- •Phonological system of English. The hierarchy of phonological units. Phoneme as the smallest discrete phonological unit and its functions.
- •Basic methods of phonological analysis. Phonological rules. The system of phonological opposition in English.
- •Modification of phonemes in speech continuum. Classification of allophones.
- •The articulation basis of English and that of the student’s mother tongue. Articulatory distinction of typologically identical sounds in the student’s mother tongue.
- •7. The system of English phonemes. Types of transcription: broad and narrow. Basic problems of phonetic transcription. International Phonetic Alphabet.
- •English consonants. Problems of their phonological analysis and classification.
- •English vowels. Problems of their analysis and classification.
- •Syllable as a phonetic and phonological unit. The phonotatic structure and types of syllables in English, their graphical representation. Functions of a syllable.
- •Syllable formation theories. Main problems of the phonetic aspect of the syllable in English.
- •Word accent as a component of the phonetic structure of a word and its functions. Acoustic and perceptual cues to word accent. Types of word accents. Linguistically relevant degreed of word stress.
- •Accent types of words
- •Word accentuation tendencies and basic word stress patterns in English. Rhythmical patterns of lexical stress in words of Anglo-Saxon origin and in French borrowings.
- •Suprasegmental Phonology. Intonation as the complex semantic unity of suprasegmental features. Different approaches to the definition of intonation and its components.
The articulation basis of English and that of the student’s mother tongue. Articulatory distinction of typologically identical sounds in the student’s mother tongue.
The summary of all main principles of articulation in a certain language is called the Articulation basis. The main points of difference between the articulation basis of English and Russian are as follows. The tongue in English is more tense and balky and has a retracted position for most of the phonemes. The lips are more tense and less movable than in Russia. They are mostly spread (with lower teeth revealed) or neutral (flat articulation). Forelingual English consonants (they are 12) have an apical articulation: they are articulated with the tongue-tip against the alveoli, as /t, s, d, z, n, l, / or against teeth / /. The corresponding Russian ones are articulated with the blade of the tongue against the teeth (dorsal articulation), except for /щ, ж/
All English consonants are hard (except ) and have no palatalized oppositions with the Russian ones have. Palatalization in English is a phonetic mistake.
The English word-final voiced consonants must not be devocalized (which is the norm for the Russian language). The English plosive voiceless /p, t, k/ are pronounced with aspiration which is foreign to Russian. The English sonorants /m, n, l/ are tenser and longer than the corresponding Russian ones and they are syllabic when post-tonic and preceded by a consonant.
7. The system of English phonemes. Types of transcription: broad and narrow. Basic problems of phonetic transcription. International Phonetic Alphabet.
The phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit which is capable of differentiating the meaning and the grammar forms of words. Phonemes are elements of the language. The number of them is quite definite for every separate language. In British English there are 44 phonemes, 20 vowel phonemes and 24 consonants one. In speech they manifest themselves in the form of phonemic variants or allophones.
The allophone is a material representation of the phoneme n speech. They appear in connected speech as a result of assimilation and reduction or due to the individual speech habits. The number of allophones in a language is unlimited.
Basically the symbols are one of two purpose: either they are symbols for phonemes (phonemic or phoneme symbols) or they are phonetic symbols. We will look first at phonemic symbols. The most important point to remember is rather obvious-seeming fact that the number of phonemic symbols must be exactly the same as the number of phonemes we decide exist in the language.
Phonemic transcription is a transcription in which every speech sound must identified as one of the phonemes and written with the appropriate symbol.
A Phonetic transcription containing a lot of information about the exact quality of the sounds would be called a narrow phonetic transcription, while one which only included a little more information than a phonemic transcription would be called a broad phonetic transcription.
Phonetic transcription is a sort of phonetic alphabet, a system of symbols in which every phoneme is supposed to have its own symbol. It is possible to speak about three types of phonetic transcription.
The International phonetic transcription. It was introduced by the International phonetic Association in 1887. But the science of phonetic has been considerably developed since then. It suggests the same symbol for different phonemes [i:] – [i]; [u:] – [u], which gives the wrong impression the those phonemes differ only in their length.
The Phonemic transcription. (broad) In the phonemic transcription every phoneme is given an individual symbol, the number of which is 44 (according to the number of phonemes in British English). Words and sentences transcribed with the help of this phonetic script are placed between the slanting brackets.
The Allophonic transcription (narrow). In this type of transcription every allophone has either a special symbol or a diacritical mark. The brackets are also different. It is used in doing research work in the field of phonetics.