PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY II

REFRESHMENT OF FIRST YEAR CONTENTS

 Phonemic transcription vs. Orthographic transcription.

 Function words and content words; weak and strong forms.
 The double purpose of the stress mark in transcriptions.
 Rhotic and non-rhotic English.
 Homophones, homographs and minimal pairs.
 Tone unit boundaries.

1. Look at the transcribed text below to figure out the message it carries. Notice no boundaries have been made
explicit, except for the one at the beginning and the one at the end. Can you add a slanted bar (/) wherever you
anticipate a pause can be made by a speaker when uttering the piece?

2. As you move along the transcription, draw all the missing stress marks.

3. Provide the orthographic version of the phonemic transcription, making sure the sentences make sense and are
grammatical. At this point, you should realize that some of the boundaries you have introduced in item 1. will
necessarily take a punctuation mark of some sort, while others will not.

4. For each one of the words showing in italics (and in English), give the most suitable phonemic form.

5. Can you tell whether the English variety picked for this transcription is rhotic or non-rhotic? Be ready to support
your answer.

6. Spot as many homophones as you can, listing the ‘matching’ words. (Example: ‘see’: sea, ‘C’

7. Can you come up with 5 minimal pairs for the word appearing in bold?

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/For  əz  lɒŋ  əz  piːpl  can rɪmembə  smɔːl  taʊnz  ɪn  nɔːðən  æləbæmə have  biːn hɪt  baɪ stɔːmz  evri 

sprɪŋ  ðeɪ  are  əz  prɪdɪktəbl əz  the  æpl  blɒsəmz that ər  ɔːlweɪz  ʃeɪkŋ luːs from  ðə  triːz and  

bləʊn  əlɒŋ ðə  kʌntri  rəʊdz  lɑːst  naɪt a  paʊəfl  stɔːm  rɔːd ɪntə  ði  eərɪə trænsfɔːmɪŋ  ðə  lænskeɪp 

hɜːdz of kætl ðət had biːn muːvd ɪntə  bɑːnz  fə  seɪfti ə  nəʊweə to  bi  siːn  nɔːr  ə ðə  bɑːnz/

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