26) Classification of English consonants.

1) According to the work of the vocal cords and the force of exhalation the English consonants are subdivided into voiced and voiceless. Voiced consonants are: /b, d, g, z, v, ?, 3, m, n, ?, 1, r, j, w, d3/. Voiceless consonants are: /p, t, k, s, f, ?, h, ?, t?/. The force of exhalation and the degree of muscular tension are greater in the production of voiceless consonants therefore they are called by the Latin word “fortis”, which means “strong, energetic”. 

The English consonants /h, m, n, ?, 1, w, j, r/ do not enter into fortis-lenis opposition which can be represented by the following minimal pairs: Pat-bat, tip-dip, come-gum, etc.

II. According to the position of the active organ of speech against the point of articulation (the place of obstruction) consonants are classified into: 1) labial, 2) lingual, 3) glottal. This principle provides the basis for the following distinctive oppositions: labial vs. lingual (what-hot), lingual vs. glottal (that-hat), labial vs. glottal (foam-home).Labial consonants are subdivided into: a) bilabial and b) labio-dental.Bilabial consonants are produced with both lips. They are the /p, b, m, w/. Labio-dental consonants are articulated with the lower lip against the edge of the upper teeth. They are /f, v/. Labial consonants enter into bilabial vs. labiodental opposition which can be represented by the following minimal pairs: Wear-fair, mice-vice, etc.

Lingual consonants are subdivided into: a) forelingual, b) mediolingual and c) backlingual.

Forelingual consonants are articulated with the tip or the blade of the tongue. According to the position of the tip of the tongue they may be: apicalarticulated by the tip of the tongue against either the upper teeth or the alveolar ridge /t, d, s, z, ?, ?, ?, 3, t?, d3, n, l/ and cacuminal /r/. According to the place of obstruction forelingual consonants may be: (1) interdental / ?, ? /, (2) alveolar /t, d, s, n, l/, (3) post-alveolar /r/, (4) palato-alveolar /?, 3, t?, d3/.

Within the group of forelingual apical can be opposed to cacuminal: dim-rim;oppositions can be found among interdental, alveolar, post-alveolar and palato-alveolar: same-shame (alveolar vs. palato-alveolar),  those-rose (interdental vs. post-alveolar), etc.

III. The classification of consonants according to the manner of noise production from the viewpoint of the closure, which is formed in their articulation may be:

• 1) complete closure, then occlusive consonants 1. noise /p, b, t, d, k, g/ and 2. sonorants /m, n, ? / are produced; within the group of occlusive noise can be opposed to sonorant (pine-mine).

• 2) incomplete closure, then constrictive consonants 1. noise /f, v, ?, ?, h, s, z, ? , 3/ and 2. sonorants / w, j, 1, r/; within the group of constrictive noise can be opposed to sonorant (fine- wine)

27 Vopros

Classification of Vowels

Vowels are normally made with the air stream that meets no obstruction in the mouth, pharyngeal and nasal cavities.

On the articulatory level the description of vowels notes changes:

in the stability of articulation

in the tongue position

in the lip position

in their length

The stability of articulation

All English vowels are divided into 3 groups: monophthongs, diphthongs, diphthongoids.

Monophthongs are vowels the articulation of which is almost unchanging.

They are – [i e ǽ a: o o: U Λ ə: ə ].

In the pronunciation of diphthongs the organs of speech glide from one vowel position to another within one syllable. The starting point, the nucleus, is strong and distinct.

They are – [ei ai oi au əu iə εə uə]

In the pronunciation of diphthongoids the articulation is slightly changing but the difference between the starting point and the end is not so distinct as it is in the case of diphthongs.

They are – [i: u:]

Tongue Position

The tongue may move forward, backward, up, down, thus changing the quality of vowels.

1. When the tongue is in the front part of the mouth and the front part of the tongue is raised to the hard palate a front vowel is pronounced.

They are – [i: e ǽ]

2. When the tongue is in the front part of the mouth but slightly retracted and the part of the tongue nearer to the centre than to front is raised, a front-retracted vowel is pronounced.

It is – [i].

3. When the front of the tongue is raised towards the back part of the hard palate the vowel is called central.

They are – [Λ ə: ə].

4. When the tongue is in the back part of the mouth and the back of it is raised towards the soft palate a back vowel is pronounced.

They are – [a: o o: u:].

