A. The Linguistic Sciences. Phonetics and Phonology. The generative enterprise: Competence and performance.
B. The two kinds of stress. Strong and weak forms. The attitude of native and foreign speakers. Contractions.
C. Lexical stress: Word stress. Word stress tendencies in English. Word stress patterns.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence.
B. The two kinds of stress. Strong and weak forms. The attitude of native and foreign speakers. Contractions.
C. Lexical stress: Word stress. Word stress tendencies in English. Word stress patterns.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence.
A. The Linguistic Sciences. Phonetics and Phonology. The generative enterprise. Competence and performance.
The Linguistic Sciences are essentially concerned with the study of language. Language is approached by Linguistics, which is a broad term from which numerous subfields derive, and Phonetics, which is a specific discipline.
The origin of Linguistics and Phonetics are of different nature, but both came into existence when scientists began to look into the present state of language, rather than into its ancient roots as they formerly did. Linguistics arose from the need to describe and record the languages that were fast disparaging in America due to their lack of writing system. Phonetics, on the other hand, arose in England from the need to shed light on the relationship between spelling and sound, which in the sixteenth century had become quite confusing.
Both these sciences study language from a different point of view. Therefore, while Phonetics is interested in sounds and how they are produced, perceived and transmitted, Linguistics is concerned with how language is structured grammatically and semantically in a given context. However, though they are different in terms of their approach they are not totally disconnected as Phonology is a science that provides a link between them. Phonology belongs to both the domains of Phonetics (material aspect) and Linguistics (abstract aspect), and studies the organization of the phonic substance into a given grammatical pattern.
The origin of Linguistics and Phonetics are of different nature, but both came into existence when scientists began to look into the present state of language, rather than into its ancient roots as they formerly did. Linguistics arose from the need to describe and record the languages that were fast disparaging in America due to their lack of writing system. Phonetics, on the other hand, arose in England from the need to shed light on the relationship between spelling and sound, which in the sixteenth century had become quite confusing.
Both these sciences study language from a different point of view. Therefore, while Phonetics is interested in sounds and how they are produced, perceived and transmitted, Linguistics is concerned with how language is structured grammatically and semantically in a given context. However, though they are different in terms of their approach they are not totally disconnected as Phonology is a science that provides a link between them. Phonology belongs to both the domains of Phonetics (material aspect) and Linguistics (abstract aspect), and studies the organization of the phonic substance into a given grammatical pattern.
The Generative Enterprise: Competence and Performance
Generative Linguistics is a theory developed by the American Linguist Noam Chomsky, from which the concept of Generative Grammar derives. In the field of Linguistics the term "generative" refers to what could be admitted or not within a language, so if we take the words "by", "a", "poem" and "Shakespeare" native speakers will frame the grammatical phrase "a poem by Shakespeare", and not something ungrammatical. This is so because native speakers know how to combine the bits of their language.
This capability to use the language properly is related with the native speaker's competence, which is the unconscious knowledge speakers have about the organization of their language. Conversely, performance /pəfo:məns/ is the actual use of language which involves the external factors in a conversation such as how tired we are or to whom we are talking.
Generative Grammar also accounts for other areas such as syntax, morphology, semantics and phonology that together make up the overall knowledge about the language.
B. The two kinds of stress. Strong and weak forms. The attitude of native and foreign speakers. Contractions.
The two kind of stress
In English there are two kinds of stress: lexical stress which affects words, and syntactical stress which affects sentences.
Lexical stress is the relative force used in pronouncing the different syllables of a word.
Sentence stress is the relative force given to the different words within a sentence. Here, monosyllables may indeed take stress if they play an important role within the utterance, and multi-syllable words may be unstressed if they are not important in the utterance.
Strong and weak forms
Strong and weak forms are one of the most remarkable features of the English pronunciation. Most of the time, strong forms are content words like nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc., and weak forms are structure words like personal or relative pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, articles, or conjunctions.
Generally, weak form words have more than one pronunciation depending on whether they are stressed or unstressed. Thus, the indefinite article "a", for example, is strong when it is said in isolation, but when it is in connected speech it bears no stress and it is pronounced /ə/. Weak forms are distinguished from their strong forms either by a difference of vowel sound or by the absence of a vowel or consonant.
C. Lexical stress: Word stress. Word stress tendencies in English. Word stress patterns.
Lexical stress: Word stress
Lexical stress or word stress is the relative force in pronouncing a syllable in a multi-syllable word. Sometimes two are the syllables that are stressed in a given word, and in any case the remaining syllables are left unstressed. An example to this is the word /,ɪgzæmɪ'neɪʃən/
As it is common in almost every aspect of the English language, there is not a great amount of rules that are not at the same time subject to a numerous exceptions, and just as it is in this case, we don't always know for certain where the stress should be placed.
Word stress tendencies in English
Although rules have never been a truly useful means to understand the English pronunciation, there are some tendencies that can be recognized. The main reason of the irregularity of English stress stems from the etymological development words have gone through in the past, and the fact that the vocabulary has been drawn from different sources. One of these sources is The Teutonic, where the tendency is towards early stress (for example: 'father, 'mother, 'English), and another source is The Romantic (as seen in the words a'rrive, to'day, to'morrow), where later word stress prevails.
