Limba Engleza Contemporana - Eduard Vlad (note de curs)

8/14/2019 Limba Engleza Contemporana - Eduard Vlad (note de curs)

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Universitatea “Ovidius”, Constanta

Facultatea de Litere si Teologie

Catedra de limba englezã

INVATAMANT LA DISTANTA

LIMBA ENGLEZA CONTEMPORANASemestrul I, anul I

PHONETICS, PHONOLOGY, VARIETIES OF

ENGLISH

Conf.univ.dr. Eduard Vlad



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Phonemic symbols used in the course

Long vowels

/i:/ in fee, sea, see /fi:, si:, si:/

/ Y:/ in smart, art, far

/smY:t, Y:t, f Y: /

/ ]:/ in cause, ought, more

/k ]:z, ]:t, m]:/

/u:/ in blue, flew, moo

/blu:, flu:, mu:/

/ f:/ in sir, dirt, earn

/sf:, df:t, f:n/

Short vowels

/ / in tip, in, very /tp, n, ‘ver /

/e/ in ten, pet, pleasure /ten, pen, ‘ple¬j /

/ : / in cat, Ann, happy /k : t, : n,

‘h : p /

/ ¥ / in up, but, young / ¥p, b¥t, j¥; /

/ a / in on, cop, Ross / an, k ap, ras/

/ ¤ / in good, put, pull /g¤d, p¤t, p¤l/

/ j / in painter, about, perhaps /’pentj,

j’baut, pj’haps/

Consonants

/p/ in pin, supper, up /pwwwwn, ‘s¥ ¥¥ ¥ pjjjj, ¥ ¥¥ ¥ p/

/b/ in bet, about, hub /bet, jjjj’baut, h¥ ¥¥ ¥ b/

/t/ in tick, apt, attic /twwwwk, ::::pt, ‘::::twwwwk/

/d/ in deed, add, addict /di:d, ::::d, ::::dwwwwkt/

/k/ in can, act, talk / k::::n, ::::kt, tdddd:k/

/g/ in game, again, log /gewwwwm, jjjj’gen, laaaag

/f/ in fine, off, often /fawwwwn, aaaaf, aaaafn/

/v/ in vain, over, of /vewwwwn, ‘jjjj¤¤¤¤viiii, iiiiv/

/s/ in seen, asset, cross /si:n, ‘::::set, kraaaas/

/z/ in zeal, easy, buzz /zi:l, ‘i:zwwww, b¥ ¥¥ ¥ z/

/ ¢¢¢¢ / in three, Kathy, path / ¢¢¢¢ri:, ‘k :::: ¢¢¢¢wwww, p`:¢¢¢¢ /

/ ð/ in they, other, breathe / ðewwww, ‘¥ ¥¥ ¥ ðjjjj, bri:ð/

/ M MM M / in ship, usher, finish / M MM Mwwwwp, ‘¥ ¥¥ ¥M MM Mjjjj, ‘f wwwwnwwwwM MM M / / WWWW / in pleasure, usually /’pleWWWWjjjj, ‘juWWWWujjjjlwwww /

/h/ in house, hen /haus, hen/

/t M MM M / in chin, each, itchy / t M MM Mwwwwn, i:t M MM M , ‘wwwwt M MM Mwwww /

/dWWWW / in gin, urge / dWWWWwwwwn, ŸŸŸŸ: dWWWW /



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/m/ in mine, hymn /mawwwwn, hwwwwm/

/n/ in name, sunny, one /newwwwm, ‘s¥ ¥¥ ¥ nwwww, w¥ ¥¥ ¥ n/

/ llll / in sing, think /sillll, ¢¢¢¢wwwwllllk/

/l/ in lane, alone, eel /lewwwwn, jjjjljjjj¤¤¤¤n, i:l/

/r/ in read, red, arrive /ri:d, red, jjjj’rawwwwv/

/w/ in we, suave, persuade /wi:, sw :v, pjjjj’swewwwwd/

/j/ in yes, queue, issue /jes, kju:, ‘wwwwsju:/

Slants / / are used for phonemic transcription, while brackets [ ] are used for phonetic

transcription.

PHONETICS, PHONOLOGY AND OTHER AREAS OF LANGUAGE

INVESTIGATION

Communication by means of sound signals is not the exclusive province of human

beings. All creatures are said to communicate with each other to attract each other’s

attention, to warn of danger, to give information about the availability of food, directions,

etc. Nevertheless, we humans have managed to pattern the sound continuum we canproduce to a remarkable extent and to come up with an unrivalled, extremely efficient and

articulate system of communication.

Phonetics and phonology are the branches of linguistic investigation that concern

themselves with the description and functioning of the speech sounds of languages. One has

to distinguish between the practically unlimited number of different sounds a human being

can produce and the sounds that have acquired a functional status in a particular language.

The latter are called phonemes.

Although the boundary between phonetics and phonology is hard to draw, the two

may be said to operate at various, distinct levels.

Phonetics has to do with the concrete characteristics of the phonemes in terms of

their articulation, transmission and perception. Accordingly it is further subdivided intoarticulatory, acoustic and auditory phonetics.

Articulatory phonetics deals with the way in which speech sounds are produced.

Sounds are usually classified according to the position of the lips, tongue, soft palate,

according to whether the air flow coming from the lungs is obstructed or not, whether the

vocal cords vibrate or not, etc.



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Acoustic phonetics studies the transmission of speech sounds through the air.

When a speech sound is articulated it produces sound waves, which are investigated by

means of various instruments.

Auditory phonetics deals with the hearing mechanism, describing how sounds are

perceived by the listener.

Phonology analyses sound structure in language, including the functional, phonemic

behaviour of the speech sounds, their combinatory possibilities, as well as such prosodic

features as rhythm, stress, intonation.

Phonetic and phonological investigations may be applied to specific languages or to

general linguistic phenomena. They may be conducted comparatively, with a view to

establishing what the speech sound systems of two or several languages have in common or

contrastively, to disclose differences and similarities that may prove useful in foreign

language teaching and learning. The study may be synchronic (an investigation of the

sound system of a language at a specific time) or diachronic (the system seen throughout

its historical development).

Apart from phonetics and phonology, a description of a language includes

information about the lexemes (vocabulary items), their meanings and relations. This area is

covered by lexicology.

Morphology provides information about the structure or forms of words, primarily

through the use of the morpheme construct. It is further divided into inflectional

morphology (the study of inflections) and derivational morphology (the study of word

formation).

While morphology studies word structure, syntax covers the rules governing the

way words are combined to form sentences in a language. It studies the interrelationships

between elements of sentence structure, and the arrangement of sentences in sequences.

Semantics investigates the way in which meaning is structured in a language at

various linguistic levels. In functional grammars, the boundary between semantics and

grammar 'proper' (traditionally, morphology and syntax) is blurred, grammar being pushed

in the direction of semantics.

Pragmatics is the study of the use of language in communication, particularly the

relationships between utterances and the contexts and situations in which they are used. It

may be contrasted with semantics, which deals with meaning without reference to the

interlocutors and communicative functions of sentences.

Starting from Saussure's terminology, most linguists have viewed language as being

analysable at the level of expression, corresponding to the signifiant , and the level of

content, corresponding to the signifié. At each level a further distinction is operated

between substance and form. A comprehensive description of a language will thus integrate

a phonetic (substance) and phonological (form) analysis of the expression level, a

semantic (substance) and syntactic (form) analysis of the content level, while also taking

into account contextual features of actual communicative events. Associating phonetics and phonology with the expression level may give the

impression that they deal with surface (superficial) phenomena only. In fact, they have to do

as much with the 'skin' of language as with its 'flesh and bones' and even its 'soul', as will be

seen later in the course.

Form and substance, as well as expression and content, are difficult to separate

completely, if at all, post-Saussurean linguistics has found out. Although it is sometimes



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useful to distinguish between phonetics (substance) and phonology (form), we will mainly

see them as closely interrelated. Therefore, more often than not, we will use the term

phonetics as the inclusive term for both phonetics proper and phonology.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

The way in which we acquire our native language and the manner we adopt to learn

a foreign language are usually very different. The difficulty many foreign language learners

experience is mainly due to that.

A child is exposed to the sound system of his native language for many months

before he actually starts using it properly. Expression is mastered before content, to use the

terms mentioned previously. A learner of a foreign language has already acquired the

phonological system of his own language, as well as a great number of words and linguistic

patterns. He will have the tendency to concentrate on lexis and grammar first, considering

them essential, and taking pronunciation more or less for granted. As a result, accuracy and

fluency in speech are likely to suffer, many learners feeling apprehensive about freely

communicating in the foreign language.

One of the lessons to be derived is that the sound system of the foreign language

should be thoroughly focused on from the very beginning and that constant oral practice is a

must at all levels of study. Foreign language learners do not usually benefit from the almost

round-the-clock exposure that young children acquiring their native language do; moreover,

they are hampered and misled by the peculiarities of their own phonological system. Their

success in the learning of another language depends on their consciously developing a fine

ear for the foreign sounds and the articulatory skills needed for their imitation. This can be

achieved by the familiarisation with a number of sound features, contrasts, phenomena that

phonetics and phonology make explicit.More than the foreign language learner, the teacher must have sufficient information

about the way speech sounds are produced by the organs of speech, about the differences

between the phonological systems of the foreign and native language of the students he

works with. He will have to use elements of articulatory phonetics to teach learners how to

pronounce ‘difficult sounds’; he will do that contrastively, concentrating on the differences

between the native and the foreign phonological systems.

Apart from foreign language teaching and learning, phonetics is also used in the

treatment of certain speech defects, in teaching delivery to actors and singers, in the

elaboration of alphabets for languages lacking one, etc.



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VARIETIES OF ENGLISH; ACCENTS AND DIALECTS

Although we sometimes claim to speak a common language, be it English or Romanian,

each of us speaks a distinct variety, a certain idiolect. This does not prevent us from

understanding each other, as variation is kept within reasonable limits. For purposes of

analysis, we will leave out individual variation and will concentrate on varieties whose

features are shared by a large number of speakers.

Any use of language involves variation due to a large number of factors, the most

important of which pertaining to region, social group, field of discourse, medium and

attitude. Before dealing with the first two types, we will only touch on the last three.

Variation according to field of discourse is conspicuous when we distinguish

between the language of journalism and the language of cooking recipes, between political

language and poetic language, etc. Members of a certain profession develop their own

jargon, a term which is typically not used by the members of the profession but by those

unfamiliar with that particular type of language, and/or by those who dislike it.

The varieties according to medium may be restricted to those conditioned by writing

and speaking. Writing normally presumes the absence of the addressee and of a common

context of situation. This imposes the necessity of a far greater explicitness. Writing also

lacks many of the devices we use to transmit language by speech and that we will study

later in the course: stress, rhythm, intonation, tempo. As a consequence writers often have

to reformulate their sentences to successfully convey what they want to express within the

orthographic system.

Varieties according to attitude are due to the choice of linguistic form that proceeds

from our attitude to the interlocutor, to the topic, and to the purpose of our communication.

A gradient between formal (polite, impersonal) and informal (warm, friendly) language can

be established.

Dialects are varieties of a language spoken in certain parts of a country (regional

dialects) or by people belonging to particular social classes (social dialects or sociolects).

They are different from each other in terms of lexis, grammar and pronunciation. If

somebody says I be ready and somebody else says I am ready, the two persons may be said

to speak two different dialects, as there is a difference in grammar between the two

utterances.

Geographical dispersion is in fact the classic basis for linguistic variation, and in the

course of time, with poor communication and relative remoteness, such dispersion results in

dialects becoming so distinct that we regard them as different languages. This latter stage

was long ago reached with the original Germanic dialects that are now Dutch, English,

German, Swedish, but it has not been reached with the dialects of English that have resulted

from the regional dispersion and separation of communities within the British Isles and

elsewhere in the world. Within the English-speaking world, on the contrary, we arewitnessing now a narrowing of the differences between the national varieties of English.

A dialect is often associated with a particular accent. Accents are varieties based on

pronunciation peculiarities only. Although region is what they are mainly dependent on,

social class, age and educational background also leave their mark.



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There are many different accents in England, and the range becomes much wider if

the accents of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland and Wales are included in

Britain and with Northern Ireland form the United Kingdom) are also considered. Within

the accents of England, the main distinction is made between northern and southern ones.

This is a very broad division, and where the boundary between them lies is hard to settle

with any certainty. Nevertheless, on hearing a pronunciation typical of someone from

Yorkshire, for example, most English people would identify it as ‘Northern’.

Some people are very good at identifying accents. There have been radio shows in

which experts have tried to identify the regional background of the people who phoned in,

just from their voices. However, Professor Higgins’s claim to place any man within six

miles, sometimes within two streets is intenable today. This is due to the mobility of the

Britons nowadays: it is very unlikely for people to live their whole lives in one place, and

mixed accents have become widespread.

Attitudes that native speakers adopt to certain accents of English vary considerably.

For us Romanians it might seem strange that rural accents should be viewed more

favourably in England than those of large urban areas such as Birmingham or Liverpool.

RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION AND STANDARD BRITISH ENGLISH

RP (Received Pronunciation) is the name given to the regionally neutral accent in

British English, historically deriving from the prestige speech of the Court in the sixteenth

century and of the public schools in the nineteenth. In this phrase, ‘received’ is said to come

either from ‘received at court’ or from the now old-fashioned sense of ‘generally accepted’.

The term RP indicates that its prestige is the result of social factors, not linguisticones. RP is in no sense linguistically superior or inferior to other accents. However, it is the

accent which tends to be associated with the better-educated parts of society, and is the one

most often invoked as a norm for the description of British English, or for its teaching to

foreigners. It is connected to, or equated with, ‘The Queen’s English’

The BBC originally adopted RP for its announcers because it was the form of

pronunciation most likely to be nationally understood, and to attract least regional criticism

- hence the association of RP with the phrase ‘BBC English’. RP was considered to apply,

at the beginning of the century (the term was first used by Daniel Jones in 1926), to

speakers of ‘Oxford’ or ‘BBC’ English and implied not only certain vowel and consonant

qualities, but also a noticeable upper class voice quality. According to Gillian Brown

(1990), the situation is different today. People whose vowel qualities differ slightly fromthose favoured by Daniel Jones may be considered to speak with an RP accent if their

vowels are distributed like those of RP - if they pronounce a given vowel that is quite like

an RP vowel in the same set of words in which other RP speakers use this vowel.

About 5% of the Britons are said to speak RP, which is more or less the percentage

of the people that have attended public schools. The accent of a rather exclusive group,





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NON-RP VARIETIES IN GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Cockney. This accent has long been socially marked as the variety of English

spoken mainly by the working-class Greater London. To get rid of this accent was

considered desirable if one wanted to succeed professionally and socially, and Professor

Higgins’ assiduous attempts to teach Cockney-born Eliza Doolittle how to speak properly

in Shaw’s Pygmalion are well-known.

Cockney speakers are likely to pronounce bad as /bed/ or /beid/, flood as /flæid/,

pity as /piti:/, Katie as /kaiti:/ or /kæiti:/, home as /hæum/. Glottalization (see appendix) is

widely spread in Cockney, accompanying or even replacing such consonants as /p/, /k/ and

/t/ in sack, Gatwick, chapter. On the other hand, in positions where /p, t, k/ are subject to

aspiration (see appendix for aspiration), the phenomenon is more pronounced than in

RP.The sound /h/ is absent in he, hospital, horrible. While the contrast between /ð/ and /v/

is usually lost, weather being pronounced /wevj /, the one between / θ / and /f/ is completely

lost: three is pronounced /fri:/. The Cockney equivalent of the RP dark l in postvocalic,

preconsonantal and syllable-final positions is realized as a vowel: milk is therefore

pronounced as /mi:wk/, table as /tæibw/. -Ing in raining, sleeping will be pronounced as

/in/: /ræinin/ and /sli:pin/.

Estuary English. Estuary English is a variety of modified regional speech. It is a

mixture of non-regional and local south-eastern English pronunciation and intonation.

According to David Rosewarne ( English Today, Oct.1994) it is a form of pronunciation

between Cockney, whose descendant it is, and RP. This accent is to be found in suburban

areas of Greater London and the counties of Essex and Kent lying to the north and south of

the Thames Estuary, which gives its name.

Estuary English inherited from Cockney glottalization, vocalic l and the lengthening

of short i in final position. RP /i:/ becomes a diphthong / ji:/ in sea. Diphthongization of

RP /u:/ is also to be noted: blue is pronounced as /blju:/. The /æ/ of Estuary English is less

open than that of RP and may be represented as a diphthong too: bad is pronounced /bæed/

or /bæid/. The RP diphthong in choice is replaced by a triphthong in Estuary English: /

t∫ awis/.

The intonation is characterised by frequent prominence given to prepositions and

auxiliary verbs which are not normally stressed in RP, while the vocabulary of EE speakers

evinces a strong influence of American English.

Since the term was coined in 1984, Estuary English has spread very quickly, MPs,

the Archbishop of Canterbury, some of the Royals using it either systematically or

occasionally. At the moment it is the strongest influence on RP. Though Rosewarne thinks

that Estuary English may eventually replace R.P. as the most influential accent in the

British Isles, it is hard to see it taking on an international role with anything like the current

prestige of R.P.



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The Northern Accents. The most noticeable differences from RP are to be noted in

the north, including the Midlands. The line between north and south is hard to draw with

any accuracy. Some trace it relatively low, somewhere near above London. The phrase

‘south/north of Watford’ is used to refer to such a linguistic line (Watford is a small town

north of London). However, a more rigorous scrutiny of the way The Great Vowel Shift

affected various areas of England would indicate as a more adequate boundary between the

north and the south a line running from the river Ribble in the west to the river Humber in

the east.

Some of the counties of northern England are not far from Scotland, whose

influence is therefore noticeable. However, there are a lot of pronunciation features which

are typical only of northern English regions.

