Fonetica y Fonologia Inglesa

English Phonetics and Phonology 1
Preliminary notes
These class notes were compiled using all the material offered by Professor Marciano Escutia
López, including texts extracted from the reference books in the syllabus. The transcription
exercises are those carried out in class during the academic period 2018/2019. All answers have
been eliminated so that these pages can be printed and reused in class.
It is important to clarify that these notes are not a faithful reflection of what the teacher
mentions in class. On the contrary, it is a development of the programmatic content of the
subject, copying and pasting the pertinent texts that answer the questions established by the
syllabus.
That said, this material should not be used for essays or any other work required by the teacher,
since the vast majority of the text is literally copied from other sources. Therefore, it should
only be used for personal study and to pass the exams satisfactorily.
Degree in English Studies UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID

Class Notes 2
CONTENTS
1 Phonetics and phonology......................................................................................................5
1.1 Phonetics and phonology..............................................................................................5
1.1.1 What is a phoneme?..............................................................................................5
1.1.2 What is a phone?...................................................................................................5
1.1.3 Defining phonetics................................................................................................5
1.1.4 Defining phonology..............................................................................................6
1.1.5 Differences between phonetics and phonology.....................................................7
1.2 Articulatory phonetics: the organs of speech..............................................................11
1.3 The vocal organs.........................................................................................................12
1.4 Places of Articulation.................................................................................................13
1.5 Manners of articulation...............................................................................................15
1.5.1 Stops...................................................................................................................15
1.5.2 Fricatives............................................................................................................16
1.5.3 Affricates............................................................................................................17
1.5.4 Approximants.....................................................................................................17
1.6 The articulation of the vowel sounds..........................................................................20
1.6.1 Cardinal vowels..................................................................................................21
1.6.2 The twelve English vowel phonemes..................................................................22
1.6.3 Diphthongs.........................................................................................................23
1.6.4 Triphthongs........................................................................................................24
1.7 Exercises.....................................................................................................................25
1.7.1 Vowels................................................................................................................25
1.7.2 Consonants.........................................................................................................26
2 Phonemic and Phonetic transcription.................................................................................28
2.1 Phonology and Phonetic Transcription.......................................................................28
2.2 The English Phonemic inventory. Comparison with Spanish.....................................28
2.3 Description and Transcription of English vowels.......................................................29
2.3.1 Vowels / iː /, / ɪ /, / e /, / æ /.................................................................................29
2.3.2 Vowels / ʌ / and / ɑː /..........................................................................................30
2.3.3 Vowels / ɒ / and / ɔː /..........................................................................................30
2.3.4 Vowels / ʊ / and / uː /..........................................................................................31
2.3.5 Vowels / ɜː / and / ə /..........................................................................................32
2.3.6 Diphthongs / aɪ /, / eɪ / and / ɔɪ /..........................................................................32
2.3.7 Diphthongs / ɪə /, / eə / and / ʊə /........................................................................33
2.3.8 Diphthongs / əʊ / and / aʊ /.................................................................................33

2.3.9 General revision (Vowels)..................................................................................34

2.4 Description and Transcription of English consonants.................................................34
2.4.1 Plosives (oral stops) / p /, / b /, / t /, / d /, / k / and / ɡ /........................................34
2.4.2 Nasals / m /, / n / and / ŋ /...................................................................................35
2.4.3 Fricatives / f /, / v /, / θ / and / ð /........................................................................36
2.4.4 Sibilants / s /, / z /, / ʃ / and / ʒ /..........................................................................37
2.4.5 Fricative / h /.......................................................................................................38
2.4.6 Affricates / ʧ / and / ʤ /......................................................................................39
2.4.7 Approximants / l / and / r /..................................................................................40
2.4.8 Approximants / j / and / w /................................................................................41
2.5 English allophonic rules.............................................................................................42
2.5.1 Rules affecting consonants.................................................................................42
2.5.2 Rules affecting vowels........................................................................................43
2.6 Revision exercises......................................................................................................43
3 The phonetics of English Words and Sentences.................................................................45
3.1 Strong and Weak forms..............................................................................................45
3.2 Word stress.................................................................................................................48
3.2.1 Syllable weight...................................................................................................48
3.2.2 Placement of stress.............................................................................................49
3.2.3 Stress in Word Class Pairs..................................................................................51
3.2.4 Stress Shift..........................................................................................................52
3.3 Sentence stress. English rhythm.................................................................................52
3.3.1 Rhythm...............................................................................................................53
3.4 Aspects of connected speech......................................................................................53
3.4.1 Phonetic conditioning.........................................................................................54
3.4.2 Assimilation........................................................................................................54
3.4.3 Elision.................................................................................................................54
3.4.4 Liaison................................................................................................................55
3.4.5 Juncture..............................................................................................................56
3.5 Transcription exercises with comments......................................................................57
4 Intonation...........................................................................................................................62
4.1 Form and function in intonation.................................................................................62
4.2 The tone-unit and its structure....................................................................................63
4.2.1 The nucleus.........................................................................................................64
4.2.2 The head.............................................................................................................64
4.2.3 The pre-head.......................................................................................................65
4.2.4 The tail................................................................................................................65

Class Notes 4
4.3 Types of tones............................................................................................................66

4.4 Functions of intonation...............................................................................................67
4.4.1 The attitudinal function of intonation.................................................................68
4.4.2 The accentual function of intonation...................................................................69
4.4.3 The grammatical function of intonation..............................................................70
4.4.4 The discourse function of intonation...................................................................72

Unit 1
1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
1.1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

1.1.1 What is a phoneme?
A phoneme is one of the units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a
language. For example, in most dialects of English, the sound patterns / θʌm / (thumb) and /
dʌm / (dumb) are two separate words distinguished by the substitution of one phoneme, / θ /, for
another phoneme, / d /. (Two words like this that differ in meaning through a contrast of a single
phoneme form what is called a minimal pair). In many other languages these would be
interpreted as the same set of phonemes (i.e. / θ / and / d / would be considered the same). In
linguistics, phonemes (usually established using minimal pairs, such as kill vs kiss or pat vs bat)
are written between slashes, e.g. / p /. To show pronunciation more precisely linguists use
square brackets, for example [pʰ] (indicating an aspirated p).
1.1.2 What is a phone?

The term phoneme has become very widely used for a contrastive unit of sound in
language: however, a term is also needed for a unit at the phonetic level, since there is not
always a one-to-one correspondence between units at the two levels. For example, the word
‘can’t’ is phonemically kɑːnt (four phonemic units) but may be pronounced kɑ̃t with the nasal
consonant phoneme absorbed into the preceding vowel as nasalisation (three phonetic units).
The term phone has been used for a unit at the phonetic level, but it must be said that the term
(though useful) has not become widely used; this must be at least partly because the word is
already used for a much more familiar object.
Allophones are part of the phone family and as such, they are transcribed between square
brackets. Therefore, we could have cases like:
 / p / (phoneme)
 [ph] as in put (aspirated)
 [p˺] as in tap (unreleased)
 [pº] as in apt (unexploded)
 [p] as in happy (unaspirated)
1.1.3 Defining phonetics

Phonetics is the scientific study of speech. The central concerns are the discovery of
how speech sounds are produced, how they are used in spoken language, how we can record
speech sounds with written symbols and how we hear and recognise different sounds. Although
there are many areas in which phonetics and phonology may overlap, the first one studies the
more physical aspect of sound production. Later, the differences between these two will be
explained thoroughly.
1.1.3.1 Areas of study of Phonetics.
1.1.3.1.1 Articulatory phonetics

Yule 1 states Articulatory Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made or
0F
articulated. It is also known as the physiological mechanisms of speech production by human

1
Yule, G. (2010). The study of Language. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Class Notes 6
beings 2. It concerns with the sounds of speech produced by the organs of speech and how the
1F
vocal folds adjust the flow of air while it is passing through them for producing different
sounds 3. 2F
1.1.3.1.2 Acoustic Phonetics

An important part of phonetics is the study of the physics of the speech signal: when
sound travels through the air from the speaker’s mouth to the hearer’s ear it does so in the form
of vibrations in the air. It is possible to measure and analyse these vibrations by mathematical
techniques, usually by using specially-developed computer software to produce spectrograms.
Acoustic phonetics also studies the relationship between activity in the speaker’s vocal tract and
the resulting sounds. Analysis of speech by acoustic phonetics is claimed to be more objective
and scientific than the traditional auditory method which depends on the reliability of the
trained human ear.
1.1.3.1.3 Auditory phonetics

Auditory phonetics is a branch of phonetics concerned with the hearing of speech
sounds and with speech perception. Our recognition of linguistic units (such as syllables, words
and clauses) depends on several factors, including the acoustic structure of the speech signal
itself, the context, our familiarity with the speaker and our expectations as listeners. There is
substantial evidence that much of our understanding of speech involves a component of 'top
down' linguistic processing which draws on our knowledge and does not demand segment-by-
segment processing of the acoustic signal to establish the phonological structure and arrive at its
meaning. 4 3F
1.1.4 Defining phonology

The most basic activity in phonology is phonemic analysis, in which the objective is to
establish what the phonemes are and arrive at the phonemic inventory of the language. Very few
phonologists have ever believed that this would be an adequate analysis of the sound system of
a language: it is necessary to go beyond this. One can look at suprasegmental phonology – the
study of stress, rhythm and intonation, which has led in recent years to new approaches to
phonology such as metrical and autosegmental theory; one can go beyond the phoneme and
investigate the detailed characteristics of each unit in terms of distinctive features; the way in
which sounds can combine in a language is studied in phonotactics and in the analysis of
syllable structure. For some phonologists the most important area is the relationships between
the different phonemes – how they form groups, the nature of the oppositions between them and
how those oppositions may be neutralised.
Until the second half of the twentieth century most phonology had been treated as a separate
“level” that had little to do with other “higher” areas of language such as morphology and
grammar. Since the 1960s the subject has been greatly influenced by generative phonology, in
which phonology becomes inextricably bound up with these other areas; this has made
contemporary phonology much harder to understand, but it has the advantage that it no longer
appears to be an isolated and self-contained field.
2
Brinton, L., & Brinton, D. (2010). The Linguistic Structure of Modern English. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing Company.
3
Zhu, X. (2015). Phonetics Articulatory. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral
Sciences, 65-74.
4
Clark, John; & Yallop, Colin. (1995). An introduction to phonetics and phonology (2nd ed.). Oxford:
Blackwell.

Ladefoged and Johnson 5 define it as the description of the systems and patterns of sounds
4F
that occur in a language. It involves studying a language to determine its distinctive

sounds, that is, those sounds that convey a difference in meaning.
1.1.5 Differences between phonetics and phonology

Phonetics and phonology are two important intra-disciplinary branches of linguistics.
Though closely interlinked and serving the same purpose, i.e. dedicated to the study of human
speech sounds and sound structures, phonetics and phonology differ from each other to an
extent that each has been given a separate disciplinary status. Some of the most prominent
differences between phonetics and phonology can be elaborated as follows:
 Descriptive vs. Theoretical: Phonetics is a subfield of descriptive linguistics while

phonology is an area of theoretical linguistics.
 Major Field vs. Sub-discipline: Linguists often consider phonology a major field of
linguistics. While, on the other hand, phonetics is regarded as a subfield placed under
phonology.
 Phonological Analysis vs. Further Studies: Phonetics is the basis for phonological
analysis. On the other hand, phonology is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax,
discourse, and orthography design.
 General Speech Sounds vs. Specific Sound Pattern Analysis: Phonetics (the study of the
physical aspects of sound) analyses the production of all human speech sounds, regardless of
any language it is dealing with. While, phonology analyses the sound patterns of a language
by determining which phonetic sounds are significant and explaining how these sounds are
interpreted by the native speaker.
 Concrete vs. Abstract: Phonetics discusses the physical characteristics of speech sounds
or signs, especially, their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception
and neurophysiological status. Phonology is primarily concerned with the abstract,
grammatical characterisation of systems of sounds or signs.
 Audible Sounds vs. Their Meanings: Phonetics is strictly about audible sounds and the
things that happen in our mouth, throat, nasal and sinus cavities, and the lungs to make these
sounds. It has nothing to do with meaning. It is only description. Phonology, on the other
hand, is both physical as well as meaningful. It explores the differences between the sounds
in a language that change the meaning of an utterance.
 Limited vs. Wide Scope: Phonetics only asks, “Does this sound go here or not?”
Phonology asks, “Does the meaning change if this sound is put here instead of that one?”
 Form vs. Function: Phonetics is concerned with the form, i.e. the physical properties of
sounds. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with the function, i.e. the differences and
similarities of sounds.
 Parole vs. Langue: The linguistic term ‘parole’ is the concern of phoneticians while
‘langue’ is studied by phonologists.
 Universal vs. Language Specific: Phonetics deals with the universal phenomenon of
human speech sounds. Phonology, on the other hand, is language specific.
 Phone vs. Phoneme: In phonetics, the smallest structural unit is a phone. In phonology, on
the other hand, the minimal meaningful unit is called a phoneme.
5
Ladefoged, Peter; & Johnson, Keith. (2011). A Course in Phonetics (6th ed.). Boston: Wadsworth

Class Notes 8
 Phone vs. Allophone: Every language consists of speech sounds called phones. Phonetics
is concerned with phones in general. Phonology, on the other hand, describes phones as
allophones of phonemes.
 Phonetic vs. Phonemic Transcription: Phonetics deals with the phonetic transcription of
speech sounds. Phonology, on the other hand, deals with the phonemic transcription of
speech sounds.
 Square Brackets vs. Slanted Brackets: In phonetic transcription, square brackets […] are
used to enclose transcribed symbols. In phonemic transcription, on the other hand, slashes /
…/ are used for the same purpose.
 Speech Act vs. Language System: Phonetics is concerned with the speech act.
Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with the language system.
 Continuous vs. Discrete Entity: Phonetics is the domain of the continuous, while
phonology is the domain of discrete entity.
 Gradient vs. Categorical: Phonetics is gradient while phonology is categorical.
 Phonetics in Phonology vs. Phonology in Phonetics: During their interaction, when

phonetics affects phonology, the phonetics effects and constraints are reflected in the
phonology. This is referred to as naturalness. On the other hand, when phonology affects
phonetics, it results in the mapping between the units of phonology and their physical
realisation.
 Individuality vs. Interrelationship of Sounds: Phonetic transcription depends simply on

the pronunciation of each individual sound regardless of its function in the sound system of
the given language, whereas phonemic transcription depends upon the interrelationship of
sounds in each language.
 Identification vs. Interpretation of Sounds: Phonetics studies ‘which sounds are present
in a language’. Phonology, on the other hand, studies how these sounds combine and how
they change in combination, as well as which sounds can contrast to produce differences in
meaning.
 Phonetic vs. Phonemic Features: Phonetic features whose presence or absence can alter
meaning are called phonemic features. On the other hand, adding or subtracting a phonemic
feature normally results in a change of meaning as well as in a change in pronunciation.
 Predictability vs. Unpredictability of Features: The occurrence of certain phonetic

features is entirely predictable in phonetic environment, called redundant phonetic features,
as is the case in English with voicing or sonorants, nasality of vowels, or length in vowels.
On the other hand, the presence of a phonemic feature is not predictable according to
phonetic context.
 Phonetic Symbols vs. Phonemic Symbols: The symbols of phonetic alphabet are
universal. On the other hand, phonemic symbols are a type of phonetic shorthand with
specific value for a sound in a language.
 Marking vs. Ignoring Phonetic Detail: Phonetic transcription, enclosed in square

brackets, attempts to express as much phonetic detail as possible, redundant or otherwise;
phonemic transcription does not mark redundant features, but rather is intended to represent
only those phonetic details of a given language that are distinctive.

 “One for One” vs. “One for Several”: In phonetics, a phonetic symbol stands for one and
the same sound regardless of language, but a phonemic symbol often stands for any one of
the several actual sounds.
 Examples: Let us take an example of the word “bed”. Phonetics is concerned with its
physical production, acoustic properties, and its physiological status. On the other hand,
phonologists take the word “bed” differently. They say the word “bet” is very similar to the
word “bed” in terms of the physical manifestation of sounds. The only difference is that at
the end of “bet,” the vocal chords stop vibrating so that sound is a result only of the
placement of the tongue behind the teeth and the flow of air. However, the meanings of the
two words are not related in the least. This is the biggest distinction between phonetics and
phonology, although phonologists analyse a lot more than just the obvious differences. 6 5F
To sum up, the differences can be plotted as follows:

Phonetics Phonology
Definition Phonetics can be considered as a Phonology is another branch of
branch of linguistics as it deals with the linguistics which focuses on the
study of the sounds of human speech. It organisation of sounds by studying
also considers the function production speech patterns. The key words for
and auditory qualities of human describing Phonology are distribution
speeches. and patterning related to speech.

Described Physics of sound. Psychology of sound.
as
Focus Theories of speech production and Rules or constraints to find out about
perception. the combinations of sounds of a
language.
Branches 1. Acoustic phonetics – related  Segmental Phonology – based
to the study of physical attributes of on the segmentation of language
sound produced by the vocal tract. into individual speech sounds
2. Auditory phonetics deals with derived from phonetics.
understanding that how hum ear  Suprasegmental Phonology –
perceives sound and how the brain deals with attributes (like rhythm,
recognises different speech units. stress, etc.) of pronunciation which
3. Articulatory phonetics deals cannot be segmented.
with studying the making of single
sounds by the vocal tract.
Table 1 - Comparison between Phonetics and Phonology. Source: http://www.differencebetween.info/difference-
between-phonetics-and-phonology
A speech chain that can explain what each area studies could be:
Speaker’s brain Phonology
Speaker’s mouth Articulatory phonetics
Transmission of sound through air Acoustic phonetics
6
Source: https://www.academia.edu/10165716/Difference_between_Phonetics_and_Phonology

Class Notes 10
Listener’s ear Auditory phonetics
Listener’s brain Phonology
1.1.5.1 Why are Phonetics and Phonology useful?

