allophone”. This transcription provides a special sign for each variant of each phoneme (diacritics): [khit]. A phoneme is reflected in this transcription as a unity of all its allophones. The symbols are usually placed between square brackets [ ]. The narrow type serves the purposes of research work.
13.Methods of phonological analysisThe aim of the phonological analysis of a language is the identification of the phonemes and study of the patterns of relationship into which they fall.There are two most widely used methods of finding it out: the distributional method and the semantic method. The distributional method helps to establish the distribution of speech sounds, that is all the positions or combinations in which each speech sound of a given language occurs (does not occur) in the words of a language. The semantic method is based on a phonemic rule that phonemes can distinguish words and morphemes when opposed to one another. It consists in systematic substitution of one sound for another in the same phonetic context in order to find out in which cases such substitution leads to a change of meaning.
14.The system of English phonemes. Speech sounds are divided into vowels and consonants. From articulatory point of view the difference is in the work of speech organs.Articulatory differences between vowels and consonants depend on the three articulatory criteria:a) the presence or absence of an articulatory obstructions to the air stream in the larynx or in the supra-glottal cavities;b) the concentrated or diffused character of muscular tension;c) the force of exhalation.On the basis of these criteria consonants can be defined as sounds in the production of which there is an articulatory obstruction to the air stream, muscular tension is concentrated in the place of obstruction, the exhaling force is rather strong. Vowels may be defined as sounds in the production of which there is no obstruction to the air stream, muscular tension is diffused more or less evenly throughout the supra-glottal part of the speech apparatus, the exhaling force is rather weak.
15 Articulatory and physiological classification of English consonants. Classification of English consonants There are 24 consonant phonemes in English. 1. Manner of noise production and the type of obstruction.A.L. Trakhterov, G.P. Torsuyev, V.A. Vassilyev suggest to classify consonants according to the manner of noise production from the viewpoint of the closure, which is formed in their articulation.Complete closure – occlusive (stop, or plosive, and nasal) consonants are produced: [p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, ŋ].Incomplete closure – constrictive consonants (fricatives) are produced: [f, v, θ, ð, h, s, z, ∫, ʒ, w, j, l, r].The combination of the two closures – occlusive-constrictive, or affricates, are produced: [t∫, ʤ]. a) Voice or noise prevalence. The group of occlusive consonants and the group of constrictive consonants can be subdivided into noise and sonorants. Noise occlusive consonants are also called stops, or plosives [p, b, t, d, k, g]. Occlusive sonorants are also called nasals [m, n, ŋ]. Constrictive noise consonants are fricatives [f, v, θ, ð, h, s, z, ʃ, ʒ], constrictive sonorants [w, j, l, r].The group of occlusive-constrictive consonants which are also called affricates consists of noise sounds [t∫, ʤ].Noise consonants (stops, fricatives and affricates) in the English scientific literature are also called obstruent consonants.There is no such subdivision in the classifications suggested by D. Jones, H.A. Gleason and A.C. Gimson. They do not single out the group of sonorants, but D. Jones gives separate groups of nasals [m, n, ŋ]; the lateral [l], frictionless continuants, or glides (semi-vowels) [w, r, j].H.A. Gleason gives separate groups of nasals [m, n, ŋ], the lateral [l], semivowels [w, r].B. Bloch and G. Trager give separate groups of nasals [m, n, ŋ], the lateral [l], trill [r]. b) Number of voice producing foci – occlusive, constrictive, occlusive-constrictive consonants are subdivided into unicentral – pronounced with one focus: [t, d, k, g, p, b, s, z, f, v, ŋ, h] and bicentral – pronounced with two foci: [w, l, ∫, ʒ, t∫, ʤ]. c) The shape of the narrowing – constrictive consonants and affricates are subdivided into sounds with flat narrowing and round narrowing.The consonants [f, v, θ, ð, ∫, ʒ, t∫, ʤ] are pronounced with the flat narrowing. The consonants [s, z] are pronounced with the round narrowing. H.A. Gleason considers [∫, ʒ] to be grooved fricatives.There are different opinions on the nature of English affricates. B. Bloch and G. Trager decline the existence of affricates as monophonemic entities and state that they are biphonemic sequences. D. Jones states that there are six affricates in the system of English consonants, I. Ward states eight of them: [t∫, ʤ, ts, dz, tr, dr, tθ, dð].Some phoneticians consider affricates to be the units which are articulatorily and acoustically indivisible and morphologically unique. No morpheme boundary can pass within [t∫, ʤ] which is not the case that can be found in [ts, dz, tr, dr, tθ, dð]: eight – eighth [eit – eit-θ], and [dz]: bed – beds [bed – bed-z]. Since only the sounds [t∫], [ʤ] in the system of English consonants are articulatorily and acoustically indivisible and morphologically unique. 