5. When the tongue is in the back part of the mouth but is slightly advanced and the central part of it is raised towards the front part of the soft palate a back-advanced vowel is pronounced.

It is – [U].

Moving up and down in the mouth the tongue may be raised to different height towards the roof of the mouth.

1. When the front or the back of the tongue is raised high towards the palate the vowel is called close.

They are – [ i: I u u:].

2. When the front or the back of the tongue is as low as possible in the mouth open vowels are pronounced.

They are – [ǽ a: o o:].

3. When the highest part of the tongue occupies the position intermediate between the close and the open one mid vowels are pronounced.

They are – [e Λ ə: ə].

Lip Position

When the lips are neutral or spread the vowels are called unrounded.

They are – [i: i e ǽ a: Λ ə: ə].

When the lips are drawn together so that the opening between them is more or less round the vowel is called rounded.

They are – [o o: u u:].

Vowel Length

All English vowels are divided into long and short vowels.

Long vowels are – [i: a: o: u: ə:]

Short vowels are – [i e o u Λ ə]

28-VOPROS

Definition of accent

Accent is the phonetic prominence given to a particular syllable in a word, or to a particular word within a phrase. When this prominence is produced through greater dynamic force, typically signaled by a combination of amplitude (volume), syllable or vowel length, full articulation of the vowel, and a non-distinctive change in pitch, the result is calledstress accent, dynamic accent, or simply stress; when it is produced through pitch alone, it is called pitch accent; and when it is produced through length alone it is calledquantitative accent. English has stress accent.

A prominent syllable or word is said to be accented or tonic; the latter term does not imply that it carries phonemic tone. Other syllables or words are said to be unaccented oratonic. Syllables are frequently said to be in pretonic or post-tonic position; certain phonological rules apply specifically to such positions. For instance, in American English, /t/ and /d/ are flapped in post-tonic position.

Some languages combine stress accent and pitch accent, in that accented syllables are both dynamically prominent and may have more than one tone, while unstressed syllables do not carry tone. An example of this is Serbo-Croatian accent. Such systems are typically called accent or pitch accent, as the latter term is not well defined.

29-VOPROS

Types of stress

Word stress – is singling out one or more syllables in a which are made prominent due to the force, pitch, quality and quantity.

In achieving special pronounce of stress all syllables in different languages 2 components usually play the reading role, thus all languages can be roughly divided into 2 groups that include:

dynamic stress

musical stress

The dynamic stress implies greater force with which stressed syllables are pronounced. European languages like English, German, French and also Russian have this type of stress.

The musical stress implied that the meaning of the word is effected by the pitch level and direction. This is the case with Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese and some African languages. One and the same word pronounced with level rising or falling tone has different meanings. In some languages both types of word stress play an equal role. This is the case with Scandinavian languages.

Degree of stress

Degree of stress in a word may differ. As Васильев points out a polysyllabic word can have as many degreed of stress as there are syllables in it. As far as the degree of stress is concerned, the position of British and American linguists differ.

British phoneticians distinguish 3 degrees of stress in the word.

Primary – the main stress

Secondary – is the second strongest in the word

Weak stress – all he others.

So the syllables that have primary and secondary stresses can be called stressed. Those that have weak stress are called unstressed.

A different system is offered by American linguists. They distinguish 4 degrees of stress:

primary

secondary

tertiary

weak

It is quite clear that the difference between secondary and tertiary stress is subtle and subjective, and there are still no criteria to differentiate between them. For example, in the word “recognition” the 1st syllable has got secondary stress according to British linguists and tertiary stress according to Americans. In American English the words with suffixes –ory, -ate get the tertiary stress (“territory”)

Position of the stress

We can distinguish languages with fixed and free stress. In English and Russian the word stress is free. That means it may fall almost on any syllable and is not confined to any position in a word. In French and Polish the stress is fixed. In French the last syllable is usually stressed, in Finnish the first. The free stress in English has 2 subtypes:

constant

shifting

A constant stress is the stress that remains on the same morphemes in different grammatical forms and different derivates: “terror”, “terrible”, “terrified”. The stress is shifting when it may shift from one syllable to another in different parts of speech and different forms of the same word: “ignore”, “ignorant”; “politics”, “politician”

In spite of the fact that both Russian and English are characterized by free stress. The placement of stress in Russian is unpredictable. In English the freedom is restricted by certain tendencies.