 To improve your pronunciation.
 To improve your own listening skills.
 To be able to describe how something is pronounced and spelt in a systematic way, which is
a must for English teachers and researchers.
 To distinguish accents and get “information” about that person and make sociolinguistic
classifications of different informants.
 Multiple areas of study benefit from the study of phonetics and phonology to help identify
speech problems or any other disorder that may affect some speakers. Similarly, some
learning disabilities or more serious speech pathologies can be detected. This has been used
in very specific areas, such as forensic phonetics, in which experts can create profiles of
criminals by the sounds they produced when they speak.
 Archaeologists or historians can also make use of phonetics and phonology to reconstruct
lost languages. By tracing back sound changes, experts can make good approximations as to
how speakers could have pronounced dead languages like the Etruscan, Hittite or Sumerian.
 As a summary, without phonetics and phonology, we can neither observe nor record the
simplest phenomena of language.
1.2 ARTICULATORY PHONETICS: THE ORGANS OF SPEECH

The term ‘organs of speech’
refers to all those parts of the human
body which are concerned in various
ways with the production of speech.
Most of them are only secondarily
concerned with speech production - their
primary functions are to do with eating,
chewing and swallowing food, and
respiration. Figure l shows a section
through the body indicating the major
organs which contribute to the speech
process.
The organs of speech shown in fig. 1,
namely the lungs, trachea, larynx, the
pharyngeal and oral cavities with their
component parts, and the nasal passages, ARTICULATION
PHONATION
constitute as a group what is termed the INITIATION
vocal tract. For functional and
descriptive purposes, the tract is
normally divided into two basic parts,
one above the larynx, the other below it.
Within the larynx itself are the vocal Figure 1 - The organs of speech with the
functional components of speech

folds: the aperture between the folds is known as the glottis, and the tract above the glottis is
therefore called the supraglottal vocal tract, that below it the subglottal vocal tract. The choice
of this point of division is based on a functional distinction. The respiratory system below the
glottis provides the major energy source for producing speech sounds, while the tract above the
glottis determines, in general, the phonetic quality of speech sounds. Most phonetic descriptions
of speech sounds are primarily concerned with supraglottal activity.
1.3 THE VOCAL ORGANS

a. The pharynx is a tube which begins just
above the larynx. It is about 7 cm long in
women and about 8 cm in men, and at its
top end it is divided into two, one part
being the back of the oral cavity and the
other being the beginning of the way
through the nasal cavity. If you look in
your mirror with your mouth open, you
can see the back of the pharynx.
b. The soft palate or velum is seen in the
diagram in a position that allows air to
pass through the nose and through the
mouth. Yours is probably in that position
now, but often in speech it is raised so Figure 2 - The articulators
that air cannot escape through the nose.
c. The hard palate is often called the “roof of the mouth”. You can feel its smooth curved
surface with your tongue.
d. The alveolar ridge is between the top front teeth and the hard palate. You can feel its shape
with your tongue. Its surface is much rougher than it feels and is covered with little ridges.
You can only see these if you have a mirror small enough to go inside your mouth, such as
those used by dentists.
e. The tongue is a very important articulator and it can be moved into many different places
and different shapes. It is usual to divide the tongue into different parts, though there are no
clear dividing lines within its structure. Fig. 3 shows the tongue on a larger scale with these
parts shown: tip, blade, front, back and root. (This use of the word “front” often seems
rather strange at first.)
f. The teeth (upper and lower) are usually shown in diagrams like Fig. 2 only at the front of
the mouth, immediately behind the lips. This is for the sake of a simple diagram, and you
should remember that most speakers have teeth to the sides of their mouths, back almost to
the soft palate. The tongue is in contact with the upper side teeth for most speech sounds.
g. The lips are important in speech. They can be pressed together (when we produce the
sounds p, b), brought into contact with the teeth (as in f, v), or rounded to produce the lip-
shape for vowels like u:.
Figure 3 - Subdivisions of the tongue

Class Notes 12
The seven articulators described above are the main

ones used in speech, but there are a few other things
to remember. Firstly, the larynx could also be
described as an articulator - a very complex and
independent one. Secondly, the jaws are sometimes
called articulators; certainly, we move the lower jaw
a lot in speaking. But the jaws are not articulators in
the same way as the others, because they cannot Figure 4 - Dental sounds
themselves contact other articulators. Finally,
although there is practically nothing active that we can do with the nose and the nasal cavity
when speaking, they are a very important part of our
equipment for making sounds (which is sometimes called
our vocal apparatus), particularly nasal consonants such as
m, n. Again, we cannot really describe the nose and the
nasal cavity as articulators in the same sense as (a) to (g)
above.
1.4 PLACES OF ARTICULATION

Carr 7 refers to the points at which the flow of air
6F
can be modified as places of articulation. He also identifies

the vocal folds as a place of articulation; since the space Figure 5 – Bilabial sounds
between the vocal cords is referred to as the glottis, he refers
to sounds produced at this place of articulation as glottal sounds.
Firstly, sounds in which the airflow is modified by forming a constriction between the lower lip
and the upper lip are referred to as bilabial sounds (Fig.
4). An example is the first sound in pit.
Secondly, sounds in which there is a constriction between
the lower lip and the upper teeth are referred to as
labiodental sounds (Fig. 5). An example is the first sound
in fit.
Thirdly, sounds in which there is a constriction
between the tip of the tongue and the upper teeth are
referred to as dental sounds (Fig. 6). An example is
Figure 6 - Labiodental sounds the first sound in thin.
For the remaining places of articulation, let us
distinguish between the tip, the blade of the tongue,
the front of the tongue and the back of the tongue (as
in fig. 2). Let us also distinguish various points
along the upper part of the mouth. We will identify
four different areas: the alveolar ridge (the hard,
bony ridge behind the teeth; see fig. 2), the hard
Figure 4 - Alveolar sounds palate (the hard, bony part of the roof of the mouth;
see fig. 1), the palato-alveolar (or post-alveolar)
region 8 (the area in between the alveolar ridge and
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7
Carr, Philip. (2013) English Phonetics and Phonology: An Introduction, (2nd Ed.) Oxford: Blackwell-
Wiley
8
Many phonologists and phoneticians use the term ‘palato-alveolar’, but the chart of symbols used by the
International Phonetics Association uses the term ‘post-alveolar’. It will suffice for our purposes if the

the hard palate), and the velum (the soft part at the back of the roof of the mouth, also known as
the soft palate; see fig. 2).
Sounds in which there is a constriction between the blade or tip of the tongue and the alveolar
ridge are called alveolar sounds (Fig. 7). An example is the first sound in sin.
Sounds in which there is a constriction between the blade of the tongue and the palato-alveolar
(or post-alveolar) region are called palato-alveolar sounds (Fig. 8). An example is the first
sound in ship.
Sounds in which there is a constriction between the front of the tongue and the hard palate are
called palatal sounds (Fig. 9). An example is the first sound in yes (although this may be less
obvious to you; we will return to this sound below).
Sounds in which there is a constriction between the back of the tongue and the velum are called
velar sounds (Fig. 10). An example is the first sound in cool.
Figure 1 - Palato-alveolar sounds Figure 2 - Palatal sounds Figure 3 - Velar sounds
Clark and Yallop 9 summarise the places of articulation for consonants in the following table:
8F
Name of place Articulators used

Bilabial Upper and lower lips (English p, b, m)
Labio-dental Lower lip and edges of upper incisors (English f, v)
Apico-dental Tongue tip and edges or backs of upper incisors (Spanish t, d,
English th in thin)
Lamino-dental Tongue blade and edges or backs o upper incisors (th in Australian
aboriginal languages)
Apico-alveolar Tongue tip and alveolar region (English t, d)
Lamino-alveolar Tongue blade and alveolar region
Apico-postalveolar Tongue tip and post alveolar region (Southern British English r in
trip, drip)
Lamino- Tongue blade and post-alveolar region (English sh as in ship may be
postalveolar apico-alveolar or lamino-postalveolar depending on the speaker)
Sublamino- Tongue under surface and post-alveolar region (as in ‘retroflex’
postalveolar sounds of Hindi or Urdu)
Apico-palatal Tongue tip and palatal region
Lamino-palatal Tongue blade and palatal region (English y)
student takes the two terms to be interchangeable. There are no rigid physiological divisions between the
alveolar ridge and the hard palate; the transition from one to the other is a continuum. And the range of
articulations which can be made in between the two is relatively varied, leading some phoneticians to
distinguish alveo-palatal from palato-alveolar articulations. We will simplify by ignoring these details.
9
Clark, John & Yallop, Colin (1990). An introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell

Class Notes 14
Name of place Articulators used

Velar Tongue body and soft palate (English k)
Uvular Tongue body and uvula/soft palate (r in some varieties of French and
German)
Pharyngeal Pharynx walls
Glottal Glottis (vocal folds)
1.5 MANNERS OF ARTICULATION

To identify the way a sound is articulated, we will identify three different degrees of
constriction (complete closure, close approximation and open approximation), and thus three
different categories of consonant: stops, fricatives, affricates and approximants.
1.5.1 Stops
The articulators in question may form a stricture of complete closure; this is what
happens when one produces the first sound in pit. Here the lower and upper lips completely
block the flow of air from the lungs; that closure may then be released, as it is in pit, and may
then produce a sudden outflow of air. Sounds which are produced with complete closure are
referred to as stops (or plosives).
 We may describe the first sound in pit as a voiceless bilabial stop (transcribed as / p /) and
we will henceforth identify all consonants with three-term labels of this sort. The consonant
in abbey is also a bilabial stop but differs from that in pit: it is voiced. This consonant
(transcribed as / b /) is a voiced bilabial stop.
 The first sound in tin is a voiceless alveolar stop; it is transcribed as / t /. Its voiced
counterpart is the consonant in ado. This sound, the voiced alveolar stop, is transcribed as / d
/.
 The first sound in cool is a voiceless velar stop; it is transcribed as / k /. Its voiced
counterpart, the voiced velar stop, is transcribed as / ɡ /; an example is the consonant in ago.
We have now identified bilabial, alveolar and velar stops; stops may be made at many other
places of articulation, but we will ignore those, as they are not relevant to the study of English.
There is one further stop which we must mention, however, as it is very common in the speech
of most speakers of English. This is the glottal stop (transcribed as [ʔ]). It is made by forming a
constriction of complete closure between the vocal folds. This is the sound made instead of / t /
in many Scottish and Cockney pronunciations of, for example, the word butter. We will see that
it is present in the speech of almost every speaker of English, no matter what the accent. There
is no question of describing the glottal stop as voiced or voiceless, since it is articulated in the
glottis itself.
Ladefoged and Johnson 10 classify the stops as oral stops and nasal stops. If, in addition to the
9F
articulatory closure in the mouth, the soft palate is raised so that the nasal tract is blocked off,
then the airstream will be completely obstructed. Pressure in the mouth will build up and an
oral stop will be formed. When the articulators come apart, the airstream will be released in a
small burst of sound. This kind of sound occurs in the consonants in the words pie, buy (bilabial
closure), tie, dye (alveolar closure), and key, guy (velar closure). If the air is stopped in the oral
cavity, but the soft palate is down so that air can go out through the nose, the sound produced is
a nasal stop. Sounds of this kind occur at the beginning of the words my (bilabial closure) and
nigh (alveolar closure), and at the end of the word sang (velar closure). Apart from the presence
of a velic opening, there is no difference between this stop and the one in buy. Although both
the nasal sounds and the oral sounds can be classified as stops, the term stop by itself is almost
always used by phoneticians to indicate an oral stop, and the term nasal to indicate a nasal stop.
10

Thus, the consonants at the beginnings of the words day and neigh would be called an alveolar
stop and an alveolar nasal, respectively. Although the term stop may be defined so that it applies
only to the prevention of air escaping through the mouth, it is commonly used to imply a
complete stoppage of the airflow through both the nose and the mouth.
1.5.2 Fricatives
Let us now distinguish between complete closure and another, less extreme, degree of
constriction: close approximation. Sounds which are produced with this kind of constriction
entail a bringing together of the two articulators to the point where the airflow is not quite fully
blocked: enough of a gap remains for air to escape, but the articulators are so close together that
friction is created as the air escapes. Sounds of this sort are referred to as fricatives.
 The first sound in fin is created by bringing the lower lip close to the upper teeth in a
constriction of close approximation. This sound is a voiceless labio-dental fricative
(transcribed as / f /). Its voiced counterpart (the voiced labiodental fricative, transcribed as / v
/) is the consonant in Eva.
 The first sound in thin is created by bringing the tip of the tongue into a constriction of close
approximation with the upper teeth. This sound is a voiceless dental fricative, transcribed as
/ θ /. Its voiced counterpart, the voiced dental fricative (transcribed as / ð /) is, for some
speakers, the first sound in the word that.
 The first sound in sin is created by bringing the tip or blade of the tongue into a constriction
of close approximation with the alveolar ridge. This sound, transcribed as / s /, is a voiceless
alveolar fricative. Its voiced counterpart, the voiced alveolar fricative (transcribed as / z /)
is the consonant in zoo.
 The first sound in ship is created by bringing the blade of the tongue into a constriction of
close approximation with the palato-alveolar region. This sound, transcribed as / ʃ /, is a
voiceless palato-alveolar fricative. Its voiced counterpart, transcribed as / ʒ /, is the second
consonant in seizure.
Fricatives may be articulated at any point of articulation, but many of those sounds are
irrelevant to the study of English. However, we will mention three.
 One is the voiceless velar fricative / x /, found in the speech of many Scots, in words such
as loch. Another is the voiceless fricative [ʍ], again found in the speech of many Scots, as
in words like whale (as opposed to wail) and which (as opposed to witch); its place of
articulation is labial-velar.
 A third is the glottal fricative / h /, as in the first sound in hit. This sound is produced by
bringing the vocal cords into a constriction of close approximation, so that friction is
produced. As the vocal cords are not vibrating, we will take it that this is a voiceless sound.
1.5.3 Affricates
These sounds are produced by making an initial stop (or closure) followed by a fricative release.
A first example is that of the word church, in which the first sound starts with the voiceless
alveolar stop / t / followed by the voiceless palatal fricative / ʃ /, the final sound would be
transcribed as / ʧ / and named voiceless post alveolar (or pre-palatal) affricate. Its voiced
counterpart is formed then by using the voiced equivalents of / t / and / ʃ /, which are /d/ and /ʒ/
(transcribed together as / ʤ /) in words like joke. This sound is called voiced post alveolar (or
pre-palatal) affricate.

Class Notes 16
1.5.4 Approximants
The least radical degree of constriction occurs when the articulators come close
together, but not sufficiently close together to create friction. This kind of stricture is called
open approximation. Consonants produced in this way are called approximants.
The first sound in yes is an approximant. It is produced by bringing the front of the tongue close
to the hard palate. Although the sides of the tongue are in a constriction of complete closure
with the upper gums, the air escapes along a central groove in which the front of the tongue is
not close enough to the hard palate to create friction. This sound, transcribed as/j/, is a voiced
palatal approximant. Approximants are normally voiced 11, so we will not discuss any
10F
voiceless counterparts for these sounds.

The first sound in many English speakers’ pronunciation of rip, rope, rat, etc. is an
approximant. It is produced by bringing the blade of the tongue into a constriction of open
approximation with the alveolar ridge. This approximant, transcribed as / r /, is referred to as a
voiced alveolar approximant. As with / j /, the sides of the tongue form a constriction of
complete closure with the gums at the sides of the mouth, but the air escapes along a central
groove without creating friction. For most speakers (and in varying degrees, depending on the
accent), the tongue body is somewhat retracted when / r / is uttered; it is therefore often referred
to as a post-alveolar approximant (retroflex), but ‘alveolar approximant’ will suffice for our
purposes. It’s also worth mentioning that there are varieties of English in which the final ‘r’ is
not pronounced, as in the word car, unless it precedes a vocalic sound in the following word or
within the same word. This is a non-rhotic accent, common in RP or other varieties in the US
(Boston and New York dialects) South Africa, New Zealand or Australia. Rhotic varieties,
which occur in most of the United States and many regions in the UK, the / r / is always
pronounced regardless of the position in a word. Two other realisations of the / r / sound occur
in Scottish English, for example: the alveolar flap (or tap) and the alveolar trill (or roll). The
first one, transcribed as [ɾ], occurs in words like three (with a stronger pronunciation of the ‘r’).
In American dialects, the same flap occurs as an allophone of / t / and / d / in intervocalic
position (butter, city, or daddy). The second one, transcribed as [r]; [r̝] or [r̻] depending on the
author, occurs in words like curd. The roll in this allophone is the same as the Spanish phoneme
found in perro.
Let us identify one further such sound, the sound at the beginning of wet. In producing this
sound, the lips form a constriction of open approximation: there is no friction produced. But its
articulation is more complicated than that of / j /, the palatal approximant, since it also involves
another articulation, between the back of the tongue and the velum (i.e. a velar articulation). We
will therefore refer to it as a voiced labio-velar approximant; it is transcribed as / w /.
Ladefoged and Johnson 12 also identify another type of approximant called lateral. It is formed
11F
by an obstruction of the airstream at a point along the centre of the oral tract, with incomplete
closure between one or both sides of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. Say the word lie and
note how the tongue touches near the centre of the alveolar ridge. Prolong the initial consonant
and note how, despite the closure formed by the tongue, air flows out freely, over the side of the
tongue. Because there is no stoppage of the air, and not even any fricative noises, these sounds
are classified as approximants. The consonants in words such as lie, laugh are alveolar lateral
approximants, but they are usually called just alveolar laterals, their approximant status being
assumed. You may be able to find out which side of the tongue is not in contact with the roof of
the mouth by holding the consonant position while you breathe inward. The tongue will feel
11
The case of using the vocal folds to produce voiced and voiceless sounds is only pertinent in stops,
fricatives and the combination of these two, i.e. affricates. The rest of the consonant sounds are all
voiced.
12

colder on the side that is not in contact with the roof of the mouth. There are other instances in
which a lateral velar approximant is produced in postvocalic ‘l’ as found in words like ill. The
tongue is retracted and does not touch any part within the mouth, instead, it goes back giving it
a velar quality. However, there is still some argument about this sound as many authors consider
it to be an allophone of the / l /, being transcribed as [l̴].
As a summary, consonant sounds can be simplified in the following table:
Postalveolar
Labiodental
Retroflex
Alveolar
Bilabial
Glottal
Palatal
Dental
Velar
Plosive p b t d k ɡ ʔ
Nasal m n
Fricative f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h
Approximant w r ɹ j w
Lateral l
Affricate d
tʃ
ʒ
Table 2 - Summary of consonant sounds in English classified by manner (light purple) and point (light blue) of
articulation. Voiced sounds have been shaded. NB the / w / sound has a double point of articulation, as explained
before.
Davenport and Hannahs 13 offer a more complete inventory of the typical English consonants
12F
grouped in two major categories: Obstruents and Sonorants.
Category 1: Obstruents
Group 1: Stops
Place Manner Symbol Example
bilabial voiceless unaspirated [p] happy, tap
voiceless aspirated [ph] pit
voiced [b] but, rubber, lob
alveolar voiceless unaspirated [t] writer, hit
voiceless aspirated [th] tip
voiced [d] dip, rider, bid
voiced flap [ɾ] writer, rider 14 13F
velar voiceless unaspirated [k] looking, tick

voiceless aspirated [kh] kit
voiced [ɡ] game, muggy, dog
glottal voiceless [ʔ] writer, hit 15 14F
Group 2: Affricates
palato-alveolar voiceless [tʃ] ([č]) chuck, butcher, catch
voiced [dʒ] ([ǰ]) jug, lodger, fudge
Group 3: Fricatives
labio-dental voiceless [f] fun, loafer, stuff
voiced [v] very, liver, dive
dental voiceless [θ] thin, frothing, death
voiced [ð] then, loathing, bathe
alveolar voiceless [s] sin, icing, fuss
voiced [z] zoo, rising, booze
13
Davenport, Michael & Hannahs, S. J (2010). Introducing phonetics and phonology (3rd ed). Hodder
Education, London
14
North American English
15
Many British English varieties

