Lecture 3
The system of English phonemes. Problems of phonemic analysis of vowels and consonants.
Modifications of consonants and vowels in speech continuum.
Articulation basis of English.
Types of phonetic transcription.
Basic Notions
Vowels – belong to the class of speech sounds in the production of which there is no obstruction to the airflow as it passes from the larynx to the lips.
Consonants – the sounds made by a closure or narrowing in the vocal tract.
Idiolectal variation embraces the individual peculiarities of articulating sounds, caused by the shape and form of the speaker’s speech organs and by his articulatory habits.
Diaphonic variation is caused by definite historical tendencies active in certain localities. Diaphonic variants do not affect intelligibility of speech, yet they inform the listener about the speaker’s origin and his social standing.
Allophonic variation is conditioned by phonetic position and phonetic environment.
Assimilation refers to a modification in the articulation of a consonant under the influence of a neighbouring consonant.
Articulation basis is a set of articulatory habits characteristic of all the native speakers of a language.
Transcription – a visual system of notation of the sound structure of speech, the representation of speech sounds by means of a special set of phonetic symbols indicating an approximate specification of the articulations involved.
Phonological or broad transcription – the type that uses a simple set of symbols, not meant to designate phonetic details of pronunciation.
Allophonic or narrow transcription – the type that uses special symbols (diacritics) to show more phonetic details.
Key Problems of the Lecture
The System of English Vowels. In English there are 20 (21 – []) vowel phonemes and 24 (25 – []) consonant phonemes. The [] and [] are called optional phonemes not used by all RP speakers.
Speech sounds are traditionally classed into two large groups: vowels and consonants. The main principles of such a division from the articulatory point of view are (1) the presence or absence of obstruction; (2) the distribution of muscular tension; the force of the air stream coming from the lungs.
Vowels belong to the class of speech sounds in the production of which there is no obstruction to the airflow as it passes from the larynx to the lips. They are almost always found in the centre of a syllable.
In phonetic terms, each vowel has a number of properties that distinguish it from other vowels. These include 1) the shape of the lips, which may be rounded (as for an [/] vowel), neutral (as for ]) or spread (as in a smile, or an [] vowel; 2) the front, the middle or the back of the tongue may be raised, giving different vowel qualities. In British phonetics they talk about 'close' and 'open' vowels, in American phonetis – about 'high' and 'low' vowels. In English there is a distinction between tense and lax vowels, the long vowels are tense, short vowel are lax.
So the English vowels can be classified as follows:
Front central back
Close (high)
mid (intermediate) e
open (low)
The principles according to which vowels are classified are:
1) the horizontal movement of the tongue: front (, , and the diphthongs /, , a/), front-retracted (// and the diphthong //), mixed or central (/,/), back-advanced (// and the diphthongs /, /), and back (/ /);
2) the vertical movement of the tongue: close (high), mid, and open or low; besides the vowels may be of narrow (//) and broad variation (//);
3) the position of the lips (rounded / , / – unrounded (, , , , ,, /);
4) the degree of articulatory organs muscular tension: tense and lax (all long vowels are tense and the short vowels are lax);
5) the force of articulation at the end of a vowel: free (long monophthongs, diphthongs in open syllables and unstressed short vowels) and checked (historically short vowels under stress);
6) the stability of articulation: monophthongs and diphthongs;
7) the length of a vowel: historically short and historically long vowels .
Diphthongs. There are 8 diphthongs in English. These are the sounds, which consist of a vowel and a glide. Three of them end in // and are called centring; closing diphthongs make up two subgroups://-gliding /e, a, / and -gliding /, a/.
Triphthongs. The complex sounds consisting of two syllables: /e + , a + , + ; + , a + /.
Monophthongs between themselves } these oppositions are based on differences in the
and diphthongs between themselves } movements and positions of the tongue and the lips.
monophthongs vs. diphthongs } these oppositions are based both on the above mentioned
differences and the absence or presence of a glide.
Problems of phonemic analysis:vowels. There is an opinion that all long vowels and diphthongs are two-phonemic units: a) long vowels are composed of two simple vowels, e.g. ) ; diphthongs are made from a simple vowel phoneme followed by one of /, , /; triphthongs are made from a basic vowel plus one of /, / followed by // and therefore composed of three phonemes; b) long vowels and diphthongs are composed of a vowel plus a consonant (American phonologists), e.g. ej (), j (), j () ; w (), (); h (), eh (), h (). Long vowels: j (), h (), h , h , w ). According to this approach long vowels and diphthongs are now of exactly the same phonological composition. It should be mentioned that j, w, h, never occur finally in English.
According to N.Trubetzkoy’s rules the syllabic and articulatory indivisibility proves their monophonemic character in English. As to the English triphthongs, their biphonemic character was proved experimentally.
The System of English Consonants. 24 English consonants are classified according to the following principles:
the type of obstruction and the manner of producing noise:
occlusive b) constrictives
Plosives nasal sonorans Fricatives oral sonorants
central lateral
/p,b, t,d, k,/ / m, n, / / f,v, ,, s,z, ,, h/ / j, w, r / / l/
c) occlusive-constrictive
(affricates) /t, d/
the active organ of speech:
a) labial b) labio-dental c) lingual
p,b, m, w f, v forelingual medio-ling. back-ling.
apical cacuminal j k, ,
t,d, s,z, n, l r
d) pharyngeal
h
the place of obstruction:
dental alveolar post-alv. palatal palato-alv. velar
, t,d, s,z, n, l r j ,, t, d k, ,