The problem of phonologically relevant (distinctive) and irrelevant features of speech sounds.

The problem of phonologically relevant (distinctive) and irrelevant features of speech sounds.

Problem of phonological analysis is the identiticanon of the inventory o distinctive features on which all the phonological oppositions in the language are based. Every sound is characterized by a number of features, not all of which are equally important for communication. If one compares some of the allophones of /р/, it appears that all of them have common features and features which characterize only a few of them. The problem is to decide which of the features are phonologically relevant and which of them are irrelevant, or incidental. Each phoneme is characterized by a certain number of phonologically relevant features, which are its constant distinctive features. Each allophone of a certain phoneme is characterized by definite phonologically relevant features plus a number of irrelevant.In the system of English vowel phonemes there are oppositions of monophthongs between themselves and diphthongs between themselves (these oppositions are based on differences in the movements and positions of the tongue and lips.) Monophthongs&diphsongs(are based on both the above mentioned differences and the absence or presence of a glide) In the system of English consonant phonemes there are oppositions based on the force of articulation(fortis vs. lenis, bilabial vs. forelingual, bilabial vs. mediolingual, bilabial vs. backlingual, forelingual vs. mediolingual, forelingual vs. backlingual, forelingual vs. pharyngeal, labiodental vs. forelingual.There are oppositions based on the type of obstruction: plosive&fricative, prasive & affncate, plosive & sonorant, fricative & sonorant, fricative & affricate, constrictive sonorant & occlusive sonorant, unicentral vs. bicentral.

9The syllable as a phonetic Unit. The syllable as a min. unit of speech production-an arc of art. effort and an arc of sonority.

Sounds are the smallest segments into which the speech continuum is generally divided for purpose of analysis. In connected speech sounds are not pronounced separately, by ‘themselves’. It is impossible to draw articulatory boundaries between them. The smallest units, into which the speech continuum is divided, are syllables. So the smallest pronunciation unit is the syllable. The syllable can be considered as both as a phonological and a phonetic unit. As a phonetic unit the syllable is defined in articulatory, auditory and acoustic terms with universal application for all the languages. As a phonological unit the syllable can be defined and described only with reference to the structure of one particular language. The ancient Greek scholars noticed that the 2 main phonological types of sounds-vowels and cons. Fulfill different functions in speech. The function of a vowel is to occupy the central position in certain combinations of sounds, whereas consonants serve as the margins of the sound combinations.In other words vowels are always syllabic and cons. Are incapable of forming syllables without vowels.But in a number of a languages some sonorous and cons. Can also be syllabic because of their strong vocalic features. The relative sonority theory created by Jespersen, considers that sounds tend to group themselves according to their sonority. Pronounced with uniform force, length, and pitch, speech sounds differ in sonority. The most sonorous sounds are vowels, less sonorous are sonorants and the least sonorous are noise consonants.Of course the relative sonority doesn’t explain the mechanism of syllable formation. It only makes an attempt at explaining our perception of a syllable. Neither does it explain syllable division, as it does it explain syllable division, as it doesn’t say to which syllable the less sonorous sounds belong. Nevertheless the rel. sonor. Theory has been accepted by Jones and some other phoneticians.The most widespread theory which is known as Shcherba’s theory. According to this theory syllable is characterized by variations in muscular tension. The energy of articulation increases at the beginning of a syllable reaches its maximum with the vowel and decreases towards the end of the syllable. So, a syllable is an arcс of muscular tension. The boundaries between syllables are determined be the occurrence of the lowest articulatory energy.There are as many syllables in a word as there are maxima of muscular tension in it.Consonants within a syllable are characterized by different distribution of muscular tension. Shcherba distinguished 3 types of consonants: 1. Strong cons. = in the articulation of which the beginning is stronger while the end is weaker.They occur at the end of a closed syllable.2. Finally strong cons. In the art. Of which the beginning is weak while the ens is more energetic. They occur at the beginning of a syllable. 3 Double –peaked cons. In the art. Of which both the beginning and the end are energetic whereas the middle is weak. Acoustically they produce the impression of 2 consonants. This consonants occur at the junction of words or morphemes.

10. The English syllable as a phonological unit, Its structural characteristics. Interference in syllabic division, ways of overcoming syllabic interference in the speech of Belarusian and Russian learners of English.

Syllable formation in English, as in other languages, is based on the phonological opposition of vowels and consonants. Vowels are always syllabic, they occupy a central position in the syllable. Consonants are non—syllabic and marginal. It should be noted specially, that historically short English vowels never occur in stressed final position without the following consonant. It is a feature of English that in initial position, i.e. before the vowel, there can be any consonant except /G наоборот) J. O'Connor notes that final clusters are much more complex in English than initial ones. This is due to the fact that final clusters are used to express grammatical meanings of plurality, tense, ordinal number. In Russian initial clusters are more complex and more numerous than the final ones. English historically short vowels under stress (checked vowels} occur only in a closed syllable. Checked vowels are always followed by a consonant. So the syllabic boundary never occurs after these vowels. Historically long monophthongs, diphthongs and unstressed short monophthongs (free vowels) can occur both in the open and in the closed syllable. When there is a cluster of consonants between two vowels, the place of the syllabic boundary is conditioned by whether this cluster is permitted at the beginning of words or not. If it does occur in initial position in English the syllabic boundary is before it. If it doesn't, the boundary is between the consonants. The structure of an English syllable depends on whether it is stressed or not. The peak of the stressed syllable is always a vowel. In the unstressed syl— table the peak may be a vowel or a sonant. When the peak of the stressed syllable is a short vowel, the syllable must be "closed" by a consonant. That is why learners of EngIish shouId take care not to mispronounce English sounds and not to shift the syllabic boundary as it may cause not only a strong foreign accent, but also misunderstanding on the part of the listener.

Phonetic variation beyond the norm. Bilingualism. Interference as a deviation from the norm in the speech of bilinguals. Types of interference. Features of Bel-Eng and Rus-Eng prosodic interference, ways of overcoming it.

More than one language can be used in communication by the same persons. The practice of alternate use of two languages is called bilingualism. Languages used by bilingual persons are said to be in contact. Language contacts may be of a "mass" character, involving whole language communities or they can take place in "individual" or "group" bilingualism since in one individual speaker there exist two distinct language systems, and the speech of bilingual persons is thus the focus of the contacts. The major manifestation of bilingualism is interference. Language interference is a process and a result of the interaction and mutual influence of the language systems being in contact. Interference takes place on all the levels of language (phonetic, grammatical and lexical). On the phonetic level there are two types of interference: phonemic and prosodic. Learners of English, who are trained to be artificial bilinguals, should bear in mind that the prosodic patterns of their native language may, and very often do, sound wrong when applied to English Interference from the native language in English utterances spoken by Russian and Belarusian learners of English is observed in all the subsystems of prosody on the auditory and acoustic levels. The influence of the pitch patterns of the mother tongue in English utterances produced by Russians and Byelorussians manifests itself in the following deviations from the English prosodic norm:1)higher initial and final pitch levels of the rising tones and the falling-rising tone;2)wider pitch interval 3)lower final pitch level of the falling tone;4)lower initial pitch level of the utterance. According to the experimental studies of prosodic interference, stress and rhythm are the areas of the greatest number of deviations from the prosodic norm of the non—native language of the bilingual speaker, and what is more important, distortions in the accentual patterns display a very high degree of stability and communicative relevance. The tempo of English utterances pronounced by Russian and Byelorussian learners of English is slower than in the speech of Englishmen

Situational variation of Eng pronunciation. Phonostylistic investigations of speech. Functional and phonetic styles. The main extra linguistic style-differentiating factors. The problem of classification of phonetic styles.