30 –VOPROS

Peculiarities of English accent

The regional accents of English speakers show great variation across the areas where English is spoken as a first language. This article provides an overview of the many identifiable variations in pronunciation, usually deriving from the phoneme inventory of the localdialect, of the local variety of Standard English between various populations of native English speakers.

Local accents are part of local dialects. Any dialect of English has unique features in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. The term "accent" describes only the first of these, namely, pronunciation.

Non-native speakers of English tend to carry over the intonation and phonemic inventory from their mother tongue into their English speech.

Among native English speakers, many different accents exist. Some regional accents, such as Pennsylvania Dutch English, are easily identified by certain characteristics. Further variations are to be found within the regions identified below; for example, towns located less than 10 miles (16 km) from the city of Manchester such as Bolton, Oldham and Salford, each have distinct accents, all of which form the Lancashire accent, yet in extreme cases are different enough to be noticed even by a non-local listener. There is also much room for misunderstanding between people from different regions, as the way one word is pronounced in one accent (for example, petal in American English) will sound like a different word in another accent (for example, pearl in Scottish English).

This is a list of dialects of the English language. Dialects are linguistic varieties which differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar from each other and from Standard English (which is itself a dialect).

Dialects can be usefully defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible".[1] British linguists distinguish dialect from accent, which refers only to pronunciation. Thus, any educated English speaker can use the vocabulary and grammar of Standard English, but different speakers use their own local words for everyday objects or actions, regional accent, or Received Pronunciation, which within the U.K. is considered an accent distinguished by class rather than by region. American linguists, however, include pronunciation differences as part of the definition of regional or social dialects. The combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions. The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into the three general categories of the British Isles dialects, those of North America and those of Australasia

31 – VOPROS

Definition of Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of asyllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants).

Syllables are often considered the phonological "building blocks" of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter and its stress patterns.

Syllabic writing began several hundred years before the first letters. The earliest recorded syllables are on tablets written around 2800 BC in the Sumerian city of Ur. This shift frompictograms to syllables has been called "the most important advance in the history of writing".

A word that consists of a single syllable (like English dog) is called a monosyllable (and is said to be monosyllabic). Similar terms include disyllable (and disyllabic) for a word of two syllables; trisyllable (and trisyllabic) for a word of three syllables; and polysyllable (and polysyllabic), which may refer either to a word of more than three syllables or to any word of more than one syllable.

32 – VOPROS

Classification of syllables

Syllable – A syllable is a word or part of a word that has one vowel sound.

For example: chair – 1 clap, table- 2 claps, tomato – 3 claps, television – 4 claps.

The Six Syllable Types:

1. Closed syllable – a closed syllable ends in a consonant and usually has one short vowel*. Examples: hat, ship, think, pet, dog, cat, doll

2. Vowel-consonant-e syllable (also called silent-e syllable) – a vowel-consonant-e syllable ends with a silent ‘e’ and usually has a long vowel sound* . The final ‘e’ is only there to signal that the vowel before it says its own name. Examples: hate, shape, time, slope, cute, spite

3. Open syllable – an open syllable ends with a vowel and usually has a long vowel sound. Examples: go, a, I, try, go, flu, he, we, ba by (both)

[NOTE: Y in the middle or at the end of a syllable is a vowel. Y at the beginning of a syllable is a consonant. Y at the end of one syllable usually makes a long /ī/ sound. Y as the end of a multi-syllable word usually makes a long /ē/ sound]

4. Consonant-le syllable – a consonant-le syllable is usually found at the end of a two syllable word. It always has three letters—any consonant followed by the letters ‘l’ and ‘e.’ The ‘e’ is always silent. Examples: bat tle, lit tle, raf fle, drib ble, min gle, sim ple

5. R-controlled syllable – in an r-controlled syllable the vowel is always followed by the letter ‘r’ which changes the sound of the vowel. Examples: car, bat ter, fir, col or, tur mer ic (has 2)

6. Vowel digraph syllable – a vowel digraph syllable has two vowels together that make one sound. Examples: re treat, green, quaint, out, true

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Theories of Syllable formation and Syllable division

There are different points of view on syllable formation which are briefly the following.

The most ancient theory states that there are as many sylla¬

bles in a word as there are vowels. This theory is primitive and insuffi¬

cient since it does not take into consideration consonants which also

can form syllables in some languages, neither does it explain the

boundary of syllables.