The vowel / ¥ / does not usually occur in the northern accents (North-east, Central

north, Central Lancashire, Merseyside, Humberside, North-west Midlands, East Midlands,

West Midlands): blood, gloves, lovely are pronounced /blud/, /gluvz/, /luvli/. The RP / ¥ / of

come is usually replaced by a rounded vowel in the area of /o/ in some northern areas. As

for RP / Y:/, it is replaced by /æ/ before the voiceless fricatives /f, θ, s/: dance, path, past are

pronounced /dæns, pæθ, pæst/ (as a matter of fact, only three of the thirteen English accents

mentioned above observe the RP / Y:/ in that position ).

The closing diphthongs of crate, boat have a tendency to be turned intomonophthongs (/kre:t/, bo:t/) or even opening diphthongs: /kriet, buot/. In some northern

areas (e.g. Newscastle), /l/ is clear in all positions, /ai/ is /ei/ in right, sight, and RP /au/

turns into /u:/: out is pronounced /u:t/.

Scottish English. This variety is either seen as a dialect of English or as a national

variant, the latter view being much in keeping with the latest tendencies to achieve greater

autonomy and self-determination for Scotland.

The short ‘quantum leap’ into the past in the lines below may shed some light on the

position and development of this important variety of English. Going as far back as the Old

English period (7th

– 11th

centuries), we will find Scotland as Celtic-speaking (the variety

known as Gaelic). At the end of this period, however, as a result of the Norman Conquest,

many English noblemen took refuge in the southern part of Scotland. The migration wasencouraged by several Scots kings, who granted land to the refugees in the new royal estates

known as burhs (e.g. Edinburgh). These areas were predominantly English-speaking, the

language of the new settlers gradually spreading through the whole lowlands region, while

Gaelic remained strong in the Highlands. Scottish English became more and more different

from the varieties spoken in England, mainly in lexis and pronunciation, the differences

being very marked today.

Contemporary Scottish English is still rhotic, preserving post-vocalic /r/, which is a

flap resembling Romanian /r/; as a result, /ij /, /ej /, / f:/, /uj / do not occur: peer, pear,

moor, hurt are pronounced /pir/, /per/, /mur/, /h¥rt/. The difference between long and short

vowels is not important in this variety of English, so there is no difference between cot and

caught, pull and pool. Initial /p/, /t/, /k/ are usually non-aspirated, while /l/ is clear in allpositions. A specific Scottish characteristic is the pronunciation of / θr/ as / ∫ r/: through / ∫ ru:/.

The diphthong /au/ is usually replaced by /u:/ in house /hu:s/, or rather Scottish English has

preserved a feature which English lost during the Great Vowel Shift (i.e., through the

diphthongisation of /u:/). Similarly, the diphthong in RP road, note is replaced by a

monophthong: /ro:d/, /no:t/ (or, again, it is a feature which was preserved in Scottish



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English and lost in English English). One more Scottish feature is the pronunciation of

father as /fæðjr/.

Scottish English uses unstressed syllables with vowel qualities that are much more

distinct than in RP and therefore having noticeably longer unstressed vowels. This,

combined with the effect of the stressed vowels that are much shorter than in RP, leads to

the impression of Scottish English being a ‘syllable-timed’ variety (see stress and rhythm).

Northern Ireland English. This variety bears a considerable resemblance to

Scottish English, as a large number of settlers have come from Scotland to Northern Ireland

since the 17th century. Areas of the far north are more heavily influenced by Scottish

accents.

This is, like American English and Scottish English, a rhotic variety, post-vocalic

retroflex frictionless sonorant /r/ being used like in America. In all positions /l/ tends to be

clear, intervocalic /t/ is usually a voiced flap like in American English: city /sidi:/. Between

vowels /ð/ may be lost: mother is pronounced /mo:jr/. In final position, RP diphthong /ei/ is

replaced in this variety by a long monophthong: say, may /se:, me:/. In preconsonant

position, /ei/ may be replaced by the diphthong /ie/: state /stiet/. On the other hand, the

diphthong /ei/, which is reduced to a monophthong in the examples above, is used instead

of the RP /i:/ in speak, weak. RP /e/ is replaced by a more open vowel sound close to /æ/ in

Derry and merry. In words like hop, off , the vowel sound is very close to RP /æ/: /hæp/,

/æf/.

Like in Scottish English and in northern British varieties, the diphthong / ju/ is

monophthongised, words like boat, soul being pronounced /bo:t/ and /so:l/.

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH OUTSIDE THE BRITISH ISLES

American English, General American. It is obvious that in a huge country like the

U.S.A. pronunciation cannot be homogeneous. Three main varieties have emerged, gaining

a prominent status: the Eastern type, the Southern type and General American. The latter is

considered to be the pronunciation standard of the country. It is mainly spoken in the central

Atlantic states: New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and it is widely used in scientific,

cultural and business circles, on the radio and TV.

General American (GA) is a rhotic variety of English. In final word position, in

words like more, car , /r/ is consonantal and non-syllabic: /mor, kar/. After a vowel and

before a consonant, /r/ is vocalic and syllabic: bird may be rendered as /brd/. The RP

centring diphthongs / j, ej, ¤j / have as American counterparts /ir, er, ur/ in beer, bear,

boor /bir, ber, bur/, which is reminiscent of Scottish English. The final /r/ in these words is

retroflex and slightly lateralized, the air stream escaping along the sides of the tongue in a

channel formed between the back teeth and the tongue, like in the articulation of /l/.

One special feature of the vowels is their nasalization, when they occur after or

before nasal consonants (in words like now, smile). This nasalization is commonly called



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American twang. The vowel /e/ is more open in GA than in RP, and final /i/ is realized as

/i:/ in pity, sunny, etc. The short vowel in hot, not is noticeably more open in GA, being

pronounced as /a/: /hat, nat/. In words like soap, home, the diphthong is pronounced as

/ou/.Like in the northern British accents, words like path, dance, half are pronounced /pæθ,

dæns, hæf /. In all positions /l/ is dark, like in Russian. Intervocalic /t/ is usually voiced,

leading to the disappearance of the distinction between the pronunciation of words like

rider and writer. In words like twenty, bottle, /t/ is usually dropped altogether. Thus, the

distinction between winner and winter is also cancelled. The approximant /j/ is usually

omitted between a consonant and /u:/: suit, New York, stupid are pronounced /su:t, nu: jork, stu:pid/.

Canadian English. For anyone who is at all knowledgeable about Canada’s

position, history and economic relations, it is no wonder that this variety combines features

of both American and British English. One should not be surprised, for example, to see a

garage displaying signs with the word “tire” spelled the American way and “centre” spelled

the British way.

Unlike American varieties, Canadian English has a long vowel in been, and words

like missile, hostile rhyme with Nile. The prefixes anti-, multi-, semi- are pronounced with

/i:/, unlike in American English, where the pronunciation is with /ai/.

On the other hand, a lot of features are shared with the American accents: the

sounding of /r/ in all positions, the voicing of /t/ in intervocalic position and its frequent

dropping in words like Toronto (often pronounced /’tranou/).

One of the most distinctive features of Canadian English is the so called Canadian

Raising – the RP diphthongs /au/ and /ai/ are replaced by / ju/ and /oi/ in cloud and fight.

Australian English. According to Chitoran 1978, two main tendencies can be

found in this variety, as far as the vowel system is concerned:

a) the diphthongization of all monophthongs, mainly by adding a glide reaching towards

/ j /;b) the fronting of back vowels and the closing of open vowels.

Apart from these tendencies, RP diphthongs /ei/ and /ai/ are replaced by /ai/ and /oi/,: day is

pronounced /dai/ (feature inherited from Cockney) and height is pronounced /hoit/(see

Canadian English above).

In terms of intonation, a high rising tone (HRT) is probably the most noticeable

trait. What is special about it is the fact that in Australian English HRT occurs at the end of

a declarative utterance, not necessarily at the end of a Yes/no question/ interrogative. Guy

and Vonwiller (quoted in David Graddol et al. 1996) argue that this intonation peculiarity is

used in spoken texts that are complex in structure when the speaker wants to monitor the

listener. In order to check whether the listener is following what s/he is saying (in spoken

narrative texts and descriptions), the speaker resorts to HRT. In a conversational setting,

this tone may also have what the above-quoted authors call an ‘interactional’ meaning. A

speaker is likely to use HRT to indicate to his/her interlocutor that s/he is not ready to give

up her turn in the conversation, but that s/he is continuing with what s/he is saying. This



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special use is one illustration of the relevance of intonational features to conversationanalysis (see glossary).

ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF SPEECH PRODUCTION

In the production of speech sounds we make use of what are usually called the

speech organs. It goes without saying that the basic function of these organs is not speech,

but the physiological functions of breathing, eating and drinking. Parts of two organ

systems, the respiratory system and the upper part of the food tract are in charge of speech

sound production. Particularly closely linked are speech production and breathing, so much

so that the former is considered to be a supplementary activity to the latter, the whole

respiration apparatus being active in speaking.

The speech tract has three distinct sections according to the role these parts play in

speech production: I.the lungs,II. the larynx, and III.the resonating cavities.

I.The lungs supply the source of energy needed for the vocal activity. They are

situated within the thoracic cavity.

The thorax consists of the barrel-shaped rib structure which forms the sides of the

thoracic cage, of the associated muscles, and of the lung structure contained within it. There

are twelve paired ribs, attached at the back to the vertebral column (the backbone), and at

the front to the sternum (the breast-bone). The upper limit of the thoracic cage is formed at

the back by the scapulae (the shoulder blades) and by the clavicles (the collar bones) at the

front. The floor of the cage is made up of the diaphragm muscle.

By the raising or lowering of the d

iaphragm, which forms the base of the chest cavity, and by the contraction of the

intercostal muscles, the lungs are expanded or contracted, taking in air and then expelling

it. It is while we breathe out that the air-stream necessary for the production of speech

sounds is initiated. The rate of respiration ranges from 10 to 20 cycles (inspiration-

expiration) per minute.Our speech activity is largely determined by the physiological constraints imposed

by the limited capacity of our lungs and by the muscles controlling their action. We have to

pause in articulation to be able to refill our lungs with air and the number of energetic peaks

of exhalation which we make will determine the length of any breath group. Syllabic pulsesand dynamic stress, both typical of English, are directly linked to the activity of the muscles

activating the lungs.

II.The trachea (or windpipe) carries the air-stream from the lungs to the larynx, a

cartilage and muscle casing situated in the neck.



15

THE LARYNX

It is made up of the thyroid cartilage and the cricoid cartilage attached to the top of the

trachea. The front of the larynx comes to a point that is situated at the front of one’s neck,

prominent in males, commonly called the Adam’s apple. The glottis is the opening between

the two lip-like folds of ligament and muscle called the vocal cords. The glottis is opened

when the vocal cords are brought apart and closed then they are brought together. Thesemovements are controlled by the arytenoid cartilages. This sounds fairly simple, but

complex changes in the position of the vocal cords are involved in breathing, whispering

and normal speaking.

Acting as a valve, the vocal cords prevent the admission of foreign bodies into the

trachea; they can also obstruct the passage of the air-stream, enclosing it within the lungs in

order to assist in muscular effort on the part of the abdomen or of the arms. Apart from that,

they have such a decisive role in the production of speech sounds that they are said to be the

most important organ of the speech mechanism.

The inside of the larynx seen from above

In connection with breathing and speaking, the vocal cords (or vocal folds) can assume fourbasic positions:

a) They may be kept wide apart for normal breathing and while voiceless consonants like

/p/, /f/, /s/ are produced.

b) They are brought close to each other so that there is a narrow passage between them for

the air-stream to escape. The result is a voiceless glottal fricative sound, /h/, not very



16

different from a whispered vowel. When laughing, our vocal cords successively assume the

b) and c) position

( hahahaha).

c) When the edges of the vocal cords touch each other, air passing through the glottis will

cause vibration. This vibration occurs in the articulation of the vowels and of the voiced

consonants, as opposed to the articulation of the voiceless consonants, which is not

accompanied by vowel-cord vibrations. The vibratory movement is not at all like the

vibration of the string of a musical instrument, and the vocal cords are not at all similar to

the strings of a musical instrument, either. What actually happens is that the air is pressed

from the lungs and it pushes a little the vocal cords apart, so that some air escapes. As the

air flows quickly past the edges of the vocal cords, the cords are made to vibrate, tending to

return to their closed position on the one hand, being pushed open on the other. This

opening and closing happens very rapidly around two hundred times per second or more.

The higher the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords is, the higher the pitch of voice.

d) The vocal cords can be tightly pressed together so that air is prevented from escaping

through the glottis. As a result of the compression of the air-stream behind this closure, a

glottal stop or glottal plosive is produced, for which the symbol / / is used. When coughing,

we usually produce a succession of glottal stops.

The glottal stop often occurs in English when it reinforces or even replaces the

voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/. Glottalisation of this latter kind is particularly marked with the

younger generations in contemporary British English.

A glottal stop also precedes the energetic articulation or a vowel: æ in /ri’ækt/ is

usually pronounced /ri’ækt/. Foreign learners feel like inserting a glottal stop before each

word beginning with a vowel: / it iz nau /, a tendency to be resisted.

The four basic positions of the glottis

III.The resonating cavities are located above the larynx, that is why they are also called the

supraglottal cavities. Having passed through the larynx, the air goes through what is also

called the vocal tract , which ends at the mouth and nostrils. These cavities of the vocal tract

function as the resonators of the laryngeal tone produced by the vocal cords. This tone is







19

ARTICULATORY COORDINATES FOR THE DESCRIPTION OF SPEECH

SOUNDS

We have briefly surveyed the modifications which are made to the original air-stream by the

speech mechanism extending from the lungs to the oral and nasal cavity. In order to

describe an English speech sound, some basic information is required on:

1.the action of the vocal cords, i.e., whether the glottis is closed, wide apart, or vibrating;

2. the position of the soft palate, according to which sounds will be oral, nasal, or nasalised;

3. the disposition of the movable mouth organs, ie the shape of the lips and tongue, as well

as the manner and place of articulation of the consonant sounds.

Thus, English /d/ will be described as a voiced (the vowel cords vibrating during its

production), oral (released through the mouth, with the soft palate raised), apico-alveolar (the articulator being the apex of the tongue, the alveolar ridge being the place of

articulation), plosive consonant. These criteria of description and classification of speech

sounds will become more detailed when we deal with more specific classes, such as vowels

and consonants.

VOWELS AND CONSONANTS, VOCOIDS AND CONTOIDS

Etymologically, a vowel is a voiced sound, while a consonant is a sound that goes

with another sound to form a syllable (Chitoran, 1978). Daniel Jones (1957) gives the

following definition: ‘A vowel is a voiced sound in forming which the air issues in a

continuous stream through the pharynx and mouth, there being no obstruction and no

narrowing such as would cause audible friction. All other sounds are called consonants.’

Baudouin de Courtenay discovered a physiological distinction between vowels andconsonants; according to him, in consonant articulation, the muscular tension is

concentrated at one point, which is the place of articulation; in vowel articulation, the

muscular tension is spread over all the speech organs.

We can say that the most important difference between vowels and consonants does

not lie in the way they are made, but in their different distributions. Difficulties arise, for

example, when one has to classify sounds such as /j/ , /w/ or /r/. They are articulated very

much like vowels but function as consonants in English (incidentally, a sound similar to

English /r/ functions as a vowel in Chinese).

The American linguist Pike (1943) therefore suggested that the terms vowel and

consonants should be confined to phonology, where the distinction is based on the linguistic

function of sounds, and that new terms should be provided for an articulatory classification.The terms he came up with were contoid and vocoid. Thus, for example, the above-

mentioned /w/ would be described as a consonant in phonological (functional) terms and as

a vocoid in phonetic (articulatory) terms.

Sounds of the consonant type will be classified, resuming some of the criteria

previously mentioned, as voiced or voiceless, oral or nasal. As far as place of articulation is



20

concerned, they are bilabial (articulated with the lips pressed together), labio-dental (lower

lip against upper teeth), apico-dental (apex against the teeth), apico-alveolar (apex against

the alveolar ridge), post-alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal. In terms of manner of articulation, consonants are classified according to the type of obstruction met by the air-

stream in their production and the way the air-stream is released. If the air is released

suddenly, it produces plosives or stops. If released slowly, affricates are produced.

Fricatives are produced as a result of a narrowing of the air passage that causes friction.

When a partial closure is produced and the air is released laterally, a lateral sound is

produced. Certain sounds, the ‘double agents’ mentioned a little previously (/w/,/r/,/j/) will

be classed as approximants; in terms of production, one can say that the articulator and the

place of articulation only ‘approximate’ a closure, without fully achieving it ( /w/ and /j/

used to be traditionally classified as semi-vowels). On the other hand, in their production,

the tongue may be said to act more as a modifier of the shape of the oral cavity than as an

articulator proper (mention should be made that we are concerned here with the English /r/,

not any kind of /r/). Finally, consonantal sounds are classified according to the force of articulation. Some of the speech sounds are produced with an attendant tenseness of the

speech organs, while the others are not. The former are called fortis, the latter lenis.

Sounds of the vowel type will be described according to

-the part of the tongue which is raised and the degree of raising;

-the position of the lips: the degrees of spreading and/or rounding mentioned previously;

-the duration and degree of muscular tension; vowel sounds are not so much long or short

as tense and lax, the muscles of the tongue being tense in the articulation of the so-called

long vowels and lax in the articulation of the short ones;

-the constancy of articulation; we distinguish between monophthongs or simple vowels,

which remain relatively constant, and diphthongs which imply a distinct change; the

situation is not as simple as that, though, as long vowels have a tendency towards

diphthongisation with some speakers, while diphthongs tend to be monophthongised in

rapid speech.

PHONEMES AND ALLOPHONES, PHONEMIC AND PHONETIC

TRANSCRIPTION

Writing, with its discrete units, the letters, gives us the misleading impression that,

when speaking, we produce a series of distinct, isolated sounds. Actually we produce a

continuum, a stream of sound. In studying speech, we divide this stream into segments.

Each of these segments can be articulated in slightly different ways. Not only are there

differences between the realization of the ‘same’ sound by different speakers; the same

person is likely to pronounce the ‘same’ sound slightly differently each time he produces it.

The range of sounds we produce is practically unlimited. Yet we say that, for example,there are 24 consonant phonemes and 20 vowel phonemes in the sound system of English.

To arrive at the total phonemic inventory of a language one does not have to pay

attention to all the possible differences among the practically unlimited number of sounds

one can articulate. It is sufficient to take into account those variations between different



21

sounds that are linguistically relevant, that are associated with changes of meaning in a

particular language.

If we ask for /bære/ instead of /bere/ in a Romanian pub, we are bound to be

understood, which means that the bartender takes /æ/ for a realization of the phoneme /e/.

The pronunciation /ðor/ will probably be ‘deciphered’ as /zor/. We say that /æ/ and /ð/ are

not phonemes in Romanian: if we hear these sounds in our language, we are bound to

ascribe them, as special realisations, to the phonemes /e/ and /z/. Yet in English the sounds

/æ/ and /e/, /ð/ and /z/ are distinct phonemes, since the substitution of /æ/ for /e/ and of /ð/

for /z/ may lead to different words: bad - bed, ten - then. The pairs of words which are told

apart by one phoneme only are called minimal pairs: part - cart, tip - tin, sin - thin, and the

operation through which we find out the differing phonemes is called the commutation test. The final /l/ sound in wheel is definitely different from the initial /l/ sound in line,

yet we perceive the two sounds as variants of the same phoneme. We say that the ‘dark l’ in

wheel and the ‘clear l’ in line are the allophones of a class, the phoneme /l/. Therefore, a

phoneme is not an actual sound, but a class of phonetically similar (not identical) sounds,

called its allophones. A phoneme has the function of telling words apart. As for its

allophones, or variants, they may be due to free variation or to complementary distribution.

Free variation refers to the slight changes in the production of the ‘same’ sound in a

certain position by the same speaker or by different speakers. It has already been said that

we can’t produce exactly the same sound twice, and other speakers will also vary in their

realizations, although our articulations may be considered to be the same speech sound in a

certain language: ðare and zare as extreme cases of free variation are perceived as

‘identical’ in the phonological system of our language, because they do not affect meaning.

In wheel and l ine, the allophones of /l/ are said to be in complementary distribution:

a ‘dark l’ will not be found in the position of ‘clear l’, they are complementary in their

distribution in words. So are the aspirated allophone of /t/ in time and the almost unreleased

allophone at the end of cu p (here, unreleased p may even be replaced by a glottal stop).

We can now complete the definition of the phoneme, saying that it is an abstraction,

the minimal unit of the phonological system of a language. It is a class of phonetically

similar sounds, found in complementary distribution or in free variation. A phoneme tells

words apart in a certain language.In rendering pronunciation either phonemic or phonetic transcription can be used.

In a phonemic transcription (please note that in current usage you will hear and read

about phonetic transcription when the meaning is phonemic transcription), only the

phonemes are given symbols. The pronunciation of cat will be rendered as /kæt/ in

phonemic transcription, no specific information being given about its allophones.

Different degrees of allophonic detail can be introduced in phonetic transcription.

Thus, the above-mentioned cat will appear as [k hæt]. This more detailed transcription

shows that the allophone of /k/ in this word is an aspirated allophone, [k h]. Note that in

phonemic or broad transcription we use oblique brackets, or slants, / /, while square

brackets, [ ], are employed in phonetic transcription (or narrow). In narrow (with the

meaning of detailed ), phonetic transcription one can use different small symbols anddiacritic signs to show aspiration, palatalization, devoicing, nasalization, etc. In

dictionaries, phonemic transcription is commonly used, although we sometimes improperly

call it phonetic. We sometimes use a combination of phonemic transcription, writing the

phonemes of a word, and phonetic, adding information about one single allophone, as in the

above-mentioned example, [k hæt].





23

Cardinal vowel 1 shows an ideal position in which the front of the tongue is raised as much

as possible, while cardinal vowel 5 would be articulated with the extreme back of the

tongue lowered as much as possible in the mouth. Cardinal vowel 1 is the most close and

front, whereas number 5 is the most open and back. In between open and close, we get the

intermediate positions half-close - [e] and [o], and half-open - [ε] and []].

Once again, we must remember that these constructs are not actual sounds, but

extremes of vowel quality that provide us with a way of describing, classifying and

comparing vowels. For example, we can say that the English vowel [æ] is not as open as

cardinal vowel 4, [a], and more open than cardinal vowel 3, [ε].

Besides the variables of vowel quality based on which part of the tongue is raised

and the degree of raising, another important factor in the description of vowels is lip-

rounding. We are going to consider three basic positions:

a) rounded lips - for the pronunciation of primary cardinal vowel [u];

b) spread lips - in the articulation of primary cardinal vowel [i];

c) the neutral position of the lips assumed to pronounce [j].

Now, using these factors, we can proceed to describe the English vowel phonemes,

placing them against the background of the Cardinal Vowel Chart.

THE ENGLISH SHORT VOWELS: /i/, /e/, /æ/, / ¥ /, / a /, / υ /

Short vowels are only relatively short; as we shall see later, sometimes what we call a

‘short’ vowel can have the same length as a long vowel, or it can even be longer. We may

say that English vowels are roughly divided into short and long, but in certain contexts

short vowels are lengthened and long ones are shortened, the difference between them being

not so much one of length as of tenseness or laxness, concepts introduced a little earlier.

7 wwww QQQQ

e

:::: ¥ ¥¥ ¥ aaaa



24

The English short vowels described in relation to the primary cardinal vowels

/ wwww / in ‘pit’, ‘sin’, ‘fish’.

Although this vowel is in the close front area, compared with cardinal vowel 1, it is more

open, and nearer to the centre. Romanians speakers should tend towards an articulation

approaching /e/ rather than /i/. We should remember that this sound is short and that we, as

well as speakers of other Romance languages, feel like lengthening it (lengthening ‘eat’

instead of ‘it’). However, we should not run into the opposite direction and make it too

short and the final voiced consonant too marked in ‘big’, for example. In unstressed

positions, / / is often replaced by / j / - /rjhsi:v/ instead of /r hsi:v/.

/e/ in ‘bed’, ‘set’, ‘measure’.

This is a front, half-open, half-close vowel between cardinal vowels 2 and 3. The lips are

slightly spread. Out of hypercorrectness, Romanians may have the tendency to ‘anglicise’ it,

pronouncing it /æ/. This leads to confusing /bed/ and /bæd/, for example. We can safely say

that the English /e/ is very similar to the Romanian /e/. Again, this short vowel, like the

preceding one, should not be too short and the final consonant too marked in ‘get’, for

instance.

/æ/ in ‘bat’, ‘reveille’, ‘plait’.

This vowel is front, less open than cardinal vowel 4, more open than number 3. The lips are

slightly spread. Since it does not exist in Romanian, we might reduce it to the neighbouring

vowels /e/ or /a/. The English /æ/, as the chart and the very symbol show, is in between /e/

and /a/. Do not produce it as a diphthong going from /e/ to /a/, either. When followed by a

voiced consonant, it is as long as any of the long vowels and it also involves a considerable

degree of tenseness: ‘man’, ‘cab’, ‘Sam’.

/ ¥ ¥¥ ¥ / in ‘upper’,‘but’, ‘young’, ‘rush’.

This is a central vowel, and the diagram shows that it is more open than the half-open

tongue height. The lip position is neutral. In northern regional speech of the York area, a

half-close back vowel is used, a sort of / /

/ aaaa / in ‘pot’, ‘gone’, ‘cross’.

This vowel is not quite fully back, between half-open and open in tongue height. It is

noticeably more open than the Romanian [o] and the lip rounding is less marked.

/ QQQQ / in ‘put’, ‘push’, ‘pull’.

The nearest cardinal vowel is number 8, [u], but it can be seen that [] is more open and

nearer to central. For Romanian learners it is advisable that they should aim at a soundcloser to /ã/ and /î/ than to long and fully rounded /u/. Practice with ‘good’, ‘put’.

/ jjjj / in ‘perhaps’, ‘about’, ‘supper’ is a central short vowel, the most frequent vowel

sound in English. Since it is different from the other vowels in several important ways, it



25

will be dealt with in another section of this course (the structure of weak syllables and weak

form words).

To sum up and add to the considerations on the relative length of vowels, we can

say that this length depends on the situation of the vowel in a word or phrase. Unstressed / /

and / j / are usually very short when they occur immediately before a stressed syllable in

‘begin’, ‘eleven’, ‘today’. Apart from this, the ‘short’ vowels are not extremely short. It is a

common mistake to make the vowel too short and the consonant too long in words like:‘that’, ‘not’, back’, ‘yes’, ‘off’.

VARIATION IN LENGTH IN THE ENGLISH LONG VOWELS

Variations of length are also noticed in the long vowels and diphthongs, as will be shown

below:

a) Long vowels are shorter when unstressed than when stressed:

/i:/ is shorter in ‘concr ete than in dis’cr eet

/ ]

:/ is shorter in ‘rec ord than in re’c ord

/au/ is shorter in ‘Crac ow than in ‘h ow

b) They are shorter in stressed syllables immediately followed by unstressed syllables than

in those which are not so followed:

the long vowel is shorter in f ather than in f ar /u:/ is shorter in ‘d o it than in final d o.

c) They are shorter before voiceless consonants than before voiced ones:

/i:/ is shorter in seat than in seed /o:/ is shorter in c ourt than in c ord

u:

i: u:

ŸŸŸŸ: dddd:

`:

The English long vowels on the Cardinal Vowel Chart

THE ENGLISH LONG VOWELS: /i:/, / ŸŸŸŸ:/, / :/, / dddd:/, /u:/

/i:/ in ‘beat’, ‘mean’, ‘peace’, ‘police’, ‘see’.

This vowel is nearer to cardinal vowel 1 than the short vowel of ‘fit’, already described. The

front of the tongue is raised slightly below and behind the close front position. The fact that



26

the lips are only slightly spread also contributes to the production of a rather different vowel

quality. This sound is often diphthongised by RP speakers, marking a slight glide from a

vowel quality closer to /I/. The use of a pure vowel in a final position may be typical of an

over-cultivated pronunciation.

/ ŸŸŸŸ:/ in ‘bird’, ‘fern’, ‘journey’, ‘purse’, ‘worm’, ‘world’.

This is a central vowel Romanians can easily produce. It is articulated with the centre of the

tongue raised between the half-close and half-open positions, the lips being neutrally

spread. Lip-spreading is particularly important after /w/ in ‘word’, ‘world’, ‘work’.

/ dddd:/ in ‘board’, ‘torn’, ‘horse’, ‘warm’, ‘war’.

The vowel is almost fully back, at a height in between cardinal vowels 6 and 7. Bear in

mind that the Romanian /o/ is closer and more rounded, accompanied by a protrusion of the

lips resulting in a sort of preceding /w/ sound. Make sure there is no such thing in your

pronunciation of the English sound.

/u:/ in ‘food’, ‘soon’, ‘loose’.

The quality is that of a relaxed, slightly lowered and centralised cardinal vowel 8. It is

noticeably longer than Romanian /u/, a little more open and less rounded. Just as RP /i:/ is

rarely pure, so RP /u:/ is usually diphthongised, especially in final positions, marking a

glide from a quality close to that of short /u/ to that of pure /u:/.

It became apparent from the description above that the long vowels are different from the

short ones not only in length but also in quality. Perhaps the only case where a long and a

short vowel are closely similar in quality is that of / j / and / f:/.

DIPHTHONGS

Diphthongs consist of a glide from one vowel to another. The first part (the nucleus) of

English diphthongs is much longer and stronger (they are mainly falling diphthongs). We

must remember that in English diphthongs the last part (the glide) is not to be articulated

too strongly. The easiest way to remember the eight English diphthongs is in terms of the

three groups divided as in this diagram:

ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS

CLOSING CENTRING

TO / wwww / TO / QQQQ / TO / jjjj /



27

ewwww awwww ddddwwww jjjjQQQQ aQQQQ ijjjj ejjjj QQQQjjjj

wwwwjjjj

QQQQjjjj

ejjjj -----

The centring diphthongs glide towards the / j / vowel.

/ wwwwjjjj / in ‘beard’, ‘fierce’,’fierce’.

It has been pointed out by Daniel Jones that this sound may not always

constitute the falling diphthong described, with the first element longer and more

prominent than the second. In unstressed syllables the / / element may be the weaker of the

two (‘period’, ‘serious’).

Since there is no similar diphthong in Romanian, we might have the tendency to reduce the

glide of ‘serious’ or ‘series’. Romanian learners should insist on an ‘English’ pronunciationof the diphthong in such situations.

/ ejjjj / in ‘hair’, ‘scarce’, ‘aired’.

According to Chitoran (1978) the diphthong starts with a fairly open /e/ closer to /æ/ than to

RP /e/. According to Peter Roach, it begins with the same vowel sound as the /e/ of ‘get’,

‘men’. therefore we can use either the symbols /ej / or / j / to describe the sound.

Romanians should avoid pronouncing this diphthong as a monophthong in ‘parents’ or

‘Mary’. When in final position, the / j / glide approaches / ¥ / in ‘hair’, ‘layer’.

/ QQQQjjjj / in ‘moored’, ‘tour’, ‘truant’.This diphthong moves from and initial tongue position close to that used for /u/ towards a

more open type of / j / which constitutes the target that all the centring diphthongs aim at.

The lips are slightly rounded at the beginning of the glide, becoming neutrally spread as the

glide progresses. A common mistake Romanians are liable to make is to monophthongise

the glide, especially when the diphthong is followed by /r/, as in ‘during’ or ‘tourist’.



28

jjjjQQQQ

ewwww

ddddwwww

awwww

aQQQQ

The closing diphthongs end with a glide towards a closer vowel.

/ewwww / in ‘paid’,’ ‘ache’, ‘say’, ‘gaol’

The movement begins from slightly below the half-close front position and moves in the

direction of / /, the lips being spread. The nucleus is longer when the diphthong is in final

position (in ‘day’), almost as long when followed by a voiced consonant (‘spade’), andshortened when followed by a voiceless consonant (‘Kate’). The phenomenon is also

encountered with the other closing diphthongs. In some dialectal varieties, including

Cockney, the diphthong is pronounced /a /. One possible mistake is the tendency of some

Romanians, especially Moldavians (the French and the Greeks are also liable to make it) to

palatalise plosive consonants before this diphthong, namely to pronounce / k heIk/ as /k

jeIk/

or /gheIt/ as /g

jeIt/. This mistake can be corrected by stressing the aspiration of the initial

plosive consonant, a phenomenon that will be dealt with when we discuss the plosives.

/awwww / in ‘tide’, ‘blind’, ‘high’.

The nucleus of the Romanian diphthong is a central vowel, while that of the English one is

only front retracted, open, and longer. To acquire the right pronunciation, one should aim ata sort of /a:e/.

/ ddddwwww / in ‘void’, ‘loin’, ‘voice’.



29

The nucleus has the same quality as /o:/ in ‘ought’ and ‘born’. The /oi/ in Romanian has a

much closer and more rounded nucleus and a closer and more distinct final element. One

should not round the English nucleus / ] / too much and should aim at /e/ as the target of the

glide, approximating a kind of /o:e/.

Two English diphthongs glide towards /u/, with a rounding movement of the lips.

/ jjjjQQQQ

/ in ‘no’, ‘soap’, ‘roast’.

The lips may be slightly rounded in anticipation of the glide towards /u/, for which there is

quite noticeable lip-rounding. In unstressed syllables, it is often replaced by / j /, as in

‘phonetics’ and ‘phonology’.

/au/ in ‘owl’, ‘gown’, ‘doubt’.

It begins with a vowel similar to a: but a little more front. The glide towards /u/ begins but

is not completed. You should try to aim at a sort of /a:o/ and avoid adding too much lip-

rounding .

TRIPHTHONGS: DIPHTHONGS + / jjjj /

Triphthongs are the most complex English sounds of the vowel type. They are glides from

one vowel to another and then to a third, all produced rapidly and without interruption.

The triphthongs can be looked on as being composed of the five closing diphthongs

described in the last section, with / j / added at the end. They are:

/e / + / j / = /ej / (layer, prayer) / ju / + / j / = / juj / (lower, slower)

/a / + / j / = / aj / (higher, fire) /au/ + / j / = / auj / (shower, tower) / ] / + / j / = / ]j / (lawyer, Sawyer)

The middle of the three vowel qualities of the triphthong can hardly be heard and

the resulting sound is difficult to distinguish from some of the diphthongs and long vowels.

Thus ‘layer’ may be pronounced /lej /, ‘fire’ /fa:j /, ‘slower’ /slf:/.

PLOSIVES: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

According to their manner of articulation, consonants may be classified as plosives (stops),affricates, fricatives, nasals, approximants and lateral /l/.

Plosives have the following characteristics:

- one articulator is moved against a point of articulation so as to form a stricture that allows

no air to escape from the vocal tract;

- after air has been stopped and compressed behind the stricture, it is allowed to escape;



30

- if the air is still under pressure when the plosive is released, it will produce audible noise

(plosion);

-there may be voicing during the plosive articulation.

The four phases in the production of a plosive are called the closing phase, the hold phase, the release or explosion phase and the post-release phase.

THE ENGLISH PLOSIVES

English has six plosive consonant phonemes, to which can be added the glottal stop / /,which can replace or accompany other sounds. The six plosives come in three sets,

according to their place of articulation and to their being voiced or voiceless.

/p/ and /b/ are bilabial, made with the lips pressed together.

/t/ and /d/ are alveolar made with the tip of the tongue pressed against the alveolar

ridge (the ridge of the gum), just behind the upper teeth.

/k/ and /g/ are velar, articulated with the back of the tongue pressed against the soft

palate.

When /p, t, k/ occur at the begining of a stressed syllable, a slight puff or breath

(called aspiration) is heard immediately after the release of the consonant. Therefore,

‘Tom’, ‘Pete’, ‘Kate’ are pronounced as /tham/, /phi:t/, /k het/. Aspiration does not usually

occur when the voiceless plosives are preceded by /s/, as in ‘span’. When a voiceless

plosive precedes a vowel in an unstressed syllable, the aspiration that may occur is

relatively weak. In final position, /p,t,k/ may have no audible release or may be replaced by

a glottal stop. They have a shortening effect on the preceding vowel sound, which is most

noticeable after long vowels and diphthongs. Therefore, /a / is shorter in ‘height’ than in

‘hide’, /e / is shorter in ‘late’ than in ‘day’ or ‘spade’.

/b,d,g/ are voiced sounds corresponding to the voiceless /p,t,k/. One should bear in

mind that /t/ and /d/ are alveolar, not dental, in English. It may be noted, however, that thearticulation of these sounds can be affected by an adjoining sound; so that one may use a

forward /t/ in ‘eighth’ (because of θ), and a retracted, post-alveolar t in ‘tray’(because of r).

/b,d,g/ may have full voicing when they occur in positions between voiced sounds,

e.g. in ‘i d iot’, ‘a go’, ‘la bour’. In initial and especially final positions they may remain

partially voiced or completely voiceless, e.g. ‘ ghost’, ‘ d one’, ‘ bore’, ‘li d ’, ‘la b’.

Incomplete plosion. When two plosives occur together in the same word or two adjoining

words, there is no audible release (or plosion) of the first sound. In ‘sou p plate’, the lips are

not parted at all between the first and the second p. In ‘si t d own’ the tip of the tongue is not

removed from the teeth ridge between t and d. In ‘bac kground’ the back of the tongue is not

removed from the soft palate between k and g. A similar effect is produced when the two

adjacent plosives have different points of articulation, a phenomenon that will be discussed

when assimilation is dealt with.

Fortis and lenis

Although /b,d,g/ are called voiced plosives, one can notice that in initial and final positions

they are scarcely voiced at all. As some phoneticians say that /p,t,k/ are produced with more

force than /b,d,g/ , it is better to give the two sets of plosives (and some other consonants)



31

names that indicate that fact; so the voiceless plosives /p,t,k/ will sometimes be referred to

as fortis (strong), while /b,d,g/ will be called lenis (weak).

The glottal stop / / is produced as a result of the closure of the vocal folds, which

can interrupt the passage of the air stream into the supra-glottal cavities. The air pressure

behind the stricture is released by the sudden opening of the vocal cords. The plosive sound

is voiceless and fortis because of the strong air pressure involved.

Any initial stressed vowel may be reinforced by a preceding glottal stop when

particular prominence is given to the word: / itsæn /. Word final /p, t, k / and the affricate /

t∫ / may be strengthened by a glottal stop which may coincide with the mouth closure or

slightly precede it, especially in the last word of an utterance. Some speakers go farther than

that, altogether replacing / p, t, k / with / /. Apart from initial, prevocalic position, the

glottal stop is very frequently found in final position, replacing /t, p, k/ before a word

beginning with a consonant: cut grass /k ¥ gra:s/.

It is widespread in the speech of urban working-class people, and is found in most

regions, with the exception of certain parts of Wales.

FRICATIVES

Fricatives are produced while air escapes through a small passage and makes a hissing

sound. Fricatives are continuant sounds, which means that one can continue making them

without interruption until the whole air stream is spent.

The fortis fricatives /f, θ, s, ∫ / are articulated with greater force, and their friction

noise is louder. They have the effect of shortening a preceding vowel, as do fortis plosives.

Their voiced counterparts are / v, ð, z, ¬ /.

/f,v /

/f/ in word initial father, feather, fine, fortress, philosophy, pheasant

word medial after, paraffin, offer, office, muffin, suffer

word final cough, laugh, shelf, tough, trough /v/ in word initial van, vice, Victor, voice, void

word medial covert, even, nephew, oven, sovereign

word final believe , have, give, love, of, receive, sieve /f, v/ are labio-dental , the inner part of the lower lip lightly touching the edge of the

upper teeth; the narrowing of the air passage produces friction. For /f/, the friction is

voiceless, while for /v/ there may be some vocal cord vibration, according to the

environment.

Word final /v/ may be assimilated to /f/ (see assimilation) before a voiceless

consonant at the beginning of the following word, regularly in have to /hæftj /, or may be

subject to elision in the case of the unstressed forms of of, have in a lot of money, a cup of

tea, I could have guessed .



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/ θθθθ, ð /

/ θθθθ / in word initial therapy, thin, three, thorough

word medial author, Athens, athletic, worthless

word final oath, wrath, myth, length, month

/ ð / in word initial the, this, that, they, though

word medial breathing, either, other, northern

word final seethe, soothe, mouth, with, writhe

/ θ, ð / are dental, the tip of the tongue making a light contact with the edge and

inner surface of the upper teeth; again, the narrowing of the air stream causes friction. As

with the preceding pair, the first element is produced with voiceless friction, whereas there

may be some vocal fold vibration for the second.

In popular London speech, the difficulties of the dental articulation leads to the

replacement of / θ, ð / with the labio-dental / f, v / in ‘mother’ , ‘Smith’, ‘throw’.In Romanian, these phonemes do not exist, which may cause difficulty to the beginner, who

might assimilate them to other consonants. However, the two dental sounds are not difficult

to pronounce in themselves, since young children acquire them before /s,z/ as variants. Ateacher need only remind the learners of this, getting them to produce ‘lisped’ variants of

/s,z/.

/s, z /

/s/ in word initial sample, sing, sigh, sign, sorrow, stupid

word medial aspect, bossy, concert, inspiration, rascal, task

word final dismiss, distress, hiss, grass, piece, kiss, miss, moss

/z/ in word initial zero, zeal, zombie, czar, zoo

word medial easy, dozing, bosom, husband, scissors, examword final eyes, does, gaze, maze, noise, ooze, seize, tease

/ s,z / are alveolar in English. The tip and the blade of the tongue make a light

contact with the upper alveolar ridge, and the side rims of the tongue a close contact with

the upper side teeth. The air-stream escapes through a narrow groove in the centre of the

tongue and causes friction between the tongue and the alveolar ridge. A lisp, i.e. the

replacement of / s, z / with / θ, ð/, is a common speech defect.

/ ³ ³³ ³ , WWWW / / ³ ³³ ³ / in word initial Sean, Seamus, shame, shadow, sugar, sure

word medial Ishmael, assurance, fashion, luscious, machine

word final anguish, dish, lash, posh, swish, wish

/ ¬ / in word initial (in French loan words) genre, jabot

in word medial fusion, allusion, leisure, pleasure, treasure



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word final (only in French loan words; an alternative pronunciation with /d¬ / is also

possible) - barrage, beige, prestige, rouge

/ ∫ ,¬ / are palato-alveolar or post-alveolar in English. The tip and blade of the tongue make

a light contact with the alveolar ridge, the front of the tongue being raised at the same time

in the direction of the hard palate and the side rims of the tongue being in contact with the

upper side teeth. The escape of air is rather diffuse, the friction occurring between a more

extensive area of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. As / ¬ / is rare in initial position and

can be replaced by /d¬ / in final position, it has a restricted ‘functional load’ as a phoneme inEnglish.

/h/

in initial position - hair, hen, harmony, hostage, heritage, Hebrew, host, hiss, horse

in medial position - behead, behold, behind, childhood, ahead

no final position

/h/ is a glottal fricative sound. It is distributed only in syllable initial, pre-vocalic positions.

The air is expelled from the lungs with considerable pressure, causing friction along the

vocal tract, especially in the glottis. Phonetically /h/ is a voiceless vowel with the quality of the voiced vowel that follows it; phonologically, it functions as a consonant.

In certain types of regional speech, /h/ is dropped. Sometimes a trace of the function

of /h/ will be seen in the insertion of a glottal stop in its stead, e.g. /ðj hospitl /. Many

English speakers tend to judge as sub-standard a pronunciation in which /h/ is missing,

though in fact virtually all native English speakers omit the /h / in unstressed pronunciations

of the personal pronouns ‘him’, ‘her’, the auxiliary ‘have’, though few of them are aware of

doing it. Consider the following riddle and note the pronunciation: When a girl slips on the

ice, why can’t her brother help her up? Answer - Because he can’t be a brother and assist

her too (a sister too ).

Some RP speakers treat an unstressed h syllable, as in historical’, as if it belonged

to the special group hour,honest,heir : an historical novel. Also in the case of hotel,apronunciation without /h/ is quite widely spread.

AFFRICATES

Affricates are plosives whose release stage is performed in such a way that considerable

friction appears at the point where the plosive stop is made. Affricates begin as plosivesand end as fricatives, the final friction being shorter than that of the fricatives proper.

/ t³ ³³ ³ /, / dWWWW /

/ t³ ³³ ³ / in initial position cherry, chip, churn, chop, cheer, charter

in medial position urchin, researcher, Richard, lecture, treacherous

in final position change, lurch, search, much, touch



34

/ d ¬ / in initial position join, John, jam, genius, joke, general

in medial position adjoining, ajar, agitator, grandeur, midget, ingenious

in final position edge, large, budge, change, surge, urge

/ t∫ / and /d¬ / are post-alveolar sounds. In their articulation, the obstacle to the air-

stream is formed by a closure effected by the tip, blade, and rims of the tongue against the

upper alveolar ridge and side teeth. Simultaneously, the front of the tongue is raised

towards the hard palate in anticipation for the fricative release. The closure is released

slowly, the air escaping diffusely over the central surface of the tongue with accompanyingfriction. During the stop and fricative stages, the vocal cords are wide apart for /t∫ /, but may

be vibrating for /d¬ / according to the environment.

/ t∫ / is slightly aspirated in the positions where / p, t, k / are. Like them, when it assumes

final position, it has a shortening effect on the preceding vowel sound, most noticeably

when the latter is a long vowel or a diphthong (church, lurch, search). Like /p,t,k/ again, /t∫ / can be glottalised, i.e. preceded by a glottal stop in certain contexts. The most widespread

glottalisation is that at the end of a stressed syllable, for example in /net wj / or /k æt w w4 /.

Some phoneticians (Gimson 1962, 1989) treat the combinations /t / + / r / and /d / +

/r / as established affricate units, / tr / and / dr /. As they are more than the sum of the two

elements involved, involving assimilation, they need some consideration here. /tr/ in initial position tray, tree, triptych, trap, train, true

medial position attraction, poetry, mistress, sultry,

/dr/ in initial position drain, draw, drip, dream, drag, drill, drama

medial position adrift, address, Andrew, adroit, Audrey

/tr/ and /dr/ do not occur in final position. Because of the following /r/ sound, alveolar /t/

and /d/ are made to be articulated in a post-alveolar place. As a result, these combinations

may sound very much like /t∫ / and / d¬ /.

NASAL CONSONANTS

It is agreed that English has at least two contrasting nasal phonemes, /m/ and /n/. However,

there is disagreement about whether there is a third nasal phoneme in RP, / ; /. Some say

that the latter is only an allophone of /n/, occurring in certain set positions.

For the production of the nasals, the soft palate must be lowered, thus directing the

air-stream towards the nasal cavity. There is also a complete closure in the mouth (bilabial

for m, alveolar for n and velar for ;).

While /m/ and /n/ are simple to articulate, / ; / is different. It gives considerable

problems to foreign learners, including Romanians. The place of articulation of / ; / is the

same as that of / k / and / g /; it is a useful exercise to practise making a continuous / ; /

sound. If you do this, do not produce a /k / or /g / at the end - pronounce the / ; / just like /m/

or /n/.





36

This phoneme only occurs before vowels in RP, as well as between words, for

linking purposes (linking /r/ and intrusive /r/, phenomena which will be dealt with in

another section of the course).

In words like car, horse, arm, sort, the r-letter may be taken to indicate the length of the

preceding vowel. However, many accents of English do pronounce /r/ in words like car,

hard, ever, here (American, Scottish, and West of England accents). It has already been said

that accents which have /r/ in final position or before a consonant are rhotic accents, unlike

RP, which is non-rhotic.

/j/ and /w/ are traditionally called semivowels; the term approximant will be used

here, though. These phonemes are phonetically like vowels but phonologically like

consonants. They only occur before vowels.

The allophones of palatal /j/ are articulated by the tongue adopting the position for a

vowel like /i/ and moving away immediately to the position of the following sound. When

/j/ follows a fortis consonant, devoicing takes place; when the consonant is one of /p,t,k,h/,

the devoicing is complete, a fortis voiceless palatal fricative being produced [c] - pure,tune, cute, human.

The allophones of bilabial /w/ are articulated by the tongue assuming the position

for a vowel like /u/ and moving away quickly to the position of the next sound. The lip-

rounding for /w/ is closer and more energetic than that for /u:/, allowing distinctions for

such pairs as woos - ooze.

Words beginning with /w/ or /j/ are considered to be initiated by a consonant: the

preceding indefinite article is a, and the definite article is unstressed the / ðj /, e.g., a worker,

a war, a university. This is further evidence that /j/ and /w/ function as consonants.

place->

manner

(below)

bilabial labio-

dental

dental alveola

r

post-

alveola

r

palata

l

velar glottal

plosive p, b t, d k, g

fricative f, v θ, ð s, z w , ¬ h

affricate t w , d¬

nasal m n ;

lateral lapproxi-

mant

w r j

The English consonant phonemes



37

COMPLEX ARTICULATIONS

The identification of individual sounds and the segmentation of the speech chain are the

concern of segmental phonology. Actually, English and many other languages use sounds

that involve combinations of articulatory coordinates and values. Pike (1943) speaks of

secondary articulations (such as vowel nasalisation) and other forms of articulation

involving more than one place of articulatory activity in the vocal tract. Clark and Yallop

(1995) do not make a clearcut distinction between secondary and complex articulations,

using the latter term to describe two types of complex articulation: simultaneous (separate

but co-occurring articulatory activities which result in the production of a sound which is

viewed as a single unit) and transitional (separate and successive articulatory activities

which together can be identified as a single segment). The distinction between simultaneous

and transitional, while important, will not be of much use here. For the time being, I will

only use the term complex articulation, whose most important illlustrations in English are

a) nasalisation (often found in Northern accents): kennel may be pronounced with

nasalised /e/ and /l/, the two sounds being affected by the articulation of the nasal

consonant /n/ between them;

b) labialisation: the addition of lip rounding or lip protrusion: /l/ in aloof is pronounced

with lip rounding in anticipation of /u:/;

c) palatalisation: the raising of the blade of the tongue to a high front position, as for an /i/

sound; in the articulation of plosives followed by an /i/ or a /j/, the air turbulaence

which is produced may lead to their affrication: teens /t w i:nz/;

d) velarisation: the movement of the tongue body and root from their normal vocal tract

position backwards, curling the back of the tongue, is important in the production of

‘dark’ l and in the articulation of American /r/.

Other instances of complex articulation are diphthongisation of monophthongs (which

has already been mentioned when dealing with the vowels) and syllabicity – the use of

syllabic consonants (an aspect that will be discussed in the section on weak syllables).

THE SYLLABLE: ITS NATURE AND MAKE UP

The syllable is the lowest phonological unit into which phonemes are combined.

Phonetically speaking (in terms of perception), a syllable consists of a sonorous centre

sounding comparatively loud, having little or no obstruction to the air-flow; at the

beginning and at the end of the syllable there will be greater obstruction and less loudsound. From an articulatory point of view, it is based on one chest pulse resulting from the

movement of the intercostal muscles, a single unit of movement of the lungs in which there

is only one crest of speed, the sonorous centre mentioned above.





39

[n] after /l, t w , d¬ / so that words like sullen, Christian, pigeon do not contain it. After /f/ or

/v/, though, syllabic n is more common than / jn/ in non-initial syllables, such as in eleven ,

enliven , oft en. Syllabic [n] can be preceded by two consonants, but not by nt, mt, and nd,

md ; thus, London, Framton, Clinton do not have syllabic [n].

Clusters of syllabic consonants

Sometimes we can find two syllabic consonants together, as in international,visceral, visionary, veteran.

THE NATURE OF STRESS

There are four factors that are important in making a syllable recognisably stressed:

loudness, length, pitch, and quality. Pitch is thought to produce the strongest effect, and

length is also a powerful factor. A syllable is therefore prominent in a certain context if it is

uttered on a higher pitch, than the surrounding syllables, if it is longer, louder, if it contains

a vowel that is different in quality from the neighbouring vowels.

The vowel quality as a factor influencing stress has to do with the contrast between

the degrees of explicitness of articulation of the stressed and unstressed syllables. In a

stressed syllable the initial consonant(s) and the vowel will be comparatively clearly uttered

while in an unstressed syllable the consonants are likely to be weakly uttered and the vowel

is usually obscure. Compare, for example, the /p/ in the first and second syllable of paper ,

as well as the vowels in the two syllables.

To the four factors contributing to stress formation, Underhill 1994 adds a fifth,

which provides a visual cue: stressed syllables are accompanied by larger jaw, lip and other

facial movements by the speaker.

The five factors are interrelated, being ways of increasing or decreasing the amount

of articulatory energy at any point. The stress pattern of a word can thus be seen as its

energy profile.

