Lecture 1
Theme 1. “Phonetics as a science”
Phonetics studies the sound system of the language:
 phonemes
 word stress
 syllabic structure
 intonation
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics. Three sciences are studied one after another:
1. Phonetics
2. Lexicology
3. Grammar
In Russia Phonetics is divided into 2 subsciences:
 practical Phonetics
 theory of Phonetics
Theme 2: “The phoneme”
The phoneme can be studied in two ways:
1. as independent sound [t] [d], e.g. bride [braid] – bright [brait]
2. as a variant of a sound, e.g. Let us – Let them
Sound “t” pronounced differently as two variants of one sound [t]. It’s called “allophone”. The
phoneme is a minimal linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of sounds, which can be opposed to
other phonemes.
The phoneme is a functional unit: it is used in speech to distinguish one word from another, e.g.
said – sad; sleeper – sleepy; bath – both. So the phoneme can have a distinguishing function. The
phoneme is sth material and real, e.g. the phoneme [d] is realized in speech in the form of its
allophones: door – dawn . It is its standard allophone which has all characteristics of the phoneme [d].
It is called “principle allophone”. In other cases the phoneme [d] can be pronounced differently. Such
allophones are called “subsidiary allophones”:
 deal – day – did
[d] is slightly palatalized
 bedtime – bad pain –good dog
[d] is pronounced without any plosion
 sudden – admit – couldn’t
[d] is pronounced with nasal plosion
Theme 3: “Transcription”
Transcription is a set of symbols representing speech sounds. Transcription which is usually
used is called “phonemic transcription”. Transcription which shows the differences between
allophones is called “allophonic transcription”.
The phonemic transcription is used for practical purposes, the allophonic transcription is used by
linguists:
[p] [t] [k] – phonemic transcription
[ph] [th] [kh] – allophonic transcription
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Theme 4: “The system of English phonemes”
There are two main classes traditionally distinguished by phoneticians of any language. They
are called consonants and vowels. Consonants are pronounced with noise and voice combined, vowels
are pronounced with voice only. The difference is in different work of organs of speech. In the case of
vowels no obstruction is made. In the case of consonants different obstructions are made. So
consonants are characterized by the so-called close articulation (the blockage of can be complete,
partial and intermittent). The blockage is made by organs of speech so consonants are always
characterized by noise.
4.1 Consonants
On the articulatory level every consonant can be characterized by 2 facts:
1) in what articulatory position are organs of speech while pronouncing this consonant;
2) where in the mouth this consonant is formed.
Also a lot of other factors can influence the pronunciation of this consonant, for example:
 by what organ of speech the obstruction is made;
 in what position are “vocal cords” (голосовые связки);
 with what power this consonant is pronounced and so on …
All consonants can be classified in different ways.
1. Classification of Vassilyev
There are 2 main factors according to which all consonants can be classified:
1) the type of obstruction
2) the manner of production of noise
There are 2 classes of consonants:
1) occlusive (смычные), in the production of which a complete obstruction is made;
2) constrictive (щелевые), in the production of which an incomplete obstruction is made.
смычной
tea
seed
pull
boat
щелевой
sea
seas
full
vote
Each of these 2 classes is subdivided into noise consonant and sonorant. The factors of dividing these
sounds is prevailing of noise or tone (голоса) in characteristics of a sound. In their turn noise
consonants are divided into plosive (взрывные) [d] [tʃ] and affricates [ʤ] [ʧ].
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Consonants
constrictive
occlusive
sonorants
noise
plosives
sonorants
noise
medial
lateral
(срединный)
(боковой)
affricats
2. Classification of Sokolova and Tikhonov
The factor of their classification is the degree of noise. There are 2 classes of consonants:
 noise
 sonorants
Sonorants are the most debated consonants. The point is (факт в том) that they are pronounced
differently from all other consonants. There air passage (поток воздуха) between organs of speech is
very wide, much wider than in the production of other consonants. As a result we hear not noise but
tone so sonorants sound more like vowels than consonants. Some British phoneticians refer them to the
class of semivowels [w] [j] [r]. Soviet and Russian phoneticians think that these are consonants.
Consonants
sonorants
noise
occlusive
occlusiveconstrictive
(смычно-щелевой)
costrictive
occlusive
constrictuve
medial
lateral
Resume: there are 2 factors that are most important in classification of sounds
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 degree of noise
 manner of articulation
The place of articulation is another very important characteristic of English consonants. According to
it all English consonant can be classified into:
 labial (губные)
 lingual (смычные)
 glottal (гортанные)
Labial can be subdivided into:
 bilabial
 labio-dental
Lingual are subdivided into:
 forelingual (передне-язычный)
 mediolingual
 backlingual
Consonants
labial
bilabial
glottal
lingual
labio-dental
forelingual
mediolingual
backlingual
Examples:
pan – tan (bilabial – forelingual)
why – lie (bilabial – forelingual)
weil – yale (bilabial – mediolingual)
pick – kick (bilabial – backlingual)
less – yes (forelingual – mediolingual)
day – gay (forelingual – backlingual)
sigh – high (forelingual – glottal)
feet – seat (labio-dental – forelingual)
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