Modifications of english vowels in connected speech

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................3

CHAPTER 1. MODIFICATIONS OF VOWELS........................................................5

1.1. Quantitative changes..................................................................................6

1.2. Qualitative changes...............................................................................................7

1.3. Relaxed Pronunciation................................................................................9

CHAPTER 2. ANALYSIS.........................................................................................11

CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................19

BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................22

APPENDIX.................................................................................................................23 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

INTRODUCTION

          English learners may have many troubles in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Most of them have been discussed quite clearly in many courses, studies, and English teachers’ lectures. However it is possible that the systems of listening facilities still have a few about modifications of vowels in spoken English. The purpose of writing of our paper work is consecutive and all round studying of modifications of vowels in connected speech. This topic is chosen for our scientific research in the hope that it will, to some extents, help others like me overcome this kind of challenge.

          When speaking, English speakers use stress, intonation, and aspects of connected speech, etc. One of the most difficulties for those who learn  English as a foreign language is how to listen to English speech. Modifications of sounds are an important part of informal English speech that requires learners many efforts to make a progress in listening and speaking. It is necessary to know as much about English as possible. Therefore, we do this research with the aims of helping the freshmen overcome the troubles in the first steps of listening.

          In particular we will research modifications of 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. The analysis of the articulatory constituents of the quality of vowels allowed phoneticians to suggest the criteria which are conceived to be of great importance in classificatory description. The modifications of vowels in a chain are traced in the following directions: they are either quantitative or qualitative or both. These changes of vowels in a speech continuum are determined by a number of factors such as the position of the vowel in the word, accentual structure, tempo of speech, rhythm, etc.

          The main methods in our study are material collection, analysis, systematization, classification and practical research on the example of a movie. Firstly, we have collected all materials from different sources such as Internet, reference books, etc. Then, we have analyzed all the collected materials and then we tried to show the work of those modifications practiacally.  
 
 
 

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CHAPTER 1. MODIFICATIONS OF VOWELS

          Sounds in actual speech are seldom pronounced by themselves. To pronounce a word consisting of more than one sound, it is necessary to join the sounds together in the proper way. There exist several types of junction, some of which are common to all or many languages, while others are characteristic of individual languages. In order to master these specific types of junction it is necessary to understand the mechanism of joining sounds together. This mechanism can only be understood after analyzing the stages in the articulation of a speech-sound pronounced in isolation.

Every speech-sound pronounced in isolation has three stages of articulation. They are (1) the on-glide, or the initial stage, (2) the retention-stage, or the medial stage, and (3) the off-glide (release), or the final stage.

The on-glide, or the beginning of a sound, is the stage during which the organs of speech move away from a neutral position to lake up the position necessary for the pronunciation of a consonant or a vowel. The on-glide produces no audible sound.  The retention-stage or the middle of a sound is the stage during which the organs of speech are kept for some time either in the same position necessary to pronounce the sound (in the case of non-complex sounds) or move from one position to another (within complex sounds, such as diphthongoids, diphthongs and affricates). For the retention-stage of a stop consonant the term stop-stage may also be used. The off-glide, or the end of a sound, is the stage during which the organs of speech move away to a neutral position. The off-glide of most sounds is not audible, the exception being plosives whose off-glide produces the sound of plosion before a vowel and in a word-final position before a pause.

In English there are two principal ways of linking two adjacent speech sounds: I. Merging of stages. II. Interpenetration of stages. The type of junction depends on the nature of the sounds that are joined together.

          Merging of stages, as compared with interpenetration of stages, is a simpler and looser way of joining sounds together. It usually takes place if two adjacent sounds of a different nature are joined together. In this case the end of the preceding sound penetrates into the beginning of the following sound. In other words, the end of the first sound and the beginning of the second are articulated almost simultaneously. Interpenetration of stages usually takes place when consonants of a similar or identical nature are joined.

