The origin of phonetics. Subject of phonetics. Segmental and suprasegmental phonetics. Methods of phonetic investigation

Vowel length gives us two groups of vowel sounds, long and short, which are distinct in a number of features, such as tenseness and energy discharge: long vowels, including diphthongs, are tense, short vowels are lax. As for energy discharge, long vowels are always unchecked (free), and short vowels are checked, i.e. produced with accompanying glottal activity, involving a rapid energy discharge in a short time interval.

Position of the lips may distinguish rounded and unrounded vowels.

There is another feature to classify vowels by - position of the soft palate. This feature is not relevant for English, as all English vowels are oral; but other languages, like French, for example, may have nasal vowels; English vowels may be nasalized before a nasal consonant but the nasal quality change is not phonemic as it is not contrastive, it is allophonic.

All the 20 vowel phonemes in English can be distinguished by quality alone, and that makes this feature phonemic.

Thus the 20 RP English vowels are grouped in the following way: twelve monophthongs (seven short vowels and five long ones) and eight diphthongs. 
The vowel systems of English and Russian: major differences.

The vowel systems of English and Russian differ in the following points:

1. Stability of articulation;
2. Tongue position;
3. Length;
4. Tenseness.

 
7. Modification of vowels in connected speech: accommodation, elision. Ways of linking vowels.

There are actually some remarkable differences between the pronunciation of a word in isolation and of the same word in a block of connected speech. These changes are mostly quite regular and predictable. Modifications are observed both within words and at word boundaries.nds influence each other in the flow of speech. As a result of the intercourse between consonants and vowels and within each class there appear such processes of connected speech as assimilation, accommodation, vowel reduction and elision which is sometimes termed deletion. 
 
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 adaptive modification of a consonant by a neighbouring consonant in the speech chain is known as assimilation. 
 
The term accommodation is often used by linguists to denote the interchanges of " vowel+ consonant type" or " consonant + vowel type", for instance, some slight degree of nasalization of vowels preceded or followed by nasal sonorants: never, men; or labialization of consonants preceding the vowel [o] and [y] in Russian : больно,  конь,  думать,  лучше. 
 
One of the wide-spread sound changes is certainly vowel reduction. Reduction is actually qualitative or quantitative weakening of vowels in unstressed position: board-blackboard, man-postman

8. The consonant system of English: principles of classification, distinctive features of English consonants. The consonant system of English and Russian languages: comparison and contrast. Articulation of similar consonants in the English and Russian languages.

In phonology the basic method of establishing the phonemic status of a sound is a method of finding minimal pairs. This method suggesting at least one pair of words which are different in that sound, e.g. pit-bit.

An analysis of the consonantal phonemes of English give a total of 24 phonemes, of which 6 are NB of restricted  occurrence:

[w, j, h, r] can only be used word – or syllable initially

[ŋ, ӡ] – only in the medial or final position

Distinctive features of consonants:

1. The place of articulation

• labial
• labia-dental
• dental
• alveolar
• palatal
• velar
• glottal

2. The manner of articulation – is determined by the type of obstruction and the manner of noise production

• plosives
• fricative
• affricates – complex consonants, start being articulated as plosives/occlusive and ends as fricatives;
• nasal
• approximants –there are 4 app.: CENTRAL [w, r, j] and LATERAL [l.] Take the intermediate position between vowels and consonants as they resemble vowels by the weaker air stream, but, on the other hand, they are articulated with quite a significant force of articulation to overcome the obstruction in the mouth cavity.

There are two types of consonants which are not characteristics of the Standard English pronunciation. They occur in other varieties of English and other languages, e. g. Russian:

• Rills or thrills are articulating with the tongue tip vibration and touching alveoli several times. E.g. Russian [р] like in words рука, река the Scottish pronounce of [r].
• Taps are articulated with the tongue tip as well, but this time it touches alveoli only once. E. g. American Eng [t] pity, [d] rider, [n] manner.

3. The force of articulation.

• fully-voiced – only in a formal setting (the speech is slow and the vocal chords vibrate all through the time of the sound production)
• fast and careless – in informal communication (vocal chords might not vibrate at all while producing such “voiced” plosives as [b, d, k])

The feature that differentiate that meaning is:

• aspiration – when the consonants are in initial position. E. g. pay-bay
• the length of the preceding vowel – when consonant are in final position. E. g. eyes – ice, leave – leaf.

