WEEK 1: PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

• one of the problems is that the more we listen to the way people speak, the more different speech sounds
of English we find → the number of different sounds of English is practically infinite → speech sounds
will always differ in different contexts; no two speakers pronounce the same word exactly the same way;
and even the same speaker rarely pronounces the same word precisely the same way
• different speech sounds are used in a language to make different words sound different, so that each
meaning is connected with a different phonetic form

• this place of articulation difference therefore has no contrastive function in English nasals → English,
then, uses the phonetic difference between dental and alveolar fricatives for the differentiation of words but
not the one between dental and alveolar nasals → second and more abstract level on which speech sounds
are represented: on the concrete level, we observe and describe what speech sounds “exist”; on the abstract
level, we only recognize such differences between elements as have contrastive function in the language

• PHONETIC DESCRIPTION: takes stock, with more or less sophisticated scientific means, of what speech
sounds exist, how they are produced and perceived and what their acoustic properties are (deals almost
entirely with the spoken language / the exception is the relationship between sounds and spellings) →
concerns the concrete characteristics (articulatory, acoustics, auditory) of the sounds used in languages →
phonetics is a natural science → as a subject of study is nowadays considered to be part of linguistics →
informs morphology (inflexions), syntax, pragmatics (the way intonation is used)
→ is a leading part in analyses in sociolinguistics, including variations in dialect
• PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS: establishes a system of sound distinctions relevant to a particular language and
seeks to determine how the elements of this abstract system behave in actual speech → concerns how
sounds function in a systemic way in a particular language → investigates the regularities that govern the
phonetic realizations of sounds in the words of language → phonology is a branch of the “humanities” →
the traditional approach to it is through phonemics which analyzes the stream of speech into a sequence of
contrastive segments (‘contrastive’ meaning ‘contrasting with other segments which might change the
meaning’) → the phonemic system of a language is relatable to the writing system: the relationship
between the phonemes of a language and the letters used in its writing system is called graphemics → a
phonemic description also makes it easy to describe the combinatory possibilities of the sounds (the
phonotactis)

• PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING: ‘pronunciation’ covers both phonetics and phonemics → encompasses the
prosody of English (= deals with how words and sentences are accented and how pitch, loudness and length
work to produce rhythm and intonation

• CHANGE AND VARIATION: standard accent of English English (as spoken in England) is known as RP
(Received Pronunciation) → started as the accent of the court of kings and queens in the fifteenth century
then widened to public schools in the nineteenth century and codified as RP in the twentieth century

• LEARNING: large part of language acquisition depends on listening (to understand and to imitate) → in
order to understand, we are more dependent on some contrasts between sounds than on others (come
contrasts carry a higher functional load than others)
→ while a contrast between two sounds or sets of sounds may be indicated in various ways (= this being
part of the redundancy of language), come cues are always more important than others: thus the contrasts
between /p,t,k/ and /b,d,g/ depend on the cues:
i. voicing
ii. aspiration (breathing)
iii. muscle tension
iv. the effect on previous (particularly vowel) sounds
→ but of these cues ii. and iv. are far more important to listeners than are i. or iii. → and of the two, ii. is
more important in syllable-initial position and iv. in syllable-final position
• besides functional load and the relative importance of specific phonetic cues, there are more general
phonetic, grammatical and contextual cues which aid comprehension
• communication does not depend on the perfect production and reception of every single element of
speech
• English as first language (L1): children learning English as an L1 will usually only have their family (and a
wider circle of friends as they grow) to imitate as they learn the sound system of English but a knowledge
of the sorts of difficulty they face may enable adults help all learners and in particular those with some sort
of speech delay → many children learning English as an L1 will have mastered the vowel system by the
age of three but many will take at least until the age of five to master the system of consonants

• English as additional language (L2): learners learning English as an L2 of foreign language were considered to
have only two possible models:
i. the British one (Received Pronunciation, RP)
ii. the American one (General American, GA)
→ RP has become less homogenous and much more variation within RP has been allowed and discussed
→ in many countries around the world English is used as the lingua franca → firstly there is also
Amalgam English which does not sound like any particular native-speaker variety but incorporates the
more easily learnable characteristics of various Englishes which additionally incorporates features which
are common to particular sub-continental varieties → and secondly there is International English which
reduces even further the consonant and (particularly) the vowel inventory to something even more easily
learnable

• PHONEMES: it is possible to establish the phonemes of a language by means of a process commutation

