Modifications of consonants.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 610.

Modification of phonemes in connected speech

Phonetic units are greatly modified in real speech. Their modifications may be conditioned by: complimentary distribution of phonemes in a word; contextual variations at the junctions of words; by the style of speech (formal, colloquial). Every phoneme displays wide variety of variants in connected speech. We distinguish the main types: idiolectal (individual peculiarities of articulating sounds. A speaker can mumble or lisp or stammer, we may even pick up information of the emotional state of the speaker whether he is angry or tied and, thus, we can easily identify the speech of definite individuals), diaphonic (gives us information about the locality in which the person lives, his origin, his social standing. This variation is conditioned by historical tendencies active on certain localities. In some regions of Great Britain there is no distinguishes between short and long vowels: in Scottish dialogues. There is no distinguishes between ǽ, a:, a), phonostylistic (are conditioned by the style of speech and the purpose of communication), allophonic (are less noticeable; assimilation, accommodation, vowel reduction and elision).

There are a lot of modifications of sounds in speech. These modifications are observed both within words and at word boundaries. Assimilation –the result of coarticulation when one sound is made similar to its neighbor. It can be conditioned by: the distribution of the phonemes; the contextual variations; the style of speech. Assimilation can be: progressive - when the 1st of 2 sounds makes the 2^nd sound similar to itself (desks/pegs); regressive - when the 2^nd of 2 sounds makes the 1^st similar to itself (t, d, n, l, s, z + ð, Ө = regressive acc to the place of obstruction: in the →dental); double or reciprocal - when 2 adjacent sounds influence each other (tr/dr – acc to the place and the manner of articulation, t/d – post-alveolar; r-fricative + devoiced after t: train). Assimilations: (t, d, n, l, s, z + ð, Ө = regressive acc to the place of obstruction: in the →dental); progressive acc to the work of the vocal cords (voiceless cons + [r]: free. [r] is devoices partially: in unstressed position, at a word boundary, spr/str/skr, fricative+r//////completely: after [p, t, k] in a stress syllable); tr/dr – acc to the place and the manner of articulation, t/d – post-alveolar; r-fricative + devoiced: train/////////Өr/ðr-progressive acc to the place and the manner of articulation → [r] – alveolar + partially devoiced after Ө; gw/dw – regressive acc to the active organ of speech → g/d – labialized ///////// kw/tw/sw – reciprocal assimilation → t/k/s – labialized; w – partially devoiced. Accommodation – adaptation of vowels to different adjacent sounds. So they are modified according to: lip position, labialization of cons, under the back vowel: pool, moon. It is possible to speak about the spread tip position of consonants followed or preceded by front vowels [i:], [i]: tea-bent; the position of the soft palate, slight nasalization of vowels under the sonorants [m, n]: morning, men. Elision - is a complete loss of sounds. It is typical of rapid colloquial speech and marks the following sounds: [h] in pronouns (he, his, her, him) and auxiliary verbs (have, has, had) in initial position and when unstressed; [t, d] are omitted between two consonants (next day); linking [r] – a teacher of English/ intrusive [r] – the idea of.