The System of English Phonemes. Vowels

Seminar 2

The System of English Phonemes. Consonants

Seminar 1

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

The system of terminal tones in English

Intonation

Lecture 8

"Intonation is the soul of a language while the pronunciation of its sounds is its body" [Kingdon 1972: xiii].

D.Crystal (in "Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English", 1969) arranged all the components of intonation into a list (starting from the most relevant component to the least):

- speech melody (or pitch movement)

- phrasal stress

- tempo

- rhythm

- tambre (or timbre)

Intonation and prosody: a narrow and a broad definition of Intonation.

Prosody: pitch, loudness and tempo.

Pitch correlates with the fundamental frequency of the vibration of the vocal cords (i.e. perception of the frequency of repeated pressures on the ear-drum).

Loudness correlates with the amplitude of vibrations of vocal cords.

Tempo correlates with time during which a speech unit lasts.

Roger Kingdon arranges the tones into two classes:

1. Static or level tones (produced by keeping the vocal cords at a constant tension (thus giving a tone of unvarying pitch). Such tones are used to give emphasis or prominence to a word or syllable without adding any special feeling or meaning to it.

2. Kinetic or moving tones (produced by varying the tension of the vocal cords (thus giving a tone of varying pitch). Such tones express the speaker's feelings in addition to giving prominence. [Kingdon 1972: 3-4].

Intonation functions:

accentual indexical

communicative (grammatical) modal (attitudinal)

contextual stylistic

1. The classification of English consonants:

a) according to the type of obstruction and the manner of production of noise;

b) according to the degree of noise;

c) according to the place of articulation.

2. English sonorants: different approaches to their status in classifications.

3. The phonological status of English affricates:

a) the problem of the number of affricates in English (D. Jones; A.C. Gimson; B. Bloch and G. Trager; phoneticians in this country);

b) the phonological criteria in determining the phonemic status of affricates.

4. Modifications of consonants in connected speech:

a) assimilation;

b) accommodation;

c) elision, historical elision;

d) insertion.

1. Criteria in classificatory description of vowels:

a) stability of articulation;

b) tongue position;

c) lip position;

d) character of the vowel end;

e) length;

f) tenseness.

2. The phonological status of English diphthongs (American descriptivists; English phoneticians; Russian linguists: diversity of opinions).

3. The phonemic status of the "triphthongs" in English.

4. The phonemic status of the neutral sound [ ].

5. The system of cardinal vowels elaborated by D. Jones.

6. Modifications of vowels in connected speech.

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