UNIT 7.................................................................................................................................

CONNECTED SPEECH.................................................................................................
Definition.....................................................................................................................
The concept of Rhythm...............................................................................................
Words in Connected Speech........................................................................................
SENTECE STRESS VS. WORD STRESS.....................................................................
FEATURES OF CONNECTED SPEECH..................................................................
Phonetic Variations vs Phonemic Variations...................................................................
Connected Speech Processes...........................................................................................

UNIT 7.

CONNECTED SPEECH

Definition

An utterance consisting of more than one word.

The concept of Rhythm

It is a periodic repetition of an event.

The event repeated periodically can be the syllables or the stress.
There are two types of languages:
• Syllable-timed rhythm: the event repeated is the syllable, like Spanish.

• Stress-timed rhythm: the event repeated is the stress, like English.

Stressed syllables (including pitch accents and other syllables made prominent
by ‘stress’ alone) govern the rhythm of English, an equal amount of time being
said to be taken between each two stressed syllables and between the last
stressed syllable and the end of the utterance: ISOCHRONY.
The unit is the foot: contains one stressed syllable and all the pauses and the
unstressed syllables up to the next stressed syllable begins.

´David had ‘seen ‘helicopters at the ‘airport.

1 foot 1 foot 1 foot 1 foot
3 syll. 1 syll. 6 syll. 2 syll.

By the Isochrony (the tendency to have the same duration in all feet) some
syllables are reduced.
The occurrence of full vowels generally predicts the rhythm of English rather
more usefully than any notion of stress. The reduced vowels are / ɪ, Ʊ, ə/ when
they occur without a pitch accent, all others are full vowels.
 The only simple rule of English rhythm id the BORROWING RULE: a syllable
with a reduced vowel ‘borrows time’ from any immediately preceding syllable
containing a full vowel.
Full-vowelled syllables each take approximately an equal amount of time. Each
syllable containing a reduced vowel is much shorter, and by the Borrowing Rule a
full-vowelled syllable is itself shortened if immediately followed by a syllable
with a reduced vowel, but any further following syllables with a reduced vowel
take time from the full-vowelled syllable.

Words in Connected Speech

They are subject to the pressures of its sound environment or of the accentual or
rhythmic group of which it forms part.

SENTECE STRESS VS. WORD STRESS

Connected speech exhibits features of accentuation that are in many ways

comparable with those found in the polysyllabic word.
Some parts of the connected utterance will be made to stand out from their
environment, in the same way that certain syllables of a word are more prominent
than their neighbours.
Accentuation in connected speech differs, however, from the polysyllable in that
the situation of the accent in connected speech is determined largely by the
meaning which the utterance is intended to convey, some syllables can be uttered
with a higher pitch in order to be perceived as more prominent by the listener
(sentence stress).
Accentual patterns of connected speech are freer than those of the word.

FEATURES OF CONNECTED SPEECH

• Word Accentual Variation

LEXICAL words are predisposed by their function in the language to receive

accent:
Main verbs
Adverbs
Nouns
Adjectives
Demonstrative pronouns

FUNCTION words (grammatical words) are more likely to be unaccented

(although they too to be exceptionally accented if the meaning requires it):
Auxiliary verbs
 Conjunctions
Prepositions
Pronouns
Relative pronouns
Articles

The words accentual pattern can change because there is a tendency in English
to avoid adjacent accented syllables (ACCENT (STRESS) CLASH, see Tema
6).
The secondary accent in the word rather than the primary may be lost when
another word with secondary accent immediately precedes, e.g.:
not full- blooded (but full- blooded).
This tendency to the alternation of accented and unaccented syllables is so
strong that the accent may be shifted in the case of certain words whose
citation form contains only one, later, accent, e.g. or nate but ornate
carvings. The alternation tendency extends into longer utterances.

• Gradation: Weak forms

Function or grammatical words can have STRONG forms (accented) and

WEAK forms (unaccented). The latter are more frequent and show reductions
of the length of sounds, obscuration of vowels towards / ə, ɪ, Ʊ/, and the elision
of vowels and consonants. (See the list of the two forms in Cruttenden 11.3)

Strong forms appear:

1. Citation (in isolation)
and / nd/ (weak forms: / nd, n d, n, n
/)

2. Prepositions end sentence

That’s the picture she is looking at / t/
She is looking at the mirror / t/ (weak form)

3. Contrast
It is for him not from him /f :/ /fr m/
(weak forms: /f / /f m, fm /)
4. Emphasis
I must go /m st/ (weak forms: /m st, m s/)

5. Auxiliary verbs ????? when????

I have been… /h v/ (weak forms: /h v, v, v/)

6. That
Adjective/Pronoun -> Strong form / tb /
Relative pronoun/ -> Weak form / t/ I did not know that
you…
Conjunction

There
 Demonstrative adverb -> Strong form / e / I live over there
Existential construct./ -> Weak form / / There is…

Indef. adv.

Some
Adjective: depends on the meaning.
Strong form -> if it means a considerable amount /s m/
Weak form -> if it means a few /s m/
I met some people at the party /s m, s m/
Pronoun -> Strong form /s m ma t ‘se /

Phonetic Variations vs Phonemic Variations

The phonologic transcription is affected by the environment in which the words

appear.
Account must be taken of the phonetic continuity and merging of qualities by
describing the mutual influence which contiguous sounds exert upon each
other, i.e. tendencies towards assimilation or co-articulation have to be noted.

The allophonic variations of the phonemes within the words have already been
seen (Tema 4).

The variations at word boundaries can be:

1. Phonetic or allophonic variations (see also Tema 4)

a. Place of articulation.
/t, d/ + / / -> dental
/m/ + /f/ -> labiodental
/s/ + /r/ -> retracted

b. Voice: devoicing of continuants following a voiceless consonant.

/l, r, w, j/ preceded by voiceless consonant ->
devoiced
Word-initial voiced plosives or fricatives preceded by ->
devoiced
pause or voiceless consonants
Word-final voiced plosives or fricatives followed by ->
devoiced
pause or voiceless consonants

c. Lip position: under the influence of adjacent vowels or semivowels.

/t, k, n, , l, s/ + /w/ -> labialized (rounded) that one, this way

d. Nasalization: lowering of the sooft palate in the vicinity of a nasal.

Sometimes an be nasalized:
 Vowels + nasal come in, wait
for me
(especially when the vowel has an adjacent nasal in its word)
Approximants + nasal tell me

2. Phonemic variations
The mutual influence of contiguous phonemes in English is produced by a
series of processes: assimilations, elisions, liaisons, clipping, and stretching.
They are more frequent in rapid and colloquial speech.

Connected Speech Processes

1. Assimilation.
It is the process by which one or more sounds take features of the
neighbouring sound.
a. Regressive or anticipatory:
Features of one phoneme are anticipated in the articulation of the
preceding sound, i.e. one phoneme takes characteristics from the
following phoneme: A <- B

Variation of Place (place assimilation)

Alveolar stops (plosives and nasals):
/t/ /p/ / t m n/ -> / p m n/
/d/ + bilabial /b/ /b d b / -> /b b b /
/n/ /p, b, m/ /m/ /ten pen / -> /tem pen /

/t/ /k/ / t k:/ -> / k k:/

/d/ + velar /g/ /b d g :l/ -> /b g g :l/
/n/ /k, g/ / / /ten k / -> /te k /

When there are two alveolars together, both of them are

affected:
/fr nt pe d / -> /fr mp pe d /

Alveolar fricatives /s, /:

/s/ / / /dres p/ -> /dre p/
+ /j, , / / sj / -> / j /
/ / /t , d / / / / i:/ -> / i:/

Voiced/voiceless variation (voice assimilation)

Rare in English.
/v/ -> /f/ / v k :s/ -> / f k :s/
/h v tu:/ -> /h f tu:/
/z/ -> /s/ /h z tu:/ -> /h s tu:/

b. Progressive or perseverative:
One phoneme influences the following phoneme, i.e. one phoneme
takes characteristics from the preceding phoneme: A -> B
It is not very frequent, usually when happens affects:
 Variation of Place (place assimilation)
Alveolar syllabic nasal /n /:
/n / after bilabial -> /m / / p n/ -> / pn / -> / pm /
after velar -> / / /be k n/ -> /be kn / -> /be k /

c. Coalescence:
A fusion of forms takes place. Two sounds merge into another, the new
sound has features of both.

/t/ + /j/ -> /t / /d nt ju:/ -> /d nt u:/

/d/ + /j/ -> /d / /w d ju:/ -> /w d u:/

¿?????????? El siguiente caso está también en Regressive ¿????????????

/s/ + /j/ -> / / / sj / -> / /
/z/ + /j/-> / / / j :/ -> / :/

2. Elision.
It is the omission of one sound (when a sound drops).
Only occurs in certain environment:
/t, d/ in word final position surrounded by consonant, the consonant
preceding must have the same voicing, and the following one can
be any consonant except /h/:
C + /t, d/ # + C
same voicing any consonant
as /t, d/ except /h/

/l:st na t/ -> /l:s na t/

/send m/ -> /sen m

Exception: some negative contractive forms can have elision even if the
preceding sound has not the same voicing: /k:nt k m/ -> /k:n k
m/

3. Liaison.
r-liaison only occurs in non-rhotic accents.
a. Linking /r/
Word-final post-vocalic /r/ is introduced as a linking form when the
following word begins with a vowel. It is limited to those cases where
there is an <r> or <re> in the spelling.
Bare it -> /be r t/

b. Intrusive /r/
It appears in cases of vowel hiatus (one word ends in vowel and the
following word starts by vowel) where there is no <r> in the spelling.
Idea of it -> /a d r v t/

The environment is phonetically comparable to that of linking /r/

My dear Anna -> /ma d r n /
 It is frequent after / / and diphthongs ending in / / and when its
termination is near to another word with <r> in its spelling (see example
above).

Linking-r is historically justified, intrusive-r is historically unjustified.

4. Rhythmical clipping.
The shortening of a vowel depending on the number of post stressed
syllables.
/ st nd d/
/ st nd d z/
/ st nd d ze n /

The last / / is the shortest because is followed by a larger number of

syllables

5. Stretching.
It is the opposite of clipping.
Lengthening of the vowel duration before a pause. It affects the vowel of
the final syllable.

6. Juncture.
The phonetic cues that allow to differentiate the sounds between words or
sequence of sounds.
I scream /a skri:m/
Ice cream /a s kr i:m/

Only two allophonic features allow to distinguish these sequences (both in

the last one):
- the devoicing of /r/
- the prefortis clipping of / / in the last /a s/, by which this / / is a little
shorter than that of the first /a / (prefortis clipping only occurs within
the word).

RECURSOS MNEMOTECNICOS QUE AÑADO:

ASIMILACIÓN:
t p
o o
d b
o re
n m
o as

t k
o a
d g
o o
n
 o as
T: asimila a p antes de plosives y a k antes de velares (k y g)
(ANTES DE BILABIAL) TOPO:
t + p, b, m = to + p,b,m : that pill, thap pill, thap bill, thap man
(ANTES DE VELAR) TOKO

D: dobo, dogo: asimila a b y a g antes de plosives p,b,m y velares k y g

bad boy. bab boy
bad girl: bag girl

N: nemo, ningun: asimila a m y a g antes de p,b,m y las velares k y g

ten pens: tem penz
ten girls: