Теоретическая фонетика английского языка (Теоретическая фонетика английского языка М.А. Соколова, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова, Е.Л.Фрейдина. - Дубна; Феникс+, 2010. - 192 с.), страница 12

Contracted forms of the verbs "is" and "has" may retain voice or bedevoiced depending on the preceding consonant (incomplete progres­sive assimilation): that's [5] right; Tom's [z] gone; Jack's [s] done it.Assimilative voicing and devoicing can also be observed in the pro­nunciation of the possessive suffix's or s', the plural suffix of nouns (e)sand the third person singular Present Simple of verbs: girl's, beds, reads,Pete's, desks, writes.Changes in theWhen followed by the bilabial sonorant [w] consonants change their lipposition: they become labialized: twinkle, quite, swan.There are also adjusment processes that are a result of the consonant ­vowel interaction. They are generally described as accommodation or con­sonant vowel coarticulation. Here are some most common types of ac­comodation.Consonants tend to be labialized when followed by a roundedalzed) vowel: cool, pot, rude.Vowels are slightly nazalized under the influence ofthe preceding or fol­lowing sonorants [m] and [n]: and, nice, men, morning.Alveolar plosive [tl in the intervocal position before unstressed vowels isreplaced by a voiced tap: pretty, better.It should be noted that the allophonic realizations of phonemes can bedescribed as obligatory for all the members of the language community re­gardless of the style of speech.

It is obvious that the extent to which coar­ticulation and simplification processes are displayed in connected speechdepends on the style and tempo of speech. In formal speech the articulationis more careful and precise. In informal casual discourse (fast colloquialspeech) these processes are more marked. They will be described in Chap­lerv'1.5.3.2. Modifications ofvowelsThe phonetic process that affects English vowels in connected speech iscalled reduction. By vowel reduction we mean shortening or weakening ofI he sound, or, in other words, shortening in length that is usually accompa­Chapter 1. The Functional Aspect of Speech Sounds48nied by a change in quality. \bwel reduction in unstressed syllables is verycommon both in English and in Russian.In connected speech vowels can be exposed either to quantitative andqualitative reduction or both.

These changes of vowels are determined by anumber of factors, such as the position ofa vowel in a word and in an utter­ance, accentual structure, rhythm, tempo of speech.Quantitative reduction or shortening of vowel length takes place in thefollowing cases:1. The length of vowel depends on the immediate phonetic environment(positional length). Vowels are the longest in the final position, theyare shorter before a voiced consonant and the shortest in a syllableclosed by a voiceless consonant, knee - need - neat.2. Long vowels in form words are shortened in unstressed positions: At lasthe [i'] has come.Modifications in quality occur in unstressed positions. The mostcommon form of vowel reduction is reduction to schwa [a].

In its pro­duction the tongue is the closest to the neutral position, the lips areunrounded and it is the shortest of all vowels. The pronunciation ofschwa instead of some other vowel saves articulatory effort and time.Man [meen] sportsman ['sp;:dsman], conduct ['knndakt] - conduct[kan'dAkt]. You can easily do it [ju' kan i:zrlI ,duSchwa is considered to be the most frequent sound in English. Itis obviously the result of the rhythmic pattern in which stressed sylla­bles alternate with unstressed ones. Unstressed syllables are given onlya short duration and the vowel in them is reduced.3.

Vowels are slightly nasalized when preceded or followed by a nasal con­sonant like in man, no, then, mean.We would like to conclude by saying that certain interrelationwhich we observe between the full form of a vowel and its reducedforms is conditioned by the tempo, rhythm and style of speech.SummaryThe phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech inthe form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same lan­guage to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.According to this definition the phoneme is a unity of three aspects:functional, material and abstract.Sununary49The phoneme performs the distinctive function.

The opposition ofpho­nemes in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning ofmorphemes and words.The phoneme is realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its al­lophones. Allophones of the same phoneme possess similar articulatoryfeatures. The difference between the allophones is predictable and is theresult of the influence of the neighbouring sounds.The actually pronounced speech sounds (phones) are modified by pho­nostylistic, dialectal and individual factors.Native speakers abstract themselves from the difference between the al­lophones of the same phoneme because it has no functional value but theyhave a generalized idea ofa complex ofdistinctive features, which cannot bechanged without the change of meaning.

