C. Intonation Differences

B. Stress Differences

Non-systematic Differences between General American and Received Pronunciation

A. 1. Many differences involve the pronunciation of individual words or groups of words. Here are some of these:

RP GA

Asia ['ei/э] ['eija]

cordial ['ko:di3l] ['karjal]

either ['aide] ' ['кбэг]

leisure [Чезэ] Г^Зэг]

lever j'lfcva] ['levsrj

schedule |'/edju:l] f'skedjal]

shone [Ton] [foun]

tomato [ta'matau] [ta'meitou]

vase [va:z] [veiz]

2. Words apparatus, data, status can be pronounced with either [ae] or [ei] in GA, but only with [ei] in RP.,

3. Words like hostile, missile, reptile have final [ail] in RP. In GA they may have [al].

1. In words of French origin GA tends to have stress on Jthe
final syllable, while RP has it on the initial one:

RP GA

ballet [Ъэе1е1] [bae'lei]

beret [Ъеп] [ba'rei]

2. Some words have first-syllable stress in GA whereas in RP
the stress may be elsewhere.

RP GA

address [s'dres] ['aedres]

cigarette [siga'ret] ['sigsrat]

magazine [masgs'zLn] I'maegszm]

research [ri's3:tf] ['nsatf]

adult [a'dAlt] j'aedAlt]

inquiry [irj'kwawn] ['inkwaiari]

60. Some compound words have stress on the first element in
GA and in RP they retain it on the second element: weekend, ice
cream, hotdog, New Year.

61. Polysyllabic words ending in -ory, -ату, -топу have second
ary stress in GA, often called "tertiary": laboratory ['laebra.ton], dic
tionary ['dikfa.nen], secretary ['sekro.ten], testimony ['testi.mouni].

GA intonation on the whole is similar to that of RP. But there are, of course, some differences that should be mentioned here.

1. In sentences where the most common pre-nudear contour in RP is a gradually descending sequence, the counterpart GA contour is a medium Level Head:

I don't want to go to the theatre.

2. The usual Medium or Low Fall in RP has its rising-falling
counterpart in GA:

Come and see me tomorrow.

3. The rising terminal tone in RP in GA has a mid-rising con
tour:

Do you like it?

'

Or it may have a level tone in GA:

4. The Fall-Rise nucleartone is different in RP and GA:
Really?

These comparisons show that the main differences in intonation concern the direction of the voice pitch and the realization of the terminal tones. In GA the voice doesn't fall to the bottom mostly. This explains the fact that the English speech for Americans sounds "affected" and "pretentious" or "sophisticated". And for the English, Americans sound "dull", "monotonous", "indifferent".

It should also be mentioned that the distribution of terminal tones in sentence types is also different in both variants of English.

1. GA "Yes, No" questions commonly have a falling terminal tone; the counterpart RP tone would be a rising one:

Shall we stay here?

2. Requests in RP are usually pronounced with a Rise, where
as in GA they may take a Fall-Rise:

Open the door.

3. Leave-takings are often pronounced with a high-pitched
Fall-Rise in GA:

Good night.

In conclusion we would like to say that American phoneticians use a pitch contour system to mark intonation in the text:

It is certain that we have not covered here all the cases of different intonation structures used in RP and GA. Recently there have appeared in this country several papers and books on the subject, so for further information see those books.

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