With that into consideration, something what we can conclude on is that all words in English have some sort of full stress on one of their first two syllables.
Word stress patterns
The number of stressed (with primary or secondary stress) and unstressed syllables in a given word is what determines the word stress pattern.
Thus, we have:
• Two syllable words whose pattern is primary stress + unstressed syllable (I -) For example, husband, female, island.
Next we have:
• Three syllable words; primary stress + two unstressed syllables (I - -) generally, fortunate.
And so:
• Four (I - - -) and five (I - - - -) syllable words where the primary stress is on the first syllable and the remaining are unstressed.
Another type of pattern is that in which the stress is placed on the second syllable.
In this way, this pattern involves:
• Two syllable words where the first syllable is unstressed and the second one is stressed (- I). An example to this are the words again, above, believe.
• Then the pattern goes on with words of three, four and five syllables where the stress is on the second syllable and the rest are unstressed.
Another type of pattern involves primary and secondary stress.
In this way we have:
• Two syllable words; secondary stress + primary stress. For example, Chinese, non-stop.
• Three syllable words; secondary stress + primary stress + unstressed syllable such as prejudgment, or secondary stress + unstressed syllable + primary stress such understand.
• Four syllable words; secondary stress + unstressed syllable + primary stress + unstressed syllable as explanation.
• Five syllable words; secondary stress + unstressed syllable + primary stress + two unstressed syllables as in archeology, or secondary stress + two unstressed syllables + primary stress + unstressed syllable as classification.
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
Syntactical stress: definition
Syntactical stress or sentence stress is the accent on certain words in sentence. It's the stress that gives English its rhythm or beat, or in other terms, it is the music of spoken English.
The words that normally receive stress in a sentence are almost always content words. Conversely, function words do not usually receive stress, unless the play an important role within the sentence or are used emphatically or contrastively.
Main principles of sentence stress
The principles of sentence stress are made up of some facts I'm now going to speak about:
• When a word qualifies another, both words usually have strong stress. An example to this is the phrase "tall man" where both words are stressed. However, an exception to this is the word "street" when it is part of a street name. For example, "Oxford Street".
• Pronouns ending in one or body such as everyone or everybody never receive stress.
• The pronoun "it" is never stressed.
• All preposition (except to) take their strong form when they occur at a final position, though they are not stressed. For example, "what is this for?"
• When most and more are comparative or superlative they are not stressed. Otherwise, they are stressed.
• When a content word is repeated twice within the same reference, the second occurrence is not stressed. For example, "the girl was joined by another girl"
• Reflexive pronouns such as yourself and himself have no stress unless they go in final position, as for example in the sentence "behave your'self". However, when they are used emphatically as in "I myself bought it" they are stressed.
• When there is some idea of contrast, we use contrastive stress. In this way, one word is highlighted over the others adding a layer of meaning. For example:
''John likes the brown shoes
John ''likes the brown shoes
John likes the ''brown shoes
John likes the brown ''shoes
• In verb phrases the main verb is generally stressed rather than the auxiliary verbs. For example, "He is 'leaving".
Set 2
A. Communication. Language. Redundancy. Phonetics and Linguistics.
B. The word. Stress and prominence. The nature of stress. Level of stress. Intonation. Level Tones and Kinetic Tones.
C. Lexical stress: The distinctive function of stress.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
A. Communication. Language. Redundancy. Phonetics and Linguistics.
Communication
One of the chief characteristics of human beings is their ability to communicate to their fellows complicated massages. These messages are an exchange of information carried out by means of auditory and visual stimulation.
Although communication is natural to human beings, it takes a number of years until an individual masters the sounds involved in speech. Children learn from a very early age to respond to the sounds and tunes that their parents use in talking to them, and after a time of exposure they eventually become able to utter more and more complicated messages. Later in childhood they are taught how to write, which is the visual representation of speech.
Language
A language is a system of conventional signs used for communication by a whole community. This convention covers a number of sound units to which an arrangement of words with specific meanings is assigned. According to different rules, these words can combine into larger and more complex structures such as phrases, clauses and sentences.
Redundancy
The efficiency of the spoken language doesn't depend on the perfect production and reception of every single element of speech. There are different aspects in the communication process that provide far more information that is needed, but that are still useful to offset any disturbance such as noise, or the interaction of two speakers with different dialects.
One aspect that adds up to redundancy is the situation or context. An utterance is highly influenced by the context where it occurs. A good example to this is the word "football", which if said by an American, it is most likely to refer to American football and not to the football we're accustomed to talk about. Another case of redundancy is related with grammar and probability that together condition neighbor words. For example, the word "country" by itself means a nation, an area of land with its own government, but if it is preceded by the article "the" it means a rural area. Additionally, phonetics plays an important role in contributing to redundancy as well, as certain sounds are bound to be followed by certain other sounds, and thus conditioning the range of possibilities for a word to be understood.
