1.

What are the differences between a stressed and unstressed

syllable?
2. What are the factors influencing stress placement?
3. Name some of the prefixes that conventionally are
unstressed, and give examples.
4. Give an example of a word which has the stress pattern
changed when it is of different parts of speech, and establish
the rule.
5. Name some of the suffixes having no effect on the word
stress pattern, and give examples.
6. Name some of the suffixes that may receive strong stress
themselves, and give examples.
7. Name some of the suffixes causing a shift in the word stress
pattern, and give examples. 8.
8. Establish the stress pattern rule of compound nouns, and
give examples.
PHONEMIC ANALYSIS
 General assumption:
• Speech is composed of phonemes
• Whenever a speech sound is produced, it is
possible to identify which phoneme the sound
in question belongs to.

• Still, there are various problems!

 AFFRICATES
• Phonetically, they are composed of a plosive
+ fricative
• But, it is possible to treat each affricate as a
single consonant phoneme (one-phoneme
analysis)
• They can also be treated as composed of
two phonemes each, all of which are
established as independent phonemes in
English (two-phoneme analysis)
 /t∫з:t∫/ & /dζλdζ/
• In the first case they would be considered as
consisting of 3 phonemes, in the second
case of 5 phonemes
• Which analysis is preferable?
• In the 1-phoneme analysis (no separtion of
affricates) the total number of phonemes is
smaller and should be preferred as more
economical (the most efficient codes do not
use unnecessary symbols)
 Still,
• 1-phoneme analysis is generally chosen by
phonologists as preferable
The arguments for:
1. Phonetic/allophonic argument: phonetic
quality of /t/ and /∫/ in /t∫/ and /dζ/ is
different from realisations of the sounds
mentioned found elsewhere, e.g. Different
quality of /t/ in “watch apes” vs. “what
shapes”
- still, this argument is weak
 2. Distribution
• The proposed phonemes have
distributions similar to other consonants,
while other combinations of plosive+
fricative do not: /t∫/ and /dζ/ are found
initially, medially and finally while no
other combination has such a wide
distribution.
• However, there are several consonants in
English accepted as phonemes in spite of
not being free to occur in all positions
(think of r, w, j, h, ζ, ŋ/
 3. Combining with other cons.
• Free combining to form clusters would
support the 1-phoneme analysis
- Initially they never occur in clusters
- Finally, they can be followed by t,d and
preceded by l, n
- Another combination: pre-final l,n can
occur with post-final t,d: e.g. squelched,
hindged
- So, /t∫/ and /dζ/ do not combine freely to
form clusters, particularly not initially
 Two-phoneme analysis
• Initial /t∫/ and /dζ/ would have to be
interpreted as initial t,d + post-initial ∫,ζ
(besides l,r,w,j) which can combine with
t,d, only
 4. Intuition of the native speaker
• Rather difficult to discover what native
speakers (if untrained in phonetics and
phonology) think or feel
 Other problems:
• Sounds transcribed as hw, hj
• Velar nasal ŋ (should it be treated as a
separate phoneme or an allophone of
the phoneme n occurring before g)
 The English vowel system
• Treating all long vowels and diphthongs
as composed of two vowel phonemes:
e.g. long vowels can be seen as
containing short vowels twice,
triphthongs would be composed of a
basic vowel + one of ι,υ + ə (which
makes three phonemes altogether)
 Another way of treating long vowels and
diphthongs
• As composed of a vowel + a consonant (j,
w, h, r), e.g. /eı/ - /ej/, /әυ/ - /әw/,
/υә/ - /υh/, /i:/ - /ıj/. /a:/ - /ah/, /u:/ - /uw/
Thus, inequality of distribution is corrected
for consonants that do not otherwise
occur finally in a syllable.
 More about long vowels
• Remember NEUTRALISATION of /i:/ and
/ı/ to /i/; i.e. Cases where contrasts
between phonemes which exist in
other places disappear in certain
contexts
 Syllabic consonants
• A possibility is to add new cons.
Phonemes to the existing list: syllabic
l,r,n as in bottle, button, Hungary
 Clusters of s + plosive
• P, t, k in syllable initial position are aspirated,
but when preceded by s they become
unaspirated and could perhaps be transcribed
as b, d, g because contrast between these two
groups of consonants become neutralised in
this context
 Schwa /ә/
• /ә/ can be treated as an allophone
of several vowels, not only of /λ/ in
unstressed syllables, e.g.
- Economy vs. economic
- German vs. Germanic
 DISTICTIVE FEATURES
• Distinctive feature analysis is one of many
different ways of treating the notion of
phoneme.
• The principle: phonemes are not
minimum, independent, indivisible units
but combinations of different features.
• In a table showing presence or absence of
features in different consonants there
would be no phonemes with the same
combination of +s and –s; otherwise, they
could not be treated as different
phonemes