THE FUNCTION OF WORD STRESS

Words have stress patterns that are quite constant when the word is uttered in isolation or in

set constructions. For polysyllabic words, the stress pattern is a decisively important

identifying feature in rapid or casual speech. It should not be considered as a superficial

addition to a correctly pronounced string of speech sounds but as the essential framework

within which the consonants and vowels interact to produce meaning. Muttering almost

incomprehensibly Tottenham Court Road while riding the London tube, but using the right

stress pattern, will probably be more successful in a conversation than articulating more

carefully the name of the tube station with the wrong stress pattern.



40

LEVELS OF STRESS IN ISOLATED WORDS

Between stressed and unstressed syllables we have to distinguish one or more intermediate

levels. In the word accommodation we can notice five different stress levels in decreasing

order: 1. /de / 2. /k a / 3. /mj / 4. / j / 5. / w n /. However, English makes effective use of

only three such levels: tonic strong stress or primary stress, non-tonic strong stress or

secondary stress and weak or unstressed level.

STRESS PLACEMENT IN WORDS

As far as stress is concerned, English words are to a large extent unpredictable. It has been

said that the best policy is to treat stress placement as a property of the individual word, to

be learnt when the word itself is learnt. Some people claim that rules of stress placement do

exist, although they abound in exceptions.

In order to decide on stress placement, it is necessary to make use of some or all of

the following information:

a) whether the word is morphologically simple or complex (affixes, compounds);

b) the grammatical category to which the word belongs (noun, adjective, verb, etc.)

c) the number of syllables in a word;

d) the phonological structure of the inherent syllables.

COMPLEX WORD STRESS

Complex words are of two major types: words made from a basic stem word with the

addition of an affix, and compound words, which are made of two or more independent

words.

Affixes will have one of three possible effects on word stress:

1. the affix receives the primary stress;

2. the affix does not affect the stress in the stem;

3. the stress remains within the stem, but is shifted to a different syllable.

1.SUFFIXES CARRYING PRIMARY STRESS

refugee, mountaineer, Siamese, cigarette, picturesque, unique.

2.SUFFIXES NOT AFFECTING PRIMARY STRESS

comfortable, anchorage, refusal, widen, wonderful, amazing, devilish, birdlike, powerless,

hurriedly, punishment, dangerous, funny.

3.PRIMARY STRESS MOVED ONTO THE LAST SYLLABLE OF THE STEM

courageous, photography, colonial, organic, reflexive, economical.

TWO-WORD COMPOUNDS



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Primary stress may be placed on the first word of the compound or on the second. A simple

rule of thumb can be used although it is not infallible.

1. If the first part is (in a broad sense) adjectival, the stress goes on the second

element, with a secondary stress on the first: , loud’speaker, ,bad’ tempered, ,three’wheeler.2. If the first element is (in a broad sense) nominal, the stress goes on the first

element: ‘sunrise, ‘suitcase, ‘teacup.

WORD-CLASS PAIRS

When a pair of words exists, members of which are spelt the same, one of them being a

verb and the other either a noun or an adjective, the stress will be placed on the second

syllable of the verb but on the first syllable for the noun or adjective:

verb noun or adjective

com’pound ‘compound

ex’port ‘export ex’ploit ‘exploit

re’cord ‘record in’sult ‘insult

pro’duce ‘produce

pro’test ‘protest re’bel ‘rebel

sus’pect ‘suspect

An exception to the above rule is to be noted with to comment (on) and the noun comment,

which both receive stress on the first syllable.

WEAK FORMS

Almost all the words which have both a strong and a weak form - there are roughly 40 such

items in English - belong to the category of grammatical words, such as primary auxiliaries,modals, prepositions, conjunctions.

In certain circumstances, these words are pronounced in their strong forms, but their

weak forms are more frequently produced and sound more natural in casual, ordinary

conversation. The weak forms are the result of o process of sound simplification that

depends on the tempo and context of the utterance. A slower and more careful delivery will

stick closely to dictionary pronunciation with its strong forms, whereas a faster and less

careful delivery will contain variants of weak forms.

There are contexts where the weak form is the normal pronunciation and others

where only the strong form is acceptable.)

The weak forms are the result of o process of sound simplification that depends on

the tempo and context of the utterance. A slower and more careful delivery will stick closely to dictionary pronunciation with its strong forms, whereas a faster and less careful

delivery will contain variants of weak forms.

The strong form is used in the following cases:

1. For prepositions and auxiliaries, when they occur at the end of the utterance:

She dislikes being looked at /æt /.



42

What are you waiting for ? / fo:/

He says he will come but I don’t know if he can / kæn /.

2. When a weak-form word is given prominence in conversation, contrasted with another

word or ‘quoted’:

He has brought his wife and /ænd / his mother-in-law.

You must / mjst / face up to it, whether you like it or not.

The message is not from / from / them, we’re planning to send it to /tu / them.

The preposition of / ov / occurs too often in this text, I’m afraid.

Weak forms in context (although italicised , it goes without saying that the words should

not be stressed; it is the words around them that are stressed)

OF That’s very nice of / j v / you.

Have a cup of tea (cuppa tea).

He’s a friend of mine (frienda mine).

AND Come and / j n/ see us tomorrow.

Gobble and / ; / go (name of a small fast food place in Edinburgh).

Rock ‘n’ roll (the weak pronunciation in this case has all but institutionalised this

spelling).

BUT It is sad but /bjt / true.THAN Better safe than / ðjn / sorry.

THAT used as a relative pronoun has a weak form; as a demonstrative, it always has its

strong form, / ðæt /. Compare the two ‘thats’ in:

That / ðæt / man that / ðjt / applied for the job.

THEM Tell them to get a move on, it is rather late (/ ðjm / or / jm/).

HIS is pronounced in its strong form when it assumes initial or final position in an

utterance; otherwise, in unstressed positions, it is commonly realised as / z/:

His / hz / preoccupation with language is normal in a person like him.

It is not mine, it is his /hz /

What’s his / z / opinion on this issue?

He should take his / z / time, there’s no rush.

HER, like HIS, is pronounced in its strong form in initial position; in other contexts it is

commonly pronounced in its weak form:

Take her / j / to the manager.

They seem to like her / j /.

Her / hj / proposal that we should postpone making a decision was turned down.

HE will be pronounced as /h / or /hi:/ in initial position and when it is given special

prominence; otherwise, it will be realised as / /:

He /h / was wrong, wasn’t he / /?

Why didn’t he / / turn up on Monday?

HIM, when occurring in initial position (very seldom, actually), will be stressed; in othercontexts, the weak form is preferred:

Him / hm / I don’t like, but I like her.

Tell him / m / we are looking forward to hearing from him /Im/.

US is usually pronounced / js /:





44

There are / j / a couple of things I’ve got to tell you right away.

Yes, you are / a: /. No, you aren’t /a:nt /.

WAS Was /wj z/ he / / pleased with his / z / work?

Yes, he / / was /waz /. No, he /h / wasn’t /waznt/.

He was /wz / given this opportunity and he made the most of it.

CONNECTED SPEECH

Connected speech is not the juxtaposition of individual words with their dictionary

pronunciation. In the process of actual speech, depending on the tempo or speed of

utterance, the flow of sounds is affected by a system of simplifications by means of which

phonemes are connected, clustered, reduced, changed or deleted altogether.

The changes are quite systematic and include assimilation, elision, linking, due to

tempo, rhythm, intonation and other factors.

TWO STYLES OF DELIVERY: CAREFUL COLLOQUIAL SPEECH AND RAPID

COLLOQUIAL SPEECH

The speed and context of the utterance are the key factors in the process of soundsimplification. A slower and more careful way of pronouncing sounds may stick more

closely to the dictionary pronunciation with which foreign learners are usually accustomed.

A faster and more casual manner of articulation will lead to a greater degree of sound

simplification, which does not usually simplify the task of the foreign speaker. The two

speeds of delivery are called by Underhill (1994) careful colloquial speech and rapid colloquial speech, concepts he goes on to use in order to describe two models or landmarks

to aim for in the study of connected speech pronunciation.

Careful colloquial speech is said to contain all types of modifications to a moderate

degree. Words remain closer to their dictionary pronunciation than with rapid colloquial

speech. This style is used in formal situations. The careful colloquial RP of newscasters and

announcers on the BBC World Service is given as an internationally available example of it

by the above-mentioned author. This type of pronunciation is useful as a goal to be aimed at

for learners when they speak. It is clear, easy to listen to and widely understood. A native

speaker is likely to resort to it when communicating with a foreigner.

Rapid colloquial speech contains modifications to a larger extent. This type of

pronunciation is resorted to in less formal situations, when native speakers are talking

casually to one another. Underhill suggests that this style should be used as a target for

learners to aim especially in their listening activities.

RHYTHM: ITS NATURE AND TYPES

Rhythm is the pattern formed by the stressed syllables being perceived as peaks of

prominence. Pronouns, determiners, auxiliaries, prepositions, conjunctions are generally

unstressed, unlike lexical verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns, which are usually stressed.

The utterances

He ‘said to them that he was ‘sorry



45

and

He ‘said he was ‘sorry

are of different length, yet they have two stresses each, occurring at approximately the same

interval of time in ordinary speech. Between the first and the second stress in the first

example there are five syllables, while in the second utterance the interval is made up of

two syllables only. The five syllables in the first utterance and the two in the second are

pronounced in roughly the same interval of time.

Two broad kinds of rhythm can be found in natural languages. One kind may be

typical of a particular language, while with some languages there is a mixture of the two.

In syllable-timing, the tempo depends on the syllable, so that all the syllables are of

about the same length. French, Italian and Romanian are languages that display this kind of

rhythmicity.

Stress-timing depends on more unequal and irregular units, rhythm groups or feet,

which contain various numbers of syllables, yet tend to be pronounced in roughly equal

intervals of time. We say that English has a tendency for stress-timed rhythm, that is,

what matters in establishing the rhythm of an utterance is not its total number of syllables,

but the number of its stresses. Therefore, an utterance with two stresses and three syllables

will be pronounced in about the same interval of time as one with two stresses and seven

syllables.

The tendency towards a regular beat is much more conspicuous in spontaneous

speech than in monitored speech such as lecturing or reading aloud; it is more marked in

British and Australian than in American and Canadian English.

When a number of syllables are squeezed between two stresses in a short space of

time we have to use their weak forms to pronounce them very quickly and without much

effort. The more unstressed syllables there are between two stresses, the quicker they must

be pronounced ( ...‘quickertheymustbepro ‘nounced ).

RHYTHM GROUPS

Every word, when uttered alone, has at least one stress. In continuous, rhythmic stress, we

do not place stresses on all the words, though. Not only the grammatical words mentioned

above, but also content words like nouns may lose their stress or have their stress pattern

altered when we speak quickly. From individual word stress we thus move to utterance

stress, tone unit stress, rhythm for short.

The principle of stress-timed rhythm stipulates that the strongly stressed syllables of

an utterance should be separated by roughly equal intervals of time. The relatively equal ( in

terms of time, not of number of syllables ) stretches of utterance beginning with a stressed

syllable and extending up to the next are called rhythm groups. As an illustration, let us

divide the previous sentence ( if we read it it will become an utterance) in rhythm groups:

the‘relatively ‘equal ‘stretchesof ‘utterancebe ‘ginningwitha

‘stressed ‘syllableandex ‘tending ‘uptothe ‘nextare ‘called

‘rhythm ‘groups

The initial unstressed syllables will be attached to the first rhythm group, as inthe’relatively. Here are some more illustrations:

Ishould’thinkitwouldbe ‘betterto ‘waittillto ‘morrow

She’boughtusa ‘loafof ‘bread

‘Whatade ‘licious ‘cakeyouhave ‘made





47

/s, z / change to / ∫ , ¬ / (alveolar fricatives assimilated by post-alveolar affricates or

palatal approximant):

This shape - / ði∫ ∫ eip / ; has she come - / hæ w ∫ i k ¥m / ; this year - / ði∫ jij / ;

those years - / ðju¬ jijz /.

/n / changes to / llll / ( alveolar nasal assimilated by velar nasal ):

in case - / i; keis /.

/n / changes to /m / ( alveolar nasal assimilated by bilabial nasal ):

ten monkeys - /tem m¥nkiz /, ten pencils /tem penslz/ / t, d / change to / p, b / ( alveolar plosives assimilated by bilabial plosives):

hit man - /hp m : n/; don’t be rude - / djump bi ru:d /; good boy - / gub boi /.

/t, d / change to / k, g / ( alveolar plosives assimilated by velar plosives ):

I don’t care - / ai djunk kej / ; good game - / gug geim /.

Assimilation may also occur within words themselves. In this case, they may - or

have - become established as such: literature / litrit∫ j /, treasure / tre¬j /, issue /i∫ ju:/.

Assimilation may also be described in terms of the direction in which it works.

There are three possibilities:

(1) regressive (or anticipatory) assimilation: the sound changes because of the influence of

the following sound, e.g. ten boys / tem boiz/; this is particularly common in English in

alveolar consonants in word-final position;(2) progressive assimilation: the sound changes because of the influence of the preceding

sound, e.g. staunch supporter articulated with the s of supporter turning into / ∫ /, under the

influence of the preceding /t∫ /; such assimilations are less common, though;

(3) reciprocal assimilation: there is mutual influence, or fusion, of the sounds upon each

other, as in don’t you, did you, could you pronounced dontcha, didja, couldja. The /t/

and the /j/ have fused to produce an affricate.

ELISION

Elision means the dropping of a sound or sounds, either within the body of a word or at

word boundary.

Within a word, an unstressed vowel between two consonants is often elided: several

/sevrl/, national /næ∫ nl /, correct /krekt/, ordinary / o:dnr /, strawberry /stro:br /, police

/pli:s /.

Final / v/ is often lost before consonants: lots of them (lotsa them), pint of beer

(pnta beer).

In the section of the course dealing with strong and weak forms we met instances of

elision in such combinations as

He must have / jv / done it before

Don’t hit him / m/

Does he / / like her / j / ?

As with assimilation, elision is typical of casual speech. Producing elisions is

something we Romanians as foreign learners needn’t learn, but it is important to be aware





49

syllable. The peak of greatest prominence is called the nucleus or the tonic syllable. This

syllable is likely to be found in the last content word in the tone unit (noun, lexical verb,

adverb or adverbial particle).

Identifying the tonic syllable in a tone unit is very important in speech. It is equally

important to decide which syllables are not to be stressed. It has been said that learning to

unstress is more important than stress. Stressing too many syllables in speech is apt to give

foreigners away or to make them sound affected.

The part of the tone-unit from the first stressed syllable up to (but not including) the

tonic syllable is called the head. The following utterance may be divided into tone units,

further divided as follows:

She phoned me at seven and told me she was coming =

She phoned me at seven (tone unit 1)+ and told me she was coming (tone unit 2)

Tone unit 1 - She = pre-head

‘phoned me at = head

/ se = nucleus

ven = tail

Tone unit 2 and = pre-head

‘told me she was = head

\ com = nucleus

ing = tail

The syllable or syllables (if any) between the nucleus and the end of the tone unit is/are

called the tail . When necessary to mark stress in a tail, a raised dot may be used, as in :

\ Seldom does he . do that.

THE BASIC TONES

While one speaks, the pitch of the voice may remain at a constant level, or it may move

from one level to another. The word used for the behaviour of the pitch is tone; a one-

syllable word can be uttered with either a level tone or a moving tone. English speakers do

not use level tones very often. Moving tones are more frequent; if English speakers want to

say yes or no in a definite, final manner, they will probably use a falling tone. If they want

something else they are likely to use a rising tone.

The English tone system is based on an opposition between falling and rising tone,

in which falling pitch conveys certainty and rising pitch uncertainty. The falling/rising

opposition is the most important opposition , and it probably plays some part in the system

of every language. In English, where it plays a very significant role, the distinction has to do

with polarity, the positive/negative opposition. Thus, falling pitch means ‘polarity known’,

while rising pitch means ‘polarity unknown’.

It should be mentioned that no particular tone has the exclusive privilege of

occurring in a specific context, one tone being able to replace another one in certain

situations; intonation is more a matter of tendencies and principles, not of cut-and-dried

rules.



50

THE FALLING TONE

It consists of a fall of the pitch from a high note (high frequency of vibration of the vocal

cords) to a low note. If someone is asked a question and replies \ Yes or \ No, one will

gather that the question is now answered and that there is nothing more to be said. The fall

indicates that the information is complete and final.

In longer stretches of speech, this tone is used with wh- questions, straightforward

orders and exclamations:

Where did you \buy it?

Come \in!

Isn’t she \lovely?

In the last example, word order and a possible question mark might give the impression that

this is a yes/no question associated with a rising tone. Actually, such structures are nothing

more than special kinds of statement, reinforced by some sort of emotional colouring.

THE RISING TONE

This tone conveys the impression that there is more to come:

A: Excuse me -

B: / Yes ( meaning ‘ I am inviting you to continue’)

A: Do you know Laura?

One possible reply from B would be / Yes?, inviting A to continue with what she intends to

say about Laura after establishing that B knows her. To reply instead \ Yes or \ No would

give a feeling of ‘finality’ or ‘end of the conversation’. We can see similar ‘invitations to

continue’ in someone’s response to a series of instructions or directions. For example:

You take three / eggs -

/ Yes?

/ break them

/ Yes?

and put them in a \ frying pan.

With no, a similar function can be seen, for instance, if B is asked by A: Have you

seen Ann?; the reply with \ No implies quite clearly that the interlocutor has no interest in

continuing with that topic of conversation. However, a reply with /No? would be an

invitation for A to explain why he is looking for Ann.

Similarly, someone may ask a question that implies readiness to present some new

information, for instance:

Do you know who managed the longest balloon flight?

If B replies / No? he is inviting A to go on, while a response of \ No could be taken as lack

of interest.

Greetings such as good morning, good afternoon, good evening sound more friendly

if uttered with a rising tone. With the falling tone, they may sound aggressive, cold or

simply business-like. With goodbye, however, only the rising tone sounds polite or

acceptable.

The rising tone is also used in longer stretches of speech that function as statementswhich, apart from giving information, are supposed to sound reassuring and encouraging. It

is used with the imperative when one wants to tone down the imposition made on the

interlocutor:

Come /here.





52

THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE

The functions that intonation can perform can be linked to the general functions of

language. Roman Jakobson identified six ‘factors’ in human communication: the speaker,

the addressee, the code (the conventions of the language common to speaker and

addressee) , the message, the context (the entities the speaker talks about) and the contact (the relations between speaker and addressee). Related to these factors are six language

functions:

1 Emotive: the speaker expresses his/her feelings;

2 Conative: the speaker seeks the achievement of a goal by influencing the addressee;

3 Metalingual: the speaker is talking about the items of the code;

4 Poetic: the message of the speaker draws attention on itself, on its patterns, organization,

sound symbolism, etc.;

5 Referential: the primary concern is with the communication of factual information;

6 Phatic: the speaker focuses on achieving a relationship with the addressee.

M.A.K. Halliday boils down the various uses and functions of language to three

macrofunctions that have to do with describing reality, interacting with people to get things

done and constructing more or less extended messages, written and oral. These can be

related to the three basic functions of intonation postulated by authors like Chitoran (1978),

Hortensia Pârlog (1997): grammatical (the way in which intonation can give clues as to the

linguistic structure of utterances), attitudinal (how intonation can convey attitude) and

accentual (intonation can give clues about how information is organized in terms of given

and new).

FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION

Intonation is not a superficial process that has to do with the ‘outer layer’ of

communication, contributing to the clarification of linguistic communication in terms of

syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

It can convey grammatical information, by indicating phrase, clause and sentence

boundaries, by distinguishing between a statement and a question.

By clarifying the interplay between syntactic form and semantic content in specific

situations of conversation it serves an important pragmatic purpose.

By the use of contrastive stress (i.e. picking out a marked tonic syllable, not one you

expect in a certain context) placed on a particular syllable/word in an utterance it affects

information organization and expresses different presuppositions in discourse. Intonation

expresses attitude of the speaker: a slow tempo associated with a level tone or little

variation in pitch may indicate that someone is bored; a preponderence of falling tones



53

might indicate an authoritarian attitude; rising tones may be encouraging or reassuring,

downtoning the effect of a directive, etc.

A good example of the interplay of syntax, semantics and pragmatics by means of

intonation is seen in the use of the vocative.

A vocative is an optional nominal element added to show to whom the utterance is

addressed. It may be a call, drawing the attention of the person addressed, or a form of

address, showing the speaker’s attitude to the person spoken to:

Your Excellency, the guests have arrived

Mike, you’re wanted on the phone

It’s not me, sir , it’s somebody else

Intonationally, the vocative is set off from the rest of the clause either by constituting a

separate tone unit or by forming the tail of a tone unit. The most characteristic intonations

are falling-rising for an initial vocative functioning as a call and rising for a vocative

functioning as an address. Vocatives can be:

1) Names, with or without a title: Pete, Mr Peter Jones, General Schwartzkopf, Dr James.

2) Terms showing family relationships (sometimes capitalized): Mom, Dad, auntie, granny,

uncle.

3)Titles of respect: my Lord, your Ladyship, your Excellency, your Hono(u)r, your Majesty,

madam, sir.

4) Markers of status: Mr President, Father [for priest], Sister [for a nun], professor, colonel,

vicar.

5) Terms for occupations: waiter, cabbie, barmaid, bartender, nurse, officer [for a

policeman, not an army officer].

6) Epithets showing a favourable evaluation - darling, honey, love, dearest, sweetie-pie

<esp AmE>, gorgeous, handsome, or an unfavourable one - bastard, creep, coward, idiot.

7) General nouns often used in more specialized senses: buddy, guys, ladies and gentlemen,

mate <BrE>, partner <AmE>, son. Except for ladies and gentlemen, these are usually

familiar and considered impolite when addressed to a person one is not familiar with.

8) Nominal clauses: Whoever said that, come out here!

To address somebody you know by last name preceded by title (Mr Smith, Dr

Jekyll) is a formal manner of address. It is now much easier to be ‘on Christian nameterms’<BrE> or ‘on a first name basis’<espAmE> than previously; address by family name

alone, which used to indicate male comradeship is sometimes used today in the armed

forces and at school.

Vocatives addressed to strangers express a relationship or attitude. It is worth noting

that these forms of address are rather limited in contemporary English, particularly in

British English.



54

GLOSSARY

(phonetics and phonology, linguistics, linguistic sciences, applied linguistics)

A

absolute participle clauses

Acceptable constructions in which participle clauses whose subject is not the one of the

main clause are called absolute clauses: His eyes staring blankly into the sky, he looked like

a statue. Absolute clauses can function as sentence adverbials, usually taking initial

position: God willing, the expedition will succeed. Weather permitting, the finals will be

played according to schedule. Everything considered , it was an interesting meeting.

accent

An a. is the auditory effect of those features of pronunciation which indicate where a person

is from, both regionally and socially.

There are many different accents in England, and the range becomes much wider if the

accents of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also considered. Within the accents of

England, the main distinction is made between northern and southern ones. The regionally

neutral accent associated with public-school education is called RP. A ‘broad’ accent is one

which differs widely from RP.

act

In the analysis of spoken discourse based on classroom activity data, Sinclair and Coulthard

(1975) put forth a descriptive framework consisting of acts, moves, exchanges,

transactions, lessons. These elements are arranged hierarchically, such that acts combine to

form moves, moves combine to form exchanges, and so on. It is worth noting that an

utterance may contain more than one move, being intermediate between move and

exchange.

adjacency pairIn conversational analysis, an a.p. is made up of a sequence of two utterances (the first part and the second part ) that are: 1) adjacent 2) produced by different speakers 3) ordered as

first part and second part 4) typed, i.e. a particular first part requires a particular second part

(or range of second parts) - an offer expects an acceptance or a decline, a greeting requires

another greeting, and each of the latter forms a pair type with the former. Other examples

are complaint-apology, complaint - denial/ admission, invitation - acceptance/ non-acceptance.

adjunct

In grammar, the term is used to describe an optional element in a construction that can be

removed without the construction being affected, the clearest example being the optionaladverbials. In Quirk et al. 1972, etc., the term more specifically refers to a type of clause

constituent integrated to some extent in clause structure. Semantically, a.s are further

subdivided into focusing, intensifying, formulaic, process, place, time, viewpoint, others.

adverb and adverbial



55

An adverb is a part of speech, while an adverbial is a syntactic, functional element, along

with S, P, O, C.

affricate

In phonetics, in terms of manner of articulation, the term refers to a sound made when the

completely obstructed air-stream is released gradually, not suddenly. Its beginning is like a

plosive, its ending like a fricative. The initial sounds in Jim and chap are a.s.

agreement or concord

It describes a relationship between linguistic elements, by means of which a form of one

item asks for a corresponding form of another. The term concord has been more widely

used in linguistic studies lately.

allophone

An a. is a variant of a phoneme: in well, the final sound is a ‘dark l’, in ‘Luke’, the initial

sound is a ‘clear l’. The two sounds are allophones of the phoneme / l /.

anaphoric reference

It denotes backward-looking reference, a pronoun referring back to an antecedent that has

been expressed: Kevin stayed a whole week; before he left, he tried to get in touch with you. He has a.r. that sends back to its antecedent, Kevin.

anticipatory it

This type of it is found in extraposition, where it anticipates an item in the sentence: It’sgreat to have another such opportunity. This anticipatory subject is also called extrapositiveor preparatory it , and it should be distinguished from the prop or dummy it found in It’ssnowing/cold/two hours/twenty miles.

antonymy

In semantics, a term that refers to contrasts of word meaning, mainly in adjectives, but also

nouns, and sometimes verbs. A. is a set of sense relations, along with synonymy andhyponymy. It covers all types of semantic oppositeness. Some antonyms are gradable:

‘good’ vs ‘bad’. Others are ungraded : ‘dead’ vs ‘alive’. Another type of antonyms includes

converse pairs or relational opposites: ‘to borrow’ is the converse of ‘to lend’. As there is a

matter of controversy how many types of opposites are to be considered in semantic

analysis, the use of the term a. should be viewed with caution.

applied linguistics

A branch of linguistics that applies linguistic theories, methods and findings to the

clarification of problems that appear in other fields. Its most important application so far

has been in the study of second and foreign language learning and teaching. A.l. relates the

study of language to such fields as lexicography, translation, speech pathology. It usesinformation from sociology, psychology, anthropology, information theory, as well as from

linguistics in order to develop its own theoretical models, and then uses this theory in

practical areas such as syllabus design, speech therapy, stylistics. There is a fuzzy boundary

between a.l. and such interdisciplinary branches of linguistics as sociolinguistics and



56

psycholinguistics, as the latter’s preoccupations include practical outcomes of a plainly

applied kind.

apposition

A term used in grammar to refer to a sequence of units, usually NPs but also clauses (that-clauses, wh-clauses, to-infinitive clauses) with identical reference and grammatical

function. The appositional phrase is usually marked off by commas in writing, or a separate

tone unit in speech: Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, ... . Other examples

of appositive clauses: His pledge to look after the children... The suggestion that they

should retire...

appositional and non-appositional coordination

A distinction is made between a. and non-a. coordination. Under non-a. coordination we

include cases that can be treated as an implied reduction of two clauses. These have a verb

form in the plural : Tom and Jerry are now ready (Tom is and Jerry is...)What he says and what he thinks are none of their business. Conjoinings expressing a

mutual relationship also take a plural verb form: Her dilemma and yours are alike.With the

less common a. cordination, however, no such reduction is possible at all, for the

coordinated structures refer to the same thing. Hence a singular verb form is used: The old

friend and the subsequent editor of his poetic works was by his deathbed (compare with *

Filosoful si scriitorul Mihail Sora au împlinit 80 ani, a ‘howler’ in a local literary

periodical, Paradigma). Some latitude is allowed in the interpretation of abstract nouns:

Winifred’s cheerfulness and buoyancy was the cause of the unexpected coup de foudre.There may be doubt whether cheerfulness and buoyancy represent two distinct qualities or

only one. Invoking the principle of notional concord, we may use either singular or plural,

depending on whether unity or separateness is implied. to make things clearer, use Both...

and... when separateness is to be stressed: Both your frankness and your honesty are

highly thought of.

approximant

In phonetics, a term used to describe consonants on the basis of their manner of articulation. In the production of /w/, /j/, /r/, /l/, one articulator approaches a place of

articulation, but the degree of narrowing does not cause audible friction.

article

In grammar, the term refers to a subclass of determiners which displays an essential role in

differentiating the uses of nouns. They may be definite (the) or indefinite (a/an).

aspect

A grammatical category of the verb that mainly refers to how a language encodes the

duration or type of temporal activity denoted by the verb. A. is concerned with the internal

character of the event as it is presented by the speaker. It focuses on such contrasts asdurative - non-durative, perfective - imperfective, progressive - non-progressive.

Progressiveness is one type of imperfectivity. The progressive - non-progressive aspectual

contrast is well marked in English.

aspiration



57

When /p, t, k/ occur at the begining of a stressed syllable, a slight puff or breath (called

aspiration) is heard immediately after the release of the consonant. Therefore, ‘Tom’,

‘Pete’, ‘Kate’ are pronounced as /thom/, /p

hi:t/, /k

heIt/. Aspiration does not usually occur

when the voiceless plosives are preceded by /s/, as in ‘span’. When a voiceless plosive

precedes a vowel in an unstressed syllable, the aspiration that may occur is relatively weak.

In final position, /p,t,k/ may have no audible release or may be replaced by a glottal stop.

assimilation

A term in phonology that refers to the influence exerted by one sound upon the articulation

of another, so that the sounds become similar, or identical. Assimilation is partial in tin bin / tim bin /, where the n of tin has adopted the bilabiality of b, turning into m; it may be

total, as in thin mouse / θ im maus /, where the m of mouse has completely assimilated the n

of thin. In terms of the direction in which a. works there are three subtypes: regressive or

anticipatory a. - a sound assimilates its preceding sound, as in thin mouse above;

progressive a.: the sound changes because of the influence of the preceding sound, e.g.

staunch supporter articulated with the s of supporter turning into / ∫ /, under the influence of

the preceding /t∫ /; reciprocal a.: there is mutual influence, or fusion, of the sounds upon

each other, as in don’t you pronounced dontcha. The /t / and the /j / have fused to produce

an affricate.

attributable silence

In conversation analysis, a.s. describes what happens when one speaker gives the floor to

another speaker and the latter chooses to be silent, his/her absence of contribution to the

conversation becoming significant, the silence being attributable to him/her. The less the

two interlocutors are familiar with each other, the more significant a.s. becomes.

auxiliary

A term referring to a class of verbs that help to make distinctions of mood, aspect, voice,

etc. in the VP. It may be a primary auxiliary (do, be, have) or a modal auxiliary (can/could,

may/might, shall/should, will/would, must).

B

backchannel signal

Such signals are instances of feedback given by listeners to speakers engaged in extended

turns that they (the listeners) are in touch. In face-to-face and telephone conversation these

signals may include ‘I see’,‘yeah’, ‘uh-huh’, ‘mm’.

bilabial

In phonetics, in terms of manner of articulation, a consonant articulated with both lips, such

as /p/, /b/, /m/.

bound morpheme

A morpheme which is structurally dependent on the word to which it is added, e.g., the

plural morpheme.



58

boundary markers

In conversation analysis, b.m.s are linguistic signals like Well, Now, Right, Good, OK, Listen, usually spoken with falling intonation, whose function is to mark boundaries in

conversation. They may mark both the beginning and ending of a topic, or either its

beginning or ending.

C

calque

A c. is a word or phrase which is translated directly into a language from another, retaining

the structural properties of the first language. Sometimes a c. is institutionalized (Governor

general), sometimes it may be part of a learner’s interlanguage or a matter of lexical play (

“a battle of game” would be a c. from Romanian into English).

cardinal vowel chart

A set of standard reference points, devised by Daniel Jones to describe the articulation of

the vowels of a language. The chart takes into account which part of the tongue is involved

in the process, and how high or low in the mouth that part is. Its primary cardinal vowels

are not actual sounds, but extremes of vowel quality taken as points of reference for the

description of real vowels.

case

Case is a grammatical category that can express a number of different syntactic

relationships between nominal elements. The traditional case system, such as is found in

Latin grammar, is based on variations in the morphological paradigms of the words.

In languages like English, in which morphological variations are very limited, the

term case, as traditionally used, does not apply. English nouns have a two-case system, the

unmarked common case (girl) and the marked genitive case (girl’s); six pronouns ( I, he,

she, we, they, who) have a three-case system, where common case is replaced by subjective and objective case.

cataphoric reference

A form of reference in which the proform occurs before its text referent, and has to be

interpreted by means of the following co-text: Unless you book it in advance, you won’t find any accommodation.

cleft structure

A sentence whose normal SVO pattern is rearranged to highlight a certain part of the

structure. Paul is giving a house warming party tomorrow may be ‘cleft’ into two separate

sections, each with its own verb: It is Paul who is giving a house warming party or It is ahouse warming party that Paul is giving tomorrow or It is tomorrow that Paul is giving ahouse warming party. The different variants affect the distribution of emphasis within the

sentence, and correlate closely with patterns of intonation prominence.

coherence



59

The property of a text to ‘hang together’ rather than being a set of unrelated sentences or

utterances. Coherence is sometimes seen as referring to the underlying development of

propositions in terms of speech acts, in contrast to cohesion, concerned with surface

deatures of connectivity.

cohesion

The formal links that mark various kinds of intersentential links in discourse. Cohesive ties

have to do with a) explicit lexical repetition b) co-reference c) ellipsis as an implicit device.

collective noun

Nouns like committee, board, crew, family, government, army, jury, public. They can occur

in the singular with either a singular or a plural form, this correlating with a difference in

interpretation - the noun being seen as a single collective entity, or as a collection of

individual entities: The family are watching TV vs His family is famous.

collocation

Words collocate when they occur next to each other in texts. Although rancid, stale, fetid all express the meaning ‘unsuitable for human consumption’, they collocate differently:

rancid butter, stale bread, fetid water. Lean collocates with meat, but thin does not. C. is

one kind of lexical cohesion.

communicative competence

The ability to use language effectively in specific contexts and for specific purposes. It has

four components: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse

competence, and strategic competence.

communicative dynamism

A fundamental concept of the Prague school theory of linguistics, whereby an utterance is

seen as a process of gradually unfolding meaning, each part contributing differently to the

total communicative effect. The theme, for example, has a lower degree of c.d. than therheme, which contains the new information that furthers the communicative activity.

complement (Cs, Co, etc)

In grammar, c. refers in its broadest sense to all obligatory features of the predicate other

than the predicator: objects and adverbials of all kinds. In a more restricted sense, it denotes

the ‘completing’ function of structures following linking verbs. In I was wrong, the last

word is the complement of the subject or subject complement (Cs), while the same word is

the complement of the object or object complement (Co) in He proved me wrong. The term

complementation may be used to refer to structures completing other items: apart from verb

complementation, there is talk of adjective complementation, for example.

concord (see agreement)

conditional clauses and conditional sentences

Conditional clauses are the subordinate clauses in conditional sentences, combinations of

main clauses and c.c.s. Syntactically, conditional sentences in English are different from



60

those in Romanian, as the tenses of the verbs in the subordinate clauses of condition are

usually backshifted ( If I see vs Dacã voi vedea).Semantically speaking, c. sentences are of

two kinds: open (real possibilities) and hypothetical (unreal conditions). Pragmatically,

conditional situations and the sentences that express them offer a complex picture, form and

function, being likely to differ widely at times.

conjunct

Like adjuncts and disjuncts, they are subclasses of the adverbial. Like disjuncts, they are

less integrated into the structure of the clause, being peripheral to it. C. have an important

function, binding texts together. They show a large number of textual connections, being

enumerative, reinforcing, equative, transitional, summative, appositive, resultative,

inferential, reformulatory, replacive, antithetic, concessive, temporal transitive.

conjunction

A part of speech whose members join together clauses and other sentence elements.

Coordinating c. (and,but, or ) join equal elements, while subordinating ones (although, as,

because, if, once, since, unless, whereas) join elements of unequal ranks. Many

conjunctions are closely related to adverbial meaning: after, where, as long as, supposing.

consonant

Phonetically, a c. is a sound made by a closure or narrowing in the vocal tract so that the

airstream is either completely blocked, or so restricted that audible friction is effected. C.s

are described in terms of place and manner of articulation, presence or absence of vocal

cord vibration, amount of energy spent in their production. Phonologically, c.s are those

units that function at the edges of syllables, either individually or in clusters.

context and co-text

Most narrowly defined, context refers to ‘something which precedes or follows something

else’. This is also known as the verbal context or co-text. Context, more precisely

situational context , is a term used to indicate the features of the non-linguistic world in

relation to which linguistic units are systematically used. Certain linguists, particularlysystemic-functional linguists, claim that context and purpose determine the grammar and

structure of the discourse.

contoid

A term introduced by the American phonetician Kenneth Pike to help distinguish between

the phonetic and phonological notions of consonant (see consonant above). Contoid refers

to the phonetic characteization of a consonant; consonant is reserved for the phonological

sense. Its opposite is vocoid.

conversation analysis

C.a. tries to describe and explain the ways in which conversations work. This type of analysis is rather different from that undertaken by discourse analysis, although both c.a.

and d.a. give an account of how coherence and sequential organisation in discourse are

produced and understood. C.a., as practised by Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson, is a rigorously

empirical approach which avoids premature theory constructions. It was developed within a

sociological rather than linguistic tradition, the school itself being known by the term



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ethnomethodology. Ethnomethodologists insist that data should be derived from naturally

occurring instances of everyday interaction. In particular, they reject the data obtained

through formal experiments, interviews and other forms of elicitation. Questions that

conversation analysts have investigated include the following: How do topics get

nominated, accepted, maintained and changed? How is speaker selection and change

organised? How are conversational ambiguities and indeterminacies resolved? How are

non-verbal and verbal aspects of conversation organised and integrated?

conversational implicature

An additional unformulated meaning that can be arrived at by the application of the maxims

of the cooperative principle.

conversational maxim

One of the components of the cooperative principle, described below.

cooperative principle

A term introduced by the philosopher H.P.Grice now used in the study of conversational

structure. At its simplest it is the assumption in conversation that each participant will

attempt to cooperate with the others by being as informative as necessary, truthful, relevant

and clear (maxims of quantity, quality, relation and manner respectively).

coordination, asyndetic and syndetic

C. is a process of linkage which does not differentiate between the two elements linked.

When it is signalled by the presence of the conjunctions and, but, or it is syndetic. When

commas are used instead, it is asyndetic. C. can link NPs or whole clauses. When it links

clauses, it contrasts with subordination, where there is some implication that the

propositions of the clauses that are linked are not of equal importance. In most texts,

clauses are linked by both coordination and subordination, but the relative ratios can change

dramatically, being and indication of a particular style.

copular verb or linking verbSuch verbs have little independent meaning, their main function being to relate other

elements of clause structure, especially subject and complement. Here are some examples

of such verbs: to be tired, to look good, to feel great, to sound interesting, to grow pale, to

fall silent.

countable/count vs mass/ uncountable

The ‘countability’ distinction count vs non-count/mass/uncountable nouns is a focus of

attention in analyses of the noun phrase, because of the way it can explain the distribution

of nouns in relation to the use of such items as articles and quantifiers. Count nouns are

viewed as separate entities, used with such forms as a, many, two, etc.; mass nouns are

treated as continuous entities, having no natural bounds, and are used with much, some. Some nouns can have dual membership, i.e. they can be at times either count or mass, with

a difference in meaning. It is worth noting that some nouns can be mass in English and

count in Romanian: plural, count informatii, progrese, bagaje, dovezi, spaghete, confetti are

to be translated as singular, mass information, progress, luggage, evidence, spaghetti,

confetti.



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cratylism

C. is also known as sound symbolism, i.e. the theory that there is a natural harmony

between linguistic form and semantic content, thus contradicting the Saussurean theory of

the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. We would all probably agree that what clinks is

smaller than what clunks, for instance. C. was powerful in the symbolist poetry of Mallarme

and Rimbaud, certain sounds being said to evoke certain colours.

D

dangling participle - unrelated participle

When a participle clause has no stated subject, we assume it is the same as the main clause

subject. But in Coming round the corner, a tile fell on my head, the participle coming

cannot be related to the subject of the main clause (a tile). This incorrect use describes a d.

or u. participle. The u. p. is, however, acceptable in absolute clauses: The island looked

impregnable, massive cliffs rising out of the sea.

deference strategy

Characteristic of conversation that stresses negative politeness, the non-personal, and

freedom from imposition.

deixis

In linguistics, d. refers generally to those features of language which relate utterances to a

time, place, or the speaker’s viewpoint: now/then, here/there, I/you, this/that. The notion is

useful in several areas of linguistics, especially in pragmatics.

demonstrative

A pronoun or determiner which refers to something in terms of whether it is near to or

distant from the speaker. The demonstratives are this, that, these, those.

derivation

A term used in morphology to one of the two main types of word formation, the other being

inflection.The result of a derivation is a new word: friend - >friendship.

determinative and determiner

Determinatives include a) predeterminers (all, both, double), b) central determiners (thearticles, this, some), c) postdeterminers, which follow central determiners but precede

premodifiers (e.g. adjectives).

descriptive grammar

It aims to show the facts of language usage synchronically and as they are, not how they

ought to be, with reference to some imagined ideal state. The emphasis on a given time

places it in contrast with historical linguistics, which aims to describe linguistic change.



63

dialect

A regional or social variety of language, marked by a particular lexis and grammatical

features. The systematic study of all forms of dialect, especially regional, is called linguistic

geography or dialectology.

diphthongization

The term describes a process in which a monophthong turns into a diphthong.

discourse analysis

both CA and DA give an account of how coherence and sequential organization in

discourse are produced and understood.

DA employs the methodology, principles, concepts of linguistics. It is an attempt to

extend the techniques used in linguistics beyond the level of the sentence. There is a

tendency to take texts, which are often constructed by the analyst, and to give an in-depth

analysis of all the interesting features of this limited domain. DAists include text

grammarians and speech acts(interactional) theorists.

dispreferred second

Alternative second parts to first parts of adjacency pairs are not of equal status; some

second turns are preferred and others dispreferred. Preference has little to do with the

interlocutors’ desires, it indicates what is commonly expected in a certain context. While

preferred, unmarked preferred second parts may be said to be irregular, dispreferred seconds

have much in common, notably components of delay and a higher level of complexity.

Using these terms, we will need a rule for speech production, which can be stated roughly

as follows: ‘try to avoid the dispreferred second - the action that generally occurs in

dispreferred or marked format’. The dispreferred second of an adjacency pair whose first

part is an offer will be a refusal.

dynamic vs stative verbs

The aspectual distinction d. vs s. is mainly syntactic: dynamic verbs may occur in theprogressive form and in the imperative. In terms of their meaning, dynamic verbs may be

durative or punctual, agentive or non-agentive, bounded or unbounded. Stative verbs are

durative, non-agentive, unbounded (= not bounded by an end-point).

E

elision

In phonology, the omission of sounds in connected speech: February may turn into /febri/,

twelfths may be elided and pronounced as /twelfs/.

ellipsis

A process whereby, for reasons of economy or emphasis, a part of a language structure has

been left unexpressed, but is easily recoverable from the context: (It) sounds good.



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endophoric

E. relationships of cohesion help to define the structure of texts. It is contrasted with

exophoric relationships, whose interpretation depends on the extralinguistic situation.

Endophoric relationships are anaphoric or cataphoric.

entailment

Something that logically follows from what is asserted. If knowing that one sentence

(strictly speaking proposition) is true makes us certain about the truth of the second

sentence, then the first sentence entails the second. Entailment does not depend upon the

context in which a sentence is used.

ergative verb

Some verbs are used transitively and intransitively with different kinds of subject; the

intransitive use has a meaning rather like a passive or reflexive:

They sell cakes.

The book is selling like hot cakes.

ethnomethodology

A branch of sociology that deals with the description and interpretation of everyday spoken

discourse.

exchange

One of the units of spoken discourse introduced by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) to

describe typical classroom discourse. According to the two authors the typical exchange

consists of three elements, initiation, response, follow-up. The initiating and the follow-up

moves are performed by the teacher, the second by the pupils/students. An exchange which

consists of only two parts is perceived by S. and C. as the ‘marked form’ in which the third

part is omitted for strategic reasons. An example would be when a student gives the wrong

answer and the teacher withholds the evaluation and goes on to provide clues in order to

help the student reach the right answer.

existential there

A term used in the grammatical description of clause or sentence types, referring to a type

of structure beginning with the unstressed word there followed by the verb be.

exophoric

The term, popularized by Halliday and Hassan (1976), refers to contextual or situational

reference (exophoric), as distinct from textual reference (endophoric). E.reference may be

specific, pointing to the immediate situational context or generalized or homophoric,

referring to the larger cultural context or shared knowledge. Both types of e. reference are

very important in fiction and drama for the creation of the situational dimensions of acertain universe of discourse.

extraposition



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A process whereby an element is moved from its normal position and moved towards the

end of the sentence. An anticipatory it substitutes for the extraposed element. E. operates

mainly on subordinate nominal clauses.

F

face

A term used in the sociology of language and in pragmatics to denote a person’s public self-

image. In social interaction, the interlocutors try to convey a positive message about

themselves by means of face saving acts. The utterances or actions that threaten a person’s

public self-image are face threatening acts.

felicity conditions

In speech act theory, the conditions that must be met for a speech act to be satisfactorily

performed. I bet you $1,000,000 that I am right , even if I am right, is not a bet if I am

broke. I pronounce you man and wife does not work if the speaker is neither a priest nor a

registrar.

finite vs nonfinite

A finite verb is a form that can occur on its own in an independent sentence or a main

clause. It displays tense and mood contrasts. Non-finite forms of the verb occur on their

own only in dependent clauses, and lack tense and mood contrasts. Infinitives and

participles are non-finite.

first topic slot - in conversational analysis, an element of the overall organizaton of a

telephone conversation. It contains an announcement by the caller of the reason for the call.

The first topic slot, immediately following the opening section is a privileged point: it is

almost entirely free from the topical constraints coming from prior turns. The main body of

the call is thus structured by topical constraints: the content of the first slot is likely to be

understood as the main reason for the call (whether this is true or not).

floor

The ongoing permission to speak while a conversation is going on.

foreign plurals

Some nouns borrowed from other languages have preserved their original plural form. Here

are some examples in the singualar and plural: stimulus - stimuli, phenomenon -

phenomena, alga - algae, analysis - analyses.

fortis vs lenis

Fortis consonants are articulated with a strong degree of muscular effort and breath force;the other consonants are lenis. Voiceless consonants, such as /p/, /t/, /s/, etc., are said to be

produced with fortis articulation, while voiced ones are lenis sounds.

fricative



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Sounds made when an articulator and a place of articulation get so close together that the

air moving between them causes audible friction. There are pairs of voiced and voiceless

fricatives in English /v/ and /f/, / ¬ / and / w /, /z/ and /s/, and voiceless glottal fricative /h/.

functional grammar

A linguistic theory put forth in the 1970s as an alternative to formal, abstract

transformational grammar, relying on a pragmatic view of language as social interaction. It

focuses on the rules of verbal interaction, seen as cooperation, and on the linguistic rules

and expressions that are used as instruments of this interaction.

functional sentence perspective

Associated with the Prague School, f.s.p. describes how information is organized in

sentences. It mainly focuses on the effect of the distribution of given and new information

in discourse. The known information (theme) refers to the information that is not new to the

reader or listener. The rheme refers to information that is new. F.s.p. differs from the

traditional grammatical analysis of sentences because the distinction subject - predicate is

not always the same as the theme-rheme contrast.

functions

A synonym for speech acts - the things we do with words (apologizing, threatening,

promising, flattering, instructing).

G

generative grammar

A set of formal rules that projects a limited set of sentences upon the practically unlimited

set of sentences that constitute the language as a whole. It does so in an explicit manner,

assigning to each a set of structural descriptions. This type of grammar is said to generate,

or produce, grammatical sentences.

generative phonology

It describes the competence a native speaker must have to be able to produce and

understand the sound system of his/her language. The phonemes are viewed as bundles of

distinctive features. Each sound displays a different set of such features.

generative semantics

It grew as a response and reaction to Chomsky’s syntactic-based transformationalgenerative grammar. It states that all sentences stem from (are generated by) an underlying

semantic structure. The latter is frequently in the form of a proposition that resembles

logical propositions in philosophy.

generic referenceA kind of reference that indicates a class of entities, rather than a specific member of a

class. The English is a phrase that has g.r., while two Englishmen has specific reference.

gender



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A grammatical category used to describe parts of speech, particularly nouns, displaying

distinctions such as masculine/ feminine/ neuter, animate/ inanimate, personal/ non-

personal.One can distinguish between natural gender , where items refer to the sex of real-world

entities, and grammatical gender , which has next to nothing with sex, but which has an

important part to play in signalling grammatical relationships between words in a sentence.

English gender contrasts are on the whole natural, i.e. he usually refers to male people and

animals. We say that English gender is also covert , i.e. it makes very few distinctions.

Where they are made, the correspondence between sex and gender is very close. Gender

contrasts are commonly made by the correlation between nouns and personal and relative

pronouns, as well as, less usually, by means of suffixes and gender markers. According to

some grammarians (Schibsbye 1965), there are four genders (or gender distinctions) in

English: masculine, feminine, common ( parent , for example) and neuter. Quirk et al (1973)

describes ten gender classes as being the product of the combinations of gender-sensitive

pronouns (and, in addition, they) and relative pronouns who, which, that substitute for

singular nouns.

glottal stop and glottalization

The vocal cords can be tightly pressed together so that air is prevented from escaping

through the glottis. As a result of the compression of the air-stream behind this closure, a

glottal stop or glottal plosive is produced, for which the symbol ? is used. When coughing,

we usually produce a succession of glottal stops. The glottal stop often occurs in English

when it reinforces or even replaces the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/. Glottalisation of this

latter kind is particularly marked with the younger generations in contemporary British

English.

government-binding theory

A model of grammar that assumes that sentences have three main levels of structure: D-

structure, S-structure and logical form. The main sub-theories are X-bar theory, theta

theory, case theory, binding theory, bounding theory, control theory and government theory.

Government-binding is often referred as the ‘principles and parameters’ theory.

grammatical metaphor

The transformation process whereby functions that usually feature as verbs are turned into

entities represented by nouns.

H

hedge

A qualifying, mitigating note conveyed about how an utterance is to be interpreted, such as

‘to a certain extent’, ‘if I am not mistaken’, ‘as far as I know’.

homorganicA term in the phonetic classification of speech sounds, referring to sounds that are produced

at the same place of articulation, such as /p/, /b/, /m/.

I



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ideational function of language

The function that relates to information about concrete and abstract entities and states of

affairs. It contrasts with the interpersonal function that shows the attitudes or feelings of the

speakers towards each other and towards the topics of the utterances.

idiolect

The linguistic system of an individual speaker - one’s personal variety of a language.

idiom

In grammar and lexicology, a term that refers to a sequence of words which functions as a

single unit. The meaning of its individual words cannot be put together to produce the

meaning of the ‘idiomatic’ expression as a whole.

illocutionary vs locutionary, perlocutionary

Illocutionary is a term used in the theory of speech acts to refer to an act which is

performed by the speaker by the utterance having been made. Such acts include those of

promising, commanding, arresting, baptising. The term is contrasted with locutionary (the

act of saying) and perlocutionary (the act is defined by reference to the effect it has on the

hearer).

indefinite

A term used in grammar and semantics to refer to an entity which is not capable of specific

identification; contrasted with definite. Indefiniteness in English is expressed by means of

the indefinite article a or an indefinite pronoun (one, some, each,etc.).

indexicals

Features of speech or writing showing the personal characteristics of a language user, as in

voice quality or handwriting. More generally, the term refers to the features that identify

membership in a group, such as regional, social or occupational ‘indices’. Indexicalexpressions, usually called deictic features, sometimes refer to those features of language

that indicate directly the situation within which an utterance takes place; their meaning isthus relative to that situation.

inflection

A term used in morphology to refer to one of the two main processes of word formation, the

other being derivation. Inflectional affixes signal grammatical relationships, such as plural,

past tense and possession, and do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which

they are attached.

information focus

Speech can be seen as displaying an information structure, with formally identifiable units

of information. Intonation provides the main signal for such units. The tone unit representsan information unit, and the nuclear tone marks the information focus.

inherent/ non-inherent

Terms used in the semantic analysis of adjectives. Rather than using dichotomies and clear-

cut distinctions, we can discuss the meaning of adjectives by using three gradients:



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stative/dynamic, inherent/ non-inherent, gradable/ non-gradable. Inherent adjectives

characterise the referent of the noun directly ( a good man), unlike non-inherent ones (the

referent of a good hunter is not necessarily a good man).

insertion sequence

In conversational analysis, a two-part sequence that interrupts an adjacency pair , getting

embedded between the two parts:

A: Can I go out tonight?( B:Do you promise to come back before midnight?A: Sure.) B:

OK.

interpersonal

A term used in semantics and functional grammar as part of a classification of types of

meaning. It refers to those aspects of meaning that relate to the establishing and keeping of

social relations.

intonation

In suprasegmental phonology, a term referring to the distinctive use of patterns of pitch. In

some approaches, the pitch patterns are described as contours and analysed in terms of

levels of pitch as pitch phonemes and morphemes; in others, the patterns are described as

tone units or tone groups, analysed further as contrasts of nuclear tone, tonicity, etc. The

three variables of pitch range, height and direction are generally distinguished.

intrusive r

In RP, the introduction of /r/ as a linking form after a vowel, when the following word

begins with a vowel, where there is no r in spelling: law(r) and order, media(r) event

L

labio-dental

The term refers to a sound in the articulation of which the lower lip acts as the articulator

that gets in contact with the upper teeth, as in /f/ and /v/.

langue vs parole

According to the distinction made by Ferdinand de Saussure, langue refers to the language

system shared by a community of speakers, and is contrasted with parole, which is the

concrete act of speaking in actual situations by an individual.

lexical cohesionIn discourse analysis, the term describes the situation when two or more words are related

in terms of their meaning. The two main kinds of l.c. are reiteration and collocation.

lexical verbs



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One of the three main classes of verbs, along with primary verbs and modals. The lexical

verbs can act only as main verbs, the modals can act only as auxiliaries, the primary verbs

can act either as main verbs or auxiliaries.

lexicography

The art and science of compiling dictionaries. It can be seen as a branch of ‘applied

lexicology’.

lexicology

The overall study of a language’s vocabulary, including its history. It can be seen as a

branch of semantics.

limited generic reference

It occurs with NP heads having of-phrase postmodification: the music of the spheres. This

type of postmodification should be compared to the alternative with adjectival

premodification. Unlike other languages, English also uses the zero article where the

reference of the NP head is restricted by premodification. This is another type of limited

generic reference: Australian sheep, Restoration comedy, American literature, Korean

industry, Chinese porcelain.

linguistics

Different branches may be identified according to the linguist’s focus and range of interest.

A major distinction is between diachronic and synchronic l., the former referring to the

study of language change (=historical l.), the latter to the study of the state of language at a

certain time. If the aim is to establish general principles for all languages, to determine the

characteristics of human language as a phenomenon, it is called general linguistics. When it

attempts to establish the facts of a particular language, it is called descriptive. When it

focuses on the differences between languages within a language-teaching context, it is

contrastive. When its aim is to identify the common characteristics of different languages or

language families, it is comparative. The term of linguistic sciences has lately come to be

used by some as a cover term for both linguistics and phonetics - the latter being seen as apre-language study. When the subject’s findings, methods, or theoretical principles are

applied to the study of problems from other areas of experience, one talks of applied linguistics; the term of applied l. is often restricted to the study of the theory and method.

linking verb (see copular verb)

M

minimal pair

One of the discovery procedures used in phonology to determine which sounds belong tothe same phoneme. Two words which differ in meaning when only one sound is changed

are referred to as a ‘minimal pair’, e.g. tap vs cap.

modality





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negative face

The need to be independent, not imposed on by others; the opposite of positive face.

negative politeness

Awareness of another’s right not to be imposed upon.

negotiation of meaning

The joint work done by interlocutors to make sure that they have a common understanding

of the current meanings in a conversation. Conversational strategies that are of use are

comprehension checks, confirmation checks and clarification requests.

new information

The part of the message a speaker assumes is new to the addressee. The division theme/

rheme shows the organisation of information in terms of given information (theme) and

new information (rheme).

nominalization

The process of forming a noun from some other part of speech or the derivation of a NP

from a clause ( His painting of the portrait from He painted the portrait ).

nonfinite

a verb, verb phrase or clause without tense or a modal, usually an infinitive or a participle

form / construction.

nucleus

The syllable in a tone unit which carried maximal prominence, usually due to a major pitch

change. It is also called the tonic syllable.

nuclear tone

The most prominent pitch movement in a tone unit. In English, such contrasts as falling,rising, rising-falling and falling-rising are important.

O

object

A term used in the analysis of grammatical functions, to refer to a major constituent of

clause structure. Traditional analysis distinguishes a direct vs an indirect o. In the study of

inflected languages, objective may be used as an alternative to accusative. Some linguists

talk about ‘the object of a preposition’ to refer to the NP that follows a preposition in aPrepP.

operator



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The first auxiliary in a VP. Together with the predication is makes up the predicate. the

division subject - operator - predication is important in the description of the relationship

between different clause types or mood structures.

P

palatal

Sounds articulated in the area of the hard palate.

paradigm

A set of grammatically conditioned forms all derived from a single root or stem.

paradigmatic vs syntagmatic relationships

P. refers to a set of substitutional relationships a linguistic unit has with other units in a

specific context. P.r.s, together with syntagmatic r.s, constitute the statement fo a linguistic

unit’s identity within the language system. S.r.s refer to the sequential characteristics of

speech, usually seen as a string of constituents in linear order. Sets of syntagmatically

related constituents are often referred to as structures.

pedagogical grammar

A grammar organised for learning and teaching the language structures of a foreign

language.

perlocutionary act

In speech act theory, the effect achieved by the utterance on the addressee through the

illocutionary act.

phoneme

A minimal, distinctive functional element in the sound system of a language. Actually, it is

a set of similar sounds, found in free variation and complementary distribution that areperceived as the ‘same’ sound. The positional variants of a p. are called its allophones.

phrasal verb

A sequence of a lexical verb plus one or several particles e.g. to take in, to go off, to turn

on.

phrase

A single element of grammatical structure typically containing more than one word, lacking

the subject-predicate structure typical of clauses. It is seen as part of a structural hierarchy,

between the level of the word and that of the clause. Several types can be distinguished, all

of them but PrepPs (prepositional phrases) having a central element as head, which givesthe name to the particular construction: NPs, VPs, AdjPs, AdvPs.

pitch

Voice level produced by varying tension in the vocal cords and leading to sounds of lower

and higher frequency.



74

plosive

A sound articulated when a complete obstruction in the vocal tract is suddenly released. the

air-pressure rushes out with an explosive sound, plosion. Plosive consonants are also called

stops. /p,b, t, d, k, g/ are plosives or stops.

politeness

Discourse strategies that enable a speaker to maintain face in an interaction.

positive face

The need to belong to a group, to relate to the others; the opposite of negative face.

positive politeness

Showing solidarity with another.

postmodifier (see qualifier)

pragmatics

P. deals with intentional meaning, with what people mean by their utterances, rather than

with the meaning of the utterances themselves. It also involves the evaluation of the context

and its contribution to meaning. P. also studies how there is more to meaning than what is

explicitly said.

predicate, predication, predicator

A sentence is traditionally divided into subject and predicate, division coming from logic.

The latter may be further divided into operator (the first auxiliary in a VP) and predication.

In semantics, in the description of propositional content, a predicate may be realised by

verbs, as well as certain noun phrases, adjectives and prepositional phrases. The predicator is a functional element of the clause, along with subject, object, complement, adverbial.

preference structure

In conversation analysis, the principle according to which one type of utterance will be

more typically found in response to another in a conversational sequence, e.g. a denial will

more typically follow an accusation than an admission, an acceptance is more likely to

follow an invitation.

prefix

An affix which is attached initially to the root or stem of a word, as in untouchable (-able in

the example is a suffix). Prefixation is an important word-formation process in English, by

means of which new lexical items can be coined.

premodifiers

The items occurring before the head of a phrase and after the determinatives. Adjectives

prototypically function attributively as premodifiers.

preposition



75

A part of speech whose members typically precede NPs to form a single constituent of

structure, the PrepP.

presupposition, semantic and pragmatic

Taken from logic, the term is used in semantics to describe a condition that has to be met if

a particular state of affairs is to obtain. In pragmatics, p. is both what the speaker assumes

to be true in saying something and what s/he assumes to be shared knowledge between

himself/herself and the interlocutor. A child, for instance, wrongly presupposes that the

adult listening to him/her understands his We were there and she told me to do that , without

previously specifying the people and the circumstances involved. In Who killed themosquito? I presuppose that the mosquito is dead, that I do not know who did it, and that

somebody else is likely to be able to tell me who did it. One of the qualities of

presupposition is constancy under negation, i.e. even if a statement is negated, its

presupposition remains the same.

progressive

In the grammatical description of verb forms, it refers to a contrast of a temporal or durative

kind, sometimes dealt with under the heading of tense, sometimes under aspect. The usual

important contrast is between progressive or continuous and non-progressive or simple.Linguists prefer an aspectual analysis here, because of the complex interaction of

durational, completive and temporal features of meaning involved.

proposition

P.s are the basic units of meaning that sentences and clauses express. A p. consists of an

entity that is named and an expression of a state or action associated with that entity. In The

young man in the street staring at you is a friend of mine there are several p.s: ‘the man is

young’, ‘the man is in the street’, ‘the man is staring at you’, ‘the man is a friend of mine’.

The propositional content of a sentence is its context-free meaning.

psycholinguistics

A branch of linguistics that investigates the relationships between linguistic behaviour andthe psychological processes thought to underlie that behaviour. The best developed branch

of the subject is the study of language acquisition in children.

Q

qualifier

A structure following the head of a NP, another term for postmodifier.

quantifier

A term used in semantics or logic to refer to items that show contrasts in quantity, such asall, some, each. In some grammars, q.s refer to a class of items expressing contrasts in

quantity occurring in the NP: much/many, several, a lot of.

question





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root (radical)

A term from historical linguistics used as part of a classification of the kinds of element

operating within the structure of the word. It is the base form of a word which cannot be

further analysed without total loss of identity. It is that part of the word which remains

whenall the affixes have been removed.

RP

Received pronunciation is the name given to the regionally neutral accent in British

English, previously also called ‘BBC English’.

S

schema (pl schemata) The mental structure we have that conveys the expected structure of

things, e.g. a bike schema has two wheels, handlebars, a saddle, a chain, etc.

script

A pre-existing knowledge structure for interpreting event sequences; a witness summoned

to court will go through a certain sequence, and so will someone who sees a doctor.

semantics

A branch of linguistics dealing with the study of context-free meaning in language. The

emphasis is on the study of the semantic properties of natural languages. Areas of semantics

include etymology (the diachronic study of word meanings), lexicology (the synchronic

analysis of word usage, and lexicography (the compilation of dictionaries).

sense relations

Lexical items contract with each other systems of linguistic relationships: antonymy,

synonymy, homonymy, hyponymy; these are dealt with in lexicology/ lexical semantics.

sociolinguistics

The study of language in relation to social factors (social class, educational level and type

of education, age, sex, ethnic origin, etc.) Some linguists include in s. the study of

interpersonal communication, sometimes called micro-s., e.g. speech acts, speech events,sequencing of utterances.

speech actThe functional intention of an utterance. It may be locutionary, illocutionary or

perlocutionary in terms of its reference, force or effect.

speech event



78

A particular instance when people exchange speech. The components of a speech event are

its setting, the participants and their role relationships, the message, the key and the

channel.

standard variety

The variety of a language which has the highest status in a community or nation and which

is usually based on the speech and writing of educated native speakers of the language. A

standard variety may show some variation in pronunciation according to the part of the

country where it is spoken.

stem

In the classification of the kinds of elements operating within the structure of the word, it

consists of a single root morpheme, of two root morphemes, of a root morpheme plus a

derivational affix. The s. is the unit to which inflectional affixes are attached.

stress

There are four factors that are important in making a syllable recognisably stressed:

loudness, length, pitch, and quality. Pitch is thought to produce the strongest effect, and

length is also a powerful factor. A syllable is therefore prominent in a certain context if it is

uttered on a higher pitch, than the surrounding syllables, if it is longer, louder, if it contains

a vowel that is different in quality from the neighbouring vowels.

stylistics

A branch of linguistics that studies the features of varieties of language, and tries to

establish principles capable of accounting for the particular choices made by individual and

social groups in their use of language. Literary stylistics uses linguistics to show how

literary effects can be related to linguistic features.

subjunctive

The subjunctive has a very restricted use as a mood in contemporary English. It has to do

with both syntax and morphology. Syntactically, the term is used in the classification of sentence types, having to do with the mood structures of the clause. Morphologically, two

subjunctives are identified, the present and the past subjunctives.

supraglottal

In phonetics, a general term referring to the segments of the vocal tract above the glottis:

the pharynx, the mouth and nasal cavities.

syllable

The lowest phonological unit into which phonemes are combined. Phonetically speaking (in

terms of perception), a syllable consists of a sonorous centre sounding comparatively loud,having little or no obstruction to the air-flow; at the beginning and at the end of the syllable

there will be greater obstruction and less loud sound.

syntax



79

The study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences. As such, it

is opposed to morphology, the study of word structure. An alternative definition that avoids

the concept of ‘word’ is the study of the interrelationships between the elements of sentence

structure, and of the rules governing the arrangement of sentences into sequences.

T

that-clause

A dependent declarative clause, introduced by that. The main types function as subject,object, apposition, subject complement and postmodifying that-relative clauses. The that

may be omitted in certain circumstances.

thematization

The process of giving prominence to certain elements on a sentence or utterance by placing

them at the beginning of the sentence or utterance.

theme

The initial element in a sentence or utterance which forms the point of departure. The rest

of the sentence or utterance is called its rheme.

tone group

A term used in intonation analysis to refer to a distinctive sequence of pitches, or tones, in

an utterance. The most important feature of a t.g. is the nuclear tone, the most prominent

tone in the sequence. It may be accompanied, depending on the length of the t.g., by a pre-

head, a head and a tail.

Transition Relevance Place (TRP)One of the points where a change of speaker during a conversation can occur.

transitive verb

Transitive in traditional grammar, in the categorization of verbs and clauses, describes

structures which have a verb followed by an object which is affected by the action of the

verb. From Lat. ‘going through’, the influence of the verb extends to the object as ‘goal’.

triphthong

Combination of a diphthong with / jjjj /, e.g. au + jjjj in flowers. Sometimes the middle element

is lost in rapid speech or in certain varieties of English; sometimes the triphthong is

monophthongised: flowers may be pronounced /fla:z/.turn

In sociolinguistics and conversational analysis, one of the opportunities to hold the floor

during a conversation.



80

turn-taking

The change of speaker during conversation. Some of its rules are obvious (that only one

person should speak at a time), others would attempt to state who should speak next in a

group discussion.

U

usage

The collective term for the speech and writing habits of a community, with information

about preferences for alternative linguistic forms. The study of u. can reveal, for instance,

that passive constructions are very frequent in scientific writing, that double negations like

I ain’t got no time are typical of substandard varieties of English.

usage and use

A distinction introduced by H.G.Widdowson (1978) between the function of a linguistic

item in a linguistic system (usage) and its function as part of a system of communication

(use). The meaning a linguistic item has as an example of usage is called signification,

while the meaning is has as an example of use is called its value.

utterance

A term used in phonology and pragmatics to refer to a stretch of speech preceded and

followed by silence or a change of speaker. Used in pragmatics, u. explicitly involves its

contextualisation, i.e. it is a contextualised stretch of speech.

V

velar

In phonetics, a term used to describe the place of articulation of certain consonants: it refers

to a sound made by the back of the tongue (the articulator) against the velum (place of

articulation). /k/ and /g/ are examples of velar consonants.

vocoid

A term introduced by the American phonetician Pike to account for situations when a sound

that functions as a consonant displays vocalic qualities. English /l/, /r/, /w/, /j/ are

phonetically vowel-like (lacking, in their articulation, any closure or narrowing sufficient to

produce audible friction), but their function is consonantal, except for their behaviour in

syllables where they act as syllabic centre.

vowel

Vowels can be defined in terms of both phonetics and phonology. Phonetically, they are

sounds articulated without a complete closure in the mouth or a degree of narrowing which



81

would cause audible friction. Phonologically, vowels function as syllabic centres. In

English, some vocoid consonants can also function as syllabic centres.

vowel quality

The features, other than length, that distinguish one vowel from another. V.q. is determined

by the shape of the mouth when the particular vowel is produced. the shape of the mouth

varies according to the position of the tongue and the degree of lip rounding.

W

weak form

One of the possible pronunciations for a word in connected speech. The weak form is that

which is the result of the word being unstressed, are in These are my friends. Almost all the

words which have both a strong and a weak form - there are roughly 40 such items in

English - belong to the category of grammatical words, such as primary auxiliaries, modals,

prepositions, conjunctions. In certain circumstances, these words are pronounced in their

strong forms, but their weak forms are more frequently produced and sound more natural in

casual, ordinary conversation. There are contexts where the weak form is the normal

pronunciation and others where only the strong form is acceptable.

wh-question

Syntactically, a class of structures initiated by wh-words, associated with falling intonation.

They are information-seeking, the expected answer replacing the wh-word in the question.

When the wh-word functions as the subject of the question, there is no operator insertion in

the structure; compare Who do you know? and Who knows you?

Y

Yes/no question

Syntactically, interrogative structures formed by placing the operator before the subject and

using rising or falling-rising intonation. When they have neutral polarity (leaving open

whether the answer will be positive or affirmative), they include non-assertive items (any,ever, at all). They may also have positive ( Did someone leave a message for me?) or

negative orientation ( Didn’t anyone leave any message for me?).

Z

zero anaphora



82

The absence of an expression where one is expected, as a device for maintaining reference:

He bought the book and ----- sold it right away.

zero-plural nouns

Some nouns have the same spoken and written form in both singular and plural. Examples

of zero-plural nouns: aircraft, crossroads, headquarters, means, gallows, salmon.

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Documents

Limba Engleza Contemporana - Eduard Vlad (note de curs)