1. Phonetics as a science. Subject of phonetics.

The branch of linguistics which studies a language by examining the inventory, structure and functions of the speech sounds is called phonetics. Phonetics is an independent branch of linguistics like lexicology or grammar. These linguistic sciences study language from three different points of view. Lexicology deals with the vocabulary of language, with the origin and development of words, with their meaning and word building. Grammar defines the rules governing the modification of words and the combination of words into sentences. Phonetics studies the outer form of a language; its sound matter. Phoneticians investigate phonemes and allophones, the syllabic structure, the distribution of stress and intonation. Phonetics is the study of the way humans make, transmit, and receive speech sounds. It studies the ways in which the sounds are organized into a system of units and the variation of the units in all types and styles of spoken language. Phonetics is a basic branch of linguistics. Neither linguistic theory nor linguistic practice can do without phonetics. No kind of linguistic study can be made without constant consideration of the material on the expression level. 2)Speech organs. The production of speech.
Organs of speech are: nasal cavity ( ), lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, larynx(), palate (soft and hard), uvula(), tongue (tip, blade( ), front, back), epiglottis(), pharynx(), vocal cords, and trachea(). The air stream released by the lungs goes through the windpipe ( ) and comes to the larynx, which contains the vocal cords. The vocal cords are two elastic folds () which may be kept apart or brought together ( ). The opening between them is called the glottis ( ). If the tense() vocal cords are brought together, the air stream forcing an opening makes them vibrate and we hear some voice. On coming out of the larynx the air stream passes through the pharynx. The pharyngeal() cavity extends() from the top of the larynx to the soft palate, which directs the air stream either to the mouth or nasal cavities, which function as the principal resonators. The soft palate is the furthest part of the palate from the teeth. Most of the palate is hard. This hard and fixed part of the palate is divided into two sections: the hard palate (the highest part of the palate) and the teeth ridge or alveolar ridge. The most important organ of speech is the tongue. Phoneticians divide the tongue into four sections, the part which lies opposite the soft palate is called the back of the tongue; the part facing the hard palate is called the front; the one lying under the teeth ridge is known as the blade and its extremity the t i p . The lips can take up various positions as well. They can be brought firmly together or kept apart neutral, rounded, or protruded () forward.
Active organs of speech are movable and taking an active part in a sound formation: a) Vocal cords which produce voice b) The tongue which is the most flexible() movable organ c) The lips affective very considerably() the shape of the mouth cavity d) The soft palate with the uvula directing the stream of air either to the mouth or to the nasal cavity e) The back wall of the faring contracted for some sounds f) The lower jaw ( ) which movement controls the gap() between the teeth and also the disposition of the lips g) The lungs air for sounds Passive organs of speech: a) the teeth b) the teeth ridge or alveolar ridge c) the hard palate d) the walls of the resonators

3) The production of speech.

Articulation comprises all the movements and positions of the speech organs necessary to pronounce a speech sound. According to their main sound-producing functions, the speech organs can be divided into the following four groups: (1) the power mechanism; (2) the vibration mechanism; (3) the resonator mechanism; (4) the obstruction mechanism. The functions of the power mechanism consist in the supply of the energy in the form of the air pressure and in regulating the force of the air stream. The power mechanism includes: (1) the diaphragm, (2) the lungs, (3) the bronchi, (4) the windpipe, or trachea. The glottis and the supra-glottal cavities enter into the power mechanism as parts of the respiratory tract. The vibration mechanism consists of the larynx, or voice box, containing the vocal cords. The most important function of the vocal cords is their role in the production of voice. The pharynx, the mouth, and the nasal cavity function as the principal resonators thus constituting the resonator mechanism. The obstruction mechanism (the tongue, the lips, the teeth, and the palate) forms the different types of obstructions.
Active organs of speech are movable and taking an active part in a sound formation: h) Vocal cords which produce voice i) The tongue which is the most flexible() movable organ j) The lips affective very considerably() the shape of the mouth cavity k) The soft palate with the uvula directing the stream of air either to the mouth or to the nasal cavity l) The back wall of the faring contracted for some sounds m) The lower jaw ( ) which movement controls the gap() between the teeth and also the disposition of the lips n) The lungs air for sounds Passive organs of speech: 4) the teeth 5) the teeth ridge or alveolar ridge 6) the hard palate 7) the walls of the resonators

4) The phonetic analysis of speech: the parametric analysis.