1. voiceless – voiced
2. aspiration – no aspiration

Initial [б, д, г] in Russian and Romanic languages are always fully voiced.

• voiced (lenis) - weak
• voiceless (fortis) - strongs

4. The position of the soft palate

• oral
• nasal

The consonant system of English and Russian languages: comparison and contrast.

English and Russian languages  belong to the some Indo-European family of languages and there are a number of similarities between the vocalic and consonant systems.

Russian belong to a consonant type – the majority of sounds employed by this language are consonants. 36 cons. and 6 vowels.

English employs approximately = equal number of consonants and vowels – 24\20.

1. Differences in the place of articulation.

• no glottal consonants in Rus (like in Eng [h])
• no fricative velar consonants in Eng (like in Rus [х])
• a larger group of dental consonants and few aveolars in Rus VS very few dental consonants and quite a large number of alveolar in Eng
• palatalisation is a distinctive feature in Rus – it characterizes 30 consonants which form 15 oppositions – whereas in Eng it is not significant for differentiating meaning (palatalization and velarisation depend on their phonetic environment)

2. Differences in the manner of articulation

• no ralls in Standart English
• a larger group of approximants in Eng

3. Differences in the work of vocal chords

• In Eng the distinctive feature for noise consonants is force of articulation. Eng voiced consonants can be considered as such only in the intervocalic position, as they are partially or completely devoiced in other phonetic environment.
• In Rus the distinctive feature for noise consonants is the activity of the vocal chords. They are involved all through the time of sound duration. Presence or absence of articulatory tension is an optional feature in case of Rus consonants: it is not relevant for differentiating between them.

Articulation of similar consonants in the Eng and Rus languages.

[t, d, s, z, n, I, r, tʃ, dӡ, ӡ, ʃ]

Eng	Rus
The tongue tip is raised toward the alveoli, and the bulk of the tongue lies deeper in the mouth cavity than it is in Rus	The consonants are dental: tha blade of the tongue is  pressed against the upper teeth
Apical (articulated with the active tip of the tongue)	The tongue tip remains inactive
The contact between the articulators (the tongue tip and the alveoli) is loose (the tip of the tongue is pulled back from the teeth)	The contact between the articulators is close (the tongue tip is against the lower teeth) x in Eng           a different acoustic quality.

 

9. Modifications of consonants in connected speech. Assimilation, accommodation and elision. Glottal stop.

Assimilation.

Assimilation is concerned with one sound becoming phonetically similar to an adjacent sound. Sounds that belong to one word can cause changes in sounds belonging to other words. When a word’s pronunciation is affected by sounds in a neighbouring word, we call this process assimilation.

• If a phoneme is affected by one than comes later in the sentence, the assimilation is termed regressive. If a phoneme is affected by one that came earlier in the utterance, the assimilation is termed progressive.
• Assimilation of voicing

This may refer to assimilation involving the feature [+/- voice]. In a certain environment we can consequently observe the voicing or devoicing of a segment

• Assimilation of place of articulation

The most common phonemic changes at word boundaries concern changes of place of articulation, particularly involving de-alveolarization. A well-known case is that of English word-final alveolar consonants such as /t, d, n/: if a word ending in one of these consonants is followed by a word whose initial consonant begins with a bilabial, a velar or a dental, the word-final alveolar consonant is likely to change its place of articulation to match that at the beginning of the second word. Thus the word ‘that’ /ðat/ may be followed by ‘boy’ /bɔɪ/ and become /ðap/.

• Assimilation of manner of articulation

Assimilation of manner is typical of the most rapid and casual speech, in which case one sound changes the manner of its articulation to become similar in manner to a neighbouring sound. An example can be a rapid pronunciation of “Get some of that soup”, where instead of the expected /gɛt sʌm əv ðat suːp/ an English speaker says /gɛs sʌm v ðas suːp/, with /s/ replacing /t/ in two words

1. / t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p / 
2. / d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p / 
3. / n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p / 
4. / t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/  
5. / d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g / 
6. / n / changes to /ŋ/ before / k / or / g / 
7. / s / changes to /ʃ/ before /ʃ/ or / j /  
8. /z/changes to/ʒ/ before /ʃ/ or / j / 
9. /θ/ changes to / s / before / s / 

Elision

Reduction is a historical process of weakening, shortening or disappearance of vowel in unstressed positions. 
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 neutral sound [ə] represents any vowel or diphthong in the unstressed position. e.g. combine [kəmbain] – combine [kombain]

 

Two different types of reduction are noticed in English:

1. Quantitative – shortening of a vowel sound in the unstressed position. e.g. he [hi:]. When does he come? [wen dəs hi kΛm].
2. Qualitative – obscuration of vowels towards [ə, i, u], affects both long and short vowels, e.g. can [lǽn]. You can easily do it. [ju: kən i:zli du: it]

Assimilation

• Place of articulation 
  • t, d > dental before [ð, θ]: eighth,

• t, d > post-alveolar before [r]: tree, dream

• s, z > post-alveolar before [∫]: this shop

• t, d > affricates before [j]: graduate, could you 
• m > labio-dental before [f]: symphony • n > dental before [θ]: seventh • n > velar before [k]: thank

• Manner of articulation 
  • loss of plosion: glad to see you, great trouble  
  • nasal plosion: sudden, at night, let me see  
  • lateral plosion: settle, at last
• Work of the vocal cords 
  • voiced > voiceless: newspaper, gooseberry 
  has, is, does > [s]; of, have > [f]
• Degree of noise 
  • sonorants > are partially devoiced after [p, t, k, s]

Accommodation

• Lip position 
  • consonant + back vowel: pool, rude, who (rounded) 
  • consonant + front vowel: tea, sit, keep (spread)

Elision

• Loss of [h] in personal and possessive pronouns and the forms of the auxiliary verb have.
• [l] lends to be lost when preceded by [o:]: always, already, all right3.3. In cluster of consonants: next day, just one. mashed potatoes.

Glottal stop

The glottal stop is a consonant sound produced when the flow of air is stopped by the glottis closing, and then released. Many languages use glottal stops, often much more than in English. The sound /t/ in ‘cat' is often a glottal stop sound.

Although it is a consonant phoneme in many languages, e.g. Hebrew and Arabic, in English the glottal stop generally appears as an allophone of /t/. This is called Glottal Replacement and is most noticeable in the form that it takes in several regional accents of British English (e.g. Cockney, Glasgow), where syllable-final /t/ between two vowels is replaced by [ʔ]. For example:

better [ˈbeʔə], Fitting [ˈfɪʔɪŋ], A bit of butter [ə ˈbɪʔ ə ˈbʌʔə]

 

10. The syllable as a phonetic and phonological unit. Syllabic structure of English words. Phonotactic rules of English and Russian: comparison and contrast.

A syllable can be defined as the minimal grouping of vowels and consonants necessary for articulation and for storing strings of phonemes in the mental representation

On the one hand, syllable is a phonetic unit. On the other hand it is a phonological unit. Groups of consonant and vowel sounds in the flow of speech are the phonetic form of the syllable, whereas groups of the corresponding phonemes stored in the memory is its phonological form.

Syllable is made up of nuclear and marginal element, with vowels acting as nuclear, syllabic elements and consonants as marginal or non-syllabic ones. Vowels are nuclear, as they are necessary components of any syllable in any language. In its full form a syllable can consist of three elements: the onset, the nucleus and the coda. The nuclear and the coda constitute the rhyme.

If a syllable contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or a short vowel followed by a consonant, it is called long or heavy. Such syllables attract stress. The syllables with just a short vowel without a covering consonant are called short or light. They are unstressed

e.g. better [bet-ə]: [bet] – long syllable, [ə] – short syllable.

Universal tendencies in syllabification:

- Overall tendency towards open syllables (CV)

- Sound sequences are syllabified according to a sonority scale from the most sonorous to the least sonorous sounds: low vowels – high vowels – approximants – nasals – lenis fricatives – fortis fricatives - lenis stops – fotis stops e.g. blink [blıηk], twins [twınz].