There is sufficient evidence of the existence of phonetic styles. But further experimental investigation is needed to establish the most relevant phonetic features of the main styles of English pronunciation as well as of other languages. It will make it possible to produce a classification of styles based on phonetic principles, on the objective segmental and prosodic features of speech. The relations between phonetic styles and the orthoepic norm are complicated. The orthoepic norm is modified by extralinguistic factors and is characterized by all the phonetic features, specific for all its phonetic styles. Phonostylistic investigations of speech appear to provide valuable data not only for the linguist, but also for the sociologist. It is evident that in addition to the information we intend to convey, our speech reveals our cultural background and education. The problem of phonetic styles is of considerable importance to the teachers of foreign languages. When choosing the teaching standard it is necessary to determine not only the type of pronunciation, but also the style to be taught to foreigners. Besides, it is wise to differentiate the teaching of reading aloud from the teaching of oral conversation. Phonostylistic data should be made use of in developing the perceiving abilities of the learner. One has to provide the learner with necessary cues to differentiate the type of speech activity, the nature of interchange, the extent of formality of speech; the ability to perceive all those speech characteristics is very important in any communication act. Scholars distinguish a number of functional styles of the written language, such as belles-lettres style, publicists style, newspaper style, the style of official documents and that of scientific prose, which have clearly distinguishable lexical and syntactical peculiarities. Apart from a few scattered studies of oratorical and conversational styles, the styles of the spoken language are not as yet unanimously defined, though we are well aware of the phonetic differences between, say, a casual conversation and an official exchange of views. The analysis of the relationship between phonetic styles and functional styles of written English reveals that there is some connection between them. Besides that, there is evidently a correlation between phonetic and the so-called speech styles. Speech styles, just as phonetic styles, are conditioned by the circumstances of reality in which language functions, by the kind of situation the speaker happens to be in and by the aims of the speech situation the phonetic styles of spontaneous speech should be classified into official style, informal style or the style of everyday—life discourse, and familiar style. Each of these subgroups includes numerous varieties which are modified by extralinquistic factors. There is an obvious interconnection between phonetic and functional styles of the written language, on the one hand, and phonetic and speech styles, on the other. This makes the problem of classification of phonetic styles a very complicated one.

29-30. Phonetic style-forming means of English. Segmental/suprasegmental style-forming means. Until now it was considered that the phonetic style-forming means are the degree of assimilation, reduction and elision, all of which depend on the degree of carefulness of pronunciation. That means that nothing but changes in the sound structure and the syllabic structure of speech were taken into consideration, assimilation, reduction and elision are natural phonetic phenomena, which occur in any pronunciation style. These phenomena are caused by an unconscious economy of effort, known as 'the law of least effort' Elision, reduction and assimilation may, therefore, signal stylistic differences. Besides these segmental features, there are prosodic features which enable people to distinguish between different phonetic styles. Each speaker has a norm of loudness which he may depart from in different circumstances. His speech is generally characterized by a more or less regular usage of certain tones. Each speaker has a norm of speech tempo as well. Pauses also help to distinguish different varieties of speech. For example, the character of pauses shows striking differences between written English read aloud and informal conversation. Thus, it appears that each style of pronunciation is characterized by a re­latively high proportion of definite segmental and prosodic features which are not typical of other styles. Informality of conversational English is also created by unexpected introduction of dialect forms; elements of very formal language, slips of the tongue, hesitant drawls, uneven tempo, significant variations in loudness, paralinguistic features.

 

The problem of phonologically relevant (distinctive) and irrelevant features of speech sounds.

Problem of phonological analysis is the identiticanon of the inventory o distinctive features on which all the phonological oppositions in the language are based. Every sound is characterized by a number of features, not all of which are equally important for communication. If one compares some of the allophones of /р/, it appears that all of them have common features and features which characterize only a few of them. The problem is to decide which of the features are phonologically relevant and which of them are irrelevant, or incidental. Each phoneme is characterized by a certain number of phonologically relevant features, which are its constant distinctive features. Each allophone of a certain phoneme is characterized by definite phonologically relevant features plus a number of irrelevant.In the system of English vowel phonemes there are oppositions of monophthongs between themselves and diphthongs between themselves (these oppositions are based on differences in the movements and positions of the tongue and lips.) Monophthongs&diphsongs(are based on both the above mentioned differences and the absence or presence of a glide) In the system of English consonant phonemes there are oppositions based on the force of articulation(fortis vs. lenis, bilabial vs. forelingual, bilabial vs. mediolingual, bilabial vs. backlingual, forelingual vs. mediolingual, forelingual vs. backlingual, forelingual vs. pharyngeal, labiodental vs. forelingual.There are oppositions based on the type of obstruction: plosive&fricative, prasive & affncate, plosive & sonorant, fricative & sonorant, fricative & affricate, constrictive sonorant & occlusive sonorant, unicentral vs. bicentral.

9The syllable as a phonetic Unit. The syllable as a min. unit of speech production-an arc of art. effort and an arc of sonority.

