Modifications of vowels in connected speech

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 679.

Affricates

The problem of affricates is a point of controversy among phoneticians. There are 2 approaches to singling out affricates in the English language.

The British phoneticians (Alfred Gimson) consider that there are 8 affricates in English: [t∫, dʒ], [ts, dz], [tr, dr] and [tθ, tð]. They point out that from the acoustic and articulatory point of view these sound complexes are indivisible.

Russian phoneticians look at the phenomenon of affricates from the morphological and the phonological point of view.

A phoneme is morphologically indivisible. A sound complex represents one phoneme if a morpheme boundary cannot pass within it. That's why [t∫] and [dʒ] are monophonemic, because they always belong to one morpheme. In the complexes [ts], [dz], [tθ], and [tð] the last elements are separate morphemes [s], [z], [θ], [ð] (cat-s; bed-s; eight-th; at the). So these sound complexes consist of two phonemes.

The case with [tr], [dr] complexes is still more difficult. There are phonetic contexts in English where the phonemes [t] and [d] perform distinctive function: try – dry. Therefore, [t] and [d] and separate phonemes and not elements of the affricates.

The modifications of vowels in speech may be quantitative, qualitative or both. These changes are determined by the position of the vowel in the word, accentual structure, tempo of speech, rhythm.

Shortening of the vowel length is quantitative modification of vowels, e.g.:

1) the length of the vowel depends on its position in the word: knee [i:] – need [i^.] – neat [i^.]. It is only a quantitative change – the vowel is the longest at the end of the word; it is shorter before a voiced consonant and is still shorter before a voiceless consonant;

2) the length of the vowel depends on the position of the form word in the sentence.

In the sentence Is `he or <sub>↘</sub> she to blame? – `he is stressed and is pronounced as [hi:].

But in the sentence At ˍlast he has _↘ come. – `he is not stressed and is reduced to [hi].

3) vowel reduction in the unstressed position: board – blackboard; (in this case reduction affects both the quantity and the quality of the vowel);

Unstressed vowels lose their quality:

1) in unstressed syllables: man [mæn] - sportsman [`spɔ:tsmǝn], conduct [`kɒndǝkt] - conduct [kǝn`dʌkt]. In such cases the quality of the vowel is reduced to the neutral sound [ǝ];

2) slight degree of nasalization marks vowels followed or preceded by the nasal consonants [m] [n]: never – no – then – man. This is the case of consonant-vowel accommodation.

Reduction and accommodation are greatly connected with the style of speech. In rapid colloquial speech reduction may even result in vowel elision, or zero reduction. Zero reduction may occur in a sequence of unstressed syllables: history [`hist(ǝ)ri]. It often occurs in initial unstressed syllables preceding the stressed one, e.g. perhaps [p(ǝ)`hæps].