2. The place of articulation is determined by the active organ of speech against the point of articulation. I. Labial – subdivided into bilabial [p, b, m, w] and labio-dental [f, v].II. Lingual: 1) forelingual are subdivided into a) dorsal (dental): [θ, ð], b) apical (alveolar): [t, d, s, z, l, n] and c) cacuminal (post-alveolar): [∫, ʒ, t∫, dʒ, r]; 2) medio-lingual (palatal): [j]; 3) backlingual (velar): [k, g, ŋ].III. Pharyngal (glottal): [h].This principle of consonant classification is rather universal. There is, however, controversy about terming the active organs of speech. Thus, Soviet phoneticians divide the tongue into the following parts: 1) front with the tip, 2) middle, and 3) back.Following L.V. Shcherba’s terminology, the front part of the tongue is subdivided into apical dorsal, cacuminal and retroflexed.A.C. Gimson’s terms: apical is equivalent to forelingual; frontal is equivalent to medio-lingual; dorsum is the whole upper area of the tongue.H.A. Gleason’s terms in respect to the parts of the bulk of the tongue are: apex – the part of the tongue that lies at rest opposite the alveolus; front – the part of the tongue that lies at rest opposite the fore part of the palate; back, or dorsum – the part of the tongue that lies at rest opposite the velum or the back part of the palate. 3. The work of vocal cords.Voiced – the vocal cords are drawn together and vibrate [b, d, g, z, v, ð,ʒ, m, n, ŋ, l, r, j, w, ʤ]. Voiced consonants – lenis, “soft, weak” – the force of exhalation and the degree of muscular tension in their articulation is weaker.
Voiceless – the vocal cords are taken part and do not vibrate [p, t, k, s, f, θ, h, ∫, t∫]. Voiceless consonants – fortis, “strong, energetic” – the force of exhalation and the degree of muscular tension in their production is greater. 4. Position of the soft palate.Oral – the soft palate is raised and the air from the lungs gets into the pharynx and then into the mouth cavity [p, t, k, f, v].Nasal –the soft palate is lowered and the air on its way out passes through the nasal cavity [m, n, ŋ].
16. Classification of English vowels The first who tried to describe and classify vowel sounds irrespective of the mother tongue was D. Jones. He devised the system of 8 Cardinal Vowels. This system is international standard. The basis of the system is physiological. The starting point of the tongue position is for [i].Acoustically vowels are musical tones, not noises. Though the word “vowel” is derivative of “voice” vowels are not necessarily connected with voice. L.R. Zinder states that if the organs of speech are adjusted for the articulation of some vowel, it can be pronounced without voice, breathing the air out of the mouth cavity, then a voiceless vowel is produced. Such voiceless vowels exist in all languages as a “schwa” in a terminal position after voiceless, especially occlusive consonants.Acoustically vowels differ due to their tembral colouring, each vowel is characterised by its own formants – concentrations of energy in certain frequency regions on the spectrogram.There are 20 vowel phonemes in English. 1. Stability of articulation.It is the principle of the stability of the shape, volume and the size of the mouth resonator. Monophthongs – pronounced with the more or less stable lip, tongue and the mouth walls position [i, e, æ, α:, ɒ, ɔ:, ʊ, ʌ, з:, ə ]. Diphthongs – unisyllabic gliding sounds in the articulation of which the organs of speech start from one position and glide to the other position. The first element of a diphthong is the nucleus, the second is the glide. A diphthong can be falling – when the nucleus is stronger than the glide, rising – when the glide is stronger than the nucleus. When both elements are equal such diphthongs are called level.English diphthongs are falling. There are 8 diphthongs with the glide towards: 1) [i] – [ei], [ai], [ɔi]; 2) [υ ] – [aυ], [əυ]; 3) [ә ] – [iə],[eə], [υə]. Diphthongoid - diphthongized vowels [i:], [u:]. In the pronunciation of these vowels the organs of speech change their position very slightly. 2. Position of the tongue.The bulk of the tongue conditions most of all the production of different vowels. It can move forward and backward, it may be raised and lowered in the mouth cavity. a) According to horizontal movement they may be: Front – articulated when the bulk of the tongue moves forward and its front part is raised highest towards the hard palate [i:, e, æ, e(i), e(ə)]. Front-retracted – produced with the front but a bit retracted position of the bulk of the tongue [i, i(ə)]. Central – formed by the central part of the tongue [ʌ, з:, ə, ə(υ)]. Back – formed with the bulk of the tongue in the back part of the mouth, when it is raised towards the junction between the hard and the soft parts of the palate [ɒ,ɔ:, u:, α:]. Back-advanced – formed with the back-advanced position of the bulk of the tongue [ʊ, υ(ə)]. b) According to vertical movement they may be: high (close) [i, ʊ]-[ i:, u:]; mid (half-open): [ə, ʌ]-[e, з:]; low (open): [æ, ɒ, α:]-[ ɔ:], which in their turn are subdivided into narrow and broad. 3. Position of the lips.Rounded – the lips slightly rounded and protruded [ ɔ:, ɒ, ʊ, u:]. Unrounded – the lips are spread and neutral [i:, i, e, æ, α:, ʌ]. 4. Degree of tenseness.The term “tenseness” was introduced by H. Sweet. Traditionally long vowels are defined as tense and short vowels as lax. Tense vowels are articulated with the muscles of the lips, tongue, cheeks and the back wall of the pharynx made harder by tensing. In the articulation of lax vowels the muscular tension of the tongue, lips, and the walls of the resonating cavities is not as great as in the articulation of tense vowels.Some phoneticians suggest subdivide vowels according to the character of the end into checked and free. When the intensity of the vowel does not diminish towards its end, vowel is checked:all short vowels in stressed position.When the intensity of the vowel decreases towards its end, the vowel is free. All long monophthongs, diphthongs in stressed position and short monophthongs in unstressed position are free. This principle of vowel classifications is not singled out by British and American phoneticians. 5. Length.According to the length English vowels are divided into (historically) long [i:, u:, ɔ:, α:, з:] and (historically) short [i, e, ʊ,ɒ,ʌ, ə, æ]. G.P. Torsuyev considers [æ] to be a long vowel, but he admits that in certain positions [æ] can be a short phoneme. English phoneticians state that it is a short one, though in some words it may be long. Vowel length depends on a number of linguistic factors:1. Position of the vowel in a word. In the terminal position a vowel is the longest, it shortens before a voice consonant, it is the shortest before a voiceless consonant.2. Word accent. A vowel is longer in an accented syllable, than in an unaccented one.3. The number of syllables in a word. Vowels are shorter in polysyllabic words and longer in monosyllabic words.4. The character of the syllabic structure. In words with V, CV, CCV type of syllable the vowel length is greater than in words with VC, CVC, and CCVC type of syllable. 5. Sonority. Vowels of low sonority are longer, than vowels of greater sonority. It is so, because the speaker unconsciously makes more effort to produce greater auditory effect while pronouncing vowels of lower sonority, thus making them longer.Besides, vowel length depends on the tempo of speech: the higher the rate of speech the shorter the vowels.D. Jones treats quantity independently of the vowel sounds themselves. Thus he treats [i:], [i] as positional allophones of one phoneme.Length is a non-phonemic feature in English but it may serve to differentiate the meaning of a word: heat-hit.
17. Phonemic status of the “schwa” vowelThe unstressed syllables are usually associated with the vowels of central or centralized quality [ə], [i],sometimes[υ] and the diphthongs [əυ], [ai]. The major role belongs to the neutral sound [ə], which may alternate with any vowel of full formation. On the phonological level the question arises about the phonemic status of the neutral vowel whether it is an independent phoneme, or a variant of the phoneme with which it alternates. This question can be explained in terms of the distinctive function of the phoneme. In pairs like I read some book [sʌm](certain); I read some books [səm](several).Similar pairs some [sʌm]-some [səm] in which members differ in quality prove an independent phonemic status of the schwa [ə].The phonological analysis marks the opposition of the neutral sound schwa [ə] to other unstressed vowels. The most common among them being the phoneme [i ]. In the pairs officers-offices and such like the schwa [ə] is phonologically opposed to the phoneme [i] with its own distinctive features capable of differentiating the meaning of lexical units. So the neutral sound schwa [ə] is an independent phoneme.The problem of the phonemic status of the neutral sound schwa [ə] has a morphological aspect. In English there are numerous alternations of vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables between the derivatives of the same root or different grammatical forms of the same word: man-postman, photo-photographer. The alternated sounds are allophones of one and the same phoneme as they are derivatives of the same lexical units, the same morphemes. Thus the neutral sounds are neutralized allophones of the non-reduced vowels of full formation.
18. Every speech-sound pronounced in isolation has three stages of articulation:1) The on-glide/the initial stage. During this stage organs of speech move to the position which is necessary to pronounce the sound.2) The retention/ medial stage. During this stage the organs of speech are kept for some time in the position necessary to pronounce the sound.3) The off-glide/release stage.During this stage the organs of speech are move away to the neutral position.There two ways of joining the sounds: 1. Merging of stages – when the final stage of the first sound merges with the initial stage of the second sound. It usually takes place when the sounds of different nature are joined together: vowels and consonants. 2. Interpenetration of stages – when the medial stage of the second sound “penetrates” into the medial stage of the first sound. It usually takes place when sounds of a similar or identical nature are joined together: consonant and consonant.If the medial stage of the first sound coincides with the initial stage of the second sound, this type of articulatory transition is called close. If the final stage of the first sound is followed by the initial stage of the second sound this transition is called loose. Language in everyday use is not conducted in terms of isolated, separate units. It is performed in connected sequences of larger units: words, phrases and utterances. In connected speech sounds influence each other and as a result there appear such processes as coarticulation, assimilation, accommodation, elision, vowel reduction and insertion.
