Issuu by Abby Paredes

Mรณnica Abigail Hernรกndez Paredes 31-5755-2014

INDEX

PHONETIC & PHONOLOGY ................................................................................................................................. 2 VOCAL TRACT....................................................................................................................................................... 3 CONSONANTS ..................................................................................................................................................... 12 VOWELS ............................................................................................................................................................... 16 INFLECTIONAL ENDINGS /S/, /Z/, /IZ/ ......................................................................................................... 19 INFLECTIONAL ENDINGS /T/, /D/, /ID/ ....................................................................................................... 22 BACK VOWELS .................................................................................................................................................... 24 ASSIMILATION ................................................................................................................................................... 25 SCHWA ................................................................................................................................................................. 27 LINKING ............................................................................................................................................................... 29 CLUSTERS VS SPELLING CASES ....................................................................................................................... 33 REDUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................ 34 ELLIPSIS .............................................................................................................................................................. 36 VOWEL CHART ................................................................................................................................................... 39 CONTRACTIONS ................................................................................................................................................. 41 DERIVATIONS ..................................................................................................................................................... 43 BORROWING....................................................................................................................................................... 44 MINIMAL PAIRS ................................................................................................................................................. 45 HOMOPHONES & HOMOGRAPHS .................................................................................................................... 46 ALLOPHONES...................................................................................................................................................... 48 STRESS ................................................................................................................................................................. 49 ELISION ................................................................................................................................................................ 51

PHONETIC & PHONOLOGY Humans have a complex system of using sounds to produce language. The study of linguistic sounds is called Phonetics. Phonology is the study of systems of sounds, often the sound system of a particular language. Phonetics is concerned with how sounds are produced, transmitted and perceived (we will only look at the production of sounds). Phonology is concerned with how sounds function in relation to each other in a language. In other words, phonetics is about sounds of language, phonology about sound systems of language. Phonetics is a descriptive tool necessary to the study of the phonological aspects of a language. Phonetics and phonology are worth studying for several reasons. One is that as all study of language, the study of phonology gives us insight into how the human mind works. Two more reasons are that the study of the phonetics of a foreign language gives us a much better ability both to hear and to correct mistakes that we make, and also to teach pronunciation of the foreign language (in this case English) to others. Phonetics Linguistic sounds are produced by pushing air from the lungs out through the mouth, sometimes by way of the nasal cavity. The movement of the air can then be manipulated by the anatomy of the mouth and throat to produce different sounds. In actual writing, the same sound may often be spelt different ways. For instance, George Bernard Shaw once pointed out that the word fish could as easily be spelt ghoti, since gh has the same sound in enough, o has the same sound in women, and ti has the same sound innation. This makes sounds very hard to study without a more precise indication of what sounds we are referring to. The solution is to adopt a phonetic alphabet which always has the same spelling for the same sound. Linguists use phonetic alphabet called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

VOCAL TRACT The Articulators Having passed through the larynx, the air will undergo further changes as it makes its way upwards towards the mouth. The air passages above the larynx are known as the vocal tract (or supralaryngeal articulatory system). The vocal tract can be divided into the oral tract (the mouth and pharynx), and the nasal tract (within the nose). On average, the total length of the vocal tract (from the larynx to the lips/nostrils) is some 17 cm. (in men). The upper cavities of the pharynx, mouth and nose are called the resonating cavities. The parts of the vocal tract that can be used to form sounds are called articulators . The latter can be subdivided into active (those that move, e.g. tongue) and passive (those that are fixed, e.g. hard palate). Most sounds are produced with at least one active and passive articulator.

CONSONANTS Consonants are produced by restricting and then releasing the flow of air in three ways: vibrating the vocal cords, changing the part of the anatomy which restricts the air flow, and changing the extent to which the air flow is restricted. Consonants with relatively little vibration of the vocal cords are called voiceless consonants. Consonants with relatively more vibration of the vocal cords are called voiced. Consonants fall into the following categories, depending on what part of the anatomy is used to restrict the air flow: 

Labial. Air flow is restricted with the lips.



Labiodental. Air flow is restricted with the top teeth on the bottom lip.



Dental. Air flow is restricted with the teeth.



Alveolar. Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the hard plate (alveolum) behind the top front teeth.

 

Palatal. Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the soft palate behind the alveolum.



Glottal. Air flow is restricted by tightening the folds in the vocal cords (glottis).

Velar. Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue far back in the mouth.

Consonants can also be categorized by the extent to which the air flow is restricted:  Stop.  Liquid. Air flow is stopped and released quickly. Air flow is channeled around the sides of the tongue.  Fricative.  Glide. Air flow is released gradually. Air flow is only partially restricted (these sounds  Affricate. are often called semi-vowels). Air flow is stopped and released gradually.  Nasal. Air flow is channeled through the nasal cavity. Some languages have other categories, but only the ones above are the only ones that occur in English.

Individual consonants can be made up of nearly any combination of the features above. For instance, [b] is a voiced labial stop and /s/ is a voiceless alveolar fricative.

Consider the sound of the consonant in the English word the. This sound is a voiced dental fricative. In French, this sound does not exist, which is why English spoken with a French accent is famous for replacing it with a voiced alveolar fricative z, which is very similar. The reason for this is that the number of linguistic sounds which humans can produce is greater than the number which actually occurs in each language. When studying an individual language, like English, we can therefore focus in only the sound that occur in that language and the system by which they relate to each other. Studying a system of sounds is called phonology. When looking at the phonological system of an individual language, we limit our study to those sounds which are perceived by speakers as distinct and capable of indicating some grammatical significance. Sounds which meet these criteria are called phonemes. For instance, the [l] and [r] are perceived as distinct and help us understand the difference between lice and rice. However, [l] and [r] are not distinct phonemes in many Asian languages, which is why speakers of those languages often have trouble distinguishing the two words when speaking English. Linguists use the IPA to represent phonemes but indicate that they are phonemes by placing them between slashes. Thus the word fish is rendered /fˆß/ (US /fˆš/). This is called phonemic transcription, as opposed to the phonetic transcription described above. In general, it is only necessary to use phonemic transcription when studying the English language. Phonemic transcriptions represent the pronunciation of a word and the precise number of phonemes in the word. Thus the word fish has three phonemes, which can be seen clearly in the transcription /fˆß/ (US /fˆš/)

Consonant letters and their sounds A consonant letter usually represents one consonant sound. Some consonant letters, for example, c, g, s, can represent two different consonant sounds. LETTERS SOUNDS EXAMPLES b [b] baby, best, buy, bring, blind, absent, about, number, labor, robber, tub c [s] center, cellar, cigarette, cinema, agency, notice; [k] cake, come, cucumber, clean, cry, scratch, act, panic d [d] day, dear, die, door, duty, admire, hidden, lady, kind, ride, ended f [f] fast, female, five, forest, fund, fry, flight, often, deaf, cuff g [g] game, gap, get, go, gun, great, global, giggle, ago, begin, dog, egg; [j] general, gin, giant, agent, suggest, Egypt, energy, huge, manage; [zh] mirage, garage, beige, rouge h [h] hair, help, history, home, hotel, hunt, behind, inherit; [-] hour, honor, honest, heir, vehicle, Sarah j [j] jam, Jane, jet, jelly, Jim, jingle, joke, John, June, just k [k] Kate, kind, kill, kilogram, sky, blanket, break, take, look l [l] late, let, live, alone, close, slim, please, old, nicely, table, file, all m [m] make, men, mind, mother, must, my, common, summer, name, form, team n [n] napkin, never, night, no, nuclear, funny, student, kindness, ton, sun p [p] paper, person, pick, pour, public, repair, apple, keep, top, crisp q (qu) [kw] quality, question, quite, quote, equal, require; [k] unique, technique, antique, grotesque r [r] rain, red, rise, brief, grow, scream, truck, arrive, hurry, turn, more, car s [s] send, simple, song, system, street, lost, kiss, release; [z] cause, present, reason, realism, advise, always, is, was t [t] task, tell, time, tone, tune, hotel, attentive, student, boat, rest v [v] vast, vein, vivid, voice, even, review, invest, give, move, active w [w] wall, war, way, west, wind, word, would, swear, swim, twenty, twist x [ks] exercise, exchange, expect, ex-wife, axis, fix, relax; [gz] exam, exact, executive, exert, exist, exit, exult; [z] Xenon, Xerox, xenophobia, xylophone z [z] zero, zoo, horizon, puzzle, crazy, organize, quiz, jazz; [ts] pizza, Mozart, Nazi, waltz

