Theory of English Phonetics = Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Учебно-методическое пособие

MODIFICATION OF CONSONANT

AND VOWEL PHONEMES

IN CONNECTED SPEECH

1.Answer the following questions:

1.What are the three stages of pronouncing a sound in isolation?

2.Why is it necessary to analyze sounds in connected speech?

3.What are the two types of changes of sounds in connected speech?

4.What is assimilation?

5.What types of assimilation do you know?

6.How is the work of the vocal cords affected by assimilation?

7.How is the manner of noise production affected by assimilation?

8.What is adaptation?

9.In what way are vowels influenced by neighbouring nasal consonants?

10.What is elision? Give examples of contemporary elision.

11.What are the factors affecting vowel qualitative and quantitative characteristics?

12.What is “positional length” of the vowels?

13.How is vowel quality and quantity connected with stress?

14.How do adjacent consonants affect vowels? Which classificatory characteristics of consonants are the most important in this respect?

2.Give the definition of the terms:

Assimilation, progressive assimilation, regressive assimilation, reciprocal assimilation, complete assimilation, historical assimilation, living assimilation, voicing, devoicing, nasal plosion, lateral plosion, loss of plosion, accommodation, elision, reduction, qualitative reduction, quantitative reduction.

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THEORY OF ENGLISH PHONETICS | ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯФОНЕТИКААНГЛИЙСКОГОЯЗЫКА

3.Give a description of the movements of the articulators during the pronunciation of the word swim. Pay particular attention to coarticulation.

4.Phonetic processes of what type are observed in the words and word combinations below?

big game, vocal, pardon, queen, beauty, at the club, will you please, tea and cake

5.In the following passage, find all the places where loss of plosion may occur.

The chap grinned. He picked himself up off the floor and rubbed his knee. Up till that moment the atmosphere had been quite relaxed. Everyone started to look tense. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to do it.

6.State which of the words and word combinations illustrate

the following phenomena: a) voicing, b) devoicing, c) no voicing, d) no devoicing.

these people, blackboard, what’s this, setback, Mary’s dress, that blouse, gooseberry, good friend, days, that’s right, stopped, he’s ill, big ship, word for word, to play with fire, his parents, misgiving, to shed crocodile tears, like this, absent, bedside, substance, oldfashioned, kind-hearted, lifebelt, southbound, dark-green, watchdog, stepdaughter, disbelief, begged, steps, Joan’s hat

7.Define the phonetic processes within words and word boundaries. measure, open the door, twice, please, what time, pot, submarine, eagle, create, mean, soften, pegs, at the desk, dream, calm, happen, that day, sportswoman, mustn’t, pets, looked, blame, cabman, treat, thumb, used to, surprise, bible, breadth, beaten, morning, root, tune, will you

8.Read the words. Point out possible phonetic mistakes made by non-native speakers.

anecdote, medicine, speak, let’s go, garden, sixth, pass them, in the, little, fifths, mustn’t, button, place, birthday, fasten, width, cable, stone.

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Modification of consonant and vowel phonemes in connected speech

9.In the transcription below add the devoicing diacritic to

a)I cannot concentrate on my work with all this hustle and bustle going on around me.

b)However, the introduction of fixed boundaries, exclusive access to land and permanent settlement did not alter the landscape fundamentally.

c)Mary felt a pickpocket take her purse out of her pocket and caught him by the hand just in time.

d)My landlady bought a new handbag the other day.

e)Today the postman has brought your very sweet gift.

f)A temporary government has been established.

g)Because of this, delineations between the genres are difficult to define, since postmodernism is concerned with blurring boundaries between categories.

h)I wonder if it would make sense to blur the images that feature the user.

11.Read the following sentences paying attention to linking ‘r’.

1. A Star is Born is a brilliant film. 2. The head of Eon productions announced in August that Danny Boyle had quit as director of the next movie “due to creative differences”. 3. Although his hair is downy and his eyes rheumy, he still has charisma. 4. When butterflies suddenly disappear and can be found hiding on tree trunks or on the underside of leaves, they are seeking shelter to protect their fragile wings from a hard rain. 5. The Road Tower has been the central feature of the Castle since its original conception. 6. He found himself teaching the language rather than its literature and, over the years, became more and more interested in the problems of English language teaching. 7. Learning to

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THEORY OF ENGLISH PHONETICS | ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯФОНЕТИКААНГЛИЙСКОГОЯЗЫКА

use your own or college library can make your studying more interesting as well as more efficient. 8. One should bear in mind that the average size of the oral aperture in the case of the ‘jubilant’ voice may reach its maximum. 9. Secret fixed cameras have filmed shoppers’ movements around a store over a seven-day period.

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SYLLABIC STRUCTURE

OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

1.Answer the following questions:

1.Define the term “syllable”.

2.What is the structure of the syllable?

3.Define the peak and the slopes of the syllable.

4.What is the role of sonorants in syllable formation?

5. What do you know about different structural types of the syllable?

6.Speak on syllable division.

7.How does the syllable perform constitutive and distinctive functions?

8.What is “disjuncture”, “conjuncture”?

2.Give the definition of the terms:

Syllable, morpheme, the morphological construction, expiration pulse, peak of prominence, scale of sonority, an arc of articulatory tension, open syllable, closed syllable, covered syllable, uncovered syllable, syllable onset, syllable coda

3.Represent the following English words using the symbols C and V to make CV-skeletons.

1.damp

2.fox

3.friend

4.unit

5.talker

6.physics

7.knowledge

8.spaghetti

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THEORY OF ENGLISH PHONETICS | ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯФОНЕТИКААНГЛИЙСКОГОЯЗЫКА

9.columnist

10.ghastliness

For each of the CV-skeletons find at least one other English word that will fit it.

4.Examine the short English passage below and then list all the words that conform to each of the CV-skeletons given.

He tried to alter the height of the ladder, but it still would not reach the window. ‘You aren’t having a lot of success, are you?’ said the old man. Colin shook his head and smiled. He patted his pockets again, but he knew he had lost the keys. He would have to try and break in, but he wanted to avoid causing too much damage.

1.CV

2.CVC

3.CVCC

4.VC

5.VCC

6.CVCV

7.CCVC

8.CCVCC

9.CVCVC

10.CVCCVC

5. Read the examples to prove the semantic importance of the correct syllable boundary. Mark open juncture with /+/, close juncture with /*/.

a nation – an Asian see Mable – seem able

a nice house – an ice house it swings – its wings

the tall boys – that all boys peace talks – pea stalks plate rack – play track

хлеб с ухой – хлеб сухой до дела ли – доделали по машинам – помаши нам

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Syllabic structure of the english language

6. Turn the word combinations below into examples with the opposite juncture.

a name for it; a black tie; not at all; that’s tough; I saw her rise; the waiter cut it; I saw them eat; why choose; my train; keep sticking; gray day; cheap affairs; mice kill; missed a night; fell table; escaped error; cats eyes.

7.Divide the words into syllabographs.

meter, caring, beauty, sourly, surely, teacher, crying, sixty

8.Divide the words into phonetic syllables.

party, garden, rhythm, exceptional, chaos, vacuum, patient, subside, survey, comfortable, furniture, February, Tuesday, nursery, petal

9.Arrange these words according to the type of syllable structure:

a) closed uncovered, b) closed covered, c) open covered, d) open uncovered.

woe, streak, hair, whizz, ace, mew, hymn, yeah, are, straw, bale, ouch, ah, stroke, heir, yield, bought, ear, bow, yew, clenched, whole, buy

10.Try to make up a short passage of English using only monosyllables.

11.Think of possible ways of helping children to learn syllables in English. Plan and work out a lesson extract of teaching children syllables.

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STRESS OR ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE

OF ENGLISH WORDS

1.Answer the following questions:

1.How is stress defined by different authors?

2.What types of word-stress do you know?

3.To what type of word-stress does the English accentual structure belong?

4.To what type of word-stress does the Russian accentual structure belong?

5.What is the difference between fixed and free type of wordstress?

6.How does stress perform constitutive, distinctive and recognitive functions?

7.How is stress represented in written form?

8.What tendencies determine the place and different degree of word-stress?

9.What are the most common types of English stress patterns?

2.Sort the following words into three lists: 1) primary stress on the first syllable, 2) primary stress on the second syllable, 3) primary stress on the last syllable.

kangaroo, mystery, fantasy, fantastic, recover, intention, concentrate, elephant, millionaire, understand, excitement, debutante, troublesome, crocodile, afternoon, connection, imagine, horizon, attitude, universe, puppeteer, symbiosis, idiolect

3.Are these one-stress words or two-stress words? Indicate the main and secondary stress. Use the dictionary if necessary. occasional, cosmopolitan, electronic, supplement, pedestrian, spectacular, temperamental, incoherent, documentary

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Stress or accentual structure of english words

4.Mark the stress in the words below, read and translate them. industry – industrious

miracle – miraculous advantage – advantageous mystery – mysterious carnivore – carnivorous outrage – outrageous

5.Which of these words have main stress on the same syllable as the root word? Name the tendency which determines the place of stress in these words.

familiarize, cancellation, intervention, security, advantageous, Canadian, consumption, maturity, stupidity, application, sanity, normality, delivery, precision, preference, sincerity, diversion

6.Indicate stress in the words. Pay attention to the meaning given in brackets.

7.Write the verbs from the box in the correct column according to the usual pronunciation of the deor reprefix.

debug, deflate, destabilize, relapse, devalue, replace, deform, delineate, deregulate, descend, devalue, reapply, reflect, resit, restructure, demote, recharge, review, relapse

a)ˈcheesecake, ˈorange ˌjuice, ˈhouse ˌhunting, ˈfreezing ˌpoint, inˌverted ˈcommas;

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THEORY OF ENGLISH PHONETICS | ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯФОНЕТИКААНГЛИЙСКОГОЯЗЫКА

b)ˌsnow-ˈwhite, ˈtime-conˌsuming, ˈpoverty-ˌstricken, ˌeasy- ˈgoing, ˌself-ˈconfident;

c)ˌtwo-horse ˈrace, ˌrush hour ˈtraffic, ˌschool ˈleaving age, ˌwashing-ˈup liquid, ˈreal-estate ˌagent;

d)ˌhang aˈround, ˌcall ˈback, ˌput ˈup with, ˌgrow ˈout of;

e)ˌmix ˈup (verb) – ˈmix-up (noun) ˌwash ˈout (verb) – ˈwashout (noun) ˌcheck ˈin (verb) – ˈcheck-in (noun)

9.Write the words in the correct column according to the stress pattern.

economics, economy, nationality, photography, chemistry, active, creativity, authority, nation, technical, communication, relation, personality, education, musician, scientific, celebrate, investigation, population, bookshop, departure

●• •●• ●•• •●•• ••●•• ••●• •••●•

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