Basic concept of phonetics & phonology by Ramiza Darmi

Basic concept of Phonetics & Phonology

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Phonetics  The

description and classification of speech sounds and how they are produced.  The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is used to represent speech sounds in symbols.  IPA is the basis for phonological analysis. DrRD Basic concept

Phonology ď&#x201A;&#x2014; The

study of the speech sounds used in a particular language, how the sounds interact as a system. ď&#x201A;&#x2014; It is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, and discourse.

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Hierarchy of fields of linguistics

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Terminology      

Dialects: systems with different pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar Accents: Standard English vocabulary and grammar, but different pronunciation A grapheme is a basic unit of WRITING, i.e. letters. A phoneme is a basic unit of SOUND. In a fully phonemic orthography, ONE grapheme would correspond to ONE phoneme. English has 26 letters of the alphabet but 44 phonemes.

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Graphemes    



Multiple graphemes may represent a single phoneme. Digraphs (two graphemes for a single phoneme): SH in ship, CH in chop, TH in math Trigraphs (three graphemes for a single phoneme): SSI in mission, One grapheme may represent different phonemes. English has many homographs i.e. words with the same spelling but different pronunciation. Example: to read /ri:d/– read (past participle) /red/

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Phoneme  One

phoneme can be represented by different graphemes.  Example: The sound /f/ can be represented by "f” flat, fifty "ff” different "ph” elephant "gh” enough DrRD Basic concept

Exercise 1 How many phonemes (sounds) are there in each word?      

black yellow one two three ship

sing half wrist knife ought could DrRD Basic concept

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)          

represents spoken language. IPA symbols are composed of letters and diacritics. Most letters are either Latin or Greek: p b t digraph this represented with θ (theta) Diacritics are signs or glyphs that modify the meaning of the letters: IPA has 107 different letters and 52 diacritics. /slashes/ are used to mark off phonemes (broad transcription) [square brackets] are used for phonetic details (narrow transcription) Compare: little /lɪtl/ or [lɪɾɫ] DrRD Basic concept

Short vowels  /ɪ/ pin, English, business  /e/ pen, bed, head  /æ/ pat, cat, bag  /ʌ/ putt, cut, come  /ɒ/ pot, what  /ʊ/ put, look, could  /ə/ the, a DrRD Basic concept

Long vowels /iː/ sea, bee /ɑː/ car, art /ɔː/ or, board /uː/ too, blue /ɜː/ girl, burn

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Dipthongs CENTRING  /ɪə/ here, deer, dear, fierce  /eə/ care, air, mayor, prayer GLIDE towards /ə/  /ʊə/

poor, insure, tour, moor DrRD Basic concept

Dipthongs CLOSING  /eɪ/ take, pay, wait, ballet  /aɪ/ five, sigh, height, buy GLIDE towards /ɪ/  /ɔɪ/ noise, boy, lawyer  /əʊ/ no, road, sew, broken GLIDE towards /ʊ/  /aʊ/ round, renown, doubt

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Consonants        

/p/ play, stop, speak, power /b/ bad, baby, big, object /t/ ten, later, little, pot /d/ day, advice, bed /k/ character, quick, taxi /g/ got, exam, ignore, finger /f/ food, laugh, telephone /v/ vain, over, Stephen

/θ/ thin, earth, method, both  /ð/ they, father, breathe, with  /s/ small, since, scene, psalm  /z/ zoo, goes, xenophobe 

/ʃ/ shell, nation, machine /ʒ/ genre, measure, vision /h/ hot, hair, whole, whose /m/ moon, lamp, lamb /n/ can, snow, pneumonia /ŋ/ string, singer, tongue /tʃ/ chair, match, future /dʒ/ just, general, age, soldier /l/ look, small, bottle, isle /r/ real, train, wrong, write /j/ yes, Europe, university /w/ window, twin, quick

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Exercise 2 Find the correct phonemic transcription for each word.          

1. /ʃʌt/ 2. /hɑːt/ 3. /θɪŋk/ 4. /wɜːk/ 5. /'leɪtə/ 6. /bɔːt/ 7. /puːl/ 8. /daʊt/ 9. /dʒəʊk/ 10. /ðeə/

a. later b. joke c. heart d. there e. doubt f. work g. shut h. think i. pool j. bought

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Exercise 3 Write the IPA symbol for the initial phoneme in each word.           

phone jet paper think shop chair hair school Europe college this

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Exercise 4 Complete the transcriptions with one of the following dipthongs:  /eɪ/ /aɪ/ /ɔɪ/ /əʊ/ /aʊ/ /ɪə/ /eə/ /ʊə/          

make sure bear island employ hear town home sight know

/m _ _ k/ /ʃ _ _/ /b _ _/ /- - lənd/ /ɪmpl _ _/ /h _ _/ /t _ _ n/ /h _ _ m/ /s _ _ t/ /n _ _ / DrRD Basic concept

Exercise 5 Which is the correct transcription?        

/aɪs/ /səʊl/ /bri:ð/ / θɪŋ/ /‘pəʊzɪz/ /vɑɪn/ /’f iːlɪŋz/ /’æŋkl/

ice soil breathe thin poses vein feelings uncle

eyes soul breath thing possess vine fillings ankle

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ď&#x201A;&#x2014; Refer

to Exercise 5 and now transcribe the other words.

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Exercise 6 Write out the correct spelling of these place names. /ˈkæntəbrɪ/ /ˈgrenɪtʃ/ /ˈlestə/  /ˈedɪnbrə/  /ˈwɒrɪk/  /ˈnɒrɪtʃ/   

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