1.

Comparative description of the phoneme systems of English and Bulgarian: vowel phonemes and consonant phonemes.
In BBC pronunciation there are 20 vowel phonemes and 24 consonant phonemes. In contemporary standard Bulgarian, on the other hand, there are only 6 vowel phonemes but as many as 39 consonant phonemes. The notorious discrepancy between spelling and sound in English very often makes it necessary to use transcription symbols in order to show how a word is pronounced. In phonemic transcription there is a separate symbol for every phoneme of the language. Sometimes, however, we may need more detailed phonetic information than is implied by the symbols used in phonemic transcription, for example, stress or aspiration. To show this, we can use phonetic transcription. In phonetic transcription, the symbols are enclosed in square brackets.

Consonants differ from one another in several important aspects: - voiced/ voiceless when we pronounce the first consonant in
the word zip our vocal folds vibrate and the sound is voiced; when we pronounce the first consonant in the word sip our vocal folds are not involved

- place of articulation: 1. bilabial in the pronunciation of bilabial consonants, the

upper and the lower lip are involved (pin, bin)

2. labio-dental the lower lip articulates with the upper

front teeth (five)

3. dental the tip of the tongue is against the back part of

the upper lip (thin, this)

4. alveolar the tip or the blade of the tongue articulates

with the alveolar ridge (right, ride)
1

5. post-alveolar the tip or the blade of the tongue

articulates with the front most part of the hard palate just behind the alveolar ridge (ship, church)

6. palatal the front part of the tongue articulates with the

hard palate (yet)

7. velar the back of the tongue touches the soft palate

(back, bag, bang)

8. glottal the vocal folds approach each other and thus

interfere with the airstream coming from the lungs (here, home) *glottal stop there is a complete closure between the vocal folds, which is then suddenly removed, and the resulting sound resembles a light cough (better, a lot of) - manner of articulation:

1.

plosives two organs of speech come together and form a complete closure, behind which air is compressed. The closure is then removed abruptly, and the resulting explosive sound is known as a plosive (pin, bin) - /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/ fricatives the flow of air coming from the lungs is not completely blocked: two speech organs are close to, but not actually touching each other, and as the airstream makes its way through the narrow passage formed by them, it becomes turbulent and a hissing sound is produced (five) - /f/, /v/, //, //, //, //, /s/, /z/, /h/ affricates sounds which begin with a complete closure, that is, initially they resemble plosives; after that, however, the closure is not removed explosively but gradually (chin) - /t/, /d/ nasal consonants there is a complete closure between two organs of speech in the mouth, but the air is
2

2.

3.

4.

allowed to enter the nasal cavity and escape through the nose (man) - /m/, /n/, //

5.

lateral consonants a partial closure is made between the tongue and the roof of the mouth, but the air can pass freely along the sides of the closure (light) - /l/ approximants the organs of speech approach each other but they dont get as close as they would be in the production of a fricative (right, wet, yet) - /w/, /j/, /r/

6.

- the amount of force or muscular effort with which

consonants are pronounced: 1. strong/fortis 2. weak/lenis

Most of the Bulgarian plosives are similar to their English counterparts in terms of place of articulation. No distinction is made in Bulgarian between fortis and lenis consonants: all consonants in the language are pronounced with approximately the same amount of force. Besides, the Bulgarian /p, t, k/ are not aspirated. Therefore, Bulgarian learners seldom pronounce initial /p, t, k/ in stressed syllables in English with sufficient aspiration (aspiration = the strong burst of air that accompanies the production of certain sounds). Another problem for Bulgarian learners is that there are no dental fricative consonants in Bulgarian, and as a result learners tend to replace // and // with /t, d/. Bulgarian has only two nasal phonemes - /m/ and /n/, which have the same place of articulation as the respective English consonants. Therefore the acquisition of the English velar nasal // presents a certain difficulty. Bulgarian learners tend to add /k/ or /g/ after the English velar nasal //, or to decompose // into /n/ + /g/. In Bulgarian, a distinction is traditionally made between consonants such as those at the beginning of the words and . They are the
3