Sounds are the smallest segments into which the speech continuum is generally divided for purpose of analysis. In connected speech sounds are not pronounced separately, by ‘themselves’. It is impossible to draw articulatory boundaries between them. The smallest units, into which the speech continuum is divided, are syllables. So the smallest pronunciation unit is the syllable. The syllable can be considered as both as a phonological and a phonetic unit. As a phonetic unit the syllable is defined in articulatory, auditory and acoustic terms with universal application for all the languages. As a phonological unit the syllable can be defined and described only with reference to the structure of one particular language. The ancient Greek scholars noticed that the 2 main phonological types of sounds-vowels and cons. Fulfill different functions in speech. The function of a vowel is to occupy the central position in certain combinations of sounds, whereas consonants serve as the margins of the sound combinations.In other words vowels are always syllabic and cons. Are incapable of forming syllables without vowels.But in a number of a languages some sonorous and cons. Can also be syllabic because of their strong vocalic features. The relative sonority theory created by Jespersen, considers that sounds tend to group themselves according to their sonority. Pronounced with uniform force, length, and pitch, speech sounds differ in sonority. The most sonorous sounds are vowels, less sonorous are sonorants and the least sonorous are noise consonants.Of course the relative sonority doesn’t explain the mechanism of syllable formation. It only makes an attempt at explaining our perception of a syllable. Neither does it explain syllable division, as it does it explain syllable division, as it doesn’t say to which syllable the less sonorous sounds belong. Nevertheless the rel. sonor. Theory has been accepted by Jones and some other phoneticians.The most widespread theory which is known as Shcherba’s theory. According to this theory syllable is characterized by variations in muscular tension. The energy of articulation increases at the beginning of a syllable reaches its maximum with the vowel and decreases towards the end of the syllable. So, a syllable is an arcс of muscular tension. The boundaries between syllables are determined be the occurrence of the lowest articulatory energy.There are as many syllables in a word as there are maxima of muscular tension in it.Consonants within a syllable are characterized by different distribution of muscular tension. Shcherba distinguished 3 types of consonants: 1. Strong cons. = in the articulation of which the beginning is stronger while the end is weaker.They occur at the end of a closed syllable.2. Finally strong cons. In the art. Of which the beginning is weak while the ens is more energetic. They occur at the beginning of a syllable. 3 Double –peaked cons. In the art. Of which both the beginning and the end are energetic whereas the middle is weak. Acoustically they produce the impression of 2 consonants. This consonants occur at the junction of words or morphemes.

10. The English syllable as a phonological unit, Its structural characteristics. Interference in syllabic division, ways of overcoming syllabic interference in the speech of Belarusian and Russian learners of English.

Syllable formation in English, as in other languages, is based on the phonological opposition of vowels and consonants. Vowels are always syllabic, they occupy a central position in the syllable. Consonants are non—syllabic and marginal. It should be noted specially, that historically short English vowels never occur in stressed final position without the following consonant. It is a feature of English that in initial position, i.e. before the vowel, there can be any consonant except /G наоборот) J. O'Connor notes that final clusters are much more complex in English than initial ones. This is due to the fact that final clusters are used to express grammatical meanings of plurality, tense, ordinal number. In Russian initial clusters are more complex and more numerous than the final ones. English historically short vowels under stress (checked vowels} occur only in a closed syllable. Checked vowels are always followed by a consonant. So the syllabic boundary never occurs after these vowels. Historically long monophthongs, diphthongs and unstressed short monophthongs (free vowels) can occur both in the open and in the closed syllable. When there is a cluster of consonants between two vowels, the place of the syllabic boundary is conditioned by whether this cluster is permitted at the beginning of words or not. If it does occur in initial position in English the syllabic boundary is before it. If it doesn't, the boundary is between the consonants. The structure of an English syllable depends on whether it is stressed or not. The peak of the stressed syllable is always a vowel. In the unstressed syl— table the peak may be a vowel or a sonant. When the peak of the stressed syllable is a short vowel, the syllable must be "closed" by a consonant. That is why learners of EngIish shouId take care not to mispronounce English sounds and not to shift the syllabic boundary as it may cause not only a strong foreign accent, but also misunderstanding on the part of the listener.