This functionally relevant bundleofarticulatory features is called the invariant ofthe phoneme.The articulatory features which distinguish meaning and form the in­variant of the phoneme are called distinctive or relevant. The articulatoryfeatures which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non-distinc­tive or irrelevant.Transcription is a set of symbols representing speech sounds. Broad (orphonemic) transcription provides special symbols for all the phonemes of alanguage and is used in EFL teaching.

Narrow or allophonic transcriptiongives special symbols for allophones and is mainly used in research.There exist various conceptions of the phoneme which can be groupedinto the following main classes: "psychological" or "mentalistic" view (spe­cial attention is given to the abstract aspect of the phoneme), "functional"view (concentrates on the ability of the phoneme to distinguish meaning),"physical" view (is concerned with the material aspect). The conception ofthe phoneme first put forward by L. V Shcherba is a comprehensive one: itgives equal importance to the three aspects of the phoneme.The aim ofthe phonological analysis is, firstly, to determine the distinc­tive features of sounds (or their phonemic status) and, secondly, to createthe inventory ofthe phonemes ofa language (the phonemic system of a lan­guage).

In other words, phonological analysis is aimed at identifYing thephonemes and classifying them.There are two methods of phonological analysis: formally distributionalmethod and semantically distributional method. Formally distributionalmethod is focused on the position ofa sound in the word, or its distribution.The semantically distributional (semantic) method is based on the phone­mic rule that phonemes can distinguish words and morphemes when op­50Chapter IIChapter I.

The Functional Aspect of Speech Soundsposed to one another in the same phonetic context. The main procedure iscalled commutation test. It consists in finding minimal pairs of words andtheir grammatical forms, i. e. pairs of words or morphemes which differ inonly one sound in the same phonetic context. To establish the phonemicstructure of a language it is necessary to establish the whole system of op­positions. All the sounds should be opposed in word-initial, word-medialand word-final positions.There are special difficulties in establishing the phonemic status ofsounds in their weak position.

This problem is approached in different waysby the Moscow and St. Petersburg phonological schools.The application of phonological analysis shows that English phonemesare grouped into classes according to the distinctive (phonemic) features.The following features are distinctive for consonants: type of obstruction(manner of articulation), place of articulation and active organ of speechand force of articulation. The phonemic feature of vowels is vowel quality(tongue position).The articulation ofsounds in connected speech is affected by their pho­netic environment.

Speech sounds influence each other in the chain ofspeech. Modifications of speech sounds that occur due to this influence arecalled assimilation, accommodation, reduction and elision.SYLLABIC STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS2.1.2.2.2.3.2.4.The Phenomenon of the SyllableSyllable FormationSyllable Division (Phonotactics)Functional Aspect ofthe Syllable2.1. The Phenomenon of the SyllableThis chapter is concerned with the syllable as a phonetic and phono­logical unit.It is generally known that speech is a continuum. However it can bebroken into minimal pronounceable units into which sounds show a ten­dency to cluster or group themselves.

These smallest phonetic groups aregiven the names of syllables. Being the smallest pronounceable units, thesyllables are capable of forming language units of greater magnitude, 1. e.morphemes, words and phrases. Each of these units is characterized by acertain syllabic structure. Consequently we might say that a meaningful lan­guage unit has two aspects: syllable formation and syllable division whichform a dialectical unity.Figure 7Two Aspects of the Syllablesyllable fonnationsyllable divisionBefore we look at the English syllable in detail we should note that thestudy of the syllable has for a long time occupied an important place in Iin­52Chapter II.

Syllabic Structure of English Wordsguistics as a field of theoretical investigation. A considerable body of ex­perimental work has been done but we have to admit that the problem ofthe .syllable is still an open question in linguistics and phonetics.The point is that the syllable is a fairly complicated phenomenon andlike the phoneme it can be studied on four levels: acoustic, articulatory, au­ditory and functional and so it can be approached from different points ofview. This fact gave rise to a number oftheories the most consistent ofwhichare: the so-called expiratory theory, experimentally proved by R.

H. Stetson;the sonority theory put forward by O. Jespersen; the theory of muscular ten- .sion which wa<; sketched by L. V. Sherba and modified by V. A. Vasilyev, andthe loudness theory, worked out by N. I. Zhinkin. Each of these theories is(in either explicit or implicit way) based on the idea of pulses the structureof which form what can be called an arc which correlates with the level ofspeech production and can be identified on the level of perception.Since the syllable is not a simple concept no phonetician has successedso far in giving an exhaustive and adequate explanation of what the syllableis.