- •1. The notion of the grammatical category: gr. Form & gr. Meaning. Means of form-building. Gr.Oppositions as the basis of gr. Categories. Types of oppositions. Reduction of gr. Oppositions
- •Typology of the Morphological Systems of r and e: Typology of parts of speech
- •3. Simple sentence as a monopredicative structure. The definitions of the sentence
- •The status of the sentence
- •Classification of sentences
- •Types of simple sentences
- •Primary and secondary sentence parts
- •4. Сomposite sentence as a polypredicative structure
- •Connectors
- •Inter-textual structure. (text units)
- •6. The word and its properties
- •2) Identity of the word (тождество).
- •The word as an arbitrary and motivated sign
- •Types of motivation
- •Phonetical motivation;
- •Morphological motivation;
- •Semantic motivation;
- •7. The problem of linguistic meaning
- •Main approaches to the study of meaning
- •Types of linguistic meaning
- •Differences between lexical and grammatical meanings
- •Types of connotative meaning
- •The structure of a polysemantic word
- •8. The etymological composition
- •9. Stylistic stratification of the english vocabulary. Literary and non-literary strata. The subsystems of the english lexicon: slang, jargon, euphemisms, neologisms, archaisms
- •Vulgarisms
- •10. The main and minor ways of word formation; affixation, conversion, compounding, blending, clipping, abbreviation, back formation
- •2 Types of word formation:
- •11. Lexical and grammatical valency of words. Collocations. Free word combinations vs. Idioms. Idioms: their characteristic features. Classifications of idioms
- •Language as a system of signs and as a structure. De saussure's dichotomies. The theory of sign
- •The relationship between language and thought. Language as a means of structuring and storing knowledge
- •Vygotsky’s view of the issue
- •Language and Thought from the Point of View of Cognitive Linguistics
- •Language as a means of communication. The processes of understanding and verbalizing. Text and discourse as units of communication
- •15. Relationship between language and culture. The specific feature of vocabulary and grammar as manifestations of world view
- •The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- •16. Criteria for revealing the status of a phoneme
- •17. Mechanisms of speech sound production
- •In classifying consonants as different from vowels
- •Power mechanism
- •Vibrator mechanism
- •Resonator mechanism
- •Obstructer mechanism
- •18. Intonation as a component structure
- •Intonation
- •19. Reasons for phonetic modification
- •In regional and social accents of english
- •20. The geographical position and the environment of great britain
- •21. General review of the usa economics
- •Inventions and industrial development
- •Achievements of american economy
- •The American System of Government
- •1) The Legislative Branch of Power
- •2) The Executive Branch of Power
- •3) The Judiciary Branch of Power
- •The System of American Courts
- •Nominations, Campaigns and Elections
- •23. National and social population of great britain
- •Ancestors. Waves of invasion
- •Languages and nationalities
- •Social rates
- •Social class make-up
- •Migration waves
- •The ethnic dimension. Racism
- •24. The culture of great britain. Cultural realia
- •Traditions
- •The state opening of parliament
- •Changing the guard
- •Trooping the colour
- •The ceremony of the keys
- •Customs and traditions of scotland
- •English renaissance
- •The british museum
- •Some more museums of britain
- •The Tower of London
- •St. Paul's Cathedral
- •Some more cultural realia from the dictionary
- •25. The main historic periods of the usa
Obstructer mechanism
Vowels. From the articulatory point of view, the OM doesn’t take part in the production of vowels. When vowels are produced muscular tension is diffused = distributed evenly in the active organ of articulation so that not a single part of it is raised higher to create an obstruction. So the air passes through the mouth cavity unimpeded.
Consonants. !leading mechanism! When consonants are produced, muscular tension is concentrated in one point (= in the point of articulation). So this part of the articulatory organ rises higher creating an obstruction. The stream of air overcomes this obstruction creating noise.
The quality of a consonant sound depends on the kind of the noise produced.
There are several principles according to which consonants are classified.
1) According to the active organ of obstruction:
- labial. Labial consonants can be a) bilabial (when lips are brought together): /p, b, m, w/ and b) labio-dental (they are articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth): / f, v/.
- lingual. Lingual consonants are subdivided into forelingual, mediolingual / j /, backlingual /k, g, ŋ /. According to the position of the tip of the tongue, forelingual consonants may be: dorsal (not in English), apical (the tip of the tongue is against the teeth-ridge) / t, d, n, l, s, z, θ, ð/ and cacuminal = retroflexed (the tip of the tongue is raised leaving a spoon-shaped cavity in the middle part of the tongue, it is raised against the back part of the teeth-ridge) / r /.
- pharyngeal (consonants are articulated in the pharynx: its walls get slightly narrow while the root of the tongue moves towards the back wall of the pharynx) / h /.
2) According to the place of obstruction:
- labial (see above): bilabial + labio-dental
- dental (the tip of the tongue is against the upper teeth): / θ, ð /
- alveolar (the tip of the tongue is against the teeth-ridge): / t, d, n, l, s, z /
- palatal (the middle part of the tongue is against the hard palate): / j /
- palato-alveolar (the tip of the tongue is against the teeth-ridge or the back part of it, while the middle of the tongue is raised in the direction of the hard palate): / ∫, 3 (=ж), t∫, d3 (= дж)/
- postalveolar: / r /
- velar (the back of the tongue is against the soft palate): /k, g, ŋ /.
3) According to the type of obstruction (= the manner of production of noise):
- occlusive = complete (the air-passage through the mouth is completely blocked). Occlusive consonants can be
1) plosive consonant = stops (from the auditory point of view the obstruction ends with a kind of explosion) : / p, b, t, d, k, g /
2) nasal sonorants (the air-passage through the mouth is completely blocked, while the soft palate is lowered so that the air can pass through the nasal cavity): / m, n, ŋ /.
- constrictive (the air-passage isn’t blocked completely, it’s narrowed so that an incomplete obstruction occurs). According to the size of the narrowing constrictive consonants are divided into:
1) fricative consonants (the air-passage is rather narrow, the air passes through a narrowing and produces audible friction): / f, v, s, z, θ, ð, ∫, 3 (=ж), h /
2) constrictive sonorants (the air-passage is rather wide, the air passes through the narrowing and doesn’t produce audible friction). Here tone prevails over noise. Constrictive sonorants can be a) medial (the air-passage is narrowed at the sides of the tongue but it’s open in the middle): /w, r, j / b) lateral (the tip of the tongue is against the teeth-ridge, the sides of the tongue are lowered and the air-passage is open along them): / l /.
- occlusive-constricted = affricates (the stream of air is first stopped and then the closure is released with friction): / t∫, d3 (= дж)/.
Conclusion: we have proved that depending on the mechanisms of speech sound production there are different approaches to classifying vowels and consonants. Different types of vowels and consonants rely on the essential distinctions between vowels and consonants.
General information: in English there are 20 (or 21 [oә]) vowels and 24 (or 25 [/\/\ = чит. «хв»]) consonants.