19.Coarticulation is the articulation of two or more speech sounds together, so that one influences the other. Usually it takes place when the final stage of the first sound overlaps the initial stage of the second sound. Types of coarticulation can be distinguished according to 1) direction (anticipatory/right-to-left, left-to-right, perseverative); 2) degree of completeness (complete, incomplete).Coarticulation as universal phenomenon in English can be found in: 1) devoicing of voiced consonant in position before voiceless consonant: It wa s so; 2) labialization of a consonant in position before rounded vowel: t oo. Coarticulation (CC) of consonants can be distinguished according to: 1) work of vocal cords; 2) place of articulation; 3) manner of noise production; 4) position of the lips.Coarticulation (CV) of consonants and vowels can be distinguished according to: 1) manner of noise production; 2) position of the soft palate; 3) position of the lips; 4) place of articulation; 5) work of vocal cords; 6) secondary place of articulation.
20. The adaptive modification of a consonant by a neighboring consonant in the speech chain is assimilation. Types of assimilation can be distinguished according to 1) direction (progressive, regressive, reciprocal); 2) degree of completeness (complete, incomplete); 3) degree of stability. Progressive assimilation – some articulatory features of the following sound are changed under the influence of the preceding sound, which remains unchanged.Regressive assimilation – the following sound influences the articulation of the preceding one.Double assimilation (mutual, reciprocal) – mutual influence of the adjacent sounds.Complete assimilation – the adjoining sounds become alike or merge into one. Incomplete assimilation – the likeness of adjoining sounds is partial. Assimilation affects:Labialization – the regressive assimilation of a consonant to the following rounded vowel and the sonorant [w].Nasal plosion affected by assimilation in the combination of a plosive-nasal sonant.Lateral plosion affected by assimilation in the combinations a plosive-lateral sonant [l].Loss of plosion. The manner of articulation changes as a result of assimilation. Assimilation affects the manner of noise production in the combinations of two English plosives: [pt, pd, bd, pk, bk, tp, tk, kp, kt, gd] and in the combination [kt]. For example in the sequence of two plosive consonants the former loses its plosion: old clock.Voicing -devoicing. The voicing value of a consonant may change through assimilation. The work of vocal cords is affected by incomplete assimilation, the cases when one of the two adjacent consonants becomes voiced under the influence of the neighbouring voiceless. For example voiced lenis sounds become voiceless fortis when followed by another voiceless sound: newspaper.
21.Accomodation – the process of adapting the articulation of a vowel to a consonant and a consonant to a vowel. Accommodation involves:1. Aspiration – a slight puff of breath which is heard after the explosion of [p, t, k] in initial position: paper. 2. Palatalization of [l] in initial position on before a vowel and [j]: tell you. 3. Nasalization before [η], [ηk].4. Lip-rounding before rounded vowels. Labialization of consonants is traced under the influence of the neighbouring back vowels: pool, too, food.
22.Elision (deletion) – the dropping out of a consonant sound in rapid colloquial speech, especially at or in the vicinity of word boundaries. Historical elision involves: 1. Initial. 2. Medial. 3. Final elision – dropping of initial, medial, final consonants. Spelling of such words reflects an earlier form: gnome, write, knight; listen, often; lamb. Disappearance of [t], [d] between two stop consonants is obligatory: stric(t) parents.
23.Insertion occurs in connected speech in order to facilitate the process of articulation of the speaker and not as a way of providing extra information to the listener.
24.Simplification is a process of modern modifications of vowels which involves:1. Simplification of diphthongs to monophthongs.2. Weakening, elision, simplification of vowel sequences. 3. Compression. A sequence of sounds in English has two possible pronunciations: either as two separate syllables, or compressed into a single syllable.
25. Reduction of vowel – a historical process of weakening, shortening and disappearance of vowel sound in unstressed position. Qualitative reduction is a shortening of the length of a vowel sound. Quantitative reduction is a process of weakening of a vowel sound.
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Unstressed vocalism
Vowels in unstressed position may change in quality and in quantity, or remain unchanged. Vowels in unstressed syllables are perceived as short, weak and indis-tinct. The peculiarity of the unstressed vocalism in the English language is that vow-els in unstressed position may preserve their full (non-reduced) form. As a rule in words of foreign origin (French, Latin, Greek, Spanish etc.) vowels remain un-changed in the unstressed position: paragraph, photograph, city, potato, issue, con-voy, survey, tumult.