same in terms of place and manner of articulation and in terms of voicing, but the first is also described as hard, or non-palatalized, while the second is defined as soft, or palatalized. It is also typical of the distribution of voiced consonants in Bulgarian that they never occur finally. For example, in isolation is pronounced /grat/ - with a /t/ sound at the end. Therefore, Bulgarian learners tend to fully devoice all English consonants in final position. Hence, Bulgarian learners tend to pronounce pairs of words such as larch-large, rich-ridge identically. There is only one approximant - /j/ - in Bulgarian, and it is palatal just as it is in English. Unlike Bulgarian consonants, some consonants in English can be syllabic, that is, they can form a syllable by themselves, without a vowel. The nasals /m, n/, the lateral /l/ and the approximant /r/ can all be syllabic, but by far the most frequently occurring syllabic consonants are /l/ and /n/. An example is the final /l/ in the word little.

Vowels For the production of vowel sounds the vocal organs involved in the articulation do not form any closure or narrowing as they do for consonants. Therefore, we cannot classify vowels in terms of place or manner of articulation. Also, all vowels are produced with vocal fold vibration, so the voiced-voiceless distinction is not relevant for them, either. It is clear, then, that we need criteria for describing and classifying vowels different from those we used for consonants. The organs of speech primarily involved in the articulation of vowel sounds are the lips and the tongue. The position of the lips is an important factor which determines vowel quality. But the most important articulator whose movements ultimately determine the shape and the size of the oral cavity and the pharynx, and therefore the quality of the vowel which is produced, is the tongue. Traditionally vowels are classified in terms of:
4

 The part of the tongue which participates in the articulation, and The degree of raising how high or how low in the mouth the respective part of the tongue lies. Some vowels are articulated by raising the front of the tongue, while the rest of it remains relatively low and flat. Such sounds are classified as front vowels. For example, the vowel of beat is front. If a vowel is produced with the back of the tongue raised, it is called a back vowel. The vowel of hard is back. If a vowel is articulated by raising the central part of the tongue, while the front and the back remain relatively low and flat, it is classified as a central vowel. An example is the vowel of heard. In terms of the degree of raising of the tongue, vowels are divided into four major categories. If the respective part of the tongue is raised as high and as close to the palate as possible without producing a consonant-like sound, the resulting vowel is called close/high. The vowel of fool is close. If, on the other hand, the tongue lies low down in the mouth cavity, forming only a slight hump, then the vowel sound which is produced is classified as open/low. The word pot has an open vowel. In between these two extremes, two or more intermediate positions are traditionally distinguished: close-mid/halfclose and open-mid/half-open. Vowels are also classified according to the position of the lips during the articulation. Three lip positions spread, neutral, and rounded are usually sufficient for the description of the distinctive vowel sounds in both English and Bulgarian. The stability of articulation is another important factor in the description of the English vowel phonemes. For some vowels, the organs remain relatively static throughout the articulation, and consequently the quality of the vowel is relatively unchanging and homogenous. This is what happens when the vowels in the words bit, set, board, heard are produced. These simple, relatively pure vowels are called monophtongs. In the production of other vowels, within the same syllable the organs of speech move from one position to another: the resulting vowel has a starting quality which is different
5

from its ending quality, and such vowels are called diphthongs. Examples of diphthong are the vowels in the words like, boy, late, no, etc. The last of the factors which are needed for the classification of the vowel phonemes of English is vowel length. The two degrees of length which are distinguished in English short and long are illustrated by the vowels in the words bid bead. There is no distinction between long and short vowels in Bulgarian. All vowels in the language are of approximately the same duration: they are shorter than the long vowels of English, but at the same time somewhat longer than the English short vowels. Also, Bulgarian has no phonemic diphthongs. English has 8 phonemic diphthongs. A common characteristic feature of all of them is that their first part is longer, stronger and generally more prominent than their second part. Diphthongs of this type are called falling diphthongs.