Descriptive Grammar of English Part 1 Phonetics and

Descriptive Grammar of English Part 1: Phonetics and Phonology dr Iwona Kokorniak (with contribution from dr Jarosław Weckwerth) 17 th January 2009 1

Connected speech You can’t go with us ju: kɑ: nt gəʊ wɪð ʌs jə kɑ: ŋk gəʊ wɪð əs kɑ: ŋ gəʊ 2

Connected speech Ten past ten pæst ten tem pæs ten 3

Connected speech I can buy it aɪ kən baɪ ɪt aɪ kəm baɪ ɪt 4

Connected speech do you think du: ju: θɪŋk də jə θɪŋk dʒə θɪŋk 5

Connected speech we should go wi: ʃʊd goʊ wi ʃʊg goʊ 6

Why reduced vowels and stuff? Typical for … … stressed times languages Isochrony: Intervals between stresses … l … tend to be similar … l … irrespective of how many syllables there are in between l 7

Stress timing in English That’s the house that Jack built And this is the edifice that Jason constructed 8

Stress timing in English 9

Compare Spanish is an example of a syllable timed language Here, each syllable occupies more or less the same amount of time 10

Compare Juan habla con Fidel Juanita hablaba con el comandante 11

Syllable timing Malicious English phoneticians … … call it ‘machine gun speech’ Polish is not a typical member of any of the two classes 12

Physical correlates of stress Pitch l Stressed syllables have higher pitch Length l Stressed syllables are longer 13

Physical correlates of stress Loudness l Stressed syllables are louder Quality l Stressed syllables have full vowels, unstressed syllables may have reduced vowels 14

English stress placement May fall on any syllable in the word (is free) character develop employee 15

English stress placement Rules are complex, with many exceptions Best to memorise with each new word 16

Polish stress placement In a vast majority of cases Stress is fixed on the penultimate syllable (second from the end) Sometimes may cause problems for Polish learners of English 17

Polish stress placement Traditionally not stressed on the penultimate syllable: muzyka, etc. l zrobiliśmy, etc. l zrobilibyśmy, etc. l siedemset, etc. l 18

English stress Stress placement: There are some rules for complex words 19

Secondary stress In words of 3+ syllables … … if the main stress is on the third (or further)… … then one of the first two syllables carries secondary stress 20

Secondary stress 21

Secondary stress In complex words Falls on the same syllable where main stress falls in the ‘root’ word 22

Secondary stress because 23

Secondary stress because 24

Tertiary stress In very long words There may be tertiary stress in the middle 25

Tertiary stress 26

Stress & suffixes Some suffixes attract stress to themselves Refugee, trainee, employee, Engineer, volunteer, pioneer, Chinese, Japanese 27

Stress & suffixes Some suffixes attract stress to a defined syllable organisation, constribution, intuition, reflection ability, acceptability, possibility, capability 28

Stress & suffixes photography, geography, bibliography, geology, meteorology biological, technical, political, historical 29

Stress & suffixes Some suffixes are partially regular photographic, optimistic, terrific, historic BUT Arabic, Catholic, heretic, choleric, politic, rhetoric, lunatic 30

Stress & suffixes potential, fundamental, essential, initial, BUT rational, federal, cardinal 31

Stress & suffixes instinctive, prospective, reflexive, explosive BUT alternative, demonstrative, conservarive BUT communicative, imaginative 32

Stress & suffixes dangerous, hazardous, humorous, glamorous BUT advantageous, corageous, malicious 33

Stress & suffixes Some do not affect stress placement at all organising, associating, communicating, imagining, characterising, developing, influencing 34

Stress & suffixes associated, alternated, interrogated, influenced influences, etc. These are usually very problematic for Poles 35

Stress & suffixes Compare Polish: telewizora telewizorowi 36

Compounds & phrases English teacher ‘a teacher from England’ (may teach e. g. biology) l ‘a teacher of English’ (may be e. g. Japanese) l 37

Compounds & phrases Compounds l English / biology / art. / chemistry teacher Phrases l English, short, thin, boring, black, bald teacher 38

