Unit 7 Phonetics

UNIT 7................................................................................................................................. CONNECTED SPEECH................................................................................................. Definition..................................................................................................................... The concept of Rhythm............................................................................................... Words in Connected Speech........................................................................................ SENTECE STRESS VS. WORD STRESS..................................................................... FEATURES OF CONNECTED SPEECH.................................................................. Phonetic Variations vs Phonemic Variations................................................................... Connected Speech Processes...........................................................................................

UNIT 7. CONNECTED SPEECH

Definition An utterance consisting of more than one word.

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

Stress-timed rhythm: the event repeated is the stress, like English. Stressed syllables (including pitch accents and other syllables made prominent by ‘stress’ alone) govern the rhythm of English, an equal amount of time being said to be taken between each two stressed syllables and between the last stressed syllable and the end of the utterance: ISOCHRONY. The unit is the foot: contains one stressed syllable and all the pauses and the unstressed syllables up to the next stressed syllable begins. ´David had ‘seen ‘helicopters at the ‘airport. 1 foot 1 foot 1 foot 1 foot 3 syll. 1 syll. 6 syll. 2 syll.

By the Isochrony (the tendency to have the same duration in all feet) some syllables are reduced. The occurrence of full vowels generally predicts the rhythm of English rather more usefully than any notion of stress. The reduced vowels are / ɪ, Ʊ, ə/ when they occur without a pitch accent, all others are full vowels.

The only simple rule of English rhythm id the BORROWING RULE: a syllable with a reduced vowel ‘borrows time’ from any immediately preceding syllable containing a full vowel. Full-vowelled syllables each take approximately an equal amount of time. Each syllable containing a reduced vowel is much shorter, and by the Borrowing Rule a full-vowelled syllable is itself shortened if immediately followed by a syllable with a reduced vowel, but any further following syllables with a reduced vowel take time from the full-vowelled syllable.

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

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

FEATURES OF CONNECTED SPEECH

• Word Accentual Variation LEXICAL words are predisposed by their function in the language to receive accent: Main verbs Adverbs Nouns Adjectives Demonstrative pronouns FUNCTION words (grammatical words) are more likely to be unaccented (although they too to be exceptionally accented if the meaning requires it): Auxiliary verbs

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

• Gradation: Weak forms Function or grammatical words can have STRONG forms (accented) and WEAK forms (unaccented). The latter are more frequent and show reductions of the length of sounds, obscuration of vowels towards / ə, ɪ, Ʊ/, and the elision of vowels and consonants. (See the list of the two forms in Cruttenden 11.3) Strong forms appear: 1. Citation (in isolation) and /) 2. Prepositions end sentence That’s the picture she is looking at She is looking at the mirror

/ nd/ (weak forms: / nd, n d, n, n

/ t/ / t/ (weak form)

3. Contrast It is for him not from him /f :/ /fr m/ (weak forms: /f / /f m, fm /) 4. Emphasis I must go /m st/ (weak forms: /m st, m s/) 5. Auxiliary verbs ????? when???? I have been…

/h v/ (weak forms: /h v, v, v/)

6. That Adjective/Pronoun -> Strong form / Relative pronoun/ -> Weak form / you… Conjunction There

tb t/

/ I did not know that

Demonstrative adverb -> Strong form Existential construct./ -> Weak form

/ e / I live over there / / There is…

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

Phonetic Variations vs Phonemic Variations The phonologic transcription is affected by the environment in which the words appear. Account must be taken of the phonetic continuity and merging of qualities by describing the mutual influence which contiguous sounds exert upon each other, i.e. tendencies towards assimilation or co-articulation have to be noted. The allophonic variations of the phonemes within the words have already been seen (Tema 4). The variations at word boundaries can be: 1. Phonetic or allophonic variations (see also Tema 4) a. Place of articulation. /t, d/ + / / -> dental /m/ + /f/ -> labiodental /s/ + /r/ -> retracted b. Voice: devoicing of continuants following a voiceless consonant. /l, r, w, j/ preceded by voiceless consonant -> devoiced Word-initial voiced plosives or fricatives preceded by -> devoiced pause or voiceless consonants Word-final voiced plosives or fricatives followed by -> devoiced pause or voiceless consonants c. Lip position: under the influence of adjacent vowels or semivowels. /t, k, n, , l, s/ + /w/ -> labialized (rounded) that one, this way d. Nasalization: lowering of the sooft palate in the vicinity of a nasal. Sometimes an be nasalized:

Vowels + nasal come in, wait for me (especially when the vowel has an adjacent nasal in its word) Approximants + nasal tell me 2. Phonemic variations The mutual influence of contiguous phonemes in English is produced by a series of processes: assimilations, elisions, liaisons, clipping, and stretching. They are more frequent in rapid and colloquial speech.

