- •1. Phonetics as a linguistic science. Branches of phonetics. Phonetics and phonology
- •2. Articulatory classification of speech sounds
- •3. The phoneme as a linguistic unit. Its definition and functions
- •4. Manifestation of phonemes in speech. Phoneme and allophone
- •5. Methods of the identification of phonemes in a language
- •6. The distinctive and non-distinctive features of English vowels
- •7. The distinctive and non-distinctive features of English consonants
- •8. Problems of the phonemic inventory of English vowels
- •9. Problems of the phonemic inventory of English consonants
- •10. Types of phonetic transcription
- •11. The syllable as a phonetic, phonological unit. The functions of the syllable. Structural peculiarities of the English syllable
- •12. Theories of syllable formation and syllable division
- •13. The emergence of a pronunciation standard. Received Pronunciation (rp). Present-day situation
- •14. National and regional variants of English pronunciation
- •15. American English pronunciation. Peculiarities of General American pronunciation compared to British English
- •16. The syllable as a prosodic unit. Word stress, its nature and functions. Linguistically relevant types of word stress
- •17. The accentual tendencies in English. Basic word stress patterns in English
- •18. Speech prosody. Its perceptible qualities and acoustic properties
- •19. Prosody and intonation. Utterance prosody and its linguistic functions
- •20. The components (subsystems) of utterance prosody and units of its analysis
- •21. The tonal (pitch) subsystem of utterance prosody. Units of its analysis. Tones and tonal contours
- •22. The structure of a prosodic contour (intonation group) in English. The functions of its elements
- •23. Basic types of prosodic contours in English
- •24. Utterance stress in English, its phonetic nature and function. The relationship between utterance stress and word stress in English
- •25. Types of utterance stress. Factors conditioning the location of utterance stress
- •27. The basic unit of the rhythmic organization of speech and the problem of its phonetic delimitation in an utterance
- •28. The phonetic nature and types of speech rhythm in different languages.
- •29. Speech tempo and pausation
- •30. The notion of speech style. Phonetic style-forming means in English
25. Types of utterance stress. Factors conditioning the location of utterance stress
The subsystem of utterance stress in English includes 3 basic functional types (the main difference between them is in the way the syllables that bear them are marked):
1. NUCLEAR - is generally marked by a kinetic tone and is, therefore, perceived as the most prominent.
2. NON-NUCLEAR FULL - more often is marked by static tones. Both are pitch prominent, both initiate tones.
3. PARTIAL - stress syllable is not pitch prominent, doesn’t initiate tones, his pitch characteristics depend on the pitch pattern of the preceding fully stressed syllable.
The distribution of stresses in an utterance depends on several factors (Torsuyev):
1) SEMANTIC - the semantic centre of an utterance is singled out by the nuclear stress, in their turn non-nuclear full stresses signal greater semantic value than partial stresses; notional word are predisposed to be stressed
2) GRAMMATICAL - grammatical structure determines the accentual structure (the inverted word order for expressing question requires stress on the auxiliary verb)
3) RHYTHMICAL - notional words may be or unstressed and form words may be stressed due to the English rhythm.
26. Speech rhythm and utterance stress UTTERANCE STRESS - the special prominence given to 1 or more words in an utterance. The means, with the help of which this prominence is achieved are variations of pitch, loudness, length and quality. Acoustically, utterance stress is determined by variations of fundamental frequency, intensity, duration and formant structure. RHYTHM - regularity or periodicity in the occurrence of a particular phenomenon in an utterance. In some languages the recurring phenomena are stresses, in others - syllables. So languages can be characterized either by stress-timed or syllable-timed rhythm. English is considered to be mostly a language with stress-timed rhythm (it presupposes that utterance stress serves as a basis for the rhythmical organization of speech and that stresses segment the speech continuum into units of more or less equal length. These are accentual, or rhythmic units. Hierarchically higher are prosodic units: intonation groups and utterances. Rhythmic units form a certain hierarchy, since stresses, on which they are based, are not equal in their prominence, position and function. The most prominent and functionally more important is the nuclear stress. Therefore the NUCLEAR RHYTHMIC UNIT is the most important in an utterance. A rhythmic unit formed by full stress together with partial stress can be defined as a COMPLEX RHYTHMIC UNIT.
27. The basic unit of the rhythmic organization of speech and the problem of its phonetic delimitation in an utterance
English rhythm presupposes that utterance stress serves as a basis for the rhythmical organization of speech and that stresses segment the speech continuum into units of more or less equal length. These are ACCENTUAL, or RHYTHMIC UNITS. Rhythmic units are nothing but elements of rhythm. Rhythm as regularity of occurence of stressed syllables manifests itself in hierarchically higher prosodic units - intonation groups and utterances.
Since the approximate isochrony of intervals between stressed syllables is regarded as a measure of English rhythm, a great number of phoneticians (A/ Classe, D. Abercrombie, H. Halliday, J. Pring) define the unit of rhythm as a sequence of syllables from 1 stressed syllable to another. But this formal rhythmic division does not reflect the relations between prosodic units and the units of the other subsystems of the language, as the syllables of one and the same word may be parts of different rhythmic units (semantic importance).
G. Torsuyev, V. Vassilyev, R. Kingdon, J. O'Connor, W. Jassem and other scholars represent another approach to rhythmic division. According to this approach the boundaries between rhythmic units are determined by the semantic and grammatical relations between the wrods of an utterance. With such rhythmic division the syllables of a word always belong to the same rhythmic unit, form words join the stressed syllable as proclitics and enclitics, depending on their semantic links.