Sound [u]

The cook took a good look at the cookery book and shook some sugar on the gooseberry pudding.

3)Ship or Sheep U-10

4) Listening U-10

5) Pronunciation Tasks pp. 3, 10

Control Questions:

1) What is assimilation?

2) What types of assimilation do you know?

3) What features of the articulation of a consonant does the assimilation affect? Give the examples.

Literature:

1) Vasiliev V. A. English Phonetics. M.,1980, p. 70-86

2) Leontieva S.F. A Theoretical Course of English Phonetics. M., 1989, p. 145-150

UNIT11

ASSIMILATION (CONTINUATION)

Main Theoretical Concepts:

Assimilation which occurs in everyday speech in the present – day pronunciation is called living.

Assimilation which took place at an earlier stage in the history of the language is called historical.

e.g. question ['kwestjqn] → ['kwesCqn]

occasion [q'kxzjqn] → [q'keIZqn]

As far as the direction of assimilation is concerned it can be:

1) progressive (A → B), when the 1^st of the 2 sounds affected by the assimilation makes the second sound similar to itself

e.g. what's this ['wPts 'DIs] – [z] is replaced by [s] under the influence of [t]

2) regressive (A←B), when the preceding consonant is influenced by the one following it.

e.g. news ['njHz], newspaper ['njHspeIpq] – [z] → [s] under the influence of [p]

3) reciprocal, double (A↔B), when two adjacent consonants influence each other

e.g. twenty ['twentI] – [t] becomes labialized under the influence of [w]. [w] is assimilated to the voiceless plosive [t] and is partly devoiced.

Assimilation may be of three degrees:

1) complete: the articulation of the assimilated consonant fully coincides with that of the assimilating one

e.g. horse – shoe ['hLSSH] (horse ['hLs] + shoe ['SH]) – [s] changes into [S]

does she ['dASSJ] – [z] → [S] in rapid speech

2) partial: the assimilated consonant retains its main phonemic features and becomes only partly similar in some feature of its articulation to the assimilating sound.

e.g. [t, d, n, l, s, z] are assimilated to the dental consonants [T, D]

tenth ['tenT], width ['wIdT], their point of articulation is changed, but the main phonemic features remain. The same concerns the words twice and please: voiced variants of the phonemes [w, l] are replaced by their partly devoiced variants.

3) intermediate: the assimilated consonant changes into a different sound but does not coincide with the assimilating consonant.

e.g. goose ['gHs], gooseberry ['guzbqrI] – [s] [z] under the influence of [b]

Assimilation is called contextual if the articulation of a word is changed in combination with other words

e.g. news ['njHz], newspaper ['njHspeIpq], horse-shoe, etc.

The modification can be conditioned: a) by the complementary distribution of the phonemes; b) by the contextual variations in which phonemes may occur at the junction of words; c) by the style of speech: official or rapid colloquial.

Practical Tasks:

1) Transcribe the text, explain the modifications.

2)

Sound [h]

Lucy thew her new blue balloon to Sue.

3) Ship or Sheep U-11

4) Listening U-11

5) Pronunciation Tasks pp. 7, 14

6) p. 152, ex. 4

7) p.152, ex. 5

8) p.153, ex 6, 7, 8

Control Questions:

1) What kinds of assimilation do you know?

2) Speak on the direction of assimilation. Exemplify your statements.

3) What are the degrees of assimilation? Illustrate.

4) What conditions are responsible for the modification of sounds?

Literature:

1) Vasiliev V.A. English Phonetics. M., 1980, p. 70-86

2) Leontiev S.F. A Theoretical Course of English Phonetics. M., 1989, p. 145-150

UNIT 12

ACCOMODATION

Main Theoretical Concepts:

Accomodation (adaptation) is the modification in the articulation of a vowel under the influence of an adjacent consonant or vice versa.

The accomodated sound does not change its main phonemic features and is pronounced as a variant of the same phoneme slightly modified under the influence of a neighbouring sound.

There are 3 main types of accomodation:

1) An unrounded variant of a consonant phoneme is replaced by its rounded variant under the influence of a following rounded vowel phoneme

e.g. unrounded variant → rounded variant

tea [tJ] too[tH]

less [les] loose [l Hs]

2) A fully back variant of a back vowel phoneme is replaced by its slightly advanced (fronted) variant under the influence of the preceding mediolingual phoneme [j]

e.g. fully back variant of [H] → fronted variant

booty ['bHtI] beauty ['bjHtI]

moon ['mHn] music ['mjHzIk]

3) a vowel phoneme is represented by its slightly more open variant before the dark [l] under the influence of its back secondary focus.

e.g. a close vowel sound → slightly more open

bed ['bed] bell ['bel]

ten ['ten] tell ['tel]

The modifications are conditioned by the complementary distribution of the phonemes.

Practical Tasks:

1)