VOWELS Vowels are produced by directing the flow of air into different parts of the mouth. They can be adjusted by changing the position of the tongue, by rounding of the lips, and by the degree of opening of the mouth. All vowels are voiced. To describe vowels adequately and accurately, we then need to consider three different parameters, all of which can be seen as modifications of the place or manner of articulation continua for consonants: as we shall see, these are height, frontness and rounding. Additionally, vowels may be long or short (long ones are marked with a following _below), and monophthongs or diphthongs.

THE FRONTâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;BACK DIMENSION Front vowels are produced with the front of the tongue raised towards the hard palate (although not raised enough, remember, to obstruct the airflow and cause local friction; vowels are approximants). The vowels in the image are front. These could, in principle, equally be described as palatal, and this might be helpful in making phonological rules transparent: recall that in Chapter 4, the rule palatalising velar /k / before front vowels in kitchen, key, give, geese looked rather perplexing as the relationship between palatal and front was not obvious. However, calling front vowels palatal would be misleading, since frontness covers a larger area than [palatal], as we shall see below; and it contrasts with completely different alternatives, namely central and back, rather than labial, alveolar, dental, velar and so on.

Conversely, back vowels have the back of the tongue raised, towards the soft palate or velum. The vowels in the following image are back.

There is also a class of vowels between front and back: these are known as central vowels, and involve a raising of the body of the tongue towards the area where the hard and soft palate join. Central vowels are exemplified in the following picture. The most common of these in English, [É&#x2122;], is known as schwa, and only appears in unstressed syllables.

THE HIGH-LOW DIMENSION High vowels have the tongue raised most towards the roof of the mouth; if the raising was significantly greater, then friction would be produced, making a fricative consonant, not a vowel. The high vowels from the last section are in the following picture. Low vowels are those where the tongue is not raised at all, but rather lowered from its resting position: when you produce a low vowel, you will be able to feel your mouth opening and your jaw dropping, even if it is not very easy to figure out quite what your tongue is doing. Low vowels are given in the picture.

Again, there is a further class intermediate between high and low, namely the mid vowels, shown in the image. These can if necessary be further subclassified as high mid (like the face and goat vowels) or low mid (like the dress, thought, strut vowels) depending on whether they are nearer the high end of the scale, or nearer the low end.

LIP POSITION In the high back [u_] vowel of goose, there is tongue raising in the region of the soft palate; but in addition, the lips are rounded. Vowels in any of the previous categories may be either rounded, where the lips are protruded forwards, or unrounded, where the lips may be either in a neutral position, or sometimes slightly spread (as for a high front vowel, like [i_] fleece). However, it is overwhelmingly more common crosslinguistically for back vowels to be rounded than for front ones, and for high vowels to be rounded than low ones; this is borne out in English, as you can see in the image.

LENGTH Using these three dimensions of frontness, height and rounding, we can now define the vowel in fleece as high, front and unrounded; that in goose as high, back and rounded; and the unstressed vowel of about, schwa, as mid, central and unrounded. However, our elementary descriptions would class the kit vowel as high, front and unrounded, and the foot vowel as high, back and rounded; these labels make them indistinguishable from the clearly different vowels of fleece and goose respectively. SSBE and GA speakers very readily perceive the fleece and kit vowels, and the goose and foot vowels, as different; and there are plenty of minimal pairs to support a phoneme distinction, as in peat – pit, leap – lip, Luke – look, fool – full. This distinction is usually made in terms of vowel length: in SSBE and GA, the vowels in long vowels image are consistently produced as longer than those in the short vowel image.

INFLECTIONAL ENDINGS /S/, /Z/, /IZ/ The pronunciation of S at the end of plural nouns, verbs in third person and as a part of the possessive case sometimes causes problems for non-native speakers because it can be pronounced in three different ways: / ɪz /, / s / or / z /. (Note: whenever you see letters or symbols between two slash marks (/ /), it refers to the pronunciation of that letter or sound) The pronunciation depends on the last sound of the verb or noun which is usually a consonant. Before we learn the difference ways to pronounce the final S, we must first know what voiced and voiceless consonants are as well as sibilant sounds: Voiced Consonants vs. Voiceless Consonants A voiced consonant (or sound) means that it uses the vocal cords and they produce a vibration or humming sound in the throat when they are said. Put your finger on your throat and then pronounce the letter L. You will notice a slight vibration in your neck / throat. That is because it is a voiced sound. A voiceless sound (sometimes called unvoiced sound) is when there is no vibration in your throat and the sound comes from the mouth area. Pronounce the letter P. You will notice how it comes from your mouth (in fact near your lips at the front of your mouth). The P sound doesn't come from your throat. Try this with the other letters and you will "feel" the difference between a voiced and a voiceless consonant (or sound). Sibilant Sounds Another sound which is relevant to this is the sibilant sound which is produced by forcing air out toward your teeth. Is is characterized by a hissing sound (sssss), a buzzing sound (zzzzz) or the sound teachers make when they want you to be quiet (shhhh!). 

Z like the sound a bee makes... zzzzzz



S like the sound a snake makes... sssssss



SH like the sound a teacher makes when they want you to be quiet... shhhhh

Now we know the difference between voiced, voiceless and sibilant sounds we can look at the following rules for the correct pronunciation of S at the end of words in English: The pronunciation of the S at the end of words in English The pronunciation of the final S in plural words and verbs in the third person depend on the final consonant sound before that S. The ending is pronounced /s/ after a voiceless sound, it is pronounced /z/ after a voiced sound and is pronounced /ɪz / or /əz/ after a sibilant sound: 

Voiceless: helps /ps/ -- sits /ts/ -- looks /ks/



Voiced: crabs /bz/ -- words /dz/ -- gloves /vz/,



Sibilant: buses /sɪz / or /səz /, bridges /dʒɪz / or /dʒəz /, wishes /shɪz / or /shəz /

1. The /ɪz/ sound (or /əz/ sound) Sometimes this sound is written as /əz/ and uses the symbol "schwa" or "upside down e" before the z. For ease we will write this sound as /ɪz/ or /iz/ If the last consonant sound of the word is a sibilant sound (a hissing or buzzing sound), the final S is pronounced as /ɪz/. This /ɪz/ sound is pronounced like an extra syllable. (e.g. the word buses has two syllables) If the sound has a J sound (/dʒ/ like the letter J at the beginning of the word jacket or /ʒ/ like the S in pleasure), then the final S is also pronounced as /ɪz/. Examples of words ending in the /ɪz/ sound: 

C: races (sounds like "race-iz")



SS: kisses, misses, passes, bosses



S: pauses, nurses, buses, rises



CH: churches, sandwiches, witches, teaches



X: fixes, boxes, hoaxes



SH: dishes, wishes, pushes, crashes



Z: amazes, freezes, prizes, quizzes



GE: garages, changes, ages, judges

Remember: after verbs ending in -sh, -ch, -ss and -x, we add the -es to the end of the verb (in third person) and the pronunciation is /iz/ as an extra syllable.

2. The /s/ sound If the last consonant of the word is voiceless, then the S is pronounced as /s/. Be careful not to create an extra syllable.

NOTE: The consonants c, s, sh, ch and x are voiceless though they use the sibilants ending seen above.

Examples of words ending in the /s/ sound: 

P: cups stops, sleeps



T: hats, students, hits, writes



K: cooks, books, drinks, walks



F: cliffs, sniffs, beliefs, laughs, graphs, apostrophes (the -gh and -ph here are pronounced like a F)



TH: myths, tablecloths, months (voiceless th)

3. The /z/ sound If the last letter of the words ends in a voiced consonant (or sound), then the S is pronounced like a Z /z/(without creating another syllable). This Z sound is similar to the sound a bee makes zzzz. We also use this ending when the word ends in a vowel sound (e.g. bees, flies etc.) Examples of words ending in the /z/ sound: 

B: crabs, rubs



NG: kings, belongs, sings



D: cards, words, rides, ends



R: wears, cures



G: rugs, bags, begs



V: gloves, wives, shelves, drives



L: deals calls, falls, hills



Y: plays, boys, says,



M: plums, dreams



THE: clothes, bathes, breathes



N: fans, drains, runs, pens



VOWEL SOUNDS: sees, fleas

[s] tapes [teips], streets [stri:ts], parks [pa:rks], chiefs [chi:fs], myths [miθs] (he) grips [grips], writes [raits], takes [teiks], sniffs [snifs] Pip's [pips], Kate's [keits], Mike's [maiks], Jeff's [jefs], Seth's [seθs]

[z] [iz] ribs [ribz], kids [kidz], legs [legz], pieces ['pi:siz], roses ['rouziz], leaves [li:vz], clothes [klouðz], prizes ['praiziz], boxes ['boksiz], girls, games, cars, boys, pies coaches ['kouchiz], bridges [paiz], cows [kauz], cities ['sitiz] ['brijiz], dishes ['dishiz] (he) robs [robz], reads [ri:dz], digs (he) kisses ['kisiz], loses ['lu:ziz], [digz], saves [seivz], falls, plans, relaxes, catches, judges, swims, offers, plays, cries, goes manages, flashes, washes, [gouz], copies ['kopiz] rouges Abe's [eibz], Fred's [fredz], Meg's [megz], Olive's ['olivz], Ben's [benz], Molly's ['moliz], Anna's

Chris's ['krisiz], Tess's ['tesiz], Rose's ['rouziz], Liz's ['liziz], Rex's ['reksiz], George's ['jo:rjiz]

INFLECTIONAL ENDINGS /T/, /D/, /ID/ To form the past simple and past participle of regular verbs we add –ed: play ➞ played

work ➞ worked

start ➞ started

There are three different ways to pronounce the –ed ending: SOUND /t/ /d/ /id/

EXAMPLE worked played started

PRONUNCIATION ‘t’ sound ‘d’ sound ‘id’ sound

The most important thing to remember is this: If the verb has a 'd' or a 't' sound before 'ed' you need to pronounce 'id'. If it doesn't, don't pronounce an extra syllable. Be careful! It's the sound, not the letter: 'decided' is pronounced 'decide-id' even though 'decide' ends in 'e', because we don't say the 'e', so the last sound is 'd'.

Some regular verbs with the –ed ending pronounced /t/ VERB

PAST TENSE

PRONUNCIATION /T/

work

worked

cook

cooked

walk

walked

kiss

kissed

liked

stop

stopped

look

looked

drop dropped

dropped

Some regular verbs with the –ed ending pronounced /d/ VERB

PAST TENSE

PRONUNCIATION /D/

play

played

show

showed

closed

open

opened

enjoy

enjoyed

love

loved

try

tried

rain

rained

Some regular verbs with the –ed ending pronounced /id/ verb

past tense

pronunciation /id/

wait

waited

want

wanted

need

needed

decide

decided

hate

hated

taste

tasted

end

ended

These “-ed” pronunciation rules are particularly important, because in English we connect our speech when we have a word that:  Ends in a consonant; and  Is followed by a word that begins with a vowel. In this case, the way you say the verb’s “-ed” ending will be heard loudly and clearly.

BACK VOWELS A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark vowels because they are perceived as sounding darker than the front vowels. Near-back vowels are essentially a type of back vowels; no language is known to contrast back and near-back vowels based on backness alone. In their articulation, back vowels do not form a single category, but may be either raised vowels such as [u] or retracted vowels such as [ɑ].[2] Unrounded back vowels are typically centralized, that is, near-back in their articulation. This is one reason they are written to the left of rounded back vowels in the IPA vowel chart. The back vowels of Present-Day English are the vowels that are articulated near the rear of the vocal cavity. 1. /u/ (the phoneme spelled oo in food): high back vowel. 2. /ʊ/ (the phoneme spelled u in put): high back vowel. This vowel is articulated slightly further forward and slightly lower than is the preceding vowel /u/. 3. /ɔ/ (the phoneme spelled oa in boat): mid back vowel. 4. /ɒ/ (the phoneme spelled au in caught): mid back vowel. This vowel is articulated slighter further forward and slightly lower than is the preceding vowel /o/.

ASSIMILATION Assimilation has a very precise meaning when it’s related to studies of languages. Is a common phonological process bye which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like another segment in a word. In other words it’s when a letter (sound) is influenced by the letter (sound) before or after it so that it changes its sound and/or spelling. The word assimilation it self it’s said to be assimilated; it is derived from the latin prefix ad- meaning to and simil- meaning like but, instead of being adsimilated, it has the easier pronunciation of assimilated. A common example of assimilation is “don’t be silly” where the /n/ and /t/ are assimilated to /m/ by the following /b/, in many accents the natural sound is “dombe silly”. Assimilation can be synchronic being an active process in a language at a given point in time or diachronic being a historical sound change. There are 4 configurations found: the increase in phonetic similarity may be between adjacent segments or between segments separated by one or more intervening segments; the changes could be in reference to a preceding segment or a following one. Even when all four occur, it changes in regard to a following adjacent segment account for virtually all assimilatory changes. Assimilation to an adjacent segment are vastly more frequent than assimilation to a non-adjacent one. If a sound changes with reference to a following segment, it is called “regressive assimilation”, the changes with reference to a preceding segment are called “progressive assimilation”. A lot of people find these terms very confusing because they seem to mean the opposite of the intended meaning. To avoid the problem exist a variety of alternative terms. “Regressive assimilation” is also known as right to left, leading or reciprocal assimilation. “Progressive assimilation” is known as left to right or preservative, lagging or lag assimilation. Occasionally two sounds may influence one another in reciprocal assimilation. When such a change results in a single segment with some of the features of both components, it is known as coalescence or fusion. ASSIMILATION OF PLACE OF ARTICULATION The most common form involves the movement of place of articulation of the alveolar stops /t/, /d/ and /n/ to a position closer to that of the following sound. For instance, in the phrase ten cars, the /n/ will usually be articulated in a velar position, /teŋ kɑ:z/ so that the organs of speech are ready to produce the following velar sound /k/. Similarly, in ten boys the /n/ will be produced in a bilabial position, /tem bɔɪz/ to prepare for the articulation of the bilabial /b/.

