Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine Sumy State University N. V. Tatsenko INTRODUCTION TO THEORETICAL PHONETICS OF ENGLISH Study guide Recommended by the Academic Council of Sumy State University Sumy Sumy State University 2020 1 УДК 811.111’342(075.8) T 23 Reviewers: V. A. Ushchyna – DSc. (Philology), professor, head of Department of English Philology, Lesya Ukrainka Eastern European National University; V. H. Nikonova – DSc. (Philology), professor, head of Department of English and German Philology and Translation, Kyiv National Linguistic University Recommended for publication by the Academic Council of Sumy State University as a study guide (minutes № 2 of 07.09.2020) Tatsenko N. V. T 23 Introduction to Theoretical Phonetics of English : study guide / N. V. Tatsenko. – Sumy : Sumy State University, 2020. – 199 p. ISBN 987-966-657-835-1 The study guide contains educational material on the main topics of the course of theoretical phonetics of English: the sound structure of the language and the ways of its description and analysis; features of the modern pronunciation norm of English as a polyethnic formation and its national and regional variants; sounds of English as articulatory and functional units; syllable as a phonetic and phonological unit, word emphasis; prosodic arrangement of English language. Questions and practical tasks for each unit provide an opportunity for self-study of educational material. Meant for students, graduate students, teachers, and all interested in learning English. УДК 811.111’342(075.8) © Tatsenko N. V., 2020 ISBN 987-966-657-835-1 © Sumy State University, 2020 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS P. UNIT 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE OF THEORETICAL PHONETICS………………………..... 5 1.1. Phonetics as a Branch of Linguistics…………….. 5 1.2. Accents and Dialects…………………………….. 7 1.3. Branches of Phonetics and its Connection with Social Sciences………………………………….. 10 UNIT 2. THE PHONIC STRUCTURE OF A LANGUAGE AND ITS SPEECH ORGANS……. 22 2.1. The Components of the Phonic Structure of a Language………………………………………… 22 2.2. Speech Organs or Articulators…………………... 27 UNIT 3. THE SYSTEM OF ENGLISH PHONEMES…. 44 3.1. General Characteristics of Phonemes……………. 44 3.2. Notation…………………………………………. 49 3.3. Methods of Phonological Analysis……………… 51 3.4. Vowels and Consonants…………………………. 54 UNIT 4. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CONSONANTS…………………………………….. 62 4.1. English Plosives…………………………………. 62 4.2. English Fricatives………………………………... 67 4.3. English Affricates and Nasals…………………… 75 4.4. English Approximants (Liquids and Glides)……. 80 UNIT 5. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VOWELS……………………………….. 90 5.1. Cardinal vowels…………………………………. 90 5.2. Vowels classification……………………………. 93 UNIT 6. ASPECTS OF CONNECTED SPEECH……… 113 6.1. Assimilation……………………………………... 113 6.2. Elision……………………………………………. 118 6.3. Linking……………………………………………….. 120 3 6.4. Modifications of Vowels…………………………… 122 6.5. Stylistic Modifications of Sounds………………….. 124 UNIT 7. SYLLABIC STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS…………………………………………………. 130 7.1. The Structure of the English Syllable…………… 130 7.2. Syllable Division………………………………… 138 UNIT 8. ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS…………………………………………………. 147 8.1. The Nature of Stress……………………………… 147 8.2. Placement of Stress within the Word……………. 151 UNIT 9 GENERAL CHARACTER OF ENGLISH INTONATION………………………………………….. 167 9.1. Structure and Functions of Intonation…………… 167 9.2. Sentence Stress………………………………….. 178 9.3. Rhythm…………………………………………... 180 UNIT 10. VARIETIES OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION…………………………………….. 186 10.1. The Study of Variety…………………………… 186 10.2. Geografical Variation…………………………... 188 10.3. Other Sources of Variation…………………….. 192 4 UNIT 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE OF THEORETICAL PHONETICS 1.1. Phonetics as a Branch of Linguistics Language as an immanent reality of thought exists in two speech forms: oral and written. There is a division between language and speech. Language is a system, speech is the usage of this system, the process of communication by means of language. Both oral and written forms have a material substance. In oral speech the substance is phonic, in written speech the substance is graphic. The substance is not the language itself, but it is what forms patterns of language. The sound substance gives shape to a spoken message in communication, it forms units of the phonetics system of a concrete language. Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made, transmitted, and received, i. e. it is the study of all possible speech sounds: the nature of these noises, their combinations, and their functions in relation to the meaning [Врабель 2009, p. 5]. The term phonetics comes from the Greek word φωνή (phõnē) meaning sound, voice. Thus, it is the science of speech sounds considered as elements of language. Phonetics is a basic branch of linguistics: neither linguistic theory nor linguistic practice can do without phonetics and no language description is complete without phonetics – the science concerned with the spoken medium of language. The two basic tasks of phonetics are the transcription and the classification of sounds. Phonetics began to be developed as a science in the 19th century. The factors that stimulated its development were as follows: • a more thorough acquaintance with the functioning of the human speaking apparatus; 5 • investigations of many linguists who studied languages that had no alphabets; • compiling alphabets for such languages. Phonetics is subdivided into practical and theoretical. Theoretical phonetics applies the theories worked out by general phonetics to the language it analyses. It is mainly concerned with the functioning of phonetic units in the language as a system. Practical or normative phonetics studies the substance, the material form of phonetic phenomena in relation to meaning. Practical phonetics (applied phonetics) deals with functioning of phonetic units in speech. It is connected with all the practical applications of phonetics, which are especially important when learning a certain language. Theoretical phonetics is itself divided into two major components: segmental phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds (i. e. "segments" of speech) and suprasegmental phonetics (supra – something above) whose domain is the larger units of connected speech: syllables, words, rhythmic units, phrases, intonation groups, and texts. Suprasegmental system always exists with the segmental system (see fig. 1.1). Phonetic system Suprasegmental subsystem Segmental subsystem formed by the sounds formed by intonation (prosodic, melodic) Pitch Stress Vocalic Consonant subsystem subsystem (vowels) (consonants) Tempo Rhytm Pauses Figure 1.1 – Phonetic System 6 The sound substance is a medium in which the whole system of the language is embodied. Segmental and prosodic units serve to form and differentiate units of other subsystems of language: lexical and grammatical. The modification of words and their combination into utterances are first of all sound phenomena. The grammatical form of a word can be changed only by changing the sounds which compose it (e. g. cat – cats). By changing the prosodic structure one can change the meaning of the utterance (e. g. 'well /done? 'Well \done!) The way these elements of the phonetic structure of English function in the process of communication will be the main concern of this course. 1.2. Accents and Dialects Languages have different accents: they are pronounced differently by people from different geographical places, from different social classes, of different ages and different educational backgrounds. The word accent is often confused with dialect. The word dialect refers to a variety of a language which is different from others not just in pronunciation but also in such matters as vocabulary, grammar and word order. Differences of accent, on the other hand, are pronunciation differences only [Roach 2009, p. 3]. The accent that we concentrate on and use as our model is the one that is most often recommended for foreign learners studying British English. It has for a long time been identified by the name Received Pronunciation. Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent of Standard English in the United Kingdom, with a relationship to regional accents. RP enjoys high social prestige in Britain. It has been seen as the accent of those with power, money, and influence. However, since the 1960s, a greater permissiveness towards regional English varieties has taken hold in education and mass 7 media. The introduction of the term "Received Pronunciation" is usually credited to Daniel Jones. In the first edition of the "English Pronouncing Dictionary" (1917), he named the accent "Public School Pronunciation", but for the second edition in 1926, he wrote, "In what follows I call it Received Pronunciation (RP)". RP is an accent, not a dialect, since all RP speakers speak Standard English. In other words, they avoid non-standard grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non- specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about their social and/or educational background. We are to study the "norm" of English, as a whole, and the "norm" of English pronunciation in particular. There is no much agreement, however, as far as the term "norm" is concerned. This term is interpreted in different ways. Some scholars, for instance, associate "norm" with the so-called "neutral" style. According to this conception stylistically marked