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English Phonetics and Phonology A practical course Second edition Peter Roach Professor of Phonetics University of Reading BES CAMBRIDGE Los Uy UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpingron Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, United Kingdom 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 100114211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia (O Cambridge Universicy Press 1983, 1991 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions af relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1983 Eighth printing 1989 Second edition 1991 Eighth printing 1993 Printed in the Uniced Kingdom ar the University Press, Cambridge Library of Congress catalogue card number: 90-28674 British Library cataloguing in publication data Roach, Peter 1943 English phonetics and phonology: a practical course. - 2nd ed. 1. English language. Phonetics 1. Title 421.5 ISBN 0 $21 40718 4 ISBN 0 321 40719 2 Set of 2 cassettes (ISUN O $21 28252 7 Student's Book first edition) (ISBN 9 521 28253 5 Tutor's Book first edition) UN TU 12, Exs 1-4 12 Weak forms normal pronunciation. There are some fairly simple rules; we can say that the strong form is used in che following cases: i) For many weak-form words, when they occur at the end of a sentence. For example, the word “of” has the weak form ev in the following sentence: “Tm fond of chips” arm 'fond av 'tfips but when it comes at the end of the sentence, as in the following example, it has the strong form Dv: “Chips are whar Pm fond of 'tfips a 'wot arm 'fond bv Many of the words given below (particularly the first nine) never occur at the end of a sentence, e.g. “the', “your”. Some words (particularly the pronouns numbered 10-14 below) do occur in their weak forms in final position. 1) When a weak-form word is being contrasted with another word, eg: “The letters from him, not to him? de 'letaz "from im not 'tu: im Á similar case is what we might call a co-ordinated use of prepositions: 1 travel to and from London a lor” ar 'traevl “tu: en 'from “landan a "lot “A work of and about literature” a 'w3:k 'bv an a'baut 'Irtritfa iii) When a weak-form word is given stress for the purpose of emphasis, e.g.: “You must give me more money” ju 'mast 'grv mi 'ma: 'mani iv) When a weak-form word is being “cited” or “quoted”, e.g.: “You shouldn't put “and” ar the end of a sentence” ju 'fudnt put 'send at di 'end ev a 'sentens Another point to remember is rhar when weak-form words whose spelling begins with “h? (e.g. her”, “have”) occur at the beginning of a sentence, the pronunciarion is with inicial h, even though this is usually omitted in other contexts. In the rest of this chapter, the most common weak-form words will be introduced. 1. THE” Weak forms: 09 (before consonants) “Shut the door” 'fat da 'do: 0i (before vowels) “Wait for the end” 'went ta di 'end 2. “a, “AN” Weak forms: a (before consonants) “Read a book" — 'rizd a 'buk en (before vowels) “Eat an apple” 'i:tan 'apl 103 104 12 10. Weak forms . AND? Weak form: an (sometimes n after t, d, s, 2, f) “Come and see” 'kam an 'siz “Fish and chips” “hn 'tfips “pur” Weak form: bot It's good but expensive” rts 'gud bat Iks'pensIv “THAT” (This word only has a weak form when used in a relative clause; when used with a demonstrative sense it is always pronounced in its strong form.) Weak form: Óat The price is the thing that annoys me' 08 *prais 12 da “Oir, Óot a'norz mi “THAN” Weak form: Ó9n 'Betrer chan ever” “bete den 'eva “His” (when it occurs before a noun) Weak form: 12 (hiz ar the beginning of a sentence) “Take his name” 'teik 1z 'neim (Another sense of “his”, as in “it was his”, or his was late”, always has the strong form.) . “HER” (When used with possessive sense, preceding a noun; as an object pronoun, this can also occur ar the end of a sentence.) Weak forms: a (before consonants) “Take her home” 'terk a 'haum ar (before vowels) “Take her ou 'telk ar 'aut “YOUR” Weak forms: ja (before consonants) *Take your time” 'terk ja "tam jar (before vowels) “On your own” 'bn jar 'sun "SHE?, HE”, WE, You” This group af pronouns has weak forms pronounced with weaker vowels chan the li: and u: of their serong forms. 1 will use the symbol» ¡and y (in preference to Land 0) to represent them. There is lirtle difference in the pronunciation in different places in the sentence, except in the case of “he”. Weak forms: sHE? fi "Why did she read it?” 'war did Ji 'rizd rt “Who is she” 'huz “mz Ji : “HE? ¡(the weak form is usually pronounced without h except at the beginning of a sentence) “Which did he choose?" 'wrtf did i 'tfuzz “He was late, wasn't he” hi waz “let 'woznt i 106 12 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. Weak forms In final position: from “Here's where it came from” 'hiez wear rt 'kerm from “or” Weak form: av “Most of all! 