17. Accommodation, elision and insertion of consonants

Accommodation is the process of mutual influence of consonants and vowels.

- labialization of Cs under the influence of the following Vs [o, o:, u, u:, a:] resulting in lip rounding (pool, rude, ball, car);

- labialization of Cs under the influence of following or preceding Vs [i, i:] resulting in lip spreading (tea-eat, feet-leaf, keep-leak, pill-tip);

- palatalization of Cs under the influence of Vs [i, i:] (part-pit, top-tip).

Elision is complete loss of sounds.

- loss of [h] in personal and posessive pronouns he, hie, her, him and the forms of have;

- loss of [l] after [ɔ:];

- alveolar plosive is lost if followed by another C: next day ['neks 'deɪ];

- whole syllables in rapid speech: library ['laɪbri];

- historical elision: kn, wr, medial t.

Insertion:

- linking 'r': summer expedition;

- intrusive 'r': the idea of;

- j (i-gliding): trying;

- w (u-gliding): going.

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18. The problem of affricates

Are the English affricates monophonemic bicentral entities or biphonemic combinations of two different elements? If they are, then how many affricate phonemes are there in English?

RU: [tʃ, ʤ]; some foreign linguists: [tʃ, ʤ, ts, dz, tr, dr, tθ, dð].

Criteria:

- syllabic indivisibility (sometimes [tʃ, ts, tr, tθ] belong to one syllable);

- articulatory indivisibility (all the sound complexes are homogeneous and produced by one articulatory effort);

- duration (depends on the position in the phonetic context);

- morphological indivisibility (difficult with [tr, dr], because in some cases they are inseparable: tray-ray).

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19. Classification of English consonant phonemes according to the manner of articulation

Consonants are sounds made with air stream that meets an obstruction in the oral or nasal cavities.

1) occlusive - complete obstruction:

- plosives (stops) - breath is stopped at some point of articulation and then released with an explosion [p, b, t, d, k, g];

- sonorants [m, n, ŋ];

2) constrictive (air passage is constricted and an incomplete obstruction is formed):

- fricatives - air passes through the narrowing with friction [f, v, Ɵ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ჳ, h];

- sonorants: medial (air goes down the center of the tongue - [w, r, j], lateral (passes along the sides of the tongue - [l]);

3) occlusive-constrictive (affricates) - a complete obstruction is formed, it becomes incomplete and it is released slowly with friction [ʧ, dჳ].

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20. Classification of English consonant phonemes according to the place of articulation and active organ of speech

The place of articulation is determined by active organ of speech against the point of articulation.

1) labial: bilabial - produced when both lips are active [p, b, m, w], labio-dental - produced with the lower lip against the edge of the upper teeth [f, v];

2) lingual:

forelingual - produced with the tip or the blade of the tongue:

(according to the tip of the tongue)

- apical - tip is active [t, d, s, z, ʃ, ჳ, Ɵ, ð, ʧ, dჳ, n,l];

- dorsal - blade takes part in the articulation, the tip is passive and lowered;

- cacuminal - tip is at the back part of the teeth ridge, but a depression is formed in the blade of the tongue [r];

(according to the place of obstruction)

- interdental - tip b/w the teeth [Ɵ, ð];

- dental - blade against the upper teeth;

- alveolar - tip against the upper teeth ridge [t, d, s, z, n, l];

- post-alveolar - tip or blade is against the back part of the teeth ridge or just behind it [r];

- palato-alveolar - tip or blade against the teeth ridge and the front part is raised towards the hard palate [ʧ, dჳ, ʃ, ჳ];

mediolingual - front part of the tongue: palatal [j];

backlingual - back part of the tongue raised towards the soft palate: velar [k, g, ŋ];

3) glottal - in the glottis - [h].

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