Consonants

1. The American [r] is retroflex (pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled back) and is used in all the positions where there is an r in spelling. As a result, the preceding vowel becomes narrower.

RP hurry ['hлri], worry [wлri]

GA hurry [hәri], worry [wәri]

2. The American [t] in the intervocalic position is realized as a flap: the tip of the tongue beats against the teeth ridge just once (Better, letter, etc.).

3. WWhen t follows n, it is nearly omitted. The preceding vowel is nasalized (twenty).

4. The sound [t] is also affected by the process of glottalization in both varieties of English, British and American, and the frequency of its occurrence is socially marked. One of the most favourable conditions for glottal stop to replace [t] is before [m, n, 1, r, j, w]:

That man, that one.

5. The sound [j] in American English is commonly weakened or omitted:

GA news [nu:z], Tuesday ['tu:zdi], duty ['du:ti], assume [a'su:m].

6. in American English the sound [1] is "dark", i.e. non-palatalized, in all positions, while in RP (but not in Scottish Standard English!) it is "clear", palatalized, before a front vowel and "dark" at the end of a word and before a consonant.

7. Apart from systemic differences, there are lexical items which are pro­ nounced differently:

GA tomato [tә'meitou], either [i:дэ], schedule ['sked3u:l], ate [eit], vase [veiz].

Word stress

1. The differences in stress are also lexically determined, and, therefore, are hard to generalize:

RP a'ddress, 'adult, prin'cess, 'detail, maga'zine, ,week'end;

GA 'address, a'dult, 'princess, detail, 'magazine, 'weekend.

2. Tertiary stress in American En­glish: dictionary , ceremony [

3. French borrowings are assimilated in RP and have one primary stress on the initial syllable. In GA they are still stressed as in French, on the final syllable, or have two stresses, one primary on the last syllable and one secondary on the first:

ballet, cafe, garage.

Rhythm

American rhythm is due to a great amount of secondary (or/and ter­tiary) stresses, compared with RP, which, together with a narrowed pitch range, produce the effect of smoothly flowing, monotonous, slurred speech: the proportion of accented vs. unaccented syllables is 1:1, while in British English it is estimated at 1:2. RP speech is described as clipped, pointed, contrastive in the length of accented and unaccented syllables.

Intonation

Compared to RP the intonation group in GA starts at a lower level (like in Russian) and flows within a narrower pitch range . Then it ends with a rise-fall. The final element is very prominent acous­tically, and that is where the most important information point is normally located (in 80% of cases).

RP 'What are you 'going to 'do about it ?

GA ' What're you 'gonna "do about it ?

In specialist literature one can often find commentary on specific use of level-rising tones in special questions and statements in American En­glish and also in Northern British English:

• What's your,name?

• .Bradford.

The linguists explain that the rising tone is directed at the listener (to check if he is following the talk), as was universally estab­lished for most languages of the world.