Class Notes 18
Category 1: Obstruents
Group 1: Stops
palato-alveolar voiceless [ʃ] ([š]) ship, rasher, lush
voiced [ʒ] ([ž]) treasure, rouge
glottal voiceless [h] hop
velar voiceless [x] loch 16
15F
Category 2: Sonorants
Group 1: Nasals
bilabial [m] man, tummy, rum
alveolar [n] nod, runner, gin
velar [ŋ] drinker, thing
Group 2: Liquids
alveolar lateral ‘clear’ [l] long, mellow
‘dark’ (velarised) [l̴] dull
alveolar rhotic [ɹ] run, very (car, cart 17)
16F
Group 3: Glides
palatal [j] yes
labial-velar [w] with
1.6 THE ARTICULATION OF THE VOWEL SOUNDS

In the production of vowel sounds, the articulators
do not come very close together, and the passage
of the airstream is relatively unobstructed. We can
describe vowel sounds roughly in terms of the
position of the highest point of the tongue and the
position of the lips. Fig. 11 shows the articulatory
position for the vowels in heed, hid, head, had,
father, good, food. Of course, in saying these
words, the tongue and lips are in continuous
motion throughout the vowels. The positions
shown in the figure are best considered as the
targets of the gestures for the vowels.
As you can see, in all these vowel gestures, the
tongue tip is down behind the lower front teeth,
Figure 8 -The positions of the vocal organs and the body of the tongue is domed upward.
for the vowels in the words 1 heed, 2 hid, 3 Check that this is so in your own pronunciation.
head, 4 had, 5 father, 6 good, 7 food. The
You will notice that you can prolong the / h /
lip positions for vowels 2, 3, and 4 are
between those shown for 1 and 5. The lip sound and that there is no mouth movement
position for vowel 6 is between those between the / h / and the following vowel; the / h /
shown for 1 and 7 is like a voiceless version of the vowel that comes
after it. In the first four vowels, the highest point
of the tongue is in the front of the mouth. Accordingly, these vowels are called front vowels.
The tongue is close to the roof of the mouth for the vowel in heed (you can feel that this is so by
breathing inward while holding the target position for this vowel), slightly less close for the
vowel in hid (for this and most other vowels it is difficult to localise the position by breathing
16
Irish Eng., Scottish Eng., Welsh Eng.
17
Scottish English, North American English

inward; the articulators are too far apart), and lower still for the vowels in head and had. If you
look in a mirror while saying the vowels in these four words, you will find that the mouth
becomes progressively more open while the tongue remains in the front of the mouth. The
vowel in heed is classified as a high front vowel, and the vowel in had as a low front vowel. The
height of the tongue for the vowels in the other words is between these two extremes, and they
are therefore called mid-front vowels. The vowel in hid is a mid-high vowel, and the vowel in
head is a mid-low vowel.
Now try saying the vowels in father, good, food. In all three, the tongue is close to the back
surface of the vocal tract. These vowels are classified as back vowels. The body of the tongue is
highest in the vowel in food (which is therefore called a high back vowel) and lowest in the first
vowel in father (which is therefore called a low back vowel). The vowel in good is a mid-high
back vowel. The tongue may be near enough to the roof of the mouth for you to be able to feel
the rush of cold air when you breathe inward while holding the position for the vowel in food.
Lip gestures vary considerably in different vowels. They are generally closer together in the
mid-high and high back vowels (as in good, food), though in some forms of American English
this is not so. Look at the position of your lips in a mirror while you say just the vowels in heed,
hid, head, had, father, good, food. You will probably find that in the last two words, there is a
movement of the lips in addition to the movement that occurs because of the lowering and
raising of the jaw. This movement is called lip rounding. It is usually most noticeable in the
inward movement of the corners of the lips. Vowels may be rounded (as in who’d) or
unrounded (as in heed).
In summary, the targets for vowel gestures can be described in terms of three factors:
a. the height of the body of the tongue;
b. the front–back position of the tongue; and
c. the degree of lip rounding.
Say just the vowels in the words given in the figure caption and check that your tongue moves
in the pattern described by the points. It is very difficult to become aware of the position of the
tongue in vowels, but you can probably get some impression of tongue height by observing the
position of your jaw while saying just the vowels in the four words heed, hid, head, had. You
should also be able to feel the difference between front and back vowels by contrasting words
such as he and who. Say these words silently and concentrate on the sensations involved. You
should feel the tongue going from front to back as you say he, who. You can also feel your lips
becoming more rounded.
1.6.1 Cardinal vowels

It has become traditional to locate cardinal
vowels on a four-sided figure (a quadrilateral of
the shape seen in Fig. 12 – the design used here
is the one recommended by the International
Phonetic Association). The exact shape is not
important – a square would do quite well – but
we will use the traditional shape. The vowels in
Fig. 12 are the so-called primary cardinal
vowels; these are the vowels that are most
familiar to the speakers of most European
languages, and there are other cardinal vowels Figure 9 - The primary cardinal vowels
(secondary cardinal vowels) that sound less familiar. Cardinal vowels are usually printed within
square brackets [ ] to distinguish them clearly from English vowel sounds.

Class Notes 20
Cardinal vowel no. 1 has the symbol [i] and is defined as the vowel which is as close and as
front as it is possible to make a vowel without obstructing the flow of air enough to produce
friction noise; friction noise is the hissing sound that one hears in consonants like s or f.
Cardinal vowel no. 5 has the symbol [ɑ] and is defined as the most open and back vowel that it
is possible to make. Cardinal vowel no. 8 [u] is fully close and back and no. 4 [a] is fully open
and front. After establishing these extreme points, it is possible to put in intermediate points
(vowels no. 2, 3, 6 and 7).
6
9
Figure 10 - English vowels

8
10
12
11
4
2
3
1
1.6.2 The twelve English vowel phonemes
1. / iː / as in eat
2. /ɪ/ as in it
3. /e/ as in bed Front
4. /æ/ as in cat
5. / ɑː / as in cart
6. /ɒ/ as in lot
7. / ɔː / as in all Back
8. /ʊ/ as in put
9. / uː / as in soon
10. /ʌ/ as in cut
11. / ɜː / as in bird
12. /ə/ as in the second syllable of brother Central

1.6.3 Diphthongs
Figure 11 - Diphthongs
Apart from the 12 pure vowel phonemes (also called monophthongs) in English, there are 8
diphthongs which can be classified as in Fig. 14.
The centring diphthongs (also called centripetal) glide towards the ə (schwa) vowel, as the
symbols indicate.
ɪə (example words: ‘beard’, weird’, ‘fierce’) The starting
point is a little closer than i in ‘bit’, ‘bin’,
eə (example words: ‘aired’, ‘cairn’, ‘scarce’) This diphthong
begins with a vowel sound that is more open than the e of
‘get’, ‘men’
ʊ (example words: ‘moored’, ‘tour’, ‘lure’) For speakers
ə who have this diphthong, this has a starting point like u in
‘put’, ‘pull’. Many speakers pronounce ɔː instead.
Figure 12 - Centring
diphthongs
The closing diphthongs have the characteristic that they all end with a glide towards a closer
vowel. Because the second part of the diphthong is weak, they often do not reach a position that
could be called close. The important thing is that a glide from a relatively more open towards a
relatively closer vowel is produced. Three of the diphthongs glide towards ɪ, as described
below:
eɪ (example words: ‘paid’, ‘pain’, ‘face’) The starting point

is the same as the e of ‘get’, ‘men’,
aɪ (example words: ‘tide’, ‘time’, ‘nice’) This diphthong
begins with an open vowel which is between front and
back; it is quite like the ʌ of the words ‘cut’, ‘bun’,
ɔɪ (example words: ‘void’, ‘loin’, ‘voice’) The first part of
this diphthong is slightly more open than ɔː in ‘ought’,
‘born’.
Figure 13 - Closing
Two other closing diphthongs glide towards ʊ, so that as the
diphthongs
tongue moves closer to the roof of the mouth there is at the same

Class Notes 22
time a rounding movement of the lips. This movement is not a large one, again because the
second part of the diphthong is weak.
əʊ (example words: ‘load’, ‘home’, ‘most’) The vowel position for the beginning of
this is the same as for the “schwa” vowel ə, as found in the first syllable of the
word ‘about’. The lips may be slightly rounded in anticipation of the glide
towards ʊ, for which there is quite noticeable lip-rounding.
a (example words: ‘loud’, ‘gown’, ‘house’) This diphthong begins with a vowel like
ʊ aɪ. Since this is an open vowel, a glide to ʊ would necessitate a large movement,
and the tongue often does not reach the u position. There is only slight lip-
rounding.
1.1.1 Triphthongs
A triphthong is a glide from one vowel to another and then to a third, all produced rapidly and
without interruption. For example, a careful pronunciation of the word ‘hour’ begins with a
vowel quality like ɑː, goes on to a glide towards the back close rounded area (for which we use
the symbol ʊ), then ends with a mid-central vowel (schwa, ə). We use the symbol aʊə to
represent the pronunciation of ‘hour’, but this is not always an accurate representation of the
pronunciation.
The triphthongs can be looked on as being composed of the five closing diphthongs described
in the last section, with ə added on the end. Thus, we get:
 eɪ + ə = eɪə (player, layer, etc.)

 aɪ + ə = aɪə (higher, liar, fire, etc.)
 ɔɪ + ə = ɔɪə (loyal, royal, etc.)
 əʊ + ə = əʊə (lower, mower, etc.)
 aʊ + ə = aʊə (power, hour, etc.)

1.2 EXERCISES
1.2.1 Vowels
1. Describe the articulation of the following sounds. Be sure to include information about
the path of airflow, the state of the vocal cords, the position of the velum and the
obstruction in the oral cavity.
a. [b] — ………………………………………………………………….
b. [ŋ] — ………………………………………………………………….
c. [tʃ] — ………………………………………………………………….
d. [s] — ………………………………………………………………….
e. [θ] — ………………………………………………………………….
2. Assuming the consonants of English, indicate the symbol representing the sound
described by each of the following:
a. voiceless alveolar stop  ………..
b. voiced dental fricative  ………..
c. voiced labial-velar glide  ………..
d. voiceless velar stop  ………..
e. voiced alveolar nasal (stop)  ………..
3. Describe each of the following symbols in words. Example: [d] = voiced alveolar stop.
a. [b]  ……………………………………………………………….
b. [m]  ……………………………………………………………….
c. [v]  ……………………………………………………………….
d. [dʒ]  ……………………………………………………………….
e. [ɹ]  ……………………………………………………………….
4. Identify the difference in articulation between the following groups of sounds. For
example, [p b t ɡ] differ from [f s ʃ θ] in that the sounds in the first set are all stops and
the sounds in the second set are fricatives.
a. [p t s k] vs. [b d z ɡ]  ………………………………….
b. [b d ɡ] vs. [m n ŋ]  ………………………………….
c. [n l ɹ] vs. [t d s]  ………………………………….
d. [p b f v m] vs. [t d s z n]  ………………………………….
e. [w j] vs. [l ɹ]  ………………………………….
Exercises (from Roach's book)
1. On the diagram provided, various articulators are indicated by labelled arrows (a–
e). Give the names for the articulators.
a. …………………………….
b. …………………………….
c. …………………………….
d. …………………………….
e. …………………………….
2. Using the descriptive labels introduced for vowel

classification, say what the following cardinal vowels
are:

Class Notes 24
a) [u] – ……………………………………………………………….
b) [e] – ……………………………………………………………….
c) [a] – ……………………………………………………………….
d) [i] – ……………………………………………………………….
e) [o] – ……………………………………………………………….
3. Draw a vowel quadrilateral and indicate on it the correct places for the following
English vowels: æ; ʌ; ɪ and e.
1.2.2 Consonants
1. Highlight the words that begin with a stop:
a. philanderer f. charismatic k. gruelling
b. plasterer g. cereal l. guardian
c. cry h. carping m. thick
d. parsimonious i. tickle n. bin
e. psyche j. ghoulish o. dreary
2. Highlight the words that begin with a fricative:
a. ship f. philosophy
b. psychology g. think
c. veer h. late
d. round i. xylophone
e. plot
3. Highlight the words that end with a fricative:
a. stack g. hash m. pleads
b. whale h. haze n. mission
c. swim i. phase o. energy
d. epitaph j. use p. later
e. half k. path q. truth
f. halve l. cuts r. froth
4. Highlight the words that end with a nasal:
a. rain
b. rang
c. dumb
d. deaf
5. Highlight the words that begin with a lateral:
a. nut d. rob
b. lull e. list
c. bar f. one
6. Highlight the words that begin with an approximant:

a. we
b. you
c. shut
d. run
e. one
f. cry
7. Describe the position and action of the articulators during the production of the
following sounds – e.g.
[d] – the blade of the tongue forms a constriction of complete closure with the alveolar
ridge, vocal cords are vibrating.
[f] – lower lip is brought close to the upper teeth in a constriction, vocal cords are not
vibrating.
Phone Position and action of the articulators during production

the tip of the tongue is brought into a constriction of close approximation with
the upper teeth, vocal cords are vibrating
A constriction of complete closure is made at the lips, vocal cords are not
vibrating
the back of the tongue forms a constriction of complete closure with the velum,
vocal cords are vibrating
the blade of the tongue forms a constriction of complete closure with the
alveolar ridge, vocal cords are not vibrating
the vocal cords are brought into a constriction of close approximation, vocal
cords are not vibrating
the blade of the tongue is brought into a constriction of close approximation with
the palato-alveolar region, vocal cords are not vibrating
the back of the tongue forms a constriction of complete closure with the velum,
vocal cords are not vibrating
the tip of the tongue is brought into a constriction of close approximation with
the upper teeth, vocal cords are not vibrating
the tip or blade of the tongue is brought into a constriction of close

approximation with the alveolar ridge, vocal cords are not vibrating
A constriction of complete closure is made at the lips, vocal cords are vibrating
lower lip is brought close to the upper teeth in a constriction of close

approximation, vocal cords are vibrating
the tip or blade of the tongue is brought into a constriction of close

approximation with the alveolar ridge, vocal cords are vibrating

Class Notes 26
Unit 2
2 PHONEMIC AND PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
1.1 PHONOLOGY AND PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

There are two ways in which we can transcribe speech. Phonemic transcription, also
sometimes known as ‘broad’ transcription, involves representing speech using just a unique
symbol for each phoneme of the language. Features like allophones or any other specific
realisations of a sound are not considered when transcribing with phonemic symbols. When we
transcribe phonemically, we are representing not actual sounds, but abstract mental constructs.
Transcription must be noted between slanted bars or “slashes”, for example: / e /.
The other way we can transcribe speech is using phonetic transcription, also sometimes
known as ‘narrow’ transcription. This involves representing additional details about the
contextual variations in pronunciation that occur in normal speech. Note that phonetic
transcription is placed between [square brackets]. When we transcribe phonetically, we are
representing not abstract mental constructs, but rather the actual sounds in terms of their
acoustic and articulatory properties.
Phonemic and phonetic transcription both have their purposes. The goal of a phonemic
transcription is to record the ‘phonemes as mental categories’ that a speaker uses, rather than the
actual spoken variants of those phonemes that are produced in the context of a particular word.
An English speaker has internalized a rule that says, ‘sounds like / t / are always aspirated when
word-initial’, so they’ll automatically make the / t / in ‘tenth’ aspirated. Phonetic transcription
on the other hand specifies the finer details of how sounds are made. So, a non-English speaker
trained in the IPA could look at a phonetic transcription like [tʰɛ̃n̪θ] and know how to pronounce
it accurately without knowing the rules about English phonemes.
1.3 THE ENGLISH PHONEMIC INVENTORY. COMPARISON WITH

SPANISH
While Spanish and English consonants systems show many similarities, the vowel system and
sentence stress are very different. When it comes to vowels, Spanish has five pure vowels and
five diphthongs, in which length is not a distinctive feature. In terms of consonants, there are
similar sounds, others that share the same phoneme and other which only occur as allophones in
one of them. Finch and Ortiz 18 compare Spanish and English in the following tables:
17F
Table 3 - The English and Spanish vowel phonemes
The English vowel phonemes

i ɪ e æ ɑ ɒ ɔ ʊ u ʌ ɜ ə
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
eɪ əʊ aɪ aʊ ɔɪ ɪə eə ʊə
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
The Spanish vowel phonemes
i e a o u
1 2 3 4 5
ei ai oi ui iu eu au ia ua ie ue io uo
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
18
Finch, D. and Ortiz, H. (1982) A Course in English Phonetics for Spanish Speakers.

