1. THE MOST ANCIENT ONE: there are as many syllables in the word as there are vowels.
1. Phonetics as a linguistic science. Branches of phonetics. Phonetics and phonology
PHONETICS is a linguistic science that studies segmental sounds (vowels, consonants), the way they are organized into the system of units and prosodic phenomena (pitch, stress, tempo, rhythm). Being a science in its own right, it's at the same time closely connected with other linguistic sciences - grammar, lexicology, stylistics and the history of the language.
4 main branches of phonetics:
1. ARTICULATORY/PHYSIOLOGICAL - concerned with the study of sounds as the result of the activities of the speech organs; it deals with our voice-producing mechanism and the way we produce sounds.
2. PERCEPTUAL/AUDITORY - study of man's perception of segmental sounds, pitch variation, loudness and duration.
3. ACOUSTIC/PHYSICAL - acoustic aspect of speech sounds (pitch, spectrum, timber, loudness, length).
4. FUNCTIONAL/LINGUISTIC/PHONOLOGY - purely linguistic branch of phonetics. It deals with the functional aspect of sound phenomena. Phonology sets out to discover those segmental and prosodic features that have a differential value in a language, and it established the system of phonemes.
2. Articulatory classification of speech sounds
VOWEL - a voiced sound in forming of which the air needs no obstruction and no narrowing that would cause audible friction. All the other sounds are called CONSONANTS.
CLASSIFICATION OF VOWELS:
1. according to the horizontal movement of the tongue:
- front (i:, e, æ)
- front-retracted (i)
- mixed (з:, schwa-vowel)
- back-advanced (u, /\, o)
- back (u:, o:)
2. according to the vertical movement of the tongue:
- close/high (i:, i, u:, u)
- mid (e, schwa-vowel, з:)
- open/low (æ, a:, /\, o:, o)
3. according to the position of lips:
- rounded/labialized (o, o:, u, u:)
- unrounded/unlabialized (all the rest)
4. according to the degree of muscular tension:
- tense (all long vowels)
- lax (all short vowels)
5. according to the force of articulation at the end of the vowel:
- free - weakens at the end (long monophthongs, diphthongs, unstressed short vowels)
- checked - no weakening, are pronounced abruptly, are followed by a consonant (stressed short vowels)
6. according to the stability of articulation:
- monophthongs
- diphthongs
- triphthongs
- diphthongized (i:, u:)
7. according to the length/duration:
- long
- short
CLASSIFICATION OF CONSONANTS:
1. according to the type of obstruction and the manner of production of noise:
- occlusives (stops/plosives - p, b, k, g, t, d; nasal sonorants - m, n, nasal n)
- constrictives (fricatives - f, v, s, z, ш, ж, dental; oral sonorants - l, j, r, w)
- occlusive-constrictives/affricates (дж, ч)
2. according to the active speech organ which causes an obstruction:
- labial (bilabial - b, p, m, w; labio-dental - f, v)
- lingual (backlingual - k, g, nasal n; mediolingual - j; forelingual - t, d, s, z, n, dental, r)
- pharyngeal/glottal (h)
3. according to the place of obstruction:
- dental
- alveolar (t, d, n, s, z, l)
- post-alveolar (r)
- palatal (j)
- palato-alveolar (ш, ж, ч, дж)
- velar (nasal n)
4. according to the presence/absence of voice:
- voiced
- voiceless
5. according to the force of articulation:
- fortis (all voiceless)
- lenis (all voiced)
6. according to the position of the soft palate:
- oral
- nasal
3. The phoneme as a linguistic unit. Its definition and functions
PHONEME - the smallest linguistically relevant unit of the sound structure of a given language which serves to distinguish 1 word from another. The phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.
1. The phoneme isa functional unit. In phonetics function is usually understood as the role of various units of the phonetic system in distinguishing 1 morpheme from another, one word from another or one utterance from another - DISTINCTIVE FUNCTION.
2. The phoneme is material, real and objective. That means it's realised in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The phonemes constitute the material form of morphemes - CONSTITUTIVE FUNCTION.
3. The phoneme performs the RECOGNITIVE FUNCTION because the use of the right allophones and other phonetic units facilitates normal recognition.
4. Manifestation of phonemes in speech. Phoneme and allophone
The British phonetician Daniel Jones said: "We think in phonemes and speak in allophones". So in speech all the phonemes are manifested in their allophones.
ALLOPHONES of a certain phoneme are speech sounds which are realizations of one and the same phoneme and which can't distinguish words.
Allophones can be:
1. POSITIONAL - are used in certain positions traditionally; can be dialectal or individual.
2. COMBINATORY - appear in the result of assimilations, adaptation, accomodation - 1 sound is influenced by another.
Allophones of the same phoneme, no matter how different their articulation may be, function as the same linguistic unit. Phonemes differentiate words like "tie" and "die" from each other, and to be able to hear and produce phonemic differences is a part of what it means to be a competent speaker of the language. Allophones, on the other hand, have no such function: they usually occur in different ostions in the word (i.e. in different environments) and hence can't be opposed to each other to make meaningful distinctions.
5. Methods of the identification of phonemes in a language
The 1st problem of phonological analysis is to establish the number and system of phonemes in the language. There are 2 methods of analysis:
1. DISTRIBUTIONAL METHOD - states that the sounds can be groups of phonemes (allophones of 1 phoneme occur only in different context because they can't perform distinctive function). It is purely formal method of identifying the phonemes of a language.
2. SEMANTIC METHOD - is based on the phonological rule that a phoneme can distinguish words (the meaning or the form) when it is opposed to another phoneme in identical phonetic contexts (so-called minimal pairs).
6. The distinctive and non-distinctive features of English vowels
Vowels have 2 main characteristics: length and quality. Quality is the distinctive feature of a vowel, regardless of the position of the vowel. It components:
1. stability of articulation (monophthongs, diphthongs, triphthongs, diphthongized vowels)
2. the position of the tongue (horizontal and vertical movement of the tongue, lip rounding)
Other components are:
1) lip position
2) tenseness
3) checkness
They are considered non-distinctive as they have no phonological value. Vowel LENGTH os also a non-distinctive feature. It is dependent on the phonetic context, in the particular on the following consonant. It is the so-called "positional length". Vowels are the longest in the open syllable, slightly shorter before a sonorant or a voiced consonant and they are the shortest before the voiceless consonant:
be [i:] - the longest
beed [i:d] - a bit shorter
beat [i:t] - much shorter
7. The distinctive and non-distinctive features of English consonants
Most phoneticians agree that distinctive features of English consonants are:
1. manner of articulation way in which the obstruction of the airstream is produced - Vasiliev's point of view (occlusives – 2 articulators form a complete closure which is suddenly released, constrictives – the 2 articulators come close together forming a stricture, affricates)
2. place of articulation – the location in the vocal tract where a particular speech sound is produced (labial:bilabial/labio-dental, lingual:dental/interdental/alveolar/palato-alveolar/post-alveolar, glottal)
3. degree of noise - Sokolova's point of view (noise, sonorants)
The following characteristics are not important from the phonological point of view but still very important for the articulation of sounds:
1) palatalization – softening of the consonants due to the rising of the back of the tongue to the hard palate
2) aspiration – puff of air following the release of a plosive
3) nasalization- pronounce or utter (a speech sound) with the breath resonating in the nose
8. Problems of the phonemic inventory of English vowels
The 1st problem of the phonological analysis is to establish phonemes in a language. There are some difficulties in English:
1. IF THERE IS A SCHWA-VOWEL PHONEME? Though the schwa-vowel can be opposed only to weakened vowel phonemes, which are partially reduced due to their position in unstressed syllables, it can form phonological oppositions with the number of other phonemes and can distinguish words (accept-except, solar-solo).
2. IF DIPHTHONGS AND TRIPHTHONGS ARE MONOPHONEMIC OR BIPHONEMIC CLUSTERS? Trubetzkoy worked out a number of rules which help to determine whether a sound of a complex nature is monophonemic: 1) a phoneme is indivisible, as no syllable division can occur within a phoneme; 2) a phoneme is produced by 1 articulatory effort; 3) the duration of a phoneme should not exceed that of other phonemes in the language => 1. The syllabis and articulatory indivisibility of diphthongs and their duration of English historically vowels, clearly determine their monophonemic character. 2. triphthongs [aue, aie] are not produced by a single articulatory effort, as there is an increase in the force of articulation and intensity for the 1st and the last element. The syllabic division generally occurs in between the diphthong and the schwa-vowel. So they are regarded as biphonemic clusters.
In such a way it has been established that in RP there are 20 vowel phonemes (12 monophthongs, 8 diphthongs).
9. Problems of the phonemic inventory of English consonants
The 1st problem of the phonological analysis is to establish phonemes in a language. There are some difficulties in English:
1. IF [J] AND [W] ARE ALLOPHONES OF [I] AND [U] OR THEY ARE SEPARATE PHONEMES? Some linguists treat them as allophones on account of their weakness and unstable articulatory features. Others treat them as phonemes, because, as they say, [j] and [w] can form phonological oppositions with each other and with other phonemes (yell-well, yet-met); moreover, they occur in phonetic positions that are generally occupied by consonant phonemes, consequently, they cannot be considered to be allophones of vowel phonemes.
2. IF THE SOUNDS [Ч], [дЖ], [TR], [DR], [TS], [DZ] ARE MONOPHONEMIC? Trubetzkoy worked out a number of rules which help to determine whether a sound of a complex nature is monophonemic: 1) a phoneme is indivisible, as no syllable division can occur within a phoneme; 2) a phoneme is produced by 1 articulatory effort; 3) the duration of a phoneme should not exceed that of other phonemes in the language => 1. acoustic and physiologic analysis proved that the sounds [ч] and [дж] are produced by 1 articulatory effort, and their duration doesn't exceed the duration of either [t] or [ш], or [d]. Besides, no syllabic division occurs within the sounds. So they are monophonemic. 2. [ts] and [dz] are obviously biphonemic combinations, because their duration exceeds the average duration of either [t], [d], [s] or [z]. 3. some linguists consider [tr] and [dr] as affricates as they are closely linked in the pronunciation of Englishmen. But most phoneticians regard them as biphonemic clusters.
10. Types of phonetic transcription
TRANSCRIPTION - a visual system of notation of speech sounds; a set of symbols representing speech sounds; phonetic alphabet. The 1st attempt to use transcription - the 16th century. In 1904 the modern transcription was accepted by International Phonetic Association (based on Latin alphabet, is universal).
There are 2 types of transcription:
1. PHONEMIC/LINGUISTICALLY BROAD - all the phonemes of the language are marked with one symbol.
2. PHONETIC/ALLOPHONIC/LINGUISTICALLY NARROW - 1 symbol per 1 allophone of the phoneme (separate symbols for voiced and devoiced consonants, light and dark "l", syllabic sonorants, etc.).
The phonemic (1) transcription has an advantage over the phonetic one (2) because it is easier, quicker, more convenient to write.
11. The syllable as a phonetic, phonological unit. The functions of the syllable. Structural peculiarities of the English syllable
When we divide our speech into the smallest units, we divide it into syllables. SYLLABLE - 1 articulatory effort, the smallest perceptable unit; a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds.
Functions:
1. CONSTITUTIVE - a syllable is able to be a part of a word itself; the syllables form the language units of greater magnitude - words, morphemes, utterances.
2. DISTINCTIVE - a syllable is able to differentiate words and word-forms: a name - an aim, a nice house - an ice house.
Structural peculiarities:
1) many syllables have 1 or more consonants preceding the nucleus; these make up the syllable ONSET.
2) many syllables have 1 or more consonants following the nucleus; they make up the syllable CODA.
3) the combination of nucleus and coda has a special significance, making up the rhyming property of a syllable.
12. Theories of syllable formation and syllable division
1. THE MOST ANCIENT ONE: there are as many syllables in the word as there are vowels.
2. EXPIRATORY/CHESTPULSE/PRESSURE THEORY (American psychologist R.H. Stetson): there are as many syllables in the word as there are expires/chestpulses.
3. SONORITY THEORY (Danish phonetician O. Jesperson): there are as many syllables in the word as there are peaks of prominence/sonority. O. Jesperson proved that the least sonorous sounds are those for which the mouth is closed (the most sonorous: open vowels - mid open vowels - close vowels - semi-vowels - sonorants - voiced fricatives - voiced stops - voiceless fricatives - voiceless stops: the least sonorous)
4. THEORY OF MUSCULAR TENSION (L. Sherba): the centre of a syllable is a syllable-forming phoneme and the sounds preceding and following it make an arc of tension. 3 types of consonants: 1. initially strong: beginning - strong, ending - weak (time, see); 2. finally strong: ending - strong, beginning - weak (sad, pet); 3. double-peaked: combination of 2 similar sounds, beginning and ending - energetic, middle - weak (good-day, pen-knife). This theory helps to understand when we pronounce "a name" and "an aim".
5. LOUDNESS THEORY (Zhinkin - Moscow school): every phoneme possesses a specific loudness; a syllable is a peak of loudness. Loudness shouldn't be confused with sonority (loudness - amplitude of sound waves, sonority - degree of noise).
6. ACOUSTIC THEORY: peak of syllable vowel or sonorant has more prominence than consonant.
13. The emergence of a pronunciation standard. Received Pronunciation (RP). Present-day situation
There is a wide range of pronunciation varieties of the English language. These varieties reflect the social class the speaker belongs to, the geographical region he comes from, and they also convey stylistic connotations of speech.
Every national variant of the English language has an orthoepic norm of its own: RP or Southern English for BrE, General American for AmE, the Australian Standard Pronunciation for AustrE. It is generally considered that the orthoepic norm of BrE is RP. Received Pronunciation was accepted as a phonetic norm of English about a century ago. It is mainly based on the Southern English regional type of pronunciation, but has developed its own features which have given it a non-regional character, i.e. there is no region in Britain to which it is native. RP is spoken all over Britain by a comparatively small number of Englishmen who have had the most privileged education in the country - public school education. RP is actually a social standard pronunciation of English. It is often referred to as the prestige accent.
14. National and regional variants of English pronunciation
There exist numerous varieties of pronunciation in any language, in English as well. The pronunciation of almost every locality in the British Isles has peculiar features that distinguish it from the pronunciation of other localities. The varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of of people and used only in certain localities are called DIALECTS.
1. NORTHERN DIALECT (northern part of England)
- [u] instead of [/\] (cup, love, much)
- [o:] instead of [ou] (go, home)
- [e] or [з:] instead of [ei] (may, say, take)
2. SCOTTISH DIALECT
- [ir], [er], [/\r] instead of [з:] (bird, heard)
- [u] instead of [ou] (down)
- no distinguishing between [æ] and [a:] (bad, path, dance, half)
3. COCKNEY (less educated classes of people, part of London)
- [ai] instead of [ei] (today, late)
- [з:] instead of [æ] (bag)
- [h] doesn't occur, only in stressed position (think of (h)im, but History)
- [f, v, d] instead of dental consonants (thin [f], this [d])
- glottal stop instead of [p, t, k] and between vowels (back door [bæ? do:]
Other well-known dialects in Britain:
1) Geordie (Newcastle-on-Tyne)
2) Scouse (Liverpool)
3) Cornish (Cornwall)
etc.
15. American English pronunciation. Peculiarities of General American pronunciation compared to British English
AmE, which is the variant of English, has developed its own peculiarities in vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation. It embraces a wide range of pronunciation varieties. The most widely used regional types of American pronunciation are the Eastern, the Southern and the General American types.
The GA pronunciation is usually referred to as the standard pronunciation of AmE, though it is often debated whether there is a standard pronunciation in the USA. Nevertheless, it is the GA that has the greatest "acceptability", if not prestige, in the United States.
Peculiarities:
- [l] is always dark (film - look)
- [ш] is voiced in words like "excursion, version, Asia"
- [h] is often dropped in weak syllables (I saw (h)im)
- [j] is omitted before [u] (student, duty)
- glottal stop is used instead of [t] before sonorants and semi-vowels (cert[?]ainly, that[?] one)
- no differentiation in length of vowels (all vowels are long)
- [æ] is used instead of [a:] in words which do not contain [r] in spelling (path, glass, dance)
16. The syllable as a prosodic unit. Word stress, its nature and functions. Linguistically relevant types of word stress
The SYLLABLE is widely recognized to be the smallest prosodic unit. It has no meaning of its own, but it is significant for constituting hierarchically higher prosodic units. Prosodic features of the syllable (tone, stress, duration) depend on its position and function in the rhythmic unit and in the utterance. A rhythmic unit is either 1 stressed syllable or a stressed syllable with a number of unstressed ones grouped around it. The stressed syllable is the nucleus of the rhythmic unit. There are as many rhythmic units in an utterance as there are stressed syllables in it. The unstressed syllables are called CLITICS. Those preceding the stressed syllable - PROCLITICS, those following it - ENCLITICS.
WORD-STRESS can be defined as the singling out 1 or more syllables in a word which is accomplished by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of vowels.
Types of word-stress:
1. TONIC STRESS - refers to the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in an intonation unit.
2. EMPHATIC STRESS - if you decide to emphasize sth, you can change the stress from the principal noun to another content word such as an adjective or an intensifier.
3. CONTRASTIVE STRESS - is used to point out the difference between one object and another; tends to be used with determiners like "this, that, these, those".
4. NEW INFORMATION STRESS - when asked a question, the requested information is stressed more strongly (the rule of theme and rheme).
Degrees of word-stress:
1) primary
2) secondary
3) tertiary
4) weak
Functions of word-stress:
1. CONSTITUTIVE - unites syllables into words
2. DISTINCTIVE - helps to differentiate the meanings of words or their forms
3. IDENTIFICATORY - helps to identify a succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word.
17. The accentual tendencies in English. Basic word stress patterns in English
Accentual tendencies:
1. RECESSIVE - 1st and 2nd syllables in Germanic languages are usually stressed