BEFORE A VELAR (/k/, /g/) Phoneme /n/ /d/ /t/

Realised as /ŋ/ /g/ /k/

Example bank /bæŋk/ good girl /gʊg gɜ:l/ that kid /ðæk kɪd/

BEFORE A BILABIAL (/m/, /b/, /p/) Phoneme /n/ /d/

Realised as /m/ /b/

/t/

/p/

Example ten men /tem 'men/ bad boys /bæb ˈbɔɪz/ hot mushrooms /ˈhɒp ˈmʌʃru:mz/

Voice assimilation In current English. Voice assimilation is not very common as a connected speech process and is restricted to some close-knit structures, such as have to and of course, in these cases assimilation is regressive and feature which is borrowed is voicelessness. Thus /v/ becomes /f/ because the following sound, /t/ or /k/, is voiceless . this sort of voicing assimilation only effects /v/ and /z/.Assimilation of voiceless to voiced sounds does not occur in present day RP English Examples: Have to /hæv tu/ > /hæf tu/ Of course /əv kɔ:s/ > /əf kɔ:s/ Newspaper /nju:zpeɪpə/ > /nju:speɪpə/ More examples:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

/ t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p / / d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p / / n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p / / t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/ / d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g / / n / changes to /ŋ/ before / k / or / g / / s / changes to /ʃ/ before /ʃ/ or / j / / z / changes to /ʒ/ before /ʃ/ or / j / /θ/ changes to / s / before / s /

SCHWA Schwa is the name for the most common sound in English. It is a weak, unstressed sound and it occurs in many words. It is often the sound in grammar words such as articles and prepositions. Getting the schwa sound correct is a good way of making your pronunciation more accurate and natural. The phonemic symbol for this sound is / ə/. The schwa is the vowel sound in many lightly pronounced unaccented syllables in words of more than one syllable. It is sometimes signified by the pronunciation "uh". A schwa sound can be represented by any vowel. In most dialects, for example, the schwa sound is found in the following words:  The a is schwa in adept.  The e is schwa in synthesis.  The i is schwa in decimal.  The o is schwa in harmony.  The u is schwa in medium.  The y is schwa in syringe. Authorities vary somewhat in the range of what is considered a schwa sound, but the above examples are generally accepted. Schwa is a very short neutral vowel sound, and like all other vowels, its precise quality varies depending on the adjacent consonants. In most varieties of English, schwa occurs almost exclusively in unstressed syllables (there is also an open-mid central unrounded vowel or "long schwa", represented as ɜː, which occurs in some non-rhotic dialect stressed syllables, as in bird and alert). This vowel is always unstressed. The mouth position is a lot like the UH as in BUTTER vowel, but that vowel can be and usually is stressed. But just like that vowel, everything in your lips, jaw, and neck should be relaxed for this sound. Just slightly drop your jaw to make this sound. The trick is to keep everything else relaxed. The schwa goes with the syllabic consonants L, M, N, and R. That means when you have a syllable with a schwa followed by one of these consonants, you don’t need to make the schwa. It gets absorbed by the next sound. For example, the word ‘father’: th-rr, th-rr. Just go from the TH sound right into the R sound without trying to make a separate schwa. Father, -ther.

DICTIONARIES AND SCHWA Even for stressed syllables, some dictionaries do not use a separate symbol for schwa /ə/ and the 'short u' /ʌ/. When schwa is the only symbol used, it can be assumed that the word is pronounced with /ʌ/. The five examples below compare the transcription used by Merriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary (first) and Cambridge Dictionary of American English (second). 1. cut: /kət/, /kʌt/ 2. sun: /sən/, /sʌn/ 3. love: /ləv/, /lʌv/ 4. truck: /trək/, /trʌk/ 5. stuff: /stəf/, /stʌf/ When words have more than one syllable, one syllable is usually pronounced louder than the other syllables. We can feel this by placing our hand under our chin and feeling which syllable causes our mouth to drop open further. For example, in about, the mouth drops open further to say /ow/. When we say freedom, our mouth drops open further to say /free/. The syllables where our mouth drops open further and the sounds are pronounced louder are stressed syllables. The syllables that we do not say as loudly are unstressed. Notice that these unstressed syllables are “lazy.” We hardly open our mouths. The result is that we often hear the schwa or a lazy vowel sound: /ǝ/.

LINKING Word Linking is how we join the words together to speak FASTER, MORE NATURAL and MORE FLUENT. If English is not your mother tongue, you are probably not doing word linking. If you do not join the words together when you speak, you can't follow native speakers' speed and THEY can't follow your line of thought. Native speakers (not only of English) process the language in big chunks and could lose concentration when the sentence sounds broken or incoherent. In order for you to produce a stream of English sounds, you must understand and apply 3 speech patterns as follows: 1. Linking Consonant To Vowel (CTV) 2. Linking Consonant To Consonant (CTC) 3. Linking Vowel To Vowel (VTV) WORD LINKING: CONSONANT TO VOWEL (CTV) It is the most frequently recurring word linking pattern in English. Attention teachers! That is a very important detail to remember especially when you are teaching English to Asian students as most Asian languages, such as Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese etc, contain very few or no words ending with consonants and therefore the process of linking a consonant to a vowel is very unfamiliar, hence difficult for most of them. Let us look at some examples shall we? Example 1 1st Word Consonant To Vowel Wake /k/ /ʌ/ Explanation: Say [way cup] and you will be saying [wake up]

2nd Word up

Example 2 1st Word Consonant To Vowel Stop /p/ /iː/ Explanation: Say [sto peating] and you will be saying [stop eating]

2nd Word eating

Example 3 1st Word Consonant To Vowel that's /s/ /ɪ/ Explanation: Say [That sit] and you will be saying [That's it]

2nd Word it

WORD LINKING: CONSONANT TO CONSONANT (CTC) If CTV is the most common word linking pattern in spoken English, CTC is the most difficult to apply as it involves loads of details and presents a number of exceptions. Example 1 1st Word Consonant To Same Consonant 2nd Word stop /p/ /p/ playing Explanation: Say 1 longer /p/(by longer I mean keep your lips closed for a little longer before starting the 2nd word). That is known as the "hold" in phonetics. Like /t/,/k/,/b/,/d/ and /g/, /p/ is a plosive. By compressing the air and preventing it from coming out, we are "holding" it in, and in Example 1, we "hold" it in for a little longer before we release the air for [playing]. Example 2 1st Word Consonant To Similar Consonant 2nd Word move /v/ /f/ forward Explanation: Say /f/ longer (by longer I mean release more air from the gap between your lower lip and upper teeth). The /v/ undergoes "assimilation" here, in that it assimilates into the /f/. Since both consonants are both produced by moving the lower lip against the upper teeth (they are known as Labiodentals - Labio=lips & dental=teeth) Example 3 1st Word Consonant /t/ or /d/ To Consonant /ð/ 2nd Word getsaid /t/ or /d/ /ð/ that Explanation: Before consonant /ð/, pronounce the /t/ by sticking your tongue tip slightly between your teeth and by blocking the air with your teeth and then releasing it. As a result of that process, consonant /ð/ after /t/ should sound a little similar to /d/. As it is impractical to pronounce the /t/ as ordinary by placing the tongue tip against the ridge (the bony part behind your upper teeth) when succeeded by /ð/, the /t/ assimilates into /ð/ which in turns gets affected by /t/. This means that when /t/ or /d/ are in opposition to /ð/, neither of the consonants sound exactly the same as they are "coarticulated". Example 4 1st Word Consonant /n/ To Consonant /ð/ 2nd Word on /n/ /ð/ the Explanation: Before consonant /ð/, pronounce the /n/ by sticking your tongue tip between your teeth slightly and by pushing the air out through your nose. Consonant /ð/ after /n/ should sound similar to /n/. See the explanation of Example 3.

Example 5 1st Word Consonant /t/ To Most consonants 2nd Word get /t/ /g/ going Explanation: Commonly, before consonants /p/,/b/, /k/, /g/, /r/, /m/ and /w/, consonant /t/ either becomes a glottal stop /ʔ/ or simply assimilates into the consonants succeeding it. For example, [get going] sounds like [geggoing] or [ge(/ʔ/) going] [fat brother] sounds like [fabbrother] or [fa(/ʔ/) brother], [white cake] sounds like [whiccake] or [whi/ʔ/ cake]. When producing a glottal stop, no tongue movement is necessary. What is very common in American English though is to bring the tongue tip up against the gum behind their upper teeth not to produce a consonant but rather to abruptly end the vowel preceding it and by doing that produce a glottal stop effect. Just so that you can visualize the sound, the glottal stop is similar to the reflex sound we would make if someone poked us in the stomach when not expecting. Example 6 1st Word

Most consonants

To Consonant /h/ especially 2nd in pronouns [he],[her],[him],[her] etc Word hate /t̬/ /h/ him Explanation: After most consonants, some native speakers omit /h/ in pronouns such as [her],[him],[he] etc. That means the consonants preceding the /h/ can directly be linked to the vowel in the aforementioned pronouns, which often changes into a schwa sound. (When the vowel in pronouns [her] [him] or [his] etc is pronounced as a schwa, it means they are pronounced in their WEAK FORM). The process above called "elision". Example 7 1st Word

Most consonants

To Consonant /ð/ especially 2nd Word in pronoun [them] love /v/ /ð/ them Explanation: After most consonants, some native speakers omit /ð/ in [them]. That means the consonants preceding consonant /ð/ can directly be linked to the vowel in [them], which usually changes into a schwa sound. See the explanation of Example 6. Example 8 1st Word Consonant /t/ or /d/ To Consonant /j/ 2nd Word next /t/ or /d/ /j/ year could you Explanation: When consonant /j/ comes after /t/ or /d/, some native speakers produce /tʃ/ or /dʒ/. That is known as "coalescent assimilation" or Yod coalescent in phonetics.

Word Linking: Vowel To Vowel (VTV) This pattern involves linking the words ending with a vowel to those that also begin with one. Example 1 1st Word

Vowel

To Linking with /j/

Vowel

2nd Word

I /aɪ/ /ʌ/ understand Explanation: When vowels /aɪ/, /eɪ/, /ɔɪ/ or /iː/ come before any other vowel, native speakers link them to the vowels succeeding them with consonant /j/. For example, [we eat] sounds like [we yeat] and [boy and girls] sounds like [bo yan girls] etc. Example 2 1st Word

Vowel

To Linking with /w/

Vowel

2nd Word

so /oʊ/ /æ/ angry Explanation: When vowels /uː/ or /oʊ/ come before any other vowel, native speakers link them using consonant /w/. For example, [you are] sounds like [you ware] and [who is it] sounds like [who wiz it] etc. When we say a sentence in English, we join or "link" words to each other. Because of this linking, the words in a sentence do not always sound the same as when we say them individually. Linking is very important in English. If you recognize and use linking, two things will happen: 1. you will understand other people more easily 2. other people will understand you more easily

CONSONANT CLUSTERS In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups /spl/ and /ts/ are consonant clusters in the word splits. Some linguists argue that the term can only be properly applied to those consonant clusters that occur within one syllable. Others contend that the concept is more useful when it includes consonant sequences across syllable boundaries. According to the former definition, the longest consonant clusters in the word extra would be /ks/ and /tr/,[1] whereas the latter allows /kstr/ or /kstĘ&#x192;r/ in some dialects. A consonant cluster in a word is a group of consonants with no vowels between them. The longest possible cluster in English is three consonant sounds at the start, such as 'splash', and four at the end, as in 'twelfths'. Example The tongue twister 'The sixth twisty crisp' has several consonant clusters in it, making it difficult to pronounce.

REDUCTION Linguistic reductions are lost sounds in words. This happens in spoken English. For instance, "going to" changes to "gonna". The most widely known reductions are contractions. Most contractions are reductions of 'not'. For instance, "cannot" becomes "can't". Many contractions are reductions between a subject and a verb. For instance, "He is..." becomes "He's..." Some reductions are well known to language learners; for instance the reduction of a verb and "to". Examples are "going to" becoming "gonna" and "want to" becoming "wanna". Linguistic reductions are part of natural English. They cannot be considered slang, or improper. There are several basic categories of reductions:  Elision is one or more sounds left out of a word. A common example is "and". It frequently changes to "an" or sometimes even "n". Another example is the "ba" sound in "probably". This leads to the pronunciation, "probly".  Word stress is a weaker stress on a word. The other words around it are stressed more by comparison. The weakly stressed word may be blended, linked or even deleted.  Function words are words that signify grammatical relations. They are different from content words. Content words tend to carry more information. They are often stressed. Function words are often unstressed. They may be reduced, blended, linked or deleted.  Contractions There are commonly used supra-segmental features in everyday American English conversation, which makes the target language fast and fluent. And we are going to introduce four kinds of reduction of the supra-segmental features in this unit. 1. wanna/ gonna/ oughda/ hafda/ hasda/ hada/ Words like want to/ going to/ have to/ has to/ had to/ ought to are often said in an utterance. They are so often spoken everyday that speakers tend to reduce them into the following forms: Written Words Spoken Utterance Want to wanna Going to gonna Ought to oughda Have to hafda Has to hasda Had to hada

The above examples show that not only the words are shorter, but the sounds are of course shorter, which eventually speed up the utterance. For better understanding, please see the following examples: 1. I wanna get it done soon. 2. I am gonna visit Japan next month. 3. I oughda try harder in the test. 4. You hafda make sure someone will pick you up. 5. He hasda report to the office before 5:00 p.m. 6. She hada take a ride last night when she was dead drunk. 2. n/ er/ fer Words like and/or/for are also used in most of the sentences. And they are pronounced in very short and weak sounds. Please see the following examples: Written Words Spoken Utterance and n or er for fer for fe For better understanding, please refer to the following examples: 1. Cream n sugar? 2. Either coffee er tea is fine with me. 3. Fer information, please call 2635-8284. 4. I am doing this fe my boyfriend. 3. Reduction of h Sound When “him” and “her” are used as an object in a sentence, and the sentence is on the verb, the h sound of these two words are often removed and the rest of the word is pronounced rather weak by linking with the previous sound; either a vowel or a consonant.. Written Words Spoken Utterance him im her er For better understanding, please refer to the following examples: 1. A: Did you see John? B: Yeah, I saw_im in the hallway. 2. A: How do you like Mary? B: Yeah, I like_er a lot.

ELLIPSIS Definition of Ellipsis The word ellipsis comes from the Greek word élleipsis, which means “omission” or “falling short.” Ellipsis is the singular form of the word, meaning one. Ellipses is the plural form of the word, meaning more than one ellipsis. Ellipsis is the omission of a word or series of words. There are two slightly different definitions of ellipsis which are pertinent to literature. a) The first definition of ellipsis is the commonly used series of three dots, which can be place at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence or clause. These three dots can stand in for whole sections of text that are omitted that do not change the overall meaning. The dots can also indicate a mysterious or unfinished thought, a leading sentence, or a pause or silence. This punctuation is also referred to as a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or in speech may be called, “dot-dot-dot.” 1. Use an ellipsis to show an omission, or leaving out, of a word or words in a quote. Use ellipses to shorten the quote without changing the meaning. For example:  "After school I went to her house, which was a few blocks away, and then came home." Shorten the quote by replacing a few words with an ellipsis. Remember, the meaning of the quote should not change.  "After school I went to her house … and then came home." We removed the words "which was a few blocks away" and replaced them with an ellipsis without changing the meaning of the original quote. 2. Use an ellipsis to show a pause in a thought or to create suspense. (Suspense is when a reader is excited to know what is going to happen next.) Examples:  She opened the door . . . and saw . . . a cake!  I was thinking . . . maybe we should call home. This use of ellipses is very common in informal (friendly) letters and emails.