28. A syllable is a speech unit higher than a sound, because sounds are not pronounced separately but are usually formed into syllables, which, in their turn, are joined into words, phrases and sentences. A syllable is the minimal unit of sounding speech. The syllable can be analyzed from the acoustic and auditory, articulatory and functional points of view. 1. Acoustically and auditorily a syllable is characterized by the force of utterance (accent), pitch of the voice, sonority and length.2. Articulatory characteristics of a syllable are connected with sound juncture and with the theories of a syllable formation and syllable division.3. Functional, or phonemic, characteristics of a syllable are connected with the constitutive, recognitive and distinctive properties of a syllable.A syllable can be a single word: chair, part of a word: Eng-lish, or a part of the grammatical form of the word: la-ter. A syllable can be formed: 1) by a vowel V; 2) by a vowel and consonant VC; 3) by a consonant and a sonorant CS. The English sonorants can form a syllable with consonants preceding them. The structural patterns of syllables formed by a sonorant with a preceding consonant are similar to VC patterns. Among syllabic sonorants we find [1], [n], less commonly [m]. If sonorant is preceded by a vowel sound it loses its syllabic character and the syllable is formed by the vowel. American linguists equate [l], [m], [n] with [əl], [əm], [ən] and thus reduce the opposition “syllabic – non-syllabic” consonant. There are some words in English which can be pronounced with either the syllabic or non-syllabic [l] and [n].Sonorants are syllabic in contracted negative forms of auxiliary and modal verbs: did n 't and in the position between two noise consonants: abse n t. The English sonorants [w], [j], [r] are non-syllabic, because they are syllable-initial.Polysyllabic words are divided into syllables according to the number of vowels phonemes or syllabic consonants they contain.Clusters str, sl, gr, dr, fr, tr, bl, pl, pr etc. can occur in initial position and can’t be divided. Sequences of consonants tm, dm, tn, dn, dv, kt, tk, tl, dl, θl, jr, nr, t∫r, sθ, sj, sr, ms, ns can’t occur word-initially and can be divided.Digraphs th, wh, ph, ch are not phonologically divided but only graphically.A phonetic syllable consists of actually pronounced speech sounds. A phonetic syllable and orthographic syllable do not always coincide. For example in the word name there two orthographic syllables na-me and one phonetic syllable [neim].Phonotactics – the study of the rules governing the possible phoneme sequences in a language. Phonotactic possibilities of a language determine the rules of syllable division.
Syllable division rules can be defined as follows:1. An intervocalic consonant tends to belong to the following syllabic sound in cases when a consonant is preceded by a long vowel or a diphthong, as they are always free at the end.2. In the case of a short stressed vowel followed by a consonant, intervocalic consonant tends to belong to the preceding syllable as the English checked vowels can occur only in a closed syllable.Free vowels may occur both in open and in closed syllables.The syllable has two very important functions. The constitutive function of the syllable lies in its ability to be a part of a word or a word itself. The distinctive function of the syllable lies in its ability to differentiate words and word-forms. Syllable division changes the allophonic contents of the word because the realization of the phoneme in different positions in a syllable (initial, medial, final) results in different allophones.
29. 1. The ancient theory states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels. This theory is primitive and insufficient since it does not take into consideration consonants which also can form syllables, neither does it explain the boundary of syllables. 2. The expiratory theory by R.H. Stetson states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are expiration pulses. The borderline between the syllables is the moment of the weakest expiration. This theory is inconsistent because it is quite possible to pronounce several syllables in one effort or expiration. 3. The sonority theory by O. Jespersen states there are as many syllables in a word as there are peaks of prominence according to the scale of sonority. 4. The “arc of loudness” or “arc of articulatory tension” theory is based on L.V. Shcherba’s statement that the centre of a syllable is the syllable forming phoneme. Sounds which precede or follow it constitute a chain or an arc which is weak in the beginning and in the end and strong in the middle. 5. The loudness theory introduced by N.I. Zhinkin. According to this theory the syllable is the arc of loudness which correlates with the arc of articulatory effort on the speed production level since variations in loudness are to the work of all speech mechanisms.
30. English segmental phonemes in writing Language performs its function as a means of intercommunication not only in oral form but also in written form. Therefore it is important to establish the relationship between sounds and letters, which represent them.A letter or letter combination, representing a phoneme, or a sequence of phonemes in writing is called a grapheme. A graphemic symbol is included into triangular brackets < >. Graphemes in English seldom have reference to single phonemes. As a rule, one grapheme has many phonemic references: a) single-valued graphemes: < w> – w ay, < b> – b ay, < l> – l id; b) multi-valued graphemes: < ch > – [k] me ch anic, [∫] ma ch ine, [kw] ch oir, [t∫] ben ch, [k] ch emistry.Simple and complex graphemes.A grapheme, consisting of one letter, which corresponds to one phoneme, is called a monograph. Two, three and four letter graphemes, which correspond to one phoneme are called digraph, trigraph, polygraph.