          The modifications are observed both within words and word boundaries. There are the following types of modification: assimilation, accommodation, reduction, elision, and inserting. The adaptive modification of a consonant by a neighbouring consonant in a speech chain is assimilation. Accommodation is used to denote the interchanges of VC or CV types. Reduction is actually qualitative or quantitative weakening of vowels in unstressed positions. Elision is a complete loss of sounds, both vowels and consonants. Inserting is a process of sound addition.

1.1. Quantatitive changes

          The decrease of the vowel quantity or in other words the shortening of the vowel length is known as a quantitative modification of vowels, which may be

illustrated as follows:

          1. The shortening of the vowel length occurs in unstressed positions, e.g. blackboard [ɔ:], sorrow [ευ] (reduction). In these cases reduction affects both the length ofthe unstressed vowels and their quality.

          Form words often demonstrate quantitative reduction in unstressed postions, e.g.

Is →he or ֻshe to blame? – [hi:]

         But:

At last he has ֻcome. – [hi]

          2. The length of a vowel depends on its position in a word. It varies in different phonetic environments. English vowels are said to have positional length, e.g. knee – need – neat (accomadation). The vowel [i:] is the longest in the final position, it is obviously shorter before the lenis voiced cosonant [d], and it is the shortest before the fortis voiceless consonant [t].

1.2. Qualitaive changes

          Qualitative modification of most vowels occures in unstressed position. Unstressed vowels lose their “colour”, their quality, which is illustrated by the examples below:

          1. In unstressed syllables vowels of full value are usually subjected to qualitative changes, e.g. man [mæn] – sportsman [‘spɔ:tsmən], conduct [‘kndəkt] – conduct [kən’dʌkt]. In such cases the quality of the vowel  is reduced to the neutral [ə].

           These examples illustrate the neutralized allophones of the same phonemes as the same morphemes are opposed.

     The neutral sound [ə] is the most frequent sound of English. In continuous text it represents about eleven per cent of all sounds. And if we add the occurrence of [i] which is closely related to [ə] in unstressed positions we get a figure close to twenty per cent – nearly one sound in five is either [ə] or the unstressed [i]. This high frequency of [ə] is the result of the rhythmic pattern: if unstressed syllables are given only a short duration, the vowel in them which might be otherwise full is reduced. It is common knowledge that English rhythm prefers a pattern in which stressed syllables alternate with unstressed ones. The effect of this can be seen even in single words, where a shift of stress is often accompanied by a change of vowel quality; a full vowel becomes [ə], and [ə] becomes a full vowel. Compare: analyse ['ænəlaiz] – analysis [ə'nælisis]; in both words full vowels appear in the stressed positions, alternating with [ə] in unstressed position. It would be impossible to have [ə] in a stressed syllable, and almost as impossible to have a full vowel in every unstressed syllable.

          2. Slight degree of nasalization marks vowels preceded or followed by the nasal consonants [n], [m], e.g. “never”, “no”, “then”, “men” (accommodation).

     The realization of reduction as well as assimilation and accommodation is connected with the style of speech. In rapid colloquial speech reduction may result in vowel elision, the complete omission of the unstressed vowel, which is also known as zero reduction. Zero reduction is likely to occur in a sequence of unstressed syllables, e.g. history, factory, literature, territory, different, library. It often occurs in initial unstressed syllables preceding the stressed one, e.g. correct, believe, suppose, perhaps.

     The example below illustrates a stage-by-stage reduction (including zero reduction) of a phrase.

Had he found them?           [hæd hi: faund ðem ]

                                          [həd hi faund ðəm]

                                 [əd i faund ðm]

                                [d i faund m]

1.3. Relaxed Pronunciation

           Relaxed pronunciation (also called condensed pronunciation or word slurs) is a phenomenon that happens when the syllables of common words are slurred together. It is almost always present in normal speech, in all natural languages.

          Some shortened forms of words and phrases, such as contractions or weak forms can be considered to derive from relaxed pronunciations, but a phrase with a relaxed pronunciation is not the same as a contraction. In English, where contractions are common, they are considered part of the standard language and accordingly used in many contexts (except on very formal speech or in formal/legal writing); however, relaxed pronunciation is markedly informal in register. This is also sometimes reflected in writing: contractions have a standard written form, but relaxed pronunciations may not, outside of dialect spelling. There are the examples:

could have: [‘kʊɾə], coulda

must have: [‘mʌstə], musta

should have: [‘ʃʊɾə], shoulda

would have: [‘wʊɾə], woulda

it would / it would have: [‘ɪdə], itta 

a lot of: [əlɑtə], a lotta

kind of: [‘kaində], kinda

out of: [autə], outta

sort of: [‘sɔrtə], sorta 

going to: [‘ɡʌnə], gonna

got to: [‘gɑtə], gotta

have to: [‘hæftə], hafta

want to: [‘wɑnə], wanna

          "You" tends to elide to [jə] (often written "ya"); softening of the preceding consonant also may occur: ([t] + [jə] = [tʃə], and [d] + [jə] = [dʒə])

did you: [‘dɪdʒə], didja

did you / do you: [‘dʒə], d'ya

don't you: [‘doʊntʃə], doncha

got you: [gɑtʃə], gotcha

get you / get your: [‘gεtʃə], getcha

would you: [‘wudʒə], wouldja

give me: [‘gimi], gimme

is he: [‘izi], izee

is it: [zit], ’zit

isn't it: innit

let me: [‘lεmi], lemme

don't know: [də’nou], dunno

probably: [‘prɑli], probly

want a: [wɑnə], wanna

what is that: [‘wʌsæt], wussat

what is up: [wə’sʌp], wassup

what is up: [sʌp], ’sup

what are you: [‘wʌtʃə], whatcha

what do you: [‘wʌɾəjə], whaddaya

you all: [jɑl], y’all 
 
 
 
 
 

CHAPTER 2. ANALYSIS

          When we speak, we do not speak just in single words but in groups of words. These groups are continuous, and they may or may not have pauses between them. Because we speak quickly, this can cause changes to the shapes of the words. Some sounds might drop off. Some sounds might be added. Some sounds might change. These devices help our speech to sound fluent. Because of the way we have been conditioned by spelling, it is usually a surprise to people when these features of spoken English are first drawn to their attention. Many respond with disbelief or consternation. It needs to be stressed that they occur in fast fluent speech. If you speak slowly, your speech will show fewer of these features. It is a good idea to try to forget the written form and concentrate on listening carefully to the way other people speak.

          We will take the movie “Just like Heaven” which was released on September 16, 2005. It was directed by Mark Waters, based on the novel “If Only It Were True” by Marc Levy. Here is the plot: Elizabeth Masterson, a young doctor whose work is her whole life, had a serious automobile accident while on her way to a blind date. Three months later, David Abbott, a landscape architect recovering from the death of his wife, moves into the apartment that had been Elizabeth's. Elizabeth appears to David at the apartment. Though seemingly a normal person, she has ghostly properties and abilities: she can suddenly appear and disappear, move through walls, and once takes over his actions. When they meet, they are both surprised, as Elizabeth is not aware yet of her condition. For the most part, David is the only one who can see Elizabeth, leading others to believe that he is hallucinating and talking to himself. So we will see modifications of vowels in some phrases and speeches.

          In this action David invited his friend Darryl to help Elizabeth to find the light and to go to Heaven. Darryl cannot see her or hear her but senses her presence.

          Elizabeth: You know what? Do you think I like this? Do you think this is easy for me? I know something's different, something is not right. I'm walking through walls here.

          [jə nɔ ̗wɑt djə θink ai ‘laik ̖ðis|| də jə θink ðis iz ‘i:zi ̖fə ̗mi:|| ai nɔ sʌmθinz ̗difrənt| sʌmθin iz ‘nɒt ̖rait|| əm wɔkiŋ θru ‘wɔ:lz ̖hir||]