24. The phonological aspect of English speech sounds and modification of phonemes in speech.

There are 4 basic phonological aspects of speech sound:

1.articulatory : each sound is a complex of certain movements and position of speech organ;

2.acoustic:each sound has its physical (acoustic) characteristics (duration, intensity);

3.auditory aspect of speech sounds: involves the process of hearing;

4.functional aspect:each sound functions is the medium(засіб) of communication.

There are two major classes of sounds traditionally distinguished by phoneticians in any language. They are consonants and vowels .There are 24 consonants and 20 vowels in the English language. Consonants can be classified according to the following principles:

1.according to the type of obstruction and the manner of production of noise;

2. according to the place of obstruction and the active organ of speech;

3. according to the work of the vocal cords and the force of exhalation: voiced and voiceless;

4. according to the position of the soft palate: oral and nasal.

Vowels are classified according to the following principles:

1.according to the stability of articulation;

2. according to the tongue position;

3. according to the lip position: rounded and unrounded;

4. according to the length: short and long;

5.according to the tenseness: tense and lax.

Speech sounds influence each other in the flow of speech. As a result of the intercourse between consonants and vowels and within each class there appear such processes in connected speech as, assimilation, accommodation, vowel reduction, elision, epenthesis, etc.

The adaptive modification of a consonant by a neighbouring consonant in the speech is known as assimilation which may be progressive – voiced/voist/ - alveolar /s/ assimilates the succeeding /d/; and regressive – does she /da∫∫i:/.(наступний вплив на попередній)

The term accommodation is often used to denote the interchanges of “vowel + consonant type” or “consonant +vowel type”.

One of the wide-spread sound changes is certainly vowel reduction. Reduction is actually qualitative or quantitative weakening of vowels in unstressed positions.eg.: in English syllables vowels are usually reduced to /i/(Sunday).

Elision [eliʒen]( повна втрата звуку) or complete loss of sounds, both vowels and consonants is often observed in English. Elision is likely to be minimal in slow careful speech and maximal in rapid relaxed colloquial forms of speech. Eg.: history.

Epenthesis (додатковий звук) is the inserting of a vowel or a consonant within an existing word. :realtor – realator.

Liaison (останій звук слова приєднується до наступного) is the connection of the final sound of one word or syllable to the initial sound of the next word.

Smoothing is the process when a diphthong optionally loses its second element before another vowel or it is monophthongized.

Elongation–when the next word begins with the same sound in which the previous word ends.

Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant in a series of words.

Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighboring word. It is used to reinforce the meanings of words or to set the mood.