Forel, Claire-a & Genoveva Puskas. 2005. Phoneticsand Phonology. University of Geneva Kreidler, Charles W. 2004. The Pronunciation of English. Australia: Blackwell Publishing. Mcmahon, April. 2002. An Introduction to English Phonology. Britain: Edinburgh University Press. Roach, Peter. English Phonetics and Phonology – A Practical Course. Cambridge: University Press. Skandera, Paul and Peter Burleigh. 2005. A Manualof…
Intonation is a fundamental property of spoken language. Because of its complexity, however, our discussion can only be considered a basic introduction to this field, which necessarily omits or abbreviates some aspects that a more comprehensive book would discuss at greater length. WHAT IS INTONATION? Linguists have found many different ways to characterise intonation, which is also…
Phonology describes the sound structure of a language; morphology describes the structure of words; and syntax describes the uses of words in phrases and sentences. To explain the place of stressed syllables in different words we need to consider facts about sounds, word forms, and syntactic classes. IS STRESS PREDICTABLE? In some languages the position…
WHAT IS A SYLLABLE? A syllable may be defined both phonetically and phonemically. Phonetically (that is, in relation to the way we produce it and the way it sounds), a syllable always contains a center which is relatively loud and which involves a little or no obstruction to air flow. Such a center may be…
VOWELS VERSUS CONSONANTS Several examples in the last chapter involved vowels: for instance, we found that there is free variation for some speakers between [i] and [ε] in economic, but that these two vowels nonetheless contrast, as shown by minimal pairs like pet – peat, or hell – heal. We also saw that the usual contrast of /eI /, /ε/ and /æ/ is…
1 WHAT’S INSIDE A PHONETIC SYMBOL? In fact, each IPA symbol is shorthand for a whole range of properties, and those properties explain how the particular segment being symbolized is pronounced; unpacking the black box for each sound reveals not a jumble, but an internal structure, and understanding that structure allows us to make comparisons…
One of the main difficulties a foreigner student may face when learning English pronunciation is the remarkable variety of accents. Like many other languages spoken in such a vast territory and by so many people, spoken English presents wide variation in pronunciation. In spite of that wide variation, three standard pronunciations are distinguished: (1) The…
Essentially all the sounds that we hear are the result of vibrations in the air around us. For practical purposes we limit our study of speech to the sounds that are made when air is expelled from the lungs and is modified in various ways as it moves upward and out of the body. The…
1 ARTICULATORS ABOVE THE LARYNX All the sounds we make when we speak are the result of muscles contracting. The muscles in the chest that we use for breathing produce the flow of air that is needed for almost all speech sounds; muscles in the larynx produce many different modifications in the flow of air from the…
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…