Compounds & phrases Compare Polish: Pociąg osobowy, pospieszny, towarowy (like compounds) l Długi, czysty, pachnący, szybki pociąg (phrases) l 39

Compounds & phrases Compounds carry early stress (on the 1 st element) ‘English teacher ‘hot dog ‘moving van ‘White House 40

Compounds & phrases Phrases carry late stress (on the last element) English ‘teacher hot ‘dog moving ‘van white ‘house 41

Compounds & phrases Compound verbs, adjectives and adverbs usually have late stress grow ‘up, double-’check cold ‘blooded, old-’fashioned down-’hill, north-’west 42

Compounds & phrases Place names (if not with ‘Street’) carry late stress Fifth ‘Avenue, Park ‘Lane, Leicester ‘Square, Hyde ‘Park, New ‘York, Melrose ‘Road 43

Stress shift English avoids two stressed syllables next to each other Therefore, if such a thing would result in a phrase … … the stress in the first word is moved forwards 44

Stress shift ˌJapa'nese but ˌJapanese 'car not Japa‘nese ‘car 45

Stress shift ˌNew 'York but ˌNew York ‘City not New ˌYork ‘City 46

Stress shift A very good description in Wells’s dictionary 47

The syllable How many syllables? Do you know? 48

The syllable Usually there’s a vowel in each syllable The vowel plus the consonants around it form the syllable Which consonants? ? ? 49

Syllabification Consider: extra 50

Syllabification e. kstrə ekstr. ə BAD! WHY? 51

Syllabification Rules of syllable structure Language-specific i. e. different in each language Consider: Brda No similar example in English 52

English syllable structure 53

English syllable onsets All consonants before the vowel Max. 3 If 3, then: /s/ + voiceless plosive + approximant, e. g. /skr/ 54

English syllable onsets So e. kstrə bad because the onset is not allowed 55

Polish syllable onsets Compare Polish: wzgląd wzdłuż mgła, etc. 56

English syllable onsets In particular no clusters of: l Plosive + plosive l Plosive + nasal l Plosive + fricative 57

English syllable onsets Thus: ptolemy /'tɒləmi/ l knee /ni: / l psycho /'saıkəʊ/ l xerox /'zıroks/ l 58

English syllable onsets Homework: Look up ‘Gdansk’ in Wells’s dictionary 59

English syllable peaks Syllable peak = nucleus Usually a vowel Sometimes a syllabic consonant 60

Open and closed syllables Closed (checked) syllables Those that have consonants after the vowel (a coda) All English vowels allowed 61

Open and closed syllables Open syllables No coda Only ‘tense’ vowels allowed: Long vowels and diphthongs 62

Open and closed syllables Short (‘lax’) vowels: ı e æ ʌ ɒ ʊ Only allowed in closed syllables 63

Open and closed syllables Thus: Are impossible in English 64

Syllabic consonants nl May act as syllable peaks If another consonant precedes 65

Syllabic consonants Transcription convention in Wells’s dictionary: 66

Syllabic consonants IPA 67

Syllabic consonants In rhotic varieties, /r/ may be syllabic 68

Syllabic consonants As a result of assimilation /m/ and /ŋ/ may become syllabic 69

Syllabic consonants 70

What we’ve done Described the sound system of English 71

What we’ve covered Basic articulatory phonetics Details of English consonants and vowels (British and American standards) 72

What we’ve covered Comparison of some aspects of English phontics & phonology with Polish English connected speech, also compared with Polish 73

What we’ve covered English word stress, with special emphasis on complex words English syllable structure 74

What for? So that you know what you’re doing as a professional language user 75

What for? So that you can decode actual pronunciation from an entry in a dictionary. . . and use it in your English 76

What for? So that you can detect and address the problems of your own future students 77

What for? To make learning the pronunciation of other languages easier 78

What for? To make you aware that language works as a system Polish, too! 79

What now? Don’t throw this knowledge away 80

What now? Remember about sources! etc. 81