16. Sound alternations

The sound variations in words, their derivatives and grammatical form words, are known as sound alternations. For example: the dark [l] in spell alternate with the clear [l] in spelling; combine (n) [‘kσmbain], combine [kəm’bain] where [n] in the stressed syllable of the noun alternates with the neutral sound. It is perfectly obvious that sound alternations of this type are caused by assimilation, accommodation and reduction in speech. To approach the matter from the phonological viewpoint, it is important to differentiate phonemic and allophone alternations. Some sound alternations are traced to the phonemic changes in earlier periods of the language development and are known as historical. Historical alternations mark both vowels and consonants, though the alternating sounds are not affected by the phonemic position or context. The sounds changes, which occurred in the process of historical development of the language, are reflected in present-day English as alternations of phonemes differentiating words, their derivatives and grammatical forms. The following list of examples presents the types of alternations:

1. Vowel alternations.

1.1 Distinction of irregular verbal forms [i:-e-e] mean - meant - meant; [i-æ-A] sing - sang - sung; [i-ei-i] give - gave - given;

1.2 Distinction of causal verbal forms: [i-e] sit - set; [ai-ei] rise - raise; [o - e] fall-fell

1.3 Distinction of parts of speech in etymologically correlated words [a: - æ] class - classify, [o: - e] long - length; [ei - æ] nation - national

2. Consonants alternations

2.1 Distinction of irregular verbal forms [d - t] send - sent

2.2 distinction of parts of speech [s - z] advice - advise; [k - t∫] speak - speech;

3. Vowel and consonant alternations [i - ai] + [v - f] live - life; [a: - ae] + [θ - ð] bath - bathe.

17. Stylistic modification of sounds

Stylistic modification is an expressive phonetic feature which lacks a phonological relevance in language system."Ser" is just a stylistic modification of "Sir", there is no specific historical use, it's just a simple way for a writer trying to give a familiar term an exotic sound.

18. Assimilation

Assimilation

19. accommodation -Modification in the articulation of a segment for the purpose of easing a transition to a following segment, as when English /k/ is fronted before a front vowel or glide (key, back yard), or when /t/ shifts from alveolar to dental before a dental fricative (eighth)

reduction is a quantitative or qualitative weakening of vowels in unstressed positions: board- blackboard, man- postman.

1. R of length of vowel without changing its quality (quantitative R) you [ju:]-[ju]

2. R of quality of vowels (qualitative R) you [ju:]-[jʊ]

3. The omission of vowel or consonant sound (zero R) he is-he’s

Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect.The elided form of a word or phrase may become a standard alternative for the full form, if used often enough. In English, this is called a contraction, such as can't from cannot. Contraction differs from elision in that contractions are set forms that have morphologized, but elisions are not. comfortable: /ˈkʌmfərtəbəl/ → /ˈkʌmftərbəl/ fifth: /ˈfɪfθ/ → /ˈfɪθ/ him: /hɪm/ → /ɪm/.

20.

The syllable is one or more speech sound forming a single uninterrupted unit, which may be a word or a commonly subdivision of a word. In English a syllable is formed by any vowel alone or in combination with one or more consonants and by a word-final sonorant [m,n,l] immediately by a consonant. Are, it, man – 1 syllable,table, paper – 2 syl. The English Syllable has onset : bar/more/; Initial segment of a syllable (Optional) nucleus: or/are Central segment of a syllable (Obligatory) coda : ought/ art Closing segment of a syllable (Optional). English syllable : starts with either 1, or 2 or even 3 consonants. nset: the beginning sounds of the syllable; the ones preceding the nucleus. These are always consonants in English. The nucleus is a vowel in most cases, although the consonants [ r ], [ l ], [ m ], [ n ], and the velar nasal (the 'ng' sound) can also be the nucleus of a syllable. Coda Final : any consonant except for h,r,w,j may be final consonant. / 2 kinds of Final Cluster : pre-final+final/final+post final Pre-finals(m,n,nasal,l,s : bump,belt) / Post-finals(s,z,t,d,th : bets,beds)

So the structure of English Syllable is asOnset Nucleus Coda Ex. "texts, sixths, helped, bonds, play, strings, students"

Functions of s-s:

1) constitutive - constitute words, phrases & s-ces through the comb-n of their prosodic features: loudness-stress, pitch-tone, duration-length & tempo. May be stressed, unstr-ed, high,mid, low, rising, falling, long, short. These pros-c features constitute the stress pattern of words, tonal& rhythmic str-re of an ut-ce, help to peform dist-ve variations on the s-le level. 2) distinctive & differentiatory f-n - word dis-ve f-n of a s-le. There are many comb-n dist-ed by means of the dif-ce in the place of the syl-c boundary. Close juncture – b-n sounds within one s-le, open – b-n two s-s, marked with+.

3) identificatory - is conditioned by the pron-n of the speaker. The listener understands if he perceives the correct s-c boundary – ‘syllabodisjuncture’ might rain – my train.

21. The syllabic structure has two aspects, which are inseparable from each other: syllable formation and syllable division. The syllable is one or more speech sound forming a single uninterrupted unit, which may be a word or a commonly subdivision of a word. In English a syllable is formed by any vowel alone or in combination with one or more consonants and by a word-final sonorant [m,n,l] immediately by a consonant. Are, it, man – 1 syllable,table, paper – 2 syl.

syllable division - this is a way of working out how to spell most two-syllable words and what happens when adding suffixes.

Vowels are: a e i o u and sometimes y.

They can be short or long, e.g. căp or cāpe, hŏp or hōpe. ‘Y’ acts like a vowel if it sounds like a vowel, e.g. in ‘cry’ (ī) and ‘happy’ (ē) or (ĭ), depending on your accent.

A syllable: is a beat in a word, e.g. pic nic.

Syllables can be open as in ‘no’ or ‘be’.

Here the vowel is long because there is no consonant wall blocking it.

Or they can be closed as in ‘not’ and ‘bet’.

Here we have a consonant wall blocking in the vowel and keeping it short.

Two syllable words

In words of two syllables, if we treat each syllable independently, we can easily work out how to spell and read them.

To split words logically into syllables, mark the vowel with a ‘V’ for vowel and mark the consonants between the vowels with a ‘C’ for consonant.

If there are two consonants, always divide between the consonants as in: vc/cv met/ric Here, the first syllable is closed and therefore has a short vowel sound – met. If there is only one consonant between the vowels, we usually divide before the consonant like this: v/cv o/pen The first syllable is open: ‘o’, therefore it has a long vowel sound (ō).

Regrettably, there are some exceptions, e.g. ‘robin’, but these tend to be common words, which are either already known or can be learnt as exceptions.

Adding suffixes A suffix is a letter, or group of letters added to a base or root word. There are vowel suffixes that start with a vowel, e.g. ‘ing’, ‘ed’, ‘y’, ‘able’ or consonant suffixes that start with a consonant, e.g. ‘ly’ ‘ness’, ‘ful’, ‘ment’. The spelling of suffixes never changes.

22. The accentual structure of words has three aspects: the physical (acoustic) nature of word accent; the position of the accent in disyllabic and polysyllabic words; the degrees of word accent.

Any word spoken in isolation has at least one prominent syllable. We perceive it as stressed. Stress in the isolated word is termed ws, stress in connected speech is termed sentence stress. Stress indicated by placing a stress mark before the stressed syllable: Stress is defined differently by different authors.

Word stress (WS) can be defined as the singling out of one or more syllables in a word, which is accompanied by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the sound which is usually a vowel.

All English words divided into mono- di- poly- syllabic. In most disyllabic words the accent falls on the initial syllable: mother, colour. In disyl word with prefix which has lost its meaning the stress falls on the secjnd syl.: become, begin. In most words of three or four syl the accent falls into third syllable from the end of the word: family, cinema. Most words with more than 4 syl have to stress” secondary and primary: intonation, unkind.

Types of English word stress according to its degree. • primary — the strongest• secondary — the second strongest, partial, • weak — all the other degrees. The syllables bearing either primary or secondary stress are termed stressed, while syllables with weak stress are called, somewhat inaccurately, unstressed.

23. Intonation is a complex unity of sentence stress, rhythm, tempo, speech melody and voice timbre. Each syllable in a sense group is pronounced on a certain pitch level and bears a definite amount of loudness. Intonation patterns serve to actualize sense groups. Intonation is a language universal. According to R. Kingdon the most important nuclear tones in English are: Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise, High Rise, and Fall-Rise.

The sense group is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically complex.

In Phonetics actualized sense groups are called intonation groups.

Intonation patterns containing a number of syllables consist of the following parts:

• the prehead

• the head (the 1st accented syllable)

• the scale (begins with the 1st acc.syll.)

• the nucleus (the last acc.syll.) – is the most important part of the intonation pattern.

• the tail – conveys no particular information

The parts of intonation patterns can be combined in various ways expressing different meanings and attitudes.

The number of possible combinations is more than 100. But not all of them are equally important. That’s why the number may be reduced to fewer combinations that are important. Thus Prof. O’Connor gives 10 important tone-groups. Each intonation group has a communicative center (a semantic center). It conveys the most important piece of information. which is usually something new. The terminal tone arranges the intonation group both semantically and phonetically.