31. Accent is a greater degree of prominence, given to one or more syllables in a word, which singles it out through changes in the pitch and intensity of the voice and results in qualitative and quantitative modifications of sounds in the accented syllable.. From the point of view of the position of stress in words and their grammatical forms, accent can be characterized as free and fixed.In the English language word accent is free, that is stress may fall on the first, the second or on the final syllable. Stress in the English language is not only free, but at the same time it is also shifting, that is it may shift from one syllable to another in different parts of speech, or in different forms of one and the same word: ig'nore – 'ignorant. Shifting of word stress may perform semantic function: a) it distinguishes words semantically; b) it may also serve to differentiate grammatical forms of words.Most British phoneticians term the strongest stress primary, the second strongest secondary and all the other degrees of stress weak. The stress marks placed before the stressed syllables indicate simultaneously their places and the point of syllable division.
33. Sentence accent – is a constituent part of the phonetic structure of the spoken sentence and one of the components of intonation in the broad sense of the term (prosodation or prosodization). By word, or sentence stress is understood the manner in which a given syllable (word) is singled out from among the other syllables (words). A significant difference between word stress and sentence stress lies in the fact, that words with a single stress often lose it completely when used in a sentence. The process of singling out of syllables (words) is the result of several features.1. A stressed syllable always has full, strong pronunciation, it is never weak unreduced vowel, or a weak, reduced one.2. A stressed syllable is pronounced more forcefully, with greater energy.3. The main feature of English stress is the rhythmic quality. It lies in the fact that within any unbroken utterance (word, phrase, clause, sentence) the stressed syllables occur at regular intervals as possible, while unstressed syllables, occurring irregularly, squeeze in between the stressed syllables, which come at a measured rate. Sentence stress – the greater degree of prominence given to certain words in a sentence: nouns, adjectives, notional verbs, adverbs, interjections, numerals, demonstrative, possessive, emphasizing pronouns, interrogative words, two-syllable prepositions. The distribution of sentence stress is determined by the semantic factor. Strong and weak formsWords which bear the major part of information are content / notional words: nouns, adjectives, notional verbs, adverbs, numerals, interrogative and demonstrative pronouns. They have only strong form. Words without lexical meaning are function words: auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, particles, personal and possessive pronouns. When unstressed in a sentence they are pronounced shorter, weaker, less carefully, very often their pronunciation changed. The function words have two different forms of pronunciation: 1) a full, unreduced version to be found in a dictionary; 2) modified, reduced version used in unstressed position.Any word, whether lexical or structural, may be specially stressed for the sake of emphasis. It is important to remember that there are certain contexts where only the strong form is acceptable. There are some fairly simple rules: 1. Prepositions: a) at a very end of an intonation group or phrase; b) at the end of intonation group or phrase when they are followed by the unstressed pronoun; c) polysyllabic prepositions followed by a pronoun at the end of a phrase.2. Auxiliary and modal verbs: a) at a very end of an intonation group or phrase; b) at the beginning of general and alternative questions in careful colloquial style; c) contracted negative forms; d) in short answers to questions; e) Auxiliary verb ‘do’ is stressed in emphatic sentences.3. The following form words have no weak forms: what, where, which, how, on, in, with, then. 4. The demonstrative pronoun that. 5. The absolute forms of possessive pronouns: mine, yours. 6. Conjunctions are stressed when they are sentence-initial and followed by an unstressed personal pronoun: If s he wants. 7. Personal pronouns are stressed when they are connected with a noun by the conjunction ‘and’: Your mother and I.