3. Use an ellipsis to show a break, or trailing off, of a thought. Examples:  I know I saw my keys somewhere . . .  "I'm not sure what to do . . .," he said.  I never thought . . . b) The other definition of ellipsis is a linguistically appropriate omission of words that are mutually understood and thus unnecessary. This type of ellipsis is usually used where the words omitted would be redundant. For example, a person might say, “I went to the mall on Monday, and she on Sunday.” A contextually identical sentence would be “I went to the mall on Monday, and she went to the mall on Sunday.” The words “to the mall” are omitted because they are understood from the context what the speaker is referring to. Is easy to think of examples of ellipsis in which words are omitted because they are unnecessary. Gapping Gapping occurs in coordinate structures. Redundant material that is present in the immediately preceding clause can be "gapped". This gapped material usually contains a finite verb. John can play the guitar, and Mary (can play) the violin. - Gapping Fred took a picture of you, and Susan (took a picture) of me. - Gapping Verb phrase ellipsis Verb phrase ellipsis (also VP-ellipsis or VPE) is a particularly frequent form of ellipsis in English. VPellipsis elides a non-finite VP. The ellipsis must be introduced by an auxiliary verb or by the particle to. John can play the guitar; Mary can (play the guitar), too. - VP-ellipsis He has done it before, which means he will (do it) again. - VP-ellipsis An aspect of VP-ellipsis that is unlike gapping and stripping is that it can occur forwards or backwards. That is, the ellipsis can precede or follow its antecedent, e.g. The man who wanted to order the salmon did (order the salmon). - VP-ellipsis The man who wanted to (order the salmon) did order the salmon. - VP-ellipsis Answer ellipsis Answer ellipsis involves question-answer pairs. The question focuses an unknown piece of information, often using an interrogative word (e.g. who, what, when, etc.). The corresponding answer provides the missing information and in so doing, the redundant information that appeared in the question is elided, e.g.

Q: Who has been hiding the truth? A: Billy( has been hiding the truth). - Answer fragment Q: What have you been trying to accomplish? A: ( I have been trying to accomplish) This darn crossword. - Answer fragment The fragment answers in these two sentences are verb arguments (subject and object NPs). The fragment can also correspond to an adjunct, e.g. Q: When does the circus start? A: (The circus starts) Tomorrow. - Answer fragment Q: Why has the campaign been so crazy? A: (The campaign has been so crazy) Due to the personalities. - Answer fragment Answer ellipsis occurs in most if not all languages. It is a very frequent type of ellipsis that is omnipresent in everyday communication between speakers. Sluicing Sluicing usually elides everything from a direct or indirect question except the question word. It is a frequent type of ellipsis that appears to occur in most if not all languages. It can operate both forwards and backwards like VP-ellipsis, but unlike gapping, stripping, and answer fragments, , e.g. John can play something, but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what (he can play). - Sluicing When (he will call) I don't know, but John will definitely call. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Sluicing The sluicing illustrated with these two sentences has occurred in indirect questions. Sluicing in direct questions is illustrated with the following two examples: A: Something unusual happened. B: What (happened)? - Sluicing A: He has been working on the problem. B: When( has he been working on the problem)? - Sluicing Sluicing has been studied intensely in the past decade and can be viewed as a relatively well understood ellipsis mechanism, although the theoretical analysis of certain aspects of sluicing remains controversial Nominal ellipsis Noun ellipsis (also N-ellipsis, N'-ellipsis, NP-ellipsis, NPE, ellipsis in the DP) occurs when the noun and potentially accompanying modifiers are omitted from a noun phrase. Nominal ellipsis occurs with a limited set of determinatives in English (cardinal and ordinal numbers and possessive determiners), whereas it is much freer in other languages. The following examples illustrate nominal ellipsis with cardinal and ordinal numbers: Fred did three onerous tasks because Susan had done two (onerous tasks). - nominal ellipsis The first train and the second (train) have arrived. - nominal ellipsis And the following two sentences illustrate nominal ellipsis with possessive determiners: I heard Mary's dog, and you heard Bill's (dog). - N-ellipsis If Doris tries my chili, I will try hers (chili). - N-ellipsis

VOWEL CHART A vowel diagram or vowel chart is a schematic arrangement of the vowels. Depending on the particular language being discussed, it can take the form of a triangle or a quadrilateral. Vertical position on the diagram denotes the vowel closeness, with close vowels at the top of the diagram, and horizontal position denotes the vowel backness, with front vowels at the left of the diagram. Vowels are unique in that their main features do not contain differences in voicing, manner, or place (articulators). Vowels differ only in the position of the tongue when voiced. The tongue moves vertically and horizontally within the oral cavity. Vowels are produced with at least a part of their vocal tract obstructed.

In the vowel diagram, convenient reference points are provided for specifying tongue position. The position of the highest point of the arch of the tongue is considered to be the point of articulation of the vowel. The vertical dimension of the vowel diagram is known as vowel high, which includes high, central (mid), or low vowels. The horizontal dimension of the vowel diagram includes tongue advancement and identifies how far forward the tongue is located in the oral cavity during production. Vowels are also categorized by the tenseness or laxness of the tongue. The schwa [É&#x2122;] is in the center of the chart and is frequently referred to as the neutral vowel. Here, the vocal tract is in its neutral state and creates a near perfect tube. For other vowels, there is a necessary movement of the vocal tract and tongue away from the neutral position, either up/down or backward/forward. The next dimension for vowels are tense/lax; here we can distinguish high/mid/low dimensions and the front/central/back dimensions. In other words, all vowels but schwas.

For instance, [i] and [ɪ] or [o] and [ɔ] are very hard to tell apart, but we can categorize them into tense or lax. Tense vowels are [i] and [ɔ] . Lax vowels are [ɪ] and [o]. The next dimension for vowels are rounding. Rounding is important because it continues to help differentiate the vowels of English. For example, when you say [u], your lips are rounded but when you say [i], your lips are spread. We can categorize vowels as rounded or unrounded. So, rounded vowels are [u], [ʊ], [o], [ɔ] and the unrounded vowels are [i], [ɪ], [e], [ɛ], [æ], [ɑ], [ʌ], [ə]. The vowel systems of most languages can be represented by vowel diagrams. Usually there is a pattern of even distribution of marks on the chart, a phenomenon that is known as vowel dispersion. For most languages, the vowel system is triangular. Only 10% of languages, including the English language, have a vowel diagram that is quadrilateral. The IPA vowel chart comprises the cardinal vowels, and is displayed in the form of a trapezium. By definition, no vowel sound can be plotted outside of the IPA trapezium because its four corners represent the extreme points of articulation. The vowel diagrams of most real languages are not so extreme. In English, for example, high vowels are not as high as the corners of the IPA trapezium, nor are front vowels as front. Vowel symbols with diacritics added are not included in the official vowel chart of the International Phonetic Association. The terms Near-front, Near-back, Near-close and Near-open do not appear on the official chart.

