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Sounds and Speech

Basic notes for High School students interested in learning basic phonetics and sounds in English language

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wangchukkinley
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19 views3 pages

Sounds and Speech

Basic notes for High School students interested in learning basic phonetics and sounds in English language

Uploaded by

wangchukkinley
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Sounds and Speech

What is Phonetics?
Phonetics is the science which studies the characteristics of human sound-making; especially
those sounds used in speech, and provide methods for their description, Classification and
Transcription.
 People involved in these studies are known as Phoneticians.
 Scientific study of human speech-sound is called as Phonetics.

IPA: International Phonetic Alphabet


 26 letters- written purpose
 44 sounds in spoken form

Further the 44 sounds are categorized into two:


1. 20 vowels and
2. 24 consonants

24 consonants: Consonants are divided into two major groups:


1. Voiced and
2. Voiceless

Voiced consonants: b, d, g, ʤ, v, z, ʒ, ð, m, n, ŋ, l, r, w, j, h (16 voiced consonants)

Voiceless consonants: ʧ, f, s, ʃ, Ѳ, t, p, k (8 voiceless consonants)

20 vowels are sub-grouped into three:


1. Short vowels (7)
2. Long vowels (5)
3. Diphthongs (8)

These three groups are referred to as Pure Vowels or Monothongs.

1. Short Vowels (7):


 /I/(ཨི)- fit, sit, it, bin
 /ʊ/ (ཨུ) – put, food, cook, book
 /ə/ (ཨ) – about, ago, again, another, father
 /ʌ/ (ཨཱ)- up, cut, but, shut, flood, utter
 /ɒ/ (ཨོ) - god, on, honest. Author, orange
 /e/(ཨེ) – bed, men, pen, pet
 /æ/(ཨེ open)- bad, pan, man, sat, pat

2. Long Vowels (5):


 /I: / (ཨི:) – tree, see, feel, seat, been
 / ʊ: / (ཨུ:) – true, flu, few, fluid, cool, wool
 /ɜ: / (ཨཱ:)- burn, earn, turn, fur
 /a: / (ཨའ:) – arm, calm, farm, army, answer

1
 /ɔ: / (ཨོ:) – horse, flow, for, four, poor, pour

3. Diphthongs (double vowels- 8):


 /eI/ (ཨེའི) – age, gay, day, play, wage, cage
 /aI/(ཨའི) – eye, I, while, bye, fly, dry, fight
 /aʊ/ (ཨའུ) – owl, now, down, frown, how, bow, plough, sound
 / əʊ/ (ཨའུ brother) – go, so, ok, sew, no, coat, blow, grow
 / ɔI/ (ཨོའི)- boy, toy soil, enjoy, oil, boil
 /Iə/ (ཨིའ) – fear, deer, dear, cheer, tear
 /eə/(ཨེའ) – air, fare, heir, where, fair, hair
 /ʊə/ (ཨུའ) – doer, tour, pure, sure, cure, lure

Formation of Plurals

The sounds /s,z,iz/ are used to form plurals in spoken English. (Phonetics)

The consonant /s/ sound is used after the voiceless consonants /p,t,k,f,θ/,with the exception of /s,ʃ,tʃ/ to
form plurals.

The consonant /z/ is used after the vowels and voiced consonants with the exception of /dʒ,ʒ,z /
consonants.
The sound /ɪz/ is used after the consonants /tʃ,dʒ,ʃ,ʒ,s,z/ to form plurals.
Formation of Past Tense

The three sounds /t,d,id / are used to form the past tense in spoken English. The sound /t/ is used
after the voiceless consonants /p,k,θ,tʃ,f,s,ʃ/ with the exception of the /t/ consonant.

Example:

/k/ shocked /ʃɒkt/

/p/ skipped /skipt/

/s/ missed /mist/

/θ/ berthed /bɜ:θt/

/ʧ/ searched /sɜ:ʧt/

/ʃ/ hushed /hʌʃt/

/f/ huffed /hʌft/

The consonant /d/ is used after the vowels and voice consonants /b,ð,v,z, ʒ,dʒ,g,m,n,ŋ,l/ with the
exception of the /d/ sound to form the past tense.

Example:

2
cry /kraid/

crippled /kripld/

scheduled /ʃedju:ld/

glimed/gli:md/
The sound /id/ is used after the consonants /t,d/ to form the past tense.
 started /stɑ:tid/
 ended /endid/

Homophones/Homnyms/Homographs

 The word “homophone” is derived from the Greek word “Homo” which means “same”
and “Phone” means “Voice” or “sound”. Homophones are words that have exactly the
same sound but different meanings and spellings.
 to/two/too
 there/their/they're
 pray/prey
 Air/heir
 Pair/pear
 Flour/flower

 A ‘homograph’ is a word that has the same spelling as another word but has a different
sound and a different meaning:
 lead (to go in front of)/lead (a metal)
 sow/sow
 bow/bow
 wind (to follow a course that is not straight)/wind (a gust of air)
 bass (low, deep sound)/bass (a type of fish)
 The word ‘homonym’ comes from the Greek word ‘homos’ (same) and ‘onyma’ (name).
Homonyms are those words that sound the same but have different spellings and different
meanings. Sometimes Homonyms can be both Homograph and Homophone.
 Bark/bark
 Stalk/stalk
 Bye/buy
 Minute/minute

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