Issuu (magazine) by walter de paz

Name: Walter David De Paz Ramirez Carne: 31-1694-2015 Teacher: Lic. Julio Blanco Teacher Assistant: Licda. Roxanna Landaverde Topic: Portfolio Section: 02 Subject: Phonology

GENERAL INDEX Vocal Tract …………………………………………………………………4 Phonemes …………………………………………………………………..6 Voice or Voicing ………………………………………………………….8 Vowel and Consonant ……………………………………………….10 Primary Cardinal Vowels …………………………………………..11 The Difference between Diphthongs and Diagraphs …...14 Kind of Vowels Monophthong and Diphthong …………….16 Homophones and Homographs …………………………………17 Phonetic Transcription ……………………………………………..18 SCHWA …………………………………………………………………….23 Assimilation of the /J/ ………………………………………………29 Word Stress ……………………………………………………………...31 Contraction ………………………………………………………………34 Allophone …………………………………………………………………37 Derivation of Words …………………………………………………38 Linking Words ………………………………………………………….41 Elision ……………………………………………………………………...45 Ellipsis ……………………………………………………………………..47 2

Minimal Pairs ……………………………………………………………50 Reduction (Grammar Informal) …………………………………52

Vocal tract The vocal tract is the cavity in human beings and in animals where sound that is produced at the sound source. In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators (speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is stricture, that is, how closely the speech organs approach one another. Others include those involved in the r-like sounds (taps and trills), and the sibilancy of fricatives.

Stop: an oral occlusive, where there is occlusion (blocking) of the oral vocal tract, and no nasal air flow, so the air flow stops completely. Examples include English /p t k/ (voiceless) and /b d ÉĄ/ (voiced). If the consonant is voiced, the voicing is the only sound made during occlusion; if it is voiceless, a stop is completely silent. What we hear as a /p/ or /k/ is the effect that the onset of the occlusion has on the preceding vowel, as well as the release burst and its effect on the following vowel. The shape and position of the tongue (the place of articulation) determine the resonant cavity that gives different stops their characteristic sounds. All languages have stops. Nasal: a nasal occlusive, where there is occlusion of the oral tract, but air passes through the nose. The shape and position of the tongue determine the resonant cavity that gives different nasals their characteristic sounds. Examples include English /m, n/. Nearly all languages have nasals, the only exceptions being in the area of Puget Sound and a single language on Bougainville Island. Fricative: sometimes called spirant, where there is continuous frication (turbulent and noisy airflow) at the place of articulation. Examples include English /f, s/ (voiceless), /v, z/ (voiced), etc. Most languages have fricatives, though many have only an /s/. However, the Indigenous Australian languages are almost completely devoid of fricatives of any kind. Sibilants are a type of fricative where the airflow is guided by a groove in the tongue toward the teeth, creating a high-pitched and very distinctive sound. These are by far the most 4

common fricatives. Fricatives at coronal (front of tongue) places of articulation are usually, though not always, sibilants. English sibilants include /s/ and /z/. Lateral fricatives are a rare type of fricative, where the frication occurs on one or both sides of the edge of the tongue. The "ll" of Welsh and the "hl" of Zulu are lateral fricatives. Affricate, which begins like a stop, but this releases into a fricative rather than having a separate release of its own. The English letters "ch" [tĘ&#x192;] and "j" [dĘ&#x2019;] represent affricates. Affricates are quite common around the world, though less common than fricatives. Flap: often called a tap, is a momentary closure of the oral cavity. The "tt" of "utter" and the "dd" of "udder" are pronounced as a flap [Éž] in North American and Australian English. Many linguists distinguish taps from flaps, but there is no consensus on what the difference might be. No language relies on such a difference. There are also lateral flaps. Trill: in which the articulator (usually the tip of the tongue) is held in place, and the airstream causes it to vibrate. The double "r" of Spanish "perro" is a trill. Trills and flaps, where there are one or more brief occlusions, constitute a class of consonant called rhotics. Approximant: where there is very little obstruction. Examples include English /w/ and /r/. In some languages, such as Spanish, there are sounds that seem to fall between fricative and approximant. One use of the word semivowel, sometimes called a glide, is a type of approximant, pronounced like a vowel but with the tongue closer to the roof of the mouth, so that there is slight turbulence. In English, /w/ is the semivowel equivalent of the vowel /u/, and /j/ (spelled "y") is the semivowel equivalent of the vowel /i/ in this usage. Other descriptions use semivowel for vowel-like sounds that are not syllabic, but do not have the increased stricture of approximants. These are found as elements in diphthongs. The word may also be used to cover both concepts. The term glide is newer than semivowel, being used to indicate an essential quality of sounds such as /w/ and /j/, which is the movement (or glide) from their initial position (/u/ and /i/, respectively) to a following vowel. Lateral approximants: usually shortened to lateral, are a type of approximant pronounced with the side of the tongue. English /l/ is a lateral. Together with the rhotics, which have similar behavior in many languages, these form a class of consonant called liquids.

Phonemes

A phoneme (/ˈfoʊniːm/) is one of the units of sound (or gesture in the case of sign languages, see chereme) that distinguish one word from another in a particular language. Two words that differ in meaning through a contrast of a single phoneme form a minimal pair. In linguistics, phonemes are written between slashes like this: /p/, whereas when it is desired to show the more exact pronunciation of any sound, linguists use square brackets, for example [pʰ] (indicating an aspirated p).

