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1 Теоретический материал по теоретической фонетике

INTONATION AND PROSODY

Phonemes, syllables and words, as lower—level linguistic units, are grouped by various prosodic means
into a higher unit — the utterance. Every concrete utterance, alongside of its phonemic and syllabic
structures has a certain prosodic structure, or intonation.
Most phoneticians define i n t o n a t i o n as a complex unity of speech melody , sentence stress,
tempo, rhythm and voice timbre, which enables the speaker to express his thoughts, emotions and attitudes
towards the contents of the utterance and the hearer. Speech melody, sentence stress, tempo, rhythm and
timbre are all components of intonation.
The definition of intonation given above is a broad definition. It reflects the actual interconnection
and interaction of melody, stress, tempo, rhythm and timbre in speech.
A great number of phoneticians abroad, (D.Jones, L.Armstrong and G.Arnold) define intonation as the
variation of the pitch of the voice, thus reducing it to one component — speech melody. This is a narrow
approach to the definition of intonation.
Alongside of the term "intonation" the term "prosody" is widely used. "Prosody" and "prosodic"
denote non-segmental phenomena, i.e. those which do not enter into the system of segmental phonemes.
D.Crystal defines prosodic features as "vocal effects constituted by variations along the parameters of
pitch, loudness, duration and silence".
From the definition of prosody and intonation we can clearly see that both the notions include the
same phenomena. But the terms "intonation" and "prosody" are used differently by different linguists.
Some phoneticians apply the term "prosody" and "prosodic" only to the features pertaining to the
syllable and phonetic word, or rhythmic unit (which are regarded as meaningless prosodic units) and
oppose prosody to intonation (which is a meaningful phenomenon).
So, prosodic features pertain not only to syllables, words and rhythmic units, but to the
intonation group and the utterance as well, since the latter are constituted by these units.
The notion of prosody, consequently, is broader than the notion of intonation as it can be applied to
the utterance, the word, the syllable, whereas prosody of the utterance and intonation are equivalent
notions.
Whatever the views on the linguistic nature of prosodic phenomena, the phonic substance of
prosody is regarded by all phoneticians as the modifications of fundamental frequency, intensity and
duration. The most complicated and unsolved problems of prosody are the interaction between its
acoustic properties, their functioning in speech and their systematization.
 PROSODIC UNITS
One of the basic problems in the study of prosody is to determine the units in which prosodic
features are actualized.
The s y l l a b l e is widely recognized to be the smallest prosodic unit. It has no meaning of its
own, but it is significant for constituting hierarchically higher prosodic units. Prosodic features of the
syllable (tone, stress, duration) depend on its position and function in the rhythmic unit and in the ut-
terance.
A r h y t h m i c , or a c c e n t u a l , u n i t (or group) is either one stressed syllable or a
stressed syllable with a number of unstressed ones grouped around it.
The stressed syllable is the nucleus of the rhythmic unit. There are as many rhythmic units in an
utterance as there are stressed syllables in it. The unstressed syllables are clitics. Those preceding
the stressed syllable are called proclitics, and those following it — enclitics.
The i n t o n a t i o n g r o u p is hierarchically higher than the rhythmic unit. It has also been termed
"syntagm", "sense-group", "tune". The term "intonation group" [110] better reflects the essence of this
unit. It shows that the intonation group is the result of the division in which not only stresses, but pitch
and duration (i.e. intonation in the broad sense) play a role.
Structurally the intonation group has some obligatory formal characteristics. These are the nuclear
stress, on the semantically most important word and the terminal tone (i.e. pitch variations on the nucleus
and the tail if any). The boundaries between intonation groups are marked by pauses. All these features
shape the intonation group, delimit one intonation group from another and show its relative semantic
importance.
The intonation group is a meaningful unit. The most general meanings expressed by the intonation
group are, for instance, those of completeness, finality versus incompleteness, non—finality.
It may be coextensive with a sentence or part of a sentence.
E.g. Yesterday | they 'passed their e`xam. They 'passed the exam `yesterday.
The structure of the intonation group varies depending on the number of syllables and rhythmic units
in it. Minimally, an intonation group consists of one (stressed) syllable— the nucleus. Maximally, it
contains the prehead, the head, the nucleus and the tail. The prosodic features of the nucleus express
communicative and attitudinal meanings indicate the end of the intonation group. Different types of head
(scale) convey attitudinal meanings. Types of prehead differentiate emotional meanings.
A higher unit in which prosodic features are actualized is the u t t e r a n c e . The utterance is the
main communicative unit. It is characterized by semantic entity which is expressed by all the language means:
lexical, grammatical and prosodic. The utterance may contain one intonation group, two or more.
In speech single utterances are not very frequent. On the contrary, they are connected and grouped into
still larger units — hyperutterances, phonetic paragraphs and texts.
To summarize, it is necessary to note, that each hierarchically higher unit consists of one or more units
below it.
 PROSODIC SUBSYSTEMS
Pitch
The pitch component of intonation or speech melody is the variations in the pitch of the voice
which take place with voiced sounds. It is present in every word (inherent prominence) and in the
whole sentence, because it serves to delimit sentences into sense groups, or intonation groups. The
delimitative (constitutive) function of melody is performed by pitch variations jointly with
pausation, because each sentence is divided into intonation groups (on the auditory and acoustic
level) or into sense groups (on the semantic level).
To describe the melody of an utterance it is necessary to determine the relevant pitch levels,
pitch ranges, directions and rate of pitch movement in each intonation group.
The p i t c h L e v e l of the whole utterance (or intonation group) is determined by the pitch
of its highest—pitched syllable. It shows the degree of semantic importance the speaker attaches
to the utterance (or intonation group) in comparison with any other utterance (or intonation
group), and also the speaker's attitude and emotions.
The number of linguistically relevant pitch levels in English has not been definitely
established yet: in the works of different phoneticians it varies from three to seven. In
unemphatic speech most phoneticians distinguish 3 pitch levels: low, mid and high. These
levels are relative and are produced on different registers depending on the individual
peculiarities of the voice.
The p i t c h r a n g e of an utterance is the interval between its highest-pitched syllable and
its lowest—pitched syllable. According to circumstances the speaker changes his voice range. It
may be widened and narrowed to express emphasis or the speaker's attitudes and emotions.
For example, if "Very good" is pronounced with a narrow (high) range it sounds less
enthusiastic. Pronounced with a tow narrow range it sounds sincere, but not emotional. If
said with a wide range it sounds both sincere and enthusiastic.
Most phoneticians distinguish three pitch ranges - wide, mid and narrow.
T h e r a t e of p i t c h v a r i a t i o n s may be different depending on the time, during which
these variations take place, and on the range of the variations. Differences in the rate of pitch variations are
semantically important. When the rate of the fall is fast, the falling tone sounds more categoric and
definite than when the rate of the fall is slow.
The basic unit used to describe the pitch component is the t o n e. Depending on whether the pitch of the
voice varies or remains unvaried tones are subdivided into kinetic and static. Static tones may have different
pitch level of the voice — the high static tone, the mid static tone, the low static tone. The differentiation
of kinetic tones as high falling and low falling, high rising and low rising, etc. is also based on the
differentiation of the pitch level of their initial and final points.
As to the direction of pitch movement, kinetic tones are subdivided into simple and complex. Simple
tones are unidirectional: the falling and the rising tones. Complex tones are bidirectional: the falling—
rising tone, the rising-falling tone, and the rising-falling-rising tone.
 PROSODIC SUBSYSTEMS

Rhythm

An essential feature of connected speech is that the peaks of prominence - the stressed syllables -
are inseparably connected with non-prominent syllables. The latter are attached to the stressed
syllables, they never exist by themselves. The simplest example of a close relationship between the
stressed and unstressed syllables is a polysyllabic word-utterance which is a phonetic and semantic
entity incapable of division, e.g.:
`Excellent. To`morrow. `Certainly.
Thus an utterance is split into groups of syllables unified by a stressed syllable, i.e. stress-groups,
each of which is a semantic unit - generally a word, often more than a word.
An important feature of English pronunciation is that the prominent syllables in an utterance
occur at approximately equal periods of time. It means more or less equal time for each of the stressed
groups:

I'd 'like to 'give you a 'piece of ad`vice.

______ ______ ______ ______
When the number of syllables in adjacent stress-groups is not equal, the speed of utterance will be
the highest in the group having the largest number of syllables and, vice versa, the tempo is noticeably
slower in a group having fewer syllables. Thus the perceptible isochrony of stress-groups is based on the
speakers tending to minimize the differences in the length of stressed groups in an utterance.
Thus it has been shown that stress in English performs an important function of 'organizing' an
utterance, providing the basis for its r h у t h m i с structure which is the realization of r h y t h m as a
prosodic feature of speech.
Rhythm is defined in different languages in largely the same terms. The notion of rhythm implies,
first of all, a certain periodicity of phonological events. For an English utterance these events, as has been
made clear, are the stressed syllables. Such a periodicity is a peculiarity of English. English speech is
therefore often described as more 'rhythmic' than, for example, Russian.
It follows that the units of the rhythmic organization of an utterance are stress-groups, which may
be as well called rhythmic groups.
 DIVISIONS OF PHONETICS: GENERAL,SPECIAL, HISTORICAL, COMPARATIVE

Besides the four branches given above (auditory, etc), there are other branches of phonetics, such
as special, general, historical, descriptive, comparative, applied.
Special phonetics is concerned with the study of the phonetic system of a concrete language.
When the phonetic system is studied in its static form at a particular period
(synchronically), we deal with descriptive phonetics. When the system is studied in its historical develop-
ment (diachronically) we speak about historical, or evolutionary phonetics. Historical phonetics uses the
philological method of investigation. It studies written documents and compares the spelling and
pronunciation of one and the same word in different periods of the history of the language.
General phonetics is concerned with the study of man's sound—producing possibilities and the
functioning of his speech mechanism. It establishes the types of speech sounds which exist in various
languages, the way they are produced and the role they play when forming and expressing thoughts. General
phonetics is based on the extensive material which is provided by the special phonetics of a number of
languages and on the material of other sciences. As a result of this, general phonetics has been able to make a
number of general conclusions concerning the complex nature of speech sounds and to formulate a number
of theories: the phoneme theory, the theory of syllable formation, theories of stress, intonation, etc.
Theoretical phonetics of a particular language applies those theories to the language it analyses.
Comparative phonetics is concerned with the comparative study of the phonetic systems of two or
more languages, especially kindred ones.
By practical, or applied phonetics we mean all the practical applications of phonetics. Phonetics is of
considerable importance for other fields of language study, which have made use of the approaches and the
linguistic methods worked out by phonetics.
All the branches of phonetics are of great use and importance in teaching the pronunciation of foreign
languages. Phonetic data is also made use of in teaching children to read and write their mother tongue; in
creating orthographies for unwritten languages.
Phonetics is of great practical importance in the teaching of diction to actors, singers, radio—
announcers and other public speakers. In order to speak well and to teach others the proper way of speaking
one must understand the mechanism of articulation and the mechanism of phonation.
Phonetics is applied in logopedics, i.e. in correcting speech. To correct deviations from the
pronunciation norm, one must have a good knowledge of normal phonetics.
Phonetics is of great importance in surdo-pedagogics, i.e. teaching normal oral speech to deaf—mutes.
The deaf people can, in most cases, use only muscular sensation to control and guide their articulation.
Therefore, to teach to speak one must know thoroughly the articulatory aspect of speech sounds.
Close interaction and collaboration between phonetics and other sciences has given birth to new scientific
branches such as technical acoustics, psycho phonetics and other phonetic sciences which contribute to the
formation of speechology — the science of speech.
 THE PHONEMIC STATUS OF DIPHTHONGS, TRIPHTHONGS AND AFFRICATES

There are cases when the establishment of phonological oppositions is not sufficient to determine the
phonemic status of a sound, especially when the sound is of a complex nature.
In the English language the sounds / ʧ/, / ʤ /, /tr/, /dr/, /ts/, /dz/ form phonological oppositions
and distinguish such words as "eat — each, "head —hedge, tie-try, die - dry, hat - hats, buzz - buds". But
does that mean that all of them are monophonemic and should be included into the phonemic inventory?
Trubetzkoy worked out a number of rules which help to determine whether a sound of a complex
nature is monophonemic. The main rules state that:
 Firstly, a phoneme is indivisible, as no syllabic division can occur within a phoneme.
 Secondly, a phoneme is produced by one articulatory effort.
 Thirdly, the duration of a phoneme should not exceed that of other phonemes in the language.
Consequently, / ʧ/, / ʤ /, in words like "cheese, each, jail, hedge" are monophonemic, because both
acoustic and physiological analysis provide sufficient evidence that these sounds are produced by one
articulatory effort, their duration does not exceed the duration of either /t/ (as in "tear"), or / ʃ /
(as in "share"), or /d/ (as in "dare"). Besides that, in words like "cheese, chair, each, hedge, John, jail",
no syllabic division occurs within the sounds / ʧ/, / ʤ /.
/ts/, /dz/ are obviously biphonemic combinations (i.e. combinations of two phonemes), because
their duration exceeds the average duration of either / t/ , / d / ,/ s /o r/ z / .
As for /tr/, /dr/ (as in "tree, dream") their phonemic status will remain undecided until special
acoustic and physiological analysis is made. As /t/ and /r/, on the one hand, and/d/ and /r/, on the other,
are so closely linked in the pronunciation of Englishmen, D.Jones calls them affricates alongside of /
ʧ/, / ʤ /. (He distinguished them from sequences/t/+ /r/and/d/+ /r/ as in "rest—room, hand—
writing".) Most phoneticians regard /tr/ and /dr/ as biphonemic clusters.
There appears to be another analogical problem. It concerns the phonemic status of the English
diphthongs and the so—called "triphthongs". Are they monophonemic or biphonemic clusters in
English?
The syllabic and articulatory indivisibility of English diphthongs and their duration which does
not exceed the duration of English historically long vowels /i:, u:, о :, a :, 3 :/, clearly determine their
monophonemic character in English.
As for /aia /, /aua /, it has been proved acoustically and physiologically that in English they cannot
be considered monophonemic. They are not produced by a single articulatory effort, as there is an
increase in the force of articulation and intensity not only for the first element, but for the last
element as well. The syllabic division generally occurs in between the diphthong and the schwa vowel (/
ai-ə /, /аu-ə/ as in "flier", "flower"). So, they should be regarded as biphonemic clusters of a diphthong
with the schwa vowel.
In such a way it has been established that in RP there are 12 vowel phone mes, 8 diphthongs, 24
consonant phonemes.
 THEORIES OF SYLLABLE FORMATION AND SYLLABLE DIVISION

There are different points of view on syllable formation which are briefly the following:
1. The most ancient theory states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are
vowels. This theory is primitive and insuffi cient since it does not take into consideration
consonants which also can
form syllables in some languages, neither does it explain the boundary of syllables.
2. The expiratory theory ( chest -pulse theory) states that there are as many syllables in a
word as there are expiration pulses. The borderline between the syllables is, according to this
theory, the moment of the weakest expiration. This theory is inconsistent because it is quite
possible to pronounce several syllables in one articulatory effort or expiration.
3. The relative sonority theory states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are
peaks of prominence according to the scale of sonority.
Thus, in the word sudden the most sonorous is the vowel / ʌ /, then goes the nasal sonorant /n/
which forms the second peak of prominence, /s/ and /d/ are sounds of low sonority, they
cannot be consider» as syllable forming sounds. The sonority theory helps to establish the
number of syllables in a word, but fails to explain the mechanism of syllable division because it
does not state to which syllable the weak sound at the boundary of two syllables belongs.
4. The "arc of loudness" 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 or follow it constitute a chain or an arc which is weak in the beginning and in the end and
strong in the middle.
If a syllable consists of one vowel, then its strength increases in the beginning, reaches the maximum
of loudness and then, gradually decreases. In terms of the "arc of loudness" theory there are as many
syllables in a word as there are "arcs of loudness". A syllable begins at the point where a
new articulatory effort starts, and the end of the syllable is the point where the articulatory
effort drops to the minimum.

So, a syllable can be defined as a phonetic unit, which is pronounced by one articulatory effort,
by one muscular contraction, which results auditorily in one uninterrupted arc of loudness.
 LINGUSTICALLY RELEVANT DEGREES OF WORD STRESS

Strictly speaking, a polysyllabic word has as many degrees of stress as there are syllables in
it American and English phoneticians give the following pattern of stress distribution in the
word
3 2 4 1 5
examination.
They mark the strongest syllable, with primary accent with the numeral 1, then goes 2, 3, etc.
The majority of British phoneticians distinguish three degrees of word-stress. The strongest stress
is called primary stress, the second strongest secondary, while all the other degrees of stress are
grouped together under the cover term of weak stress. The syllables bearing either primary or secondary
stress are termed stressed, while syllables with weak stress are called, somewhat inaccurately,
unstressed.
In the phonetic transcription used in textbooks and works on phonetics, as well as in pronouncing
dictionaries, the position of the accent is indicated by placing the stress mark before the symbol of the
first sound of the accented syllable, primary stress being marked by a short vertical stroke (tick),
secondary stress by a lowered one, e. g. e ֽxami'nation.
The degrees of stress are also indicated differently in the latter two cases. Thus, in Webster's
Dictionary "the principal accent is indicated by a heavy mark ('), and the secondary accent by a
light mark ('), at the end of the syllable", e. g. exam'ina'tion.
The American descriptivists distinguish a greater number of degrees of word-stress; they use
other terms to denote them and other marks to indicate each degree. Gleason and most other
American descriptivist distinguish also four degrees of word-stress in English, calling and indicating them
as follows: (1) primary stress—/'/, (2) secondary stress — /′`/, (3) tertiary stress — /‵/, and (4) weak stress
— /`′/.
 SUPRAPHRASAL UNITIES
The view of a text as 'built up' by utterances - the minimal self-contained units of communication - has
been enriched in modern linguistics by introducing a “hierarchy” of text constituents which embraces a
variety of 'intermediate' units lying between an unexpanded simple utterance and the text.
The higher units are formed by grouping utterances into complexes, or sets, each occupying a certain
'slot' in the semantic structure of the text, reflecting thereby the subdivision of the overall topic into a
number of subtopics. The unit coming next to an utterance in the above-mentioned hierarchy is a
supraphrasal unity (SPU)
The individual phrases within a SPU have specific language markers of a closer semantic relationship
between them than between the initial phrase of a SPU and the preceding utterance, on the one hand, and the
final phrase of a SPU and the following utterance in the text, on the other. Because of this 'marked'
semantic closeness superphrasal unity is restricted in its length, which does not typically exceed 4 or 5
component phrases.
The identification of a supraphrasal unity in spoken language is achieved primarily with the help of
prosodic features. This makes it possible to speak of the prosodic structure of a supraphrasal unity.
First of all, there are constant prosodic markers distinguishing initial, median а final phrases in the unity.
These are the features of pitch, loudness and tempo. It has been proved, in particular, that the pitch of the
onset syllable in an initial phrase is noticeably higher than that in the following phrases, the decrease of the
pitch-height being gradual in many cases. The same tendency is observed for the degree of loudness.
The tempo of speech tends to be somewhat slower at the beginning and end of the supraphrasal unity and
faster in the middle.
An important feature marking the boundary of a supraphrasal unity is a pause which is considerably
longer than any of the pauses separating the phrases within the unity. It is the so-called t h r e e - u n i t
pause, e.g.:
College gets nicer and nicer, | I like the girls {and the teachers {and the classes | and the campus
{and the things to eat. || We have ice-cream twice a week | and we never have corn-meal mush. |||
The degree of semantic completeness of the utterances within a supraphrasal unity is reflected in the
degree of finality of its nuclear tone. The last utterance in a unity normally has a falling nuclear tone
with the l o w e s t e n d i n g p o i n t (Mid Wide Low Narrow Fall) while the fall in the non-final phrases
doesn't generally reach the bottom of the voice-range (a falling tone with a not-low ending, e.g. the
High narrow Fall, the Mid Narrow Fall). There is a rather higher probability for non- falling tones
(Low Rise, Fall-Rise) in the initial and medial phrases than in the final phrase of a unity.
Due to the specific prosodic markers an utterance isolated from a supraphrasal unity is easily
recognized as 'contextual'. Besides the features referred to above, this repression depends on the
accentual pattern, which is very often 'marked', i.e. characterized by a shift of prominence from its
normal position. The placement of the nucleus in such a phrase can only be justified by a larger
context.
 Phonology or functional phonetics

The three areas of phonetics have universal application. PHONETICS is the study of all the speech sounds that
the human voice is capable of creating. It deals with how speech sounds are actually made, transmitted and
received. PHONOLOGY, on the other hand, deals specifically with the sound systems of individual languages.
English phonology is the study and description of the sounds and suprasegmentals that are used in the English
language. Phonology is, in effect, a sub-category of phonetics. While phonetics studies all possible speech sounds,
phonology studies only those contrasts in sound (the phonemes) which make differences of meaning within
language. E.g. one person may pronounce /s/ in a noticeably ‘slushy’ manner, while another may pronounce it in a
‘lisping’ manner. A phonetician will be interested in describing exactly what these differences of articulation
are. A phonologist, however, would point out that both articulations are ‘types of /s/’: e.g. /sei/, no matter how
the /s/ varies, continues to contrast with /bei/, /mei/ and other words. There is only one basic unit, or phoneme
(phoneme /s/), involved. When we talk about the ‘sound ‘system’ of English, we are referring to the number of
phonemes which are used in a language, and to how they are organized. To say there are ’20 vowels’ in a
particular accent means that there are 20 units which can differentiate word meanings: /e/ is different from /i:/, for
example, because there are pairs of words, such as /set/ and /si:t/ which can be distinguished solely by replacing
one of these vowels by the other.
To help separate the two ways of looking at pronunciation, different kinds of brackets are used. Square brackets
- [ ] - are used when sounds are being discussed from a phonetic point of view, that is, purely as sounds, with
articulatory details. Their role in the sound system of the language is disregarded. Slant brackets - / /- are used
when sounds are viewed phonologically, i.e. as part of the sound system. No articulatory details are given.
Phonology studies how phonemes function in language and relationships among the different phonemes, it
studies the combinatory possibilities of the phonemes, the nature and use of suprasegmentals such as intonation,
stress, pauses, etc. For example, basic function of pitch variations may be different. We can say NO with different
varieties of pitch: rise, fall, or a combination of these, so as to express doubt, assertiveness, apathy, etc,
nevertheless, the word remains the same basic negative. In the national language of China, however, the pitch
pattern is the property of the word, which is not identifiable without it. Four different words pronounced like
English MA are only distinguished by their patterns of pitch. MA with high level pitch means MOTHER, with a
rise from mid to high – HEMP, with a rise from low to medium – HORSE, and a fall from high to low gives
SCOLD. In Chinese then, pitch is an essential part of the shape of the word. It is distinctive in the same way as
stress is distinctive in the two forms of INCENSE. ‘INCENSE means “льстить, курить фимиам». IN’CENSE -
«приводить в ярость». Thus, in the two languages pitch has two different functions. Such differences are the
province of phonology.
 THE SPEECH MECHANISM. THE PRODUCTION OF SPEECH SOUNDS

Sound is produced when air is set into motion. The speech production mechanism consists of an air supply, a
sound source, which sets the air into motion, and a set of filters that modify the sound in different ways. The air
supply is provided by lungs. The sound source is the larynx where the vocal cords are located. The filters are
the organs above the larynx: the tube of the throat between the larynx and the oral cavity which is called pharynx,
the oral cavity and the nasal cavity. These passages are collectively known as the vocal tract.
(The diagram shows a side view of the parts of the vocal tract which is important to recognize when we want to
understand how speech sounds are produced).
The air released by the lungs comes through the wind-pipe and arrives first at the larynx. This is a boxlike part in
the throat which contains two small bands of elastic tissue, that lie opposite each other across the air passage.
These are the VOCAL CORDS. They can be pulled together or drawn apart. The opening between the cords is
called GLOTTIS. As air passes through the glottis, different glottis states are produced, depending on the
positioning of the vocal cords. Four important states of glottis are:
1. The vocal cords are wide apart. Sounds produced in this position are called VOICELESS.
2. Narrow glottis. The air passage is narrowed, thus fricative /h/ sound is produced.
3. Position for the vocal cords vibration. The edges of the vocal cords are touching each other. Air
passing from the lungs in regular puffs through the glottis will cause vibration which is, in fact, a regular
and very rapid opening and closing of the vocal cords. Thus voiced consonants and vowels are produced.
4. Vocal cords tightly closed.(It’s a position for holding breath, also called GLOTTAL STOP).
Examples: BLACK CAT /blæ? kæt/, NOT NOW /nɒ? naʊ/
In the larynx the vocal cords set up vibrations of the airflow. The vibrating air passes through the filters (further
cavities with passive and active articulators) which modify it into sounds. Passive (immobile) articulators are the
hard palate, the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth. The active (mobile) articulators are the pharynx, the velum (or
soft palate), the jaw, the lower teeth, the lips and, above all, the tongue. ARTICULATION is all the positions
and movements of the speech organs necessary to produce a speech sound. Different vowels are produced by
varying the shape of the mouth, using the tongue and lips. When in the pharynx, the mouth, and the nasal cavity
there is an obstruction to the air-flow, a consonant is produced.
 SOUND CLASSES. VOWELS
The sounds of languages can be grouped into classes on the basis of phonetic properties they share. The most
basic division among sounds is into two classes: VOWELS and CONSONANTS.
From a phonetic point of view, vowels are articulated with no one part of the mouth closed, the sound of the air
passing between the vocal organs is not heard. From a phonological point of view, vowels are units of the
sound system which typically occupy the middle of a syllable, as in CAT or BIG. Vowels involve the vibration
of the vocal cords, and shaping of the mouth. The most widely used method of describing and analysing the
articulation of vowels was devised by Daniel Jones and is known as the CARDINAL VOWEL SYSTEM.
With some changes, the following chart answers four questions for English vowels:
1. Height: high, mid or low? 2. Place: front, central or back?
3. Lips: rounded or unrounded? 4. Tongue Root: advanced or retracted (tense or lax)?

Front Central Back

Height
Unrounded Unrounded Unrounded Rounded
High tense і: u:
(close) lax ɪ ʊ
ɜ:
tense ɔ:
Mid ǝ
lax e ɔ
ʌ
ɒ
Low (open) lax æ a
ɑ:

The empty cells in the table represent possible speech sounds that are not used in English.

Height. According to their tongue height (which is the vertical distance between the upper surface of the tongue
and the palate), vowels are divided into high (close), mid, and low (open).

Place: According to their frontness or backness (i.e. the horizontal movement of the tongue), vowels can be
front, central and back.
Lips: unrounded or rounded.

Tongue Root: tense or lax.

This describes the most difficult vowel feature to feel, due to the lack of appropriate nerves in the root of the
tongue and throat. The tongue root can be advanced (tense state), making the throat wider. It can also be
retracted (lax state), narrowing the throat, Thus [ʊ] can be described as “high back rounded tense”, [æ] as “low
front unrounded lax”. The vowels [ʌ] and [∂] share the resting position features: mid, central, unrounded and
lax.
English vowels can also be classified according to the stability of articulation. MONOPHTHONGS are made
by a movement of the tongue toward one position in the mouth. DIPHTHONGS are vowels which consist of a
movement, or glide, from one position to another. Eight English diphthongs are grouped into three types,
depending on the tongue movement involved. Three Central diphthongs end with a glide towards the schwa
vowel, as in the words HERE, AIR, and SURE. Closing diphthongs end with a glide towards a higher position
in the mouth. They end with either /i/(as in THEY, CRY, TOY), or /ʊ/ (as in SO, HOW). All English diphthongs
are falling, i.e. the first element is stressed more than the second. Other languages have rising diphthongs,
where the second element is stressed, as in Italian ‘uomo’ (man) and ‘uovo’ (egg). A TRIPHTHONG is a
glide from one vowel to another and then to a third, all produced rapidly and without interruption.
Triphthongs are formed by adding a central glide to the closing diphthongs, and can be heard in the words
FIRE, FLOUR.
Yet another classification considers the length factor: twelve English monophthongs are subdivided into five
long vowels /і: ɑ: ɔ: u: ɜ:/ and seven short ones /ɪ e æ ʌ ɒ ʊ ə/ . In connected speech long vowels may be
of the same length as short ones.
 ENGLISH CONSONANTS

(CONSTRICTION – a narrowing made in the vocal tract, in order to produce a speech sound. OBSTRUENT – sounds
made with a constriction: plosives, fricatives, affricates)
All consonants have certain properties in common, which identify them in contrast to vowels. From a
phonetic point of view, they are articulated in one of two ways: either the vocal tract is so constricted
(narrowed) that there is audible friction, or the vocal tract is totally blocked. The constriction (closing)
may involve the lips, the tongue, or the throat. From a phonological point of view, they are units of
the sound system which typically occupy the edges of a syllable, as in DOGS and GLAD. Consonants
may appear in sequences (clusters). Some consonants have no vocal cord vibration (VOICELESS
consonants as /p t/), they are produced with force and are called FORTIS, or strong. Other consonants
involve the vibration of the vocal cords (VOICED consonants as /b d/), they are produced with less
force and are termed LENIS, or weak.
Four principal questions for English consonants 1. Place:
Bilabial, Labiodental, Dental, Alveolar, Palatal, Velar, or Glottal? 2. Closure (constriction); Stop, Fricative, Affricate,
Nasal, Lateral, or Approximant? 3. Larynx: voiceless or voiced? 4. Nose: oral or nasal?
As for the vowels, the empty cells in the table represent possible speech sounds that are not used in English.
Labiodenta Alveo
Bilabial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal
l lar
voiceless t k
Stop p
voiced d g
(plosive) b

voiceless f θ s ʃ
Fricative h
voiced v ð z ʒ
ʧ
voiceless
Affricate
voiced ʤ

Nasal voiced m n ŋ
Lateral voiced l

Approximant
voiced w r j  
Each consonant in the table can be uniquely described by answering the four questions. For example:
[m] = voiced nasal bilabial stop; [l] = voiced oral alveolar lateral; [k] = voiceless oral velar stop
1. PLACE (Place of articulation - where the vocal tract is constricted and the sound is made):
Bilabial, Labiodental, Dental, Alveolar, Palatal, Velar or Glottal?
Bilabial: a consonant made with both lips [m b].
Labiodental: The bottom lip contacts the teeth [f v].
Dental: The tongue is moved toward the upper teeth [θ ð].
Alveolar: The tip of the tongue makes contact with the alveolar ridge (the gum just behind the upper
teeth) [t d s z n r].
Palatal: The tip of the tongue is moved toward the hard palate [ʃ ʒ ʧ ʤ j]
Velar: The body of the tongue is moved toward the soft palate [k g ŋ].
Glottal: At the larynx. The vocal cords are moved together, with glottis closed or narrowed [h].

2. CLOSURE (constriction) (Called also ‘Manner of articulation’. Defines how the tongue, lips, etc. restrict
the air passage to produce the sound): Stop, Fricative, Affricate, Nasal, Lateral, or Approximant?
The degree of narrowing of the mouth can vary. The following possibilities are recognized:
Stop: The mouth is closed completely. The consonants are called ‘stops’ because the airflow is stopped, or
‘plosives’ because they are released with a burst of sound. [p b t d k g].
Fricative: The mouth is nearly closed, so that the air flows turbulently through the channel and the sound arises
from the friction this produces. [f v s z θ ð ʃ ʒ h].
Affricate: A stop followed immediately by a fricative. [ʧ ʤ].
Nasal: The mouth is blocked, the air is allowed to pass through the nose. [m n ŋ].
Lateral: The tip of the tongue contacts the alveolar ridge, and the air escapes from the sides of the tongue. [l]
Approximant: The mouth is fairly open. Approximants do not impede the flow of air. They are counted as
consonants chiefly because of how they function in syllables. [w r j ].

3. Larynx: voiceless or voiced

Voiceless: The vocal folds are pulled apart, so that they do not vibrate.
Voiced: The vocal folds are pressed lightly together, so that they do vibrate.
The obstruent sounds (stops, affricates, fricatives) come in voiced and voiceless varieties. The sonorant
sounds (nasals and approximants) are normally voiced.

4. Nose: oral or nasal?

The soft palate (or velum) at the back of the throat can be moved like a valve to open or close the opening to the
nose. Oral consonants: The velum is closed /b d k g l s z,… /, etc. Nasal consonants: The velum is open /m n ŋ /
 ALLOPHONES.
a PHONEME is an abstract linguistic unit which is realized in speech in the material form of its variants called
ALLOPHONES. Every language has a limited number of phonemes. All the actual speech sounds are
allophones. ALLOPHONES are phonetically similar sounds that do no contrast with each other. Allophones of
a certain phoneme have articulatory and acoustic distinctions. Each allophone is used in a specific phonetic
context: it occurs in a certain position or in a combination with certain sounds. Since allophones are realizations
of the one and the same phoneme they can not distinguish words. E.g. /b/ in BAD is pronounced with no
voicing, and weak muscular tension. In emphatic speech /b/ can be produced with full voicing. These are two
different realizations of the phoneme, one can be substituted by the other without changing the meaning. The
two allophones are said to be in FREE VARIATION. There are also allophones which never occur in identical
positions, they are in COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION, and can only be found in certain positions.
E.g. /t/ in TEA is aspirated, as are all voiceless plosives when they occur in stressed syllables before vowels. In
EAT /t/ is unaspirated, as are all voiceless plosives when they occur at the end of a syllable. The aspirated
allophones will never be found in the place where the unaspirated allophone is appropriate.
Every All_ displays a great range of variations in connected speech. The variations are classified as
IDIOLECTAL: they embrace the individual peculiarities of articulating sounds caused by the shape of the
speaker’s speech organs and by his articulatory habits. The speaker may lisp “THIS ISH’ for ‘this is’, or
stammer “d-d-day”. DIAPHONIC: they are caused by historical tendencies in certain localities. Compare:
CAT /kæt/ (Southern English) and /ka:t/ in Northern English. ALLOPHONIC: they are caused by the phonetic
positions and phonetic environment. The number of allophones is no less than the number of phonetic positions
and environments in which the phoneme occurs. /t/ in TEA:
plosive, aspirated, alveolar;
in LITTLE: laterally exploded, alveolar;
in KITTEN: nasally exploded, alveolar;
in OUTCOME: unexploded, alveolar (glottal stop);
in EIGHTH: unexploded, dental.
Allophonic Rules are formal descriptions of what speakers normally do. More than two dozen allophonic
rules have been identified for English. They include rules that account for aspiration, devoicing, vowel
length, and nasalization.
 THE PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS. Problem 1. THE PHONEME INVENTORY

In analyzing speech phoneticians carry out a phonetic and a phonological analyses. Phonetic analysis is
concerned with the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of particular sounds and their combinations.
Phonological analysis is concerned with the role of those sounds in communication. The main problems in
phonological analysis are as follows: 1. The establishment of the inventory of phonemes of a certain language.
(The inventory of phonemes of a language is all phonemes of this language. Every language has it's own
inventory of speech sounds that it uses to contrast meaning. English has one of the larger inventories among the
world's languages. Cantonese has up to 52 vowels when vowel + tone combinations are considered. Many
languages include consonants not found in English). 2. The establishment of phonologically relevant
(distinctive features of a language). 3. The interrelationships among the phonemes of a language.
Problem 1. The establishment of the inventory of phonemes of a certain language. The great variety of
allophones complicates the identification of phonemes in connected speech. There are two main methods of
establishing phonemes in a language: SEMANTIC and FORMAL, or DISTRIBUTIONAL. The SEMANTIC
method attaches great significance to meaning. It is based on the rule that a phoneme can distinguish words
when opposed to another phoneme or ZERO in an individual phonetic position. The investigator studies the
function of sounds by collecting MINIMAL PAIRS (lexical or grammatical pairs of words that differ in only
one speech sound in the same position). If the substitution of one sound for another results in the change of
meaning, the commuted sounds are different phonemes. E.g. if we replace /b/ by /f/ in the word PAIR, we get a
new word FAIR. This pair of words is distinguished in meaning by a single sound change. So the phonemes /p/
and /f/ contrast in English. The opposition /p/versus/f/ is called PHONOLOGICAL OPPOSITION. In PAIR-
AIR, /p/is opposed to /-/, this is called ZERO OPPOSITION. Examples of grammatical pairs; SLEEP-
SLEEPY, /-/ v /i/. Allophones can not make up minimal pairs. For example, /pʰ/ in PIN and /p/ in spin are
allophones of the phoneme /p/ and no minimal pair can be found to distinguish them. Languages like
Cantonese, Mandarin, and Thai distinguish between them and they represent distinct phonemes /p/ and /pʰ/. In
Korean /r/ in KOREA and /l/ in SEOUL are allophones of the phoneme /l/. The are perceived by native
speakers of Korean as a single phoneme and have a single L letter. The difference is that /r/ is pronounced
before vowels. In Spanish, /z/ and /s/ are both allophones of /s/, while /z appears only before voiced consonants,
as in MISMO /mizmo/.
A series of minimal pairs, called a MINIMAL SET, can establish a larger group of contrasts. That is how the
inventory of E consonantal PH_mes can be established. The series of words PIN, BIN, TIN, DIN, FIN, CHIN,
GIN, KIN, SIN, THIN, SHIN, WIN supplies us with 12 words which are different in respect of only one
speech sound, the first, consonantal phoneme of the sound sequence. These contrastive elements, or phonemes,
are symbolized as /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /f/, / ʧ/ /ʤ/, /k/, /s/, /θ/, /ʃ/, /w/. Other sound sequences will show other
consonantal oppositions, e.g.: (1) TAME, DAME, GAME, LAME, MAIM, NAME, adding /g/, /l/, /m/, /n/ to
the inventory. (2) POT, TOT, COT, LOT, YACHT, HOT, ROT, adding /j/, /hr, /r/. (3) PIE, TIE, BUY, THIGH,
THY, VIE, adding /ð/ and /v/. (4) TWO, DO, WHO, WOO, ZOO, adding /z/. Such comparative procedure
reveal 22 consonantal phonemes, capable of contrastive function initially in a word. But considering one
position in a word is not sufficient. Phonemic opposition in medial position discovers one more consonantal
phoneme /ʒ/, in words LETTER, LEATHER, LEISURE. Phoneme /ʒ/ does not occur in initial position and is
rare in final position (ROUGE). In final position we do not find /h/, /r/, /w/, and /j/. Phoneme /ŋ/ is common in
medial and final positions but unknown initially. The analysis will give us a total of 24 consonantal phonemes
in English, of which six are of restricted occurrence. Similar procedures may be used to establish the 20 vowel
phonemes of English, which makes the total inventory of 44 units in the English language.
The FORMAL (DISTRIBUTIONAL) method does not resort to the meaning. It is based on the rule that
allophones of different phonemes can freely occur in one and the same position, while allophones of one and
the same phoneme can not occur in the same position. For example, as /p/ and /f/ freely occur in the same
context (as in PEA-FEE, PAN-FAN), they are different phonemes. But we can never find /p/ aspirated and non-
aspirated in the same phonetic context in E. These sounds are regarded as the allophones of one and the same
phoneme /p/, whereas in Chinese and Hindi aspirated and non-aspirated plosives /p/ are different phonemes:
they occur in the same phonetic environment and distinguish words.
The 2nd problem: Identification of the phonologically relevant (or distinctive) features of every phoneme.

All allophones of any phoneme have common features and also features, which characterize only a few of them.
The problem is to decide which of the features of allophones of a certain phoneme in a certain language are
PHONOLOGICALLY RELEVANT and which are IRRELEVANT. Phonologically relevant .features of a
phoneme are constant distinctive features which distinguish this phoneme from all the other phonemes of the
language. The phonologically relevant features are identified by opposing one phoneme to every other phoneme
in the language. PHONOLOGICALLY IRRELEVANT features distinguish one allophone from all the other
allophones of the phoneme. Let us consider some allophones of the

phoneme /p/

Allophones: p1 p2 p3
/pi:/ /pɔ:/ /ʌp/
bilabial bilabial bilabial
fortis fortis fortis
aspirated aspirated unaspirated
plosive plosive non-plosive
unrounded rounded unrounded

The Phonologically Relevant Features of the phoneme /p/ are BILABIAL and FORTIS. Other features like
aspiration, plosiveness, labialization, etc, are PHONOLOGICALLY IRRELEVANT. If one phonologically
relevant feature is replaced by another, this results in turning a phoneme into another. For example, if the
bilabial feature of /p/ is replaced by alveolar, we get /t/. The substitution of irrelevant features does not normally
affect the communication.
 PROBLEM 3. The Description of the interrelations among the phonemes of a language.
The questions are: Can different phonemes have common allophones? Can allophones of a phoneme lose any of
their PHON.REL. features in certain positions? There are cases when relevant features of phonemes disappear
in particular contexts. This phenomenon is called NEUTRALIZATION OF PHONOLOGICAL OPPOSITION.
A clear case of Neutralization can be found in the plosive /p/, /t/, /k/ series, when the plosives follow /s/. For
example, /p/ as in PIN and /p/ as in SPIN are allophones in English because they occur in complementary
distribution. English speakers generally treat these as the same sound, but they are different. The latter is
unaspirated: it sounds a little more like the /b/ of English. But take the unaspirated /p/ out of context, and they
might hear it differently: a recording of /p/ with the /s/ left out might be heard as /bin/ by an English-speaker.
Experiments suggest that /p/, /t/, /k/ following /s/ become neutralized, i.e. have more in common with initial
/b/, /d/, /g/ than with initial /p/, /t/, /k/.
There are less clear cases. Some phoneticians claim that /ә/ is an allophone of several phonemes. For example,
if we compare ‘GERMAN-GER’MANIC, E’CONOMY-ECO’NOMIC, we see that when the stress moves
away from the syllables containing full quality vowels /ɜ:/ and /ɒ/, the vowels weaken to /ә/. Conversely, the /ә/
in weak syllables becomes /ɜ:/ and /ɒ/ in a strong position under stress. The conclusion here may be that /ә/ is
not a phoneme of English, but is an allophone of several different vowel phonemes when those phonemes occur
in an unstressed syllable. (That is an example intended to show that there are many ways of analyzing the
English phonemic system, each with its own advantages and disadvantages).

Neutralization

Some scholars claim that a phoneme in a "weak" position may lose one of its distinctive (phonologically
relevant) features and, therefore, lose its distinctive function. For example, Russian voiced consonants lose their
voiced character and are pronounced as voiceless in final position (as in "луг" /к/ "глаз" /с/, etc. ). This leads to
the loss of the distinction between /K/ and /г/, /с/ and /з/. Therefore, in word final position the phonological
oppositions based on the phonologically relevant features "voiced vs. voiceless" are neutralized in Russian.
Scholars term this phenomenon n e u t r a l i z a t i o n of phonological oppositions.
Neutralization of phonological oppositions is the loss of a distinctive (phonologically relevant) feature
by one of the phonemes of an opposition.
Those who support this view consider that in all the derivatives of "луга" (лугов, луг) we deal with the
allophones of one and the same phoneme /r/, and in all the derivatives of "лука" (луком, лук) we deal with
the allophones of the phoneme /к/.
Consequently, different phonemes may have common allophones and sometimes a sound may be assigned to
either of two phonemes. In the case of [k], it may either be considered an allophone of the phoneme /к/ (as in
"лук") or an allophone of the phoneme/r/ (as in "луг").
But the Russian language is the only language in which the phenomenon of neutralization has been examined
more or less in depth.
The supporters of the phonological viewpoint reject the notion of "neutralization of phonological
oppositions". They consider that an allophone cannot lose any of its distinctive features. If it does, it becomes an
allophone of the phoneme the distinctive features of which it acquires. Thus, [к] in "луг" is an allophone of
/к/, [t] in "walked" is an allophone of /t/.
The third viewpoint is that there are phonological units higher than a phoneme — the archiphonemes.
The archiphoneme is an abstraction which combines the distinctive features common to two phonemes.
According to this viewpoint both [k] and [r] in "лук" and "луг" are assigned to the archiphoneme /K/ which is
neither voiced, nor voiceless.
For teaching purposes the 2nd viewpoint is the most suitable. Accordingly, the phoneme is characterized by
definite articulatory and acoustic characteristics and can be easily described as a separate unit of the sound
system of language. Whereas the other viewpoints treat the phoneme as a phonological unit which is actually
devoid of articulatory and acoustic characteristics, because even its phonologically relevant features appear to be
unstable (they can be neutralized}. Moreover, the phoneme in that sense embraces sounds that can be assigned to
other phonemes as well (the so—called "common" allophones).
 ASPECTS OF CONNECTED SPEECH. MODIFICATIONS OF PHONEMES. SOUND
SIMPLIFICATIONS.

In connected speech, the usual aim is for ease of communication rather than complete accuracy. Sometimes
speakers make adjacent sounds more like each other (assimilation), sometimes sounds are left out altogether
(elision) and other times an unrelated sound is inserted to ease the transition from one sound to another.
ASSIMILATION (change). Adjacent sounds often influence each other so that they become more alike, or
ASSIMILATE. These effects are more common in rapid speech, but some degree of assimilation will be fond
in all spoken styles. The reason for assimilation is because the tongue cannot always move quickly enough to
get from one position to another in order to articulate the next sound. So it approximates the sound before
moving on to the next segment of sound. In most cases assimilation affects consonants. In REGRESSIVE (or
ANTICiPATORY) assimilation, a sound is influenced by the sound which follows it. In the phrase TEN
BALOONS, /ten/ is likely to be pronounced /tem/, anticipating the following bilabial consonant. In the greeting
GOOD NIGHT, /gʊd/ is usually pronounced /gʊn/, as sometimes shown in writing: G’NIGHT. Nasals and /l/
become dental before /θ/ and /ð/, as in TEN THISTLES, or TELL THEM. /ʃ/ affects any /s/ or /z/ that comes
before it. E.g., THIS SHOE /ðiʃ ʃu:/, THOSE SHOES /ðәʊʃ ʃu:z/. HAVE TO is said with an /f/ sound rather
than the /v/ (/hæf tә/), as the voiced fricative is followed by a voiceless consonant.
In PROGRESSIVE assimilation, a sound is influenced by the sound which precedes it. The second word in
BRIDGE SCORE would typically emerge (in RP) as /ʃkɔ:/, because of the influence of the palatal element /d/
in the preceding affricate /ʤ/. Similarly, the second word in CHURCH STREET would be said as /ʃtri:t/. A
third possibility is COALESCENCE – a mutual influence, where two sounds fuse into a single new segment.
In WON’T SHE, the final /t/ and initial /ʃ / mutually assimilate to produce /ʧ/ resulting in the fused unit,
/wәʊnʧi/. /tj/ and /dj/ are often assimilated to /ʧ/ and /ʤ/; /ʧu:n/ rather than /tju:n/ for TUNE, or /ʤu:/ instead
of /dju:/ for D’YOU …
 ASPECTS OF CONNECTED SPEECH.

ELISION: As speech speeds up, sounds and even syllables are likely to be left out, or elided. This is especially
so when clusters of consonants occur. We are unlikely to hear all three consonants articulated at the end of the
first word in ACTS OF PARLIAMENT, /æks/ is normal. Similarly, NEXT DAY is pronounced as /neks dei/,
LOOKED BACK is /lʊk bæk/ and GOVERNMENT is /’gʌvәmәnt/.
Whole syllables may be elided, especially when there is a repeated consonant, as in British English
pronunciations of LIBRARY and PARTICULARLY: /’laibri:/, /pә’tikjәli:/.
Weak vowels are lost after /p/, /t/, /k/, as the aspiration of initial plosive takes up the whole of the vowel:
POTATO /pʰ’teitәʊ/, TOMATO /tʰ’ma:tәʊ/, PERHAPS /pʰ’hæps/, TODAY/tʰ’dei/
Some phonemes are especially prone to elision, such as /v/ in OF before consonants , as in CUP O’TEA /k ʌp ә
ti:/ LOTS O’PEOPLE /lɒts ә pi:pl/ WASTE OF TIME /weist ә taim/. Other examples include GONNA (=going
to), WANNA (=want to) and the weak forms of auxiliary verbs.

Linking (Joining)
People talk not in individual words, but in groups of words, or phrases. Words are said without a break, as if it
were one word. Within a phrase, and often between adjoining phrases, if a word begins with a vowel, the
consonant at the end of the preceding word is joined to it. E.g., AN APPLE – A NAPPLE; THIS IS IT – THI SI
SIT; FULL OF INK – FU LLO FINK. In RP the phoneme /r/ can not occur in syllable-final position, but when
a word’s spelling suggests a final ‘r’, and a word that follows begins with a vowel, RP speakers pronounce the
final /r/. E.g., HERE /hiә/ but HERE ARE/ hiәr ә/, FOUR /fɔ:/ but FOUR EGGS /fɔ:r egz/. Furthermore,
when two vowels meet over a word boundary, an extra sound is frequently added in order to help the transition.
This has been called INTRUSIVE /r/, and although some people regard it as sub-standard pronunciation,
INTRUSIVE /r/ is widespread. E.g, /ðӕts ðɪ aidiәr ɒv ɪt/ rather than /ðæts ðɪ aidiә ɒv ɪt/.
While /r/ is the most common linking sound, /w/ and /j/ can also be activated between two vowels. /w/ is
added after /әʊ/, /aʊ/, /u:/ and /ʊ/. E.g.: HOW OFTEN /haʊw ɒfn/ SO EMPTY /sәʊw empti/ YOU
ANSWER /ju:w ɑ:nsә/. /j/ is added after /ei/, /ai/ and /ɔɪ/. E.g. TRY IT ON /traj it ɒn/, SAY IT AGAIN /sej it
ә gein/, THE ANSWER /ðɪj ɑ: nsә/
 THE SYLLABLE AS A PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGICAL UNIT. PHONOTACTICS.

Words can be cut up into units called syllables. Humans seem to need syllables as a way of segmenting the
stream of speech and giving it a rhythm of strong and weak beats, as we hear in music. Syllables don't serve any
meaning-signalling function in language; they exist only to make the speech stream easier for the human mind
to process. A classic problem in phonetics is that there is as yet no good agreed-upon definition of a syllable.
Two approaches to defining a syllable:
The first approach defines the syllable as sequence of segments. The syllable is a unit consisting
of 0 or more consonants followed by a vowel followed by 0 or more consonants. A vowel may be replaced by a
syllabic consonant, The formula of a syllable : CnV Cn• where Cn= any number of consonants and V = vowel
or syllabic consonant.
The second approach defines syllables by their sonority (or relative loudness). Some types of
phonemes appear to be more sonorous (louder) than others. Syllables here would be defined using the “Sonority
Sequencing Principle”. From one segment to the next sonority must change. According to such approach, a
syllable is a unit a high sonority peak and lower sonority segments on either side of the peak. Linguists have
attempted to combine these two definitions to get a basic structure for a syllable. Syllable is an element of
speech that acts as a unit of rhythm, and has internal structure. The constituent parts are ONSET and RHYME,
within the rhyme we find the NUCLEUS and CODA. The NUCLEUS is obligatory, other parts are optional.
The smallest syllable contains a nucleus only.

As a phonological unit, the syllable requires a separate definition for each individual language,
because each language has its own rules of combining its phonemes into syllables, or PHONOTACTICS. In
every language certain sound sequences are not permitted. This is called called ‘phonotactic constraints’.
English permit more combinations of consonants than many languages. E.g., Japanese syllables can only take
one of three forms: V, CV, CV + /n/, that is why when the Japanese borrowed the English sequence CLUB
(monosyllabic to an Englishman) into their language, they gave it three syllables /ku-ra-bu/. Since speakers
adjust an impermissible sequence (in this case two successive consonants, and a final consonant other than /n/)
by altering it to a permissible one, the Japanese inserted a vowel, thus creating a permissible syllable shape.
Some combinations that don't occur in English (e.g., syllable-initial /tl/) are permissible in other languages (e.g.,
Polish, Russian). When the English first attempt the initial /kn/ of German KNABE (boy), they insert a vowel
and make it /kә’nɑ:bә/, i.e. three syllables rather than two (as is for Germans), because /kn/is no longer a
permissible initial sequence in English.
 SYLLABLE STRUCTURE, SYLLABLE DIVISION.

Syllable Structure in English.

Minimally, a syllable consists of a vowel, or a vowel-like sound, which acts as the nucleus, centre, or
peak of the syllable, e.g. I, OR, OH. Many syllables have one or more consonants preceding the nucleus. These
make up the syllable onset, MI, SO, PLAY. Such syllables are called OPEN.
Many syllables have one or more consonants following the nucleus. These make up the syllable coda:
AM ANTS EEL. They are called CLOSED syllables. Many syllables have both an onset and a coda ; CAT,
JUMP. If a word contains more than one syllable, each syllable will have the usual syllable parts: to. ma.to
fun.da.men.tal The structure of FLAP is: Onset: /fl/ and Rhyme: /ӕp/, Nucleus /ӕ/, Coda /p/. The structure of
SEA is; Onset: /s/, Rhyme/Nucleus /i;/

There are 23 syllable patterns in English such as V, VC, CVC, CCVC, CCVCC, CCCVCC, etc. The vowel may
occur alone or may have up to 3 consonants before it and up to 4 consonants after it. The most frequent pattern
in English CVC.

SYLLABLE DIVISION

Most speakers of English have no trouble dividing a word up into its component syllables. Sometimes how a
particular word is divided might vary from one individual to another. English is full of cases where alternative
analyses are possible. There are two syllables in EXTRA, but this word suggests such options as /e-kstrә/ /ek-
strә/ /eks-trә/ /ekst-rә/, the 2nd and 3rd variants are usually preferred by people. There are two syllables in
BOUNDARY, but is the division to be made between STAN- and -DING or STAND- and -ING? The former
variant complies with a traditional CVC formula for syllables, the latter seems grammatically reasonable. Thus
we have a choice of a division on phonetic grounds (after /n/ or on grammatical grounds (after
/d/), preserving a semantic link with BOUND.
 THE STRESS PATTERN OF ENGLISH WORDS. TENDENCIES

In almost all languages, there is a variation in the relative prominence of syllables. The prominence of syllables is
referred to as stress. It is a function of pitch, duration/length/loudness, and quality. In different languages one of
the factors is usually more significant than the others. Depending upon which factor is the principal one in giving
prominence to a syllable, word stress in languages may be of different types. 1. If special prominence is achieved
through the increased loudness (i.e. intensity of articulation), such word stress is termed DYNAMIC. 2. If
special prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved mainly through the change of pitch, such type of word stress
is MUSICAL, or TONIC. 3. QUANTITATIVE stress is when prominence is achieved through the changes in the
quantity of vowels, i.e. their duration. 4. QUALITATIVE stress is when the stressed vowel is made prominent
due to its clear and distinct character.
There are languages which do not have word stress, such as Evenk, or Kalmyk, but many languages combine
various types of words stress. Russian displays qualitative, quantitative and dynamic features. Word stress in
Ancient Greek used to be tonic, but is characterized as dynamic in Modern Greek. Scandinavian languages make
use of both dynamic and tonic stresses in more or less equal degree. Oriental languages like Chinese, Japanese,
Korean are tonic In English prominence is achieved due to increased duration, loudness and higher pitch, i.e.
quantitative, tonic and dynamic stressing.
Some languages have fixed stress, associated with a certain syllable in a word. In Finnish, Czech, Latvian stress
always falls on the first syllable, in Turkish – on the final syllable of the root form, in French – on the final
syllable in the word. In English, Russian stress placement is free in that different words can have different stress
pattern. .
Any word with more than one syllable has a word stress. The stress pattern of a word reflects the distribution of
prominence among its syllables. In words that have one stress, the latter is called ‘primary stress’. In longer
words, it is possible to pick out a second, weaker stressed syllable that bears secondary stress notated as low
mark.
Two main tendencies determine the place and different degrees of word stress in English: the RECESSIVE
tendency and the RHYTHMIC tendency.
The oldest of the English word accentuation tendencies is the RECESSIVE tendency, characteristic of all
Germanic languages. It originally consisted in placing the word stress on the initial syllable of nouns, adjectives,
and verbs and on the root syllable of words which belonged to other parts of speech and had a prefix. The
recessive accent in Modern English is of two types: UNRESTRICTED and RESTRICTED (by an unstressed
prefix). UNRESTRICTED recessive accent falls on the first (root) syllable, as in words FATHER, MOTHER,
HUSBAND. RESTRICTED recessive accent falls on the second (root) syllable of native English words with a
prefix which has lost its meaning: AMONG, BECOME, FORGET, INDEED. Under the influence of the native
English tendency to unrestricted recessive stress, all the disyllabic and trisyllabic words borrowed from French
until the 15th century underwent ‘accentual assimilation’: the original accent on the final syllable of loan words
and gradually shifted to the beginning: COLOUR, MARRIAGE, REASON< etc. In Chaucer’s poems we find
such free accentual variants as ‘REASON and REA’SON. Loan words with prefixes which have no particular
meaning now also have restricted recessive stress: CON’DUCT, DE’PEND, SUR’PRISE.
The RHYTHMIC tendency can be accounted for the presence in English of a great number of monosyllabic
words, some of which are stressed (notional) words, others are not (form words). Such phenomenon has created
the English rhythm, consisting of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables This tendency has caused the
appearance in borrowed polysyllabic words of a secondary stress on the syllable separated from the word-final
principal stress by an unstressed syllable. The words began to be pronounced in isolation on the model of short
phrases in which a stressed syllable alternated with an unstressed one. Thus the word ‘RADICAL originally had a
stress on the final syllable – RADI’CAL- but later it received the recessive stress on the initial syllable, while the
final stress was still retained. The result of it was the typically English alternation of a stressed syllable with an
unstressed one. For some time this and similar words had two stresses but gradually the word-final stress began to
weaken and disappeared. Thus in tri-syllabic words there remained only one strong stress on the third syllable
from the end of the word. The tendency to stress the third syllable from the end was extended to four-syllable
words as well, and this stress is called RHYTHMICAL. Strictly speaking, the stress in such words as RADICAL,
FAMILY, CINEMA, is rhythmical only in its origin, because in Modern English there is no alternation of a
stressed syllable with an unstressed one in these words. The stress here is called HYSTORICALLY
RHYTHMICAL In Modern English there is also GENINELY RHYTHMICAL stress. This is the secondary stress
on the second PRETONIC syllable in words like PRO,NUNCI’ATION, E,XAMI’NATION, RE,LIA’BILITY,
etc. There is also a RETENTIVE tendency which consists in the retention of the stress of the parent word in the
derivatives. More commonly it is kept in the parent word as a secondary accent, e.g., ‘PERSON – ‘PERSONAL –
,PERSO’NALITY.
The SEMANTIC factor can also condition the place and the degree of stress. The meaningful prefixes UN-,
MIS-, EX-, UDNER-, etc, (UNKNOWN, EXWIFE, UNDERESTIMATE), or semantically more important part
of a compound word get more prominence: BUTTONHOLE, TONGUETWISTER.
 WORD STRESS RULES.

There are some fairly regular word stress patterns (although there will often be exceptions)
1. In two-syllable verbs: a/ if the second syllable of the verb contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or if it ends
with more than one consonant, the second syllable is stressed.

Examples: A’PPLY, COM’PLETE, A’RRIVE, RE’SIST, OB’JECT

b/ if the final syllable contains a short vowel and one (or no) final consonant, the first syllable is stressed.
Examples: ‘ENTER, ‘OPEN, ‘EQUAL, ‘BORROW, ‘PROFIT
Exceptions to this rule include AD’MIT and PER’MIT (verb).

2. There are some suffixes (or word endings) that usually carry stress.
Words with these endings usually carry stress on the last syllable:
-ain ENTER’TAIN /// -ee REFU’GEE /// -eer MOUNTAI’NEER /// -ese PORTU’GUESE
-ette CIGA’RETTE (NB American English would stress the first syllable)

3. The suiffixes –ion, -ious/-eous, -ity, -ify, -ive, -ible, -igible, -ish, -graphy, -meter, -logy, require stress to be
on the preceding syllable:
-ion/-ian DE’CISION, E’DITION, MA’GICIAN, CA’NADIAN; -ious /-eous CON’TENTIOUS,
COU’RAGEOUS; -ity ‘QUALITY, SIM’PLICITY, NATIO’NALITY; -ify ‘TERRIFY, ‘JUSTIFY,
I’DENTIFY; -ive EX’TENSIVE -ible IN’CREDIBLE, ‘TERRIBLE, -igible NE’GLIGIBLE,
IN’TELLIGIBLE; -ish PUBLISH, FINISH, FURNISH, - graphy PHO’TOGRAPHY, BI’OGRAPHY
-meter THER’MOMETER /// -logy BI’OLOGY, TECH’NOLOGY, IDE’OLOGY

4. Words of two syllables ending in -ate place the accent on -ate eg,: TRAN’SLATE, DIC’TATE, DE’BATE,
whereas words of three or more syllables ending in -ate have the main accent on the third syllable from the end.
E.g.: NE’GOTIATE, ‘INDICATE, ‘IRRITATE.

5. In compound words or words made up of two elements, there are again some general patterns.: If the first
element of the word is a noun, then the stress normally goes on the first element: ‘TYPEWRITER, ‘FRUIT-
CAKE, ‘SUITCASE, ‘SCREWDRIVER, ‘TEACUP, ‘SUNRISE. If the first part is an adjective, then the stress
goes on the second part: ˌLOUD’SPEAKER, ˌBAD-‘TEMPERED,
 UTTERANCE STRESS

Words grouped into an utterance are not equally important. Depending on the context or the
communication situation some words appear to contribute more information than others. Those that are
semantically more important are made prominent. The special prominence given to one or more words in an
utterance is called u t t e r a n c e s t r e s s .
Stress is part of the phonetic structure of the word. We always know the place of stress in a word. When the
word is made prominent in an utterance, stress becomes a feature of the utterance.
The means, with the help of which the special prominence is achieved and the effect of stress is produced, are
variations of pitch, loudness, length and quality. Acoustically, utterance stress is determined by variations of
frequency, intensity, duration and formant structure.
The role of each of these acoustic parameters in creating the effect of utterance stress has been studied
experimentally by a number of phoneticians in this country and abroad. It appears that frequency is more efficient in
determining stresses in an utterance than intensity. Duration also appears to play a greater role than intensity.
As a rule the effect of utterance stress is created not by a single acoustic parameter but by a certain interaction
of different parameters.
The subsystem of utterance stress in English includes three basic functional types: nuclear stress, non-nuclear
full stress and partial stress.
The main difference between these three types of stress is the difference in how the syllables that bear them are
marked. The nuclear syllable is in most cases marked by a kinetic tone and is, therefore, perceived as the most pro-
minent. Non-nuclear fully stressed syllables are more often marked by static tones. Both are pitch prominent,
both initiate tones. Partially stressed syllables are not pitch prominent, they do not initiate tones and their pitch
characteristics depend on the pitch pattern of the preceding fully stressed syllables.
Each of the above three types of stress has functionally significant degrees depending on the modal—
stylistic factors of speech. Thus, stresses in emphatic speech are stronger than those in unemphatic speech.
The distribution of stresses in an utterance depends on several factors. G. Torsuyev points to the following
factors: semantic, grammatical and rhythmical.
The crucial factor in determining the location, type and degree of stress in an utterance is the semantic factor,
i.e. the meaning which the utterance is intended to convey. The semantic centre of the utterance is singled out by
the nuclear stress (or primary accent). This type of stress is opposed to the non-nuclear stresses by its greatest
semantic importance. In their turn non-nuclear full stresses signal greater semantic value of the words than
partial stresses.
Notional words, due to their function in the language, are usually stressed in an utterance. Form words are
likely to be unstressed. But in special conditions, when they are semantically important, form words may become
stressed, e.g. "It is 'not at 'all interesting". - "It is interesting". On the other hand notional words, if the meaning
requires, may become unstressed, e.g.
The grammatical structure of the utterance also determines its accentual structure. For instance, the inverted
word order requires stress on the auxiliary verb.
The distribution of stresses in an utterance is also affected by the rhythmical laws of the English language.
Due to the rhythmical organization of the utterance notional words may be unstressed, and form words, on the
contrary, may be stressed.
The semantic, grammatical and rhythmical factors are closely connected with one another, the semantic factor
being the main one.
Stresses in an utterance fulfill the same three functions as other components of prosody - constitutive,
distinctive and identificatory. In their constitutive function stresses form the utterance by integrating words.
They form the accentual structure of the utterance, which is the basis of its rhythm and part of its prosodic
structure. While integrating words into utterances, stresses of different hierarchy segment the speech continuum
into rhythmic (accentual) units, intonation groups and utterances, and delimit them one from another thus
carrying out the segmentative and delimitative functions. The distinctive function of stresses manifests itself
in differentiating utterances as to their meaning, which is conditioned by the position and type
of stress. E.g. Don't you 'find it /difficult" and Don't /you find it difficult?" The opposition of degrees of
utterance stress carries out a modal—stylistic function.
In its identificatory function utterance stress provides a basis for the hearer's identification of the
important parts of the utterance and for his understanding of the content.
 TEMPO
The tempo of speech is the rate at which utterances and their smaller units are pronounced. On the acoustic
level tempo is generally measured by the number of syllables per second.
Tempo of speech may be determined by different factors. It may vary depending on the size of audience, the
acoustic qualities of the room, the individuality of the speaker and other extralinguistic factors. But most
significant for the linguistic study is how variations in tempo correlate with changes in meaning.
It is common knowledge that by slowing down the tempo of speech we can make an utterance or part of it
more prominent, thus underlining the semantic importance of it.
On the contrary, by increasing the speed of utterance we diminish prominence and, as a result the actual
semantic importance of what we say.
Tempo can also be used to express the speaker's attitude or emotion. For example, fast tempo may express
excitement, joy, anger, etc. Slow tempo shows relaxation or calmness, reserved and phlegmatic attitude on the part
of the speaker.
Everybody's speech has some norm of tempo, deviations from which affect meaning. Phoneticians generally
distinguish normal tempo and two departures from the norm: fast and slow.
D.Crystal gives a more detailed classification of variations of tempo. He distinguishes between simple and
complex tempo systems. The simple tempo system is manifested both in monosyllables and polysyllabic
stretches of utterance. The complex tempo system is realized in polysyllabic stretches.
In monosyllables the speeding up and slowing down of the duration of the syllable is perceived as clipped,
drawled and held syllables which are generally used for emphasis. "Clipped syllables are articulated at a more rapid
speed than normal, in a very tense way; drawled and held syllables are articulated less rapidly than normal, and very
lax".
The distinction between drawled and held syllables is that in the former a sound is lengthened as in [ff ain]
and in the latter a sound is articulated with the onset of articulation delayed, so that the auditory impression of
length is produced through unexpected silence, for example, in stop consonants
as in "Perfectly" [pp3:fiktli] or "Quite, quite blue" [kkwait].
In polysyllabic stretches of utterance D.Crysta I distinguishes two degrees faster than the norm — allegro,
allegrissimo, and two degrees slower than the norm — lento, lentissimo in the complex tempo system there are
accelerando — a gradual increase in tempo, and rallentando — a gradual decrease. These contrasts of tempo correlate
with changes in meaning. They may also serve as a style—forming and style—differentiating device.
 Pauses
The speech continuum is divided into units of different length and hierarchy by means of pauses. It is the
main function of a pause to segment connected speech into utterances and intonation groups to delimit one
utterance or intonation group from another. Pauses are closely related with tempo: the number and length of pauses
affect the general tempo of speech.
Phoneticians distinguish 3 main types of pauses: silent pauses, pauses of perception and voiced (or filled} pauses.
A silent pause is a stop in the phonation (a stop of the work of the vocal cords, which results in the cessation of
sound).
Pauses of perception are not a stop in phonation, as there is no period of silence. The effect of a pause is
produced by a sharp change of pitch direction, or by variations in duration, or both.
Pauses of perception are generally marked by a wavy line which is used at the junction of intonation groups.
Voiced pauses have usually the quality of the central vowel [ 3: (Э) ] with or without nasalization [ э (m) ].
They are used to signal hesitation or doubt and are therefore called hesitation pauses.
Silent pauses are subdivided into several types according to their length: short, long and extra—long. The short
pause is mainly used to separate two intonation groups. The long pause which is approximately twice as long is gene-
rally used to delimit two utterances. The extra—long pause is used as a rule to separate two paragraphs. But the
main factors that determine the occurrence of the type of pause are the semantic relations between the prosodic
units. Short pauses indicate closer relations than long ones.
It should be noted that the duration of pauses is relative, not absolute. It may vary depending on the general
tempo of speech.
Pauses are very important constituents of intonation. Besides their segmentative and delimitative functions
they also perform a unifying function showing the relations between utterances or intonation groups.
 Estuary English

Estuary English, or Estuary, is a variety of the English language spoken in and around Greater
London, especially among younger people. It is so named because it was first noticed in the early 1980s in Essex
and Kent, counties north and south of the Thames.
Estuary appears to be spreading north and west, partly encouraged by egalitarianism, and partly by
popular culture and the media. Among its features are: (1) The use of short /u/ rather than /l/ at or near the end of
syllables with /tow/ for TALL and /st. pauwz kaðidraw/ for St. Paw’s Cathedraw . In Estuary, FORTY and
FAULTY have the same pronunciation “fowty”; (2) The loss of the t in such words as "Sco'land", "ga'eway",
"Ga'wick", "sta'ement", "sea'-belt", "trea'ment", and "ne'work".. . (3) An Estuary speaker uses fewer glottal stops
for t or d than a London speaker, but more than an RP speaker. Use of glottal stops instead of the consonants /k,
p, t/ at the ends of syllables, as in “ te?nicaw ma?er” for a paper on a technical matter. (4) The use of /i/ instead of
/i/ in word-final position: “citee” for city, “lovelee” for lovely, “reallee” for really. (5) The process of shedding /j/
after /l/ and /s/, now established in RP, is observed with Estuary speakers. E.g., ABSOLUTE, REVOLUTION.
For many speakers LIEU and LOO are now homophones. Similarly, ASSUME, CONSUME, PRESUME,
PURSUIT, SUIT(ABLE..
Characteristic feature of Estuary English is frequent prominence given to prepositions and auxiliary verbs
normally unstressed in General RP. This prominence is often marked to the extent that the nuclear tone can fall
on prepositions. An example of this would be: "Let us get TO the point". Another characteristic feature is a rise
fall intonation, and a greater use of question tags such is IZNT’T IT? and DON’T I? The speaker’s voice range
of Estuary appears to narrower than in RP. In particular, rises often do not reach as high a pitch as they would in
RP. The overall effect might be interpreted as one of deliberateness and even an apparent lack of enthusiasm.
For many, RP has long served to disguise origins. Estuary English may now be taking over this function
becoming the new model for general imitation. Generally perceived as a compromise between popular London
usage (especially Cockney) and Received Pronunciation (RP), it is largely the province of the young, used by
both the upwardly mobile and pupils of the public (that is, private) schools. It is also to be heard in the House of
Commons, in the City, business circles, the Civil Service, local government, and the media in the south-east.
Estuary is in a strong position to exert influence on the pronunciation of the future. What for many starts as an
adaptation first to school and then working life, can lead to progressive adoption of Estuary English into private
life as well. These developments may be seen as a linguistic reflection of the changes in class barriers in Britain
 RP AS THE STANDARD ENGLISH ACCENT.

English has always had its regional pronunciations. Yet as early as the 16 century, one regional accent began to
acquire social prestige. For reasong of politics, commerce, and the presence of the Court, it was the
pronunciation of the south-east of England, and more particulary, that of the London region, that the prestige
was attached. The early phonetician John Hart notes (1569) that it is in the Court and London that ‘the flower of
the English toungue is used’. Already in those times pronunciatioin was a marker of position in society: those
eager for social advancement felt obliged to modify their accent in the direction of the social standard. With
times RP has come to symbolize a person's high position in society. During the 19th century, it became the
accent of public schools, such as Eton and Harrow, and was soon the main sign that a speaker had received a
good education. It spread rapidly throughout the Civil Service of the British Empire and the armed forces, and
became the voice of authority and power. Because it was a regionally 'neutral' accent, and was thought to be
more widely understood than any regional accent, it came to adopted by the BBC, when radio broadcasting
began in the 1920s. During WW2, it became linked in many minds with the voice of freedom, and the notion of
a "BBC pronunciation" grew. Today, with the breakdown of rigid divisions between social classes and the
development of the mass media, RP has altered much over just a few decades. Less than 3 per cent of the
British people speak it in a pure form now.

It is associated with the south-east, where most RP-speakers live or work, but it can be found anywhere in the
country. Accents usually tell us where a person is from; RP tells us only about a person's social or educational
background. RP is a special accent - a regionally neutral accent that is used as a standard for broadcasting and
some other kinds of public speaking. RP is widely used is the academic world, both in Britain and globally.
Along with General American., it is the most common model accent in teaching English as a foreign lanugage.
Many Britons abroad modify their accent to make their pronunciation closer to RP in order to be better
understood than if they were using their usual accent.
There are many people in England who do not speak RP though their English in good and correct. They speak
Standard Englsih with a regional type of pronunciation. Phoneticians usually divide English speakers into
three groups: 1. RP speakers of standard Engslih (those who speak Standard English without any local accent).
2. Non-RP speakers of Standard Englsh (those who speak E with a regional accent). 3. Dialectal speakers
Within RP itself three main types are distinguished: 1. The conservative RP, the general RP form, which is
heard on the BBC, and the trend-setting , or advanced RP form, associated with certain social and professional
groups.
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACCENTS.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACCENTS are of two main types: phonetic and phonological. When two
accents differ from each other only phonetically, we find the same system (i.e. number of phonemes) in both
accents, but some of the phonemes are realized differently. These are REALIZATIONAL differences. E.g.: In
many English accents the phoneme /ei/ is realized als a long /e:/, e.g. PLAY /ple:/, TAKE /te:/. Vowel sound
in CAT is realized as /æ / in RP, as /a/ in Yorkshire and as /ɛ/ in New Zealand. PHONOLOGICAL
differences, in their turn, can be subdivided into 1. systemic differnces, 2. distributional differences, and 3.
lexical differences.
1. SYSTEMIC differences: the system (number of phonemes in two accents may be different, so that the
number of oppositions may be smaller or greater. E.g., : when considering Scottish /kɔt/ for both COT and
CAUGHT, we can say that the single Scottish vowel /ɔ/ will always correspond to RP /ɒ/ and /ɔ:/. That means
that the Scottish vowel system has one phoneme fewer that the RP system. Or, RP consonants / ð / and / θ / are
realized in Cockhey accent as /v/ and /f/, making the conconantal system 2 consonants fewer that the RP
inventory. Diffrences which affect systems, such as RP /ɒ/ and /ɔ:/ vs. Scottish /ɔ/, or RP /f/ and /v / v.
Cockney /ð / and /θ / are SYSTEMIC.
2. DISTRIBUTIONAL differences: the system may be the same, but a phoneme may have different
distributions in different accents, e.g, in RP /r/ is restricted to occuring in pre-vocali positin , as in RED,
HORRID, but in Scottish, American, and many other accents /r/ has a full distritution, occuring preconsonantly
and prepausally: /ka:rt/ /ka:r/.
3. LEXICAL differences: the system of the phonemes may be the same, but the incidence of phonemes in
words may be different, e.g. in the Northern accents there is /u:/ v. /ʊ/ opposition, but nevertheless they use /u:/
in BOOK, TOOK, or use /ʊ/ instead of /∧/ in words with ‘o’ spelling, e.g. ONE /wʊn/, AMONG / ‘mʊn/,
though the /∧/v./ʊ/ opposition exists. Thus homophones (the words that sound identically) NUN-NONE, SUN-
SON in RP, in Northern accents contrast phonemically.
 CURRENT CHANGES IN RP.

REALIZATIONAL CHANGES: Vowels: /i:/ and /u:/ are diphongized in final position, as in SEE or TWO. //
Diphthong /oʊ/ has changed its quality and became /əʊ/, its starting point now is a mid-central unrounded
vowel, instead of back and rounded /o/, the transcription of the phoneme was changed in 1962// About 50 years
ago /æ/ was considerably less open and tenser than is now customary. Triphthongs may lose their mid element,
as in FIRE [faə], SCIENCE may be smoothed to /saəns/, POWER – to [paə]. Similarly, a diphthong will lose its
second element when followed by another vowel, e.g., THROWING /ˈθrəʊɪŋ/ will become [θrɜɪŋ].
Consonants: L-vocalization. /l/ in the final position or in a final consonant cluster is now undergoing a process
of vocalization (becoming a vowel). Thus in the words such as MILK, SHELF, TABLES, , the tongue tip may
make no contact at all with the alveolar ridge. /w/, or rather a new kind of diphthong is used, so that MILK is
[miwk] or [miok], SHELF is [∫eof] or [∫ewf], TABLES [‘teiboz], APPLE [‘æpo], ST PAUL’S
CAHTEDRAL /powz/.
SYSTEMIC CHANGES: the only recent change that is now completed is the loss of /ɔə/ from the phonemic
inventory, as in the words YOUR /jɔə/-/jɔ:/, POOR/pɔə/-/pɔ:/, SURE /ʃɔə/- /ʃɔ:/
TOURIST/’tɔərist/-/’tʊərist/or/’tɔ:rist/.
LEXICAL CHANGES: There is a storng trend towards selecting /ə/ instead of unstressed /i/ in weak
syllables. This usually occurs after /l/ and /r/, as in ANGRILY /’æŋgrili/ v. /’æŋgrəli/ , LAZILY (‘leizili/ v.
(leizəli).
DISTRIBUTIONAL CHANGES: The most noteworthy trend concerning a change in the occurrence of a
phoneme is the loss of /j/ after alveolar consonants /s/ and /l/, as in ALLUDE /ə‘lu:d/, SUPER /’su:pə , SUIT
/su:t/. Coalescence /t+j/ and /d+j/ is increasingly common, e.g., /’edju:keit/ - /’eʤu:keit/, STATUE /’stætju:/
- /‘stætʧu:/, TUESDAY /’ʧu:zdi/
STRESS CHANGES: the changes affect adjectives ending in ‘-able’, ‘ible’. It tends now to fall later in the
word, as in ‘APPLICABLE – APP’LICABLE, ‘FRAGMENTARY – FRAG’MENTARY, etc. The feminine
suffex ‘-ess’ increasingly attracts primary stress in words like ‘COUN’TESS, ‘STEWARDESS. RE’SEARCH
has given way to ‘RESEARCH, ‘HARASS to HA’RASS.
The most observably spreading change on the suprasegmental level occurs in sentence intonation. This is
especially common among young people, but not exclusively so. The change lies in a tendency to use a rising
nuclear tone on a statement where a fall might be expected. The (presumably unintended) effect may be one of
reluctance to commit oneself, or of diffidence. We cannot be sure if the rising intonation conveys meaning, or is
habitual
 SOCIOLINGUISTIC ISSUES OF THE BRITISH ISLES. SOCIAL AND REGIONAL
VARIATIONS.SOCIAL DIALECTS.

Sociolinguistics – the study of the relationship between language and society.

Social variation
Society affects a language: people belong to different social classes, perform different social roles, and carry on
different occupations. Their use of language is affected by their sex, age, ethnic group, and educational
background. English is being increasingly affected by all these factors, because its developing role as a world
language is bringing it more and more into contact with new cultures and social systems.

Regional Variation
Geography affects language, both within a country and between countries, giving rise to regional accents and
dialects, and to the pidgins and Creoles which emerged around the world whenever English first came into
contact with other languages. Intranational regional have been observed within English from its earliest days,
as seen in such labels as ‘Northern’, ‘London’, and ‘Scottish’. International varieties are more recent in origin,
as seen in such labels as ‘American’, ‘Australian’, And Indian’. Regional language variation is studied by
sociolinguists, geographical linguists, dialectologists, and others, the actual designation depending on the focus
and emphasis of the study.
Within, and between, these regional variations we find the social dialects. The primary social factors that
influence dialects are class, education, occupation, ethnicity, sex, and age. And social dialects can vary on any
or all three descriptor levels; syntax or grammar, lexicon or vocabulary, and phonetics or pronunciation.

The British are well-known for being extremely sensitive about how they and others speak the English
language. Accent differences seem to receive more attention here than is general anywhere in the world,
including other English-speaking countries. Even within the country of England alone there is great diversity of
accents both regionally and socially. Although some people may change the way they speak during their
lifetimes, most people "carry at least some trace" of their accent and dialect origins throughout their lives. It is
common in Britain for people who display particularly broad accents to be labeled by terms such as "Geordie",
"Cockney", "Jock" or "Scouse." All of these identify a specific regional accent, most of which are recognizable
to many of the people in the country. The more localizable the accent, the more it will described as a " broad"
accent. Broad accents reflect: 1/ regionally, the highest degree of local distinctiveness; 2/ socially, the lowest
social class, 3/ linguistically, the maximal degree of difference from RP.

Surveys show that in Britain speech is regarded as more indicative of social class than occupation, education
and income. People associate speakers with standard accents with such status traits as intelligence, success,
confidence. Many regional speakers feel uncomfortable about their accent. Recent studies have shown that RP
speakers will often be chosen for jobs, despite the superior skills of regional-speaking competitors. Some
presenters on radio and television are employed even though they have strong regional accents. However, they
tend to be used on programmes which are not very prestigious, such as weather forecasts, arts programs, and
regional news bulletins.

As language change continues to take place within Britain and within England, there are some who claim that a
relatively newly established accent, Estuary English, is due to replace the traditional educated accent of England
Received Pronunciation (RP). Estuary English is reported to be used by speakers who constitute the social
"middle ground"
 MEANINGS OF PROSODY

The functions and meanings of prosody should be described with reference to the utterance as the basic
communicative unit. The prosody of an utterance (intonation) carries independent meanings of its own, regardless of
the words and the grammatical structure of the utterance.
The prosody of the utterance is polysemantic. Due to its structural complexity it can express a number of
different meanings of interrogation, non-finality, uncertainty, non—categoric attitude, surprise, etc. The inherent
meanings of prosody which are of a general character (such as definiteness — uncertainty, assertiveness — reservations,
separateness — connectedness, etc.) are specified and concretized when interacting with the grammatical and
lexical meanings of the utterance. There may be cases of correlation and harmony between the inherent meanings
of prosody and the meanings of words and grammatical structures as well as disbalance and disharmony. For
example, "lt may be/So" (But I'm not quite sure). The falling—rising tone is in harmony with the modal verb.
Whereas in "It may be so" (I'm absolutely sure about it) the falling tone makes the statement sound categoric. Or
agajn, the meanings of the prosodic structures in the utterances "I like that" and "Clever 'aren't you?" with the
challenging or antagonistic Rise—Fall are opposite to the meaning of the words. Intonation gives greater precision
and point to the meaning. It provides important information which is not contained in any of the other features of
utterance. Hence the role of utterance prosody in communication.
 FUNCTIONS OF PROSODY

The prosody of the utterance performs a number of functions, the basic of which are constitutive, distinctive
and identificatory.
1. The c o n s t i t u t i v e function is to form utterances as communicative units. Prosody unifies words
into utterances, thus giving the latter the final form without which they cannot exist. A succession of words
arranged syntactically is not a communicative unit until a certain prosodic pattern is attached to it. E.G. "Pete has
left for Leningrad" is not a communicative unit until it is pronounced , i.e. until it acquires a certain pitch—and—
stress pattern. Prosody is the only language device that transform words as vocabulary items into comnunicative
units — utterances. In written speech prosodic features are to some extent indicated by punctuation marks, e.g.
"Fire!" is a command or an exclamation, depending on the situation in which it occurs, "Fire?" — a question,
"Fire". - a. statement.
Prosody forms all communicative types of utterances — statements, questions, imperatives, exclamations and
modal (attitudinal) types: — e.g. categoric statements, non-categoric, perfunctory statements, quizzical
statements, certainty and uncertainty questions, insistent questions, etc. In constituting an utterance, prosody at
the same time performs the s e g m e n t a t i v e and de l i m i t a t i v e function. It segments connected
discourse into utterances and intonation groups, and simultaneously delimits them one from another, showing
relations between them. It also signals the semantic nucleus and other semantically important words of an utterance
(or an intonation group). Prosody also constitutes phonetic styles of speech
2. The d i s t i n c t i v e function of prosody manifests itself in several particular functions, depending on
the meaning which is differentiated. These are communicative—distinctive, modal-distinctive, culminative
("theme— rheme") distinctive, syntactical — distinctive and stylistic—distinctive functions.
The c o m m u n i c a t i v e —d i s t i n c t i v e function is to differentiate the communicative types of
utterances, i.e. statements, questions, exclamations, imperatives, and communicative subtypes: within statements —
statesments proper, answers, announcements, etc.; within questions — first instance questions, repeated questions,
echo questions; within imperatives — commands, requests and so on.
The m o d a l - d i s t i n c t i v e (attitudinal-distinctive) function of prosody manifests itself in
differentiating modal meanings of utterances (such as certainty versus uncertainty, definiteness versus
indefiniteness) and the speaker's attitudes (for instance, a reserved, dispassionate versus involved, interested attitude,
or antagonistic versus friendly attitude and so on). Into this function some phoneticians include differentiation of
the speaker's emotions, the emotional function.
The c u l m i n a t i v e — d i s t i n c t i v e function of prosody manifests itself in differentiating the location
of the semantic nucleus of utterances and other semantically important words. This function is often called
logical, predicative and accentual.
The adherents to the theory of "sentence perspective" claim that in this way prosody indicates the "theme-
rheme" organization of an utterance, i.e. it distinguishes between what is already known and what is new in the
utterance.
The s y n t a c t i c a l — d i s t i n c t i v e function of prosody is to differentiate syntactical types of sentences
and syntactical relations in sentences.
S t y l i s t i c — d i s t i n c t i v e function of prosody manifests itself in that prosody differentiates
pronunciation (phonetic) styles, determined by extralinguistic factors.
3. The i d e n t i f i c a t o r y function of prosody is to provide a basis for the hearer's identification of
the communicative and modal type of an utterance, its semantic and syntactical structure with the situation of
the discourse.
All the functions of prosody are fulfilled simultaneously and cannot be separated one from another. They
show that utterance prosody is linguistically significant and meaningful.
 BILINGUALISM AND PROSODIC INTERFERENCE
More than one language can be used in communication by the same persons. The practice of alternate use of two
languages is called bilingualism. Bilingualism may be acquired "naturally" and "artificially", as a result of fo-
reign language learning (the so—called "classroom" bilingualism).
Languages used by bilingual persons are said to be in contact. Language contacts may be of a "mass" character,
involving whole language communities (as, for instance, in Russian—Byelorussian bilingualism), or they can
take place in "individual" or "group" bilingualism, since in one individual speaker there exist two distinct language
systems, and the speech of bilingual persons is thus the focus of the contacts.
The major manifestation of bilingualism is interference. Language interference is a process and a result of the
interaction and mutual influence of the language systems being in contact.
Interference takes place on all the levels of language (phonetic, grammatical and lexical). On the phonetic
level there are two types of interference: phonemic and prosodic. Features of phonemic interference in Russian—
English "class—room" bilingualism are typical phonemic and allophonic mistakes of Russian speakers of English.
As for prosodic interference, it should be given a more detailed description. In speech prosodic interference
manifests itself in deviations from the prosodic norm of a language which result from the influence of the other
language. Prosodic interference is more essential with regard to intelligibility than phonemic interference. Of all
kinds of interference (phonemic, phraseological, lexical—semantic, word—building and morphological—syntactical)
prosodic interference is the most stable and widespread; very often features of prosodic interference occur in a
bilingual's speech even if he has a good command of the second language.
Learners of English, who are trained to be artificial bilinguals, should bear in mind that the prosodic patterns
of their native language may, and very often do, sound wrong when applied to English. Wrong realizations
of prosodic patterns give a foreign accent as do bad sound articulations. In addition, the prosodic
patterns used by non—native speakers may be inappropriate for the given situation of discourse,
because their meanings may be quite different from those in the native language. The use of wrong
prosodic patterns can cause vexation and misunderstanding on the part of the listener. This is more
serious than a foreign accent.
Imagine one saying "Good bye" instead of "Good/bye"; "Shut the door behind you" instead of "Shut
the/door behind you" . The English listener may get a bad impression, since he will probably assume that
the effect made by the tune was given by the speaker deliberately.
A native listener may learn in time to consciously ignore the inappropriate prosodic patterns, but
this will be done at the cost of getting only part of the meaning of the utterance, and not being too sure
about that.
Researches into phenomena of prosodic interference in the English speech of Russian and
Byelorussian speakers of standard English has shown that over 10% of English prosodic intonation
patterns that were pronounced by those speakers did not conform to the situation of discourse. For
instance, in the dialogue
— Is this book yours?
— No, it isn't mine, dear.
— Whose is it then?
— I don't know. It probably belongs to one of the boys.
The second utterance was sometimes pronounced with the high falling tone instead of the low rising
tone, and in the third utterance nuclear prominence was given to the word "whose" instead of the word
"is".
Wrong Correct

We can conclude that the linguistic skills of the bilingual speaker should be tested according to his
"communicative competence", i.e. the knowledge and expedience in applying the rules which are
governed by definite situations.
 FEATURES OF RUSSIAN-ENGLISH AND BYELORUSSIAN-ENGLISH
PROSODIC INTERFERENCE
Interference from the native language in English utterances spoken by Russian and
Byelorussian learners of English is observed in all the subsystems of prosody on the auditory and acoustic
levels.
The obvious similarities of the prosodic systems of Russian and Byelorussian, which are closely related
languages, result in typologically common features of Russian—English and Byelorussian-English
prosodic interference.
Melody. The influence of the pitch patterns of the mother tongue in English utte rances produced by
Russians and Byelorussians manifests itself in the following deviations from the English prosodic
norm:
1) higher initial and final pitch levels of the rising tones and the falling-rising tone;
2) wider pitch interval (the distance between the starting and the ending point) of the rising tone;
1) lower final pitch level of the falling tone;
3) lower initial pitch level of the utterance.(Normally the beginning of Russian and Byelorussian
utterances is tower than that of English);
2) wider pitch range of the utterance;
4) lower pitch level of the 1st stressed syllable and the lower pitch level of the utterance.
Byelorussian speakers of English pronounce the 1st stressed syllable and the whole
utterance on a slightly lower pitch level than Russian speakers, because the pitch level of the
utterance in the Byelorussian language is tower than in Russian:
7) narrower pitch intervals between the prehead and head, head and nucleus, nucleus and tail.
This is due to the fact that in Russian and, to a greater extent, in Byelorussian the pitch movement is
more monotonous, i.e. there are no sharp pitch contrasts (transition) between the structural ele -
ments of the utterance;
8) the use of the pitch patterns which are not characteristic of English.
Stress and Rhythm. Stress and rhythm are the areas of the greatest number of deviations from the prosodic norm
of the non—native language of the bilingual speaker. In English utterances pronounced by Russian and Byelorussian
speakers the following features of interference can be observed:
1.The occurrence of a greater number of stresses and the resulting distortions of the rhythmic patterns of
English.
2.The shifting of the nuclear stress to the left, towards the beginning of the utterance. This shifting is
known as a characteristic feature of the Russian and Byelorussian languages.

3.Exaggerated prominence of the nuclear syllable, achieved by a wider interval of the terminal tone and a
greater quantitative contrast with the unstressed syllables.
4.Exaggerated prominence of the stressed syllables in the prenuclear part of the utterance as a result of their
greater duration and also the affected pitch contrasts.
5.Distortions in perceptible isochrony of rhythmic units under the influence of the syllable-timed tendency
of Byelorussian rhythm. Though Byelorussian rhythm is stress—timed as well as English the tendency to
pronounce stressed syllables at approximately equal intervals of time is weaker in Byelorussian. As a result the
variability of the duration of the rhythmic unit in English utterances spoken by Byelorussians is greater
than in the same utterances pronounced by Englishmen.
Distortions in rhythm are also due to the inadequate (slowed down) pronunciation of some difficult sounds and
sound combinations, the absence of reduction, the absence of loss of plosion, the lengthening of fricative con-
sonants.

Tempo. The tempo of English utterances pronounced by Russian and Byelorussian learners of English is slower
than in the speech of Englishmen (with Byelorussian speakers it is, as a rule, somewhat slower than with Russian
speakers). This results from the immediate influence of the tempo of speech which is characteristic of the
native language.
Unstressed syllables are not reduced to the same degree as in the English norm. The absence of necessary
reduction is, in particular, characteristic of form words, e.g. [wo:z] instead of [wa z] in the utterance "So
yesterday was the 31st".
Stressed syllables are also longer than they should be.
 SUPRAPHRASAL UNITIES
The view of a text as 'built up' by utterances - the minimal self-contained units of communication - has
been enriched in modern linguistics by introducing a “hierarchy” of text constituents which embraces a
variety of 'intermediate' units lying between an unexpanded simple utterance and the text.
The higher units are formed by grouping utterances into complexes, or sets, each occupying a certain
'slot' in the semantic structure of the text, reflecting thereby the subdivision of the overall topic into a
number of subtopics. The unit coming next to an utterance in the above-mentioned hierarchy is a
supraphrasal unity (SPU)
The individual phrases within a SPU have specific language markers of a closer semantic relationship
between them than between the initial phrase of a SPU and the preceding utterance, on the one hand, and the
final phrase of a SPU and the following utterance in the text, on the other. Because of this 'marked'
semantic closeness superphrasal unity is restricted in its length, which does not typically exceed 4 or 5
component phrases.
The identification of a supraphrasal unity in spoken language is achieved primarily with the help of
prosodic features. This makes it possible to speak of the prosodic structure of a supraphrasal unity.
First of all, there are constant prosodic markers distinguishing initial, median а final phrases in the unity.
These are the features of pitch, loudness and tempo. It has been proved, in particular, that the pitch of the
onset syllable in an initial phrase is noticeably higher than that in the following phrases, the decrease of the
pitch-height being gradual in many cases. The same tendency is observed for the degree of loudness.
The tempo of speech tends to be somewhat slower at the beginning and end of the supraphrasal unity and
faster in the middle.
An important feature marking the boundary of a supraphrasal unity is a pause which is considerably
longer than any of the pauses separating the phrases within the unity. It is the so-called t h r e e - u n i t
pause, e.g.:
College gets nicer and nicer, | I like the girls {and the teachers {and the classes | and the campus
{and the things to eat. || We have ice-cream twice a week | and we never have corn-meal mush. |||
The degree of semantic completeness of the utterances within a supraphrasal unity is reflected in the
degree of finality of its nuclear tone. The last utterance in a unity normally has a falling nuclear tone
with the l o w e s t e n d i n g p o i n t (Mid Wide Low Narrow Fall) while the fall in the non-final phrases
doesn't generally reach the bottom of the voice-range (a falling tone with a not-low ending, e.g. the
High narrow Fall, the Mid Narrow Fall). There is a rather higher probability for non- falling tones
(Low Rise, Fall-Rise) in the initial and medial phrases than in the final phrase of a unity.
Due to the specific prosodic markers an utterance isolated from a supraphrasal unity is easily
recognized as 'contextual'. Besides the features referred to above, this repression depends on the
accentual pattern, which is very often 'marked', i.e. characterized by a shift of prominence from its
normal position. The placement of the nucleus in such a phrase can only be justified by a larger
context.
 Division of Utterances into Intonation-Groups
Analysis of English utterances into intonation-groups shows that they are co-extensive with a stretch
of speech of various grammatical nature: an independent sentence, a principal or a subordinate clause, two or
even more clauses, a group of words or even one word. Co-extensiveness with a sentence is typical of only a
small portion of speech material (about 17 %, according to experimental data). An intonation-group
corresponding to a grammatical sentence is marked by specific characteristics of tone, stress and duration, serving
to express semantic completeness and independence — the relevant features of an utterance. An intonation-
group of this kind is defined as a simple tune.
Most grammatical sentences are prosodically expressed by a combination of intonation-groups. These
combinations have a specific function of a double nature: on the one hand, they present information in the form
of relatively separate semantic items, and on the other hand, they make up a communicative whole (entity) out
of these separate parts. Utterances which are composed of more than one intonation-group form a combined
tune.
Some sentences lend themselves to be subdivided more readily than others. Long sentences, most naturally,
break up into smaller parts in spoken language. Their division is based both on physiological convenience (an
intonation-group is normally a breath-group) and on the complexity of information being conveyed, e.g.:
After a long boring wait | I eventually boarded my plane.
Of the two factors - physiological convenience and complexity of information - semantic reasons are
overriding in importance. Through intonation division the speaker can make several items stand out as more or
less independent parcels of information in a short utterance, too, increasing thereby the general prominence of
the utterance,
Nobody | could deny it.
Another major characteristic involved is the syntactic structure of an utterance. The number of intonation-
groups in utterances of the same length may often vary precisely because of the peculiarities of their syntactic
structure, which may either presuppose prosodic division as an obligatory feature or, vice versa, 'forbid' it, or
else (as a third and most frequently occurring variant) allow of two options: with or without an intonation
boundary between the constituents of a sentence.
Prosodic division is typically optional in expanded simple sentences with adverbial modifiers of different
kinds, complex sentences with object, relative or attributive clauses and some others. The grouping of words
within a message into longer or shorter sections and the placement of an intonation boundary in such cases is
largely a matter of the speaker's semantic interpretation of an utterance, as well as his communicative
intention. As a result the same written sentence read aloud by different people may have a different number of
intonation-groups. E.g.:
Many working mothers do not have time to cook. Many working mothers | do not have time to cook.
She has learned to keep quiet about her personal relationships. She has learned to keep quiet | about her
personal relationships.
Often the number of intonation-groups is the same, but the location of their boundaries varies. E.g.:
Los Angeles | is well known | for both the high level of its air pollution | and the efforts made to control it.
Los Angeles is well known | for both the high level of its air pollution | and the efforts | made to control it.
An intonation boundary is obligatory, or, at any rate, highly probable in complex sentences with subordinate
clauses of condition, cause, time (in pre-position to the principal clause), concession, result, comparison
(particularly, when there is an adverbial modifier of manner in the principal clause) and some others. E.g.:
Since you refuse to help, | I must do it alone.
In spite of the rain and bitter cold | they all came in time.
Strictly speaking, there is no rule forbidding a pause in any place within an utterance (cf. the so-called hesitation
pauses), but from the point of view of syntactical predictability certain positions in an utterance display a very
small probability of a break. Thus, e.g. the subject of a sentence expressed by a personal pronoun is but seldom
separated from the predicate; a preposed attribute is usually closely linked to the noun, etc.
The choice of a number of intonation-groups in an utterance also depends on the type and form of speech. In
a dictation, for instance, an utterance is divided up into smaller sections than in any other kind of reading, and
spontaneous speech is characterized by uneven length of intonation-groups, and their boundaries are less
predictable from the syntactic structure than in reading aloud.
 The o r t h o e p i c n o r m
One of the types of pronunciation, generally the one that is spoken by the educated people in the capital, is
recognized as the orthoepic norm.
The o r t h o e p i c n o r m of a language is the standard pronunciation adopted by native speakers as the
right and proper way of speaking. It comprises the variants of pronunciation of vocabulary units and prosodic pat-
terns which reflect the main tendencies in pronunciation that exist in the language. It is used by the most educated
part of the population.
The orthoepic norm is based on the variants of pronunciation that are widely used in actual speech, that reflect
the main phonetic tendencies, and that are considered to be acceptable by the educated. Thus, wide currency, confor-
mity to the main phonetic tendencies and social acceptability are the three main conditions that are necessary for
a variety of pronunciation to be accepted as the norm.
Though attempts are generally made to preserve the norm as it is, new pronunciations which are in common use
gradually become 'acceptable' and are included into the norm. On the other hand, some of the pronunciations, which
had been acceptable, fall out of use, are labelled as 'old—fashioned' and are, consequently, excluded from the norm. For
example, "clothes" was formerly pronounced /klouz/, which now sounds old—fashioned and is no more current
among educated speakers. Or again, in the early twentieth century "chemist" / 'kemist/, "chemistry" /'kemistri/
were pronounced as /kimist/, /'kimistri/, these variants of pronunciation have fallen out of use.
Thus, the orthoepic norm comprises well—established (or codified) variants of pronunciation acceptable in
all the varieties of speech, and it also includes stylistic variants that are acceptable only in some varieties of speech
in case they do not violate the main phonetic tendencies. Consequently, the orthoepic norm includes a number of
stylistic norms, none of which can be considered "neutral" and "acceptable" in all circumstances.
The pronouncing dictionaries record the well—established pronunciations as first variants. The less frequent
variants of pronunciation are generally recorded as secondary variants.
Since the orthoepic norm is ever changing and developing, from time to time the pronouncing dictionaries
have to be revised and reset. If the pronunciations entered as secondary variants appear to become commoner in
the speech of the cultured people, the order of recording the variants is rearranged.
Among the native speakers there is a certain amount of tolerance in the matter of the sound structure of
words. In certain circumstances "I don't know" / ada 'nov /, "right place" /r aip 'pleis/, are perfectly correct.
So far we have considered only variants of pronunciation of vocabulary units, which can be recorded in
dictionaries. But the orthoepic norm involves prosodic phenomena as well. The intonation of a speaker may also be
acceptable or unacceptable. There are pitch patterns in general use, which are not tinged with any regional
peculiarities and which give no indication of who the speaker is and where he comes from. As we examine the
prosodic features of speech we realize that there is a generally agreed norm of loudness and a recognized norm of
tempo which cultured speakers do not deviate from. But there are certain pitch patterns that give a local accent to
speech. For example, short and sharp tones, stoccato delivery occur more frequently in the speech of Welshmen.
Moreover, phoneticians note that certain tones occur more frequently in the speech of one sex and are less frequently
used by the other sex. Thus, R.Kingdon indicates that the falling-rising and the rising—falling- rising tones are
great favourites with women speakers.
Therefore, there is a prosodic norm in every language which comprises well—established prosodic patterns,
used in educated speech, and their stylistic variants, current in particular styles of pronunciation. Though it cannot
be recorded by pronouncing dictionaries, its importance is obvious: even minor deviations from the prosodic norm
are perceived as either a local accent or a foreign accent.
The English prosodic norm is rather well. As for its stylistic variants, they are not as yet well established and
have become the object of a number of phonetic investigations. The prosodic norm is an important component
of the orthoepic norm.
It should be emphasized, hat the orthoepic norm is not constant and fixed for all centuries and generates.
Variation of the orthoepic norm is a natural objective phenomenon, which reflects the development of language.
The orthoepic norm is not isolated from non-standard pronunciations that are in current use. It is a well—
known fact that most of the phonetic changes first occur among the less educated before they are recognized as
acceptable. Therefore, the main factors that condition variation of the orthoepic norm are social, territorial and
stylistic factors.
It should also be mentioned that British English pronunciation is exposed to external influence. On the
British television and screen there is a tot of American speech which WORKS against the standardization of the
pronunciation, especially with the younger generation. On the other hand, the orthoepic norm influences the non—
standard types of pronunciations. The spread of education and mass media encourage to some extent a standardized
pronunciation.
 DIALECTS

There exist numerous varieties of pronunciation in any language, the English language as well. The
pronunciation of almost every locality in the British Isles has peculiar features that distinguish it from
the pronunciation of other localities. Besides, pronunciation is socially influenced. It reflects class
distinctions, education and upbringing. The varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of
people and used only in certain localities are called dialects. There are therefore local dialects and social
dialects. Moreover, there are innumerable individual differences, called idiolectal differences. At the
same time all these varieties have much more in common than what differentiates them. They are varieties
of one and the same language, the English language, which is a means of communication for all those who
speak it.
Dialects have some peculiarities in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammatical structure. Every
dialectal pronunciation is characterized by features that are common to all the other dialects of the
language, and by a number of specific peculiarities of its own, that set it apart from all the other
dialects. Due to mass media (radio, TV, cinema), the increased mobility of the population, concentration
of the population in the cities, the dialectal differences are becoming less marked. That, of course, does
not mean that the pronunciation of a Manchester dialect speaker does not differ from the pronunciation
of a London dialect speaker. Among the most well—known dialects one should mention Cockney (spoken
by the less educated part of the Londoners), Geordie (heard in Newcastle— on— Tyne), Scouse (the
Liverpool dialect) Cornish dialect (in Cornwall) and others.
Dialect speakers are, as a rule, the less educated part of the population. With the more educated
people pronunciation generally tends to conform to a particular standard. But the English language
would lose a lot if its dialects disappeared. Dialects enrich the language and make it more lively and fresh.
They stimulate the development of language, supply it with new lexical and syntactic means, cause
modifications in its phonetic system.
In present—day English the number of local dialects is being reduced to a fewer, more or less general,
regional types. Every regional type of pronunciation is characterized by features that are common to all
the dialects used in the region. The regional types of pronunciation, in their turn, are marked one from
another by a number of peculiarities specific to each of them. In British English phoneticians generally
distinguish three main regional types of pronunciation: Southern, Northern and Scottish regional types
of English pronunciation. Besides, there may a non—regional type of pronunciation that is not native
to any particular locality in the country.
 PRONUNCIATIN VARIETIES OF BRITISH ENGLISH

There is a wide range of pronunciation varieties of the English language. These varieties reflect the
social class the speaker belongs to, the geographical region he comes from, and they also convey stylistic
connotations of speech. Some of these varieties are received pronunciations, others are not.
Every national variant of the English language has an orthoepic norm of its own: RP, or Southern
English, for British English, GA for American English, the Australian Standard Pronunciation for Australian
English. Each of these orthoepic norms tolerates a definite range of phonemic variation, and each of them has its
own peculiarities of combinatory phenomena.
It is generally conceded that the orthoepic norm of British English is "Received Pronunciation" , though, as
many scholars state, it is not the only variety of British English pronunciation that is recognized as the ortho-
epic norm in present—day Britain.
Received Pronunciation (RP) was accepted as the phonetic norm of English about a century ago. It is mainly
based on the Southern English regional type of pronunciation, but has developed its own features which have
given it a non—regional character, i.e. there is no region in Britain to which it is native. RP is spoken all over
Britain by a comparatively small number of Englishmen who have had the most privileged education in the country
— public school education. RP is actually a social standard pronunciation of English. It is often referred to as the
prestige accent.
But there are many educated people in Britain who do not speak RP, though their English is good and
correct. They speak Standard English*with a regional type of pronunciation.
Scholars divide English people by the way they talk into three groups:
(1) RP speakers of Standard English (those who speak Standard English without any local accent) ;
(2) non—RP speakers of Standard English (those who speak Standard English with a regional accent);
(3) Dialect speakers.
Scholars often note that it is wrong to assume that only one type of pronunciation can be correct. If a
particular pronunciation is well—established and current among educated speakers, it should not be treated as
incorrect. This primarily concerns the Northern and the Scottish types of pronunciation which are used by many
educated people in Britain.
One should distinguish between RP and "educated" regional types of pronunciation (such as Southern,
Northern and Scottish types of English pronunciation), on the one hand, and local dialects, on the other.
One of the best examples of a local dialect is Cockney. It is used by the less educated in the region of London.
Studies of regional and dialectal pronunciations generally concentrate on the phonemic structures of words and
differences in the realizations of definite phonemes. But it appears that these pronunciations, besides that, have
differences in their phoneme inventories. For example, the Northern type of pronunciation has no / ʌ /, whereas
it has /рэ/. The Scottish pronunciation distinguishes between voiced /w/ and voiceless /m/, but it has no /3: /.
Cockney has no [θ] и [ ð] phonemes. There are many /h/—less dialects in England. Therefore there are distinctions
in the phoneme inventories of various types of pronunciations. Scholars have recently given more attention to
the phonological systems of British English varieties of pronunciations, yet much remains to be done.

(+ see Northern & Scotish dialects)

 The Northern regional type of English pronunciation

The Northern regional type of English pronunciation is characterized by features that are common to all the
dialects used in the northern part of England.
The main distinctions of the Northern type of English pronunciation, as opposed to RP, are as follows:

(a) /æ/ is more open and more retracted back, as in /a/ (e.g."back","bad").

(b) /ɑ:/ is fronted compared with RP / ɑ:/ and it approximates to /æ/ in

words which do not contain "r" in spelling (e.g. "glass", "after"),
(c) /ʊ/ is used instead of / ʌ/ (e.g. "cup", "love", "much"), so there is no
distinction between words like "could" and "cud", "put" and "putt".
(d) / ǝʊ / is pronounced as a monophthongal / ɔ:/ (e.g. "go", "home").

(e) /e/ or are pronounced instead of /ei/ (e.g. "may", "say", "take").
(f) /ɒə/ is widely used, so they distinguish words like "pore" and "paw"

(g) All tones are drawled and speech is generally slower than in Southern English. The Low Rising Tone is used
much oftener than in RP. For example, "Lancashire is the most thickly populated county in England" is
pronounced with the Low Rise on the word “Lancashire “. All that tends to give a sing—song quality to speech.
 The Scottish type of English Pronunciation

The Scottish type of English Pronunciation is also based on the dialects spoken in Scotland which vary among
themselves in some respects. Their common features, which distinguish the Scottish type of pronunciation from
RP, are as follows:
(a) / ɜ:/ is not used in the Scottish type of pronunciation, instead of RP /ɜ:/ they use the

sequences /ir/, /er/ or /ʌr/ (e.g. "bird"/bird/ "heard /herd/, "word" /wʌrd/. Similarly monophthongs are used
instead of diphthongs in "beard", "there", "pure", "poor", "sure", etc.
(b) /u/ is used instead of /au/ (e.g. "down" /dun/).
(c) The Scottish pronunciation does not distinguish between / æ/ and / ɑ:/; words like "bad",

"path", "grass", "dance", "half", "part" are pronounced with /æ/, /a/ or /ɒ/.

(d) All vowels are short. There is no distinction in the length of the vowels in words like "pull" and
"pool", "cot" and "caught", with the exception that the vowel in inflected words is not as short as the vowel in
non—inflected words ("road" — "rowed", "greed" — "agreed")
(e) /r/ is an alveolar flap not only between and before vowels, as in "hurry" and "brown", but also after
vowels, as in "word", "born".
(f) A voiceless labiovelar fricative /m/ is used to distinguish between "which" and "witch", "whine" and

"wine", e.g. /hwi ʧ/ for which, etc.

(g) In the Scottish type of pronunciation there appears a backlingual fricative /x/, which resembles the
corresponding Russian sound (e.g. "loch"). There are certain peculiarities in the intonation of the Scottish
type of English pronunciation, such as
(a) Special Questions may end with a high level tone after a fall on the interrogative word, e.g.
RP 'Who's 'having the `grape fruit?
Scot. `Who’s having the 'grape fruit?
(b) A final vocative does not necessarily continue the tune of the General Questions, e.g.
RP 'Will you be 'in to ′lunch, Mr.'Brown?

Scot. ֽWill you be ֽin to ′lunch ֽMr.ֽBrown?

 AMERICAN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION
English is spoken not only in Britain. It is the national language in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and
of a great part of the population in Canada. Each of those nations has its own orthoepic norm which exists
alongside of regional types and numerous dialects.
Though the national languages have peculiar features of their own, which differentiate them from British
English (BE) and from each other, they have much more in common. That is why they are considered to be
variants of the same language, the English language.
American English (AE), which is a variant of the English language, has developed its own peculiarities in
vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation. American English embraces a wide range of pronunciation
varieties. With the beginning of the 19th century the mobility of the population in the USA increased greatly:
there was migration to the west of the country, and with the growth of industrial centres a considerable
proportion of the farm population moved to the cities. As a result of that, dialectal differences have been
reduced to fewer, more or less general, regional types. The most widely used regional types of AE pronunciation
are the Eastern, the Southern, and the General American types, the latter spoken mainly in the Middle Atlantic
States Region.

The GA (General American) pronunciation is usually referred to as the standard pronunciation of AE,
though it is often debated whether there is a standard pronunciation in the USA. Nevertheless it is the GA that
has the greatest "acceptability" if not prestige, in the United States.
The peculiarities of GA lie in 1) the pronunciation of sounds and sound combinations; 2) differences in the
stress patterns of words, and 3) differences in intonation.

1) Peculiarities of pronunciation of GA sounds and sound combinations as compared to those of RP.

(a) /r/ in GA is retroflexive, i.e. the tip of the tongue is curled back;
(a) /t/ is voiced between a vowel and a sonorant (as in "battle", "twen ty") , or between two vowels
the second of which is unstressed (as in "pity", better"). But the distinction between /t/ and 1d1 is not
neutralized, because the voiced [t] is extremely short and resembles a one—tap alveolar /r/. Ameri cans
easily distinguish between "writer" and "rider", "latter" and "ladder";
(b) /l/is always dark, even before vowels (e.g. "film, look");
(b) /ʃ/ is voiced in words like "excursion" lʒnl, "version" /ʒn/;
(c) /h/ is often dropped in weak syllables, but it is retained when the syl lable is stressed (e.g. "I saw
him"/ai 'so i;m/, but "him" /him/);
(f) /j/ is omitted before /u/ (e.g. "duty" /duti/, "student" /studnt/,
"new"/nu:/);
(g) /d/ is dropped after /l/ and /n/( e.g. "cold", "old", "individual");
(h) /k/ is omitted before /t/ (e.g. "asked" )
(i) The glottal stop /?/ is used instead of /t/ before /m, n, I, r, j, w/ (e.g. "certainly" / S3: ? nli/, "that
one" / ða?wA n/, etc.)
All American vowels are long.
(f) / æ / INSTEAD OF /a:/ in words which do not contain "r" in spelling (e.g. "path", "glass", "laugh", "can't",
"last", "grass" etc. Exceptions: "father, palm, balm, alms")'
(I) / æ / in GA is wider and longer than RP / æ /, the Americans pronounce it with a twang (e.g. "man",
"pass");
(m) /o u / is much less diphthongal than in RP. It may be represented as /o:/. Thus to represent Englishmen on the
American stage the actors very often exaggerate the diphthongal character of /ou/,
(n) /u ǝ / tends to be monophthongized. (e.g. "usually" / juʒali/, "rural"/'rural/).
The GA /ǝ/ phoneme occurs both in stressed syllables (as in "but", "son", "blood") and in unstressed
syllables (as in unstressed "of", "was", "does").

2) Peculiarities in the stress patterns of words in GA as compared to RP.

 American speakers make much greater use of secondary stress in polysyllabic words than British speakers do.
In words which end in "-ary", "-ory". "—ery", "—mony", "-ative" the first syllable in the suffix bears
tertiary stress (i.e. stress which is somewhat weaker than secondary stress).
E.g.'dictioֽnary, 'terriˌtory.

3) Peculiarities of GA intonation.
The most frequent intonation contour for statements and requests in GA is the tune, beginning low, rising to
a high level, and then steadily falling.
The RP Special Questions pronounced with a rising tone (polite questions) are perceived by the Americans as
questions implying curiosity.
On account of the fact that the features which distinguish AE from British English are so numerous, some
linguists claim that AE can no more be considered a variant of the English language.
But most of the linguists express the opposite point of view. It has been proved that the distinctions between AE
and BE do not affect the inventory of the main language units. Those distinctions are but functional variations of
language units which are common to both variants of the English language: AE and BE.
Thus, there is a wide range of pronunciation varieties of the English language. These varieties reflect the
social class the speaker belongs to, the geographical region he comes from, and they also convey stylistic
connotations of speech. Some of these varieties are received pronunciations, others are not.
Every national variant of the English language has an orthoepic norm of its own: RP, or Southern English, for
British English, GA for American English, the Australian Standard Pronunciation for Australian English. Each of
these orthoepic norms tolerates a definite range of phonemic variation, and each of them has its own peculiarities
of combinatory phenomena.
 Pidgin

A Pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out
of a mixture of other languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongues.
Pidgins have simple grammars and few synonyms, serving as auxiliary contact languages. They are
learnt as second languages rather than natively.
Pidgin English was the name given to a Chinese-English-Portuguese pidgin used for commerce in
Canton during the 18th and 19th centuries. In Canton, this contact language was called Canton
English. Also referred to as chinglish ("Chinese English") or engrish ("English Chinese").

Etymology

The word is said to be derived from the Chinese pronunciation of the English word business. Likely
the origins lie in the exclusively-Cantonese term which means establishing a good business
relationship. Scholars though dispute this derivation of the word "pidgin", and suggest alternative
etymologies since it was known also as "Pigeon English" in reference to imagery of the carrier pigeon.
Unfortunately there exists no historical evidence for the term's origins to prove any suggestion.

Creation of Pidgins

The creation of a pidgin usually requires:

 Prolonged, regular contact between the different language communities

 A need to communicate between them
 An absence of (or absence of widespread proficiency in) a widespread, accessible interlanguage.

Also, Keith Whinnom (in Hymes 1971) suggests that pidgins need three languages to form, with one
(the superstrate) being clearly dominant over the others.

Common Traits among Pidgins

Since a Pidgin strives to be a simple and effective form of communication, the grammar, phonology,
et cetera, are as simple as possible, and usually consist of:

 A Subject-Verb-Object word order in a sentence

 No codas within syllables (Syllables consist of a vowel, with an optional initial consonant)
 Basic vowels, like /a/ /i/ /u/ /e/ /o/
 Separate words that indicate tense, usually before the verb
 Words are repeated twice to represent plurals, superlatives, and other parts of speech that
represent the concept being increased

Caribbean Pidgins

Caribbean pidgins are the result of colonialism. As tropical islands were colonised their society was
restructured, with a ruling minority of some European nation and a large mass of non-European
laborers. The laborers, natives, slaves or cheap immigrant workers, would often come from many
different language groups and would need to communicate. This led to the development of pidgins.
Pacific Pidgins

The Melanesian pidgins may have originated off their home islands, in the 19th century when the
islanders were abducted for indentured labour. Hence they were developed by Melanesians for use
between each other, not by the colonists on whose language they are based. English provides the basis
of most of the vocabulary, but the grammar has many Melanesian features

The most well-known pidgin used in America is the now creolized Hawaiian Pidgin where locals
mixed the traditional dialect of Hawaiian with English, Japanese, Portuguese, and other languages of
immigrants of Hawaii and Pacific traders.

Pidgins become creole languages when a generation whose parents speak pidgin to each other teach it
to their children as their first language. Often creoles can then replace the existing mix of languages to
become the native language of the current community. However, pidgins do not always become
creoles—they can die out or become obsolete.

Creole language

A creole language, or just creole, is a well-defined and stable language that originated from a non-
trivial combination of two or more languages, typically with many distinctive features that are not
inherited from either parent. All creole languages evolved from pidgins, usually those that have
become the native language of some community.

History of the concept Colonial origins

The term creole comes from Portuguese crioulo, via Spanish criollo and French créole. The term was
coined in the 16th century, during the great expansion in European maritime power and trade and the
establishment of European colonies in Americas, in Africa, and along the coast of South and Southeast
Asia up to the Philippines, China and Japan, and in Oceania.

The term "Creole" was originally applied to people born in the colonies, to distinguish them from the
upper-class European-born immigrants. Originally, therefore, "Creole language" meant the speech of
those Creole peoples.

Historical neglect

Because of the generally low status of the Creole people in the eyes of European colonial powers,
creole languages have generally been regarded as "degenerate", or at best as rudimentary "dialects" of
one of its parent languages. This view, incidentally, is the reason why "creole" has come to be used in
opposition to "language", rather than a qualifier for it; so that one would say "a French creole" (rather
than "a French-based creole language"), or "the Papiamentu creole" (rather than "the Papiamentu
creole language").

This prejudice was compounded by the inherent instability of the colonial system, which led to the
disappearance of many creole languages due to dispersion or assimilation of their speech communities.
Another factor that may have contributed to the longtime neglect of creole languages is that they do
not fit the "tree model" for the evolution of languages, which was adopted by linguists in the 19th
century In this model languages may evolve, split, or die out — but cannot ever merge.
Recognition and renaissance

Since the middle of the 20th century, however, linguists have promulgated the idea that creole
languages are in no way inferior to other languages. Linguists now use the term "creole language" for
any language that is formed from multiple languages by the same mechanism, without geographic
restrictions or ethnic implications. As a consequence of these social, political, and academic
changes, creole languages have experienced a revival in recent decades. They are increasingly and
more openly being used in literature and in media, and many of their speakers are quite fond and
proud of them. They are now studied by linguists as languages on their own; many have been
standardized, and are now taught in local schools and universities abroad.

Development of a creole language

All creoles start as pidgins, rudimentary second languages improvised for use between speakers of two
or more non-intelligible native languages. If a pidgin manages to be learned by the children of a
community as a native language, it usually becomes fixed and acquires a more complex grammar,
with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding. The syntax and morphology of
such languages may often have local innovations not obviously derived from any of the parent
languages.

Classification of creoles Whose creole?

By definition, a creole is the result of a nontrivial mixture of two or more languages, usually with
radical morphological changes and a syntax which is not obviously borrowed from either of the parent
tongues. The parent tongues may themselves be creoles or pidgins that have disappeared before they
could be documented. For these reasons, the issue of which language is the parent of a creole — that
is, whether a language should be classified as a "Portuguese creole" or "English creole", etc. — often
has no definitive answer, and can become the topic of heated disputes, where social prejudices and
political considerations may predominate.