Topics for discussion:

1. Give the articulate characteristics of the English and Russian counterpart consonants.

2. Give the quantitative characteristics of the English and Russian consonants.

3. What should you do to avoid mispronouncing of the consonants?

4. What is alike and what is different in the English and Russian consonantal articulation system?

Lecture VI. The System of English phonemes (vowels).

Key words:

1. intricately ['IntrIkqtlI] – запутанно, сложно; 2. conceive [kqn'sJv] – почувствовать, постигать, понимать; 3. a (vowel) glide – скольжение, проме- жуточный звук 4. commutability [kq"mjHtq'bIlItI] – за- меняемость, способность быть замененным; 5. checkness ['CeknIs] – сокращение усечение (звука); 6. subordinate [sq'bLdIneIt] – подчинять; 7. correlation ["kPrq'leISn] – взаимо- связь, соотношение; 8. concomitant [kqn'kPmItqnt] – со- путствующий;

9. jaw[L] - челюсть 10. lax [lxks] - ненапряженный, слабый 11. juncture['GANkCq] – место соедине- ния 12. nucleus ['njHklIqs] – ядро дифтонга 13. vague [veIg] – расплывчатый, неясный 14. protrude [prq'trHd] – продвинуть вперед 15. omit [q'mIt] – опускать, (зд. не произносить) 16. alternation ["Lltq'neISn] – чередова- ние; 17. affect [q'fekt] – повлиять, отразиться (на), воздействовать; 18. reduction [rI'dAkSn] – сокращение, уменьшение.

I. Classificatory description of English vowels.

II.The qualitative analysis of the English and Russian vowel systems.

III. Modifications of Vowels in Connected Speech.

I. Classificatory description of English vowels. Vowels unlike consonants are produced with no obstruction to the stream of air, so on the perception level their integral characteristic is naturally tone, not noise. A minimum vowel system of a language is likely to take the form of a triangle:

I V

a

The most important characteristic of the quality of these sounds is that they are acoustically stable. They are known to be entirely different from one another both articulatorily and acoustically. They display the highest degree of unlikeness and so maximum of abilities of people as regards to vowels. We could add that the commonest vowel system adds two other vowels to this minimum triangle to give a five vowels system of the type:

I V

e o

a

English has developed a vocalic system of a much larger number of phonemes. The quality of a vowel is known to be determined by the size, volume, and the shape of the mouth resonator, which are modified by the movement of active speech organs, that is the tongue and the lips. Besides, the particular quality of a vowel can depend on a lot of other articulatory characteristics, such as the relative stability of the tongue, the position of the lips, physical duration of the segment, the force of articulation, the degree of tenseness of speech organs. So vowel quality could be thought of as a bundle of definite articulatory characteristics which are sometimes intricately interconnected and interdependent. For example, the back position of the tongue causes the lip rounding, the front position of the tongue makes it rise higher in the mouth cavity, the lengthening of a vowel makes the organs of speech tenser at the moment of production and so on.

The analysis of the articulatory constituents of the quality of vowels

allowed the phoneticians to suggest the criteria which are conceived to be of great importance in classificatory description. They are:

1. stability of articulation;

2. tongue position;

3. lip position;

4. character of the vowel end;

5. length;

6. tenseness;

Stability of articulation. There are two possible varieties:

1. the tongue position is stable;

2. it changes, that is the tongue moves from one position to another.

In the first case the articulated vowel is relatively pure, in the second case a vowel consists of two clearly perceptible elements. There exists in addition a third variety, an intermediate case

3. when the change in the tongue position is fairly weak.

So, according to this principle the English vowels are subdivided into:

• monophthongs;

• diphthongs;

• diphthongoids ([i:], [u:]).

A. C. Gimson distinguishes 20 vocalic phonemes which are made of vowels and vowel glides:

1) short phonemes (7) - [I], [e], [x], [P], [V], [A], [q]

2) long phonemes (13) - [R], [L], [W], [J], [H], [eI], [EV],

[aI], [aV], [Pu], [Iq], [Fq], [Vq].

