Modifications of consonants in connected speech. Assimilation, accommodation and elision. Glottal stop.

Assimilation.

Assimilation is concerned with one sound becoming phonetically similar to an adjacent sound. Sounds that belong to one word can cause changes in sounds belonging to other words. When a word’s pronunciation is affected by sounds in a neighbouring word, we call this process assimilation.

- If a phoneme is affected by one than comes later in the sentence, the assimilation is termed regressive. If a phoneme is affected by one that came earlier in the utterance, the assimilation is termed progressive.

- Assimilation of voicing

This may refer to assimilation involving the feature [+/- voice]. In a certain environment we can consequently observe the voicing or devoicing of a segment

- Assimilation of place of articulation

The most common phonemic changes at word boundaries concern changes of place of articulation, particularly involving de-alveolarization. A well-known case is that of English word-final alveolar consonants such as /t, d, n/: if a word ending in one of these consonants is followed by a word whose initial consonant begins with a bilabial, a velar or a dental, the word-final alveolar consonant is likely to change its place of articulation to match that at the beginning of the second word. Thus the word ‘that’ /ðat/ may be followed by ‘boy’ /bɔɪ/ and become /ðap/.

- Assimilation of manner of articulation

Assimilation of manner is typical of the most rapid and casual speech, in which case one sound changes the manner of its articulation to become similar in manner to a neighbouring sound. An example can be a rapid pronunciation of “Get some of that soup”, where instead of the expected /gɛt sʌm əv ðat suːp/ an English speaker says /gɛs sʌm v ðas suːp/, with /s/ replacing /t/ in two words

1. / t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p /
2. / d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p /
3. / n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p /
4. / t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/
5. / d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g /
6. / n / changes to /ŋ/ before / k / or / g /
7. / s / changes to /ʃ/ before /ʃ/ or / j /
8. /z/changes to/ʒ/ before /ʃ/ or / j /
9. /θ/ changes to / s / before / s /

Elision

Reduction is a historical process of weakening, shortening or disappearance of vowel in unstressed positions.
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect

• The neutral sound [ə] represents any vowel or diphthong in the unstressed position. e.g. combine [k ə mbain] – combine [k o mbain]

Two different types of reduction are noticed in English:

1. Quantitative – shortening of a vowel sound in the unstressed position. e.g. he [hi:]. When does he come? [wen dəs hi kΛm].
2. Qualitative – obscuration of vowels towards [ə, i, u], affects both long and short vowels, e.g. can [lǽn]. You can easily do it. [ju: kən i:zli du: it]

Assimilation

- Place of articulation
• t, d > dental before [ð, θ]: eighth,

• t, d > post-alveolar before [r]: tree, dream

• s, z > post-alveolar before [∫]: this shop

• t, d > affricates before [j]: graduate, could you
• m > labio-dental before [f]: symphony • n > dental before [θ]: seventh • n > velar before [k]: thank

- Manner of articulation
• loss of plosion: glad to see you, great trouble
• nasal plosion: sudden, at night, let me see
• lateral plosion: settle, at last

- Work of the vocal cords
• voiced > voiceless: newspaper, gooseberry
has, is, does > [s]; of, have > [f]

- Degree of noise
• sonorants > are partially devoiced after [p, t, k, s]

Accommodation

- Lip position
• consonant + back vowel: pool, rude, who (rounded)
• consonant + front vowel: tea, sit, keep (spread)

Elision

- Loss of [h] in personal and possessive pronouns and the forms of the auxiliary verb have.

- [l] lends to be lost when preceded by [o:]: always, already, all right3.3. In cluster of consonants: next day, just one. mashed potatoes.

Glottal stop

The glottal stop is a consonant sound produced when the flow of air is stopped by the glottis closing, and then released. Many languages use glottal stops, often much more than in English. The sound /t/ in ‘cat' is often a glottal stop sound.

Although it is a consonant phoneme in many languages, e.g. Hebrew and Arabic, in English the glottal stop generally appears as an allophone of /t/. This is called Glottal Replacement and is most noticeable in the form that it takes in several regional accents of British English (e.g. Cockney, Glasgow), where syllable-final /t/ between two vowels is replaced by [ʔ]. For example:

better [ˈbeʔə], Fitting [ˈfɪʔɪŋ], A bit of butter [ə ˈbɪʔ ə ˈbʌʔə]

10. The syllable as a phonetic and phonological unit. Syllabic structure of English words. Phonotactic rules of English and Russian: comparison and contrast.

A syllable can be defined as the minimal grouping of vowels and consonants necessary for articulation and for storing strings of phonemes in the mental representation

On the one hand, syllable is a phonetic unit. On the other hand it is a phonological unit. Groups of consonant and vowel sounds in the flow of speech are the phonetic form of the syllable, whereas groups of the corresponding phonemes stored in the memory is its phonological form.

Syllable is made up of nuclear and marginal element, with vowels acting as nuclear, syllabic elements and consonants as marginal or non-syllabic ones. Vowels are nuclear, as they are necessary components of any syllable in any language. In its full form a syllable can consist of three elements: the onset, the nucleus and the coda. The nuclear and the coda constitute the rhyme.

If a syllable contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or a short vowel followed by a consonant, it is called long or heavy. Such syllables attract stress. The syllables with just a short vowel without a covering consonant are called short or light. They are unstressed

e.g. better [bet-ə]: [bet] – long syllable, [ə] – short syllable.

Universal tendencies in syllabification:

- Overall tendency towards open syllables (CV)

- Sound sequences are syllabified according to a sonority scale from the most sonorous to the least sonorous sounds: low vowels – high vowels – approximants – nasals – lenis fricatives – fortis fricatives - lenis stops – fotis stops e.g. blink [blıηk], twins [twınz].

- According to the principle of Maximum Onset more consonant are clustered in the onset than in the coda E.g. approve [ə-pru:v], not [əp-ru:v].

Language-specific phonotactic rules: English vs Russia

1. The maximal number of consonants in an English onset is three, as in splash,

whereas in Russian a syllable onset may have four: всплакнуть. In the coda the number is reversed: the maximal number for the Russian language is three, while an English coda composed of root + affixes may have as many as four consonants.

2. The dominance of an open syllable in Russian (CV), and a closed syllable in English (CVC).

3. In English approximants [1], [m], [n], [r] may become syllabic after a consonant, which can be explained by the sonority rule: rhyth-m.

4. In Russian there is a close connection between the onset consonants and the following vowels (CV-contact), which affects the quality of vowels,

e.g. мило[м’ила] – мыло [мыла]

In English, like in all Germanic languages, there is a close contact between the vowel and the coda consonants (VC-contact), which affects the length of vowels,

e.g. code – coat: the diphthong [ou] in “code” will be longer than in “coat”.

Positional length of vowels is present in all English dialects but it is particularly important for General American and Scottish Standard English, which do not distinguish historically long and short vowels.

11. Word stress: components and functions. The degrees of word stress in English. Stress shift

The word stress is understood as making certain syllable (or syllables) in a word more prominent than the others. There are four components, which serve this task: length, loudness, pitch and vowel quality.

However, the relative significance of stress components is language-specific. According to experimental evidence, the basic features of stress in Russian are length and quality of the vowel. In English the most relevant prosodic features are pitch and length of the vowel.

Word stress is classified according to its types and place.

Types of word stress:

a) bound (fixed) or free, depending on the position in the word.

b) depending on the degree of prominence:

− main stress, marked by the last major pitch change in a word;

− BrE secondary stress, marked by the non-final pitch change (e.g. “inter-nAtional”); AmE tertiary stress, marked by the final pitch change (e.g.” terry-tOry”).

− minor prominence (with a non-reduced vowel and no pitch change)

− unstressed syllable (with a reduced vowel and no pitch change)

Place of word stress:

The factors affecting the position of word stress are:

− phonological pattern of a word;

− number of syllables in a word;

− types of affixes;

− part of speech the word represents.

Phonological pattern of a word is determined by the correlation of strong/heavy and weak/light syllables. Strong syllables are stressed, whereas weak ones are not. In multisyllabic words the secondary stress appears.

The types of affixes affecting the place of word stress are:

− accent-neutral – able, age, al, ful, ing, less, ly, ment, ness, ous, en, those ending with -y (-ie), and ish, ism, ist, ise, er, ess;

− accent-attracting – ade, eer, esque, ette;

− accent-fixing -ic, ion, ity attract stress to the preceding syllable, ate fixes the stress on the third syllable from the end.

The interrelation between word stress position and part of speech the word represents is brightly illustrated by noun-verb oppositions: e.g. accent – ac'cent.

The accent pattern of a word can be changed under the influence of rhythm. This is called stress shift,

e.g. We stayed in Belgrade. We listened to the Belgrade Orchestra.

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