Phonetics and Linguistics
Phonetics, as well as Phonology, is intended to describe and study the sound system of English. However, the way a language sounds is only a part of a total description of a language. Linguistics is an umbrella term from which several sciences derive, and produce a more thorough description of a language. Some of these sciences are:
• The lexicon, which deals essentially with the words of a language.
• The morphology, which describes the structure of words and the way they change to convey different layers of meaning.
• The syntax, which accounts for the different categories of words, such as verbs, nouns, etc.
• The semantics, which is concerned about the meaning of words.
• The pragmatics, which is the language in practice. In a certain context, the language is influenced by the situation where the communication takes place.
Besides these sciences, there are various other aspects of linguistics that contributes to the knowledge of language.
B. The word. Stress and prominence. The nature of stress. Level of stress. Intonation. Level Tones and Kinetic Tones.
The word
From a Phonetic and Phonological point of view, the word represents a major field of study. These sciences are interested in the components of words - the syllables - as well as the combination the stem of the word goes into with affixes - prefixes and suffixes. Additionally, the root of a word is taken into consideration as well, especially when they are tied with other roots forming compound words.
Syllables are considered to be phonological components of words as they determine the stress pattern. However, there are other things that condition stress as well, as for example, the syntax surrounding the word, as it tells whether the verbs "to have", "to do", among others, act like main verbs or like auxiliary verbs, and thus whether they are stressed or unstressed.
Stress and prominence
Stress is the force with which a syllable is pronounced, and what makes the syllable to stand out from its neighboring syllables. Prominence is similar to stress, but not the same. There are four factors that make a syllable prominent: pitch, length, loudness and quality.
The difference between stress and prominence is that the first is imposed by the common usage of a community, whereas prominence is up to the speaker when to make use of it.
The nature of stress
Stress is by nature the force that falls on a specific syllable of a word. It is what sets a syllable apart from its neighbors. The stress given to a syllable is imposed by the usage set by a particular community. Within a stressed syllable, there's one sound that stands out from its neighbors, which is in the majority of the cases a vowel.
Prominence
Prominence is a special feature a syllable receives in order to be heard differently from its neighboring syllables. There are four factors that make a syllable prominent:
• Loudness: If a syllable is uttered louder than the others, it will be heard as stressed.
• Length: When a syllable is made longer than the others, it will tend to be considered as stressed.
• Pitch: It is the movement of our voice; in other words, the frequency of vibration made by the vocal folds when uttering a syllable. If a syllable is uttered with a rising pitch it will be heard as stressed.
• Quality: If a syllable contains a different vowel from its neighboring syllables, it will tend to be heard as stressed.
Levels of stress
This point has to do with secondary stress. Secondary stress is a type of stress that is weaker than a primary stress but stronger than a syllable with no stress at all. In diagramming, this feature is marked with a low diacritic placed immediately before the syllable that takes it. An example to this is the first syllable of the word photographic /, foutc'gr4fik/
Intonation: level tones and kinetic tones
Intonation is the use of pitch of the voice to convey linguistic information, or in other terms it is the musical feature of English. Furthermore, as in all languages, there is a constant variation of pitch in English, which is the rise and fall of the voice in connected speech. This pitch variation is described with tones in a diagram that has three parallel lines that indicate a high, mid and low pitch level. There are two types of tones: static tones and kinetic tones.
In Static tones the tone of the voice remains in the same level, which means that the tone begins at a high level and ends at a high level; similarly, this variation occurs at a mid or low level. A good example to this is the word right, which can be uttered with a high intonation, meaning an invitation for our listener to reply or with a low intonation, meaning a confirmation.
• Length: When a syllable is made longer than the others, it will tend to be considered as stressed.
• Pitch: It is the movement of our voice; in other words, the frequency of vibration made by the vocal folds when uttering a syllable. If a syllable is uttered with a rising pitch it will be heard as stressed.
• Quality: If a syllable contains a different vowel from its neighboring syllables, it will tend to be heard as stressed.
Levels of stress
This point has to do with secondary stress. Secondary stress is a type of stress that is weaker than a primary stress but stronger than a syllable with no stress at all. In diagramming, this feature is marked with a low diacritic placed immediately before the syllable that takes it. An example to this is the first syllable of the word photographic /, foutc'gr4fik/
Intonation: level tones and kinetic tones
Intonation is the use of pitch of the voice to convey linguistic information, or in other terms it is the musical feature of English. Furthermore, as in all languages, there is a constant variation of pitch in English, which is the rise and fall of the voice in connected speech. This pitch variation is described with tones in a diagram that has three parallel lines that indicate a high, mid and low pitch level. There are two types of tones: static tones and kinetic tones.
In Static tones the tone of the voice remains in the same level, which means that the tone begins at a high level and ends at a high level; similarly, this variation occurs at a mid or low level. A good example to this is the word right, which can be uttered with a high intonation, meaning an invitation for our listener to reply or with a low intonation, meaning a confirmation.
In Kinetic tones the tone of voice moves upwards and downwards giving expression and even meaning to an utterance. There are six movements of voice that can be described.
