1. Speak on the syllabic structure of English words.

1. Divide the following words into syllables according to rules of syllable formation and syllable division in English and explain them: morning, nearer, butter, organic, little, garden, blossom.

A syllabic-one or more speech sounds,which form or single uninterrupted unit of utterance ,which may be a whole word or part of it.In English a syll. Is formed

1. by one vowel sound alone: I or together with one or more consonant

2. by a word final sonorant (m,n,l) For ex: Table

Types of Syll. Depend on the character of a vowel sound in the word

1. if a stress vowel lang. monophtong (`si:ling) or a deaftong

2. if a stressed vowel is a short monophtong (piti)

3. any unstressed vowel sound,which is divided from the neirbouring vowel

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.

The complexity of the phenomenon gave rise to many theories. We could start with the so-called expiratory (chest pulse or pressure) theory by R.H. Stetson. This theory is based on the assumption that expiration in speech is a pulsating process and each syllable should correspond to a single expiration. So the number of syllables in an utterance is determined by the number of expirations made in the production of the utterance. This theory was strongly criticized by Russian and foreign linguists. G.P. Torsuyev, for example, wrote that in a phrase a number of words and consequently a number of syllables can be pronounced with a single expiration. This fact makes the validity of the theory doubtful.

Another theory of syllable put forward by O. Jespersen is generally called the sonority theory. According to O. Jespersen, each sound is characterized by a certain degree of sonority which is understood us acoustic property of a sound that determines its perceptibility. According to this sound property a ranking of speech sounds could be established: <the least sonorous> voiceless plosives à voiced fricatives àvoiced plosives à voiced fricatives à sonorants à close vowels àopen vowels <the most sonorous>. In the word plant for example we may use the following wave of sonority: [pla:nt]. According to V.A. Vasssilyev the most serious drawback of this theory is that it fails to explain the actual mechanism of syllable formation and syllable division. Besides, the concept of sonority is not very clearly defined.Further experimental work aimed to description of the syllable resulted in lot of other theories. However the question of articulatory mechanism of syllable in a still an open question in phonetics. We might suppose that this mechanism is similar in all languages and could be regarded as phonetic universal. In Russian linguistics there has been adopted the theory of syllable by LV Shcherba. It is called the theory of muscular tension. In most languages there is the syllabic phoneme in the centre of the syllable which is usually a vowel phoneme or, in some languages, a sonorant. The phonemes preceding or following the syllabic peak are called marginal. The tense of articulation increases within the range of prevocalic consonants and then decreases within the range of postvocalic consonants. Russian linguist and psychologist N.I. Zhinkin has suggested the so-called loudness theory which seems to combine both production and perception levels. The experiments carried out by N.I. Zhinkin showed that the arc of loudness of perception level is formed due to variations of the volume pharyngeal passage which is modified by contractions of its walls. The narrowing of the passage and the increase in muscular tension which results from it reinforce the actual loudness of a vowel thus forming the peak of the syllabic. So the syllable is the arc оf loudness which correlates with the arc of articulatory effort on the speed production level since variations in loudness are due to the work of all speech mechanisms.

The structure and functions of syllables in English Syllable formation in English is based on the phonological opposition vowel - consonant. Vowels are usually syllabic while consonants are not with the exceptions of [l], [m], [n], which become syllabic in a final position preceded by a noise consonant: bottle [bσtl], bottom [bσtm], button [b/tn] and [r] (in those accents which pronounce [r]) perhaps [præps].

The structure of English syllables can be summarized as follows: • Many syllables have one or more consonants preceding the nucleus. These make up the syllable onset: me, so, plow. • Many syllables have one or more consonants, following the nucleus. They make up the syllable coda. They are traditionally known as closed syllables: cat, jump. • The combination of nucleus and coda has a special significance, making up the rhyming property of a syllable. The English language has developed the closed type of syllable as the fundamental one while in Russian it is the open type that forms the basis of syllable formation. Now we shall consider two functions of the syllable. The first is constitutive function. Syllables constitute words,phrases,sentences through the combination of their prosodic features:toudness –stress,pitch-tone.Syllables may be stressed, unstressed, high, mid, low, rising, falling,long,short.

It lies in its ability to be a part of a word itself. The syllables form language units of greater magnitude that is words, morphemes, and utterances. It this respect two things should be emphasized. First, the syllable is the unit within which the relations between distinctive features of phonemes and their acoustic correlates are revealed. Second, within a syllable (or syllables) prosodic characteristics of speech are realized, which form the stress pattern of a word and the intonation structure of an utterance. In sum, the syllable is a specific minimal structure of both segmental and suprasegmental features. The other function is distinctive one. In this respect the syllable is characterized by its ability to differentiate words and word-forms. One minimal pare has been found in English to illustrate the word distinctive function in the syllabic: nitrate — night-rate. There analogical distinction between word combinations can be illustrated by many more examples: an aim - a name; an ice house - a nice house, etc. Sometimes the difference in syllable division may be the basic ground for differentiation in such pairs as I saw her rise.- I saw her eyes; I saw the meat — I saw them eat.

Identificatory function: is conditioned by the pronunciation of the speaker.The listener can understand the exact meaning of the utterance only if he perceives the correct syllabic boundary Eg: pea stalks –stebli goroxa..Peace talks –mirnie peregovory

Mor-ning, near-er,

gar-den,Blos-som, but-ter –two consonant next to each other,split up word that have two middle consanant , or-ganic, lit-tle-divide before the consonant before the –el

Syllable divisions are important for proper pronunciation, for distinguishing similar words, for analying forms of words, and for analyzing meters of Latin poetry. And it is very important to observe correct syllable division when necessity arises to divide a word in writing is based on morphological principles. The morphological principle of word division in orthography demands that the part of a word,which is separated ,should be either a prefix, or a suffix, or a root: un –divided,utter –ance,pun-ish,be-fore.

2. speak on the speech mechanism responsible for the production of consonant sounds. Give 4 principles of consonant classification.

In any language people speak (if they have no physical defects) using their organs of speech.

To analyze a speech sound physiologically and articulatorily some data on the articulatorily mechanism and its work should be introduced. Speech is impossible without the following 4 mechanisms:

1. The power mech.

2. The vibrator mech.

3. The resonator mech.

4. The obstructor mech.

The power mechanism (Fig. 2) consists of the diaphragm (1), the lungs (2), the bronchi (3), the windpipe (or trachea) (4), the glottis (5), the larynx (6), the mouth cavity (7), and the nasal cavity (8).

The vibrator mechanism (the voice producing mechanism) consists of the vocal cords, they are jn, the larynx,, or, voice box. The vocal ■cords are two horizontal folds" off elastic tissue.'They may be opened or closed (completely or incompletely}, , The pitch of the voice is controlled mostly by the ten&on of the vocal cords. Voice produced by the vocal cords ^vibration is modified by the shape and volume of the air passage.'

H. A. Gleasori mentions three sounds in the English language that are produced by the vocal cords /h, f[, ?/. /h/ is the glottal voiceless fricative and /fj/ is its voiced allophone. He states that "during the pronunciation of /h, fy ?/ the mouth may be in position for almost any sound."³

When both parts of the glottis are firmly closed, the sound pro­duced at separating the glottal stop position, is called the glottal stop /?/. It sounds like a soft cough.

Thorough acoustic investigations show that besides the vocal cords there are two more sources that participate in the production of speech sounds: (a) the turbulent noise, which results from some constriction in the flow of air and (b) the impulse wave, which is formed when the complete ob­struction to the flow of air in the mouth cavity is suddenly broken. These sources of speech sounds may work separately or simulta­neously. For example: (1) the vocal cords produce vibrations in the articulation of vowel sounds, (2) the turbulent noise helps to produce voiceless constrictive consonants, such as /f, s, J7, (3) the impulse source helps to pro­duce voiceless plosiye consonants „ such as /p, t, k/.

The two sources—vocal and turbulent participate in the pro­duction of voiced constrictive consonants, such as /v, z, 5/, the vocal and impulse sources partici­pate in the production of voiced plosive consonants, such as /b, d, g/.

The resonator mechanism (Fig. 3) consists o{ the pharynx (2), the larynx (4), the mouth cavity (1), and the nasal cavity (3).

The obstructor mechanism (Fig. 4) consists of the tongue (1: a —i- blade with the tip, b—-P^nil.R_~Z ^{back or dorsu}m); the lips '(2), the teeth (3), the soft pal­ate with the uvula (4), the hard palate (5), the alveolar ridge (6). In the articulation of vowel sounds no obstruction is made. The obstructor mechanism is responsible only for the production of consonants. Its function is to make an obstruction any kind to the air stream. To the obstructor mechanism belong the following active organs : the tongue, the lips, the palate, the back boundary of the pharynx and passive speech organs: the teeth, the alveoli, the vocal cords.

When articulating sounds the organs of speech may occupy one or the other position. There are several types of articulatory obstruction: complete, incomplete and intermittent.

The obstruction is complete when the articulating organs are in close contact. The air passage is completely blocked. Consonants articulated with this type of obstruction are called occlusive.

The obstruction is incomplete when the organs of speech are not blocked but only constricted, or narrowed leaving a passage for the air to go through. Consonants produced with this type of obstruction are called constrictive.

The obstruction is intermittent when the 2 articulating organs form a series of rapid intermittent taps. Consonants articulated in this way are known as rolled, like the Russian /r/ or the Scottish /r/ of the American English /t/.

The type of obstruction is one of the main principles in the classification of consonants. Different organs of speech participate in production of different consonants. An articulatory obstruction may be formed either by two active speech organs, or by an active organ in conjunction with a passive one. In consonant classification this principle is called “according to the active organ of speech and the place of obstruction”.

The lips, the tongue and the back boundary of the pharynx (and also the vocal c-s) are the active speech organs. Hence, depending on the active speech organs consonants may be: labial, lingual and pharyngeal.

The classification of English consonants.

In the English consonant system there are 24 consonants. The quality of the consonants depends on several aspects: 1. the work of the vocal cords; 2. what cavity is used as a resonator; 3. the force of the articulation and some other factors. There are four principles of consonant classification: