062 phonetics i sample test

because it behaves like the basic vowel pattern when a single vowel letter is sandwiched by two or more consonants the vowel sound is short.. Since this preposition is followed by a cons

Phonetics I – Examination Sample

Task:

1 What is the text about? Tell us your opinion

2 Read the text aloud

3 Focus on the words in green How do they behave in this specific context? Why? How would they behave in other contexts?

4 Comment on the elements highlighted in red Bear in mind their phonetic context

5 Provide a detailed analysis of the word highlighted in yellow

A Police Interview

P OLICEMAN : Now, Mrs Jones a , can 1 you t ell b us what happen ed c ?

M RS J ONES : I can’t 2 really remember, you k now d I t e was terrible!

P OLICEMAN : I do 3 understand, but you must 4 try to remembe r f everything Let’s start

from the beginning Where were 5 you?

M RS J ONES : Well, I was at the chemist ’s g I bought some 6 painkillers as I had 7 a

backache I then saw a gr ou p h of women who 8 d r ove i u p j to the bank in a fas t k car There were 9 three women a nd l they looked q u ite m suspicious I had no ide a n of what they were getting at 10 !

P OLICEMAN : What else do you remember?

M RS J ONES : The youn g est o woman gra bb ed p two bags from the back of the car and

handed them to 11 the 12 other s q After that 13 , they ran into the bank r I think

that 14 the young woman stayed outside to watch out for the police There were noises and some must have 15 bee n s gunshots, I’m not sure t I didn’t know what to do 16 , so I ducked and hid behind a car I coul dn’t u come up with a better idea.

P OLICEMAN : Di d y ou v see them ki ll L ieutenant w Gor don x ? This must be difficult for

you 16 , but we need to know

A NALYSIS

Discussion of the highlighted word

.$Umc?!rszmc This is a content word, therefore it is stressed The presence of stress in a syllable protects its vowel: a strong vowel is necessary, since

this word has a primary stress on the third syllable The Teutonic Rule is useful to spot a problem: English does not allow the first two syllables of any word to be unstressed As a result, it is necessary to spot the secondary stress that will protect another syllable from taking a weak vowel The rule of alternation helps us spot the secondary stress: English favours the alternation of stresses, so if the third syllable is stressed, the second syllable is likely to be unstressed while the first syllable is likely to carry a stress To sum up, the stress pattern of this word is ˜ˆ˜ , i.e a

stress on the first and third syllables The third syllable, <stand>, takes a strong vowel The choice here is z because it behaves like the basic vowel pattern (when a single vowel letter is sandwiched by two or more consonants the vowel sound is short) The spelling <a> corresponds to

unstressed syllable takes a weak vowel ?

z}9mcfi\

.U is a short vowel The lips are neutrally open This is a central vowel, or a somewhat retracted central vowel, so the front of the tongue is raised The height of the tongue is raised above the fully open position Vowels are voiced: the vocal folds are held close together so that the air coming from the lungs makes them vibrate as it passes through the glottis This vowel is nasalized because it is next to a nasal sound

.m is a voiced alveolar nasal The tip of the tongue (active articulator) comes in contact with the alveolar ridge (passive articulator) so the oral cavity is blocked at that point The velum is lowered,

so the air escapes freely through the nose

.c is a voiced alveolar plosive The first step for the production of c consists of the closing stage: the tip of the tongue (active articulator) comes in contact with the alveolar ridge (passive articulator) so the oral cavity is blocked at that point The second step is the hold stage: the air

coming from the lungs meets the oral obstruction and cannot escape as, unlike m., the velum is raised so the nasal passage is blocked The third step is the release stage: the organs that were held together for the closure separate abruptly so the air escapes producing plosion

.? is a weak vowel This is a central vowel because the front of the tongue is raised between the mid open and the mid close positions

.r is a voiceless alveolar fricative The active articulator, the tip and blade of the tongue, move towards the alveolar ridge leaving a narrow grooved gap The air that escapes through this narrow channel produces turbulence in the alveolar region, so this sound is a fricative The vocal folds are wide open, so there is no voicing

.s is a voiceless alveolar plosive (See c above) In this case, there is no aspiration because s is preceded by r in the same syllable

.z is categorized as a short vowel However, in this context, it is somewhat lengthened because it

is followed by a voiced sound The front of the tongue is raised between the mid-open and open positions This vowel is nasalized because it is next to a nasal sound

.c is devoiced as it is followed by silence

Discussion of weak and strong forms

1

be optionally weak or strong, depending on whether the speaker stresses this word or not

2

stressed because they contain a negative adverb in them

3

normally present in affirmative sentences It takes a strong form because emphasis is manifested by means of stress

obligation (c.f §15.)

5

pattern [<wh-> word + BE + pronoun + ?] because it is the nucleus of the intonation

phrase

6

weak when it pre-modifies plural countable nouns or uncountable nouns

7

word, it takes a stress and takes a strong form (c.f §9.)

8

when it is an interrogative word: they are strong because they stand for the gap of information

9

take a weak form The pronoun there is not a locative word here, so a strong form is

normally used The verb to be, unlike do or have when they function as a main verb, is

normally weak (c.f §7 & 17) It may be stated that the verb to be is almost always weak

because it is extremely frequent and predictable

10 The preposition at is used in its strong form because it is stranded In other

words, the complement to this preposition has been moved to the front and it has left a syntactic gap (c.f §11.)

11 The preposition to is used in its weak form because there are no reasons why it

should be strong (i.e it isn’t prominent as it isn’t cited, emphasized or contrasted There are no positional reasons to use a strong form because it’s neither buttressed nor

stranded) Since this preposition is followed by a consonant sound, the weak form takes ? (c.f §10.)

12 The article the is used in its weak form because there are no reasons why it

should be strong (i.e it isn’t prominent as it isn’t cited, emphasized or contrasted) Since this article is followed by a vowel sound, the weak form takes h

13 .'!(

context (c.f §14.)

14 .C?s The word that is used in its weak form because it is a conjunction in this

context (c.f §13.)

15

The modal must is used in the strong form because it denotes deduction (c.f §4) The

auxiliary verb have is used to indicate that this structure has a past time reference The auxiliary, which in this case always takes a special weak form without g., is not strong because it is not stranded or a short answer E.g.:

They can’t have died You should have gone

They might have stopped It may have sunk

It ought to have happened

16

17

discuss their behaviour in this sort of pattern The pronoun you is weak as it can’t be

stressed because it is neither contrastive nor emphatic It is very difficult for Spanish speakers not to stress it, because the tendency in Spanish is to make the last word in a chunk prominent We should avoid making unnecessary contrasts at all costs The word

for can be weak, but it can optionally be buttressed (i.e strengthened) Buttressing is

an optional process that involves the strengthening of a preposition in when it occurs in the patterns [verb + preposition + pronoun] or [verb + pronoun + preposition + pronoun] Buttressing probably occurs because of rhythmical reasons:

English favours the alternation of prominent and non-prominent syllables This process does not create any change in meaning NOTICE: Learners should be careful enough to

keep the nucleus of the chunk on the last new content word, which is almost

invariably the verb Under no circumstances should they make the preposition the nuclear

Discussion of processes, spelling, allophones, etc

a

number of words, the final silent <-e> letter is present to “make the previous vowel say its name” In this case, letter <o> ?T

b Z!sg

aspirated because it is initial in a stressed syllable and it is followed by a vowel The aspiration is manifested as a delayed voice onset time of the vowel, i.e a brief period of devoicing of the vowel Z!sg

Alternatively, this consonant may be affricated in modern Standard British English: the

friction may be local, in this case a brief and weak alveolar Zr\ in Z!srdk\

c .!gzo?mc The regular past tense suffix <-ed> is realized in the phonology as voiced c

because the final sound in the base form is also voiced

d

word but they are not present in the pronunciation They are obligatory (c.f elision) <k> is

silent in the digraph <kn>, as in knee, knot, etc

e

in several ways The most frequent realization in modern Standard British English is

glottalling or glottal replacement ZH>\ It is also possible to find glottalization or

glottal reinforcement here

especially s are preceded by a vowel or sonorant consonant (i.e nasal or lateral) and followed by any sound but a vowel or

assimilated into a bilabial

f

Standard British English is a non-rhotic accent, i.e

vowels and never before silence or another consonant The final <r> in a word emerges as

a sounded

the spelling

g

case This rule also applies to the suffix <-s> or <-es> used for plural countable nouns or

the verb form corresponding to the third person singular, simple present tense The voiceless r is added to the final sound in the base form, which is also voiceless Additionally, the consonant s can be elided (see §K)

h

sometimes used to indicate that the phonological vowel is long, as this breaks the Basic Vowel Pattern (c.f §R) Phonetically, however, this vowel shortened due to a process called pre-fortis clipping: the fortis voiceless consonant .o noticeably halves the length of the previous vowel Syllable-final voiceless sounds reduce the length of preceding vowels and sonorant sounds: this is most clearly observed in the reduction of long vowels and diphthongs to half their length (except for @9 and 29 that are slightly shortened so that there remains a contrast with U and ? respectively) (c.f §R)

i

approximant .q is realized as a voiced fricative Z¢“\

j

case) Learners should try to avoid exploding the first plosive (Z!Uog

speakers do not release the first plosive in an audible way (no-audible release – c.f

§P) The first plosive, o., has (1) a closing stage (the lips come together because this is a bilabial sound), (2) a hold stage (the organs of speech are held firmly together so that no air escapes through the mouth or nose; the air that comes from the lungs is pent up behind this closure) but (3) the release stage (i.e the separation of the lips) is not heard because the next plosive sound, s., has already started to be produced inside the mouth