Table 4 - The English and Spanish consonant phonemes
Palato-alveolar
Post-alveolar
Labio-dental
Alveolar
Bilabial
Palatal
Glottal
Dental
Velar
E p b t d k ɡ
Plosive
S p b t d k ɡ
E tr dr ʧ ʤ
Affricate
S ʧ
E m n
Nasal
S m n ŋ
E
Roll
S r ɲ
E
Flap
S ɾ
E l
Lateral
S l ʎ
E f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h
Fricative
S f θ s jz x
E
Approximant
S
E w j
Semivowel
S
1.4 DESCRIPTION AND TRANSCRIPTION OF ENGLISH VOWELS

1.4.1 Vowels / iː /, / ɪ /, / e /, / æ /
Examples: bead / biːd / bet / bet /
bit / bɪt / tap / tæp /
Comments:
1. Notice that the / iː / is a long vowel while / ɪ /, / e /, and / æ / are short vowels. A special
length mark (ː) is put after long vowels to remind us that they are long.
2. Write the symbol for / æ / using one movement of the pen only. Start with the top left-
hand corner of the symbol, and without taking your pen off the paper, “glide” your pen
as if writing a number six, then go on to drawing the letter “e” with the same stroke.
The two glyphs must be drawn together.
3. Notice that the long / iː / has a “dot” but only half a “flat hat” (i but not ɪ). Short / ɪ / has
no “dot” but does have a complete “flat hat”. When writing the symbols, you should
write long / iː / with no “flat hat” at all and no “flat base” either: / i /. Write short / ɪ /;
however, with both “flat hat” and a “flat base.”
Exercises: Write the following words in phonemic transcription:
 bee  hat  van

 egg  big  lid

Class Notes 28
 tea  lip  bad

 dead  mean  ten
 pack  mat  rat
 eat  pill
1.4.2 Vowels / ʌ / and / ɑː /

Examples: mud / mʌd /
bar / bɑː /
Comments:
1. / ʌ / is an upside-down letter “v”. you must write this symbol with a point at the top. If
there is no point, there may be confusion with / n /.
2. Notice that / ʌ / is a short vowel and / ɑː / a long vowel.
Exercises: Transcribe the following words in phonemic transcription:
 hut  harmed  trip

 gun  ham  tree
 hard  dumb  rent
 rum  hill  team
 arts  aunt  tramp
 nut  bug  hunt
 heart  bat  tart
2.1.1 Vowels / ɒ / and / ɔː /

Examples: hot / hɒt /
door / dɔː /
Comments:
1. / ɒ / is rather like “ɑ” upside down. It is perhaps easiest to write by making one
movement of your pen, starting in the top left-hand corner with a “hook,” and then
sweeping into the anticlockwise drawing of a circle.
2. / ɔː / is a back to front “c” plus the length mark.
3. Notice that /ɒ/ is a short vowel and / ɔː / a long vowel.
 pot  ball  man

 law  pop  mod
 dog  more  hall
 torn  mop  mud
 doll  rob  rot
 bond  bought  leap
 port  dig  part
2.1.2 Vowels / ʊ / and / uː /

Examples: good / ɡʊd /
boot / buːt /
Comments:

1. / ʊ / is usually printed as an upside-down Greek omega sign, with curved sides, which is
used by Gimson. The symbol has no supporting leg and foot o the right-hand side like
Words of themore
long vowel
than /one
uː /.syllable will appear in the exercises from here on, every multi-
2. Be
syllabic careful
word, when notpronounced
to write / u in
/ like an / n /. In
its citation some
form (i.e.people's handwriting
the form used when'u'saying
is verythe
similar
word
(or even identical) to 'n'.
alone or when looking the word up in a dictionary), usually has one syllable which is more
3. / ʊ than
prominent / is a the
shortother(s).
vowel andThis/uː/“stressed”
is a long vowel.
syllable is marked in transcriptions by a raised
vertical line (') in front of it. Thus:
 many / 'menɪ /
 pity / 'pɪtɪ /
 teapot / 'tiːpɒt /
 unsaid / ʌn'sed /
 indeed / ɪn'diːd /
Note carefully that whereas the letters of normal writing have two forms, a small letter and a
capital letter (e.g. “t” and “T”), phonemic symbols are always the same. In other words, the
sound / t / is always written as / t /, never as ‘T’. Even if the sound is the first sound in a
sentence, it is still written in the same way. Thus, if you have a sentence like:
Beat the carpet: / biːt ðə ꞌkɑːpɪt /
The first word will still be transcribed as /biːt/. Just because there is a capital letter ‘B’ in the
normal writing does not mean to say that there must be some sort of capital symbol in the
phonemic transcription.
However, proper nouns and adjectives, which will also appear in the exercises which follow, are
a different matter. Form these words, and for initials (e.g. Helsinki, Fred, Scottish, E.T.), use an
asterisk (*) before the word in the phonemic transcription. Thus:
 Ted / *ted /
 German / *ꞌʤɜːmən /
 Italy / *ꞌɪtəlɪ /
 E.T. / *'iː *ꞌtiː /
Not all phoneticians, and indeed not all textbooks on English or general phonetics, follow this
convention of an asterisk preceding initials and a proper noun or adjective, but it seems to make
the reading if transcriptions much easier.
2.1.3 Vowels / ɜː / and / ə /

Examples: burn / bɜːn / better / ꞌbetə /
a/ə/
Comments:
1. / ə / is the most common vowel sound in English.
2. / ə / only appears in unstressed syllables; it never appears in stressed syllables.
3. The symbol / ə / is the letter ‘e’ upside down. There must be a clearly visible straight
horizontal line in the symbol: / ə /. Other ways of transcribing this symbol may lead to
confusion.
 fatter  bird
 ever  a letter

Class Notes 30
 a word  a daughter
 to hurt  bitter
 a banana  a big bag
 bigger  a partner
 a girl  a hooter
 butter  dirty
 early  muddy
 to murder  a robber
 worm  women
 a learner  a hammer
 madder  a good dog
 meaner
2.1.4 Diphthongs / aɪ /, / eɪ / and / ɔɪ /

Examples: try / traɪ / boy / bɔɪ /
prey / preɪ /
Comments:
1. Notice that all these three diphthongs have the /ɪ/ symbol with a “flat hat” and a “flat
base”; there is no “dot.”
2. Notice that the symbol /a/ only appears in the diphthong /aɪ/ here and in the
diphthong /aʊ/ in the point 2.3.8. It is not the same symbol as in any of the pure vowels.
Exercise: Write the following words in phonemic transcription:
 light  rainy
 a toy  annoy
 today  a pint
 pilot  height
 to boil  vain
 right  male
 name  mile
 pointer  Roy
 to hate  time
 a writer  mate
2.1.5 Diphthongs / ɪə /, / eə / and / ʊə /

Examples: ear / ɪə / poor / pʊə /
bear / beə /
Comments:
1. Notice that the second part of the symbol for all these three diphthongs is again the
letter “e.”
2. The first part of the symbol / ʊə / has no supporting leg or foot on the right-hand side.
Again, like the pure short vowel /ʊ/, it is probably best to write the symbol with curved
lines, as in point 2.1.2.

 dare  air
 here  pier
 tour  poorly
 hairy  Mary
 beard  merely
 mayor  dearer
 moor  rarely
 idea  really
2.1.6 Diphthongs / əʊ / and / aʊ /

Examples: no / nəʊ /
now / naʊ /
Comments:
1. The second part of the symbol for both diphthongs, i.e. /ʊ/, has no leg or foot on the
right-hand side. Again, write the symbol with noticeably curved lines.
2. Notice that the first part of the symbol / aʊ / is “a”, not “ɑ” or “ʌ”. The symbol “a” only
appears in this diphthong / aʊ / and in the diphthong / aɪ /.
 how  round
 hope  a low boat
 town  a brown mouse
 over  blow
 down  a pole
 road  loud
 about  a mountain
 moan  a role
 an owl
2.1.7 General revision (Vowels)

Exercises: Write the following words and phrases in phonemic transcription:
 a poor boy  a tightrope

 our home  a bad dog
 a dear girl  put it down
 a good poem  deadly dull
 my toy  Pete’s Bar
 holy water  honeymoon
 I don’t know  a potato
 how about it  Madrid
 daytime
 a hairy bear
 a great hero
 downtown

Class Notes 32
2.2 DESCRIPTION AND TRANSCRIPTION OF ENGLISH CONSONANTS.

2.2.1 Plosives (oral stops) / p /, / b /, / t /, / d /, / k / and / ɡ /
Examples: pea / piː / die / daɪ /
bee / biː / key / kiː /
tea / tiː / go / ɡəu /
Comments:
1. The sounds / p / and / b / are regularly spelt as 'p' and 'b'. Occasionally, the letters “p”
and “b” are not pronounced (e.g. pneumonia, psalm, debt, comb, etc.)
2. The sound / t / is regularly spelt as 't' or 'tt' (sometimes also 'th', e.g. Thomas, Thames,
Thailand, etc.). Occasionally, the letter “t” is not pronounced, as in Christmas, castle,
etc.
3. Note carefully that the “-ed” marker for the past tense and past participle is pronounced
as:
i. / t / when it follows a fortis (voiceless obstruent) consonant other than / t /, e.g.
walked, coughed, rushed, etc.
ii. / d / when it follows a lenis (voiced obstruent) consonant other than /d/, e.g.
loved, robbed, fizzed, etc.
iii. / ɪd / when preceded by either / t / or / d /, e.g. painted, beaded, etc.
4. The sound / d / is always spelt as “d” or “dd”. No problems.
5. The lack of similarity between spelling and the sound / k / regularly leads only to
pronunciation problems but also to mistakes in transcriptions. Great care is needed here.
The sound / k / is variously spelt as 'k', 'ck', 'c', 'cc', 'qu', 'ch', and 'x' (e.g. king, duck,
account, conquer, chemistry, except). Note the following special cases, however:
i. “qu” sometimes = / kw /, e.g. queen
ii. “cc” sometimes = / ks /, e.g. accent
iii. “x” sometimes = / ks /, e.g. axe
To complicate matters further, the letters 'k' and 'c' are sometimes silent, as in knee,
know, knit, knife, or muscle.
6. The sound / ɡ / is usually spelt as “g” and “gg” though occasionally as “gh” or “gu”
(e.g. ghost, guess, guilty). The letter “g” is sometimes silent, as in sign, reign, gnaw,
and is sometimes not pronounced as / ɡ / at all but as the lenis affricate / ʤ /, as in
ginger and general.
Examples: Write the following words and phrases in phonemic transcription:
 black coal
 eggcup
 a writer
 a dark night
 a dirty pig
 a puppy barked
 I tapped
 Bob hummed
 Pete kicked
 a knitted hat
 a doorknob
 a painted cupboard

 a locked door
 combed hair
2.2.2 Nasals / m /, / n / and / ŋ /

Examples: meat / miːt /
note / nəʊt /
bang / bæŋ /
Comments:
1. The sound / n / is typically spelt as 'm' or 'mm', sometimes as 'mb' or 'mn' (e.g. tomb,
autumn, etc.)
2. The sound / n / is usually spelt as 'n' or 'nn', occasionally as 'kn', 'gn' or 'pn' (e.g.
knowledge, gnaw, pneumonia, etc.)
3. / n / may be syllabic, i.e. function as a syllable centre, in which case it is marked in
phonemic transcriptions by a little vertical line below the symbol: / ņ /, as in / ˈkɒtņ /, /
ˈbʌtņ /, / ˈiːtņ /, / ˈrɪdņ /. Such syllabic n’s are always unstressed and occur immediately
after a stressed syllable 19.18F
4. The sound / ŋ / is typically spelt as “ng” (e.g. king) or sometimes as 'n' if followed by
either of these sounds / ɡ / or / k /, as in finger, sink, uncle, etc.
Exercises: Write the following words and phrases in phonemic transcription.
 home-made
 cotton-mill
 kneeling
 a knight in armour
 ringing a bell
 a tank
 anger
 a hungry king
 a punk rocker
 a pretty kitten
 a written book
 a cold autumn
 pinned down
 an old monk
 I couldn’t hear
 a reigning monarch
 eaten
 I’ve given up
19
In the 14th edition of Everyman’s English Pronouncing Dictionary (Dent, 1977), Gimson does not
usually mark the syllabic “n” with a little vertical line below the symbol: he does not use a sign at all. He
says, “Final syllabic / ņ / is to be understood following / t, d, f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ /.” (p. xix). He goes on, “Final
syllabic / l / is similarly to be understood following /p, b, t, d, k, ɡ, f, v, θ, s, z, ʃ, m, n /.” (p. xx).
However, for the purposes of these notes, it is preferred to indicate syllabic /ņ/ and syllabic / ļ / every time
they occur with the little vertical line. Thus, it is explicitly clear that both sounds on their own without a
preceding short vowel /ə/ are syllabic.

Class Notes 34
2.2.3 Fricatives / f /, / v /, / θ / and / ð /

Examples: feet / fiːt / thank / θæŋk /
very / ˈverɪ / this / ðɪs /
Comments:
1. The sound / f / is typically spelt as “f”, “ff”, “ph” and “gh” (e.g. fish, off, photograph,
rough).
2. The sound / v / is usually spelt as “v”. But notice the weak form of “of”: / əʌ /.
3. Both sounds / θ / and / ð / are always spelt as “th”. This inevitably leads to problems for
foreign learners when a new strange word is read first rather than heard first: should the
“th” be pronounced as / θ / or as / ð /? Great care is needed here, However, there are two
general rules which may be of help:
a. In initial position “th” is always fortis (voiceless) / θ / except for a group of
about thirty words, including the definite article, pronouns and pronominal
adverbs (e.g. the, they, them, their, thou, thee, thy, thine, this, that, these, those,
than, then, thence, there, therefore, thither, though, thus). On the contrary, / θ /
is used with “big” (lexical) words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives (e.g.
thing, theatre, theft, think, thank, thick, thin, thoughtful, etc.)
b. In word medial position “th” is usually fortis (voiceless) / θ / in words of
foreign, and particularly Greek, origin (e.g. athlete, cathedral, mathematics,
sympathy, etc.), but lenis (voiced) / ð / in native English words (e.g. father,
weather, either, other, brother, etc.).
 thirty-five
 the five hundred
 enough food
 an undoubted triumph
 the three coughing men
 a love affair
 through thick and thin
 Philip loves Phyllis
 they laughed
 bathed
 Thomas coughed
 involved
 lived a good life
 then think again
 the thunder
 mother might though not father
 thick leather
 fruitcake
 a blunt knife
2.2.4 Sibilants / s /, / z /, / ʃ / and / ʒ /

Examples: meat / miːt / shoot / ʃuːt /
note / nəʊt / leisure / ˈleʒə /
Comments:

1. The sound / s / is usually spelt as ‘s’, ‘ss’ and ‘c’, sometimes as ‘sc’ (e.g. sit, loss,
peace, science, etc.) Notice also that ‘x’ is sometimes pronounced as / ks / (e.g. axe).
2. The sound / z / is spelt as ‘s’, ‘ss’, ‘z’ and ‘zz’ (e.g. busy, scissors, zoo, puzzle). Notice
again that ‘x’ is sometimes pronounced as / ɡz / (e.g. exact).
3. The sound / ʃ / is variously spelt as ‘sh’, ‘s’, ‘ss’, ‘ti’, ‘si’, ‘sci’, ‘ci’, ‘ch’, ‘sch’ and ‘ce’
(e.g. shoot, insure, reassuring, cation, mansion, conscience, special, machine, schedule,
ocean). Notice again one more pronunciation of ‘x’ / kʃ / (e.g. luxury).
4. The sound / ʒ / is spelt as ‘s’, ‘z’, ‘si’ and ‘ge’ (e.g. leisure, seizure, television, garage).
5. The letter ‘s’ is used in English to indicate plurality and genitive in nouns, and third
person singular in verbs. Note carefully that the pronunciation of this ‘s’ marker is / s /
after fortis (voiceless) non-sibilant consonants, but / z / after lenis (voiced) non-sibilant
consonants, approximants, nasals and vowels.
boats / bəʊts / loves / lʌvz /

Dick’s / *dɪks / kills / kɪlz /
kicks / kɪks / sings / sɪŋz /
beds / bedz / lies / laɪz /
Dave’s /* deɪvz /
The ‘s’ marker (usually ‘-es’) after a sibilant is, of course, pronounced as / ɪz /:
washes / ˈwɒʃɪz /
kisses / ˈkɪsɪz /
buzzes / ˈbʌsɪz /
 pleasure
 a marshy landscape
 a short skirt
 treasure
 a soapy razor
 a lazy cashier
 selfish boys
 sea-shells
 six exercises
 a grocer
 sixty sugar lumps
 seventeen cousins
 icy roads
 the garage
 the thirteenth psalm
 Susan’s cautious husband
 David’s patience
 difficult decisions
 crashed
 kissed
 rushed
 diseased

Class Notes 36
 Sheila sings songs

 Sarah begs
 it stinks
 the dog bites
 a starry night
2.2.5 Fricative / h /
Examples: hot / hɒt /
behind / bɪˈhaɪnd /
Comments:
1. The sound / h / is always spelt as either ‘h’ or ‘wh’ (e.g. hot, who).
2. Notice that the letter ‘h’ is occasionally not pronounced (e.g. eight, plough, hour,
honest, vehicle, shepherd, exhausting).
3. The sound / h / is regularly dropped in the weak form of he, him, his, her (see point
2.4.9) when the weak form in question is:
a. unstressed, and
b. in reasonably rapid and/or informal speech.
 hole  how did he go

 hire  give him his book
 hour  behave
 perhaps  rehearse
 ghastly  shouting crowds
 healthy  unhappy
 heaped  wholesome
 give him some  wholesale
2.2.6 Affricates / ʧ / and / ʤ /

Examples: church / ʧɜːʧ /
judge / ʤʌʤ /
Comments:
1. The sound / ʧ / is usually spelt as ‘ch’, ‘tch’, and ‘t’ (e.g. chair, catch, lecture, question,
etc.)
2. The sound / ʤ / is usually spelt as ‘j’, ‘g’, ‘gg’, ‘dg’ and sometimes as ‘dj’, ‘ge’, and
‘di’ (e.g. joke, age, suggest, ridge, adjacent, change, soldier, etc.)
3. For economic reasons, some phonetic textbooks print these sounds as two consecutive
but separate symbols, i.e. as / tʃ / and / dʒ /, not as / ʧ / and / ʤ /. However, each of
these two affricates is just one phoneme, not a sequence of two phonemes. It is perhaps
better, therefore, to try and write these affricate symbols as one unit.
 edge
 joy
 cheer /

 gem
 chat
 Cambridge
 snatched
 pinched
 kitchen
 region
 cheap chairs
 culture
 large
 nature
 strawberry jam
 psychology books
 cheddar cheese
 the parish church
 just joking
 Jack and Jill
 catch-phrases
 all change
 common knowledge
2.2.7 Approximants / l / and / r /

Examples: lip / lɪp /
red / red /
Comments:
1. The lateral sound / l / is always spelt as either ‘l’ or ‘ll’ (e.g. lip, hill, etc.)
2. The letter ‘l’ is sometimes not pronounced (e.g. walk, talk, folk, salmon, etc.)
3. / l / may be syllabic, i.e. function as a syllable centre, in which case it is written with a
little vertical line beneath it: / l̩ / (see footnote to syllabic / ņ /). The syllabic / l̩ / is
always unstressed and occurs immediately after a stressed syllable (e.g. / ˈmetl̩ /, / ˈkætl̩
/.
4. The sound /r/ is usually spelt as ‘r’ or ‘rr’ (e.g. red, lorry), bur occasionally was ‘wr’
and ‘rh’ (e.g. write, rhyme,).
5. The letter ‘r’ is never pronounced at the end of a word in RP English unless the
following sound in the word group (if there is one) begins with a vowel sound. The
pronunciation of this word final ‘r’ is called a linking ‘r’ (e.g. poor Ann: / ˈpʊər *ˈæn /).
Occasionally the desire for smoothness of pronunciation leads to the so-called intrusive
‘r’ being used between some word final and word initial vowel sounds (e.g. drama and
music: / ˈdrɑːmər ən ˈmjuːzɪk /; law and order / lɔːr ən ˈɔːdə /; Dracula is a pain…: /
ˈdrækjʊlər ɪz ə peɪn /).
 luck
 leave
 lemon
 blink
 only

Class Notes 38
 racial
 kettle
 bottle
 muscles
 castles
 roof
 shrill
 pour
 strength
 tour
 written
 car
 collar
 far away
 clear off
 treasure island
 a pair of sheets
 stir up
 Canada and the States
2.2.8 Approximants / j / and / w /

Examples: yet / jet/
wet /wet/
Comments:
1. The sound / j / is sometimes written as ‘y’ (e.g. yes, young), but more usually it is not
written as any letter at all: the presence of the sound is not always immediately obvious
from the spelling of a word (e.g. unite, Europe, music, tune, pure, new, beauty).
2. The sound / w / is sometimes spelt as ‘w’ or ‘wh’ (e.g. wet, which) but like / j / its
presence is sometimes not immediately obvious from a word’s spelling (e.g. one, quiet,
language, choir).
 youth
 unique
 humour
 universe
 students
 excused
 unusual
 the champion
 wire
 water
 wax
 watched
 questions
 quickly
 which one

 a new unit
 the quiet queen
 total confusion
 a huge sandwich
 a human language
 beauty and the beast
 a loud voice
 a wounded knee
 a united Europe
 a weird tune
2.3 ENGLISH ALLOPHONIC RULES

This list of allophonic rules of English, based on Ladefoged's A course in phonetics, makes clear
how to write a consistent narrow transcription, because the output of these rules must be
transcribed. Also, in discussions of English phonology, the list provides many examples for
practicing rule formulation. Note, however, that some of these rules are not suitable for a
categorical phonological description and are likely phonetic rules of a gradient nature.
2.3.1 Rules affecting consonants

1. Consonants are longer when at the end of a phrase.
2. Voiceless stops (i.e., / p, t, k / are aspirated when they are syllable initial, as in words
such as “pip, test, kick” [pʰɪp, tʰest, kʰɪk].
3. Obstruents ‒ stops and fricatives ‒ classified as voiced (that is, / b, d, ɡ, v, ð, z, ʒ /) are
voiced through only a small part of the articulation when they occur at the end of an
utterance or before a voiceless sound. Listen to the / v / when you say try to improve,
and the / d / when you say add two.
4. So-called voiced stops and affricates / b, d, ɡ, ʤ / are voiceless when syllable initial,
except when immediately preceded by a voiced sound (as in a day as compared with
this day).
5. Voiceless stops / p, t, k / are unaspirated after / s / in words such as spew, stew, skew.
6. Voiceless obstruents / p, t, k, ʧ, f, θ, s, ʃ / are longer than their corresponding voiced
obstruents / b, d, g, ʤ, v, ð, z, ʒ / when at the end of a syllable.
7. The approximants / w, r, j, l / are at least partially voiceless when they occur after initial
/ p, t, k /, as in play, twin, cue [pl̥eɪ, twɪ̥ n, kj̥u].
8. The gestures for consecutive stops overlap, so that stops are unexploded when they
occur before another stop in words such as apt [æp̚t] and rubbed [rʌb̚d].
9. In many accents of English, syllable final / p, t, k / are accompanied by a glottal stop, as
in pronunciations of tip, pit, kick as [tɪˀp, pɪˀt, kɪˀk]. (This is another case where
transcription cannot fully describe what occurs.)
10. In many accents of English, / t / is replaced by a glottal stop when it occurs before an
alveolar nasal in the same word, as in beaten ['biɁn̩]
11. Nasals are syllabic at the end of a word when immediately after an obstruent as in
leaden, chasm ['ledn̩, 'kæzm̩]
12. The lateral / l / is syllabic at the end of a word when immediately after a consonant.
a. The liquids / l / and / r / are syllabic at the end of a word when immediately
after a consonant.
13. Alveolar stops become voiced taps when they occur between two vowels, the second of
which is unstressed.
a. Alveolar stops and alveolar nasal plus stop sequences become voiced taps when
they occur between two vowels, the second of which is unstressed.

Class Notes 40
14. Alveolar consonants become dentals before dental consonants, as in eighth, tenth,
wealth [eɪt̪ θ, tɛn̪θ, wɛl̪ θ]. Note that this statement applies to all alveolar consonants, not
just stops, and it often applies across word boundaries, as in at this [æt̪ ðɪs]. This is a
statement that in English the gestures for these two consonant overlaps so much that the
place of articulation for the first consonant is changed.
15. Alveolar stops are reduced or omitted when between two consonants.
16. A homorganic voiceless stop may occur (i.e., be inserted) after a nasal before a
voiceless fricative followed by an unstressed vowel in the same word.
17. A consonant is shortened when it is before an identical consonant.
18. Velar stops become more front before more front vowels.
19. The lateral / l / is velarised when after a vowel or before a consonant at the end of a
word.
2.3.2 Rules affecting vowels

1. Other things being equal, a given vowel is longest in an open syllable, next longest in a
syllable closed by a voiced consonant, and shortest in a syllable closed by a voiceless
consonant.
2. Other things being equal, vowels are longer in stressed syllables.
3. Other things being equal, vowels are longest in monosyllabic words, next longest in
words with two syllables, and shortest in words with more than two syllables.
4. A reduced vowel may be voiceless when it occurs after a voiceless stop (and before a
voiceless stop). The parenthesised phrase may be omitted for many people.
5. Vowels are nasalised in syllables closed by a nasal consonant.
6. Vowels are retracted before syllable final dark [ɫ].
2.4 REVISION EXERCISES

1. Transcribe the following words using broad (phonemic) transcription.
 shock
 laugh
 dear heart
 deadly dull
 common knowledge
 hunger
 John's mother
 a cautious cashier
 clothe
 hurt
 changed
 entertain
 muscles
 singer
 a love affair
 merely joking
 assure
 born
 walked
 kitchen
 confusion

 forget
 women
 rarely ringing
2. Write the following transcriptions into regular words.
 / ɑːnt /
 / tʃeəz /
 / ˈvedʒtəbl̩z /
 / *dʒɒn kɒft /
 / ə naɪt ɪn ˈɑːmə /
 / ˈrɪtn̩ /
 / ˈjiə /
 / breθ /
 / ˈhɪərəʊ /
 / ʃʊə /
 / beɪðd /
 / dɪˈziːzd /
 / ˈreɪʃl̩ ˈkʌzn̩z /
 / hɑːmd /
 / wɒtʃt /
 / ˈkʌbəd /
 / ˈθʌndə /
 / meə /
 / lɑːdʒ /
 / ˈjʊərəp /
 / ˈwɜːd /
 / kəʊmd /

Class Notes 42
Unit 3
3 THE PHONETICS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND
SENTENCES.
1.1 STRONG AND WEAK FORMS

There are some very common and grammatically important words in English which have two
possible pronunciations in RP: a stressed (strong) form (= the citation form pronunciation), and
an unstressed (weak) form. The Weak Form pronunciation is far and away the more common
pronunciation of the two in normal speed everyday conversation. Unfortunately, foreign
learners of English seem to be taught and to use only the less common strong form
pronunciation. The following exercises assume that you are familiar not only with weak forms
and strong forms, but also with the rules governing their use. The notes accompanying the
exercises are not intended to be exhaustive and if in doubt you should consult any standard
textbook on English segmental phonetics for fuller details (e.g. A. C. Gimson: An
Introduction to the Pronunciation of English, 3rd edition, Edward Arnold, 1980). Briefly,
however, the basic rule governing the use of weak forms and strong forms is this: weak forms
are always used unless the word is either stressed or the last word in a word group. The best
thing to do if you are not sure is always to use the weak form since the weak form is
overwhelmingly the more frequent.
Almost all the words which have both a strong and weak form belong to a category that may be
called function words – words that do not have a dictionary meaning in the way that we
normally expect nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to have. These function words are words
such as auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, etc., all of which are in certain
circumstances pronounced in their strong forms, but which are more frequently pronounced in
their weak forms. It is important to remember that there are certain contexts where only the
strong form is acceptable, and others where the weak form is the normal pronunciation.
After completing the exercises following this point, it is perhaps worth your while to stop and
ask yourself which pronunciation you would teach beginners for all these weak form/strong
form words. Usually, beginners of English as a foreign language, whether they are young or old,
are taught only the strong forms (just as you probably were). Thus:
to / tuː /
for / fɔː /
etc.
This results in a terribly stiff and awkward pronunciation which sounds markedly foreign. And
having learnt the strong forms only, it is very hard for learners to adopt the weak forms (as you
may well have noticed yourself already). Since the weak form of pronunciation is the more
frequent one, which of the two pronunciation would you teach beginners? What arguments are
there in favour of teaching only the strong form? What problems are likely to be met in trying to
teach beginners both forms at once?
Examples:
Weak and strong forms: Pronouns
Pronoun Strong form Weak form

me / miː / / mɪ /


you / juː / / jʊ /
he / hiː / / ɪ, hɪ /
him / hɪm / / ɪm /
his / hɪz / / ɪz /
her / hɜː(r) / / ə(r), hə(r) /
she / ʃiː / / ʃɪ /
we / wiː / / wɪ /
us / ʌs / / əs, s /
them / ðem / / ðəm /
some / sʌm / / səm /
who / huː / / hʊ, ʊ /
that / ðæt / / ðət /
Comments:
1. Word initial / h / can be dropped in he, him, his, her and who if the word
a. is unstressed, and
b. is in reasonably rapid and/or informal speech.
But this word initial / h / should never be dropped in RP when the word
a. is the first word in the sentence or word group, or,
b. is stressed.
2. Strong forms are usually used when the word is the last word in the word group, even
when the word is unstressed. However, the six pronouns he, him, his, her, us and them
are regularly pronounced with the weal form when they are final in the word group (and
unstressed).
3. The usual weak form of you is / jʊ /. A weak form / jə / is sometimes heard in rapid
colloquial speech and is indeed listed in Everyman's English Pronouncing Dictionary,
but it is considered by some people to be a vulgarism typical of regional British accents
and not acceptable as RP.
4. The usual pronunciation of your is / jɔː / and of I is / aɪ /, but the weak forms / jə / and /
ə / may sometimes be heard in informal and very rapid colloquial speech.
Exercises: Write the following phrases in phonemic transcription:
 She said she would come.

 Did he want it?
 He went to work.
 We don't really like it.
 Buy him three.
 You can sing a song.
 What are you doing?
 She hates him.
 Give her a couple.
 I bought them yesterday.
 He told us twice.
 She asked me to go.
 I took him his coffee.
 Do you want some sugar?
 I wonder who did it.
 The book that was burnt.
 What's your name?

Class Notes 44
 Where's my coat?
 He sold her his car.
 They persuaded me to sell it.
 I've sent it to them.
 In spite of his charm.
 Not that we mind.
 I've asked him, not her.
 I was talking to her aunt.
Weak and strong forms: Pronouns

as / æz / / əz /
at / æt / / ət /
for / fɔː(r) / / fə(r) /
from / frɒm / / frəm /
of / ɒv / / əv /
to / tuː / / tə, tʊ /
into / ꞌɪntuː / / ɪntə, ɪntʊ /
Comments:
1. / tə / is a weak form used only before consonants. If the next word begins with a vowel
sound, then / tʊ / is used.
2. The uses of / ɪntə / and / ɪntʊ / mirror those of / tə / and / tʊ /.
Exercises: Write following phrases in phonemic transcription.
 She does it for the fun.

 She went by bus.
 Just as you like.
 I got it for nothing.
 They jumped at the offer.
 Well, it comes from America.
 He would have wanted to argue.
 Have you been to the theatre?
 Where do you come from?
 We climbed up onto the roof.
 What are you staring at?
 They all piled into the car.
 What are you thinking of?
 Jenny has to walk to school.
 Where are they going to?
 A nice cup of tea.
 What's it for?
 It starts at seven.
 As easy as anything.
3.1 WORD STRESS

Stress is a large topic and even though it has been extensively studied for a very long time there
remain many areas of disagreement or lack of understanding. To begin with a basic point, it is

almost certainly true that in all languages some syllables are in some sense stronger than
other syllables; these are syllables that have the potential to be described as stressed. It is also
probably true that the difference between strong and weak syllables is of some linguistic
importance in every language – strong and weak syllables do not occur at random.
Not all languages make use of the possibility of using stress on different syllables of a
polysyllabic word: in English, however, the stress pattern is an essential component of the
phonological form of a word, and learners of English either must learn the stress pattern of
each word, or to learn rules to guide them in how to assign stress correctly (or, quite probably,
both). Sentence stress is a different problem, and learners also need to be aware of the
phenomenon of stress-shift in which stress moves from one syllable to another in particular
contexts.
It is usual to treat each word, when said on its own, as having just one primary (i.e. strongest)
stress; if it is a monosyllabic word, then of course there is no more to say. If the word contains
more than one syllable, then other syllables will have other levels of stress, and secondary stress
is often found in words like overwhelming /ˌəʊvəˈwelmɪŋ/ (with primary word stress on the
‘whelm’ syllable and secondary stress on the first syllable).
Syllabification is closely connected with the accentual structure of words, which is known as
the word stress or lexical stress. In transcription, a superscribed vertical line appears before the
stressed syllable, e.g. never /ˈnevə/, agree /əˈgriː/. Every disyllabic or polysyllabic word is
pronounced with one or more syllables emphasized more than the remaining syllables in the
word. Stress is usually equated with the notions of emphasis and strength, as the stressed
syllables seem to be pronounced with more effort than unstressed ones. Clark and Yallop say
that this emphasis is “signalled by pitch as well as by supporting factors, notably loudness and
duration”. Roach defines it as a prominence that is determined by four main factors: loudness,
vowel length, vowel quality and pitch. In the following table, the stressed syllables are opposed
to unstressed ones:
Loudness Vowel length Vowel quality Pitch

Stressed Loud Long Strong High
syllable
Unstressed Quiet Short Weak Low
syllable
3.1.1 Syllable weight

Syllable weight is a property of syllables, referring to the quantity or internal structure of
syllables. These can be divided into light and heavy depending on language-specific
requirements (in some languages also superheavy syllables are distinguished). Initial
consonants of syllables are irrelevant to quantity. Depending on language-specific requirements
there can be an opposition between short and long vowels: V and VC group together as light
as opposed to VV which is heavy.
Another distinction commonly found is that between a short vowel (light) and VV/VC (heavy).
Superheavy are VVC and VCC in languages that distinguish light/heavy/superheavy. Syllable
weight plays a determining role in the distribution of stresses in Quantity-Sensitive stress
systems. Heavy syllables generally attract stress regardless of their position in the word. Light
syllables are stressed only according to their position in the word.
3.1.2 Placement of stress

Roach has a classification of stress patterns according to syllabification and syntactic category
(i.e. verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.), which is a useful guide to knowing where to place the stress
in a word:

Class Notes 46
object / ˈɒbdʒekt /
Nouns Stress on the first syllable speaker / ˈspi:kə /
centre / ˈsentə /
Stress on the final syllable arrange / əˈreɪndʒ /
(if the final syllable is release / rɪˈliːs /
strong) admit / ədˈmɪt /
Verbs
fasten / ˈfɑːsn̩ /
Disyllabic Stress on the first syllable (if
open / ˈəʊpən /
words the final syllable is weak)
answer / ˈɑːnsə /
Stress on the final syllable polite / pəˈlaɪt /
(if the final syllable is discrete / dɪˈskriːt /
strong) correct / kəˈrekt /
Adjectives
lovely / ˈlʌvli /
Stress on the first syllable (if
fatal / ˈfeɪtl̩ /
the final syllable is weak)
shabby / ˈʃæbi /
chocolate / ˈtʃɒklət /
Stress on the first syllable paragraph / ˈpærəɡrɑːf /
emperor / ˈempərə /
Nouns
confusion / kənˈfjuːʒn̩ /
Stress on the second syllable
potato / pəˈteɪtəʊ /
(if the first syllable is weak)
behaviour / bɪˈheɪvjə /
entertain / ˌentəˈteɪn /
Stress on the final syllable
disconnect / ˌdɪskəˈnekt /
(if it is strong)
Trisyllabic resurrect / ˌrezəˈrekt /
words Stress on the preceding remember / rɪˈmembə /
Verbs penultimate syllable (if the acknowledge / əkˈnɒlɪdʒ /
final one is weak) determine / dɪˈtɜːmɪn /
motivate / ˈməʊtɪveɪt /
Stress on the first syllable (if
monitor / ˈmɒnɪtə /
the following two are weak)
celebrate / ˈseləbreɪt /
insolent / ˈɪnsələnt /
Adjectives Stress on the first syllable positive / ˈpɒzɪtɪv /
shimmering / ˈʃɪmərɪŋ /
Another important factor in stress determination is the morphological structure of the words.
Some suffixes and prefixes in complex words may influence the level of stress, which can be
summarised in the following table:
Self-stressed -ee refugee /ˌrefjʊˈdʒiː/

suffixes 20
19F
-eer engineer /ˌendʒɪˈnɪə/
-ese Portuguese /ˌpɔːtʃʊˈɡiːz/
-ette kitchenette /ˌkɪtʃɪˈnet/
-esque sculpturesque /ˌskʌlptʃəˈresk/
Neutral -able knowledge /ˈnɒlɪdʒ/ knowledgeable
suffixes 21
20F
-ous continue /kənˈtɪnjuː/ continuous /kənˈtɪnjʊəs/
-age cover /ˈkʌvə/ coverage /ˈkʌvərɪdʒ/
-al rebut /rɪˈbʌt/ rebuttal /rɪˈbʌtəl/
-er advertise /ˈædvətaɪz/ advertiser /ˈædvətaɪzə/
20
They carry the primary stress themselves
21
They do not affect stress placement