The expiratory theory states that there are as many syllables

in a word as there are expiration pulses. The borderline between the

syllables is ^according to this theory, the moment of the weakest ex¬

piration. This theory is inconsistent because it is quite possible to

pronounce several syllables in one articulatory effort' or expiration, e.g. seeing /Isi: 15/.

3. The sonority theory states'that there are as many syllables in a word as there are peaks of prominence or sonority.

Speech sounds pronounced with uniform force, length and pitch, differ in inherent prominence or sonority. For example, when the Rus¬sian vowels /а, о, э, у, и/ are pronounced on one and the same level, their acoustic intensity, or sonority is different: the strongest is /a/, then go /о, э, у, и/,

The sonority theory helps to establish the number of syllables in a word, but fails to explain the mechanism of syllable division be¬cause it does not state to which syllable the weak sound at the boundary of two syllables belongs.

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 we 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.

If a syllable consists of a vowel, its strength increases in the begin¬ning, reaches the maximum of loudness and then, gradually decreases.

Graphically it can be represented by an arc of loudness or an arc of ar¬ticulatory tension.

Consonants within a sillable are

, , , characterized by different distribution

of muscular tension. Shcherba distinguishes the following types jot consonants:

finally strong (initially weak), they occur at the beginning of the syllable;

.finally weak (initially strong), they occur at the end of a closed ■syllable;

double peaked (combination of two similar sounds): in their ar¬ticulation the beginning and the end are energetic and the middle is weak .Acoustically they produce an impression of two consonants: flpen «naif/, /igud 'dei/.

For example, in the words cab, за the consonants /k/ and /з/, that begin the syllables, are "finally strong", that is their articulatory strength increases to the end of /k/ and/з/ (they are also called initially weak). These consonants begin "the arc of loudness"

In the words eat, воз the final consonants /b/ and /в/, that end the syllable, are finally weak", that is their articulatory strength de¬creases to the end of /b/ and /a/. These consonants terminate the arc of loudness" or the arc of muscular tension.

In terms of the "arc of loudness" theory there are as many sylla¬bles in a word as there are "arcs of loudness" and the point of syllable division corresponds to the moment, when the arc of loudness begins or ends, that is: initially weak consonants begin a syllable, finally weak end it. (Finally strong consonants begin a syllable, initially strong end it.) For example, the word mistake consists of two arcs of loudness in which /m/ and /t/ are finally strong consonants and /s/ and

S/ аГеча 1уА- s/ constitutes the end of «the arc of loudness", /t/ constitutes the beginning.

A syllable can be defined as a phonetic unit, which is pronounced by one articulatory effort accompanied by one muscular contraction, which results acoustically and auditorily in one uninterrupted arc of ■loudness.

The experiment carried out by N. Zhinkin showed that it is the pharynx, which is responsible for the variations in the loudness of the syllable. Perceptually the peak, or the crest of the syllable, is louder and higher in pitch than the slopes.

On the acoustic level it is characterized by a higher intensity than the slopes, and in many cases by a higher fundamental frequency.

None of the theories mentioned above are reliable in the definition of the syllabic boundary. To define the syllabic boundary it is neces¬sary to analyse the syllable on two levels: articulatory-auditory {phonetic-phonological), to take into consideration the structural pattern of the syllable.

Different languages are characterized by different types of their syllabic structure.

In the Russian language syllables of СГ-СГ type have their bound¬ary after the vowel: мо-ло-ко, о-ко-ло.

There are similar cases in'English: щюг£ег/%з:-кэ/, army /'a:-mi/, party /lpa:-ti/.

In the Russian words with ГССГ structural type, the place of the syllabic boundary depends on the character of CG cluster. If it occurs initially, it may beging syllable:мрак — о-мрачать, but Ал-тай, since лт does not occur^ initially. *

A similar distributional dependence of the syllabic boundary on the nature of the CC cluster exists in English. E.g.

great—agree /э-igri:/, break—abrupt /a-'brApt/ However there are exceptions» e.g.

speak /spi'.k/—despite /dis-ipait/

sky /skai/—escape /is-ikeip/

twice /twais/—saltwort /iso:lt-wa:t/

There is a tendency in Russian to begin non-initial syllables with the sound of minimal sonority: до-жди, ко-тлы, but тан-ки, кол-хоз.

Electroacoustic analysis makes it possible to formulate the fol¬lowing rules of syllable division in English:

1, In affixal words the syllabic boundary coincides with the morphological boundary: dis-place, be-come, un-able, count4ess.

34 – VOPROS