Aspects of connected speech Modification of phonemes consonants

Aspects of connected speech. Modification of phonemes (consonants). Assimilation

Speech is a continuous stream of sounds, without clear-cut borderlines between them, and the different aspects of connected speech help to explain why written English is so different from spoken English.

In the final position voiced consonants lose their plosive and voiced character, whereas in the initial position they retain those features but are modified in another manner by the following vowel. For example, /ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ, l/ are slightly palatallized when followed by mid and close vowels' or by /j/, as in "shirt", "cheese", "leap" or" June".

The height of the central part of the tongue for /j/ fully depends upon the following vowel. Thus before /i: / (as in "yield") the central part of the tongue is raised higher than for /i: /; in the word "yes" it is as high as when articulating /j/ while in "yard" it reaches but the height of /e/.

When a consonant is a component of a consonant cluster, it is partially or completely assimilated by the neighbouring sounds. A consonant may be voiced or devoiced , it may lose its plosion (as in "that time"), or the plosion may become restricted (as id “please”, "great"), there may even occur coalescent assimilation which resu. Its in a new phoneme( as in /wount ʃə du: It/).

Assimilation is … change in pronunciation of a phoneme under the influence of its surrounding sounds: a speech sound becomes similar or identical to a neighboring sound.

English lenis consonants /b, d, g/ in final position can be voiceless, but they cannot be replaced by fortis /p, t, k/, as in English the fortis and lenis consonants distinguish words (e. g, "cab""cap", "had"—"hat", "bag—"back"). It has been noted that /ʃ/ may be "clear” or "dark” in one and the same phonetic position; but the "clear" allophone of /l/ does not occur in the positions in which the "dark" allophone of /l/ is used, if the latter is used instead of the former, it is immediately detected by the native speakers as a local accent.

The different phenomena of combinatory phonetics are regulated by what he calls "the law of the stronger“. According to it, the stronger phoneme influences the weaker one. The stronger phoneme assimilates, or accomodates the neighbouring phoneme because of its articulatory strength and stability, or by its position in the syllable. of course / ə f' `k ɔ: s / the /v/ is assimilated by /k/, because /v/ here is at the end of an unstressed syllable and is therefore weaker than the initial /k/.

Analysis of relative frequency of occurrence of English speech sounds shows that the most frequent consonants are/t, n, s, ð, l, d/. Whether they really are the most stable sounds in English requires thorough analysis.

Questions : 1) What can voiced consonants do in the initial and final position? 2)What may a consonant be when it is a component of a consonant cluster? 3) What is assimilation? 4)What can English lenis consonants be in final position?