(=substituting) or the discovery of minimal pairs (= pairs of words which are different in respect of only
one sound segment, distinguishes simply by a change in the first (consonant) element / in the example) →
pin, bin, tin, kin, din, chin, gin, fin, thin, sin, shin, win → are said to be in contrast or opposition → we may
symbolize them as /p,b,t,d,k,ʧ,dʒ,f,θ,s,ʃ,w/ → /g,l,m,n,j,ð,v,z/
→ 22 consonantal phonemes capable of contrastive function initially in a word
→ it is not sufficient to consider merely one position in the word; possibilities of phonetic opposition have
to be investigated in medial and final positions as well in initial position → with this we discover another
consonantal phoneme /ʒ/ in the word oppositions letter, leather, leisure or seater, seeker, Ceasar, seizure
→ is rare in initial and final position (genre, rouge) → in final position we also do not find /h/ or /r/ in most
British speech (the letter <r> is usually silent) and is questionable we should consider /w,j/ as separate,
final, contrastive units

• DISTINCTIVE FEATURES: we have so on obtained an inventory of phonemes for English which is no more
than a set of relationships or oppositions → distinctive features of a language were stated in articulatory
terms using a basis the phonetic classification of consonants → for example, the distinctive feature of /r/
are voiceless, labial and plosive and this are three dimensions of variation: voicing, place and manner
• later developments in the theory of DF have involved explaining all the contrasts of a language in terms
of BINARY distinctive features and suggesting that there is a set of binary features (involving around 12 or
13 distinctions) which will account for all languages → three-term distinction: labial vs alveolar vs velar is
turned into two features → coronal is “made with the blade of the tongue raised above the neutral position
→ anterior is “made in front of the hard plate

• ALLOPHONES: no two realizations of a phoneme are the same, even if a same word is repeated twice: there
are always slight phonetic variations → but variants of the same phoneme will frequently show consistent
phonetic differences → such constants variants are called allophones (but they are not involved in change
of meaning)
• it is possible to predict in a given language which allophones of a phoneme will occur in any particular
context or situation: they are said to be in conditioned variation or COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION → it does
not take into account those variant realizations of the same phoneme in the same situation which may
constitute the difference between two utterances of the same word → when the same speaker produces
noticeably different pronunciations of the same word, the different realizations of the phonemes are said to
be in FREE VARIATION
• it is usually the case that there is phonetic similarity between the allophones of a phoneme → it
sometimes happens that two sounds occur in complementary distribution
but are not treated as allophones of the same phoneme because of their total phonetic dissimilarity: [h] and
[ŋ] in English, they are never significantly opposed since [h] occurs typically in initial positions in the
syllable word and [ŋ] in final positions
→ the ordinary native speaker is often unaware of the allophonic variations of his phonemes and will, for
instance, say that the various allophones of /l/ are the “same” sound → but [h] and [ŋ] will always consider
to be “different” sounds

• NEUTRALIZATION: sometimes happens that a sound may appear to belong to either of two phonemes: in
English we can find them in the plosive series → the contrast between /p,t,k/ and /b,d,g/ is shown in word-
initial position by pairs like pin/bin, team/deem, come/gum → following /s/ there is no such contrast:
words beginning /sp-, st-, sk-/ are not contrasted with words beginning /sb-, sd, sg-/ → we can say that the
contrast between voiceless and voiced plosives is neutralized following /s/ in word-initial position →
another case concerns the allophones of /m/ and /n/ before /f/ or /v/ in words like symphony and infant: the
two are not opposed so that the sound could be allocated to either the /m/ or the /n/ phoneme

• PHONEMIC SYSTEMS: statements concerning phonemic categories and allophonic variants can be made in
respect of only one variety of one language: it does not follow, because [l] and [ɫ] are not contrastive in
English and belong to the same phoneme, that is so in other languages
→ like /ŋ/ has not always had phonemic status: nowadays might be considered an allophone of /n/ before
/k/ and /g/ as in sink and finger
• speakers of different dialects may distribute their phonemes differently → a phonemic analysis of a
number of varieties of one language is likely to reveal: different phonemic systems; different realizations of
phonemes; different distribution of phonemes in words

WEEK 2: SPEECH SOUNDS AND THEIR PRODUCTION

• speech sound has at least three stages available for investigations: THE PRODUCTION, TRANSMISSION and
RECEPTION STAGES
• consonants are most easily described mainly in terms of their articulation → vowels require a
predominance of auditory impressions
• consonants are those segments which, in a particular language, occult the edges of syllables → vowels are
those segments which occur at the center of syllables → this reference to the functioning of sounds in
syllables is a PHONOLOGICAL definition, but any attempt is made to define what sorts of sounds generally
occur in these different syllable-positions, we can talk about a PHONETIC definition (it defines vowels as
MEDIAN, ORAL, FRICTIONLESS and CONTINUANT – all sounds excluded from this would be consonants) → there
are some difficulties with /j,w,r/ which are phonologically consonants (functioning at the edges of
syllables), but vowels phonetically (SEMI-VOWELS)
• organs and processes
The airstream originates in the LUNGS and is pushed through the TRACHEA and the ORAL or NASAL CAVITIES
→ it can be modified by different organs of speech and each modification has different ACOUSTIC EFFECTS
→ DIFFERENTIATION OF SOUNDS

1. initiation process (lungs): primary

function in the breathing process → the airstream provides energy for
speech → pulses are associated with STRESS (A’merica) and SYLLABLES → all speech sounds require
a PULMONIC (lung) AIRSTREAM for their production → English is always EGRESSIVE (moving up out
of the lungs and up to the trachea) → in some languages the airstream takes the opposite
(INEGRESSIVE) direction

2. the LARYNX contain two horizontal folds of

phonation process (larynx-vocal folds-velum-oral/nasal cavity):
tissue, which protrude into the passage of air from the sides (VOCAL FOLDS) → the gap between them
is the GLOTTIS → the vocal folds can be manipulated into a variety of different position and the
altering of the shape of the glottis

a. closed glottis: no air can pass in between → GLOTTAL STOP (sometimes heard in English
preceding a forcefully pronounced vowel; Out!)
b. narrow glottis: only a narrow gap is left for the air stream to pass through and the passage
of air makes them vibrate → the resulting sounds waves characterize VOICED SOUNDS of
speech → al vowel sounds are voiced, as sounds like [m], [l], [v], [b] etc.
c. open glottis: state of normal breathing and the production of VOICELESS SOUNDS (vocal folds
are spread and do not vibrate) → [st] stone, [k] kill etc.
 3. the airstream is directed to the oral or nasal cavity by
oro-nasal process (from velum-pharynx-oro/nasal cavity):
the VELUM (its end is the UVOLA) that can be manipulated
a. raised velum: raised and pressed against the back of the pharynx, prevents the entry of air
into the nasal cavity → ORAL SOUNDS like [v], [f], [l] etc. → can be further blocked in the
mouth also the oral cavity, the result are sounds like [p], [t], [k] etc.
b. lowered velum: not raised against the back of the pharynx, the airstream has access to the
nasal cavity → NASAL SOUNDS like [m] and [n] (might, night) → French vowels,
nasalized oral sounds

4. any modification of its shape will produce different acoustic properties on

articulation process (tongue):
the part of the speech sounds produced → for example, by closing and opening the lips, [p] and [b]
are produced; by raising the tip of the tongue towards the roof of the mouth just behind the upper
teeth, [s] and [z] are produced → the parts of the mouth that produce such narrowing or closure are
ARTICULATORS (ACTIVE are the one that moves – lower lip or the tongue; PASSIVE cannot move -
some part of the roof)
→ principal articulators: UPPER/LOWER LIP, UPPER/LOWER TEETH (incisors), TONGUE (tip, blade, front,
back), ROOF (alveolar ridge, palate, velum)
→ speech sounds are distinctive one from another because of their PLACE OF ARTICULATION and their
MANNER OF ARTICULATION → articulation of a consonant involves some audible obstruction in the
oral cavity, but for vowels is not needed

• articulation of consonants:
→ they can be PULMONIC/NON-PULMONIC → EGRESSIVE/INGRESSIVE → VOICED/VOICELESS →
ORAL/NASAL/NASALIZED
1. bilabial: lips are brought together → pie, buy, my
2. labiodental: lower lips is raised against the upper incisors → fat, vat
3. dental: tip of the tongue is raised against the upper incisors , or inserted in between incisors → thigh,
thy
4. alveolar: tip of the tongue is raised against the alveolar ridge → nigh, lie, tie, die, sue, zoo
5. post-alveolar: the tip of the tongue articulates with the rear part of the alveolar ridge → red
6. retroflex: the tip of the tongue is curled back to articulate the part of the hard palate immediately
behind the alveolar ridge → red (South-West British)
7. palato-alveolar: front of the tongue is raised towards the back of the ridge and the front of the palate →
she, leisure
8. palatal: front of the tongue is raised towards the palate → you
9. velar: back of the tongue is raised towards the velum → cool, back, bag, bang
10. uvular: the back of the tongue articulates with the uvula → rouge (French)
11. glottal: an obstruction, or a narrowing causing friction but not vibration, between the vocal folds →
English [h]

→ there is a place of PRIMARY ARTICULATION (greatest stricture, that which gives rise to the greatest
obstruction to the airflow); SECONDARY ARTICULATION (exhibits a stricture of lesser rank); DOUBLE
ARTICULATION (where the two co-extensive strictures of equal rank)
→ the active articulator is automatically the one directly below the passive articulator
→ for pronunciation of [r] in some English accents, the active articulator is displaced along the horizontal:
this is called RETROFLEX (this kind of [r] in terms of its location can be characterized broadly as a post-
alveolar retroflex consonant)

• manner of articulation (consonants): the

obstruction made by the organs may be total, intermittent, partial, or
may merely constitute a narrowing sufficient to cause friction
1. complete closure:
a. PLOSIVE: a complete closure at some point in the vocal tract, behind which the air pressure
builds up and can be released explosively → [p,b,t,d,k,g,ʔ = gate]
b. AFFRICATE: a complete closure at some point in the mouth, behind which the air pressure
builds up but the separation of the organs is slow compared with that of a plosive, so that
friction is a characteristic of the second part of the sound → [ʧ,dʒ = cheese, joke]
c. NASAL: a complete closure at some point in the mouth but, the soft palate being lowered,
the air escapes through the nose → [m,n,ŋ = sing]
 2. intermittent closure:
a. TRILL (or ROLL): a series of rapid intermittent closures made by a flexible organ (tongue)
on a firmer surface (alveolar ridge) → [r]
b. TAP: a single tap made by a flexible organ, on a firmer surface → [ɾ], Scottish
3. partial closure:
a. LATERAL: a partial (but firm) closure is made at some point in the mouth, the airstream
being allowed to escape on one or both → [l,ɫ = little]
4. narrowing:
a. FRICATIVE: two organs approximate to such an extent that the airstream passes between
them with friction → [ɸ,β,f,v,ʍ,θ,ð,s,z,ʃ,ʒ,ç,x,h]
5. narrowing without friction:
a. APPROXIMANT (or FRICTIONLESS CONTINUANT): a narrowing is made in the mouth but the
narrowing is not quite sufficient to cause friction – in being frictionless and continuant,
approximants are vowel-like but they function phonologically as consonants (they appear
at the edges of the syllables) → they also differ phonetically from them functioning as
vowels: the articulation of the tongue is not involved [ɹ] and [ʊ]; when it is, the
articulation represents only brief glides to a following vowel like [j = yet] and [w = wet]

• articulation of vowels: can

differ one another quite radically → their articulation do not involve any audible
obstruction of the air stream → differences are brought about by the raising of different parts of the tongue
as well as by differences in the extent of such raising → vowel sounds in English tend not to be as “pure”
as we would like to be

→ the difference between [i] and [u] is one of BACKNESS: [i] is a front vowel (produced with the front of the
tongue raised), [u] a back one (back of the tongue raised)
→ we denote the front vowel with extreme opening of the mouth as [a] → it is similar to the vowel [ɑ] and
they have in common that they are produced with a maximally open mouth, therefore with maximal
distance between the tongue and the roof of the mouth (this is called difference in HEIGHT, referring to the
position of the tongue in the vertical dimension) → [i] and [u] are high vowels, [a] and [ɑ] are low vowels
→ this four sounds represent the extreme points of the principal dimensions of vowel articulation: height
and backness, the two principal parameters of vowel articulation
→ the diagram is a very much simplified representation of the oral cavity: each of the four corners
represents an extreme point of articulation
→ correspondence of opposite vowels by running through [i]-[u], [e]-[o], [ɛ]-[ɔ], [a]-[ɑ]
→ the additional parameter is the one of LIP ROUNDING → system of eight vowels (1-4 are unrounded, 5-8
are rounded) → this is a subject to considerable accent variation
→ the system of reference vowels is known as the CARDINAL VOWEL (CV) SCALE
→ cases of vowel quality that changes during the pronunciation of the vowel, like in words now, boy and
buy: we use the term DIPHTHONG (vowels of constant unchanging quality are called MONOPHTHONGS)

• APPROXIMANTS: certain consonants (rye, lie, you, woo), as well as vowels, can be considered part of this
group → but, what is the difference between them? → the place of articulation makes a necessary
distinction

PHONATION PROCESS ORO-NASAL PROCESS PLACE MANNER

rye voiced oral post-alveolar approximant
lie voiced oral alveolar approximant
 woo voiced oral bilabial/velar approximant
you voiced oral palatal approximant

→ the consonant in [l] lie differs from the others in terms of manner of articulation: the tongue contact does
not produce closure of the oral cavity, and when the tongue is raised without touching any molar on both
sides, the air can go through → this are called LATERALS → [l] is a LATERAL APPROXIMANT because the air
stream escapes without friction → all the others are called CENTRAL (or NONLATERAL)
→ the consonant in rye in many accents has the retroflex posture of the tongue and it is subject to
considerable variation
→ difference between consonants and vowels in you and in woo, are similar one to another → in woo both
have a narrowing in the bilabial and velar areas and the obstruction of the air stream produces neither
closure or friction so they are both approximants (the same as rye)
→ plosives have complete closure; fricatives have narrowing with friction; approximants less narrowing
without friction → the height scale of vowels reflects different degrees of frictionless approximation: high
vowels and approximant consonants have about the same degree of narrowing of the oral cavity while low
vowels have less narrowing than any consonants have
→ the phonetic distinction for differentiate vowels and consonants does not work on approximant
consonants: like vowels, these have no audible obstruction → NONPHONETIC CRITERION
→ vowels are syllabic while any nonsyllabic sound is a consonant (a vowel must constitute the peak of a
syllable, while any sounds that occurs in the margin of a syllable is a consonant)

• LEFT-TO-RIGHT VOICING ASSIMILATION (morphemes -ed/-s): most of the consonantal assimilations in English
derivational morphology occur from right to left, but in English inflectional morphology, the directionality
of change is from LEFT to RIGHT
→ considering the difference between racks and rags: in the second one, the consonant that precedes <-s>
s a voiced consonant [g] and its voicing creates a different allomorph of the plural morpheme [-z] → the
assimilation progresses from left to right, from [g] to [z] and the same happens for the verbs taking the
third person singular present tense inflection -s
→ another case, which voices [s] to [z] across an inserted vowel, is the pronunciation of the plural and the
third person singular inflexions as a separate syllable, [-ɪz] or [-əz] → the syllabic allomorph appears after
alveolar and palatal fricatives and affricates [s,z,š,ž,č,j̆ = ledges]
→ the assimilation from left to right also affects the morpheme that represents past tense -ed: racked ends
with [-kt] and bragged with [-gd] and the orthographic vowel must be kept <-ed> but can be only
pronounced after the alveolar stops [t,d] like wanted, corroded
→ the realization of the vowel in the articulation of –es and –ed is not motivate by ease, as in labial and
voicing assimilation: the vowel in [-ɪz] or [-əz] or [-ɪd] or [-əd] is a response to the need for transparency;
without the intervening vowel the sequence [s+s], [z+z], [t+t], [d+d] would not be heard well

inflexional suffices not normally affect accents

• inflexional suffix formation:
1. past tense: regular verbs with –ed ending
a. if stem ends in /t/ or /d/, add /ɪd/
b. stem ends in any voiced sound (apart from d)
c. stem ends in any voiceless consonant (apart from t)
2. plural/possessive/third person singular present tense
a. if stem ends in a sibilant (/s,z,ʃ,ʒ,ʧ,dʒ/) add /ɪz/
b. if stem ends in any non-sibilant voiced sound add /-z/
c. if stem ends in any non-sibilant voicless consonant add /s/
3. present participle: in all cases add /-ɪŋ/ although some speakers may insert a /ə/, retaining the same
number of syllables – while for others the nasal or lateral may lose its syllabic function
4. comparison of adjectives: comparative and superlative degrees are formed by the suffixing of -er and -est
respectively, the pronunciation of the stem remains unchanged except in the case of stems ending in
/ŋ/ or /r/
5. stems ending in /ŋ/: when the comparative and superlative suffixes are added to stem ending in /ŋ/, a /g/
is inserted
6. /r/-links in suffix formation: in the case of words which end in /ɑː,ɔː,ɜː,ə,ɪə,eə,ʊə/ (usually corresponding
to an <r> in the spelling), an /r/-link is regularly inserted between the final vowel of the stem and
any initial vowel of the suffix
• SMALLER THAN WORDS: MORPHEMES AND TYPES OF MORPHEMES: they are the smallest meaningful units
and each one has a basic single meaning like the example of gen which means “source” and it has split in
two more same morphemes but with different meanings (“origin” and “tribe, nation, type”)
→ each word must contain at least one morpheme and some words are made up of more than one
morpheme (the word morpheme itself is made up of two morphemes): so a morpheme is a meaningful unit
of form and cannot be dissected further into smaller meaningful units → it is also true that the morpheme
“morph” itself consists of the sound <m> and other four sounds, but these cannot be smaller units than
morphemes because the are not units of MEANING, they are units of SOUND (or SPELLING) which serve
together to REPRESENT the morpheme

→ the checkmark in front of the morpheme gen simply means “this is a morpheme” although the common
mathematical meaning of it is “root” we use “√” for all the morphemes, roots and affixes both
→ the square brackets indicate pronunciation and they are used for phonetic writing, also known as
PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION → the angle brackets mean “this is a letter of the alphabet traditionally used to
spell this sound in this word”

• properties of morphemes: how they differ from other linguistic units like syllables, words etc.

1. a morpheme is the smallest unit associated with a meaning → example:

car, care, carpet, cardigan → we must
ask ourselves if there is some constant meaning in each word that can be attributed to a morpheme
having the form <car> → it is obvious that they do not have any connection so we can say that they
merely “accidentally” contain <car>, but they do not contain the morpheme √car

2. morphemes are recyclable units: it

can be used again and again for many words (√care → uncaring) → it
happens that you do not know the meaning of a word, like cardigan or caramel and you think it
could contain the morpheme √car, one way to test your conjecture would be to see whether the
remaining material can be used in other words (whether is another morpheme) → one should be
careful however: recyclability can be deceptive, as it is in the case of carrot, carpet, caress, cargo:
though all morphemes can be used over and over in different combinations, non-morphemic parts of
words may accidentally look like familiar morphemes → what makes a sequence of sounds a
morpheme is its ability to convey independent meaning, or add to the meaning of the word, should
be applied first