'meust av 'o:1 ln final position: Dv “Someone ve heard of 'saAmwaAn alv “ha:d Dv TO Weak forms: te (before consonants) . “Try to stop” "trar te "stop tu (before vowels) *Time to ea 'tam tu 'i:t la final position: tu (lr is not usual to use the strong form tu:, and the pre-consonantal weak form ta is never used.) Y don't want to” al 'deont 'wont tu as? Weak form: 9z “As much as possible" 32 'MaAtf az 'postbl In final position: 222 “That's what it was sold as” 'Óaats “wot tt waz 'savid sez “SOME” This word is used in two different ways. In one sense (typically, when it occurs before a councable noun, meaning “an unknown individual”) it has the strong form: *] think some animal broke ic” ar '81k sam 'sentm] 'brauk tt Ir is also used before uncountable nouns (meaning “an unspecified amount of”*) and before other nouns in the plural (meaning “an unspecified number of”), in such uses it has the weak form sam, *Have some more tea” 'heev sem 'mo: 'ti: In final position: sam 'Pve got some” alv "got sam “THERE” When this word has a demonstrative funcrion, ir always occurs in its strong form Óes (Óesr before vowels), e.g. “There it is? 'dear rt IZ *Put it there” 'put rt 'dea Weak forms: 09 (before consonants) “There should be a rule” da 'Jud bi a 'ru:l 12 Weak forms dar (before vowels) There is* Óar “12 In final position the pronunciation may be da or des. “There isn't any, ts there? dar 'rznt eni 'z d9 or Óar 'znt eni '1z des The remaining weak-form words are all auxiliary verbs, which are always used in conjunction with (or at least implying) another (“full”) verb. lt is important to remember that in their negative form (i.e. combined with “not') they never have the weak pronunciation, and some (e.g. “don't”, can't”) have different vowels from their non-negative strong forms. 23, CAN”, “COULD” Weak forms: kan, kad “They can waic 'del kan 'wert “He could do it” *hi: kad 'du: rt In final position: kaen, kud “I think we can? as 'Bink wi koen “Most of them could” 'maust av dam kud 24, “HAVE?, HAS”. 'HAD” Weak forms: av, az, ad (with inicial h in inicial position) “Which have you seen” 'wrtf av ju 'sizn “Which has been best? 'wrtf ez 'bi:n “best *Most had gone home” 'maust ad “gon “haum In final position: heev, haez, haed Yes, we have” "jes wi 'haev *l think she has* ar 'Ormk fi 'haez J thought we had" ar 'Bo:t wi 'haed 25. "SHALL, “SHOULD” Weak forms: [al or fl; fad “We shall need to hurry” wi fl 'nid te “hari *I should forget it” 'ar fed fa'get tt In final position: fael, fud 1 think we shal? ar 'Bmk wi “feel “So you should' 'seu ju 'Jud 26. 'musT? This word is sometimes used with the sense of forming a conclusion or deduction, e.g. “she left at 8 o"clock, so she must have arrived by now”; when “must” is used in this way, it is rather less 107 12 Weak forms “The last record was” da 'la:st 'reko:d woz “They werer't as cold as we were” der 'wa:nt ez 'kauld az 'wi: wa: 14 14.1 120 Aspects of connected speech Many years ago scientists tried to develop machines that produced speech from a vocabulary of pre-recorded words; the machines were designed to join these words together to form sentences. For very limited messages, such as those of a “talking clock”, this technique was usable, but for other purposes the quality of the speech was so unnatural that it was practically unincelligible. The failure of this “mechanical speech” approach (which eventually led to the develop- ment of speech synthesis by rule) has many lessons to teach us about pronunciation teaching and learning, and it will be uscful, in looking at connected speech, to bear in mind the difference between the way humans speak and what would be found in “mechanical speech”. Rhythm The notion of rhythm involves some noticeable event happening at regular inrervals of time; one can detect the rhythm of a hearr-bear, ofa flashing light or of a piece of music. lt has often been claimed that English speech is rhythmical, and thar the rhythm is detectable in the regular occurrence of stressed syllables; of course, it is nor suggested char the timing is as regular as a clock — the retularity of occurrence is only relative, The theory thar English has stress-timed rhychm implies chat stressed syllables will tend to occur at relatively regular intervals whether they are separated by unstressed syllables or not; this would not be the case in “mechanical speech”, An example is given below. In this sentence, the stressed syllables are given numbers: syllables 1 and 2 are nor separated by any unstressed syllables, 2 and 3 are separated by one unstressed syllable, 3 and 4 by two and 4 and 5 by three. 1 2 3 pl 5 'Walk 'dawn the 'path ta the 'end of the ca'nal The stress-timed rhythm theory states that the times from each stressed syllable ro the next will tend to be the same, irrespective of the number of intervening unstressed syllables. The theory also claims chat while 122 14 Aspects of connected speech 1f we then look at this phrase in the context of a longer phrase “twenty places further back”, and build up the “further back” part in a similar way, we would end up with an even more elaborate structure: ) twen ty pla ces fur ther hack By analysing speech in chis way we are able to show the relationships between strong and weak elements, and the different levels of stress that we find. The strength of any particular syllable can be measured by counting up che number of times an S symbol occurs above it; the levels in the sentence shown above can be diagrammed like this (leaving out syllables that have never received stress at any level): s $ $ 5 s s 5 rwen ty pla ces fur ther back The above pattern may be correct for very slow speech, but we must now look ar what happens to the rhythm in normal speech: many English spuakers would feel that, alcthough in “twenty places' che right- hand foot is the stronger, the word “twenty' is stronger than “places” in “twenty places further back" when spoken in conversational style. lt is widely claimed that English speech tends towards a regular alternation between stronger and weaker, and tends to adjust stress levels to bring this about. The effect is particularly noticeable in cases such as the following: compact (adjective) kam'peekt but compact disc 'kompeekt disk thirteen 93:'tizn but thirteenth place '83:ti:n8 'plets Westminster westminste but Westminster Abbey 'westminster 'aebi In brief, ir seems chat stresses are altered according to context: we need to be able to explain how and why this happens, but this is a difficult question and one for which we have only partial answets. An additional factor is that in speaking English we vary in how rhythmically we speak: sometimes we speak very rhythmically (rhis is typical of some styles of public speaking) while at orher times we speak 14.2 14 Aspects of connected speech arhythmically (char is, wichour rhythm) — for example, when we are hesitant or nervous. Stress-timed rhythm is thus perhaps characteristic of one style of speaking, not of English speech as a whole; one always speaks with some degree of rhythmicality, but the degree will vary between a minimum value (arhythmical) and a maximum (completely stress-timed rhythm). It follows from what was said earlier chat in a stress-timed language all the feet are supposed to be of roughly the same duration. Many foreign learners of English are made to practise speaking English with a regular rhythm, often with the teacher beating time or clapping hands on the srressed syllables. lr must be pointed out, however, that the evidence for the existence of stress-timed rhythm is not strong. There are many laboratory techniques for measuring time in speech, and measurement of the time intervals berween stressed syllables in connected English speech has not shown the expected regularity; moreover, using the same measuring techniques on different languages, it has not been possible to show a real difference between “stress- timed” and “syllable-timed” languages. Experiments have shown that we tend ro hear speech as more rhythmical than it actually is, and one suspects chat this is what the proponents of the stress-timed rhythm theory have been led to do in their audirory analysis of English rhythm. However, one ought to keep an open mind on the subject, remembering that the large-scale, objective study of suprasegmental aspects of real speech is only just beginning, and there is much research that needs to be done. Whar, then, is the practical value of the traditional “rhythm exercise” for foreign learners? The argument about rhythm should not make us forget the very important difference in English berween strong and weak syllables; some languages do not have such a noticeable difference (which may, perhaps, explain the subjective impression of *“syllable-timing””), and for native speakers of such languages learning English it can be helpful to practise repeating strongly rhythmical utterances since this forces the speaker to concentrate on making unstressed syllables weak. Speakers of languages like Japanese, Hungarian and Spanish, which do not have weak syllables to anything like the same extent as English does, may well find such exercises of some value (as long as they are not overdone to the point where learners feel they have to speak English as though they were reciting verse). Assimilation- The device mentioned earlier chat produces “mechanical speech” would contain all the words of English, each having been recorded in 123 14 Aspects af connected spaech become b, d and 9, respectively, and nm would become M, R and n. However, the same is nor true of rhe other alveolar consonants: s and z behave differently, the only noriceable change being that s becomes $, and Z becomes 3 when followed by [ or j, as in: “this shoe' df fu; *rhose years” 0903 jrez. Ir is important to note that the consonants that have undergone assimilation have not disappeared; in