Modification of vowels in connected speech.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 641.

The modifications of vowels in a speech chain occur in the following directions: they are either quantitative or qualitative or both. These changes of vowels in a speech continuum are determined by: the position of the vowel in the word, accentual structure, tempo of speech, rhythm etc. Shortening of the vowel length is known as a quantitative modification, which may be illustrated as follows: the shortening of the vowel length occurs in unstressed positions (blackboard, sorrow-reduction. In this case reduction affects both the length of the unstressed vowels and their quality); the length of a vowel depend on its position in a word. English vowels are said to have positional length (knee – need – neat). Qualitative modifications of most towels occur in an unstressed position. Unstressed vowels lose their colour, quality: in an unstressed position vowels of full value are usually subjected to qualitative changes (man – sportsman). In such case the quality of the vowel is reduced to the neutral sound [ə]. This neutral sound is the most frequent sound of English. In continuous text it represents about eleven per sent of all sounds; slight degree of nasalization marks vowels preceded or followed the nasal consonants [n, m]: never, then, men. The realization of reduction as well as assimilation and accommodation is connected with the style of speech. In rapid colloquial speech reduction may result in vowel elision, the complete omission of the unstressed vowel (He hasn't done it).