Consonants

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 488.

British and American compared

(ВНИМАНИЕ: ТРАНСКРИПЦИИ НЕОБХОДИМО ИСПРАВИТЬ)

In this and the following sections we are going to discuss some of the important varieties of English spoken worldwide. We shall begin with a comparison of the two major models of English - British NRP and General American. Although we shall be concentrating here on the differences between these two varieties, in fact they are most notable for their great similarity. It may be worth emphasising again (see Section Al) that educated British and American speakers communicate with ease, and rarely experi­ence any problems in understanding each other's pronunciation.

The consonant system of General American is in essentials the same as that of British accents and can be represented with the same phonemic symbols. Note, however, the following differences.

1 GA is rhotic, e.g. worker /'w3rkər/; /r/ often functions as a syllabic consonant (see Section A2), e.g. /'w3rkr/. (Distributional variation.)

2 GA It/ is voiced in medial position. For the vast majority of Americans, in anything other than careful speech, the contrast /t - d/ is neutralised in this context, so that It/ and Id/ in writer and rider may be identical. This is termed t-voicing and is indicated in transcription by the addition of a voicing diacritic V, ^e-g- pretty /'priti/, better /'betr/, battle /'baetl/, thirty /'03rti/. Note that we are dealing here with an allophone of It/ and not a phoneme. Nevertheless, because of its high frequency in American English, we have decided not to use square brackets whenever this sound occurs. (Distributional variation.) Medial Inti is regularly reduced to /n/, e.g. winter /'winr/. Word-final It/ often lacks any audible release.

3 A minority use an extra phoneme /ay/ for words spelt with wh, e.g. whale, wail /' Aveil, weil/ (systemic variation.). In England, /ay/ died out many hundreds of years ago and its use is often considered an affectation.

4 Most Americans (not all) have /j/-dropping following the dental and alveolar con­sonants /0 t d s z n 1/, e.g. studio /'studiou/, nude /nud/, duke Idukl. The modern NRP alternative /tj d$/ (see Section B2) is regarded as substandard in America. In NRP some words have a less common alternative form without 1)1. In American, this is the normal form. (Lexical variation, with noteworthy patterning.)

GA (normal form) NRP (normal form)

enthusiastic /in0uzi'əestik/ /inOjuizi'əestik/

assume fə' sum/ /ə'sjuim/

presume /prə'zum / /prə'zjuim/

5 Some American speakers have dark I in all contexts, e.g. level [lev!]. To British ears the initial [I] can sometimes sound similar to /w/, so that life sounds rather like wife (Realisational variation.)

Vowels

Compared with the consonants, there is less similarity between the vowel systems

of GA and NRP. Nevertheless for the most part we can employ the same symbols.

For GA varieties, the ‘length mark' for free vowels has been omitted since American

varieties do not show the close correlation of length with free vowels found in British

NRP. Other important differences are listed below.

1 Since GA (like most American varieties) is rhotic, there are differences in words spelt with r, where in GA the counterparts of NRP /a: e: o: 3: ə iə uə/ take the form of a vowel followed by /r/: see Table Cl.2. (Systemic variation.) Note that the vowels have a special quality known as r-colouring (p. 140).

2 The goat vowel is typically more back and rounded; it is represented here by /ou/, e.g. solo /'soulou/. Americans (especially of the younger generation) seem to be acquiring a more central unrounded beginning [ə] similar to its counterpart in NRP. (Realisational variation.)

3 In GA (and other American varieties), the trap vowel is closer and lengthened, often sounding rather like [ex], similar in quality to square in NRP. (Realisational variation.) Furthermore, trap is used in all bath words except father (see Section B3), instead of NRP palm /a:/, e.g. hath /bseG/, laugh /kef/, chance /t/aens/, ask /aesk/. (Lexical variation.)

4 In American English many foreign names and loanwords spelt with a are said with lot /a/ rather than trap /ae/, e.g. pasta /'pastə/, Mafia /'mafiə/, macho /'mat/ou/, Picasso /pi'kasou/. (Lexical variation.)

5 Many Americans (in areas other than the East Coast) make no difference between words such as merry, marry and Mary - pronouncing all three as /'meri/. (Distributional variation.)

6 The strut vowel is generally closer (realisational variation) - more like /ə/ than in NRP. Before /r/, in words where NRP has /a/, American uses /ə/, e.g. hurry /'həri/, courage /'k3rid3/. (Distributional variation.)

7 For most present-day GA speakers, lot and palm are the same (i.e. [a]). For certain GA speakers (mostly East Coast), the NRP lot words are split into two different sets depending on the following consonant. (Lexical variation, but with strong patterning.)

(a) Before /g g s f 0/, the thought vowel h/ (similar to NRP hi/) tends to be used, e.g. log /bg/, song /sop/, lost /bst/, coffee /'kofi/, moth /mo0/.

(b) Elsewhere, palm /a/ (similar to NRP /a:/) is employed, e.g. top /tap/, job /d3ab/, shock If ak/.

This type of patterning is particularly common in the New York conurba­tion and other eastern areas, but is also found to a degree elsewhere especially in high-frequency items such as dog, wrong, cost, off, etc.

8 Many GA speakers (particularly of the younger generation) do not have a con­trast between lot and thought, so cot and caught are pronounced identically. This is a trend which seems to be developing rapidly in the United States and is already established in Canada. (Systemic variation.)

9 Many words ending in -He have /əl/ or /)/ in GA compared with /ail/ in NRP, e.g. fertile /'fərtl/, missile /'misl/. For most words, alternative pronunciations with /ail/ also exist. (Lexical variation.)

10 A number of GA speakers (particularly of the older generation) still maintain the north - forth contrast discussed above. (Lexical variation.)

Stress and stress-related features

There are some significant differences between British and American in (1) allocation of stress, (2) the pronunciation of unstressed syllables.

(1) Words ending in -ary and -ory take a secondary stress on that syllable, and the vowel is neither reduced to /ə/ nor elided.

GA NRP

military /'milə.teri/ /'militəri/ or /'militri/

arbitrary /'airbə.treri/ /'aibitrəri/ or /'aibitri/

mandatory /'maendə.tori/ /'məendətəri/or/'maendətri/

(2) Words borrowed from French are generally stressed on the first syllable in British English but they often have final-syllable stress in American.