3. a morpheme may be represented by any number of syllables,

morphemes must not be confused with syllables:
though typically only one or two, sometimes three or four: syllables have nothing to do with
meaning, are just units of pronunciation (HYPHENS are used to separate the word into syllables)
→ a syllable is the smallest independently PRONOUNCEABLE unit into which a word can be divided,
so the number of morphemes in a word is likely to differ from the number of syllables
→ morphemes may be LESS than a syllable length: consider car vs cars → cars is one syllable, but
two morphemes √car + √-s (where this one means “plural”) → one of other morphemes that is not a
syllable is √-ed → generally, however, morphemes are independently pronounceable and are at
least one syllable in length → the longest morphemes tend to be names of places or rivers or Indian
nations like Mississippi or Potawatomi

4. different forms of the same morpheme are

one and the same morpheme may take phonetically different shapes:
called ALLOMORPHS (= other forms) and this general property of allomorphic variation is called
ALLOMORPHY → any speaker of English will identify the nouns cares, caps and classes, as sharing
 the plural morpheme √-s, though both the spelling and the pronunciation of the morpheme vary in
three words: the morpheme has three allomorphs → consider the morpheme meaning “take” or
“contain” whose most familiar allomorph is √cap, as capable, capsule, captive → it has an
allomorph that is √cep like accept, deception, intercept and also √cip like anticipate, emancipate,
incipient → there is also a fourth allomorph, √cup like in occupy, recuperate: but of the last
morpheme, the meaning is TRANSPARENT in some of these words, but it is OPAQUE in others (it is not
always obvious the connection between words with the same morpheme)

• types of morphemes: ROOTS → not all morphemes are equally central to the formation of a word: they can be
two types, ROOTS and AFFIXES → every word has at least one root as roots are the center of word-
derivational processes: they carry the basic meaning from which the rest of the sense of the word can be
derived
→ morphemes such as chair, green, ballet, father, cardigan, America, Mississippi are roots and also
happen to be FREE ROOT MORPHEMES (independent words) → but more often, roots are like seg in segment
or gen in genetics and these cannot stand alone as words: they are BOUND ROOT MORPHEMES
→ most bound roots found in the language today are of classical origin: they were borrowed into English
from Latin or Greek during the Renaissance, or tough French, and once they could be free roots but their
transition to bound ones has occurred on English soils → roots borrowed from classical sources are nearly
always bound roots although the historical processes are not recoverable without the aid of specialized
dictionaries: for the ordinary speaker of English feck-, hap(p)-, ruth- etc are bound roots
→ to be completed, bound roots morphemes require that another morpheme be attached to them: this
additional morpheme may be another root or an affix → if it is another root, then the result is a COMPOUND
like hydrogen, phonograph, polymath

• types of morphemes: AFFIXES →

they carry very little of the core meaning of a word and they have the effect
of slightly modifying the meaning of the STEM (= is either a root or a root plus an affix) to which more
affixes can be attached → the most common modification is to change the word-class, the part of the
speech, to which the word belongs: child, childish, childishly, childishness → this process is known as
AFFIXATION and is one of the two most fundamental processes in word formation

→ all morphemes that are not roots are affixes, and they differ in three ways:
1. they do not form words by themselves (they have to be added on to a stem)
2. their meaning, in many instances, is not as clear and specific as is the meaning of roots, and
many of them are almost completely meaningless
3. compared with the total number of roots, which is very large, the number of affixes is
relatively small
→ in English, all the productive affixes (= that they do a lot of work) are either attached at the end of the
stem, SUFFIXES, or at the front of the stem, PREFIXES
→ all affixes, by definition, are bound morphemes and historically it is quite normal for free morphemes to
lose their independence and become “bound” → the opposite development, whereby a bound morpheme
escapes into the list of free morphemes, is unusual (this is even more true of affixes than it is of roots),
although there has been a recent trend in the language to detach affixes and elevate them to the status of
roots like anti, pro, hyper, mini or maxi → in any case, the status of there items is still in flux and their
occasional encroachment into the realm of free roots does not change the basic norm that affixes are bound
forms whish must be attached to stems
→ one of their functions is to participate in the formation of new words: this are called DERIVATIONAL
AFFIXES → we can think of the root as the NUCLEUS of the derivation and the affixes are like satellites,
furthermore they have to circle around it at different distances → for example, consider the word
uninhabitableness in which the stem is habit and the last added morpheme is un- in front of the formation
because after we added –able, we had finally created and adjective (it is one of the properties of un- that it
normally attaches only to adjectives → it is also true that we cannot attach un- to any adjective
→ there are also affixes that do not participate in word formation, and they are called INFLECTIONAL
AFFIXES, of which English has only a very small number and are part of syntax → in most languages, they
serve to indicate which word is the subject of the sentence or which word is the object of the verb
→ they can also be both as the present and past participle -ing and -ed can be “They were building a new
house.” and “They painted the wall.” or “The building on the corner is old.” and “Those walls are painted.”

• SYLLABLES: speech sounds are grouped into syllables and those turn in into higher-order rhythmic units
are called “stress feet” or simply FEET: they are indisputable facts of phonetic representations and are larger
than segment phonetic units → segments, syllables and feet are not only PHONETIC UNITS but also
PHONOLOGICAL UNITS → they form (part of) PHONOLOGICAL STRUCTURE of the language, which as a whole
serves as a framework for the expression of phonological generalizations
→ there are a few English words that may have variable pronunciation with different numbers of syllables
→ PHONETICS OF THE SYLLABLE: note that the pulmonic air stream required for the production of speech
does not flow at a constant rate, but it occurs in a series of pulses → “PULSE THEORY” of the syllable: each

ORAL STOPS FRICATIVES NASALS LIQUIDS SEMIVOWELS VOWELS

voiceless voiced voiceless voiced high low
p b f v m
t d θ ð n j i a
k g s z ŋ l r w u ɑ
S O N O R I T Y
syllable corresponds to a peak in the flow rate of pulmonic air, but the problem with this theory is that, left
as it stands, it explains very little → the air stream is inaudible, how it works then? how a word has like
three syllables? → the (kinetic) energy of the air-stream pulses is in speech translated into acoustic
energy, one manifestation of which is SONORITY: the pulses of the air correspond to peaks in sonority
→ the sonority of a sound is its relative loudness compared to other sounds, everything else (pitch etc.)
being equal → speech sounds can be ranked in terms of their relative sonority: voiceless oral stops are of
minimal sonority while low vowels have the highest degree of sonority of all speech sounds; all other
sounds are ranked in between these two extreme points of the SONORITY SCALE

→ consider a monosyllabic word such as clamp – phonemic representation /klamp/: according to the
sonority scale, /k/ is less sonorous than /l/, which is less sonorous than /a/ → this is more sonorous than
/m/, which in turn is less sonorous than the final /p/ → the graphic representation clearly shows only one
sonority peak

→ the SONORITY HIERARCHY: some sounds stand out as more prominent or sonorous than others → by
judging the sonority of a sound, we need to imagine its “carrying power”: a vowel like [a] clearly has more
carrying power than a consonant like [z] (a plosive has virtually no sonority at all unless followed by a
vowel) → sounds below a certain level on the hierarchy cannot constitute peaks (from FRICATIVES down)
OPEN VOWELS
CLOSE VOWELS
GLIDES /j,w/ ↘︎
(subdivision of “approximants”, are short
movements away from a vowel-like position)
LIQUIDS /l,r/ ↘︎
(subdivision of “approximants”, they cover sounds which have
narrowing without friction but are not relatable to vowel sounds)
NASALS
FRICATIVES
AFFRICATES
PLOSIVES
→ intermediate vowels are appropriately placed between OPEN and CLOSE → voiced sounds are more
sonorous than voiceless sounds
→ the sonority theory gives us a general understanding of what syllables are: they are associated with
peaks in sonority in such a way that in a given string of phonemes, every syllable corresponds to a single
sonority peak → but there are some exception that cannot be explained!
→ consider the two phrases hidden aims and hid names, both are identically represented as /hɪdnemz/ but
the first has three syllables and the second two → this demonstrates a general property of the rules that
govern the way which strings are divided into syllables: these rules (rules of SYLLABIFICATION) take
into account the boundaries between words → the domain syllabification is the single word, because words
are syllabified individually and then put together into phrases and sentences
→ the second problem that the sonority theory does not answer concerns the position of syllable
boundaries within words: where do the syllable boundaries fall? → most speakers would agree on the
following syllabification (boundaries marked by dots) a.ro.ma, pho.no.lo.gy → the sonority theory
identifies the troughs between syllable peaks, but it does not predict what appears to be a quite simple
regularity: the consonant that constitutes such a trough is in each case part of the following rather than the
preceding syllable (no one syllabifies like phon.ol.og.y) → usually the center of a syllable is a vowel
→ the appendixed /s/ can cause us problems as does not constitute a syllable
→ align syllable boundaries with morpheme boundaries (the MORPHEMIC PRINCIPLE); align syllable
boundaries to parallel syllable codas and onsets at the ends and beginnings of words (the PHONOTACTIC
PRINCIPLE); align syllable boundaries to best predict allophonic variation; assign consonants to onsets
wherever possible (the MAXIMAL ONSET PRINCIPLE)
→ the third problem is how many phonemes can a syllable contain and what phonemes can occur next to
each other in a syllable? → no English syllable can contain a large number of phonemes
→ why is /klamp/ permissible but /knamp/ not? → there are rules for the permissible number of phonemes
in a syllable and for the ways in which phonemes cluster: /kn/ is forbidden in English even though it does
constitute the upward sonority slope at the beginning of a syllable requires
→ this rules are not in contradiction to the sonority theory, they are amendments to this rather loose theory
of the syllable
→ the structure of MONOSYLLABIC (only one syllable) WORDS: the segmental composition – units that
comprise more than one segment but are smaller than a whole syllable
→ we shall refer to the SYLLABIC segment, the peak of the sonority curve, simply, as the PEAK of the
syllable; the peak may be preceded by one or more consonants; we shall call this part of the syllable the
ONSET (this generally involve increasing sonority up to the peak) → following the peak may be more
consonants, referred to as the CODA; and perhaps most importantly, we shall group the peak and the coda
together and call the resulting unit the RHYME of the syllable

