- •16. Normal Stress
- •17, 18. Phrasal Stress
- •The cases when unstressed words are stressed
- •19. The neutral vowel in different positions
- •20. Syllable formation
- •21. Syllable division
- •22. Difficulties in pronunciation of nouns, adj., etc
- •23. Difficulties in pronunciation of verbs
- •24. Articulation of plosives
- •27. Organs of speech
- •25. Intonational styles
- •1. The roles of a phoneme and allophones in the English language
- •2. Classification of consonants according to the degree of noise
- •4. Classification of consonants according to the manner of production
- •3. Classification of consonants according to the place of obstruction
- •8. Monophtongs, diphthongs & diphtongoids
- •6. Classification of vowels according to the tongue position
- •7. Classification of vowels according to the lip position
- •12. Nuclear tones
- •11. English intonation
- •15. Graphic method of indicating sounds and intonation
- •13. Rhythm
- •14. Assimilation
- •26. Welsh English
- •28. Scottish English
- •29. Irish English
1. The roles of a phoneme and allophones in the English language
A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit which helps us to recognize and distinguish the word shapes of the language, it plays the most important role in expressing meaning in speech, and the word is principal unit of the language. It is only in words which are made up of phonemes, that all other phonetic means find their realization (stake-take-lake). The presence or absence of phoneme can change a word: army, arm, a. Every phoneme of a language is used in many words under different phonetic conditions which modify its articulation. All such modifications of the same phoneme are called allophones (button – nasal plosion <t>; bottle – lateral plosion <t>).
2. Classification of consonants according to the degree of noise
According to the manner of producing noise consonants are subdivided into: fricatives (air passes out through a narrow stricture with friction: s, z, f, v), medial sonants (air passes out through a wide passage along the centre of the tongue: j, r, w), lateral sonants (air passes out through the wide passage along the lowered sides of the tongue: l)
4. Classification of consonants according to the manner of production
According to the manner of production consonants fall into occlusives (complete obstruction) and contrastives (incomplete). According to the manner of production occlusives are subdivided into: plosives (when the complete obstruction is instantly removed and the air goes out with an effect of plosion: p, t, d), affricates (complete obstruction is slowly removed forming a flat narrowing, through which air passes with friction: t∫, d3), nasal sonants (air meets a complete obstruction in the mouth cavity and as the soft palate is lowered, it pass out through the nasal cavity: m, n).
3. Classification of consonants according to the place of obstruction
According to the active organs of speech forming an obstruction in the mouth cavity consonants fall into labial (bi-labial <pbmw>, labia-dental <vf>) and lingual (fore-lingual, back-lingual, media-lingual)
Fore lingual are divided into: predorsal dental (obstruction formed by the surface of the front of the tongue against the upper front teeth), apico-alveola (front edge of the tongue forms an obstruction against the teeth-ridge), cacuminal post-alveola (front edge of the tongue raised vertically forms an obstruction against the back slope of the teeth-ridge.
Media lingual are divided into: dorsal palato-alveola (the middle of the tongue forms obstruction against the teeth-ridge and the front part of hard palate) and dorsal palatal (middle part of the tongue forms obstruction against soft palate).
And back-lingual are divided into: dorsal palato-velar (the back part of the tongues forms obstruction against back part of hard palate and the front part of soft palate) and dorsal velar (the back of the tongue forms an obstruction against soft palate).
8. Monophtongs, diphthongs & diphtongoids
20 phonemes in English: 12 monophthongs and 8 diphthongs + 2 diphtongoids (idiophones replaceable by the long monophtongs).
Monophtongs: <α:, ∆, o, o:, ı, i:, u, u:, υ, e, ә, ә:>; diphthongs: <au, ai, oi, iә, eu, eә, ei, ou>.
According to their glides, English diphthongs fall into 3 groups: glide in the direction of <i> (<ei, ai, oi>); glide in the direction of <u> (<ou>) & glide in the direction of neutral sounds (<iә, uә>).
10. Reduction of vowels. Degrees of reduction In connected speech the unstressed vowels become shorter, and if the speech is very fluent they loose their quality. This phenomenon is called reduction. Distinguished 3 degree of reduction:
- quantitative (the shortening of a vowel in an unstressed position is very distinctly observed in the English long monophthongs. It is marked by leaving 1 dot of length. Such shortened vowels are often called half-long: <∫i: – ∫i· – ∫ı>).
- qualitative (is the loss of the quality of an unstressed vowel which is thus neutralized; this type of reduction is most often observed in syllables, containing short vowels. E.g.: I could do it (could: <kəd>))
- complete reduction is the omission of an unstressed vowel (and: <әnd>, <'nd> – “bread and butter”).