Within linguistics there are differing views as to exactly what phonemes are and how a given language should be analyzed in phonemic (or phonematic) terms. However, a phoneme is generally regarded as an abstraction of a set (or equivalence class) of speech sounds (phones) which are perceived as equivalent to each other in a given language. For example, in English, the k sounds in

the words kit and skill are not identical (as described below), but they are distributional variants of a single phoneme /k/. Different speech sounds that are realizations of the same phoneme are known as allophones. Allophonic variation may be conditioned, in which case a certain phoneme is realized as a certain allophone in particular phonological environments, or it may be free in which case it may vary randomly. In this way, phonemes are often considered to constitute an abstract underlying representation for segments of words, while speech sounds make up the corresponding phonetic realization, or surface form. The existence of minimal pairs is a common test to decide whether two phones represent different phonemes or are allophones of the same phoneme. To take another example, the minimal pair tip and dip illustrates that in English, [t] and [d] belong to separate phonemes, /t/ and /d/; since these two words have different meanings, English speakers must be conscious of the distinction between the two sounds. In other languages, though, including Korean, even though both sounds [t] and [d] occur, no such minimal pair exists. The lack of minimal pairs distinguishing [t] and [d] in Korean provides evidence that in this language they are allophones of a single phoneme /t/. The word /tata/ is pronounced [tada], for example. That is, when they hear this word, Korean speakers perceive the same sound in both the beginning and middle of the word, whereas an English speaker would perceive different sounds in these two locations. The most common vowel system consists of the five vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, /u/. The most common consonants are /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/. Relatively few languages lack any of these consonants, although it does happen: for example, Arabic lacks /p/, standard Hawaiian lacks /t/, Mohawk and Tlingit lack /p/ and /m/, Hupa lacks both /p/ and a simple /k/, colloquial Samoan lacks /t/ and /n/, while Rotokas and Quileute lack /m/ and /n/.

Voice or voicing Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology t o characterise speech sounds (usually consonants), with sounds described as either voiceless (also called unvoiced) or voiced. The term, however, is used to

refer to two separate concepts:  

Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate, its primary use in phonetics to describe phones, which are particular speech sounds. It can also refer to a classification of speech sounds that tend to be associated with vocal cord vibration but may not actually be voiced at the articulatory level. That is the term's primary use in phonology to describe phonemes or in phonetics to describe phones.

At the articulatory level, a voiced sound is one in which the vocal cords vibrate, and a voiceless sound is one in which they do not. For example, voicing accounts for the difference between the pair of sounds associated with the English letters "s" and "z". The two sounds are transcribed as [s] and [z] to distinguish them from the English letters, which have several possible pronunciations, depending on the context. If one places the fingers on the voice box (i.e. the location of the Adam's apple in the upper throat), one can feel a vibration while zzzz is pronounced but not with ssss. (For a more detailed, technical explanation, see modal voice and phonation.) In most European languages, with a notable exception being Icelandic, vowels and other sonorants (consonants such as m, n, l, and r) are modally voiced. When used to classify speech sounds, voiced and unvoiced are merely labels used to group phones and phonemes together for the purposes of classification. The distinction between the articulatory use of voice and the phonological use rests on the distinction between phone (represented between square brackets) and phoneme(represented between slashes). The difference is best illustrated by a rough example. The English word nods is made up of a sequence of phonemes, represented symbolically as /nɒdz/, or the sequence of /n/, /ɒ/, /d/, and /z/. Each symbol is an abstract representation of a phoneme. That awareness is an inherent part of speakers' mental grammar that allows them to recognise words. However, phonemes are not sounds in themselves. Rather, phonemes are, in a sense, converted to phones before being spoken. The /z/ phoneme, for instance, can actually be pronounced as either

the [s] phone or the [z] phone since /z/ is frequently devoiced, even in fluent speech, especially at the end of an utterance. The sequence of phones for nods might be transcribed as [nɒts] or [nɒdz], depending on the presence or strength of this devoicing. While the [z] phone has articulatory voicing, the [s] phone does not have it. What complicates the matter is that for English, consonant phonemes are classified as either voiced or voiceless even though it is not the primary distinctive feature between them. Still, the classification is used as a stand-in for phonological processes, such as vowel lengthening that occurs before voiced consonants but not before unvoiced consonants or vowel quality changes (the sound of the vowel) in some dialects of English that occur before unvoiced but not voiced consonants. Such processes allow English speakers to continue to perceive difference between voiced and voiceless consonants when the devoicing of the former would otherwise make them sound identical to the latter. English has four pairs of fricative phonemes that can be divided into a table by place of articulation and voicing. The voiced fricatives can readily be felt to have voicing throughout the duration of the phone especially when they occur between vowels.

Voicing, in linguistics, refers to either the physical production of vibration by the vocal folds as part of articulation, or the potential phonological distinction this allows, i.e. the distinct difference between units such as [b] and [p] in many languages. In most languages, sound units vary by voice, and very often this is distinctive, leading to minimal pairs such as 'bat' and 'pat' in English. Phonologically, this is a two-way distinction, but different degrees of phonetic voicing also allow further phonological contrasts in many languages, i.e. 'creaky voice' and 'breathy voice'. Phonetically, voice varies by position in the speech stream and from language to language; English [b d g], for example, are only fully voiced between segments such as vowels that are themselves fully voiced, while in Spanish, these sounds are fully voiced by default. These partially and fully voiced plosives act as physical productions of the phonemes /p t k/ in both languages. Obstruent consonants are most typically distinguished by voice, among others. English distinguishes /p t k f θ s ʃ/ from /b d g v ð z ʒ/ by voicing alone, though this generalisation is somewhat oversimplistic. For example, in English, the length of segments appears to cue listeners into the voicing more than actual vocal fold vibration itself; the vowel in 'cat', for instance, is rather shorter than the one in 'cad', and the final [t] is also longer than the final [d] in many positions. This use of phonetic length corresponds to phonological voicing. The phonetic voicing itself is peripheral. In other cases, phonological voicing is only contrastive in certain positions; in German, for example, syllable- or word-final voiced obstruents are disallowed, and in English, the contrast between /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ is only productive word-medially, as in 'mission' and 'vision'; initial and final examples of voicing, such as 'genre' and 'beige', are loanwords from other languages and are often pronounced [ʤ], the first sound of 'jot'.