1. Rising, from the lowest point to the highest point.
2. Falling, from the highest point to the lowest point.
3. High rising, from a mid position to a high position.
4. Low rising, from a low position to a mid position.
5. High falling, from a mid position to a low position.
6. Low falling, from somewhere between mid and low position to the lowest point.
C. Lexical stress: the distinctive function of stress.
Sometimes the purpose of stress is to distinguish words of identical spelling, or of identical or similar phonemic pattern. There are two typical patterns of stress difference:
• First, the difference between nouns or adjectives and verbs. While the first have primary stress on the first syllable, verbs are stressed on the second syllable. Good examples to this are the words frequent, contact, impact, progress, etc.
• In other instances the difference between nouns or adjectives and verbs is that the secondary stress is omitted in nouns or adjectives but is kept in verbs.
However, despite my hope I couldn't find examples of this. Checking the Cambridge pronouncing dictionary I found out that the difference made there is not based on stress placement but on the phonemic transcription itself. In this way, appropriate as an adjective is pronounced /ə'prəʊprɪət/ but as a verb the pronunciation is /ə'prəʊprɪeɪt/
Set 3
A. The production of speech. The speech chain. The speech mechanism. Physiological aspect. Articulatory description.
B. Gradation: Essential weak-form words. The use of strong forms. Stress in general.
C. Lexical stress: stress in compounds.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
A. The production of speech. The speech chain. The speech mechanism. Physiological aspect. Articulatory description.
There is a whole large range of things that involves approaching communication through speech. All the production of speech, the speech mechanism, and the physiological phase have the sole intention of achieving the transmission of a message. This process of transmission is described in the form of a chain called the speech chain. Another type of description is called articulatory description.
The speech production begins when there is a message to be transmitted. At this level, in the speaker's psychological phase, the message is encoded by converting thoughts into linguistic forms. Then, the next step takes place in the articulatory phase and involves the action of the muscles, which are the link between the psychological phase and the speech mechanism. Here, the movements of the organs in the vocal tract manipulate the flow of air coming from the lungs and produce sound waves that travel through the air towards the listener's ears. In the speech chain description this represents the acoustic stage.
Once the message reaches the listener, the sensory nerves carry the message in the form of impulses to the brain, where the psychological phase begins on the side of the listener. This impulses are converted into linguistic forms. Here, the speech chain comes to a circle and the speech communication is completed.
Articulatory description
B. Gradation: Essential weak-form words. The use of strong forms. Stress in general.
In English there are about 40 words that have strong and weak forms. Depending on the placement in a sentence and on the linguistic context, one form or the other will be used. These types of words belong to the category called function words. Some of these words are:
the and a (and an)
The strong form of the article "the" is /ðiː/ and it's used for emphasis, and the weak one /ðə/ /ðɪ/ is used in any other placement.
Another set of words are and, but, that and than
The strong forms of "and" are /æn - ænd/ and the weak ones are /ən - ənd - nd - n - m - ŋ/. Which of the weak forms is to be used depends on the words that are immediately before and after "and". For example, in the phrase "thick and creamy" "and" is pronounced as a velar /ng/ because the sound after is also velar.
In addition, the pronouns she, he, we, you, him, her, them, us are words that have several forms.
The word we, for example, has the strong form /wi:/ and the weak form /wɪ/. The strong one is used for contrast or emphasis. For example, "We, not they, will do it."
The word him, as another example, has the strong form /him/ and the weak forms /hɪm - ɪm/. As it is with "we", the strong form of "him" is used for contrast or emphasis.
The next group of words occur in their strong forms when they are placed at the final of a sentence. These words are at, for, from, of, some and there.
The word some is used in two different ways. When it means an unknown individual it has its strong form /sAm/. For example, "Some person will help you". In any other case it is the weak form which is used.
As regards the word there, when it is a demonstrative is always occurs in its strong form /ðeər/. For example "There it is". In any other case it is used with its weak form /ðər/
The remaining words belonging to this type of words are auxiliary verbs. These are can, could, have, shall, should, must, do, does and the different forms of the verb "to be". All of these verbs take their strong form when they're in the negative form.
As regards can and could, their strong form is used in contrast and emphasis as well as when they are in final position. Can has three weak forms: /kən, kn, kŋ/ and it depends on the neighboring sounds which one is to be used.
The forms of the verb to be am, are, was, were take their strong forms when they are in final position. Otherwise, the weak form is used.
C. Lexical stress: stress in compounds.
Compound words are units made up of two morphological roots. They can be written as one word, as two separated words or with an hyphen in between.
From a phonological point of view, compounds are further divided into two groups: single stressed compounds and double stressed compounds.
Single stressed compounds take the stress on the first element. These compounds are formed by either a combination of two nouns (ex: baby-sitter, dish water, headache, etc) or a combination of adjectives and nouns (ex: dark room, swimming pool, freezing point, etc)
Nound-plus-noun Double stressed compounds may be double stressed when:
a) the first noun indicates the position of the second one: country house, shop window.
b) the second noun is made of the first one: fruit salad, olive oil.
There's also a miscellaneous set of words that are double stressed such as mother tongue, city center, head master, etc.
Other double stressed compounds are formed by the combination of adjectives and nouns, such as black market, civil war, tax free, etc.
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress. SET 1 ↑
Set 4
A. The description and classification of speech sounds. Phonetic description.
B. Connected speech: Rhythm units.
C. Lexical stress: Noun phrases vs. compounds.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
A. The description and classification of speech sounds. Phonetic description. Vowel and consonant.
Phonetic description
A phonetic description is a method of description and classification of the sounds that occur in speech. Based on a phonetic criteria, vowel sounds are defined as median (because the air escapes from the middle of the tongue), oral, frictionless and continuant. In consequence, for vowels to be vowels, they must have all these features I mentioned. Consonants, on the other hand, are lateral, nasal, fricative or plosive. All consonants have at least one of these characteristics.
Vowel and consonant
From a phonological point of view, consonants are the segments which occur at the edges of syllables, while vowels are the ones which occur at the center of syllables. However, a clearer distinction can be explained if we analyze speech sounds from a phonetic perspective.
The most common distinction between vowels and consonants is made from the way they are produced, and therefore we can say that vowels are produced in such a way that there is no obstruction of the air coming from the lungs as it passes through the vocal tract. Consonants, on the other hand, are produced with the air undergoing different sorts of obstruction on his way through the vocal tract.
B. Connected speech: Rhythm units.
Rhythm units are groups into which long sentences are divided, so that a speaker can emphasize a certain point, make an idea clearer, or take a breath. Not all speakers separate utterances in the same way, but there are certain rhythm units that are not often divided. These are more specifically thought groups made up of:
• A noun and its adjectives.
• The main verb and its auxiliaries.
• Prepositions and their objects.
• Main clauses and dependent clauses.
Additionally, some of the characteristics of rhythm units are that:
• Thought groups are made up of a head content word that receives heavy stress, whereas other content words or modifiers are less forcefully uttered.
• Function words in a thought group are uttered without stress. The vowels in function words are often reduced to /c/ or /I/.
• Words within rhythm units are said smoothly.
• Different rhythm units within sentences no matter their length take the same time to be uttered.
C. Lexical stress: Noun phrases vs. compounds.
Different stress patterns are distinguished between noun phrases and pre-established compounds. When a noun is modified by an adjective, both the noun and the adjective are stressed, while compound nouns have the first element stressed. For example:
'white 'house or 'White house
'yellow 'hammer or 'yellow hammer
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress. SET 1 ↑
Set 5
A. Sounds in language. Speech sounds and linguistic units. Phonemes. Transcription.
B. Connected Speech: The influence of rhythm upon stress.
C. Lexical stress: prefixed words.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
A. Sounds in language. Speech sounds and linguistic units. Phonemes. Transcription.
Speech sounds and linguistic units
Studying a single speech sound through Phonetics may not be enough if one means to get a close look into the nature of sounds. This is because speech is a continuum where different sounds merge into one another, and therefore identifying and delimiting the sound units that make up a word is not an easy task. Although it's of some help to observe the speech organs at work, as well as to have at disposal acoustic information of the utterances, it is still almost impossible to say how many speech sounds have been uttered.
In the book, the the word tot is the example put forward, and there it is explained that people feel that word to be composed of three components, the sounds /t-o-t/. However, if we look deeper into the concrete characteristics of this utterance, we can actually perceive that after the first t there's a slight s and h sound. Here, the first t plus the s and h sounds are treated as one linguistic unit, namely /t/. Accidentally, we can say the other t sound is different, and for that reason we are dealing with allophones.
Phonemes
Phonemes are the smallest units capable of producing a change of meaning in a word. To illustrate this, we can consider a set of different words in which the only variation is one phoneme. For example, in the series of words bin, win, chin, gin, fin, sin it is the first phoneme, a consonant, what changes, and therefore a new word is heard.
These phonemes are said to be in opposition, and the procedure of making such a comparison is a common practice in phonetics because it gives account of the function of phonemes. Furthermore, it is necessary to analyze words in phonemic opposition in medial and final positions as well. In this way, we learn that /ʒ/ occurs in medial position only, the velar phoneme /ŋ/ in medial and final position, and that /r/ and [the sound of an H] /h/ do not occur in final position.
the and a (and an)
The strong form of the article "the" is /ðiː/ and it's used for emphasis, and the weak one /ðə/ /ðɪ/ is used in any other placement.
Another set of words are and, but, that and than
The strong forms of "and" are /æn - ænd/ and the weak ones are /ən - ənd - nd - n - m - ŋ/. Which of the weak forms is to be used depends on the words that are immediately before and after "and". For example, in the phrase "thick and creamy" "and" is pronounced as a velar /ng/ because the sound after is also velar.
In addition, the pronouns she, he, we, you, him, her, them, us are words that have several forms.
The word we, for example, has the strong form /wi:/ and the weak form /wɪ/. The strong one is used for contrast or emphasis. For example, "We, not they, will do it."
The word him, as another example, has the strong form /him/ and the weak forms /hɪm - ɪm/. As it is with "we", the strong form of "him" is used for contrast or emphasis.
The next group of words occur in their strong forms when they are placed at the final of a sentence. These words are at, for, from, of, some and there.
The word some is used in two different ways. When it means an unknown individual it has its strong form /sAm/. For example, "Some person will help you". In any other case it is the weak form which is used.
As regards the word there, when it is a demonstrative is always occurs in its strong form /ðeər/. For example "There it is". In any other case it is used with its weak form /ðər/
The remaining words belonging to this type of words are auxiliary verbs. These are can, could, have, shall, should, must, do, does and the different forms of the verb "to be". All of these verbs take their strong form when they're in the negative form.
As regards can and could, their strong form is used in contrast and emphasis as well as when they are in final position. Can has three weak forms: /kən, kn, kŋ/ and it depends on the neighboring sounds which one is to be used.
The forms of the verb to be am, are, was, were take their strong forms when they are in final position. Otherwise, the weak form is used.
C. Lexical stress: stress in compounds.
Compound words are units made up of two morphological roots. They can be written as one word, as two separated words or with an hyphen in between.
From a phonological point of view, compounds are further divided into two groups: single stressed compounds and double stressed compounds.
Single stressed compounds take the stress on the first element. These compounds are formed by either a combination of two nouns (ex: baby-sitter, dish water, headache, etc) or a combination of adjectives and nouns (ex: dark room, swimming pool, freezing point, etc)
Nound-plus-noun Double stressed compounds may be double stressed when:
a) the first noun indicates the position of the second one: country house, shop window.
b) the second noun is made of the first one: fruit salad, olive oil.
There's also a miscellaneous set of words that are double stressed such as mother tongue, city center, head master, etc.
Other double stressed compounds are formed by the combination of adjectives and nouns, such as black market, civil war, tax free, etc.
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress. SET 1 ↑
Set 4
A. The description and classification of speech sounds. Phonetic description.
B. Connected speech: Rhythm units.
C. Lexical stress: Noun phrases vs. compounds.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
A. The description and classification of speech sounds. Phonetic description. Vowel and consonant.
Phonetic description
A phonetic description is a method of description and classification of the sounds that occur in speech. Based on a phonetic criteria, vowel sounds are defined as median (because the air escapes from the middle of the tongue), oral, frictionless and continuant. In consequence, for vowels to be vowels, they must have all these features I mentioned. Consonants, on the other hand, are lateral, nasal, fricative or plosive. All consonants have at least one of these characteristics.
Vowel and consonant
From a phonological point of view, consonants are the segments which occur at the edges of syllables, while vowels are the ones which occur at the center of syllables. However, a clearer distinction can be explained if we analyze speech sounds from a phonetic perspective.
The most common distinction between vowels and consonants is made from the way they are produced, and therefore we can say that vowels are produced in such a way that there is no obstruction of the air coming from the lungs as it passes through the vocal tract. Consonants, on the other hand, are produced with the air undergoing different sorts of obstruction on his way through the vocal tract.
B. Connected speech: Rhythm units.
Rhythm units are groups into which long sentences are divided, so that a speaker can emphasize a certain point, make an idea clearer, or take a breath. Not all speakers separate utterances in the same way, but there are certain rhythm units that are not often divided. These are more specifically thought groups made up of:
• A noun and its adjectives.
• The main verb and its auxiliaries.
• Prepositions and their objects.
• Main clauses and dependent clauses.
Additionally, some of the characteristics of rhythm units are that:
• Thought groups are made up of a head content word that receives heavy stress, whereas other content words or modifiers are less forcefully uttered.
• Function words in a thought group are uttered without stress. The vowels in function words are often reduced to /c/ or /I/.
• Words within rhythm units are said smoothly.
• Different rhythm units within sentences no matter their length take the same time to be uttered.
C. Lexical stress: Noun phrases vs. compounds.
Different stress patterns are distinguished between noun phrases and pre-established compounds. When a noun is modified by an adjective, both the noun and the adjective are stressed, while compound nouns have the first element stressed. For example:
'white 'house or 'White house
'yellow 'hammer or 'yellow hammer
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress. SET 1 ↑
Set 5
A. Sounds in language. Speech sounds and linguistic units. Phonemes. Transcription.
B. Connected Speech: The influence of rhythm upon stress.
C. Lexical stress: prefixed words.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
A. Sounds in language. Speech sounds and linguistic units. Phonemes. Transcription.
Speech sounds and linguistic units
Studying a single speech sound through Phonetics may not be enough if one means to get a close look into the nature of sounds. This is because speech is a continuum where different sounds merge into one another, and therefore identifying and delimiting the sound units that make up a word is not an easy task. Although it's of some help to observe the speech organs at work, as well as to have at disposal acoustic information of the utterances, it is still almost impossible to say how many speech sounds have been uttered.
In the book, the the word tot is the example put forward, and there it is explained that people feel that word to be composed of three components, the sounds /t-o-t/. However, if we look deeper into the concrete characteristics of this utterance, we can actually perceive that after the first t there's a slight s and h sound. Here, the first t plus the s and h sounds are treated as one linguistic unit, namely /t/. Accidentally, we can say the other t sound is different, and for that reason we are dealing with allophones.
Phonemes
Phonemes are the smallest units capable of producing a change of meaning in a word. To illustrate this, we can consider a set of different words in which the only variation is one phoneme. For example, in the series of words bin, win, chin, gin, fin, sin it is the first phoneme, a consonant, what changes, and therefore a new word is heard.
These phonemes are said to be in opposition, and the procedure of making such a comparison is a common practice in phonetics because it gives account of the function of phonemes. Furthermore, it is necessary to analyze words in phonemic opposition in medial and final positions as well. In this way, we learn that /ʒ/ occurs in medial position only, the velar phoneme /ŋ/ in medial and final position, and that /r/ and [the sound of an H] /h/ do not occur in final position.
Transcription
A phonetic transcription is the graphic display of the sound sequence of a word. The nature of a phonetic transcription will differ according to whether the aim is to indicate detailed sound values or significant functional elements. To this effect, there is, on one hand, what's called a narrow phonetic transcription, which contains detailed information about the exact quality of sounds, and on the other hand, what's called a broad phonemic transcription, which has basic information regarding the sound sequence of a word.
B. Connected Speech: The influence of rhythm upon stress.
The normal stressing of words undergoes variations in order to fit the rhythmic characteristic of the English language.
Thus, words bearing two strong stresses as 'un'known or 'six'teen lose one of their stresses according to their placement within a sentence. Therefore:
• When final and immediately preceded by a stress the word loses its own first stress: He's 'quite un'known.
• When a stressed word immediately follows a double stressed word, it loses its second stress: The 'unknown 'warrior.
• When a stress both precedes and follows a double stressed word, it often loses both stresses: We are 'over sixteen 'miles to 'go.
C. Lexical stress: prefixed words.
There's no prefix of one or two syllables that always carries primary stress. Therefore, it's safe to say that stress in a word with a prefix is the same as if it didn't have the prefix.
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress. SET 1 ↑
Set 6
A. Standard and regional accent. Standard pronunciation. Emergence of standard. General American. Cockney. Australian English.
B. Connected speech: word stress patterns of 4 and 5 syllable words.
C. Lexical stress: double accented words.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
A. Standard and regional accent. Standard pronunciation. Emergence of standard. General American. Cockney. Australian English.
Standard pronunciation
Ever since some centuries ago the British have been particularly concerned with certain types of pronunciation. Thus, the way certain speakers talk has been subject to social judgments which led to the belief that some types of pronunciations are used by uneducated or uncultured speakers.
This notion, however, has to some extent been weakened over the past half century. Nevertheless, criticism is still made nowadays, specially when it comes to young people. This seems to refer particularly to the overusing of /c/ when another vowel is appropriate, or the dropping of consonants at the final of some words.
The British from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries were busy attempting to set up a standard model of English, which has evolved ever since.
Emergence of standard
Whether it is due to the distance between different communities, or the disparities between speech sounds of young and old people, in the United Kingdom there have always been a wide diversity in the spoken language.
However, over the last four centuries there has existed the notion that one kind of pronunciation was preferable socially to others. In the sixteenth century, for reasons of politics, commerce and the presence of the Court the accent of the London area began to acquire social prestige. The London accent began to be characterized as the accent spoken by the ruling class. Later, with its dissemination throughout the country it began to be considered as a distinguishing feature of social position, rather than of region.
General American
General American can be regarded as the standard accent in the United States, which does not have marked regional characteristics. It's currently the standard model for pronunciation of English as a second language in parts of Asia and parts of Latin America, being the most remarkable example Mexico.
There are two major areas of systematic difference between RP and GA. First, GA lacks RP diphthongs /ic, ec, ou/ which correspond in GA to sequences of short vowels plus /r/, for example beard /bird/, fare /fer/, dour /dur/.
Second, as opposed to RP where /r/ occurs only before vowels, GA /r/ can occur before consonants and before a pause.
Moreover, GA has no short vowel /o/, but instead the long vowel /a:/ is used as for example in pocket /pa:kit/ or bottle /ba:tl/, or in same other cases long vowel /o:/ as in across /ckro:s/, gone /go:n/.
Finally, RP long vowel /a:/ is pronounced by GA speakers as /4/. Therefore while RP speakers /pa:st/ GA speakers say /p4st/; similarly, /a:ftc/ /4ftcr/, /pla:nt/ /pl4nt/.
Cockney
Cockney is a variation of RP used in London mainly by the working class. It's also considered to be a dialect as it has a significant vocabulary of its own. Although there are no differences in the inventory of vowel phonemes between RP and Cockney, there is a large number of differences of realization. The short front vowels tend to be closer than in RP, thus sat, set and sit will sound really confusing for speakers form other regions.
B. Connected speech: word stress patterns of 4 and 5 syllable words.
The word stress pattern is determined by the syllable on which the stress falls as well as if there's more than one stressed syllable.
Thus, we have:
• Four (I - - -) and five (I - - - -) syllable words where the primary stress is on the first syllable and the remaining are unstressed.
Another kind of pattern is that in which the stress falls on the second syllable of words. In this way, there are
• Four and five syllable words where the stress is on the second syllable and the rest are unstressed.
That leads to words with secondary stress as well. Therefore we have:
• Four syllable words; secondary stress + unstressed syllable + primary stress + unstressed syllable as explanation.
• Five syllable words; secondary stress + unstressed syllable + primary stress + two unstressed syllables as in archeology, or secondary stress + two unstressed syllables + primary stress + unstressed syllable as classification.
C. Lexical stress: double accented words.
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress. SET 1 ↑
5851 words
The normal stressing of words undergoes variations in order to fit the rhythmic characteristic of the English language.
Thus, words bearing two strong stresses as 'un'known or 'six'teen lose one of their stresses according to their placement within a sentence. Therefore:
• When final and immediately preceded by a stress the word loses its own first stress: He's 'quite un'known.
• When a stressed word immediately follows a double stressed word, it loses its second stress: The 'unknown 'warrior.
• When a stress both precedes and follows a double stressed word, it often loses both stresses: We are 'over sixteen 'miles to 'go.
C. Lexical stress: prefixed words.
There's no prefix of one or two syllables that always carries primary stress. Therefore, it's safe to say that stress in a word with a prefix is the same as if it didn't have the prefix.
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress. SET 1 ↑
Set 6
A. Standard and regional accent. Standard pronunciation. Emergence of standard. General American. Cockney. Australian English.
B. Connected speech: word stress patterns of 4 and 5 syllable words.
C. Lexical stress: double accented words.
D. Syntactical stress: Definition. Main principles of sentence stress.
A. Standard and regional accent. Standard pronunciation. Emergence of standard. General American. Cockney. Australian English.
Standard pronunciation
Ever since some centuries ago the British have been particularly concerned with certain types of pronunciation. Thus, the way certain speakers talk has been subject to social judgments which led to the belief that some types of pronunciations are used by uneducated or uncultured speakers.
This notion, however, has to some extent been weakened over the past half century. Nevertheless, criticism is still made nowadays, specially when it comes to young people. This seems to refer particularly to the overusing of /c/ when another vowel is appropriate, or the dropping of consonants at the final of some words.
The British from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries were busy attempting to set up a standard model of English, which has evolved ever since.
Emergence of standard
Whether it is due to the distance between different communities, or the disparities between speech sounds of young and old people, in the United Kingdom there have always been a wide diversity in the spoken language.
However, over the last four centuries there has existed the notion that one kind of pronunciation was preferable socially to others. In the sixteenth century, for reasons of politics, commerce and the presence of the Court the accent of the London area began to acquire social prestige. The London accent began to be characterized as the accent spoken by the ruling class. Later, with its dissemination throughout the country it began to be considered as a distinguishing feature of social position, rather than of region.
General American
General American can be regarded as the standard accent in the United States, which does not have marked regional characteristics. It's currently the standard model for pronunciation of English as a second language in parts of Asia and parts of Latin America, being the most remarkable example Mexico.
There are two major areas of systematic difference between RP and GA. First, GA lacks RP diphthongs /ic, ec, ou/ which correspond in GA to sequences of short vowels plus /r/, for example beard /bird/, fare /fer/, dour /dur/.
Second, as opposed to RP where /r/ occurs only before vowels, GA /r/ can occur before consonants and before a pause.
Moreover, GA has no short vowel /o/, but instead the long vowel /a:/ is used as for example in pocket /pa:kit/ or bottle /ba:tl/, or in same other cases long vowel /o:/ as in across /ckro:s/, gone /go:n/.
Finally, RP long vowel /a:/ is pronounced by GA speakers as /4/. Therefore while RP speakers /pa:st/ GA speakers say /p4st/; similarly, /a:ftc/ /4ftcr/, /pla:nt/ /pl4nt/.
Cockney
Cockney is a variation of RP used in London mainly by the working class. It's also considered to be a dialect as it has a significant vocabulary of its own. Although there are no differences in the inventory of vowel phonemes between RP and Cockney, there is a large number of differences of realization. The short front vowels tend to be closer than in RP, thus sat, set and sit will sound really confusing for speakers form other regions.
B. Connected speech: word stress patterns of 4 and 5 syllable words.
The word stress pattern is determined by the syllable on which the stress falls as well as if there's more than one stressed syllable.
Thus, we have:
• Four (I - - -) and five (I - - - -) syllable words where the primary stress is on the first syllable and the remaining are unstressed.
Another kind of pattern is that in which the stress falls on the second syllable of words. In this way, there are
• Four and five syllable words where the stress is on the second syllable and the rest are unstressed.
That leads to words with secondary stress as well. Therefore we have:
• Four syllable words; secondary stress + unstressed syllable + primary stress + unstressed syllable as explanation.
• Five syllable words; secondary stress + unstressed syllable + primary stress + two unstressed syllables as in archeology, or secondary stress + two unstressed syllables + primary stress + unstressed syllable as classification.
C. Lexical stress: double accented words.
D. Syntactical stress: definition. Main principles of sentence stress. SET 1 ↑
5851 words