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35. Structure of the tone unit Though intonation is a feature of the spoken language, it is present in every sentence, in written and oral speech and in inner speech as well.Intonation implies variations of pitch, force of utterance, tempo and timbre.Variations of pitch are produced by significant moves of the voice up and down.The force component of intonation is measured by the degree of loudness of syllables that determines the prominence of words.The tempo is determined by the rate of speech and the length of pauses.Timbre is a special colouring of human voice.The approach to study of intonation is based on two general functions:1. The Constitutive function – to form sentences.2. The Distinctive function – to distinguish the communicative type of a sentence, the actual meaning of a sentence, the speaker’s emotions, attitudes.Intonation is a powerful means of human intercommunication. So the communicative function is the main function of intonation. It is realized in various ways. Intonation serves: a) to structure the information content of a textual unit so as to show which information is given (the theme) and which is new (the rheme); b) to determine the speech function of a phrase, i.e. to indicate whether it is a statement, question, command etc.; с) to convey connotational meanings of ‘attitude’ such as surprise, annoyance, involvement etc.; d) to structure a text; intonation delimitates texts into smaller units and, at the same time, it integrates these smaller constituents forming a complete text; e) to differentiate the meaning of textual units of the same grammatical structure and the same lexical composition, which is the distinctive, or phonological function of intonation; f) to characterize a particular style or variety of oral speech which may be called. Intonation group or syntagma is a phonetically organized part of utterance or the whole utterance capable of carrying communicative meaning. Tones are basic elements of intonation. They are divided into: 1. Static (level) tones; 2. Kinetic tones.Kinetic tones are more significant for the utterance: they give prominence to a word and refer to the total meaning of the utterances.Each tone group has one or more highlighted (prominent) words. The syllables where the fall or the rise occurs is tonic syllable. The word contains the tonic syllable is tonic word. The tonic word is the most significant word in a tone unit because it conveys new information:-Can I get some cornflakes?-Do you want a small or a large packet?-A small one. The tone carried the most important word, which is generally the last notional word in the intonation group, is called the nuclear tone. It is usually kinetic and terminal, since it is always the last tone in an intonation group and serves its boundary marker. The term ‘tone’ should be distinguished from the term ‘tune’. Tone is a particular pitch pattern on a syllable used to make semantic distinctions Tune is used to refer to the pitch pattern of the whole intonation group and may comprise several tones. The stressed and unstressed syllables within the tune form several component parts according to their position and function in the tune. The structure of the tone unit can be shown as: Prehead –>Head –>Nucleus –>Tail Prehead – unstressed or partially stressed syllables which precede the first full stress. The head – the stretch of utterance extending from the first stressed syllable up to, but not including, the nuclear syllable. Nucleus – the syllable bearing the nuclear (terminal) tone. Tail – unstressed or partially stressed syllables following the nucleus.The number of the component parts in a tune may vary. The only indispensable element of a tune is a nucleus. Pitch movements together with loudness and the tempo of speech form an intonation pattern (IP) which is the basic unit of intonation. An IP contains one nucleus and may contain other stressed or unstressed syllables normally preceding or following the nucleus. Intonation patterns serve to actualize syntagms in oral speech. The syntagm is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically complete. Actualized syntagms are called intonation groups.
36. Speech melody (pitch). This component of intonation is characterized by changes in the voice pitch. It is present in every word (inherent prominence) and in the whole sentence. It serves to delimit sentences into sense groups, or intonation groups.The main three pitch parameters are the variations in the direction of pitch, pitch level and pitch range. It is not possible to separate pitch and loudness in creating the effect of accentuation that is why they should be viewed together. One of the stressed syllables, which has the greater prominence than the others, forms the nucleus, or the focal point of an IP. The nucleus is a strongly stressed syllable which is generally the last strongly accented syllable of an intonation pattern and which marks a significant change of pitch direction. The nuclear tone is the most important part of the IP. A sense group can be formed by one word, or by a group of words. A change of pitch within the last stressed words of a sense group is called a nuclear tone. The basic nuclear tones are the following:
1. The Low (Medium) Fall. The voice falls from the low (medium) pitch level to the bottom of the pitch.2. The High Fall. The voice falls all the way down from a high to the lowest pitch.3. The Rise-Fall. The voice usually rises from a medium to a high pitch level and then quickly falls to a low pitch.4. The Low Rise. The voice rises from a very low to a medium pitch level or a little higher.5. The High (Medium) Rise. The voice rises from a medium ore high pitch level and moves up to the top of the voice.6. The Fall-Rise. The voice first falls from a medium or high to a rather low pitch level then rises to a medium pitch.7. The Rise-Fall-Rise. The voice rises from a very low pitch level, moves up to a medium (or high) one, falls deep down, then rises again.8. The Mid-level maintains a level pitch between high and low, the voice neither rises nor falls.
37. The heads. The head is an extremely flexible segment. There are three major groups of heads: Descending, ascending, level.I. Descending Heads. In descending heads the voice usually moves down from the medium or high pitch level to the low. The first stressed syllable of the head is the highest, the following stressed syllables carry the pitch lower.1. The Stepping Head. The syllables can move down by steps. Unstressed or partially stressed syllables are pronounced on the same note as the preceding step.2. The Falling Head. The stressed syllables move down by steps but intervening unstressed syllables fall down, continuing the descending direction.3. The Scandent Head. There are cases when unstressed or partially stressed syllables move up. They are pronounced higher than the stressed syllables.4. The Sliding Head. The voice moves down by slides within stressed syllables. Unstressed or partially stressed syllables between the slides usually continue the fall. If the slides are of a rather wide range and reach the bottom of the pitch we have an intonation pattern with several high falls within it.5. The Broken Descending Head. Within long intonation groups gradually descending heads may be broken by the special rise – accidental rise. This happens when one of the syllables is pronounced on a high pitch level than preceding. The broken descending head is very common when one particular word in a phrase should be singled out. The descending heads occur before any nuclear tone except the mid-level tone. II. Ascending Heads. The first stressed syllable is low in the pitch; each following stressed syllable being higher than the preceding one. Thus the stressed syllables form an ascending sequence.1. The Rising Head. The voice moves up by steps and the intervening unstressed or partially stressed syllables continue to rise. 2. The Climbing Head. The voice moves up by slides. Unstressed or partially stressed syllables glide up to. Ш. Level Heads. In level headsall the syllables are pronounced on more or less the same note of a pitch level.1. The High Level Head. The syllables happen to be on a high level. This head usually occurs before the high falling, high-rising and rising-falling nuclear tones.The most frequently used type of the high level head is the head with one strongly stressed syllable and unstressed or partially stressed syllables pronounced on the same high level.2. The Medium Level Head. The pre-nuclear stressed or partially stressed syllables are pronounced on the medium pitch level.3. The Low Level Head. Pre-nuclear stressed syllables pronounced on the low pitch level. The Low pitch level generally occurs before the low rise and the low fall.
38.Tempo of speech. Speech tempo is the relative speed of utterance which is measured by the rateof syllable succession and the number and duration of pausesin a sentence. The rate of speaking varies constantly. When two strongly stressed syllables occur close together, it is slower; when they are separated by unstressed syllables the speed is faster. The speed of utterance becomes slower or faster according to the number of unstressed syllables between the stressed ones.Differences of rate are used to help the listener to differentiate the more important (slow rate) and the less important (fast rate) parts of the utterances.Rate also performs emotional and attitudinal functions. It varies according to the emotional state of the speaker and the attitude conveyed. Fast rate, for instance, may be associated with anger, scolding.Variations of rate of speech and pausation are closely connected with different phonetic styles, shades of meaning and the structure of the intonation group.Pause is an act of stopping in the flow of speech. In speaking or reading aloud, we make pauses from time to time. These pauses break our speech or texts into paragraphs, sentences, intonation groups. In English there are three main degrees of pauses: unit pause (one-unit), double (two-unit) and treble (three-unit) pause. The length of pauses is relative and is correlated with the rate of speech and rhythmical norms of an individual.
39.Rhythm Rhythm is the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables.It is a movement, characterized by basically regular recurrence of elements or features, as beat, accent, in alternation with opposite or different elements or features. Sense groups are divided into rhythmical groups. Most rhythmical groups consist of stressed and unstressed syllables. There are two kinds of speech rhythm: syllable-timed rhythm and stress-timed rhythm. English is a stress-timed language. It is based primarily on the alteration of strongly and weakly stressed syllables. Within each intonation group the stressed syllables occur at fairly equal intervals of time. This means that if there are any unstressed syllables between stressed ones, they have to be fitted in without delaying the regular beat. The unstressed syllables, whether many or few, occupy approximately the same time between the stresses. The greater number of unstressed syllables there is between the stressed ones, the more weakly and rapidly they are pronounced. The unstressed vowels in this case have a noticeably different quality – they are shortened and weakened.
The main function of sentence-accent is to single out the communicative centre of the sentence which introduces new information.The prominence is realized by variations of pitch, force, length and quality.Three types of sentence accent are differentiated: normal (or syntactical), logical and emphatic. Normal sentence accent is used to arrange words into sentences or intonation groups phonetically. Usually it is associated with the last notional word of the intonation group. Logical stress gives a special prominence to a new element in a sentence.The word which is singled out by the logical stress is the most important in the sentence. Both normal and logical stresses can be unemphatic and emphatic. Emphatic stress increases the effort of expression.
40. English-based pronunciation standards of English. British English Pronunciation Standards (BEPS and Accents) are: English English (ЕЕ), Welsh English (WE), Scottish English (SE), Northern Ireland English (NIE).In the USA the regional types are: the Eastern type, the Southern type, the General American type (Northern, Western, Midwestern, Central Western).Regional variations in the pronunciation of a language peculiar to different styles are called stylistic variations. Stylistic variations are manifested in full style which is characteristic of distinct speech and colloquial style characteristic of familiar talk.The teaching norm accepted in the British Isles and the former British colonies is Received Pronunciation (RP). Sometimes it is called Standard English pronunciation and Public School Pronunciation.H.C. Gimson considers it is possible to single out within the British English two pronunciation types:1. Regional (educated, popular and modified). Educated and popular Regional English are not influenced by RP. Modified Regional English may have some RP characteristics.2. Received (conservative, general and advanced).The conservative form of RP is used by the older generation. General Received English is adopted by BBC. Advanced RP is used by young people of exclusive social groups and in certain professional circles for prestige value.
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