- According to the principle of Maximum Onset more consonant are clustered in the onset than in the coda E.g. approve [ə-pru:v], not [əp-ru:v].

 

Language-specific phonotactic rules: English vs Russia

1.  The maximal number of consonants in an English onset is three, as in splash,

whereas in Russian a syllable onset may have four: всплакнуть. In the coda the number is reversed: the maximal number for the Russian language is three, while an English coda composed of root + affixes may have as many as four consonants.

2.   The dominance of an open syllable in Russian (CV), and a closed syllable in English (CVC).

3.   In English approximants [1], [m], [n], [r] may become syllabic after a consonant, which can be explained by the sonority rule: rhyth-m.

4.   In Russian there is a close connection between the onset consonants and the following vowels (CV-contact), which affects the quality of vowels,

e.g. мило[м’ила] – мыло [мыла] 

In English, like in all Germanic languages, there is a close contact between the vowel and the coda consonants (VC-contact), which affects the length of vowels, 

e.g. code – coat: the diphthong [ou] in “code” will be longer than in “coat”.

Positional length of vowels is present in all English dialects but it is particularly important for General American and Scottish Standard English, which do not distinguish historically long and short vowels.

 

 

 

11. Word stress: components and functions. The degrees of word stress in English. Stress shift

The word stress is understood as making certain syllable (or syllables) in a word more prominent than the others. There are four components, which serve this task: length, loudness, pitch and vowel quality.

However, the relative significance of stress components is language-specific. According to experimental evidence, the basic features of stress in Russian are length and quality of the vowel. In English the most relevant prosodic features are pitch and length of the vowel.

Word stress is classified according to its types and place. 

Types of word stress:

a)  bound (fixed) or free, depending on the position in the word. 

b)  depending on the degree of prominence:

−  main stress, marked by the last major pitch change in a word;

−  BrE secondary stress, marked by the non-final pitch change (e.g. “inter-nAtional”); AmE tertiary stress, marked by the final pitch change (e.g.” terry-tOry”).

−  minor prominence (with a non-reduced vowel and no pitch change)

−  unstressed syllable (with a reduced vowel and no pitch change)

 

Place of word stress :

The factors affecting the position of word stress are:

−  phonological pattern of a word;

−  number of syllables in a word;

−  types of affixes;

−  part of speech the word represents.

Phonological pattern of a word is determined by the correlation of strong/heavy and weak/light syllables. Strong syllables are stressed, whereas weak ones are not.  In multisyllabic words the secondary stress appears. 

The types of affixes affecting the place of word stress are: 

−  accent-neutral – able, age, al, ful, ing, less, ly, ment, ness, ous, en, those ending with -y (-ie), and ish, ism, ist, ise, er, ess;

−  accent-attracting – ade, eer, esque, ette;

−  accent-fixing -ic, ion, ity attract stress to the preceding syllable, ate fixes the stress on the third syllable from the end.

The interrelation between word stress position and part of speech the word represents is brightly illustrated by noun-verb oppositions:  e.g. accent – ac'cent.

The accent pattern of a word can be changed under the influence of rhythm. This is called stress shift,

e.g. We stayed in Belgrade.  We listened to the Belgrade Orchestra.

 

12. Accentual tendencies in English. Other factors affecting the position of word stress in English

There are four accentual tendencies in English:

1.  Recessive – original stressing the initial or the second (the root) syllable.

2.  Rhythmical – placing the primary stress on the third syllable from the end.

3.  Retentive, when a derivative retains the stress of the original word.

4.  Semantic, when the stressed morpheme is the one of greater semantic significance.

 

There are two major functions of word stress:

−  Constitutive – organizing the syllables into a language unit (a word) having a definite accentual pattern.

−  Distinctive – differentiating the meaning of words and their forms,  In English word stress can differentiate:

−  Verbs and nouns: an accent – to ac'cent,

−  Lexical meaning of words: be'low – 'billow,

−  Complex nouns and free word combinations: a 'bluebottle – a 'blue 'bottle,

−  Complex nouns and phrasal verbs: a 'walkout – to 'walk 'out).

In Russian word stress can differentiate:

−  Lexical meaning of words: мука – мука,

−  Grammatical forms of words: руки – руки.

 

The types of affixes affecting the place of word stress are: