UNIT 1.

THE SYLLABLE

Definition

It is a unit that is larger than a single segment and usually smaller thatn a word, but it is not
always easy to define the number of syllables in a word. Every syllable contains a vowel at
its nucleus, and mya have one or more consonants either side of this vowel at its margins.

- Syllabic consonants. Certain consonants, are also able to act as the nuclear
elements of syllables. Such consonants are termed syllabic consonants, and are
shown by a little vertical mark [,] placed beneath the symbol concerned.

Description

- Phonetically. Syllables are described as consisting of a centre which has little or no

obstruction to airflow and sounds comparatively loud.
- Phonologically. Syllables are described as a complex unid made up of nuclear and
marginal elements. Nuclear elements are the vowels or syllabic elements; marginal
elements are the consonants or non-syllabic elements.
- The Chest Pulse Theory. It discusses the syllable in the context of muscular
activities and lung movements in the process of speech. Experiments have shown
that the number of chest pulses, accompanied by increase of air pressure can
determine the number of syllables produced, thus allowing to associate the number
of syllables with the number of chest pulses. This theory, however, cannot account
for cases when two vowels occur one after other.
- Sonority Theory. The pulsesbof pulmonic air stream in speech. Sonority is an
acoustic-perceptual that depends on the amount of energy. Nuclear elements can
be described as intrinsically more sonorous than marginal.
o Open vowels have the highest sonority because the vocal tract is open and
a large amount of energy radiates.
o Voiceless plosives /p, t, k/ have the lowest sonority because there is hardly
any acoustic energy during the closure.
o Scale.
o Languages prefer to build syllables with the most vowel-like sounds nearer
the middle (nucleus) and the least vowel like sounds near the edge(s).
Consonants sequences in syllable onsets increase in sonority from left to
right, and consonant sequences in syllable codas decrease in sonority from
left to right. Language is more likely to build monosyllabic words from the
combination of phonemeson the left than on the right.

Structure

The syllable has 2 immediate constituents: Onset and Rhyme.

- Onset. Which includes any consonants that precede the nuclear element (the
vowel).
- Rhyme. Which subsumes the nuclear element as well as any marginal elements that
might follow it.
o Nucleus or Peak. Represents the most sonorous element in a syllable.
o Coda. Includes all consonants that follow the Peak in a syllable.
There are syllables in English where either or both marginal elements are absent – only the
Peak is an obligatory element in all languages, and in English both the Onset and the Coda
are optional.
- Open and closed syllables. Syllables ending in a consonant are known as closed
syllables, whereas ending in a vowel are called open. In closed syllables the Coda is
present.
- Syllable Weight Theory. Syllables are long when the rhyme is branched to contain:
o A long vowel or a diphthong, optionally followed by one or more
consonant.
o A short vowel followed by at least one consonant.
o Light syllables are short vowels without coda. No light syllables can be
stressed.

Phonotactics

It is a brand of phonology that studies the possible combinantions of phonemes in a

language. The syllable is a central unit. In all languages there are constraints on the way in
which phonemes can be arranged to form syllables. Each language sets its own limitations
and all the possible combinations allowed.
- Consonant clusters are intrinsic elements in the English language. When we have
consonants together we call them consonant cluster. There are consonant clusters
at the beginning of words, at the end and within and across the words.
- Initial consonant clusters:
o Two consonant clusters:
 Type 1: /s/ + /l, w, p, t, k, m, n, f/
 Type 2: A set of about 15 consonants, followed by one on the set /l,
r, w, j/
o Three consonant clusters:
 /sp/ + /l, r/
 /st/ + /r, w/
 /sk/ + /r, w, j/
- Final consonant clusters: There are many more combinations of possible consonant
clusters at the end of English Words (up to 4).

Syllabification

It is not an easy topic in English. Some languages are spoken with syllable timing, so that all
syllables are almost equally loud and equally long. English has stress timing: certain syllables
are louder and longer, other are softer and shorter. In a language with syllable timing it is
fairly easy to say where each syllable begins and ends. In English the beginning of a word is
clear, but it is not easy to teel where a weak syllable begins unless it is initial syllable of a
word.

There are certain conventinos to indicates syllable division. These conventions are based on
two principles:
- Recognition of prefixes and suffixes, which are not divided.
- Regarding the lenght of vowels, when long or diphthongs they tend to end the
syllable. When the vowel is short, the next consonant letter goes with the
preceding vowel.
Make sure you transcribe the word and place the stress BEFORE you start dividing the word
into syllables.

- MAXIMAL ONSET PRINCIPLE (MOP). This principle states that where two syllables
are to be divided, any consonants between them should be attached to the right-
hand syllable, not the left, as far as possible. The MOP works on the basis that as
many consonants should be syllabified with a following vowel, providing that the
resulting sequence is phonotactically legal. The MOP is not the only rule for syllable
division. It does not solve all the problematic cases for syllable division in English.
- CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY (EPD).
o Principle 1. A dot (.) is used to divide syllables. However, this is not used
where a stress mark, occurs as these are effectively also syllable divison
markers.
o Principle 2. Syllables should be divided in such way that as many consonants
as possible are assigned to the beginning of the syllable to the right, rather
than to the end of the syllable to the left.
o Principle 3. However, when principle 2 would result in a syllable ending with
a stressed / i, e, ae, ^, o, u/ it is considered a violation of English
phonotactics.
o Principle 4. Unstressed /e, ae, ^,o/ follow the same pattern as principle 3.
o Principle 5. Unstressed /i, u, schwa/ appear at the end of a syllable.
o Principle 6. Compounds are syllabified at a word boundaries.
- LONGMAN PRONOUNCIATION DICTIONARY (LPD)
o Principle 1. Syllable divisions are shown by spacing.
o Principle 2. Syllabification of a word should parallel its morphology.
Consonants belongs to the syllable appropiate to the morpheme of which
they form part.
o Principle 3. Consonants are syllabified with whichever of the two adjacent
vowels is more strongly stressed. If they are both unstressed, they go with
the leftward one.
o Principle 4. Certain unstressed syllabled end in a strong short vowel.
o Principle 5. /r/ can end a syllable, even though BrE cannot end a word
pronounced in isolation.
o Principle 6. Within a morpheme /tr/, /dr/, /tS/ and /dz/ are not divided into
different syllables, but are treated as indivisible.

UNIT 2. STRESS, ACCENTUATION AND RHYTHM

Definition and scope

A word of more than one syllable is polysyllabic. When an English polysyllabic word is said in
its citation form one strongly stressed syllable will stand out from the rest. This is indicated
by a stress mark [‘] before the syllable. In English, there are four phonetic variables
important for stress:
1. Intensity.
a. Stressed. + breath/muscular effort. + loudness.
b. Unstressed. – breath/muscular effort. – loudness.
2. Pitch.
a. Stressed. Marked change in pitch.
b. Unstressed. Syllables tend to follow the pitch movement set by the
previous stressed syllable.
 3. Vowel quality.
a. Stressed. Any vowel (except schwa). Vowels have clear quality. Diphthongs
have clear glide.
b. Unstressed. Generally have central vowels /schwa, i, u/ or syllabic
consonants. Vowels may have centralised quality. Diphthongs have reduced
glide.
4. Vowel duration.
a. Stressed. Vowels have full length.
b. Unstressed. Vowels are considerably shorter.

Also there are different levels of stress: primary stress, secondary stress and unstressed.
- Primary stress. It is normally shown by a vertical mark [‘] placed above the line.
- Secondary stress. It is shown by a vertical mark [,] placed below the line.
- Unstressed. These syllables are left unmarked.

Stress is only the potential for accent. One basic principle is that in a string of three accents
we can optionally suppress the middle one. The faster we speak, the more likely we are to
reduce the number of accents in an utterance. The choice of where to place accents within
an utterance is very important. The most important of all is where to place the last accent in
the tone group.

Stress in the isolated word is termed word stress. The words more likely to receive
accentuation are termed content words: nouns, adjectives, adverbs and main verbs. These
words carry high information load. There are also function words: determiners,
conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions and auxiliary verbs, that carry relatively little
information. Certain function words are pronounced differently according whether they are
stressed or unstressed.

Strong and weak forms

The reduced, unstress pronunciation is termed the weak form. The full pronunciation
characteristic of stressed contexts is called the strong form.

Stress patterns in simple words (roots)

When we decided on stress placement, a distinction should be made between simple and
complex words. Simple means not composed of more than one grammatical unit. Example:
“care” is simple, but “careful” or “careless” are complex. Some rules of word stress:
- Two syllable nouns and adjectives. Primary stress on the first syllable. O o.
- Words which can be used as both nouns and verbs. The noun has the primary stress
on the first syllable. O o. The verb has stress on the second syllable. o O.
- Three syllable words. Primary stress on the first syllable. O o o.
- Longer words. Tendency for the antepenultimate syllable to have primary stress.

Stress patterns in complex words

There are two types:

- Words made from a basic form (root) with the addition of an affix (prefix and or
suffix).
- Compound words, which are made of 2 (or more) independent words.

 Suffixes. Have one of three possible effects on word stress:

 o Accent neutral suffixes. Some suffixes have no effect on the accentual
patterns of roots. These suffixes do not affect stress placement.
 Inflexionatl suffixes. Using an affix to form grammatical variations
of the same word. Ex.: determine, determines, determining,
determined. Other inflexions are comparative and superlative.
 Derivational. Forming a new word on the basis of an existing word.
Ex.: Happy  Happi-ness. Most derivational ending in “-y”.
 Other suffixes. “-ish”, “-ism”, “-ise”, “-ment”, “-ess”.
o Accent attracting suffixes. These suffixes carry primary stress themselves.
o Accent fixing suffixes. Suffixes than influence stress in the root. These
suffixes have the effect of fixing the accent on a particular syllable of the
root.
 On the final syllable of the root. ‘Definite  defi’nition.

 On the penultimate. ‘infant  in’fanticide.
 Varying between final and penultimate.
 If the final syllable of the root is strong, that final syllable
receives the accent.
 Otherwise the syllable before the last one receives the
accent.
 Prefixes. They are generally accent neutral (prefix does not affect stress
placement). In general, such prefixes result in a doubled consonant when the
prefix-final and the root-initial are identical. Prefixes are generally unstressed.
However, they are only accented for particular contrast.
 Compounds. They can be analysed into two words, both of which can exist
independently as English words. However, the two roots function grammatically
and/or semantically as a single word. Compounds may be written as one word, with
a hyphen and separated by space. There is a tendency for compounds with primary
accent on the first element to be written as one word or with a hyphen and for
those with the primary accent on the final element to be written as two words.
Different types:
o Functioning as nouns. This is by far the most frequent.
 ‘Noun + Noun (stress on 1st part). 75% of compound nouns. But there
are exceptions.
 Second item is “made” of the 1st item.
 Where N1 is a proper noun.
 Where N1 is a place name.
 Where N1 is a value/number.
 Others.
 Other combinations. ‘N + V ing // ‘N + V past participle // ‘V ing + N.
But there are exceptions.
 A(djective) + ‘N.
 V ing + ‘N.
 Phrasal and prepositional verbs as nouns
o Functioning as adjectives and verbs.
 Adjectives.
 With initial accent. ‘N + N // ‘N + V // ‘N + Adj. // ‘V + Pp // ‘V +
Adj
 With final accent. Adv / Adj + ‘V past participle // Adv / Adj +
V’ ing // Self- + ‘Adj.
 Verbs.
  With initial accent. Babysit, badmouth, sidetrack.
 With final accent. Adv / Adj + ‘V ing.
o Pseudo compounds. There are complex words made up of two forms which
individually are like prefixes and suffixes and it is difficult to analyse such
words as prefix + root or root + suffix.
o Abbreviations. Two-, three-, and four letter abbreviations said as individual
letters often have a primary accent on the last letter and secondary stress
on the first.

Stress and rhythm

Accentuation is the basis of rhythm in English. Stressed syllables tend to occur at roughly
equal intervals of time. This is because the unstressed syllables in between give the
impression of being compressed if there are many and expanded if there are a few.

Stress timing is the variable length of vowels in polysillabic words. For the most part, the
stresses fall on the content words, whereas the function words usually lack stressing. The
intervals between the strong beats of the stresses are roughly equal.

UNIT 3. VARIATION IN CONNECTED SPEECH

Processes of connected speech

- Deleting.
o Elision. This term describes the omission of a sound. The reason is an
economy of effort, and in some instances the difficulty of putting certain
consonant sounds together while maintining a regular speech rhythm and
speech.
 Elision of /t, d/ in consonant sequences.
 Elision of /t/ or /d/ in a sequence of three consonants.
 /t/ and /d/ elision in affricates. This omission can take place
in affricates /tS/ and /dz/ when preceded by a consonant.
 Elision of /t/ in the negative participle not. Consider the
negative of can if followed by a consonant the /t/ may easily
disappear and the only difference between the positive and
the negative is a different, longer vowel sound in the
second.
 Elision of /k/ in cluster /skt/. The sequence /skt/ has
elision of /k/ instead of, or if preceding consonants, in
addition to /t/.
 Other notable elisions.
 /h/ dropping. /h/ is regularly elided from the weak forms of
function words.
 Dropping of /f/ in numerals. Numerals do not elide / / but
may instead elide the preceding consonant.
 Elision of /v/. In preposition “of” /v/ can be elided before / /.
 Elision of schwa. Can be dropped when it is followed by /l, n,
r/ after which there is an unstressed syllable in the same
word. Can be elided if it is an independent vowel. In
diphthongs cannot be elided.
 o Smoothing. When the diphthongs /ei/, /ai/, /au/ are immediately followed by
schwa, a phenomenon known as smoothing may occur. The end of the
diphthong is left out.
- Moving or adding.
o Linking. Connection of the final phoneme of one word with the initial
phoneme of the next word.
 Consonant to vowel linking. A consonant sound at the end of a
word is linked smoothly at the beginning of the next.
 Linking /r/. When there is a <r> at the end of one word and it
occurs between two vowels, speakers with non-rhotic
accents often use the phone /r/ to link the preceding vowel
to a following one.
 Vowel to vowel linking.
 Intrusive /r/. Where two vowels phonemes meet and there is
no <r>, speakers with non-rhotic accents will still often
introduce the /r/ in order to ease the transition. This happens
wht the first word ends in /schwa/, /a:/ or /o:/ and the next
sound is a vowel.
 Linking /w/. When a words ends in /u:/ or a diphthong which
finishes with a /u/, speakers often introduce a /w/ to ease the
transition to a following vowel sound.
 Linking /j/. When a words ends in /i:/ or a diphthong which
finishes with a /i/, speakers often introduce a /j/ to ease the
transition to a following vowel sound.
 Consonant to consonant linking.
 Linking identical consonants. When a word ending with a
consonant sound is followed by a word beginning with the
same consonant sound, that consonant sound is made
longer.
 Linking clusters. One word ends in a consonant and the
following begins with /s/ cluster.
o Adding.
 Epenthesis. Which is adding a segment was previously absent. In all
varieties of English speakers often insert a homorganic plosive
between a nasal and fricative.
o Changing.
 Assimilation. Process by which two or more sounds become more
similar to each other. Sounds modifiy each other when they meet.
 Leading assimilation of place of final alveolars.
o Bilabial assimilation. Alveolar plosives /t/, /d/, /n/ at
the end of one word may become bilabial when
followed by bilabial consonants /p/, /b/, /m/, it
assimilates to the place of articulation of the
consonant at the beginning of the next word.
o Velar assimilation. /t/, /d/, /n/, may become velar
plosives when followed by velars /k/, /g/ without
altering their voicing.
 tp
 db
 nm
 tk
  dg
 n  n (larga).
o Post-alveolar assimilation. The alveolar fricatives /s/
and /z/ may become post-alveolar fricatives without
altering their voicing when followed by the post-
alveolar fricative /S/ and /z/ and /j/.
 sS
 zz
o Reciprocal assimilation with /j/ (yod coalescence).
Two sounds merge into one sound which stares
characteristics from the two original ones. /t/ and /d/
may merge with a following palatal approximant /j/
to become post-alveolar affricate /tS/ and /dz/.
 t + j  tS
 d + j  dz
 Energy assimilation.
o Energy assimilation in stressed syllables. Two
important assimilations are “used to” and “have to”.
Voicelessness is assimilated.
o Word internal energy assimilation. Voicelessness is
also assimilated.
o Across word energy assimilations. This occurs in
unstressed syllables.

UNIT 4. INTONATION

Tonality

It is a tone unit. A group of words bearing a complete well-formed intonation pattern and
possibly followed by a pause. Unit of information.

- Criteria to identify tone groups:

o Unit of information.
o Pauses.
o Pitch movement or pitch contour.
o Presence of a tonic element.
- Tonality and change of meaning. The presence or absence of intonation boundaries
(//), and their location, signals to the hearer the syntactic structure of the sentence.
Sometimes this structure is potentially ambiguous, and the tonality can
disambiguate it. An intonation boundary signals a syntactic boundary.
- Some basic concepts:
o Accentual function. Tonality organises the information within the tone
groups by considering the two functions of information and is mainly
concerned with the focus of information.
o The tonic. It is the part of the tone group that is especially prominent and
that also conveys the greater information load.
o The tonic syllable. Plays the main role in intonation since it carries the main
pitch movement.
o Tonic Vs. Accented syllable. In pronouncing English tone groups, it is
important to place accents. The most likely syllables to be accented are the
 stressed syllables of content words. The most important accent is the
TONIC.
o Tone unit. Any stretch of speech over which a whole tone operates. Internal
structure with four sub-units: (PREHEAD) – (HEAD) – NUCLEUS – (TAIL).
o Tonic placement. To decide WHERE the tonic goes. If an utterance contains
only one word, that word is automatically the tonic.

Tonicity

- Rules for locating the tonic syllable: ACCENTED.

o Basic tonicity rule: place the tonic on the final content word. Native
speakers will generally pronounce it with the tonic on the last content word.
EXCEPT!! Intransitive “event” sentences, the tonic syllable is not at the end
because the subject attracts the tonic syllable.
o The new information and the old information: the tonic is new
information. In English context shapes tonicity.
o When all information is new information, the nucleus can be located on
the stressed syllable of the last content word of the tone unit. If the last
content word contains new information, then the tonic syllable will be
located on the stressed syllable of the last content word of the tone unit.
o If the last content word contains old information, the tonic syllable will be
located on the stressed syllable of the nearest preceding content word
containing new information.
o Contrast. A special function of the tonic is to draw attention to a contrast
the speaker is making. The tonic shows what we are focusing attention on.
Function words can receive the tonic when contrastive.
o Contrastiveness overrides giveness. Given information, which might
otherwise be deaccented, can receive the tonic if it is being contrasted with
another item.
- Rules for locating the tonic syllable: UNACCENTED.
o Old information is normally unaccented. A repeated item is usually
considered to be old information so it does not get accented.
o You will also find de-accenting when the repetition takes form of a
synonym.
o Words which have a broader meaning (hypernym or hyperonym) than a
previously used word are also routinely de-accented.
o Final adverbial phrases of time and place.
o Final reporting closes. When they follow the quoted words.
o Final vocatives.
o Greetings.
o Sematincally “empty” (general).
o Other phrases: of course, in fact, you know, I mean; A bit, some, or so, in a
way, for a change; please, thanks, thank you.
o Other cases of late tonic:
 Reaccenting. Echoes, confirmations, emphatic repetitions.
 Emphatic reflexives. When the reflexive pronouns are used as true
reflexives, they are unaccented.
o Other cases of late nucleus:
  Complements of the ver “to be”. Anything immediately following
tends to be accented, which can be result in final function word
being tonic. EXCEPT!! Echo questions to express surprise.

The system of intonation: tone

Variation in speech melody is an essential component of normal human speech. Pitch refers
to human perception. The most important factor in determining pitch is the frequency of
the vocal folds. There are five primary tones:

- Level (-).
o Hesitation.
o Quotation. When we quote someone’s else words in what we say.
o Building suspense. We use level tone and a pause in order to build
anticipation.
- Falling (\).
o Statement. A fall is the default tone for a statement.
o Exclamations.
o Interjections.
o Greetings. Formal.
o Commands (Imperatives).
o Wh-questions. 1st time asked.
o Adverbials (reinforcing). Their meaning is to reinforce the main clause.
o Question tags. The speaker insists, assumes or expects that the other
person will agree. Rather than genuely asking for information the speaker
appeals for agreement.
- Rising (/).
o Yes/no questions. Such questions are capable of meaningfully being
answered “yes” or “no”.
o Contradicition. To contradict what the other person says.
o Continuing conversation. Short responses encouraging further
conversation.
o Checking. If while speaking you want to chech whether you have said the
right thing.
o Asking for clarification. To ask another speaker to repeat something
because you didn’t hear it properly.
o Saying farewell. “Goodbye” and its equivalents often have a rise.
o Showing empathy/encouragement.
o Tag questions. It is open to the other person to agree or disagree.
- Falling – rising (\/)
o Request and reservation (doubt).
o Contrast. Choice of making the contrast explicit or leaving it implicit. Implicit
something is left unsaid. Explicit constrast between what is expressed and
what has not, or not yet, been expressed.
o Polite utterances or when you are leaving.
o Drawing somebody’s attention.
- Rising – falling (/\)
o Expressing enthusiasm.
o Expressing strong opinions/feelings.