-ate affection /əˈfekʃn̩ / affectionate /əˈfekʃənət/

-en threat /θret/ threaten /ˈθretn̩ /
-ful wonder /ˈwʌndə/ wonderful /ˈwʌndəfəl/
-ess steward /ˈstjʊəd/ stewardess /ˌstjʊəˈdes/
-hood like /ˈlaɪk/ likelihood /ˈlaɪklɪhʊd/
-man business /ˈbɪznəs/ businessman /ˈbɪznəsmæn/
-like child /tʃaɪld/ childlike /ˈtʃaɪldlaɪk/
-less power /ˈpaʊə/ powerless /ˈpaʊəlɪs/
-ish fool /fuːl/ foolish /ˈfuːlɪʃ/
-ly hurried /ˈhʌrɪd/ hurriedly /ˈhʌrɪdli/
-ment acknowled /əkˈnɒlɪdʒ/ acknowledgmen /əkˈnɒlɪdʒmənt/
-ness ge
discursive /dɪˈskɜːsɪv/ tdiscursiveness /dɪˈskɜːsɪvnəs/
-ous poison /ˈpɔɪzn̩ / poisonous /ˈpɔɪzənəs/
-fy glory /ˈɡlɔːri/ glorify /ˈɡlɔːrɪfaɪ/
-ship relation /rɪˈleɪʃn̩ / relationship /rɪˈleɪʃnʃɪp/
-some burden /ˈbɜːdn̩ / burdensome /ˈbɜːdnsəm/
Influencing -al governmen / governmental
suffixes 22
21F
-eous advantage /əd advantageous /ˌædvənˈteɪdʒəs/
- photograph /ˈvɑːntɪdʒ/ photography /fəˈtɒɡrəfi/
graph
-ate origin ˈfəʊtəɡrɑːf/
/ˈɒrɪdʒɪn/ originate /əˈrɪdʒəneɪt/
-ic climate /ˈklaɪmət/ climatic /klaɪˈmætɪk/
-ion transport /trænsˈpɔːt/ transportation /ˌtrænspɔːˈteɪʃn̩ /
-ious injure /ˈɪndʒə/ injurious /ɪnˈdʒʊərɪəs/
-ity banal /bəˈnɑːl/ banality /bəˈnæləti/
-ive prospect /prəˈspekt/ prospective /prəˈspektɪv/
-nda agent /ˈeɪdʒənt/| agenda /əˈdʒendə/
Most compounds words have two stresses: primary and secondary. Depending on how
compounds function in the sentence, the following stress patterns are found:
Compound General rule Primary stress on wristwatch /ˈrɪstˌwɒtʃ/
nouns the first element,
swimming
secondary stress on /ˈswɪmɪŋ
pool ˌpuːl/
the second element
goldfish /ˈɡəʊldˌfɪʃ/
If the first Primary stress on apple pie /ˌæpl ˈpaɪ/
element is an the second element,
strawberry /ˌstrɔːbri
ingredient of secondary stress on ˈmɪlkʃeɪk/
milkshake
the second the first element
element chicken
/ˌtʃɪkɪn
bouillon ˈbuːjɒn/
beef stew /ˌbiːf ˈstjuː/
Except Primary stress on chocolate

/ˈtʃɒklət ˌkeɪk/
compounds the first element, cake
ending in secondary stress on
lemon juice /ˈlemən
cake, juice or the second element ˌdʒuːs/
22
They influence stress in the stem

Class Notes 48
water rosewater /ˈrəʊz ˌwɔːtə/
Compound General rule Primary stress on blue-eyed /ˌbluː ˈaɪd/

adjectives the second element,
/ˌəʊpən
secondary stress on open-minded
ˈmaɪndɪd/
the first element
kindhearted /ˌkaɪnd
If the first Primary stress on ˈhɑːtɪd/
homesick /ˈhəʊm ˌsɪk/
element is the first element,
a noun secondary stress on handmade /ˈhænd ˌmeɪd/
the second element
Compound Primary stress on overboil /ˌəʊvə ˈbɔɪl/
verbs the second element,
secondary stress on underestimate /ˌʌndə
the first element ˈrestɪmeɪt/
outrun /ˌaʊtˈrʌn/
3.1.3 Stress in Word Class Pairs

There are words with identical spelling that represent different parts of speech. These words are
differentiated by means of shifting of the stress. A small group of words for which the noun is
differentiated from a verb by stress without a change in sound quality, e.g.:
increase /ˈɪnkriːs /, Noun, whereas increase /ɪnˈkriːs/, Verb

insult /ˈɪnsʌlt/, Noun, whereas insult /ɪnˈsʌlt /, Verb
impress /ˈɪmpres/, Noun, whereas or impress /ɪmˈpres/, Verb
Next follows another group of words for which the shifting of the stress may or may not be
accompanied by a change in the quality of the vowel in the unstressed syllable of the verbs, e.g.:
transport /ˈtrænspɔːt/, Noun, whereas transport /trænˈspɔːt/ or /trən

ˈspɔːt/, Verb
torment /ˈtɔːment/, Noun, whereas torment /tɔːˈment/ or /təˈment/, Verb
Finally, there is a large group of words for which the shifting of the stress is accompanied by a
change in the quality of the unstressed vowel, e.g.:
combine /ˈkɒmbaɪn/, Noun, whereas combine /kəmˈbaɪn/, Verb

conduct /ˈkɒndʌkt/, Noun, whereas conduct /kənˈdʌkt/, Verb
contrast /ˈkɒntrɑːst/, Noun, whereas contrast /kənˈtrɑːst/, Verb
There are also quite a few nouns that can form compounds but that can also be used like
adjectives to make phrases with other nouns. When they constitute a compound, the main
stress is placed on the first element. If they function as a phrase, the second element acquires the
main stress. Consider the following examples:
a blackboard /ˈblækbɔːd/ as a compound noun;

a black board /ˌblæk ˈbɔːd/ as an adjective and noun.

3.1.4 Stress Shift

When the change in stress placement is caused by the context, this is known as stress shift.
When a polysyllabic word with a stress placed at the end of it is followed by another word with
the stress placed in the beginning of it, there is a tendency for the stress in the first word to shift
towards the beginning, especially if it has a syllable that is capable of receiving stress, e.g.:
Japanese /ˌdʒæpəˈniːz/, but a Japanese student /ˈdʒæpəˌniːz ˈstjuːdnt/
3.2 SENTENCE STRESS. ENGLISH RHYTHM

Word stress gets modified within the sentence with dropping of stresses from lexical words.
English avoids stresses too close together.
e.g.:
‘Mary’s younger ‘brother wanted ‘fifty chocolate ‘peanuts

The ‘big brown ‘bear ate ‘ten white ‘mice.
English is a stress-timed language (unlike Spanish, which is syllable-timed with little syllable
weakening) and stresses tend to recur at regular intervals. There are certain processes which
work together to maintain this rhythm:
1. Some lexical words are often unstressed to prevent too many stresses coming together.
2. Some words have variable stress:
a. He plays the clari’net vs a ‘clarinet solo
b. ‘Vice-President ‘Jones vs ‘Jones, the Vice-‘President
c. ‘Sixteen ‘parrots vs She’s ‘only six’teen
d. The un’known ‘man vs The ‘man was un’known
3. There is a tendency to minimize the variation in the length of words containing only one
stress, so that adjacent stresses tend to remain the same distance apart.
e.g.:
The ‘red ‘bird flew ‘speedily ‘home (even though the syllabic distance
between the last two words is longer speedily tends to get compressed to
make it shorter)
In Spanish, the time taken to produce an utterance depends much more on the intervening
number of syllables: El pájaro rojo voló rápidamente a casa.
3.2.1 Rhythm
Speech is perceived as a sequence of events in time, and the word rhythm is used to refer to the
way events are distributed in time. Obvious examples of vocal rhythms are chanting as part of
games (for example, children calling words while skipping, or football crowds calling their
team’s name) or in connection with work (e.g. sailors’ chants used to synchronise the pulling on
an anchor rope). In conversational speech the rhythms are vastly more complicated, but it is
clear that the timing of speech is not random. An extreme view (though a quite common one) is
that English speech has a rhythm that allows us to divide it up into more or less equal intervals
of time called feet, each of which begins with a stressed syllable: this is called the stress-timed
rhythm hypothesis. Languages where the length of each syllable remains more or less the same
as that of its neighbours whether or not it is stressed are called syllable-timed, as it was

Class Notes 50
mentioned above. Most evidence from the study of real speech suggests that such rhythms only
exist in very careful, controlled speaking, but it appears from psychological research that
listeners’ brains tend to hear timing regularities even where there is little or no physical
regularity.
3.3 ASPECTS OF CONNECTED SPEECH

All languages modify complicated sequences in connected speech in order to simplify the
articulation process – but the manner in which this is done varies from one language to
another. Furthermore, most native speakers are totally unaware of such simplification processes
and are often surprised when these are pointed out to them.
The differences between the citation forms and the modified connected speech forms are not
just a matter of chance: clear patterns are distinguishable.
The connection between words usually affect how sounds are realised around those boundaries.
It is also important to note that the aspects of connected speech fall under the category of
phonetic transcription, not phonemic, as the sounds are represented as they are produced by
native speakers to reflect the phenomena that occur when utterances are simplified.
Connected speech form

Example Citation form (phonemic)
(phonetic)
headquarters / hed ˈkwɔːtəz / / heɡ ˈkwɔːtəz /
main course / meɪn ˈkɔːs / / meɪŋ ˈkɔːs /
matched pairs / mætʃt ˈpeəz / / mætʃ ˈpeəz /
3.3.1 Phonetic conditioning

Phonetic conditioning is a term used to cover the way in which speech segments are influenced
by adjacent (or near-adjacent) segments, causing phonemes to vary in their realisation according
to the phonetic context. We can distinguish four: (1) assimilation; (2) elision; (3) liaison, and (4)
juncture.
Throughout the sections on English segments, we have discussed deviations from the target
forms of phonemes. These result from phonetic conditioning and are responsible for much of
any range of allophones occurring in complementary distribution.
3.3.2 Assimilation
If speech is thought of as a string of sounds linked together, assimilation is what happens to a
sound when it is influenced by one of its neighbours. For example, the word ‘this’ has the sound
/ s / at the end if it is pronounced on its own, but when followed by / ʃ / in a word such as ‘shop’
it often changes in rapid speech (through assimilation) to / ʃ /, giving the pronunciation
[ ðɪʃʃɒp ]. Assimilation is said to be progressive when a sound influences a following sound, or
regressive when a sound influences one which precedes it; the most familiar case of regressive
assimilation in English is that of alveolar consonants, such as / t, d, s, z, n / which are followed
by non-alveolar consonants: assimilation results in a change of place of articulation from
alveolar to a different place. The example of ‘this shop’ is of this type; others are ‘football’
(where ‘foot’ fʊt and ‘ball’ bɔːl combine to produce fʊpbɔːl) and ‘fruit-cake’(fruːt + keɪk 
frʊːkkeɪk). Progressive assimilation is exemplified by the behaviour of the ‘s’ plural ending in
English, which is pronounced with a voiced / z / after a voiced consonant (e.g. ‘dogs’ dɒɡz) but
with a voiceless s after a voiceless consonant (e.g. ‘cats’ kæts). Another type of progressive
assimilation is called coalescence, for example, a final / t, d / and an initial / j / following often
combine to form / tʃ , dʒ /, so that ‘not yet’ is pronounced [ nɒtʃet ] and ‘could you’ is [
ˈkʊdʒʊ ].

The notion of assimilation is full of problems: it is often unhelpful to think of it in terms of one
sound being the cause of the assimilation and the other the victim of it, when in many cases
sounds appear to influence each other mutually; it is often not clear whether the result of
assimilation is supposed to be a different allophone or a different phoneme; and we find many
cases where instances of assimilation seem to spread over many sounds instead of being
restricted to two adjacent sounds as the conventional examples suggest. Research on such
phenomena in experimental phonetics does not usually use the notion of assimilation, preferring
the more neutral concept of coarticulation.
3.3.3 Elision
Some of the sounds that are heard if words are pronounced slowly and clearly appear not to be
pronounced when the same words are produced in a rapid, colloquial style, or when the words
occur in a different context; these “missing sounds” are said to have been elided. It is easy to
find examples of elision, but very difficult to state rules that govern which sounds may be elided
and which may not. Elision of vowels in English usually happens when a short, unstressed
vowel occurs between voiceless consonants, e.g. in the first syllable of ‘perhaps’, ‘potato’, the
second syllable of ‘bicycle’, or the third syllable of ‘philosophy’. In some cases, we find a weak
voiceless sound in place of the normally voiced vowel that would have been expected. Elision
also occurs when a vowel occurs between an obstruent consonant and a sonorant consonant
such as a nasal or a lateral: this process leads to syllabic consonants, as in ‘sudden’ sʌdņ ,
‘awful’ ɔːfļ (where a vowel is only heard in the second syllable in slow, careful speech).
Elision of consonants in English happens most commonly when a speaker “simplifies” a
complex consonant cluster: ‘acts’ becomes æks rather than ækts, ‘twelfth night’ becomes
twelθnait or twelfnait rather than twelfθnait. It seems much less likely that any of the other
consonants could be left out: the l and the n seem to be unelidable.
It is very important to note that sounds do not simply “disappear” like a light being switched
off. A transcription such as æks for ‘acts’ implies that the / t / phoneme has dropped out
altogether, but detailed examination of speech shows that such effects are more gradual: in slow
speech the / t / may be fully pronounced, with an audible transition from the preceding / k / and
to the following / s /, while in a more rapid style it may be articulated but not given any audible
realisation, and in very rapid speech it may be observable, if at all, only as a rather early
movement of the tongue blade towards the s position. Much more research in this area is needed
(not only on English) for us to understand what processes are involved when speech is
“reduced” in rapid articulation.
3.3.4 Liaison
The converse of elision is liaison, i.e. the insertion of an extra sound in order to facilitate
the articulation of a sequence. Accents of English can be divided into two groups according to
/ r / distribution, namely rhotic accents where / r / is pronounced in all contexts, as opposed to
non-rhotic accents (like RP where / r / is pronounced only preceding a vowel. In these latter
varieties orthographic r is regularly restored as a link across word boundaries, e.g.
 sooner / ˈsuːnə / (the final / r / is not pronounced) and sooner or later / ˈsuːnə r ɔː ˈleɪtə /
(the / r / is restored to help with articulation).
 sure / ʃʊə /  sure enough / ˈʃʊə r ɪˈnʌf /
This is termed linking r. With most speakers of non-rhotic English, it is also possible to hear
linking r when there is no r in the spelling. This is termed intrusive r.
 the sofa in the catalogue / ðə ˈsəʊfə r ɪn ðə ˈkætəlɒɡ /

 my idea of heaven / maɪ aɪˈdɪə r əv ˈhevən /

Class Notes 52
 we saw a film / wi ˈsɔː r ə ˈfɪlm /

 bourgeois immigrants / ˈbʊəʒwɑː r ˈɪmɪɡrənts /
 via Australia / ˈvaɪə r ɒˈstreɪliə /
Intrusive r is heard after the vowels / ɑː ɔː ə / and the diphthongs terminating in /ə/. Instances
with other vowels hardly ever occur: /e/ is invariably spelt with r (except
possibly in the word yeah as a form of yes); final /ɜː/ almost always has r in the spelling. Many
native speakers are aware of the existence of intrusive r and many seem to make a conscious
effort to avoid it (especially after /ɑː/ and /ɔː/).
Related to liaison is epenthesis, which is the insertion into a word of a segment which was
previously absent. In all varieties of English, including RP, speakers often insert a homorganic
plosive between a nasal and a fricative in examples such as the following: once /wʌnts/, length
/leŋkθ/, something /ˈsʌmpθɪŋ/. As a result, words like sense and scents may be pronounced
identically as /sents/. Indeed, some English native speakers distinguish the following pairs.
Others, pronouncing an epenthetic consonant, say them identically: mince – mints; prince –
prints; patience – patients; chance – chants; tense – tents; Samson –Sampson; Thomson –
Thompson.
In some accents of English, particularly Irish English, an epenthetic /ə/ is inserted in sequences
such as /lm/ and /rm/, e.g. film /ˈfɪləm/, alarm /əˈlɑːrəm/.
In vocalic boundaries, i.e. whenever a word ends in a vowel sound and the next one starts with
another vowel sound, the linking [j] and [w] may be produced. More specifically, when the first
word ends in /iː, ɪ, i, eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ/ a slight linking [j] may be heard between the two vowels, e.g. my
arms [maɪ ˈj ɑːmz], may ask [meɪ ˈjɑːsk], he ought [hi ˈjɔːt], annoy Arthur [əˈnɔɪ ˈjɑːθə], beauty
and [ˈbjuːtɪ jənd]. But this is not sufficient to be equated with phonemic /j/; indeed, there are
minimal pairs which illustrate the difference between linking [ j] and phonemic /j/, my ears [maɪ
ˈjɪəz] vs my years /maɪ ˈjɪəz/, and I earn [aɪ ˈjɜːn] vs I yearn [aɪ ˈjɜːn].
Similarly, a linking [w] may be heard between a final /uː, əʊ, aʊ/ and a following vowel, e.g.
window open [ˈwɪndəʊ ˈwəʊpən], now and then [naʊ wənd ˈðen], you aren't [ju: 'wɑːnt]; and
minimal pairs illustrating linking [w] and phonemic /w/ can be found, e.g. two-eyed [tuː ˈwaɪd] vs
too wide [tuː ˈwaɪd].
3.3.5 Juncture
As we have seen in the previous sections, words may be considerably modified at boundaries by
factors like assimilation and elision. Nevertheless, some phonetic features may be retained
which mark word or morpheme boundaries (generally referred to as JUNCTURE). Thus, the
phonemic sequence /ˈpiːstɔːks/ may mean peace talks or pea stalks according to the different
word boundaries (i.e. /piːs + tɔːks/ or /piː + stɔːks). In this case, if the boundary occurs
between /s/ and /t/, the words peace and talks are established by the reduced /iː/ (in a syllable
closed by a voiceless consonant) and by the aspiration of /t/; on the other hand, if the boundary
occurs between /iː/ and /s/, this may be signalled by the relatively full length of /iː/ (in an open
word-final syllable) and by the unaspirated allophone of /t/ (following /s/ in the same syllable)
as well as a stronger /s/ word-initially than word-finally.
The following examples illustrate various ways in which phonetic cues may mark word
boundaries:
I scream /aɪ skriːm / long /aɪ/, strong /s/, little devoicing of /r/
Ice cream /aɪs kriːm/ reduced /aɪ/, weak /s/, devoiced /r/
Why choose /waɪ tʃuːz/ long /aɪ/, short [ʃ] as element of /tʃ/

White shoes /wait ʃuːz/ reduced /aɪ/, long /ʃ/

A name /ə neɪm/ relatively long /n/ word-initially
An aim /ən eɪm/ relatively short /n/ word-initially
Junctural cues are only potentially distinctive and may not be present in connected (particularly
rapid) speech or may have only slight phonetic value. In any case, such cues to word
identification are merely additional to the large number provided by the context.
Alameen and Levis 23 propose another categorisation of connected speech processes which can
22F
be mapped out to the four categories mentioned earlier:
Connected speech processes
Linking Deletion Insertion Modification Reduction Multiple
Palatalization:
Consonant-Vowel: Elision: ol'times Consonant insertion: Consonant reduction: Lexical combination:
can't you (tʃ),
some of Did he go? some(p)thing bad boy wanna, gonna
miss you (ʃ)
Consonant-Consonant Glide insertion: Assimilation:

Contraction: Discourse reduction:
(same): so wawful sun beam (m),
Can't to you: /tə jə/
five views city jin in Canada (ŋ)
Flapping:
eat it, went out
Glottalisation:
that car (Ɂ)
3.4 TRANSCRIPTION EXERCISES WITH COMMENTS

Text 1
ˈweər1 əv jʊ2 ˈbiːn3,4 aɪ ɪŋˈkwaɪəd || aɪ ˈθɔːt jʊ2 mʌst əv2,5 ɡɒt ˈɒf sʌmweə ||
aɪ wəz2 ˈtɔːkɪŋ tə2 ðə kənˈdʌktrɪs *ˈmɪʃə hæd ðə ˈraʊ wɪð jestedɪ || ʃɪz ˈrɪəlɪ verɪ ˈnaɪs ||
ʃɪ2 ˈlet mɪ2 teɪk səm2 ˈpɪkʧəz əv2 ðə ˈpiːpl̩ ɪn hər1 ˈəʊpn̩ ˈkeʊʧɪz ||
dɪd ðeɪ ˈmaɪnd ||
ˈnaʊ | ðeɪ ˈlʌvd6 ɪt || ə7 tʊk ˈhɜː3 pɪktʃə ˈtuː || ˈhaʊ dɪd jʊ2 mænɪʤ ˈðæt || aɪ ˈtraɪd tə2
saʊnd dɪsˈɪntrəstɪd bət2 ɪt wəz2 ˈdɪfɪkl̩ t tə2 kiːp ˈenvɪ aʊt əv2 maɪ ˈvɔɪs ||
aɪ ˈlent ə2,5 ðæt8 mæɡəˈziːn wɪð ˈɔːl ðəʊz ˈpɪkʧəz əv2 *ˈrɔɪl̩ tɪ ɪn ɪt || aɪ ˈsed ðət8 ʃɪ2 rɪ
ˈmaɪndɪd mɪ2 əv2 *kwiːn *vɪkˈtɔːrɪə | n̩ ə7 ˈɡeɪv ər1,2,5 ə peər1 əv2 ˈtaɪts ||
aɪv ˈɡɒt ən aɪˈdɪər4 10 aɪ sed || ˈwaɪ dəʊnt jʊ2 səˈʤest tə2 *’mɪʃə ðət9 ɪ2,5 ˈmeɪks ɪt ˈʌp
wɪð ə2,5 baɪ ˈtelɪŋɡ ə2,5 ðət9 ʃɪ2 rɪˈmaɪndz ɪm2,5 əv2 *ˈkruːʃʧɒf ||
23
Alameen, G., & Levis, J. M. (2015). Connected Speech. In M. Reed & J. M. Levis (Eds.), The
Handbook of English Pronunciation (p. 530). West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Class Notes 54
ˈjuː3 səʤest ɪt tə2 *ˈmɪʃə4 ʃɪ2 sed || ɪts ˈjuː hɪz rɪəlɪ ˈfɒnd ɒv11,12 ||
Comments
1
Linking 'r'.
2
Weak Form.
3
Strong Form as the word is stressed.
4
No pause for the comma. The comma is required by punctuation conventions but has no
reality in speech.
5
/ h / can be dropped here as the word
(a) is not stressed, and
(b) is not initial in the word group.
Note that in normal speed speech, as here, the / h / of form words like has, have, had,
he, him, and her, is in fact regularly dropped in unstressed, non-initial positions.
However, the slower and more carefully a person speaks and the more formal the
situation, then the less likely that the / h / will be dropped.
6
Past tense '-ed' marker is lenis / d / after lenis/voiced sounds.
7
This is a Weak Form found only in informal and very rapid colloquial speech. In normal
speed speech, I is usually pronounced as / aɪ /. The transcription here, therefore,
depends on how you interpret the situation and on how fast you think the speaker is
talking at this point.
8
The determiner that (e.g. this book vs. that book) is always pronounced, whether it is
stressed or not, as / ðæt /.
9
The relative pronoun that is nearly always pronounced with the Weak Form
pronunciation: / ðət /.
10
In normal speed colloquial speech, most RP speakers will use an intrusive 'r' here.
11
Alternatively: / ɪts 'juː hɪz ˈrɪəlɪ fɒnd ɒv /.
12
Strong Form as the word, although not stressed, is final in the word group. The rule of
using the Strong Form and not the Weak Form when the word is final in the word group
does not apply to the following six pronouns: he, him, his, her, us, and them.
Original text in English
A: Where have you been? — I inquired. I thought you must have got off somewhere.
B: I was talking to the conductress Misha had the row with yesterday. She's really very nice.
She let me take some pictures of the people in her open coaches.
A: Did they mind?
B: No! They loved it! I took her picture too!
A: How did you manage that? — I tried to sound disinterested, but it was difficult to keep envy
out of my voice.
B: I lent her that magazine with all those pictures of royalty in it. I said that she reminded me of
Queen Victoria and gave her a pair of tights.
A: I've got an idea. I said, why don't you suggest to Misha that he makes it up with her by
telling her that she reminds him of Khrushchev?
B: You suggest it to Misha, she said. It's you he's really fond of.
Text 2
*ˈʤeɪn ˈstept1 intə2 ðə ˈʃaʊə || ’kʊdn̩t jʊ ɡet ə ˈʤɒb ɪn wʌn əv2 ðə ˈsmɔːlə ˈkɒlɪʤɪz

əraʊnd ˈhɪə3 ʃɪ2 ˈkɔːld θruː ðə ˈhɪs əv2 ˈhɒt ˈwɔːtə ||

pəˈhæps || bət4 ðə5 wəd2 bɪ2 ˈprɒbləmz ɑbaʊt ˈviːzəz || əv2 ˈkɔːs | ɪf aɪ wə2 ˈmærɪd tʊ6
ən *əˈmerɪkən ˈsɪtɪzn̩ | ðəd5 bɪ2 ˈnəʊ ˈtrʌbl̩ ət ˈɔːl || ˈdæt saʊndz laɪk ˈblækmeɪl ||
ɪt ˈwɒzn̩ˈment tə biː7 || ʤʌst ˈθɪŋkɪŋ8 əˈlaʊd || *ˈfɪlɪp stʊd ˈʌp n̩ ɪz9 rɪˈflekʃn̩ˈrəʊz əz2 ɪf
frəm2 ðə ˈdepθs tə2 ˈfeɪs ɪm2,9 ɪn ðə ˈmɪrər10 əʊvə ðə ˈhændbeɪsn̩ || aɪ məst2 ˈʃeɪv || ðɪs
kɒnvəˈseɪʃn̩ɪz ɡetɪŋ ˈmɔːr10 ən mɔːr10 ʌnˈrɪəl || aɪl ɡəʊ ˈbæk ɪn ə mʌnθs taɪm11 əv2 kɔːs
|| bæk tə2 *hɪldə n̩ ðə ˈʧɪldrən || bæk tə2 *ˈrʌmɪʤ || bæk tʊ6 *ˈɪŋɡlənd ||
də2 jʊ2 ˈwɒnt tuː7 ||
ˈnɒt ɪn ðə ˈliːst ||
jʊ kəd2 ˈwɜːk fə2 'miː7 ɪf jʊ ˈlaɪk ||
fə2 ˈjuː7 ||
ˈjes || əz2 ə ˈhaʊskiːpə || jʊ ˈduː ɪt verɪ ˈwel || ˈmʌʧ betə ðən ˈmiː7 ||
*ˈfɪlɪp ˈlɑːft1 || jʊə ˈʤəʊkɪŋ || bət4 ˈhaʊ mʌʧ wəd2 jʊ 'peɪ miː7 ||
Comments:
1
Past tense '-ed' marker is fortis / t / after a fortis/unvoiced sound.
2
Weak Form
3
No pause for the comma. The comma is required by punctuation conventions but has no
reality in speech.
4
No special contrast is intended here; therefore, no stress; therefore, Weak Form.
5
The semantically empty pronoun there is usually pronounced as / ðə(r) /. Note,
however, that the adverb of place there (e.g. Philip was standing there in front of a
mirror) is always pronounced as / ðeə(r) /.
6
The Weak Form of to when followed by a word beginning with a vowel sound is
usually / tʊ / rather than / tə /.
7
Strong Form as the word is either stressed, or final in the word group, or both.
8
Notice the pronunciation of the letter n in think: / θɪŋk /.
9
/ h / can be dropped here as the word
(a) is not stressed, and
(b) is not initial in the word group.
Remember that the / h / of form words like has, have, had, he, him, and her, is regularly
dropped in unstressed, non-initial positions in normal speed speech. Thus the / h / in the
narrative here would be kept only in a slow, careful and formal style of presentation.
10
Linking 'r'.
11
No pause is necessary here despite the comma. A pause could be made (in which case
an extra stress would appear on course), but the comma is usually written whether a
pause is made or not.
Original text in English
Jane stepped into the shower.
'Couldn't you get a job in one of the smaller colleges around here?' She called through the
hiss of hot water.

Class Notes 56
'Perhaps. But there would be problems about visas. Of course, if I were married to an
American citizen, that'd be no trouble at all.'
'That sounds like blackmail!'
'It wasn't meant to be.' Just thinking aloud.
Philip stood up, and his reflection rose as if from the depths to face him in the mirror over the
handbasin. 'I must shave. This conversation is getting more and more unreal. I'll go back in a
month's time, of course. Back to Hilda and the children. Back to Rummidge. Back to England.'
'Do you want to?'
'Not in the least'
'You could work for me if you like.'
'For you?'
'Yes, as a housekeeper. You do it very well. Much better than me.'
Philip laughed.
'You're joking! But how much would you pay me?' 24 23F
24
Text adapted from The Campus Trilogy by David Lodge. Vintage Books. London.

Unit 4
4 INTONATION
1.1 FORM AND FUNCTION IN INTONATION

To summarise, we want to know the answers to two questions about English speech:
 What can we observe when we study pitch variations?

 What is the linguistic importance of the phenomena we observe?
These questions might be rephrased more briefly as:
 What is the form of intonation?

 What is the function of intonation?
We will begin by looking at intonation in the shortest piece of speech we can find – the single
syllable. At this point, a new term will be introduced: we need a name for a continuous piece of
speech beginning and ending with a clear pause, and we will call this an utterance. In this
chapter, then, we are going to look at the intonation of one-syllable utterances. These are quite
common and give us a comparatively easy introduction to the subject.
Two common one-syllable utterances are ‘yes’ and ‘no’. The first thing to notice is that we have
a choice of saying these with the pitch remaining at a constant level, or with the pitch changing
from one level to another. The word we use for the overall behaviour of the pitch in these
examples is tone; a one-syllable word can be said with either a level tone or a moving tone. If
you try saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with a level tone (rather as though you were trying to sing them on a
steady note) you may find the result does not sound natural, and indeed, English speakers do not
use level tones on one-syllable utterances very frequently. Moving tones are more common. If
English speakers want to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a definite, final manner they will probably use a
falling tone – one which descends from a higher to a lower pitch. If they want to say ‘yes?’ or
‘no?’ in a questioning manner they may say it with a rising tone – a movement from a lower
pitch to a higher one.
Notice that already, in talking about different tones, some idea of function has been introduced;
speakers are said to select from a choice of tones according to how they want the utterance to be
heard, and it is implied that the listener will hear one-syllable utterances said with different
tones as sounding different in some way. During the development of modern phonetics in the
twentieth century it was for a long time hoped that scientific study of intonation would make it
possible to state what the function of each different aspect of intonation was, and that foreign
learners could then be taught rules to enable them to use intonation in the way that native
speakers use it. Few people now believe this to be possible. It is certainly possible to produce a
few general rules, and some will be given in this course.
However, these rules are certainly not adequate as a complete practical guide to how to use
English intonation. The treatment of intonation should be based on the belief that foreign
learners of English at advanced levels who may use this course should be given training to make
them better able to recognise and copy English intonation. The only really efficient way to learn
to use the intonation of a language is the way a child acquires the intonation of its first language,
and the training referred to above should help the adult learner of English to acquire English
intonation in a similar (though much slower) way – through listening to and talking to English

Class Notes 58
speakers. It is perhaps a discouraging thing to say, but learners of English who are not able to
talk regularly with native speakers of English, or who are not able at least to listen regularly to
colloquial English, are not likely to learn English intonation, although they may learn very good
pronunciation of the segments and use stress correctly.
4.1 THE TONE-UNIT AND ITS STRUCTURE

Many of the world’s languages are tone languages (e.g. Mandarin Chinese), in which
substituting one distinctive tone for another on a particular word or morpheme can cause a
change in the dictionary (“lexical”) meaning of that word or morpheme, or in some aspect of its
grammatical categorisation. Although tones or pitch differences are used for other purposes,
English is one of the languages that do not use tone in this way.
Languages such as English are sometimes called intonation languages. In tone languages the
main suprasegmental contrastive unit is the tone, which is usually linked to the phonological
unit that we call the syllable. It could be said that someone analysing the function and
distribution of tones in a tone language would be mainly occupied in examining utterances
syllable by syllable, looking at each syllable as an independently variable item. Peter Roach
identifies five tones in English one-syllable utterances (Fall, Rise, Fall-rise, Rise-fall, and
Level) if English were spoken in isolated monosyllables, the job of tonal analysis would be a
rather similar one to that described for tone languages. However, when we look at continuous
speech in English utterances we find that these tones can only be identified on a small number
of particularly prominent syllables. For the purposes of analysing intonation, a unit generally
greater in size than the syllable is needed, and this unit is called the tone unit; in its smallest
form the tone-unit may consist of only one syllable, so it would in fact be wrong to say that it is
always composed of more than one syllable. The tone-unit is difficult to define, and one or two
examples may help to make it easier to understand the concept.
Therefore, it is fair to say that in the study of intonation, it is usual to divide speech into larger
units than syllables. If one studies only short sentences said in isolation it may be sufficient to
make no subdivision of the utterance, unless perhaps to mark out rhythmical units such as the
foot, but in longer utterances there must be some points at which the analyst marks a break
between the end of one pattern and the beginning of the next. These breaks divide speech into
tone-units and are called tone-unit boundaries. If the study of intonation is part of phonology,
these boundaries should be identifiable with reference to their effect on pronunciation rather
than to grammatical information about word and clause boundaries; statistically, however, we
find that in most cases tone-unit boundaries do fall at obvious syntactic boundaries, and it would
be rather odd to divide two tone-units in the middle of a phrase. The most obvious factor to look
for in trying to establish boundaries is the presence of a pause, and in slow careful speech (e.g.
in lectures, sermons and political speeches) this may be done quite regularly. However, it seems
that we detect tone-unit boundaries even when the speaker does not make a pause, if there is an
identifiable break or discontinuity in the rhythm or in the intonation pattern.
Regarding the structure, like the syllable, the tone-unit has a fairly clearly defined internal
structure, but the only component that has been mentioned so far is the tonic syllable. The first
thing to be done is to make more precise the role of the tonic syllable in the tone-unit. Most
tone-units are of a type that we call simple, and the sort that we call compound are not
discussed in this chapter. Each simple tone-unit has one and only one tonic syllable; this means
that the tonic syllable is an obligatory component of the tone-unit. (Compare the role of the
vowel in the syllable.) We will now see what the other components may be.

4.1.1 The nucleus

The essential element of an intonation unit is the nucleus, which is the last (accented) syllable
acting as pitch movement initiator in the intonation unit, and the tone in that syllable is called
nuclear tone. The nucleus may consist of a simple pitch movement, as indicated by one of the
eight basic tones that will be described in the next point, or it can be a complex pitch
movement, shown by a combination of two (or sometimes three) of the basic tones. We shall
account mainly for two complex tones, [] and [], e.g.:
A: I don't know
B: Don't know? Why?
A nuclear tone can also act as indicator of pitch level contrast, if it consists of a High Level
tone, e.g.:
● ●
Helˈlo
4.1.2 The head

Consider the following one-syllable utterance:
 those
We can find the same tonic syllable in a long utterance (still of one tone-unit):
ˈgive me those
The rest of the tone-unit in this example is called the head. Notice that the first syllable has a
stress mark: this is important. A head is all of that part of a tone-unit that extends from the
first stressed syllable up to (but not including) the tonic syllable. It follows that if there is no
stressed syllable before the tonic syllable, there cannot be a head. In the above example, the first
two syllables (words) are the head of the tone-unit. In the following example, the head consists
of the first five syllables:
ˈBill ˈcalled to ˈgive me these
As was said a little earlier, if there is no stressed syllable preceding the tonic syllable, there is no
head. This is the case in the following example:
in an hour
Neither of the two syllables preceding the tonic syllable is stressed. The syllables ‘in an’ form a
pre-head, which is the next component of the tone-unit to be introduced.
4.1.3 The pre-head

The pre-head is composed of all the unstressed syllables in a tone-unit preceding the first
stressed syllable. Thus, pre-heads are found in two main environments:
1. when there is no head (i.e. no stressed syllable preceding the tonic syllable), as in this
example:
in an hour
2. when there is a head, as in this example:
in a ˈlittle ˈless than an hour
In this example, the pre-head consists of ‘in a’, the head consists of “little 'less than an’, and the
tonic syllable is hour’.

Class Notes 60
4.1.4 The tail

It often happens that some syllables follow the tonic syllable. Any syllables between the tonic
syllable and the end of the tone-unit are called the tail. In the following examples, each tone-
unit consists of an initial tonic syllable and a tail:
look at it
what did you say
both of them were here
When it is necessary to mark stress in a tail, we will use a special symbol, a raised dot • for
reasons that will be explained later. The above examples should, then, be transcribed as follows:
look at it
what did you•say
both of them were•here
This completes the list of tone-unit components. If we use brackets to indicate optional
components (i.e. components which may be present or may be absent), we can summarise tone-
unit structure as follows:
(pre-head) (head) tonic syllable (tail)
or, more briefly, as:
(PH) (H) TS (T)
To illustrate this more fully, let us consider the following passage, which is transcribed from a
recording of spontaneous speech (the speaker is describing a picture). When we analyse longer
stretches of speech, it is necessary to mark the places where tone-unit boundaries occur – that is,
where one tone-unit ends, and another begins, or where a tone-unit ends and is followed by a
pause, or where a tone-unit begins following a pause. It was mentioned above that tone-units are
sometimes separated by silent pauses and sometimes not; pause-type boundaries can be marked
by double vertical lines (║) and non-pause boundaries with a single vertical line (│). In practice
it is not usually important to mark pauses at the beginning and end of a passage, though this is
done here for completeness. The boundaries within a passage are much more important.
║and then ˈnearer to the front ║on the left│theres a ˈbit of forest│ˈcoming ˈdown to
the waterside ║ and then a ˈbit of a bay ║
We can mark their structure as follows (using dotted lines to show divisions between tone-unit
components, though this is only done for this particular example):
PH H TS PH TS PH
and then ˈnearer to me front on the left theres a
H TS T H TS T
ˈbit of for est ˈcoming ˈdown to the wa terside
PH H TS
and then a ˈbit of a bay
The above passage contains five tone-units. Notice that in the third tone-unit, since it is the
syllable rather than the word that carries the tone, it is necessary to divide the word ‘forest’ into
two parts, ‘for-’ /fɒr/ and ‘-est’ /ɪst/; in the fourth tone-unit the word ‘waterside’ is divided in to
‘wa-’ /wɔ:/ ( the tonic syllable) and ‘-terside ’ /təsaɪd/ (tail). This ex ample shows clearly h ow
the units of phonological analysis can sometimes be seen to differ from those of grammatical
analysis.

4.2 TYPES OF TONES

Pitch movement can be carried by both accented and prominent syllables, although only the
former can act as initiators of it. The rudimentary set of marks we have been using so far to
indicate pitch movement has considered direction only (i.e. falling, rising, level, etc.), without
considering how wide the movement is. A more accurate description of the intonation system of
English, however, must also account for pitch range. Although pitch range may have an infinite
number of degrees, for practical purposes it is sufficient to distinguish no more than two – wide
and narrow. A given pitch direction and pitch range constitute a tone, which can be spread
over one or more syllables.
Finch and Ortiz 25 classify the English intonation system in terms of eight tones:
24F
Symbol Name of Description Scalar notation

tone
|
m High Level Syllable at a high, sustained pitch
m
| Low Level Syllable at a low, sustained pitch
/
m Mid Level Syllable begins at a mid pitch and rises
to a high pitch
\
m High Mid Syllable begins at a high pitch and falls
to a mid pitch
/ m Low High Syllable begins at a low pitch and rises

to a high pitch
\
m High Low Syllable begins at a high pitch and falls
to a low pitch
/ m Low Mid Syllable begins at a low pitch and rises

to a mid pitch
\ m Mid Low Syllable begins at a mid pitch and falls to

a low pitch
4.3 FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION

The form of intonation has now been described in some detail, and we will move on to look
more closely at its functions. Perhaps the best way to start is to ask ourselves what would be lost
if we were to speak without intonation: you should try to imagine speech in which every
syllable was said on the same level pitch, with no pauses and no changes in speed or loudness.
This is the sort of speech that would be produced by a “mechanical speech” device that made
sentences by putting together recordings of isolated words. To put it in the broadest possible
25
Finch, D. and Ortiz, H. (1982) A Course in English Phonetics for Spanish Speakers.

Class Notes 62
terms, we can see that intonation makes it easier for a listener to understand what a speaker is
trying to convey. The ways in which intonation does this are very complex, and many
suggestions have been made for ways of isolating different functions. Among the most often
proposed are the following:
I. Intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as we speak, and this adds a
special kind of “meaning” to spoken language. This is often called the attitudinal
function of intonation.
II. Intonation helps to produce the effect of prominence on syllables that need to be
perceived as stressed, and in particular the placing of tonic stress on a particular syllable
marks out the word to which it belongs as the most important in the tone-unit. In this
case, intonation works to focus attention on a particular lexical item or syllable. This
has been called the accentual function of intonation.
III. The listener is better able to recognise the grammar and syntactic structure of what is
being said by using the information contained in the intonation; for example, such
things as the placement of boundaries between phrases, clauses or sentences, the
difference between questions and statements, and the use of grammatical subordination
may be indicated. This has been called the grammatical function of intonation.
IV. Looking at the act of speaking in a broader way, we can see that intonation can signal to
the listener what is to be taken as “new” information and what is already “given”, can
suggest when the speaker is indicating some sort of contrast or link with material in
another tone-unit and, in conversation, can convey to the listener what kind of response
is expected. Such functions are examples of intonation’s discourse function.
4.3.1 The attitudinal function of intonation

Many writers have expressed the view that intonation is used to convey our feelings and
attitudes: for example, the same sentence can be said in different ways, which might be labelled
“angry”, “happy”, “grateful”, “bored”, and so on. A major factor in this is the tone used, and
most books agree on some basic meanings of tones. Here are some examples:
1. Fall
Finality, definiteness:
o That is the end of the news.
o I'm absolutely certain.
o Stop talking!
2. Rise
Most of the functions attributed to rises are nearer to grammatical than attitudinal, as in
the first three examples given below; they are included here mainly to give a fuller
picture of intonational function.
General questions:
o Can you help me?
o Is it over?
Listing:
o Red, brown, yellow or blue. (a fall is usual on the last item)
"More to follow":
o I phoned them right away ('and they agreed to come')
o You must write it again (and this time get it right)
Encouraging:

o It won't hurt.
3. Fall-rise
Uncertainty, doubt:
o You may be right.
o It's possible.
Requesting:
o Can I buy it?
o Will you lend it to me?
4. Rise-fall
Surprised, being impressed:
o You were first.
o All of them.
Attitudinal intonation is widely observed in many different languages. Besides being part of the
communication system, it is also part of the culture. Not surprisingly, it has often been said that
foreign learners of English need to learn English intonation. Some writers have gone further
than this and claimed that, unless the foreign learner learns the appropriate way to use
intonation in a given situation, there is a risk that he or she may unintentionally give offence; for
example, the learner might use an intonation suitable for expressing boredom or discontent
when what is needed is an expression of gratitude or affection. This misleading view of
intonation must have caused unnecessary anxiety to many learners of the language.
What advice, then, can be given to the foreign learner of English who wants to learn “correct
intonation”? It is certainly true that a few generalisations can be made about the attitudinal
functions of some components of intonation. We have looked at some basic examples earlier in
this section. Generalisations such as these are, however, very broad, and foreign learners do not
find it easy to learn to use intonation through studying them. Similarly, within the area of
prosodic components most generalisations tend to be rather obvious: wider pitch range tends to
be used in excited or enthusiastic speaking, slower speed is typical of the speech of someone
who is tired or bored, and so on. Most of the generalisations one could make are probably true
for a lot of other languages as well. In short, of the rules and generalisations that could be made
about conveying attitudes through intonation, those which are not actually wrong are likely to
be too trivial to be worth learning.
4.3.2 The accentual function of intonation

The term accentual is derived from “accent”, a word used by some writers to refer to what is
called “stress”. When writers say that intonation has accentual function they imply that the
placement of stress is something that is determined by intonation. It is possible to argue against
this view: word stress is presented as something quite independent of intonation, and
subsequently it is said that “intonation is carried entirely by the stressed syllables of a tone-
unit”. This means that the presentation so far has implied that the placing of stress is
independent of and prior to the choice of intonation. However, one particular aspect of stress
could be regarded as part of intonation: this is the placement of the tonic stress within the tone-
unit. It would be reasonable to suggest that while word stress is independent of intonation, the
placement of tonic stress is a function (the accentual function) of intonation. Some older
pronunciation handbooks refer to this function as “sentence stress”, which is not an appropriate
name: the sentence is a unit of grammar, while the location of tonic stress is a matter which
concerns the tone unit, a unit of phonology.
The location of the tonic syllable is of considerable linguistic importance. The most common
position for this is on the last lexical word (e.g. noun, adjective, verb, adverb as distinct from

Class Notes 64
the function words) of the tone-unit. For contrastive purposes, however, any word may become
the bearer of the tonic syllable. It is frequently said that the placement of the tonic syllable
indicates the focus of the information.
In the following pairs of examples, (i) represents normal placement and (ii) contrastive:
i. I ˌwant to ˌknow ˌwhere he's travelling to

(The word ‘to’ at the end of the sentence, being a preposition and not a lexical
word, is not stressed.)
ii. (I 'don't want to 'know 'where he's 'travelling from)
I ˌwant to ˌknow ˌwhere he's ˌtravelling to
i. She was 'wearing a 'red dress

ii. (She ˈwasn't ˈwearing a green ●dress) I She was ˌwearing a red ●dress
Similarly, for the purpose of emphasis we may place the tonic stress in other positions; in these
examples, (i) is non-emphatic and (ii) is emphatic:
i. It was ˈvery boring (The emphasis is on the quality of what is being described: boring)
ii. It was very ●boring (The emphasis is on how boring it was)
i. You ˈmustn't ˈtalk so loudly (The emphasis is on how loud you talk)
ii. You mustn't ●talk so ●loudly (The emphasis is on the prohibition)
4.3.3 The grammatical function of intonation

The word “grammatical” tends to be used in a very loose sense in this context. It is usual to
illustrate the grammatical function by inventing sentences which when written are ambiguous,
and whose ambiguity can only be removed by using differences of intonation. A typical
example is the sentence ‘Those who sold quickly made a profit’. This can be said in at least two
different ways:
i. ˈThose who ˈsold quickly│ˌmade a profit
ii. ˈThose who sold │ˌquickly ˌmade a profit
The difference caused by the placement of the tone-unit boundary is seen to be equivalent to
giving two different paraphrases of the sentences, as in:
i. A profit was made by those who sold quickly.

ii. A profit was quickly made by those who sold.
Let us look further at the role of tone-unit boundaries, and the link between the tone-unit and
units of grammar. There is a strong tendency for tone-unit boundaries to occur at boundaries
between grammatical units of higher order than words; it is extremely common to find a tone-
unit boundary at a sentence boundary, as in:
I ˈwon't have any tea │ I ˈdon't like it
In sentences with a more complex structure, tone-unit boundaries are often found at phrase and
clause boundaries as well, as in:
In France │ where ˌfarms ˌtend to be smaller │ the ˈsubsidies are ˈmore important
It is very unusual to find a tone-unit boundary at a place where the only grammatical boundary
is a boundary between words. It would, for example, sound distinctly odd to have a tone-unit
boundary between an article and a following noun, or between auxiliary and main verbs if they
are adjacent (although we may, on occasions, hesitate or pause in such places within a tone-unit;

it is interesting to note that some people who do a lot of arguing and debating, notably
politicians and philosophers, develop the skill of pausing for breath in such intonationally
unlikely places because they are less likely to be interrupted than if they pause at the end of a
sentence). Tone-unit boundary placement can, then, indicate grammatical structure to the
listener and we can find minimal pairs such as the following:
i. The Conˈservatives who like the pro●posal │ are pleased

ii. The Conservatives │ who like the pro●posal │ are pleased
The intonation makes clear the difference between (i) “restrictive” and (ii) “non-restrictive”
relative clauses: (i) implies that only some Conservatives like the proposal, while (ii) implies
that all the Conservatives like it.
Another component of intonation that can be said to have grammatical significance is the choice
of tone on the tonic syllable. One example that is very familiar is the use of a rising tone with
questions. Many languages have the possibility of changing a statement into a question simply
by changing the tone from falling to rising. This is, in fact, not used very much by itself in the
variety of English being described here, where questions are usually grammatically marked. The
sentence ‘The price is going up’ can be said as a statement like this:
The price is going ●up
(the tonic stress could equally well be on ‘up’). It would be quite acceptable in some dialects of
English (e.g. many varieties of American English) to ask a question like this:
(Why do you want to buy it now?) The price is going ●up
But speakers in Britain would be more likely to ask the question like this:
(Why do you want to buy it now?) ˈIs the price going ●up
It is by no means true that a rising tone is always used for questions in English; it is quite usual,
for example, to use a falling tone with questions beginning with one of the “wh-question-words”
like ‘what’, ‘which’, ‘when’, etc. Here are two examples with typical intonations, where (i) does
not start with a “wh-word” and has a rising tone and (ii) begins with ‘where’ and has a falling
tone.
i. ˈDid you ˈpark the car?

ii. ˈWhere did you ˈpark the car?
However, the fall in (ii) is certainly not obligatory, and a rise is quite often heard in such a
question. A fall is also possible in (i).
The intonation of question-tags (e.g. ‘isn’t it’, ‘can’t he’, ‘should she’, ‘won’t the/, etc.) is often
quoted as a case of a difference in meaning being due to the difference between falling and
rising tone. In the following example, the question-tag is ‘aren’t they’; when it has a falling
tone, as in (i), the implication is said to be that the speaker is comparatively certain that the
information is correct, and simply expects the listener to provide confirmation, while the rising
tone in (ii) is said to indicate a lesser degree of certainty, so that the question-tag functions more
like a request for information.
i. They ˈare ˈcoming on Tuesday │ aren't they?

ii. They ˈare ˈcoming on Tuesday │ aren't they?
The difference illustrated here could reasonably be said to be as much attitudinal as

grammatical. Certainly, there is overlap between these two functions.

Class Notes 66
4.3.4 The discourse function of intonation

If we think of linguistic analysis as usually being linked to the sentence as the maximum unit of
grammar, then the study of discourse attempts to look at the larger contexts in which sentences
occur. For example, consider the four sentences in the following:
A: Have you got any free time this morning?
B: I might have later on if that meeting’s off.
A: They were talking about putting it later.
B: You can’t be sure.
Each sentence could be studied in isolation and be analysed in terms of grammatical
construction, lexical content, and so on. But it is clear that the sentences form part of some
larger act of conversational interaction between two speakers; the sentences contain several
references that presuppose shared knowledge (e.g. ‘that meeting’ implies that both speakers
know which meeting is being spoken about), and in some cases the meaning of a sentence can
only be correctly interpreted in the light of knowledge of what has preceded it in the
conversation (e.g. ‘You can’t be sure’).
If we consider how intonation may be studied in relation to discourse, we can identify
two main areas: one of them is the use of intonation to focus the listener’s attention on
aspects of the message that are most important, and the other is concerned with the
regulation of conversational behaviour.
In the case of “attention focusing”, the most obvious use has already been described: this is the
placing of tonic stress on the appropriate syllable of one particular word in the tone-unit. In
many cases it is easy to demonstrate that the tonic stress is placed on the word that is in some
sense the “most important”.
The second main area of intonational discourse function is the “regulation of conversational
behaviour”. We have already seen how the study of sequences of tone-units in the speech of one
speaker can reveal information carried by intonation which would not have been recognised if
intonation were analysed only at the level of individual tone-units. Intonation is also important
in the conversational interaction of two or more speakers. Most of the research on this has been
on conversational interaction of a rather restricted kind - such as between doctor and patient,
teacher and student, or between the various speakers in court cases. In such material it is
comparatively easy to identify what each speaker is actually doing in speaking - for example,
questioning, challenging, advising, encouraging, disapproving, etc. It is likely that other forms
of conversation can be analysed in the same way, although this is considerably more difficult.
In a more general way, it can be seen that speakers use various prosodic components to indicate
to others that they have finished speaking, that another person is expected to speak, that a
particular type of response is required, and so on. A familiar example is that quoted above,
where the difference between falling and rising intonation on question-tags is supposed to
indicate to the listener what sort of response is expected. It seems that key (the part of the pitch
range used) is important in signalling information about conversational interaction. We can
observe many examples in non-linguistic behaviour of the use of signals to regulate turn-taking:
in many sports, for example, it is necessary to do this – footballers can indicate that they are
looking for someone to pass the ball to, or that they are ready to receive the ball, and doubles
partners in tennis can indicate to each other who is to play a shot. Intonation, in conjunction
with “body language” such as eye contact, facial expression, gestures and head-turning, is used
for similar purposes in speech, as well as for establishing or confirming the status of the
participants in a conversation.

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English Phonetics and Phonology 1

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2.3.9 General revision (Vowels)..................................................................................34

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4.3 Types of tones............................................................................................................66

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1.1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

1.1.2 What is a phone?

1.1.3 Defining phonetics

1.1.3.1 Areas of study of Phonetics.

1.1.3.1.1 Articulatory phonetics

articulated. It is also known as the physiological mechanisms of speech production by human

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1.1.3.1.2 Acoustic Phonetics

1.1.3.1.3 Auditory phonetics

1.1.4 Defining phonology

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that occur in a language. It involves studying a language to determine its distinctive

1.1.5 Differences between phonetics and phonology

 Descriptive vs. Theoretical: Phonetics is a subfield of descriptive linguistics while

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 Gradient vs. Categorical: Phonetics is gradient while phonology is categorical.

 Phonetics in Phonology vs. Phonology in Phonetics: During their interaction, when

 Individuality vs. Interrelationship of Sounds: Phonetic transcription depends simply on

 Predictability vs. Unpredictability of Features: The occurrence of certain phonetic

 Marking vs. Ignoring Phonetic Detail: Phonetic transcription, enclosed in square

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To sum up, the differences can be plotted as follows:

Speaker’s brain Phonology

Speaker’s mouth Articulatory phonetics

Transmission of sound through air Acoustic phonetics

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Listener’s ear Auditory phonetics

Listener’s brain Phonology

1.1.5.1 Why are Phonetics and Phonology useful?

1.2 ARTICULATORY PHONETICS: THE ORGANS OF SPEECH

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1.3 THE VOCAL ORGANS

Figure 3 - Subdivisions of the tongue

The seven articulators described above are the main

1.4 PLACES OF ARTICULATION

can be modified as places of articulation. He also identifies

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Figure 1 - Palato-alveolar sounds Figure 2 - Palatal sounds Figure 3 - Velar sounds

Name of place Articulators used

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Name of place Articulators used

1.5 MANNERS OF ARTICULATION

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voiceless counterparts for these sounds.

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grouped in two major categories: Obstruents and Sonorants.

velar voiceless unaspirated [k] looking, tick

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1.6 THE ARTICULATION OF THE VOWEL SOUNDS

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