Connected Speech Processes 1. Assimilation. It is the process by which one or more sounds take features of the neighbouring sound. a. Regressive or anticipatory: Features of one phoneme are anticipated in the articulation of the preceding sound, i.e. one phoneme takes characteristics from the following phoneme: A <- B Variation of Place (place assimilation) Alveolar stops (plosives and nasals): /t/ /p/ / t m n/ /d/ + bilabial /b/ /b d b / /n/ /p, b, m/ /m/ /ten pen / /t/ /d/ /n/

+ velar /k, g/

/k/ / t k:/ /g/ /b d g :l/ / / /ten k /

->

-> -> ->

-> ->

/ p m n/ /b b b / /tem pen / / k k:/ /b g g :l/ /te k /

When there are two alveolars together, both of them are affected: /fr nt pe d / -> /fr mp pe d / Alveolar fricatives /s, /: /s/ / / /dres p/ + /j, , / / sj / / / /t , d / / / / i:/

-> ->

Voiced/voiceless variation (voice assimilation) Rare in English. /v/ -> /f/ / v k :s/ -> /h v tu:/ -> /z/ -> /s/ /h z tu:/ ->

/dre p/ / j / -> / i:/

/ f k :s/ /h f tu:/ /h s tu:/

b. Progressive or perseverative: One phoneme influences the following phoneme, i.e. one phoneme takes characteristics from the preceding phoneme: A -> B It is not very frequent, usually when happens affects:

Variation of Place (place assimilation) Alveolar syllabic nasal /n /: /n / after bilabial -> /m / / p n/ -> / pn / -> / pm / after velar -> / / /be k n/ -> /be kn / -> /be k / c. Coalescence: A fusion of forms takes place. Two sounds merge into another, the new sound has features of both. /t/ + /j/ -> /d/ + /j/

/t / ->

/d /d /

nt ju:/ -> /w d ju:/

/d nt u:/ -> /w d u:/

¿?????????? El siguiente caso está también en Regressive ¿???????????? /s/ + /j/ -> / / / sj / -> / / /z/ + /j/-> / / / j :/ -> / :/ 2. Elision. It is the omission of one sound (when a sound drops). Only occurs in certain environment: /t, d/ in word final position surrounded by consonant, the consonant preceding must have the same voicing, and the following one can be any consonant except /h/: C + /t, d/ # + C same voicing any consonant as /t, d/ except /h/ /l:st na t/ /send m/

-> ->

/l:s na t/ /sen m

Exception: some negative contractive forms can have elision even if the preceding sound has not the same voicing: /k:nt k m/ -> /k:n k m/ 3. Liaison. r-liaison only occurs in non-rhotic accents. a. Linking /r/ Word-final post-vocalic /r/ is introduced as a linking form when the following word begins with a vowel. It is limited to those cases where there is an or in the spelling. Bare it -> /be r t/ b. Intrusive /r/ It appears in cases of vowel hiatus (one word ends in vowel and the following word starts by vowel) where there is no in the spelling. Idea of it -> /a d r v t/ The environment is phonetically comparable to that of linking /r/ My dear Anna -> /ma d r n /

It is frequent after / / and diphthongs ending in / / and when its termination is near to another word with in its spelling (see example above). Linking-r is historically justified, intrusive-r is historically unjustified. 4. Rhythmical clipping. The shortening of a vowel depending on the number of post stressed syllables. / st nd d/ / st nd d z/ / st nd d ze n / The last / / is the shortest because is followed by a larger number of syllables 5. Stretching. It is the opposite of clipping. Lengthening of the vowel duration before a pause. It affects the vowel of the final syllable. 6. Juncture. The phonetic cues that allow to differentiate the sounds between words or sequence of sounds. I scream /a skri:m/ Ice cream /a s kr i:m/ Only two allophonic features allow to distinguish these sequences (both in the last one): - the devoicing of /r/ - the prefortis clipping of / / in the last /a s/, by which this / / is a little shorter than that of the first /a / (prefortis clipping only occurs within the word). RECURSOS MNEMOTECNICOS QUE AÑADO: ASIMILACIÓN:

o

t o d o n o

p o b re m as

t o d

k a g o

n

o

as

T: asimila a p antes de plosives y a k antes de velares (k y g) (ANTES DE BILABIAL) TOPO: t + p, b, m = to + p,b,m : that pill, thap pill, thap bill, thap man (ANTES DE VELAR) TOKO D: dobo, dogo: asimila a b y a g antes de plosives p,b,m y velares k y g bad boy. bab boy bad girl: bag girl N: nemo, ningun: asimila a m y a g antes de p,b,m y las velares k y g ten pens: tem penz ten girls: