- •I. The subject-matter of phonetics
- •II. Sounds of speech as acoustic and articulatory units
- •1. Read aloud the minimal pairs below. Single out the phonemes which are contrasted.
- •In English
- •In Russian
- •4. Position of the Soft Palate
- •Its' indSendent „hy 7nt-' {1;.Аз а fr°nt-retracted vowel phoneme.
- •4. Read these words. Observe the longer character of the terminal allophones of the /f, V, s, X/ phonemes and their shorter character in initial position.
- •6. Read these word combinations. Pay attention to the consonant modified by the following interdental /6, э/.
- •Vowel phonemes. Description of-principal variants
- •I mine tide fight
- •IV. Articulatory transitions
- •V. English phonemes in writing
- •7 Letters s — t — r — e — t — с — h
- •8. Learn the extracts by heart. They illustrate difficulties of English pronunciation. Transcribe these extracts.
- •VI. Syllable
- •Give examples to illustrate the rules of word-stress for a) prefixal words; b) compound words.
- •Use the words below in the examples of your own.
- •8. Put down stress marks in the sentences below. Translate them into Russian-
- •4. Read these jokes. Define what intonation patterns should be used to convey humour.
- •5. Read these texts as if you were readinglthem to a) children; b) students. Learn the poem by heart.
- •X. Received and general american pronunciation
- •Igesticu'lation gesticulation
- •IBirraing|ham 'Birmingham
- •1 I»j. Lea], [09], Eu»] correspond to the qa дпи се (»), [srj. [srj,
- •IfarraJhouse 'farmihouse
1. Read aloud the minimal pairs below. Single out the phonemes which are contrasted.
jug—bug led—laid lay—He
judge—budge men—main say—sigh
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birch—-bird singe—sinned
keen—coin try—Troy bays—buys lied—Lloyd
burn—bone fork—folk fawn—phone fur—foe girl—goal
read—reared lead—leered day—deer pays—peers pace—pierce
pen—pain edge—age
law—low saw—so gnaw—no pause—pose
pearl—pole pursed—post curt—coat perch—poach cursed—coast
red—rared very—vary bed—bared pier—pair dearie—dairy
bay—by days—dies
roars—rose awed—ode called—cold torn—tone
barred—bowed Karl—cowl part—pout art—out no—now
do—doer pear—poor my—mire write—riot bowered—b owed
2. Read these words. Pay attention to the allophonic difference of one and the same phoneme.
/t/
aspirated: take, tall, tone
unaspirated: steak, stall, stone
no audible release: outpost, halfpin, football, white chalk
nasal release: cotton, button, eaten, utmost
lateral release: cattle, atlas, at last
partly devoiced: do, dog, day
voiced: leader, order, murder
voiceless: bid, mad, road
no audible release: good dog, bed time, good cheese
nasal release: admit, road map, red map
lateral release: middle, headless, badly, good luck
ft/
aspirated: come, car, coal unaspirated: baker, talking, equal, secret
no audible release: locked, deck chair, blackboard, dark night, black Imagic, begged
lateral release: glow, bugle, struggle voiceless: dog, leg, vague partly devoiced: go, geese, girt, glass voiced; figure, eager, ago, begin
f.5
3, Read these words. Pay attention to the positional allophones of the /1/ pho-
neme.
like—lip live—Uly
pull—-mill fool—hall
less—leak doll—girl let—list coal—twelve
4. Read these words. Pay attention to the pronunciation of the de voiced allophones of the /1, w, r/ phonemes after /p, t, k/.
cleft twice
cleg tweed
ply quiet
please quaver
clerk queer play
try tree
pry
price
cry
crone
crop
plight—blight class—glass clad—glad clean—glean clue—glue
5. Read these words. Mind the distributional character of the /h/ phoneme. Pay attention to the allophones in the syllable initial prevocalic position, each of them should be considered as a "strong, voiceless onset of the vowel, which follows it." г
|he, hit, help, happy, half, hop, horn, hut, hook, who, her, habitual, hay, high, how, hoist, hoe, hear, hare, houri
6. Read these words. Pay attention to the complementary nature of soft and hard English allophones and to the independent soft and hard Russian pho nemes.
/p/ pea —paw /b/ bee —bark /t/ tea —talk /d/ deep—dope
/k/ key —car /g/ geese —goose /t(7 cheese—chosej /dg/ jet —jar
Щ far —fee /v/ veel —vote /9/ theme—thumb /5/ thee —those;
/r/ read—rode
/s/ see—saw
/аз/ jupe—Joe /h/ he—home /1/ lee—law
/z/ zeal—zone /j/ yes—young /Jf/ she—shoe /w/ we—wet /m/ me—met /n/ knee—net
/п/ пол /п7 пёк /б/ бак /67 бязь /т/ ток /т7 тёк
1 Gimson А, С,
/к7 |
Кяхта |
/с/ |
/г/ |
год |
/с1/ |
/г7 |
гяур |
/з/ |
/Ц/ |
цепь |
/з7 |
N |
час |
/ш/ |
/Ф/ |
фунт |
/ш' |
Op. cit Р. |
1S6. |
сон
сёл
зол
зять
шёлк
/м/ мак /м7 мять /н/ нос /н7 нёс /л/ лад /л7 лёд
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/д/ да /ф1/ Фёкла /ж/ жар /и/ яр /д1/ дядя /в/ воз /ж'/ жжёщь /р/ рад] /к/ как /в7 вёз /х/ холм /р7 ряд
Control Tasks
1. Give examples to prove that the following features of the English consonants and vowels are distinctive,
orality—nasality 'plosiveness—constrictiveness labial-
voicelessness—voicedness ' ity
tenseness—laxness frontness—backness
*2. Give examples of combinatory allophones of the /r/ phoneme.
*3. What positional aflophones occur as a result of palatalization in the Russian language?
*4. Give examples for 'different types of distribution: (a) complementary, (fa) contrast!ve, (c) free variation.
Give examples of: (a) single opposition, (b) double opposition, (c) multiple Opposition.
Give theoretical and practical proofs to explain constitutive, recognitive and distinctive functions of phonemes.
Match the words below to obtain minimal pairs.
catch, pip, cheap, sap, he, jail, lap, pair, say, sink, rip, fail, lass, Sam, mink, cap, tear, she, lay, heap, match
ENGLISH CONSONANTS AS UNITS OF THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM
Sounds can function as units of language only if they differ from one another. Mutually distinctive speech sounds are called phonemes. As has been pointed out the main method of establishing phonemes of a given language is the commutation test or discovery of minimal pairs through which the establishment of the phonemic status of each sound is accomplished.
When in a contrastive pair one consonan ;pnoneme is opposed to any other consonant phoneme in at least one position, this pair is called minimal,1 For example, in the minimal pair pen — Ben the phoneme /p/ is opposed to the phoneme /b/ due to the presence and absence of voice; it is the only distinctive feature of this minimal pair. All the other features of the pair pen — Ben are irrelevant. If there are more than one distinctive feature in a pair, it is called sub-minimal. For example, the pair treasure — pressure is sub-minimal because the opposition is due to: (1) the presence and absence of voice in the /g — J/ phonemes, (2) forelingual articulation of the /t/ phoneme and bilabial articulation of the /p/ phoneme. All the other fea-
1 "Minimal pairs are useful, when found, but not necessarily to be expected, and not essential to the work of analysis." 'ßteason H, A. Op. cit.— P. 280.)
tures are distinctively irrelevant. Minimal pairs occur in identical, sub-minimal in similar environments.
It should be borne in mind that distinctively irrelevant features can be of two types: incidental, which may or may not be present in a phoneme, and such, without which the phoneme can't exist at all. For example, the presence or absence of voice in the word final consonants /с, з/ in the Russian рос — роз is a 'genuinely incidental or redundant feature, whereas the forelingual articulation of /t/ and the bilabial articulation of /p/ are relevant differentiatory features. Palatalization is phonemically irrelevant, incidental in English and relevant in Russian, etc.
The phonological analysis of the system of English consonant phonemes helps to establish 24 phonemes:
/p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, 9, 3, s, z, J\ 5. h, tj, 65, m, n, n, wt r, j, 1, a1/
Classificatory principles suggested by Soviet phoneticians provide the basis for the establishment of the following distinctive oppositions in the system of consonants of the English language.
I. Work of the Vocal Cords and the Force of Exhalation
Voiceless—fort is vst voiced—lenis
/p—b/ pen—Ben /t—d/ ten—den /k—g/ coat—goat
Voiceless — voiced opposition is simultaneously based on for-tis — lenis distinction. It is not so in the Russian language where the voiceless — voiced opposition is based only on the presence or absence of voice. If we compare the English /p, t, k, b, d, g/ and the Russian In, т, к, б, д, г/, we may state that: in the initial position the English /b, d, g/ are weakly voiced, the Russian /б, д, г/ are fully voiced:
book — бук goose — гусь deem — Дима
In English /p, t, k/ in the initial position are aspirated fort is, in Russian /п, т, к/ are unaspirated, therefore in English the /p — b, t — d, k — g/ oppositions are based on breath-force distinction, whereas in Russian, the pairs /n — б, т — д, к — г/ differ due to voice — absence of voice distinction (but not in the final position).