Vowel and consonant

The name "vowel" is often used for the symbols that represent vowel sounds in a language's writing system, particularly if the language uses an alphabet. In writing systems based on the Latin alphabet, the letters A, E, I, O, U, Y and sometimes others can all be used to represent vowels. However, not all of these letters represent vowels in all languages, or even consistently within one language (some of them, especially W and Y, are also used to represent approximants). Moreover, a vowel might be represented by a letter usually reserved for consonants, or a combination of letters, particularly where one letter represents several sounds at once, or vice versa; examples from English include igh in "thigh" and x in "x-ray". In addition, extensions of the Latin alphabet have such independent vowel letters as Ä, Ö, Ü, Å, Æ, and Ø.

The phonetic values vary considerably by language, and some languages use I and Y for the consonant [j], e.g., initial I in Italian or Romanian and initial Y in English. In the original Latin alphabet, there was no written distinction between V and U, and the letter represented the approximant [w] and the vowels [u] and [ʊ]. In Modern Welsh, the letter Wrepresents these same sounds. Similarly, in Creek, the letter V stands for [ə]. There is not necessarily a direct one-to-one correspondence between the vowel sounds of a language and the vowel letters. Many languages that use a form of the Latin alphabet have more vowel sounds than can be represented by the standard set of five vowel letters. In English spelling, the five letters A E I O and U can represent a variety of vowel sounds, while the letter Y frequently represents vowels (as in e.g., "gym", "happy", or the diphthongs in "cry", "thyme");[22] W is used in representing some diphthongs (as in "cow") and to represent a monophthong in the borrowed words "cwm" and "crwth" (sometimes cruth). Other languages cope with the limitation in the number of Latin vowel letters in similar ways. Many languages make extensive use of combinations of letters to represent various sounds. Other languages use vowel letters with modifications, such as ä in Swedish, or add diacritical marks, like umlauts, to vowels to represent the variety of possible vowel sounds. Some languages have also constructed additional vowel letters by modifying the standard Latin vowels in other ways, such as æ or ø that are found in some of the Scandinavian languages. The International Phonetic Alphabet has a set of 28 symbols to represent the range of basic vowel qualities, and a further set of diacritics to denote variations from the basic vowel.

PRIMARY CARDINAL VOWELS

Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages. For instance, the vowel of the English word "feet" can be described with reference to cardinal vowel, which is the cardinal vowel closest to it. It is often stated that to be able to use the cardinal vowel system effectively one must undergo training with an expert phonetician, working both on the recognition and the production of the vowels. Daniel Jones wrote "The values of cardinal vowels cannot be learnt from written descriptions; they should be learnt by oral instruction from a teacher who knows them". A cardinal vowel is a vowel sound produced when the tongue is in an extreme position, either front or back, high or low. The current system was systematised by Daniel Jones in the early 20th century,] though the idea goes back to earlier phoneticians, notably Ellis and Bell Cardinal vowels are not vowels of any particular language, but a measuring system. However, some languages contain vowel or vowels that are close to the cardinal vowel(s). An example of such language is Ngwe, which is spoken in West Africa. It has been cited as a language with a vowel system that has 8 vowels which are rather similar to the 8 primary cardinal vowels.

Three of the cardinal vowels—[i], [ɑ] and [u]—have articulatory definitions. The vowel [i] is produced with the tongue as far forward and as high in the mouth as is possible (without producing friction), with spread lips. The vowel [u] is produced with the tongue as far back and as high in the mouth as is possible, with protruded lips. This sound can be approximated by adopting the posture to whistle a very low note, or to blow out a candle. And [ɑ] is produced with the tongue as low and as far back in the mouth as possible. The other vowels are 'auditorily equidistant' between these three 'corner vowels', at four degrees of aperture or 'height': close (high tongue position), close-mid, open-mid, and open (low tongue position). These degrees of aperture plus the front-back distinction define 8 reference points on a mixture of articulatory and auditory criteria. These eight vowels are known as the eight 'primary cardinal vowels', and vowels like these are common in the world's languages. The lip positions can be reversed with the lip position for the corresponding vowel on the opposite side of the front-back dimension, so that e.g. Cardinal 1 can be produced with rounding somewhat similar to that of Cardinal 8 (though normally compressed rather than protruded); these are known as 'secondary cardinal vowels'. Sounds such as these are claimed to be less common in the world's languages. Other vowel sounds are also recognised on the vowel chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

cardinal IPA

description

[i]

close front unrounded vowel

[e]

close-mid front unrounded vowel

[ɛ]

open-mid front unrounded vowel

[a]

open front unrounded vowel

[ɑ]

open back unrounded vowel

[ɔ]

open-mid back rounded vowel

[o]

close-mid back rounded vowel

[u]

close back rounded vowel

[y]

close front rounded vowel

[ø]

close-mid front rounded vowel

[œ]

open-mid front rounded vowel

[ɶ]

open front rounded vowel

[ɒ]

open back rounded vowel

[ʌ]

open-mid back unrounded vowel

[ɤ]

close-mid back unrounded vowel

[ɯ]

close back unrounded vowel

[ɨ]

Close central unrounded vowel

[ʉ]

Close central rounded vowel

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIPHTONGS AND DIGRAPHS

The terms digraph and diphthong are common terms in the reading world. At workshops on spelling or phonics, I often find that many people are confused about the difference between the two terms. The clear difference is that digraphs are letters and diphthongs are sounds. The morphemes (meaningful word parts) in each word help us remember their meanings. Both words are derived from Greek. The first morpheme di in both words means “two.” The morpheme graph means written, making the word digraph refer to something written that has two parts. The morpheme phthong means “sound”, making the word diphthong refer to a sound that has two parts. If you understand the meaning of the morphemes in each word, you will never confuse them again.

A digraph is two letters that spell one sound. Digraphs that spell consonant sounds include the letter pairs sh, ch, th, wh, ck, ph, ng. Digraphs that spell vowel sounds include the letter pairs ai, ay, ee, ea, ie, ei, oo, ou. ow, oe, oo, ue, ey, ay, oy, oi, au, aw. The important thing to remember is that a digraph is made of two letters, and although the letters spell a sound, the digraph is the two letters, not the sound. A diphthong is a special kind of vowel sound. Most vowel sounds in English are made with the mouth in one position and with one pure sound. These vowel sounds are called monophthongs (mono meaning “one” and phthongmeaning “sound”). A diphthong is one vowel sound formed by the combination of two vowel sounds. A diphthong begins as one vowel sound and moves toward another, such as the vowel sounds in coin or loud. Diphthongs can be contrasted with two monophthong vowel sounds together that form two syllables, such as in chaos, triage, or violin.

When teaching reading, the two vowel sounds most commonly identified as diphthongs are /oy/ and /ow/. The most common spellings for the vowel sound /oy/ are oy (toy) and oi (void), and the two most common spellings for /ow/ are ow (cow) and ou (cloud). The fact that these two diphthongs are usually spelled with digraphs may explain the confusion between the terms. To feel the difference between a monophthong and a diphthong, you can put an index finger on either side of your mouth. Say the vowel sound /ă/ and your fingers will stay in the same position because your mouth doesn’t move. The same thing happens with most vowel sounds. However, if you say the vowel sounds /oy/ or /ow/, your fingers will move because your mouth moves from one vowel sound to another. Two other diphthongs in American English are long i (/ī/) and long a (/ā/), which are always identified as diphthongs by linguists but not often by reading teachers. Both these vowel sounds pass the diphthong test, which is movement of a part of the mouth, generally the tongue or lips, while saying a vowel sound. Other diphthongs exist in various dialects and other languages.

KIND OF VOWELS, MONOPHTHONG AND DIPHTONG

What is Monophthong? Monophthong is simply a vowel. The word monophthong comes from the old Greek language. Mono means one or single, and the -phthong means sound or tone. The word monophthong shows that a vowel is spoken with exactly one tone and one mouth position. For example, when you say “teeth”, then while you are creating the sound of the “ee”, nothing changes for that sound.

What is Diphthong? A Diphthong is a vowel that a person has to move his or her mouth into two different positions to make. Diphthong comes from the old Greek language. Di means two or double, while the part -phthong means sound or tone, It is a vowel where two different vowel qualities can be heard. For examples are: waist, die, noise, road, house, fierce, bear, sure. Each of these is a different vowel sound.

The Difference between Monophthong and Diphtong A monophthong is a simple vowel sound that a person does not have to move his mouth to make, like the “oo” sound in “book.” In a diphthong, the person combines two different monophthongs, as with the “oi” sound in the word “oil.” The person starts with the mouth in the position to make an “o” sound, then quickly moves the mouth to make a hard “e” sound. Another example is the “ou” sound in the word “house.” The mouth starts out making a sound like the soft “a” sound in “flat,” then moves to make the a hard “oo” sound like the one in “boots.“

The main difference is that a monophthong is a phoneme that consists of only one (“mono” means one) vowel sound and a diphthong is a phoneme consisting of two (“di” means two) vowel sounds that are “connected” or “linked” to each other.

HOMOPHONES AND HOMOGRAPHS

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, and may differ in spelling. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms.[1] Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs. The term "homophone" may also apply to units longer or shorter than words, such as phrases, letters or groups of letters that are pronounced the same as another phrase, letter or group of letters.

Homographs are words with the same spellings, but with different or more than one meaning or pronunciations. A homograph is mostly considered a type of homonym. In short a word of the same written form or words spelt in the same way as another but having different meaning and origin, whether pronounced in a similar way or not, as bear 1‘to carry; support’ and bear 2 ‘animal’. It’s important to be alert of the context in order to determine which pronunciation and meaning is appropriate. A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another word however differs from each other in origin, meaning and pronuntiation.

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or phones). The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet. The pronunciation of words in many languages, as distinct from their written form (orthography), has undergone significant change over time. Pronunciation can also vary greatly among dialects of a language. Standard orthography in some languages, particularly French, English, and Irish, is often irregular, and makes it difficult to predict pronunciation from spelling. For example, the words bough and through do not rhyme in English, even though their spellings might suggest they do. In French, the sequence "-ent" is pronounced /ɑ/ in accent, but is silent in "posent".

Other languages, such as Spanish and Italian have a more consistent—though still imperfect— relationship between orthography and pronunciation (phonemic orthography).

Therefore, phonetic transcription can provide a function that orthography cannot. It displays a one-toone relationship between symbols and sounds, unlike traditional writing systems. Phonetic transcription allows us to step outside orthography and examine differences in pronunciation between dialects within a given language, as well as to identify changes in pronunciation that may take place over time.

Phonetic transcription may aim to transcribe the phonology of a language, or it may be used to go further and specify the precise phonetic realisation. In all systems of transcription we may therefore distinguish between broad transcription and narrow transcription. Broad transcription indicates only the most noticeable phonetic features of an utterance, whereas narrow transcription encodes more information about the phonetic variations of the specific allophones in the utterance. The difference between broad and narrow is a continuum. One particular form of a broad transcription is a phonemic transcription, which disregards all allophonic difference, and, as the name implies, is not really a phonetic transcription at all, but a representation of phonemic structure.

For example, one particular pronunciation of the English word little may be transcribed using the IPA as /ˈlɪtəl/ or [ˈlɪɾ ]; the broad, phonemic transcription, placed between slashes, indicates merely that the word ends with phoneme /l/, but the narrow, allophonic transcription, placed between square brackets, indicates that this final /l/ ([ ]) is dark (velarized).

The advantage of the narrow transcription is that it can help learners to get exactly the right sound, and allows linguists to make detailed analyses of language variation. The disadvantage is that a narrow transcription is rarely representative of all speakers of a language. Most Americans and Australians would pronounce the /t/ of little as a tap [ɾ]. Some people in southern England would say /t/ as [ʔ] (a glottal stop) and/or the second /l/ as [w] or something similar. A further disadvantage in less technical contexts is that narrow transcription involves a larger number of symbols that may be unfamiliar to non-specialists.

The advantage of the broad transcription is that it usually allows statements to be made which apply across a more diverse language community. It is thus more appropriate for the pronunciation data in foreign language dictionaries, which may

discuss phonetic details in the preface but rarely give them for each entry. A rule of thumb in many linguistics contexts is therefore to use a narrow transcription when it is necessary for the point being made, but a broad transcription whenever possible.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is one of the most popular and well-known phonetic alphabets. It was originally created by primarily British language teachers, with later efforts from European phoneticians and linguists. It has changed from its earlier intention as a tool of foreign language pedagogy to a practical alphabet of linguists. It is currently becoming the most often seen alphabet in the field of phonetics.

Most American dictionaries for native English-speakersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Webster's Third New International Dictionaryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;employ respelling systems based on the English alphabet, with diacritical marks over the vowels and stress marks.[1] (See Wikipedia:United States dictionary transcription for a generic version.)

Another commonly encountered alphabetic tradition was originally created for the transcription of Native American and European languages, and is still commonly used by linguists of Slavic, Indic, Uralic, Semitic, and Caucasian languages. This is sometimes labeled the Americanist phonetic alphabet, but this is misleading because it has always been widely used for languages outside the Americas. The difference between these alphabets and IPA is small, although often the specially created characters of the IPA are abandoned in favour of already existing characters with diacritics (e.g. many characters are borrowed from Eastern European orthographies) or digraphs.

Another type of phonetic notation that is more precise than alphabetic notation is analphabetic phonetic notation. Instead of both the alphabetic and iconic notational types' general principle of using one symbol per sound, analphabetic notation uses long sequences of symbols to precisely describe the component features of an articulatory gesture (MacMahon 1996:842â&#x20AC;&#x201C;844). This type of notation is reminiscent of the notation used in chemical formulas to denote the composition of chemical compounds. Although more descriptive than alphabetic notation, analphabetic notation is less practical for many purposes (e.g. for descriptive linguists doing fieldwork or for speech pathologists impressionistically transcribing speech disorders). As a result, this type of notation is uncommon.

Two examples of this type were developed by the Danish Otto Jespersen (1889) and American Kenneth Pike (1943). Pike's system, which is part of a larger goal of scientific description of phonetics, is particularly interesting in its challenge against the descriptive method of the phoneticians who created alphabetic systems like the IPA. An example of Pike's system can be demonstrated by the following. A syllabic voiced alveolar nasal consonant (/n/ in I A) is notated as MaIlDeCVoeIpvnnAPpaatdtltnransnsfSpvavdtlvtnransssfTpgagdtlwvtitvransnsfSrpFSs In Pike's notation there are 5 main components (which are indicated using the example above):

M - manner of production (i.e., MaIlDe) C - manner of controlling (i.e., CVoeIpvnn) description of stricture (i.e., APpaatdtltnransnsfSpvavdtlvtnransssfTpgagdtlwvtitvransnsf) S - segment type (i.e., Srp) F - phonetic function (i.e., FSs)

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 Schwa.

In unstressed syllables Any vowel letter can be pronounced as schwa and the pronunciation of a vowel letter can change depending on whether the syllable in which it occurs is stressed or not.

Not just a letter The sound schwa does not only represent a single letter. In some words it is the sound of several letters or even a whole syllable. This is often, but not only, seen in words which have a syllable made up of a vowel letter followed by the letter 'r'. Remember the schwa sound is only used if the syllable which it is in is not stressed.

Sometimes the term "schwa" is used for any epenthetic vowel, but different languages use different epenthetic vowels (Navajo uses [i]).

In English, schwa is the most common vowel sound.[5] It is a reduced vowel in many unstressed syllables especially if syllabic consonants are not used. Depending on dialect, it may be written using any of the following letters:

'a', as in about [əˈbaʊt] 'e', as in taken [ˈtʰeɪkən] 'i', as in pencil [ˈpʰɛnsəl] 'o', as in memory [ˈmɛməri] 'u', as in supply [səˈplaɪ] 'y', as in sibyl [ˈsɪbəl] various combinations of letters, such as 'ai' in mountain [ˈmaʊntən] unwritten as in rhythm [ˈɹɪðəm]

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 É&#x153;Ë?, which occurs in some non-rhotic dialect stressed syllables.

English has the tendency to delete schwa when it appears in a midword syllable that comes after the stressed syllable. Kenstowicz (1994) states, "American English schwa deletes in medial posttonic syllables". He gives as examples words such as sep(a)rate (as an adjective), choc(o)late, cam(e)ra and elab(o)rate (as an adjective), where the schwa (represented by the letters in parentheses) has a tendency to be deleted.

The spellings of schwa Many multi-syllable words do not seem to be pronounced as they are spelled. This is because schwa is a function of syllable stress and not of spelling. Once learners can recognize stressed syllables, it becomes easier to predict when schwa will be used in an adjacent, unstressed vowel, regardless of the spelling. The examples below show schwa as it is exhibited when spelled with each vowel. They syllable containing schwa is bolded.

In words with more than one syllable, not every syllable is given equal emphasis when spoken. Three levels of syllable stress are possible: stressed /⬤/ secondarily stressed /●/ unstressed /•/ Every multi-syllable word has a single stressed syllable. The single stressed syllable of the word has the most emphasis. The remainder of the syllables may have a secondary stress or may be unstressed. The word emphasize has all the levels of stress. The first syllable is stressed, the second syllable is an unstressed syllable pronounced as schwa, and the third syllable has a secondary stress.

ASSIMILATION OF THE /J/

Assimilation is when two sounds come together and change or melt into a new sound. Assimilations may happen inside a word, or between two words, when the final sound of a word touches the first sound of the next word (because when we speak we join all the words together). When speaking, people make many assimilations, most of them can only be noticed by the trained ear of an academic speaker and are not important for us. But there are 4 assimilations that are very important, because the sound changes a lot and the student of English can notice the difference and feel confused about it. The sound /j/ is usually found in the letter Y, the letter I and the letter U (when it is or was in the past pronounced /ju:/)

- /t/ + /j/ = /tʃ/ (T+Y=CH)

Nice to meet you arrow3 meet + you /mi:t ju:/ = /mi:tʃu:/ picture arrow31 /pɪktjʊə*/ → 2 /pɪktʃʊə*/ → 3 /pɪktʃə*/ (1= old fashioned pronunciation, 2= transitional pronunciation, 3= present pronunciation, the vowel /ʊ/ weakened and disappears)

2- /d/ + /j/ = /dʒ/ (D+Y=J)

would you like some tea? arrow3 would + you /wʊd ju:/ = /wʊdʒu:/

- /s/ + /j/ = /ʃ/ (S+Y=SH)

special arrow3 /spesjəl/ = /speʃəl/ it's just you = it's jus' you arrow3 /dʒʌs ju:/ = /dʒʌʃu:/ (in conversational English "just" often loses its final T and it sounds "jus", so S + Y = SH)

4- /z/ + /j/ = /ʒ/

treasure arrow3 /trezjʊə*/ → 2 /treʒʊə*/ → 3 /treʒə*/ (1, 2, 3= see comments to the word "picture" above) learning centres such as universities arrow3 as + universities /əz ju:nɪvɜ:*sɪtɪz/ = /əʒu:nɪvɜ:*sɪtɪz/

WORD STRESS

Word stress is your magic key to understanding spoken English. Native speakers of English use word stress naturally. Word stress is so natural for them that they don't even know they use it. Non-native speakers who speak English to native speakers without using word stress, encounter two problems: They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially those speaking fast. The native speakers may find it difficult to understand them.

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. Stress is typically signaled by such properties as increased loudness and vowel length, full articulation of the vowel, and changes in pitch. The terms stress and accent are often used synonymously, but they are sometimes distinguished, with certain specific kinds of prominence (such as pitch accent, variously defined) being considered to fall under accent but not under stress. In this case, stress specifically may be called stress accent or dynamic accent.

The stress placed on syllables within words is called word stress or lexical stress. Some languages have fixed stress, meaning that the stress on virtually any multisyllable word falls on a particular syllable, such as the first or the penultimate. Other languages, like English, have variable stress, where the position of stress in a word is not predictable in that way. Sometimes more than one level of stress, such as primary stress and secondary stress, may be identified. However, some languages, such as French and Mandarin, are sometimes analyzed as lacking lexical stress entirely.

The stress placed on words within sentences is called sentence stress or prosodic stress. This is one of the three components of prosody, along with rhythm and intonation. It includes phrasal stress (the default emphasis of certain words within phrases or clauses), and contrastive stress (used to highlight an item â&#x2C6;&#x2019; a word, or occasionally just part of a word â&#x2C6;&#x2019; that is given particular focus).

There are various ways in which stress manifests itself in the speech stream, and these depend to some extent on which language is being spoken. Stressed syllables are often louder than non-stressed syllables, and may have a higher or lower pitch. They may also sometimes be pronounced longer. There are sometimes differences in place or manner of articulation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in particular, vowels in unstressed syllables may have a more central (or "neutral") articulation, while those in stressed syllables have a more peripheral articulation. Stress may be realized to varying degrees on different words in a sentence; sometimes the difference between the acoustic signals of stressed and unstressed syllables are minimal.

These particular distinguishing features of stress, or types of prominence in which particular features are dominant, are sometimes referred to as particular types of accent â&#x20AC;&#x201C; dynamic accent in the case of loudness, pitch accent in the case of pitch (although this term usually has more specialized meanings), quantitative accent in the case of length, and qualitative accent in the case of differences in articulation. These can be compared to the various types of accent in music theory. In some contexts, the term stress or stress accent is used to mean specifically dynamic accent (or as an antonym to pitch accent in its various meanings). Lexical stress, or word stress, is the stress placed on a given syllable in a word. The position of lexical stress in a word may depend on certain general rules applicable in the language or dialect in question, but in languages, it must be learned for each word, as it is largely unpredictable.

CONTRACTION

A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters and sounds. In linguistic analysis, contractions should not be confused with crasis, abbreviations nor acronyms (including initialisms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance. Contraction is also distinguished from clipping, where beginnings and endings are omitted.

English has a number of contractions, mostly involving the elision of a vowel (which is replaced by an apostrophe in writing), as in I'm for "I am", and sometimes other changes as well, as in won't for "will not" or ain't for "am not". These contractions are commonly used in speech and in informal writing, though tend to be avoided in more formal writing.

The main contractions are listed in the following table (for more explanation see English auxiliaries and contractions).

Full form

Contracted

not

-n't

let us

let's

I am

I'm

are

-'re

does

Notes

Irregular forms: "ain't", "won't", "shan't", "amn't". "n't" can only be attached to an auxiliary verb which is itself not contracted.

we're /wɪər/ or /wɛər/ is, in most cases, pronounced differently from were /wɜr/.

informal, as in "What's he do there every day?"

-'s

has

have

-'ve

had

did

-'d

informal, as in "Where'd she go?"

would

will

-'ll

o'-

used mostly in o'clock, where it is mandatory in contemporary use

as in "cup o' coffee," "barrel o' monkeys," "Land o' Goshen," "lots o' luck"

't-

Archaic, except in stock uses such as 'Twas the night before Christmas

them

'em

Actually from hem, which is not the same word as them, a Norse loan.[2][3]

you

y'-

Informal, as in "Where are y'all at?"

ALLOPHONE

In phonology, an allophone (/ˈæləfoʊn/; 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.[1] 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.

Derivation of words

In morphology, derivation is the process of creating a new word out of an old word, usually by adding a prefix or a suffix. Adjective: derivational. Linguist Geert Booij notes that one criterion for distinguishing derivation and inflection "is that derivation may feed inflection, but not vice versa. Derivation applies to the stem-forms of words, without their inflectional endings, and creates new, more complex stems to which inflectional rules can be applied"

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 English or -ize (final → finalize) 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) 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 can be contrasted with inflection, in that derivation produces a new word (a distinct lexeme), whereas inflection produces grammatical variants of the same word.

Generally speaking, inflection applies in more or less regular patterns to all members of a part of speech (for example, nearly every English verb adds -s for the third person singular present tense), while derivation follows less consistent patterns (for example, the nominalizing suffix -ity can be used with the adjectives modern and dense, but not with open or strong). However, it is important to note

that derivations and inflections can share homonyms, that being, morphemes that have the same sound, but not the same meaning. For example, when the affix -er, is added to an adjective, as in small-er, it acts as an inflection, but when added to a verb, as in cook-er, it acts as a derivation. Derivation can be contrasted with other types of word formation such as compounding. For full details see Word formation. Note that derivational affixes are bound morphemes – they are meaningful units, but can only normally occur when attached to another word. In that respect, derivation differs from compounding by which free morphemes are combined (lawsuit, Latin professor). It also differs from inflection in that inflection does not create new lexemes but new word forms (table → tables; open → opened).

Derivational patterns differ in the degree to which they can be called productive. A productive pattern or affix is one that is commonly used to produce novel forms. For example, the negating prefix un- is more productive in English than the alternative in-; both of them occur in established words (such as unusual and inaccessible), but faced with a new word which does not have an established negation, a native speaker is more likely to create a novel form with un- than with in-. The same thing happens with suffixes. For example, if comparing two words Thatcherite and Thatcherist, the analysis shows that both suffixes -ite and -ist are productive and can be added to proper names, moreover, both derived adjectives are established and have the same meaning. But the suffix -ist is more productive and, thus, can be found more often in word formation not only from proper names.

LINKING WORDS

Linking words and phrases are used to show relationships between ideas. They can be used to join 2 or more sentences or clauses (a clause is a group of words which contains a subject and a verb). Linking words/phrases can be used to add ideas together, contrast them, or show the reason for something.

Adding ideas and information Also This is used to give more information or ideas. It can be put at the beginning of a sentence, or between the subject and the verb. We are unable to repair this watch. Also, this is the fourth time this has happened. I want to be an astronaut. I also want to be a biologist. What should I do?

Besides/Besides this/Besides that This is usually placed at the beginning of a sentence. It is used to make an additional point.

Traffic congestion is a problem in my city. Besides this, the trains are very expensive. I can't afford to go to the concert. Besides, I don't really like classical music.

As well as this/that This is very similar to besides/besides this/besides that . It is usually placed at the beginning of a sentence. It is used to make an additional point. My boss is the only other person who sells the watches. As well as that, he might blame me. We went to the park today. As well as that, we did some shopping.

As and since are used to introduce the reason for something. They are similar in meaning and use to 'because'. They can be placed at the beginning of the sentence, or in the middle. As As the watch you have returned is not genuine, we are unable to repair it.

We are unable to repair the watch you have returned as it is not genuine. Since Since the watch you have returned is not genuine, we are unable to repair it. We are unable to repair the watch you have returned since it is not genuine. Consequently and as a consequence are linking words which link reasons with results. They are common in formal writing. Consequently This is the fourth time that this has happened and, consequently, we can't accept further watches from you. This is the fourth time that this has happened. Consequently, we can't accept further watches from you. As a consequence This is the fourth time that this has happened and, as a consequence, we can't accept further watches from you. This is the fourth time that this has happened. As a consequence , we can't accept further watches from you.

Despite and in spite of These are followed by nouns or gerunds (verb + 'ing'). They are notfollowed by clauses (subject + verb). Despite losing the match, the team were happy with their efforts. In spite of the lost match , the team were happy. (meaning: they lost the match but they were happy anyway) If you want to use a clause with despite and in spite of, you need to add 'the fact that '. Despite the fact that they lost the match, the team were still happy.

In spite of the fact that they lost , the team were still happy. While and whereas are used to contrast two opposite ideas in onesentence . These words can be placed at the beginning of the sentence or in the middle. While London is exciting, it is much too busy. Life in the city is fast, whereas life in the countryside is slow.

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' â&#x2020;&#x2019; 'gonna': an elision that is not a contraction; 'can not' â&#x2020;&#x2019; 'cannot': a contraction that is not an elision). Even though the effort that it takes to pronounce a word does not hold any influence in writing, a word or phrase may be spelled the same as it is spoken, for example, in poetry or in the script for a theatre play, in order to show the actual speech of a character. It may also be used in an attempt to transcribe

non-standard speech. Some kinds of elisions (as well as other phonological devices) are commonly used in poetry in order to preserve a particular rhythm.

In some languages employing the Latin alphabet, such as English, the omitted letters in a contraction are replaced by an apostrophe (e.g., isn't for is not). Greek, which does not use the Latin alphabet but instead uses the Greek alphabet, marks elisions in the same way.

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 nonnative English speakers, or to emphasize a word within the contraction (e.g. "I am going!")

ELLIPSIS

is a series of dots (typically three, such as "â&#x20AC;Ś") that usually indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning.

The Modern Language Association (MLA), however, used to indicate that an ellipsis must include spaces before and after each dot in all uses. If an ellipsis is meant to represent an omission, square brackets must surround the ellipsis to make it clear that there was no pause in the original quote: [ . . . ].

Currently, the MLA has removed the requirement of brackets in its style handbooks. However, some maintain that the use of brackets is still correct because it clears confusion. An ellipsis is a set of three periods ( . . . ) indicating an omission. Each period should have a single space on either side, except when adjacent to a quotation mark, in which case there should be no space.

In informal writing, an ellipsis can be used to represent a trailing off of thought. If only she had . . . Oh, it doesn’t matter now. An ellipsis can also indicate hesitation, though in this case the punctuation is more accurately described as suspension points. I wasn’t really . . . well, what I mean . . . see, the thing is . . . I didn’t mean it. Like the exclamation point, the ellipsis is at risk of overuse.

Ellipses are most useful when working with quoted material. There are various methods of deploying ellipses; the one described here is acceptable for most professional and scholarly work. It is rarely necessary to use ellipsis points at the beginning of a quotation, even if the quotation begins mid-sentence. It is also usually acceptable to change the capitalization of the first word of the quotation to match the surrounding material. (When a change in capitalization

must be acknowledged, you should use brackets, as explained here.) When a quotation is included within a larger sentence, do not use ellipsis points at the beginning or end of the quoted material, even if the beginning or end of the original sentence has been omitted. When a quotation is placed at the end of a sentence, but the quoted material is only part of a larger sentence, authorities differ on the use of ellipsis points. The Chicago Manual of Style allows the use of a sentence-terminating period; the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers requires ellipsis points.

MINIMAL PAIRS

A minimal pair is a pair of words that vary by only a single sound, usually meaning sounds that may confuse English learners, like the /f/ and /v/ in fan and van, or the /e/ and /ÉŞ/ in desk and disk. 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.

Phonemic differentiation may vary between different dialects of a language, so that a particular minimal pair in one accent is a pair of homophones in another. This does not necessarily mean that one of the phonemes is absent in the homonym accent; merely that it is not contrastive in the same range of contexts. In addition to the minimal pairs of vowels and consonants provided above, others may be found: Many languages show contrasts between long and short vowels and consonants. A distinctive difference in length is attributed by some phonologists to a unit called a chroneme. Thus in Italian we find the following minimal pair based on long and short /l/, However, in such a case it is not easy to decide whether a long vowel or consonant should be treated as having an added chroneme, or should simply be treated as a geminate sound, i.e. as two phonemes.

English speakers are able to hear the difference between, for example, “great ape” and “grey tape”, though phonemically the two phrases are identical: /ɡreɪteɪp/. The difference between the two phrases, which constitute a minimal pair, is said to be one of juncture. At the word boundary, a "plus juncture" /+/ is posited which is said to be the conditioning factor that results in “great ape” having an /eɪ/ diphthong shortened by pre-fortis clipping and a /t/ with little aspiration because it is not syllableinitial, whereas in “grey tape” the /eɪ/ has its full length and the /t/ is aspirated. Only languages which have allophonic differences associated with grammatical boundaries have juncture as a phonological element. It is claimed that French does not have that, so for example, “des petits trous” and “des petites roues” (phonemically both /depətitʁu/) are phonetically identical. Minimal pairs were an important part of the theory of pronunciation teaching during its development in the period of structuralist linguistics, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s, and minimal pair drills were widely used to train students to discriminate among the phonemes of the target language. However, later writers have criticized this approach as being artificial and lacking in relevance to language learners' needs. Some writers have claimed that learners are likely not to hear differences between phones if the difference is not a phonemic one. One of the objectives of contrastive analysis of languages' sound systems was to identify points of likely difficulty for language learners arising from differences in phoneme inventories between the native language and the target language. However, experimental evidence for this claim is hard to find, and the claim should be treated with caution.

REDUCTION (GRAMMAR INFORMAL)

In phonology and historical linguistics, cluster reduction is the simplification of consonant clusters in certain environments or over time. In some dialects of English such as AAVE certain historical consonant clusters reduce to single consonants at the ends of words: friend rhymes with Ben, and cold is homophonous with coal. In both cases, a historical cluster of homorganic consonants loses a stop: /ˈfrɛn/, /ˈkoʊl/ However, in colder, where the consonant cluster falls between vowels, the /d/ remains: /ˈkoʊldɚ/. The similar word-final reduction of */mb/ to /m/ and */ŋɡ/ to /ŋ/ is complete in standard English (e.g. lamb, long), as it is in many other Germanic languages (e.g. Swedish lamm, lång).

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.

In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for Creek language), and which are perceived as "weakening". It most often makes the vowels shorter as well.

Reduced vowels in the close unrounded area[edit] In some dialects of English there is a distinction between two vowel heights of reduced vowels: in addition to schwa, there is a distinct near-close central unrounded vowel [ɪ] (or equivalently [ɨ]). In the British phonetic tradition, the latter vowel is represented with the symbol /ɪ/, and in the American tradition /ɨ/. An example of a minimal pair contrasting these two reduced vowels is Rosa’s vs. roses: the a in Rosa's is a schwa, while the e in roses (for speakers who make the distinction) is the near-close vowel. See weak vowel merger.

This vowel is sometimes informally referred to as schwi in analogy with schwa. The letter a is pronounced [ɪ] in many words, for example, message [ˈmɛsɪdʒ], climate [ˈklaɪmɪt], orange [ˈɔɹɪndʒ] etc.

Among speakers who make this distinction, the distributions of schwa and [ɪ] are quite variable, and in many cases the two are in free variation: the i in decimal, for example, may be pronounced with either sound. A symbolization convention recently introduced by Oxford University Press for some of their English dictionaries uses the non-IPA "compound" symbol ⟨ᵻ⟩ (ɪ) in words that may be pronounced with either [ɪ] or schwa. For example, the word noted may be transcribed [ˈnəʊtᵻd]. The final vowel of words like happy and coffee is a reduced front close unrounded vowel most commonly represented with [i], although some dialects (including more traditional Received Pronunciation) may have [ɪ]. This [i] used to be identified with the phoneme /iː/, as in FLEECE. See happy tensing. However, some contemporary accounts regard it as a symbol representing a close front vowel that is neither the vowel of KIT nor that of FLEECE; it occurs in contexts where the contrast between these vowels is neutralized; these contexts include unstressed prevocalic position within the word, such as react [riˈækt]. For some speakers, however, there is a contrast between this vowel and /ɪ/ in such pairs as taxis vs. taxes and studied vs. studded. See English phonology – vowels in unstressed syllables.

The other sounds that can serve as the peak of reduced syllables are the syllabic consonants. When these occur, there is a syllable with no vowel. The consonants that can be syllabic in English are principally /l/, /m/ and /n/. For example, the le in cycle and bottle may be a syllabic /l/, the m in prism may be a syllabic /m/, and the on in prison may be a syllabic /n/. A syllabic consonant may be analyzed phonologically either as just the consonant, or as consisting of an underlying schwa followed by the consonant. For example, cycle may be phonemized as either /ˈsaɪkl/ or /ˈsaɪkəl/. When a syllabic consonant occurs, an alternative pronunciation is also possible. Like the le in cycle, some people pronounce the schwa and the dark l sound while some only pronounce the dark l.