3) relatively pure (5) - [R], [L], [W], [J], [H]

4) the rest are referred to long phonemes with different glides:

- [eI], [aI], [PI] – with a glide to [I];

- [EV], [aV] - with a glide to [V];

- [Iq], [Fq], [Vq] - with a glide to [q].

In modern English the tendency for diphthongization is becoming gradually

stronger. Diphthongs are complex entities just like affricates. Soviet scholars (V. A. Vassilyev, L. R. Zinder) grant the English diphthongs monophonemic status on the basis of articulatory, morphological and syllabic indivisibility as well as the criteria of duration and commutability. As to articulatory indivisibility of the diphthongs it could be proved by the fact that neither morpheme nor syllable boundary that separate the nucleus and the glide can pass within it. For example, saying ['seI-IN], crying ['kraI-IN], enjoying [In-'GOI-IN], lower ['lEV-q], going ['gEV-IN], nearer ['nIq-rq], staring ['stFq-rIN], poorer ['pVq-rq]. The present study of the duration of diphthongs shows that the length of diphthongs is the same as that that characterizes the English long monophthongs in the same phonetic context. For example, [baIt] – [bi:t], [bEVt] – [bLt]. Any diphthong could be commutated with practically any vowel.

In Russian there are no diphthongs or diphthongoids as phonemic entities. Such combinations of sounds as [йа, йо, йу], [ой, ай], [ау, уа] (яр, йог, юный, бой, май, мяукать, пуанты), and others are biphonemic clusters, consisting of either of a vowel and the Russian consonant [й] or two vowels. Both elements are equally energetic and distinct. The English diphthongs consist of two elements, the first of which, the nucleus, being strong and distinct and the second, the glide, being very weak and indistinct.

The position of the tongue. It is characterized by from two aspects, that is the horizontal and vertical movement. According to the horizontal movement Soviet phoneticians* distinguish five classes of the English vowels. They are:

1. front: [i:], [e], [eI], [x], [F(q)];

2. *front retracted: [I], [I(q)];

3. central: [A], [E:], [q], [E(V)], [F(V)];

4. back: [P], [L], [u:], [R];

5. *back-advanced: [V], [V(q)].

According to the vertical movement

British scholars distinguish three classes of vowels:	Soviet phoneticians made the classification more detailed distinguishing two subclasses in each class:
high (or close); mid (or half-open); 3) low (or open)	1) broad; 2) narrow variation

Thus the following six groups of vowels are distinguished:

1) close a) narrow variation: [i:], [u:];

b) broad: [I], [V], [I(q)], [V(q)].

2) mid a) narrow variation: [e], [E:], [q], [e(I)], [E(V)];

b) broad: [q], [A];

3) open a) narrow variation: [F(q)], [L], [OI];

b) broad: [x], [a(I, V)], [P], [R]

Lip rounding. Traditionally three lip positions are distinguished:

1. spread;

2. neutral;

3. rounded.

Lip rounding takes place rather due to physiological reasons than to any other. Any back vowel in English is produced with rounded lips, the degree of rounding is different and depends on the height of the raised part of the tongue; the higher it is raised the more rounded the lips are. So lip rounding is a phoneme constitutive indispensable feature, because no back vowel can exist without it.

Checkness. The typical English transition is from a vowel to a consonant (VC). As a result all short English vowels are checked when unstressed. The degree of checkness may vary and depends on the following consonant. Before a fortis voiceless consonant it is more perceptible than before a lenis voiced consonant. All long vowels are free.

For example, doggy, level, setter, fatter are divided into syllables in such a way that the short vowels remain checked; unlike Russian Боря, Сева, Рита, тряпка.

The English monophthongs are traditionally divided into two varieties according to their length:

1. short vowels: [I], [e], [x], [P], [V], [A], [q];

2. long vowels: [i:], [R], [L], [E:], [u:].

Vowel length or quantity. Any vowel has a physical duration – time which is required for its production (articulation). When in connected speech they influence one another. Duration is one of the characteristics of a vowel which is modified by and depends on the following factors:

• its own length;

• the accent (stress) in which it occurs;

• phonetic context;

• the sound position in a syllable;

• the position in a rhythmic structure;

• the position in a tone group;

• the position in a phrase;

• the position in an utterance;

• the tempo of the whole utterance;

• the type of pronunciation;

• the style of pronunciation.

The approach of D. Jones*, an outstanding British phonetician, extends the principle, underlining phonological relevance (meaningfulness) of vowel quantity. (Jones D. Phoneme: its nature and Use. – Cambridge, 1967) That means that words in such pairs as [kIn] – [ki:n], [bIt] – [bi:t], ['fLwE:d] (foreword) - ['fLwqd] (forward) are distinguished from one another by the opposition of different length, which D. Jones calls chronemes. This difference is considered to be decisive and the difference in quality (the position of the active organ of speech) is subordinate to the difference in quantity. The following oppositions can be:

[V] – [H] full – fool;

[E:] – [q] is fairly specific because the [q] phoneme never occurs in a stressed syllable and forms the core of unstressed vocalism in English. The phoneme [E:]

seldom occurs in an unstressed syllable.

[R] – [A] is arbitrary as in cart – cut.

[L] – [P] this quantitative correlation exists, i.e. forks – fox.

It is generally known that a voiced consonant following a vowel increases its length, so in the word beat [i:] is only half about as long as the [i:] of the word bee and may approximately have the same duration as the [I] vowel of bid. But still the words bid and bead are perceived as different words because the vowels are different in quality, [I] being front retracted, a pure monophthong, and [i:] being front close (narrow) and a diphthongized vowel.

[x] being classed as historically short tends to be lengthened in Modern English, especially before lenis consonants [b], [d], [g], [G], [m], [n], [z]. In this position [x] has the same quantity as long vowels [i:], [Q:], [O:], [u:], [E:]. This extra length serves an additional distinctive feature and the qualitative – quantitative relation of [x] – [e] tends to become of the same type as [i:] – [I].

Tenseness characterizes the state of our organs of speech at the moment of production of a vowel. Historically long vowels are tense while historically short vowels are lax. Tenseness may be considered as indispensable concomitant feature of English long vowels.

Thus there are two characteristics that are functionally relevant. They are:

1. stability of articulation;

2. tongue position.

The rest of the features mentioned above, that is lip position, character of vowel end, length, and tenseness, are indispensable constituents of vowel quality.

The unstressed syllables are usually associated with vowels of central or centralized quality [q], [I], sometimes [V] and the diphthongs [EV], [aI] (or a syllabic consonant). For example, about [q'baut], restore [rI'stO:], hopeful ['hqupfVl], connect [kq'nekt], aubergine ['qVbqGi:n], garden ['gQ:dn].

Also vowels of full quality sometimes occur in unstressed positions, often in borrowed words of Latin and Greek origin, e.g. architect ['Q:kItekt], paragraph ['pxrqgrQ:f], canteen [kxn'ti:n]. In English as well as in Russian there are numerous alternations of vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables between the derivatives of the same root or different grammatical forms of the same word:

[x] – [q] man – sportsman

[A] – [q] some – something

[P] – [q] combine n - combine v

[eI] –[q] operation - operative

[EV]–[q] post – postpone

We may represent English vowels in the following way:

height		row
		front	front retracted	central (or mixed)	back advanced	far back
high	narrow	i:				u:
	wide		I		V
middle	narrow	e		E: E
	wide	F		q A
low	narrow					L O
	wide	x a				P R

If we want to speak a foreign language in an objectively correct way it is natural we should pay attention to the quality and (quantity) of our sounds which is constituted by articulatory features of both kinds.