013 guidelines for phonemic transcription

The rule of alternation helps us there: if we hear a strong primary stress on the third syllable, then there may be a “hidden” secondary stress on the first syllable.. Vowel letters sta

Guidelines for Phonemic Transcription

The following list is made up of a selection of tendencies that will surely help you transcribe Although we

may sometimes refer to them as “rules,” you should always remember that there are very few 100%-safe rules in English phonetics

It’s important for you not to panic! You’ll be incorporating these concepts gradually as the course develops, and you will be coming back to them regularly However, it’s extremely useful to have a compendium of guidelines

Script conventions:

1 Phonemic script is enclosed by slant lines Make sure you do not write a slant after each word

This is a phonemic transcription

2 Phonetic or allophonic script is enclosed by square brackets

tell

3 Ordinary spelling may be enclosed by angle brackets <> in order to avoid confusion

<mess> .!ldr

4 As stress is a property of the whole syllable, stress marks are placed before the syllable begins

5 Do not use capital letters in transcriptions

6 Do not use punctuation marks in transcriptions

a You may use a single bar ({) to show pauses, such as most commas

b A double bar ({{) stands for a longer pause, such as full stops, semi-colons or colons

Well, I guess you’re wrong, Howard Can you think it over?

Phonetic symbols, however, always stand for the same sound

gym

give goose

8 The following symbols are not English phonemes: <c, ñ, o, q, x, y>

Phonemic inventory:

9 There is a limited inventory of phonemes in English Stick to these conventions – in other words,

don’t create new combinations!!!

1 Relatively long

• Diphthongs or glides

• Plosives

• Affricates

• Fricatives

• Nasals

10 Be neat! Make sure that you don’t confuse these pairs in your handwritten transcriptions:

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

11 Vowel sounds are difficult to pronounce and recognize at first Also, they differ quite a lot depending on the speaker’s accent In order to help you, we can either call the vowels of the

General British accent by their number or standard lexical set

12 Miscellanea:

a General British English is a non-rhotic accent That is, the sound .q is only found before vowels Therefore, letter <r> is not pronounced before consonants or silence

b The velar nasal consonant M is never found in word-initial position

c The voiceless glottal fricative g is never found in word-final position

terms of which element in the sequence is the more prominent Diphthongs have a more

prominent first element, whereas in the semivowel + vowel clusters it is the vowel that has

the more prominence

end in

My cow

semivowels here

hour

fire

player

loyal

lower

that they never occur word-finally

nasal M

j The velar nasal

relatively frequent words (among some other rare words):

n Stress has an impact on pronunciation For example, we generally use it9 in stressed syllables, and

university $it9mH!u29r

the former, and T? (or at times also N9.) for the latter

p The spelling <oo>

• It’s generally GOOSE t9

• It takes STRUT .U just in blood and flood

• It takes FOOT

• It takes FOOT

takes STRUT U The spellings <o, u, ou> never take TRAP z

r Some words whose spelling is <a> are called BATH words because they take .@9 in General British instead of TRAP Normally, the <a> is followed by:

• Nasal (+consonant)

• Fricative (+consonant)

Transcribe your “own voice”:

13 Do not transcribe ‘dictionary talk.’ You should consult a pronouncing dictionary but you should

transcribe the version of the word that you think is most suitable

a We will focus on the British version, not the American one Also, if there are several options, you should choose the first one (which is supposed to be the most frequent)1:

sense .rdms

c Keep symbols in italics:

oral

d Omit all symbols and spaces other than primary and secondary stresses:

category

14 You should transcribe a text in the way you would pronounce it, not necessarily the way it is

written:

g We add words when we read dates

December 11 th , 2002

The role of stress within the word

15 There are two stress marks: primary stresses .! and secondary stresses $ It is the primary stress

of the word that can normally change the melody of intonation

16 The presence of stress has an impact on the choice of vowel sounds There are two subsystems of vowels (notice that

a Strong vowels – They tend to occur in stressed syllables:

b Weak vowels – They only occur in unstressed syllables:

i .h is used:

2 In unstressed word-final position:

happy !gzoh phonology e?!mPk?cYh

Charlie !sR@9kh anybody

3 In unstressed syllable-final position before another vowel

ii .t is used:

to (+ vowel sound).st do (+ vowel sound)

2 In unstressed syllable-final position before another vowel:

graduation

17 Notice that unstressed syllables generally take schwa ?., not DRESS d

government .!fUu?ml?ms (not !fUudmldms.)

18 English, being a Germanic language, doesn’t allow the occurrence of two unstressed syllables at

the beginning of a word In other words, the Teutonic rule demands that either the first or second syllable of every word should be stressed If the primary stress falls later than either on the first or second syllable, there will be a secondary stress either on the first or second syllable The rule of alternation helps us there: if we hear a strong (primary) stress on the third syllable, then there

may be a “hidden” secondary stress on the first syllable If we perceive a strong prominence on the

fourth syllable, then there may be a prominence in the second syllable The unstressed syllables normally take weak vowels (especially schwa)

19 Many unstressed endings are generally weak in English; therefore they take weak vowels Some

words allow the optional use of either schwa or another weak vowel Sometimes, it’s even possible

• -able ,?ak preferable !oqdeq?ak

• -age ,HcY village !uHkHcY

•

•

•

•

• -ful ,eTk (quantity nouns) spoonful !rot9meTk

• -ful ,ek (adjectives) beautiful !ait9s?ek

weak because of these combinations are extremely frequent We call this process monolithicity

• -man Gentleman !cYdmskl?m

21

Spelling and pronunciation:

predicting vowel sounds

22 There are only five pure-vowel contrasts in Spanish In English, there are twelve contrastive pure vowels This means that it will be hard for Spanish speakers to discriminate between these sounds, both in their production and in their perception The English spelling system, however chaotic it seems to be, can certainly help

a. Vowel letters stand for a checked vowel sound (i.e short vowel)

• Basic Vowel Pattern (Consonant letters +) Vowel letter + Consonant letter (+consonant letters)

A single vowel letter needs at least to be followed by a consonant in a monosyllable or in the stressed syllable of a longer word to keep the vowel sound checked

<e> = DRESS ex met stretch

<i> = KIT if bin strict

<o> = LOT off clog flocks

• Doubling of consonant letters

The doubling of a consonant blocks the formation of a diphthong A checked vowel

is normally found in these cases

<e> = DRESS begging petted

<u> = FOOT putting

b. Vowel letters “say their name”

• Two vowels together

Two vowel letters may be written together so as to break the Basic Vowel Pattern

and, as a result, represent a long vowel sound In general, the first vowel letter

tends to “say its name”

• Final silent <-e>

A final silent <-e> is added to the word to make the previous vowel letter say its name

• Final “magic” <y>

It makes the previous vowel say its name

c. “Radical <r>”

General British English is a non-rhotic accent, therefore, you should pronounce those <r> letters in the spelling only when they are followed by a vowel sound When there’s no vowel sound after a <r> in a strong syllable, then this consonant letter normally affects the vowel letter before it by either lengthening it or turning it into a more open sound

<ar> = START star

<ir> = NURSE first

<or> = NORTH form

The role of stress in connected speech

23 As you know by now, when you transcribe a word you need to focus on what syllables can be potentially stressed These syllables will always take a strong vowel The same is true when you transcribe connected speech, but in order to spot the stressed syllables in the chunk, you first need

to discriminate between content and grammar words

The secretary of education

Grammar words:

- They’re the only possible

collocations

- They are predictable

- They are frequent

- They have little semantic value

- They tend to be unstressed

CAPPA

conjunctions – articles – pronouns –

prepositions – auxiliaries

Content words:

- They compete against other options

The minister of agriculture The chairman of Shell The president of Argentina

- They’re less predictable

- They’re more semantically loaded

- They tend to be stressed

NAVA

nouns – adverbs – verbs - adjectives

a Content words (NAVA: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs) can potentially carry one or

several stresses Content words are highlighted in speech by means of stress because they are loaded with meaning and are not easily predictable in the context

b The following grammar words (CAPPA: conjunctions, auxiliaries, pronouns, prepositions,

articles) take a weak form as the norm

Tip: if in doubt, choose a weak form over a strong form These are the most frequent

words in the language and, therefore, they are highly predictable in the context in which they appear These words take weak vowels because they are not stressed (See the notes

on weak and strong forms)

am ?l., are ?., was v?y., were v?

do (+consonant sound) c?., does c?y., have g?u., has

.g?y., had g?c

her g?., us ?r., them C?l

that C?s., there C?., some r?l., the (+consonant sound)

of ?u., to (+consonant sound) s?., from eq?l., at ?s., for

.e?

as

must l?rs., can j?m., could j?c., will v?k., would

be

he she

we

me lh., the (+vowel sound)

do (+vowel sound)

you it

to (+vowel sound) .st

who

could would

should RTc

Will

c Polysyllabic grammar words can potentially take a stress, too

24 If the grammar word you’re looking for is not in the list above, don’t turn it into a weak form

It’s on and off, till you break up, then

25. Pre-consonantal vs Pre-vocalic weak forms

The weak forms of to, do, the change depending on whether they’re followed by a consonant or a

vowel sound They take schwa

vowels

26 The verb to be is so frequent and predictable that it is almost always weak if it’s a monosyllable,

regardless of whether it functions as the main verb in a sentence

We were tired

The boys are late

27 Contractions:

a Negative contractions are always strong, because they contain a negative adverb inside

them

They weren’t scared

b Pronoun + auxiliary contractions are generally weak

He’ll be happy that she’s back

a That is strong when it works as a demonstrative, but it’s weak when it works as a

conjunction

b There is strong when it works as a locative, but it’s weak when it denotes existence There’s a pear over there

c Be careful with us and as

Tell us as much as you know

d Be careful with of and off

This friend of mine’s taken off

e Be careful with then and than

You’re older than me, then

f Be careful with he’s and his

He’s younger than his brother

Spelling and pronunciation:

Voice agreement

29 Regular plural nouns, the genitive and the 3 rd person singular inflection of the simple present

tense:

a If the final sound in the original word is voiceless

with it

b If the final sound in the original word is voiced

diphthong, we add y to agree in voice

c Exception: If the final sound in the original word is a sibilant consonant (i.e

phonemes in

d IRREGULARITIES:

• The spelling shows the change from e to u., but not from S to C.-

path

• There’s one irregular root word:

30 Regular verbs in the past tense <-ed> (and most adjectives):

a If the final sound in the original word is voiceless

voice with it

gap-toothed

b If the final sound in the original word is voiced

a diphthong, we add c to agree in voice

c Exception: If the final sound in the original word is either

added to the root Notice that the two phonemes in

d Notice:

• Some adjectives always take Hc

• The adverbial ending <-edly> is pronounced Hckh.-

Miscellanea

31 Be careful with the demonstratives:

a Basic vowel pattern: this .'!(

that .'!(Czs

32 <some> is strong in compounds

33 Notice:

.!vd? where – wear – ware

.v? were (most frequent form – weak)

.!v29 were (rarely – strong form)

34 The word <use> Compare:

35 Inflecting:

Vowel Final <-ing> Superlative <-est> Ordinal <-th>

b Make sure you don’t add an extra vowel in these cases Just follow the rule!

36 <-ng> vs <-gn>

Final <-gn> is m (i.e <g> is silent)

Final <-ng> is M (i.e <g> has fused with <n>)

37 Spelling <ng>

a Word-internal <-ng->, when it’s not at morpheme boundaries, is .Mf The f belongs in the word, therefore the nasal shows velar assimilation

b Word-final and morpheme-final<-ng> is M The letters <n> and <g> fuse

c Exception: the comparative and superlative forms of <long>, <strong> and <young>

add f

Adjective Comparative <-er> Superlative <-est>

strong !rsqPM stronger !rsqPMf? strongest !rsqPMf?rs

38 Spelling <x>

a It’s mostly found after a stressed vowel, and it’ jr For example:

• At the end of words

b It’s

c It’s

d It’s y at the beginning of words

Strong word beginnings

39 Prefixes can be strong when they are stressed They could take a primary stress, or a secondary stress

40 Negative <un-> takes a strong vowel, even if it’s not stressed

41 <de->

a .!cd when it takes either the primary or secondary stress

b .ch9 when it means “the opposite”

c

42 <pre->

a .!oqh9 when it takes either the primary stress in some words

b .!oqd when it takes a secondary stress (or primary stress in some words)

c .$oqh9 when it means “before”

d

43 <re->

a .!qd when it takes either a secondary or primary stress

b .qh9 when it means “again”

c