- •Occlusive consonants affricates [tʃ, dʒ]
- •Constrictive consonants fricatives [f, V; θ, ð; s, z; ʃ, ʒ; h]
- •English Sonorants
- •Occlusive nasal sonorants
- •Constrictive oral sonorants
- •Part Two. Strong and weak forms
- •Part three. Joining sounds in connected speech.
- •1. Verbs ending in /ed/
- •2. [S] / [z] sounds in plurals, 3d person singular, possessive case
- •4. Linking sounds.
- •Part four. Stress Word stress
- •Degrees of word stress
- •Position of the word stress
- •Sentence stress
- •Part five.
- •Intonation
- •Types of sentences and intonation pattern
- •Intonation in statements.
- •Intonation in special / wh-questions.
- •Intonation in yes/no (general questions) questions.
- •Intonation in alternative questions with ‘or’
- •Intonation in a list, enumeration.
- •Intonation in a surprise
- •Intonation in exclamations
- •Intonation in suggestions.
- •Intonation in commands
- •Intonation in disjunctive questions (tags)
- •Intonation in thanks, responses
- •Intonation in if-sentences
- •Intonation in Requests.
- •A Poem on English Pronunciation
- •Poem of English Pronunciation
- •Tough Stuff
- •Термінологічній словник
Part Two. Strong and weak forms
In English there are certain words which have two forms of pronunciation: strong and weak (full and reduced) forms. These words include form-words and the following pronouns: personal, possessive, reflexive, relative and the indefinite pronoun 'some', denoting indefinite quantity.
These words have strong forms when they are stressed. Each of these words usually has more than one weak form used in unstressed positions. There are three degrees of the reduction of strong forms:
1. The first degree consists in reducing the length of a vowel without changing its quality (the so-called quantitative reduction).
Strong forms |
Weak forms with quantitative reduction |
for [f ɔ:] you [ju:] he [hi:] her [hε:] your [jɔ:] |
for [f ɔ] you [ju] he [hi] her [hə] your [jɔ] |
2. The second degree of reduction consists in changing the quality of a vowel (the so-called qualitative reduction).
Strong forms |
Weak forms with qualitative reduction |
for [f ɔ:] her [hε:] he [hi:] at [æt] can [kæn] was [wɔz] but [bʌt] |
for [fə] her [hə] he [hə] at [tə] can [kn] was [wəz] but [bət] |
Most vowels in weak forms are reduced to the neutral [ə], although the long vowels [i:] and [u:] are usually reduced to [ı] and [u] respectively.
3. The third degree of reduction consists in the omission of a vowel or consonant sound (the so-called zero reduction).
|
Strong forms |
Weak forms |
the vowels are omitted
|
am [æm] from [frɔm] of [ɔv] can [kæn] do[du:] is [ıs] shall [ʃæl] us [ʌs] must [mʌst] |
[m] [frm] [v] [kn] [d] [s], [z] [ʃl] [s] [mst] |
the consonants are omitted |
he [hi:] him [hım] his [hız] must [mʌst] had [hæd] has [hæz] have [hæv] |
[i], [ı] [ım] [ız] [məs] [əd] [əz] [əv] |
both the vowels and consonants are omitted |
and [ænd] has [hæz] have [hæv] had [hæd] will [wıl] shall [ʃæl] would [wud] |
[n] [z], [s] [v] [d] [l] [l] [d] |