8. English consonants. Problems of their phonological analysis and classification.

The consonant is a speech sound in the production of which the air stream coming out of the lungs has to overcome a certain obstruction on its way. The English consonant system consists of 24 consonant phonemes which can be classifies as follows:

1. according to the type of obstruction (occlusives, constrictive, occlusive-constrictives or affricates).

2. according to the articulatory organ (labial, lingual, glottal)

3. according to the work of the vocal cords (voiced, voiceless)

4. according to the prevalence of noise over the musical tone (noise consonants and sonorats)

5. according to the position of the soft plate (oral, nasal)

Each sound is known to have 3 aspects: acoustic, articulatory and auditory and therefore can be studied on these 3 levels. For the sake of analysis each aspect can be considered and described independently though we should take it reasonably obvious that there is no sharp dividing line between them.

8. English vowels. Problems of their analysis and classification.

The vowel is a speech sound in the production of which the air stream coming out of the lungs meets no obstruction on its way.

The English vowels system consists of 20 vowel phonemes which can be classifies according to the following principles:

1. according to the stability of articulation we distinguish 12 monophthongs and 8 diphthongs.

2. according to the position of the bulk of the tongue we distinguish: front (the fully front/i, e, ae/ and the front retracted /i/ ), central / /, back vowels (the back advanced / / and the fully back / /)

3. according to the tongue-height high (narrow / /, broad / / ), mid(narrow / /, broad / / ), low (narrow / /, broad / / ).

4. according to the duration (length) we distinguish long and short vowel phonemes.

5. according to the degree of muscular tention we classified them into tense and lax. (all short vowels)

6. according to the lip-position hey are distinguished as labialised / / and non-labialised.

8. Syllable as a phonetic and phonological unit. The phonotatic structure and types of syllables in English, their graphical representation. Functions of a syllable.

It is generally known that speech is a continuum. However, it can be broken into minimal pronounceable units into which sounds show a tendency to cluster or group themselves. These smallest phonetic groups are generally given the name syllables. Being the smallest pronounceable units, the syllables form language units of great magnitude, that is morphemes, words and phrases. Each of these units is characterized by a certain syllabic structure. Consequently we might say that a meaningful language unit has two aspects: syllable formation and syllable division which form a dialectical unity.

It is necessary to mention that the syllable is a fairly complicated phenomenon and like the phoneme it can be studies on four levels: acoustic, articulatory and functional, which means that the syllable can be approached from different points of view.

The syllable is by no means a simple concept. No phonetician has succeeded so far in giving an exhaustive and adequate explanation of what the syllable is. The difficulties seem arise from the various possibilities of approach to the unit. We could say there exist two points of view:

1. Some linguists consider the syllable to be a purely articulatory unit which lacks any functional value. This point of view is defended on the grounds that the boundaries of the syllable do not always coincide with hose of the morphemes.

2. However the majority of linguists treat the syllable as the smallest pronounceable unit which can reveal some linguistic function.

The definition of the syllable from the functional point of view existing in modern linguistics tends to single out the following features of the syllable:

1. a syllable is a chain of phonemes of varying length

2. a syllable is constructed on the basis of consonant of its constituents

3. the nucleus of a syllable is a vowel, the presence of consonant is optional; there are no languages in which vowels are not used as a syllable nuclei, however, there are languages in which this function is performed by consonants;

4. the distribution of phonemes in the syllabic structure follows the rules which are specific enough for a particular language.

We could enumerate the following peculiarities of the syllabic structure ofg English which should arrest the learner’s attention:

1. syllabic boundary is inside intervocalic consonant preceded by vowels: money, racket

2. syllabic boundary is before an intervocalic consonant if it is not preceded by the above-mentioned vowels: later, speaker

3. the sonorates [l], [m], [n] are syllabic if they are preceded by noise consonants: little, blossom

4. there cannot be more that 1 vowel within a syllable

5. the typical and most fundamental syllabic structure is of VC type

6. word final consonants are normally of weak-end type.

There are two very important functions of syllable. The 1^st function is the constitutive function. It lies in its ability to be a part of a word or a word itself. The syllable forms language units of great magnitude, that is words, morphemes and utterances. In this respect 2 things should be emphasized. 1^st, the syllable is the unit within which the relations between the distinctive features of the phonemes and their acoustic correlates are revealed. 2^nd, within a syllable prosodic characteristics of speech are realized, which form the stress-pattern of a word and a rhythmic and intonation structures on an utterance. In sum, the syllable is a specific minimal structure of both segmental and suprasegmental features.

The other function is distinctive function. In this respect the syllable is characterized by its ability to differentiate words and word-forms.