Sound [q:]

Will Earl be thirty on his birthday next Thursday?

2) Ship or Sheep U-12

3) Listening 1 U-12

4) p. 152 ex.1

5) p. 152 ex. 3

6) Transcribe the text, underline the modified consonant and vowel phonemes. Define the type of accomodation.

Control Questions:

1) What is accomodation?

2) What types of accomodation can you name? Illustrate your statements.

Literature:

1) Vasiliev V.A. English Phonetics. 1980, p. 74-75, 86

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

UNIT 13

ELISION. TEST: ASSIMILATION, ACCOMODATION, ELISION

Main Theoretical Concepts:

Elision is the process due to which one of the neighbouring sounds is not realized in rapid or careless speech.

e.g.

The phenomenon occurs both within words and at word boundaries.

Elision can be historical and contemporary. English spelling is full of 'silent' letters which bear witness to historical elision.

e.g. walk [wL], knee [nJ], knight [nQIt], write [rQIt], etc.

The most common cases of contemporary elision are the following: elision of [t, d] in

a) [ft,st,St,Tt,vd,zd,Dd] sequences: waste paper ['weIs peIpq]

b) [pt, kt, bd, gd, Ct, Gd] sequences: trapped by ['trxp bQI]

c) [md, nd, Nd] sequences: slammed the door ['slxm Dq dL]

In a), b), c) cases elision most frequently removes the marker of past tense in verbs. The meaning is usually clear from the context.

There are some words and verbal forms in which elision frequently exists in everyday speech. They are:

1. months and clothes with elided dental fricatives: [mAnTs]→ [ mAns], [ klquDz] → [klquz]

2. fifth and sixth elide the consonant which precede [T]: [fIfT] → [fIf], [sIksT] → [sIkT]

3. Sound [v] is elided before [D]: seven of those apples [sevqn q Dqu xplz], six of the best [sIks q Dq best]

Before other consonants, at more rapid tempo elision takes place: two pounds of pears [tH pQunz q peqz], a pint of milk [q pQInt q mIlk]

Sound [v] is elided before [m], at more rapid tempo: give me your word [gI mI jL wE:d], leave me some more pudding [lJ mI sq mL pudIN], he mustn't have my share [hI mAsnt hx mQI Seq]

4. tt is reduced to t in the following verbal forms: I want to drive [QI wPntq drQIv], We've got to be careful [wJv gPtq bI keqful]

5. going to has the form [gqnq] in all cases except very careful speech: We're going to move house [wIq gqnq mHv hQus]

There is a tendency nowadays to pronounce sounds which are not pronounced as a result of historical elision: often [Pfn] → [Pftqn]

Assimilation in English differs from the Russian mainly along the lines of direction: progressive voicing or devoicing is very rare in Russian, but quite common in English. It occurs in the following cases:

1) Contracted forms of the verbs, when the ending s is preceded by a voiced or a voiceless consonant: Bob's gone, that's right.

2) Suffixes –(e)s of the nouns in the plural, or the third person singular: girls, rooms, books, writes.

3) The possessive suffix –s' or –'s: Jack's hat, Bob's dog.

4) The past indefinite suffix –ed : played, worked, lived

Cases of English regressive voicing or devoicing are very rare: five pence [fQIfpqns], grooseberry [gHzbrI]; these are the cases of historical assimilation.

Regressive voicing or devoicing in Russian is obligatory both within a word and at the word boundary: пробка, сказка, воз сена, под столом.

Regressive assimilation of this type is very rare inside words in English: newspaper [njHspeIpq].

However it is observed in word boundaries in rapid, careless speech (see above).

Care should be taken to avoid regressive assimilation in such English words as tennis ball [tenIs bLl], blackboard [blxkbLd] and at the word boundaries: English book [INglIS buk], like that [lQIk Dxt], these people [DJz pJpl].

Practical Tasks:

1)