the above examples, the duration of the consonants remains more or less what one would expect for a rwo-consonant cluster, Assimilation of place is only noticeable in this regressive assimilation of alveolar consonants; it is not something that foreign learners need to learn to do. Assimilation of manner is much less noticeable, and is only found in the most rapid and casual speech; generally speaking, the tendency is again for regressive assimilation and the change in manner is most likely to be towards an “easier” consonant — one which makes less obstruction to the airflow. lt is thus possible to find cases where a final plosive becomes a fricative or nasal (e.g. “that side” Oses sard, 'good night gun nat), but most unlikely thar a final fricarive or nasal would become a plosive. In one particular case we find progressive assimil- ation of manner, when a word-initial O follows a plosive or nasal at the end of a preceding word: it is very common to find that the Ci becomes identical in manner to the Cf but with dental place of articulation. For example (the arrow symbol means “becomes””): “in the" m d3 > 1nna “get them” get dam — gettem “read these' mid diz > ri:ddi:z It seems that the Í phoneme frequently occurs with no discernible friction noise. Assimilation of voice is also found, but again only in a limited way. Only regressive assimilation of voice is found across word boundaries, and then only of one type; since this matter is important for foreign learners we will look at ir in some detail. 1£ Cóis a lenis (ie, “voiced”) consonant and Cl is fortis (""voiceless””) we often find that the lenis consonant has no voicing; this is not a very noticeable case of assimilation, since, as was explained in Chapter 4, initial and final lenis consonants usually have litrle or no voicing anyway. When C is fortis (“voiceless”') and Ci lenis (“voiced"), a context in which in many languages CÍ would become voiced, assimilation of voice never takes place; consider the following example: Y like chat black dog' ar lark Ozet bleek dog. It is typical of many foreign learners of English to allow regressive assimilation of voicing to change the final k of “like? to g, the final t of “that” to d and the final k of “black” to g. This creates a very strong impression of a foreign accent, and is someching rhat should obviously be avoided. 125 126 14 Aspects of connected speech Up to this point we have been looking at some fairly clear cases of assimilation across word boundaries. However, similar effects are also observable across morpheme boundaries and to some extent also within the morpheme. Sometimes in the latter case it seems that the assimilation is rather different from the word-boundary examples; for example, if in a syllable-final consonant cluster a nasal consonant precedes a plosive or a fricative in the same morpheme, the place of articularion of the nasal is always determined by the place of articulation of the orher consonant; thus: 'bump” bamp; “tenth' ten8; “hunt' hant; *bank* beenk. It could be said thar this assimilation had become “fixed” as part of the phonological structure of English syllables, since exceptions are almost non-existent. A similar example of a type of assimilation thar has become fixed is the progressive assimilation of voice with the suffixes s and z; when a verb carries a third person singular '-s” suffix, or a noun carries an “-s' plural suffix or an *-s” possessive suffix, thar suffix will be pronounced as S if the preceding consonant is fortis (““voiceless”) and as z if the preceding consonant is lenis (“vyoiced”), thus: “cats” keets “dogs” dogz “umps” dzamps *runs' FANZ “Parts” paets “Pam's” paemz Much more could be said about assimilarion, but from the point of view of learning or teaching English pronunciation, to do so would not be very useful. lt is essentially a natural phenomenon thar can be seen in any sort of complex physical activity, and the only important matter is to remember the restricrion, specific to English, on voicing assimilation mentioned above. Assimilation creates something of a problem for phoneme theory; when, for example, d in “good' gud becomes g in the context *... girl (9ug 93:1) or b in the context *...boy” (gub bo1), should we say that one phoneme has been substituted for another? 1f we do this, how do we describe rhe assimilation in “good thing”, where d becomes dental d before the 8 uf “thing”, or in good food”, where d becomes a labiodental plosive before the f in “food”? English has no dental or labiodental plosive phonemes, so in these cases, although there is clearly assimil- ation, there could not be said to be a substirution of one phoneme for another, The alternative is to say that assimilation causes a phoneme to be realised by a different allophone; this would mean that, in the case of gug 93:l and gub bar, the phoneme d of 'good' has velar and bilabial allophones. Traditionally, phonemes were supposed not to overlap in their allophones, so that the only plosives that could have allophones wich bilabial place of articulation were p and b; this restricrion is no longer looked on as so important. 14.4 128 14 Aspects of connected speech -'Had”, “would': spelt 'd, pronounced d (after vowels), ad (after consonants). — Ls”, has": spelt 's, pronounced s (after fortis consonants), z (after lenis consonants), except that after s, z, /, 3, tf, d3 is' is pronounced EZ and “has is pronounced az in contracted form. - “Will: spelt "ll, pronounced | (after vowels”, 1 (after consonants). -— “Have”: spelt 've, pronounced v (after vowels), av (after consonants), - 'Not': spel n't, pronounced nt (after vowels), nt (after consonants). (There are also vowel changes associated with n't, e.g. 'can' k3en — can't ka:nt, “do” du: — “don” deunt.) - “Are”: spelt "re, pronounced a after vowels, usually with some change in the preceding vowel, e.g. “you” ju: - “you're” jua, 'we' wi: - 'we're' wia, “they' Oe1 — 'they're* Oea; linking r is used when a vowel follows, as explained in the next section. Contracted “are” is also pronounced as 3 or ar when following a consonant, Linking In our hypothetical “mechanical speech” all words would be separate units placed next to each other in sequence; in real connected speech, however, we sometimes link words together. The most familiar case is the use of linking r; the phoneme r cannot occur in syllable-final position in RP, but when a word's spelling suggests a final r, and a word beginning with a vowel follows, the usual pronunciation for RP speakers is to pronounce with r. For example: “here” hua but "here are” hrara “four” fo: but *four eggs” fozr egz Many RP speakers use r in a similar way to link words ending with a vowel even when there is no “justification” from the spelling, as in: *Formula A” fo:mjalar et “Australia all out” bstreiliar 9: aut . . a “media event' mi:diar went This has been called intrusive 1; some English speakers and teachers still regard this as incorrect or sub-standard pronunciation, but it is undoubtedly widespread. “Linking ” and “intrusive r” are special cases of juncture; this name refers to the relationship between one sound and the sounds chat 14 Aspects of connacted speech immediately precede and follow it, and has been given some im- portance in phonological theory. If we take the two words 'my turn” mar tan, the relationship between M and at, between t and 3: and berween 3: and n is said to be one of close juncture. m is preceded by silence and M is followed by silence, and so m and n are said to be ina position of external open juncture. The problem lies in deciding what che relationship is between al and t; since we do not usually pause between words, there is no silence (or external open juncture) to indicate word division and to justify the space left in the transcription. Butif English speakers hear mart3:n they can usually recognise this as “my turn' and not “might earn'. This is where the problem of internal open juncture (usually just called “juncture'”” for short) becomes apparent. What is it that makes perceptible the difference between mar t3:n and mart 3:n? The answer is that in the one case the tis aspirated (initial in *turn”), and in the other case ic is noc (being final in might”). In addition to this, the al diphthong is shorter in “'might”, but we will ignore this for the sake of a simpler argument. If a difference in meaning is caused by the difference berween aspirated and unaspirated t, how can we avoid the conclusion that English has a phonemic contrast between aspirated and unaspirated t? The answer is, of course, that the position of a word boundary has some effect on the realisation of the t phoneme; this is one of the many cases in which the occurrence of different allophones can only be properly explained by making reference to units of grammar (somecrhing which was for a long time disapproved of by many phonologists). Many ingenious minimal pairs have been invented to show the significance of juncture, a few of which are given below: 4) “might rain” mart ren (r voiced when inicial in “rain”, al short) b) “my train' mal tretn (1 voiceless following t in “train') a) “allchar Tm after today 9:1 Óat arm o:fra todet (tunaspirated when final in *char”) bj “all the time after today” 9:1 Ós taim a:fto teder (t aspirated when inicial in “time”) a) “he lies” hi: larz (“clear 1” inicial in lies”) b) “heal eyes 'hi:l arz (“dark 1” final in *heal”) a) “keep sticking' ki:p stikir (t unaspirated after s; i: short) b) “keeps ticking” ki:ps tikan (t aspirated in “ticking”) Of course, the context in which the words occur almost always makes it clear where the boundary comes, and the juncture information is then redundant. lt should by now be clear that there is a great deal of difference between the way words are pronounced in isolation and in the context 129