CONTRACTIONS A contraction is a word made by shortening and combining two words. Words like can't (can + not), don't (do + not), and I've (I + have) are all contractions. People use contractions in both speaking and writing. They're so common that movies and books often try to make characters seem old-fashioned or strange by having them never use contractions. This is a little silly because English speakers have been using contractions for centuriesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;although not always the same ones we use today. All contractions include a punctuation mark that looks like this:

This is an apostrophe. Knowing where to put the apostrophe can seem tricky, but there's a pretty simple rule that works with every contraction. Remember how we said contractions are made of two words that have been shortened? The apostrophe replaces any letters that are in the original words, but that aren't in the contraction. For instance, the contraction couldn't means could not. As you can see, the o in not isn't in the word couldn't. The apostrophe goes in its place, right between the n and t.

Let's look at another example. You'll means you will. This contraction is missing two letters from the word will: wand i. The apostrophe goes where these missing letters belong: between the u and the first l.

COMMON CONTRACTIONS In English, there are a fairly small number of contractions, and they're all made out of common words. Here are some of the contractions you'll see the most:

DERIVATIONS Derivation, in descriptive linguistics and traditional grammar, the formation of a word by changing the form of the base or by adding affixes to it (e.g., “hope” to “hopeful”). It is a major source of new words in a language. In historical linguistics, the derivation of a word is its history, or etymology. In generative grammar, derivation means a sequence of linguistic representations that indicate the structure of a sentence or other linguistic unit resulting from the application of some grammatical rule or set of rules. Derivational morphology often involves the addition of a derivational suffix or other affix. Such an affix usually applies to words of one lexical category (part of speech) and changes them into words of another such category. For example, the English derivational suffix ly changes adjectives into adverbs (slow → slowly). Examples of English derivational patterns and their suffixes:  adjective-to-noun: -ness (slow → slowness)  adjective-to-verb: -ise (modern → modernise) in British in American English and Oxford spelling  adjective-to-adjective: -ish (red → reddish)  adjective-to-adverb: -ly (personal → personally)  noun-to-adjective: -al (recreation → recreational)  noun-to-verb: -fy (glory → glorify)  verb-to-adjective: -able (drink → drinkable)  verb-to-noun (abstract): -ance (deliver → deliverance)  verb-to-noun (agent): -er (write → writer)

English or -ize (final → finalize)

Derivation can also occur without any change of form, for example telephone (noun) and to telephone. This is known as conversion, or zero derivation. Derivation that results in a noun may be called nominalization. This may involve the use of an affix (as with happy → happiness, employ → employee), or may occur via conversion (as with the derivation of the noun run from the verb to run). In contrast, such that result in a verb may be called verbalization (as with from the noun butter into the verb to butter).

BORROWING A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word adopted from one language (the donor language) and incorporated into a different, recipient language without translation. Examples of loanwords in the English language include café (from French café, which literally means "coffee"), bazaar (from Persian bāzār, which means "market"), and kindergarten (from German Kindergarten, which literally means "children's garden"). Loans of multi-word phrases, such as the English use of the French term déjà vu, are known as adoptions, adaptations, or lexical borrowings. Strictly speaking, the term loanword conflicts with the ordinary meaning of loan in that something is taken from the donor language without it being something that is possible to return. Most of the technical vocabulary of classical music (such as concerto, allegro, tempo, aria, opera, and soprano) is borrowed from Italian, and that of balletfrom French.

MINIMAL PAIRS In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme,[1] and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate that two phones constitute two separate phonemes in the language. Many phonologists in the middle part of the 20th century had a strong interest in developing techniques for discovering the phonemes of unknown languages, and in some cases setting up writing systems for these languages. The major work of Kenneth Pike on the subject has the title Phonemics: a technique for reducing languages to writing.[2] The minimal pair was an essential tool in the discovery process, arrived at by substitution or commutation tests.[3] Modern phonology is much less interested in such issues, and the minimal pair is consequently considered to be of little theoretical importance. As an example for English vowels, the pair "let" + "lit" can be used to demonstrate that the phones [ɛ] (in let) and [ɪ] (in lit) do in fact represent distinct phonemes /ɛ/ and /ɪ/. An example for English consonants is the minimal pair of "pat" + "bat". The following table shows other pairs demonstrating the existence of various distinct phonemes in English. All the possible minimal pairs for any language may be set out in the same way.

Vowel Sounds Minimal Pairs /ɪ/ and /i:/ sit seat Minimal Pairs /e/ and /ɪ/ desk disk Minimal Pairs /e/ and /eɪ/ wet wait Minimal Pairs /æ/ and /ʌ/ bat but Minimal Pairs /əʊ/ and /ɔ:/ so saw Minimal Pairs /ɒ/ and /əʊ/ not note Minimal Pairs /æ/ and /e/ bad bed Minimal Pairs /ɑ:/ and /ɜ:/ fast first Consonant Sounds Minimal Pairs /b/ and /v/ berry very Minimal Pairs /b/ and /p/ buy pie Minimal Pairs /n/ and /ŋ/ thin thing Minimal Pairs /l/ and /r/ alive arrive Minimal Pairs /ʧ/ and /t/ catch cat Minimal Pairs /s/ and /ʃ/ sea she Minimal Pairs /f/ and /v/ fan van Minimal Pairs /f/ and /h/ fat hat

Minimal Pairs /f/ and /θ/ free three Minimal Pairs /s/ and /θ/ sink think Minimal Pairs /ð/ and /z/ with whizz Minimal Pairs /ʤ/ and /z/ page pays Minimal Pairs /d/ and /ʤ/ bad badge Initial Consonant Sounds Minimal Pairs initial /f/ and /p/ fast past Minimal Pairs initial /k/ and /g/ came game Minimal Pairs initial /t/ and /d/ two do Final Consonant Sounds Minimal Pairs final /k/ and /g/ back bag Minimal Pairs final /m/ and /n/ am an Minimal Pairs final /t/ and /d/ hat had

HOMOPHONES & HOMOGRAPHS Homonyms, homophones and homographs can bring confusion to even adults and teachers! It makes it easier to learn the difference among the three types of words using the definitions and homonyms, homophones and homographs examples below. Homonyms Homophones Homographs & Heteronyms Same spelling, Multiple meaning words Words that sound alike different pronunciation, different meanings the spruce tree… addition for math desert = abandon to spruce up… edition of a book desert = area of land I want to go suit yourself… bass = fish I like it too wore a suit… bass = instrument One plus one is two weigh on the scale… capitol building close = nearby scale the wall… state capital close = to shut the price is fair… pick a flower bow = to bend down go to the fair… bake with flour bow = ribbon

Homonyms, or multiple meaning words, are words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings. For example, bear.  A bear (the animal) can bear (tolerate) very cold temperatures.  The driver turned left (opposite of right) and left (departed from) the main road. Homophones, also known as sound-alike words, are words that are pronounced identically although they have different meanings and often have different spellings as well. These words are a very common source of confusion when writing. Common examples of sets of homophones include: to, too, and two; they’re and their; bee and be; sun and son; which and witch; and plain and plane. VocabularySpellingCity is a particularly useful tool for learning to correctly use and spell the soundalike words.  The toys are over there on the floor.  The wind gust blew away their papers.  Did they say they’re coming to my party? Homographs are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings and are often pronounced differently as well. Some examples of homographs are:  bass as in fish vs bass as in music  bow as in arrow vs bow as in bending or taking a bow at the end of a performance  close as in next to vs close as in shut the door  desert as in dry climate vs desert as in leaving alone

ALLOPHONES In phonology, an allophone ; from the Greek: ἄλλος, állos, "other" and φωνή, phōnē, "voice, sound") is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds (or phones) or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, [pʰ] (as in pin) and [p] (as in spin) are allophones for the phoneme /p/ in the English language. The specific allophone selected in a given situation is often predictable from the phonetic context (such allophones are called positional variants), but sometimes allophones occur in free variation. Replacing a sound by another allophone of the same phoneme will usually not change the meaning of a word, although sometimes the result may sound non-native or even unintelligible. Native speakers of a given language usually perceive one phoneme in that language as a single distinctive sound, and are "both unaware of and even shocked by" the allophone variations used to pronounce single phonemes There are many allophonic processes in English, like lack of plosion, nasal plosion, partial devoicing of sonorants, complete devoicing of sonorants, partial devoicing of obstruents, lengthening and shortening vowels, and retraction.  Aspiration – strong explosion of breath. In English a voiceless plosive (that is p, t or k) is aspirated whenever it stands as the consonant at the beginning of the stressed syllable or of the first, stressed or unstressed, syllable in a word. For example, [pʰ] as in pin and [p] as in spin are allophones for the phoneme /p/ because they cannot distinguish words (in fact, they occur in complementary distribution). English speakers treat them as the same sound, but they are different: the first is aspirated and the second is unaspirated (plain).  Nasal plosion – In English a plosive (/p, t, k, b, d, ɡ/) has nasal plosion when it is followed by a nasal, inside a word or across word boundary.  Partial devoicing of sonorants – In English sonorants (/j, w, l, r, m, n, ŋ/) are partially devoiced when they follow a voiceless sound within the same syllable.  Complete devoicing of sonorants – In English a sonorant is completely devoiced when it follows an aspirated plosive (/p, t, k/).  Partial devoicing of obstruents – In English, a voiced obstruent is partially devoiced next to a pause or next to a voiceless sound, inside a word or across its boundary.  Retraction – in English /t, d, n, l/ are retracted before /r/. Substituting one allophone for another allophone of the same phoneme doesn't lead to a different word, just a different pronunciation of the same word. For this reason, allophones are said to be noncontrastive.

STRESS There are two very simple rules about word stress: 1. One word has only one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. If you hear two stresses, you hear two words. Two stresses cannot be one word. It is true that there can be a "secondary" stress in some words. But a secondary stress is much smaller than the main [primary] stress, and is only used in long words.) 2. We can only stress vowels, not consonants. Here are some more, rather complicated, rules that can help you understand where to put the stress. But do not rely on them too much, because there are many exceptions. It is better to try to "feel" the music of the language and to add the stress naturally. A. Stress on first syllable rule example Most 2-syllable nouns PRESent, EXport, CHIna, TAble Most 2-syllable adjectives PRESent, SLENder, CLEVer, HAPpy B. Stress on last syllable rule example Most 2-syllable verbs preSENT, exPORT, deCIDE, beGIN There are many two-syllable words in English whose meaning and class change with a change in stress. The word present, for example is a two-syllable word. If we stress the first syllable, it is a noun (gift) or an adjective (opposite of absent). But if we stress the second syllable, it becomes a verb (to offer). More examples: the words export, import, contract and object can all be nouns or verbs depending on whether the stress is on the first or second syllable. C. Stress on penultimate syllable (penultimate = second from end) rule example Words ending in -ic GRAPHic, geoGRAPHic, geoLOGic Words ending in -sion and -tion teleVIsion, reveLAtion For a few words, native English speakers don't always "agree" on where to put the stress. For example, some people say teleVIsion and others say TELevision. Another example is: CONtroversy and conTROversy. }

D. Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (ante-penultimate = third from end) rule example Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy deMOcracy, dependaBIlity, phoTOgraphy, geOLogy Words ending in -al CRItical, geoLOGical E. Compound words (words with two parts) rule For compound nouns, the stress is on the first part For compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part For compound verbs, the stress is on the second part

example BLACKbird, GREENhouse bad-TEMpered, old-FASHioned underSTAND, overFLOW

Generally speaking, these rules are very easy to apply. There are however some word families where it is necessary to take care. The classic example of this is the family of words based on the root noun nation. The main stress will be on different syllables depending on the way the word ends; what is important to remember, however, is that the rules above apply in each case.

         

Nation National Nationally Nationalize Nationalizing Nationalist International Nationality Nationalistic Nationalization

ELISION In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. Sometimes sounds are elided to make a word easier to pronounce. The word elision is frequently used in linguistic description of living languages, and deletion is often used in historical linguistics for a historical sound change. In English as spoken by native speakers, elisions come naturally, and are often described as "slurred" or "muted" sounds. Often, elisions are deliberate. It is a common misconception that contractions automatically qualify as elided words, which comes from slack definitions: not all elided words are contractions and not all contractions are elided words (for example, 'going to' → 'gonna': an elision that is not a contraction; 'can not' → 'cannot': a contraction that is not an elision). In Spanish, elisions occur less frequently but are common in certain dialects. They are never marked by an apostrophe in writing. Of particular interest is the word para, which becomes pa. Multiple words can be elided together, as in pa trabajar for para trabajar and pa delante or even pa lante for para adelante. In linguistics, an elision is the deletion of a sound or sounds. When notating an elision in phonological rules, the null sign ⟨∅⟩ marks the place where a sound has been deleted:  [t] > ∅ Either all cases of a sound are deleted, or a sound is deleted in a limited number of cases. These cases can often be described with a phonological rule.

comfortable laboratory

IPA BEFORE ELISION /ˈkʌmfərtəbəl/ /læˈbɔːrətɔːri/

temperature family vegetable fifth him going to it is, it has I have is not

/ˈtɛmpərətʃər/ /ˈfæmɪli/ /ˈvɛdʒətəbəl/ /ˈfɪfθ/ /hɪm/ /ˈɡoʊ.ɪŋ tuː/ /ˈɪt ɪz/, /ˈɪt hæz/ /ˈaɪ hæv/ /ˈɪznɒt/

WORD

IPA AFTER ELISION /ˈkʌmftərbəl/ /ˈlæbrətɔːri/ (American English), /ləˈbɒrətri/ (British English) /ˈtɛmpərtʃər/, /ˈtɛmprətʃər/ /ˈfæmli/ /ˈvɛdʒtəbəl/, /ˈvɛtʃtəbəl/ /ˈfɪθ/ /ɪm/ /ɡənə/ (gonna) /ɪts/ (it's) /aɪv/ (I've) /ˈɪzənt/ (isn't)

Most elisions in English are not mandatory, but they are used in common practice and even sometimes in more formal speech. This applies to nearly all the examples in the above table. However, these types of elisions are rarely shown in modern writing and never shown in formal writing. In formal writing, the words are written the same whether or not the speaker would elide them, but in many plays and classic American literature, words are often written with an elision to demonstrate accent Other examples, such as "him" and "going to" shown above, are generally used only in fast or informal speech. They are still generally written as is unless the writer intends to show the dialect or speech patterns of the speaker.

The third type of elision is in common contractions, such as "can't", "isn't", or "I'm". The apostrophes represent the sounds that are removed and are not spoken but help the reader to understand that it is a contraction and not a word of its own. These contractions used to be written out when transcribed (i.e. "cannot", "is not", "I am") even if they were pronounced as a contraction, but now they are always written as a contraction so long as they are spoken that way. However, they are by no means mandatory and a speaker or writer may choose to keep the words distinct rather than contract them either as a stylistic choice, when using formal register, to make meaning clearer to children or non-native English speakers, or to emphasize a word within the contraction (e.g. "I am going!")