Sound Practice

A. Listen to the following sentences. Define the cases of progressive, regressive and reciprocal assimilation. Arrange your examples in the right columns.

Progressive	Regressive	Reciprocal

a) The Prince was unhappy because he wanted to marry a princess.

b) Some months later the Prince returned home still without a princess, and very unhappy.

c) Then one night there was a terrible storm: the rain poured, the wind blew, and thunder and lightning shook the royal castle.

d) The old queen also heard it.

e) And made up her mind to find out if this girl was indeed a real princess.

f) At the end of all that the bed was so high that a tall ladder was needed to get in and out of it.

g) Then she placed a dried pea under the mattress.

B. Listen to the sentences in Task A. Lay stresses and tone marks. Transcribe them. Find the most frequent allophones of the schwa phoneme: 1) /^/, 2) /^/, 3) /^./, 4) the shortest //. Write your examples in the right column.

//	//	/./	the shortest //

C. Listen to the following extract. Find the words containing a close phoneme // and an open phoneme // in stressed syllables. Write them in transcription. Practise reading them. Record your reading.

Once upon a time there was a prince. The Prince was unhappy because he wanted to marry a princess. But he wanted her to be a real princess.

One day the Prince set off to search the world for the real princess whom he could marry. He met many princesses. But there was always something that wasn’t quite right. They were either too tall, too small, too happy or too sad. Besides, he was never sure if they were real princesses.

Some months later the Prince returned home still without a princess, and very unhappy. Then one night there was a terrible storm: the rain poured, the wind blew, and thunder and lightning shook the royal castle. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. The old king took a candle and went to see who it could be. There standing outside in the pouring rain was a beautiful girl. She was so wet that water poured off her hair and clothes. Suddenly she spoke.

“I am a real princess”, she said.

D. Listen to the following sentences. Analyse vowels and consonants contained in the words describing a terrible storm and the way Cinderella was dressed for the party. Give their characteristics in writing. State if there is any preference in the use of consonants and vowels in describing positive and negative events. Define the changes in the length of consonants and vowels based on the emotions expressed.

a) Then one night there was a terrible storm: the rain poured, the wind blew, and thunder and lightning shook the royal castle.

b) ...and suddenly Cinderella was dressed in the most beautiful silver ball gown and the prettiest pair of glass shoes she had ever seen.