There are 2 major methods of segmentation of the stream of speech: PARAMETRIC and LINEAR. The parametric approach gives the analysis of the activities of the vocal organs for pronunciation of different words, it gives the details of articulatary movements in speech. The parametric approach is especially helpful in speech technology when trying to design computer-based machines that can produce and recognize speech. The concept which is shared between the parametric and linear analysis is the notion of speech as the product of the action of a number of independently controllable components co-varying in time. This product can be referred to as a phonetic feature (according to J. Laver). Thus the principal difference between a linear and parametric approaches lies in the relation between a feature and its possible values. In a linear approach a given feature can have only a limited number of values (or categories). For example, the phonetic feature pitch height can be given solely the values: high, mid and low and the analysis would then have only these categories at the disposal for the description of the relative height of the momentary pitch of the speakers voice. Thus linear categories are discrete not continuous. Conversely, in the parametric approach the potential values that a feature may display are continuous but not discrete. They are limited in their discriminative power only by the sensitivity of the measuring system available. So the parametric approach more transparently reflects the dynamic, time-varying nature of vocal performance. For this reason it is the linear approach which is taken in most textbooks.

5) The phonetic analysis of speech: the linear analysis.

There are 2 major methods of segmentation of the stream of speech: PARAMETRIC and LINEAR. The linear approach is a more artificial way of analyzing speech as compared to the parametric analysis. The concept which is shared between the parametric and linear analysis is the notion of speech as the product of the action of a number of independently controllable components co-varying in time. This product can be referred to as a phonetic feature (according to J. Laver). Thus the principal difference between a linear and parametric approaches lies in the relation between a feature and its possible values. In a linear approach a given feature can have only a limited number of values (or categories). For example, the phonetic feature pitch height can be given solely the values: high, mid and low and the

analysis would then have only these categories at the disposal for the description of the relative height of the momentary pitch of the speakers voice. Thus linear categories are discrete not continuous. Conversely, in the parametric approach the potential values that a feature may display are continuous but not discrete. They are limited in their discriminative power only by the sensitivity of the measuring system available. So the parametric approach more transparently reflects the dynamic, time-varying nature of vocal performance. For this reason it is the linear approach which is taken in most textbooks. According to J.Laver the linear units of phonetic organization are as follows: 1) feature; 2) segment; 3) syllable; 4) setting; 5) utterance; 6) speaking turn.

6) Speech segmentation: the concept of feature.

According to J.Laver the linear units of phonetic organization are as follows: 1) feature; 2) segment; 3) syllable; 4) setting; 5) utterance; 6) speaking turn. Lets now give a brief description to all of them. A feature is a minimum descriptor showing how segments of other phonetic units differ from each other. Phonological features fall into classes and this gives rise to superordinate () them. For example the feature sonorant is applied to the phonological units called: vowels glides, nasals, lateral.

7) Speech segmentation: the concept of segment.

The concept of the segment is that of a unit anchored in a short of speech by a set of a phonetic featurevalues which are relatively unchanging. The segment is the main construct of phonetic theory. There are 3 main different phases of articulation of any segment. A segment can be classified in terms of the maximum degree of constriction of the vocal tract which is reached during the medial phase. Preceding this medial phase is the onset phase and following it is the offset phase. Going back to features we can speak about features on a segmental level classifying them into: subsegmental, segmental and suprasegmental features. For example, subsegmental can be represented by the nasality heard in the late part of the pronunciation of the vowel in the word soon; a segmental feature may be limited to a medial phase of a single segment, e.g. an audible friction that characterizes the medial phase of the sound S in the word east; a suprasegmental feature runs throughout the pronunciation of all the segments in the word forceful. Thus a segment is considered on structural and temporal grounds and supported by general phonological considerations. A typical duration for a speech segment at normal speaking rate lies approximately between 30 and 300 milliseconds.

8) Phonetic and phonological syllable.

From the phonetic point of view it is hard to give a definition to the phonetic syllable. Attempts to provide acoustic or auditory definitions have so far proved to be equally unsatisfactory. One of the chief difficulties lies in determining the possible boundaries of such a phonetic unit as: eight sheep can each eat cheaply . A decision about the syllabic affiliation of the segments

cannot be taken with only phonetic criteria in mind!! Phonological and lexical criteria necessarily play their part. The concept of the phonological syllable enjoys no more general consensus than that of a phonetic one. According to J.Laver the phonological syllable can be defined as a complex unit of nuclear and marginal elements, where nuclear elements are vowels and marginal are consonants. Thus nuclear elements are syllabic and marginal elements are non-syllabic.
9) Speech segmentation: the concept of setting, utterance and speaking turn. The phonetic setting. If one examines an utterance from a single speaker delivered in a characteristic voice quality, its often evident, that the speaker is imposing a nuclear bias on the vocal performance tending to make the vocal cords keep returning during speech towards some habitual state. Examples of this may be as follows: a) the tendency of a speaker to keep the jaw in a relatively close position; b) to set the lips in a habitually rounded position; c) to have a rather whispery type of phonation. Thus a setting is featural property of a stretch of speech which can be as long as the whole utterance or shorter, characterizing only part of the utterance even down to a segment. Settings are frequently used as extra linguistic indicators of an individual speakers identity and as social indicators of regional groups. A smile, for instance, performed on part or all the utterance would be an example of medium term setting for paralinguistic purposes of attitudinal communication. One of the benefits of introducing the concept of setting for scientists of phonetics is that it can be used as a theoretical device to explain the basis of phonetic similarity between segments. Any 2 segments that share a given setting are thereby phonetically more similar to each other than those which display no setting in common. The utterance and the speaking turn. The utterance is a stretch of speech by a single speaker bounded by silence and containing no pauses. Te speaking turn consists of one speakers contribution to a conversation up to the point in time where the floor is yielded to another participant. Each speaking turn contains one or more utterances. Both the speaking turn and the utterance are the natural units of analysis, whereas the other 4 (the feature, the segment, the setting and the syllable) are analytically imposed.

10. Elements of speech production. Articulation comprises all the movements and positions of the speech organs necessary to pronounce a speech sound. According to their main sound-producing functions, the speech organs can be divided into the following four groups: (1) the power mechanism; (2) the vibration mechanism; (3) the resonator mechanism; (4) the obstruction mechanism. The functions of the power mechanism consist in the supply of the energy in the form of the air pressure and in regulating the force of the air stream. The power mechanism includes: (1) the diaphragm, (2) the lungs, (3) the bronchi, (4) the windpipe, or trachea. The glottis and the supra-glottal cavities enter into the power mechanism as parts of the respiratory tract. The vibration mechanism consists of the larynx, or voice box, containing the vocal cords. The most important function of the vocal cords is their role in the production of voice. The pharynx, the mouth, and the nasal cavity function as the principal resonators thus constituting the resonator mechanism. The obstruction mechanism (the tongue, the lips, the teeth, and the palate) forms the different types of obstructions. + We breathe in and the air goes into the lungs. The air is compressed and goes through the windpipes into the larynx which contains the vocal cords. The vocal cords are two elastic bands which are constantly vibrating and have two extreme positions. They can be drawn apart (glottis) or clutched together (glottal stop). After the larynx the air goes through the pharynx and gets either to the mouth and nasal cavity. There are many

speech organs in the mouth cavity. They are divided into active and passive organs. The palate is a passive speech organ, which consists of alveolar ridge, hard and soft palate and it ends with uvular. The soft palate is moveable and can be lowered or raised, up and down. Tongue is a very active speech organ, which consists of tip, blade, front and back. It can be vertical, horizontal and curved. Teeth and lips are very important, too. Lips can be upper and bottom and can take up various positions, they can be rounded, unrounded, neutral, spread or protruded. 11.The relationship between phonetics and phonology. Phonetics is the study of the substance of the spoken language. One of the chief resources of phonetics is phonetic notation which is a set written symbols used for transcribing the phones of actual pronunciation. Phonology is often said to be a study of the form of a spoken language. The function of phonology is to relate the phonetic events to grammatical units operating at the morphological, lexical, syntactic and semantic levels. Phonology is a branch of linguistics which studies the sound system of language, it studies the sounds which have distinctive features. The sounds are organized into a system of contrasts which are analyzed in terms of phonemes. Some scholars regard phonology as structural and functional phonetics, because it studies the structure of the sounds and their function in the structure. 12. Phonological opposition and phonological system. The phonological system is defined in terms of patterns of mouth gestures and noises -this "grounding" of the system is called phonetic interpretation. It is the same for all words. How does the phonological principle help solve the pronunciation learning problem? Basically, by splitting it into two problems, each one easier to solve. 1. Phonological representations are digital, i.e. made up of discrete elements in discrete structural relations. a) Copying can be exact: members of a speech community can share identical phonological representations b) Within the performance of a given word on a particular occasion, the (small) amount of information relevant to the identity of the word is clearly defined. 2. Phonetic interpretation is general, i.e. independent of word identity a) Every performance of every word by every member of the speech community helps teach phonetic interpretation, because it applies to the phonological system as a whole, rather than to any particular word. Minimal pairs are useful for establishing the phonemes of the language. Thus, a phoneme can only perform its distinctive function if it is opposed to another phoneme in the same position. Such an opposition is called phonological. Let us consider the classification of phonological oppositions worked out by N.S. Trubetzkoy. It is based on the number of distinctive articulatory features underlying the opposition. If the opposition is based on a single difference in the articulation of two speech sounds, it is a single phonological opposition, e.g. [p]-[t], as in [pen]-[ten]; bilabial vs. forelingual, all the other features are the same. If the sounds in distinctive opposition have two differences in their articulation, the opposition is double one, or a sum of two single oppositions, e.g. [p]-[d], as in [pen]-[den], 1) bilabial vs. forelingual 2) voicelessfortis vs. voiced-lenis. If there are three articulatory differences, the opposition is triple one, or a sum of three single oppositions, e.g. [p]- [], as in [pei]-[ ei]: 1) bilabial vs. forelingual, 2) occlusive vs. constrictive, 3) voiceless-fortis vs. voiced-lenis. 13.Minimal pair and phonological context. Phonology has its own methods of investigation. Semantic method is applied for phonological analysis of both unknown languages and languages already described. The method is based on a phonemic rule that phonemes can distinguish words and morphemes when opposed to one another. It consists in systematic substitution of one sound for another in order to find out in which cases where the phonetic context remains the same such replacing leads to a change of meaning. This procedure is called the commutation test. It consists in finding minimal pairs of words and their grammatical forms. For example: pen [pen] - Ben [ben], gain [gain] - cane [kain], ten [ten] den[den].

Minimal pairs are useful for establishing the phonemes of the language. Thus, a phoneme can only perform its distinctive function if it is opposed to another phoneme in the same position. Such an opposition is called phonological.
Phonological context is always used to recognize variant forms in spoken word recognition.

14. Phonological distribution. American descriptivists, whose most zealous representative is, perhaps, Zellig Harris, declare the distributional method to be the only scientific one. Descriptivists consider the phonemic analysis in terms of distribution. They consider it possible to discover the phonemes of a language by the rigid application of a distributional method. It means to group all the sounds pronounced by native speakers into phoneme according to the laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution: 1. Allophones of different phonemes occur in the same phonetic context. In this case their distribution is contrastive. 2. Allophones of the same phoneme(s) never occur in the same phonetic context. In this case their distribution is complementary. There is, however, a third possibility, namely, that the sounds both occur in a language but the speakers are inconsistent in the way they use them, for example, -, and [ei - ]. In such cases we must take them as free variants of a single phoneme. We could explain the case on the basis of sociolinguistics. Thus, there are three types of distribution: contrastive, complementary and free variation. 15. Phoneme as a contrastive and distributed phonological unit. Firstly, the phoneme is a functional unit. In phonetics function is usually understood as a role of the various units of the phonetic system in distinguishing one morpheme from another, one word from another or one utterance from another. The opposition of phonemes in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes and words: e.g. bath-path, light-like. Sometimes the opposition of phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases: He was heard badly - He was hurt badly. Thus we may say that the phoneme can fulfill the distinctive function. Secondly, the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means it is realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The phonemes constitute the material form of morphemes, so this function may be called constitutive function. 16) Phoneme and allophones.
The phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words. Let us consider the phoneme from the point of view of its aspects. Firstly, the phoneme is a functional unit. In phonetics function is usually understood as a role of the various units of the phonetic system in distinguishing one morpheme from another, one word from another or one utterance from another. The opposition of phonemes in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes and words: e.g. bath-path, light-like. Sometimes the opposition of phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases: He was heard badly He was hurt badly. Thus we may say that the phoneme can fulfill the distinctive function. Secondly, the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means it is realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The phonemes constitute the material form of morphemes, so this function may be called constitutive function. Thirdly, the phoneme performs the recognitive function, because the use of the right allophones and other phonetic units facilitates normal recognition. We may add that the phoneme is a material and objective unit as well as an abstract and generalized one at the same time. Let us consider the English phoneme [d]. It is occlusive, forelingual, apical, alveolar, lenis consonant. This is how it sounds in isolation or in such words as door, darn, down, etc, when it retains its typical articulatory characteristics. In this case the consonant [d] is called principal allophone. The allophones which do not undergo any distinguishable changes in speech are called principal. Allophones that occur under influence of the neighboring sounds in different phonetic situations are called subsidiary, e.g.: a) deal, did - it is slightly palatalized before front vowels; b) bad pain, bedtime - it is pronounced without any plosion (no aspiration); ) sudden, admit - it is pronounced with nasal plosion before [n], [m]; d) dry - it becomes post-alveolar followed by [r] (retracted). If we consider the production of the allophones of the phoneme above we will find out that they possess three articulatory features in common - all of them are forelingual lenis stops. Consequently, though allophones of the same phoneme possess similar articulatory features they may frequently show considerable phonetic differences. Allophones of each phoneme possess a bundle of distinctive features that makes this phoneme functionally different from

all other phonemes of the language. This functionally relevant bundle is called the invariant of the phoneme. All the allophones of the phoneme [d] instance, are occlusive, forelingual, lenis. If occlusive articulation is changed for constrictive one [d] will be replaced by [z]: e. g. breed - breeze, deal zeal, the articulatory features which form the invariant of the phoneme are called distinctive or relevant. To extract relevant features of the phoneme we have to oppose it to some other phoneme in the phonetic context. If the opposed sounds differ in one articulatory feature and this difference brings about changes in the meaning this feature is called relevant: for example, port court, [p] and [k] are consonants, occlusive, fortis; the only difference being that [p] is labial and [t] is lingual. The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant. For example, it is impossible to oppose an aspirated [ph] to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish meaning. We know that anyone who studies a foreign language makes mistakes in the articulation of sounds. L.V. Shcherba classifies the pronunciation errors as phonological and phonetic. If an allophone is replaced by an allophone of a different phoneme the mistake is called phonological. If an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by another allophone of the same phoneme the mistake is called phonetic.

17) Phoneme: problems. There are some problems of phonological character in the English consonantal system; it is the problem of affricates - their phonological status and their number. The question is: what kind of facts a phonological theory has to explain. 1) Are the English [t, G] sounds monophonemic entities or biphonemic combinations (sequences, clusters)? 2) If they are monophonemic, how many phonemes of the same kind exist in English, or, in other words, can such clusters as [tr, dr] and [t, d] be considered affricates? To define it is not an easy matter. One thing is clear: these sounds are complexes because articulatory we can distinguish two elements. Considering phonemic duality of affricates, it is necessary to analyze the relation of affricates to other consonant phonemes to be able to define their status in the system. What about vowels. Problem of length. There are long vowel phonemes in English and short. However, the length of the vowels is not the only distinctive feature of minimal pairs like Pete -pit, beet - bit, etc. In other words the difference between i: i. u: - is not only quantitative but also qualitative, which is conditioned by different positions of the bulk of the tongue. For example, in words bead- bid not only the length of the vowels is different but in the [i:] articulation the bulk of the tongue occupies more front and high position then in the articulation of [i].

18) Architecture of classification: traditional approach to the classification of vowel and consonants (D. Abercrombie)
The traditional approach to the classification of segments was given in D. Abercrombie discussion of the analysis of articulatory action in segments representing consonants: We can arrive at a description of a consonant adequate enough by answering seven questions (although the answers will certainly not tell us everything about the segment). These questions are as follows: 1. What is the airstream mechanism? 2. Is the airstream ingressive or egressive? 3. What is the state of the glottis? 4. What is the position of the velum? 5. What is the active articulator? 6. What is the passive articulator? 7. What is the degree and nature of the stricture? This widely followed method of classifying segments is usually called classification by place and manner of articulation. By place is meant the location of the maximum constriction (stricture) of the air channel. By manner is meant the type of stricture which the articulators are making to produce the segment, additionally it may include reference to the position of the velum and the airstream. Under this classification D. Abecrombier lists such terms as: Fricative. Stop. Nasal. Trill. Flop. Lateral. Approximant. Other writers tend to use a closely similar classifications. D. Abecrombiers classification has been current for over a century and with minor differences is enshrined in the present structure of the IPA (International Phonetic Association) after the revision in

Kiel Convention in 1989. The traditional concept of manner and place of articulation appeals to the variety of classificatory criteria and thus has always been under the critics.

19) Architecture of classification: new approach to the classification (J. Laver`s classification).
A more structural and coherent design for the classification of segments covering the terms manner and place was offered by J. Laver. The classification is called The Classification of Segments by initiation, phonation, articulation and co-ordination. Thus, according to J.Laver the major categories of segmental classification are: Initiation concerns the nature of the mecaniam which is responsible for setting the airstream in motion and for the consequent direction of the air flow. The airstream can be pulmonic, glottalic and velaric. The initiation of the pulmonic airstream is the respiratory mechanism. In the case of the glottalic airstream, the initiator is the vertically moving larynx (glottis closed voiceless sounds, vibrating voiced sounds). In the velaric aiestream the tongue is the initiator (it traps the air within the mouth and compresses the pressure of the air). The direction of the air stream can be egressive (outwards from the body) and ingressive (inwards the body). Most sounds are made on a pulmonic eggresive airstrem. Other combinations are also possible: glottalic eggressive airstream > adjective sounds; glottalic inggressive airstream > implosive sounds; velaric inggressive airstream > click sounds. Phonation concerns the generation of acoustic energy at the larynx by the action of the vocal cords. The different major phonation types are: voicelessness, whisper, voicing. In its turn voicelessness is subdivided into nil phonation and breath phonation. Voicing is divided into normal, creak and falsetto. Combinations such as whispery voice and creaky voice are possible and used for phonological and paralinguistic purposes. More elaborate combinations such as whispery creaky falsetto are physiologically possible but are not used for any phonological or paralinguistic purposes. Articulation concerns the combination which organs along the vocal tract from the larynx to the lips make to shaping the airflow in audibly different ways. There are 3 subclassifications of articulation that characterize the performance of a segment: the place of articulation (1); the degree of stricture (2); aspects of articulation (3). (1) For the place of articulation the articulatory zones from lips to the glottis are as follows: 1) labial; 2) dental; 3) alveolar; 4) palatal; 5) velar; 6) uvular; 7) pharyngeal; 8) epiglottal; 9) glottal. The constrictions can be made slightly further, forward or back to the margins of the identified zones. In this case the prefixes pre- and post are used to characterize the segment: Ex: post-alveolar, pre-palatal. The articulation may also occur between 2 zones that are relatively close to each other and the label which will be given to the place of articulation in this case will be for example: labio-dental or denti-alveolar and etc. Normally the constriction is achieved by an articulatory organ (usually the tongue) moving upwards towards the roof of the mouth. The moving articulator is called the active articulator and the stationary part of the vocal tract is called the passive articulator. For example, the sound k in the English word catis made by the back of the tongue (the active articulator) and the soft palate (the passive articulator). This configuration of the vocal organs where the active articulator is able to make constrictions by interaction with the passive articulator that lies automatically directly opposite forms the neutral configuration. A smaller number of segments are made with the so called displaced configuration where the active articulator is dicplaced from its automatically neutral position. For example, the sounds f v are made with the displaced configuration where the lower lip (active articulator) is displaced from its natural position right under the upper lip and it makes the constriction with the upper teeth (passive articulator). A segment can be also characterized by simultaneous strictures made at more than 1 place of articulation. Where the two strictures are of equal degree the segment is said to have double articulation, for example the sound w (the first stricture is labial and is made by 2 lips and the second stricture is lingual and is made by the back of the tongue raised close to the soft palate. The important thing is that 2 strictures are made simultaneously. There also may be secondary articulation where the primary is stricture of greater degree than the second one. In this case the suffix ized is given to indicate its non-primary nature. The example can be the labializaton of the sound sin its off-set position in the word soon. (2) Talking about the degree of stricture we should remember the phases of articulation of a segment: on-set, medial phase, offset. All segments can be described as having only 3 degrees of stricture:

1) complete closure (stops); 2) audible aerodynamic friction showing close approximation (fricatives); 3) the third degree is open approximation (the stricture here is any aperture that is large enough for airflow to go without significant turbulence (resonants). (3) Aspect of articulation. Its often necessary to make explicit reference in a segmental label to factors of articulation over and above those relating merely to the location and degree of stricture. These factors may include such matters as total air channel details of the topographical shape of the surface of the active articulator and the nature of the articulatory transition and the timing. Thes are the maun aspects of articulation which are subdivided into: conformational (cover the detailed routing of the air channel, ex.: oral vs nasal); topographical (concern categories of the shape of the tongue surface); transitional (concern the articulatory maneuvers of the vocal organs when a steady state is not maintained during the medial phase of a segment). Co-ordination concerns the articulatory and temporal relation between neighboring segments.

26. Aspects of connected speech: elision.

Elision is a complete loss of sounds, both vowels and consonants. Elision is very simply the omission of certain sounds in certain contexts. (A native speaker's aim in connecting words is maximum ease and efficiency of tongue movement when getting our message across. In minimizing our efforts, we weaken our articulation. If articulation is weakened too much, the sound may disappear altogether, a process known as elision.) The most important occurrences of this phenomenon regard:

1. Loss of [h] in personal and possessive pronouns and the forms of the auxiliary verb have: you shouldnt (h)ave tell (h)im.
2. [l] lends to be lost when preceded by [o:]: always, already, all right

3. In cluster of consonants: next day, just one, mashed potatoes

1) Alveolar consonants /t/ and /d/ between two consonants (CONS t/d CONS), e.g.

The next day. / neks 'de/ The last car / l:s k:/ Hold the dog! /hl dg/ Send Frank a card. /sen frk k:d/
This can also take place within affricates /t/ and /d/ when preceded by a consonant, e.g.

lunchtime /lnttam/ /lntam/ strange days /strenddez/

/strendez/

The phoneme /t/ is a fundamental part of the negative particle not, the possibility of it being elided makes the foreign students life more difficult. Consider the negative of can if followed by a consonant the /t/ may easily disappear and the only difference between the positive and the negative is a different, longer vowel sound in the second:

I can speak. I cant speak secretary camera memory

/a kn spi:k/ /a k:n(t) spi:k/

Note that when cant is followed by a vowel, e.g. I cant eat, the /t/ is not elided. 2) A second form involves the omission of the schwa /\/ before liquids /l/ and /r/, e.g.

/sekrt()ri/ /km()r/ /mem()ri/

Examples of elision in English:

fifth: /ff/ /f/ him: /hm/ /m/ laboratory: /lbti/ /lbti/ (American English), /lbti/ (British English) temperature: /tmpt/ /tmpt/, /tmpt/

vegetable:

/vdtbl/ /vdtbl/, /vttbl/

27.Aspects of connected speech: linking.

Inserting is a process of sound addition. Linking is a way of joining the pronunciation of two words so that they are easy to say and flow together smoothly. In English there are different ways that this happens. 1. Linking [r] (potential pronunciation of [r]): car owner 2. Intrusive [r]: [r] is pronounced where no r is seen in the spelling china and glass, America and Africa, law and order, Draw all the flowers /dr:r :l flaz/: it is not recommended to foreign learners. 3. Linking w, j: word- vowel high tense vowels I and u are linked to a word that start with a vowel through glides: you / w/and me, I / j / agree, They / j /are here!, I want to/ w/eat, Please do/ w/it. 4. Word boundaries involving a consonant and a vowel are also linked, as we tend to drag final consonants to initial vowels or vice versa. For example: Get on. ( geton ) Not at all. ( notatall ) Its no joke. ( snow joke) R-linking The phenomenon of r-linking is based on the fact that, by default, in Standard British English (though not in many other accents of English), /r/ in syllable final position is not pronounced, e.g. car /k:/. R-linking takes place when a syllable ends with one of the following vowel sounds: /:/, /:/, /:/, //, or any of the diphthongs that finish with a schwa, e.g. /e/, // and //, and the next syllable starts with any vowel sound. This may take place within single words, e.g. Care /ke/ Caring /ker/ or between word boundaries, e.g. Care about /ker bat/ Here are some more examples: It's near enough /ts nr nf/ It's quite far away /ts kwat f:r we/ The doctor agrees / dktr gri:z/ There are three places /r ri: plesz/ There's a tour along the river /z tr l rv/ It's made of fur and leather /ts med v f:r n le/ The actor and playwright / ktr n plerat/ I can't hear anything /a k:n hr en/

28. The prosodic organization of speech: pitch. ( , . . 31-36 )

The auditory (sound-perception) aspect, on the one hand, is a physiological mechanism. We can perceive sound waves within a range of 16 Hz-20.000 Hz with a difference in 3 Hz. The human ear transforms mechanical vibrations of the air into nervous and transmits them to brain. The listener hears the acoustic features of the fundamental frequency, formant frequency, intensity and duration in terms of perceptible categories of pitch, quality, loudness and length. On the other hand, it is also a psychological mechanism. The point is that repetitions of what might be heard as the same utterance are only coincidentally, if ever, acoustically identical. Phonetic identity is a. theoretical ideal. Phonetic similarity, not phonetic identity, is the criterion with which we operate in the linguistic analysis. Phonemes, syllables, stress, and intonation are linguistic phenomena. They constitute meaningful units (morphemes, words, word-forms, utterances). Sounds of speech perform different linguistic functions.( )

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale. Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies, which require "sound whose frequency is clear

and stable enough to be heard as not noise". Pitch is a major auditory attribute of musical tones, along with duration, loudness, and timbre. Pitch is an auditory sensation in which a listener assigns musical tones to relative positions on a musical scale based primarily on the frequency of vibration. Pitch is closely related to frequency, but the two are not equivalent. Frequency is an objective, scientific concept, whereas pitch is subjective. Sound waves themselves do not have pitch, and their oscillations can be measured to obtain a frequency. It takes a human brain to map the internal quality of pitch. Since pitch is such a close proxy for frequency, it is almost entirely determined by how quickly the sound wave is making the air vibrate and has almost nothing to do with the intensity, or amplitude, of the wave. The pitch of complex tones can be ambiguous, meaning that two or more different pitches can be perceived, depending upon the observer. When the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because of overtones, also known as upper partials, harmonic or otherwise. The human auditory perception system may also have trouble distinguishing frequency differences between notes under certain circumstances.
Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a syllable or mora within a word. The placement of this tone or the way it is realized can give different meanings to otherwise similar words. Although it has been claimed that "pitch accent" is not a coherently defined term, it is commonly understood to refer to a language that uses phonemic tone, but where only one or two syllables in a word can be phonemically marked for tone, and many words are not marked for tone at all. In such languages, the syllable with phonemic tone typically is acoustically prominent, in a similar fashion to the dynamic stress of languages such as English or Spanish.

29. The prosodic organization of speech: loudness

Loudness is the quality of a sound that is primarily a psychological correlate of physical strength (amplitude). More formally, it is defined as "that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds can be ordered on a scale extending from quiet to loud." Loudness, a subjective measure, is often confused with objective measures of sound strength such as sound pressure, sound intensity or sound power. Filters such as A-weighting attempt to adjust sound measurements to correspond to loudness as perceived by the typical human. However, loudness perception is a much more complex process than A-weighting.Furthermore, as the perception of loudness varies from person to person it cannot be universally measured using any single metric. Loudness is also affected by parameters other than sound pressure, including frequency and duration. The perception of loudness is related to both the sound pressure level and duration of a sound. The human auditory system integrates (averages) the effects of sound pressure level (SPL) over a 6001,000 ms window.

30. The prosodic organization of speech: intonation

Intonation is a language universal. There are no languages which are spoken without any change of prosodic parameters but intonation functions in various languages in a different way. In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody.Intonation is found in every language and even in tonal languages, but the realisation and function are seemingly different. It is used in non-tonal languages to add attitudes to words (attitudinal function) and to differentiate between wh-questions, yes-no questions, declarative statements, commands, requests, etc. Intonation can also be used for discourse analysis where new information is realised by means of intonation. It can also be used for emphatic/contrastive purposes.