2.2. Содержание курса по теоретической фонетике. Введение.
Предмет фонетики. Теоретическая и прикладная фонетика. Разделы
фонетики (физиологическая, акустическая фонетика, фонология, просодия).
Понятие звукового строя языка и его компонентов. Развитие фонетики как
науки.
Теория фонетики как один из аспектов теории языка на современном
этапе его развития. Связь фонетики с грамматикой, лексикологией и
стилистикой. Связь фонетики со смежными науками: акустикой, анатомией,
физиологией, психологией, логикой.
Общая и частная фонетика. Историческая (диахроническая) и
описательная (синхроническая) фонетика. Экспериментальная фонетика.
Теоретическое и практическое значение фонетики.
Звук речи как явление физиологическое, физическое и лингвистическое.
Образование и восприятие звуков речи. Речевой аппарат и его функции.
Основные понятия акустики в применении к звукам речи.
Роль слухо-произносительных навыков родного языка в усвоении
иноязычного произношения и методики его преподавания. Работа над
культурой речи при постановке английского произношения. Проблемы устноречевого воздействия.
Фонетика в свете положений теории информации. Необходимость
исследования психологических процессов речепроизводства (отправитель
речевого сигнала), процессов восприятия и переработки речи (получатель
речевого сигнала), акустической природы речевого сигнала.
Фонетика английского языка и фонология. Фонемный состав.
Фонологические оппозиции. Позиционно-комбинаторные изменения фонем.
Аллофоны.
Слог как фонолого-фонологическая единица,
фонетической структуре слова, синтагмы и фразы.
функция
слога
в
Ударение. Виды ударения и их функции в структуре высказывания в
английском и русском языках.
Интонация и просодия. Компоненты интонации и просодические
характеристики речи. Функции интонации. Просодика, изосодика,
просодемика.
Фоностилистика. Понятие типа и стиля произношения.
Новые тенденции в произношении. Константность и вариативность
языка: диалекты и варианты. Основные задачи при обучении английскому
произношению.
I. Методы исследования звукового строя
1
английского языка.
Понятие метода в науке. Методы лингвистического анализа.
Метод
прямого
наблюдения
(слухового
и
визуального).
Экспериментально-физиологические
методы.
Экспериментальноакустические методы. Семантический и дистрибутивный методы
фонологического исследования.
Применение методов субституции и трансформации в фонологическом
исследовании. Статистический метод в применении к фонетическому
исследованию.
Применение сопоставительного метода при синхроническом и
сравнительно-исторического метода при диахроническом фонетическом
исследовании.
Когнитивный, функционально-коммуникативный подход к изучению
языка.
П. Английское литературное произношение.
Понятие орфоэпической нормы. Проблема национальных и областных
вариантов литературного произношения английского языка. Важнейшие
черты различия между произношением литературного английского языка в
Великобритании, США и Австралии. Сдвиги в артикуляционных базах.
Преобладание Западного варианта в ОАП.
Британский вариант литературного произношения как учебная норма.
III. Устная и письменная формы речи.
Единство устной и письменной речи.
Понятие графемы. Соотношение между фонемным и графемным
составом слов в английском языке. Особенности английской графики.
Обозначение одной фонемы сочетанием букв и сочетания фонем одной
буквой. Звуковая многозначность английских букв и буквосочетаний.
Удвоение гласных и согласных букв в английском языке. Способы
графического обозначения долготы и краткости английских гласных фонем.
Чтение иноязычных слов.
Пунктуация как средство обозначения интонации.
Принципы английской орфографии.
2
Фонетическая транскрипция, ее основные виды и принципы. Способы
графического изображения интонации.
Значение фонетической транскрипции для практического и
теоретического изучения языка. Системы транскрипции, применяемые для
английского языка.
IV. Фонетическая база английского языка.
Понятие фонетической базы как совокупности артикуляционной и
ритмической баз. Артикуляционная база как совокупность артикуляционных
установок и движений, характерных для производства звуков и
звукосочетаний данного языка. Ритмическая база как совокупность
особенностей образования слогов, ритмических групп, синтагм и фраз.
Взаимосвязь фонетической базы и фонологической системы языка.
Английская фонетическая база в сравнении с фонетической базой русского
языка (звук, слог, слово, фраза).
V. Теория фонемы.
Сущность проблемы. Определение фонемы. Варианты фонемы
(аллофоны). Соотношение понятий «фонема – аллофон (звук речи)».
Фонологическая оппозиция. Дистинктивные редантные признаки. Методы
фонологического анализа. Основные направления в развитии английской
фонологии на современном этапе науки о языке.
VI. Фонемный состав английского языка.
Артикуляторно-акустическая характеристика фонем английского языка.
Физиологические и акустические различия между гласными
согласными. Форманты английских гласных и согласных фонем.
Принципы классификации гласных и согласных английского
(артикуляторно-акустический, фонологический принцип).
и
языка
Система фонологических оппозиций английских гласных и согласных
фонем.
Классификация английских гласных и согласных фонем. Проблема
фонологической самостоятельности нейтрального гласного и дифтонгов в
английском языке.
Проблема долготы гласных в английском языке. Место иноязычных
гласных в системе фонем английского языка. Проблема фонологической
самостоятельности согласного [/ч\] и аффрикат. Место иноязычных
согласных в системе фонем английского языка.
3
Основные, релевантные черты английских гласных и согласных фонем.
VII. Позиционно-комбинаторные изменения
фонем английского языка.
Изменения фонем английского языка в зависимости от особенностей
сочетания артикуляторных фаз и действия различных видов ассимиляции и
аккомодации (комбинаторные изменения). Изменения фонем в зависимости
от позиции фонем в ударном и безударном слоге, в начале, середине и конце
слога или слова и от характера смежных звуков (позиционные изменения).
Позиционно-комбинаторные изменения английских гласных фонем.
Потеря существенных признаков. Количественная, качественная и
нулевая редукция английских гласных фонем. Различный характер
редукции гласных фонем в английском и русском языках.
Позиционные изменения силы аспирации английских согласных.
Удвоение согласных. Особенности артикуляции английских взрывных
согласных перед взрывными, аффрикатами и сонантами.
Регрессивная, прогрессивная и взаимная ассимиляция согласных в
английском языке.
Регрессивная, прогрессивная и взаимная аккомодация английских
гласных и согласных.
Система позиционных и комбинаторных оттенков английских гласных и
согласных фонем.
VIII. Фонологические и нефонологические
чередования в английском языке.
Понятие чередования. Виды чередований.
Система фонологических (исторических) чередований в английском
языке.
Грамматикализированные и лексикализованные чередования.
Система нефонологических чередований.
Чередования позиционно-комбинаторные и традиционные.
Фонемная принадлежность чередующихся звуков речи.
IX. Слогообразование и слогоделение
в английском языке.
Слог как фонетико-фонетическая единица. Слог и морфема, их
соотношение в слове. Различные теории слога в применении к английскому
4
языку.
Слогообразующие и неслогообразующие звуки в английском языке.
Особенности слогоделения в английском языке в зависимости от вида отступа
гласных и характера сочетаний согласных.
Структура слога в английском языке. Возможные положения и сочетания
гласных и согласных в начале и конце слога.
Типы слогов по их началу и концу, по длительности и акцентному весу.
Просодические признаки слога. Фонологические функции различных
просодических признаков слога. Понятие пограничного сигнала и его виды в
английском языке.
Кульминационные и делиминационные признаки слога в английском
языке. Функция слога в фонетической структуре слова и фразы.
X. Словесное ударение в английском языке.
Понятие словесного ударения. Функция ударения в структуре слова.
Виды словесного ударения.
Характеристика английского словесного ударения с точки зрения его
восприятия и акустико-физиологической природы.
Место словесного ударения в английском языке. Градация словесного
ударения по силе в английском языке. Факторы, определяющие место и
различную степень ударений в английских словах. Основные акцентные
типы слов в английском языке.
Ударение в простых, производных и сложных словах. Ударение в
иноязычных словах.
Ударение и ритм. Стабильность и вариативность ударения в английском
и русском языках.
XI. Интонация английского языка.
Определение интонации. Просодические основы английской речи.
Модификации громкости, темпа, движений тона, ритм. Интонация как
явление акустико-физиологическое и лингвистическое. Функции интонации
(синтаксическая, модально-эмотивная, стилистическая и орфоэпическая) и ее
компоненты.
Высотный и силовой компоненты интонации, их характеристики и роль в
выражении синтаксических и эмоциональных значений и организации фразы
как единицы речи.
Элементы акцентно-мелодической структуры фразы и смысловой группы.
5
Высотный компонент как основное средство членения фразы на
смысловые группы, в выражении их семантического веса и степени
взаимосвязанности.
Понятие фразового ударения. Роль силового, высотного и темпорального
компонентов в образовании и восприятии фразового ударения.
Соотношение между фразовым и словесным ударением. Явления полной
и частичной дезакцентуации английских слов во фразе. Энклитики и
проклитики. Роль фразового ударения в членении речевого потока. Некоторые
особенности распределения ударений в английской фразе в зависимости от
коммуникативного типа фразы и порядка слов в ней. Виды фразового
ударения, функции и средства их выражения. Темпоральный компонент
английской интонации. Понятие и функции речевого темпа. Понятие
речевой паузы. Функции и типы пар. Понятие речевого ритма. Особенности
ритма английской речи. Фонетические средства реализации ритма
английской речи. Роль речевого ритма в английском языке.
Тембральный компонент английской интонации. Проблема физической
природы и функции фразового тембра.
Интонационные структуры как надсегментные фонологические
единицы языка (интонемы) и их дистинктивные признаки. Функции
интонации в организации структуры текста в современном английском
языке.
XII. Фоностилистика современного английского языка.
Предмет и задачи фоностилистики. Понятие стиля произношения. Стиль
произношения как возможный вариант произносительной нормы.
Влияние экстралингвистических факторов на выбор фонетических
средств речевого общения. Типология стилей произношения в современном
английском языке. Обучение ораторскому мастерству.
6
2.3.2. Тематический план лекционного курса.
№
п/п
Разделы
дисциплины
Изучаемые вопросы
1.
Введение. Предмет
фонетики. Связь
фонетики с
другими науками.
Компоненты звукового строя языка.
Теоретическая и прикладная фонетика.
Сегментная и сверхсегментная фонетика.
Связь фонетики с грамматикой, лексикологией и стилистикой. Связь фонетики со
смежными науками. Общая и частная
фонетика. Историческая (диахроническая)
и описательная (синхроническая)
фонетика. Теоретическое и практическое
значение фонетики.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Акустическое,
перцептивное и
артикуляционное
направления в
изучении звуков
речи.
Методы и средства акустического анализа
речи. Образование и восприятие звуков
речи. Устройство речевого аппарата и роль
органов речи в звукопроизводстве.
Артикуляционная база английского языка
в отличие от артикуляционной базы
русского языка.
Классификация Система английского консонантизма в
английских
сопоставлении с русским: по способу
согласных звуков. образования шума и типу преграды; по
активному органу речи и месту
образования; по работе голосовых связок и
силе артикуляции; по положению мягкого
нёба.
Классификация Система кардинальных гласных. Система
английских
английского вокализма в сопоставлении с
гласных звуков. русским: по стабильности артикуляции; по
положению языка; по положению губ; по
долготе звучания; по степени напряжения
органов речи; по характеру окончания.
Функциональный
аспект звуков
речи. Фонема и
аллофон.
Учение о фонеме. Фонемный состав
английского языка. Типы фонологических
оппозиций. Соотношение понятий
«фонема – аллофон». Основные и
факультативные (свободные) варианты
фонемы. Дистинктивные и недистинктивные признаки фонемы. Методы фонологического анализа.
Кол-во Сроки
часов выполнения
1
01.09 –
07.09
2
01.09 –
07.09
2
08.09 –
14.09
2
15.09 –
21.09
2
22.09 –
28.09
7
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Коартикуляция
в английском
языке.
Основные коартикуляционные тенденции
в английском языке (ассимиляция,
аккомодация, элизия). Коартикуляция
согласных звуков: по работе голосовых
связок; по месту образования; по способу
образования шума (потеря взрыва,
неполный взрыв, носовой взрыв, боковой
взрыв); по положению губ.
Слогообразование Различные теории слогообразования в
и слогоделение. английском языке. Слогообразующие и
неслогообразующие звуки. Особенности
слогоделения в английском языке в
зависимости от вида отступа гласных и
характера сочетаний согласных.
Структура слога в английском языке.
Типы слогов по их началу и концу, по
длительности и акцентному весу.
Функция слога в фонетической
структуре слова и фразы.
Словесное
ударение.
Функция ударения в структуре слова.
Типы словесного ударения. Место
словесного ударения в английском
языке. Градация словесного ударения
по силе. Факторы, определяющие
место и различную степень ударений в
английских словах (рецессивный,
ритмический, удерживающий, семантический). Перераспределение (сдвиг)
ударений. Основные акцентные типы
слов в английском языке.
Сильные и
слабые формы.
Безударный
вокализм.
Категории слов, не выделяемые фразовым
ударением в английском языке. Степени
редукции безударных гласных: количественная, качественная и нулевая. Слова, не
имеющие редуцированных форм.
Просодические основы английской
речи. Компоненты интонации
(мелодика, ритмика, фразовое ударение,
тембр, временные характеристики: темп
и паузация). Интонация эмфатической и
неэмфатической речи. Функции
интонации. Понятие интонационной, или
смысловой, группы (синтагмы).
Графическое изображение интонации
(тонограмма). Элементы акцентномелодической структуры фразы и
смысловой группы. Виды интонационных шкал и завершений.
Интонация.
2
29.10 –
05.10
2
06.10 –
12.10
1
13.10 –
19.10
1
13.10 –
19.10
2
20.10 –
26.10
8
11.
Территориальная
и социальная
вариативность
английского
произношения.
Национальные, региональные и
территориальные типы английского
произношения. Британские типы
произношения (RP, Estuary English,
Cockney) и их фонетические особенности. Социальная и ситуативная
вариативность британского произношения. Диалекты в английском языке.
Фонетические особенности американского варианта английского языка (GA).
Итого:
2
27.10 –
02.11
19
2.3.3. Тематический план
практических (семинарских) занятий.
№
п/п
Разделы
дисциплины
1.
Акустическое,
перцептивное и
артикуляционное
направления в
изучении звуков
речи.
2.
3.
Изучаемые вопросы
The four mechanisms necessary to produce
speech (power, vibrator, resonator,
obstructor) and their constituents.
Articulatory differences between vowels,
consonants and sonorants. Differences in
the articulation bases of the English and
Russian consonants and their peculiarities.
Differences
in the of
articulation
bases of
Классификация The
classification
consonants:
theEnglish
and
Russian
vowels
and their
английских
1) according to the type of obstruction
and
peculiarities.
согласных звуков. the
manner of the production of noise;
2) according to the active speech organs
and the place of obstruction;
3) according to the work of the vocal folds
and the force of exhalation;
4) according to the position of the soft
palate.
Классификация The classification of vowels:
английских
1) according to the stability of articulation;
гласных звуков. 2) according to the position of the bulk of
the tongue;
3) according to the position of the lips;
4) according to the length;
5) according to the degree of tenseness and
the character of the end.
Кол-во Сроки
часов выполнения
2
03.11 –
09.11
2
10.11 –
16.11
2
17.11 –
23.11
9
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Функциональный
аспект звуков
речи. Фонема и
аллофон.
The phoneme theory. The method of
minimal pairs. Minimal sets. Principal and
subsidiary allophones. Relevant and
irrelevant characteristic features of
phonemes. Single, double and multiple
oppositions.
Коартикуляция
в английском
языке.
The three stages in the articulation of a
sound. The ways of joining sounds
(merging of stages, interpenetration of
stages). The junctions of consonants (loss
of plosion, incomplete plosion, nasal
plosion, lateral plosion). Progressive,
regressive and double (reciprocal)
assimilation. Assimilation affecting the
work of the vocal folds; the active organ of
speech; the manner of noise production;
both: the place of articulation and the
manner of noise production.
Accommodation. Historical and
contemporary elision.
Слогообразование Different points of view on syllable
и слогоделение. formation in English. The scale of sonority.
The structural patterns of syllables in
English as compared with the syllabic
structure in Russian. The rules of syllable
division in English. Functional
characteristics of the syllable (constitutive,
distinctive and identificatory function).
Словесное
ударение.
Different types of word-stress. The degree
of prominence of the word-stress (primary,
secondary and tertiary stress). Full vowels
in unaccented syllables. The tendencies that
influence the position of the word-stress in
English (recessive, rhythmical, retentive,
semantic). Stress-shift in English. The most
common types of English stress patterns.
Сильные и
слабые формы.
Безударный
вокализм.
Essential weak and contracted forms in
English. Degrees of reduction of the
unstressed vowels in English (qualitative,
quantitative, zero). The role of the neutral
vowel in the system of the unstressed
vocalism in English. The peculiar features
of the unstressed vocalism in English and in
Russian.
2
24.11 –
30.11
2
01.12 –
07.12
2
08.12 –
14.12
2
15.12 –
21.12
1
15.12 –
21.12
10
9.
10.
Интонация.
Территориальная
и социальная
вариативность
английского
произношения.
Components of intonation: melody, rhythm,
sentence stress, temporal characteristics
(duration, tempo, pausation), timbre.
The main functions of intonation
(communicative and expressive).
A sense-group and its parts (prehead,
scale, nucleus, tail).
Different types of scales (gradually
descending stepping scale; gradually
descending broken stepping scale;
gradually ascending stepping scale; low
level scale; high level scale; sliding scale;
scandent scale).
Different types of endings (low fall; low
rise; mid (unemphatic high) rise; highnarrow rise; high-wide rise; high-narrow
fall; high-wide fall; rise-fall; fall-rise; risefall-rise; mid level ending).
The ways of emphasizing a word, a group
of words and a sense-group.
Stylistic use of intonation.
British types of pronunciation (RP, Estuary
English, Cockney) and their phonetic
peculiarities. Social and situational
variation in British pronunciation. The main
tendencies in modern British pronunciation.
English dialects. The main phonetic
peculiarities of American English (GA).
Итого:
2
22.12 –
28.12
2
29.12 –
04.01
19
3.3. Примерный список тем
по теоретической фонетике
для самостоятельной работы студентов.
Темы для
самостоятельного
изучения
Изучаемые
вопросы
1. Методы
исследования
звукового
строя английского языка.
Методы лингвистического анализа. Экспериментально-физиологические и
КолФормы
во
самосточасов ятельной
работы
2
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Методическое
обеспечение
Форма
отчетности
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
библиотеке
Колво
часов
для
контроля
преподавателем
2
11
2. Устная и
письменная
формы речи.
3. Фонологические и
нефонологические чередования в
английском
языке.
4. Фразовое
ударение в
английском
акустические
методы. Семантический и дистрибутивный
методы фонологического исследования. Методы
субституции и
трансформации.
Статистический
метод в применении к фонетическому исследованию. Сопоставительный и сравнительно-исторический методы.
Единство устной
и письменной
речи. Соотношение между
фонемным и
графемным
составом слов
в английском
языке. Особенности английской графики.
Чтение иноязычных слов. Принципы английской
орфографии.
Виды чередований. Система
фонологических
(исторических) и
нефонологических чередований. Грамматикализированные и
лексикализованные, позиционнокомбинаторные и
традиционные
чередования.
Фонемная принадлежность
чередующихся
звуков речи.
Роль силового,
высотного и
темпорального
МГОУ
2
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
библиотеке
МГОУ
2
2
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
библиотеке
МГОУ
2
2
Подбор
литера-
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
2
12
языке.
5. Ритмическая организация речи.
6. Мелодика
как основной
компонент
интонации.
7. Интонация
текста.
8. Фонетические стили
речи.
компонентов в
образовании и
восприятии фразового ударения.
Соотношение
между фразовым
и словесным
ударением. Явления полной и
частичной дезакцентуации слов
во фразе. Энклитики и проклитики. Роль фразового ударения в
членении речевого потока.
Особенности
распределения
ударений в
английской
фразе. Функции
фразового
ударения.
Особенности
ритма английской речи. Фонетические средства реализации
ритма английской речи. Роль
речевого ритма.
Основные подходы к описанию
структуры и единиц мелодики.
Форма и значение компонентов
мелодического
контура. Функции мелодики.
Текст и его единицы. Роль интонации в формировании текста.
Стиль произношения как
возможный
вариант произносительной
нормы. Влияние
туры по
теме
библиотеке
МГОУ
2
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
библиотеке
МГОУ
2
2
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
библиотеке
МГОУ
2
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Учебные
пособия в Доклад
библиотеке
МГОУ
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
библиотеке
МГОУ
1
2
1
2
13
экстралингвистических факторов
на выбор фонетических средств
речевого общения. Типология
стилей произношения в современном английском языке.
9. Фонетиче- Фонетическая
ская культура культура официречи.
альной и неофициальной речи.
Фонетическая
культура межличностного
общения и
публичной речи.
10. Современ- Фонематические
ные тендени нефонематичеции британские изменения в
ского произпроизношении
ношения
английских
(RP).
гласных звуков.
Изменения в
произношении
английских
согласных
звуков. Изменения мест словесных ударений.
Итого:
2
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
библиотеке
МГОУ
2
2
Подбор
литературы по
теме
Учебные Доклад
пособия в
библиотеке
МГОУ
2
19
19
Перечень теоретических вопросов к экзамену.
I. The Subject Matter of Phonetics. The Aim and Significance of Phonetics.
II. The Way it is Connected with Other Branches of Linguistics and Other
Sciences.
III. Components of the Phonetic System of English.
IV. The Organs of Speech and their Functions.
V. The Classification of Speech Sounds. The Three Aspects of a Speech
Sound.
VI. Articulatory and Physiological Aspect of Speech Sounds:
1. Articulatory and Physiological Classification of English Consonants.
14
Differences in the Articulation Bases of the English and Russian
Consonants and their Peculiarities.
2. Articulatory and Physiological Classification of English Vowels.
Differences in the Articulation Bases of the English and Russian
Vowels and their Peculiarities.
VII. Functional Aspect of Speech Sounds. (Phoneme Theory.)
English Consonants as Units of the Phonological System.
English Vowels as Units of the Phonological System.
Consonant Phonemes. Description of Principal Variants:
1. Occlusive Noise Consonant Phonemes (Plosives).
2. Occlusive Nasal Sonorants.
3. Constrictive Noise Consonant Phonemes (Fricatives).
4. Constrictive Sonorants (Approximants).
5. Occlusive-Constrictive Noise Phonemes (Affricates).
6. Subsidiary Variants of English Consonant Phonemes.
Vowel Phonemes. Description of Principal Variants:
1. Monophthongs, or Simple Vowels.
2. Diphthongs, or Complex Vowels.
3. Diphthongoids.
VIII. Articulatory Transition of Vowel and Consonant Phonemes.
Assimilation. Accommodation. Elision.
IX. Syllable.
Theories of Syllable Formation and Syllable Division.
Functional Characteristics of the Syllable.
X. Word Stress. Sentence Stress.
XI. Strong and Weak Forms.
XII. The Accentual Structure of English.
XIII. The Syllabic Structure of English.
XIV. Intonation.
The Significance of Intonation. Components of Intonation:
15
1. Melody.
2. Sentence Stress, or Accent.
3. Rhythm and Tempo.
4. Pausation and Timbre.
Stylistic Use of Intonation.
Intonation Patterns.
XV. Received Pronunciation of Modern British English and the Main
Changes in it.
XVI. English Dialects:
1. The Cockney Dialect.
2. The Southern Dialect.
3. The Northern Dialect.
4. The Scotch Dialects.
XVII. American English.
16
Лекции
The subject-matter of phonetics. Its’s connection with linguistic and
non-linguistic sciences. Significance and subdivision of phonetics.
Phonetics is an independent branch of linguistics and it deals with speech
sounds, or the sound system of the language. In Greek phōnētikόs means
“pertaining to voice and sound”. Phonetics is concerned with the human noices by
which the thought is actualised or given audible shape. Thus, it’s mainly concerned
with the expression level. However, phonetics is obliged to take into consideration
the content level as well, because only meaningful sound sequences are regarded as
speech. The phonetic system of language consists of the following four
components: speech sounds, the syllabic structure of words, word stress and
intonation (prosody).
Phonetics, as one of the foundamental branches of linguistics, claims to be of
equal importance with grammar and lexicology, because neither linguistic theory
nor linguistic practice can do without phonetics, and no language description is
complete without phonetics.
Phonetics is connected with non-linguistic sciences: acoustics (consequently,
with physics and mathematics): physiology, anatomy and anthropology; psycology
and logic (the acquisition of language by children, the extent to which language
mediates or structures out thinking, influences and is influenced by such things as
memory), social scinces (a cardinal principle underlying the whole linguistic
approach is that language is not an isolated phenomenon, but is a part of society
and ourselves). Sociophonetics is an example of interdisciplinary overlap. Then it’s
connected withcommunication theory and statistics. Plus, historical phonetics is
connected with general history of the people whose language is studied, and with
archaeology.
Phonetics is connected with linguistic sciences: grammar, lexicology,
stylistics. The connection of phonetics with grammar, lexicology and stylistics is
exercised first of sll via orthography, which in its turn is closely connected with
phonetics (phonetics formulates the rules of pronounciation for separate sounds
and sound combinations, and the rules of reading are based on the relation of
sounds to orthography). The Russian and English orthography differ in the number
of letters for one single sound. In the Russian writing system one letter corresponds
to one sound (there are special letters in the alphabet, which represent й plus
vowels А,У,Е,О; letter combinations for one sound are exceptions – сч, зч, жж –
счастье, извозчик, дрожжи). English prthography widely uses letter combinations
to represent vowels and consonants.
With grammar phonetics is connected through the system of rules of reading:
it helps to pronounce correctly the singular and plural forms of nouns, the past
tense forms and past participles of English regular verbs. E.g.
17
/s/ is pronounced after voiceless consonants (books);
/z/ - after voiced cocsonants (bags);
/z/ - after sibilants (boxes);
/d/ is pronounced after voiced consonants ( beg – begged), /t/ - after voiceless
consonants (wish – wished);
/ıd/ - following /t/ or /d/ (waited, folded).
Some adgectives are pronounced with /ıd/ (crooked, naked, ragged).
One of the most important phonetic phenomenon – sound interchange – is
anther manifestation of the connection of phonetics with grammar. E.g.
in the category of number the interchange of /f-v/, /s-z/, /ө-ð/ helps to
differentiate singular and plural forms of such nouns as calf-calves, leaf-leaves,
house-houses;
vowel interchange helps to distinguish the singular and the plural of such
words as basis-bases, crisis-crises, analysis-analyses /ıs-i:z/ and also man-men,
foot-feet, goose-geese, mouse-mice;
vowel interchange is connected with the tense forms of irregular verbs singsang, write-wrote-written;
vowel interchange can help to distinguish between nouns and verbs (bathbathe), adjectives and nouns (hot-heet), verbs and adjectives (moderate /eı/ moderate /ı/), nouns and adjectives (type-typical);
vowel interchange can be observed in onomatopoeic compounds (jigglejoggle толчок, покачивание; flip-flop легкий удар, шлепок; chip-chop рубить
топором, штыковать; flap-flop шлепать, шлепнуть; hip-hop подпрыгивать
приходьбе);
consonants can interchange in different parts of speech, for example in nouns
and verbs (extent-extend /t-d/, mouth-mouth /ө-ð/, relief-relieve /f-v/).
Phonetics is also connected with grammar through its intonation component.
E.g.
sometimes intonation compensates for the fixed word-order of English
sentences and singles out predication (`He came home. – Not Mary or John. He
`came home. – So you can see him now. He came `home. – He is at home, and you
said he was going to the club.);
in affirmative sentences the rising nuclear tone may serve to show that it’s a
question (He 'came ֻhome. He 'came ¸home?);
pausation may perform a differentiatory function in a sentence;
Phonetics is also connected with lexicology:
it’s due to presence of stress in the right place that we can distinguish certain
nouns from verbs (formed by conversion):
'object (предмет) - ob'ject (не одобрять);
homographs can be differenciated only due to pronounciation, because they
are identical in spelling:
lead /li:d/ руководство – lead /led/ свинец
wind /wınd/ ветер – wind /waınd/ виток.
Phonetics is connected with stylistics. First of all hrough intonation and its
components: speech melody, utterance stress, rhythm, pausation and voice tamber
18
which serve to distinguish between different attitudes on the part of the speaker
and to express emotion. It’s also connected with stylistics through repetition of
words, phrases or sounds (alliteration). Onomatopoeia, a combination of sounds
which imitate sounds produced in nature, is one more stylistic device serving as an
example of connection between phonetics and stylistics: tinkle, clink, chatter,
babble, chirp, crash, twitter.
Practical significance of phonetics is connected with teaching foreign
languages. It’s applied in methods of speech therapy and correction, teaching deafmutes, film dubbing, transliteration, radio and television.
Phonetics callaborates with a number of technologycal fields connected with
communication. Basic charasteristics of human speech are studied by phoneticians,
mathematicians and sound engineers, and machines recognizing, processing,
producing sound of speech or converting printed symbols into synthetic speech are
devised.
An understanding of phonetics is useful in the field of dialectology and
designing and improving of systems of writing and spelling.
Theoretical significance of phonetics is connected with the further
development of the synchronic study and description of the phonetic system of a
national language, the comparative analysis and description of differen languages
and correspondences between them, the diachronic description of successive
chanches in the phonetic system of a language or different languages.
Phonetics has the following subdivisions:
Practical, or normative phonetics studies the substance, the material form of
phonetic phenomena in relation to meaning.
Theoretical phonetics is mainly concerned with the functioning of phonetic
units in the language. It regards ponetic phenomena synchronycally without any
attention to the historical development of English.
General phonetics is distinguished from special (or applied) phonetics, or the
phonetics of individual languages. General phonetics studies all the soundproducing possibilities of the human speech apparatus and the ways thei are used
for the purpose of communication. The phonetics of a particular language studies
the phonetic system of this one given language and it’s based on general phonetics.
Special phonetics may be descriptive (synchronic) or historical (diachronic).
Descriptive phonetics studies the contemporary phonetic system of a particular
languge. Historical phonetics studies the evolution of a sound system of a
language; its aim is to trace and establish the succesive changes in the phonetic
system of a given language (or a language family) at different stages of its
development. Historical phonetics is a part of the history of language.
Closely connected with historical phonetics is comparative phoneticswhose
19
aims are to study the correlation between the speech sounds of kindred languages.
Segmental phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds (i.e.
“segments” of the speech). Segmental units are sounds of apeech – vowels and
consonants – which form the vocalic and cocsonantal systems.
Suprasegmental phonetics whose domain is the larger units of connected
speech: syllables, words, phrases and texts. Suprasegmental, or prosodic, units are
syllables, accentual (rhythmic) units, intonation groups, utterances – they from the
subsystem of pitch, stress, rhythm, tempo, pauses.
Aspects of phonetics.
Human speech is the result of a highly complecated series of events. Let us
consider the speech chain:
1
Speaker’s
brain
2
Speaker’s
vocal tract
Linguistic
Articulatory
(functional
phonetics
phonetics, or
phonology)
3
Transmission
of sounds
Trough air
Acoustic
phonetics
4
Listener’s ear
4
Listener’s
brain
Auditory
phonetics
Linguistic
(functional
phonetics, or
phonology)
The formation of the concept takes place in the brain of the speaker. This
stage may be called psychological. The message formed within the brain is
transmitted along the nervous system to the speech organs. This second stage is
physiological. The movements of the speech appratus disturb the air stream thus
producing sound waves. Consequently, this third stage is called physical, or
acoustic. Further, any communication requires a listener, as well as the speaker. So
the last stages are: the reception of the sound waves by the listener’s hearing
physiological apparatus, the transmission of the spoken message trough the
nervous system to the brain of the listener and the kinguistic interpretation of the
information conveyed.
Accordingly, phonetics has the following branches: 1)articulatory
(physiologycal) and perceptive (auditory, or prosodic), 2)acoustic, 3)functional
(linguistic) phonetics, or phonology.
Articulatory phonetics studies the articulatory aspects of speech. It’s the study
of the production of speech by the artuculatory and vocal tract of the speaker. The
investigation of speech sounds is done on the basis of a good knowledge of the
voice and sound producing mechanisms, their structure and work, that is –
physiology and psychology. Articulatory phonetics makes use of such instruments
as hand mirror, laryngoscope, artificial palate, graphical representations of sounds,
photographs and X-ray photographs, CD records, TV and computer classes.
20
Acoustic phonetics studies the way in which the air vibrates between the speaker’s
mouth and the listener’s ear. The study of the transmission of speech from the
speaker to the listener. The physical properties of the speech sounds are studied:
frequency and amplitude of the vibrations, produced by the vocal cords.
Auditory branche of phonetics investigates the hearing process, the sensation
of hearing which is brain activity. It’s the study of the reception and perception of
speech by the listener. Prosodic properties of sounds: quantity, or lengths, tamber,
intensity (which depends on the amplitude of the vibrations), pitch (determined by
the freguency of vibrations), stress and tempo are relevant here. Special laboratory
equipment helps to obtain the necessary data about prosodic features of the sounds.
A kymograph records qualitative variations of sounds in the form of kymographic
tracings. A spectograph produces sound spectograms wich help to list the
frequences of a given sound and its relative amplitudes. An oscillograph records
oscillograms of sound vibrations of any frequency. An intonograph measures: 1)
the fundamental tone of the vocal cords, 2) the average sound pressure, 3) the
duration or length of speech (pasation).
The phonologycal, or functional properties of phonemes, syllables, stress and
intonation are studied by means of special linguistic methods, which help to
interpret them as socially significant elements. Phonology is concerned with the
abstract, grammatical characterization of the sound system. In comparison with
phonetics, which studies all possible sounds that the human vocal apparatus can
make, phonology studies only the contrasts in sound which make differences of
meaning within language.
Components of the phonetic system of lanquage.
The phonetic system of language has four components.
The first, and the basic component of the phonetic structure of language is the
system of its segmental phonemes existing in the form of their allophones. The
phonemic component has three aspects, or manifestations:
- the system of phonemes as discrete isolated units;
- the distribution of the allophones of the phonemes;
- the methods of joining speech sounds together in words and at their
junctions, or the methods of effecting the VC, CV, CC and VV transitions.
The second component is the syllabic structure of words. It has two aspects,
which are inseparable from each other: syllable formation and syllable division.
The third component is the accentual structure of words as items of
vocabulary (i.e. as pronounced in isolation). 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.
The fourth component of phonetic system is the intonational structure of
utterances.
These four components of the phonetic system of language (phonemic,
syllabic, accentual and intonational) all constitute its pronounciation in the broad
sense of the term.
21
Methods of phonetic analysis
We distinguish between subjective, introspective methods of phonetic
investigation and objective methods.
The oldest, simplest and most readily available method is the method of direct
observation. This method consists in observing the movements and positions of
one's own or other people's organs of speech in pronouncing various speech
sounds, as well as in analyzing one's own kinaesthetic sensations during the
articulation of speech sound in comparing them with auditory impressions.
Objective methods involve the use of various instrumental techniques
(palatography, laryngoscopy, photography, cinematography, X-ray photography
and cinematography and electromyography, which is designed to observe and
study the nervous system and the neuromuscular activity). This type of
investigation together with direct observation is widely used in experimental
phonetics. The objective methods and the subjective ones are complementary and
not opposite to one another. Nowadays we may use the up-to-date complex set to
fix the articulatory parameters of speech - so called articulograph (a devise that
measures the movements of organs, associated with speech) – picture!!!.
Acoustic phonetics comes close to studying physics and the tools used in this
field enable the investigator to measure and analyze the movement of the air in the
terms of acoustics. This generally means introducing a microphone into the speech
chain, converting the air movement into corresponding electrical activity and
analyzing the result in terms of frequency of vibration and the amplitude of
vibration in relation to time. The spectra of speech sounds are investigated by
means of the apparatus called the sound spectrograph (picture!!! – a utility that
displays a frequency/amplitude graph of sound from the microphone ) . Pitch as a
component of intonation can be investigated by intonograph.
The acoustic aspect of speech sounds is investigated not only with the help of
sound-analyzing techniques, but also by means of speech-synthesizing devices.
Articulatory and physiological aspect of speech sounds.
To analyse a speech sound physiologycally and articulatorily some data on the
articulatory mechanism and its work should be introduced. Speech is impossible
without the following mechanisms:
The power mechanism
The vibrator mechanism
The resonator mechanism
The obstructor mechanism
The picture!!!
The power mechanism consists of the diaphragm, the lungs, the bronchi, the
windpipe (or trachea), the glottis, the larynx, the mouth cavity, and the nasal
cavity.
The vibrator mechanism (or the voice producing mechanism) consists of the
vocal cords. They have two horisontal folds of elastic tissue. They may be opened
or closed (completely or incompletely). The pitch of the voice is controlled mostly
22
by the tension of the vocal cords. Voice produced by the vocal cords vibration is
then modified by the shape and volume of the air passege. Two more sources
participate in the production of speech sounds: 1) the turbulent noise, which results
from some constriction in the flow of air, 2) the impulse wave, which is formed
when the complete obstruction of the flow of air in the mouth cavity is suddenly
broken. These sources of speech sounds may work separately or simultaneously.
For example: 1) the vocal cords produce vibrations in the articulation of vowel
sounds, 2) the turbulent noise helps to produce voiceless constrictive consonants,
such as /f, s, ∫/, 3) the impulse source helps to produce voiceless plosive
consonants, such as /p, t, k/. The Tow sources – vocal and turbulent participate in
the production of voiced constrictive consonants, such as /v, z, ‫ى‬/. The vocal and
impulse sources participate in the production of voiced plosive consonants /b, d, g//
The resonator mechanism consists of the pharynx, the larynx, the mouth
cavity, and the nasal cavity.
The obstructor mechanism consists of the tongue – picture!!! – blade with the
tip, front, back or dorsum – the lips, the teeth, the soft palate with the uvula, the
hard palate and the alveolar ridge.
The four mechanisms work simultaneously and that each sppech sound is the
result of the simultaneous work of all of them.
From the lungs the air goes along the bronchial tubes and then into the
trachea, at the top of which there is the larynx (a man’s larynx is bigger then that of
a woman and can be seen as a projecting lump) with the vocal cords. The vocal
cords are two elastic folds which can be kept apart of brought together. The
opening between them is called glottis – it’s when we breathe out. If the tense
vocal cords are brought together, the air stream forcing an opening makes them
vibrate and we hear some voice. If you pronouce a voiced Russian consonant /з/
you can feel the vibrations with your fingers. You won’t hear them if you
pronounce a voiceless sound /c/. The vocal cords vibrate about 130 times per
minute for a man’s voice and about 230 times per second for a woman’s.
Variations in speed (or frequency) of the vibration produce changes of pitch: the
higher the frequency the higher the pitch. Longer and larger vocal cords produce
slower vibrations – lower frequency and lower pitch. That’s why voices of men are
much deeper in pitch then those od women.
There’s one more state of the vocal cords: when they are brought close
together and then opened suddenly by the air stream. There comes a sort of
coughing noise, a kind of the click of the cords. This sound is called the glottal
stop.
The area above the glottis is called the supra-glottal vocal tract. On coming
out of the larynx the air stream passes through the pharynx. And the pharynx
extends to the soft palate, which directs the air stream either to the nasal cavity ot
to the mouth cavity – the two function as the principal resonators. The two cavities
are separated by the hard palate, the soft palate (or velum) and the uvula – the very
end of the soft palate. The soft palate can move. When we breathe through the nose
the soft palate is in its lowered position and is pressed agains the back of the
tongue – it’s called velar closure and it’s the position for the nasal sounds /m, n, ŋ/.
23
If you nip your nose you can’t pronounce these sounds. When the soft palate is
raised, the uvula forms a full contact with the back wall of the pharynx and the
anasal cavity is blocked – velic closure. The air stream goes trough the mouth
cavity – this is the most typical position of the soft palate for most of the sounds of
many languages. There are sounds having both velic and velar closures: /k, g/.
The soft palate is the furthest part of the palate from the teeth. Most of the
palate is hard and is fixed. It’s divided into two sections: the hard palate itself (the
highest part of the palate) and the teeth ridge, or alveolar ridge (the part
immediately behind the front upper teeth). This ridge is very important in English
as many consonants are formed with the tongue touching it or put close to it.
Then, the lower teeth are not very important in making speech sounds, while
the upper teeth take part in the production of many of them /f, v/.
And the most important organ of speech is the tongue. It is divided into four
sections. The part which lies opposite to the soft palate is called the back of the
tongue. The part facing the hard palate is called the front. The one lying under the
teeth ridge is called the blade and its extremity is known as the tip of the tongue.
By the central part of the tongue we mean the area where the front and back meet.
The edges of the tongue are called the rims. The tongue may lie flat or move in the
horizontal or vertical directions. Plus it can change its shape (the sides sometimes
curve up forming a groove). The ability of the etongue to move diminishes towards
the its back.
The last but not the least: the lips. They take up various positions: brought
firmly together or kept apart neutral, or rounded, or protruded forward.
So, all the above mentioned organs of speech are classified into active
(movable and taking an active part in sound formation) – you tell me which ones
(the vocal cords, the tongue, the lips, the soft palate with the uvula,the lower jaw,
the lungs) and passive – you tell me (the teeth, the teeth ridge, the hard palate, the
walls of the resonators, the back wall of the pharynx).
There are three articulatory criteria on which the articulatory differencies
between the vowels, consonants and sonorants depend:
- the presence or absence of an articulatory obstruction to the air stream in
the larynx or in the supra-glottal cavities;
- the concentrated or diffused character of the muscular tension;
- the force of exhalation.
On the basis of these criteria consonants are defined as sounds in the
production of which:
- there is an articulatory obstruction to the air stream (complete or
incomplete, or combination of the two /t∫, d‫ى‬/, or intermittent);
- muscular tension is concentrated in the place of the obstruction;
- the exhaling force is rather strong.
Vowels are sounds in the production of which:
- there is no articulatory obstruction to the air stream;
- the muscular tension is diffused more or less throughout the supra-glottal
part of the speech apparatus;
- the exhaling force is rather weak.
24
Sonorants are the sounds intermediate between noise consonants and vowels:
- the obstruction is complete or incomplete, but not narrow enough to
produce noise;
- the muscular tension is concentrated in the place of obstruction;
- but the exhaling force is rather waek (/m, n, ŋ, l, w, r, j/).
Articulatory and physiological cassification of English consonants.
So, there are two major classes of sounds distinguished in any language:
consonants and vowels. This opposition is a linguistic universal. There are several
approches to classification of consonants (those, proposed by Russian phoneticians
versus those developed by the English ones, all having their own pecularities and
different sets of basical principles).
On the articulatory level the consonants change: 1.in the degree os noise 2. in
the manner of articulation 3. in the place of articulation.
1. According to the degree of noise all consonants are divided into NOISE
CONSONANTS and SONORANTS.
Sonorants are made with tone prevaling over noise because of a rather wide
air passage.
Noise consonants vary in:
a. the work of the vocal cords
b. in the degree of force of articulation
According to the work of vocal cords they may be VOICED and
VOICELESS. Voiced consonants are not fully voiced in all word positions, in the
word final position, for example, they are partly devoiced.
According to the degree of force of articulation the consonants are subdevided
into STRONG NOISE CONSONANTS and WEAK NOISE CONSONANTS.
Strong noise consonants are produced with more muscular energy and with
stronger breath effort. Weak noise consonants are produced with a relatively weak
breath effort. This characteristic is connected with the work of the vocal cords:
voiceless consonants are strong and voiced consonants are weak. FORTIS and
LENIS are terms used by the English phoneticians.
According
NOICE CONSONANTS
SONORANTS
to
the [b, d, g, v, ð, z, ς, dς, p, t, k, f, ө, s, ∫, t∫,h]
[m, n, ŋ, w, l, r,
degree of
j]
noise
Acc. to VOICED NOICE VOICELESS
the
CONSONANTS
NOICE
work of [b, d, g, v, ð, z, ς, CONSONANTS
vocal
dς]
[p, t, k, f, ө, s, ∫,
cords
t∫,h]
Acc. to WEAK
NOICE STRONG NOICE
25
the
CONSONANTS
CONSONANTS
force of (LENIS) [b, d, g, (FORTIS) [p, t, k,
articulat v, ð, z, ς, dς]
f, ө, s, ∫, t∫,h]
ion
2. The maner of articulation of consonants is determined by the type of
obstruction. It can be complete, incomplete and momentary.
When the obstruction is complete the organs of speech are in contact and the
air stream meets a closure in the mouth or nasal cavity. An incomplete obstruction
means that the active organ of speech moves toward the point of acticulation and
the air stream goes through the narrowing between them. Momentary obstruction is
formed for example in the production of the Russian sonorants [p, p’], when the tip
of the tongue taps quickly several times agains the teeth ridge.
So, according to the manner of articulation consonants are of four groups:
a. OCCLUSIVE
b. CONSTRICLIVE
c. OCCLUSIVE-CONSTRICTIVE
d. ROLLED
OCCLUSIVE CONSONANTS are sounds in the production of which the air
stream meets a complete obstruction in the mouth. OCCLUSIVE NOICE
CONSONANTS are called STOPS because the breath is completely stopped at
some point of articulation and then it’s released with a slight explosure (that is why
they are also called PLOSIVES). According the the work of vocal cords STOPS
may be VOICED and VOICELESS. According to the force of articulation English
VOICED STOPS are WEAK, and English VOICELESS STOPS are STRONG.
The particular quality of a sonorant depends on the position of the soft palate.
OCCLUSIVE SONORANTS are also made with a complete obstruction but the
soft palate is lowered and the air stream escapes thtough the nose, so they are
NASAL.
CONSTRICTIVE CONSONANTS are those in the production of which the
air stream mets an incomplee obstruction in the resonator, so the air passage is
constricted. Both NOISE CONSONANTS and SONORANTS may be
CONSTRICTIVE.
CONSTRICTIVE NOISE CONSONANTS are called FRICATIVES, because
in their articulation the air passage is constricted and the air ascapes through the
narrowing with friction. FRICATIVE also differ in the work of the vocal cords and
in the degree of force of articulation, so they may be VOICED, VOICELESS,
WEAK and STRONG.
CONSTRICTIVE SONORANTS are also made with an incomplete
obsruction but with a rather wide air passage, so tone prevails over noise. In their
production the soft palate is raise, so they are ORAL.
OCCLUSIVE-CONSTRICTIVE CONSONANTS or AFFRICATES are
26
NOISE CONSONANTS produced with a compleet obstruction which is slowly
released and the air escapes from the mouth with some friction. And again, they
can be VOICED and WEAK or VOICELESS and STRONG.
ROLLED CONSONANTS are sounds produced with periodical momentary
obstructions.
Acc. to
the
degree of
noise
Acc. to
the
manner
of
acticulati
on
Acc. to
the work
of vocal
cords
Acc. to
the force
of
acticulati
on
NOISE CONSONANTS
SONORANTS
OCCLUSIVE (STOPS
or PLOSIVES)
CONSTRICTIVE
(FRICATIVES)
[p, b, t, d, t, k, g]
[f, v, ө, ð, s, z, ∫, ς,
[t∫, dς]
h]
VOICED
[b, d, g]
VOICELESS
WEAK
[b, d, g]
STRONG
[p, t, k]
[p, t, k]
VOICED
VOICE
OCCLUSIVECONSTRICTIVE
(AFFRICATES)
VOICED
[v, ð, z, LESS
[dς]
[f, ө, s,
ς]
∫, h]
WEAK
WEAK
STRONG
[v, ð, z,
[dς]
[f, ө, s,
ς]
∫, h]
OCCLUSIVE
(NASAL)
[m, n, ŋ]
CONSTRIC
TIVE
(ORAL)
ROLLED
--
[w, l, r, j]
VOICE
LESS
[t∫]
STRONG
[t∫]
3. The place of articulation is determined by the active organ of speech
against the point of articulation. There may be one place of articulation (or ocus) or
tow places of articulation (or foci) when active organs of speech contact with two
point of articulation. In the frist case cocsonants are called UNICENTRAL, in the
second they are BICENTRAL. Examples of BICENTRAL CONSONANTS are:
FRICATIVES [∫, ς] and AFFRICATES [t∫, dς], because the primary focus is
formed by the tip of the tongue against the teeth ridge, and the secondary focus is
the front part of the tongue raised towards the hard palate. There are also
BICENTRAL SONORANTS: [w] and the dark [ł].
So, according to the position of the active organ of speech against the point of
articulation (i.e. the place of articulation) consonants may be:
a. LABIAL
b. LINGUAL
c. GLOTTAL
LABIAL CONSONSNTS are made against the lips. They may be
BILABIAL, which are produced when both lips are active [p, b, m, w], and
LABIO-DENTAL which are articulated with the lip against the edge of the upper
teeth [f, v].
LINGUAL CONSONANTS are classified into FORELINGUAL,
MEDIOLINGUAL and BACKLINGUAL.
FORELINGUAL CONSONANTS are articulated with the tip of the blade of
the tongue. They differ in the position and work of the tip of the tongue: APICAL,
27
if the tip of the tongue is active [t, d, s, z, ∫, ς, ө, ð, t∫, dς, n, l]; DORSAL, if the
blade of the tongue takes part in the articulation, the tip being passive and lowered
– in English there are no DORSAL CONSONANTS, but in Russian its [т, т’, д, д’,
н, н’, с, с’, з, з’, ч’, ц]; CACUMINAL, if the tip of the tongue is at the back part of
the teeth ridge, but the depression is formed is formed in the blade of the tongue [r]
plus Russian [p, p’]. According to the place of obstruction FORELINGUAL
CONSONANTS may be: INTERDENTAL, which are made with the tip of the
tongue projected between the teeth [ө, ð]; DENTAL, when the blade of the tongue
is against the upper teeth – there are no such English consonants, in Russian it’s [т,
т’, д, д’, с, с’, з, з’, ц, л, л’]; ALVEOLAR, are articulated with the tip against the
upper teeth ridge [t, d, s, z, n, l]; POST-ALVEOLAR, when the tip of the blade of
the tongue is against the back part of the teeth ridge or just behind it [r], in Russian
[p, p’]; PALATO-ALVEOLAR, when the tip or the blade of the tongue is against
the teeth ridge and the front part of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate,
thus having two places of articulation [t∫, dς, ∫, ς].
MEDIOLINGUAL CONSONANTS are produced with the front part of the
tongue. They are always PALATAL (acc. to the place of obstruction), i. e. the front
part of the tongue is raised high to the hard palate [j].
BACKLINGUAL CONSONANTS are called VELARS, because they are
produced with the back part of the tongue raised towards the soft palate (velum) [k,
g, ŋ].
The only GLOTTAL consonant [h] is articulated against the glottis. There are
no glottal consonants in Russian.
Modification of consonants in connected speech.
The complete articulation of a speech sound – a vowel or a consonant – when
said by itself in isolation consists of three stages:
1.
The on-glide stage, during which the articulating organs move to the
position necessary for the articulation of the sound.
2.
The hold stage, during which the articulating organs are kept in the
position for a certain period of time.
3.
The off-glide stage, when the articulating organs return to the position
of rest.
Such isolation of sounds from the flow of speech is, however, to a great
degree simplification of real process. Speech sounds are used only in combination
with other sounds in connected speech. The articulatory organs are moving
continuously and the sounds mostly merge one into another. In the transition from
one articulation to another speech organs accommodate and the three stages of
articulation are not preserved: the off-glede of the preceding sound serves as the
on-glide of the following sound and these transitional stages between the holds
tend to complete reduction.
In connected speech the sounds are subjected mainlt to two types of influence:
the reciprocal influence of neighbouring sounds (this proces is called combinative
changes) and the influence of larger speech units, first of all – by stress (positional
28
changes). With the majority of changes in the connected speech being combinative.
Combinative changes mean that the sounds are modified by the other sounds
near to them in the phonetic sequence. They lose the clearness of their articulation
and gain some new articulatory features. As a result of mutual interaction of
speech sounds there is a number of phonetic processes such as ASSIMILATION,
ACCOMODATION, ELISION and others.
ASSIMILATION is the process of alteration of speech sounds as a result of
which one of the sounds becomes fully or partially similar to the adjoining sound.
The nature of this process is determined by th eobjective physical and
physiological conditions. It exists in every language, but its laws and forms depend
on the historically formed articulatory tendencies and on specific phonetic
structures. Assimilation can affect the place of obstruction, the active organ of
speech, the work of the vocal cords, the position of the lips, the position of the soft
palate etc.
According to the direction of assimilation it can be PROGRESSIVE (when
the preceding sound while remaining unchanged itself, changes some articulatory
features of the following sound: calls [z], pens [z], desks [s], books [s], sandwich
[sænwidς]), REGRESSIVE (when the following sound influences the articulation
of the preceding sound: width, in them – here the alveolar [d] and [m] become
dental before the interdental [ө] and [ð]) and RECIPROCAL or DOUBLE (means
complex mutual influenceof the adjacent sounds: tree – the sonorant [r] is partly
devoiced under the influence of the voiceless [t] and the alveolar [t] becomes postalveolar before the post alveolar [r].
According to the degree of completeness, assimilation can be COMPLETE (in
this case the two adjoining sounds become alike or merge into one, it always takes
place when the sounds differ only in one articulatory feature: cupboard ['k٨bəd];
and at the word junction in fluent speech: less shy ['le∫∫aı], in Russian без сил,
голос женщины) and INCOMPLETE (when the likeness of the adjoining sounds
is partial as the assimilated sound retains its major articulatory features: sweet,
place, try – the sonorants [w, l, r] are partly devoiced when preceded by the
voiceless fortis [p, t, k, s, f, ө] and devoiced consonant is marked with a point
under its sign).
Degree of stability. Many asimilatory phenomena of older stages of the
development of the language have become onbigatory in modern English. They
may or may not be reflected in spelling. The changes which have taken place
within a word over a period of time are called HISTORICAL: orchard = ort+yard
['‫ﺮ‬:tjəd >'‫ﺮ‬:t∫əd]. In modern language obligatory assimilations are treated as special
allophonic variants, for example, a dental allophone of the alveolat [t] should be
used when follow by (inter) dental [ө] or [ð]: eighth [eıtө]. Besidea there are a lot
of wodely spread NON-OBLIGATORY cases of assimilation traced mainly at
word boundaries: ten minutes ['tem'mınıts] – thei are characteristic of careless
speech should be avoided by public speakers.
According to the quality of the adjacent sounds there can be four special cases
of contact assimilation:
- influence of a consonant on the adjacent consonant
29
- influence of a vowel on the adjacent vowel
- influence of a consonant on the adjacent vowel
- influence of a vowel on the adjacent consonant
We are going to discuss only the variants of the first case here, because in
modern English it’s mainly consonants that are assimilated and its between
consonants that the most striking changes occur. There changes can be of the
following types:
1.
Modification of the place of obstruction and the active organ of
speech. The following three important cases should be noticed:
(a) The alveolar [t, d, n, l, s, z] are replaced by the dental variants when
immediately followed by the interdental [ө] or [ð]. Within a word – eighth,
breadth, tenth; at the word boundaries – put that, read this.
(b) The post-alveolar [t, d] are heard before the post-alveolar sonorant [r]. Trip,
true, trunk, dream, dry; at rest, would read.
(c) The bilabial nasal [m] or the alveolar nasal [n] become labio-dental before
labio-dental fricatives [f, v]: triumph, comfort, infant; ten forks.
2.
Changes in the work of the vocal cords (VOICING or DEVOICING).
Progressive voicing or devoicing is common in English, but very rare
in Russian:
(a) The sonorants [m, n, l, w, r, j] are partially devoiced when preceded by
voiceless consonants [p, t, k, s, f, ө, ∫]: small, sneer, place, sweep,spread,
stupid, tune; at word boundaries it occirs when the adjacend words form a
phrasal word or a rythmic group – at last, at rest.
(b) Contracted forms of the verbs ‘is’ and ‘has’ may retain voice or be
devoiced depending on the preceding consonant: That’s right. Bob’s gone
out.
(c) The possessive suffix -‘s or -s’, the plural suffix -(e)s of nouns and the
third person singular present indefinite of verbs depends on the quality of
the preceding consonant. [Z] is pronounced after all voiced consonants
exept [z, ς] and after all vowels: girls, rooms, laws. [S] after all voiceless
consonants exept [s, ∫]: Jack’s, books, writes. Plus as a separate syllable
[ıd] after [s, z, ∫, ς]: George’s, dishes, washes.
(d) The suffix -ed of regular verbs can ve voiced or devoiced. [D] is
pronounced after all voiced consonants exept [d] and after all vowels:
lived, played, [t] – after all voiceless consonants exept [t]: worked, and as
a separate syllable [ıd] after [t, d]: expected, intended.
Regressive voicing or devoicing in English is found only in a few cases of
historical assimilation within a compound word when the semantic
independence of the first component is lost: five pence ['faıfpəns] not [faıv],
gooseberry ['gu:zbrı] not [gu:s]. Or in closely connected words:
I have to
[ai ¸hæftu], she has to [∫ı¸hæstu], I used to [aı¸ju:sttu]. While in Russian
voicing and devoicing is mainly regressive.
3.
Changes in the lip position. Consonants followed by the sonorant [w]
change their lip-position and become lip-rounded: twinkle, quite,
swan,language.
30
4.
Changes in the position of the soft palate. Nasal consonants may
influence the adjacent plosives, but its’ not typical for English:
handsome ['hænnsəm], handmade ['hænnmeıd], she wouldn’t do it
[wυnnt], good morning [gυmm‫ﺮ‬:nıŋ].
5.
Changes in the manner of the release of plosive consonants. English
plosives don’t always have the thirs stage consisting of a sudden oral
release of air. The main variants are:
(a) Incomplete plosion – in the clusters of two plosives [pp, pb, bb, bp,tt, td…]
where the position of the organs of speech is the same for both consonants,
there is no separation of the organs of speech between the two plosions.
The hold stage is prolonged from the beginning of the first consonant until
the release of the second. The effect is that of a single plosive pronounced
with a very long hold and the first plosive has no plosion at all:
accomodation, attraction, bookcase; lamp post, good chance.
Or: in a cluster of two plosives or a plosive and an affricate the closure of
the organs of speech for the second sound is made before the release of the
first, so the first plosive is incomplete and there’s only one plosion for the
tow sounds: object, lecture; good girl, hot bottle. It doesn’t happen in
Russien, though: акт is pronounced with the three stages of both plosives.
(b) Nasal plosion – when a plosive is followed by the syllabic [n] or [m] it has
no release of its own, and the so-called ‘nasal plosion’ is produced. After
the nornal plosive the release is produced not by the removal of the oral
closure, which is retained, but by the lowering of the soft palate – it allows
the compressed air to escape through the nasal cavity, getting ready to
form the nasal consonant: shipmate, subnormal, buttom; stop moaning,
escape noisily.
(c) Lateral plosion – in the sequences of a plosive immediately followed by [l]
the closure produced for the plosive is not released till after [l]. The release
is made by a sudden lowering of the sides of the tongue and the aie escapes
along the sides of the tongue: please, cattle, black, candle.
THE REDUCTION OF CONSONANT CLUSTERS (ELISION) was
established long ago:
1. the initial [w, k, g] may be dropped: know, write, gnat.
2. the medial [t] or [d] in a cluster of three consosnants are dropped: listen,
soften, Wednesday.
3. the final [b] is dropped ina cluster [mb]: lamb, dumb.
In cases of recent formation the elided forms are typical only of rapid
colloquial speech: last time [no t], next day [no t], old man [no d], musnt’t [no t],
strict teacher [ no t].
Articulatory and physiological classification of English vowels.
Vowels are normally made with the air stream that meets no closure or
narrowing in the mouth, pharyngal or nasal cavities. That’s why they have no noise
component. On the articulatory level the description of vowels is based on the
31
fololowing criteria:
1. the stability of articulation
2. the tongue position
3. the lip position
4. the character of the vowel end
5. the length
6. the tenseness
1. All English vowels are devided into three groups according to the stability
of their articulation: pure vowels (or monophtongs) – vowels the articulation of
which is almost unchanging, the tongue position is stable; diphtongs – in their
pronounciation the organs of speech glide from one vowel position to another
within one syllable, the starting point (or nucleus) is strong and distinct and the
glide, which shows the direction of quality change is weak. There are no diphtongs
in Russian; and diphtongoids – their articulation is slightly changing and the
difference between the starting point and the end is not so distinct: [i:, u:].
2. The changes in the position of the tongue determine the shape of the mouth
and pharingal cavity:
(a) According to forward and backward movements plus raising in the
direction of the hard or soft palate:
When the tongue is in the front part of the mouth and its front part is raised
towards the hard palate a FRONT VOWEL is pronounced [i:, e, æ]. When the
tongue is in the front part of the mouth, but slightly retracted and the part of the
tongue nearer to center than to front is raised, it’s a FRONT-RETRACTED
VOWEL [ı]. There are no such vowels in Russian. When the front of the tongue is
raised towards he back part of the hard palate, the vowel is called CENTRAL [э:, ə
٨], in Russian [a, ы]. When the tongue is in the back part of the mouth and the
back of it is raised towards the soft palate a BACK VOWEL is pronounced [a:, u:,
‫ﺮ‬:, ‫ס‬:], in Russian [o, y]. When the tongue is in the back part of the mouthbut is
slightly advanced and the central part of it is raised towards the front part of the
soft palate – it’s a BACK-ADVANCED VOWEL [υ].
(b) According to the movements of the tongue to diferent height towards the
roof of the mouth.
When the front or the back of the tongue is raised high towards the palate, the
vowel is called CLOSE: [i:, ı, υ, u:] and Russian [и, ы, у].
When the front or the back of the tongue is as low as possible in the mouth
OPEN VOWELS are pronounced [æ, a:, ‫ס‬, ‫ﺮ‬:] in Russian [a].
When the highest part of the tongue ocupies the position imtermediate
between the close and the open one, a MID VOWEL is pronounced [e, ٨, э:, ə], in
Russian [e, o].
But to make the classification more precise it’s necessary to distinguish
BROAD and NARROW variants of CLOSE, OPEN and MID VOWELS.
Close vowels
Mid vowels
Narrow variant
Broad variant
Narrow variant
[i:, u:] – [и, ы, у]
[ı, υ]
[e, э:, э] – [e]
32
Open vowels
Broad variant
Narrow variant
Broad variant
[٨, ə, ε] – [o]
[‫ﺮ‬:, ‫]ﺮ‬
[æ, a:, a] – [a]
3. The shape of the mouth cavity is also depdendent on the position of the lips.
When then lips are neutral or spread, the vowelsa re termed UNROUNDED
[i:, ı, e, æ, a:, ٨, э:, ə] – [и, е, ы, а].
When the lips are drawn together so that the opening between them is more or
less round the vowel is called ROUNDED [‫ס‬, ‫ﺮ‬:, υ, u:] – [o, y], plus in Russian lips
are somewhat protruded.
4. Character of vowel end – in th stress position the quality of all English
monophtongs is strongly affected by the following consonant of the same syllable.
If a stressed vowel is followed by a strong voiceless consonant it is cut off by
it. The end of the vowel then is strong and the vowel is called CHECKED: better,
cart.
If a vowel is followed by a weak voiced consonant or by no consonant at all
the end of it is very weak, in this case the vowel is called FREE: before, money,
beggar, sead. All Russian vowels tend to be free.
5. Vowel length. Vowels are capable of being continued during a longer or a
chorter period, so they are divided into LONG [i:, a:, ‫ﺮ‬:, u:, э:] and SHORT [ı, e, ‫ס‬,
υ, ٨, ə]. The vowel [æ] is not included in the chategory of short vowels because of
the specific length associated with it.
Plus, the length of one and the same vowel may vary depending on the
position in the word and surrounding sounds. Whereas all Russian vowels are
equally long in all phonetic conditions. For example, in the similarly accented
positions vowels are fully long when they are final, almost as long as that when a
weak voiced consonant follows them (seed, arm, form, big, song), they are
considerably shorter before strong voiceless consonants (seat, lark, first). The
vowels are always longer when they are strongly stressed or appear in the nuclear
syllable. Diphtongs vary in lengh in the same way, only variations affect mainly
the nucleus, not the glide.
Modification of vowels in connected speech
In English as well as in Russian vowels in unstressed syllable are reduced, the
law of reduction, however, are not the same.
REDUCTION is a historical process of weakening, shortening or
disappearance of vowel sounds in unstressed positions. This phenomenon is
closely connected with the general development of the language system and it
reflectes the processes of lexical and grammatical changes.
The reduced form of practically any vowel in an unstressed position is
represented by a neutral sound: combine ['k‫ס‬mbaın] – combine [kəm'baın], project
[‫ – ]ס‬project [ə].
On the other hand, there is a tendency to retain the quality of the un stressed
vowel, in cases like: a) in compound words (blackboard, oilfield), b) in borrowings
33
from the French and other languages (bourgeoisie, kolkhoz).
Reduction is closely connected withrhythm and sentence stress. Stressed
words are pronounced with a greater energy of breath. Regular loss of sentence
stress of certain words is connected with partial or complete loss of their lexical
significance. So, REDUCTION is realized also in form words, auxilary and modal
verbs, personal and possessive pronouns within intonation groups and phrases:
What do you think you can do? [→w‫ס‬t dju өıŋk ju kən ˛du:].
Three different types of reduction are noticed in English:
1.
Quantitative reduction – shortening of a vowel sound in the
unstressed positions, affects mainly long vowels: he [hi: > hi >
hı] When does he come?
2.
Qualitative reduction – obscuration of vowels rowards [ə, I, υ],
affecting both long and short vowels: can [kæn > kən] You can
easily do it.
It’s important that vowels in unstressed form-words undergo both quantitative
and qualitative reduction: to [tu: > tu > tυ].
3.
The third type is the elision of vowels in the unstressed
position: I’m up already.
In spoken English words which bear the major part of information are stressed
and are called CONTENT WORDS (NOTIONAL). These are nouns, adjectives,
notional verbs, adverbs, numerals, interrogative and demonstrative pronouns. The
other words in a sentence are mostly FORM WORDS (STRUCTURAL), they link
the content wordsa and help in this way to form an utterance. These are: articles,
prepositions, conjunctions, particles, auxilary and modal verbs, personal and
possessive pronouns. There aren’t many of them but they are among the
commonest words in the language, they are normally unstressed and in most of the
cases their weak redused forms are used (but not when they are said in isolation
and when they become the communicative centres of utterance).
There are special cases when the strong forms of the form words are used:
(a)
Prepositions at the very end of an intonation group or phrase: What
are you loking at?
(b)
Prepositions at the end of an intonation group or phrase when they are
folloed by an unstressed pronoun: I’m not talking to you. Esp. if the
preposition is polysyllabic: Have a look under it.
(c)
Auxilary and modal verbs at the end of and intonation group or
phrase: Who has done it? – Mary has.
(d)
Auxilary and modal verbs at the beginning of general and alternative
questions (but not in rapid colloquial style): Can you get it by
tomorrow?
(e)
Auxilary and modal verbs in contracted negative forms: I don’t know
the man.
(f)
The following words have no weak forms whatsoever: what, when,
where, how, which, on, in, with, then.
34
Differences in the articulation bases of English and Russian
consonants and vowels.
The differencies in the articulation bases between the two languages are “in
the general tendencies theie native speakers have, in the way they move and hold
their lips and the tongue both in speecha and silence, in the wau they coordinate
the work of the obstructor and vibrator mechanism (lenis and fortis articulation), in
the way they affect CV, VC and CC transitions.” [Vasiliev V.A.]
In consonants the pecularities are the following:
- The English forelingual consonants are articulated with the apico-alveolar
position of the tip of the tongue, and the Russian forelingual consonants
are mainly dorsal [т, т’, д, д’, н, н’, с, с’, з, з’, ч’, ц]. Other forelingual
consonants are apical [л, л’, ш, ш’, ж, ж’].
- In the production of the Russian consonants the bulk of the tongue is
mainly in the front-mid part of the mouth resonator. When Russian soft
forelinguals are produced the muscular tension is concentrated in the
“bunched up” front-mid part of the tongue. When the soft back-lingual
consonants are produced the muscular tension is concentrated in the
middle part of the tongue.
In the production of the English forelingual consonants the tip of the
tongue and the front edges are very tense. It results in the depression in the
front part of the tongue, which enlarges the size of the front resonator and
lowers the tone of the apical consonants. The English “soft” consonants are
pronounced with the front secondary focus. They are [∫, ς, dς, t∫] and the
“soft” [l]. The English [∫, ς] are short, the similar Russian consonants [ш’:,
ж’:] are long. The front secondary focus is formed by the middle part of
the tongue which produces “secondary” articulation simultaneously with
the primary focus.
The Russian [п’, б’, м’, н’, ф’, в’,т’, д’, с’, з’, л’, ч, р’, к’, г’] are also
pronounced with the front secondary focus, but the middle of the tongue in
their production is raised higher to the hard palate, than during the
secondary articulation in the production of the English soft consonants.
Russian students often use the hard [ш, ж] phonemes instead of the soft
English [∫, ς]. Palatalization is a phonemic feature in Russian.
There is no opposition between palatalyzed – non-palatalyzed consonants
in English. The soft colouring of the English [∫, t∫, dς, l, ς] is nonphonemic.
- The English [w] and [ł] are pronounced with the back secondary focus,
formed by the back part of the tongue, which is raised to the soft palate
simultaneously with the formation of the primary focus. In the articulation
of [w] the primary focus is formed by the lips, which are rounded but not
protruded, as it happens when the Russian [y] is pronounced. The bilabial
[w] which is pronounced with a round narrowing is very often
mispronounced by the Russian learners. They use the labio-dental [в] or
[v] which are pronounced with a flat narrowing instead of the English [w].
35
The primary focus in the articulation of “dark” [ł] is formed by the tip of
the tongue pressed against the teethridge in the initial position. English
voiceless plosives [p, t, k] are aspired, when followed by a stressed vowel
and not preceded by [s].
- The English voiceless fortis [p, t, k, f, s, z] are pronounced more
energetically than similar Russian consonants. The English voiced
consonants [b, d, g, v, ð, z, ς, dς] are not replaced by the corresponding
voiceless sounds in word-final positions and before voiceless consonants
['bıg ˛teibl].
- Consosnant phonemes in English which have no counterparts in Russian
are the following: 1. the bilabial, constrictive median sonorant [w] 2. the
dental (interdental) fricative consonants [θ, ð] 3. the voiced bicentral
affricate [dς] 4. the post-alveolar constrictive median sonorant [r] 5. the
backlingual, nasal sonorant [ŋ] 6. the glottal fricative [h]. Consonant
phonemes in Russian which have no counterparts in English are: 1. the
palatelized consonants [п’, б’, т’, д’, к’, г’, м’, н’, ф’, в’, с’, з’, р’] 2. the
voiceless unicentral affricate [ц] 3. the rolled alveolar sonorant [p] 4. the
backlingual fricative voiceless [x].
The articulation bases of English and Rusiian vowels are different, too.
1. The lips. In the production of Russian vowels the lips are considerably
protruded and rounded [o, y]. In the articulation of the similar English [υ, u:, ‫ס‬, ‫ر‬:]
protrusion doesn’t take place. Englishman have the so-called flat-type position of
the lips, their lips are more tense than the lips of the Russian people and the corners
of the lips are raised, which resembles a smile.
2. The bulk of the tobgue. In the articulation of the English vowels the bulk of
the tongue occupies more positions than in the production of the Russian vowels.
When its bulk moves in the horizontal directionit may occupy a fully front and a
fron-retracted, a fully back and a back-advanced positions. These horzontal
movements condition the articulation of [ə, э:], which are of mixed type.
According to the horisontal movement of the bulk of the tongue Russian vowels
may be subdivided into front [и, э], central [ы, а] and back [o, y]. Each of the
vertical positions of the tongue (high, mid, low) in English is subdivided into a
narrow and broad variety. Thus, six groups of vowel sounds are formed in the
system of English vowels. Such broad variety of the bulk of the tongue positions is
not observed in the production of Russian vowels. When classified according to the
vertical movement of the tongue they are only subdivided into high [и, ы, у], mid
[э, о] and low [а]. The articulatory pecularities in the pronounciation of English
vowels constitute the basis for the formation of diphtongs.
3. The principle of the degree of tenseness in vowel classification is
inseparably connected with the free and checked character of the vowels.
4. The length of vowels. Long vowels in English are considered to be tense.
There are no long vowels which can be opposed phonemically to short vowels in
the Russian language. Length in the Russian vowel system is an irrelevant feature.
5. The stability of articulation. There are monophtongs and diphtongoids – the
36
articulation of the word очень [o:] – in the Russian vowel system, but no
diphtongs.
6. There are 6 vowel phonemes in Russian and 20 in English. The following
are English vowel phonemes having no counterparts in Russian: 1. long and short
vowels [i: - ı, ‫ر‬: - ‫ס‬, u: - υ, э: - ə, a: - ٨] 2. slightly rounded but not protruded
vowels [u:, ‫ر‬:] 3. vowels articulated with the “flat” position of the lips in the [i:, ı,
e, ei] production 4. very low vowels, such as [æ, ‫ס‬, a:] 5. front-retracted [ı] and
back-advanced [υ, a:] 6. central or mixed [ə, э:] 7. checked and free vowels 8.
diphtongs [eı, aı, ‫ر‬ı, ıə, aυ, oυ, εə, υə].
The functional aspect of speech sounds. The phoneme.
So, we know that phonetics studies sounds as articulatory and acoustic units.
Phonology investigates isounds as units, which serve communicative purposes.
Thus, the unit of phonetics is a speech sound anf the unit of phonology is a
phoneme. Phonemes can be discovered by the method of minimal pairs. This
mothod consists in finding pairs of words which differ in one phoneme (tie-die). In
this way it’s illustrated how by contrasting with each other the phonemes are
functionaly significant, in other words change the meaning of the words.
Tye phonemes of a language from a system of oppositions, in which and one
phoneme is opposed to any other in at least one position in at least one lexical or
grammatical minimal pair. If the substitution of one sound for another results in the
change of meaning, the commuted sounds are different phonemes (or: sounds of
speech which are phonologically significant).
The definitions of the phoneme vary greatly. The founder of the phoneme
theory was I.A. Baudouin de Courteney, the Russian scintist of Polinsh origin. His
theory of phoneme was developed and perfected by L.V. Shcherba – the head of
the Leningrad linguistic school. The basic statement of this theory holds that in
actual speech we utter a much freater variety of sounds that we are aware of; and
that in every language these sounds are united in a comparatively small number of
sound types, which are capable of distinguishing the meaning and the form of
words. It’s these sound types that sould be studied as differentiatory units of the
language. And the actually pronounced apeech sounds are variants, or
ALLOPHONES of phonemes.
The number of sounds types, or phonemes, in each language is much smaller
than the number of sounds actually pronounced.
Accrding to L.V. Shcherba, the phoneme is defined as a functional, material
and abstract unit. V.A. Vasiliev defined the phoneme like this: “ It’s a minimal
abstract linguistic unit (meaning that it’s further indivisible into smaller
consecutive segments) realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable
to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish of morphemes and words.”
“Functional” means that phonemes perform a discriminatory, or
DISTINCTIVE function, distinguishing one morpheme, word or utterance from
another. The opposition of phonemes in the phonetic environment differentiates the
37
meaning: sleeper – sleepy, bath – path, He was heard badly. – He was hurt badly.
“Material” means that a phoneme is real, objective. It’s realized in speech of
all English-speaking people in the form of apeech sounds ( its allophones).
Allophones are realized in concrete words and they are not identical in their
articulatory content though thay have phonetic similarity between them and are
incapable of differentiating words.
Example: there is an ideal sound type [t], which is alveolar, forelingual,
apical, occlusive, plosive, voiceless fortis. But in actual speech we seldom
pronounce it exactly like this – only in some positions, when it retans its typical
articulatory characteristics; we more often pronounce one of its variants: labialized
in the word twice, dental in the word eight, post-alveolar in try, exploded nasally in
written, exploded laterally in little… So, the first case (when the typical
characteristics are retained) the consonant [t] is called the PRINCIPAL
ALLOPHONE. It’s described as the most representative and free from the
influence of the neighbouring phonemes. SUBSIDARY ALLOPHONES are those
which undergo some distinguishable changes in the chain of speech, these changes
occur under the influence of the neighbouring sounds in different phonetic
situations. Subsidary allophones can be positional and combinatory. Positional
allophones are used in certain positions traditionally: the English /l/ is realised in
actual speech as a positional allophone, it’s clear in the initial position and dark in
the terminal position light –hill /l – ł/. Combinatory allophones appear in the
process of speech and result from the influence of one phoneme upon another.
To distinguish allophones from sound types (phonemes) we use slant-like
brackets for the phonemes proper, and square – for their allophones.
The question is furthermore complicated by the fact that the phones (or
sounds) of speech do not correspond exactly to the allophones predicted by this or
that phonetic environment. The phones are modified by phonostylistic, dialectical
and individual factors (social, emotional). To be precise, no speech sounds are
absolutely alike. We agree that phonemes make grammatical and lexical
distinctions, and actual sounds of speech and their subtle differences convey much
more information about the speaker.
The relations between the phoneme and the phone (speech sound):
PHONOSTYLISTIC
VARIATION
PHONEME
ALLOPHONE
DIALECTICAL
VARIATION
PHONE
INDIVIDUAL
VARIATION
Thirdly, we said that phonemes are “abstract” – it means that the native
speakers abstract themselves from the differenc between the allophones of one and
the same phoneme, because the allophones have no functional value.
38
All the allophones of one phoneme possess a bundle of distinctive features,
that makes this phoneme functionally different from all other phonemes of the
language concerned. This functionally relevant bundle of articulatory features is
called the INVARIANT of the phoneme. Neither of the articulatory features
forming the invariant can be changed without affecting the meaning. For instnace,
all the allophones of the phoneme [d] are occlusive, forelingual, lenis. If occlusive
articulation is changed into constrictive, [d] will be replaced by [z]: breed – breeze,
deal – zeal. If forelingual articulation is replaced by back lingual, it’s going to be
[g]: day – gay. If lenis articulation is substituted by fortis one, it’s going to be [t]:
try – dry, bid – bit.
The articulatory features that form the invariant of the phoneme are called
DISTINCTIVE or RELEVANT. The articulatory features which do not serve to
distinguish meaning are called NON-DISTINCTIVE, IRRELEVANT or
REDUNDANT. For example, it’s impossible in English to oppose an aspirated [p]
to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish meaning (there
are no pairs of words in English which differ in meaning only because one has
aspirated [p] and the other – non-aspirated). That is why aspiration is a nondistinctive feature of English consonants. The theory of distinctive features was
originated by N.S. Trubetskoy and developed by such foreign scientists as R.
Jackobson, C.G. Fant, M. Halle, N. Chomsky, and Russian phonologists L.R.
Zinder, G.S. Klychkov…
This leads us to the necessity of defining one of the basic methods of
phonological analysis: the method of MINIMAL PAIRS.
The basis of this method is that each phoneme manifests itself in a certain
pattern of distribution. The fact is that the sounds of a language combine according
to e certain pattern characteristic of this language. That means that in any language
certain sounds do not occur in certain positions ([h] in English never occurs word
finally, [ŋ] never occurs word initially). This permits identification of phomenes on
the grounds of their distribution.
The simplest pattern of distribution is FREE VARIATION, when the variation
of one and the same phoneme is pronounced differently (pronounciation of the
initial [k] with different degrees of aspiration). Another pattern of phoneme
environment is COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION, when more or less similar
speech sounds occur in different positions and never occur in the same phonetic
context – this is how we distinguish allophones of one and the same phoneme (the
allophones of one and the same phoneme never occur in the same context, because
their articulation depends on the environment, this is why tey lack distinctive
power and the word let mispronounced like [l’et] palatelized fully will be
recognized and the sounds will be perceived as identical ones). One more pattern
of phoneme environment is called CONTRASTIVE DISTRIBUTION, when more
or less different sounds occur in the same phonetic context, and this is how we
distinguish between the allophones of different phonemes ( pit – bit sounds [p] and
[b] have the same environment). Contrastive distribution is exactly realized in
minimal pairs and this is how we use the method of minimal pair to extract
relevant features of the phonemes by opposing one phoneme to some other in the
39
same phonetic context.
It’s through OPPOSITIONS that distinctive features are discovered. The
opposition can be single: [t] voiceless fortis, and [d] voiceless lenis, have only one
distinctively relevant feature, their other features are irrelevant. The opposition is
double if there are two distinctively relevant features: [p] voiceless fortis – labial,
bilabial, [d] voiced lenis – lingual, forelingual, apical, alveolar. This opposition is
really phonemec and it’s proved by minimal pairs: pie – die, pail – dale, pry –dry.
The opposition can be MULTIPLE when there are three and more dictinctively
relevant features: [b] vioced lenis – labial, bilabial – occlusive, [h] voiceless fortis
– pharyngal – constrictive, and it’s proved by minimal pairs: be – he, bit – hit, bait
– hate.
Syllabic structure of English words.
Though the basic phonological elements are phonemes, human
communication is actualized in syllables. Syllable is a comonly recognized
subdivision of a word.
The syllable may be defined as one or more speech sounds forming a single
uninterrupted unit of uterance, which may be a whole word.
The syllable can be analized from the acoustic and auditory, articulatory and
functional points of view.
Acoustic analysis of syllables made it possible to formulate some rules of
syllable division. Auditorily the syllable is the smallest unit of perception: the
listener identifies the whole of the syllable anfd only after that the sounds it
consists of. The articulatory energy which constitutes the syllable results from the
combinied action of the power, vibrator, resonator and obstructor mechanisms.
Phonologically the syllable is regarded and defined in terms of its structural and
functional properties.
Syllable formation:
Every syllable has its structure, or form, depending on the kind of speech
sounds it ends in. From this point of view there are two types of syllables:
 OPEN –if it ends in a vowel sound: he, they, wri-ter.
 CLOSED – if it ends in a consonant sound: it, hun-dred, man.
There is however another approach to classification of syllables, it’s based on
the principle of what sound the syllable begins and ends with:
 FULLY OPEN – it consists of one vowel sound: ore, or. (V)
 FULLY CLOSED – has a vowel between consonants: bit, left, space.
(CVC, CVCC, CCVC)
 COVERED AT THE BEGINNING – one consonant or a sequance of
consonants precede a vowel: too, spy, straw. (CV, CCV, CCCV)
 COVERED AT THE END – is completed by one or more consonants:
on, act, acts. (VC, VCC, VCCC)
If there are more than one sounds in the syllable, one in this sequence is heard
40
to be more prominent. This sound is the peak, or the nucleos of the syllable and is
called a SYLLABIC SOUND. Syllabic sounds are generally vowels and
sometimes sonorants (when joined to a preceding consonant). A syllabic sonorant
is marked by a strictly vertical desh under it [ņ]. The consonants which precede the
peak and follow it are called slopes.
There are different points of view on syllable formation and division:
1. The most ancient theory states that there are as many syllables in the
word as there are vowels. But it’s not sufficient because it doesn’t take
into consideration consonants which can also form syllables plus it
doesn’t explain the boundary of syllables.
2. The expiratory theory states that there are as many syllables in a word
as there are expiration pulses. The borderline between the syllables, acc.
to this theory, is the moment of the weakest expiration. But it’s
inconsistent, too, because it’s possible to pronounce several syllables in
one articulatory effort or expiration.
3. The sonority theory states that there are as many syllables as there are
peak of prominence of sonority. Speech sounds pronounced with
uniform force, length and pitch, differ in inherent prominence of
sonority. O. Jespersen established the scale of sonority ofsounds, that is,
the scale of their inherent prominence. According to his theory the most
prominent are back vowels (low, mid and then high), then semi-vowels
[w,j], then sonorants, then voiced and voiceless consonants. Sounds in a
word are grouped around the most sonorous ones – which are the peaks
of sonority – and the points of lower sonority constitute the beginning
and the end of the syllabe. Only this theory fails to explain the syllable
division because it doesn’t state to which syllable the weak sound at the
boundary of the syllable belongs.
4. The “arc of loundness” or “arc of articulatory tension” theory is based
on L.V. Shcherba’s statement that the centre of a syllable is the syllable
forming phoneme. Sounds which precede and follow this centre
constitute a chain, or an arc, which is weak in the beginning and in the
end and strong in the middle: like in the word cab
k
æ
b
Even if a syllable consists of a single vowel, its strength increases in the
beginning, reaches its maximum of loudness and then gradually
decreases. But this theory, just like the previous one, is not reliable in
the definition of the boundaries of the syllable.
In any case syllable formation in English is based on the phonological
opposition vowel – consonant. It should be pointed out that due to its structure the
English language has developed the closed type of syllable as the fundamental one
(while in Russian it is the open type that forms the basis of syllable formation).
41
So, the syllable formation in English can described as follows:
A word consisting of only one vowel represents a separate syllable, if it’s a
diphtong [I] then its nucleus is the peak of the syllable.
[l, n] and less commoly [m] are syllabic, [w, j, r] are not, since they are always
syllable initial: apple [′æpl], trouble [′tr٨bl].
Many words in English such as parcel, level, special, person and so on, could
be pronounced with the neutral vowel before the sonorant thus making it nonsyllabic. Or some of them are pronounced without this neutral sound, thus making
the sonorant syllabic: garden [′ga:dn], lesson [′lesn], pupil [′pju:pl].
Syllable division.
Syllabic structure of a language is patterned, i.e. the sounds of language can
be groupped into syllable according to certain rules. The part of phonetics which
deals with this aspect of a language is called phonostatistics. It is possible to
fotmulate the rules of syllable division:
1. Sometimes the division of syllables is marked by a stress: concern
[kən′sэ:n].
2. In other cases the transition from one vowel sound to another indicates
the separation of syllables: seeing [′si:ıŋ]. English triphtongs are
disyllabic, because they consist of two vowel phonemes: science [′saıəns], flower [flaυ-ə].
3. In affixal words the syllabic boundary coinsides with the morphological
boundary: dis-place, be-come, un-able.
4. An intervocalic consonant tends to belong to the following syllabic
sound: writing [′raı-tıŋ]. But this rule holds true only for cases when a
consonant is preceded by a long vowel or a diphtong, as they are always
free at the end and there is no need to close the syllable.
But in case of a short stressed vowel followed by a consonant theer are
three viewpoints concerning the syllableboundary: – the intervocalic
consonant belongs to the short vowel preceding it (to make it checked)
– it belongs to the following vowel – the boundary goes through the
consonant and this consonant belongs structurally to both vowels. The
results of instrumental anlysis of speech prove this point as well.
5. Intervocalic combinations of consonants belong to the following
syllabic sound, if such combinations are typical of English: naturally
[′næt∫-rə-lı].
6. In words of CVS and VS structure the syllabic boundary is after the
intervocal sonorant: inner [′ın-ə], cinema [sın-əm-ə], enemy [en-em-ı].
And there are cases when it’s almost impossible to define the syllabic
boundary: extra. There are three intervocal consonants and though it’s
evident that there are two peaks, the boundary between them is difficult to
define.
Functional characteristic of the syllable.
As a phonological unit the syllable performs three functions: constitutive,
distinctive, identificatory. They are closely connected.
The constitutive function lies in its ability to be a part of a word or a word
42
itself. It becomes possible because within a syllable prosodic characteristics of
speech are realized (loudness – stress, pitch – tone, duration – length and tempo;
syllables my be stressed, unstressed, high, mid, low, rising, falling, long, short).
These characteristics form the stress-pattern of a word and the rhythmic and
intonation structures of an utterance. Thus, we say that syllable is a soecific
minimal structure of both segmental and suprasegmental features.
The other function is called distinctive and differentiatory. In this respect
the syllable is characterized by its ability to differentiate words and word-forms:
lightening освещение [′laıtnıŋ] – с вертикальной черточкой под n,
обозначающей мягкость, and lightning молния [′laıtnıŋ] – без черточки.
The place of the syllable boundary can also perform this function: a name – an
aim, ice cream – I scream, we loan – we’ll own. This distinctive, differentiatory
function of the boundary between the syllables makes it possible to introduce the
term “juncture”. Close juncture, or conjuncture occurs between sounds within one
syllable. Open juncture (disjuncture or internal open juncture) occurs between two
syllables. American scientists H.A. Gleason, L.S. Harris and K. Pike consider the
open juncture a separate segmental phoneme and mark it [+]. They include it into
the inventory of phonemes as a separate differentiatory unit.
The identificatory function is conditioned by the pronunciation of the
speaker. The listener can understand the exact meaning of the utterance only if he
perceives the correc syllabic boundary – syllabodisjuncture: peace talks – pea
stalks, my train – might rain.
Осталось: типы слогов по длительности и по акцентному весу.
Accentual structure of English words.
The sequence of syllables in the word is not pronounced identically. One or
more syllablea in a polysyllabic word have greater prominence than the others.
Such syllables are said to be accented or stressed.
Stress is defined differently by different authors. B.A. Bogoroditsky, for
instance, defined stress as an increase of energy, accompanied by an increase of
expiratory and articulatory activity. D. Jones defined stress as the degree of force,
which is accompanied by a strong force of exhalation and gives an impression of
loudness. H. Sweet also stated that stress, is connected with the force of breath.
In English any of all four factors – loudness (force), pitch, sound quantity
(length), sound quality – may render a syllable more prominent that the others in a
word. In similar phonetic contexts a vowel is perceived as a more prominent one if
it is louder, longer and more distinct (even vowels of full formation in the
unstressed position are not so distinct as their stressed counterparts). The pitch
component of word stress manifests itself in the fact that the stressed syllable is
always that on which there is a potential change of pitch, though the stressed
syllable is not necesseraly higher than the unstressed one – the type of tone
direction is not significant.
In comparison with Russian. We never pronounce vowels with full formation
43
and length in unstressed positions, they are always reduced. The quantitative
component is of greater importance in Russian than in English.
European languages, such as English, German, French, Russian possess
predominantly dynamic word stress. It means that the sressed syllbles are
pronounced with greater force and greater muscularenergy is produced by the
speaker. There is another type of word stress called musical. It implies difference
in tones. In Scandinavian languages the word stress is considered to be both
dynamic and musical (or tonic). The musical word stress is observed in Chinese,
Japanese and Vietnamese. It’s affected by the variations of voice pitch in relation
to neighbouring syllables. There are tow more type of stress: quantitative (special
prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved through the changes in the quantity of
the sressed vowel – it becomes longer) and qualitative (the quality of the vowel
under stress in changed).
Functions:
Word stress arranges syllables in words fulfilling the constitutive function.
Its distinctive function can be traced in the oppositions of words consisting of the
same morphemes, the meaning of which is differentiated by word stress. The
opposition of the primary stress is capable of differentiating the parts of speech:
object [′‫ر‬bdςıkt] – object [əb′dςekt], conduct – conduct, export – export, progress –
progress, subject – subject, noun or adjective – verb. The actual meaning of words
may be differentiated in the same way: artist [′a:tıst] apainter – artiste [a:′tıst] a
person skilful at doing something. The opposition of second primary stress to the
absence of stress may be also distinctive: recover [′ri:′k ٨və] cover again – recover
[ri:′k٨və] become well again. The secondary stress opposed to the primary one in a
few cases differentiates the meaning too: recreation [′ri:krı′eı∫n] creating again –
recreation [˛rekrı′eı∫n] refreshment, amusement. The third function is called
identificatory or recognitive – word stress enables a person to identify a
succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word.
Position.
Word stress in English is free and not tied to any particular syllable in all the
words (not fixed like in French – to the last syllable, Finnish and Czech – to the
last). But it doesn’t change its position in a given word. The stress in English as
well as in Russian is shifting: it may shift and thus helps to differenciate between
the parts of speech: ′insult – to in′sult.
The position of a word stress is the result of the historical development of the
language. It has been influenced by the combination of different tendencies. The
first of them is known as the recessive tendency. According to it, the root syllable
or the semantic unit of the word is stressed. The majority of words of the Germanic
origin have their first syllables stressed: clever, body, water, singing. And if the
prefixes with no referential meaning are added, the stress remains on the root
which become then the second syllable: begin, before, mistake.
The second tendency is called rhythmic and it is the result of the mutual
influence of Germanic and French accentual patterns. It manifests itself in stressing
the third syllable from the end: ′situate, ar′ticulate. It is especially common for
verbs with the suffixes -ate, -fy, -ize: per′sonify, centralize, ar′ticulate.
44
Many words of French origin retain their stress on the last syllable: police,
machine.
Words of four syllables may have either recessive or rhythmic stress:
′architect, ′criticism, re′markable, ar′ticulate. Or they tend to have a three-syllable
accentual pattern: dictionary [′dık∫ənrı], laboratory [′læbrətrı].
The third tendency was traced in the instability of the accentual structure of
English word stress – the retentive tendency. Ut means that the derivative often
retains the stress of the original or parent word: ′similar – as′similate.
Among the factors that determine the place and different degree of stress is
the semantic factor.
In English there are three degrees of word stress: stressed syllables (primary
stress), half-stressed syllables (secondary stress, which occurs even in simple
words when they are polysyllabic) and weak or unstressed syllables. In Russian
there are no secondary stresses. Plus there is a large group of words in English that
bear two primary stresses equally strong. Some linguists identify four degrees of
stress: B. Bloch, G Tarager, H.A. Gleason, H. Sweet, arranging the four in an
descending scale and terming them in different ways.
The secondary stress is manifested in polysyllabic word with the primary
stress on the third or on the fourth syllable from the biginning: ˛popu′larity,
re˛sponsi′bility. In these cases the secondary stress falls on the first syllable.
If the primary stress is on the fourth or fifth syllable, the secondary then falls
on the second: ar˛ticu′lation, ex˛perimen′tation.
Consequently the position of the secondary stress is that of the primary stress
in the original word from which the derivative word is formed: ′possible –
˛possi′bility, ap′preciate – ap˛preci′ation.
Words with two primary stresses consist of two morphemes and the use of the
second strong stress is caused by the semantic significance of both elements of the
word. There are several groups of such words:
1. Numerals from 13 to 19.
2. Compound numerals: twenty-three.
3. Compound adjectives: well-known, absent-minded.
4. Compound verbs with a post-position or a preposition-like adverb
which changes the meaning of the verb: to give in, to put on, to take
off.
5. Polysyllables with separable prefixes having distinct meaning of
their own: negative prefixes (un, dis, non, in, ir, il, im) re meaning
repetition, mis meaning wrong, pre meaning before, earlier, ex
meaning former, under and sub meaning subordinate, inter meaning
among, plus others like anti, vice, ultra etc. But very common words
with these prefixes sometimes lose the stress on the prefix in
everyday usage (unusual, impossible, mistake); it’s also lost in
words which are not used without these prefixes (discourage)
Word stress in compound words depends on the semantic weight of the
elements of the word. Compound words are composed of separate root morphemes
45
with usually the first element determining or restricting or introducing some
contrast to another element. So the first element is stressed while the stressed
vowel of the second word retains its qualitative and quantitative prominence:
′reading-room, ′apple-tree, ′suitcase.
Double-stressed compound nouns and adjectives are relatively rare. In such
words both elements are equally important: ′gas-′stove, ′absent-′mindness, ′ice′cream, ′clean-′shaven, ′bare-′footed, ′first-′class. Altough when the second element
of the compound adjective is semantically weak, only the first one is stressed:
′childlike, ′oval-shaped.
Typology of accentual structures.
The numerous variations of English word stress are systematized in the
typology of accentual structure of English words worked out by G.P. Torsuyev. He
classifies them according to the number of stressed syllables, their degree or
character (the main and the secondary stress). The distribution of stressed syllables
within the word accentual types forms accentual structures of words. Accentual
types and accentual structures are closely connected with the morphological type
of words, with the number of syllables, the semantic value of the root and the
prefix of the word.
The accentual types are:
1. ['___]. This accentual type marks both simple and compound words. The
accentual structures of this type may include two and more syllables, e.g. 'fafher,
'possibly, 'mother-in-law, 'gas-pipe.
2. [ '_ '_ ]. The accentual type is commonly realized in compound words,
most of them are with separable prefixes, e.g. 'radio-'active, 're'write, 'diso'bey.
3. [ '_ ' _ '_ ] and 4. ['_ ' _ '_ '_]. The accentual types are met in initial
compound abbreviations like 'U'S'A, 'U'S'S'R.
5. ['_ ,_ _ ]. The type is realized both in simple and compound words, very
common among compound words, e.g. 'hair-,dresser, 'substructure.
6. [, _ '_ _ ]. The accentual type marks a great number of simple words and
some compound words as well. In simple words the stresses fall onto:
1. the prefix and the root: maga'zine;
2. the root and the suffix: ,hospi'tality;
3. the prefix and the suffix: disorganization.
The other five types are rare and found in small number of words.
7.[‘_ ,_ ‘_ _ ] – simple words with the separate prefixes: misrepresent.
8. [,_ ,_ ‘_ _ ] – individualization.
9. [‘_ ‘_ ,_ _ ] – compound words with separable prefixes: unseaworthy
10. [‘_ _ ,_ ,_ ] – simple and compound words: soda-water, bottle.
11. [,_ ‘_ ,_ ] – rare cases of compound words consisting of three
components: gignerbeer-bottle.
The data given above suggest an idea of the great variability in the accentual
structure of English words. The most widely spread among the enumerated
accentual types are supposed to be Type 1, Type 2, Type 5 and Type 6. Each type
includes varieties of definite accentual structures with different numbers of
46
syllables and marks thousands of words. So the four of them cover the main bulk
of most common English words and are therefore most typical for the English
vocabulary.
The variability of the word accentual structure is multiplied in connected
speech. The accentual structure of words may be altered under the influence of
rhythm, e.g. An 'unpolished 'stone but: The 'stone was un'polished.
The tempo of speech may influence the accentual pattern of words. With the
quickening of the speed the carefulness of articulation is diminished, the vowels
are reduced or elided, the secondary stress may be dropped, e.g. The 'whole
organi'zation of the 'meeting was 'faulty.
Перераспределение (сдвиг) ударений - осталось.
Intonation.
1. Intonation: definition, approaches, functions
2. Components of intonation and the structure of English tone-group
3. Graphical representation of intonation
4. Rhythm
5. Emphasis
1. Intonation: approaches, definitions, functions
Intonation is a language universal. There are no languages which are spoken
without any change of prosodic parameters but intonation functions in various
languages in a different way.
There are two main approaches to the problem of intonation in Great Britain.
One is known as a contour analysis and the other may be called grammatical.
The first is represented by a large group of phoneticians: H. Sweet, D. Jones,
G. Palmer, L. Armstrong, I. Ward, R. Kingdon, J. O'Connor, A. Gimson and
others. It is traditional and widely used. According to this approach the smallest
unit to which linguistic meaning can be attached is a tone-group (sense-group).
Their theory is based on the assumption that intonation consists of basic functional
"blocks". They pay much attention to these "blocks" but not to the way they are
connected. Intonation is treated by them as a layer that is superimposed on the
lexico-grammatical structure. In fact the aim of communication determines the
intonation structure, not vice versa.
The grammatical approach to the study of intonation was worked out by M.
Halliday. The main unit of intonation is a clause. Intonation is a complex of three
systemic variables: tonality, tonicity and tone, which are connected with
grammatical categories. Tonality marks the beginning and the end of a tone-group.
Tonicity marks the focal point of each tone-group. Tone is the third unit in
Halliday's system. Tones can be primary and secondary. They convey the attitude
of the speaker. Hallyday's theory is based on the syntactical function of intonation.
47
The founder of the American school of intonation K. Pike in his book «The
Intonation of American English» considers «pitch phonemes» and «contours» to be
the main units of intonation. He describes different contours and their meanings,
but the word «meaning» stands apart from communicative function of intonation.
There is wide agreement among Russian linguists that on perception level
intonation is a complex, a whole, formed by significant variations of pitch,
loudness and tempo closely related. Some Russian linguists regard speech timbre
as the fourth component of intonation. Neither its material form nor its linguistic
function has been thoroughly described. Though speech timbre definitely conveys
certain shades of attitudinal or emotional meaning there is no good reason to
consider it alongside with the three prosodic components of intonation, i.e. pitch,
loudness and tempo.
There is a term “prosody” which embraces the three prosodic components
and substitutes the term intonation. It is widely used in linguistic literature, it
causes no misunderstanding and, consequently, it is more adequate.
Many foreign scholars (A. Gimson, R. Kingdon) restrict the formal definition
of intonation to pitch movement alone, though occasionally allowing in variations
of loudness as well. According to D. Crystal, the most important prosodic effects
are those conveyed by the linguistic use of pitch movement, or melody. It is clearly
not possible to restrict the term intonation by the pitch parameters only because
generally all the three prosodic parameters function as a whole though in many
cases the priority of the pitch parameter is quite evident.
There is no general agreement about either the number or the headings of the
functions of intonation which can be illustrated by the difference in the approach
to the subject by some prominent Russian phoneticians. T.M. Nikolayeva names
three functions of intonation: delimitating, integrating and semantic. L.K. Tseplitis
suggests the semantic, syntactic and stylistic functions the former being the
primary and the two latter being the secondary functions. N.V. Cheremisina singles
out the following main functions of intonation: communicative, distinctive (or
phonological – phonology has a special branch, intonology, whose domain is the
larger units of connected speech: intonation groups, phrases and even phonetic
passages or blocks of discourse), delimitating, expressive, appellative, aesthetic,
integrating. The distinctive function of intonation is realized in the opposition of
the same word sequences which differ in certain parameters of the intonation
pattern. Intonation patterns make their distinctive contribution at intonation group,
phrase and text levels. Thus in the phrases:
If Mary, comes let me  know at once (a few people are expected to come
but it is Mary who interests the speaker)
If —>Mary comes let me  know at once (no one else but Mary is
expected to come)
the intonation patterns of the first intonation groups are opposed. In the
opposition I enjoyed it - I enjoyed it the pitch pattern operates over the whole
48
phrase adding in the second phrase the notion that the speaker has reservations
(implying a continuation something like 'but it could have been a lot better').
Any section of the intonation pattern, any of its three constituents can perform
the distinctive function thus being phonological units. These units form a complex
system of intonemes, tonemes, accentemes, chronemes, etc. These phonological
units like phonemes consist of a number of variants. The terminal tonemes, for
instance, consist of a number of allotones, which are mutually non-distinctive. The
principal allotone is realized in the nucleus alone. The subsidiary allotones are
realized not only in the nucleus, but also in the pre-head and in the tail, if there are
any, cf.:
No. No, Tom. Oh, no, Mary.
The most powerful phonological unit is the terminal tone. The opposition of
terminal tones distinguishes different types of sentence. The same sequence of
words may be interpreted as a different syntactical type, i.e. a statement or a
question, a question or an exclamation being pronounced with different terminal
tones, e.g.:
Tom saw it (statement) - Tom saw it? (general question)
Didn't you enjoy it? (general question) - Didn't you enjoy it? (exclamation)
Will you be quiet? (request) - Will you be quiet? (command).
Let’s dwell on the communicative function as well. By many linguists it’s
considered to be the main function of intonation. It’s realized in various ways:
- it structures the information content of a textual unit so as to show which
information is new (rheme) and which is given, or retreivable (theme);
- it determines the speech function of a phrase, indicating whether it’s a
statement, a question or a command;
- it conveys the attitude of the speaker;
- it structures a text, delimitating it into smaller units (phonetic passages,
phrases, intonation groups) and and integrating them thus forming a complete text;
- it characterizes a particular style or variety of oral speech.
D. Crystal distinguishes the following functions of intonation.
• Emotional function's most obvious role is to express attitudinal meaning sarcasm, surprise, reserve, impatience, delight, shock, anger, interest, and
thousands of other semantic nuances.
• Grammatical function helps to identify grammatical structure in speech,
performing a role similar to punctuation. Units such as clause and sentence often
depend on intonation for their spoken identity, and several specific contrasts, such
as question/statement, make systematic use of it.
• Informational function helps draw attention to what meaning is given and
what is new in an utterance. The word carrying the most prominent tone in a
contour signals the part of an utterance that the speaker is treating as new
information.
• Textual function helps larger units of meaning than the sentence to contrast
and cohere. In radio news-reading, paragraphs of information can be shaped
through the use of pitch. In sports commentary, changes in prosody reflect the
49
progress of the action.
• Psychological function helps us to organize speech into units that are easier
to perceive and memorize. Most people would find a sequence of numbers, for
example, difficult to recall. The task is made easier by using intonation to chunk
the sequence into two units.
• Indexical function, along with other prosodic features, is an important
marker of personal or social identity. Lawyers, preachers, newscasters, sports
commentators, army sergeants, and several other occupations are readily identified
through their distinctive prosody.
2. Components of intonation and the structure of English intonation
group.
Let us consider the components of intonation – or its prosodic constituents. It
is necessary to note that on the acoustic level pitch correlates with the fundamental
frequency of the vibration of the vocal cords; loudness correllates with the
amplitude of vibrations; tempo is a correlate of time during which a speech unit
lasts.
All of the three components are realized in speech in the following way:
Each syllable of the speech chain has a special speech colouring. Some of the
syllables have significant moves of tone up and down. Each syllable bears a
definite amount of loudness. Together with the tempo of speech they form an
intonation pattern which is the basic unit of intonation.
An intonation pattern contains one nucleus and may contain other stressed or
unstressed syllables preceding or following the nucleus. The boundaries of
intonation patterns may be marked by stops of phonation, that is temporal pauses.
Intonation patterns serve to actualize syntagms in oral speech (the syntagm is
a group of words which is semantically and syntactically complete. In phonetics
actualized syntagms are called intonation groups. Each intonation group may
consist of one or more potential syntagms. The sentence “I think he is coming
soon” has two potential syntagms “I think” and “he is coming soon”. In oral speech
it is normally actualized as one intonation group. The number of intonation groups
depends on the length of the phrase and the degree of semantic importance of
emphasis given to various parts of it.
The intonation group is a stretch of speech which ma have the length of the
whole phrase, also the phrase may contain more than one intonation group. The
number of them depends on the length of the phrase and the degree of semantic
imporatnce or emphasis given to various parts of the phrase.
Pitch.
In the pitch component we may consider the distinct variations in the
direction of pitch, pitch level and pitch range. Speech changes are of primary
linguistic significance, but they shouldn’t be viewed without the variations of
loudness, the second component of intonation, since it’s not possible to separate
pitch and loudness in creating the effect of accentuation. So the first task is to
discuss the anatomy of pitch-and-stress intonation patterns.
50
Not all stressed syllables are of equal importance. One of the syllables has the
greater prominence than the others and forms the nucleous, or focal point of an
intonation pattern. The nucleous is described as a strongly accented syllable which
is generally the last accented syllable of an intonation pattern and which marks a
significant change in pitch direction (that is where the pitch goes directly up ot
down). The nuclear tone is the most important part of the intonation pattern,
without which the latter cannot exist at all.
According to R. Kingdon the most important nuclear tones in English are:
Low Fall (or Medium Fall – the voice falls from the low (medium) pitch level to
the bottom of the pitch), High Fall (the voice falls all the way down from the high
to the lowest note possible), Low Rise (the voice rises from a very low to a
medium pitch level or a little igher), High Rise (or Medium Rise – the voice rises
from a medium or high pitch and moves up to the top of the voice), and Fall-Rise
(the voice first falls from a medium or high to a rather low pitch level and then
rises to a moderately medium pitch).
The meanings of the nuclear tones are difficult to specify in general terms.
Roughly speaking the falling tone of any level and range expresses certainty,
completeness, and independence. It has an air of finality:
Where is Tom? – He →hasn’t \come yet.
A rising tone on the contrary expresses uncertainty, incompleteness or
dependence. A general question has a rising tone as the speaker is uncertain of the
truth of what he’s asking about:
→Are you /ready?
Encouraging or polite denials, commands, invitations, greetings, farewells are
generally spoken with a rising tone:
What shall I do now? – →Do go /on.
Could you join us? – →Not /now.
A falling-rising tone may combine the falling tone's meaning of assertion,
certainty with the rising tone's meaning of dependence, incompleteness.At the end
of a phrase it often conveys a feeling of reservation; that is, it asserts something
and at the same time suggests that there is something else to be said:
Do you like pop-music? – \Some/times.
At the beginning or in the middle of a phrase it is a more forceful alternative
to the rising tone, expressing the assertion of one point, together with the
implication that another point is to follow:
\,Those who ′work in the ٧offices | \,ought to take ′plenty of \exercise.
The falling-rising tone, as its name suggests, consists of a fall in pitch
followed by a rise. If the nucleus is the last syllable of the intonation group the fall
and rise both take place on one syllable:
Do you agree with him? – ٧Yes.
Otherwise the rise occurs in the remainder of the tone unit:
What can I do to mend matters? – You could a\pologize /to her.
In English there is often clear evidence of an intonation-group boundary, but
no audible nuclear tone movement preceding. In such a circumstance two courses
51
are open: either one may classify the phenomenon as a further kind of head or one
may consider it to be the level nuclear tone. Low Level tone is very characteristic
of reading poetry. Mid-Level tone (maintains a level pitch between high and low,
the voice neither rises nor fwlls) is particularly common in spontaneous speech
functionally replacing the rising tone. There are two more nuclear tones in English:
Rise-Fall (the voice rises from a medium to a high pitch level and then quikly falls
to a low pitch) and Rise-Fall-Rise (the voice rises from a very low pitch level,
moves up to the medium or high one, falls deep down and then rises again). But
adding refinement to speech they are not absolutely essential tones for the foreign
learner to acquire. Rise-Fall can always be replaced by High Fall and Rise-FallRise by Fall-Rise without making nonsense of the utterance.
The tone of a nucleus determines the pitch of the rest of the intonation pattern
following it which is called the tail. Thus after a falling tone, the rest of the
intonation pattern is at a low pitch. After a rising tone the rest of the intonation
pattern moves in an upward pitch direction: after a faling nucleus the tail remains
low or is said even lower, after the rising one each following unstressed syllable is
a step higher than the previous, after a Mid-Level nucleus the tail stays on the same
level).
The nucleus and the tail form what is called terminal tone. The two other
sections of the intonation pattern are the head and the pre-head. Pre-head can be
low (if it’s pronounces lower thatn the first stressed syllable of the head), high (if
it’shigher or on the same level as the first stressed syllable of the head).
The pre-head includes unstressed and half-stressed syllables preceding the
head. The head consists of the syllables beginnig with the first stressed syllable up
to the last stressed syllble. The last stressed syllable is the nucleus. The unstressed
and half-stressed syllables that follow the nucleus are called the tail. These all
together are called pitch-and-stress sections of intonation.
Pre-head
Then
Head
\,don’t ′make so much
Nucleus
\fuss
Tail
about it.
The head part can take a variety of pitch patterns. Variation within the prеnucleus does not usually affect the grammatical meaning of the utterance, though it
often conveys meanings associated with attitude or phonetic styles. There are three
common types of head paterns: a descending type in which the pitch gradually
descends to the nucleus (often in "steps" with the stressed syllables and intevening
unstressed ones forming a descending sequence); an ascending type in which the
syllables form an ascending sequence and a level type when all the syllables stay
more or less on the same level.
Descending heads:
- Stepping. The syllables move down by steps. In the Descending Stepping Head
unstressed or partially stressed syllables are pronounced on the same note as the
preceding step.
52
- Falling. The stressed syllables are also moving down by steps but intervening
unstressed syllables fall down too, continuing the descending direction.
- Scandent. Unstressed or partially stressed syllables move up and are
pronounced igher than the stressed syllables.
- Sliding. The voice moves down by slideswithin stressed syllables; unstressed or
partially stressed syllables between the slides ususally continue the fall.
- Broken. Stepping or Falling Descending Heads may be broken by the so-called
“accidental (special) rise”.
Ascending heads:
- Rising. The voice moves up by steps and the intervening unstressed or partially
stressed syllables continue the rise.
- Climbing. The voice moves up by slides and unstressed or partially stressed
syllables glide up, too.
Level heads.
- High Level Head. All of the syllables are pronounced on a high level.
- Medium. ----on the medium level of the pitch.
- Low. ---- on th elow pitch level.
Two more pitch parameters which can considerably modify the pitch contour
of the pitch-and-stres structure are pitch ranges and pitch levels. Three pitch
ranges are generally distinguished: normal, wide, and narrow; and its variations
occur within the normal range of the human voice, within its upper and lower
limits. Pitch levels may be high, medium, and low.
The pitch range of the whole intonation unit is the interval between the
highest-pitched and the lowest-pitched syllables.
normal
wide
narrow
Pitch levels may be high, medium and low.
High--------------------Medium----------------Low---------------------The meaning of the intonation group is the combination of the «meaning» of
the terminal tone and the pre-nuclear part combined with the «meaning» of pitch
range and pitch level. The parts of the intonation pattern can be combined in
various ways manifesting changes in meaning, cf.: the High Head combined with
Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise, High Rise, Fall-Rise in the phrase Not at all.
—>Not at \ all (reserved, calm).
—>Not at \ all (surprised, concerned).
—>Not at / all (encouraging, friendly).
—> Not at / all (questioning).
—> Not at ٧all (intensely encouraging, protesting).
53
The more the height of the pitch contrasts within the intonation pattern the
more emphatic the intonation group sounds, cf.:
He's won. Fan \tastic.
ˉFan \tastic.
Loudness is used in a variety of ways. Gross differences of meaning (such as
anger, menace, and excitement) can be conveyed by using an overall loudness
level.
Tempo.
The tempo of speech is the third component of intonation. The term tempo
implies the rate of the utterance and pausation. The rate of speech can be
normal, slow and fast. The parts of the utterance which are particularly important
sound slower. Unimportant parts are commonly pronounced at a greater speed than
normal.
Any stretch of speech can be split into smaller portions, i.e. phonetic wholes,
phrases, intonation groups by means of pauses. By 'pause' here we mean a
complete stop of phonation. We may distinguish the following three kinds of
pauses:
1. Short pauses which may be used to separate intonation groups within a
phrase.
2. Longer pauses which normally manifest the end of the phrase.
3. Very long pauses, which are approximately twice as long as the first type,
are used to separate phonetic wholes.
Functionally, there may be distinguished syntactic, emphatic and hesitation
pauses.
Syntactic pauses separate phonopassages, phrases, and intonation groups.
Emphatic pauses serve to make especially prominent certain parts of the utterance.
Hesitation pauses are mainly used in spontaneous speech to gain some time to
think over what to say next. They may be silent or filled.
The changes of pitch, loudness and tempo are not haphazard variations. The
rules of change are highly organized. No matter how variable the individual
variations of these prosodic components are they tend to become formalized or
standardized, so that all speakers of the language use them in similar ways under
similar circumstances. These abstracted characteristics of intonation structures may
be called intonation patterns which form the prosodic system of English.
Some intonation patterns may be completely colourless in meaning: they give
to the listener no implication of the speaker's attitude or feeling. They serve a
mechanical function — they provide a mold into which all sentences may be
poured so that they achieve utterance. Such intonation patterns represent the
intonational minimum of speech. The number of possible combinations is more
than a hundred but not all of them ate equally important. Some of them do not
differ much in meaning, others are very rarely used. That is why in teaching it is
54
necessary to deal only with a very limited number of intonation patterns, which are
the result of a careful choice.
3. Graphical representation of intonation
There are a variety of methods for recording intonation patterns in writing.
The one we are using is favoured by most of the British phoneticians (D. Jones, R.
Kingdom, J. O’Connor) and G. Arnold, M. Halliday, D. Crystal... as well as by
Soviet phoneticians who have successfully developed and improved it. Not only
variations of pitch but also stressed syllables are marked. Distinct modifications of
pitch in the nuclear syllable are indicated by special symbols (by an upwars and a
downward or a slantwise stressmark). Plus pitch movements in the pre-nuclear part
are indicated (again by the arrows before the first stressed syllable).
A vertical bar | represents a pause at the end of the intonation group.
The tone mark – a long arrow pointing up or down – is put before the first
stressed syllable (the beginnig of the head) and it shows the general direction of the
voice movement. Other stressd syllables are marked with a short vertical bar before
and above them ′.
4. Rhythm.
Prosodic components of intonation (pitch, loudness, tempo) and rhythm work
interdependantly. Sometimes rhythm is even regarded as a component of
intonation. It is understood as periodicity in time and space as a general term. As a
longuistic notion it is realized in lexical, syntactical and prosodic means. Here in
this course we deal with the prosodic aspect of rhythm.
In speech, the type of rhythm depends on the language. Linguists devide
languages into two groups: syllable-timed where speaker give an approximately
equal amount of time to each syllable, whether the syllable is stressed or not – this
produces the effect of even rather stacatto rhythm (French, Spanish and other
Romance languages) and stress-timed languages where the rhythm is based on a
larger unit than syllable – though the amount of time given on each syllable varies
considerably, the total time of uttering each rhythmic unit is unchanged – the
stressed syllables of rhythmic unit form peaks of prominence and they tend to be
pronounce at regular intervals no matter how many unstressed syllables are located
between every two stressed ones – the distribution of time within the rhythmic unit
is unregular and the regularity is provided by the strong “beats” – regular stresstimed pulses of speech seem to create the strict, abrupt and spiky effect (Germanic
languages like English and German and also Russian belongs here).
It’s interesting to note that speech rhythn of stress-timed languages has the
immediate influence on vowel reduction and elision. Form words (such as - ? –
prepositions, conjunctions, auxilary and modal verbs, personal and possessive
pronouns) are pronounced in their weak forms with their vowels reduced or elided
to secure equal intervals between the stressed syllables.
So the definition of speech rhythm is: recurrence of stressed syllables at more
or less equal intervals of time in a speech continuum.
55
The more organized the speech is, the more rhythmical it appears, poetry
being the most exttreme example of this. Prose read aloud or delivered in the form
of the lectureis more rhythmic than colloquial language. Although it’s fair to
mention that intervals between the stressed syllables are not absolutely physically
equal – some strokes can be missing or mistimed.
It is believed that the basic rhythmic unit is a rhythmic group – a speech
segment which contains a stressed syllable with preceding or/and following
unstressed syllable attached to it. The stressed sylable is the prosodic nucleus of
the rhythmic group. The initial unstressed syllables preceding the nucleus are
calles proclitics, those followin the nucleus – enclitics. In qualifying the unstressd
syllables located between the stressed ones there are two main alternative views
among phoneticians:
1.
Acording to the so-calles semantic viewpoint the unstressed
syllables tend to be drawn towards the stressed syllable of the
same word or to the lexical unit according to their semantic
connection.
2.
According to the other viewpoint the unsrressed syllbles tend to
join the preceding stressed syllable – it’s called enclitic tendency.
And it seems to be more typical of the English language, though
in the speech flow it’s always difficult to define the borders of the
rhythmic groups. It may be said that the speech tempo and style
often regulate the division into rhythmic groups.
The enclitic tendency is more typical for informal speech whereas the semantic
tendency prevails in accurate, more explicit speech.
The basic rhythmic unit is defined in a variety of terms: accentual or stress group,
pause group – a group of words between two pauses, breath group – which can be
uttered within a single breath. But the criteria for definition of these units are
limited by physiological factors.Whereas a rhythmic group is simultaneously a
sense unit.
5. Emphasis
To make the utterances more lively, emotional or exclamatory – emphatic –
pitch is used. Or different sections of pitch-and-stress patterns.
For example, if the Low Falling nuclear tone is changed for the High Fall, the
intonation group sounds more emphatic – more chategoric, firm, finel, concerned:
Do you want to stay here? - \No, | I \don’t.
Do you want to stay here? – ٰNo, | I ٰdon’t.
Another way of adding emphasis is by modifying the shape of the head. For
instance, the Falling Head can be modified for emphasis by pronouncing the
unstressed syllables on the same level as the stressed ones:
\, Ask him to ′ring me ٰup \again.
Often the emphasis is achieved by modifying one section of the pitch-andstress pattern, but also by combining the modifications in pre-heads, heads and
nuclear tones. The pitch-and-stress sections of intonation can be roughly divided
into non-emphatic and emphatic:
56
Heads
Pitch-and-stress sections
Pre-heads
Descending
Ascending
Level
Nuclear and Terminal
Tones
Non-emphatic
Low Pre-Head
Falling Head
Rising Head
Medium Level Head
Low (Medium) Fall,
Low Rise, Mid-Level
Emphatic
High Pre-Head
Stepping, Sliding, Scandent,
Several High Falles, Broken
Descending Heads
Climbing Head
Low Level Head, High Level
Head
High Fall, High Rise, RiseFall, Fall-Rise, Rise-FallRise
Territorial, social and stylistic varieties of English pronunciation.
The written form of language is usually a generally accepted standard and is
the same throughout the country. The varieties of the language are conditioned by
language communities ranging from small groups to nations. It’s clear that
dialectology is inseparably connected with sociolinguistics, which deals with
language variations caused by social difference and different social needs.
Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics which studies differen aspects of the
language – phonetics, lexics and grammar with reference to their functions in the
society.
But spoken language may also vary from place to place. Such territorial
distinct forms of language are called dialects.
Speaking about the nations we refer to the national variants of the
language. According to A.D. Schweitzer national language is a historical category
evolving from conditions of economic and political concentration which
characterizes the formation of nation. In the case of English there exists a great
diversity in the realization of the language and particularly in terms of
pronunciation. Though every national variant of English has considerable
differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar; they all have much in
common which gives us ground to speak of one and the same language — the
English language.
Every national variety of language falls into territorial or regional dialects.
Dialects are distinguished from each other by differences in pronunciation,
grammar and vocabulary. But pronunciation, above all, is subject to all kinds of
changes. Therefore the national variants of English differ primaraly in sound, stress
and intonation. When we refer to varieties in pronunciation only, we use the term
accent. So local accents may have many features of pronunciation in common and
are grouped into territorial or area accents. For certain reasons one of the dialects
becomes the standard language of the nation and its pronunciation or accent - the
standard pronunciation.
The literary spoken form has its national pronunciation standard. A
standard may be defined as "a socially accepted variety of language established by
57
a codified norm of correctness" (K. Macanalay). Standard national pronunciation is
sometimes called "an orthoepic norm''. Some phoneticians however prefer the term
"literary pronunciation". It’s generally accepted that for the English English It’s
called “Received Pronunciation” or RP, for the American English it’s called
“General American Pronunciation”, for The Australian English it’s “Educated
Australian”. It’s due to certain geografical, economic, political and cultural
reasons, that one of the dialects in a country becomes the standart language of the
nation.
We have mentioned the vertical – social – diferentiarions of the language. are
observed in relation to territorial criterion plus according to the individuelity of the
speaker, his cultural values, sex and age differences. Individual speech of members
of the society is thus called idiolects. The horisontal differentiations of the
language are also occuring because of the situational variability. Hence situational
varieties of the language are called functional dialects or functional styles.
Types and styles of pronunciation.
Styles of speech or pronunciation are those special forms of speech suited to
the aim and the contents of the utterance, the circumstances of communication, the
character of the audience, etc. As D. Jones points out, a person may pronounce the
same word or sequence of words quite differently under different
circumstances.
In other words, all speakers use more than one style of pronunciation, and
variations in the pronunciation of speech sounds, words and sentences peculiar to
different styles of speech may be called stylistic variations.
Several different styles of pronunciation may be distinguished, although no
generally accepted classification of styles of pronunciation has been worked out
and the peculiarities of different styles have not yet been sufficiently investigated.
D. Jones distinguishes among different styles of pronunciation the rapid
familiar style, the slower colloquial style, the natural style used in addressing a
fair-sized audience, the acquired style of the stage, and the acquired style used in
singing.
L.V. Shcherba wrote of the need to distinguish a great variety of styles of
speech, in accordance with the great variety of different social occasions and
situations, but for the sake of simplicity he suggested that only two styles of
pronunciation should be distinguished: (1) colloquial style characteristic of
people's quiet talk, and (2) full style, which we use when we want to make our
speech especially distinct and, for this purpose, clearly articulate all the syllables of
each word.
The kind of style used in pronunciation has a definite effect on the phonemic
and allophonic composition of words. More deliberate and distinct utterance results
in the use of full vowel sounds in some of the unstressed syllables. Consonants,
too, uttered in formal style, will sometimes disappear in colloquial. It is clear that
the chief phonetic characteristics of the colloquial style are various forms of the
reduction of speech sounds and various kinds of assimilation. The degree of
reduction and assimilation depends on the tempo of speech.
S.M. Gaiduchic distinguishes five phonetic styles: solemn (торжественный),
58
"scientific business (научно-деловой), official business (официальноделовой), everyday (бытовой), and familiar (непринужденный). As we may
see the above-mentioned phonetic styles on the whole correlate with functional
styles of the language. They are differentiated on the basis of spheres of
discourse.
The division is usually based on different degrees of formality or rather
familiarity between the speaker and the listener. Within each style subdivisions
are observed.
There are five intonational styles singled out mainly according to the
purpose of communication and to which we could refer all the main varieties of
the texts. They are as follows:
1.Informational style.
2.Academic style (Scientific).
3.Publicistic style.
4.Declamatory style (Artistic).
5.Conversational style (Familiar).
But differentiation of intonation according to the purpose of
communication is not enough; there are other factors that affect intonation in
various situations. Besides any style is seldom realized in its pure form.
59
Classification of pronunciation variants of British English.
It is common knowledge that over 300 million people now speak English as a
first language. It is the national language of Great Britain, the USA, Australia, New
Zealand and Canada.
Nowadays two main types of English are spoken in the English-speaking
world: British English and American English.
According to British dialectologists (P. Trudgill, J. Hannah, A. Hughes and
others), the following variants of English are referred to the English-based group:
English English, Welsh English, Australian English, New Zealand English; to the
American-based group: United States English, Canadian English. Scottish English
and Ireland English fall somewhere between the two, being somewhat by
themselves. With Scottish and Irish Somewhere between the two groups by
themselves.
According to M. Sokolova and others, English English, Welsh English,
Scottish English and Northern Irish English should be better combined into the
British English subgroup, on the ground of political, geographical, cultural unity
which brought more similarities - then differences for those variants of
pronunciation.
So, BEPS (British English Pronunciation Standarts and Accents) comprise
four variations plus each of them has its own deviating accents – dialects.
English English
Southern
Northern
Welsh
English
Scottish English
Educated
Sc. Eng.
Northern
Ireland
English
Regional
Varieties
60
Southern
Northern
East Anglia
Yorkshire
South-West
North-West
West Midland
In the nineteenth century Received Pronunciation (RP) was a social marker, a
prestige accent of an Englishman. "Received" was understood in the sense of
"accepted in the best society". The speech of aristocracy and the court phonetically
was that of the London area. Then it lost its local characteristics and was finally
fixed as a ruling-class accent, often referred to as "King's English". It was also the
accent taught at public schools. With the spread of education cultured people not
belonging to upper classes were eager to modify their accent in the direction of
social standards. RP is widely regarded as a model for correct pronunciation,
particularly for educated formal speech.
It’s stated that RP is regionless – if speakers have it you cannot tell which regions
they come from. But only 3-5% of the Population of England speak it. It is also not
homogenious and there are three main types within it:
1.
Conservative RP – is used by the older generation and by certain
profession or social groups.
2.
General RP – most commonly in used and typified by the pronunciation
adopted by the BBC.
3.
Advanced RP – mainly used by young people of exlusive social groups
(upper classes) and also in certain professional circles. It reflects the
tendencies typical of changes in pronunciation, some of which are results
of temporary fashion, some become adopted as a norm.
4.
Near-RP southern – the pronunciation of teachers of English and professors
of colleges and universities particulary from the South and South-East of
England.
English English (Southern and Northern) – 220-223
The division into Southern and Northern
Welsh Englisg – 227
Scottish English – 228-229
Northern Ireland English – 230-232
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations.
Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners,
61
particularly those in the East End. Linguistically, it refers to the form of English
spoken by this group.
The earliest recorded use of the term is 1362 in and it is used to mean a small,
misshapen egg, from Middle English coken (of cocks) and ey (egg) so literally 'a
cock's egg'. In the Reeve's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1386) it appears as
"cokenay", and the meaning is "a child tenderly brought up, an effeminate fellow, a
milksop". By 1521 it was in use by country people as a derogatory reference for
the effeminate town-dwellers.

As with many accents of England, Cockney is non-rhotic. A
final -er is pronounced [ə] or lowered [ɐ] in broad Cockney. As with all or
nearly all non-rhotic accents, the paired lexical sets commA and lettER,
PALM/BATH and START, THOUGHT and NORTH/FORCE, are merged.

Broad /ɑː/ is used in words such as bath, path, demand. This
originated in London in the 16h-17th centuries and is also part of Received
Pronunciation.

T-glottalisation: Use of the glottal stop as an allophone of /t/ in
various positions, including after a stressed syllable. Glottal stops also
occur, albeit less frequently for /k/ and /p/, and occasionally for mid-word
consonants. For example, spelt "Hyde Park" as Hy' Par' . Like and light can
be homophones. "Clapham" can be said as Cla'am. /t/ may also be flapped
intervocalically. London /p, t, k/ are often aspirated in intervocalic and final
environments, e.g., upper, utter, rocker, up, out, rock, where RP is
traditionally described as having the unaspirated variants. Also, in broad
Cockney at least, the degree of aspiration is typically greater than in RP, and
may often also involve some degree of affrication. Affrication may be
encountered in initial, intervocalic, and final position.

Th-fronting:
o /θ/ can become [f] in any environment. [fɪn] "thin", [mɛfs]
"maths".
o /ð/ can become [v] in any environment except word-initially
when it can be [ð, ð̞, d, l, ʔ, ∅]. [dæɪ] "they", [bɒvə] "bother".

H-dropping. Sivertsen considers that [h] is to some extent a
stylistic marker of emphasis in Cockney.

Diphthong alterations:
o /iː/ → [əi~ɐi]: [bəiʔ] "beet"
o
/eɪ/ → [æɪ~aɪ]: [bæɪʔ] "bait"
/aɪ/ → [ɑɪ] or even [ɒɪ] in "vigorous, dialectal" Cockney. The
second element may be reduced or absent (with compensatory
lengthening of the first element), so that there are variants like [ɑ̟ə~ɑ̟ː].
This means that pairs such as laugh-life, Barton-biting may become
o
62
homophones: [lɑːf], [bɑːʔn̩]. But this neutralisation is an optional,
recoverable one.: [bɑɪʔ] "bite"
o
/ɔɪ/ → [ɔ̝ɪ~oɪ]: [tʃoɪs] "choice"
o
/uː/ → [əʉ] or a monophthongal [ʉː], perhaps with little lip
rounding, [ɨː] or [ʊː]: [bʉːʔ] "boot"
o
/əʊ/ → this diphthong typically starts in the area of the London
/ʌ/, [æ ̠~ɐ]. The endpoint may be [ʊ], but more commonly it is rather
opener and/or lacking any lip rounding, thus being a kind of centralized
[ɤ̈]. The broadest Cockney variant approaches [aʊ].: [kʰɐɤ̈ʔ] "coat"
o

o
/aʊ/ may be [æə] or a monophthongal [æː~aː]: [tʰæən] "town"
Other vowel differences include
/æ/ may be [ɛ] or [ɛɪ], with the latter occurring before voiced
consonants, particularly before /d/: [bɛk] "back", [bɛːɪd] "bad"
o
/ɛ/ may be [eə], [eɪ], or [ɛɪ] before certain voiced consonants,
particularly before /d/: [beɪd] "bed"
o
/ɜː/ is on occasion somewhat fronted and/or lightly rounded,
giving Cockney variants such as [ɜ̟ː], [œ̈ː].
/ʌ/ → [ɐ̟] or a quality like that of cardinal 4, [a]: [dʒamʔˈtˢapʰ]
"jumped up"
o /ɔː/ → [oː] or a closing diphthong of the type [oʊ~ɔo] when in
non-final position, with the latter variants being more common in broad
Cockney: [soʊs] "sauce"-"source", [loʊd] "lord", [ˈwoʊʔə] "water"
o
/ɔː/ → [ɔː] or a centring diphthong of the type [ɔə~ɔwə] when
in final position, with the latter variants being more common in broad
Cockney; thus [sɔə] "saw"-"sore"-"soar", [lɔə] "law"-"lore", [wɔə]
"war"-"wore". The diphthong is retained before inflectional endings, so
o
that board and pause can contrast with bored [bɔəd] and paws [pɔəz]
o In broad Cockney, and to some extent in general popular
London speech, a vocalised /l/ is entirely absorbed by a preceding /ɔː/:
i.e., salt and sort become homophones (although the contemporary
pronunciation of salt /sɒlt/ would prevent this from happening), and
likewise fault-fought-fort, pause-Paul's, Morden-Malden, water-Walter.
63
o
A preceding /ə/ is also fully absorbed into vocalised /l/. The
reflexes of earlier /əl/ and earlier /ɔː(l)/ are thus phonetically similar or
identical; speakers are usually ready to treat them as the same phoneme.
Thus awful can best be regarded as containing two occurrences of the
same vowel, /ˈɔːfɔː/. The difference between musical and music-hall, in
an H-dropping broad Cockney, is thus nothing more than a matter of
stress and perhaps syllable boundaries.
o According to Siversten, /ɑː/ and /aɪ/ can also join in this
neutralisation. They may on the one hand neutralise with respect to one
another, so that snarl and smile rhyme, both ending [-ɑɤ], and Child's
Hill is in danger of being mistaken for Charles Hill; or they may go
further into a fivefold neutralisation with the one just mentioned, so that
pal, pale, foul, snarl and pile all end in [-æɤ]. But these developments
are evidently restricted to broad Cockney, not being found in London
speech in general.
o A neutralisation discussed by Beaken (1971) and Bowyer
(1973), but ignored by Siversten (1960), is that of /ɒ~əʊ~ʌ/. It leads to
the possibility of doll, dole and dull becoming homophonous as [dɒʊ] or
[da̠ɤ]. Wells' impression is that the doll-dole neutralisation is rather
widespread in London, but that involving dull less so.
o One further possible neutralisation in the environment of a
following non-prevocalic /l/ is that of /ɛ/ and /ɜː/, so that well and whirl
become homophonous as [wɛʊ].

Cockney has been occasionally described as replacing /r/ with
/w/. For example, thwee instead of three, fwasty instead of frosty.
Most of the features mentioned above have, in recent years, partly spread into
more general south-eastern speech, giving the accent called Estuary English; an
Estuary speaker will use some but not all of the Cockney sounds. Some of the
features may derive from the upper-class pronunciation of late 18th century
London, such as the use of "ain't" for "isn't" and the now lost reversal of "v" and
"w".
The Cockney accent has long been looked down upon and thought of as
inferior. On the other hand, the Cockney accent has been more accepted as an
alternative form of the English Language rather than an 'inferior' one.
Estuary English is a dialect of English widely spoken in South East England,
especially along the River Thames and its estuary. The name comes from the area
around the Thames, particularly London, Kent, north Surrey and south Essex.
The variety consists of some (but not all) phonetic features of working-class
London speech spreading at various rates socially into middle-class speech.
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Estuary English is characterised by the following features:

Non-rhoticity.

Use of intrusive R.

A broad A (ɑː) in words such as bath, grass, laugh, etc.

/t/ as a glottal stop instead of an alveolar stop, e.g. water (pronounced
/wɔːʔə/).

Yod-coalescence, i.e., the use of the affricates [dʒ] and [tʃ] instead of
the clusters [dj] and [tj] in words like dune and Tuesday. Thus, these words
sound like June and choose day, respectively.
Despite the similarity between the two dialects, the following characteristics
of Cockney pronunciation are generally not considered to be present in Estuary
English:

H-dropping, i.e., Dropping [h] in stressed words (e.g. [æʔ] for hat)

Replacement of [ɹ] with [ʋ] is not found in Estuary, and is also very
much in decline amongst Cockney speakers.
/r/ phoneme is realized as a labiodental approximant [ʋ] in contrast to an
alveolar approximant [ɹ]. To speakers who are not used to [ʋ], this can sound like a
/w/. Despite being stigmatized, use of labiodental /r/ is increasing in many accents
of British English.
R-labialization leads to pronunciations such as the following:
red - [ʋɛd] ring - [ʋɪŋ] rabbit - [ʋæbɪt] merry Christmas - [mɛʋi kʋɪsmɪs]
However, the boundary between Estuary English and Cockney is far from
clear-cut.
Estuary English is widely encountered throughout the south and south-east of
England, particularly among the young. Many consider it to be a working-class
accent, though it is by no means limited to the working class.
Some people adopt the accent as a means of "blending in", appearing to be
more working class, or in an attempt to appear to be "a common man" – sometimes
this affectation of the accent is derisively referred to as "Mockney". A move away
from traditional RP is almost universal among middle class young people.
The term "Estuary English" is a euphemism for a milder variety of the
"London Accent".
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in
the United States. The use of English in the United States was a result of British
colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America
in the 17th century. Since then, American English has been influenced by the
languages of the Native American population, the languages of European and nonEuropean colonists, immigrants and neighbors, and the languages of slaves from
West Africa.
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While written AmE is standardized across the country, there are several
recognizable variations in the spoken language, both in pronunciation and in
vernacular vocabulary. General American is the name given to any American
accent that is relatively free of noticeable regional influences. It is known to be the
pronunciation standart.
So, Americal English shows lesser degree of diealect than British English.
There are onlu three types of educated American speech: The Eastern type, the
Southern type and the Western or General American or Northen American.
Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the
17th century. In most varieties of North American English, the sound
corresponding to the letter r is a retroflex [ɻ] or alveolar approximant [ɹ] rather than
a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to
the accents of eastern New England, New York City. In rural tidewater Virginia
and eastern New England, 'r' is non-rhotic in accented (such as "bird", "work",
"first", "birthday") as well as unaccented syllables, although this is declining
among the younger generation of speakers. Furthermore, the er sound of fur or
butter, is realized in AmE as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or
unstressed [ɚ]). This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North
American speech.
Some other English changes in which most North American dialects do not
participate:

The shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called "broad A") before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/,
/z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between
the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and
dance. In the United States, only eastern New England speakers took up this
modification, although even there it is becoming increasingly rare.

The realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ] (as in [bɒʔəl] for
bottle). This change is not universal for British English and is not considered a
feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North
American dialects.
On the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound
changes not found in other varieties of English speech:
Like, there is no strict division of vowels into long and short. Another general
and very peculiar feature of pronunciation of vowels is their nasalisation when thei
are preceded or followed by a nasal consonant: small, name.

The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, making father and bother rhyme. This
change is nearly universal in North American English, occurring almost
everywhere except for parts of eastern New England, hence the Boston accent.

The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɔ/. This is the so-called cot–caught merger,
where cot and caught are homophones.
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
Dropping of /j/ is more extensive than in RP. In most North American
accents, /j/ is dropped after all alveolar and interdental consonant, so that new,
duke, Tuesday, resume are pronounced /nu/, /duk/, /tuzdeɪ/, /ɹɪzum/.

æ-tensing in environments that vary widely from accent to accent; for
example, for many speakers, /æ/ is approximately realized as [eə] before nasal
consonants. In some accents [æ] and [eə] contrast sometimes, as in Yes, I can
[kæn] vs. tin can [keən].

The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before
unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the
end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for
most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are
pronounced the same.
Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], making
winter and winner homophones. Most areas in which /nt/ is reduced to /n/.

The pin-pen merger, by which [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before nasal
consonants, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in
Southern American English.

[r] is articulated with greater retroflaction than the British one (the tip
of the tongue is curled futher)

Also, there are differencies in pronunciation of individual words: either [i:],
schedule [sk],tomato [ei].
There are many stress differencies: in words of French origine the stress is on
the last syllable while in RP it’s on the first one (ballet RP[′bæleı] GA[bæ′leı]).
Then: ‘address, ‘cigarette, ‘magasine, ‘adult, ‘inquiry,’research, ‘weekend, ‘icecream.
The intonation is slightly different, too. The differencies mostly concern the
direction of the voice pitch and the realization of the terminal tones. In GA the
voice doesn’t fall to the bottom. This is why the English speech for Americans
sounds “affected” or “pretentious” or “sophisticated”. And for the English,
Americans sound “dull”, “monotonous” and “indifferent”.
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Theoretical Phonetics.
Seminars.
1. Modification of consonants and vowels in connected speech
The three stages in the articulation of a sound.
The ways of joining sounds (merging of stages, interpenetration of stages).
The junctions of consonants (loss of plosion, incomplete plosion, nasal plosion, lateral plosion).
Progressive, regressive and double (reciprocal) assimilation.
Assimilation affecting the work of the vocal folds; the active organ of speech; the manner of
noise production; both: the place of articulation and the manner of noise production.
Accommodation.
Historical and contemporary elision.
Essential weak and contracted forms in English.
Degrees of reduction of the unstressed vowels in English (qualitative, quantitative, zero).
The role of the neutral vowel in the system of the unstressed vocalism in English.
The peculiar features of the unstressed vocalism in English and in Russian.
2. Differences in the articulation bases of English and Russian consonants and
vowels.
3. British types of pronunciation.
RP, Estuary English, Cockney and their phonetic peculiarities.
Social and situational variation in British pronunciation.
The main tendencies in modern British pronunciation.
English dialects.
4. The main phonetic peculiarities of American English
General American (GA).
American dialects.
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