ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

Tematica general a cursului:

1. Introductory Notions. Sounds and meanings. Communication
by means of language. Phonetics and its importance. Received
pronunciation. Phonetics and spelling. Phonetic symbols.
2. Main Compartments of Phonetics. The speech
mechanism/tract. The articulatory classification of speech
sounds. The cardinal vowel system.
3. Acoustic Phonetics. A classification of speech sounds in
acoustic terms. Auditory phonetics
4. The Phoneme. The English phonemes. Description and
classification of English vowels. A detailed description of the
English vowel phonemes. The Front Vowels. The Back Vowels.
The Central Vowels.
5. Sounds in connected speech. Modifications of the phonemes
in connected speech. Assimilation and elision. Weak forms and
strong forms. Syllabification
6. Suprasegmentals. Rules of stressing for compounds. Vowel
reduction. Sentence stress table. Pitch and intonation.
Nuclear/kinetic/dynamic tones

Constantin Manea

A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH PHONETICS

AND PHONOLOGY

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY NOTIONS
Animal and human communication systems may have a lot in
common, but the differences of complexity and organisation are glaring; if
animals bees, for instance can transmit an unlimited number of signals
(every message representing a mere variant of a single message schema), the
diversity and richness of human messages are indeed outstanding; human
languages are unlimited in this sense that one can go on writing well-formed
sentences in any natural language English, for example without ever
ending the number of the possible well-formed sentences in that idiom. So, a
human speaker may benefit by an unlimited number of discrete (linguistic)
signals. Secondly, human language has an astonishingly great complexity,
each sentence usable having in its turn a structure which holds on two
separate planes / levels: first, there is a linear arrangement / string (of words,
each having its own meaning and sound patterning); then, there is the
grammatical structure of each such element. While systems of
communication used by animals are closed (i.e. their elements form a finite
collection), human languages are open-ended (i.e. they consist of sets
whose number is actually infinite / unlimited: people can talk freely about
virtually anything, and new items are permanently being introduced,
borrowed or coined). Novelty can hence be considered the key-word when
referring to human (linguistic) communication. This novelty is, of course
novelty of meaning, not (usually) of structure. For instance, sentences
occurring to a human speaker in given situations are not memorised or simply
repeated in a parrot-like manner (the exceptions are very rare, and special:
e.g. acting on a stage, role-playing during a foreign language practical course,
etc.). This creative capacity is not a mere result of the human ability to make
logical or functional analogies. Nor can novelty, or spontaneity and creativity
in language use be accounted for by the argument that languages represent
sets of mere verbal habits.
Language is an instrument of communication; when one person
wants to convey a message to another (when he or she has some idea he or
she wants to transmit to another human being) that person may use a variety
of means: the word of mouth, some other audible signal (drums, horns,
whistles, Morse-key), body signs or gestures, semaphore flags or mirror
flashes, written words, ideograms, drawings or signs, etc. It is only natural
that the overwhelming majority of the messages humans transmit are
3

conveyed as spoken material, as the spoken word has always been the most
frequent means of communication; it will be redundant to state that speech
has the central role in communication. In the process of communication, the
message is at the very centre which is an argument in favour of the
essential part played by phonetics in the context of linguistics. Phonetics is
concerned with the human noises by which the message is actualised or
given audible shape: the nature of those noises, their combinations, and their
functions in relation to the message. (J. D. OConnor, Phonetics, p. 9)
It is necessary to acknowledge the centrality of the message in
order to be able to place phonetics the study of the sounds of spoken
language in the context of linguistic studies generally. And OConnor goes
on with the presentation of the model of a single act of communication, the
passing of one message from a speaker to a listener.
Within the framework of that model, J.D. OConnor speaks about
the three functions of the brain in the process of communication (see also
below, Communication by means of language):
1) The creative function: It is defined as the central function within
human speech communication, as it ensures the forming of the message.
Since the modus operandi / the rules of language functioning are stored in the
brain, as a result of previous verbal experience (e.g. the permissible
grammatical patterns, the vocabulary items which can be correctly and
logically selected, the knowledge about the way individual types of voices
and the regional varieties of the respective language sound, knowledge of
sequencing possibilities, etc.), we can safely use them, even though that
knowledge is different from one person to another. The phases of
manifestation of the creative function are represented by a persons need to
communicate, by the communication medium available or most likely to be
chosen within the wider context, and by the form the message should take.
2) The forwarding function: nervous impulses are sent from the
brain, containing patterns of muscular behaviour / activity, directed to the
muscles of the speech / vocal organs (the lungs, the larynx, the tongue, the
jaws, etc.); these are responsible for the correct emission of sounds /
utterances, which is done in the shape of the correct (i.e. recognizable)
ordering and combinations.
3) The hearing function: It is performed as understanding of the
message received by the ear-drum as sound sequences differing as far as their
quality and quantity features are concerned. The hearer interprets the sounds
in keeping with the knowledge his / her brain possesses of the respective
language. As he / she recognises them, he / she selects the most likely
meanings which is precisely the other end of the creative function (v.
supra).
4

The passing of a spoken message, then, involves a great deal of

activity beyond the production, transmission and reception of sound. The
sound is not the message, but it is what gives the message shape in spoken
communication, and it is worth study simply for that reason; in speech we
rely very heavily upon sound to make plain the significant distinctions of
meaning which can be made by the more central operations of grammar and
vocabulary. () Not all the distinctions of grammar and vocabulary are
reflected in sound: taut and taught (and for some people tort) are identical, as
are by, buy and bye, and the noun intent and the adjective intent, Equally, a
tack and attack are rarely distinguished in pronunciation any more than
ambiguous sentences such as Buy me a present ("Buy it to give me or buy it
as my agent"). Yet by the nature of things most of the meanigful distinctions
of the language must be capable of being given distinctive shape in sound,
and it is this close dependence of sound and meaning which justifies the
study of speech sounds, i.e. phonetics. (OConnor, op. cit., pp. 15-16)
SOUNDS AND MEANINGS
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics i.e. the study of the
organisation and functioning of language as a whole. Language is usually
defined in terms of meaningful utterances (sounds that convey meanings),
whose association makes up this essential / primary means of human
communication (the natural languages).
Modern linguistics has, in the wake of structuralism (irrespective of
the different labels given to the respective schools and currents or trends, in
Europe and in America), drawn a number of distinctions as far as the
association of sense and form is concerned.
1) The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure was the first who
spoke about langue (French for language), as opposed to parole (French
for speech) meaning that speech and language are by no means
synonymous.
a) Language designates a body of knowledge about sounds,
meanings and their interrelations.
b) Speech refers to the concrete use of the former, which is
material and directly observable; it is an active dimension i.e. the actual,
material product of specific utterances.
Ferdinand de Saussure used the term axis in reference to the
organisation of the linguistic elements especially to their intersecting
dimensions, such a way as to render their arrangement according to various
parameters more graphical / visual. Thus, the distinction between synchrony
and diachrony was referred to as the axis of simultaneities v. the axis of
successions (i.e the domain grouping elements simultaneous / co-existing
5

with respect to the time-parameter v. the domain grouping elements

successive in time cf. the Greek word chronos time). The distinction he
drew between paradigmatic and syntagmatic can be represented as an
intersection between the axes of selections and combinations, respectively
(viz. the paradigmatic axis v. the syntagmatic axis, or the axis of chain
relationships). In fact, linguistic messages are transmitted in a linear manner
(in keeping with the principle of syntagmatic ordering) and are perceived
globally.
Saussure described linguistic features in terms of structures1 and
2
systems (hence the name of structuralism embracing several linguistic
schools and currents drawing on some of his ideas). He explained the
functioning and evolution of language starting from the principles of
opposition and analogy.
2) Linguistic competence vs. linguistic performance:
a) The first concept of the pair may be defined as the internal(ized)
knowledge about sounds, meanings and their interrelations, which is specific
to each user of the language.
b) The latter notion represents language behaviour / use in everyday
life. Linguistic competence (a) cannot be directly observed; yet, (b) i.e.
linguistic performance represents its physical manifestation, it is
(materially) observable. Linguistic performance is becoming more and more
valuable as a matter of study for linguists: a great deal of our progress in
point of language study / learning (and, of course, teaching) depends on how
performance / practice is put to use.
The terms competence and performance were proposed by the
American linguist Noam Chomsky. He placed special emphasis on the ideas
of generating sentences, and that of representing the process involved, by
1

Here is what David Crystal (op. cit., p. 331) says about structures: A LANGUAGE,
for example, is a structure, in the sense that it is a network of interrelated units, the
MEANING of the parts being specifiable only with reference to the whole. In this
sense, the terms structure and system are often synonymous () More specifically,
the term is used to refer to an isolatable section of this total network, as in discussion
of the structure of a particular GRAMMATICAL area (), and here structure and
system are distinguished: one might talk of the structure of a particular system.
2
Here are D. Crystals comments on the notion of system (op. cit., p. 342): In its
most general sense, the term refers to a network of patterned relationships constituting
the organisation of LANGUAGE. Language as a whole is then characterised as a
system (cf. the linguistic system of English, etc.) - and often as a HIERARCHICALLY
ordered arrangement of systems () Within the totality, the term system may be
applied to any finite set of FORMALLY or SEMANTICALLY connected UNITS (referred
to variously as the terms or members of the system), where the interrelationships
are mutually exclusive () and mutually definable ()

using transformational rules (or T rules), which put two levels of structural
representation in correspondence. (hence, the generic name attributed to such
Chomskyan grammars: GTS, i.e. generative-transformational grammars).
He also postulated the existence of a Deep Structure (DS)3 and a Surface
Structure (SS)4. This approach mainly applied to syntax and phonology.
COMMUNICATION BY MEANS OF LANGUAGE
Verbal communication presupposes an interaction speaker-listener,
the two being essential factors of human (verbal) communication. The
act of communication takes into account and includes the following
stages / phases / distinctly analysable operations:

A. encoding of the message

they are bothdone by the speaker / transmitter

B. sending of the message

C. transmission of the message (through various media)

D. reception of the message

they are done by the recipient / listener

E. decoding of the message

Here is a brief description / presentation of the contents of each of

the five operations involved in the act of communication:
A. Encoding the message means giving shape to a certain
message consisting of ideas, feelings etc. This consists in: -a) the semantic
3

Here is the notion illustrated with the definition D. Crystal proposed (op. cit., p. 94):
TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR ; opposed to
SURFACE STRUCTURE. Deep structure or Deep grammar) is the abstract
organisation which specifies all the factors governing the way the sentence should be
interpreted. (The basic notion has also been referred to, in various theoretical contexts,
as D-STRUCTURE, UNDERLYING structure, BASE structure, REMOTE structure and
INITIAL structure).
4
The D. Crystal definition of surface structure: The surface structure of a
SENTENCE if the final stage in the SYNTACTIC REPRESENTATION of a sentence,
which provides the input to the PHONOLOGICAL COMPONENT of the grammar, and
which thus most closely corresponds to the structure of the sentence we articulate and
hear. (op. cit., p. 337)

A central theoretical term in

encoding i.e. the choice of semantic / meaning units; among those the
respective language possesses in order to render the wanted idea(s) /
concept(s). Different languages will operate differently in selecting / cutting
out the respective semantic units from the materials offered by reality
itself. (To give a few examples, Welsh has a single word for a rather wide
range of colours and colour shades running from blui(e)sh to grey; some
languages have a large number of expressions meant to name colour shades
and nuances, e.g. Eng. scarlet, crimson, Fr. vert olive, jaune paille, vert Nil,
etc.; others only call them using phrases like: dark / light + blue / green, etc.
Some African languages have only three basic semantic units to designate
colours, etc.). Even reality itself, when perceived linguistically, is segmented
in different manners: referents (= the objects / entities in reality we refer to by
giving / attributing a sense to a word, or rather linguistic sign) can be selected
/ recognized differently, e.g. Eskimos are said to call the different qualities /
types of snow or reindeer meat / flesh by using scores of different names, the
Tamil language has over a dozen different words for tiger, Arabic
designates camels by different names, depending on their age, sex, size,
a.s.o., etc. English has two verbs corresponding to the Romance (viz.
Romanian, French, Italian) verb a lsa / laisser / lasciare i.e. to let and to
leave (as in Let me be! and Leave me alone!, respectively). Words designating
the notion of forest do not fully and univocally correspond in various
languages: e.g. Eng. wood(s), forest; Ger. Wald; Fr. fort, bois; Rom. pdure,
pdurice, codru, crng; or consider the words designating the idea of lake /
pond, in, say, English, Romanian and French. The Romanian for Whats your
name? can be literally translated as How do (they) call you?, whereas the
same question in Italian (Come ti chiami?) translates as How do you call
yourself?, etc.
-b) The grammatical encoding (a mental operation, like the
previous one). It refers to the arrangement done by the speaker (in keeping
with the patterns the language exhibits) and using certain specialised tools /
implements e.g. auxiliaries, conjuncts, etc.), to form correct sentences and
phrases (e.g. The cat is running after a mouse not *Cat the run ising after
mouses a). There are differences between languages in this respect, too.
Grammatical patterns and distinctions are not the same: e.g. the category of
aspect is not grammaticalised (recognised as being a grammatically relevant
category) in certain languages for instance, in Romanian vs. English, where
there are two grammatical aspect classes the progressive vs. the simple or
common aspect; Russian recognises the aspect distinction between
perfective and non-perfective. Old Greek had several voices in the class of
the verb, Romanian has three, and English has only two (as the reflexive
structures are not recognized as a separate voice). There are American Indian
languages with no specific category of the Future Tense. Chinese has no
8

tenses, no grammatical gender, no plural forms, etc. it only uses syntactic

relationships based on a very strict word-order, a.s.o.
The basic units that grammar works with are the morphemes. They
carry meaning (semantic proper or purely grammatical). Morphemes may be
either free morphemes (i.e. independent units: e.g. play, is, be, me, clear, cat,
five, to), or bound morphemes (i.e. attached to the free morphemes in order
to: 1) form new words these are the affixes (prefixes and suffixes, e.g. un-,
re-, -less, -ness, etc.); 2) make up grammatical constructions / patterns,
through inflection, e.g. -s for verbs and nouns, -ing for verbs, etc.
The superordinated units are: the words (e.g. friendly, carelessness)
the phrases5 (e.g. the cat, those houses there), the sentences (e.g. The cat is
running fast after one of the mice it has seen).
The operation of grammatical encoding presupposes a selection of
the units within the sets / paradigms, which are then ordered syntagmatically
(i.e. in a linear manner, or in a successive way), according to the above-said
rules.
-c) The phonological encoding: it operates on the physical plane;
the message is given the form of sound units. Since each morpheme cannot
possibly be attributed / allotted a separate / distinct phoneme (there are
thousands of morphemes and only a relatively small number of sounds
humans can really utter), the languages use combinations of such minimal
sound units in order to encode the message from a grammatical point of view.
One can thus notice the great economy of (all) natural languages. This is
what we call the double articulation of natural languages: on the one hand,
there is the grammatical, and semantic information proper; on the other hand,
the phonemes, as minimal sound units. There are countless possible
combinations of phonemes (e.g. with only four phonemes, say: /b/, /i/, /k/,
/n/, we can form scores of words in various languages for English we
shall have: bin, kin, Nick, nib, etc.). So, human languages can be said to have
at least two very important / essential characteristics: duality of structure and
productivity. By duality of structure (or double articulation) linguists
refer to the fact that in all languages so far investigated one finds two levels
of structure, or patterning. There is a primary level composed of
meaningful units: for simplicity, let us call them words. And there is a
secondary level, the units of which themselves have no meaning (let us
grant that this is in general true), but which enter into the formation of
primary units. The secondary units of spoken languages are sounds; and of
written languages, letters (if the languages in question make use of an
alphabetic writing system). This distinction of a primary and a secondary
5

The noun phrase is a False Friend / pitfall for Romanian learners of English; it may
mean either locuiune; expresie or sintagm, construcie.

level of structure might not be drawn in quite the same terms by all linguists,
and it requires some further development and qualification. () By the
productivity of human language (another term is creativity: cf. Chomsky,
1968) is meant the ability that we all have to construct and understand an
indefinitely large number of sentences in our native language, including
sentences that we have never heard before, and to do this, for the most part,
naturally and unreflectingly, without the conscious application of
grammatical rules. It is generally agreed that To explain how this is possible
is the root-problem of linguistic analysis (Haas: 1966, p. 117). () This
problem has been particularly important in the development of generative
grammar. () These two important properties are universal, in the following
sense at least: they have been found in all human languages so far
investigated (Lyons, p. 12). So, natural languages can be said to make
infinite use of finite means.
The phoneme can be defined as an abstract grouping of (minimal)
sound units, having a certain functional load and a (distinct) semantic
relevance within the phonological / phonematic / phonemic system of the
language considered. Each language has a specific inventory of such sound
units some phonemes may be specific to certain languages (e.g. [] for
English, // for Romanian, Portuguese and Russian, [b'] for Hindi, etc.)
B. The sending of the message: the brain sends nervous impulses /
signals to the organs of speech, which will respond through speech
movements that produce speech sounds. The string of phonemes is actualised
as a string of physical sounds. Sounds are produced as a continuum; they are
perceived as a continuous flow, being discernible only through the speakers
own linguistic competence (thus, // will be recognised as a mere sequence of
consonant phonemes in English, e.g. cats /kts/, and as a separate / distinct
phoneme in Romanian, e.g. ho /hots/. In actual speech, these phonemes do
not occur as such; actual sounds are different realisations of the phonemes of
that language compare the realisations of /k/ in: skip, cat, lake.
The above phenomena represent the object of articulatory
phonetics, a discipline which studies the speech organs interacting in order to
produce speech sounds. Although the speech organs are the same with natives
of every language, different languages have different phonological codes: the
sounds produced will be different in particular languages.
C. The transmission of the message is studied by that branch of
phonetics called acoustic phonetics. Its concern is the study of sound waves
perceived as sounds and conveying the message.
D. Reception of the message is studied by auditory phonetics,
whose object is the audition mechanism.
E. Decoding of the message is identical in point of constituency
with the encoding activity, only the stages are considered in the reverse way
10

(i.e. starting from: sounds phonemes morphemes (grammatical)

constructions sense / semantic interpretation, i.e. understanding the
message itself).
A Schematic Representation of the Act of Communication (apud D.
Chioran: 1977)
Speaker
Listener
A. Encoding of the
AIR
E. Decoding of the
message
message
1. semantic
Semantics
3. semantic
2. grammatical
Grammar (Morphology
2. grammatical
and Syntax)
3. phonological
Phonology
1. phonological
B. Sending of the
message

Articulatory
Phonetics

Auditory
Phonetics

D. Reception of
message

Acoustic Phonetics
C. Transmission of the message

The above graphic representation of an act of communication also

indicates the linguistic sciences and disciplines studying each of its stages.
*
As a matter of fact, the efficiency of the sound system represented by
a natural language lies in its usefulness and acceptability as a means of
communication, but that does not directly imply the necessity for every
speech sound or element to be produced and / or received to perfection. The
context, probabilities of a grammatical nature, specific probabilities of
combination and interrelationing of sounds, their arrangement in rhythmic
groups, etc. can give an additional source for the correct understanding of
almost every conceivable sentence, in spite of the (relative) misrepresentation
of the pronunciation of a certain sound / phoneme. So, we can safely state
that all these elements which concur to realising a successful message from
the phonetic and semantic standpoint are redundant with respect to the main
necessities of the emitter / speaker recipient / listener interaction. A.C.
Gimson (The Pronunciation of English, p. 5) gives such examples as: We saw
the lions and tigers, which can be perfectly understood as part of a
conversation about a zoo, even though lions is pronounced in a negligent
manner / slurred, and sounded as liars; the meaning of the sentence These
men are working will be perfectly clear even if men [men] is realised as man
[mn]; *dloves will be understood as gloves purely and simply because in
English there is no dl- sequence at the beginning of words, (although the
distinction between -gl- and -dl- will make any English speaker differentiate
between beagle prepelicar and beadle paracliser; obscuration of vowel
11

quality has for many centuries been characteristic of English, e.g. /i/,
/u/, /e/ reduced to //, and still the intelligibility of the English words and
phrases generally enjoys high acceptability for native speakers: first of all,
thanks to the rhythmic patterns of (familiar) words and also their
combinations into sentences and syntagms.
PHONETICS AND ITS IMPORTANCE
Phonetics is one of the disciplines making up linguistics (the others
being: phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, etc.). Communication is a
matter of sharing / exchanging signs; this is the symbolisation process. The
system of signs used by any language displays units having two sides (cf. F.
de Saussure: like a sheet of paper), i.e.:
a) the signifying side (le signifiant, in Saussures terminology, i.e the Sing) and
b) the signified side (le signifi, i.e. the S-ed).
The first is the concrete / material / conspicuous manifestation of
the sign (its shape as it were); this manifestation may be vocal or graphical.
The latter notion (b) is the content(s) of the sign, the thing which is
signified. Human language only uses conventional signs i.e. there is no
natural, direct relation between the S-ed and the S-ing side: so, linguistic
signs are said to be arbitrary (i.e. the relationship between sound and
meaning is arbitrary or conventional, with a few exceptions, e.g.
onomatopoeic words or expressions). This means that there is no physical
correspondence between the referents / the entities in the world to which the
linguistic forms refer, the qualities of those entities / objects, and the form (Sing) of the words designating them: e.g. a table is no less a table if it is
named in Romanian, Italian, Russian, etc. (so, ['mas], ['tavola], [stolj] are all
entitled to be forms for the same concept referring to the four-legged piece of
furniture).
If one cuts out a portion (metaphorically speaking remember the
sheet of paper simile for the linguistic sign) of one side of the S-ing : S-ed
association, the S-ing for instance, the change will be echoed by the other
side of the whole: e.g. if one drops an analysable sound from the English
word dunce [dns], the resulting form, dun [dn], will have an altogether
different meaning so, it is a different linguistic sign.
Languages can be analysed on two levels or planes: that of
expression (cf. Saussures S-ing); and the level / plane of content (cf.
Saussures S-ed). At each level distinctions can be made between substance
and form. On the plane of expression, sounds are organised in keeping with a
number of complex rules; they are not arbitrarily used. Therefore, a phonetic
12

as well as a phonological analysis of language are in point on this plane,

whereas, on the plane of content(s), syntax and semantics are at work.
Phonetics is the branch of linguistics dealing with expression
substance, as opposed to PHONOLOGY, which concerns itself with
expression form.
But languages should not be regarded only as form; so, PHONETICS
will be defined as that branch of linguistics studying speech sounds from the
point of view of:
1) their production (see above: articulatory phonetics);
2) their transmission (see: acoustic phonetics above);
3) their perception (see: auditory phonetics);
4) their linguistic function in point of patterning / ordering (=
phonology). All these are interdependent. Some linguists draw a dividing line
between phonology and phonemics. The more general term is, though,
PHONOLOGY.
Phonetics may be: -General Phonetics (vs. Special Phonetics)
studying, respectively, speech sounds as a general linguistic phenomenon,
versus sounds belonging to particular languages;
-Synchronic Phonetics vs. Diachronic Phonetics (= the sound
system at a given moment, versus the historical study of the sound system,
seen in its evolution).
-Comparative (or Contrastive) Phonetics: Comparative Phonetics
boils down to making parallels between the sound systems of different
languages; much in the same way, Contrastive Phonetics compares the sound
systems of two particular languages, for didactic / teaching purposes.
-Experimental / Instrumental Phonetics which uses special devices
and apparatuses in studying the sounds of human speech and may be
considered as rather an investigation method than a phonetic discipline (cf.
also the notion of applied phonetics).
A.C. Gimson details the complexity of the field of study of
phonetics and the intricacy of its relationship with the other linguistic
domains and disciplines:
The PHONETICS of a language concerns the concrete
characteristics (articulatory, acoustic, auditory) of the sounds used in
languages, while PHONOLOGY concerns how sounds function in a systemic
way in a partic language. The traditional approach to phonology is through
PHONEMICS, which anlyses the stream of speech into a sequence of
contrastive segments, contrastive here meaning contrasting with other
segments which might change the meaning () The phonemic approach to
phonology is not the only type of phonological theory, but it is the most
accessible to those with no training in linguistic theory, besides being more
relatable to the writing system. () Besides being concerned with the sounds
13

of a language, both phonetics and phonology must also describe the

combinatory possibilities of the sounds (the PHONOTACTICS OF SYLLABLE
STRUCTURE) and the PROSODY of the language, that is, how features of
pitch, loudness, and length work to produce accent, rhythm, and intonation.
Additionally, a study can be mader of the relationship between the sounds of
a language and the letters used in its writing system ( GRAPHOLOGY or
GRAPHEMICS).
[In addition to presenting] the phonetics and phonemics of English,
reference will need to be made from time to time to other components of the
language:
(1) The LEXICON the words of a language, the sequence of
phonemes of which they are composed, together with their
meanings.
(2) The MORPHOLOGY the structure of words, in particular their
inflexion (e.g. start / started here the past-tense morpheme is
added to the stem morpheme). Statements can be made of the
phonemic structure of morphemes the MORPHOPHONEMICS.
So the morphophonemics of English plural morpheme involve
the MORPHOPHONEMIC ALTERNATIONS illustrated by the /s/
in cats, the /z/ in dogs, and the /iz/ in losses.
(3) The SYNTAX the description of categories like noun and verb,
and the system of rules governing the structure of phrases,
clauses, and sentences in terms of order and constituency.
(4) The SEMANTICS the meaning of words and the relationship
between word meanings, and the way such meanings are
combined to give the meanings of sentences.
(5) The PRAGMATICS the influence of situation on the
interpretation of utterances.
Moreover various other aspects of linguistics will involve phonetics
and phonology. STYLISTICS concerns the variations involved in different
situations and in different styles of speech. SOCIOLINGUISTICS concerns the
interaction between language and society (e.g. the variation involved across
classes and between the sexes). DIALECTOLOGY (often considered a branch
of sociolinguistics) concerns the variation in the same language in different
regions. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS concerns the behaviour of human beings in
their producton and perception of language (e.g. how far do we plan ahead
and how much of an utterance do we decode at a time?) LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION concerns childrens learning of their first language, whereas
APPLIED LINGUISTICS principally concerns the acquisition of a second
language.
14

Finally, it is clear that the various components of a language are

always undergoing change in time. The state of a language at any
(SYNCHRONIC) moment must be seen against a background of its historical
(DIACHRONIC) evolution. (A.C. Gimson, op. cit., pp. 6-7).6
NOTES:
As we have seen, the sounds of speech are correlated with features
of the world around us (meanings), and by making sounds which other
speakers hear and interpret. We send linguistic mesages and (when we
ourselve play the role of hearers) react to them. This correlation of sound
and meaning takes place through a system which is quite complex, inasmuch
as it involves several levels of organization. The material of our speech
habits falls into various sub-sets, which are usually represented in a vertical
listing, implying the existence of hierarchical levels. On what is normally
considered the lowest level of linguistic structure are our phonological
habits, which include both the raw material of speech-sounds themselves (to
be analysed on the etic level, in phonetics) and their structural organisation
(which we study at the emic level, in phonemics). Our speech-habits are
structured, but the units of our phonological behaviour, the phonemes of our
language, have in themselves no meaning. The term linguistic form, in its
broadest sense, can refer to any meaningful sequence of phonemes, from the
shortest prefix or suffix to the longest sentence; but the morphological level o
our linguistic habits involves the organisation of minimum forms, both as
morphs on the etic level, and as morphemes on the emic level. The
6

The structure of language is constantly changing throughout time; in the usage of

every individual, some minute change takes place even from day to day, as he learns
new words, new forms, new pronunciations, and allows older habits to fall into
desuetude. When taken in the aggregate over the centuries, these minute innovations
add up to major changes in the habits of entire speech-communities, so that, say, the
English language of our day is very different from that of King Arthurs or even of
Chaucers time. Yet it is useful to describe a language as if it existed at a given point
of time without any changes taking place; in fact, this approach (which is termed
descriptive or synchronic) is not only helpful but necessary both for the historical
(diachronic) study of successive stages of a language, and for the application of
linguistics in practical ways. We therefore adopt a fiction, treating a linguistic system
as if it could be described without reference to the time factor, or, more specifically,
without reference to permanent changes which take place in the system over the
course of time. This is the same type of fiction as that adopted by, say, maker of maps,
even though in a modern metropolis the pattern of streets and transportation is
constantly changing (the publishers of a map of Hamburg state that, on the average,
some alteration takes place every other day) (Robert A. Hall, jr., Introductory
Linguistics, p. 34).

15

organisation of morphemes into longer combinations is dealt with in the

analysis of syntax (from Greek syn- together and taxis a putting or
placing, literally the placing together of forms), whereas the various
elements in themselves carry only dictionary meaning, i.e., are correlated
directly with the features of the non-linguistic world (e.g., table, chair, lamp;
eat, drink, walk; etc.) function on the level of vocabulary or lexicon. Like our
phonological habits, our morphological and syntactic habits are highly
structured in themselves; but, unlike phonological habits, they are also
meaningful (forms and constructions have meanings of their own, apart from
the meanings of the lexical items which enter into them: thus, the noun plural
formation in English means more than one of whatever is referred to; the
English present-perfect verb-phrase refers to action lasting up to or involving
the present time, etc.). (From Robert A. Hall, jr., Introductory Linguistics,
pp. 31-32).
THE TWOFOLD IMPORTANCE OF PHONETIC STUDIES
The importance of phonetic studies is both theoretical and practical. It
provides accurate descriptions of particular languages. Moreover, phonetic
acquisitions had a great impact upon the development of linguistics: it should
be mentioned that, as early as the end of the 18 th century, the comparative
method in linguistics took support on phonetic data, in order to establish
family relations between languages, especially those included in the group of
the so-called Indo-European languages; in fact, 19th century linguistics is the
very beginning of modern linguistics). Likewise, modern linguistics owes a
lot to phonetics (see the concept of phoneme, or that of minimal /
distinctive features, etc.).
Phonetics has a wide range of applications among these, establishing
new alphabets or improving written codes, treating speech defects, improving
communication apparatuses, learning and teaching foreign languages i.e.
helping one acquire a well-trained ear, a good competence at analysing and
describing sounds as well as uttering phonetically correct / acceptable
sounds, or helping others (to) overcome the difficulties that typically arise in
learning a foreign language, etc.
The importance of phonetic studies is great in that phonetics shows
how sounds are produced / uttered, defines and classifies them. It is an art
of (good) pronunciation of great value mainly for those wanting to have a
good command / mastery of the audible / sound elements of a language: be
they speech sounds, accent, stressing, rhythm or intonation; its value is
obvious for foreign learners of English. When one takes up the study of a
foreign language, phonetics can assist one in recognising (and decoding) the
16

phonemes (and, then, the words, word-groups and on) out of the apparently
unintelligible chaos of sounds one is faced with which is done gradually,
after very careful and attentive listening. The next step for learners to take
will be pronouncing the sounds thus distinguished and selected (first, without
their normal context) and practising with them, then analysing their sound
qualities, their articulation (the movements the tongue does together with
the lips and jaws in order to produce them: e.g. compare Rom. zis, Eng.
this; Eng. pop and Bob, etc. The final step of the analysis process is
performing the sounds considered i.e. arranging and uttering them in
longer sound contexts: syllables, words, phrases, sentences.
ENGLISH PHONETICS. RECEIVED
PRONUNCIATION. PHONETICS AND SPELLING
Descriptive phonetics as applied to English will observe the
(restrictive) norms that set up the rules of good pronunciation within such
considerable geographical and social variety as can be seen all through the
countries in which English is spoken; that is said to be the standard
pronunciation. Traditionally, the one variety that presents the most
advantages in being learned (and taught) is what phoneticians have called
Received Pronunciation (RP) i.e. that variety of British English used by
educated people / speakers in the Southern part of England, including the
London area or, simply, Southern English. It was Daniel Jones who first
introduced the term through his famous Pronouncing Dictionary. RP is
usually opposed to American English (whose subdivisions are: General
American or Western American, Eastern American and Southern American);
sometimes, it is opposed to dialectal / regional varieties of British English.
Here is the definition of the pronunciation model as given by Daniel
Jones in the first edition of his English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917): That
most usually heard in everyday speech in the families of South-Eastern
persons whose menfolk have been educated at the great public boarding
schools; so, he referred to his model as the Public School Pronunciation
(PSP); in later editions e.g. that of 1937 he added the remark that
schoolboys in day-schools do not tend to lose their markedly local
peculiarities. It was in 1926 that Daniel Jones abandoned the term PSP in
favour of Received Pronunciation (RP), i.e. that kind of standard / model,
rooted in the educated pronunciation of London and the Home Counties,
which spread throughout the country, being characteristic of upper-class
speech as early as the 19th century. So, its origin and evolution can be said to
be two-fold: both regional and socially determined (i.e., the type of English
most often heard among educated people in Southern England used by the
majority of Londoners who have had a university education, and most
17

commonly heard in Oxford and Cambridge).

Received Pronunciation today: This type of pronunciation was
adopted as a standard for the BBC newsreaders, first of all because it is
widely understood throughout Britain. Yet, owing to the fact that recently the
formal rigidity of British society has been lost (and thus it is more difficult to
correlate a certain type of pronunciation exclusively with one section of
society) and, moreover, BBC broadcasts have made lots of listeners
conversant with RP (or at any rate a very close approximation of it), a
number of local variants being included / tolerated, the old definition seems
no longer acceptable.
More recent editions of the Daniel Jones A. C. Gimson
Pronouncing Dictionary are consequently representative of the usage
current among speakers of the middle generations [and] the speakers of the
young are likely at any time to be unstable, often reflecting transitory
fashion. The extent to which such tendencies are relevant is said, among
other things, by the analysis of recordings made by speakers of the relevant
age-groups. (Everymans English Pronouncing Dictionary, 1980).
In addition, there are the limits and structuring criteria provided by the
nature of the phonological system itself e.g. the number of the oppositional
sounds and phonemes, their incidence in words, etc. So, the fact that no two
people pronounce exactly alike has regional, historical, social, as well as
purely individual causes.
Consequently, the simplest definition Daniel Jones gave of RP was: a
widely understood pronunciation.
It follows that, even if not a standard in the official sense, RP is
chosen in many places as the model to be observed e.g. most books on
English pronunciation are based on RP; when we refer to the correct way
of pronouncing a certain vowel or consonant, we mean their RP definition.
(Yet, with regard to pronunciation also, ACCEPTABILITY ought to be the
rule, mainly when it comes to teaching a foreign language).
In the Introduction to the Pronouncing English Dictionary, Daniel
Jones adds: It is thought by many that there ought to exist a standard, and
we can see from several points of view that a standard speech would have its
uses. () A standard pronunciation would also be useful to the foreign
learner of English.
He also discusses the opposition between good speech and bad
speech: good speech may be defined as a way of speaking which is clearly
intelligible to all ordinary people. A person might use speech sounds entirely
different from those emitted by his / her interlocutors and yet be perfectly
understood (e.g., a Southern Briton can be perfectly understood by a Scot /
Scotsman or an American, etc.). So that the goodness or badness of the
sounds uttered does not exist in themselves they are merely subjective
18

features; yet, a foreigner who tries to learn English at least in school has
to comply with the general rules / norms of RP / standard pronunciation.
Since English pronunciation and spelling are rather wide apart as a
result of historical evolution, learners should have recourse to conventional
graphical signs (such as //, //, etc.) corresponding to the English phonemes,
as regular letters may have different phonetic values (e.g. cat, cent, indict;
love, move, cove, gone, word, sword; or: send, ease, sugar, measure; or there
may be two pronunciations of the same graphical word e.g. sow1 a
semna (cmpul cu semine), sow2 scroaf; bough, bow1 and bow2, etc.);
the same vowel is heard in sit, enough, village, women, busy.
In spite of these appearances of a phonetic chaos 7, English still has a
number of rather fixed or else, consistent pronunciation rules (see Annex
5), (as in: sheriff, bed, bad, feet, etc.).
Initially, English was phonetic (as opposed to the etymological aspect
i.e. historical, diachronic, in keeping with tradition), reflecting in a fairly
exact manner the pronunciation of the words. This older spelling was
preserved through the written documents in spite of the (natural) historical
evolution of living language. As an example, we can mention the work
knight, which, in the 14th century, was pronounced as /knixt/; see was
pronounced differently from sea; in the 18th century, tea
then
pronounced /tei/ was rhymed with obey. There have been timid attempts at
reforming spelling (e.g. in the 16th century many final es were eliminated:
compare Edmund Spensers Faerie Queene with todays words, fairy and
queen). Yet, printing contributed to freeze the older form; this traditional
stream actually had a positive influence on the language i.e. supradialectal
unification. The capital work of the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson
(1755) virtually fixed / froze English spelling. It is true that there is an
7

See Websters Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, p. 1754: All of us have

trouble, at one time or another, with our spelling. This book is designed for those of
you who are bright, educated, and hold responsible positions, but who are - lets face
it - bad spellers. If you are a secretary, you know how often your boss makes a
mistake in spelling; if you are a student, you know that even your teacher or professor
misspells. Doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs, even presidents are known to misspell.
Why? Its Our English Language. If youre unsure of your spelling, its by no means
your fault. Its due to the fact that very often theres no rhyme or reason for the
spelling of a great many words in the English language. As an example, take the
sound of the letter f. It can be spelled / spelt gh, ph, ft, as well as f. The following
words illustrate the above variation: enough, phone, often, fun. None other than G.B.
Shaw created the following spellings, just to point out the inconsistencies in our
language: fish - GHOTI; potato - GHOUGHPTEIGHBTEAU. Stumped? Heres the
solution: FISH - gh as in enough; o as in women; ti as in nation. Sure enough, its
FISH! POTATO is even more fun - p as in hiccough; o as in though; t as in ptomaine;
a as in neigh; t as in debt; o as in bureau.

19

undeniable advantage about maintaining an etymological spelling it

provides good material for the philologists to study the history of the English
language. But The outcome of the 1,000-year-long evolution of the written
form of English is written English (), often an inadequate and misleading
representation of the spoken language of today. Clearly it would be unwise,
to say the least, to base our judgments concerning the spoken language on
prejudices derived from the orthography. (Gimson, op. cit., p. 4)
Over the years there have been many attempts to establish a (more)
phonetic spelling: A. J. Ellis and I. Pitman (1848) in the Fonetic Nuz
Magazine; in 1881, the Philological Society in London; the American
Spelling Reform Association, which published a list of corrections. A.J.
Ellis elaborated a project of reformed English spelling (English Glossic in
which graphemes were used, e.g. Ingglish Glosic iz veri eezi too reed... A
cheild foar yeers oald kan bee redili taut too reed buoks). Henry Sweet tried
to simplify it and created the Broad Romic system (e.g.igli glosik iz
veri iizi tu riid. wi prop treini taild fo jiz ould kn bii redili tot tu riid
buks).
Henry Sweet was followed by Paul Passy, who took over the formers
system and finally created the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), in
1889. Daniel Jones elaborated the New Spelling system (here is a brief
instance of a text spelt using this system: It will be seen from whot haz been
sed dhat a fonetishan mae suport the iedea of reforming our spelling on
eduekaeshonal, eekonomik and shoeshal groundz). Some instances of
simplified spelling appear in (American) newspaper or signs, etc. e.g. thru,
tho, enuf, or AE / AmE (=American English) honor, center, continuos vs.
BE / BrE (=British English) honour, centre, continuous.
The reverse phenomenon occurs when the influence of spelling is
noticeable in re-establishing the older form of certain words as in hideous,
odious, which used to be pronounced as ['hids], ['ouds]; or habit, herb
which were pronounced without the initial h sound (cf. hour, heir, honour,
etc.); see also some false etymologizations by spelling, mainly due to the fact
that most clerks were conversant with Latin and / or French, e.g. verdict (cf.
Lat. dictus), adventure (cf. Lat. advenire), language (in older English:
langage, of French origin), fault (in older English faut < Fr. faute), author,
etc.; or (with no influence on pronunciation): debt, doubt, victuals.
As a matter of fact, the problem of making up adequate techniques for
the transcription of speech was of foremost concern for scholars of the early
1900s, while in America the focus of interest was placed on the description
and understanding of the dying American-Indian languages, a research in
which phonetic transcription was needed in order to faithfully record the
speech of those tribal communities; the habitual alphabets were not adequate
to do that type of recording (English has only 26 letters and more than 40
20

phonemes). The correspondence between the sound and the spelling of

speech can be even worse in Irish Gaelic, or in Welsh / Cymric, for instance
but it can also be better, e.g. in languages like Finnish, Hungarian, Spanish
or Romanian. The reasons for devising this special type of phonetic notation /
transcription are numerous: there are regional / dialectal differences between
people pronouncing the same word or phrase (e.g. a Cockney speaker and a
Welshman saying no: the realisation is for the former [nau], and for the latter
[no:]); then, the fact that there are nations whose languages have not been
written before.
It should be added that this notation is different from the articulatory
description the image of which the former is in fact. The phonetic
description, and its underlying analysis, is primary; a notation secondary
(though [] nonetheless important). These priorities were not, however,
clearly seen in linguistics until the mid-thirties. A great deal of the early work
in language analysis was taken up with arguing the pros and cons of a
particular notation what were the merits of using symbol X over symbol Y
for the notation of a given sound? What criteria should be borne in mind
when using symbols? It took some years before criteria for the underlying
phonetic analysis were discussed in anything like the same degree of detail.
But despite the confusion, the development and the use of phonetic
transcription was of major importance in the early history of linguistics, as it
provided a consistent means of getting large quantities of data from
unfamiliar languages widely circulated, and it was this data which was to
have a fundamental role in the arguments about the phonetic structure of
language which were developing at the time. (David Crystal, Linguistics, pp.
165-166).
PHONETIC SYMBOLS
It is convenient to have a written representation of the sounds
described in articulatory terms, making up a unitary system which should
provide a one-to-one correspondence between the sounds of speech and their
respective graphic symbols. This is a set / system of phonetic transcription;
it is basically opposed to the orthographic system (in the case of English, the
Roman alphabet, plus its conventions, inconsistencies and oddities); in order
to be perceived as a different conventional set, such phonetic transcription
uses the square brackets / parentheses: [], or the obliques / slashes / slanting
bars: // for setting off its symbols: e.g., [mn], [b:d], [nuz], ['litl], or
/mn/, /b:d/, /nuz/, etc.8 Such an alphabet / phonetic system is IPA (=the
8

The difference between the two notations is sometimes ignored, so they can be used
- actually, they are used - indiscriminately; but most linguists, philologists and bookeditors draw a distinction between [mn] and /mn/: the former is an instance of

21

International Phonetic Alphabet). By around 1870 phonetics had developed

to such an extent that some kind of special alphabet was needed to record
speech sounds. An International Congress of Linguistics met in Paris and
worked out this International Phonetic Alphabet, in which the letters satnd in
a one-to-one correspondence with the sounds; its basic stock was made up of
the common letters of the Roman alphabet, plus various other more or less
exotic- letters, e.g. the Greek theta [], the Old English [], [], the Hebrew
letter called schwa, [], letters whose values are apparent by their shape,
such as [], [], [] or [o]. In other variants, the so-called diacritics or
diacritical marks are used, e.g. [ ], [], [], [], []. For the American
variant, there are: Kenyons version adapted to American English (and further
modified by K. L. Pike), Tragers and Smiths versions, etc. Daniel Jones
system is still the most widely used, being the most accessible through its
simplicity and functional character (though a number of his disciples,
especially A. C. Gimson, brought numerous additions some of them rather
unnecessary it seems, e.g. [:] instead of [:], [] for [i], or [] for [o], etc.).
It was the wish of those who created it to accurately represent all the
possible sounds in natural languages, so they devised scores of exoticlooking
signs
(e.g. ,,,,,,,,,,
,
,,,,,,,
,,,,, , ,, etc.). In practice the symbols are meant to become a
precious guide to correct pronunciation. There are several phonetic alphabets
in use nowadays (in our schools, the most widely spread alphabet which is
used to symbolize English sounds is the one used by Daniel Jones in his
English Pronouncing Dictionary).
Over the last half-century, such alphabets / phonetic systems of
notation have been currently and widely used by linguists and language
teachers alike, as an invaluable instrument; another paramount utilization of
such alphabets has been that made by dictionaries, be they English-English,
or bilingual (though it is true that many common, or learners dictionaries
simply use conventional spelling with the addition of various diacritics or
pronouncing marks). (See also Annex 3)
Here are some examples chosen from among the numerous variants of
the phonetic alphabet by J. Windsor Lewis (A Guide to English
Pronunciation, pp. 30-31):
We now illustrate eight well-known types of phonetic transcription.
(Orthography: These few short words have largely been chosen to
give a fair idea of how something looks in what are the main types of
phonetic transcription usually employed.)
1. i:z fjo: o:t w:dz v l:dl bi:n t zn t gv fr adr v h sm
l ks n wt men taps v fnetk trnskrpn jo: l mplod.
narrow / phonetic transcription, and the latter of broad / phonemic transcription.

22

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

iz fjo ot wdz v ldl bin t zn t gv fr adr v h sm

l ksn wt men taps v fnetk trnskrpn jo l mplod.
i:z fju: o:t w:dz v l:dli bi:n tuzn (formerly touzn) t giv fr aidir v
hau smi luksin wot mein taips v fnetik trnskripn juuli imploid.
iiz fjuu oot wdz v laadli biin touzn t giv fer aidir v hau smi luks
inwot mein taips v fnetik transkripn juuuli imploid.
i:z fju: o:t w:dz v la:dli bi:n touzn t giv fer aidir v hau smi
luksin wot mein taips v fnetik trnskripn ju:uli imploid.
i:z fju: o:t w:dz v l:dl bi:n t zn t gv fr adr v h smi
l ksn wt men taps v fnetk trnskrpn ju: l mplod.
iz fju ot wdz v ldl bin tozn t g v fr a d r v ha sm
lks n wt me n ta ps v fnt k transkr pn jul mpl d.
iz fju ot wdz v ldl bin tozn t gv fr adr v ha sm
l ksn wt men taps v fntk trnskrpn ju l mplod.

Type (1) above is the one used throughout this book, (2) the same
transcription without the length colons, (3) the EPD transcription (= D.
Jones English Pronouncing Dictionary), (4) P.A.D. MacCarthys vowelletter doubling transcription, (5) the simplified transcription devised by
Daniel Jones, (6) Gimsons transcription, (7) the Abercrombie Edinburgh
transcription, and (8) that of J.S. Kenyon and T.A. Knotts Pronouncing
Dictionary of American English.
They all employ symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Anyone who is thorougly familiar with one of these should find very little
difficulty in reading anything written in one of the others. Our sample
sentence contains all the (British) English phonemes. (British pronunciation
is represented in all of them including the last.)
Some other books (dictionaries, textbooks, workbooks, pronunciation or
conversation guides, phonology treatises or manuals, etc.) use quite different
systems from the IPA: some for the sake of tradition (e.g. Websters
Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary), some in order to be more accurate in
giving the reader / user an idea of the exact pronunciation of sounds, which
could thus be more graphical (e.g. the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary
by J. C. Wells, based on A. C. Gimsons variant), others trying to simplify
things, and still others in an attempt to be original.

23

CHAPTER II
MAIN COMPARTMENTS OF PHONETICS
As already mentioned in the introductory chapter, phonetics is the
science of human speech-sounds. Its study focuses on the whole production
of what we may call vocal noise, substantiating the degree to which these
elements are characteristic of, and relevant for, the many diverse natural
languages analysed. The compartments of phonetics are in number of three
and they represent the three interdependent (although fully distinct)
standpoints from which the phenomena under study may be regarded.
Before trying to outline the essentials of the pronunciation of
English, it is important to point out that we start here from the assumption
that, nowadays, the basic motivation of students in their study of English or
any other foreign language is effective communication in that language.
Real communication, however, involves both production and comprehension
of messages. It means that only speaking the language fluently is not enough.
Understanding it is equally important in order to achieve true
communication. It is generally admitted that, of the two aspects of learning
pronunciation perception and production the most difficult task to acquire
is native-like audio-comprehension. Sometimes, when a message is
transmitted by a native speaker to an unsystematically trained foreign
listener, everything seems to flood in upon the hearer so violently that he or
she is in most cases unable to understand what is being said to him or her;
thus, a prerequisite to developing the ability to produce speech is developing
the ability to recognise speech as long as a sound pattern has not been heard
accurately, it cannot be reproduced accurately except by accident. Many
intermediate, and even upper-intermediate students of English are hardly
aware of the difference between the vowels in dance and dunce, or hoop and
hood, for example. Consequently, learning how to articulate the foreign
sounds has to go hand in hand with intensive listening to them. This
proposition has to be borne in mind during the whole process of learning or
teaching the pronunciation of a foreign language. In this section, we shall
examine some articulatory aspects of communication in English.
Articulatory Phonetics: Meaningful sounds / vocal noises that
humans produce in order to communicate amount to the social instrument of
language.
When we start analysing the sounds humans use in speech, it will be
inconceivable to begin it with the analysis of the letters we use in our
spelling; the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet (and even the 2,000-odd
24

symbols of the Chinese system) will not be enough to mark all the range of
sounds English makes use of to say nothing of the great variety of sounds
speakers of other languages can produce.
The only thing we should normally do is base our investigation upon
the most reliable criterion the sounds themselves can suggest: namely, the
physical properties they display. In an impressionistic description, sounds
may appear as flat, harsh, smooth, broad, soft, dark, bright,
clear, scratchy, etc., but these terms can hardly be said to be reliable
viz. concrete. (As an example, one may invoke the case of that pronunare
ndulcit applying to Romanian regional accents, and especially to the
Moldavian variant, although the significant use this sub-dialect makes of
palatalization is far from sounding soft). So, auditory data, when used in an
impressionistic manner, have little relevance for this kind of analysis. The
acoustic features of sounds will give us better results in this respect, mainly if
analysed by means of special equipment and techniques. On the other hand,
the data gathered by means of the analytical techniques based on the study of
the anatomy of the organs performing phonation (the organs of speech) seem
to be more exact; this has been the main current in the linguistic tradition
beginning with the middle of the last century up to the between-the-wars
period.
This type of analysis is consequently a physiological or articulatory
one, and the study of phonetics in this field is primarily based on the detailed
description, enumeration and classification of the body organs used in
making speech-sounds. So, the main concern of articulatory phonetics is the
study of the vocal organs which make it possible for human speakers to
articulate the sounds of everyday speech. (As a matter of fact, both
articulatory and acoustic phonetics may be given the more general label of
physical phonetics, as they investigate physical phenomena as opposed to
auditory phonetics, which is based on a massive physiological, or psychic,
constituent).
The parts of the body that man uses to this purpose are the speech (or
vocal) organs; they are called organs of speech / speech organs
although the essential function is a different one than the specifically human
function of producing sounds / phonation, characteristic of language. Thus,
their primary functions are eating, breathing, etc. (so, vital, physiological /
biological functions). This happens because humans, who are the only
speaking animals, have the faculty of speech as a native / innate part of their
specific heritage; it is only the human being that possesses the necessary
cerebral and anatomic attributes (the simplest example in point would be the
possibility animals have unlike humans to produce sounds while eating or
drinking, because of the reciprocal positions of their larynges and oesophagi).
So, the (upper part of) the food tract and of the respiratory system carries out
25

this task; in man, these were turned into speech organs proper, by way of
evolutionary mutations, it seems; the idea is that man simply could not bring
forth a new set of organs, specially meant for phonation / production of
speech; it is merely the case of functional adaptations of a number of parts of
the vocal apparatus.
The description based on the mainly concrete knowledge of the
organs of speech, their relation to each other, their activity (the way in which
they are used in speaking) can provide a universal framework for the
classification of speech sounds. (See also Hall, jr., op. cit., p. 37: Our
folklore about language includes the notion that some sounds are impossible
to pronounce, or that innate differences of physiological make people of a
certain group inherently incapable of pronouncing certain sounds found in in
languages spoken by people of other groups. Thus, some whites believe
themselves unable to make the differences in the pitch of individual syllables
found in Chinese and in many Southeast Asian, African, and American Indian
languages; Tuscans believe themselves hereditarily unable to pronounce
word-final consonant sounds, etc. These notions are quite unfounded. A white
child brought up in China among speakers of Chinese will learn to speak
exactly as they do; a child of Tuscan parents brought up speaking English
from his earliest years will have no difficulty at all in pronouncing word-final
consonants. A slightly more sophisticated version of the same folkloristic
notion is found in a recent attempt by a physiologist to show a statistical
correlation between blood-group types and the presence or absence of the
th sounds in the worlds languages; the effort failed, because of nave
misunderstanding of the distribution of national languages and their
dialects.)
THE SPEECH MECHANISM / TRACT
The speech mechanism / tract includes three compartments / segments,
in keeping with the function they perform in the act of utterance / phonation:
1) (as the source of the air-stream): the thorax and the lungs;
2) (as a means of modulation, through vibration): the larynx;
3) (as resonators): the cavities of the speech tract (viz. the supraglottal
cavities).
The main function of the thorax and the lungs is respiration, while
phonation is only a secondary function / a by-product and is materialised in
producing the air stream / current needed to start speech. The movements
performed by the lungs are initiated by the contraction of the intercostal
muscles and the diaphragm: the two acting like a pair of bellows (Rom.
"foale"). Inspiration and respiration make up the respiratory cycle; man
usually has a respiratory rate of about 10 to 20 cycles per minute (cpm), but
26

during speech the inspiration / respiration ratio may become 1 to 10 up to 1

to 30. When the lungs are refilled with air, a speech pause occurs; so,
phonation is grouped in breath units / groups (stretches of speech), which go
hand with the syntactic structure of the language itself. Dynamic stress is all
conditioned by the activity of the respiratory muscles.
The larynx continues the trachea (i.e. the windpipe), a cartilage organ
which is visible as Adams apple (indeed, it is the largest of the cartilages
in that region, which actually make up the larynx). In the larynx are the vocal
cords / vocal folds (resembling a pair of lips and so, also designated by
some phoneticians by the very name of vocal lips- and opening through the
glottis). The epiglottis (a shoehorn-shaped cartilage lying at the base of the
tongue and covering the trachea when food is swallowed) is another organ
protecting the bronchi and the lungs from any unwanted matter coming from
outer sources. The vocal cords / folds act as a valve whose various
movements condition the very quality of the vocalic sounds produced: when
kept apart, the person breathes; when wide apart, one snores; when loosely
brought together, one whispers; when tightly constricted and ready to vibrate,
the cords perform the act of phonation. The vibration of the vocal cords
which can be easily felt when applying, say, ones finger on the Adams
apple is characteristic of voiced sounds (e.g. vowels and the voiced
consonants, as well as the sonorants: /b/, /d/, /g/, /n/, //, /l/, etc.). Frequency
of vibration is highly variable (according to age, sex, speech situation, etc.).
It can go from 100-150 cycles per second (cps) with men to 200-300 cps
with women and children, the absolute extremities being 60-70 cps and
1,300 cps, respectively.
The Supraglottal Cavities: The glottal / laryngeal tone, which is
obtained through the passage of the air-stream, is modified by the resonance /
vibration of the air in the supraglottal cavities, which are the following:
a) the pharynx;
b) the mouth (or the oral cavity);
c) the nasal cavity. It may be added that there is a small labial cavity, of
a secondary importance, though (having no part in producing characteristic
sounds of Indo-European languages).
a) The Pharynx lies between the larynx, the oesophagus, the mouth
cavity and the nasal cavity, having at the end the epiglottis an organ which
regulates the flow of food down the oesophagus and the passage of air
(through the larynx and trachea). The pharynx can hardly be said to hold a
role in producing English sounds.
b) The Mouth (or the Oral Cavity) has the chief part in
pronunciation, although its primary role is that of grasping, holding and
chewing / masticating food, in which job the tongue, teeth, jaws and lips also
serve. Its space which determines most of the quality of sounds is the
27

result of the movements / positioning and shape of the organs inside the oral
cavity, some of which are fixed (teeth, hard palate / roof of the mouth,
pharyngeal wall, etc.), while others are movable / mobile (e.g. the tongue).
The movable / moving organs are articulators; the fixed organs serve
as points of articulation.
I. The Points of Articulation are: the teeth, the teeth ridge / the
alveolar ridge, and the hard palate; the soft palate / the velum, ends with the
uvula (Rom. omuorul).
II. The Articulators of which the tongue is the most important;
its surface was (didactically) divided into: the tip, the blade (they form
together the apex); the front; the back; the root of the tongue, the lateral parts
are the sides / the rims of the tongue.
the lips which help in producing labial sounds;
the jaws: the lower jaw only is mobile / movable; the distance
between the two determines the close vs. open quality of certain
vowel sounds (e.g. //, /:/ vs. /i/, /u:/.
c) The Nasal Cavity: The position of the soft palate (the velum
vlul palatin), continued by the uvula, has the essential part in shifting the
air-stream into the nasal cavity: when raised, the velum directs the air flow
through the mouth (the sounds thus produced being oral); when the soft
palate is lowered and the mouth cavity is partially blocked, the air-stream
is directed through the nasal cavity (= pronunciation of the nasal sounds, e.g.
/m/, /n/, //). Nasalisation of otherwise oral sounds (i.e. vowels) is achieved
when only part of the air-stream escapes through the nasal cavity (e.g. the
French or Portuguese sounds / phonemes //, /, //, etc.). In English,
nasalisation has no phonemic relevance with vowels: it has no phonological
relevance.
So, the air is set in motion, then the various movements of the organs
of speech and their coordination take this flow over and transform it
(significantly assisted by the vibration supplied by the resonators) into sounds
and sound sequences / trains of sounds. The phonetician is one may say
interested in the study of anatomy and physiology to a significant extent, just
as he has to make extensive and flexible use of some tools of investigation
such as: direct observation of articulatory movements, X-ray photography for
recording the representative positions and movements of the tongue, soft
palate and vocal folds / cords, laryngoscopic investigation through
photography and / or observation, electromyography (i.e. measurement of the
electrical potential displayed by muscular contractions along the vocal tract).

28

THE ARTICULATORY CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH SOUNDS

The articulatory description of sounds has been the most important
branch of phonetics; it aims at describing, observing and classifying the
speech sounds in articulatory terms.
Vowels and consonants are the two main classes into which sounds
fall. Vowels (< Lat. vocalis) are those sounds that are voiced, or pronounced
to the fullest of voice, as opposed to consonants (< Lat. consonare), which
sound together with the vowels to form syllables. It will be more precise to
say that not only vowels are voiced (see also such sounds as /d/, /b/, /g/,
/v/, /z/, //, /m/, /n/, /l/, /r/, which are opposed to /t/, /p/, /k/, /f/, /s/, //
respectively the latter sounds having no voice. So much that those
traditional names were replaced by certain linguists (like K. L. Pike, in 1943)
with the similar class-terms of Vocoids and Contoids, respectively (i.e.
vowel-type sounds vs. consonant-type sounds). The second group will be
divided into: obstruents (=non-sonorous contoids), and sonorants (=sounds
which are essentially characterised by voice / vibration: e.g. /m/, /n/, /l/,
/r/, //, /w/, /j/).
Although vowels / vocoids are better described in auditory terms
and contoids in articulatory terms, the latter parameters / criteria are useful in
defining both classes. Here is a short presentation of these criteria, as applied
to the two classes of sounds:
I. Contoid Sounds are described and classified according to:
1. The source and direction of the air-stream: there are pulmonic
sounds i.e. coming from the lungs, and egressive sounds i.e. emitted from
the inside to the outside; non-pulmonic and ingressive sound are very rare in
natural languages and do not occur in English, or in any other Indo-European
language.
2. Vibration / activity of the vocal cords: there are voiced and
voiceless sounds, i.e. [+VOICE] sounds, or sounds having vibration, and [VOICE] sounds, or sounds having no vibration, respectively;
3. Position of the soft palate: when raised, sounds are oral; when
lowered, sounds are nasal;
4. Position of (and organs / parts of the mouth cavity that are
active
in) articulation. According to this criterion, speech sounds will be described
as:
Bilabial, or simply labial (when articulated by the lips: e.g. /p/,
/b/, /m/);
Labio-dental (when articulated by the lower lip and the upper teeth:
e.g. /f/, /v/);
29

 Interdental / Apico-dental (the apex of the tongue is set against the

upper teeth or between the teeth: e.g. //, //);
Apico-alveolar (their Romanian correspondents are called
dental)
articulation is done by the apex set against the alveolar ridge e.g.
/t/, / /, /s/, /z/; Apico-postalveolar (when articulated by the tip of the
tongue set against the back part of the alveolar ridge) e.g. /r/;
Palato-alveolar (when the apex is set against the alveolar ridge,
and the front of the tongue also touches the anterior part of the hard
palate); e.g. //, //, /t/, /d/);
Palatal (when the front of the tongue touches the palate: e.g. /j/, the
only one in English);
Dorso-velar, or velar (the back part of the tongue is set against the
soft palate: e.g. /k/, /g/, // );
Glottal (produced at the level of the glottis, through either a
narrowing of the air passage -/h/- or a complete closure /constriction the socalled glottal stop /?/).
5. Manner of articulation according to which criterion there are the
following types of (contoid) sounds:
Plosives / Stops (also called occlusives), which are articulated with
a complete closure, followed by an explosion, or sudden release:
e.g. /p/, /t/, /k/, /g/, the glottal stop /?/;
Affricates: when the initially complete closure is slowly released:
e.g. /t/, /d/;
Nasals: the obstruction is continued, while directing the air-stream
through the nose / the nasal cavity: e.g. /n/, /m/, //;
Fricative sounds: the air-stream escapes through a rather narrow
passage, the result being friction, e.g. /f/, /v/, //, //, /s/, /z/, etc.;
(Through intermittent closure): Rolled sound, e.g. /r/, when
pronounced in the Scottish (or Romanian, Italian, Russian, etc.)
way; the English /r/ sound is produce with a tap and may well be
described as a frictionless continuant;
(Through a lateral escape of the air-stream): Lateral, e.g. /l/; the /r/
and /l/ sounds are grouped together under the name of liquids.
Here is what David Crystal says in connection with the (relative)
intrinsic difficulty of sound defining by means of articulatory observation:
All these sounds (i.e. labials and alveolars or dentals) are quite easy to
distinguish, largely because we can feel the movements of the vocal organs
very clearly, and indeed see much of what is going on if we care to look in a
mirror. The further back in the mouth we go, however, the more difficult it
becomes to sense changes in our articulation, and the more wee need training
in order to be able to understand what is going on. It may come as a surprise
30

f, v

r
l
s, z
l,

k,g

Glottal

/Dorso-velarVelar

c, j

Uvular

Palatal

t,d
tr,
dr
n
r

Palato-alveolar

Retro flex

Post-alveolar

Alveolar

p,b

/ interdentalDental

Plosives
(Stops)
Affricate
sounds
Nasals
Rolled
(Intermittent
closure)
Flapped
Lateral
Fricative
sounds
Glides

Labiodental

Place of
artic.
Manner
of artic.

Bilabial

to learn that the initial consonants in English keep and car are articulated in
quite different positions, the tongue touching the roof of the mouth further
forward in the first [k] sound than in the second. And there are many other
sounds equally difficult to distinguish. (David Crystal, Linguistics, p. 170).
6. Force of articulation: this criterion refers to the force / tenseness
added to the articulation of contoid / consonant sounds, which in turn will
determine a larger or a smaller quantity of air sent by the lungs and further
propelled into the mouth. Those sounds involving a smaller air volume are
called lenis, as opposed to fortis (implying a higher volume of air. In
English, all voiceless contoids are fortis (as they need a larger amount of
respiratory / articulatory effort to be uttered) and are opposed to the lenis
consonants: i.e. the voiced stops (e.g. /b/, /g/, the glottal stop, etc.) and the
sonorants (e.g. /l/, /m/, //, etc.
7. There is a further class of consonantal / consonant-type sounds,
viz. the semi-vowels (e.g. /w/, /j/), which, although articulated like vowels
(i.e. meeting no major obstruction on their passage), have a consonant nature
(i.e. functional features: they cannot form syllables by themselves, having a
rather marginal position in the syllable and support from a neighbouring
vowel, which is the centre of the syllables.
A detailed table / chart including the description of the English
contoids as distinguished by A.C. Gimson (apud. D. Chioran, op. cit., 1977):

t,
d

()
r

, j

31

II. Vocoid Sounds: These sounds will be characterised as pulmonic,

egressive and oral (in English, there are no nasal vowels like those in French,
Portuguese or Polish, for instance: //, //, etc.). The air escapes freely
through the mouth, the final quality of the sounds being established by the
following parameters:
1. Point of the tongue / Position of the tongue achieving the quality
of the sound. In keeping with the part of the tongue which is raised, vocoids
fall into: front /i:/, /i/, /e/, //, back /u:/, /u/, /o/, /o:/, /u/, /u:/ and central
vowels //, /:/, //.
In point of opening (i.e. how high the tongue is raised towards the
palate or how low it lies in the mouth, to which the relative position of the
jaws is added), there are: close vs. open vowels (plus two intermediate
degrees half-close and half-open, or mid-low and mid-high, respectively).
2. Position of the lips: If spread, the resulting sounds are unrounded
(e.g. /e/); if rounded, vowels like /o/, /u/, /u:/ will result.
3. Degree of muscular tension: Some vowels require a certain
degree of tenseness in the muscles of the tongue and mouth-walls, i.e. they
are tense vowels (e.g. the long vowels /:/, /i:/, etc.); others have no such
tenseness they are lax (e.g. //, //, /i/, etc.)
4. Duration / length: In English, vowels are either long or short
(e.g. /i/ vs. /i:/, /o/ vs. /o:/, etc.). This opposition should actually be equated to
the opposition tense : lax.
5. Constancy in articulation: The quality of a vowel sound may
vary in pronunciation. If a vowel sound changes to the end, it is a glide / a
diphthong (e.g. /ai/, /oi/, as opposed to the simple vowels or monophthongs.
THE CARDINAL VOWEL SYSTEM
The description of the vowels is not very precise, as there is no
contact between an articulator and a definite part of the speech tract; that is
why the same vowels are not the same in different languages (compare
English /i:/ and Romanian /i/) so much that the need was felt for a model
aiming at an accurate description of vowels. It could provide a better
assessment of the (relative) value of vowels specific to any natural language.
The system created by Daniel Jones was called the Cardinal Vowel
Chart / System / Scale and combined the two main sets of co-ordinated
parameters meant to ascertain the quality of vowel-sounds viz. the position
of the tongue against the hard palate and the exact part of the tongue which is
raised; the extreme position of articulation is front and back; there are four
degrees of opening (open, mid-open, mid-close and close). The possible
combinations of the two sets / lines of criteria will result in the following
chart / table (see below)
32

The qualities of the landmarks the Cardinal Vowels actually

represent are modified according to the phonatory characteristics of each
language, so that rounded, nasal, unrounded, higher or lower vowel qualities
can be obtained; e.g. a rounded series will be represented, in French, German,
Hungarian, Turkish and other languages, by /y/, //, //, / /; nasal: Fr. //, //,
unrounded / spread vowels: Eng. //, Rom. // or //; high: Eng. /u:/, etc.
THE CARDINAL VOWEL CHART
CRITERION/
PARAMETER

Front

Back

+
+
+
+

High

Low

MID~
MID~

+
+

+
+
+
+

MID~
MID~

CARDINAL
VOWEL

/i/
/e/
//
/a/
//
/o/
/o/
/u/

Compare the Cardinal Vowel Chart above with the English Simple
Vowels:
/i:/

/u:/
/i/

/u/
/:/

/e/
//

/o:/
//

//

/o/
/:/

The invariant values ascribed to each of the eight elements of the

Cardinal Vowel System as the degrees of opening are equidistant serve
as standards / pegs / landmarks, according to which vowels in various
languages can be better defined and described.

33

ACOUSTIC PHONETICS
The sounds uttered by the speakers are transmitted as sound waves.
Acoustic phonetics studies sound waves, which is the physical way in which
sounds are transmitted through the air from one person to another (D.
Crystal, Linguistics, p. 167). So, in this case, the phonetician is interested in
the manner in which the air vibrates between the mouth of the speaker (the
sender / transmitter of the message) and the ear of the listener (= the
recipient). These sound waves are studied, as far as their physical qualities
are concerned, by acoustics. This discipline of physics will characterise and
describe the speech sounds in physical terms. Thus, speech sounds are
defined as the observable product of vibration of the air (i.e. the air-pressure
caused by phonation). The phoneticians task will be very close to that of the
physicist, and the tools he / she uses must enable him / her to measure and
analyse the movement of air in acoustic terms. This generally means
introducing a microphone into the communication chain, converting the air
movement into corresponding electrical activity and analysing the result in
terms of frequency of vibration and amplitude of vibration in relation to
time (OConnor, op. cit., p. 16).
The properties of the above-mentioned vibration (producing sound
waves in the neighbouring medium viz. the air) are: nature and frequency,
to which specific properties of the medium are added. The vibration that
engenders speech sounds may be: periodic (vs. non-periodic) and, on the
other hand, complex (vs. simple).
Simple periodic vibrations can only be called those pure / musical
tones (i.e. having a constant frequency), produced by a tuning fork, for
instance. When one strikes a tuning fork, the two prongs vibrate; the
maximum width of that vibration depends on the physical properties of the
fork, and is also proportionate to the force with which the fork was struck:
that width is known as the amplitude of the vibration. The vibration of a
sound may be simple or double (the latter is called a period or a cycle: i.e. a
complete movement, coming back to the starting point of the vibration). The
rate of vibration is called its frequency. With solid bodies, it can vary
according to the weight, the volume, the shape and the tenseness of the
respective body or cavity. The rate of vibration determines the pitch / the tone
of that sound; it is measured in cycles / second (cps) i.e. the number of
cycles performed by a vibrating body in one second (in acoustics, the term /
unit Herz (Hz) is used); the number of cps depends on the length of the
prongs (plus, of course, the physical properties of the fork).
As said before, vibrations also have a specific amplitude of
34

movement, which conditions the intensity of the sound / acoustic power (and
is measured in Watts). When the power / energy of sounds is compared, the
decibel is used (db) i.e., when the qualities of perception of the human ear
are considered; a dB is actually a unit that measures the ratio of any two
amounts of electric or acoustic energy, just as percent measures the ratio of
two figures. But recent standardisation has established a permanent reference
scale of energy in relation to which dB has acquired also an absolute meaning
(as, for example, a degree on a thermometer which is calibrated according to
the boiling point and freezing point of water at sea level). The standard
reference value chosen for the zero point was 10-16 watts per square
centimetre, that is, one 10-quadrillionth of a watt. This extremely small
amount of energy is just above the threshold of perception of a human ear of
slightly better than normal sensitivity. Also, the least difference in loudness
detectable by the average hearer is approximately 1 dB; but this difference
seems to depend somewhat and also on the type of sound under test, whether
it is a tone, or a noise, and what kind of either. On this dB scale, average
conversation lies between 50 and 70 dB. A noise louder than 120 dB causes
pain, continued ringing in the ears, and even temporary deafness. (Ernst
Pulgram, Introduction to the Spectrography of Speech, p. 26)
The vibrations are taken over by the air and spread by means of
repeated compressions and rarefactions of the local density of the
transmission medium (i.e. the air); they produce a back-and-forth / pendulum
movement of the air molecules / particles; when they collide with the
eardrum / tympanum, they eventually cause sound perception. The amplitude,
which physically corresponds to the air pressure, will be perceived as
loudness, as the frequency determines the pitch of the sounds we hear. Power
is objective, and loudness is subjective: at high power levels, all tones of the
same power sound almost equally loud, regardless of frequency (..); but a
change in power at high power levels produces virtually the same change in
loudness regardless of frequency (ibidem).
Compound sounds (which, among other sound-producing
instruments, are characteristic of the human speech mechanism) have a
fundamental frequency (specific to the whole of the body in vibration), to
which are added secondary frequencies; the first vibration is called the
fundamental, and the others the harmonics.
The phenomenon of transmission of the vibration produced by a
body to another one is called resonance, and the body that produces it a
resonator.
Acoustic Characteristics of Speech Sounds: Speech Sounds are
produced by the vibration of the larynx (i.e. the vocal cords), activated by
the energy of the air-stream emitted by the lungs. This vibration engenders
the glottal / laryngeal tone, which represents the basis for producing vowels,
35

as well as adding voice to voiced consonants, while most consonants are

born from the vibrations caused by the various strictures / obstacles created
along the vocal tract.
Some speech sounds are characterised by tone (complex, regular
vibrations) the vowels; some others can be said to be pure noises (i.e.
irregular vibrations): the voiceless consonants; the voiced consonants are the
result of a mixed type of vibration (tones + noises).
The (complex) glottal tone is modified by the changing shape of the
supraglottal cavities which act as resonators the final sound quality being
the result of the harmonics thus added. Each sound has it own spectrum of
frequencies, made up of formants. Sounds can be pictured by (sound)
spectrographs; the spectrograms thus obtained give valuable information
about the (main) formants of a sound; whole sequences of sounds can be
analysed in this way.
The reverse procedure is speech synthesis, which is the blending of
(the relevant) features of sounds read on spectrograms, in order (re)produce
speech.
A CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH SOUNDS IN ACOUSTIC TERMS
This description and classification of sounds in acoustic terms can
be a valuable tool as far as the articulatory definition of speech sounds is
concerned.
An essential division in acoustic terms will distinguish pure tones
(or musical sounds) from noises; this division does not run in parallel with
the traditional division into vowels and consonants; vowels may also have
non-vocalic components, while within the class of noises there may be pure
and partial noises (i.e. voiceless consonants vs. voiced sonorants).
As it had been felt that the articulatory classification of sounds was not
completely accurate, since sometimes sounds having a certain articulatory
description could in practice be produced in more than one way; and since it
seemed that not everything in the field of describing and classifying sounds
relied wholly on the mechanism of sound production (especially within the
domain of the vowels, where an overall description is rather elusive),
considerable efforts were made to establish a set of categories / classes of
acoustic features usable for sound classification. Before the 1940s, the
oppositions put forward by researchers were rather primitive and vague (e.g.
those relying on such descriptions as acute, grave, compact, etc.), and so they
sounded rather impressionistic. After the development of spectrography and
the emergence of the sound spectrograph, many advances were made with
respect to the degree of objective description from an acoustic point of view.
The findings of spectrography can help to further refine the acoustic
36

classification of speech sounds. Thus, vowels are classed into compact and
diffuse (i.e. having the main formants grouped in the middle of the spectrum
-e.g. //, /:/ vs. vowels having formants wide apart, at the extremities of
the spectrum, e.g. /i:/, /u:/).
A second division will oppose acute and grave vowels, depending on
whether the second formant has a high or a low frequency, respectively; thus,
/i:/, /i/, /e/, // (acute vowels) will be opposed to /u:/, /u/, /:/, /o/, /o:/ (grave
vowels).
We can easily notice these acoustic cross-classifications can be made
to correspond to the articulatory axes of classification (close vs. open, or high
vs. low and front vs. back).
For consonants, a number of acoustic features (although not very
consistently studied) can be noted: sharp consonants e.g. /d/, /t/- as
opposed to grave consonants e.g. /b/, /p/, in which lower frequencies
prevail; to this sharp / low axis is added the compact / diffuse axis e.g.
/k/, /g/ are compact vs. /t/, /d/, /p/, /b/, which are diffuse.
AUDITORY PHONETICS
This is the last of the three main compartments of phonetics. Its object
of study is mans hearing mechanism (or the hearing process), i.e. the way
in which human beings perceive sounds through the medium of the ear
(Crystal, Linguistics, p. 167). The act of hearing has a physiological, as well
as a psychological component i.e. the perception and the interpretation of
the sounds by the brain. The former concerns itself with the physiological
activity of the ear; the domain of the latter is represented by the nervous
activity being performed between the ear and the brain, the final result of
which is the sensation of hearing.
A. The physiological component is represented by audition, which is
performed by the ear; it has three parts: a) the outer ear (the pavilion or
earflap and the canal); b) the middle ear (the tympanum or eardrum and three
bones: the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup, which transmit the vibration of
the tympanum to the inner ear); c) the inner ear (the labyrinth and the cochlea
the actual hearing organ, shaped like a snail; inside the cochlea is the
organ of Corti, representing the end of the auditory nerve.
The mechanism of audition rests on the transmission of the vibrations
performed by the tympanum to the chain of bones and through the oval
window, to the inner ear, up to the organ of Corti. Mans auditory field
ranges between a hearing threshold and the pain threshold (circa 600 cps to
4,000 cps); the nervous excitation is transmitted to the brain.
B. The psychological interpretation of the sensation of hearing consists
in the analysis, by the brain, of these sound features that are relevant for
37

communication. The selection of those relevant sound features is done in

keeping with the linguistic system the natural language to which the
listener belongs. Thus, for instance, a Romanian will hardly distinguish
between /i/ and /i:/, /u/ and /u:/ or catch the specificity of the English
interdental //, mistaking it for /f/, /s/, or maybe /t/. Personal experience and
use of a (foreign or native) language have an essential role in creating
auditory feedback, as well as kinaesthetic feedback (i.e. awareness in point of
perceiving and reproducing the correct sounds).
Sounds may be characterised just as well in terms of hearing as by
their articulatory or acoustic specifications. The means by which and the
extent to which we discriminate sounds are relevant here, as well as the
sensations of pitch, loudness, length and sound quality; and the methods by
which we investigate these are the methods of experimental psychology.
Particular interest is centred on the hearers reaction to known physical
stimuli fed into his ear. (OConnor, op. cit., p. 17)
As a general conclusion, one can say that articulatory, acoustic and
auditory facts have to be correlated, through careful and selective analysis.
In recent years acoustic analysis has tended to become more and more
prevalent over the more traditional articulatory description of sounds.
The three compartments of phonetics three closely interconnected
areas of linguistic studies are actually three modes of knowing () As
part of their training in these areas, phoneticians have to learn to recognise
the different sounds which occur in the parole of any language, and to
produce them for themselves they have to train their ears to notice fine
distinctions in sound, and they have to be able to control their vocal organs in
a conscious, direct way. In order to do this, they have to know a fair amount
about the anatomy and physiology of the chest, throat and head. Moreover, in
order to find out about the physical characteristics of a sound, using such
machines as the oscillograph or spectrograph, a phonetician has to be a bit of
a physicist as well. It is not surprising then, in view of these highly
specialised techniques of study, that some linguists consider phonetics to be a
quite separate area of investigation, and talk about the linguistic sciences
by which they mean phonetics and linguistics, the former dealing with the
general properties of human soundmaking, the latter with those properties
which are of importance in the system of a particular language. This view is
very much a minority one, however (). For [certain] reasons (), phonetic
analysis has to be incorporated within linguistic analysis in general if a
satisfactory linguistic theory is to be developed. (D. Crystal, Linguistics, p.
168)

38

CHAPTER III
PHONOLOGY
A. THE PHONEME
Although sounds have a certain constancy in pronunciation, which
permits the speakers to recognise them as such, they are not identical; there
are variations, depending on: 1) the phonetic context (compare the different
values of /t/ in: Tom, ten, twig, still, little, cotton, Tuesday, pretty, eighth; 2)
geographical appurtenance; 3) repetition of the same sound by the same
person, during speech in the same context. (See also, though within a
different context, the distinction the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure
established between langue and parole, i.e. language and speech,
respectively). Each of us uses an infinite number of different speech sounds
when we speak English. Indeed, it is true to say that it is difficult to produce
two sounds which are precisely identical from the point of view of
instrumental measurement: two utterances by the same person of the word
cat may well show quite marked differences when measured instrumentally.
Yet we are likely to say that the same sound sequence has been repeated. (A.
C. Gimson, op. cit., p. 4)
These differences are not apparent; they do not affect communication:
speakers always grasp the same meanings, in spite of the differences; unlike
such cases as: Help the poor vs. Help the boor (where the difference lies in a
relevant (articulatory) phonetic trait / feature in our case, voice, which, in
English as in other languages, can separate meanings of words: /p/ and /b/
are separate / distinct phonemes). It is the task of phonemics / phonology to
class the features of speech sounds into distinctive and non-distinctive,
relating them to the possible changes in meaning that can be noticed unlike
phonetics, which studies the way sounds (proper) differ from one another. To
these classes are added combinational rules, or patternings of conventions.
Here is what A. C. Gimson says about that functioning of language as a
system of conventions: This pattern of conventions covers a system of
significant sounds (the PHONEMES), the inflexion and arrangement of
words, and the association of meaning with words. An utterance, an act of
speech, is a single concrete manifestation of the system at work. As we have
seen, several utterances which are plainly different on the concrete, phonetic,
level may fulfil the same function, i.e. are the same, on the systematic
language level. It is important in any analysis of spoken language to keep this
distinction in mind () (Gimson, op. cit., p. 4)
39

The introductory presentation of phonology by David Crystal

(Linguistics, pp. 170-171) is really and authoritatively memorable: In the
early period of American anthropological linguistics, there was a very
marked emphasis on the use of phonetic methods to obtain some kind of
relatively objective transcription of speech data. It was regularly maintained
(and still is, by some) that this phonetic description of the data was a
necessary first step to any kind of analysis of a language. The reasoning
behind this view went something like this. If we are presented with speech in
an unfamiliar language, we do not know in advance which bits of the speech
are the important bits (that is, the bits which carry the message) and which
are not. To take a bizarre, but clear example, if, in speaking English, I
happened to cough or sniff slightly in the middle of a sentence, no one would
take any notice, as far as following my meaning was concerned. There is no
pair of words distinguished in meaning by the presence of a cough-sound in
the one and its absence in the other (cf. the minimal pair technique). The
glottal affricate sound which might have been the basis of my cough, or the
voiceless nasal sound which would have been my sniff, would be disregarded
because, as native speakers of English, we know that these sounds are
incidental and not part of the pronunciation system of the language. But who
is to say that sounds such as these should always and everywhere be like this?
Perhaps there are languages where glottal or nasal sounds of this order are
important factors in the communication of meaning. There are, in fact, many
languages (e.g. Burmese, Arabic) where vocal effects which might appear to
the English speaker to be no more than a catch in the throat, or a husky voice,
or a nasal twang, are just as important for the construction and differentiation
of words as the sounds [p], [b], [s], and so on, are in English. And the
conclusion follows: as we never know in advance which sounds a language is
going to use as part of its pronunciation system, we therefore need to make a
note of everything that we hear when we first come into contact with a
language a complete record of all the vocal effects, no matter how bizarre
to our ears, which our informants present us with. This was held to be an
ideal approach in the early decades. The next step was to sort out which
sounds were important for causing differences in meaning and which were
not, and to establish rules to account for the variations in sound involved.
And it is the theory and procedures of doing just this which have developed
into that branch of linguistics known as phonology.
J.D. OConnor adds (op. cit., p. 20): All these types of variety in
pronunciation are there to be studied, and it is the phoneticians job to
describe, classify and assess the function of all the speech sounds and sound
attributes which come to his attention, whatever their source. The sounds of a
generally despised local accent are no less interesting to him than the sounds
of a widely used and prestigious one; the sound system of a language spoken
40

by only a few hundred people must be investigated no less carefully and

thoroughly than that of a language whose speakers number many millions:
the Cabinet Minister has no phonetic priority over the cabinet maker. From
this it will be inferred, rightly, that notions of correctness, of what is good
or bad in pronunciation, are not uppermost in the phoneticians mind in his
work of description, classification and assessment. He takes his data from his
many sources and works on without asking whether the pronunciations
concerned are slovenly or careful, beautiful or ugly. We have three
types of variation: 9
1. Variation tolerated from one repetition of an utterance to another; in
other words, variation tolerated within the norm of pronunciation of a given
sound in a given position within one variety of speech.
2. Variation of pronunciation of a sound according to the position in
which it occurs. We may subdivide this type (though it is probably impossible
to draw a hard and fast boundary between the sub-types) as follows:
(a) Variation which could be attributed to the phonetic influence of
neighbouring sounds; thus the [q] of call is articulated further back than the
[k] of keel because the vowel which follows is a back vowel (as opposed to
the front vowel of keel). (Try saying keel after you have positioned your
mouth to say call and you will find difficulty in pronouncing the word.)
(b) Variation which would need to be specified ad hoc; when not
followed by a vowel, as in keel, the pronunciation of Standard English /l/ is
usually accompanied by a bunching-up of the back part of the tongue. This
gives the sound the so-called dark resonance which is absent when the /l/ is
followed by a vowel, as in leak. It would hardly be possible to attribute the
difference between the /l dark/ of /ki:l cu dark/ and the /l/ of /li:k/ to any
feature of neighbouring sounds.
3. Variation of pronunciation from speaker to speaker; here we must
exclude variations which involve the use of distinctively different sounds
the stressed vowel of American [t'meitu] tomato is the same vowel as that
of American [p'teitu] potato, whereas that of British [t'm:tu] is not the
same as that of British [p'teitu], so the [ei]-[:] variation in tomato is to be
excluded from this type.
As the discipline of phonetics developed during the second half of the
nineteenth century, and the task of phonetic transcription became more and
more complex, it was noticed that this task could be greatly simplified by
treating variations of types 1 and 2 as automatic and not noting them in the
transcription.
To approach the matter from a rather different viewpoint, it is clear
9

This detailed presentation of the types of variation is made by E. C. Fudge, in New

Horizons in Linguistics, pp. 78-79

41

that every native speaker of a language has an intuitive knowledge of which

(objectively different) sounds are the same for him, and which are not. Such
intuitive knowledge of the phonemes of his language forms the basis of the
phonological structure of that language, but unfortunately doe not lend itself
to direct investigation: for this reason various kinds of theoretical framework
have been proposed in terms of which the native speakers knowledge can be
made explicit and linked with observable data. The implications of the term
phoneme thus vary somewhat depending on the type of framework being
used.
Therefore, phonology selects, out of the enormous number of sounds a
language has, sound classes, starting from the criterion of their function in
that natural language. Such a class is a phoneme. Every phoneme may have
variants, which are called allophones (e.g., compare /t/ in top and stop); these
are mainly positional variants, but also the result of conventional patternings
or mere habits. (So, the phoneticians task is by no means solely that of a
taxonomist, a describer and classifier of sounds: he is also interested in the
manner those sounds described function in a particular language, the
complete inventory of the sounds actually used by that language, what is their
role in manifesting the semantic distinctions of that language: e.g. Spanish,
like English, has the interdental // (or at least a very close variety of it), but
the part this sound plays in Spanish is not that of differentiating between
words: doctor and duda display the same /d/ sound, unlike the English pair
den / then, in which the two sounds are distinctive / opposed.)
This procedure aiming at distinguishing the phoneme classes was
based on considering the notions of: a. complementary distribution; b. free
variation.
a. If we consider the aspirated vs. non-aspirated allophones of /t/ (in
/top/ and /stop/, respectively), we shall conclude that they never occur in the
same position / vicinity, i.e. they are in complementary distribution (very
much like complementary colours).
b. Free (or random) variation is the realisation of the same phonemes
when repeated several times by the same speaker: one may pronounce /kt/,
for example, in as many (minutely differing) ways as he / she chooses. There
is no perfect / ideal realisation of a phoneme, but hosts of varieties,
tending towards the ideal target (the ideal, abstract value).
So, the phoneme may be defined as an abstract class of phonetically
similar sounds, all the members of which are in complementary distribution
or in free variation; all the particular members of that class are the allophones
of the phoneme in question.
Therefore, the way of marking pronunciation will relate either to the
phonemes in the respective words (i.e. a phonemic type of transcription: it
uses the oblique brackets or bars, e.g. /d/), or their allophones (i.e. the
42

phonetic transcription, using the square brackets, e.g. [d]). The sign # marks
the boundaries of an utterance. Generally, the transcription of an allophonic
type is called narrow transcription, and the phonemic type is called broad
transcription.
There are numerous diacritical signs that can help the phonetician to
indicate the actual characteristics of the various allophones: e.g., /'/ for
aspiration, /=/ for the lack of aspiration, /~/ for the nasal description of a
sound, /o/ for devoicing, // for a dental sound, /w/ for a labial sound. Here are
some illustrations of their use: /t'eik/ (aspirated /t/); /kt>/ (unreleased
/t/), /'kot~n/ (nasal /t/). The truth is that the various books, be they
dictionaries, handbooks, phonetic guides, manuals or treatises, available are
by no means consistent in using such special signs and marks.
2. Phonemes are also oppositional units of sound. The procedure / the
test of substitution (or commutation) i.e. replacing form units to see if, in
similar contexts, changes of meaning occur (e.g. the cats : the bats) led to
oppositions revealing the functional character of phonemes; hence, they are
signifying / relevant units. This procedure is also called the minimal pair test
(here is the apt description David Crystal gave it: The minimal pair test,
briefly, is a technique which establishes which sounds in a language make a
difference, and which do not. It works like this. You take a word on its
own, to begin with and you alter one of its sounds: if you get a different
word thereby that is, if a speaker of the language tells you the words no
longer are the same then you have a minimal pair, and the two sounds
which alternate to produce the two words are considered important sounds in
language. They are part of the sound-system, and would be called
phonemes by most linguists. Examples would be /pet/ and /bet/, or /set/
and /st/, and so on. Sooner or later you would come to the end of the
possible substitutions you could make and you would assume that your
inventory of the important sounds was complete. It is more complicated in
practice than this, of course (); and certain assumptions the test makes can
be criticised (for example, it assumes certain norms of perceptual ability in
the person who judges whether the two words are the same or different). ()
The minimal pair test is a standard technique. Other examples of standard
techniques these days would be the use of transformation equivalences to
show the relationships between structures, and of acceptability testing to
determine the linguistic status of a particular utterance. (op. cit., pp. 99-100)
As seen from the above, a phoneme represents the minimal sound unit
having a sense (or a speech sound which contrasts meaningfully with other
sounds in the language). Phonemes have no sense / meaning proper, like the
morphemes, yet they represent the basic units of expression. A phoneme is
opposed to the rest of the phonemes in a given language.
Summing it up, phonemes are characterised by being: minimal / atomic
43

units, oppositional / contrasting (and binary), relevant and distinctive,

functional (within a particular system of similar units), abstract rather than
concrete, coming in groups / classes (Daniel Jones called them families)
rather than in isolation, sensitive to the distribution within larger utterances.
Each natural language makes use of only a restricted number of classes
of articulation out of the enormous number of potential articulations which
could be performed by humans; this restricted number normally ranges
between 20 and 70 units (=phonemes). Different languages use phonemes
which differ through their numbers, type and distribution (i.e. in keeping with
different rules of permissible sequencing). Here are some examples
illustrating the above remarks: English, Spanish and Greek have the
interdental sound //, unlike most other European languages; German and
Gaelic both have /x/ (also: //), as in the Scottish word loch lake; English has
twelve vowels (some mainly American phoneticians say it has only nine,
or even as few as eight), Romanian has seven, and Spanish only five; German
can have rather long consonant sequences like the one in Herbst, (Russian,
Czech, Serbo-Croatian and even Romanian can display such rich consonant
sequences as well, e.g. optsprezece), unlike Italian and Spanish; English has
the // phoneme, but its use is restricted to the medial and final positions,
while it is not a phoneme in Romanian, only a positional variant / allophone
of /n/ (as in lng); French has the phoneme //, while English does not, etc.
The stock of phonemes specific to every natural language is acquired by
native speakers at the same time as the set of rules concerning their
distribution from early childhood. A language, and its phonemes, and other
structural parts, are no more biologically inherited than a persons habits of
dressing or his table manners. (Ernst Pulgram, Introduction to the
Spectrography of Speech, p. 18).
As a matter of fact, views of the phoneme fall into four main classes:
(i) The mentalistic or psychological view, which regards the
phoneme as an ideal sound at which the speaker aims; he deviates from this
ideal sound partly because it is difficult to produce an identical repetition of a
sound () and partly because of the influence exerted by neighbouring
sounds (). This view originated with the Polish linguist Jan Baudoin de
Courtenay (1845-1929), and something rather like it appears to have been
adopted by Sapir. Variations of types 1 and 2(a)* (see footnote 3 above) are
handled well, though it is still not an easy matter to devise operational tests
for establishing such ideal sounds; for this reason the American linguist
Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) and his followers rejected the view as
untenable, and the English phonetician Daniel Jones, while basically
favourable to the view, preferred in practice to take a physical view (class
(ii) below cf. Jones: 1950, p. 11). However, variations of types 2(b) and 3
44

cannot be dealt with at all by the psychological view (tending, in fact,

towards the abstract view class (iv) below).
(ii) The physical view, which regards the phoneme as a family of
sounds satisfying certain conditions, notably:
(a) The various members of the family must show phonetic
similarity to one another, in other words be related in character (Jones:
1950, p. 10).
(b) No member of the family may occur in the same phonetic
context as any other; this condition is often referred to as the requirement of
complementary distribution.
The extreme form of the physical view (as propounded in 1950 by
Daniel Jones, 1881-1967) excludes all reference to non-phonetic criteria in
the grouping of sounds into phonemes (). Furthermore, the fact that
members of different phonemes are capable of differentiating meanings
(English [p] and [v] as in pan and van), whereas members of the same
phoneme (English [k] and [q]) are not, is said to be a corollary of the
definition of the phoneme, and not its basis (Jones, 1950: 13-15). And yet it
is not easy to see how [e] and [] in Turkish could be assigned to the same
phoneme on any other grounds than that substitution of one for the other does
not give rise to different words and different meaning (for instance, the
apparently contrasting [bana gel] and [bana gl] both mean come here); in
fact any cases in which type 1 variation is sufficiently wide will cause trouble
unless the differentiating function of phonemes is taken as a basis and not a
corollary of the definition.
Phonemic groupings are further subject to the requirement that the
phonemic make-up of a word uniquely determines its phonetic form, and vice
versa: thus if two words are pronounced alike (e.g. German Bund federation
and bunt coloured, which are both [bunt]), they must be phonemically alike
(both /bunt/ in this case). This requirement is often called bi-uniqueness.
This view, unlike the psychological view (i), handles type 2(b)
variations; however, it fails to deal with variations of type 3 (Jones, 1950:
193-205). Jones restricts his phoneme theory to sounds of a single language,
where a language is to be taken to mean the speech of one individual
pronouncing in a definite and consistent style (1950: 9). This is a legitimate
restriction to impose on a technical term, but it means that Joness theory
cannot account for the fact that people who speak very differently from each
other may yet be said to speak the same language in the generally accepted
sense of the term language.
(iii) The functional view, which regards the phoneme as the minimal
sound unit by which meanings may be differentiated (cf. Bloomfield, 1933:
79, 136) a kind of converse of the physical view, since meaning
differentiation is taken to be a defining characteristic of phonemes. Thus [k]
45

and [q] in English do not differentiate meanings, and hence cannot be

definitely assigned to different phonemes but both form allophones of the
phoneme /k/; they do differentiate meanings in Arabic, and hence must be
assigned to different phonemes in Arabic. Moreover, we cannot say that
phonemes are sounds or families of sounds, since, in every sound, only a
certain number of the phonetic features are involved in the differentiation of
meanings; it is these so-called distinctive features of the sound which make
up the phoneme corresponding to it. For example, every segment of the
English word ['ld] ladder includes the phonetic feature of voicing
(vibration of the vocal cords), but this is a distinctive feature only in the third
segment [*There is considerable controversy about what phonetic feature is involved
in the /t/-/d/ opposition in English. Between vowels (as here) the voicing difference is
important, whereas in initial and final positions the pronunciation of /d/ may well be
voiceless as well as that of /t/. In initial position, aspiration would be a more important
feature, while length of the preceding vowel would constitute the chief difference in
final position (the vowel of bead is longer than that of beat).] its absence here

would give rise to a different word (latter), whereas if any other segments are
given a voiceless pronunciation (one in which the vocal cords do not vibrate)
the result is merely a peculiar version of ladder. The distinctiveness of such a
feature thus depends on a contrast between it and other possible features
belonging to the same set: thus, when distinctive, voicing contrasts with
voicelessness. Some approaches have taken these oppositions as the basic
elements of phonological structure rather than the phonemes: see in particular
the work of N. S. Trubetzkoy (1890-1938) (Trubetzkoy, 1939: 60-75; 1949:
68-87) and R. Jakobson (Jakobson & Halle, 1956).
The functional view avoids the difficulties which beset the physical
view as a result of wide variations of type 1; furthermore, since nondistinctive features are excluded from phonemes, variations of type 3 can be
conveniently handled provided they are not too great.
(iv) The abstract view, which regards phonemes as essentially
independent of the phonetic properties associated with them this enables
any type 3 variations to be handled. (E. C Fudge, Phonology, in New
Horizons in Linguistics, pp. 79-81)
*
Types of phonemes: The phonemes a natural language recognises and
can analyse as relevant are: A. Segmental; B. Supra(-)segmental. The
difference between the two types of phonemes lies in the fact that the
segmental ones deal with the organisation and description of the qualitative
features of utterances, whereas those in the second group the so-called
suprasegmental phonemes concern features relative to length, pitch and
loudness; they may generate phonemic oppositions. The features of pitch,
length and loudness generally form part of utterances which are longer than
46

the single segment (hence their name, suprasegmental or prosodic features /

phonemes).
The inventory of the segmental phonemes in a language is obtained by
applying the test of commutation; one can thus find as many minimal pairs
as possible (minimal pairs are pairs of words whose meaning differs through
a single phoneme / relevant sound unit, e.g. cot, got, hot, lot, not, etc.).
The final result of this test for English will be as follows:
A. -Vowels and Glides / Diphthongs: 20 (out of which 12 are pure
vowels, and 8 are glides / diphthongs). Here is their complete inventory: [i:],
[i], [e], [], [:], [o], [o:], [u], [u:], [], [:], [], the vowels; and [ai], [ei],
[oi], [au], [u], [i], [], [u], the diphthongs.
-Consonants and semiconsonants / Semivowels: 24 units, viz. [p], [b],
[t], [d], [k], [g], [f], [v], [s], [z], [], [], [], [], [t], [d], [h], [m], [n], [], [r],
[l], [j], [w], [f], [v].
B. The Suprasegmental Phonemes are the following:
-Stress (or accent): distinctions of meaning are made, in English as
in other Indo-European or non-European languages, between words like
record, when a noun ['reko:d], and record, as a verb [ri'ko:d]; accent (to use
the more unequivocal term of the two) is the result of a combination of the
features of pitch, length and loudness, which cause some syllables to stand
out from the neighbouring ones. Stress may be: primary / strong /'/,
secondary //, tertiary //, and weak (or no) stress //.
-Juncture and Transition: it may be open (marked by /+/, implying a
slight pause at the boundary of two words or between the parts of a
compound word, e.g. his nose /hiz + nuz/; or close (this is the usual way
phonemes are joined to form a word). It is usually left unmarked.
-Pitch Levels and Terminal Contours:
In tone languages, as for instance Chinese, pitch makes differences of
tone (the selfsame segmental unit, e.g. a syllable or a word, differs in
meaning in keeping with the pitch it uses). In languages like English, where
such differentiations in the field of lexis (more specifically, of word meaning)
are not possible, pitch contributes to intonation patterns (and consequently,
differentiations); different pitch contours establish differences of attitude or
discourse meaning. Intonation, as a distinctive / phonematic / phoneme
category, applies to phrases and clauses (vs. tone, which applies to words and
syllables).
The Pitch Levels in English are in number of four: highest (4); next to
highest (3); next to lowest (2); lowest (1).
There are three types of terminal contours / final contours: falling (),
rising (), continuing ().
The same word may have different meanings if uttered at different
47

pitch levels and with shifting of pitch.

The total inventory of the phonemes in English amounts to 56 classes /
groups / sets of functional items, i.e. phonemically relevant units.
Other prosodic / suprasegmental elements also largely contribute to
the overall realisation of speech, although the precise way in which they are
distinctive is somewhat vague and less understood; thus, rhythm (viz. the
regular beat in speech), tempo, voice quality (either creaky, breathy, or
whispery) may convey meaning and clearly have a distinctive linguistic
meaning).
3. The third point of view in what regards phoneme analysis is
considering their internal, material composition besides the fact that they
are oppositional, functional units.
Roman Jakobson defined the phoneme as the totality of the
phonologically relevant properties of a sound unit or as a bundle of
distinctive features.
Such distinctive (minimal) units are: voice (e.g., /b/ will be
characterised as [+VOICE] vs. /p/, which is [-VOICE]); orality vs. nasality
(e.g. /t/ : /n/); interrupted vs. continuant (e.g. /b/ vs. /v/), etc. They are the
minimal elements / components of the expression level of the language for
which the respective phonemes are analysable. They are not material, i.e.
articulatory features / characteristics, implying the physical dimension, but
they are rather seen as abstract qualities. These distinctive features have in
common the properties of being: 1. binary; 2. universal; 3. in a relatively
small number.
Roman Jakobson used auditory criteria in his attempt to describe
distinctive features. Thus, he established two main groups of features:
inherent and prosodic.
Among the inherent features, the distinction holds between the
following sets of features: 1. Sonority; 2. Tonality, and 3. Protensity features.
Examples:
1. vocalic vs. non-vocalic; consonantal vs. non-consonantal; nasal vs. oral;
compact vs. diffuse; abrupt vs. continuant; strident vs. non-strident; voiced
vs. voiceless;
2. grave vs. acute; sharp vs. non-sharp; flat vs. non-flat;
3. tense vs. lax (for vowels and consonants alike); fortis vs. lenis (for
consonants); aspirated vs. non-aspirated (for consonants).
B. THE ENGLISH PHONEMES
There are 20 vocalic sounds / vowel phonemes in British English (the
present phonological description will prefer the latter term, viz. phoneme).
48

Their identification was achieved starting from functional criteria through

taking into account the principle of opposition, as well as that of their
position of occurrence in words (i.e., initially, medially, finally).
The main problem raised by their identification was related to the
multiplicity of their phonetic interpretation; for instance, the long vowels
may be interpreted as diphthongs, e.g. /ji/ for /i:/, or /:/, /:/, /u:/ which may
be equated to / seen as vowel + glide units: /a/ + /h/, etc. Yet, the decisive
factors were frequency of occurrence and the contextual value of the units
considered, as well as the principle of economy in describing sounds. If the
latter principle is overemphasised, the number of the vowels could be as
small as nine (viz. /i/, /e/, //, /:/, /o/, /o/, /u/, //), instead og twelve, which
will however be the result of (over)simplification; characteristic / relevant
sound features must not be disregarded. For didactic purposes mainly, this is
particularly significant and useful.
DESCRIPTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF ENGLISH VOWELS
The best-known such description, generally used for teaching English
as a foreign language (EFL), is that proposed by Daniel Jones (in 1918) and
later on developed by several of his disciples mainly A. C. Gimson (1962).
Vowels (i.e. sounds enjoying full voice, or lack of any notable
obstacle when being produced) are, according to Daniel Joness description,
in number of 20, out of which 12 monophthongs (or simple / pure vowels)
and 8 diphthongs (a more conservative variant of pronunciation will imply
the acceptance of a 9th diphthong: /o/). Vowels are egressive pulmonic
sounds; their (initial) tone is obtained by the passing of the air-stream through
the glottis i.e., between the vocal cords / vocal folds. The vibration of the
vocal cords is modified by the resonance of the pharynx and the oral cavity.
As mentioned before, the description and classification of the English
vowels takes into account criteria relating to the articulatory field, such as:
1. The position of the soft palate;
2. The position of the lips;
3. The (precise) part of the tongue which is raised;
4. The degree of opening between the (raised part of) the tongue and
the hard palate;
5. Length / relative duration
6. Tenseness;
7. Stability / continuity / constancy of articulation.
*
1. The divisions / distinctions operated in keeping with the first
criterion present no interest for the English language; the oral / nasal
49

opposition does not determine (relevant) minimal pairs within the field of the
English vowels; in English there are no nasal vowels having phonemic status;
there are only cases of nasal colouring vowels which are only
incidentally and unsystematically nasal, mainly owing to their respective
environments; consequently, the oral ones will not have a phonemic status,
either.
2. According to the second criterion that concerning the position of
the lips there are rounded vs. spread / unrounded vowels, e.g. /u/, /u:/,
/o/, /o:/ vs. /i/, /e/, //, etc. The degree of rounding may be different: it
decreases in keeping with the degree of opening; thus, /o/ is less round
than /o:/.
3. In English there are three parallel series shaped by the position of
the raised part of the tongue in producing vocalic sounds: this is a horizontal
axis of phoneme description, starting at the fore part of the mouth cavity and
having the other extremity located at the back of the oral / mouth cavity; inbetween, there is a central region. So, there will be a distinction between: a)
front vowels (e.g., /i:/, /i/, /e/, //); b) central vowels (//, /:/, //); and c)
back vowels (/:/, /o/, /o:/, /u/, /u:/). One may speak, though, of fully front
vowels (e.g. /i:/), as different from front-retracted vowels (e.g. /i/); or fully
back vowels (e.g. /u:/), as opposed to back-advanced vowels (e.g. /u/).
4. When the other, vertical, axis of description is considered, it means
that the degree of opening between the (raised part of) the tongue and the
hard palate comes under analysis; the degree of opening of the mouth (i.e. the
distance between the jaws) divides English vowels into: a) close vowels
(/i:/, /i/, /u/, /u:/), in which case the tongue is high in the mouth; b) mid-open
vowels (/e/, /:/, //, /o:/), where the position of the tongue is medium (there
is medium raising of the tongue); c) open vowels (/:/, //, //, /o/): the
tongue is low in the mouth. There are certain slight differences between the
actual realisations of the English vowels, leading to a four-degree
classification / description, into: close, half-close (or else, mid-high), halfopen (or mid-low), and open vowels. A. C. Gimson also used the terms midclose and mid-open vowels in order to designate the half-close (mid-high)
and half-open (or mid-low) vowels.
5. Long vowels are distinguished from short ones. The actual length of
a vowel is largely given by its phonetic context (e.g., // is short when
followed by a voiceless consonant and long when followed by a voiced one:
compare /kt/ and /kd/). Length is considered mostly an element of
phonetic description rather than a distinctive feature when considered in
itself: compare with the German words Staat state and Stadt city,
town, or similar cases of longer vowels in Finnish.
6. Tense vowels are opposed to lax vowels. This distinctive
oppositional feature of English (viz. tenseness / laxity) is parallel to the
50

long / short distinction: short vowels are said to be lax, whereas long
ones ought to be tense; yet, matters are largely settled by context / vicinity,
e.g. /i:/ in Pete is tense, although it was determined to be shorter than the
lax /i/ in a voiced context like bid /bid/.
7. Stability / constancy of articulation will lead to establishing the two
main classes of the vowel sounds in English: that of the simple (or pure)
vowels, also called monophthongs, and that of the diphthongs (or glides), on
the other hand. Stability of articulation is a fact in the first class (although a
very relative fact, it has to be said), whereas the diphthongs mark a change of
quality from the first to the second element (which represents a sort of
target: the second element is the glide proper. A diphthong is composed
of a nucleus and a glide. In English, all diphthongs are falling i.e.
having the nucleus (that is, the very bulk of its sonority) in initial position.
(Compare this situation with the fact that in Romanian there can be nuclei
preceded by the weaker element, e.g. /ea/, which is said to be urctor =
rising).
There are eight diphthongs in English:
a) Glides to /i/, namely: /ei/, /ai/, /oi/;
b) Glides to /u/, namely: /au/, /u/;
c) Glides to //, namely: /i/, //, /u/.
According to the amount of movement implied, there are: wide
diphthongs (/ai/, /au/, /oi/) vs. narrow diphthongs. When the first element (the
nucleus) is opener than the glide, the diphthong is a closing one (/ei/, /ai/,
/oi/, /au/, /u/), while an opening diphthong has an opener element as its
second element (the glide): /i/, //, /u/. These are also called centring
diphthongs (because //, viz. the target of the diphthongal movement, is a
central vowel).
A DETAILED DESCRIPTION
OF THE ENGLISH SIMPLE VOWEL PHONEMES
A. The Front Vowels:
1. The first vowel is /i:/. It is a front, close, tense, unrounded / spread,
long vowel. In achieving its articulation, the front of the tongue is raised
against the palate; the tongue is tense, its rims touching the upper molars. The
lips are spread. The opening between the jaws is narrow.
Romanians should compare it with Rom. /i/ in such words as: bine,
lin, zi (i.e. under stress, followed by a voiced consonant or in final position),
or ii in fii, vii. It should not be palatalised (Romanian learners should
carefully keep the preceding consonant and /i:/ apart in words like: keel,
geese, peel, beak, heel, meal)
51

Distribution: it may come in initial position: e.g. eel, easy, in medial

position: meet, receive, or finally: see, sea, tea, trustee. It usually occurs in
stressed syllables, e.g. greedy, referee; exceptions (when under secondary
stress): refill, cantilever.
In point of (positional) variants, vowel phoneme no. 1 may be: fully
long /i:/ (when in final position of before a voiced consonant): see, receive; it
may also have a reduced variant /i./, when before a voiceless consonant:
Pete, beat, people. There is also a diphthongized variant of /i:/, when the
phoneme is followed by a dark l / velar l (marked as //), as in: seal, peal,
wheel. Locally, these diphthongized variants may start from an // or even //
(the closest Romanian equivalent of that sound is //).
As far as its spelling is concerned, there are the following possibilities:
ee, e, ea, ie, ei, i, as in: demobee, epoch, scene, read, relieve, receipt, ceiling,
police. Exceptionally, it may be spelt as in: quay, key, people, plus some
proper names such as Beauchamp.
2. The second English vowel phoneme, /i/, is usually described as a
front (retracted), close, short, lax, unrounded vowel. The part of the tongue
which is raised is close to the centre of the oral cavity and the middle position
(=half-close). There is no tenseness in the tongue: the tongue is lax; the sides
of the tongue (the rims) press the upper molars very slightly. The lips are
spread. The jaw-opening is narrow to medium.
Romanians must cope with the fact that the vowel is retracted, lower
than Rom. /i/ i.e. it is closer to /e/ than to /i:/; also, it is more central (i.e.,
closer to Rom. //, Eng. //); even in English, it is often replaced by //, more
specifically when it is in unstressed position: goodness is frequently
pronounced /'gudns/ rather than /'gudnis/, possible is sounded as /'posbl/.
etc. This vowel phoneme is definitely lax: there is no tenseness, as in Rom.
/i/.
Regarding its distribution, it resembles the preceding vowel, as it may
occur in all positions, both in stressed and unstressed syllables, e.g. interest,
big, city.
Vowel no. 2 has the following variants: an opener realisation (when it
is comparable to //, e.g. happiness /'hpins/). There is also a slightly longer
variant when it is in a voiced context: compare pick and big (the phoneme in
the latter word is audibly longer). When followed by dark l / velar l: //, it is
often diphthongized: bill, milk, etc.
Spelling: It may be rendered as i, y, e, a (mainly in affixes), e.g. pit,
ditty, bespeak, respond, needless, planted, village, affectionate.
Exceptionally, vowel no. 2 may be spelt as in Monday, money, pretty, busy,
women, breeches, sieve.
3. The third English vowel phoneme, /e/, is front, mid-open (or half52

close), short, lax, unrounded. The front of the tongue is in mid-open position.
The lips are spread. The jaw-opening accompanying its production is
medium, with the sides of the tongue making a slight contact with the molars.
It is laxer than Rom. /e/, which is slightly closer than Eng. /e/: compare Rom.
set and Eng. set. In spite of the fact that some dictionaries (for instance, the
Collins Concise Dictionary of English) use a (graphically) opener variant in
the phonetic transcription of such words as pencil /'pnsl/, Romanian learners
should not be misled into overdoing vowel no. 3 (in words like head, many),
and thus create confusions with words containing vowel no. 4 // (e.g. had,
manly).
Distribution: Generally, in stressed syllables (with a number of
exceptions, such as: referee, explanation). It cannot be placed in final
position.
As far as its variants are concerned, vowel no. 3 can have a closer
variety (which is in fact an RP tendency, which could be accounted for
through the scruple of better keeping /e/ apart from //, as in: pen / pan, etc.).
Moreover, there are local tendencies to diphthongize /e/: pen /pein/, or /pen/.
Spelling: e, ea, eo, a; e.g. merit, pleasure, leopard, Leonard,
jeopardize, any, many, the Thames, Pall Mall. Exceptionally: said, says,
leisure, friend, again, bury, ate.
4. English vowel no. 4 (//) is front, open, short, lax, unrounded. The
tongue is low in the mouth (almost flat, actually, with the front part a little
raised). There is very slight contact between the rims of the tongue and the
back molars. The jaw-opening is fairly wide. The lips are spread. Its length
may be increased according to the position the sound occupies in the word;
thus, it may be: short, e.g. cat, longer, e.g. bad, man, ran (in which case it
also acquires a certain amount of tenseness, too).
Romanian learners should not mistake it for, or replace it with, either
Rom. /a/ or Rom. /e/; or else pronounce it as a kind of diphthong: */man/ for
man. It will be pronounced with the mouth wide open (as for Rom. /a/), while
trying to utter /e/, or //; a notable pharyngeal quality will be added: by and
large, it may be said to sound like a sort of bleating.
Distribution: there is no final position for //. Generally, it occurs in
accented syllables: baron, mankind, etc.
Variants: two main remarks are in order when describing //; one is
that there can be (considerable) length added: /:/, or even a diphthongal
quality; the second remark is that it can acquire an opener quality (mainly
with the younger generation), especially when followed by dark l / velar
l: //, e.g. pal.
Spelling: a, as in mass, tanned, family, national, sparrow.
Exceptionally also in words like: plaid, plait, reveille, Plaistow.
53

B. Back Vowels:
5. The first in the back series, vowel no. 5, /:/, is described as a back,
open, long, tense, unrounded vowel phoneme. The back (or central-back) part
of the tongue is in (fully) open position. There is no contact with the molars.
The jaw-opening is wide. The length of this vowel is slightly variable:
compare part and bard, with the latter /:/ having more length because of the
voiced vicinity represented by /b/ and /d/.
Romanian learners should aim at producing a back (not a central)
vowel sound: compare Rom. cart and Eng. cart, as /a/ is in Romanian the
lowest point of the vowel triangle, which is not the case in English, where
/:/ is essentially back (the most graphical description would in fact be that of
the dentist-cabinet aperture of the mouth).
Distribution: It can occur initially, e.g. ask, arent, medially, e.g. pass,
bark, or finally, e.g. far, tar.
Variants: There are two main variants, an advanced one (cf. /a/), and a
fully back (=more retracted) one (cf. Cardinal //). There is free variation
/:/-// in words like telegraph, bath, elastic, telegram, where /:/ is
followed by /f/, //, /s/ or a nasal consonant. American English replaces /:/
with //, in words like pass, bath, last, etc. There may be differences of
length: compare car, calm, and ask. There is a sort of diphthongal variant
(when followed by dark l / velar l: //, in words like: snarl, Charlton.
Spelling: ar, ear, er, a (+l, f, ff, s, ss, th, n); examples: armpit, heart,
sergeant, clerk, Derby, Berkeley (the last three only render the /:/
pronunciation in the BrE variant), psalm, staff, craft, grass, past, path, plant.
6. This is a back, open, short, lax, (slightly) rounded vowel: /o/. The
tongue is low in the mouth; only its back is slightly raised. There is no
contact of the rims with the molars. The lip-rounding applied is slight, as the
jaw-opening is wide.
There are certain difficulties for the Romanian learners / students, who
may either tend to increase its rounding and / or lip protrusion (cf. Rom. om
/wom/), or to utter a closer variety (disregarding the /o/ vs. /o:/ opposition,
very obvious in minimal pairs such as pot : port). Romanian learners should
aim at producing a short open vowel (a sort of rounded /a/), while taking care
to add needed roundness and, at the same time, avoid lip-protrusion.
Likewise, diphthongization should be avoided: Tom pronounced as */toam/.
In addition, the type of open roundness applied should by no means result
maybe under the influence of the American model of pronunciation (see
below) in /a/: */tam/.
In point of distribution, it should be noted that there is no final position
for /o/.
Variants: Regionally (in South-West England) and in the American
54

variant of English, vowel phoneme no. 6 sounds like //; pot will have the
sound of RP part. The Southern (more conservative) variant of English
realises /o/ as /o:/, when followed by /f/, //, /s/, as in: off, cloth, cough,
across.
Spelling: o (when followed by a consonant), e.g. hot, lost, or in open
syllables, e.g. sorry, economy; (w)a: watch, what; (q)ua: quarrel. Exceptional
spelling: au, e.g. laurel, Austria, Australia; ou, e.g. cough, Gloucester; o in
gone, shone; yacht.
7. English vowel phoneme no. 7, /o:/, is generally described as a back,
half-open, long, tense, rounded vowel. The back of the tongue is raised more
than it is for /o/; its position is between the half-open and the half-close
levels. The jaw-opening used is wide, yet smaller than that of /o/. There is no
contact with the upper molars. The lips are rounded (more than they are for
/o/) and tense, as is the tongue, in fact.
The Romanian /o/ sound is more rounded and closer than English /o:/;
the Romanian sound has additional protrusion of the lips -as in or /wor/,
for instance a protrusion which has to be eliminated when uttering
English /o:/.
Its distribution may be: initial, medial or final, so in all basic positions,
e.g. all, awful; laundry, sport; door, law, pour.
Variants: There is a fully long variant, e.g. saw, broad; a reduced
variant (if followed by a voiceless consonant, e.g. saucer, taught); or it may
be diphthongized (when followed by dark l / velar l: //, e.g. call, hall).
Regionally i.e. in the London area it may become a triphthongal sound:
/o:w/, as in door, pour, or it can be diphthongized when in medial position:
daughter /'dout/.
Spelling: or, aw, au, ou, ore, oar, our, all, al + consonant; (w)ar;
examples: port, door, paw, tawny, launch, audit, brought, sore, more, soar,
roar, four, pour, call, hall, halt, paltry, chalk, walk, ward, quarter.
Exceptionally: broad, water, wrath.
8. English vowel phoneme /u/ is a back (advanced), close, short, lax,
rounded vocoid. The raised part of the tongue is nearer to the centre than the
back of the mouth cavity. The jaw-opening is narrower than that of /o:/. There
is no firm contact of the rims with the molars. The lips are closely rounded,
yet without tenseness. There is no tenseness in the tongue.
Romanian learners should bear in mind that the Romanian type of /u/ is
closer, more tense and not so central. Its rounding bears the mark of lipprotrusion, which is not the case of the /u/ vowel in English. So, the central
Romanian vowel //, and even //, may be taken as an appropriate starting
point when acquiring the pronunciation of English /u/.
Distribution: It can only occur in medial position, e.g. book, full (with
the notable exception of the strong form of to).
55

Variants: There is a tendency to use less lip-rounding and a lower

position in words like good, would, should (when it is marked, in a narrow
type of transcription, by //). The northern dialectal pronunciation realises /u/
and /u:/ as a single phoneme. In some words (room, groom, booth, broom),
there is free variation between the two vowels.
Spelling: u, oo, ou, as in the following words: put, full, sugar, look,
wood, foot, could, should, bouquet. Exceptionally, in: wolf, woman, worsted,
bosom, Worcester.
9. The ninth English vowel phoneme is back, close, long, tense,
rounded: /u:/. It is not a fully back vowel. Jaw-opening (and position of the
tongue) relaxed from the closest position (Gimson). Its pronunciation has a
gliding nature: /uu:/. The lips are closely rounded, with a gradual increase in
rounding. English /u:/ is opener, longer, less rounded and more advanced (i.e.
centralized) than Romanian /u/. It may be said to have the sound of
Romanian /u/ in words like iunie.
Distribution: It may occur in all basic positions, e.g. ooze, usually;
fruit; boo, too, shoe.
Variants: It may be fully long, e.g. move, lose, who, do; reduced: hoot,
juice; diphthongised: rule, pool; centralised /u:/, when following /j/, e.g.
usual, tulip.
Spelling: u, ou, ui, o, oo, eu, ew, eau, as in blue, hue, soup, routine,
fruit, do, tomb, loose, cool, feud, rheumatism, new, few, beauty.
C. Central Vowels:
10. English vowel phoneme no. 10, //, has a description and
classification which have posed quite a few problems, and are consequently
rather controversial. Daniel Jones considered it a back (advanced), half-open
vowel, with a wide opening between the jaws which is a conservative
realisation, however. Nowadays, the most current / common sound of // is
that of a central, open, short, lax, unrounded vowel. The part of the tongue
raised is at the centre (there is only a slight raising: the tongue itself is low).
The jaws are wide apart. There is no lip-rounding; there is no tenseness in the
tongue. With regard to its length, // is very short: cf. Rom. /a/ in unstressed
syllables, e.g. castan.
Distribution: initially, e.g. utter; medially, e.g. mother, lucky; it cannot
appear in final position. It occurs under stress or not.
Variants: A conservative variant is back-advanced, mid-open. In the
London area, a fully open, fully front /a/ variant is used, while in the North of
England there is a positional variant which sounds like /u/, e.g. hunter, much.
It may be replaced by /o/ in words having the sequence o + nasal consonant,
e.g. accomplishment.
Spelling: u, o, ou, as in hungry, bud, tongue, among, dove, couple,
56

cousin. Exceptionally, // is spelt as in blood, flood, does.

11. English vowel phoneme no. 11, /:/, is central, mid-open, long,
tense, unrounded. The tongue is flat with the central part in a medium
position (half-close to half-open). There is no significant contact with the
molars. The jaw-opening which is used is narrow. The lips are spread.
Romanian // has a similar quality, the main difference being length. The
spreading of the lips is significant (so as to show the teeth); also, the
tenseness in the tongue is an important characteristic of the /:/ vowel.
Sometimes, Romanians tend to approximate it by applying lip-rounding, the
result being a sort of frenchified // (maybe under the influence of the now
very common American pronunciation of // when followed by r (see below).
Distribution: all basic positions, e.g. earth, urchin, turnip, furry, fur, fir,
sir, amateur. It only appears in stressed syllables.
Variants: There is a closer variety in the northern and northern-central
parts. In Scottish English, when followed by an r, the letter which stands for
it is used, e.g. /'prsn/. In the south-west and in the American variant of
English, /:/ is reduced to // followed by (retroflex) /r/, e.g. heard.
Spelling: (e, i, y, u) + r; (o, ou, ea, eu) + r, e.g. verb, kernel, whirl,
myrtle, curdle, worm, worst, journal, scourge, pearl, connoisseur.
Exceptionally: colonel.
12. English vowel phoneme no. 12, //, is central, mid-open, short, lax,
unrounded. It has a lower tongue-position than that for /:/. The lips are
spread. The sound is similar to Rom. // in unstressed positions: compare
metre and mit.
Distribution: It may occur in all basic positions, e.g. asleep, capacity,
hocus-pocus, supper, cinema. The phoneme only appears in unaccented
syllables. Vowel no. 12 has the greatest frequency of all English vowels.
Variants: (depending on the context) it may be closer, in non-final
position, e.g. about, concert; more open, in final position, when it is very
close to //, e.g. never, China. There is the tendency for // to replace all the
other vowels when in unaccented syllables (as in horror, Middleford); see
also the weak forms of frequent / grammatical words, e.g. are, am, and, at,
as, but, for, there, was, were, (in)to, etc. This neutral vowel (also called the
schwa sound) may be omitted altogether, as in police, perhaps, banana. The
commonest cases are those appearing in final syllables or in suffixes, e.g.
condition, temporary. When in a nasal + nasal, or nasal + stop + nasal
vicinity, // cannot be omitted, e.g. chairman, lemon; London, Anthony.
Spelling: a, e, i, o, u, y, e.g. about, drama, farmer, vision, doctor,
measure, martyr. Spelling rules are hardly applicable to //.
The difference between /:/ and // is one of quality, not only of length.
Phonemically, the difference between them can hardly be expressed through
the use of minimal pairs, as there are very few, if any, such pairs. The two
57

phonemes are in complementary distribution, according to whether the

syllable is stressed (this is the case of /:/) or unstressed (for //). Therefore,
they can be safely considered allophones of all the other English vowels in
unaccented position.
A BRIEF PRESENTATION OF
THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS
The English diphthongs (defined by Daniel Jones as sounds made
by gliding from one vowel position to another, The Pronunciation of
English, p. 22) are primarily opposed to the twelve pure vowels. In order
to group them didactically, Daniel Jones assigned them numbers which
continued the series of the other, pure, vowel-phonemes; he started from no.
13: so, 13. [ei], 14. [u], 15. [ai], 16. [au], 17. [oi], 18. [i], 19. [], 20. [u]
(he also added [o], see discussion below). The main classifying criteria
Daniel Jones considered were whether the respective diphthongs are
closing or centring.
More recent approaches consider the existence of the following
classes of English diphthongs: 1. Glides to [i]; 2. Glides to [u]; 3. Centring
diphthongs which can also be called Glides to [].
Diphthongs in English are only falling: the element having the
more sonority comes in second position, e.g. [ei], []. In Romanian there are
also raising diphthongs: compare glbui (= falling) and iute (= raising).
Another descriptive criterion relates to the amplitude of their
articulatory movement; English diphthongs are consequently 1. wide, e.g.
[ai]; 2. narrow, e.g. [ei].
We think the following (teaching) ordering of the eight English
diphthongs will be more adequate (see also D. Chioran, op. cit., p. 154, p.
173): 1. Glides to [i]: [ei], [ai], [oi]; 2. Glides to [u]: [u], [au]; 3. Glides to
[], or Centring diphthongs: [i], [], [u].
1. Glides to [i]:
Glide Phoneme / Diphthong No 1. [ei]: a falling, narrow, closing
diphthong
To articulate this diphthong, the front of the tongue is raised to a
medium position (just below the half-close position), moving towards [i]; the
articulation of the final [i] sound is, however, incomplete. The starting point
is slightly closer than English vowel no. 3 [e].
Position: the diphthong occurs in all three basic position: initially,
medially and finally: able, later, hay.
58

Out of the two possible mistakes made by Romanians (the loss of

the glide, e.g. [pein] pronounced as [pen], and the intensification of the glide
to an independent full sound, making up the vowel sound of a subsequent
syllable, e.g. [peil] pronounced as [pe-il]), the latter is really serious.
Variants: an RP variety: [i], e.g. pain [pin];
- with the omission of the glide (Daniel Jones calls it a narrow
kind of diphthong): [], e.g. same [s:m];
- (in London dialectal speech): an opener starting point: ale [il], I
[i];
- (in Australia and New Zealand): [ai], even [i].
It can be spelt as a, ai, ay, ei, ey, ea. (Examples: make, waste; aim,
laid; lay, pray; weigh, beige, skein; they, grey; great, steak).
Exceptional spellings: bass [beis], gaol [deil] (the older, BrE
variant spelling of jail), gauge [geid], halfpenny ['heipni], McCrea; caf
['kfei], resum ['rezjumei], fianc [beis], ballet ['blei], bouquet ['bukei].
Glide Phoneme / Diphthong No 2. [ai]: a falling, wide, closing
diphthong
This diphthong is articulated with the front of the tongue low in the
mouth and the jaws wide apart. The starting point is close to the cardinal
vowel [a], moving towards [i], without actually reaching it (the movement
stops just before [i], within the region of a retracted variety of [e], or even
[]).
Position: the diphthong occurs in all three basic position: initially,
medially and finally: island, rite, my.
To learn it, Romanians should pay attention to the length of the
starting point, which has to be longer than Romanian plai [plai]. They should
aim at a sort of [ae] diphthong. On the other hand, they must not construe a
two-syllable sequence of the type *[ma-il] mile.
Variants: apart from the positional variants (compare tie, blind, tight,
rifle, crisis, child, file), there are a number of regional variants of the
diphthong [ai]: with middle [] as a starting point, e.g. time [tim]; or the
cardinal vowel [a], e.g. I [ai];
- fully back [], or even [o], e.g. time [toim];
- (in Scotland): [i].
Even in RP, [ai] may become [:] or even [:], with a slight glide to
[], or totally reduced, e.g. pie, tie, guide, mile. The same can happen when
followed by [], e.g. fire, wired [wa:d], etc.
It can be spelt as: i(gh), y, ie, ye, ei(th), e.g. mine, write, nuclei,
sight, sigh, right; dry; lie, tried; bye, dye, rye; neither, eiderdown, height.
Exceptional spellings: buy, eye, aisle, isle, indict.
59

Glide Phoneme / Diphthong No 3. [oi]: a falling, wide, closing

diphthong
The organs of articulation start from a position between [o:] and
[o] / [], moving in the direction of vowel no. 2 [i], without actually reaching
it. The movement is shorter that that required for [ai]; the jaws are closer
when the glide is uttered. The nucleus has lip-rounding, while the glide gets a
spread lip position.
Position: the diphthong occurs in all three basic position: initially,
medially and finally: ointment, pointer, boy.
Variants: it can be fully long, when in final position or followed by a
voiced consonant (joy, noise) or reduced, when followed by a voiceless
consonant (oyster, voice). When followed by dark l, the glide only reaches
the central area corresponding to [], e.g. toil, spoil, boil. There is a closer
variant in the London area, [oi]; there is also a conservative realization,
starting with Cardinal []. A different variant can be heard beginning with
an advanced [o], which may be represented phonetically by [o] + [i] or [i]
(D. Jones). Americans tend to close the first element, thus drawing it near
vowel No. 7 [o:].
When the glide is followed by [], the diphthong is usually reduced
to [o:], e.g. destroyer.
Romanian students must not produce the nucleus [o] too rounded
(like Rom. [oi], cf. the pronunciation of vowel no. 6), and the glide must not
be as close as Rom. doi. The glide should have a fading quality; for didactic
purposes, students should aim at a kind of [e] sound for the glide.
Its spelling can be oi or oy, as in point, moist, toil, ointment; oyster,
voyage, boy, annoy. Exceptional spelling: buoy [boi], buoyant, Fowey.
2. Glides to [u]:
Glide Phoneme / Diphthong No 4. [u]: a falling, narrow, closing
diphthong
The articulation of this diphthong consists in using a central, midposition starting point (in the very region of []), followed by a movement
towards [u], without fully reaching it. This movement is accompanied by a
slight closing of the jaw, while the lips adopt a rounded position.
Position: the diphthong occurs in all three basic position: initially,
medially and finally: open, corroded, hello.
Romanian learners should be aware of the fact that the English
starting point is more retracted and rather vague, while the second element
is tensely articulated in Romanian (and it can sometimes be prolonged).
Variants: [u] can be fully long, e.g. mow, rode (while, before a lenis
consonant, it is reduced, e.g. wrote). There is a conservative variant with the
starting point in a more retracted position, which sounds like [ou] (some
60

dictionaries including many older ones compiled by Romanian

lexicographers even mark it as such, e.g. roll [roul]); more often than not,
this variant can be recognized as American. In London popular speech, [u]
can have an opener, fronted nucleus, e.g. no [nu], [nu]. In unstressed
syllables, this diphthong is often reduced to the neutral vowel [], e.g.
phonetics [f'netiks] (sometimes, it can be even dropped: [f'netiks]).
Its spelling can be o, oe, oa, ow, ou(gh), eau, as in: so, hotel; toe,
hoe; oak, toad; flow, sow; although, poultry; bureau, beau, plateau, tableau.
Exceptional spellings: sew, yeoman, brooch, mauve, folk, yolk.
Glide Phoneme / Diphthong No 5. [au]: falling, wide, closing
diphthong
Its nucleus / starting point is a fully open, back advanced vowel (a
little more retracted than Cardinal [] consequently, often marked by [u]).
Its glide does not reach the very quality of vowel No. 8 [u], stopping
somewhere in the [o] region (D. Jones). The movement is done at the
same time as the rounding of the lips. For practical or didactic purposes, the
English diphthong [au] can be made to correspond to the Romanian
diphthongal sequence [au], e.g. au, dau, sau, since the back advanced quality
of its nucleus gets it close to the Romanian central vowel [a]. The Romanian
students should however remember that the first element of the English
diphthong is longer than the corresponding Romanian [a], while the second
element is much shorter. The lip-rounding of the English diphthong is much
more reduced. Learners should aim at a sort of [a:o] sequence, while trying to
forget that in Romanian there also exists the hiatus sequence [a-u], e.g. aur,
faur, etc. The Romanian glide is tensely (or fully) articulated.
Position: the diphthong occurs in all three basic position: initially,
medially and finally: outsider, cowslip, bough..
Speaking of positional variants, it is worthy mentioning, apart from
the fully long variant (as in how, to house [hauz]), the centring diphthong
quality, when followed by dark l [.], e.g. owl, growl when the second
element is sounded like an []. This happens when it enters the sequence
[au], e.g. powerful, hourly, cases when a sort of [:] is heard, or even [:],
e.g. flower, power (see also below). The London popular variant presents a
nucleus that is articulated near Cardinal vowels [a] or [], and even in the
neighbourhood of [], e.g. now [nau], [nu], [nu].
Spelling: ou, ow, as in out, doubt; now, to bow, crowd, gown.
Exceptional spellings: drought, McLeod / MacLeod.
3. Centring Diphthongs / Glides to []:
The centring diphthongs are all opening diphthongs: the nucleus is a
closer vowel than the glide, the terminal element / the glide is fully
pronounced.
61

Glide Phoneme / Diphthong No 6. [i]: a falling, centring, narrow,

opening diphthong
Since Romanian does not have such a diphthong, the following
mistakes can be made by learners of English: consider as a starting point an
[i], e.g. period, or replace it by [i]. Actually, American English presents
pronunciations like [bir] beer, [hir] here, [pir] pier.
The positional variants in unstressed position (e.g. serios, realistic,
idiom) or at morpheme boundaries (e.g. easier) can be described as rising
(i.e. [i], with the nucleus shorter than the glide a position which can
occasionally establish semantic opposions, e.g. corn-ear ['ko:ni] cornea
['ko:ni]).
There exist many regional variants: one with a closer beginning
sound [i:], mainly in the London area. In the West or North West regions, a
sequence of the type [i: ] or [i: ] can be heard when there is an orthographic
r. In an affected pronunciation, it can be given the sound of [i], [i], e.g.
Oh, my dear!
Position: the diphthong occurs in all three basic position: initially,
medially and finally: earring, serious, pier.
Spelling: eer, ear, ere, eir, ier, ea, eu, eo, e, ia, as in deer, career;
hear, clear; mere, here; weird; fierce, frontier; idea, real; museum; theory;
hero, heroic; media, Ian.
Exceptional spelling: fakir [f'ki].
Glide Phoneme / Diphthong No 7. []: a falling, centring, narrow,
opening diphthong
The glide is a little more open than the nucleus. It begins near
cardinal No. 3 and moves in the direction of RP vowel No. 12 (D. Jones); in
fact, a mid-open, central variety of No. 12 should be aimed at. The lips are
neutrally open (so, they are not actually spread, nor are they rounded).
Romanians should pay attention to liken and consequently realize
the initial element to [] rather than [e]. Also, they should avoid both the
monophthongization of the diphthong (viz. its pronunciation as [], e.g.
['p:rnts] parents), and the pronunciation of the two elements in a hiatus
(e.g. [e-] there).
Apart from other positional variants (fully long or reduced, when
followed by voiced, or by voiceless elements, respectively), it is to be
mentioned that, when [] occurs in final position, the [] is opener, tending
to a sort of [].
Regional variants: the Southern variety, with a very open []
sometimes even monophthongized as [:]; especially in London region, it
begins with a close [e], e.g. air [e:]. In the West and North-West, the written
62

r is generally pronounced, as [ ]; so, words like there, scarce are sounded as

[ ], [sk s] or [: ], [sk: s] (D. Jones, op. cit.).
Position: the diphthong occurs in all three basic position: initially,
medially and finally.
Spelling: air, aer, are, ear, ere, as in stairs, bairn; aerial, aeroplane
(BrE for airplane); dare, share; wear, pear; where, there.
Exceptional spellings: heir, their, scarce, mayor, prayer, Mary,
Sarah.
Glide Phoneme / Diphthong No 8. [u]: a falling, centring, narrow,
opening diphthong
The articulation of this diphthong starts from the neighbourhood of
the back-advanced, close type of [u], moving in the direction of a central,
mid-open variety of [], which is fully articulated. The jaw-opening widens
towards the end of the articulatory movement. The rounding of the lips is
rather loose for the nucleus, and it becomes spread at the end.
Although it is generally considered that Romanians do not have
considerable difficulties in pronouncing it (as the two component elements do
exist in quite similar forms in the Romanian language, as well as in the
diphthongal sequence, e.g. continu, dou, nou, plou), the danger of
uttering closer variants of the two elements is real. Likewise, the hiatus
pronunciation of the two vowel-sounds should be avoided (as [u-]). That is
why taking as a model of (approximate) pronunciation Romanian words such
as continu is not recommended; nor is, on the contrary, omitting the glide,
especially when the following sound is an [r], e.g. ['dju:ri] instead of
['djuri] during, etc.
When [u] is under accent, it is falling diphthong. When in
unaccented position, there is length reduction in the first element, thus the
second element becoming more prominent (as in valuable ['vljubl], where
[u] becomes a rising diphthong. many Southerners use an initial sound
opener than [u] something like [o]. This actually explain the fact that there
is free variation between [u], [o] and [o:], many speakers being unable to
distinguish correctly between words like Shaw, sure, shore. In AmE, this
diphthong does not virtually exist. It only appears regionally in the East.
Otherwise, [r] as uttered by Americans excludes the second element of the
diphthong, thus becoming a mere [u] sound, e.g. poor [pu ].
Position: the diphthong occurs only medially and finally, e.g.
annual, ewer. Also, it cannot be followed by a voiceless consonant.
Spelling: u, ue, ua, uu, ure, oor, our, ewe, as in: curious, during,
rural; cruel, duel; usual, manual; vacuum, continuum; endure, cure; boor,
moor; dour, tour, gourd; brewery, jewel, sewer.
There are practically no exceptional spellings of this diphthong.
63

***(The sequence [o]: as a possible diphthong):

Older books of phonetics used to present, among the centring
diphthongs, the [o] glide / diphthong, as in bore, more, sore, four, etc.,
which in fact was / is a sound characteristic of conservative English
pronunciation, and can be really considered a mere allophone of [o:], in
medial and final position.
TRIPHTHONGS IN ENGLISH
Only some phonetics books recognize triphthongs as such.
Otherwise, they are recognized as mere sequences of a diphthong plus a
vowel element, namely []: thus, most textbooks call them diphthongs + [].
Traditionally, one can consider that the combination of three vowels uttered
within the limits of only one syllable is called a triphthong (M. Bogdan, op.
cit, p. 86); in fact, it can be recognized as a union between a diphthong and a
semivowel (i.e. a falling diphthong + the neutral vowel [], or No. 12), viz.
[ai] and [au].
These elements seem rather to belong to different syllables. Unlike
Romanian, one cannot talk about English triphthongs made up of a semivowel plus a diphthong, as the functional part of the semi-vowel / semiconsonant puts these in the class of the consonants proper (compare with
words like yea [jei], etc.). Usually, [ai] and [au] are considered
prolongations to [] of the falling diphthongs [ai] and [au], so they are not
usually recognized as being phonemes.
[ai] Examples: lyre, liar, buyer, higher, choir / quire (in all these
examples there is an orthographic r), or giant, society, violin, cyanide, etc.
On of the characteristics of this triphthong is its instability: many
speakers reduce it to a diphthong by dropping the medial element, and thus
realizing it as [a]. The younger generations reduce the triphthong to a vowel,
e.g. tire [ta:], [t:]. So, there are three possible pronunciations: [tai], [ta],
[t:]. The reduction is not effected when it is followed by dark l, as in dial;
see also bias. Likewise, when the added suffix is clearly analyzed by the
speakers, e.g. buyer ['bai].
[au] Examples: our, sour, bower, power, tower (with the
orthographic r), or: bowel, towel, vowel.
Very much like [ai], this triphthong is reduced by the dropping of
the medial element [u], e.g. power [pa]. With some (British) speakers,
mainly from the younger generation, the result may even be [:], e.g. tower
[t:]. There can be three possible pronunciations of such words: tower [tau],
[ta], [t:] (see also the previous triphtong).
THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE ENGLISH CONSONANTS
64

1. Plosive Consonants:
[p] is a bilabial, fortis, voiceless / breathed plosive consonant e.g.
pipe, upper.
Its variants (the aspirated [p'], when in initial position, followed by
vowel, in a strongly accented syllable, e.g. pay, apart; [p] without aspiration,
when placed before an unaccented vowel, e.g. happy, when preceded by [s],
e.g. sport, spend, or when followed by the sonorants [l], [r], [w], [j], e.g.
please, praise, pure) are hard to distinguish by Romanian learners, which
results in a considerable degree of foreign accent. They will have to
imagine that the aspirated variant is a kind of [p] followed by a [h] sound:
[ph], e.g. [phot] for pot. Romanian students should practise with minimal pairs
like pole bowl, pip bip, etc.
Other positional variants: weakly released or unreleased (when at
the end of the word / of the syllable, etc.), e.g cap, grasp, hoped, captain, top
boy;
- lateral p, e.g. apple, maple;
- nasally released, e.g. sharpener, I hope not;
intrusive p, used in careless, regional speech, e.g. something
['sm(p)i], Amsterdam.
Difficulties of spelling: exceptional spelling. e.g. hiccough (with
the spelling variant hiccup); silent p, when occurring in initial position
before n, s, t, e.g. pneumonia, psycho, Ptolemy; or in cupboard, receipt; in
other words, it is omitted optionally, when it is located between m and t, e.g.
(at)tempt, prompt, empty.
[b] is a bilabial, lenis, voiced (or partially voiced), unaspirated
plosive consonant e.g. bip, rubber.
Variants: devoiced, when in initial or final position, e.g. big, rub;
- fully voiced, when occurring between two voiced sounds, e.g.
able, harbour;
- unreleased [b>], when followed by another plosive or an affricate
sound, e.g. subject, globe-trotter;
laterally released [bl], when followed by clear l, e.g. black,
marble;
- nasally released [b~], when followed by a nasal consonant, e.g.
cabman, ribbon, cabin.
All the above variants can pose serious problems to the Romanian
learner of English, as sometimes voicing goes hand in hand with lack of
aspiration in phonemically defining (and distinguishing) [b], e.g. pair : bare.
Difficulties of spelling: because of the phonetic neighbourhood, in
words like bomb, comb, dumb, lamb, limb, tomb, or, etymologically, in the
words debt, doubt, subtle.
65

[t] is an alveolar, fortis, voiceless, plosive consonant

Variants: aspirated [t'], when followed by a stressed vowel, e.g.
tale, time, attack;
- partially devoiced, before [r], [j], [w], e.g. trial, between, tube;
- unaspirated [t=], in unstressed positions, e.g. butter, attic, pretty,
or when preceded by [s], e.g. stone, stable;
weakly released, or even totally unreleased [t >], when in final
position, e.g. hate, lent, brushed; or before other plosive or affricate sounds,
e.g. outdated, catgut;
- laterally released, when followed by [l], e.g. beetle, at least;
- nasally released, e.g. button, stuntman.
Apart form the above positional variants, which can pose Romanian
learners quite a few problems, the very articulatory quality of this consonant
may be difficult for them: the English [t] sound is alveolar, unlike the
Romanian corresponding sound, which is dental.
In American English [t] becomes fully voiced in a number of
contexts, e.g. matter, Betty, shut up; when preceded by [n], it is dropped
altogether, e.g. twenty, continent.
Difficulties of spelling: Thomas, Thom(p)son, Anthony; washed,
chased; (when not pronounced): castle, bustle, fasten, Christmas.
[d] is an alveolar, lenis, voiceless, unaspirated, plosive consonant
Variants: partially devoiced [d], when in initial position, e.g. day,
double;
fully voiced, when situated between two voiced sounds, e.g.
rider, under;
unreleased [d>], when followed by another plosive or affricate
sound, e.g. good day;
- laterally released, when followed by [l], e.g. diddle, madly, hard
life;
nasally released, when followed by [n] or [m], e.g. warden,
madness, admit.
Difficulties of spelling: d is not pronounced in words like:
handsome, Wednesday, but also in phrases like cold beer, hands up, etc.
Both [t] and [d] pose problems to the Romanian student because of
the phenomenon of assimilation (the position of utterance depends on the
place of articulation of the following sound); so, phoneticians talk about the
articulatory instability of the consonants [t] and [d].
Moreover, Romanians wanting to get used to the alveolar
pronunciation of these phonemes (vs. the dental Romanian articulation) will
have to practise keeping the tip of the tongue as retracted as possible,
touching the alveolar ridge, even forcing their pronunciation towards an
66

affricate type of sound [t]. The aspiration of [t] should be carefully practised,
as well: tape, tight.
[k] is a velar, fortis, voiceless, plosive consonant
Variants: aspirated [t'], when followed by an accented vowel, e.g.
cod, coat, key, cord, couple;
- unaspirated [k=], when before an unaccented vowel, e.g. liquor,
equal, or preceded by [s], e.g. skate, ski;
- slightly released, or unreleased [k >], when in final position, e.g.
make, risk, or followed by another plosive or affricate sound, e.g.
blackboard, shocked;
laterally released, when followed by [l], e.g. clear, necklace,
sickle;
nasally released, when followed by [n] or [m], e.g. sicken,
acknowledge.
Remarks and difficulties of spelling: chorus, character, stomach,
etc.
[g] is a velar, lenis, voiced, unaspirated, plosive consonant
Variants: partially devoiced [g], when in initial position, e.g. gay,
gaggle;
- fully voiced, when situated between two voiced sounds, e.g. ago,
lager, agree;
- unreleased [g>], when followed by another plosive or affricate
sound, e.g. lagged, bagpipes, big game;
- laterally released, when followed by [l], e.g. beagle, glory, ugly;
nasally released, when followed by [n] or [m], e.g. ignore,
dignity, segment;
- palatalized, when followed by [j], e.g. cube, curate.
Difficulties of spelling: when silent, e.g. gnat, gnaw, reign, right; in
x, e.g. exempt, example, etc.
Both [k] and [g] may pose significant problems to the Romanian
student: the aspirated quality of [k] should be carefully reproduced. Yet, the
worst mistake they are likely to make is the unneeded palatalization of these
velars when followed by [e] and [i], e.g. pet, pin.
The Glottal Stop [?] is a rather difficult contoid phoneme, a plosive
sound formed by the complete closure of the vocal folds: thus, the airstream
is blocked at the level of the glottis, after which they are abruptly drawn
apart, and the airstream escapes through the mouth. The resulting sound
comes very close to coughing. So, the glottal stop is a glottal, fortis,
voiceless plosive. There are practically no minimal pairs to illustrate it. It is
used as a syllable boundary marker, e.g. geometry, reaction; or before final
[p], [t], [k], [t], e.g. feet, hook, reach, etc. Sometimes, it is used instead of
67

linking r: far away. The difficulty [?] implies for Romanians is major,
especially as it is not even marked by a special letter.
2. Affricate Consonants:
Affricates are intermediate sounds between plosives and fricatives: a
plosive which is not abruptly released, but continued by a fricative element
added to it.
[t] is a palato-alveolar, fortis, voiceless / breathed affricate
consonant e.g. pitch, chief, while [d] is a palato-alveolar, lenis, voiced
affricate consonant.
It is only lip-rounding that varies, in both [t] and [d]. Careful
speakers tend to replace [t] and [d] with [tj] and [dj] in words like
literature, fortune, Christian, soldier, verdure. The affricate sound should be
carefully distinguished from the sequence [t] + [], e.g. pet-shop, nutshell.
The difficulties posed for the Romanian student are primarily related
to the palatalized nature of the two affricates in Romanian (moreover, the
Romanian consonants are only followed by [e] and [i]). Compare match and
meci, Rudge and rugi.
Exceptions and difficulties of spelling: question; Greenwich,
Norwich (in Britain only), gaol [deil] (= jail).
3. Fricative Consonants:
[f] and [v]: the first is a labio-dental, fortis, voiceless, fricative
consonant, while [v] is a labio-dental, lenis, voiced, fricative consonant. Their
articulation, variants and positions are not particularly difficult to acquire by
Romanian learners, except for some clusters like: flight, free, sphinx, softens,
baffled.
Spelling: [f] safe, half, afford; (exceptional) philosopher; laugh,
tough, cough;
[v] vote, have, convene; nephew, Stephen; of.
[] and [] The articulation of these interdentals (or dentals) can
presuppose serious difficulty for the Romanian students of English, as they
are apt to replace them either by [f], [v], by [s], [z], or by [t], [d] (in the last
case, mainly under the influence of some types of American pronunciation).
Sometimes simplified pronunciations like [i'zt 'su?] can be heard for Is
that you? or, in British English, ['hkju] or ['kju] for thank you.
The first phoneme in the pair, [], is a dental / an interdental, fortis,
voiceless / breathed, fricative sound, while [] is a dental / an interdental,
lenis, voiced, fricative consonant. The latter phoneme does not occur in initial
clusters, but can occur in final ones, e.g. betrothal, clothes, clothes, which
may naturally pose problems to the Romanian student. Learners should
68

practise hard the two interdental phonemes, starting from their pronunciation
in initial position, e.g. [a, e, i, o, u], etc.
[s] and [z] are articulated with the tip of the tongue raised against,
and loosely touching the alveolar ridge. The first phoneme of the pair is
described as an alveolar, fortis / breathed, voiceless, fricative consonant,
while [z] is described as an alveolar, lenis, voiced, fricative consonant.
Although they are quite similar to their Romanian counterparts, their natural,
accentless pronunciation should observe the obvious alveolar quality they
display (vs. the evident dental quality of the Romanian sounds [s] and [z]).
Exceptions and difficulties of spelling: the letter s is silent in words
like: aisle, isle, island, viscount, debris, rendez-vous, etc. Note also: base,
dose, close, increase, release, etc. As far as [z] is concerned, one should take
into account the interplay between [s] and [z] in regular plurals (e.g. cats,
dogs) or the 3rd person of the Present Simple tense of the Indicative mood
(e.g. asks, begs), but also some irregular (Greek or Latin) plurals, e.g. bases,
indices, analyses, theses, crises, series, etc.
[] and []: The first phoneme of the pair is a palato-alveolar, fortis,
voiceless / breathed, fricative consonant; the second one is a palato-alveolar,
lenis, voiced, fricative consonant. The consonant phoneme [] does not occur
initially, it only appears in words like: pleasure, casual; beige, rouge,
massage.
Difficulties encountered by Romanian students in pronouncing
them: the English phonemes are less palatalized than their Romanian
counterparts, e.g. Eng. sharper Rom. arpe. The tongue position for the
English [] and [] is higher up against the alveolar ridge.
Note the spellings: Asia, Persia, mansion, censure; exposure,
seizure, treasure, beige.
[h] is a glottal, fortis, voiceless / breathed, fricative consonant. In
articulating it, the airstream is forced through the open glottis into the mouth,
producing audible friction. It has no voiced counterpart. Yet, the phoneme has
a partially voiced variant, e.g. anyhow, behind. Some phoneticians group it
with the semivowels, starting from distributional and functional criteria.
The corresponding Romanian sound is rather velar than glottal: the
friction is produced in the mouth cavity, not at the level of the glottis. So, the
Romanian learners will have to practise it (mainly when followed by [e] and
[i], or similar vowels, e.g. heat, hit, hen. hat), paying attention that the tongue
is kept low in the mouth. Suggested exercises: In Hertford, Hereford and
Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen. He put his, not her, hat on his
head.
Notes on spelling: h is silent in a few words like hour, honest,
honesty, honour, honourable, heir; or in exhaust, vehicle; Durham, Wickham,
shepherd; rhapsody, rhetoric, etc.
69

4. Nasal Consonants:
The three phonemes grouped under this heading closely resemble
plosives in point of articulation, with the essential difference that for their
production the airstream escapes freely through the nasal cavity, as the velum
/ soft palate is lowered, thus (partially) closing the oral cavity. They are: [m],
[n], and []. Their corresponding oral / non-nasal plosive counterparts are,
respectively, [b], [d], and [g]. Nasal consonants are sonorant contoids (Rom.
sonante): they can form syllables, thus having a vocalic function, e.g.
button, bacon. Being sonorants, it goes without saying that they are all lenis
and voiced.
[m] is a bilabial, voiced, lenis, nasal consonant
It occurs in all three basic positions: initially, medially and finally.
Variants: labio-dental, when followed by [f] or [v], as in
Humphrey;
- devoiced, when preceded by [s], e.g. smear, smile, smith;
syllabic [m], when in final position and preceded by another
consonant, e.g. bottomed, rhythm, prism.
Difficulties of spelling: m is silent in words like mnemonic,
Mnemosyne. Note also: tomb, womb.
[n] is an (apico-)alveloar, voiced, lenis, nasal consonant.
Its alveolar quality may be an obstacle for Romanian learners.
It occurs in all three positions: initial, medial and final.
Variants: labio-dental, when followed by [f] or [v], as in infinite,
invite;
- devoiced, when preceded by [s], e.g. snipe, snail, sneak;
- dental, when followed by the interdentals [] or [], e.g. tenth, on
the brink;
- post-alveolar when followed by [r], e.g. unreliant, Henry;
syllabic [n], when in final position and preceded by another
consonant, e.g. buttoned, open, bacon;
assimilated to a following bilabial or velar consonant, e.g.
pancake, sunbeam (in which case we have the phenomenon of neutralization:
the distinction between [n] and [] and [m], respectively, disappears).
Difficulties of spelling: n is not sounded in words like autumn,
damn, solemn (compare with the respective derivatives: autumnal,
damnation, solemnity).
[] is a (dorso-)velar, voiced, nasal consonant
It only occurs in medial and final positions, e.g. angle, anchor,
singer; rang, among, king. Actually, it has comparatively recently acquired
phonemic status in English (it used to be a mere combination of [n] and [g]
see also the modern sequence [k], handkerchief). It is to be noted that the
70

(informal) reduction of [i] to [in] in words like coming, morning can be met
with in the (Southern regions of the) United States, and even in the United
Kingdom.
The main difficulty encountered by Romanian students is related to
the false analysis of the phoneme [] as a [n] + [g] sequence, but this can be
easily overcome if we consider the fact that there are scores of Romanian
words in which [] appears as a positional variant of [n], e.g. lng, lungan,
banc. Note also the difficulty of distinguishing between words like finger
['fig], linger ['lig] and singer ['si].
Variants: spread, e.g. being;
- slightly rounded, as in tongs;
- more advanced when preceded by a front vowel, e.g. sing;
- rather retracted when preceded by a back vowel, e.g. song.
There are words in which there is free variation between [ng] or [nk]
and [g] or [k], respectively, as in engage, increase, uncommon, etc. (when
we have the prefixes en-, in-, un-).
5. Liquid Consonants:
A. The Lateral Consonant [l]
In point of articulation, [l] can be said to resemble the plosives, as it
implies an obstruction of the airstream through the fact that the tip of the
tongue is pressed against the alveolar ridge. But the detail that it is always
voiced (so, it is a sonorant Rom. sonant) and its lateral articulation
make it stand apart.
There are two varieties of [l] in English: clear l [l], and dark l [].
The former (also called palatalized l) should not normally present
difficulties to the Romanian learner (besides the fact that it is alveolar, and
not dental as in Romanian). Yet, the dark l (or velar l) is rather difficult
through its additional velar articulation (it is in fact the same type of [l] sound
to be met with in Russian or even Portuguese, where it actually has the sound
of [u], e.g. gol, Brazil); in fact, Daniel Jones speaks about the u resonance
of []. Learners should practise by trying to utter an unrounded [u] while
keeping the tip of the tongue in position for [l]. It is only the so-called
narrow phonetic transcription that distinguishes between the two types /
variants of the phoneme [l], by marking dark l with a [].
Other variants: [l] is partially devoiced when preceded by a
voiceless consonant, e.g. slope, fly, clear; dental [l], when followed by [] or
[], e.g. stealth, will they; retracted post-alveolar [l] when followed by [r],
e.g. already, paltry; syllabic, e.g. double, people, table, little.

71

Difficulties of spelling: l is silent in words like calf, half; could,

should; chalk, talk; folk, yolk; balm, calm, psalm, salmon. Note also: colonel,
holm, halve, salve, Faulkner, Folkestone, Holborn, Lincoln, Malmesbury.
B. The Phoneme [r]:
Its description and classification are different because most
phoneticians considered differently the few types of [r] in (British and
American) English. To Daniel Jones, [r] appears as a fricative sound a
voiced, post-alveolar consonant. On the other hand , the most common type
de RP [r] can be described as a voiced, post-alveolar, frictionless continuant
(the passing of the airstream does not cause audible friction). More often than
not, for this description phoneticians use the symbol [ ].
Distribution: in British English, it never appears in final position,
but in American English, it does, e.g. never, car, door.
Variants: affricated, when preceded by [t] or [d], e.g. treat, driver,
bedroom;
- devoiced when preceded by the voiceless plosives [p], [t], [k], as
in proud, cry, oppress;
heard as an alveolar tap, when in intervocalic position, e.g.
around, bury;
- (in Scotland and Northern England): rolled, very much like the
Romanian, Italian or Russian type of [r]; it is also used in stage acting, in
singing, in dictation, or in elevated or affected speech.
Linking r and intrusive r represent another proof that the loss of
[r] in final position only occurred comparatively recently (in Shakespeares
time it was still pronounced, a characteristic which was then taken over by
the more conservative American pronunciation).
The difficulties encountered by Romanian students can be overcome
if one starts in learning English [r] from a sound like [], or else from [:] or
even [w].
6. The Semi-Vowels [j] and [w]
The semi-vowels also called semi-consonants by certain
phoneticians are sounds with an entirely vowel-like acoustic quality, but in
addition having a clear consonant function: they accompany, and give
support to, subsequent vowel-sounds. Their duration is short, the two semivowels being in fact rapid vowel-glides to a syllabic sound of normal
duration. The general contour of the semi-vowel + vowel sequence is that of
a rising diphthong. Both [j] and [w] only occur in initial position or in an
initial cluster, e.g. yawn, tune; war, what, quote. One can prove the
consonantic nature of these phonemes by the fact that the nouns beginning
with [j] or [w] take the pre-consonant forms of the articles the and a, viz. []
72

and [], respectively: the university, the yeoman, the window; a university, a
yeoman, a window. Also, words beginning with a semi-vowel are not
preceded by linking or intrusive [r], e.g. for you, higher waves.
[j] Its articulation has a similar position to that of English vowel No.
1 [i:]; there is no audible friction, the lips are spread.
This semi-vowel closely resembles the corresponding [j] in
Romanian, e.g. ia, iap, ea, el, iepure, ioc, iut.
Distribution: the semi-vowel [w] only appears in initial and medial
position.
Variants: closer, when followed by close vowels, e.g. yeast, yield;
- opener, when followed by open vowels, e.g. yard, yawn;
devoiced, when preceded by voiceless fricatives and plosives,
e.g. pure, cue, huge;
- partially devoiced, when preceded by the clusters [sp], [st], [sk],
e.g. spurious, student, askew, etc.
There is free variation between [ju:] and [u:], after [s], [z], [] and
[l], e.g. presume, enthusiasm, revolution. The [u:] pronunciation is
characteristic of American English, although such pronunciations as [su:t]
suit, ['su:t] suitor can often be heard in British English (but no extreme cases
like [nu: 'jo:k] New York). On the other hand, the most usual pronunciation
of words like statue, education, issue, visual turns the sequence containing
the semi-vowel [j] into [t], [d], [], [], respectively.
Remarks and difficulties of spelling: hideous, opinion; (exceptional)
beauty.
[w] is a rounded, labio-velar semi-vowel. The initial position of the
articulators is that for [u:]. The back of the tongue is raised, and the lips are
slightly protruded; so, there are two main points or foci of articulation (or
else, an u colouring and an h colouring).
Although the English semi-vowel sounds very much like the
Romanian [w] / [] sound in oal, oaie, trotuar, the fact that Romanian lacks
the sequences [we], [wi] may be considered an obstacle to correct
pronunciation. Yet, virtually no native speaker of Romanian fails to correctly
utter words like West, wind, women; moreover, taking as a starting point the
Romanian [ui] sequence in uit which is actually a falling diphthong seems
practically useless.
Distribution: like [j], the semi-vowel [w] only appears in initial and
medial position.
Variants: more closely rounded, e.g. wool, warp; vs. a more
loosely rounded variant, e.g. went, weak, with;
devoiced, when preceded by fortis, voiceless consonants, e.g.
twit, quit, swine, upwards;
73

- when it is totally devoiced, the semi-vowel (symbolized as [])

sounds like a voiceless, labio-velar fricative consonant, it is used in Scotland,
the Northern region of England and by most speakers of General American to
render the digraph wh (in what, when, where, which, overwhelm, etc.),
certainly because of the influence of spelling on pronunciation, paralleled by
hypercorrection.
Remarks and difficulties concerning the spelling of the semi-vowel
[w]: dwell; whale; memoir, reservoir. Exceptional: persuade, suite [swi:t],
one, oner, once.
C. SOUNDS IN CONNECTED SPEECH
The sounds of a language cannot be uttered separately; for
communication to be achieved, they can only appear in larger units. Human /
natural language is perceived as a continuous flow or stream, they are nearly
always strung together to form words or combinations of words. Within this
continuum, the sound units are only distinguished through our / the speakers
linguistic competence. The spoken chain displays no clear breaks between
sounds, which are in continuous transition.
The phenomenon of transition implies the notion of juncture. Sounds,
when pure (i.e. pronounced in isolation), have three stages of production:
-the onset (i.e. the initial stage);
-the retention / hold (i.e. the medial stage);
-the release (the final stage).
Actually, they can hardly be distinguished from one another in rapid
(viz. natural) speech.
Juncture has a clear phonemic status in English. A contrast is
established between close and open juncture as differences of meaning arise
from the comparison of such words and syntagms as illegal and ill eagle, I
scream and ice-cream, an Arrow shirt and a narrow shirt, etc.
The range of the types of juncture varies according to the degree of
similarity of the sounds in contact. The explanation is the economy of
movement the speech organs achieve.
a) Merging of stages: mixing the release stage of the previous sound
with the onset / beginning of the one that follows; it occurs when the two
sounds are fairly dissimilar, e.g. consonant + vowel (as in nag), or two highly
different consonants (as in grasp).
b) Interpenetration of stages represents a closer type of juncture which
influences the following sound. Interpenetration affects very similar sounds:
actually, there are several degrees of interpenetration, in keeping with the
degree of similarity of their articulation compare hopped, robbed, sacked,
74

begged and seventh, ridden, health.

c) Repeated sounds are a special case of interpenetration: two identical
sounds are grouped together, e.g. unnecessary, big game, last time. They do
not represent a longer pronunciation / realisation of the respective consonant
(unlike the so-called geminated consonants in languages like Italian, e.g.
mamma, carro).
The transition habits of Romanian speakers (e.g., for close juncture,
small pronounced as */zmo:l/, for open juncture, like that pronounced as
*/laigt/, etc.) may pose serious problems in learning English pronunciation
correctly, often resulting in a considerable amount of foreign accent.
Generally, the transition between the last sound in a given syllable and
the first sound of the next one is fast and rather abrupt in Romanian, while in
English it is slower and more gradual. Elision and assimilation are more
frequent in English than in Romanian: an Englishmans speech organs appear
to be more on the move than a Romanians ones.
MODIFICATIONS OF THE ENGLISH PHONEMES
IN CONNECTED SPEECH
The quality of the phonemes will be modified by the rapid / current /
natural realisation of pronunciation, the (phonetic) context playing a decisive
part in establishing the concrete manner of manifestation of each phoneme:
adjacent sounds influence one another; each sound has the tendency to be
more or less extensively influenced by its neighbours (e.g. the length of a
vowel is affected by its surroundings; likewise, certain consonants viz.
nasals will have varying lengths in keeping with their neighbourhood).
These modifications are of an allophonic nature (e.g. act, slime), though there
can also appear phonemic modifications mainly in very rapid, more often
than not informal / colloquial / careless speech (e.g. light candles / like
candles, a sun for/ a sum for).
I. Vowels: The English vowel phonemes may undergo changes in
point of: -Opening, e.g. debt, dwell; city, sill; -Place of articulation: more
advanced, e.g. youth, or more retracted, e.g. sick; -Nasalisation: compare bad
and ban; rim, sin and sing, ring; -Length: changes may occur according to
the position of the sound in the word (final vowels are longer, e.g. bee vs.
beat), the type of the following consonant (voiced consonants will increase
the length of the previous vowels, e.g. heard vs. hurt); suprasegmental
features (stress and accentuation, rhythm, pitch) have also a contribution in
altering length, e.g. How delicious! What a pin! Thats too bad! Thats very
mean of him!
II. The English consonants may have modifications of form in point
75

of: -Voice: voiceless stops and fricatives will devoice sonorants and
semivowels following them (compare slay and lay, sly and lie, fry and rye;
play, cute, cure, queer). -(Nature of) release: This criterion applies to stops,
which may be: -unreleased, e.g. hopped, stabbed; -aspirated, e.g. pail, tower,
cool; -laterally released, e.g. rattle, middle, little, rubble, bad luck; -nasally
released, e.g. cotton, open, risen, ruggedness, darkness, rigmarole, not me.
-Position of the lips: rounded consonants, as in twin, lord, cauldron.
-Position of articulation: thus, alvelolars may become dental, e.g. tenth,
auntie, health, or they may become postalveolar, e.g. train, Henry; /n/ may be
sounded like labio-dentals, as in invitation, or /m/, as in ten minutes; velars
are advanced before a palatal sound, e.g. cube, argue.
ASSIMILATION AND ELISION
1. Assimilation is the process of joining together two (or more)
phonemes, a phenomenon which can be accounted for through the tendency
to economise articulatory effort and to achieve increased similarity of the
sounds in contact (as a matter of fact, in both assimilation and elision there is
an unconscious striving for economy of effort, and besides the phenomenon
of insertion aiming to render pronunciation easier, e.g. the so-called linking
r in far away, or the intrusive r in law and order [lo:r n(d) 'o:d], or the
an form of the indefinite article, as in an egg, vs. a man). It actually takes
place within the word or at word boundary, and essentially illustrates the
tendency for a sound to be made more like the surrounding sounds. There are
three main types of assimilation:
a. Progressive assimilation: a phoneme influences the following one,
e.g. slay, with partial devoicing of /l/;
b. Regressive assimilation the very reverse phenomenon: in tenth, /n/
is dentalised; in this ship, /s/ is assimilated to //;
c. Double (or reciprocal) assimilation, e.g. truth (/r/ is partially
devoiced, while /t/ turns into a post-alveolar, /t/-type consonant);
Coalescence is a particular case of assimilation: the result of the
process is a new phoneme, e.g. Did you do it? /'did 'du: it /?/. It is also
called total assimilation (cf. c. above, which is only partial).
Assimilation may be historical or diachronic (meaning that
transformations which were effected in the course of past evolution are now
accepted / frozen linguistic realities), e.g. bedlam < (Saint Mary in)
Bethlehem, or synchronic (contextual), which, in turn, is obligatory /
established / having the character of a linguistic norm (viz. a generally
accepted fact), e.g. He used to go there. /hi 'ju:st 'gu /; and nonobligatory / optional / accidental, e.g. Did you see him? /'did 'si: (h)im /?/,
If I meet him /ivai 'mi:tim/.
76

There may be extreme cases of assimilation, which are real obstacles in

the way of comprehension. (It is an admitted fact that English counts among
the languages the audition comprehension of which is rather difficult),
e.g. /'aion'gu/ for Im going to go, or /aitf'o:tsu/ for I should have
thought so, etc.
The best known cases of assimilation in English are represented by the
devoicing / unvoicing of a consonant under the influence of a following
sound, e.g. newspaper, fivepence ['faifpns], He used to do that. There is a
regular system of voicing and unvoicing in the pronunciation of the
inflectional endings -s and -ed, e.g. days, caps, dogged, capped.
2. Elision is the complete omission of sounds, especially in more
difficult clusters, e.g. prompt (with the occasional mentioning of an obscured
p sound, in very minute variant transcriptions, e.g. the Longman
Pronunciation Dictionary), gnat, P(h)nom-Penh, Christmas, etc.
Vowels are omitted altogether / elided in unaccented syllables, e.g.
solicitor, practically, probably, average, phonetics, difficulty, etc.
Consonants are lost: a) historically, e.g. /t/, /l/ in listen, fasten, castle,
postman, often; calm. palm, half; /b/, /n/, preceded by /m/, as in lamb, tomb,
comb, autumn, etc. Also, in: knave, write, gnaw; caught, nought, night,
knight, etc.
b) synchronically: consonants situated medially in three-consonant
clusters, e.g. friendship, prompt; dark l / velar l in all right, etc. (cf. talk,
walk, chalk), or //, // in words like sixths, cloths, etc.; consonants situated at
word boundary, as in last time, lost time, post box, send back, closed door.
Some special kinds of plosion can be added to the list: delayed plosion,
e.g. book-keeper, lamp-post, big gun; doubling of nasals, laterals and
fricatives, as in unnecessary, keenness, Smith thinks so; cases of incomplete
plosion: upbringing, big cat, that door; nasal plosion: oatmeal, sudden,
eaten, mutton; (whenever one of the spellings en, on and an occurs in an
unstressed syllable, the vowel tends to disappear so that the n becomes
syllabic, i.e. there is no vowel between the [d] and [n] in sudden, for
instance). Other examples of syllabic ns: reason, nation, happen, open,
bacon, darken (in these cases, slow speech may insert a short [], as in
['hpn]; see also: correspondence, dependent, sentence, London, Lipton).
WEAK FORMS AND STRONG FORMS
The complex, intricate mechanism of the arrangement / chain of
sounds in normal speech involves considerable modifications of the
respective sounds, a fact which is not only highly specific of the English
language, but also rather misleading, mainly as the learner (in our case, the
Romanian student) considers the sounds and phrases concerned from the
77

(otherwise pragmatic) angle of spelling. The plain truth is that there are such
modifications even in Romanian namely, cases of reduction and
obscuration some of which have to a certain extent been established by the
common use (mainly in the colloquial speech, e.g. doipe instead of
doisprezece), while others still remain incidental occurrences (most of them
even unrecommendable in the literary or learned / educated standard style,
e.g. aj-dori, a-avut, adz-venit, douj-de / douj-d pomi, nu--cine, etc. (see
also ASSIMILATION ).
In English pronunciation, there are a number of words which have two
series of forms: 1) a strong / full form; 2) one (or several) form(s) which
may be called weak / reduced; in other words, a strong pronunciation, and
one or several weak / reduced ones. The weak forms appear when the
respective words occurs in unaccented position within the sentence; the
strong forms are associated with the accented pronunciation (or, for stylistic
purposes, with clearly emphatic types of pronunciation).
Roughly speaking, the words which take sentence stress, meaning that
they are normally accented within whole sentences or broader sense groups,
are: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, demonstrative pronouns and
adjectives, interrogative pronouns, whereas articles, prepositions,
conjunctions (and other conjuncts), auxiliary and modal verbs are in
unaccented position, consequently they normally take the weak forms (these
are the so-called form-words, or function words); only if we want to lend
them (special) emphasis do they take the strong forms. (Distinguish
between: Tom is at lunch; hell be back home at seven, and I said at home,
not in a home.) The weak form contains a weak vowel, and the strong form
contains a strong vowel. If lexical words (words of full lexical meaning,
notional words, vs. function words) generally retain the accentuation
pattern they have when pronounced in isolation, this is not true of many
function words (which are no doubt among the most frequent words of
English see below), which occur with their weak or strong form(s),
according to whether they are unaccented or accented, respectively. The
unaccented WEAK forms of these words show reductions in the length of
sounds, obscuration of vowels towards /, i, u/, and the elision of vowels and
consonants. (A. C. Gimson, op cit., p. 228) The following 42 items occur in
the first 200 most common words in connected speech: the, you, I, to, and, a,
that, we, of, have, is, are, for, at, he, but, there, do, as, be, them, will, me,
was, can, him, had, your, been, from, my, or, he, by, some, her, his, us, an, am,
has, shall. It is significant that of these the following 19 have over 90%
unaccented occurrences with a weak form: at, of, the, to, as, and, or, a, his,
an, but, been, for, her, we, be, shall, was, them. (ibidem)
The fact will be worth mentioning that, when considered within the
framework of connected speech, the word is pronounced in sense-groups,
78

which by and large correspond to the syntactic groups / functions, or to more

or less stable / fixed syntagms or phrases. (Compare for instance the
sinusoidal line described by a longer word and a shorter sentence,
respectively: unimportant has the same intonation curve as I can do it). Also
notable is the fact that vowel reduction affects weak English vowels like /i/
and /u/, e.g. intelligibility, credulous, etc. (see also REDUCTION,
OBSCURATION). Compare also to that effect a sentence like I cant do it
(=four syllables) and a longer word like impossibility (=six syllables). In
English, most frequent words (mainly form-words) are one-syllables /
monosyllabic words, so it is but natural for their phonetic body to be reduced
when in unstressed / unaccented position. It means that people who
intuitively believe that the intensive use of the so-called weak forms means
careless, slovenly or even slurred speech are definitely wrong: on the
contrary, these forms represent one of the essentials of English pronunciation,
and the process enjoys extremely great generality (in both of the main
variants of English). When adding emphasis, the overall meaning of the
sentence is dramatically changed, e.g. She can [kn] do it vs. She can [kn]
do it. Seen from this angle, one may say that this phenomenon vowel
reduction is obligatory, not optional in English.
As we have seen, as opposed to the so-called form-words (including
the personal, possessive, reflexive, relative pronouns and the indefinite
pronoun some)10, the notional parts of speech (with the exceptions above) are
usually not reduced in unaccented / unstressed positions, though there are
some compound words in which the second element occurs with its reduced
form, e.g. handsome, blackberry, sixpence, Oxford, Plymouth, etc.
Other monosyllabic function words normally retain their strong
vowels in unaccented positions, e.g. on, when, then, one, but again, in very
rapid speech, reduced vowel forms may be heard, especially when the word
is adjacent to a strongly accented syllable, e.g. What on (/n/ or /n/) earth!;
When (/wn/) alls said and done; Then (/n/) after a time; One (/wn/)
always hopes.
It may be said that the more rapid the delivery the greater the tendency
to reduction and obscuration of unaccented words. Even monosyllabic lexical
words may be reduced in rapid casual speech, if they occur in a relatively
unaccented situation adjacent to a primary accent, and especially if they
contain a short vowel, e.g. /i/. You sit over here /'ju:s()t uv hi/; /u/, He put
it there /'hi: p()t it /; //, Hell come back /'hi:l k()m bk/; /e/, Dont get
lost /dunt g()t 'lost/; less frequently with the more prominent short
vowels //, /o/, e.g. //, They all sat down on the floor /ei 'o:l st daun n
10

The emphasizing / emphatic pronouns and the absolute form of the possessive
pronoun always have their full form.

79

flo:/; /o/, We want to go /'wi: wnt t gu/; and, finally, the diphthong /u/,
with its dominant central // element, is readily reducible to // under weak
accent, e.g. You cant go with him /ju k:nt g 'wi im/; Hes going to do it
/'hi:z gn du: it/. (A. C. Gimson, op. cit., p. 230).
THE LIST OF THE WORDS MORE FREQUENTLY USED
WITH THE WEAK FORM
Word Weak / unaccented form(s) Strong / accented form Remarks
a
am
an
and
are

//
/m, m/
/n, n/
/nd, nd, n, n/
// + consonant
/r, r/ + vowel
/z/

/ei/
/m/
/n/
/nd/
/:/
/:r/
/z/

as
at
/t/
/t/
be
/bi/
/bi:/
been
/bin/
/bi:n/* *Rarely /bi:n/
but
/bt/
/bt/
can (aux.) /kn, kn/
/kn/
could
/kd, kd/
/kud/
do (aux.)
/du, d, d/
/du:/
does (aux.) /dz, z, s/, e.g. Whens he come? /dz/
Whats he like?
for
/f/ + consonant
/fo:r/
/fr, fr/ + vowel
from
/frm, frm/
/from/
had (aux.)*
/hd, d, d/**
/hd/ * Compare: He had
come. He had problems
** The weak form with /h/ is used
after a pause
has (aux.)*
/hz, z, z, s/**
/hz/
*, ** See above
have (aux.)* /hv, v, v/**
/hv/
*, ** See above
he
/hi, i:, i/**
/hi:/
** See above
her
/h, :, /**
/h:/
** See above
him
/im/
/him/
his
/iz/
/hiz/
is
/s, z/
/iz/
maam
/mm, m/
/mm/
me
/mi/
/mi:/
must
/mst, ms/
/mst/
my1
/mi, m/*
/mai/
*Colloquially
not
/nt, n/
/not/
of
/v, v, /
/ov/
or1
//
/o:r/

80

Saint
shall
she
should
Sir

/snt, snt, sn, sn/

/seint/
/l, l, /
/l/
/i/
/i:/
/d, d, t/
/ud/
/s/ + consonant
/s:/
/sr/ + vowel
/s:r/
some (adj.)*
/sm, sm/
/sm/ *When a
pronoun, only /sm/, e.g. Some will like it. Ill have some.
than
/n, n/
/n/
that (conj. and rel. pron.)* /t/
/t/ *As a demonstrative
adj. or pron., only /t/, e.g. That boy. Thats the one.
the
/i/ + vowel
/i:/
/, / + consonant
them
/m, m, m, m/
/em/
there (indef. / introductory adv.)* // + consonant // (rare)
/r, r/ + vowel /r/ (rare)
*Compare with: Theres the book.
to
/t/ + consonant
/tu:/
/tu/ + vowel
us
/s, s/
/s/
was
/wz/
/woz/
we
/wi/
/wi:/
were
/w/ + consonant
/w:/
/wr/ + vowel
/w:r/
who
/hu, u:, u/*
/hu:/ * The weak
form with /h/ is used after a pause
will
/l/
/wil/
would
/wd, d, d/
/wud/
you
/ju/
/ju:/
your1
/j/
/jo:r/

NOTES:
1. Some other function words e.g. my, or, nor, your (see 1 above) can take
the weak form in very rapid (colloquial) speech (Whats your name? My
sister, etc.); also: I, by, so (as in Go by bus; ever so many), but it seems their
use is limited to a few phrases.
2. Verbs such as am, are, be, can, could, do, does, had, has, have, is, must,
shall, was, were, will, would keep their strong form when placed at the end
of a sentence, e.g. Whos lying? You are. Whos got it? I have.
3. Likewise, prepositions such as at, for, from, to are prominent in final
position (though unaccented), e.g. Where has he gone to? /tu:/, also /tu/, but
not /t/, or What are you looking at? /t/.
4. The same rule as above is valid when auxiliaries and prepositions occur in
final position within a rhythmic group, e.g. He looked at /t/, and solved the
81

puzzle.
Upon closer analysis, three degrees of reduction may be distinguished
in English: 1) reduction of the length of a vowel without changing its quality
(so, quantitative reduction), e.g. for [fo.], [fo], you [ju.], [ju], he [hi.], [hi], her
[h.], [h], your [jo.], [jo]; 2) reduction implying an alteration of the quality of
the respective vowel (hence, qualitative reduction), e.g. for [f], her [h], he
[hI], at [t], can [kn], was [wz], but [bt]; 3) the complete reduction
implies omission of a vowel or consonant (so, it is also called zero
reduction), e.g. am [m], from [frm], of [v], [f], can [kn], [k], do [d], is [s],
[z], us [s], must [ms], [mst], he [i.], [i], [I], him [im], his [iz], had [d], has
[z], [z], [s], have [v], [v], [f], and [n], will [l], shall [l], [l], would [d].
As a rule, when the strong form is used for a number of unstressed
form-words / function words, its use is syntactically (and rhythmically)
determined: 1) when a preposition is followed by a pronoun at the end of a
sentence: Hes looking at you ([t ju] or [t ju]); 2) when the word is used as
a substitute or an auxiliary standing for a whole grammatical phrase: I can
dance better than you can (=than you can dance) [kn]; Where do you
come from? [from]; It was aimed at (=they aimed at it) ['eimd t].
The same general rules and tendencies with regard to the use of the
weak and strong forms apply to the American variant of English. Mention
should be made of the fact that the r is pronounced by Americans at the end
of words, e.g. She put her hat on. They are worn-out. She has left for France.
On the whole, it will be reasonable to notice that the American tendency
towards favouring the weak forms is considerably reduced when compared
with the way the speakers of British English use. Sometimes, even strong
forms where there would normally be a weak form are possible (i.e. in
unstressed positions), e.g. a man [ei 'mn], the man [i: 'mn], with them
[wi em], etc.
As to the peculiar significance of weak forms in connected speech,
teachers and learners alike are aware of its contribution to increasing the
degree of naturalness and acceptability in the oral expression. Natives
themselves often place emphasis on this issue: It is important for learners of
English to use weak forms appropriately. Otherwise, listeners may think they
are emphasizing a word where this is not really so. Equally, native speakers
should not be misled into supposing that careful or declamatory speech
demands strong forms throughout. One exception is in singing, where strong
forms are often used. Even here, though, articles are generally weak.
(Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, p. 777).
D. SYLLABIFICATION / SILLABICATION
As said before, the stream of speech gives the hearer an impression of
82

absolute continuity / fluency, within a number of changing patterns. Native

speakers can distinguish small(er) units owing to their linguistic competence /
intuition, which includes possibilities and (abstract) models for
distinguishing the various utterances, by comparing them (in a process which
is practically instantaneous).
The syllable can be considered as being a speech-timing unit. Writing
itself was, at its beginnings, syllabic (i.e. the syllabic writing of the old
civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, pre-Columbian America).
A. In phonetic terms (articulatory, acoustic, auditory), the syllable can
be defined in various ways:
a) (from an articulatory standpoint), the syllable is definable as
resulting from the chest pulses of human speech: it will have an onset, a
nucleus and a coda; the peak of audition is represented by the vowels (as well
as some consonants see below). Yet, syllable boundaries are difficult to
locate in purely physiological terms.
b) (acoustically): syllables are marked by increases in intensity and / or
frequency, as the peaks are the nuclei;
c) (auditorily): the syllable is defined in keeping with the prominence
of certain sounds in the flow of speech; it depends upon various factors,
among which: vibration of vocal cords (i.e. voice), duration (viz. the
quantity of air expelled from the lungs), resonance, etc.
The following hierarchy of prominence can thus be established:
I. Vowels: the most sonorous sounds (no obstruction of the air tract is
implied); the open vowels are, naturally, the most sonorous;
II. Liquids (/l/, /r/), on account of their voice (which is an essential
feature) and the fact that the obstruction of the air-passage is but minor.
III. Nasals (/m/, /n/, //), which have voice, as well as nasal
resonance;
IV. The other consonants (viz. the obstruents): fricatives, affricates,
plosives / occlusives / stops; the voiceless stops are the least sonorous.
The stream of speech is a continuum, marked by peaks and low points
(i.e. points of low sonority). A syllable includes such a peak (the nucleus),
delimited by two valleys of sonority / points of low sonority (viz. the onset
and the coda). The peak is usually a vowel, but also certain consonants can
function as nuclei, as in needle, roughen, softened, dragon, button. The task
of delimiting syllables becomes much more complicated when consonant
clusters occur at syllable boundaries, e.g. asked, grasped. Generally, sounds
are grouped around the most sonorous elements in the syllable.
Syllabification / syllabication / syllable division is quite a challenge in
English: take for instance the fact that an intervocalic consonant belongs to
two syllables.
The main types of syllables are:
83

I. Free (open) syllables, ending in a vowel i.e. they have no coda,

e.g. bo-dy.
II. Checked (closed) syllables, ending in a consonant, e.g. con-coct.
This latter type is by far the most common in contemporary English.
B. The Phonological Syllable:
It is defined as the minimal (lowest) combination of phonemes,
consisting of a nucleus / peak (viz. the central segment), an onset (viz. the
initial segment), and a coda (viz. the final segment). The last two elements
are not compulsory: compare pride, pry, eyed, eye (ONC, ON, NC, N,
respectively) 11.
The rules combining phonemes into syllables are specific to any given
language; these are rules of selection and of ordering / arrangement. The
ordering is a matter of establishing restrictions, mainly as to the formation of
consonant clusters (groups). Each language has its own rules and constraints,
e.g. */lst-/, */pf-/, */spw-/, */zdr-/ are not possible in English for the initial
position, although the last cluster may function as an onset in Romanian, e.g.
zdrahon.
An analysis of consonant clusters in initial, final and intervocalic
segments is of top importance when trying to define English syllabi(fi)cation
from a phonological (viz. functional) point of view. The facts resulting from
statistic observation led to tables as well as combinatory rules such as: the
possibility of combining p+l, p+r, p+j, etc., while there is not the same
possibility for p+p, p+t, p+k, p+f, p+m, p+n (as initial segments of two
consonants C1C2), or: (as one-consonant initial segments) */-/, */-/, viz.
there are no English words beginning with // and //; or (as initial segments
of three consonants CCC3): only /s/ can appear as c1, the second being one
of the three voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/, while c3 is always a liquid or a
semivowel except, partly, for /l/ and /w/, e.g. splash, sprite; */stw-/, */stl-/,
but: stray, student. There are no sequences like */skl-/, but: scratch, skewed,
square.
Final clusters were observed to be longer and richer in English than in
Romanian, e.g. asked, bumped, prompts, attempts, instincts, texts,
thousandths, twelfths, strengths, glimpsed, etc.
The intervocalic segment will be interpreted in keeping with the
following rules: a. when there are two consonants (VCCV), the first goes
with the preceding syllable, e.g. outdated, Henry, invited, etc. (even if the
cluster is syllabic: grasping, Kipling, for reasons of phonetic equilibrium); b.
for VCCCV sequences, syllabi(fi)cation is done in two ways: 1) VC/CCV, or
2) VCC/CV e.g. pilgrim, anxious /'k-s/; sometimes, both interpretations
can be used, e.g. rostrum. c. For VCCCCV sequences: VCC/CCV, e.g.
11

84

N stands for a nucleus, as O means an onset, etc.

explain, exclude, constraint, etc.

Morphological (and lexical) analysis will impose different
segmentations: cork/skrew, off/spring, etc.
d. For VCCCCCV sequences, the syllabi(fi)cation has the following
patterning: VCC/CCCV, as in gold-spray, bubble-spray, golf-strike, landstrip.
Such medial clusters are always situated at the boundaries of two different
morphemes.
E. SUPRASEGMENTALS
So far we have seen that one of the essentials in the study of
pronunciation is the articulatory (to which are added the acoustic, auditory
and phonematic) aspect of segmentals (consonants / contoids and vowels /
vocoids). But this is not enough. When a new language, like English for
example, is approached with the purpose of learning to speak it, one readily
notices a peculiar range of variation in the voice of native speakers. Mastery
of voice inflection, that is the complex rise and fall, the rhythm, etc. involves
knowledge of what is commonly called suprasegmental features (partly
because of the practice of writing them phonetically by means of marks made
above the symbols indicating segments) 12. No English utterance can be made
without carrying this other essential of speech, intonation, which comprises
stress, pitch and juncture, and may be said to go on a par with what may be
labelled prominence and accentuation. Although matters of intonation have
been largely reconsidered recently (see Downing, 1970, Pope, 1977, Lakoff,
1972, Bolinger, 1972, Stockwell, 1972, Brazil, 1986, Cruttenden, 1990), for
our methodologic purpose we will examine the most familiar analysis since it
is the most widely used in books that both students and teachers are likely to
consult.
I. Stress: The term stress itself is sometimes purposely avoided
because many books on phonetics or general linguistics have used it in rather
an ambiguous, or else highly differing, manner; sometimes it was meant to
signify loudness, sometimes prominence achieved by means different from
pitch, sometimes only with respect to the potential syllables have to take
accent; some other phoneticians (e.g. A. C. Gimson, A. Cruttenden, etc.)
used prominence in reference to syllables or other segments, sonority for
individual sounds, and accent for the possibility certain sounds have to be
emphasised / stand out (and so achieve opposition as to the rest of the sounds
12

See also David Crystals definition of suprasegmentals (A Dictionary of Linguistics

and Phonetics, p. 337): A term used in PHONETICS and PHONOLOGY to refer to a
vocal effect which extends over more than one SEGMENT in an UTTERANCE, such as
a PITCH, STRESS or JUNCTURE pattern. In its contrast with segmental, it is seen as
one of two main classes into which phonological UNITS can be divided.

85

in the respective utterance), in words considered in isolation or in longer

sequences.
Sometimes also called accent or emphasis, stress is a relative
prominence of syllables and has the force to distinguish meanings (so, it is
phonemic, or phonological). It operates on two levels: stress on syllables in a
word in isolation and stress for meaning on certain larger sentence units.
Word stress: Normally, in words consisting of more than one syllable,
some syllables are more stressed than others. The stressed syllables are
uttered with more force and higher pitch than others. English is commonly
said to have four degrees of word stress: 1) primary, the strongest stress used
in normal speech, indicated as /'/; 2) secondary, indicated as //; 3) tertiary,
indicated as //; 4) fourth or weakest stress (sometimes also called no stress),
indicated as //; in this presentation, in order not to complicate the
transcription, unstressed syllables will be left unmarked.
In a two-syllable word like function, the first syllable carries the
primary stress, as the second carries the weakest (or, alternatively, is left
unmarked). Since it can distinguish meanings, stress is said to be phonemic in
English (see above). It signals the acoustic difference between words that
would otherwise in certain cases be homonymous. Several stress
phonemes may be postulated. The contrast prm'it prmt shows that the
segmentals are identical and that the two words differ only in the position of
their primary and tertiary stresses: the former is a verb, while the latter is a
noun. Similarly, in absent, conduct, contest, frequent, increase, perfect,
pervert, produce, rebel, record, subject, etc.
Secondary primary stress sequences will usually indicate a modifier
modified relationship. For example, the word intellectual has a tertiary
primary stress sequence; but when it occurs in a phrase such as intellectual
activity, its primary stress is demoted to the modified element.
Similarly in: remarkable remarkable invention; academic
academic dispute; blooming blooming plant; tiresome tiresome job.
The same pattern is carried by intensifier + adjectival (adverbial)
structures, e.g. very tired, quite happily, too good, pretty bad, etc.
When a noun modifies a noun, primary stress is carried by the
modifier and secondary stress by the modified noun. Such nouns may be
spelled as two words, as one, or as a hyphenated word. Examples: bluebird;
dining room; sidewalk; mailman; car keys.
Despite certain regularities, there are no exact rules for placing stress
in all such combinations. For example, although the stress pattern is generally
confined to adjective + noun, as in a beautiful house, it also occurs in some
sequences with noun modifiers as in a winter job, the corner store, basement
apartment, earth satellite, round trip ticket, etc., and with adverbial modifiers,
86

such as the downstairs room.

Besides, such compound nouns as Rhode Island, St Paul, Los Angeles,
New York carry the // pattern. Further, there seems to be no structural
difference between boy friend and boy scientist, talking machine and flying
saucer, paperback and paper roll, etc. It seems unreasonable to call the first
member of each pair a compound noun and the second a modifier-plus-noun.
Another observation refers to phrases like great grandfather, spring
fever, grand jury, which carry modifier + noun stress but whose meanings are
obviously not the sum total of the elements making up these phrases. These
are, of course, compounds with secondary primary stress pattern. Despite
such limitations, learning the distinctions between such widely operative
stress patterns seems to be essential in the study of English as a foreign
language. See, for example, how the same segments may acquire different
meanings if the stress pattern is altered: English teacher; the funny bone; a
dancing girl; red skin / red-skin; white house / White House; a dark room / a
darkroom; a tender foot / a tenderfoot; to be in hot water, etc.
A verb + noun object construction carries the // stress pattern as in
he writes books, they are boiling eggs. As this stress pattern sometimes
contrasts with the noun + noun stress pattern //, ambiguity may arise when
it is not known which of the two structures is intended. For example, in the
well-known flying planes can be dangerous, the first two words can mean
either planes which are flying or someones action of flying planes;
similarly, in She doesnt like scratching animals (boiling potatoes, racing
horses, cooking apples).
There are many verb + particle combinations in English such as look
up, come back, stop over, etc., which carry the stress pattern / /. The
compound nouns derived from such combinations have the usual
pattern //. Compare: John was always cutting up. He was an inveterate
cutup; The plane took off at ten. The takeoff was at ten; We are going to stop
over in that city. The stopover wont last long.
The shifting stress occurs in other structures as well. For example, a
word like unknown, uttered in isolation has the primary stress on the largest
syllable. But when it occurs before a stressed syllable, this primary stress is
shifted towards the front of the word, as in The unknown thief is still
unknown. Similarly in: The soldiers were Chinese in the Chinese army; The
overnight guests didnt stay overnight.
Verb + preposition combinations carry the stress pattern / /. For
example, Look at these beautiful snapshots; Shes waiting for John; They
decided on leaving.
Sometimes, prepositions take a primary stress when preceding an
objective form of a personal pronoun, e.g. They walked with him; We walked
87

under it; She stood before him; They knew everything about you.
Particle + verb patterns ordinarily take a // stress pattern, as in Did
you oversleep this morning? No one can underestimate Romanian
hospitality; She overheard our conversation. The resulting nouns carry
the // stress pattern: They all knew she was an upstart; The upkeep of that
house will give you much trouble; The atmosphere was relaxed from the
outset.
RULES OF STRESSING FOR COMPOUNDS
(after Longmans Pronunciation Dictionary by J.C. Wells)
1. For compound sentences of a nominal nature, having the form N+ N or Adj. + N,
the rule is the early stress, e.g.
'bed time
'visitors book
'block buster
'music olessons
'Christmas card
'beauty ocontest
2. For two-word phrases, the late stress should be normally used:
next 'time
typed 'cards
several 'books
weekly 'lessons
3. When this order is changed, it is only for the sake of contrast (i.e. for emphasis),
e.g.
Not a school 'boy, -a school 'girl!
Not music 'lessons, -just time to 'practice!
Not 'weekly lessons, -'monthly ones!
(The stress patterns used by pronunciation dictionaries like the LPD apply for
those compounds having NO special emphasis i.e. implying NO CONTRASTIVE
FORMS!).
4. Sometimes a compound has a different meaning from the corresponding phrase:
a 'darkroom (a room for developing photographs)
a dark 'room (a room which is dark because there is little light in it)
a 'yellow ohammer (a kind of bird)
a yellow 'hammer (a hammer coloured yellow)
a 'moving van (a van used to carry furniture when one moves house)
a moving 'van (a van that is in motion).
5. Some expressions, which are grammatically compounds, are nevertheless
pronounced with late stress (as if they were phrases). There is no firm rule as to that;
that is why many compounds and phrases are listed separately in LPD, for instance
with their stress patterns).

VOWEL REDUCTION
When stress is reduced to weak stress, a change in the vowel quality
occurs. Unstressed vowels tend to become // (schwa). The occurrence of this
sound is extremely frequent in speech. The weakly stressed forms are known
88

under the name of weak forms (see above).

Besides such forms as She can do it; They should have done it, there
are other instances of stress alternations, which bring about vowel reduction
in English, e.g. able ability; application apply; proposition propose;
botany botanical.
SENTENCE STRESS TABLE
(After Roger Kingdon)
Normally stressed

Normally unstressed
NOUNS

Nearly all nouns

Nouns of wide denotation

(e.g. at 'my place)
PRONOUNS

Demonstrative
Emphatic
Possessive

Personal
Reflexive
Reciprocal
DETERMINATIVES

Quantitatives
Numericals
Ordinals
Demonstratives

Articles
Possessive Adjectives

QUALIFICATIVES
Adjectives Proper
Active Participials
Passive Participials
VERBS AND VERBALS
Principal Verbs and
Anomalous Finites, affirmative
Verbals, except those of be and
form, in statements. (In questions
have
the affirmative form may be stressed
or unstressed at will)
Anomalous Finites, negative
form, whether in questions
or statements
ADVERBS
All Adverbs except relatives
Relative Adverbs (see Connectives)
Prepositions used as Adverbs
PREPOSITIONS
Longer Prepositions
Monosyllabic Prepositions
CONNECTIVES (INCLUDING RELATIVES)
Two-word Conjunctives
One-word Conjunctives
Relatives
INTERROGATIVES

89

All interrogative words,

whether Pronouns, Determinatives or Adverbs
INTERJECTIONS AND EXCLAMATIONS
Interjections standing alone
Interjections followed by
emphasizing words

II. PITCH AND INTONATION

Pitch is a term used in linguistics (viz. in Phonetics and Phonology) in
reference to the frequency displayed by the vocal cords / folds vibrations, as
perceived on a height scale going from low to high just like gamuts in
music: the higher the frequency / rapidity of vibration, the higher the pitch.
Pitch is mainly an auditory phonetic feature, co-referent with
frequency in acoustic phonetics; yet, there is no direct correspondence
between them. Pitch variations are specifically measured in mels, which are
meant to establish the sounds auditory sensations of high and low,
whereas frequency is interpreted in terms of complete cycles of vibration of
the vocal cords / folds, and measured in hertz (Hz): 440 complete cycles per
second (=cps) are equivalent to 440 Hz. A pitch meter is used to
automatically determine the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords. The
average pitch levels with men and women are 120 Hz and 220 Hz,
respectively.
As far as the function of the pitch level is concerned, distinction is
made between tone languages (in which for identical syllables with various
pitch levels / patterns, different words with totally distinct semantic content
are formed), such as Mandarin Chinese, and non-tone languages (most of the
European languages, among which English can be included, the only rather
controversial exceptions being Swedish and Serbo-Croatian), in which the
pitch patterns or tones do not affect the meaning / semantic content of words
except for longer sequences of basic words, which may become subject to
pitch variation (function of the emotional attitude or states).
The changes in the pitch level (sometimes also called tones) are
distinguished and often described in terms of fall: characterized as a high-tolow variation, rise: a variation / change in pitch from low to high, or levels:
the degree of pitch height of a syllable or an utterance, etc. Thus, we can
have: the high level [ ], the low level [-], the average pitch level, etc. These
changes / shifts are different from one speaking subject to another. Intonation
is actually the product of such pitch level changes and patternings. Variations
of pitch can easily be perceived with voiced sounds, especially vowels, which
have a more regular wave-form, or with falling or rising voiceless sounds,
90

even in whispered speech.

In English, the change in pitch does not influence the shape of words; a
word like No can be pronounced using several patterns of pitch, level, level
shift, or all of these combined, in order to render / convey nuances of
attitudinal or logical expression (e.g. doubt, certainty, matter-of-factness,
interrogation, sharp negation, etc), without changing the semantic contents of
the word itself. In languages such as Chinese (viz. the dialect which is
considered the official language of China), the contribution of the pitch
pattern to the shape of the word is decisive (namely, semantically relevant):
the word Ma means mother, horse, hemp, or scold, according to the specific
pitch level shifts applied to it; so, the function of those intonational patterns is
oppositional and distinctive, just like the stress being applied to increase to
define the noun spor / mrire / cretere, and the verb a crete, a spori,
respectively. In English pitch is not part of word shape but rather a part of
the shape of longer bits of speech. We can say single words like No with
rising pitch to make them interrogative -No? But this is not a property of the
word since we can also do the same thing with longer stretches, e.g. Youre
not going? (J. D. OConnor, op. cit., p. 18).
Intonation may be regarded as the variations in the pitch of the voice
used by a speaker. It seems rather difficult to formulate specific rules for the
rises and falls of pitch, for the melody of the English sentence, 13 because of
the apparently infinite possible changes in the pitch and voice quality of
different speakers. However, linguistic investigations have led to the
identification of some relevant facts which make it possible to provide
systematic description of four contrasted pitch levels. As their variations can
be considerd allophonic, the four levels are, therefore, phonemes. They are
sometimes given numbers: pitch level 1 is the lowest, pitch level 4 is the
highest. Normally, utterances are spoken at level 2 or mid. Level 3 is high
and is used for emphasis. Pitch level 4 is used in moments of tension and
excitement on syllables which have to be especially emphasized. In an
utterance like Give me the paper, the starting point is on level 2 (mid, or
natural). The level is maintained until the last primary stress is reached. There
the voice rises one level to level 3 (high) and drops to level 1 (the lowest).
This 231 pattern is the general pitch signal for English statements. For our
purposes, in the present analysis we indicate the four pitch levels by lines
drawn above and below the phonetic symbols or regular latters. A line just
under the syllable marks pitch 2; a line just above the syllable marks pitch 3;
a line high above the syllable marks pitch 4; a line well under the syllable
marks pitch 1. An example like What is he doing? can be said in a variety of
13

The term pitch contour is occasionally used instead of tone (especially when
variations in the height of the human voice affect several syllables).

91

ways, but the most common would be:

What is he doing?

where the vertical line shows that the pitch changes between syllables as in
doing. Sometimes a diagonal line will be used to show that the pitch changes
within a syllable as in at home; this is a book.
The levels of the pitches are not steady but rather there are variations
from syllable to syllable. In the study of intonation, however, only a few
pitch levels are important. For example, the change in voice intensity on the
last emphasized syllable is crucial in English. Conversely, at the beginning of
utterances pitch is optional and the simple presence of a primary stress (not
necessarily a pitch contour) is enough:
He is going to the movies. (231 rather than 2331)
A basic point to remember is that every idea group, as well as some
grammatical word-group units within an utterance, has its own intonation
pattern (or contour) consisting of two or more of the pitch levels and ending
with a terminal. To put it in the simplest way, there are three basic intonation
patterns in English: rising falling, rising, and sustained. In symbolizing
them the pitch levels can be indicated at three places: the beginning of the
unit, the beginning of the syllable carrying the primary stress, and the end of
the unit before the terminal.
The rising falling (231 ) is used to make a statement, e.g She leaves
on Saturday; in commands and requests, e.g Please tell me your name; Come
here; in questions which are not usually answerable by yes or no
(containing a WH- interrogative word, e.g. Whats the matter?); it can also be
used in tag questions which imply agreement.
The rising contour (23 ) is normally used at the end of questions
which have no interrogative word usually anticipating a yes or no
answer, e.g. She is your teacher? Is she your teacher? In short, In addition;
Marys ill, isnt she? (when ignoring the answer); or in utterances which include
a series of things of a choice between two things (the terminal rises on each
item with the exception of the last), e.g. They bought cakes, candy, and fruit.
The sustained level contour (232 ) is often used at the end of an
utterance which, after a slight pause, is followed by another one, closely
related to its meaning. The utterance usually starts at a mid level, goes up to
high on the stressed syllable in the phrase, and then drops to the mid-level,
which is sustained at the end of the utterance; they occur in statements to
indicate that the speaker still has something to say; the word but often
accompanies them, e.g. I knew where he was but I didnt tell them; or When he got
92

to the house she saw him. In this second sentence, both (231 ) and (23

)
contours can occur in the first group.
Additional remarks on intonation: *Repetition of previous pitch is used
for a quoter clause of the he said type in medial and final position, e.g. Are
you ready? he asked, or Shell leave, he said.
*The name of the person addressed often has different contours: Are
you reading, Mike? (233); Why are you talking, Mike? (12), etc.
*Pitch level 4: The highest of the four PLs is less frequently used in
normal speech. Speakers use this pitch to express such meanings as surprise,
indignation, insistence, panic, boredom, etc., e.g. (241 ) What are you doing?!
(= said in panic); (2431 ) What are you doing?! (= indignation), etc.

MAIN USES OF NUCLEAR / KINETIC / DYNAMIC TONES

(RISING, FALLING OR COMPOUND)
IN CONNECTION TO THE TYPES OF STATEMENTS
(After Roger Kingdon, The Groundwork of English Intonation)
Tone I High High Rise (tonul I nalt puternic urctor / suitor) [ ]
Main feature: expressing genuine / actual / real curiosity
*Used in the following sentence types:
-General Questions (Yes No questions), e.g. Do you often go there?
-questions asking for the repetition of the sentence, e.g. What did he say? (= I didnt
quite catch / hear what he said)
-interrogative repetitions, e.g. Is he coming tomorrow? (= I didnt hear very well:
Is he coming tomorrow?)
-apologies asking for repeating the sentence, e.g. I beg your pardon? (= Sorry?
So, you were saying? Did I catch it right?)
-exclamations with interrogative force, e.g. Well? (=Ei? Ce mai nou?)
What? (=Cum? Cum adic/)
Tone I Low Low Rise (tonul I jos uor / imperceptibil urctor / suitor) [/]
Main features: a) prelusory, or indicating continuation (i.e. when not followed by
full stop or a question mark, an exclamation mark, etc.)
*Used in the following types of sentences:
-detached, perfunctory, repetitive greetings, e.g. Good / morning! (=Neaa!)
-perfunctory, detached, hesitating orders / requests, e.g. Come / in! /Read it to me!
(=Well, if you insist, read it!)
-perfunctory, inattentive (affirmative or negative) statements, e.g. Yes, it is quite
ac/ceptable. (=Mda, la urma urmei merge)
-perfunctory, merely polite apologies (especially when repeated), e.g. /Sorry! /Sorry!
(=Pardon, pardon -in a train, on a railway platform, etc.)
-questions lacking genuine interest / curiosity (non-participative), e.g. Did you /enjoy
yourself? (=Ia spune, te-ai distrat bine?)
Did the matches cost / much? (=(i) au costat mult chibriturile?)

93

-unfinished statements, e.g. Hes coming to/ morrow (and well do it together).
(=Vine mine aa c o s terminm lucrarea mpreun.)
-afterthoughts (completri ulterioare, gnduri survenite dup exprimarea enunului
principal), e.g. Hes not a bad /boy come to / think of it. (=Nu e biat ru dac
stau s m gndesc)
-normal farewells (pronounced in such a way as to indicate the wish to continue the
relatioship), e.g. Good-/bye! So / long! Take /care!
Tone II Fall (tonul II cobortor) [\]
Main features: a) determination, resolution, commanding attitude (sometimes
expressed by using High Fall-Tone I High coborre puternic, or even Emphatic
High Fall Tone II Emphatic coborre subliniat / accentuat, marked by double
stress (\\): [\\];
b) certainty, precision, conviction, firmness
-simple / straightforward / non-implicatory statements, e.g. Ill be eigh'teen
(years'old) tomorrow.
-special / particular / wh-questions, e.g. When does the 'train 'arrive?
-insistent questions, e.g. At what hour did you 'actually re'turn 'home?
-peremptory commands / orders , 'Ring him 'up right now!
-normal greetings, e.g Good morning! Good afternoon! (seldom: Good day!
-words marking the end of the conversation (or even of the relation between the
interlocutors), e.g. That will do, young man! (=Mulumesc, tinere, e de ajuns!);
That will do, Johnson! (=Mulumesc, nu mai am nevoie de dumneata / poi s
pleci, Johnson!); \\Good \\day! (=i cu asta, basta!, Am terminat cu
dumneata!).
-apologies made out of obligation (=de nevoie / din obligaie / forat / n sil), e.g. I
beg your pardon!! (=V rog s m iertai! dei eu snt convins c aveam
dreptate).
-normal exclamations / ejaculations, e.g. Here is the train! Mother is 'coming!
Good!
Tone III Fall-Rise (tonul III cobortor-urctor) [
]
Main features: a) hesitancy, uncertainty
b) humility, submissiveness, malleability
c) other implications (reservation, hidden thoughts)
-hesitant statements, e.g. I think I could try to help you (some time next week).
Maybe (this could be a solution). I hope I can / manage (wi/ thout you).
-statements including unexpressed implications (viz. threat, doubt, fear, reservation,
etc.), e.g. There will be an inspection to // morrow. (=Mine o s avei inspecie
aa c bgai bine de seam / s vedem cum o scoatei la capt / i s-ar putea s avei
neplceri / i cine tie cum o s ieii.)
The 'widow seems to be very keen on / marrying him. (=Vduva ine mori s se
mrite cu el aa c m tem c bietul om n-are nici o scpare / aa c nu prea vd
cum o s ias din ncurctur.)
-statements with interrogative value, e.g. I hope you dont / mind. (=Sper c n-ai
nimic mpotriv. =N-ai nimic mpotriv, nu? / Nu te superi, nu?)

94

You wont keep me / waiting. (=Sper c n-ai s ntrzii mult / n-ai s m lai s
atept prea mult. Nu vii prea trziu, nu?
-requests, e.g. Please do me a favour! Would you mind 'opening that /door?
Do try to drink 'all this / milk!
-warnings (avertismente, preveniri, ndemnuri la atenie / grij), e.g. (Be)
careful!
Try not to 'break anything! Have a care! (=Bag bine de seam!)
-normal apologies(i.e. sincere, humble), e.g. Im really very / sorry! I deeply re/
gret it!
\\
Do try to for/ give me!
(In order to emphasize two elements in the sentence, Tone III Divided (=separat)
is used, e.g. Im sorry Im / late!).
Tone IV Rise-Fall (tonul IV urctor-cobortor) []
Main features: a) highly emotional viz. enthusiastic, cordial, excla,atory
b) mocking, quizzical expressing a mixture of irony and doubt or defiance
c) annoyed, irritated
-enthusiastic exclamations, e.g. (Its) wondeful! Splendid! Capital! Great!
Gorgeous! Tremendous!
-quizzical exclamations (exclamaii ironice, batjocoritoare, sfidtoare), e.g. You
dont say so! (=Nu mai spune! Aiurea! Ei, nu! Nu m-nnebuni! Pe dracu!)
What a ri'diculous idea! (=Halal vorb! Vai, ce prostie! n viaa mea n-am mai
auzit una ca asta!)
-cordial greetings, e.g. Good morning, my dear boys!(!) Look whom we have here!
(=Vai, ce bine c te vd / c te ntlnesc! Ia te uite, domle, ce surpriz plcut!)
-quizzical questions (ntrebri ironice / batjocoritoare / sfidtoare), e.g. Have you
read all these books? (=Ei, nu zu, chiar ai citit toate crile astea?)
Didnt you drink 'more than one 'glass, by any chance? (=Eti chiar aa sigur c nai but dect un pahar?)
-annoyed / irritated or mocking statements, e.g. The train is leaving and hes
drinking coffee. He simply never comes punctually! (=E pur i simplu incapabil
s fie vreodat punctual(!))
-impatient commands (iritate, enervate), e.g. Do it yourself! (=N-ai dect s te
descurci singur! De ce n-o faci chiar tu?!)
Leave me alone! (=Las-m n pace odat / pentru numele lui Dumnezeu!)
Tone V Rise-Fall-Rise (tonul V urctor-cobortor-urctor) []
Main features: a) enthusiasm, delight, joyfulness
b) cordiality, friendliness, geniality (amabilitate)
c) insinuation
-enthusiastic / happy / delighted statements, e.g. My 'sweetheart re'turns next
Monday!
To'morrows my birthday!
-cordial farewells (cuvinte cordiale de rmas bun / desprire) musch more
frequently used in American English, e.g. See you later! (=Pe curnd! Pa!);

95

Bye-bye! (=Pa i pusi! Pa-pa bieelul! when talking to children); Cheerio!

(=La revedere! Pa! La bun vedere!)
-friendly warnings (avertismente / preveniri / ndemnuri la atenie prieteneti), e.g.
'Try to be more cautious in 'future! 'Take 'care what you are about! (=Ai mare
grij / Bag bine de seam s nu greeti ceva / s nu faci vreo pozn!)
Please beware of the 'cars! (=Te rog s fii atent la maini / traversare / cum
traversezi strada!)
-insinuating statements, e.g. I 'saw you at the swimming-pool 'yesterday. (=Te-am
vzut ieri la trand i nseamn c ai chiulit de la coal / dar nu snt convins c
prinii ti tiau / i nu erai singur / dar tu spusesei c te duci la bibliotec etc.)
It 'wont be easy. (=N-o s fie prea uor dar o s ne descurcm noi i fr tine /
dar dac-mi dai un baci bun v fac lucrarea / dar m rog, dac nu vrei s m ajui,
n-am ncotro / dar s tii c o s te coste chestia asta etc.).
A SYNTHESIS OF THE SENTENCE TYPES
AND THE TONES EXPRESSING THEM
Sentence type

Tone

Example

A. STATEMENTS
-usually II -Fall He wants to come.
-simple / direct
II -Fall
John is your best friend.
-straightforward, with
II -Fall
Ill talk him into it.
no implications
-hesitating, uncertainty
III -Fall-Rise I think he could.
-affirmative sentences with
interrogative sense
III -Fall-Rise He is sure he did (?)
-with implications
III -Fall-Rise She might who knows?
-insinuating
V -Rise-Fall-Rise
-enthusiastic
V -Rise-Fall-Rise Its OK!
-delighted
V -Rise-Fall-Rise
-mocking
IV -Rise-Fall
Again?!?
-annoyed
IV -Rise-Fall
-detached / indifferent /
perfunctory
I -L-Low-Rise
Well never mind.
-incomplete / unfinished
I -L-Low-Rise
-afterthoughts (completion) I -L-Low-Rise
Shell do it in future.
-enumerations
Low Rises + Fall Add some salt, pepper, cumin.
B. QUESTIONS
1. General (Yes No questions) I H-High Rise
-asking for repetition
I H-High Rise
And Mary?
-interrogative repetitions I H-High Rise
-interrogative exclamations I H-High Rise
A whole month?
-affirmative sentences with
an interrogative meaning III -Fall-Rise
He came in a car?
-ironical, quizzical
IV -Rise-Fall
You know it?!?
-perfunctory / indifferent
I L-Low Rise

96

-disjunctive:
He finished it, didnt he?
a) asking for confirmation I L-Low Rise
b) which do not ask for confirmation II-Fall,
or low flat tone So, he isnt afraid of dogs, is he?
2. Special (WH-questions) II Fall
Where did he go?
-insistent
II Fall
-perfunctory / indifferent
I L Low Rise
C. APOLOGIES
-normally III Fall-Rise Beg your pardon?
-humble (at the low emotional level)
III Fall-Rise
-asking for repetition
I H High Rise Sorry?
-perfunctory / out of obligation
I L Low Rise Sorry Sorry Sorry
-forced / out of obligation II Fall
Im sorry
D. IMPERATIVE SENTENCES II Fall
-orders, peremptory commands II Fall
Stop it!
-orders to leave
II Fall
-insistent questions
II Fall
What did he say?
-threatening
II Fall (or IV Rise-Fall) When did you see her?
-irritable, annoyed
II Fall
-perfunctory
I L -Low Rise Be quiet!
-mild -cf. REQUESTS
I L -Low Rise
-warnings
III Fall-Rise
Have a care!
-friendly warnings
V Rise-Fall-Rise
E. REQUESTS
-usually III Fall-Rise
-insistent (at the low emotio- II -Fall, or
Please!
nal level)
IV Rise-Fall
-apologies asking for repetition I L -Low Rise
F. EXCLAMATIONS
-usually II Fall
-enthusiastic (at the upper emoHow nice!
tional level)
IV Rise-Fall
-mocking, quizzical
IV Rise-Fall
What a shame!
-with interrogative sense I High Rise
-warnings (separated, when III Fall-Rise
Look out!
two elements are emphasized)
-friendly warnings
V Rise-Fall_rise Heigh!
-threats (at the lower level -emphasized or emotional) II Fall
G. GREETINGS
-usually II Fall
Hi!
-cordial
IV Rise-Fall
Hello!
-perfunctory
I L Low Rise
H. LEAVETAKINGS -usually I L Low Rise Good-bye!
-American
V Rise-Fall-Rise
-cordial
V Rise-Fall-Rise
-orders to leave
II Fall
Go!

97

THE SYNTHESIS OF DYNAMIC AND STATIC TONES IN ENGLISH

(After Roger Kingdon, The Groundwork of English Intonation, Longman, 1960)
A. Nuclear / Dynamic / Kinetic Tones (=EXPRESSIVE)
No.
Sym Name Sign Main
Examples
bol
characteristics
(implications)
0
1
2
3
4
5
I
I- H (High) /
curiosity
Does it cost /much?
High
Rise
Is it a /Rembrandt?
Will you marry /soon?
I
I- L Low
continuation
Well, as a / matter of / fact
/
Low
Rise
preparation
As I was / saying; Good
carelessness
/bye!
Should you / forget
She / told me
I dont /care (a /damn).
It doesnt /affect me!
II
II
Fall
\
certainty
Theres no \ doubt about it!
determination
It has 'rained \ hard.
special/WhI will 'come at \ once.
questions
If you 'dont 'tell him, \I will.
greetings
'When will he ar\rive?
\Whos there? How \much is
it?
\Where can I find him?
Good \morning, sir1 Hel\lo!
Good \night, children!
\
II
II Empha \\
imperative/
Come 'this 'very \\minute!
High
H
-tic Fall
categorical
Look \\sharp!
\\
insistence
Never do that again!
But I \\do insist on it!
There \\must be a so'lution!
III
III
Fallhesitation
Well, Im \not so /sure, but

Rise
submissivenes/
Im (deeply) sorry about it
humility
I apologize most humbly.
IV
IV
Rise-
enthusiasm
Thats fantastic!
Fall
Congratulations!
indignation
Im simply delighted! How
can you (be so cruel)?
0
V

98

1
V

2
Rise
Fall

4
cordiality
strong feel-

5
Bye-bye, sweet child!
You're adorable, darling!

Rise

ings
I saw them together last
insinuation
night
B. Static / Flat / Non-Kinetic Tones (=NON-EXPRESSIVE):
High Level to attract attention, e.g. -Ladies and -gentlemen,
Low Level parenthetic, e.g. He 'is, for the _time_being, my \ guest.
with implications (in the subtext), e.g. 'Actually, _to_tell you the truth, I
\hate it. She 'is, in _fact, my \girlfriend.
Notes: 1) Tones II High, IV and V are not actually indispensable, but rather
characteristic of special circumstances / contexts (speeches, didactic purposes), or
special emotional aspects.
2) By and large, the differences as to the intonation of Romanian are rather matters of
INTENSITY / DEGREE, than of ESSENCE, as the logic of intonation is
approximately the same. It seems that Romanians use a narrower range of sound pitch
(approximately two thirds of an octave), whereas native speakers of English
especially the British variant, and the more so as they are educated use a much
broader range (approximately one and a half octaves). Consequently, in British
English both falls and rises are more abrupt, especially in the nuclear syllable. This is
particularly obvious with regard to Tone I High (High Rise), expressing (genuine)
curiosity: General Questions (the answer of which can be Yes or No) appear as a
continuous rise in fact, a series of unaccented / weak forms (auxiliaries, modals,
pronouns, etc.) up to the main verb -WITH NO FALL OR INTERRUPTION
whatever. The contour of General Questions in British English is roughly:
and
in Romanian. (cf. Virgiliu tefnescu-Drgneti, in BRECAP Bulletin
of the Romanian-English Contrastive Analysis Project, University of Bucharest, 1975,
and Andrei Bantas studies, in English and Contrastive Studies, T.U.B., Bucharest,
1978).

99

ANNEXES AND EXERCISES

MAIN DIFFERENCES OF PRONUNCIATION BETWEEN
AMERICAN ENGLISH (AmE) AND BRITISH ENGLISH (BrE)
British English is generally opposed to what can be termed the
Standard American Pronunciation although there are actually at least four
principal regional accents in the USA: the Atlantic region (the East viz.
New England), the Middle West (Midwestern pronunciation), the South
(Southern pronunciation), the Pacific coast. To these should be added
regional peculiarities of pronunciation e.g. Hillbilly (in the Appalachians),
Bronx, Brooklyn (immigrant districts in New York), etc.
A) THE VOWEL SYSTEM: A characteristic feature of the
pronunciation of most American speakers (this is not true of Canadians or
Australians though) seems to be nasalisation of a number of vowels and
diphthongs although there are no nasal vowels in Standard (British)
English.
The main peculiarities of vowel pronunciation in America are:
a) the length and quality of BrE vowels 1 and 2 (viz. /i:/ and /i/) are rather
unclear;
b) BrE vowel no. 5 /:/ is replaced by no. 4 // and, more often than not, it
is also lengthened /:/, as in /:nd/; sometimes, it is diphthongised as in
/end/;
c) if BrE vowel no. 5 /:/ is often replaced by no. 4 //, /:/ is in its turn the
equivalent of vowel no. 6 /o/. When /:/ is followed by r /r/, this one will be
pronounced, as in car /k:r/, far /f:r/;
d) vowel no. 6 /o/ is turned into a sort of //, although in the Southern dialect
it is lengthened / drawled (Rom. trgnat) becoming BrE vowel no.
5 /:/;
e) vowel no. 7 /o:/ often turns into the diphthong /o/, highly characteristic of
a number of variants of modern British -and all the more of American
pronunciation;
f) vowel no. 10 // is sometimes turned into a nasal variety of BrE vowel no.
6 /o/, thus becoming /o/, as in love /lov/, while in front of r -as in
current /'krnt/ it is turned into vowel no. 11 /:/, e.g. current /'k:rnt/,
worry /'w:ri/;
g) vowel no. 11 /:/ is closer and more guttural. In the Brooklyn dialect (used
by more recent immigrants) this vowel shifts to /oi/ as in the humorous
sentence There were thirty purple birds chirping on a kerb, pronounced
roughly as /rwr 'toiti 'poipl boidz 'toipi :n 'koib#;
h) the diphthong no. 13 /ei/ has the initial vowel more tense and longer with
a general effect of drawling (trgnare) sometimes combined with
100

nasalisation e.g. yeah /je i/;

i) the diphthong no. 14 /u/ (AmE /ou/) is nasalised; moreover, it sometimes
begins with a sort of /j/ or can be preceded by a sort of /e/ as in the
triphthong /eou/ of the cockney dialect (see George Bernand Shaws
character Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion: know /neu/);
j) in much the same way, the diphthong 16 /au/ is close to the /eau/ diphthong
specific to cockney e.g. now /neau/;
k) the diphthong 17 / oi/ frequently has a longer vowel as its first element, or
this can be turned into /a:/; sometimes, it is preceded by the semivowel /w/
thus resulting in an overall pronunciation /wai/ as in boy /bwei/ or /bwoi/'
l) the diphthong no. 19 // often shifts to /e/ as in the adjectives and
adverbs such as necessary /'nesi'seri/ or temporarily /'temp'rerili/.
B) GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN
PRONUNCIATION OF CONSONANT SOUNDS:
a) Smoothing or levelling of many consonants especially plosives
(stops) which are produced with air explosion resulting in a reduced or
even cancelled implosion e.g. sentimental /seni'menl/, representative
/repri'zendiv/, auditorium /:r'ro:rim/, repetitive /ri'pedidiv/, etc.
b) The joining together (coalescent assimilation) of final consonants,
especially /t/ before /j/ or /u/, e.g. Dont you want to go? /deunt 'want
geu /?/, Wheres your chance? /'wju 'tens /?/.
c) The main peculiarities as far as the pronunciation of consonants is
concerned seem to be: the plosives (stops) no. 22 /p/, no. 24 /t/ and no. 26
/k/ undergo a reduction of the air explosion, while /t/ is often reduced to its
voiced counterpart 25 /d/, and occasionally even eliminated (cf. a) above).
d) The post-alveolar consonants 24 /t/ and 25 /d/ shift into the affricates
/t/ and /d/, respectively, especially before those words beginning with /ju/ or
/u/ (cf. b) above).
e) Consonant no. 33 /l/ is turned, in most cases, from a clear l (a
lateral sound, a liquid consonant), into a sort of //, or dark l (a velar sound),
which occurs only in final position in BrE, mainly following another
consonant; so that words like literally and lovingly are pronounced /itri/
and /'ovii/;
f) Consonant no. 36 // is often pronounced carelessly, as /t/ e.g.
thirty /'t:rti/ especially in Brooklyn and other sections of New York (see
note 17 above).
g) Consonant 42 /r/ is by no means a non-affricate liquid, or a
frictionless continuant, as it is in BrE, but a rolled fricative, sometimes
pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled upwards (=retroflexion so, this
is a retroflex R, marked as / /). It occurs after long vowels (where it would
be omitted In BrE e.g. court -AmE /ko:rt/ instead of BrE / ko:t/, although,
101

on the other hand, intrusive r (that /r/ sound which cannot be justified by
spelling, and is used only in order to separate the vowels in a sequence) is not
as frequent in America as it is in Britain e.g. papa and mama /p'p:rn
m'm:/.
C) SUPRASEGMENTAL PHONETICS: Stressing, Accentuation,
Rhythm and Intonation
The main differences between the two varieties of English lie in:
a) Four-, or five-syllable words sometimes even three-syllable words
get two main accents in AmE, which are often absolutely equal (unlike the
oppostion between main and secondary stresses which operates in BrE);
when this happens in shorter words, there is a drawling effect (very obvious
in the Southern dialect -for instance, that of Texas), which is quite the
contrary of the preconceived idea of the Europeans about the Americans
speaking quickly.
b) For this reason, as well as the overall flattening of the intonational
contour of everyday speech (as different from oratory, lecturing, etc.) the
falling tone (II-fall) has more often than not a modified contour, with more
accidental rises (=ridicri ntmpltoare) than necessary.
c) Tone V (Rise-Fall-Rise), more affective, is by far more frequent in
AmE especially in farewell phrases, which are even termed cordial or
American farewell -e.g. See you later! or even Hi! (unlike BrE,
where a low rise tone I-L or a fall-rise tone IV would be used).

SOME ASPECTS OF ENGLISH-ROMANIAN CONTRASTIVE

PHONETIC STUDIES
The field of English-Romanian contrastive studies, represented by a
number of major works published in Romania, materialises the importance of
such observations mainly from the point of view of practice as well as the
way those remarks included interrelate with the experience gathered by
teachers of English at various levels.
The representative character and usefulness of such works, both
theoretical and normative as well as methodological, is actually confronted
with, and ultimately validated by, didactic activity itself; the theoretical
generalisations made will serve as valuable guidelines for the teachers, as the
illustrative material will represent food for further thought over possible
better systematisation.
In view of the fact that in Romania most teachers (still) prefer by
way of tradition using the British variant of English, the bulk of the studies
102

in the field were oriented towards that variant. The choice is motivated from
a utilitarian more specifically, didactic point of view, as a fixed,
universally accepted standard may thus be established; which does not imply
that the American accent / variant is disregarded. Attempts at diversifying the
reference point, in teaching as well as the contrastive relation, to the benefit
of the American variant of English can be accounted for through the fact that
American lecturers teaching EFL visited the majority of the higher education
institutions in this country. Therefore, interesting sidelights in point of both
segmental and suprasegmental phonetics and phonology were provided, of
interest not only for educators, but also for experts in contrastive analysis.
A Romanian-English contrastive analysis project (RECAP) involving
several higher education, as well as other specialised institutions in Romania
and in the US was started in the 70s. The results of the research carried out
by those groups were synthesised in the volume on The Sounds of English
and Romanian whose editors were professors Dumitru Chioran, James E.
Augerot and Hortensia Prlog a valuable contribution to the study of
linguistic contrast oriented along modern lines, while attaching due
importance to the (traditional) phonetic and phonological levels of
contrastive analysis and making the best of the contributors experience in
teaching EFL in Romania.
In addition to such fundamental works, there has been a fairly long
tradition of predominantly normative works in phonetics and phonology,
constituting a body of methods, guides, manuals that put to use accurate,
competent observations made by Romanian teachers of English. It has been
proved that there are times when contrastive studies, mainly when the targetlanguage is analysed under the angle of the objective, unimpaired linguistic
competence of a foreign researcher, may result in fertile departures for future
studies and considerations.
Such teaching-oriented analyses, having a primarily practical character,
are, in spite of the general opinion assessing the greater importance of
suprasegmental matters, illustrative of such traditional preoccupations
relating to the acquisition of segmental elements, largely due to the inherent
difficulty of a number of English phonemes, as well as the imperfect
correspondence between sounds and the written word, a thing of terror for
most Romanian learners of English.
Among the difficulties related to the acquisition of a foreign language,
those resulting from the interferences at work at various levels between any
two languages in contact are certainly the most important. Contrastive
analysis aims to find common elements going as far as postulating items
meant to construe linguistic universals and no less marking out a body of
instances, which could be used for teaching purposes, in which the
characteristic features of the two languages stand out as hindrances to
103

correctly acquiring the respective foreign language.

In the most representative works dealing with English phonetics that
were published in Romania viz. those having as authors Professors D.
Chioran, V. tefnescu-Drgneti, M. Bogdan, H. Prlog, L. Petri, the
segmental phonetic elements are analysed at length; each item of the
inventories established is given due consideration, being minutely described
both from the articulatory and the acoustic point of view, so as to sum up an
appropriate theoretical-normative image to be compared with the elements
existing in the learners own language. The way in which the distinctive
features making up the phonemes under consideration are actualised account
for the altogether different image of the corresponding sound in each
language. This is a matter of great concern for everyone learning or teaching
the target-language (English, in our case), yet not deprived of interest as far
as the English loans are concerned, since they enter the common vocabulary
bearing mark of the phonetic habits of the speakers mother tongue; those
differences in pronunciation can amount to totally new words i.e.
sounding completely unrecognisable to the ear of the native speaker of the
source-language (e.g. camping, meci, miting, geamblac, iaht, surfing, etc.).
In analysing English vowels, contrastive studies present as major
difficulties for Romanians besides the acoustic features resulting from
different formants length and tenseness, which are non-distinctive in
Romanian. It is a fact, though, that a correct description of the position of
the tongue in producing vowels is extremely difficult (SER, p. 26).
The description made, as well as the data extracted from practical
experience, indicated the phenomenon of negative interference to be
responsible for the erroneous perception or reproduction of vowels; yet,
personal experiences may lead to the rather odd observation that there are
English vowels (viz. //) that are perfectly uttered, after practising with
minimal pairs and decomposing the sound in order to acquire the essentials of
its articulation, while other neighbouring phonemes will be incorrectly
produced because they are approximated as one single (very familiar)
Romanian phoneme (e.g. Eng. /u/ and /u:/ approximated as Rom. /u/). Unlike
that, the members of the /i/:/i:/ pair are hardly discriminated by beginners:
Eng. vowel 2 (/i/) is almost universally mispronounced, being mistaken for
either Eng. /i:/ or Eng. /e/ or else, approximated by Rom. /i/. Incidentally, in
much the same way, we have noticed that young native speakers of English
have no insurmountable difficulties in reproducing Rom. //; moreover, there
are a number of phonemic items that do not exist in Romanian and still are
perfectly pronounced by the overwhelming majority of the Romanianspeaking population; such a case is the semivowel + vowel sequence /we/
which is under constraint in such anomalous grammatical forms as: ou, s
plou, yet is fully accessible to any Romanian, like /wi/ in fact; we believe
104

that every Romanian can properly utter such words as western, window.
As phoneticians agree on the point that the vowel-system of English is
trapezium-shaped, i.e. less fronted than the triangle-shaped Romanian vowelchart, the practice involving the /i:/:/i/ pair, which is the most likely to cause
mistakes, must be done accordingly. Yet, it was pointed out and confirmed
by didactic experience that erroneous perceptions (or else, prejudices)
may arise out of such remarks: thus, an empirical conviction exists that
Eng. /e/ is more open than Rom. /e/, materialised in some students confusing
the former with Eng. vowel no. 4 //, e.g. /pen/ for /pn/. The Romanian
perception of Eng. vowel no. 2 /i/ bears the mark of an almost general
confusion between /e/ and /i/, while in fact Rom. /e/ in tren being as retracted
as Eng. /i/ in pin. The flatness of Eng. /i/ is wrongly perceived as extra
openness so that for most Romanians ears /pin/ will have the sound of
/pen/. What makes that sound be misrepresented by Romanian learners /
beginners is the prejudice that it is a sort of /e/.
Generalising, it was demonstrated that the most important source of
errors in acquiring English vowels is the relatively narrow space in which
their articulation is jammed. All the methods used in order to acquire them
correctly take as a starting point the necessity for the student to become
aware of these (imperceptible, by Romanian standards) differences,
subsequently developing the ability to refine their actualisation; this is
generally done by minimal pairs. Minimal pairs in sentences likely to occur
in actual communication (v. D. Chioran, H. Prlog) are, as proved by
experience in teaching, an indispensable tool in acquiring such tricky pairs as
/i:/ : /i/, or /u:/ : /u/, in which a simplified version actualisation is to be met
with e.g. boon pronounced like Rom. bun. It was shown that the existence
of a high central phoneme // in Romanian does not pose obstacles to the
correct acquisition of English central vowels by Romanian students; likewise,
the fact that Romanian has no corresponding sound for Eng. vowel no. 10 //
in hut raises no major problems (despite the fact that its dialectal and
individual variants are numerous in English) as long as learners are aware
that the Romanian starting-point in producing it (/a/ as in ran) is more open
and tense. The common mistake is reproducing its shortness through almost
complete laxness, the vowel sounding, mainly when opposed to Eng. vowel
no. 5 // in such pairs as hut : heart, like a sigh. With respect to the
perception of the back vowel //, difficulties arise from the fact that the
central position of Rom. /a/ (which is, moreover, the Romanian vowel in
point of sonority) makes the Romanians way of uttering the /:/ sound
somewhat fronter (e.g. /a:nt/ instead of /:nt/); to which is added the
influence of the American way of rendering the English vowel /:/ as //, e.g.
pass /ps/, bath /b/.
The same foreign tinge can be noticed with the Romanians way of
105

rendering the central vowels // and /:/, e.g. in an : earn, although the unique
corresponding phoneme in Romanian, i.e. //, holds quite a representative
position. The slight differences existing between the two vowels are typically
reduced by Romanians to that of length. Moreover, in an attempt to keep its
length as well as tenseness, they sometimes add unwelcome rounding (a
rather puzzling fact, since the typically British variant is uttered with lipspreading). Another possible explanation would be that such rounded
utterance e.g. /s r/ is due to an exaggerated perception of the American
way of articulation in such sequences containing the retroflex r as sir, fur.
On the other hand, // is in most cases pronounced like Rom. //, irrespective
of its positional variants which are definitely characteristic and even
dissimilar (e.g. above, never, comfort, it was Tom). In vowel + r sequences,
the American influence is again obvious, pronunciations of the teacher type
being contrasted to the /a/ realisation of Eng. vowel no. 12 in villa,
veranda(h); in much the same way, there are major problems with the
schwa in unaccented positions (especially in the so-called weak forms
mainly form-words appearing in connected speech), whose erroneous
pronunciation is also a result of the Romanian way of rendering the native
word and sentence-stress in English utterances, e.g. /'it 'wz 'boi/.
Experience demonstrates that, among the back vowels, efforts are
mainly required to get a correct sense of the minimal pair /u/ : /u:/ (as in full :
fool) illustrated by rather few occurrences in actual speech. While /u:/ is
given a closer and backer articulatory place, /u/, by far the more difficult of
the pair, is drawn closer to Rom. /u/ in bun. The best practice experience as
well as theoretical approaches are directed towards the learners becoming
aware of the raising of the tongue (which is inferior for Eng. /u/ to that of
Rom. /u/), as well as the part of it that is raised. In fact, this open sound is
rather close to Rom /o/ which is reflected in its perception by beginners as
such, e.g. /bok/ for book; thus, the need is felt to practise in pairs opposing
Eng. vowel no. 6 /o/ to Eng. vowel no. 8 /u/, as in god : good).
As in the case of the /n/ : /:n/ pair, the /pot/ : /po:t/ pair proved easy
to acquire, mainly when the American pronunciation was chosen as a peg in
o+r sequences (e.g. port), while /o/ was perceived, precisely on account of
the influence of the American type of pronunciation (e.g. /h:t/ for hot), as
Rom. /a/ which can be additionally demonstrated if we consider such recent
loan words as bax for box.
Lip-protruding is generally felt as the main cause for mispronouncing
the rounded back vowels: Romanians not only users of a regional accentwill begin with a /w/-type sound (e.g. /won/ for /on/, cf. the mispronunciation
of Tom as /toam/). Tenseness is usually replaced by such gliding sounds, as in
all, ooze, pronounced approximately as /wo:l/, /wu:z/. It is a general fact that
vowel length and tensenness are rendered by beginners through
106

diphthongation.
Diphthongs do not really pose problems to Romanian learners as far as
vocalic nuclei are concerned; problems only arise with respect to the relative
quantity of the two elements as Romanians pronounce the second vocalic
element as a full vowel (the Romanian diphthongs /ai/, /ei/ can occasionally
have the final /i/ prolonged in folk songs, for instance). Moreover, there is a
tendency towards pronouncing them with a hiatus, e.g. /'da-un/, /'ple-it/
thence, Romanian learners will have difficulties in perceiving and / or
decoding such words as down, there, especially when pronounced in the
(Southern) British way, and the more so for three-vowel sequences, e.g.
flower, fire, etc.
Tenseness (force of articulation), as opposed to laxity, represents a
major difficulty in the realisation of English consonants by Romanian
students / learners. They will mistake word final lax consonants for their
tense counterparts (e.g. /led/ and /let/, /ten/ and /den/), as they generally fail
to sense the relevance of aspiration in English (in the case of word final /
initial consonants), which parallels the voiced : voiceless opposition. Practice
is directed towards perceiving / rendering the aspiration present with the
plosive consonants i.e. being aware of the differences in pronunciation
between words like Rom. pot and Eng. pot.
The majority of the consonants (save for such specifically English
items as: velar //, flapped /r, glottal //, the interdentals, // and //) are
generally thought of, and rendered as being quite close to their Romanian
counterparts. The problems they pose are in relation with the place of
articulation (Romanian consonants have a comparatively fronted
articulation). The foreign tinge may easily be noticed in the beginners
pronunciation of /s/ : /z/, /t/ : /d/, and /h/ which are realised by Romanians
as dentals, respectively, a velar. While // is almost universally perceived in
consonant clusters as /u/, e.g. in table, experience shows that Eng. /r/,
actually a new sound for Romanian students / learners, is the first such
specific consonant to be acceptably reproduced as it is perhaps the most
striking characteristic of the consonant system of English; as is the
interdental // (incidentally, they have almost the same frequency, as shown
by statistics, i.e. 3.5). Among the various ways beginners use to approximate
the pronunciation of the two interdental phonemes, some are to be found with
English speakers, as well (viz. the cockney replacing of // : // by /f/ : /v/,
and the regional American pronunciation of the interdentals as alveolars
e.g. /dt/, /ti/; which seems to be encouraged into becoming a strong
prejudice with beginners through the large amount of American audio and
video productions available in recent years. For the consonants which do
exist in Romanian, too, the correct pronunciation needs careful
discrimination and reproducing practice especially /t/ and /d/ in final
107

position, as in Dutch, garage, where Romanians have the tendency to add a

sort of whispered i (cf. Rom. meci). Consonant clusters like those formed by
the adding of the past tense / participle or -s endings (e.g. /gz/, /gd/, /dz/, /bd)
are difficult, as similar clusters are scarcely to be found in Romanian, so that
most speakers will find it hard to pronounce a word like grajd without adding
a short i. So are the clusters containing the sonorants (/l/ and the nasals); their
difficulty is extreme for Romanian learners, as their syllabic quality (e.g.
rattle, bacon) will generate the tendency to add a vowel, leading to
pronunciations such as /'rtl/ or /'rtl/, /'rtl/ for rattle.
Contrasting syllabic structure has profound implications on the
learners ability to perceive and achieve the rhythmic patterns of English. The
vowel-oriented structure of the syllable in Romanian is permanently
challenged by the English consonant clusters having sonorants as peaks of
syllables as said before; the rather deterring fricative / alveolar + interdental
combinations (e.g. fifths, clothes, sixths), as well as the fairly frequent threeconsonant cluster endings in /t/, /d/, representing the -ed ending (e.g. in
asked), are only a few such examples.
Word-stress may be s pit-fall for Romanian learners of English as
they fail to recognise different words in minimal pairs like: (the) White
House : (a) white house, torment : to torment, etc., mainly because they tend
to grow far too accustomed to the written form of the message. As a matter of
fact, there are a number of English loans in Romanian bearing witness to an
erroneous fronted accent (e.g. weekend), a developing prejudice with
Romanians about a would-be fronted stress with all English words (see also
such mispronounced words as hello, afternoon).
The various degrees of stress (especially secondary accentuation) were
demonstrated to be a touchstone for Romanian learners, but not a source of
interference, the musical sound of English accentuation being something new,
and therefore attractive. Being a matter of rhythm, but no less of pitch, the
force of accentuation in English accounts for the wider range used by an
Englishmans voice (e.g. comfortable : confortabil). It goes the same for
sentence stress. The methodological recommendations as well as the typical
mistakes converge towards demonstrating that English is a stress-timed
language, as it is an almost flectionless language (SED). The question of
the rhythmic group and the so-called weak forms represent a constant
direction for the teachers efforts at every level, the errors arising from the
fundamental difference between a language that organises its sound-matter
into syllables and another one, which transmits information through rhythmic
patterns, the result of the interference being felt in mistaken pronunciations
like: We have / made / no decision. He went with 'him, etc. In much the
reverse way, Romanian learners will encounter difficulties in decoding
rhythmical groups as used in rapidly uttered sentences (e.g. I should have
108

thought so). Connected speech and the phenomena of reduction / obscuration,

typical of English, are among the foremost challenges for a Romanian in
using English, as failure to render the typical flow of the native speakers
utterances is in fact the greatest difficulty in achieving natural pronunciation.
It is a generally accepted truth that, more than segmental phonetics
which concentrates in a normative as well as contrastive manner upon
difficulties and common errors that can be singled out quite easily from a
more or less restricted body of occurrences, intonation among and above
other suprasegmental domains concentrates by far the highest amount of
exacting, intricate data. Despite disagreement in point of description and
methodology, all linguists and teachers pay due attention to this particular
field, especially when a contrastive view is taken, understanding that
engagement with intonation is not merely a cosmetic exercise (Brazil apud
Petri).
The late Professor Banta (ECS) insisted upon the necessity to give up
prejudices in this field, as well (both for learning and teaching purposes)
-e.g. the enormous differences between Romanian and English intonation
(having it seems the same root as the obsession with the much more rapid
pronunciation of English). The relation between speed and intonation is
dependent upon the grammatical and lexical structures of the two languages,
the way the message is grouped into sense units, the corollary being that
between English intonation and Romanian intonation there are no essential
differences, but rather differences of degree. While demonstrating that the
degree of relevance of English words bearing sentence stress is in keeping
with their semantic and syntactic role (as it actually happens in Romanian,
either), the author opposes the types of intonation specific to the two
languages (it is a fact that Romanians are frightened at English and
American intonation) while pointing out that reduced vowels, weak forms
and especially contracted forms exist in Romanian as well and that
intonation () follows approximately the same lines as in Romanian
because they reflect the same patterns of thought.
As the types of utterances reflect the same patterns of thought in the
two languages, it is only natural to survey, mark out and use in teaching those
contours with which the differences are the most obvious beyond more or
less impressionistic remarks that are used as cues in teaching (viz. greater
consumption of breath force, leading to the arched movement of the voice
in English.) Thus, among the kinetic tones, the most frequent mistakes are
made because the uninterruptedness of the high rise tone in interrogations is
impaired by the Romanian drop towards the end of the sentence. Similarly,
the correct perception of the type of intonation (see the upper and lower
emotional ranges), as against the general impression that Romanians are
under that English is spoken somewhat emphatically. One of the most
109

important indications (especially from a didactic point of view) regarding an

appropriate work on intonation is that the learner should try, while reading a
conversational fragment, to act it as well. Acting, using gesticulation allows
the speaker to impersonate characters belonging to the set usually displayed
by the target-language; his acting must take into account a number of
pragmatic rituals drawing on living (conversational) patterns.
It has been convincingly demonstrated (Petri, in Further Studies in
English Language and Literature) that, in spite of the diverging views as to
the nature of intonation, the various descriptions of intonation structure may
be successfully used as methods of teaching it, to the extent to which they are
informative about and efficient in acquiring the essentials of its
communicative function. Intonational meaning, attitude and pragmatic
i.e. communicative value of intonation are as many ways in which it
contributes to achieving the wholeness of the message in the target-language.
The most frequent approach to intonation seems to be the correlation
of grammatical structures and intonation tunes thus identifying, in English
and Romanian, statements, questions, exclamations, etc. The other point of
view is an attitudinal one, ascribing meanings to a number of intonational
patterns; it has to overcome the obstacle of the vagueness of such meanings,
in an attempts to select those attitudes / meanings which can make up an
inventory of linguistically relevant items. Practice indicates that such patterns
are more complex in English than in Romanian. The interplay between
emotive overtones and grammatical structures, to which intonation has the
decisive contribution, makes the linguists task still more difficult
especially as there are great differences between the syntactic, semantic and
informative structures of utterances in English and Romanian. As professor
Chioran says On the whole, it is quite reasonable to say that the writing of a
proper contrastive study of intonation in the two languages remains a task for
the future. (SED)
Although the fact is obvious that experience acquired in teaching
practice indicates that it is more difficult for a Romanian to grasp and use
English intonation than it is for an English native speaker to master
Romanian intonation (SED), the variety of the theoretical approaches as
well as the teaching experience demonstrate that in between belittling and
exaggerating the part held by the study of intonation between vagueness and
sophisticated inventories, there is enough room for hope, and every effort is
worth taking. Ideally, studying intonation should not resemble the ordeal of
studying a music score, bound to be superimposed on some lines of lyrics; it
must be felt as an intrinsic necessity for conveying the message in the foreign
/ target language, deriving from a set of informative determinations, be they
logic, emotional or pragmatic.
110

H. A FEW HINTS FOR SPELLING

A. The doubling of final consonants in front of -ed, -es, -ing and other
endings or suffixes.
1. The final consonants (except x or c) preceded by two or more vowels
(written) in the same syllable remain unchanged in front of suffixes or
endings (e.g. air aired, airing airy; boil boiled, boiler, boiling; brief
briefed, briefer, briefing, briefly; cloud clouded, clouding, cloudless,
cloudy; cool cooled, cooler, coolest, cooling (yet coolly, because of adding
the adverbial suffix -ly); curtail curtailed, curtailing, curtailment; head
headed, heading, headless, heady; prowl prowled, prowler, prowling; recoil
recoiled, recoiling; suit suitable, suiting, suitor; zeal zealot, zealous;
tail tailed, tailless (because the suffix -less is added). Exception: woolly
(more frequent in BrE than wooly).
2. Words ending in -x remain unchanged before any suffix or ending
which is added: coax coaxed, coaxing; fix fixable, fixed, fixer, fixing; jinx
jinxed, jinxing; Marx Marxian, Marxism, Marxist; six sixes, sixth,
sixteen, sixty.
3. Words ending in -c remain unchanged before: a, o, u or consonants:
zinc zincate, zincous; frolic frolicsome; talc talcose, talcous. But they
add k in front of suffixes and endings like: e, i and y to keep the consonant
hard, e.g. mimic mimicked, mimicking; picnic picnicked, picnicking.
On the other hand, nothing is inserted in front of the suffix or ending if
the final -c is to remain pronounced /s/ or //: critic criticism, criticise;
music musician; physic physician, physicist; toxic toxicity.
4. The final consonant preceded by one (written) vowel in stressed final
syllables or in one-syllable words is doubled when a suffix or ending
beginning with a vowel is added, e.g. abet abetted, abetting, abettor / AmE
esp. abetter; bag baggage, bagged, bagging, carpet-bagger; begin
beginner, beginning; fit fitter, fitting (but: fitful, fitness); glad gladden,
gladder, gladdest (but: gladly); hot hotter, hottest (but: hotly); plan
planned, planning; spot spotted, spotter (but: spotless); trek trekker,
trekking.
*Exception: adjectives and nouns formed from verbs ending in -er
(whether the last syllable is stressed or not), although verbal forms double the
-r in the former case: to defer deferred, deferring (but: deference. deferent);
differ differed, difference, different, differing; prefer preferred, preferring
(but: preferable, preference, preferential); refer referred, referring (but:
reference, referent, referential); transfer transfer(r)ed, transfer(r)ing (but:
transferable, transference).
Also: gas gaseous (but: gassed, gassing, gassify -AmE gasify).
111

5. The final consonant preceded by one (written) vowel in a syllable

bearing secondary stress is: (a) doubled in some words, e.g. handicap
handicapped, handicapping; humbug humbugged, humbugging; zigzag
zigzagged, zigzagging; (b) not doubled in others: profit profited, profiting;
(c) either redoubled or not in: bayonet(t)ed, bayonet(t)ing, as well as in:
benefit, combat, kidnap, nonplus, program (AmE); (d) in most cases usage is
indifferent.
6. Final consonants preceded by unstressed vowel(s) are not doubled
(with the exception of -l in British usage), e.g. bargain bargained,
bargaining; callous calloused, callously; credit credited, crediting,
creditor; gallop galloped, galloping; gladden gladdened, gladdening;
solid solider, solidest, solidify; waver wavered, wavering. Worship may
or may not double the final consonant: worship(p)ed, worship(p)er,
worship(p)ing.
7. If the final consonant is not pronounced (=is silent), it is not doubled
in front of any suffix or ending: e.g. chamois chamoised, chamoising;
crochet crocheted, crocheting; hurrah hurrahed, hurrahing; pooh-pooh
pooh-poohed, pooh-poohing.
8. Words ending in two or more consonants do not change in front of
suffixes or endings (unless the last consonant is -c or -l): e.g. art artistic,
artless; attach attached, attaching, attachment; buzz buzzed, buzzer,
buzzing; condemn condemning; length lengthen, lengthy; odd oddity,
oddly; sigh sighed, sighing; sign signed, signing; trick tricked, tricking,
trickster; thirst thirsted, thirsting, thirsty; wrong wronged, wrongly.
9. Final -l preceded by one (written) vowel is doubled in British
whether in stressed or unstressed syllables: compel compelled, compelling
(also: impel, propel, repel); travel travelled, travelling, traveller, but not in
AmE: traveler, propeler, etc.
Words ending in -ll are subject to the following variations: dull
duller, dullest, but dullness; fill filled, filler, filling, but fulfilment (BrE)
(AmE: to fulfill and fulfillment, but fulfiled); to roll roller, rolling, but enrol,
enrolment; skill skilled, but skilful (BrE); thrall thralled, but enthral,
thraldom; will willed, willing, but wilful.
(For further rules of spelling, as well as differences in spelling between
the British and the American variants of English, see Annexes 5 and 6).

112

CHAPTER IV

Exercise 1: Check / make sure the pronunciation of the following words by using an
English pronouncing dictionary (e.g. Daniel Jones, A.C. Gimson, J.C. Wells, J.
Windsor Lewis, etc.)
addict
administrative
administratrix
after
again
against
age
aged
aisle
alga, algae
alloy n., v.
ally n., v.
almond
amateur
answer
ant
antithesis
any
apostrophe
appal (US also
appall)
arc
archaic
archipelago
area
argue
aria
ark
ask
asked
ate
attorney
audience
aunt
Australia(n)
awkward
backroom

bade
ballot
banana
basil
bass 1, 2
bath, baths
bathe
bathed
bather
bayonet
beach
bear
beatitude
beau(x)
Beauchamp
beauty
because
beach
begged
below
Berkley
birch
bird
biscuit
blew
blood
blue
boa
boar
body
bog
bogus
boom
boor
booty
bore
born

borne
bosom
bouquet
bourgeois
bow 1, 2
bow-window
bowl
brass
bread
breeches
broad
brooch
broom
brougham
buccaneer
bud
buddy
burial
Burt
Burton
bury
bush
bushel
business
buster
busy
butcher
butler
Byzance
Byzantine
Byzantium
calm
camel
canal
canoe
car
caress

carriage
catastrophe
cater(er)
Cather
cauliflower
cavalry
ceiling
census
channel
chapel
chaplain
chapter
character
charcoal
charge
charg
(daffaires)
charter
check
chef
chemise
chemist
chemistry
Cheops
cheque
Chicago
chief
chimaera,
chimera
chime
chivalrous
christen
chunnel
churl
circuit
clergy
clerical

113

clerk
clogged
close adj.
close v.
closed
cloth
clothed
clothes
clue
coffee
colonel
colonist
colour
commerce
commercial
concur
conduit
confer
conscious
conservative
constable
constant(ly)
content(s)
coo
cough
could
country
county
courage
courageous
courier
court
courtesy
courtier
cousin
Covenant
Coventry
crow
crusade
cudgel
cure
current
cutlass
cutlery
dance
dawn

114

deaf
deafer
debt
defer
Derby(shire)
descend
deter
doctor
doctrine
does
donkey
door
doubt
dour
dowry
dragon
drama
drama
dramatist
draught
ear
earn
East(ern)
elastic
electron
elixir
enfranchise
engrave
enough
epistle
epithet
epitome
epoch
esquire
Esther
example
exclamation
exclaim
exile
family
fan
fanatic
fanaticism
fast
father
feud

few
fief
finance
financial
fir (tree)
flaw
flood
floor
flu
foot
foreign
fountain
friend(ly)
fruit
fur
furnace
fusileer, fusilier
garage
gas
gather
gauge
gibbet
gibe
giggled
gill
gills
gist
glass
Gloucester
Gloucestershire
gone
gown
grand
grant
grave
gravel
graven (image)
gravy
gray
grey
group
guinea
habit
half
hallowed
Halloween

halt
have
heart
heathen
heave
height
heir
hereditary
hero
Hero
heroic
heroine
holiday
holly
Hollywood
holy
hone
honour
hoped
hopped
horary
hose
hosiery
housed
houses
hurry
hyperbole
indict
indictment
indulgence
intentional
Ipswich
italicised
italics
jeopardy
jewel
journal
jubilee
judicial
June
jury
key
kindred
kingship
knowledge
labour

labourer
lapel
lass
laugh
launch
laureate
laurel
law
learned
leaven
Leicester(shire)
leisure(ly)
Leonard
leopard
lettuce
lever
levy
Levy
lichen
lineage
linguistics
listed
litotes
litre
litter
little
liver
loathed
London(er)
lone
loose
lose
lowest
machine
magazine
malt
manger
manhood
manoeuvre
many
Maria
marriage
marry
martyr, -dom
Mary
mass

Mass
master
Maugham
mayor
meagre
measure
mercy
merry
metaphor
metonymy
metre
Michigan
minute
mischief
mischievous
modest
money
monkey
month
morass
mother
mountain
murmur
myrtle
naked
national
neutron
Norwich
nothing
obedience
offer
one
ooze
ordeal
oven
Pall Mall
palm
paltry
papa
paradigmatic
paradigm
path, paths
pearl
peninsula
people
plague

plaid
Plaistow
plait
pore
potato
pour
prayer
precious
preface n.
prefer
prelate
pretty
private
procedure
proton
prove
psalm
psyche
psychology
punish
quality
quart
quay
rant
rather
rationalist, -ism
read p.t.
realm
reciprocal
reign
rein
relax
relaxation
reprisals
request
reservoir
reveille
revile
roar
romance
room
rouge
rough
said
sailor
sallow

salmon
salt
same
sandwich
satire
satiric(al)
satyr
sauce
sausage
saw
says
scarce
schism
scourge
scythed
seamstress
sedate
senate
senator
sergeant
series
sesame
sever
severe
sew
sewing
shackles
shake(n)
shaver
shiver
shoe
shone
shop
should
shover
sign
simile
slough 1, 2
sluice
soar
sofa
some
soprano
sore
soup
sour

115

sow 1, 2
sphere
squire
squirrel
staff
staged
stalk
stirrup
stove
study
suffrage
suffragette
sugar
sure
survey
swan
swarm
swear
sword
sworn
synecdoche
syntagm
tailor
tallow
taught
telegraph
Thames

116

thorough
thought
threw
through
tomato
tomb
tongue
touch
tour
tourism
towards
tower
traffic
transfer n., v.
travel
Tuesday
tune
Turner
Turton
twopence
unique
valuable
value
vase
Vaughan
vehemence
vehemently

vehicle
via
vicereine
vile
vine
vinegar
vinery
vineyard
vintage
viola
violin
voyage
wan
wand
wane
want
warlike
warm
warmth
warn
wash
washed
water
weapon
were
whirl
who

whole
wholly
winery
wolf
woman
women
won
wool
Worcester
word
worry
worse
worst
worsted
worth
would
wound n.
wound p.p.
wrath
yacht
yeast
yeoman, yeomen
yeomanry
yesterday
yield

Exercise 2: Check and assimilate the spelling (as well as the pronunciation, meaning
and usage) of the following English words:
absolute, absolve
car, far, war
ago, do
card, hard, ward
acknowledge, knowledge
case, phase, phrase
aisle, isle, islet
cast, fast, last, mast, past, caste, chaste
alley, ally, to ally, sally, to sally
catch, match, watch
to allow, hallo, sallow, tallow
caught, draught, taught
angel, angle, anger, stranger
to cease, to please
ant, arent, aunt
chair, chaise
antiquity, antique, antic, antiquarian
chaste, chastity
apple, to apply, apricot, to appraise
chat, that, what
are, care, here
chief, mischief, mischievous
to assume, to assure, to ensure
child, children
ate, date, fate, hate, late, mate
chime, chim(a)era
aunt, to vaunt
cigar, sugar
bad, cad, lad, sad, wad
circuit, pursuit
ballet, chalet, wallet
clean, cleanly, to cleanse
to banish, Spanish, Danish
to climb, limb
basin, cousin
close 1, close 2
beard, bird, heard, heart
cloth, both. doth, oath, loth, moth
beast, breast, yeast
cloven, clover, oven
to beat, heat, great, seat
cocoa, boa
begin, gin
collar, colour
blood, flood, good, mood
comb, combat
blossom, bosom
combat, company, comrade
bomb, comb, tomb, womb
come, home, Rome
boor, door, moor, poor
to conquer, to concur
booth, smooth, tooth
cone, gone, done, shone, tone, ton,
bough, dough, rough, tough, cough,
anemone, lone
slough, Slough
conquest, to conquer
boulder, shoulder, bolder, bolder, to
cost, coast, host, lost, most, post
solder
couch, touch
bow, to bow, rainbow, tow
cough, tough, dough, doughty, rough,
bowl, owl
slough, bough
(to) break, breakfast
cover, hover, lover, over
to breathe, breath
cough, hiccough
breeches, leech, to beseech
country, county
broad, road
course, coarse, cause
brook, brooch, cook, look, took
court, courteous, courtesy, curtsy
bushy, busy, Susy, Susan
coward, toward 1, toward 2
calf, half
to create, creation, creator, creature
calm, balm, psalm, qualm, alms, almond
crime, criminal
can, man, wan
crisis, crises, bases (< base), bases (<
cant, cant
basis)

117

day, yesterday, Sunday, Monday,

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday
deaf, leaf, lead, dear, dearth, death,
heath
to do, dont, do, doe, does
does 1, does 2, toes, shoes, floes
doll, toll, roll, poll, knoll, moll
donkey, monkey, honey, pony, peony
cove, love, move, dove, to rove
down, mown, own, sown, sewn
driver, driven, river
dull, full
duly, July, truly, surely, wholly, cruelly
earth, hearth
eight, height
entrance, to entrance
ether, ethereal, either, neither, nether,
tether, wither, weather, whether
even, seven, eleven
ever, fever, lever, to sever, severe
evil, devil
excuse, to excuse
(to) exercise, to examine
face, to preface, preface
false, falls
famine, father, feather, further, farthing
fate, date, ate
fathom, father, rather, gather
fiend, friend
finger, ginger, linger, singer
five, fifth, fifths, fifteen, fifty, the
fiftieth
five, to give, live, to live, alive
flour, four, fourteen, forty, the fortieth,
hour, our, sour, tour
fool, full
gall, gallery
goal, gaol, jail
gas, has, was, alas
gather, father, rather, Cather, cater
geese, cheese
Geoffrey, George, geography
glass, mass, Mass, mass 2
glove, grove
to do, to go, do, ado

118

golf, gulf, wolf

gone, done, Donne, hone, alone, shone
goose, to choose, chose, moose, moss
grave, gravel, gravy, graven
green, Greenwich
grey, gray, whey, key
guinea, idea, ideal
half, calf, halfpenny
hall, hallow
to have, to behave, gave
haven, heaven, raven
to heal, health
heard, heard
heath, heathen, heather, leather, weather
to heave, heavy
height, wight, Wight, weight
here, mere, there, ere
heir, heritage
hero, heroism, heroine, heroin, heron
holy, wholly, holly, Dolly
host, lost, most, post, cost
hour, our, flour, flower, four, sour, tour
house, to house, houses
how, low, row 1, row 2, sow 1, sow 2,
bow 1, bow 2, law
island, Iceland, Islington, Ireland, islet
know,
knowledge,
acknowledge,
acknowledgement
label, lapel, chapel, chaplain
laid, maid, paid, raid, said
late, Latin
later, latter, matter, lather
lavish, ravish, raven
(to) lead, lead n., led
to leave, leaven
lilac, lily, line, linen
liquid, liquor, liqueur
live 1, live 2
many, Mary, merry
mason, reason
mature, nature
mead, meadow
measles, measure
mild, mildew
minute n., minute adj.
modest, to molest

moment, to foment
moon, Monday
pour, dour, sour, four
boor, poor, floor, door, moor, Moor
mountain, to maintain
mouth, mouths, Plymouth, youth,
youths
Mr., Mrs., Ms.
nation, national, patriot, patriotic
nature, natural
new, queue, Kew Gardens
ninth, plinth
mow, nowhere, no, nothing
of, off
office, to suffice, sufficient
orchard, orchid
on, upon, son, sun
paid, plaid, said, raid, plait
pastry, past, last, cast
pays, says, rays
pence, pens, pennies
people, leopard
peep, Pepys
pint, print, mint, mind
plague, ague, vague
plaid, plait, gait
please, cease, pleasing, pleasure, teasing
polish, Polish, polite, police
(to) preface, deface, face
pretty, petty
principle, disciple, discipline
private, privy, to privatize
to promise, compromise
to punish, punitive, puny
quay, to say, pay
rallied, allied, alliance
to reach, to read, ready, read p.t./ p.p.,
red, reading, readiness
receipt, script, receive, recipe, recipient,
leisure
reading, Reading
realm, real, reality
to reap, to reappear, reaper
refuse, to refuse, fuse
reign, foreign, skein, sovereign
riot, chariot

rival, civil
Roman, woman, Romanian
rose, lose, arose, chose
rove, dove, cove, strove, love, to shove
rove, prove, glove
rover, lover
scholar, polar, solar, molar
science, conscience, scientific
secret, to select
service, vice
to sew, to sow, so, sow, low, row, row,
rowan, rowlock, rowel
sign, signal, signing, signature
doll, roll, enrol, toll, scroll, Moll, knoll
to extol, to enrol
honey, money, pony, peony, Coney
doe, shoe, to shoe, foe, toe, roe
shade, shadow
shall, small, tall, ball, mall, pall, Pall
Mall, fall
sheep, shepherd, leopard
should, shoulder
so, to, go, to do, do, lo, loo
soldier, to solder, bolder, boulder
sole, solitary, solidarity, solidity
soul, foul, fowl
south, southern, southerly
Spain, Spanish, Spaniard
speak, break, steak, streak
to steal, stealthily, stealth
steward, reward, stewardess
stew, new, to sew, New York
stood, understood, flood, blood
story, storey, history
sward, sword, swarthy, word, ward
those, whose, rose, to lose, hose, pose
though, through, thorough(going),
thought(ful)
three, threepence
tomato, potato
either, leisure, neither, deceive, skein,
receive
crevice, device, devise, arise, demise,
promise
conscience, scientific, science, scientist
bier, briar, higher, hire, pyre, sire, shire,

119

Cheshire, tier, tire, tyre

sign, signal, signing, resign, re-sign,
resignation
granite, indite, indict, mite, parasite,
unite, incite
(to) exile, profile, smile, simile, missile,
to revile, fertile
chalice, police, lice, mice, nice, nicety,
spice, surplice, surprise
to indict, to invite, to predict, verdict,
diction, addict, to addict
wise, wisdom, width, wight, right,
might, plight
adherence,
vehemence,
vehicle,
coherence, annihilate, inherent
hyphen, nephew, roughen, Stephen,
Steven
hosiery, misery, rosary, treasury
actual, victual, victim, tittle, whittle,
title, little
anger, clangour, hanger, anchor, banker,
rancour, top-ranker, tanker
desert, to desert, dessert
clamour, enamour, glamour, hammer,
rammer
sedate, senate, senator, spectator
bereave, cleave, eleven, heave, heaven,
heathen
phlegm, phlegmatic, syntagm,
syntagmatic, paradigm, paradigmatic
alas, gas, has, was
ant, cant, candid, cant, grand, grant,
pant, rant, shant, slant, want
ass, bass 1, bass 2, brass, lass, glass,
mass, Mass, pass
ballet, billet, chalet, mallet, wallet
banquet, bouquet, parquet
aria, malaria, Maria, Ontario, cheerio
barge, target, large, marge, margerine,
margarine
calves, valves, halves
carp, harp, warp
arch, archangel, archaic, archer,
architecture, archaism, archbishop, arc,
ark, arkwright, art, cart, dart, hart, heart,
part, smart, start, tart, thwart, upstart,

120

wart, search
alarm, barm, harm, warm, warn, worm,
storm, swarm, war, warrior
bard, card, yard, hard, lard, pard, sward,
ward
dont, font, front, wont, wont
horse, worse, corpse, corps, core,
corpuscle
August, Augustus, august, Augustan
aunt, gaunt, to flaunt
launch, laundry, laureate, laurel
cork, work, pock, stork, storm, worm
bury, burial, curious, curiosity, fury,
furious
query, cherry, cheering, merry, very,
bevy, heavy, to levy, Levi, Leviathan,
Leviticus
any, many, zany, arrival, canal, petal,
penal, rival
measure, peasant, please, pleasant,
displease, pleasure, leisure, pressure
doll, knoll, moll, poll, roll, stroll, toll,
folly, holly, jolly
bomb, comb, tomb, grovel, hovel,
shovel
bother, brother, brothel, other, mother,
another, thother
are, dare, flare, glare, hare, mare, rare,
Sarah, tare, ware
chair, chaos, chaise
timber, climber
hair, hare, heir, heritage, here, hear,
heard, inherit, heirloom, harbour
hair, lair, layer, mayor, payer, prayer,
sayer
ere, here, there, mere, where, neer
canary, Mary, granary, Rosemary
sigh, neigh, Leigh, Lee, height, weight,
either, neither, (dead) weight
alien, Italian
hazel, label, lapel
base, chase, erase, phase, phrase
bleak, steak, streak, weak, week, wick
ague, argue, plague, vague
bane, Dane, deign, pain, plain, plane,
rain, reign, rein, reindeer, sane, skein

came, cam, Cambridge, ham, hamlet,

pamphlet, omelet(te)
rich, Michigan, which, witch
hint, lint, mint, pint, tint
rival, river, ripper, reaper
hitches, leeches, breeches, peaches,
reaches, teaches, niches, witches
gin, begin, gill 1, gill 2, give, verging,
beginning
cottage, rage, homage, lineage, mirage,
sage, mortgage, greengage
kitchen, kitchenette, lichen
viscous, viscount, viceroy, vicereine
libertine, liberty, library, librarian
bead, dead, dread, tread, head, heat,
lead, mead, to lead, meadow, McLean
to plead, plaid, played
area, idea, guinea, lea, sea
great, seat, sad, meat, peat, heat, sweat,
threat, thread
deal, meal, peal, real, seal, zeal
knees, breeze, freeze, sneeze
mover, over, moreover, plover, Dover,
shover
around, bound, hound, round, sound,
wound n., wound p.t., p.p.
broad, goad, load, toad
bull, bullet, bullock, dull
bull, full, Gulliver, gullible, Tulliver
cure, demure, lure, allure, pure, sure,
measure, pleasure, leisure, seizure
German, german, germane, Gertrude
circuit, conduit
previous, precious, serious, series
desirable,
admirable,
comparable,
terrible, pliable
tortoise, turquoise, chamois, chamoisleather
Britain, maintain, sustain, retain, villain,
written, Briton
able, capable, constable, gable, label,
stable, table, unstable, rabble
pseudonym,
psychology,
psyche,
psychiatrist, psychiatry, psychological
than, thank, that, then, these, thick, thin,
think, this, those, though

thought, throughout, threw, throng

hero, heroic, heron, heroine, heroism
cope, dope, Europe, pope, rope
bow 1, bow 2, row 1, row 2, sow 1, sow 2,
tow 1, tow 2
people, George, Geoffrey, geology,
Leonard, leopard, Leonardo, McLeod,
Leo, Leon
geography, jeopardy, jeopardise, feoff,
fief, feoffer, enfeoff, Norfolk, Suffolk
dies, diet, dice, dies, lies, lion, rise, riot,
eyot, quiet, quite
condign, dine, fine, line, mine, nine,
pine, Rhine, resign, sign, poignant
signal, significance, resignation, wine,
rhyme, rime, twine, rhythm
boy, buoy, coy, enjoy, joy, loyal, Roy,
toy
vine, wine, vineyard, winery
behind, bind, find, hind, kind, lined,
mind, rind, wind v., wind n.
cash, dash, mash, rash, wash
crag, hag, hack, quack, quag, rag, wag,
vague, quake
asp, aspen, clasp, fast, gasp, grasp,
aghast, wasp
solar, scholar, vicar, cigar, sugar, mica,
Jeremiah
call, hall, enthral, mall, pall, thrall,
thraldom
board, cord, fjord, hoard, lord, ford
roared, soared, sore sward, sword,
towards, untoward, ward, word,
forward, award, foreword, onward,
inward
courage, courgette, court, courteous,
courtesy, pour, scour, scourge, mourn, to
sojourn
deafer, heifer, refer, prefer, suffer, offer,
tougher
basis, oasis, oases, chassis, faces,
phases, bases
clove, cleave, cloven, hove, love, move,
rove, shove, stove, wove, strove, throve,
shovel
honest, honesty, hone, honey

121

homage, honour, heir, hair, hour, horary,

honourable
aloud, allowed, cloud, loud, ploughed,
plow(man)
louse, mouse, mouth, mouths, south,
youth, youths, truth, truths
ear, earn, hear, heart, hearth, heard, hart,
hearing, learnt, learned 1, 2
dumber, Humber, lumber,
Northumberland, plumber, wonder
mown, renown, sown, known, down,
shown, town
ninth, plinth, since, rinse
age, aged, foliage, marriage, mirage,
vintage, carriage
dim, him, hymn, rim, skim, swim, whim
day, nay, height, pay, play, say, ray, way,
weigh
whey, key, quay, day, lei
ace, face, to preface, to efface, mace,
lace, place, plaice, race
ye, yea, aye, ay, yeah
cob, hob, bob, Bob, job, Job, mob, rob,
sob, snob
Edith, Edgar, Ellen, Ethel, Esther,
Edward, Edwin, Essex, Helen, Helena
gauge, gauze, mauve
ought, our, out, joust, scour, scourge
caught, yacht, naughty, lot, naught, trot,
nought, haughty, dreadnought, taught,
laughter, laughed
booze, ooze, roof, snooze, goose,
choose, hoof
already, ready, stead, readiness, steady,
steed, instead of
both, broth, brothel, brother, cloth, doth,
smother, moth, mother, quoth
year, tear n., tear v., bear, to bear, dear,
to yearn, to learn, pear, peer, prayer
wicked, wicket, naked, winged,
wretched
flayer, gayer, lawyer, tax-payer, sawyer,
sayer

122

answer, sward, sword, gunwale,

rowlock, knowledge, knowledgeable
aid, aide-de-camp, Aids, fade, bade,
jade, laid, lemonade, made, maid,
played, paid, laid, said, plaid, raid, staid,
wade, weighed
eerie, eyrie, dearie, aerial, area
controlling, enrolling, lolling, polling,
rolling, strolling, tolling
Gloucester(shire),
Leicester(shire),
Worcester(shire), Warwick(shire)
arouse, house, grouse, to house, louse,
mouse, to rouse, to souse, carouse
dour, four, hour, our, pour, scour,
succour, sour, tour
gouge, rouse, rouge, souse
bough,
cough,
dough,
enough,
hiccough, hough, hock, plough, rough,
though, rough, thought, through,
thorough, through
Berkeley, clerk, clergy, jerk, work,
sergeant, kernel, colonel, surge, sure,
surf, murky
to aver, ever, fever, never, revere,
severe, sever, server
bull, bullet, bullock, bullion, cull, full,
fulsome, mullion, million, sullen
curry, furry, hurry, hurray, Surrey, bury,
fury, Murray
gush, rush, push, shush, hush, pull, dull,
cull, gull, Pullman
suit, ruin, suite, sweet, guile, sluice,
guide
muscle, muscular, mussel, pussy, hussy
possess, obsess
does, hoes, roes, noes, shoes, woes,
goes, sows, sews, wows, vows
cup, cupboard, cut, putter, cutlery,
cutter, cup-bearer, cutlass
could, mould, should, would, shoulder
hither, lither, thither, tithe, whither,
wither, zither
nation, ration, ratio, ratiocination.

Exercise 3: Assimilate the spelling (as well as the pronunciation, meaning and usage)
of the following words, and form sentences with them, resorting to good dictionaries
whenever necessary.
The one hundred-odd words most frequently misspelled (according to
statistics)
(After Hodges, Harbrace College Handbook)
accommodate
achievement
acquire
all right
among
apparent
argument
arguing
belief
believe
beneficial
benefited
category
coming
comparative
conscious
controversy
controversial
definitely
definition
define
describe
description
disastrous
effect

embarrass
environment
exaggerate
existence
existent
experience
explanation
fascinate
height
interest
its, its
led, lead
lose
losing
marriage
mere
necessary
occasion
occurred
occurring
occurrence
opinion
opportunity
paid
particular

performance
personal
personnel
possession
possible
practical
precede
prejudice
prepare
prevalent
principal
principle
privilege
probably
proceed
procedure
professor
profession
prominent
pursue
quite
receive
receiving
recommend
referring

repetition
rhythm
sense
separate
separation
shining
similar
studying
succeed
succession
surprise
technique
than, then
their, there
theyre
thorough
too, to, two
transferred
unnecessary
villain
woman, women
write
writing
written

The Next 560-odd words most frequently misspelled (plus a number of frequent
errors made by Romanians in point of spelling and pronunciation)
absence
abundance
abundant
academic
academically
academy
acceptable
acceptance
accepting
accessible

accidental
accidentally
acclaim
accompanied
accompanies
accompaniment
accompanying
accomplish
accuracy
accurate

accurately
accuser
accuses
accusing
accustom
acknowledge
acquaintance
across
acquainted
actuality

actually
adequately
admission
admittance
adolescence
adolescent
advantageous
advertisement
advertiser
advertising

123

advice
advise
aesthetics
aesthetician
affect
afraid
against
aggravate
aggressive
alleviate
allotted
allotment
allowed
allows
already
altar
all together
altogether
amateur
analysis
analyses
to analyse /
analyze
annihilate
another
annually
anticipated
apologetically
apologised
apology
apparatus
appearance
applies
applying
appreciate
appreciation
approaches
appropriate
area
arise
arising
arouse
arousing
arrangement
article
atheist

124

athlete
athletic
attack
attempts
attendance
attendant
attended
attitude
audience
authoritative
authority
available
autochthonous
apartment
bargain
base
basically
basis, bases
beauteous
beautified
beauty
become
becoming
before
began
beginner
beginner
beginning
behaviour
bigger
biggest
bosom
boundary
breath
breathe
brilliance
brilliant
Britain
Britannica
Briton
burial
buried
bury
business
busy
calendar

capitalism
career
careful
careless
carried
carrier
carries
carrying
catastrophe
cemetery
certainly
challenge
changeable
changing
characteristic
characterised
chief
children
Christian
Christianity
choice
choose
chose
cigarette
cite
cloth
clothes
commercial
commission
committee
communist
companies
compatible
competition
competitive
competitor
completely
concede
conceivable
conceive
concentrate
concern
concomitant
concomitance
condemn
confuse

confusion
connotation
connote
conscience
conscientious
consequently
considerably
consistency
consistent
contemporary
continuous
controlled
controlling
convenience
convenient
correlate
council
counsellor
countries
create
courageous
criticism
criticise
cruelly
cruelty
curiosity
curious
curriculum, pl.
curricula
dealt
deceive
decided
decision
dependent
descendant
descent
desirability
desire
despair
destroy
destruction
detriment
devastating
device
difference
different

diffuse
difficult
dilemma
diligence
dining
disappoint
disciple
discipline
discrimination
discussion
disease
disgusted
disillusioned
dissatisfied
dissent
divide
divine
dominant
dropped,
dropping
due, duly
during
eager
easily
efficiency
efficient
eighth
eighty
eliminate
emperor
emphasise
encourage
endeavour
enjoy
enough
enterprise
entertain
entertainment
entirely
entrance
equipment
equipped
escapade
escape
especially
everything

evidently
excellence
excellent
except
excitable
exercise
expense
experiment
extremely
fallacy
fallacious
familiar
families
fantasies
fantasy
fashions
favourite
fictitious
field
finally
financially
financier
foreigner
forty, fortieth
fourth,
fourteen(th)
friendliness
fulfil, fulfilling
fundamentally
further
gaiety
gendarme
generally
genius
government
governor
grammar
grammatical(ly)
group
guaranteed
guidance
guiding
handled
happened
happiness
hare

hautboy
haute couture
haute cuisine
haute cole
hauteur
hear, here
heir
heiress
heirless
heirloom
heroes
heroic
heroine
hindrance
honest
honorarily
honorary
honorific(al)
honour
honourable
hopeless
hoping
hospitalisation
hostler
huge, hugely
humorist
humorous
humour
hundred
hunger
hungrily
hungry
hypocrisy
hypocrite
ideally
ignorance
ignorant
imaginary
imagination
imagine
immediately
immense
importance
incidentally
increase
indefinite

independence
independent
indispensable
individually
industries
inevitable
influence
influential
ingenious
ingredient
initiative
intellect
intelligence
intelligent
interference
interpretation
interrupt
involve
irrelevant
irresistible
irritable
jealousy
knowledge
laboratory
labourer
laborious(ly)
laid
later
leisurely
lengthening
license
likelihood
likely
likeness
listener
literary
literature
liveliest
livelihood
liveliness
lives
loneliness
lonely
loose
lose
loss

125

luxury
magazine
magnificence
magnificent
maintenance
management
manoeuvre
manner
manufacturers
material
mathematics
matter
maybe
meant
mechanics
medi(a)eval
medicine
melancholy
method
miniature
minutes
mischief
monstrous
monstrosity
moral
morale
morally
mysterious
narrative
narrator
naturally
Negroes
ninety
noble
noticeable
noticing
numerous
obstacle
off
omit
omitted, omitting
operate
opinion
oppose,
opposition
opponent

126

opposite
optimism
organisation
original
pamphlet
parallel
parliament
paralysed
passed
past
peace
peculiar
perceive
permanent
permit
perseverance
persistent
persuade
pertain
phase
phenomenon
philosophy
physical
piece
pitiful
pity
planned
plausible
playwright
play-writing
pleasant
politician
political
practice
posthumous
preponderance
preponderant
predominant
preferred
presence
prestige
primitive
prisoner
propaganda
propagate
prophecy

psychoanalysis
psychology
psychopathic
psychosomatic
quantity
really
realise
rebel
recognise
regard
relative
relieve
religion
remember
reminisce,
reminiscent
represent
resistance
resistant
resources
response
responsibility
responsible
revealed
ridicule
ridiculous
roommate
sacrifice
safety
satire
satirical
satirist
satisfied
satisfy
scene
schedule
seize
sentence
sergeant
several
shepherd
significance
simile
simple
simply
since

sincerely
sociology
sophomore
source
speaking
speech
sponsor
stabilisation
stepped
stories
story, storey
straight
straightforward
strength
stretch
strict
stubborn
studying
substantial
subtle
sufficient
summary
summed
suppose
suppress
surrounding
susceptible
suspense
swimming
symbol
synonymous
synonymy
temperament
tendency
than, then
their,
there,
theyre, therere
themselves
theories
theory
theirs, theres
therefore
those
though, thought
together
tomorrow

tragedy
tremendous
tried
tries
tyranny
tyrannical, tyrant
undoubtedly
unusually

useful
useless
using
vacuum, vacua
valuable
varies
variety
various

view
vengeance
vigilance,
vigilant
warrant
weather
weird
wether

welcome,
welcomed
where, were
whether
whole

Exercise 4: Read aloud, and then give the phonetic transcription of the following
texts:
a) IF (by Rudyard Kipling)
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on
you; if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their
doubting too; if you can wait and not be tired of waiting, or, being lied about, dont
deal in lies; or, being hated, dont give way to hating, and yet dont look too good, nor
talk too wise; if you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think
and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat
those two impostors just the same; if you can bear to hear the truth youve spoken
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to
broken, and stoop and buildem up with worn-out tools; if you can make one heap of
all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and lose and start again at
your beginnings, and never breathe a word about your loss; if you can force your
heart, and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on
when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them: Hold on; if you
can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings nor lose the common
touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but
none too much; if you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of
distance run, yours is the Earth and everything thats in it, and, which is more, youll
be a Man, my son!
b) ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE
Dearest creature in Creation,
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse:
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and
worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy:
Tear in eye, your dress youll tear,
So shall I: Oh, hear my prayer:
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare: heart, beard, and heard,

Dies, diet; lord and word;
Sword and sward; retain and Britain (Mind the latter, how its written),
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay paid; laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague;
But be careful how you speak:
Say break, steak but bleak and streak;
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via;

127

Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir!

Cloven, oven; how and low;
Script, receipt; shoe, poem, toe;
Hear me say devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore;
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, reviles;
Wholly, holly; signal, signing;
Thames, examining, combining;
Scholar, vicar and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
From desire: desirable, admirable
from admire,
Lumber, plumber, bier and brier;
Chatham, brougham; renown and
known,
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral;
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind;
Scene, Melpomene, mankind;
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather;
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth,
and plinth;
Billet does not sound like ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would;
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rhyme with darky.
Viscous, viscount: load and broad;
Toward(s), to forward, to reward;
And your pronunciations OK
When you say correctly croquet;
Bounded, wounded: grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend; alive and live;
Liberty, library; heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, bur allowed,
People, leopard; towed and vowed.
Mark the difference moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover;
Leeches, breeches; wise, precise;
Chalice, but police and lice.

128

Camel, constable, unstable;

Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal and canal;
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin; circuit, conduit,
Rhyme with shirk it and beyond it,
But it is not hard to tell
Why its pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular; goal, iron;
Timber, climber, bullion, lion;
Worm and storm; chaise, but chaos,
chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, but clamour,
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, dessert and address,
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants,
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants;
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul, and gaunt, but aunt,
Front, font, wont, want, grand and
grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, gauze and gauge;
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Cherry does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost; post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual and victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, and caste:
Leigh, eight, and height.
Put, nut, granite, but unite,
Refer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and Zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull; Geoffrey, George, ate, late.
Hint, pint, senate and sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, pacific;
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but hour, and succour, four,

Gas and alas and Arkansas;

Sea, idea, guinea, area;
Psalm, Maria, bur malaria;
Youth, South, southern, cleanse and
clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine;
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Sally with ally; yes, ye,
Eye, I, aye, ay, whey, key, quay;
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Never guess it is not safe;
We say calves, valves; half but Ralph;
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice, and device; eerie and eyrie:
Face, but preface; but efface;
Phlegm, phlegmatic; ass, bass, glass;
Large, but target; gin, give, verging;
Ought, oat, joust, and scour, but
scourging.
Ear, but earn; and wear and tear,

Do not rhyme with here, but ere.

Seven is right, but so its even;
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk.
Asp, grasp, wasp; and cork and work,
Pronunciation think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey!
Wont it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
Its a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock,
gunwale.
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict;
Dont you think so, reader, rather,
Saying leather, bather, father?
Finally: which rhyme with enough?
Though, through, plough, cough,
hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup
My advice is give it up!

c) ENGLISH EASY PRONUNCIATION

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and
dough?
Others may stumble but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and
through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like
bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness' sake, don't call it 'deed'!
Watch out for meat and great and
threat!
(They rhyme with suite and straight and

debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose
Just look them up goose and choose,
And cork and work, and card and ward,
And font and front, and word and
sword,
And do and go, and thwart and cart Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

129

Exercise 5: Comment on the phonetic phenomena and peculiarities of English (in

point of pronunciation and spelling) occurring in the following limericks and jokes;
pay attention to the underlined words or phrases:

130

There was an old lady of Staines

Who married a man without brains
When you die, dear, she said
I will open your head,
For I long to know what it contains.
There was an old lady who said, Why
Cant I look in my ear with my eye
I think I can do it
If I put my mind to it.
You never can tell till you try!
A new servant maid named Maria
Had trouble in lighting the fire.
The wood being green,
She used gasoline;
Her position by now is much higher!
There once was a small child named Guy
Who never could understand why
A cow was a cow,
And he used to say, How
Do you know that it isnt a fly?
There was a young lady of Maine
Who was horribly sick in the train.
Not once, I maintain,
But again, and again,
And again, and again, and AGAIN!
There was a young lady of Riga
Who went for a ride on a tiger.
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside
And a smile on the face of the tiger.
There once was an Ichthyosaurus
Who lived when the earth was all porous;
When he first heard his name,
He fainted with shame,
And departed long ages before us.
There was an old man of Peru
Who dreamt he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in the night
With a terrible fright
And found it was perfectly true.

131

There was an old man of Blackheath

Who sat on his set of false teeth;
Said he, with a start,
O Lord, bless my heart!
Ive bitten myself underneath!
There was once a lady of Guam
Who said, Now the sea is so calm,
Ill swim out, for a lark.
But she met a large shark.
Let us sing the Ninetieth Psalm!
There was an old man of Calcutta
Who spoke with a terrible stutter.
At breakfast he said,
Give me b-b-b-bread.
And b-b-b-b-b-b-butter.
There was a young lady of Lynn
Who was so uncommonly thin
That when she essayed
To drink lemonade
She slipped through the straw and fell in.
There was a young man of Herne Bay
Who was making explosives one day;
But he dropped his cigar
In the gunpowder jar.
There was a young man of Herne Bay.
An eccentric old person of Slough
Who took all his meals with a cow,
Always said, Its uncanny,
Shes so like Aunt Fanny,
But he never would indicate how.
An anarchist once lived in Ealing;
In explosives the fellow was dealing.
Through a little mishap
He just vanished, poor chap,
But there still are some spots on the ceiling.
There was an old lady of Rye
Who was baked by mistake in a pie.
To the households disgust

132

She emerged through the crust

And exclaimed, with a yawn, Where am I?
There was a young lady of Kent
Who said that she knew what it meant
When men asked her to dine,
Gave her cocktails and wine,
She knew what it meant but she went!
The bottle of perfume that Willie sent
Was highly displeasing to Millicent;
Her thanks were so cold,
They quarrelled, Im told,
Through the silly scent Willie sent
Millicent.
There was a young lady from Gloucester
Whose boyfriend thought that he had lost her;
From the fridge came a sound,
At last she was found,
The problem was how to defrost her.
A charming young singer named Hannah
Got caught in a flood in Savannah;
As she floated away,
Her boyfriend, they say,
Accompanied her on the piannah.
There was a young lady of Datchet
Who chopped off her nose with a hatchet.
When her friend asked her why,
She made this reply,
Im no longer tempted to scratch it.
There was an old man of Tarentum
Who gnashed his false teeth till he bentem;
When they asked him the cost,
Of what he had lost,
He said, They werent mine, I was lentem.
A mouse in her room woke Miss Dowd;
She was frightened, it must be allowed.
Then a happy thought hit her:
To scare off the critter
She climbed down from her chair and miaowed.

133

There was a young fellow named Sydney

Who drank till he ruined his kidney.
It shrivelled and shrank
As he sat there and drank,
But hed had a good time at it, didnt he?
A right-handed fellow named Wright
In writing write always wrote rite,
When he meant to write right;
If hed written write right,
Wright could not have wrought rot writing rite.
A tutor who played on the flute
Had to teach two young people to toot.
Said the boys to the tutor:
Is it harder to toot or
To tutor two tooters to toot?
A canny young fisher named Fisher
Once fished from the edge of a fissure.
A fish with a grin
Pulled the fisherman in;
Now theyre fishing the fissure for Fisher.
There was a young man of Japan
Who wrote verse that never would scan.
When they said, But the thing
Doesnt go with a swing,
He said Yes, I know it doesnt but, you see, I always try to get as many words into
the last line as I possibly can".
Said the fair-haired Rebecca of Klondike,
Of you Im exceedingly fond, Ike.
To prove I adore you
Ill die, darling, for you
And be a brunette, not a blonde, Ike.
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill can hold more than his belly can.
He can stuff in his beak
Food enough for a week.
Im damned if I see how the hell he can.
A rather polite man of Hawarden,
When taking a walk in his gawarden,
If he trod on a slug,

134

A worm or a bug,
Would say My dear friend, I beg pawarden.
There was an old lady of Harwich
Who drove in an old-fashioned carwich,
A sort of black box
With two seedy crocks
Which shed used on the day of her marwich.
A lively young lady of Limpne
Indulged a peculiar whimpe.
She danced without stopping
From Ealing to Wopping;
No wonder her figure was slimpne.
A beautiful lady named Psyche
Is loved by a fellow name Yche.
One thing about Ych
The lady cant lych
Is his beard, which is dreadfully spyche.
There was a young lady of Slough
Who went for a ride on a cough.
The brute pitched her off
When she started to coff;
She neer rides on such animal nough.
There was a young wife of Antigua
Who remarked to her spouse, What a pigua!
He replied, Oh, my queen,
Is it manners you mean,
Or do you refer to my figua?
There was a young fellow of Beaulieu
Who loved a fair maiden most treaulieu.
He said, Do be mine.
And she didnt decline,
So the wedding was solemnised deaulieu.
There was a young fellow of Gloucester
Whose wife ran away with a coucester.
He traced her to Leicester
And tried to arreicester,
But in spite of her efforts he loucester.
A jocular fellow named Maugham

135

Created a general staugham

By attending a shoot
In a red bathing soot,
Which certainly wasnt good faugham.
A bald-headed judge of Beauclerk
Fell in love with a maiden seauferk
Residing at Bicester,
Who said when he kicester,
I wont wed a man with neauherk.
An impertinent fellow of Leicester
Met a lady, and thus he addreicester:
Let my arms be a neicest
Where your head, love, may reicest.
So she ran to his breicest, where he preicester.
A barber who lived in Batavia
Was known for his fearless behavia,
An enormous baboon
Broke in his saloon
But he murmured, Im blowed if Ill shavia.
There was a young girl in the choir
Whose voice rose hoir and hoir,
Till it reached such a height
It was clear out of sight,
And they found it next day in the spoir.
A girl who weighed many an oz.,
Used language I dare not pronoz.
For a fellow unkind
Pulled her hair off behind
Just to see (so he said) if shed boz.
There is an old cook in N.Y.
Who insists you should always st.p.
He says he once tried
To eat some that was fried,
And claims he would rather ch.c.
A lady from Atlanta, Ga.
Became quite a notable fa.
But she faded from view
With a quaint I.O.U.
That was signed Miss Lucrezia Ba.

136

A handsome young gent down in Fla.

Collapsed in a hospital ca.
A young nurse from Me.
Sought to banish his pe.
And shot him. Now what could be ha.?
A punctilious young Ph.D.
Got a bid, one day, to a T
At the Y.M.C.A.
And he felt like a J
For forgetting to R.S.V.P.
She was peeved and called him Mr.
Not because he came and kr.,
But because, just before,
When she looked in at the door,
This same Mr. kr. sr.!
There was an old man of Thermopyl,
Who never did anything properly;
But they said, If you choose
To boil eggs in your shoes,
You shall never remain in Thermopyl.
There was a Young Girl of Majorca,
Whose aunt was a very fast walker;
She walked seventy miles,
And leaped fifteen stiles,
Which astonished that Girl of Majorca.
There was an Old Person of Rheims,
Who was troubled with horrible dreams;
So, to keep him awake,
They fed him with cake;
Which amused that Old Person of Rheims.
There was an Old Man of Apulia,
Whose conduct was very peculiar;
He fed twenty sons,
Upon nothing but buns,
That whimsical Man of Apulia.
Now what in the world shall we dioux
With the bloody and murderous Sioux,
Who some time ago
Took an arrow and bow

137

And raised such a hellabelioux?

A young Irish servant in Drogheda
Had a mistress who often annogheda,
Whereupon she would swear
In a language so rare
That thereafter nobody emplogheda.
Said a man to his wife down in Sydenham,
My trousers where have you hydenham?
Its perfectly true
They arent brand new,
But I foolishly left half-a-quidenham.
There was once a maiden named Cholmondeley,
Who every one said was quite colmondeley;
Yet the maid was so shy,
That when strangers were ny,
She always would stand around dolmondeley.
An unpopular youth of Cologne
With a pain in his stomach did mogne.
He heaved a great sigh
And said, I would digh,
But the loss would be only my ogne.
A boy who played tunes on a comb
Had become such a nuisance at homb,
His ma spanked him, and then
Will you do it again?
And he cheerfully answered her, Nomb.
A fellow who lived in New Guinea
Was known as a silly young nuinea.
He utterly lacked
Good judgment and tacked,
For he told a plump girl she was skuinea.
There once was a choleric colonel
Whose oaths were obscene and infolonel,
And the Chaplain, aghast,
Gave up protest at last,
But wrote them all down in his jolonel.
There were two young ladies of Birmingham.
I know a sad story concerningham.

138

They stuck needles and pins

In the right reverend shins
Of the Bishop engaged in confirmingham.
Some day ere she grows too antique
My girls hand in marriage Ill sicque;
If shes not a coquette
(Which Id greatly regruette),
She shall share my ten dollars a wicque.
Said a bad little youngster named Beauchamp,
Those jelly tarts, how shall I reauchamp?
To my parents Id go,
But they always say No,
No matter how much I beseauchamp.
ANNEX 3:
PHONETIC SYMBOLS The list of the phonetic signs for IPA (International
Phonetic Alphabet)
(After Andrei Banta)
Nr. din Simbol
sistemul
IPA

Explica\ii

Exemple

Transcriere

Corespondent
(aproximativ)
^n
romne`te

VOCALISMUL / THE VOWEL SYSTEM

_____________________________________________________________
a) Vocale / Vowels (Monophthongs)
1
[i:]
i foarte lung
feeler
['fi:l]
fil (cu i mai
prelung)
2
[i]
i scurt, foarte
fit
[fit]
fit (cu i foarte
deschis, aproape
scurt,
de e
nepalatalizat)
3
[e]
e mai pu\in
set
[set]
set (cu e mai
deschis,
deschis ca ^n
nepalatalizat)
romne`te
4
[]
e foarte deschis
Sam
[sm]
seam (dar
spre a, ca ^n
cu diftongul
graiul ardelenesc
^mbinat)
5
[:]
a foarte
bar
[b:]
bar (cu a
deschis; format
prelung `i fr
n fundul gurii
r)
6
[o]
o scurt deschis
tot
[tot]
tot (dar mai

139

spre a, rostit cu
buzele trase n
jos, ca n graiul
ardelenesc

cod

[kod]

[o:]

o lung, deschis
`i cu buzele
trase n jos

door
lord

[u]

u foarte scurt

cook

[kuk]

[u:]

u foarte lung

boon

[bu:n]

1
0

[]

a foarte scurt
`i ^nchis, rostit
^n centrul
gurii
vocal central,
un fel de a
foarte lung,
rostit cu din\ii
apropiai `i
buzele ^ntinse
lateral
vocal central
ne-accentuat,
un fel de a
foarte scurt

supper

1
1

[:]

[]

b) Diftongi / Diphthongs
1 [ei]
similar cu
3
diftongul romnesc, dar mai
deschis `i fr
palatalizare
1 [u]
ca u din
4
romn, dar cu
buzele rotunjite, cea de jos
ie`it ^nainte)
1 [ai]
ca ai din

[do:]
[lo:d]

['sp]

aproape de
sunetul din
toat),
cod (dar mai
asemntor
cucoad)
dor (cu o
lung, deschis,
fr r),
lord (fr r,
cu o lung,
deschis)
cuc (cu u
scurtat)
bun (cu u
foarte lung, ca
^n iulie)
sap (cu a
foarte scurt,
retezat)

Sir

[s:]

s (cu vocala
foarte lung `i
^nchis)

sitter

['sit]

sit (cu
vocala final
^nchis `i
retezat)

lay
hey

[lei]
[hei]

tow

[tu]

lei (cu
vocale mai
deschise, fr
palatalizare),
hei (idem)
tu (cu
vocala
rotunjit)

sky

140

[skai]

scai (cu a

1
6

romne`te, dar
mai deschis
[au]
[oi]

17

1
8
1
9

[i]

2
0

[u]

[]

ca au din
romne`te, dar
mai deschis
cu o deschis
nr.6
ardelenesc,
urmat de un i
foarte scurt
i deschis, urmat
de scurt
e foarte
deschis, urmat
de a scurt
u scurt , urmat
de scurt ,
^nchis

how
[hau]
boy
[boi]

fear
[fi]
Mary
continuer

['mri]
[kn
'tinu]

CONSONANTISMUL / THE CONSONANT SYSTEM

a) Oclusive (explozive) / Stops (Plosives / Occlusives)
[p]
p urmat de
surd
obicei de o
part
[p:t]
mic explozie,
ca un h scurt
[b]
ca b romnesc,
sonodar mai sonor
bun
[bn]
r
[t]
t rostit cu limba
Tom
surd
la rdcina
[tom]
din\ilor, urmat
de obicei de o
mic explozie, ca
un h scurt
[d]
d foarte sonor,
din
[din]
sonorostit cu limba
dun
[dn]
r
la rdcina
din\ilor
[k]
surd

c foarte tare,
nepalatalizat,

mai deschis, mai

lung, u`or
nazalizat, `i i
foarte scurt)
hau (cu a
mai deschis,
u`or nazalizat)
boi (dar cu
o foarte deschis
-nr.6- nerotunjit, cu buzele
trase ^n jos)

cut

141

[kt]

mere n graiul
ardelenesc
continu cu
mai scurt,
cobor^tor

pat (cu p
foarte tare `i a
lung )
ban (cu b
foarte vibrat `i
a foarte scurt)
tom (cu t
foarte tare ,
post-dental `i cu
o foarte
deschis)
din (cu
consoanele
foarte sonore `i
cu vocala foarte
scurt), Dan
(idem)
cat (cu c
foarte tare,

[g]
sonor

urmat de o mic
explozie de aer
ca un h scurt
ca g romnesc,
foarte sonor

b) Semi-oclusive (africate) / Affricates

[t]
t ^mbinat cu `,
surd
ca ^n ci
romnesc
(nepalatalizat)
sonor

[d]

d ^mbinat cu j,
ca ^n gi
romnesc
(nepalatalizat)

c) Nazale / Nasals
bila[m]
ca m romnesc
bial
alveo
[n]
ca n romnesc
-lar
velar

[]

n velar (realizat
prin lipirea
dosului limbii de
vlul palatului ca
^n rom.
l^ng,
crng,
pung)

d) Laterale / Laterals
[l]
ca l romnesc
alveo
(cu limba mai
-lar
retras, cnd
consoana apare
la sf^r`itul
cuvntului)
e) Fricative (`uiertoare) / Fricatives
surd
[f]
ca f romnesc
[v]
ca v romnesc,

urmat de un fel
de h `i de a
scurt)
gam(cu a
scurt, -nr.10-`i
scurt -nr.12)

gummer

['gm]

touch
much

[tt]
[mt]

jam

[dm]

moot

[mu:t]

nod

[nod]

bunker

['bk]

luck

[lk]

lac (cu a
scurt-nr. 10)

fin
vie

[fin]
[vai]

fin(cu i scurt)
vai(cu

142

taci (cu i
foarte scurt,
nepalatalizat, `i
a scurt -nr.10)
maci (idem)
geam (cu
consoana
nepalatalizat ,
`i diftongul ea
^mbinat)

mut (cu u
lung)
nod (cu o
foarte deschis
-nr.6)
banc (cu n
mai nazalizat, `i
a `i d scurte)

sonor

dar mai sonor

[]

surd

sonor

[]

[s]
surd
sonor
surd
sonor

thicker

['ik]

without

[wi'aut]

sauce

[so: s]

[z]

ca z romnesc,
foarte sonor

zinc

[zik]

[]

ca ` romnesc

shock

[ok]

[]

ca j romnesc,
foarte sonor
consoan lichid,
aproape fr
fric\iune, fr
vibra\ia limbii

rouge

[ru:]

bravo

['br:
'vu]

high

[hai]

[r]
sonan
-t
alveo
-lar
[h]
surd

consoan surd,
pronun\at cu
limba \inut
^ntre din\i (ca
un s foarte
peltic)
consoan foarte
sonor,
pronun\at cu
limba \inut
^ntre din\i (ca
un z foarte
peltic)
ca s romnesc,
mai retras

un h pronun\at
mai ^n fundul
gtului dect ^n
romne`te

f) Semiconsoane (semivocale) / Semivowels (Glides)

[w]
u foarte scurt, cu
bilabi
buzele fcute
oner
['wn]
-al i
pung, folosit
velar
^naintea
vocalelor
[j]
i tare, foarte

143

diftongul u`or
nazalizat)
Sic (foarte
peltic)

sos (cu o
deschis, lung
-nr.7 )
zinc ( cu i
deschis, scurt `i
n velar )
`oc (cu o
deschis -nr. 6)
ruj (cu r lichid
`i u lung)
bravo (cu r
foarte
moale,lichid,
fr vibra\ia
limbii; la
sf^r`it,
diftongul [u]
hai (cu un h
mai aspru,
gutural / glotal)

Oan (cu a
scurtat -nr.
10- `i scurt
nr.12)
iod (cu i

palatal

palatizat (iot),
folosit ^naintea
vocalelor

yod

[jod]

foarte deschis
nr. 6)

ANNEX 4: PROPER NOUNS AND PROPER NOUN EQUIVALENTS

A Romanian-English glossary

144

Andromaca np. Andromache [n'dromki].

Angela np. Angela ['ndl].
Anglia np. England ['iglnd].
Angola np. f. Angola ['gul].
angolez sm., adj. Angolan ['guln].
Ankara np. Ankara ['kr].
Antananarivo np. geogr. v. TANANARIVO.
Antarctica np. the Antarctic [i ()nt'a:ktik], Antarctica

Aaron np. bibl. Aaron ['rn].

Abel np. Abel ['eibl].
Abisinia np. Abyssinia [bi'sini].
Accra np. Accra / Akkra ['kra:, -].
Acropole np. the Acropolis [i 'kroplis].
Acteon np. Actaeon [k'ti:n].
Adam np. Adam ['dm].
Adis Abeba np. Addis Ababa ['dis 'bb].
ADN sn. DNA [di:en'ei].
Adonis np. Adonis ['dunis].
Adrian np. Adrian ['eidrin].
Adriatica np. the Adriatic (Sea) [eidri'tik].
Afganistan np. Afghanistan [f'gnista:n].
Africa np. Africa ['frik].
Africa de Sud np. South Africa [sau 'frik].||
Republica Africa de Sud, Republica Sud-African
np. (Republic of) South Africa [(ri'pblik v)sau
'frik]; ist. The Union of South Africa [ 'ju:nin
v sau 'frik].
Afrikaans s. invar.: limba ~ Afrikaans [fri'ka:ns,
-'ka:nz] (U).
Afrodita np. Aphrodite [fr'daiti].
Agamemnon np. mit. Agamemnon [g'memnn].
Agata np. Agatha ['g].
Agheu np. bibl. Haggai ['hgai].
Agrippa np. Agrippa ['grip].
Ahile np. Achilles ['kili:z].
Aiax np. Ajax ['eidks].
Alabama np. Alabama [l'bm].
Alaska np. geogr. Alaska ['lsk].
Albania np. Albania [l'beini].
Albert np. Albert ['lbt].
Alceu np. Alcaeus [l'si:s].
Alcibiade np. ist. Alcibiades [lsi'baidi:z].
Alegani np. geogr. the Alleghanies / Alleghenies
[li'geiniz], the Alleghany / Allegheny Mountains
[li'geini 'mauntinz].
Aleutine np. geogr. (the) Aleutian Islands ['l(j)u:n
'ailndz], the Aleutians.
Alexandru np. Alexander [lig'za:nd].
Alfeu np.mit. Alphaeus [l'fi(:)s].
Alfred np. Alfred ['lfrid].
Alger np. Algiers [()l'diz], Alger ['ld].

[()nt'a:ktik],

the

Antarctic

Continent

[i

nt'a:ktik 'kontinnt].
Antarctida np. f. the Antarctic Continent [i nt'a:ktik
'kontinnt].
Anteu np. mit. Antheus ['nis].
Antigona np. Antigone [n'tigni].
Antile np. the Antilles [n'tili:z].
Antiohia np. geogr. Antioh ['ntiok].
Anton(ie) np. Anthony ['ntni; rar sau ! amer.
[ntni].
Antoniu np. Antony ['ntni], Antonius [n'tunis].
Anvers np. Antwerp ['ntw:p], rar, franc. Anvers
[a:n'vR].
Anzi np. (the) Andes [i 'ndi:z].
Apalai np. (the) Appalachians, the Appalachian
Mountains [i p'leitinz; i p'leitin
'mauntinz].
Apenini np. geogr. (the) Apennines ['pnainz].
Apis np. mit. Apis ['pis; 'eipis].
Apocalipsa sf. (the book of) Revelation [( buk v)
revi'lein; rev-], the Apocalypse [i 'poklips]. ||
Apocalipsa Sfntului Ioan Teologul The Revelation
of Saint John the Divine [ rev'lei n v sn'don
di'vain].
Apolo, Apollo np. mit. Apollo ['polu].
Apuleius np. Apuleius [pju'li:s].
Aquitania np. Aquitaine [kwi'tein].
arab I. sm. Arab ['rb], Arabian ['reibjn]. II. adj.
Arab(ian). 2. lingv. Arabic ['rbik]. || cal ~ Arab
horse [rb 'ho:s]; cifre ~e Arabic numerals
[rbik 'nju:mrlz]; limba ~ Arabic ['rbik] (U),
the Arabic language [i rbik 'lgwid].
Arabia np. Arabia ['reibi]. || Arabia Saudit Saudi
Arabia [saudi 'reibi].
arabic adj. Arabic ['rbik], Arabian ['reibin].
Arcadia np. Arcadia [a:'keidi].
arctic adj. Arctic ['a:ktik] (nu comp.). || Oceanul ~ the
Arctic Ocean.
Arctica np. (the) Arctic ['a:ktik].
Ardeal np. Transylvania [trnsil'veini].
Ares np. Ares ['ri:z].
Argentina np. geogr. Argentina [a:dn'ti:n], the
Argentine
['a:dntain].
argentinian sm., adj. Argentine ['a:dnti:n], Argentinian
[a:dn'tinin].
Argo np. mit. Argo ['a:gu].
argonaui sm. pl. mit. Argonauts ['a:gno:ts].
Argus np. Argus ['a:gs].
Arhimede np. Archimedes [a:ki'mi:di:z].
Ariadna np. mit. Ariadne [ri'dni].
Arimateea np. bibl. Arimath(a)ea [rim'i:].
Aristofan np. Aristophanes [ri'stofni:z].
Aristotel np. Aristotle ['ristotl].
Arkansas np. Arkansas ['a:knso:] (fluviul ~: i
[a:'knzs]).
Armenia np. Armenia [a:'mi:ni].

Algeria np. Algeria [l'diri].

Alice np. Alice ['lis].
Allah np. Allah ['l].
Alpi np. (the) Alps [lps].
Alsacia np. Alsace [l'ss; -'zs].
alsacian sm. adj. Alsatian [l'sein].
Altai np. geogr. (the) Altai [()a:l'tai].
Amazon np. the Amazon ['mzn].
America np. America ['merik]. || America Central /
Latin / de Nord / Sud Central / Latin / North /
South America ['sentrl].
Amfitrion np. Amphitryon [m'fitrin].
Amfitrita np. Amphitrite [mfi'traiti].
Amman np. geogr. Amman ['ma:n, -, -'mn-].
Amos np. bibl. Amos ['eimos].
Amsterdam np. Amsterdam ['mstdm].
Ana np. Ann, Anne [n], Anna ['n].
Anacreon np. Anacreon ['nkrin].
Anatolia np. Anatolia [n'tuli].
Andaluzia np. Andalusia [nd'lu:si; -'lu:z-].
Andor(r)a np. Andorra [n'do:r]. || locuitor din ~
Andorran [n'do:rn].
Andrei np. Andrew ['ndru:].

145

aromn
sm.,
adj.
Macedo-Romanian
[msiduru'meinin].
Artemida, Artemis np. mit. Artemis ['a:timis].
Asclepios np. Asclepius ['skli:pis].
Asia np. geogr. Asia ['ei / 'ei].
Asia Mic np. geogr. Asia Minor ['ei / 'ei 'main].
asiatic sm., adj. Asian ['ein; 'ein], Asiatic [eii'tik].
Asiria np. Assyria ['siri].
asirian sm., adj. Assyrian ['sirin].
As(s)uan np. geogr. Aswan [s'wa:n, a:s-, -'wn].
Astianax np. mit. Astyanax ['stainks].
Asturia np. Asturias ['sturis].
Asuncion np. geogr. Asuncion [sunsi'on, -'un].
Atena np. 1. Athens ['inz]. 2. mitol. (Pallas) Athena
sau Athene [('pls / -s) 'i:n / 'i:ni(:)].
Atica np. Attica ['tik].
Atlantic np. the Atlantic (Ocean) [t'lntik ('un)].
Atlas np. ['tls]. || Munii ~ the Atlas Mountains [i
'tls 'mauntinz].
Atlantida np. Atlantis [t'lntis].
Atreu np. mit. Atreus ['eitris].
Attila np. ist. Attila (the Hun) ['til ( hn)].
Augias np. Augeas [o:'di:s].
August(us) np. Augustus [o:'gsts].
Aurora np. Aurora ['ro:r].
Austerlitz np. ['o:stlits].
Australia np. Australia [o'streili; o:-].
Austria np. Austria ['o(:)stri].
Austro-Ungaria np. ist. Austria-Hungary [o(:)stri
'hgri].
Avacum np. bibl. Habakkuk ['hbkk].
Avdie np. bibl. Obadiah [ub'dai].
Avesalom np. Absalom ['bslm].
Avon np. (the) Avon (river) ['eivn].
Avram, Avraam np. bibl. Abraham ['eibrhm].
azer sm., adj. Azeri ['ziri].
Azerbaidjan np. Azerbaijan [zbai'da:n]. || (locuitor)
din ~ Azerbaijani [zbai'da:ni].
Azincourt np. Agincourt ['dinko:(t)]
Baal np. mit. Baal ['beil].
Babilon np. Babylon ['bbiln; -ilon].
babilonian sm., adj. Babylonian [bbi'lunin]. ||
imperiul ~ Babylonia [bbi'luni].
Bach np. Bach [ba:k].
Bagdad np. Bag(h)dad [bg'dd].
Bahama np. the Bahama Islands [ b'ha:mr 'ailndz],
the Bahamas [b'ha:mz]. || locuitor din ~ Bahamian
[b'heimin].
Bahrein np. Bahrain, Bahrein ba:'rein]. || locuitor din ~
Bahraini, Bahreini [ba:'reini].
Bahus np. Bacchus ['beiks].
Baikal np. Baikal [bai'kl], Lake Baikal.
Balcani np. the Balkans ['bo:lknz].
balcanic adj. Balkan ['bo:lkn] (!! atr.).
Balthazar np. bibl. Balthazar [bl'z].
Baltica np. the Baltic (Sea) [ bo:ltik ('si:)].
Balzac np. Balzac ['blzk].
Bamako np. geogr. Bamako [bm'ku].
Banat np. geogr. (the) Banat ['bnit, 'ba:nit]; sn. banat
['bnit, 'ba:nit].
Bandung np. geogr. Bandung ['bndu].
Bangkok np. geogr. Bangkok [b'kok, 'bkok].
Banglade np. Bangladesh [bgl'de]. || locuitor din ~
Bangladeshi [bgl'dei].
Bangui np. geogr. Bangui [bo'gi:, ba: -].
Bantu np. Bantu [bn'tu:].
Barabas np. bibl. Barabbas [b'rbs].

Barbados np. Barbados [ba:'beidos]. || locuitor din ~

Barbadian [ba:'beidin].
Barbara np. Barbara ['ba:br].
Barbaria np. ist. Barbary ['ba:bri].
Bartolomeu np. Bartholomew [ba:'olmju:].
Basarabia np. Bessarabia [bes'reibi]; Moldavia
[mol'deivi].
Basel np. Basel ['ba:zl], rar Ble [ba:l].
Basra np. geogr. Basra(h) ['bzr].
Bastilia np. Bastille [b'sti: l].
bavarez sm., adj. Bavarian [b'vrin].
Bavaria np. Bavaria [b'vri].
Bateba np. bibl. Bathsheba [b'i:b; 'bib].
bnean I. sm. inhabitant of the Banat [in'hbitnt v
'ba:nit / 'bnit]. II. adj. from sau of the Banat
[frm / v 'ba:nit / 'bnit].
Beatrice np. Beatrice ['bi:tris], Beatrix ['bi:triks].
Beijing np. Beijing [bei'di].
Beirut np. Beirut, Beyrouth [bei'ru:t].
Beethoven np. Beethoven ['beithuvn].
Belfast np. Belfast [bel'fa:st].
Belgia np. Belgium ['beldm].
belgian sm., adj., belgian sf. (i belgianc), adj.
Belgian ['beldn].
Belgrad np. Belgrade [bel'greid].
Belize np. Belize [be'li:z].
Belucistan np. Baluchistan [blu:ti'sta:n].
Belzebut np. Beelzebub [bi'elzibb].
Bengal np. Bengal [ben'go:l; be-]
bengalez sm., adj. Bengali [ben'go:li; -'ga:li].
Benin np. Benin [be'ni:n]. || locuitor din ~ Beninese
[beni'ni:z] (pl. invar.).
Beoia np. Boeotia [bi'u].
Berenice np. Berenice [beri'nais].
Berlin np. Berlin [()b:'lin].
berlinez I. sm. Berliner [()b:'lin]. II. adj. Berlin...
[b:'lin].
Bermude np. Bermuda [b'mju:d]. || locuitor din ~
Bermudan [b'mju:dn].
Berna np. Bern(e) [b:n].
Bernard np. Bernard [brit. ! 'b:nd; amer. ! b'na:d]. ||
Sfntul ~ Saint Bernard [sn 'b:nd / b'na:d].
Betleem np. Bethlehem ['beli:m; 'belihem].
Bhutan np. Bhutan [bu:'ta:n]. || din ~ adj. Bhutani
[bu:'ta:ni]; locuitor din ~ Bhutanese [bu:ta:'ni:z].
bielorus
sm., adj. Belorussian [belu'rn] sau
Byelorussian [bjelu'rn].
Bielorusia np. Belorussia [belu'r; bi'el-; 'ru:si],
Byelorussia [bjelu'r], Belarus.
birman, rar birmanez sm., adj. Burmese [b:'mi:z].
Birmania np. Burma ['b:m].
Bitinia np. Bithynia [bai'ini].
Bizan np. Byzantium [bi'zntim; bai'zn tm].
Boboteaz sf. Epiphany [i'pifni; e'p-].
Boccaccio np. Boccaccio [bo'ka:tiu; b-].
Boemia np. Bohemia [bu'hi:mi]
Bogota np. geogr. Bogota / Bogot [bog'ta:, bug-].
Bolivia np. f. Bolivia [b'livi].
Bombay np. Bombay [bom'bei].
Bonaparte np. Bonaparte ['bunpa:t].
Bonn np. Bonn [bon].
Boreas np. mit. Boreas ['boris].
Bosfor np. the Bosphorus ['bosfrs], Bosporus
['bosprs].
Botswana np. Botswana [bo'tswa:n].
Brahms np. Brahms [bra:mz].

146

Brasilia np. geogr. Brasilia [br'zi:li].

Bratislava np. Bratislava [brti'sla:v].
Brazilia np. Brazil [br'zil].
Brazzaville np. geogr. Brazzaville ['brzvil, 'bra:z-].
Bretania np. Brittany ['britni].
breton sm., adj. Breton ['breton; 'bretn; -o].
Bristol np. Bristol ['bristl].
britanic sm. Briton ['britn], fam. Brit [brit], Englishman*
['iglimn], amer., ! fam. Britisher ['briti]; || ~ii
the British, British people (+ ac. pl.).
Britanie np. f.: Marea ~ Great Britain [greit 'britn].
Brunei np. Brunei ['bru:nai]. || din ~ adj. Brunei;
locuitor din ~ Bruneian [bru:'nain].
Bruxelles np. Brussels ['brslz].
Bucovina np. (the) Bucovina / Bukovina [bu:k'vi:n].
bucuretean I. sm. Bucharester [b(j)u:k'rest]. II. adj.
Bucharest... [b(j)u:k'rest; 'b(j)u:krest].
Bucureti
np. Bucharest [b(j)u:k'rest; amer.
'bu:krest].
Buda np. ['bud; amer. 'bu:d].
Budapesta np. Budapest [bju:d'pest].
budapestan I. sm. Budapester [bju:d'pest]. II. adj.
Budapest
Buenos Aires np. Buenos Aires [bweinos 'airiz].
Bulgaria np. Bulgaria [bl'gri].
Buna-Vestire sf., np. Annunciation [nnsi'ein;
nnti'-].
bur sm. ist. Boer [bo:; 'bu; bu].
Burkina Faso np. geogr. Burkina Faso [b:'ki:n 'fsu].
Burundi np. Burundi [bu'rundi]. || (locuitor) din ~
Burundian [bu'rundin].
Cabala np./ sf. cab(b)ala, kab(b)ala [k'ba:l, k-; amer.
'kbl].
Cabul np. geogr. v. KABUL.
Caiafa np. Caiaphas ['kaifs].
Cain np. Cain, Caine [kein].
Cairo np. Cairo ['kairu].
Calabria np. Calabria [k'lbri; k'la:b ri]
Calcedonia np. Chalcedon ['klsidn].
Calcutta np. geogr. Calcutta [()kl'kt].
Caldeea np. Chaldea [kl'di:].
Caligula np. ist. Caligula [k'ligjul].
Caliope np. Calliope [k'laipi].
Calipso np. Calypso [k'lipsu].
Cambo(d)gia np. Cambodia [km'budi], Kampuchea
[kmpu'ti].
Cambridge np. Cambridge ['keimbrid].
Cambrieni np. pl. geogr. (the) Cambrians ['kmbrinz].
Camerun np. (the) Cameroons [km'ru:nz], Cameroon
[km'ru:n], rar, germ. Kamerun [ka:m'ru:n].
camerunez sm., adj. Cameroonian [km'ru:nin].
Cana (Galileii) np. Cana (of Galilee) ['kein (v
'glili:)].
Canaan np. Canaan ['keinn, 'keinjn].
Canada np. Canada ['knd].
Canalul (de) Panama np. geogr. the Panama Canal [
'pnma:, pn'ma: k'nl].
Canalul de Suez np. geogr. the Suez Canal [ 'su:iz,
('sju:-) k'nl].
Canalul Mnecii np. the (English) Channel [ 'tn l / i
'igli 'tnl]; v. i MAREA MNECII.
Canare np. the Canary Islands [ k'nri 'ailndz].
Canberra np. Canberra ['knbr].
Capadocia np. geogr., ist. Cappadocia [kp'dusi,
-'du(i)].
Capernaum np. geogr., bibl. Capernaum [k'p:nim].

Capetown np. geogr. Cape Town ['keiptaun], Capetown

['keiptaun].
Capri np. Capri [k'pri:].
Capul Bunei Sperane np. the Cape of Good Hope [
'keip v gud 'hup].
Capul Horn np. Cape Horn ['keip 'ho:n].
Capul Verde np. geogr. Cape Verde [keip'v:d, 'vd].
Caracas np. geogr. Caracas [k'rks, -'ra:k-].
Caraci np. Karachi [k'ra:ti].
Caraibe np. (the) Caribbees ['krbi:z]; the West Indies
[ ()west 'indiz]. || Marea Caraibilor the Caribbean
Sea [ kr'bi:n 'si:].
Caribda np. mit. Charybdis [k'ribdis].
Carla np. Carla ['ka:l], Carola ['krl], Carole ['krl].
Carol np. Charles [t:alz]. || ~ cel Mare Charlemagne
['a:lmein].
Carolina np. f. Carolina [kr'lain], Caroline
['krlain; -lin], Carolyn ['krlin]; geogr. Carolina
[kr'lain; amer. ker-].
Carpai np. the Carpathian Mountains [ka:'peiin
'mauntinz], the Carpathians [ ka:'peiinz].
Cartagina np. Carthage ['ka:id].
cartaginez sm., adj. Carthaginian [ka:'dinin].
Casandra np. Cassandra [k'sndr].
Cascada Niagara np. (the) Niagara Falls [nai'gr (ni-)
fo:lz].
Caspica np. the Caspian (Sea) [ kspin ('si:)].
Castilia np. Castile [k'sti: l].
Caligula np. ist. Caligula [k'ligjul].
Camir np. Kashmir [k'mi r].
Cato np. Cato ['keitu].
Catul np. m. Catullus [k'tls].
Caucaz np. the Caucasus (Mountains) [ 'ko:kss
('mauntinz)].
caucazian sm., adj. Caucasian [ko:'keizin; -'kei-;
'kein].
cazac sm., adj. Cossack ['kosk].
Cecilia np. Cecily ['sisli; 'sesli], Cecilia [s'si:li].
ceh sm., adj. Czech [tek]. || limba ~ Czech (U);
Republica Ceh the Czech Republic [ tek
ri'pblik].
Cehia np. v. REPUBLICA CEH.
Cehoslovacia np. ist. Czechoslovakia [tekusl'vki].
cehoslovac
sm.,
adj.
ist.
Czechoslovak
[teku'sluvk],Czechoslovakian
[tekusl'vkin].
Cehov np. Chekhov ['tekof, -ov].
centaur sm. mit. centaur / Centaur ['sento:].
Cenureasa np. Cinderella [sind'rel].
Cerber np. mit. Cerberus ['s:brs].
Ceres np. mit. Ceres ['siri:z].
Cernui np. geogr. Cernautz / Cernui [teRn'u:ts];
rus. Chernovtsy [teR'no:ftsi], germ. Czernowitz
['teRno:vits].
Cervantes np. Cervantes [s:'vnti(:)z].
Ceylon np. Ceylon [si'lon].
Cezar np. Caesar ['si:z].
Charon np. mit. Charon ['krn].
Cheviot np. geogr. Cheviot Hills ['ti:vit hilz; 'te-].
Chile np. Chile ['tili].
China np. China ['tain].
Chiinu np. Kishinev ['kinef].
Chitai np. nv. Cathay [()k'ei, k-].
C.I.A. np. CIA [si: ai 'ei].
Ciad np. Chad [td].
Cibele np. mit. v. CYBELE.
Ciclade np. Cyclades ['sikldi:z].

147

ciclopi sm. pl. mit. Cyclops ['saiklops], Cyclopes

[sai'klupi:z].
Cicero np. Cicero ['sisru].
Cipru np. Cyprus ['saiprs].
Circe np. mit. Circe ['s:si].
Ciudad de Mexico np. geogr. Mexico City [meksiku,
'siti]; Ciudad de Mexico [ju:'da:d, i:u'da:d].
Cmpiile Elizee np. mit. Elysian Fields [i'lizin 'fi:ldz],
Elysium [i'lizim].
Cntarea Cntrilor np. bibl. The Song of Solomon
['so v 'solmn] / The Song of Songs ['so v
'soz].
Clara np. Clare [kl], Clara ['klr], Claire [kl].
Cleopatra np. Cleopatra [kli:'ptr].
Clio np. mit. Clio ['klaiu].
Clitemnestra np. mit. Clytemnestra [klaitm'ni:str].
Coasta de Aur np. geogr., nv. (the) Gold Coast ['guld
kust].
Coasta de Azur np. Cte d'Azur [kut d'zju], the
Riviera [rivi'r].
Coasta de Filde np. Ivory Coast [aivri 'kust],
(oficial) Cte d'Ivoire.
Colombo np. geogr. Colombo [k'lmbu].
Columb np. Columbus [k'lmbs]. || Cristofor ~
Christopher Columbus ['kristf k'lmbs].
Columbia np. 1. (ar) Colombia [k'lombi; amer.
k'lmbi]. 2. (fluviu, stat din S.U.A., ora)
Columbia [k'lmbi].
Comintern np. ist. Comintern ['komint:n].
Como np. geogr. (Lake) Como ['kumu].
Conakry np. Conakry [kon'kri:].
Confucius np. Confucius [kn'fju:s, ()kon-, -'fju:is].
Congo np. (the) Congo ['kogu], rar Kongo.
Constantin np. Constantine ['konstntain].
Constantinopol
np.
ist.
Constantinople
[konstnti'nupl]; (azi) Istanbul [istn'bul, -a:n-,
-'bu:l].
Constana np. pers. Constance ['konstns]; geogr. i
Konstanz ['konstnts].
Copacabana np. Copacabana [kupk'bn].
Copenhaga np. Copenhagen [kupn'heign].
Copernic np. Copernicus [k(u)'p:niks].
Coreea np. Korea [k'ri].|| ~ de Sud South Korea
['sau-].
Corfu np. geogr. Corfu [ko:'fu:].
Corint np. Corinth ['korin].
corinteni sm. pl. bibl. (i cu maj.) Corinthians
[k'rininz].
Coriolan np. Coriolanus [koriu'leins].
Corsica np. Corsica ['ko:sik].
Costa Rica np. Costa Rica [kost 'ri:k].
Cracovia np. Crakow, Krakow ['kra:ku].
crai sm. pl.: cei trei ~ de la Rsrit the three Magi (from
the East) ['meidai].
Crassus np. Crassus ['krss].
Creon np. mit. Creon ['kri:n, -on].
Cresus np. Croesus ['kri:ss].
Creta np. Crete [kri:t].
Crimeea np. Crimea [krai'mi].
Cristofor Columb np. Christopher Columbus ['kristf
k'lmbs].
Criana np. geogr. (the) Crishana [kri'a:n].
Croaia np. Croatia [kru'ei].
Cronos np. mit. Cronus, Kronus ['kruns].
Cuba np. Cuba ['kju:b].
Cumbria np. ist. Cumbria ['kmbri].

Cumbrieni np. the Cumbrian Mountains ['kmbrin

'mauntinz].
Cupidon np. mit. Cupid ['kju:pid].
Curentul Golfului np. (the) Gulf Stream ['glf stri:m].
Curie np. Curie ['kjuri(:)].
Cybele np. mit. Cybele ['sibli, 'sibili].
Cynthia np. mit. Cynthia ['sini].
Cyrus np. Cyrus ['sairs].
Cythera np. Cythera [si'ir].
dac sm., adj. Dacian ['deisin; 'dein].
Dacia np. Dacia ['deisi; 'dei].
Dafnis np. mit. Daphnis ['dfnis].
Dahomei np. nv. Dahomey [d'humi].
Dakar np. geogr. Dakar ['dka:, -].
Dakota de Nord np. North Dakota [no: d'kut].
Dakota de Sud np. South Dakota [sau d'kut].
Dalila np. bibl. Delilah [di'lail].
Dalmaia np. Dalmatia [dl'mei].
Damasc np. Damascus [d'msks].
Damocles np. mit. Damocles ['dmkli:z]. || sabia lui ~
sword of Damocles [so:d v 'dmkli:z].
Danae np. mit.Danae / Dana ['dnii:].
Danemarca np. Denmark ['denma:k].
Daniel np. Daniel ['dnjl].
Dante np. Dante ['dnti].
Dardanele np. the Dardanelles [da:d'nelz].
Dar(-)es(-)Salaam np. geogr. Dar(-)es(-)Salaam [da:res
s'la:m, -is-, -es-].
Darius np. ist. Darius [d'rais].
David np. David ['deivid].
Debora np. bibl. Deborah ['debr].
Decebal np. ist. Decebalus [di'sebls].
Dedal np. mit. Daedalus ['di:dls].
Delfi np. Delphi ['delfai].
Delhi np. New Delhi [nju: 'deli].
Delta Nilului the Nile Delta [ 'nail delt].
Demeter np. mit. Demeter [di'mi:t].
Democrit np. Democritus [di'mokrits].
Demostene np. Demosthenes [di'mosni:z, -i-].
Descartes np. Descartes ['deika:t, .'.].
Deuteronomul np. bibl. Deuteronomy [dju:t'ronmi].
Diana np. Diana [dai'n].
Didona np. mit. Dido ['daidu].
Diogene np. Diogenes [dai'odini:z].
Diomede np. mit. Diomedes [dai'mi:di:z].
Dionisos np. mit. Dionysus [dai'naiss].
Districtul Columbia np. District of Columbia ['distrikt
v k'lmbi].
Djakarta np. geogr. Djakarta [d'ka:t].
Dobrogea np. (the) Dobru(d)ja ['dubru:d].
Dochia sf. mother Carey ['m 'kri].
Dodecanez np. Dodecanese [dudik'ni:z, -ek-].
Doha np. geogr. Doha ['duha:, 'du].
Don(ul) np. geogr. the Don [don].
Don Juan np. Don Juan [don'du:n].
Don Quijote np. Don Quixote [don 'kwikst; ki'huti].
Dracula np. Dracula ['drkjul].
Dresda np. Dresden ['drezdn].
driad sf. mit. dryad ['draid, 'draid] (pl. dryades
['draidi:z] sau dryads).
Dublin np. Dublin ['dblin].
Duhul Sfnt / Sfntul Duh np. the Holy Ghost sau Spirit
[huli 'gust /'spirit].
Dunrea np. (the) Danube (river) ['dnju:b].
dunrean adj. Danubian [d'nju:bjn], Danube
['dnju:b].
Dunkerque np. geogr. Dunkirk [()dn'k:k].

148

Ebru np. geogr. Ebro ['i:bru, 'eb].

Ecaterina np. Catherine / Catharine ['k rin], Katherine
/ Katharine ['krin], Caterina [kt'ri:n].
Ec(c)lesiastul, Ecleziastul np. bibl. Ecclesiastes
[ikli:zi'sti:z].
ECU, ecu sm., np. ecu, e.c.u., ECU ['ekju: / 'eik- / 'i:k- /
-'ju:].
Ecuador np. Ecuador ['ekwdo:(r)].
ecuadorian sm., adj. Ecuadoran [ekw'do:rn],
Ecuadorian, Ecuadorean [ekw'do:rin].
Eden np. bibl. Eden ['i:dn].
Eduard np. Edward ['edwd].
Efes np. Ephesus ['efiss].
Egee np. the Aegean (Sea) [i(:)'di:n].
Egeria np. mit. Aegeria [i:'diri].
Egeu np. mit. Aegeus ['i:du:s].
Egipt np. Egypt ['i:dipt].
Egist np. mit. Aegisthus [i(:)'dists].
Elada np. (ancient) Greece ['einnt gri:s], Hellas ['hels,
! amer. 'hels].
Elam np. Elam ['i:lm].
Elba np. geogr. (the) Elbe [elb].
elen I. sm. Hellene ['heli:n], Helladian [hi'leidin],
ancient Greek ['einnt gri:k]. II. adj. Hellenic
[he'li:nik, hi-, -'len-], Helladic [he'ldik]; (grec i)
Greek [gri:k].
Elena np. 1. mit. Helen ['heln]. 2. Ellen ['eln; 'elin],
Helena ['heln], Helene [he'lein].
Eleonora np. Eleanor, Elinor ['eln], Eleanora /
Eleonora [eli'no:r].
Elisabeta, Elizabeta np. Elizabeth [i'lizb].
Elizeu np. mit. Elysium [i'lizim].
Elveia np. Switzerland ['switslnd].
Emanuel np. Em(m)anuel [i'mnjul].
Emil np. Emile [e'mi:l].
Emilia np. Emily ['emli].
Empedocle np. Empedocles [em'pedkli:z].
Encelade np. mit. Enceladus [en'selds].
Endimion, Endymion np. mitol. Endymion [en'dimin].
Enea np. mit. Aeneas / Eneas [i:'ni:s; -s].
Eneida np. mit. Aeneid / Eneid ['i:niid; i'ni:-].
Eol np. mit. Aeolus / Eolus ['i:ls; i'uls].
Epictet np. Epictetus [epik'ti:ts].
Epicur np. Epicurus [epik'kjurs].
Epir np. ist. Epirus [i'pai rs].
Erato np. Erato ['ertu].
Erebus np. Erebus ['eribs].
Erie np.: Lacul ~ Lake Erie [leik 'iri].
Eritreea np. Eritrea [eri'trei].
Ernest np. Ernest [':nist].
Eros np. Eros ['iros].
Eschil np. Aeschylus ['i:skils].
Esculap np. Aesculapius [i:skju'leipis].
Esop np. Aesop ['i:sop].
Estera np. bibl. Esther ['est; 'es].
Estonia np. Est(h)onia [e'stuni].
Etiopia np. Ethiopia / Aethiopia [ii'upi].
Etna np. Aetna / Etna ['etn]; Ethne ['eni].
Etruria np. ist. Etruria [i'truri].
etrusc sm., adj. Etruscan [i'trskn].
Eufrat np. Euphrates [ju'freiti:z].
Eugen np. Eugene ['ju:di:n; ju'ein].
eumenide, Eumenide sf. pl. / np. mit. Eumenides
[ju'menidi:z].
Eurasia np. Eurasia [ju'rei; -rei].
Euridice np. mit. Eurydice [ju'ridisi(:)].
Euripide np. Euripides [ju'ripidi:z].

Europa np. 1. geogr. Europe ['jurp]. 2. mit. Europa

[ju'rup].
Euterpe np. mit. Euterpe [ju't:pi].
Eva np. 1. bibl. Eve [i:v]. 2. i Eva ['i:v].
Everest np. Mount Everest [maunt 'evrist; -st; -rest].
Extremul Orient the Far East [ fa:r 'i:st].
Ezdra np. bibl. Ezra ['ezr].
Ezechia np. bibl. Hezekiah [hezi'kai].
Facerea np. bibl. Genesis ['densis].
Faeton np. mit. Phaethon, Phaton ['fein].
Faptele Sfinilor Apostoli np. bibl. The Acts (of the
Apostles) [i kts v i 'poslz].
faun sm. mit. Faun [fo:n]; satyr / Satyr ['st].
Ft Frumos np. Prince Charming [()prins 'ta:mi].
Febus np. mit. Phoebus ['fi:bs].
Fedra np. mit. Phaedra ['fi:dr].
Fenicia np. Phoenicia [f'ni].
Fenix np. Phoenix ['fi:niks].
Ferdinand np. Ferdinand ['f:dinnd].
Feroe np. geogr. Faeroe ['fru].
Fidias np. Phidias ['fidis; 'faid-].
Fiji np. Fiji [fi:di:].
Filadelfia np. Philadelphia [fil'delfi].
Filip np. Philip ['filip].
Filipine np. the Philippines ['filpi:nz].
filipinez sm., adj. Filipino [fili'pi:nu] (pl. ~s).
filistean sm., adj. Philistine ['filistain].
Filomela np. mit. Philomela [filu'mi:l].
Finlanda np. Finland ['finlnd].
finlandez I. sm. Finn [fin]. II. adj. Finnish ['fini].
flamand I. sm. Fleming ['flemi]. II. adj. Flemish
['flemi].
flamand sf. 1. Fleming ['flemi], Flemish woman*
[flemi 'wumn]. 2. (limb) Flemish ['flemi] (U),
the Flemish language [ flemi 'lgwid].
Flandra np. Flanders ['fla:ndz; nv. 'fln-].
Florena np. Florence ['florns].
Florida np. Florida ['florid].
Florii sf. pl. Palm Sunday [pa:m 'sndi].
Fortuna np. Fortuna [fo:'tju:n].
Frana np. France [fra:ns; amer. frns].
franc sm. ist. Frank [frk].
Frigia np. Phrygia ['fridi].
Frizia np. Friesland ['fri:zlnd, -lnd].
frizian sm., adj. Friesian ['fri:zin; 'frizin; 'fri: n].
furii / Furii sf. / np. pl. mit. Furies ['fjuriz].
Gabon np. Gabon ['gbon; g'bon].
gabonez sm., adj. Gabonese [gbo'ni:z].
Gabriel np. Gabriel ['geibril].
gal sm. ist. Gaul [go:l].
Galaad np. bibl. Galahad ['glhd].
Galateea np. Galatea [gl'ti:].
galateni sm. pl. bibl. (i cu maj.) Galatians [g'leinz].
Galia np. ist. Gaul [go:l].
Galicia np. Galicia [g'lisi; g'li(i)].
Galileea np. bibl. Galilee ['glili:].
Galileo np. Galileo [gli'leiu, -'li:u].
Galiia np. ist. Galicia [g'lisi; g'li(i)].
Gambia np. Gambia ['gmbi].
Gand np. geogr. Ghent [gent].
Gange np. (the) Ganges (River) ['gndi:z].
Ganimede np. mit. Ganymede ['gnimi:d].
Gasconia np. Gascony ['gskni].
Gaza np. Gaza ['ga:z, amer. 'gz].
Gdansk np. Gdansk [g'dnsk].
Geea np. mit. Gaea ['di:].

149

Geneva np. Geneva [d'ni:v, di-]. || locuitor din ~

Genevan [di'ni:vn], Genevese [deni'vi:z]; pl. the
Genevese, (the) Genevans [ di'ni:vnz].
Genova np. Genoa ['denu].
Georgia np. Georgia ['do:d(i)].
georgian sm., adj. Georgian ['do:d(i)n], Grusinian
[gru'zi:nin].
Germania np. Germany ['d:mni].
Ghana np. Ghana ['ga:n].
ghanez sm., adj. Ghanaian [ga:'nein; g-], Ghanian
['ga:nin].
Ghetsemani np. bibl. Gethsemane [ge'semni].
Ghilgame np. Gilgamesh ['gilgme].
Gibraltar np. Gibraltar [di'bro:lt].
gigani sm. pl. mit. Giants ['daint], Gigantes
[dai'gnti:z].
Gingis Han np. Genghis Khan ['degis ka:n].
Gobi np. Gobi ['gubi].
Goethe np. Goethe ['g:t].
Golful Persic np. geogr. the Persian Gulf [ p: n /
p:n 'glf].
Golgota np. bibl. Golgotha ['golg].
Goliat np. bibl. Goliath [g'lai].
Gomora np. bibl. Gomorrah [g'mor].
Gorgona np. mit. Gorgon ['go:gn].
graii sf. pl. mit. Graces ['greisiz].
Grampieni np. (the) Grampians ['grmpinz].
grec I. sm. 1. Greek [gri:k]. 2. ist., pol. Hellene
['heli:n]; (din Elada) Helladian [hi'leidin]. II. adj.
1. Greek [gri:k]. 2. (i elenic) Hellenic [he'li:nik, hi-,
-'len-], (din Elada) Helladic [he'ldik]..
grecesc adj. 1. Greek [gri:k]. 2. ist., pol. i Hellenic
[he'li:nik, hi-, -'len-]; (elen / elenic) Hellenic
[he'li:nik, hi-, -'len-], Helladic [he'ldik].
Grecia np. Greece [gri:s]; (veche) Hellas ['hels; ! amer.
'hels], ancient Greece ['einnt gri:s].
Grenada np. geogr. Grenada [gri'neid].
Grigore np. Gregory ['gregri].
Groenlanda np. Greenland ['gri:nlnd].
Gruzia np. Georgia ['do:d(i)].
gruzin sm., adj. Grusinian [gru'zi:nin], Georgian
['do:d(i)n].
Guam np. Guam [gwa:m].
Guadelupa np. geogr. Guadeloupe [gwa:d'lu:p, -l'u:p].
Guatemala np. Guatemala [gwa:t'ma:l].
Guineea np. Guinea ['gini]. || locuitor din ~ Guinean
['ginin].
Guineea Bissau np. geogr. Guinea Bissau [gini bi'sau].
Guyana np. Guyana [gai'n], ! nv. Guiana [gi'a:n].||
locuitor din ~ Guyanese [gai'ni:z].
Habsburg np. Habsburg, Hapsburg ['hpsb:g].
Hades np. mit. Hades ['heidi:z].
Hadrian np. Hadrian ['heidrin].
Haga np. the Hague [heig].
Haiti np. Haiti ['heiti].
haitian Haitian ['hei n; 'hai-; 'heitin; hai'i: n; ha:-].
hamadriad sf. mit. hamadryad / Hamadryad
[hm'draid; -d].
Hanoi np. Hanoi [()h'noi, h-].
Hanovra np. Hanover ['hnuv].
Harare np. geogr. Harare [h'ra:ri].
Harkov np. geogr. Kharkov ['ka:kof, -kov].
harpii sf. mit. harpies / Harpies [ha:piz].
Havai(i) np. v. HAWAII.
Hawai(i) np. Hawaii [h'waii].
Hebe np. mit. Hebe ['hi:bi].
Hebride np. (the) Hebrides ['hebrdi:z].

Hecate np. mit. Hecate ['hekti].

Hecuba np. Hecuba ['hekjub].
Hefaistos np. mit. Hephaestus, rar Hephaistos [hi'fi:sts].
Hegel np. Hegel ['heigl].
Helsinki np. Helsinki [hel'siki].
Henric np. Henry ['henri].
Hera np. mit. Hera ['hir].
Heracle(s) np. mit. Heracles ['herkli:z].
Hercule np. mit. Hercules ['h:kjuli:z]; v. i
HERACLE(S).
Hermes np. mit. Hermes ['h:mi:z].
Hermiona np. Hermione [h:'maini].
Hero np. mit. Hero ['hiru].
Herodot np. Herodotus [h'rodts].
Hesperide np. mit. Hesperides [hi'speridi:z].
Hidra np. mit. Hydra ['haidr].
Himalaya, Himalaia np. Himalaya [him'lei], the
Himalayas.
Hipolit np. mit. Hippolytus [hi'polits].
Hiroima np. Hiroshima [hi'roim].
Homer np. Homer ['hum].
Honduras np. Honduras [hon'djurs].
Hong Kong np. Hong Kong [ho'ko].
Horaii np. ist. Horatii [h'reiiai].
Horaiu np. Horatius [h'rei(i)s].
Hudson np. geogr. Hudson ['hdsn].
Humber np. geogr. Humber ['hmb].
hun sm., adj. ist. Hun [hn].
Huron np. geogr. 1. (the) Huron ['hjurn]. 2. (lacul)
(Lake) Huron ['hjurn].
Hyperion np. mit., lit. Hyperion [hai'pirin].
Iacob np. James [deimz], Jacob ['deikb; -b]; dim.
Jack [dk].
iacobin sm., adj. 1. (ist. Franei) Jacobin ['dkbin]. 2.
rel., ist. v. IACOBIT.
iacobit sm., adj. 1. rel., ist. Jacobean [dku'bi:n]. 2.
(partizan al
regelui James II (=Iacob al II-lea) Jacobite
['dkbait].
Iacov np. bibl. Jacob ['deikb].
Iafet np. mit. Japhet ['deifet].
Ialta np. geogr. Yalta ['jlt, 'jolt].
Iange, Iang np. geogr. Yangtse / Yangtze ['jktsi].
Ianus np. mit. Janus ['deins].
Iason np. mit. Jason ['deisn].
Iai np. geogr. Jassy / Yassy ['ja:si:], Iai [ja:, 'ja:i:].
Icar np. mit. Icarus ['ikrs; 'aik-].
Idomeneu np. mit. Idomeneus [ai'dominju:s].
Iehova np. Jehovah [di'huv].
Ienisei np. geogr. (the) Yenisei / rar Yenisey [jeni'sei].
Ieremia np. bibl. Jeremiah [deri'mai].
Ierihon np. bibl. Jericho ['deriku].
Ierusalim np. Jerusalem [d'ru:slm].
Ieirea np. bibl. Exodus ['eksds].
Iezechiel np. bibl. Ezekiel [i'zi:kil].
Ifigenia np. mit. Iphigenia [aifidi'nai].
Ifni np. geogr. nv. Ifni ['ifni(:)].
Iisus Christos np. Jesus Christ [di:zs 'kraist].
Ilie np. bibl. Elijah [i'laid].
Ilion np. mit. Ilium ['ailim], rar Ilion ['ilin].
Iliria np. ist. Illyria [i'liri].
Iluminism sn., np. the Enlightenment [in'laitnmnt,
en-].
India np. India ['indi].
Ind(ul) np. geogr. Indus ['inds].
Indochina np. Indo-China [indu'tain].
Indonezia np. Indonesia [indu'ni:zi].

150

Infern(ul) np. Inferno [in'f:nu], sn. inferno (pl. ~s).

Insula Man np. geogr. the Isle of Man [ail v 'mn].
Insula Patelui np. Easter Island ['i:st r ailnd].
Insula Sfnta Elena np. geogr. Saint Helena Island
[sn(t) 'helinr ailnd].
Insulele Bahamas np. geogr. the Bahamas [b'ha:mz]. ||
locuitor din ~ Bahamian [b'heimin].
Insulele Britanice np. geogr. the British Isles [ briti
'ailz].
Insulele Comore np. geogr. the Comoro Islands
['komruailndz].
Insulele Falkland np. geogr. the Falkland Island
['fo:lklnd, 'fo:k-].
Insulele Ferroe np. geogr. the Faeroes ['fruz].
Insulele Fidji np. geogr. the Fidji Islands ['fi:di:
ailndz].
Insulele Solomon np. geogr. the Solomon Islands
['solmnailndz].
Io np. mit. Io ['aiu].
Ioan, Ion np. John [don], Jon [don], Ian ['i:n].
Ioana np. Joan [dun]; Jane [dein]; dim. Jean [di:n],
Janet ['dnit], Jan [dn].
Iocasta np. mit. Jocasta [du'kst].
Ioil np. bibl. Joel ['dul].
Iona np. bibl. Jonah ['dun].
Iordan(ul) np. geogr. the Jordan ['do:dn].
Iordania np. Jordan ['do:dn].
Iosafat np. mit. Jehoshaphat [di'hoft, -'hos-].
Iosefina np. Josephine ['duzifi:n].
Iosif np. Joseph ['duzif; -f].
Iosua (Navi) np. bibl. Joshua ['do(j)u].
Iov np. bibl. Job [dub].
Irak np. Iraq / Irak [i'ra:k].
Iran np. Iran [i'ra:n; -rn].
iranian sm., adj. Iranian [i'reinjn].
Irianul de Vest np. geogr. West Irian ['irin, 'ir-, -a:n].
Irina np. Irene ['ai'ri:n; ai'ri:ni].
Iris np. mit. Iris ['airis].
Irlanda np. Ireland ['ailnd]; Eire / ire ['r].
irochez sm., adj. Iroquois ['irkwoi] (pl. ['irkwoiz]).
Irod np. bibl. Herod ['herd].
Isaac np. bibl. Isaac ['aizk].
Isaia np. bibl. Isaiah [ai'zai].
Isav np. bibl. Esau ['i:so:].
Isis np. f. mit. Isis ['aisis].
Islam sn. / np. [iz'la:m; amer. 'isla:m].
Islamabad np. Islamabad [iz'la:mbd, is-, -'lm-,
-ba:d].
Islanda np. Iceland ['aislnd]. || locuitor din ~ Icelander
['aislnd].
Ismena np. mit. Ismene [is'mi:ni:].
Israel np. Israel ['izreil; 'izril].
israelian sm., adj. Israeli [iz'reili] (pl. invar. sau Israelis).
Istanbul np. Istanbul [istn'bul, -a:n-, -'bu:l].
Itaca np. mit. Ithaca ['ik].
Italia np. Italy ['itli].
Iuda np. Judah ['du:d]; Judas ['du:ds].
Iudeea np. [du'di].
Iugoslavia np. Yugoslavia, Jugoslavia [ju:gu'sla:vi].
Iunona np. mit. Juno ['du:nu].
Iuvenal np. Juvenal ['du:vnl, -in-].
Ixion np. mit. Ixion [ik'sain].
Izabela, Isabela np. Isabel ['izbel], Isabella [iz'bel].
Izmir np. Izmir ['izmi]; ist. Smyrna ['sm:n].
Jamaica np. Jamaica [d'meik].
Japonia np. Japan [d'pn].
Java np. Java ['da:v].

Johannesburg np. Johannesburg [du'hnisb:g].

Jupiter np. Jupiter ['du:pit].
Kabul np. Kabul ['ka:bul, 'ko:b-, -l, k'bul].
Kalahari np. Kalahari [kl'ha:ri].
Kampala np. Kampala [km'pa:l].
Kant np. Kant [ka:nt].
Kamir np. v. CAMIR.
Katar np. geogr. v. QATAR.
Katmandu np. geogr. Katmandu [ktmn'du:, ka:t-,
-mn-, -ma:n-].
Kenia, Kenya np. Kenya ['kenj].
Keops np. Cheops ['ki:ops].
K.G.B. np. (the) KGB [kei di 'bi:].
Khartum np. geogr. Khart(o)um [()ka:'tu:m].
khmer sm. Khmer [km, k'm].
Kiev np. Kiev ['ki:ef; -ev].
Kilimanjaro np. Kilimanjaro [kilimn'da:ru, -imn-].
Kinshasa np. geogr. Kinshasa [kin'a:s, -'s, -'a:z].
Kitai np. nv. v. CHITAI.
K ln np. Cologne [k'lun].
Kosovo np. Kosovo ['kosvu].
Kuala Lumpur np. geogr. Kuala Lumpur [kwa:l
'lumpu, 'kwol-, 'lmp-, -].
Kuweit np. Kuwait [ku'weit]. || locuitor din ~ Kuwaiti
[ku'weiti].
kuweitian sm., adj. Kuwaiti [ku'weiti].
Laban np. bibl. Laban ['leibn].
Labrador np. geogr. Labrador ['lbrdo:].
Lacedemonia np. ist. Lacedaemon [ls'di:mn]. ||
locuitor din ~ Lacedaemonian [lsdi'munin].
Laerte np. mit. Laertes [lei':ti:z].
Laetitia, Letiia np. Laetitia [li'ti], Letitia [l'ti].
Lagos np. Lagos ['leigos].
Laios np. mit. Laius ['leis; 'lais].
Laocoon np. mit. Laocoon, Laoco n [lei'okuon].
Laos np. Laos [laus; lauz; 'la:os]. || locuitor din ~ Laotian
['laun].
La Paz np. geogr. La Paz [l 'pa:z], span. [la: 'pa:s /
pa:].
lapon I. sm. Lapp [lp]. II. adj. Lappish ['lpi].
Laponia np. Lapland ['lplnd; 'lplnd].
lari(i) sm. pl. mit. lares, Lares ['la:reiz].
Latona np. mit. Latona [l'tun].
Laium np. ist. Latium ['leiim].
Laura np. Laura ['lo:r].
Laureniu np. Lawrence, Lawrance, Laurence ['lorns].
La Valletta np. geogr.Valletta [v'let].
Lavinia np. Lavinia [l'vini].
Lazr np. Lazarus ['lzrs].
Leda np. mit. Leda ['li:d].
Leipzig np. geogr. Leipzig ['laipsig].
Leon np. 1. (pap) Leon ['li:n, 'lei-, -on]. 2. Leo ['li:u].
Leonard np. Leonard ['lend].
Leonardo (da Vinci)
np. Leonardo (da Vinci)
[li:'na:du (d 'vinti)].
Lesbos np. Lesbos ['lezbos].
Lesotho np. Lesotho [li'su:tu:, lei-; -'sutu].
Lethe np. mit. Lethe ['li:i].
Leto np.v. LATONA.
leton I. sm. Lett [let], Latvian ['ltvin]. II. adj. Latvian
['ltvin], Lettish ['leti]; Lettic ['letik]; limba ~
Latvian (U), Lettish (U), Lett (U).
Letonia np. Latvia ['ltvi].
Levant sn., np. Orient ['o(:)rint], East, the Levant [
l'vnt, ;li-].
levantin sm. adj. Levantine ['levntain, -ti:n].

151

no:n 'ailnd]. || locuitor din ~ Briton ['britn],

fam. Brit [brit], amer. fam. Britisher ['briti].
Marea Cart np. ist. Magna C(h)arta [mgn 'ka:t].
Marea Ionian np. geogr. the Ionian Sea [ai'unin 'si:].
Marea Marmara np. Sea of Marmara ['ma:mr].
Marea Mediteran np. the Mediterranean (Sea)
[medit'reinin (si:)].
Marea Mnecii np. the (English) Channel [igli 'tnl].
Marea Nordului np. geogr. the North Sea [no: 'si:].
Marea Sargaselor / de Sargase np. geogr. the Sargasso
Sea [ sa:'gsu 'si:].
Marea Tirenian np. the Tyrrhenian (Sea) [ ti'ri:nin
('si:)].
Margareta np. Margaret ['ma:grt; -rit].
Maria np. Mary ['mri]; Maria [m'ri:; m'rai]. ||
Fecioara Maria np. Virgin Mary [v:din 'mri], the
Holy Virgin [ huli 'v:din].
Mariana np. Marian ['mrin], Mariana [mri'a:n],
Marianne [mri'n]; Marion ['mrin; 'mrin].
Maroc np. Morocco [m'roku].
marocan sm., adj. Moroccan [m'rokn].
Marsilia np. Marseilles [ma:'sei; -'seilz].
Marta np. Martha ['ma:].
Marte np. mit., astr. Mars [ma:z].
Martinica np. geogr. Martinique [ma:ti'ni:k, -n'i:k].
Mascat np. geogr. Muscat ['mskt, m'skt].
Matei np. Matthew ['mju:].
Matusalem np. bibl, Methuselah [m'(j)u:zl, mi-].
Mauriciu np. geogr. Mauritius [m'ris, mo(:)-].
Mauritania np. Mauretania [mori'teini].
Mecena np. Maecenas [mai'si:ns, mi:-, -s].
Medeea np. Medea [mi'di].
Meduza np. mit. Medusa [m'dju:z].
Mefisto np. Mephisto [m'fistu, mi-, me-].
Mefistofel np. Mephistopheles [mefi'stofli:z, -'stofili:z].
Melanezia np. Melanesia [mel'ni:zi].
Melbourne np. Melbourne ['melbn; 'melbo:n].
Meleagru np. mit. Meleager [meli'eig].
Melpomena np. mit. Melpomene [mel'pomni].
menade sf. pl. mit. maenads, Maenads ['mi:ndz].
Menelau np. mit. Menelaus [meni'leis].
Mercur np. Mercury ['m:kjuri].
Mesopotamia np. Mesopotamia [mesp'teimi].
Mexic np. Mexico ['meksiku].
Micene np. Mycenae [mai'si:ni(:)].
Michigan np. Michigan ['miign].
Midas np. mit. Midas ['maids; -ds].
Mihai np. Michael ['maikl]; dim. Mike [maik], Mick
[mik].
Miheia np. bibl. Micah ['maik].
Milano np. Milan [mi'ln; -la:n; nv. 'miln].
Milo np. Melos ['mi:los, 'mel-], Milo ['mailu].
Minerva np. mit. Minerva [mi'n:v].
Minos np. mit. Minos ['mainos].
Minotaurul np. mit. Minotaur ['mainto:].
Mississippi np. the Mississippi (river) [misi'sipi].
Moesia np. ist. Moesia ['mi:si, 'mi:z-].
Mogadiscio np. geogr. Mogadishu [mog'diu:], rar
Mogadiscio.
Moise np. bibl. Moses ['muziz].
Moldova np. Moldavia [mol'deivi]; Moldova
[mo(:)l'duv].
Monaco np. Monaco ['monku, m'na:ku]. || locuitor
din ~ Monegasque / Mongasque [moni'gsk].
Mongolia np. Mongolia [mo'guli].
Monica np. Monica ['monik].

Leviticul np. bibl. Leviticus [l'vitiks].

Leyda np. Leiden ['laid n; 'leidn], Leyden ['laid n].
Liban np. Lebanon ['lebnn].
libanez Lebanese [leb'ni:z].
Liberia np. Liberia [lai'biri].
Libia np. Libya ['libi].
Liechtenstein np. Liechtenstein ['liktnstain].
Lige np. Liege, Lige [li'ei; -'e].
Liliana np. Lil(l)ian ['lilin].
Liliput np. Lilliput ['lilipt, -put, -ipt].
liliputan sm., adj. Lilliputian / lilliputian [lili'pju:n,
-'pju:in].
Lima np. Lima ['li:m].
Lipsca np. geogr. nv. v. LEIPZIG.
Lisabona np. Lisbon ['lizbn].
Lituania np. Lithuania [liju'eini].
Liubliana np. Ljubljana [l(j)u:bli(:)'a:n].
Liverpool np. Liverpool ['livpu:l]. || locuitor din ~
Liverpudlian [liv'pdlin].
Livorno np. Livorno [li'vo:nu], nv. Leghorn ['legho:n].
Loara np. the Loire [lwa:].
Lombardia np. Lombardy ['lombdi].
Londra np. London ['lndn].
Lorena np. Lorraine [l'rein].
Lotofagi np. mit. Lotophagi [l'tofdai], the LotusEaters ['luts i:tz].
Luanda np. geogr. Luanda [lu'nd]
Luca np. Luke [lu:k].
Lucia np. Lucy, Lucie ['lu:si].
Lucifer np. bibl. Lucifer ['lu:sif].
Lucreia np. Lucretia [lu'kri:]; Lucrece [lu'kri:s].
Ludovic np. Louis ['lu:i; 'lu:is], Lewis ['lu:is]; (nu d. regii
Franei) Ludovic ['lu:dvik].
Luiza np. Louise [lu'i:z], Louisa [lu'i:z].
Lupercalii np. pl. Lupercalia [lup'keili] (rar ~s),
Lupercal ['lu:pkl].
Luther np. Luther ['lu:].
Luxemburg np. Luxemburg ['lksmb:g].
Lycurg np. Lycurgus [lai'k:gs].
Lydia np. Lydia ['lidi].
Lyon np. Lyons ['li:; 'lainz].
Lysistrata np. Lysistrata [lai'sistrt].
Macau np. geogr. Macau [m'kau].
Macedonia np. Macedonia [msi'duni; -nj].
Madagascar np. Madagascar [md'gsk].
Madrid np. Madrid [m'drid].
Mafia np., sf. Mafia / mafia, maffia ['mfi, 'mf-].
Mahomed Mahommed [m'homid; -ed], Mahomet
[m'homit; -et], Mohammed [mu'hmid, -ed].
mahomedan sm., adj. Moslem sau Muslim ['muzlim],
Mohammedan [mu'hmidn].
Malawi np. geogr. Malawi [m'la:wi].
Malaezia, Malaiezia, Malayezia
np. Malaysia
[m'leizi]; (peninsula i) Malaya [m'lei], Malay
Peninsula [m'lei; amer i 'meilei].
Maldive np. pl. the Maldive Islands, the Maldives
['mo:ldi:vz; 'mold-, ma:ld-, -ivz; -aivz].
Maleahi np. bibl. Malachi ['mlkai].
Mali np. Mali ['ma:li].
Malta np. Malta ['mo:lt].
Managua np. geogr. Managua [m'ngw, -'na:g-].
Maramure
np.
geogr.
(the)
Maramuresh
[ma:r'mu:re].
Marat(h)on np. Marathon ['mrn].
Marea Britanie np. Great Britain [greit 'brit n]; (oficial)
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland [ junaitid 'kidm v greit 'brit n nd

152

Monrovia np. geogr. Monrovia [mn'ruvi, mon-].

Mont Blanc np. Mont Blanc [m 'bl; 'blo].
Monte Carlo np. Monte Carlo [monti 'ka:lu].
Montevideo np. Montevideo [montivi'deiu; ..'vidiu].
Montreal np. Montreal [montri'o:l].
Moravia np. Moravia [m'reivi].
Morfeu np. mit. Morpheus ['mo:fju:s].
Moscova np. Moscow ['mosku].
moscovit sm., adj. Muscovite ['mskvait].
Mozambic np. Mozambique [muzm'bi:k; -m-].
mozambican sm., adj. Mozambican / Mozambiquan
[muzm'bi:kn].
Mozart np. Mozart ['mutsa:t].
Mnchen np. Munich ['mju:nik].
muntenegrean sm., adj. Montenegrin [monti'ni:grin;
-neig-].
Muntenegru np. Montenegro [monti'ni:gru, -neig-]. ||
locuitor din ~ v. MUNTENEGREAN.
Muntenia np. Wal(l)achia [wo'leiki].
Munii Caucaz np. Caucasus ['ko:kss].
Munii Cordilieri np. geogr. the Cordilleras
[ko:dil'jrz, -l].
Munii Stncoi np. geogr. the Rocky Mountains [roki
'mauntinz].
muze mit. Muses ['mju:ziz].
naiade sf. pl. mit. Naiads / naiads ['naidz; 'naidz].
Nagasaki np. geogr. Nagasaki [ng'sa:ki].
Nairobi np. geogr. Nairobi [nai'rubi].
Namibia np. Namibia [n'mibi].
Napoleon np. Napoleon [n'pulin].
Napoli, Neapole np. Naples ['neiplz].
Narcis np. mit. Narcissus [na:'siss].
Naum np. bibl. Nahum ['neihm; -hm].
Nausicaa np. mit. Nausicaa / Nausica [no:'siki; -ei].
Nazaret np. Nazareth ['nzri].
Neemia np. bibl. Nehemiah [ni:'mai].
Nemesis np. mit. Nemesis ['nemsis].
Nepal np. Nepal [ni'po:l].
Neptun np. Neptune ['neptju:n].
nereide sf. pl. mit. Nereids / nereids ['niriidz].
Nero np. Nero ['niru].
Nesus np. mit. Nessus ['ness].
Nevada np. Nevada [ni'va:d; n-; amer. ni'vd; n-,
ne-].
New York np. New York [nju:'jo:k; amer. ()nu:'jo:rk].
Niasa(land) np. geogr. Nyassa(land) [nai'slnd, ni].
Niagara np. Niagara [nai'gr].
Nicaragua np. Nicaragua [nik'rgju; -'ra:gw].
Niceea np. Nicaea [nai'si:].
Nicolae np. Nicholas ['nikls].
Nicosia np. Nicosia [nik'si:].
Niger np. 1. (ara) Niger [ni:']. 2. (fluviul) Niger
['naid].
Nigeria np. Nigeria [nai'diri].
Nike np. mit. Nike [naik; 'naiki:].
Nil(ul) np. geogr. the Nile [nail].
nimf sf. mit. nymph [nimpf].
Ninive np. Nineveh ['niniv].
Niobe, Niobeea np. mit. Niobe ['naibi].
Nipru np. Dnieper [ni:p].
Nisa np. Nice [ni:s].
Nistru np. Dniester ['ni:st].
Nobel np. Nobel [()nu'bel].
Noe np. bibl. Noah ['nu].
Normandia np. Normandy ['no:mndi].
Norvegia np. Norway ['no:wei].

Noua Caledonie np. geogr. New Caledonia [nju:

kli'duni].
Noua Guinee np. New Guinea [()nju: 'gini].
Noua Zeeland np. New Zealand [nju 'zi:lnd].
Numerii np. bibl. Numbers ['nmbz].
Obi np. geogr. Ob [ob, op; amer. i ub, o:b, a:b].
Oceania np. Oceania [usi'a:ni, 'u-, -'ein-].
oceanide, Oceanide sf. pl. / np. mit. Oceanids / oceanids
[u'si:nid, -i:-].
Oceanul Indian np. the Indian Ocean [indin 'un].
Oceanul ngheat de Nord np. geogr. the Arctic Ocean
[i a:ktik 'un].
Oder, Odra np. geogr. Oder ['ud].
Odin np. mit. Odin ['udin], Woden / Wodan ['wudn];
(la germani) Wotan ['vuta:n, -n].
Odiseea np. Odyssey ['odisi].
Odiseu np. mit. Odysseus ['disju:s; o'disju:s].
Oedip np. mit. Oedipus ['i:dips].
Olanda np. Holland ['holnd], the Netherlands
['nelndz].
Olimp np. (Mount) Olympus ['limps] (nu the ~).
Oltenia np. geogr. Oltenia [ol'teni].
Oman np. Oman [u'ma:n].
Ontario np. (Lake) Ontario [on'triu].
O.N.U. np. UNO ['ju:nu].
Orcade np. geogr. the Orkney Islands ['o:kni ailndz],
the Orkneys ['o:kniz].
Oreste np. mit. Oreste [o'resti:z].
Orfeu np. mit. Orpheus ['o:fju:s].
Orinoco np. the Orinoco [ori'nuku].
Osiris np. mit. Osiris [u'sairis].
Oslo np. Oslo ['ozlu].
ostrogot sm., adj. Ostrogoth ['ostrugo].
Ottawa np. geogr. Ottawa ['otw].
Ovidiu np. Ovid ['ovid].
O.Z.N. sn. / np. UFO [ju:ef 'u, 'ju:fu].
Pacific adj.: Oceanul ~ the Pacific (Ocean) [p'sifik
'un].
Pad np. geogr. (the) Po [pu].
Pakistan np. Pakistan [pa:ki'sta:n].
Palas Atena np. mit. Pallas Athena ['pls / 'pls
'i:n].
Palatinat np. Palatinate [p'ltint; p'ltnt].
Palestina np. Palestine ['plstain].
Pamir np. geogr. Pamir [p'mi].
Pan np. mit. Pan [pn].
Panama np. Panama ['pnma:].
Pandora np. mit. Pandora [()pn'do:r].
Panonia np. geogr., ist. Pannonia [p'nuni, p-].
Papua np. Papua ['ppu].
Paraguay np. Paraguay ['prgwai].
Paramaribo np. geogr. Paramaribo [pr'mribu].
parce sf. pl. mit. Parcae ['pa:si:] (sing. Parca ['pa:k]).
Paris np. mit., geogr. Paris ['pris].
Parnas np. mit. Parnassus [pa:'nss].
Patrocle np. mit. Patroclus [p'trokls].
Pavel np. Paul ['po:l]. || Sfntul ~ Saint Paul [sn(t)
'po:l].
Pegas np. mit. Pegassus 'pegss].
Pekin np. Pekin [pi:'kin], Peking [pi:'ki].
Peleu np. mit. Peleus ['pi:lju:s].
Peloponez np. Peloponnese ['pelpni:s], Peloponnesus
[pelp'ni:ss].
penai sm. pl. mit. Penates, penates [pe'na:teiz].
Penelopa np. mit. Penelope [pi'nelpi].
Penini np. the Pennines ['penainz].
Pericle np. Pericles ['perikli:z].

153

Persefona np. mit. Persephone [p:'sefni].

Perseu np. mit. Perseus ['p:sju:s].
Persia np. Persia ['p:; 'p:].
Peru np. Peru [p'ru:].
Petrarca np. Petrarch ['petra:k].
Petre, Petru np. Peter ['pi:t]; dim. Pete [pi:t].
Phenian np. Pyongyang [pjo'j].
Piemont np. geogr., ist. Piedmont ['pi:dmont].
Pigmalion, Pygmalion np. mit. Pygmalion [pig'meilin].
Pilade np. mit. Pylades ['pildi:z].
Pilat (din Pont) np. bibl. Pilate (Pontius) ['pailt
('pontis)].
Pildele (lui Solomon) np. bibl. Proverbs ['prov:bz].
Pind np. geogr. Pindus ['pinds].
Pindar np. Pindar ['pind, -a:].
Piram np. Pyramus ['pirms].
Pirinei np. pl. geogr. Pyrenees [pir'ni:z, -i-].
Pirus np. Pyrrhus ['pirs].
Pius np. Pius ['pais].
Plngerile lui Ieremia np. bibl. Lamentations
[lmn'teinz].
Platon np. Plato ['pleitu].
Pleiade np. mit., astr. Pleiades ['plaidi:z] (sing. Pleiad
['plaid]).
Pliniu np. Pliny ['plini].|| ~ cel Btrn Pliny the Elder /
rar Older ['plini i 'eld / 'uld], ~ cel Tnr Pliny
the Younger ['plini 'j].
Plutarh np. Plutarch ['plu:ta:k].
Pluto np. astr. v. PLUTON.
Pluton np. astr., mit. Pluto ['plu:tu].
Pnom-Penh np. geogr. P(h)nom-Penh [nom 'pen;
pnom-, pnom'pen].
Polibius np. Polybius [p'libis].
Polifem np. mit. Polyphemus [poli'fi:ms].
Polimnia np. mit. Polyhymnia [poli'himni], Polymnia
[p'limni].
Polinezia np. Polynesia [poli'ni:zi].
Polonia np. Poland ['pulnd].
Pompei np. ist. Pompeii [pom'peii, -i:, 'pompei].
Pontul Euxin np. geogr., ist. the Euxine [ 'ju:ksain],
the Euxine Sea [ ju:ksain 'si:], rar Pontus
Euxinus ['ponts 'ju:ksins].
Porile de Fier np. The Iron Gates [i 'ain 'geits].
Porto Rico np. Puerto Rico ['pw:tu 'ri:ku].
Portugalia np. Portugal ['po:tugl; 'po:tg-; 'po:tjug-].
Poseidon np. mit. Poseidon [p'saidn].
Potomac np. the Potomac (river) [p'tumk;
amer.p'toumk].
Praga np. Prague [pra:g].
Pretoria np. geogr. Pretoria [pri'to:ri, pri:-].
Priam np. mit. Priam ['praim].
Procust np. Procrustes [pru'krsti:z]. || a(l) lui ~
Procrustean [pru'krstin].
Prometeu np. Prometheus [pru'mi:ju:s].
Proserpina np. Proserpine ['prospain].
Proteu np. Proteus ['prutju:s].
Provena np. Provence [pro'vs; pr-].
provensal, sm., adj., provensal sf., adj. Provencal /
Provenal [prov'sa:l] (fem.: Provencale /
Provenale).
Psiheea np. Psyche ['saiki].
Ptolemeu np. Ptolemy ['tolmi].
Qatar np. Qatar ['kta:; 'kta:].
Qubec np. geogr. Quebec / Qubec [kwi'bek, kw-, k-].
Quito np. geogr. Quito ['ki:tu].
Rabat np. geogr. Rabat [r'ba:t, ra:-, -'bt].

Rafael np. Raphael ['rfeil; 'rfil].

Rahela np. bibl. Rachel ['reitl].
Ramses np. ist. Ramses ['rmsi:z].
Rangoon, Rangun np. geogr. Rangoon [()r'gu:n].
Rebeca, Reveca np. bibl. Rebecca [ri'bek].
Regatul Unit (al Marii Britanii i Irlandei de Nord) np. v.
MAREA BRITANIE.
Rembrandt np. Rembrandt ['rembrnt, -brnt].
Remus np. Remus ['ri:ms].
Republica Africa de Sud, Republica Sud-African np.
(Republic of) South Africa [(ri'pblik v)sau
'frik]; ist. The Union of South Africa [ 'ju:nin
v sau 'frik].
Republica Arab Unit np. ist. v. EGIPT.
Republica Ceh np. the Czech Republic [ tek
ri'pblik].
Republica Malga np. geogr. Malagasy Republic [
ml'gsi,
(-'ga:zi)
ri'pblik];
Madagscar
[md'gsk].
Republica Moldova np. Moldova [mo(:)l'duv].
Republica Popular Chinez np. the People's Republic
of China [ 'pi:plz ri'pblik v 'tain].
Reunion / Runion np. geogr. Reunion / Runion
[()ri:'ju:nin].
Reykjavik np. geogr. Reykjavik ['reikjvik, 'rek-, 'reik-,
-vi:k].
Rhea Silvia np. Rhea Silvia [ri/ 'ri: 'silvi].
Rhodezia np. geogr., ist. Rhodesia [ru'di:, -'di:].
Riga np. Riga ['ri:g; nv. 'raig].
Rin np. the Rhine [rain].
Rio de Janeiro np. Rio de Janeiro ['ri:u d 'niru].
Riyadh np. geogr. Riyadh ['ri:d, ri'ja:d, -'jd].
Rodopi np. geogr. Rhodope ['rodpi, ro'dupi, ru-].
Rodos np. Rhodes [rudz].
rom sm. Rom [rom; rum], Romany* ['romni, 'rumni].
|| limba ~ilor Romanes ['romnes, -nis] (U),
Romany ['romni, 'rumni] (U).
Roma np. Rome [rum].

154

romand adj. f.: limba ~ v. ROMAN.

roman sm., adj. Romansch / Romansh
[ru'mn, ru-]. || limba ~
Romansch / Romansh (U).
Romnia np. Romania, Rumania, nv.
Roumania [ru'meini; ru-].
Romulus np. Romulus ['romjuls].
Ron np. the Rhone / Rhne [run].
Ruanda, Rwanda np. geogr. Rwanda,
Ruanda [ru'nd].
Ruhr np. geogr. Ruhr [ru].
Rumelia np. geogr., ist. Rumelia
[ru'mi:lj].
Rusia np. Russia ['r].
Rut np. bibl.: Cartea Rut Ruth [ru:].
saduceu sm. Sadducee ['sdjusi:].
Sahara np. Sahara [s'ha:r].
Saigon np. geogr. nv. Saigon [sai'gon].
Salamina np. Salamis ['slmis].
Salisbury
np.
geogr.
Salisbury
['so(:)lzbri].
Salomeea np. bibl. Salome [s'lumi].
Salonic np. Salonica / Salonika
[s'lonik; sl'naik]; Saloniki
[sa:lo:'ni:ki(:)].
Salvador np. geogr. El Salvador [()el
'slvdo:].
Samoa np. geogr. Samoa [s'mu].
Samot(h)race np. ist. Samothrace
['smureis].
San Domingo np. Santo Domingo
[sntu d'migu].
San Marino np. San Marino [sn
m'ri:nu].
Sapho np. Sappho ['sfu].
Sara np. bibl. Sarah ['sr]; Sara [sa:r;
'sr].
Saraievo, Sarajevo np. Sarajevo
[sr'jeivu].
sarazin I. sm. Saracen ['srsn]. II.
adj. Saracen ['srsn], Saracenic
[sr'senik].
Sardinia np. Sardinia [sa:'dini].
sarmat sm., adj. Sarmatian [sa:'mei n].
Satan np. Satan ['seitn, nv. 'st-].
Saturn np. Saturn ['st:n].

Saxonia np. Saxony ['sksni].

Scandinavia
np.
Scandinavia
[skndi'neivi].
Sciia np. Scythia ['sii; 'sii].
Scila np. mit. Scylla ['sil].
scit sm., adj. Scythian ['siin].
Scoia np. Scotland ['skotlnd].
scoian I. sm. Scotsman* ['skotsmn],
nv., peior. Scotchman* ['skotmn],
Scot [skot]. II. adj. Scottish
['skoti], Scotch [skot] (! nv.,
peior; i cu nume de produse: ~
whisky), Scots (!! pt. persoane).
scoian
sf.
1.
Scotswoman*
['skotwumn],
nv.
Scotch
(woman*). 2. Scottish ['skoti] (U),
Scots [skots] (U), the Scottish
dialect.
Scufia Roie np. Little Red Riding
Hood ['litl red 'raidi hud].
Sebastian np. Sebastian [s'bstin].
Selene np. mit. Selene [s'li:ni; si-].
Semiramida
np.
Semiramis
[s'mirmis].
Sena np. (the) Sein [sein].
Seneca np. Seneca ['senik].
Senegal np. Senegal [seni'go:l].
Serbia np. Serbia ['s:bi].
Set np. mit. Seth [se].
Seul np. Seoul [sul].
Seychelles np.: Insulele ~ the
Seychelles [sei'elz].
sfinx(ul) sm. (the) Sphinx [sfiks].
Siam np. Siam [sai'm].
Siberia np. Siberia [sai'biri].
Sicilia np. Sicily ['sisli].
SIDA np./ sf. AIDS, Aids [eidz].
Sierra Leone np. geogr. Sierra Leone
[sier li'un, -r-, -'uni].
Silezia np. Silesia [sai'li:zi].
Silvia np. Silvia / Sylvia ['silvi]; Silvie
['silvi].
Simon np. Simon ['saimn].
Sinai np. Sinai ['sainai, 'sainiai,
'saineiai].
Singapore np. Singapore [si'po:].

155

Sioux np.: indieni ~ Sioux [su:z, su:]

(sing. [su:]).
Siracuza np. Syracuse ['sairkju:z].
Siria np. Syria ['siri].
Sisif np. mit. Sisyphus ['sisifs].
Slovacia np. Slovakia [slu'vki].
Slovenia np. Slovenia [slu'vi.:ni].
Smirna np. Smyrna ['sm:n].
Socrate np. Socrates ['sokrti:z].
Sodoma np. Sodom ['sodm].
Sofia np. 1. geogr. Sofia
['sufi;
su'fi:]. 2. (persoan) Sophia
[su'fai], Sophie ['sufi].
Sofocle np. Sophocles ['sofkli:z].
Sofonie np. bibl. Zephaniah [zef'nai].
Soliman, Suleiman np. Suleiman
[suli'ma:n; su:l-; -ei-; 'suli-].
somalez sm., adj. Somali [s'ma:li],
Somalian [s'ma:lin].
Somalia np. Somalia [s'ma:li].
Spania np. Spain [spein].
Sparta np. Sparta ['spa:t].
Sri Lanka np. Sri Lanka [sri 'lk; ri
'lk].
Statele Unite (ale Americii) np. the
United States of America [
junaitid 'steits v 'merik]; (the)
USA [() ju:es'ei]; fam. the States.
Stentor np. mit. Stentor ['stento:].
Stockholm np. Stockholm ['stokhum].
Strasburg np. Strasbourg ['strzb:g].
Styx(ul) np. mit. (the) Styx [stiks].
S.U.A., fam. SUA np. (the) USA [()
ju:es'ei], fam. the States.
Sudan
np. (the) Sudan [su:'da:n;
su:'dn].
Suedia np. Sweden ['swi:d n].
Sumatra np. Sumatra [su'ma:tr].
Sumer np. ist. Sumer ['su:m].
sumerian
sm.,
adj.
Sumerian
[s(j)u'mirin, s-, -'mr-].
Surinam np. Surinam(e) [suri'nm].
Suzana np. Susan ['su:zn], Susanna(h)
[su'zn].
Swaziland np. geogr. Swaziland
['swa:zilnd].

eherezada
np.
Scheherazade
[her'za:d, i-, -hir-, -za:d].
tefan np. Stephen ['sti:vn].
Tadjikistan np. Tajikistan, Tadzhikistan
[ta:di:ki'sta:n].
Tahiti np. Tahiti [t'hi:ti].
tahitian Tahitian [t'hi:n].
Taiget np. mit. Taygete ['teiditi:].
Tailanda np. Thailand ['tailnd; -lnd],
ist. Siam [sai'm].
tailandez, thailandez sm., adj. Thai
[tai].
Taivan / Taiwan np. Taiwan [tai'wa:n];
ist. Formosa
[fo:'mus; -muz].
Talia np. mit. Thalia ['lai].
Tallin np. Tallin / Tallinn ['tlin; t'lin,
-li:n].
Tamerlan np. ist. v. TIMUR LENK.
Tamisa np. the Thames [temz].
Tananarivo np. geogr. Antananarivo
[nt0nn'ri:vu].
Tanganika, Tanganica np. Tanganyika
[tgn'ji:k].
Tantal np. mit. Tantalus ['tntls].
Tanzania np. Tanzania [tnz'ni:].
Tasmania
np.
geogr.
Tasmania
[tz'meini].
Tatra np. the Tatra Mountains, High
Tatra ['ta:tr].
Taurida np. Tauris ['to:ris].
ttar sm., adj. Tatar ['ta:t], Tartar ['ta:t;
-a:].
Teba np. Thebes [i:bz].
Te Deum, tedeum sn. Te Deum
[ti:'di:m, tei'dei-, -um].
Tegucigalpa np. geogr. Tegucigalpa
[tegusi'ga:lpa:].
Teheran np. geogr. Teheran, Tehran
[t'ra:n, -rn, teh-; amer. te'ra:n,
-'rn].
Tel Aviv np. Tel Aviv [tel 'vi.:v].
Telemah
np.
mit.
Telemachus
[t'lemks; ti-].
Termopile
np.
Thermopylae
[(:)'mopli(:)].

156

Terpsihora np. mit. Terpsichore

[t:p'sikri].
Terra np. geogr. Terra ['ter], the Earth.
Terra Nova np. geogr. Newfoundland
['nju:fndlnd; -lnd; nju:'faund-].
Tesalia np. Thessaly ['esli].
tesaloniceni sm. pl. bibl. Thessalonians
[es'luninz].
Tezeu np. mit. Theseus ['i:sju:s;
'i:sis].
Thanatos np. mit. Thanatos ['ntos].
Thetis np. mit. Thetis ['etis].
Tibet np. geogr. (the) Tibet [ti'bet].
Tibru np. geogr. (the) Tiber (river)
['taib].
Tigru np. geogr. (the) Tigris (river)
['taigris; -s].
Timur Lenk np. ist. Tamerlane
['tmlein],
Tamburlaine
['tmblein].
Tir, Tyr np. Tyre ['tai]. || din ~ Tyrian
['tirin].
tirian, tyrian sm., adj. Tyrian ['tirin].
Tirana np. Tirana [ti'ra:n].
Tiresias np. mit. Tiresias [tai'ri:sis].
Tirol np. Tyrol / Tirol [ti'rul].
Tisbe np. mitol. Thisbe [izbi].
Tit Liviu np. ist. Livy ['livi].
Tiian np. Titian ['tin; 'tiin].
Togo np. Togo ['tugu].
Tokio np. Tokyo ['tukiu].
Toma np. Thomas ['toms]. || ~
dAquino Saint Thomas [snt
'toms], Aquinas ['kwains].
Tombuctu np. geogr. Timbuctoo /
Timbuktu [timbk'tu:, -bk-].
Torino np. Turin [tju'rin; tju'rin].
Toscana np. Tuscany ['tskni].
Toulon np. Toulon [()tu:'l].
trac sm., adj. Thracian ['rein].
Tracia np. Thrace ['reis].
Traian np. Trajan ['treidn].
Transilvania
np.
geogr.,
ist.
Transylvania [trnsil'veini].

Trinidad(-Tobago) np. Trinidad and

Tobago,
rar
Trinidad-Tobago
['trinidd (nd) t'beigu].
Tripoli np. Tripoli ['tripli].
Tristan np. Tristram ['tristrm], Tristan
['tristn], Tristam ['tristm].
Triton np. mit. Triton ['trait n].
Troia np. ist. Troy [troi].
troian sm., adj. Trojan ['trudn].
Troil(us) np. Troilus ['troils; 'truils].
Tucidide np. Thucydides [ju'siddi:z,
-'sididi:z].
Tunis np. Tunis ['tju:nis].
Tunisia np. Tunisia [tju'nizi; -nis].
Turcia np. Turkey ['t:ki].
ara de Foc np. geogr. Tierra del Fuego
[tirdel'fweigu, -ei- tir..'..].
ara Galilor np. Wales [weilz].
ara Romneasc np. v. VALAHIA.
rile de Jos np. geogr., ist. the Low
Countries [ lu 'kntriz]; the
Netherlands [ 'nelndz].
Ucraina np. (the) Ukraine [ju'krein].
Uganda np. Uganda [ju'gnd].
Ulan Bator np. geogr. Ulan Bator
['u:la:n 'ba:to:].
Ulise np. mit. Ulysses [ju'lisi:z; ! rar
'ju:lisi:z];
Odysseus
['disju:s;
o'disju:s].
Ungaria np. Hungary ['hgri].
Uniunea Sovietic np. ist. the Soviet
Union [ suvit 'ju:nin; sov-].
Uniunea Sud-African np. ist. v.
REPUBLICA AFRICA DE SUD.
Urali(i) np. the Urals ['jurlz].
Urania np. mit. Urania [ju'reini].
Uranus np.Uranus ['jurns].
Urie np. bibl. Uriah [ju'rai], rar Urias
[ju'rais].
U.R.S.S. np. ist. (the) USSR [() ju: es
es 'a:].
Uruguay np. Uruguay ['jurgwai;
'urgwai].
Uzbekistan np. geogr. Uzbekistan
[uzbekis'ta:n, z-, -'stn].
Vaduz np. geogr. Vaduz ['va:du:ts].

157

Valahia np. Wal(l)achia [wo'leiki;

w'leiki].
Valletta np. v. LA VALLETTA.
valon sm., adj. Walloon [wo'lu:n, w-].
Valonia np. geogr., pol. the Walloon
Area [wo'lu:n (w-) 'ri].
Varovia np. Warsaw ['wo:so:].
Vasile np. Basil ['bzl; -il].
Vatican(ul) np. (the) Vatican ['vtikn].
Veneia np. Venice ['venis].
Venezuela np.Venezuela [ven'zweil;
veni-].
Venus np. mit., astr. Venus ['vi:ns].
Vergiliu np. Vergil, Virgil ['v:dil,
'v:dl].
Veronica np. Veronica [v'ronik; ve-,
vi-].
Vezuviu(l)
np.
geogr.
Vesuvius
[v'su:vis; vi'su:vis].
Viena np. Vienna [vi'en].
Vientiane
np.
geogr.
Vientiane
[vjen'tja:n].
Vietnam np. Vietnam, Viet Nam
[vi:et'nm; viet-; ! amer. -'na:m].
Vilnius np. Vilnius / Vilnyus ['vilnis].
Violeta np. Violet ['vailt; -it].
Viking sm., adj. Viking, viking ['vaiki].
Virginia np. Virginia [v'dini; amer.
vr'dinj].
Vistula np. the Vistula (river) ['vistjul;
amer. 'vistul].
vizigot sm., adj. Visigoth ['vizigo,
'visigo].
vlah sm. Vlach [vla:k].
Volga np. (the) Volga (river) ['volg].
Voltaire np. Voltaire [vol't, vul-, '..].
Volta Superioar np. geogr. nv. Upper
Volta [p 'volt; amer. 'vult].

Vosgi np.: Munii ~ the Vosges [vu].

Vulcan np. mit. Vulcan ['vlkn].
Vulgata np. Vulgate ['vlgeit, -it].
Washington np. geogr. Washington
['woitn].
Waterloo np. Waterloo [wot'lu:,
-tl'u:].
Wilhelm np.William ['wiljm].
Wotan np. mit. v. ODIN.
Xanadu np. Xanadu ['zndu:, 'gzn-,
(g)zn'du:].
Xantipa np. Xanthippe [(g)zn'ipi,
-'tipi], Xantippe [(g)zn'tipi].
Xavier np. Xavier ['zeivi, 'zv-].
Xenophon np. Xenophon ['zenfn,
'gzen-, -fon].
Xerxes np. Xerxes ['z:ksi:z].
yancheu, yankeu sm., adj. Yankee
['jki].
Yalta np. geogr. v. IALTA.
Yemen np. Yemen ['jemn; 'jeim].
yemenit sm., adj. Yemeni ['jemni,
'jeim-], Yemenite ['jemnait].
Zagreb np. geogr. Zagreb ['za:greb,
'zg-, za:'greb].
Zaharia np. bibl. Zechariah / Zachariah
[zek'rai].
Zair np. Zaire, Zare [()zai'i; za:].
Zambezi np. Zambezi [()zm'bi:zi].
Zambia np. Zambia ['zmbi].
Zanzibar np. geogr. Zanzibar ['znziba:,
..'..].
Zefir np. mit. Zephyr ['zef].
Zeus np. mit. Zeus [zju:s; zu:s].
Zimbabwe np. Zimbabwe [zim'ba:bwi].
Zrich np. geogr. Zrich / Zurich
['zurik, 'zjur-].

158

ANNEX 5: RULES OF PRONUNCIATION

(adapted from Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, J. C. Wells, Ghid de pronunie a
limbii engleze, D. Chioran, H. Prlog, Fonetica limbii engleze, M. Bogdan)
English spelling is notorious for its shortcomings. Knowing the orthography of a
word does not enable one to predict its pronunciation with any confidence.
Nevertheless, certain general principles do govern the relationship between spelling
and sound (grapheme and phoneme), even though they may be subject to exceptions
and uncertainties. Although most handbooks of English pronunciation ignore them
entirely, on the implicit grounds that these rules are so chaotic that it is better to learn
the pronunciation of each word separately, it nevertheless seemed helpful for LPD
[=the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary] to offer the user something rather than
nothing. Accordingly, guidelines designed to be used particularly to the EFL
[=English as a Foreign Language] learner are given at each letter of the alphabet. (p.
XI)
The combinations of two letters serving to represent one sound are called
digraphs, e.g. head, read, chief, chivalrous, sheep, thick, that. If the respective letters
do not belong to the same syllable, they are not digraphs, e.g. atheistic.

A Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is a, the pronunciation differs according to whether the vowel is
short or long, followed or not by r, and strong or weak.
2. The strong pronunciation is regularly [], as in cat [kt], at, captain (short A);
[ei], as in face [feis], able, make, take (long A)
3. Where a is followed by r, the strong pronunciation is [:], as in start [st:t] ||
[st:rt] (*** the American variant follows the || sign), or [] || [e], as in square
[skw] || [skwer], bare, dare; or, indeed, there may be regular short pronunciation
[], as in carol ['krl] (although in this position some speakers of GenAm use [e],
thus ['kerl]).
4. Less frequently, the strong pronunciation is [:], as in father ['f:] || ['f:r],
[:] || [], as in bath [b:] || [b], [o] || [:], if preceded by w(h), as in watch [wot]
|| [w:t] (esp. after w), [o:] || [] as in talk [to:k] || [t:k (esp. before l), or [o:] || [o:],
as in warm [wo:m] || [wo:rm], war, all. (A more general rule for BrE at least
would be: [:] before r, l, ff, ss, ft, sk, th, as in car, calm, staff, pass, raft, task,
path).
5. The weak pronunciation is [], as in about ['baut], or [i], as in village ['vilid].
6. Note that where the spelling is a the pronunciation is never [].
7. a also forms part of the digraphs ai, au, aw, ay.
ai, ay Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is one of the digraphs ai, ay, the pronunciation is regularly [ei],
as in rain [rein], day [dei]; or, before r, [] || [e], as in fair [f] || [fer].
2. Occasionally with these digraphs the pronunciation is weak:
[], as in curtain ['k:tn] || ['k:tn] (for some speakers [i], thus ['k:tin]), captain,
mountain, or [i], as in Murray ['mri] || ['m:ri], when at the end of a word. (For

159

Monday, etc., see note at -day.)

3. Note also the exceptional words says, said, again, against, usually pronounced
with [e].
ae is less frequent; it is a Latinate digraph having the usual pronunciation [i:], as in
algae, nebulae, Aeneid
au, aw Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is one of the digraphs au and aw, the pronunciation is regularly
[o:] || [:], as in author ['o:] || [':r], law [lo:] || [l:], raw, saw.
2. In a few words, the pronunciation is [:] || [], as in laugh, [l:f] || [lf], aunt
[:nt] (BrE); or, in loanwords from foreign languages, [u] || [ou], as in gauche,
mauve, or [au], as in sauerkraut; or, in BrE only, [o], as in sausage ['sosid], laurel.
In unaccented syllables, it is pronounced [], e.g. restaurant.

B Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is b, the pronunciation is regularly [b], as in baby ['beibi].
2. Where te spelling is bb, the pronunciation is again b, as in shabby ['bi].
3. b is silent in two groups of words:
I. before t in debt [det], doubt [daut], subtle ['stl]; and
II. after m at the end of a word or stem, as in climb [klaim], comb [kum], lamb
[lm], thumb [m], tomb [tu:m], bomb [bom], bomber ['bom].

C Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is c, the pronunciation is regularly [k], as in cat [kt] (hard
C); [s] as in nice [nais] (soft C). Less frequently, it is [], as in ocean ['un].
c may also form part of the digraphs ch and ck.
2. The pronunciation is regularly [k] when c is at the end of a word or is followed by
one of a, o, u or a consonant letter, as in basic ['beisik], camp [kmp], copy ['kopi],
curl [k:l], cry [krai].
3. The pronunciation is regularly [s] when c is followed by one of e, i, y as in central
['sentrl], city ['siti], cycle ['saikl], face [feis]. Note also Caesar ['si:z].
4. Where c at the end of a stressed syllable is followed by e or i plus a vowel within a
word, the pronunciation id regularly [], as in precious ['pres], special ['spel],
musician [mju'zin]. In these cases, the e or i is silent as usually applies when the
following is weak; but when the vowel after the e or i is strong, the pronunciation is
[i], as in speciality [spei'lti]. Sometimes, there is an alternative possibility with
[s], as in appreciate, associate, oceanic; and, where there is another [] in the same
word, the tendency to dissimilate means that many speakers prefer [s] as in
association, pronunciation.
5. Correspondingly, where the spelling is cc, the pronunciation id [k] in most
positions, as in account ['kaunt]; but [ks] when followed by one of e, i, y, as in
accept [k'sept].
6. Correspondingly, too, when the spelling is sc, the pronunciaion is [sk] in most
positions as in describe [di'skraib]; but [s] when followed by one of e, i, y, as in scent
[sent], disciple [di'saipl]; [] when at the end of a stressed syllable and followed by i
plus a vowel within a word as in luscious ['ls].
sc may also form part of the trigraph sch

160

7. c is silent in one or two exceptional words including muscle ['msl], indict

[in'dait], Connecticut [k'netikt].
ch
1. Where the spelling is the digraph ch, the pronunciation is regularly [t] as in chip
[tip] or [] as in machine [m'i:n], or [k] as in chemistry ['kemistri].
ch may also form part of the trigraph sch.
2. Where the spelling is the trigraph tch, the pronunciation is regularly [t], as in fetch
[fet].
3. Otherwise, there is no reliable rule for choosing between the three ch possibilities.
In general [t] is the pronunciation in long-established words as cheese, chain, coach.
[] is the pronunciation in recent loanwords from French as champagne, parachute,
machine, moustache, chic; [n] is also a less usual option in place of [nt] at the end
of a syllable as in lunch [lnt];
[k] is the pronunciation in words of Greek origin as chaos, echo, monarch. Where ch
is followed by a consonant letter, the pronunciation is always [k] as in Christmas,
technical.
4. After s the pronunciation is usually [k] as in school; occasionally sch is a trigraph
and the corresponding pronunciation is []; this applies in words borrowed from
German. Certain proper names and the traditional British English pronunciation of
schedule. In schism ['sizm] competes with ['skizm].
5. Occasionally, the pronunciation is [d] as in the most usual version of sandwich
['snwid], spinach, Greenwich; [] in certain words from foreign languages as in
loch [lo] (with [k] as an anglicising alternative).
6. ch is silent in one or two exceptional words including yacht [jot] || [j:t].
[t] is also sometimes written t as in question, natural; and c as in cello.
ck Where the spelling has the digraph ck the pronunciation is always [k] as in back
[bk], acknowledge [k'nolid].

D Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is d the pronunciation is regularly [d], as in dead [ded].
2. Where the spelling is double dd, the pronunciation is again [d], as in middle
['midl].
3. Less frequently, the pronunciation is [d], as in gradual ['grdul], procedure
[pr'si:d]. This possibility arises through yod coalescence (see ASSIMILATION) and
applies only where the spelling is du and the u counts as a weak vowel. In RP
[d] is always an alternative possibility often preferred. In GenAm though, [d] is
usual as in educate ['edjukeit] || ['edkeit]. In much non-standard BrE the
pronunciation is also [d] in words such as duke [dju:k], reduce, wherever RP would
have [dj].
4. The verb ending ed has three regular pronunciations (viz. [d], [t], [id]). Note that
after a voiceless consonant the pronunciation is regularly [t], as in clapped [klpt],
asked.
5. In certain positions, d can be elided (see ELISION). In some words the elided
pronunciation is now established so that d is now usually silent in, for example
sandwich. Also usually in Wednesday.

161

E Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is e, the pronunciation differs according to whether the vowel is
short or long, followed or not by r and strong or weak.
2. The strong pronunciation is regularly [e] as in dress, bet, elm, check (short E:
the respective syllables are checked), or [i:] as in cathedral [k'i:drl], even,
these, be (long E).
3. Where e is followed by r, the strong pronunciation is [:] serve, her, err, prefer
or [i], as in severe [s'vi], sphere; or indeed there may be the regular short
pronunciation [e], as in very ['veri].
4. The weak pronunciation is [i], as in review [ri'vju:], object (although some
speakers use [] instead), or [], as in agent ['eidnt] (especially where the spelling
el, ence, ent, er); the weak pronunciation is the rule with unaccented syllables:
quarrel, longer, bribery.
5. Less frequently, the strong pronunciation is [i] in the exceptional words pretty,
England, English; [] in where, there (strong form) and a few others; [ei] in foreign
borrowings such as suede [sweid]; in BrE only, [:], as in clerk, Derby and a few
others.
6. e is frequently silent. At the end of a word for example it is silent if it follows a
consonant letter, as in make, life, these, notice, orange, face, huge, collapse, twelve.
In this position it may have the function of indicating that the vowel before the
consonant is long (make, life, these); or that c or g is soft (notice, orange); or both
of these (face, huge); or neither (collapse, twelve).
7. In a few cases, at the end of a word after a consonant the pronunciation is [i], as in
apostrophe ['postrfi], catastrophe, simile.
8. e also forms part of the digraphs ea, ee, ei, eu, ew, ey.
ea
1. Where the spelling is the digraph ea, there are, notoriously, several different
pronunciations. The most usual is [i:], as in tea; [e], as in bread. Less frequently it is
[ei], notably in great [greit], steak [steik], break [breik]; [i], notably in idea [ai'di],
theatre, real.
2. Where ea is followed by r, the pronunciation is regularly [i], as in near. Less
frequently it is [:], as in early and several others; [:] notably in heart [h:t], hearth
[h:]; [], notably in bear, pear, swear, wear and one meaning of tear [t].
3. ea is not a digraph in words such as creation, react, area.
ee
1. Where the spelling is the digraph ee, the pronunciation is regularly [i:], as in tree
[tri:], breed; or, before r, [i], as in beer [bi].
2. Exceptionally, the pronunciation is [i] in AmE been [bin] (sometimes also in BrE)
and in coffee, committee, breeches, Greenwich (although here many speakers use e).
ei, ey
1. Where the spelling is one of the digraphs ei, ey, the pronunciation is most
frequently [ei], as in veil [veil], convey [kn'vei], skein [skein].
2. Less frequently, it is [i:], as in receive [ri'si:v], ceiling ['si:li], key [ki:], and in a
few words [ai], as in height [hait], eye [ai], or [e], as in heifer ['hef], leisure ['le],
Leicester ['lest], Reynolds ['renldz].
3. Where the spelling is ei before r, the pronunciation is either [], as in their [],

162

or [i], as in weird [wid].

4. The exceptional either, neither have [ai] or [i:], with BrE preferring the former and
AmE the latter.
5. Exceptionally, the pronunciation is [i], as in foreign, honey, money, sovereign.
6. ei is not a digraph in words such as atheism, deity. In the latter, BrE now prefers
['deiti], in similarly for other words in -eity.
eo
The pronunciation is [i:] in people, and [e] in exceptional cases like leopard,
Leonard, jeopardy
eu, ew
1. Where the spelling is one of the digraphs eu, ew, the pronunciation is regularly
[ju:], as in feudal ['fju:dl], few, or [u:], as in rheumatism ['ru:mtizm], crew [kru:].
(for the dropping of [j], see u, 3)
2. Exceptionally, it is also [u], as in sew [su]; [:] / AmE [u:], in French words, as
masseuse [m's:z] || [m'su:s]; or [oi], in German-derived words, as Freudian
['froidin]. Note also lieutenant, BrE [lef'tennt].
3. Where the spelling is eu before r, the pronunciation is regularly [ju], as in
Europe. In words borrowed from French, it is also [:], as in masseur [m's:] / AmE
[m'sr].

F Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is f, the pronunciation is regularly [f], as in fifty [fifti].
2. Where the spelling is ff, the pronunciation is again [f], as in stiff [stif].
3. Exceptionally, the word of is pronounced with [v]: a piece of meat [ pi:s v'mi:t].
4. f is silent in the old pronunciation of halfpenny ['heipni].
5. [f] is also regularly written ph, as in photograph, and occasionally gh, as in rough
[rf].
G Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is g, the pronunciation is regularly [g], before the letters a, o, u,
as in game, gone, gun, or before the letters e, i, as in get [get], give [giv] (hard G);
also: glad, greed, mug, magnet. Less frequently, before e and i it is [d], as in gentle
['dentl], gin, gypsy / gipsy (soft G). Occasionally, it is [], as usually in garage
['gr:] || [g'r:], mirage, rouge.
g also forms part of the digraphs gh, gu, ng (see 6 and under ng).
2. Hard G is the usual pronunciation. Soft G and [] are found in certain words where
g is followed by e, i, y -mostly words of French or Latin origin.
3. Where the spelling is the digraph dg before e, i, y, the pronunciation is always [d],
as in edge [ed], grudging ['grdi].
4. Where the spelling is doubled gg, the pronunciation is again regularly [g], as in egg
[eg]. Occasionally, it is [d], as in exaggerate [ig'zdreit].
Note suggest, BrE [s'dest] but AmE [sg'dest].
5. g is silent before m, n, but only at the beginning or end of a word or stem, as in
gnat [nt], sign [sain], phlegm [flem], foreigner ['forn], paradigm (but syntagm).
6. [g] is also occasionally written gh, as in ghost [gust], gu, as in guest [gest].
ge

163

When in final position, ge is pronounced [d], as in courage, change. Exceptions:

(more recent) French loans, e.g. barrage, mirage, etc., where it is pronounced [].
gh
Where the spelling is the occasional digraph gh, ther are several possible
pronunciations: [g], as in ghost [gust]; [f], as in rough [rf]; silent, after i and
sometimes other vowel letters, as in high [hai], eight [eit], daughter ['do:t].
gu
1. Where the spelling is gu, the pronunciation may be [g], as in guess [ges], vague
[veig]; or [gw], as in language ['lgwid].
2. Generally speaking, [g] is found at the beginning of a word, and at the end of a
word before silent e; [gw] is found in the middle of a word.
3. In many words gu is not a digraph: gun [gn], regular, argue.

H Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is h, the pronunciation is regularly [h], as in house [haus]. The
letter h may also form part of one of the digraphs ch, gh, ph, rh, sh, th, wh (see
under c, g, p, r, s, t, w respectively).
h is silent in a number of cases:
I. at the beginning of the exceptional words heir, honest, honour / AmE honor,
hour, and their derivatives; also, in AmE only, in herb;
II. at the end of a word after a vowel letter, as in oh, hurrah; also: Sarah, verandah;
III. in most cases when it is at the beginning of a weak-vowelled syllable, as in the
WEAK FORMS of he, her, him, has, have; in words such as annihilate, vehicle,
exhibit; and sometimes also in words such as hotel, historic, hysteric (because the h
here is not in a stressed syllable).
3. [h] is also occasionally written wh, as in who [hu:].

I Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is i the pronunciation differs according to whether the vowel is
short or long, followed or not by r, and strong or weak.
2. The strong pronunciation is regularly [i], as in bit [bit] (short I), or [ai], as in
time [taim], hi [hai] (long I). For the first type of pronunciation, there has to be a
checked syllable, e.g. sick, bliss, hill.
3. When i is followed by r, the strong pronunciation is [:], as in firm [f:m], fir,
[ai], as in fire, hire, virus, or indeed the regular short pronunciation, as in miracle
['mirkl].
4. Less frequently, the strong pronunciation is [i:], as in machine [m'i:n]. This is
the case of Romance (more specifically, French) borrowings; other such examples:
sardine, routine, police, etc.
5. The weak pronunciation is [i], as in rabbit ['rbit] (although some speakers, esp.
of AmE, use [] instead, thus ['rbt]), or [], as in admiral ['dmrl]. Also: aspirin,
university, defensible. Where the next sound is a vowel, the weak pronunciation is
[i], as in medium (see COMPRESSION), or the i is silent, serving only to indicate the
pronunciation of the preceding consonant, as in special (see c, s, t).
6. In the rare cases where i is found at the end of a word, the pronunciation is either:
strong [ai], as in hi [hai], or weak [i], as in spaghetti.

164

7. i also forms part of the digraphs ai, ei, ie, oi, ui.
ie
1. Where the spelling is the digraph ie, the pronunciation is regularly [i:], as in piece
[i:] (esp. in the middle of a word), or [ai], as in tie [tai], pie (esp. at the end of a
word); or [i], as in fierce [fis] (before r).
2. The weak pronunciation in -ied ies is usually [i], as in carried ['krid]. Thus the
spelling change from y to ie, in inflected forms of words written with y at the end,
does not imply any change in pronunciation.
3. Note the exceptional friend [frend] and sieve [siv]; also, the usual pronunciation of
handkerchief [-tif]; see also: mischief, movie.
4. ie is not a digraph in science, pliers, society, acquiesce, Viennese, happiest.

J Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is j, the pronunciation is regularly [d], as in jump [dmp].
2. Very occasionally, in words of foreign origins, it is [], as in jabot, or [j], as in
hallelujah.
3. [d] is also regularly written dg or g, as in hedge [hed], large [l:d].

K Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is k, the pronunciation is regularly [k], as in kind [kaind]. In the
digraph ck the pronunciation is again [k], as in back [bk].
2. k is silent at the beginning of a word when followed by n, as knee [ni:].
3. [k] is also regularly written c, as in cat, and k, as in back [bk]. It is sometimes
also written cc, as in account, qu, as in queue [kju:], and in various other ways.

L Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is l, the pronunciation is regularly [l], as in little ['litl].
2. Where the spelling is double ll, the pronunciation is again regularly [l], as in silly
['sili].
3. l is silent in a fair number of words, especially when it stands between a and f, as in
half [h:f]; a and k as in talk [to:k]; a and m, as in salmon ['smn].
Note also could [kud], should [ud], would [wud].

M Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is m, the pronunciation is regularly [m], as in medium
['mi:dim].
2. Where the spelling is double mm, the pronunciation is again regularly [m], as in
hammer ['hm].

N Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is n, the pronunciation is regularly [n], as in nation or [], as in
think [ik];
n also forms part of the digraph ng.
2. The pronunciation is [n] everywhere EXCEPT:
before the sound [k] (written c, g, k, q, x) and
where the spelling is the digraph ng (see ng 2, 3 below), in which cases the

165

pronunciation is regularly []. Examples:

[n] in net, fan, unit, enter;
[] in uncle, anger, thanks, conquer, anxious, wing.
3. Where the spelling is double nn, the pronunciation is again regularly [n], as in
funny ['fni].
4. n is silent when it follows m at the end of a word, and in the corresponding
inflected forms, as in column ['kolm], condemned [kn'demnd] (but hymnal
['himnl]).
ng
1. Where the spelling is the digraph ng, the pronunciation is regularly [ ], as in
singing ['sii], [g], as in angle ['gl], or [nd], as in strange [streind].
2. The pronunciation is [] when ng is in the middle of a word or stem. Examples:
hang [h], singer ['si], strongly ['stroli]. (Although in this position plain [ ] is
standard in both RP and GenAm, some speakers use [g]).
3. The pronunciation is usually [g] when ng is in the middle of a word (and not at the
end of a stem). Examples: hungry ['hgri], finger ['fig], single ['sigl].
4. The pronunciation is [nd] where the spelling is nge at the end of a word, as in
challenge ['tlind], and sometimes before e, i, y, in the middle of a word, as in
danger ['deind].
5. The three pronunciations corresponding to the spelling ng are illustrated in the
same context in the sets
singer ['si] hanger ['hg] anger ['g]
finger ['fig] ginger ['dind] danger ['deind]
6. Where n belongs to a prefix and g to a stem, they do not form a digraph.
Consequently, the pronunciation is usually [n], as in ingenious [in'di:nis]. However,
where the g is hard, then the [n] may become [ ] by ASSIMILATION. This is regular
where the syllable containing the nasal is stressed, as in congress [], and otherwise
optional, as in conclusion. (The assimilation seems to be usually made in BrE but rare
in AmE).

O Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is o, the pronunciation differs according to whether the vowel is
short or long, followed or not by r, and strong or weak.
2. The strong pronunciation is regularly [o], as in lot [lot], odd, pond, respond
(short O), [u], as in nose [nuz], both, hole, so (long O). Note that the short O
regularly occurs in checked syllables, whereas the long O is to be found in open
syllables.
3. Less frequently, it is [], as in come [km], especially before m, n, v, th.
[u:], as in move; [u], as in woman ['wumn]. Note also [i] in women ['wimin], or [o],
as cross [kros] (but some speakers of AmE use [:] instead, thus [kr:s]).
Note also the exceptional gone [gon].
4. Where the spelling is or, the strong pronunciation is [o:], as in north [no:],
store, or indeed in BrE the regular short pronunciation [o], as in moral ['morl].
5. Less frequently, it is [:], as in work [w:k], worm (especially after w), or [], as
in worry ['wri], love, son.

166

6. The weak pronunciation is [], as in method ['med], Oxford ['oksfd]. In

unstressed syllables, there are also two possibilities [] or [u], the second being
associated with careful speech or unfamiliar words, thus phonetics [f'netiks, fu-].
7. o also forms part of the digraphs oa, oe, oi, oo, ou, ow, oy.
oa
1. Where the spelling is the digraph oa the pronunciation is regularly [u], as in road
[rud], oat, or [o:], as in board [bo:d], roar (before r).
2. Note the exceptional words broad [bro:d] (and derivatives abroad, broaden),
cupboard ['kbd] (when in unaccented syllables).
3. oa is not a digraph in oasis, Noah, coalescence, protozoa.
oe
1. Where the spelling is the digraph oe the pronunciation is regularly [u], as in toe
[tu], doe, foe, roe.
2. Exceptionally, it is [u:], in shoe [u:], canoe [k'nu:]; [], in does [dz]; [i:], in
Phoenix and other words of Greek origin.
3. oe is not a digraph in poem, poetic, coerce, Noel.
oi, oy
1. Where the spelling is one of the digraphs oi oy, the pronunciation is regularly [oi],
as in noise, boy [boi].
2. In words of French origin, the pronunciation is often [w:], as in patois ['ptw:],
soiree, boudoir.
3. Occasionally, oi is weak, as in the usual pronunciation of tortoise ['to:ts]
4. Note the exceptional words choir ['kwai], buoy [boi] (AmE also ['bu:i]).
5. oi is not a digraph in coincidence, soloist.
oo
1. Where the spelling is the digraph oo the pronunciation is regularly either [u:], as in
food or [u], as in good [gud]. There is no rule, although [u] is commoner before k
(book); also, exceptionally, soot. In some words, both pronunciations are in use, as
room [ru(:)m], broom.
2. Less frequently, the pronunciation is [], in blood [bld], flood [fld].
3. Where the spelling is oor, the pronunciation is [o:], as in door or [u], as in moor
[mu] (but BrE now often [mo:]).
4. Note the exceptional word brooch [brut].
5. oo is not a digraph in zoology, cooperate.
ou, ow
1. Where the spelling is one of the digraphs ou, ow the pronunciation is regularly [au],
as in round [raund], cow [kau].
2. Less frequently, it is [u], as in soul [sul], own [un]; [], as in touch [tt],
couple, courage, or [u:], as in group [gru:p].
3. Note also the exceptional could [kud], should [ud], would [wud] (when ou is
followed by l).
4. Where the spelling is the notorious ough the pronunciation may be any of the
following: [o:], as in thought [o:t]; [u:], as in through [ru:]; [au] as in bough [bau],
slough; [u], as in though [u], dough; [], as in rough [rf], tough; [o], as in
cough [kof], trough; [], as in thorough ['r]. There are also other possibilities in
lough [lo], hiccough ['hikp], more usually written loch, hiccup.

167

5. Where the spelling is our, owr, the pronunciation may be [au], as in flower
['flau], flour ['flau], our, sour; [o:], as in four [fo:], pour, court; [:], as in journey
['d:ni], courteous; [], as in courage ['krid]; [u], as in tourist ['turist] (BrE
also [o:]), tour, bourse; [u], as in the exceptional courier (usually ['kuri]).

P Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is p, the pronunciation is regularly [p], as in pipe [paip].
p
also forms part of the digraph ph.
2. Where the spelling is double pp, the pronunciation is again regularly [p], as in
happy ['hpi].
3. p is normally silent at the beginning of a word before: n, s, t, as in pneumonia,
psalm, psychiatrist, ptomaine; also, at the end of a word: receipt.
ph
1. Where the spelling is the digraph ph, the pronunciation is regularly [f], as in
photograph.
2. Exceptionally, it is [p], as in shepherd ['epd], Clapham ['klpm]
(etymologically, ph is not a digraph here: rather, we have p plus silent h); [v], in
Stephen ['sti:vn] and the older pronunciation of nephew ['nevju:] (now usually
['nefju:]).

Q Spelling-to-sound
1. Except in occasional words from foreign languages, the letter q is always followed
by u. Where the spelling is the resultant digraph qu, the pronunciation is regularly
[kw], as in quite [kwait], or [k], as in picturesque [pikt'resk].
2. The pronunciation is generally [kw] EXCEPT in the case of que at the end of a
word. Examples: queen, square, equal, liquid, conquer.
3. In the case of que at the end of a word, and also in a minority of other cases, the
pronunciation is [k]. Examples: clique [kli:k], cheque [tek] (AmE spelling check);
queue [kju:], liquor ['lik].
4. Where the spelling is cqu, the pronunciation is again [kw], as in acquaintance
['kweintns], or [k], as in lacquer ['lk].

R Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is r, the pronunciation is regularly [r], as in run [rn].
2. Where the spelling is double rr, the pronunciation is again regularly r, as in merry
['meri].
3. When the spelling is r followed by a consonant letter or a silent e, or r at the end of
a word, the pronunciation differs in different varieties of English: In RP, the r is silent.
The same applies to most varieties of English English, to Australian English, and the
other non-rhotic accents. In connected speech, however, r may be pronounced at the
end of a word if the next word begins with a voiced sound (see R-LIAISON).
In GenAm, the pronunciation is [r]. The same applies to Scottish English, to Irish
English, and to the other rhotic accents. In GenAm, the r coalesces with a preceding
[:] vowel to give [].
Examples:
RP
GenAm
farm
[f:m]
[f:rm]

168

more
[mo:]
[mo:r]
stir
[st:]
[st]
murder
['m:d]
['mdr]
4. In the middle or at the end of a word r frequently affects the preceding vowel.
Consequently ar, er, ir, or, ur, yr, could be regarded as digraphs, and air, are, ear,
eer, eir, ere, eur, ier, ire, oar, oor, ore, our, ure as trigraphs (see individual entries).
5. r may also appear in non-rhotic accents in certain cases, where no corresponding
letter is written (intrusive r, see R-LIAISON), as when thawing is pronounced
['o:ri]. Note also the exceptional word colonel ['k:nl].
6. The exceptional word iron is pronounced as if written iorn, namely ['ain] (also
with possible COMPRESSION).
rh
Where the spelling is digraph rh or its doubled form rrh, the pronunciation is
regularly the same as that of the letter r: [r], as in rhythm ['rim], rhapsody; or
silent, as in catarrh [k't:].
R LIAISON

1. In BrE (RP), and other non-rhotic accents (see r spelling-to-sound), a word said in
isolation never ends in [r]. Nevertheless, in connected speech an [r] may be
pronounced in some cases if the next word begins with a vowel sound.
2. This typically happens with a word (syllable) that ends in one of the vowels [],
[:], [o:], [:], [i], [], [u], when the following word (syllable) begins with a vowel
sound.
far [f:]. In isolation, or before a consonant sound, this word is, in RP, pronounced
[f:]. But in a phrase such as far away, far out it is usually pronounced [f:r]. (In
GenAm it is always [f:r], whatever the environment it occurs in.)
near [ni]. In isolation, the RP form is [ni]. But in a phrase such as near enough it
is usually pronounced [nir].
3. Usually, as in the cases just mentioned, the spelling includes r. The inserted r-sound
is then known as linking r. It corresponds to a historical [r], now lost before a
consonant or pause.
4. In RP, however, as in other non-rhotic accents, the insertion is frequently made
even if there is no r in the spelling. This intrusive /r/ does not correspond to historical
[r], and there is no corresponding [r] in AmE.
comma ['kom] In isolation, the RP form is is ['kom]. But in a phrase such as put
a comma in, it is often pronounced ['komr]. (In GenAm it is always ['k:m],
whatever the environment).
thaw [o:]. In isolation, RP thaw is [o:]. In the phrase thaw out, intrusive [r] may
be added, giving [o:r'aut]. (In GenAm there is no [r]).
(The dictionary treatment of R LIAISON: In principle, dictionaries of pronunciation
show the citation pronunciation of words -i.e. the way they are pronounced when said
alone). Therefore, such dictionaries do not usually show places where r-liaison is
likely across a word boundary. They can be inferred from the rule given in 2 above).
Pronouncing dictionaries do show r-liaison within a word, whether linking or intrusive
[r]. The linking [r], being obligatory, is shown thus: storing ['sto:ri]. The intrusive
[r], being optional (and often disapproved of), is shown thus: thawing ['o:ri].)

169

S Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is s, the pronunciation is regularly: [s], as in sense [sens]
(voiceless S), or [z], as in rises ['raiziz] (voiced S). Less frequently, it is [], as in
pleasure ['ple]. s may also form part of the digraphs sh or si , and sometimes of
the digraphs sc or sch (see under c).
2. At the beginning of a word, the pronunciation is regularly [s], as in say [sei], sleep
[sli:p], stand [stnd]. (In this position, with spelling s, the pronunciation is never [z]).
This also applies in compounds, for example insight ['insait]. Exceptionally, the
pronunciation is [] at the beginning of the words sure, sugar and their derivatives
(for example: assurance, sugary).
3. In the middle of a word, we must take account of the letters on either side of the s.
I. Where s is between a vowel letter and a consonant letter, the spelling is usually [s] if
the following consonant sound is voiceless, [z] if it is voiced. Thus: [s] in taste [teist];
[z] in husband, wisdom. Before silent t, however, the pronunciation is [s], as in
listen ['lisn].
II. Where s is between two vowel letters, the pronunciation may be either [s], as in
basin ['beisn], crisis ['kraisis], or [z], as in poison ['poizn], easy ['i:zi]. There is no
rule: each word must be considered separately.
Where the spelling is s between a vowel and and ia, ian, speakers vary as between []
and [], with RP preferring the former, GenAm the latter: Asia (silent i).
III. Where s follows a consonant letter, the pronunciation is usually [s] if the s follows
one of the letters l, n, r or if the preceding sound is voiceless, but [z] otherwise. Thus:
[s] in consider, cursor, gipsy / gypsy; [z] in clumsy ['klmzi], observe [b'z:v].
In some words both pronunciations are in use, for example translate, absorb. Where
the spelling has s between l, n, r and ion, ial, ure, the pronunciation is
correspondingly [] (with i silent), as in expulsion, tension, controversial. However,
in -ersion -ersia(n) AmE has [], as Persian ['p:n].
4. Where the spelling has s at he end of a word, or before silent s at the end of a word,
the pronunciation may be either:
[s], as in gas [gs], loose [lu:s], case [keis], or
[z], as in has, choose, phrase [freiz].
For s between l, n, r and silent e, we usually get [s], as in else [els], immense
[i'mens], horse [ho:s].
Beyond this, there is no rule: each word must be considered separately. Sometimes
there is a distinction between related parts of speech that are spelled identically, as in
the cases of use ([s] noun, [z] verb) and close ([s] adjective and adverb, [z] verb and
noun). (In some other cases, however, there is no such difference: as promise and
base, always with [s]). There is a BrE-AmE difference in the word erase [i'reiz] ||
AmE [i'reis].
5. The inflectional ending -s, -es is discussed below at its alphabetic place. Where the
spelling has double ss, the pronunciation is regularly [s], as in lesson, kiss.
Exceptionally it is [z], notably in the words dessert [di'z:t] possess [p'zes],
possession, scissors and their derivatives.
Followed by ion, ia, ian, ure, it is [], as in mission ['min], pressure [pre].
7. s is silent in various words, including island ['ailnd] and several words of French
origin, among them corps, aisle, debris, prcis, viscount, Grosvenor, Illinois.

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8. The sound [s] is often written c, sc before e, i, y.

sh
1. Where the spelling has the digraph sh, the pronunciation is regularly [], as in sheep
[i:p], fish [fi].
2. sh is not a digraph in words such as mishap ['mishp]. The spelling of certain
proper names has been reinterpreted in pronunciation so as to make sh a digraph:
Lewisham was once Lewis plus ham, but is now ['lu:im].
3. [] is also written in a number of other ways, including those represented in the
examples ocean ['un], machine, precious [pres], sugar, conscience,
compulsion, pressure, mission, creation.

T Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is t, the pronunciation is regularly
[t], as in tent [tent], basket, time, mate, later.
Less frequently, it is regularly:
[t], as in nature ['neit], torture, century
[], as in nation ['nein], ratio, patience.
t may also form part of the digraph th.
2. In AmE, [t] has the variant [t] in certain positions (see T VOICING), e.g. atom BrE
['tm] || AmE ['tm].
3. Where the spelling is double tt, the pronunciation is again [t], as in button ['btn],
better ['bet], battle, sitting.
4. The pronunciation is [t] in most words ending -ture, for example departure,
picture. Historically, this pronunciation came about through yod coalescence (see
ASSIMILATION). More generally, the pronunciation is usually [t] wherever the
spelling is t followed by a weak u, as actual, situated. In some words of this type,
however, there is an older or more careful pronunciation, with [tj], and this is
regularly the case where the u is strong, as in attitude ['titju:d]. In this latter type
AmE prefers plain [t]. In much non-standard BrE, the pronunciation is also [t]
wherever RP would have [tj], as in Tuesday, tune.
5. Where t at the end of a stressed syllable is followed by i plus a vowel within a
word, the pronunciation is regularly [], as in partial ['p:l], action ['kn],
superstitious. When the following vowel is weak, as in the examples just given, the i
is silent; but when it is strong, the pronunciation is [i], as in initiate [i'niieit].
Sometimes, there is an alternative possibility with [s], particularly if the word already
contains a [], as in negotiation.
6. t is usually silent in two groups of words
I. in -sten -stle, as listen ['lisn], thistle ['isl]; also in Christmas, soften and
sometimes in often.
II. At the end of words recently borrowed from French, as chalet ['lei], ballet,
bouquet.
The sound t is often elided (see ELISION) giving further silent ts, in words such as
postman.
th
1. Where the spelling is the digraph th, the pronunciation is regularly [], as in thick
[ik], or [], as in mother ['m], father.

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Exceptionally, it is also [t] (mainly in proper names), as in Thomas ['toms],

Anthony, Esther, Theresa, thyme. (See also 6 below)
2. At the beginning of a word, the pronunciation is [] or [] depending on the
grammatical class to which the word belong. In the definite article and other
determiners and in pronouns, conjunctions and pronominal adverbs, it is [], as in this
[is], they [ei], though [u], thus [s]. Otherwise, it is [], as in three [ri:],
thing [i], thick [ik], thief [i:f], thread [red].
3. In the middle of a word (provided that th is not at the end of a stem), the
pronunciation is generally [] in words of Greek or Latin origin, as method, author,
ether; [] in words of Germanic origin, as father, together, heathen.
4. At the end of a word or stem, the pronunciation is usually [], as in breath [bre],
truth [tru:], but [] in smooth and one or two other words.
In with Rp prefers [], although Scottish English has []. In GenAm, both are
possible.
Before silent e and in inflected forms of the stems concerned, the pronunciation is
regularly [], as in breathe [bri:], bathe [bei], wreathe [ri:], soothing ['su:i]
5. Several stems switch from [] to [] in adding the plural ending (mouths), on
adding -ern ot -erly (northern, southerly), or on converting from noun to verb
(mouth).
6. The pronunciation is [t] in thyme and certain proper names including Chatham,
Streatham, Thames [temz]. In some cases, however, t has been or is being displaced
by [] because of spelling pronunciation.
7. th is sometimes silent in asthma ['sm], clothes, isthmus.
The trigraph tch is pronounced [t], as in catch, watch, kitchen.

U Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is u the pronunciation differs according to whether the vowel is
short or long, followed or not by r, and strong or weak.
2. The strong pronunciation is regularly [], as in cup, butter (short U), or [ju:]
and [u:], as in music ['mju:zik], rude, flute (long U). Note that the short U
regularly corresponds to the checked syllables, as the long U is specific to the
open syllables.
3. Less frequently, it is [u], as in push [pu] (especially before sh, l); also: bull, put,
sugar, butcher.
4. Where the spelling is ur, the strong pronunciation is [:], as in turn [t:n], fur, or
[ju], as in pure [pju] (in BrE [u] is often replaced by [o:]; thus [pjo:]), curio,
mural, or indeed there may be the short pronunciation [], as in hurry. (In AmE
[] and [r] coalesce into [:])
5. In the case of expected [ju:], [ju], [ju], the [j] drops out as folllows:
I. after the consonant sounds [t], [d], [], [r], [j], as in jury ['duri], rude [ru:d].
II. sometimes, in BrE and always in AmE, after [l], [], [s], [z], as in assume
['s(j)u:m].
III. Usually in AmE, but not in BrE, after [t], [d], [n], as tune [tju:n] (see also
ASSIMILATION for the BrE possiblity of [tu:n]).
6. Note the exceptional words busy ['bizi], business ['bizns], bury ['beri].
7. The weak pronunciation is [ju], as in stimulate; [], as in album, Arthur, or [j],

172

as in failure.
Note also lettuce ['letis], minute n. ['minit].
8. u also forms part of the digraphs au, eu, ou, ue, ui, uy.
ua
The pronunciation of u in this digraph is [w], as in persuade, quarter.
ue
1. When the spelling is the digraph ue, the pronunciation is regularly [ju:], as in cue
[kju:], or [u:], as in blue [blu:], clue, true (for the dropping of [j], see u, 5 above)
2. ue is not a digraph in duet, cruel, pursuer.
ui
1. Where the spelling is the digraph ui, the pronunciation is regularly [ju:], as in
nuisance ['nju:sns] (AmE usually ['nu:s ns]), [u:], as in fruit [fru:t], cruise. (For the
dropping of [j], see 5 u above).
2. Less frequently, the pronunciation is [i], as in build, guild or [ai], as in guide
[gaid], disguise; also [i] || AmE [], as in biscuit ['biskit] || AmE ['biskt] (when
weak).
3. Note the exceptional case suite [swi:t].
4. ui is not a digraph in fluid, tuition, nor in quick [kwik], quite [kwait] (where the
digraph qu is followed by i).
uy
In the rare cases where the spelling is the digraph uy, the pronunciation is [ai], as in
buy [bai], guy / Guy [gai].

V Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is v, the pronunciation is regularly [v], as in very ['veri].
2. [v] is also occasionally written vv, as in skivvy ['skivi], savvy, spivvy; ph, as in
Stephen ['sti:vn], the standard pronunciation of nephew ['nevju:]; and f in the single
word of [ov], (weak forms) [v, v].

W Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is w, either the pronunciation is [w] or else the w forms part of
one of the digraphs aw, ew, ow (see under a, e, o respectively). For example, swim
[swim], away ['wei], few [fju:].
2. w is always silent in wr at the beginning of a word or stem, as in wreck [rek],
rewrite n ['ri:rait]; also in the exceptionally spelled words two [tu:], answer [':ns].
3. [w] is also regularly written u, as in persuade [p'sweid], and as part of the digraph
qu, as in quite [kwait].
wh
1. Where the spelling is the digraph wh, the pronunciation in most cases may be either
[w] or [hw], depending on regional, social and stylistic factors. In RP and other
accents of England, and in Australian English, it is usually [w], as in white [wait]; but
in GenAm usually, and in Scottish and Irish English almost always, it is [hw], as in
white [hwait]. (In England and Australia the pronunciation with [hw] is widely
regarded as better, although it is not used often except by the speech-conscious.)
Learners of EFL are recommended to use plain [w] if they are following the RP
model, [hw] if they are following the GenAm model.

173

2. Occasionally, the pronunciation is [h], as in whole [hul].

X Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is x, the pronunciation is regularly [ks], as in six [siks], axe,
execute. Less commonly, it is [gz], and occasionally [z] or [k].
2. The pronunciation [gz] is found mainly in words beginning ex before a stressed
vowel, for example exist [ig'zist], exaggerate, examine. There is a variant
pronunciation with [-kz-]. However, in words beginning exce, exci, the
pronunciation is [ks], with the e silent, as in exceed [ik'si:d].
3. The pronunciation is regularly [z] at the beginning of a word, as in xerox / Xerox
['ziroks], xylophone, Xerxes. Note also anxiety ['zai-].
4. The pronunciation is [k] in words ending -xious, -xion, -xure, for example
crucifixion, anxious ['ks].
5. [ks] is also regularly written:
cks, as in kicks [kiks]
ks, as in thanks [ks]
cc, as in accident ['ksidnt].
6. x is silent in certain names and other words borrowed from French, as in prix [pri:].

Y Spelling-to-sound
1. At the beginning of a word or syllable, where the spelling is y, the pronunciation is
[j], as in yet, beyond [bi'jond].
2. Elsewhere, the same pronunciations correspond to y as to i:
[i] (short), as in crystal ['kristl], vinyl, hypocrite;
[ai] (long), as in type [taip], nylon, my, myself;
weak [i], as in happy ['hpi], lazy;
or y may be part of one of the digraphs ay, ey, oy, uy (see under a, e, o, u
respectively).
3. [j] is also sometimes written i, as in onion ['njn]. (It frequently arises through
COMPRESSION of i with a following weak vowel, as in convenient [kn'vi:njnt]). As
part of the sequence [ju:] (or one of its derivatives [ju], [ju], [jo:], [ju], [j]), it is
regularly written eu, ew, u, ue.
ye
The pronunciation of ye is [ai], as in bye, dye, rye.

Z Spelling-to-sound
1. Where the spelling is z, the pronunciation is regularly [z], as in lazy ['leizi].
2. Where the spelling is double zz, the pronunciation is again [z], as in dazzle ['dzl],
buzz, quizzes, blizzard, dizzy.
3. Because of yod coalescence (see ASSIMILATION), the pronunciation is occasionally
[], as in seizure ['si:].
4. In certain words borrowed from foreign languages, spelled with z, zz or the digraph
tz, the pronunciation is [ts], as in Nazi ['n:tsi], pizza ['pits], quartz [kw:ts].
5. [z] is also regularly written s, as in choose [tu:z].

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ANNEX 6:
Prefixes with a spelling which differs in the American variant of English
(After Andrei Banta)
American spelling
hemohomeosulf-

Examples
hemoglobin
hemorrhage
homeopath
sulfurous
sulfamide

British spelling
haemohomoeosulph-

Examples
haemoglobin
haemorrhage
homoeopath
sulphurous
sulphonamide

Suffixes and endings with a different spelling in the American variant of English
American spelling
- ense
- er
- fill
- or
-orable
- yze

Examples
defense
pretense
offense
center
kilometer
specter
fulfill
odor
behavior
neighbor
honorable
colorable
favorable
analyze
paralyze

British spelling
-ence
-re
-fil
- our
- ourable
- yse

Examples
defence
pretence
offence
centre
kilometre
spectre
fulfil
odour
behaviour
neighbour
honourable
colourable
favourable
analyse
paralyse

Exercise 6: Demonstrate how the displacement of a comma may change the

intonation and meaning of the following sentences (alongside their rhythmic and
intonational patterns):
The clergyman said he would wear no clothes to distinguish him from his
fellow-Christians. Wanted occasionally, respectable woman. This stone was erected to
the memory of John Smith who was accidentally shot, as a mark of affection by his
brother. The boy, said the teacher, has made a mistake. He is happily married. I stand
here as a prisoner unfortunately, that gentleman sits there as my judge. Mr.
MacDonnell had to obey orders, which must have been very distasteful to him as an
Irish gentleman. (The merchants telegram): No, price too high.
Exercise 8: Define the following terms (a) belonging to the field of phonetics,

175

phonology and general linguistics, in keeping with the model provided by the
definitions in the brief Index below (b). (See also Chapters I-IV):
a) accent; accentuation; acoustic; acute; airstream; allophones; alveolar; auditory
phonetics; blade; breath groups; breathed [bret]; centre, central; close; closure;
cluster; coda; compact; competence; complementary (distribution); connected speech;
contoid; contrast, contrastive; dark; deep structure; dental; devoiced, devoicing;
diachronic; diffuse; diphthong, diphthongal, diphthongization; distinctive; double
consonant letters; dynamic (stress); egressive; emphatic; fall, falling; feature; flap(ed);
flat; fortis; free variation; fricative; front, fronted; glide; glottal stop; glottis;
intonation; intrusion, intrusive; inventory; juncture; labial; lax; length; lenis; linking;
liquids; medial; mid-; minimal pair; narrow; obstruent; occlusion, occlusive;
oesophagus, oesophageal; open; oral; palatal, palate, palatalization; palato-alveolar;
pause; paradigm, paradigmatic; pharynx, pharyngeal; pharyngealize; phonation;
phonematic units; phoneme, phonemic; phonemics; phonology, phonologi(cal);
performance; prominence; prosody; prosodic feature; pulmonic; pure vowel; quality,
qualitative; quantity; R liaison; rate; recipient; regressive; release; rounding; RP
(Received Pronunciation); schwa (sound); segmental; semi-consonant; semi-vowel;
sharp; short vowel; sign; sound system; source; spectrograph, spectrography; speech;
spread; stop; stress-timed; stricture; strong form; substance; supraglottal;
suprasegmental; surface structure; syllable, syllabic; syllabi(fi)cation, syllabify;
syllable-timed; syntagmatic; tap; tension; tip (of the tongue); tone; tonic; transition;
triphthong; T-voicing; unreleased; unvoiced; uvular; variant; velar, velarisation; vocal
cords / vocal folds; vocal organs, vocal tract; vocalic; vocoid; voiceless; vowel; weak
forms.
b) An INDEX of phonetic and linguistic terms:
abrupt (release) A rapid release of a sound, usually without any acoustic turbulence
(like that of fricatives, for instance); it is a phenomenon specific to plosive
consonants, in contrast with / to delayed release, which characterizes affricate
consonants (the term is used in phonology: the theory of distinctive feature
analysis).
affricate From the point of view of the manner of articulation, a consonant is said to
be affricate if there is an amount of air-pressure behind a complete closure, the
release of which is gradual; it is in fact a complex sound, made up of a plosive (=the
initial sound), immediately followed by a fricative (=the release), both produced at
the same place of articulation; the duration of the friction in the latter element is
smaller than that of a fricative sound proper. (If the duration is very brief,
phoneticians use the term affrication). From the point of view of phonological
analysis, some specialists consider that, in addition to [t] and [d], which are palatoalveolar, also belong to the category of the affricates: [tr], [dr] (post-alveolar), and
sequences of consonants like [t], e.g. eighth, [ts] cats, [dz] rides, [bv] obvious.
Affricates are always part of the same syllable, e.g. natural, address (compare with
nutshell).
affrication See affricate
anterior Sounds produced with an obstruction in front of the palato-alveolar region of
the mouth are anterior; all other sounds are non-anterior; note: only sounds that are
[+consonantal] can be [+anterior], because an obstruction is required; [+anterior] =

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labial, dental, alveolar consonants; [-anterior] = palato-alveolar through pharingeal

Cs; also vowels and glides.
archiphonemes A new class of phonemes, different from the classic phonetic signs,
used to disambiguate the phonetic transcription in certain instances when two
phonemes are neutralised (particularly in some contexts, when their contrast /
distinction is lost, e.g. aspirated /p, t, k/ are often heard after /s/ in words like: spit,
stick, skin /sbit, sdik, sgin/ (usually, they are phonemically transcribed as: /spit, stik,
skin/ ); Nikolai Trubetskoy, a representative of the Prague School, proposes a new
class of phonetic symbols for these neutralised phonemes (a system of phonetic
transcription by using capital letters, for instance: /sPit, sTik, sKin/ for the examples
above).
articulation represents the production of human speech / speech sounds which are
the result of the modification of the air-flow / air(-)stream coming from the lungs by
the organs of speech (namely, those parts of the air tract situated above the larynx).
The classification is done in terms of the place and manner of articulation (esp. la
consonants), resorting to the description of the activity of the following organs: the
action of the vocal cords / folds and the nature of the airstream mechanism, position
of the soft palate, of the tongue and the lips. Articulation represents in fact a
continuum of sound production; the general idea of sounds as discrete units must be
corrected through the more realistic view of speech sounds in the light of the idea
that various transitions occur between segments, as the activity of the articulators is
dynamic. There are several types of articulation: using one point of articulation;
using two points of articulation (=coarticuation, which in turn can be: double
coarticulation, when the contribution of the two points is equal; in the cases when
one of the points is predominant we have primary or secondary coarticulation, e.g.
palatalizaton, velarization, labialization). (See also place and manner of
articulation)
articulator Any segment of the vocal apparatus which holds a role in the production
of the speech sounds; they may be active and passive (i.e. fixed or mobile /
moving). (See also articulation)
aspirated distinguishes aspirated consonants [Ch], which are [+aspirated], from
unaspirated consonants [C], which are [-aspirated]; this feature is irrelevant for
vowels.
aspiration An aspirated consonant is heard accompanied by a short h-sound (e.g. pot
/p'ot/, or /phot/), or, in other words, by an audible release of air; the plosives /p, t, k/
are aspirated in certain environments / vicinities: at the beginning of the syllable
(e.g. pin, tail, come). They are unaspirated when preceded by s at the beginning of
the following syllable, when followed by a fricative sound, or when immediately
followed by another plosive
assimilation occurs in connected speech as an effect of the articulation of a
neighbouring / adjacent sound; it is a type of coarticulation
back Sounds produced with the body of the tongue retracted from its neutral position
are back; other sounds are non-back; [+back] = central and back vowels, glide [w],
velar, uvular, pharyngeal, labialized, velarized, and pharyngealized consonants; [back] = front vowels, glide [j], laryngeal glides, labial through palatal, and
palatalized consonants.

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bilabial see labial;

binary feature A characteristic / property detected for use in the description of
linguistic units in terms which are mutually exclusive, i.e. of opposition; binary
oppositions or binary features are used in phonetics: eg. /p/ is characterized as [voice], as opposed to /b/ which is [+voice]
breaking The process whereby a (pure) vowel / monophthong becomes a centring
diphtong: the glide sound // may develop before a liquid (/l/ or /r/), e.g. meal
/mi(:)l/, bier /bi/, that is, pre-l breaking and pre-r breaking, respectively.
breathy A term referring to voice quality which implies the effect of the passing of a
great amount of air through a slightly open glottis; also referred to as murmur,
e.g. the extremely shocked pronunciation of Oh really! which is called breathy
voice or breathy phonation
click A stop which is produced by suction of air, so an ingressive speech sound, in
which the air stream is set in motion within the mouth rather than by the lungs, e.g.
the tut tut sound implying disapproval, or the (lateral) gee up sound used for
encouraging horses. Clicks are not phonemic in English.
clipping the more rapid pronunciation of a vowel in accordance with a certain
vicinity, e.g. in feet, loose (cf. feed, lose). It is a length-reduction; the opposite of
clipping is stretching, which usually affects the syllable which is at the end of
an utterance.
coarticulation may be defined as the influence exerted upon a phoneme by the
sounds situated in its (close) vicinity / proximity, explicable by a phenomenon of
keeping / maintaining by the speech sound of a phonetic characteristic that was
relevant for a preceding sound, or by a case of anticipating a phonetic feature that
may characterize a following sound (= a target sound), which is called
anticipatory coarticulation, e.g. /f/ in foot is pronounced with a slight liprounding (in anticipation of the following /u:/-sound), whereas in feet it is
palatalized. Coarticulation may imply nasality, voicing, place of articulation.
combining forms bound forms / morphemes which are used in association with other
linguistic elements in order to form words, e.g micro- and -scopic; some combining
forms (i.e. suffixes) are stress-neural, while others are stress-imposing (= they
determine the position of the stress on a particular syllable in the first element).
compounds and phrases see stress;
compression Sometimes, two syllables can be pronounced as one, e.g. the two
possible pronunciations of lenient, diagram, maddening. Frequently or repeatedly
used words are more likely to be compressed, the more so as they are used in
rapid or careless speech.
consonantal Sounds with a narrowed constriction in the oral cavity are consonantal;
other sounds are non-consonantal; [+consonantal] = stops, fricatives, affricates,
nasals, and liquids; [-consonantal] = vowels and glides.
continuant Sounds in which the constriction in the oral cavity is not narrow enough
tp block the air flow are continuant; other sounds are non-continuant; [+continuant]
= vowels, glides, liquids and fricatives; [-continuant] = stops, affricates, nasals.
coronal Sounds produced with the blade of the tongue raised from its neutral position
are coronal; other sounds are non-coronal; [+coronal] = dental, alveolar, and palatoalveolar consonants; also retroflex consonants and vowels; [-coronal] = labial,

178

labiodental, and palatal through pharyngeal consonants; also non-retroflex vowels

and glides.
creaky voice is a term used in the description of voice quality involving a very slow
vibration of one end of the vocal cords / folds. It may also be called laryngealized
voice. Example: Oh, I dont know when pronounced on a very low pitch level.
crescendo diphthongs see also rising diphthongs: diphthongs in which the
prominence is increased in passing from the first to the second elements. Usually,
there are no such diphthongs in English; instead, English diphthongs are falling.
delayed release Sounds which do not have instantaneous release of a closure in the
vocal tract have delayed release; all other sounds are not delayed in point of release;
[+delayed release] = affricates and all [+cont] sounds; [-delayed release] = all
sounds that are [-cont] except affricates.
digraph a group of two letters which are pronounced as one sound, e.g. ph in phase;
also, a combined letter of the type.
dissimilation is the opposite of assimilation and refers to the influence exercised by
one sound segment upon the articulation of another, in an attempt by the speaker to
make the respective sounds (in contact) be more different; an example of diachronic
dissimilation is pilgrim < Lat. peregrinus.
dorsal see dorsum
dorsum the back of the tongue when coming in contact with a place of articulation
(e.g. dorso-velar, etc.). Some phoneticians use this name to cover the blade, too.
double articulation see articulation
elision see also assimilation
formants A term used in acoustic phonetics in reference to the particular values
ascribed to vowels / vocoids; it is a concentration of acoustic energy which
illustrates the manner of vibration of the air stream coming from the lungs.
Dominant frequency provide the quality of the respective vowel-like sound each
such band makes up a formant and can be visualised on the sound spectrograph
frictionless (continuant) is a continuant speech sound which lacks friction; it is
neither a fricative nor a stop (or plosive / occlusive sound), e.g. /m/, /n/, //, /l/,
/w/, /j/.
glottalized distinguishes ejective consonants [C?], which are [+glottalized], from nonejective consonants [C], which are [-glottalized]; this feature is irrelevant for
vowels.
hard attack is a possibility of starting the pronunciation of a word-initial vowel from
a position where the vocal cords / folds are frist closed, then suddenly opened: thus,
the vowel is actually preceded by a glottal stop. In English it is mainly used for
adding emphasis.
high are the sounds produced with the body of the tongue raised from its neutral
position are high; other sounds are non-high; [+high] = high vowels, glides [j] and
[w], palatoalveolar, palatal and velar consonants; palatalized, labialized and
velarized consonants; [-high] = mid and low vowels, laryngeal glides, anterior
consonants, retroflex, uvular, pharyngeal and pharyngealized consonants.
interurupted A term which is used in the system of the distinctive features, referring
to speech sound uttered with complete closure of the vocal tract, i.e plosives. The
opposite term is continuant.

179

iota [ai'ut] is the palatal sound marked by [j]; see also yod coalescence
kinetic A notion used in phonology in reference to various types of tones, whose
quality may be different in point of pitch range; one may distinguish dynamic or
contour tones in contrast to static or level tones
lateral Coronal sounds in which the mid-section of the tongue is lowered on one or
both sides, allowing air to escape out of the mouth are lateral; [+lateral] = all [l]type sounds; [-lateral] = all non-[l]-type sounds.
liaison In phonology, this term marks a process through which, in connected speech,
certain words may link together, particularly by means of a sound-transition (a new
sound may appear at the end of a word within a particular context); the cases of
linking r and intrusive r are notorious examples of liaison, especially before words
beginning with vowel-sounds, e.g. Never in my life, or Asia and Africa
long distinguished long (geminate) sounds, both vowels and consonants, (e.g. [:], or
[aa], or [] and [t:] ot [tt]), which are [+long], from their short counterparts (e.g. [a]
and [t], which are [-long].
long vowels Any vocal sound in English whose articulation implies a longer period on
the temporal scale from its very uttering by the speaker to the listeners perceiving it
as a sound; this quality of vocoids is called lebgth or duration, and it is graphically
marked by a colon [:]. There is an opposition between long and short vowels, as
each vowel letter in English may be either short or long, depending on the context it
occurs in. Long vowels usually appear: prior to a consonant letter followed by silent
e, e.g. complete, in one-syllabled words, ending with a vowel, e.g. me, etc.
loudness is a category referring to the perception of sounds, belonging to the same
category as length, pitch and quality. It is the direct result of intensity (i.e. the
physical effort which is used in uttering the respective sound).
low sounds produced with with the body of the tongue lowered from its neutral
position are low; other sounds are non-low; [+low] = low vowels, laryngeal glides,
pharyngeal and pharyngealized consonants; [-low] = high and mid vowels, glides [j]
and [w], all consonants except pharyngeal and pharyngelized consonants.
mechanism (usually: speech ~) see vocal tract, organs of speech
monophthongs are vowels in the production of which the position of the organs of
speech is constant; the term is synonymous to pure vowels and the opposite of
diphthongs
nasal Sounds articulated with the velum lowered are nasal; other sounds are non-nasal
(i.e. oral); [+nasal] = nasal stops, nasalized vowels nasalized glides, nasalized
liquids; [-nasal] = all oral sounds.
neutral 1) A term referring to the position of the lips, held in relaxed position, i.e.
neither rounded nor spread. 2) (Of vowels): lax and central, with the tongue neutral
as to the front, back, high and low positions. Examples: afloat, balloon, never.
neutralisation A term used in phonology to describe the phenomenon of blurring
the usual distinction between two phonemes in certain contexts, e.g. spare and
*sbare (as aspiration is lost after /s/).
non- as in vocalic vs. non-vocalic, consonantal vs. non-consonantal, strident vs. nonstrident, sharp vs. non-sharp, flat vs. non-flat; aspirated vs. non-aspirated, etc.
represents the negative / privative counterpart of oppositional pairs of phonological
features (cf. compact vs. diffuse, abrupt vs. continuant, etc.)

180

nuclear representing or functioning as a nucleus

nucleus 1. (referring to diphthongs) one of the component parts of a diphthong,
together with the glide; 2. (referring to syllables) a syllable has an onset, a
nucleus (i.e. the central segment) and a coda; 3. (in intonation) the syllable in a tone
unit which carries maximal prominence, usually due to a major pitch load / charge;
the respective syllable is also referred to as a tonic syllable.
optional sounds are those which are sometimes pronounced and sometimes omitted,
and still the pronunciation of the respective word is in either case acceptable, e.g.
often /'ofn / and /'oftn/.
phone 1) The smallest elementary sounds which are recognizable by a listener as
separate sounds. 2) The actual realization of phonemes when produced by speakers
of a natural language; it may be said to be a quasi-synonymous term for allophone.
phonic substance A set of properties regarding speech seen as a complex process
equally based on acoustic, articulatory, auditory, etc. phenomena; its correlative
term used in the written form of the language is graphic substance
phonotactics A part of phonology dealing with the rules that govern the possible
sequences of phonemes in a language.
places of articulation According to these, sounds (consonants) may be: bilabial (the
lower lip is set against the upper lip, e.g. [p], [b], [m]); labiodental (the lower lip is
set against the upper teeth, e.g. [f], [v]); (inter)dental (the tip of the tongue is set
against the upper teeth; there is certain amount of pressure from the lower teeth
-e.g. [], []); alveolar (the tip of the blade of the tongue is set against the alveolar
ridge. e.g. [t], [d], [n], [l], [s], [z]); post-alveolar (the tip of the tongue is raised
against the back part of the alveolar ridge, e.g. [r], ans also, according to some
phoneticians, [tr], [dr]); palato-alveolar sounds (the blade of the tongue is retracted
and placed against the alveolar ridge and hard palate, usually with a certain amount
of lip-roundng, e.g. [], [], [t], [d]); palatal (the front of the tongue is raised
against the hard palate / roof of the mouth, e.g. [j]); (dorso-)velars (the back of the
tongue is placed against the soft palate, e.g. [k], [g], []); labio-velars (the back of
the tongue is raised against the soft palate and the lips are rounded, e.g. [w]);
glottal: [?] (see glottal stop)
register A language variety as used in particular circumstances; the term has different
acceptions with different linguists.
r-ful(l) or rhotic (in English phonology): a type of pronunciation in which /r/ has not
been lost before a consonant or a pause, e.g RP as opposed to General American or
Scottish English; also called r-pronouncing
rhythm A term used in phonology, referring to the possibility of stress languages
(among which English may be included) to realize a continuum od stressed and
unstressed syllables that ultimately lie at the bottom of coherent speech;
perceived as a sequence of regularities (= a succession of prominent units in
speech), rhythm may also be stated in terms of stressed and unstressed syllables,
high or low pitch, long or short syllables. Musical rhythm (in poetry, incantation,
etc.) refers to a maximal level of regular rhythmic pattern with stylistic effect; see
also rhythmic

181

roll An articulation perfomed through a series of rapid taps of the tongue (=), or the
uvula (=); the sounds thus produced are called rolled; the rolled type of r is not
characteristic of English (with the exception of the Scottish dialect).
round Sounds produced with a narrowing (rounding) of the lip orifice are round;
other sounds are non-round; [+round] = rounded vowels, glide [w] and labialized
consonants; [-round] = unrounded vowels, glide [j], laryngeal glides, all nonlabialized consonants.
secondary articulation See articulation
sonorant Resonant sounds are sonorant. Other sounds are non-sonorant (i.e.
obstruents); [+sonorant] = vowels, nasals, liquids, glides ([j] and [w]); [-sonorant] =
stops, fricatives, affricates, laryngeal glide.
stress distinguishes stressed syllabic sounds, both vowels and consonants, which are
[+stress], from unstressed syllabic sounds which are [-stress].
stressed see stress
strident Sounds, usually fricatives and affricates, that are acoustically relatively
noisier than other corresponding sounds at the same point of articulation are
strident; other sounds are non-strident; [+strident] = [f], [v], [s], [z], [], []; [strident] = [], [], [], [], [x], []; also vowels, glides and other consonants.
syllabic Sounds that comprise the centre or peak of a syllable. Other sounds are nonsyllabic; [+syllabic] = vowels, syllabic consonants; [-syllabic] = non-syllabic
liquids, nasals, glides, and obstruents.
tempo The general acception of the notion in suprasegmental phonetics is that of
uttering speed alongside with pitch variations and loudness modifications; tempo of
utterance is subordinate to the broader domains of rhythm and stress; the term rate
is also used.
tense Sounds produced with relatively greater muscular tension are tense; other
sounds are non-tense, or lax; [+tense] = tense vowels, voiceless obstruents; [-tense]
= lax vowels, voiced obstruents; note: tense is also sometimes used to replace
long for long vowels and consonants.
timbre ['tmb], tambre, tamber is the same as quality (i.e. the set of criteria
serving as a possibility of recognition of different voice qualities in spite of their
identity in point of pitch, loudness and length)
timing see stress-timed, syllable-timed
tone group / tone unit is the basic unit used for describing intonation (containing a
nuclear tone / nucleus, which marks a change in pitch; it may also contain a prehead and / or a head, and a tail)
trill see roll
voice is the quality lent by vocal cord vibration to the speech sounds being produced
(and consequently giving rise to, for instance, voiced vs. voiceless consonants, or to
sonorants); voice may be perceived as creaky voice, or breathy voice, lax voice,
tense voice, etc,
voiced Sounds produced with vocal cord vibration are voiced; other sounds are nonvoiced, or voiceless; vowels and sonorant consonants are usually voiced; however,
all sounds, from stops through vowels, can be either [+voice] or [-voice] cf.
voiceless

182

weak vowels (in many-syllabled words) determine the weak syllables (as opposed to
the strong vowels, e.g. undone, acorn, butane). The vowels //, /i/, /u/ are always
weak, e.g. situation, carelessness. This distinction has implications for
syllabification and sometimes for rhythm.
yod coalescence is the coarticulation / double articulation phenomenon of
(im)merging of two different phonemes into a single new sound, e.g. /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/
usually merge with /j/ (iota or yod) becoming /t/, /d/, //, // in words like
suggestion, studious, progression, Cartezian.
ANNEX 7:
TEXTS FOR READING PRACTICE AND PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
1. Framton tried to say the correct thing which should flatter the niece, without
showing too little respect for the aunt who was to come. Privately he doubted more
than ever whether these formal visits on total strangers would be of much help for him
as he had just had a serious nervous breakdown. I know how it will be, his sister
had said when he was preparing to go somewhere into the country. You will bury
yourself down there and not speak to a living soul and your nerves will be worse than
ever. I shall give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of
them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice. Do you know many of the people
here? asked the niece. Hardly a soul, said Framton. My sister was staying here
some years ago and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.
Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?, continued the young lady.
Only her name and address, admitted the caller. Her great tragedy happened just
three years ago, said the girl, that would be since your sisters time. Her
tragedy? asked Framton. Tragedies seemed out of place in that country ()
2. It is as difficult to climb down this wall as it is to climb up it. The young man in
the picture will be very tired at the end of the day. But he will feel satisfied, too, as he
finishes his climb. The air is clean and fresh, and the scenery is as beautiful as
anywhere in the world.
3. The cinema can be found on the corner of the High Street and Park Lane, and is
next to the car park, which is also on the High Street. Across from the cinema, on the
opposite corner, is the swimming pool. If you continue up Park Lane from the
swimming pool, you will find the hospital on the corner of Park Lane and Mill Street.
If you turn left down Hill Street at the hospital, you will find the library on the left
hand side, and opposite the library is the Town Hall. On the same side of the street as
the Town Hall and on the corner of Mill Street and Belgrave Avenue is the school. On
the opposite corner is the museum. The railway station is also on Belgrave Avenue,
between Hill Street and the High Street. The bus station is on the corner of Belgrave
Avenue and the High Street.
4. John usually gets up at six, but yesterday morning he got up half an hour later. He
had a shower at a quarter to seven and then got dressed. He usually has breakfast after
his shower, but yesterday he didnt have time and he rushed off to work. He just
caught the seven twenty bus. He usually gets to work at eight, but yesterday he was a
quarter an hour late. His lunch break starts at twelve thirty, but yesterday he didnt

183

have lunch and worked instead.

5. There are four towns on the Isle of Moss. In the north, there is Cray, in the south,
Dundee; in the east, Fife; and in the west, Grog. Roads link Cray to Fife, and a
railway links Dundee to Grog and Fife. In the middle of the island are mountains, and
to the south, between the mountains and Dundee lies Lake Bye. It is a triangular lake
with the top of the triangle facing the mountains, and the base facing Dundee. From
the south-east corner of the lake a river runs straight to the sea, entering the sea at the
coast midway between Fife and Dundee. A river also runs west from the mountains
and enters the sea at Grog. In the north of the island, between the mountains and Cray
there is a large forest. There are marshes on the land east of the Cray Fife road, and
on the land between the Dundee Grog railway and the sea. Dundee bay is very
dangerous as it is full of rocks. There are two lighthouses opposite each other at the
entrance to the bay.
6. The local government plans to develop the island. They are going to build a resort
on the east bank of Lake Bye and to build a road to link the resort with Fife. They also
plan to build a railway linking the resort to Dundee in the south and Cray in the north.
They are going to build a tunnel for the railway through the mountains and to cut
down most of forest. They are also going to drain the marshes in the west and to build
some factories there. The factories will be linked to Grog and Dundee by roads. They
also plan to build a dam on the river midway between the mountains and Grog. They
will turn the marshes in the east into a bird sanctuary. They also intend to get rid of
the rocks in Dundee Bay and to build a new port there. They hope to build a new
airport in the south of the island, where the river enters the sea. They also want to drill
for oil in the south-east between the Dundee-Fife railway and the sea, and east of the
river. The airport will therefore be placed west of the river. They also plan to demolish
the lighthouse on the eastern side of Dundee Bay.
7. No, children, Hamlet was not a bad man. He was a very unhappy man who tried to
do justice. Perhaps it was our mistake to take Tony to the theatre last night. He did not
understand the play. I didnt understand it, either, when I was his age. But I read the
story in a book, Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb, and then I
understood the story better. I think you ought to read it yourselves.
8. Two men, John and Jim, travelling through the country in America, stopped at a
small inn for dinner. On the table there was a large cup of mustard. One of them,
thinking the contents were custard or a sweet of some kind, took a spoonful of it in his
mouth. Tears ran down his cheeks, but wishing to have his friend caught in the same
trap, he said nothing of the mistake he had made. The other man, seeing that his friend
was crying, said, Listen, Jim, what are you crying about? I was thinking of my
father who was hanged twenty years ago, Jim replied. Soon after, John took a
spoonful of the mustard, and as the tears started down his cheeks, Jim, in his turn,
said, What are you crying about? To think you were not hanged the same day your
father was, came the answer.
9. (From Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell) In the first place, Cranford is in possession
of the Amazons: all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women. If a
marrried couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is
either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties,
or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in

184

business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant
only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen,
they are not at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his
round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford: but every man cannot be a surgeon. For
keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them, for
frightening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through the
railings; for rushing out the geese that occasionally venture into the gardens if the
gates are left open; for deciding all questions of literature and politics without
troubling themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and
correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the parish; for keeping their neat maidservants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real
tender good offices to each other whenever they are in distress, the ladies of Cranford
are quite sufficient. A man, as one of them observed to me once, is so in the way of
the house! Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other's proceedings, they
are exceedingly indifferent to each other's opinions. Indeed, as each has her own
individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as
verbal retaliation; but somehow good-will reigns among them to a considerable
degree.
10. (From The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde) JACK: My dear
fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at all. In fact its perfectly
ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted me when I was a little boy under
rather peculiar circumstances and left me all the money I possess made me in his will
guardian to his grand-daughther, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as
her uncle from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, lives at my
place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess Miss Prism.
ALGERNON: Where is that place in the country, by the way?
JACK: That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited... I may tell
you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire.
ALGERNON: I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburied all over Shropshire
on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the
country?
11. (From The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare) LAUNCE (to
the audience): I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going
with Sir Proteus to the Imperials court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured
dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid
howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did
not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no
more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting; why,
my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, Ill
show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father: no, this left shoe is my father: no,
no, this left shoe is my mother: nay, that cannot be so neither: yes, it is so, it is so ()
This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father; () now, sit, this staff
is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand: this hat is
Nan, our maid: I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dogOh! the dog is
me, and I am myself () Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing: now should
not the shoe speak a word for weeping: now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps

185

on. Now come I to my mother: O, that she could speak now like a wood woman!
Well, I kiss her (); heres my mothers breath up and down. Now come I to my
sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor
speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.
12. (From A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare) THESEUS:
() Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, / Such shaping fantasies, that
apprehend / More than cool reason ever comprehends. / The lunatic, the lover and the
poet / Are of imagination all compact. / One sees more devils than vast hell can hold: /
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic, / Sees Helens beauty in a brow of
Egypt. / The poets eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, / Doth glance from heaven to earth,
from earth to heaven, / And as imagination bodies forth / The forms of things
unknown, the poets pen / Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing / A local
habitation and a name.
13. (From As You Like It by William Shakespeare)
JAQUES: All the worlds a
stage, / And all the men and women merely players. / They have their exits and their
entrances, / And one man in his time plays many parts, / His acts being seven ages. At
first the infant, / Mewling and puking in the nurses arms. / Then the whining
schoolboy with his satchel / And shining morning face, creeping like snail /
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, / Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
/ made to his mistress eyebrow. Then, a soldier, / Full of strange oaths, and bearded
like the pard, / Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, / Seeking the bubble
reputation / Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, / In fair round belly
with good capon lined, / With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, / Full of wise saws
and modern instances; / And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts / Into the lean
and slippered pantaloon, / With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, / His youthful
hose, well saved, a world too wide / For his shrunk shank, and his big, manly voice, /
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes / And whistles in his sound. Last scene of
all, / That ends this strange, eventful history, / Is second childishness and mere
oblivion, / Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
14. (From Hamlet by William Shakespeare) HAMLET: To be, or not to be; that is
the question: / Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And, by opposing,
end them. To die, to sleep / No more, and by a sleep to say we end / The heartache
and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to tis a consummation /
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep. / To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, theres the
rub, / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off
this mortal coil / Must give us pause. Theres the respect / That makes calamity of so
long life, / For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, / Thoppressors wrong,
the proud mans contumely, / The pangs of despised love, the laws delay, / The
insolence of office, and the spurns / That patient merit of thunworthy takes, / When
he himself might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels
bear, / To grunt and sweat under a weary life, / But that the dread of something after
death, / The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveller returns, puzzles
the will, / And makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we
know not of? / Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, / And thus the native
hue of resolution / is sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought, / And enterprises of

186

great pitch and moment / With this regard their currents turn awry, / And lose the
name of action.

187

MATERIALE SUPLIMENTARE PENTRU LUCRUL PRACTIC DIN

CADRUL SEMINARULUI

Tongue Twisters
She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore.
The shells that she sells are sea-shells Im sure.
Robert Rowley rolled a round roll round,
A round roll Robert Rowley rolled round;
Where rolled the round roll Robert Rowley rolled round?
Which is this switch?
Which switch is which?
Swan Swam over the Sea
Swan swam over the sea
Swim, swan, swim;
Swan swam back again,
Well swum, swan.
Peter Piper
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Wheres the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Nicks thistle stick is as thick as Dicks stick;
Ricks stick is not so thick as Dicks stick.
(After Prlog-Chioran, Ghid de pronunare a limbii engleze)
188

deed did seat sit

seal sill beat bit
lead lid leap lip
leave live peak pick
steel still reach rich
seen sin seeks six
Feel free to speak.
We meet each evening at Steves.
Pete agreed to keep the key.
Hes asleep under these green trees.
These three people are eager to please.
The children will drink milk.
She filled my dish with fish.
Finish it, it isnt difficult.
He gives vivid descriptions in his fiction.
Hes swimming in the river with Jim.
a) We want Jean.
We want gin.
b) Feel them carefully.
Fill them carefully,
c) Its on the seal.
Its on the sill.
d) Its a big meal.
Its a big mill.
e) He caught the sheep.
He caught the ship.
Treat him as you see fit.
Will you please begin to read?
Shes pleased to be given these pretty beads.
He feels quite sick after the meals on the ship.
We finished the beef, but we still have some fish.
ten tan send sand
mess mass pen pan
led lad lend land
leg lag head had
189

bed bad merry marry

expensive expansive
peck pack
den din
met mitt
read rid
meant mint
lent lint
bell bill
pen pin
etch itch
wretch rich
fell fill
slept slipped
rest wrist
Pete pit
deed did
lead lid
neat knit
bean bin
peel pill
beat bit
seat sit
bead bid
heel hill
teen tin
heed hid
pet
dead
led
net
ben
pell
190

bet
set
bed
hell
ten
head
pat
dad
lad
gnat
ban
pal
bat
sat
bad
Hal
tan
had
Helen says shes been in bed for seven days.
Ben sent a letter to his friend.
The weather is getting better and better.
Henry went to town to sell ten fresh eggs.
They are expecting ten guests for breakfast on Wednesday.
Jacks glad to be back.
The fat man is carrying a black cap in his hand.
That mans having a nap.
The bad cat ate the bat.
The lamb ran after the ram.
a) I said bad.
I said bed.
b) I want my wife to be more expensive.
I want my wife to be more expansive.
c) We watched him peddling.
We watched him paddling.
d) Throw the pen away.
191

Throw the pan away.

e) I love this gem.
I love this jam.
Get back exactly at ten, Dan.
Has Ann met Sam?
The bags empty, he said.
Let Mac have the rest.
That man sent the plan to Ben.
I think my friends live close to the Thames.
Your illness has left you very thin.
Dont stick your head out of the window.
Your breath smells of gin and whisky.
Were expecting guests to dinner on Wednesday.
past
answer
after
aunt
hot
box
log
calm
farm
stark
carp
heart
lark
bard
psalm
barn
cup
hut
192

luck
bud
some
bun
calm
harsh
mast
barter
starter
bark
come
hush
must
butter
stutter
buck
aunt
cart
chart
part
park
bark
ant
cat
chat
pat
pack
back
lark
bard
card
193

halve
harm
barred
lack
bad
cad
have
ham
bad
Mark cant drive his car fast.
He parked his car in a barn.
The dog barked at a calf which was half-way between the farmyard
and a large cart.
It makes me laugh to see the calf go down the path to take a bath.
Thats a rather smart answer!
The judge rushed to crush the bug.
You must come to supper on Sunday.
He was as snug as a bug in a rug.
He was lucky to have sung before he got drunk.
His mother suddenly won a large sum of money.
a) Calm down!
b) Is the calf white?
c) I found a larva in the garden.
I found a lover in the garden.
d) There were several carts in
the movie.
There were several cuts in
the movie.
e) I dont like this type of
barter.
I dont like this type of butter.
194

Come down!
Is the cuff white?
a) Give me your hat!
b) No ham in it!
c) What about the cat?
d) Do yon like this lad?
e) They said something
packing and leaving.
Give me your heart!
No harm in it!
What about the cart?
Do you like this lard?
They said something about parking and leaving.
The duck was dark colored.
Pass me the last cup of rum.
Father gave his son a hearty hug.
The stuff was marred by the mud in the cart.
Barbara was humming to herself, tugging her toy cart around the
garden.

not
spot
cock
odd
nod
what
naught
sport
195

cork
awed
gnawed
wart
shot
rnoss
stock
body
rot
short
caller
morse
stalk
bawdy
wrought
stork
dawn
baulks
port
court
hawk
cord
taught
pork
corpse
bores
fawned
stuck stark stock
done darn don
bucks barks box
putt part pot
cut cart cot
196

Huck hark hock

cud card cod
tut tart tot
puck park pock
cups carps copse
buzz bars Boz
bun barn fond
The dog was lost among the rocks.
Tom and Bob were sleeping like logs.
Mr. Moggs, who raises hogs, and has a lot of dogs, owns a house built
of logs near the bogs where there are a lot of frogs.
Polly was sorry she hadnt washed your socks.
The audience was awed by the organ player.
All fish are not caught with flies.
In the morning he was walking along the tall wall.
The ball struck Paul on the jaw.
They were caught in the storm at dawn and went off course.
a) Ill have a shot.

Ill have a short.

b) Hes a bad sot.

Hes a bad sort.
c) Now, where is that cock?
Now, where is that cork?
e) The potter was very helpful. The porter was very helpful.
d) He was counting the pots. He was counting the ports.
This dog was born in a cot.
The water for coffee was awfully hot.
The loss of his watch was thought unfortunate.
The cock sang in the cottage courtyard.
Paul sought the moss-covered rocks.
pull pool wood wooed
full fool soot suit (Am.)
197

stood stewed hood whod

look Luke should shoed
could cooed
sot sort soot suit
shot short
shoot
cod cord could cooed
wad ward would wooed
lock look Luke
god gored good
hod hoard hood whod
I would come to the bookstore if I could.
The good looking woman is the butchers wife.
I could hear footsteps in the bushes.
Susanne was a good cook and she took pride in her cooking.
Mrs. Woodman never puts enough sugar in her pudding.
Too - too will in two . (proverb)
The group in the schoolroom was rude.
Luke is foolish and stupid, as a rule.
The soup was too cool for the recruits.
Two fools in one house are too many. (proverb)
a) Give me the glass! Full.
Give me the glass, fool.
b) Look, the postman, is at the gate.
Luke, the postman is at the gate.
c) Are you sure she could?
Are you sure she cooed?
d) It was a long pull.
It was a long pool.
e) I think wood is easy to pronounce.
I think wooed is easy to pronounce.
The crook took the silver spoons.
In the wood there were bushes with blue blooms.
His suit was soon covered with soot.
198

Would you use crude sugar?

The woman had a loose tooth pulled out.
an
and
forward
commas
for
but
could
had
earn
earned
foreword
commerce
fur
Burt
curd
heard
bird bored first forced
shirt short were war
curt court worm warm
curd cord heard hoard
pert port furl
word ward turn torn
bard
heart
cart
fast
barn
scarf
part
tam
199

lark
starred
card
shark
bud
hut
cut
fussed
bun
scuff
putt
ton
luck
stud
cud
shuck
bird
hurt
curt
first
burn
scurf
pert
turn
lurk
stirred
curd
shirk
The fashionable photographer lived in a comfortable apartment in
London.
It is difficult not to attract the attention of your younger brother.
Mr. Johnson, the prosperous Birmingham banker, was an amateur
astrologer.
An observant policeman has caught a camera thief.
Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune.
The early bird catches the worm.
200

The first and thirty-third verses were the easiest to learn.

Pearls purse was returned early on her birthday.
It irks the earnest amateurs to hear of the journey round tlie world,
I was disturbed when I heard that absurd word.
The actor gave a personal interpretation to the soliloquies.
At this university students learn controversial theories.
The handsome colonel twirled his wonderful moustache.
The birds were chirping as if nothing had happened.
One must observe the personality of an infant.
play plays place
ray raise race
May made mate
lay lays lace
pay pays pace
bay bays base
day daze dace
Fay phase face
gray grade grate
hay hate
may maize mace
pray prayed prate
tell tale
pen pain
red raid
let late
bet bait
sell sail
wet wait
tent taint
men main
rest raced
led laid
pepper paper
201

cat Kate pan pain

black Blake ran rain
hat hate rat rate
cap cape bat bait
mat mate Sam same
nap nape pal pale
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
They say theyll sail across the bay.
They take pains to make the hay.
James came by plane on a rainy day.
The name of the famous painter appeared in the newspaper today
a) I told you to tail him. d) They make planes.
I told you to tell him.
They make plans.
b) Wheres your pen?
e) His hate is well-known.
Wheres your pain?
His hat is well-known.
c) I forgot about her date. f) Blake suits you better.
I forgot about her debt.
Black suits you better.
sigh side sight
high hide height
pie pies pice
rye rise rice
I eyes ice
fry fried fright
die dies dice
why wide white
lie live (adj.) life
pry pries price
tie tide tight
buy bide bite
bide bard height heart
hide hard guide guard
tie tar like lark
my mar bike bark
tight tart kite cart
202

chime charm buy bar

tray try pale pile
bay buy paint pint
way why lake like
ray rye late light
raid ride space spice
rays rise bait bite
Mike likes to fight.
Id like five apple-pies.
She always arrives on time, at five to nine.
Clive was flying a white kite high in the sky.
Miss Irene Wright had poor eyesight and was frightfully shy but was
quite nice otherwise.
a) The height of this man is impressive
The heart of this man is impressive.
b) This exercise made the boys hide.
This exercise made the boys hard.
c) Dont leave me in the dike.
Dont leave me in the dark.
d) Have you ever seen a kite?
Have you ever seen a cart?
e) I would like to reach the pike.
I would like to reach the park.
Jim was proud of his might.
Jim was proud of his mate.
John baits his hook.
John bites his hook.
He might climb the tree.
He might claim the tree.
Where are the wives?
Where are the waves?
He came straight to the pint.
He came straight to the paint.
203

toys voice
boy choice
coin moist
noisy adroit
poison hoist
destroy exploit
tall toil caw coy
ball boil pause poise
all oil raw Roy
call coil Saul soil
fall foil lawns loins
jaw joy Baugh boy
tray try Troy
say sigh soy
bay by boy
pays pies poise
lane line loin
bail bile boil
ray rye Roy
lanes lines loins
fail file foil
ale isle oil
tail tile toil
paint pint point
What kind of noise annoys an oyster?
The boys voices were most annoying during the voyage.
Joyce made the best choice.
Boiling oil is a hard toil.
The joy over the new toy made the boy boisterous.
a) What a terrible vice.
What a terrible voice.
b) Jane walked in with pies.
Jane walked in with poise.
c) John brought a file.
204

John brought a foil.

d) How many ties do you have ?
How many toys do you have ?
e) His kind words are strongly impressed on my memory.
His coined words are strongly impressed on my memory.
a) Give me a call.
Give me a coil.
b) I like it raw.
I like it, Roy.
c) He has paws.
He has poise.
d) Id like to have this saw.
Id like to have this soy.
e) All men are hard workers.
Oil men are hard workers.
go goad goat
roe robe rope
no node note
co- code coat
mow mode moat
row rode wrote
bow bode boat
flow flowed float
fowe owed oat
stow stowed stoat
toe toad tote
low loathe loath
saw sir so
fawn fern phone
lawn learn loan
bought Burt boat
torn turn tone
caught curt coat
hall hurl whole
called curled cold
205

gall girl goal

Paul pearl pole
call curl coal
paw purr Poe
laid lied Lloyd load
ray rye Roy row
fail file foil foal
lane line loin loan
pays pies poise pose
say sigh soy so
tale tile toil toll
bay by boy bow
bail bile boil bowl
Oh, no, said Joan to Joe.
Dont go home alone!
Rose owns two goats.
Old boats are very slow.
Throw the stone over the wall!
a) They walk m the park.
They woke in the park.
b) I heard it myself!
I hoed it myself!
c) I met a nice bald man.
I met a nice bold man.
d) Keep your girl constantly in mind.
Keep your goal constantly in mind.
e) The teacher showed us a cone.
The teacher showed us a coin.
bough bout loud lout
cow couch mouse (vb.) mouse (s.)
house (vb.) house (s.) mouth (vb.) mouth (s.)
vow vouch rowed rout
bowed bout
found fount south (vb.) south (s.)
206

bow
sow
row
art out cant count
lard loud dart doubt
bar bough part pout
cars cows parch pouch
bard bowed grass grouse
card cowed darn down
bout boat loud load
cowed code how hoe
drown drone now know
out oat sow so
flout float fowl foal
gout goat ground groaned
The scouts found a house up in the mountains.
Mrs. Brown was not allowed to prowl around the town.
The hunter was proud of his hound for bringing him the grouse in its
mouth.
I doubt that she can pronounce this noun.
There was no sound from her when she found a mouse under the
couch.
a) Mr. Brown made a bow.
Mr. Brown made a bow.
b) Crones are a source of trouble.
Crowns are a source of trouble.
c) This coach is quite rough.
This couch is quite rough.
d) I know he phoned her.
I know he found her.
e) Has she told you about the blouse she got?
207

Has she told you about the blows she got?

a) I have my doubts.
I have my darts.
b) Some of them like grouse.
Some of them like grass.
c) Where are those cows going?
Where are those cars going?
d) Are you two going to pout?
Are you two going to part?
e) He was placed behind boughs.
He was placed behind bars.
peer peers pierce
fear fears fierce
tear tears tierce
gear geared
beer beard
clear clears
pier pea cheers cheese
beer bee piers peas
fear fee beard bead
tear tea ear E
deer Dee steered steed
sheer she speared speed
King Lear, Shakespeares hero, drew tears from his audience.
He was fiercely, cheered and left the theatre nearly in tears.
Who comes here?
A Grenadier.
What does he want?
A pot of beer.
(Ch. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend).
The material appeared to be superior.
She had her ears pierced in order to wear ear-rings.
208

a) Have you ever seen such a beard?

Have you ever seen such a bead?
b) His fear was great.
His fee was great.
c) It has three tiers.
It has three tees.
d) There are some beers in the kitchen.
There are some bees in the kitchen.
air aerial airplane
wear wearing wherefore
tear tears
care cared careful
hair haired hairpin
stair stared staircase
bare bareback bareskin
bed bared fled flared
shed shared bled blared
fed fared merry Mary
sped spared cherry chary
led laired ferry fairy
dead dared terrible tearable
bad bared add aired
dad dared cad cared
pad paired has hares
lad fared lad laird
glad glared can cairn
as airs ban bairn
chair cheer rare rear
dare dear stare steer
hair here bare beer
mare mere share shear
tear tear fare fear
pair peer spare spear
209

Mary has fair hair.

Sarah and Clare shared the chair.
Sarah saw a hairy bear glaring from his lair.
The heir was scarcely aware of the value of the shares.
I am prepared to pay the fare for Clara.
a) Three chairs for the Browns.
Three cheers for the Browns!
b) Believe me, wear green!
Believe me, were green!
c) I want to see that awful pair.
I want to see that awful peer.
d) He is too busy to notice Marys hair.
He is too busy to notice Marys here.
e) These are the rare lamps he mentioned.
These are the rear lamps he mentioned.
a) The end of the wire was bare.
The end of the wire was bad.
b) They shared the shawl.
They shed the shawl.
c) Where did you see that cairn?
Where did you see that can?
d) The child said he had never seen a fairy in his life.,
The child said he had never seen a ferry in his life.
e) He asked me how I fared during the journey.
He asked me how I fed during the journey.
tour usually
dour vacuum
endure continuous
brewery influence
bureau valuable
fluent rescuer
boor boo cure queue
ewer you lure loo
210

moor moo poor pooh

sure shoe moored mood
tour two pure pew
dour do steward stewed
sure share sheer
poor pair peer
dour dare dear
tour tear tear
lure lair Lear
boor bear beer
moor mare mere
wooer wear were
The poor curate lived on, the moors.
There was a duel between two furious members of the jury.
Past cure, past care.
Pure water was difficult to procure on the moor.
You may rest assured that the detour wont make him curious.
a) Hes past cure, the doctor said.
Hes past care, the doctor said.
b) She didnt like his luring eyes.
She didnt like his leering eyes.
c) This is a sure waste of time.
This is a sheer waste of time.
d) There is no cure for it.
There is no queue for it.
i) They made a success of the tour.
They made a success of the two
pace base
pack back
pact backed
pad bad
pail bail
pair bear
pall ball
palm balm
211

pan ban
pang bang
time dime
tip
touch
tour
tuck
tug
ton
tummy
tusk
ten
came
call
cut
con
curl
coast
cane
candour
carter
carrot
dip
Dutch
dour
duck
dug
done
dummy
dusk
den
game
gall
gut
gone
girl
ghost
212

gain
gander
garter
garret
harper
dapple
crumple
copper
napping
rapid
ripping
roping
staple
caper
camper
Titter
butting
canter
catty
centre
shutter
cited
citing
latter
clouting
chucking
harbour
dabble
crumble
nabbing
rabid
ribbing
robing
stable
caber
camber
udder
213

budding
candour
caddy
sender
shudder
sided
siding
ladder
clouding
chugging
clocking
dicker
docking
echo
flocking
hackle
knacker
becking
clogging
digger
dogging
ego
flogging
haggle
nagger
begging
rope
mop
lap
tap
cap
cup
rip
sip
tripe
nap
sat
set
214

pat
mate
bat
bet
lit
beat
note
butt
knack
sack
back
leak
pick
tuck
Dick
duck
prick
rack
robe
mob
lab
tab
cab
cub
rib
sib
tribe
nab
sad
said
pad
made
bad
bed
lid
bead
node
bud
215

nag
sag
bag
league
tug
dig
dug
Prig
rag
power
pat
party
appointment
capacity
disappoint
disappear
report
repose
repel
spy
spa
space
spade
span
spare
spark
sparrow
speak
spear
apple
couple
simple
staple
dapple
happen
open
deepen
sharpen
216

sharpness
plasma
please
complaint
complexion
price
prick
repress
reprove
pupil
pew
stop
stoop
loop
mop
soup
copper
upper
supper
paper
pepper
keep pace
upkeep
map designer
upbringing
sip tea
soup plate
lip jam
gulp chips
stop giggling
keep quiet
balance
baseball
balsam
bath
beautiful
rob
Bob
217

rib
pub
lab
harbour
barber
rubber
carbide
booby
baby
abbey
sober
robber
snobbish
symbol
marble
table
blaze
black
ribbon
gibbon
abnegation
submarine
submit
subdue
object (vb.)
grabbed
subpoena
rob Charles
rob John
sob quietly
sob calmly
subtract
dab paint
The upper part of the apple-pie is putrid.
Patrick is preparing an appropriate speech for our party tomorrow.
Pauline is picking purple pansies in the public garden.
Please stop preaching to me and rope the parcel properly.
218

Please put your cap away, have a cup of coffee, and pass the apricots
around.
Billy Brown plays the banjo in a big band.
A big battle between old boys and young boys broke out
yesterday
when a big band came to our borough.
Better talk plain English and stop beating about the bush.
The submarine began bubbling like a bottle of beer when the boiler
blew out like a bomb.
Bobby, bring back the book about bees, please.
a) She was well robed.
She was well roped.
b) Its in her lap.
Its in her lab.
c) Its so rapid.
Its so rabid.
d) This is a good buy.
This is a good pie.
Hes a man who always appreciates a fine pun.
Hes a man who always appreciates a fine bun.
time
tool
terrible
attain
attorney
tag
tug
toy
tackle
tooth
stain
station
stop
stick
stand
219

stoop
stay
sty
stone
steep
bottle
subtle
turtle
hurtle
cattle
kettle
cotton
mutton
button
utmost
traffic
train
tray
tree
trench
twenty
twice
twist
tube
tune
that test
that den
that girl
that boy
that pen
sweet cherries
hot day
sweet jam
late train
that car
hot
lot
note
220

site
beat
catty
shutter
latter
canter
datum
dog
double
dark
down
dwindle
red
bad
good
sad
bud
adder
ladder
broader
madder
sadder
body
candour
ardour
udder
border
admit
saddle
bedlam
laden
muddle
riddle
garden
sadden
redden
ladle
sad tune
221

sad dinner
sad company
sad girl
sad party
good juice
bad chaps
bad judgement
fried chicken
sad boy
traction dream
tractor drill
treatise dress
treaty dregs
trickle drench
trill drag
trespass droop
tremor drop
trousseau drawl
troup drowse
It isnt the time to try teaching him how to shoot.
Its time for tea.
Stop teasing your aunt, shes burst into tears.
You must tell Teddy the truth.
Tell Thomas to try and meet Timothy and Anthony today.
What needs doing must be done.
A friend in need is a friend indeed, (proverb)
As the day drew to a close, the driver found the road dreary.
His daughter couldnt comprehend the idea, good as it was.
At dawn the dubious doctor unexpectedly dashed out of his den and
fled away but he was seized by the mounted police near Londonderry
half an hour later.
a) Dont give me the petal, give me the pedal!
Its not the pedal I want to draw but the petal.
b) Whats the matter with him ?
Where have you put that madder?
c) The latter is in the corner.
222

The ladder is in the corner.

He wrote to Eastbourne yesterday.
He rode to Eastbourne yesterday.
Give me a dart, please.
Give me a tart, please.
cabby
cabin
cage
cake
calculate
call
camel
camp
cancel
cattle
scales
scan
scare
sceptic
skate
schematic
scholar
school
scorn
sketch
cackle
classical
bacon
slacken
cockney
cockle
crackle
sicken
sickle
taken
claim
class
223

clean
crime
cream
crown
cube
cute
quick
quite
back
duck
clock
look
take
liquor
liquefy
mica
impeccable
vacuum
lecture
back door
black cherries
sack John
look pale
look joyful
pack baggage
bleak cave
bleak grotto
lock-jaw
gag
gallop
gamble
game
go
goose
leg
dog
bag
beggar
224

rugby
ragged
haggard
degree
meagre
megaphone
jaguar
foggy
fogey
giggle
juggle
jungle
goggles
struggle
magnolia
ignorant
organ
phlegmatic
dogma
big game
big plate
big cherry-tree
big dilemma
big case
big chin
big jaw
lag behind
nag John
fig-tree
Call the cat back!
Clara thinks she can come next week.
Call me at six oclock to wake me up, take a taxi-cab, come and have
a cup of coffee with me.
On a clear day you can see across the canyon.
Economic questions occurred frequently.
Go and get it.
All that glitters is not gold. (proverb)
225

They lagged behind the group of girls who couldnt stop giggling.
Gordon is digging in the garden.
Go and get some eggs, cigarettes, sugar and garlic.
This is the new class I talked to you about.
This is the new glass I talked to you about
He took her back and left.
He took her bag and left.
Its a new decree.
Its a new degree.
There must be a leak somewhere.
There must be a league somewhere.
Take the pick with you.
Take the pig with you.
charm jam
check generous
choice jeopardize
creature engine
mischief magic
furniture wages
actual major
peach siege
catch hedge
coach age
lunch wedge
chin gin
cheap jeep
choke joke
cheer jeer
chest jest
etching edging
larch large
match Madge
batch badge
rich ridge
which chair
much junk
much gin
226

rich judge
Dutch cheese
large jar
much jelly
charge Jim
search Charles
large choice
The butcher found some matches in his kitchen.
How much are the peaches?, he asked the coach as he reached for
them.
Charles teaches French and Chinese.
Which lecture did the teacher go to ?
The children had chicken and cheese for lunch.
George and Geoffrey had a large gin, a giant sandwich, and an orange
juice and went to bed.
The janitors were jabbering about their objections when judge Jackson
entered.
Jane enjoyed the old Japanese legend about the magic pigeon.
Just how urgent is your job, Mr. Jones?
Jean and Joan enjoy wearing the jade jewellery they bought last June
when they joined Georges class.
each eats
beach beats
pitch pits
hatch hats
peach Petes
coach coats
hitch hits
patch Pats
catch cats
match mets
siege seeds
age aids
hedge heads
rage raids
227

budge buds
forge fords
ridge rids
wedge weds
wage wades
sledge sleds
He pointed to his chin and shook his head.
He pointed to his gin and shook his head.
I didnt say they were choking.
I didnt say they were joking.
His chore was unpleasant.
His jaw was unpleasant.
They thought their friends encouragement rather jeering.
They thought their friends encouragement rather cheering.
It was difficult to catch the cats.
Pats jacket had a patch on it.
The coats were lost in a railway coach.
Each one of them eats with his left hand.
The cabbage heads were found in the hedge.
They crossed two fords to reach the blacksmiths forge.
thin sin
thing sing
thick sick
thaw saw
think sink
thank sank
thought sought
theme seem
thorn sawn
thighs size
thin fin
thirst first
three free
thorn fawn
thought - fought
228

thrill - frill
thresh -fresh
theme team
thin tin
thank tank
three tree
thread tread
thick tick
thinker tinker
thought taught
thrust trust
through true
scythe size
with whizz
breathe breeze
writhe rise
clothe close
seethe sees
bathe bays
threat fret
thaw for
thief - fief
booth booze
tithe ties
lithe lies
they day
mere dare
though dough
thine dine
writhe ride
scythe side
breathe breed
loathe load
229

wreathe read
thy die
that vat
than van
thy vie
thine vine
writhe rive
clothe clove
sheathes sheaves
thou vow
lithe - live (adj.)
loathes loaves
five
food
fear
faith
difference
sacrifice
coffee
roof
leaf
deaf
trifle
muffle
baffle
rifle
waffle
soften
deafen
often
syphon
toughen
flee
flesh
flag
frog
230

fruit
frame
fume
fury
fuse
future
rough fingers
tough Francis
enough vaccine
deaf vicar
chief thing
stuff three
stuff them
rough skin
puff cigarettes
half zone
veal
very
van
every
envy
velvet
native
leave
give
move
drivel
shrivel
ravel
evil
gravel
driven
shriven
raven (vb.)
even
graven
grave voice
five vases
231

drive fast
leave first
remove thistles
move there
love this
nominative singular
brave zebra
feel veal
few view
fan van
fat vat
fail veil
leaf leave
reef reeve
proof prove
belief believe
staff starve
He found a fly in the breakfast coffee.
With much effort father pulled in a net full of fish.
The physician noticed that Francis coughed frequently.
Deafening confusion emphasized the effect of the statement.
The friends fight off the ruffians.
All English vowels are voiced.
A rich vocabulary is a very valuable asset.
The heavy stove was moved near the ventilator.
Everything of value in Victors bank vault has vanished.
You get a wonderful view when you travel over the vast river.
He could not fail Mary.
He could not veil Mary.
I also had a few of them.
I also had a view of them.
I dont use this kind of fat.
I dont use this kind of vat.
The bakers van is out of order.
The bakers fan is out of order.
This year the fines were bigger than last year.
232

This year the vines were bigger than last year.

thank
theatre
theft
thick
ether
method
author
smith
breath
hearth
lengthen
earthen
strengthen
Nathan
lethal
brothel
Ethel
bethel
thwack
thwaite
thwart
thews
thurible
Thule
throat
thrill
three
thread
both them
both thieves
fourth thsatra
youth there
tenth fight
wreath flowers
death valley
fifth symphony
233

worth singing
both zebras
then
than
that
weather
loathing
without
bathe
soothe
breathe
with
betrothal
heathen
southern
northern
leathern
rhythm
soothe them
loathe them
loathe Victor
breathe slowly
mouth the words
smooth throat
breathe fast
smooth skin
breathes
mouthes
mouth mouth (vb.)
wreath wreathe
loath loathe
teeth teethe
sooth soothe
thigh thy
ether either
sheath - sheathe
234

thin tin sm
thank tank sank
theme team seem
thaw taw saw
thought taught sought
thongs tongs songs
thill - till - sm
thick tick sick
faith fate face
path part pass
faith face faiths
fourth force fourths
myth miss myths
moth moss moths
growth gross growths
fourths forts
deaths - debts
hearths hearts
tenths tents
cloths clots
heaths - heats
wreathe read res
scythe side size
then den zen
seethe seed seize
breathing breeding breezing
bathe bade baize
lithe lied lies
tithe tide ties
writhe ride rise
lathe laid laze
clothe close clothes
seethe sees seethes
235

writhe rise writhes

bathe bays bathes
booth booze booths
scythe size scythes
breathe breeze breathes
breathes breeds
wreathes reads
loathes loads
seethes seeds
writhes rides
tithes tides
scythes sides
Youthful enthusiasts left the theatre thrilled.
I think that the theft took place on his birthday.
Nothing happened on the fourth of the month.
I thought the path ran north and south.
Arthurs both thumbs were thin.
Take either this one or the other.
The brothers soothed the dog who was breathing hard and writhin
in pain.
They were bothered by the rhythm of the southern songs.
Their father was wearing clothes made of smooth leather.
Neither of them wanted to bathe in, the soothing waters.
There were three men there.
There were free men there.
He made a youthful appearance.
He made a useful appearance.
This is his favourite theme.
This is his favourite team.
Her thread is too thin.
Her Fred is too thin.
The deaths were quite unexpected.
The debts were quite unexpected.
He had lithe movements.
He had live movements.
The dog was writhing.
236

The dog was rising.

This scythe is better.
This side is better.
The scythe was quite satisfactory.
The size was quite satisfactory.
How long did you work on the sheaths?
How long did you work on the sheaves?
seat
sip
send
sold
essence
describe
suggestion
race
class
tax
whistle
muscle
castle
trestle
thistle
listen
fasten
glisten
hasten
christen
slang
slate
slim
suit
suitor
sue
sweet
swell
sway
swear
237

class three
this theft
this theory
the bus there
this summer
bus stop
peace zone
gross vegetation
miss Fowkes
this shrimp
zip
zone
zeal
present
busy
daisy
praise
breeze
buzz
battles
dazzle
frazzle
hazel
drizzle
sizzle
brazen
cousin
dozen
risen
cozen
shows zeal
is zero
plays the zither
praises this
is silly
knows theory
gathers thistles
goes there
238

loves freedom
buys veal
sip zip
seal zeal
said zed
sue zoo
sink zinc
piece peas
bus buzz
hiss his
loose lose
price prize
As time elapsed, the interest in the famous case increased.
The psychology of persuasion is a fascinating subject.
The steam escaped with a hissing sound.
My sister, Sarah, was surprised to see him. sitting there.
My first niece was born on Sunday, the second of September.
The designs became increasingly confused and puzzling.
Susan is busy; she washes knives and spoons.
She complains her fingers are frozen.
He loves eating apples, oranges and bananas.
He says that the cause was worthy of praise.
He could live comfortably on the price he got.
He could live comfortably on the prize he got.
Can I have some peace?
Can I have some peas?
Dont set your hopes on the race.
Dont set your hopes on the raise.
I had a look at her ice.
I had a look at her eyes.
Ive never heard of the place.
Ive never heard of the plays.
sure
shop
sheep
239

sharp
pressure
machine
national
fresh
push
wash
bushel
marshal
initial
essential
martial
nation
cushion
option
passion
tension
shrewd
shriek
shrill
shrine
shrink
shroud
shrub
shrank
shred
shrivel
finish shooting
wash shrimps
leash the dog
push the door
fresh things
crash through
fresh food
rush for umbrellas
push Victor
Nashville
pleasure
240

measure
beige
rouge
usual
leisure
treasure
garage
massage
camouflage
conclusion
decision
elision
incision
invasion
intrusion
occasion
persuasion
precision
vision
share chair
shell - chill
ship - chip
shop chop
sheer cheer
sheep cheap
shoe chew
shant chant
shock chock
Shaw chaw
short sort
shower sour
shame same
shy sigh
ash ass
mesh mess
plushed plussed
gushed gust
241

lash lass
rouge ruse
beige baise
seizure Caesar
closure closer
leisure ledger
lesion legion
pleasure pledger
azure Ager
Aleutian allusion
ruche rouge
Asher azure
dilution delusion
mesher measure
Confucian confusion
Some of the machines were partially sheltered.
I wish this dictionary gave more information on Shakespeare.
The shoes shown at the national exhibition were highly appreciated
These shirts will shrink in the wash.
Its time to shut up shop.
Such an unusual decision affected his prestige.
He had a vision of great treasure in Asia.
Their decision to charge the usual price at the garage was a measure
of persuasion.
Occasionally he gave us the illusion of precision.
He made a casual remark upon the unusual division of the money.
heat
hit
hedge
hand
heart
ahead
anyhow
behave
inhibit
subhuman
242

hide Id
heart art
hear ear
hold old
hair heir
harm arm
hedge edge
hall -all
hail ale
hate eight
This hotel is very hot.
Help me pass the hot-dogs and hamburger around.
Have your heard that Henry has bought a new house?
I hope hell give me a helping hand.
They hurried hand in hand to the hospital.
nymph
comfort
circumvent
smack
smoke
rum run
game gain
sum sun
room rune
meat [mi:t] neat
room mate
some money
come, Mary
some men
dim memories
rhythm
243

prism
lissom
bottom
materialism
gymnastics
farm noises
grim news
room number
slim Nancy
How much money do you make a month?
We saw them on Monday at the same museum.
The pamphlet mentioned some methods of making films.
Maybe Mr. Manning lives on Maple Street.
My mother goes to Moldavia every summer.
infant
infinite
invite
sneeze
snatch
cotton
sudden
often
mission
listen
thin thing
run rung
sinner singer
ton tongue
kin king
win wing
ban bang
clan clang
tan tang
bun bung
244

run north
Ann knew
clean nails
done navely
brown napkin
clean mug
win money
molten metal
in motion
medicine-man
Whats done cannot be undone.
The confusion was caused by fundamentally unimportant but
extensive
changes.
The grant to the university had not only many advantages, but also a
few disadvantages.
The prudent man strengthened the ties of friendship with his
neighbours.
I knew her name, but now I cant remember it.
bring
cling
anger
drink
singer
bacon
taken
blacken
thicken
sicken
singer
singing
bringing
hanger
hanging
245

banging
longing
ringing
winging
stinging
finger
hungry
England
jungle
stronger
drink
donkey
uncle
think
anchor
wronged
hanged
ringed
winged
amongst
strength
things
tongues
wrongs
wings
brings
length
winged wind
hanged hand
mounting mountain
winging winning
pangs pans
fangs fans
ding din
sung sun
dung done
gong gone
246

sung sunk
tang tank
sing sink
bring brink
cling clink
ping pink
wing wink
sting stink
rang rank
bang bank
growing need
loving neighbour
gong noises
sing nicely
ring Nancy
sling mud
shining moon
bring money
wrong measure
singing merrily
In the beginning I was looking forward to going there.
He was reading the morning newspaper, while she was brushing and
pressing his suit.
Things are going well for the bank.
My younger sister is measuring the length of the cloth.
The strong man was clinging to the rocks, hoping to be rescued.
Fangs are very useful sometimes.
Fans are very useful sometimes.
The singer offered them an apology.
The sinner offered them an apology.
I rang for a long time.
I ran for a long time.
The two wings were highly praised by specialists.
The two wins were highly praised by specialists.
Do you think she had no pangs?
247

Do you think she had no pans?

That was a nasty bang.
That was a nasty bank.
Im sure it doesnt sting.
Im sure it doesnt stink.
Have you ever sung before?
Have you ever sunk before?
What are their banging hours?
What are their banking hours?
This is a beautiful ring.
This is a beautiful rink.

248