In other words, the release of o is not heard because the closing stage of s has already started (i.e the tip of the tongue makes firm contact against the alveolar ridge so the airstream is blocked at that point) and the hold stage of s is produced when the bilabial closure of o is released Secondly, there’s another possibility All voiceless plosives in syllable-final position can be subjected to glottal reinforcement when they are

preceded by a vowel or sonorant consonant (i.e a nasal or a lateral in this case) and followed by silence or a consonant other than

k

contextual process by which one phoneme is suppressed to make articulation easier The alveolar plosives s and c are readily elided because they are extremely frequent sounds and they are highly predictable Syllable-final s and c can be elided when they are sandwiched by two other consonants, provided there is voice agreement between each of them and the preceding consonant and as long as the next sound is not g (TIP: As c is never preceded by a voiceless consonant, you need not worry about this You do have to make sure that

l

regardless of the following sound (c.f §G, K & U) Second, this word is an example of

dentalization, a type of contextual change that involves the likening of two sounds (see

assimilation and similitude, §S): the final alveolar cluster

articulation to resemble the following dental C sound In other words, the dental fricative C affects the previous alveolar consonants, since alveolar sounds are the most unstable in English

m

voiceless plosives

approximant

frictionless sounds because the degree or approximation of the articulators is too wide to produce turbulence) become devoiced and fricative The aspiration of the plosive fuses with the approximant sound (c.f §B)

n

linking

the spelling However, speakers are not conscious of the spelling system all the time, so they overgeneralize the rule and use an intrusive

the spelling) when the phonetic context is similar to that of a linking q E.g

(Linking) Here I am C.f (Intrusive) The idea of it

(Linking) More ice C.f (Intrusive) Saw ice.

o .!iUMf?rs The diagraph <ng> is pronounced differently according to the context (1)

When this group of consonants occur in final position of a word, they fuse and the sound

is

.!rHMHM.) However, the exceptions to this rule are the comparatives and superlatives of

young, strong and long, where f is needed: young !iUM.+ younger !iUMf?.+ youngest

word, the

p

consonant sounds They stand for only one a phoneme However, they normally affect the pronunciation of a previous vowel: double consonants block the formation of a diphthong and favour the use of short vowels (compare late

§a), so the vowel in this word is short As regards the realization of a., this is an example

of no-audible release (c.f §J) The first plosive, .a., has (1) a closing stage (the lips come together because this is a bilabial sound), (2) a hold stage (the organs of speech are held firmly together so that no air escapes through the mouth or nose; the air that comes from the lungs is pent up behind this closure) but (3) the release stage (i.e the separation

of the lips) is not heard because the next plosive sound, c., has already started to be produced inside the mouth In other words, the release of .a is not heard because the closing stage of c has already started (i.e the tip of the tongue makes firm contact against the alveolar ridge so the airstream is blocked at that point) and the hold stage of .s is produced when the bilabial closure of a is released

q

consonants (i.e consonants for the production of which there is a noise component due to the friction or plosion they require – these consonants comprise the families of plosives, fricatives and affricates) are devoiced when they are in contact with silence or a voiceless consonant; this is most noticeable when they are followed by these sounds These lenis sounds lose a considerable amount of voice, so they become auditorily similar to their voiceless counterparts However, although they may lose some or all their voice, they never become fortis sounds (i.e they don’t require as much muscular effort)

r Z!az·Mj\ To start with, this word is an example of the Basic Vowel Pattern

[(CC)V(CC)] Monosyllabic words tend to take a short vowel sound when there is only

one vowel letter in the spelling sandwiched by one or more consonants (c.f §I) To the Spanish ear, four English sounds can be mapped onto the Spanish

Since this word is stressed because this is a content word, schwa is impossible Second, as stated before, the long vowel @9 is ruled out because this example illustrates the Basic Vowel Pattern; also, only short vowels can precede the velar nasal M There remain

two possible candidates: the short vowels z and U The spelling rules out U., since this sound can’t be represented by letter <a>,

these (.z., in turn, can’t be represented by <o, u>) The syllable-final voiceless plosive

s

assimilation of place The English alveolar consonants are the most unstable,

especially

position and, if altered, the identity of the word is recoverable Assimilation is an optional process that consists of one or more sounds adopting a feature of a neighbouring sound

In English, de-alveolar assimilation is the most common by far: the alveolar

place of articulation of a following consonant (i.e

followed by a bilabial sound; similarly, they can become velar when followed by a velar sound;

this example, the voiced alveolar nasal

changes its place of articulation by adopting that of the following

becomes a voiced velar nasal

assimilation is used as an umbrella term for all contextual changes that involve the likening of two sounds, in traditional terms, assimilation requires a change of

phonemes while similitude requires a change of allophones (c.f §E & L)

t

<r> changes the quality of a previous vowel (compare cat !jzs and cart !j@9s.) Now, the

ending <-re> tends to make the previous vowel diphthongal

.!jzs and care !jd?., here 1

.!g29 and here !gH?.) As for T?., there tends to be a

1

It is relevant to bear in mind that the grammar word her is normally used as a weak form g? However,

the strong form !g29 is also possible in some cases, such as contrastive uses of the pronoun, citation or