WEEK 3: THE VOWELS OF ENGLISH

• vowels can differ from one another quite radically
• they are normally made with a voiced egressive airstream, without any closure or narrowing such as
would result in the noise component characteristic of many consonantal sounds → the escape of the air
characteristically accomplished in an unimpeded way over the middle line of the tongue → their
articulation do not involve audible obstruction of the air stream
• the vowel in almost any give English word will vary greatly from one accent of the language to another
(much more so than most consonants would)

1. the position of the soft palate: raised

for oral vowels, lowered for nasalized vowels
2. neutral, spread, close-rounded or open-rounded
the kind of aperture formed by the lips:
3. the part of tongue which is raised and the degree of raising

• when we pronounce most vowel sounds, the tongue tip lies behind the lower teeth → it can be stated in
articulatory terms, that some vowel sounds require the raising of the front of the tongue, while others are
articulated with typical “hump” at the back

• relatively pure vowels vs gliding vowels: vowel

sounds in English tend not to be as “pure” as we would like them
to be → it is clearly not possible for the quality of a vowel to remain absolutely constant (or, in other
words, for the organs of speech to function for any length of time in an unchanging way) → we can though
distinguish vowels which are RELATIVELY PURE (or UNCHANGING) such as the one in learn and those which
have a considerable and deliberate GLIDE, such as the one in line
→ in the diagram the relatively pure vowels indicate the highest point of the tongue (as in the diagram) and
the gliding vowels sounds indicate the quality of the starting-point and the direction in which the quality
change is made (corresponding to a movement of the tongue)
→ the CARDINAL VOWEL DIAGRAM: labels are provided to distinguish between FRONT, CENTRAL,
and BAKCK, and BETWEEN four degrees of opening: CLOSE, CLOSE-MID, OPEN-MID, and OPEN

• short vowels
/ɪ/ - hid, fill, bid, except
/e/ - head, fell, bed
/æ/ - had, bad
/ɒ/
/ʊ/
/ʌ/
/ə/

• long (relatively pure) vowels

/iː/ - heed, feel, bead, pea
/ɑː/ -
/uː/
/ɔː/
/ɜː/

• long (diphthongal glides, with prominent first element)

/eɪ/
/aɪ/
/ɔɪ/
-
/əʊ/
/aʊ/
-
/ɪə/
/eə/
/ʊə/

• learning of vowels: children

learn far earlier the vowel system than the consonant one (at the age of two and a
half years) → during the period of babbling, and open vowel of the [a] type predominates
→ usually foreign learners come from backgrounds where their L1 has only five vowels (five is the largest
category of vowel system in the world’s languages) → the English system is one of the less common and
more complex types: difficulty is predictable in those areas where vowels are closest within the vowel
space; thus confusion are very likely within any of the following groups: /iː,ɪ/ - /e,æ,ʌ/ - /ɒ,ɑː,ɔː/ - /uː,ʊ/
WEEK 4: “LINKING /r/” AND “INTRUSIVE /r/”

→ LINKING /r/: RP (is present in nonrohtic accents) introduces word-final post-vocalic /r/ as a linking form
when the following word begins with a vowel → the vowel endings to which an /r/ link may be added
are /ɑː,ɔː/ and those single or complex vowels containing final /ə/ (/ə,ɜː,ɪə,eə,ʊə/) → far off, four aces,
answer it, fur inside, near it, wear out, secure everything → it appears only in syllables onsets: it fails to
occur in hear /hɪə/ but it is present in hearing /hɪəriŋ/
→ many examples of linking /r/ occur where there is no /r/ in the spelling: INTRUSIVE /r/ → such /r/’s are to
be heard particularly in the case of [ə] endings → Russia and China /rʌʃər ən' tʃaɪnə/ → are in the same
contexts as those in which linking /r/ is found, but in words where there is no historic /r/ (and,
consequently, no /r/ in rhotic accents)
→ general tendency among RP speakers is to use /r/ links, even (unconsciously) among those who object
most strongly → the comparative rarity of potential contexts for “intrusive” /r/’s following /ɑː,ɔː/ tends to
make speakers more aware of the “correct” forms; thus I saw it /aɪ sɔːr ɪt/ and similar are generally
disapproved of, though those who avoid such pronunciations have to make a conscious effort to do so
→ sometimes speakers tend to make a pause or a glottal stop or even a glide between the abutting vowels
to avoid the “intrusive” /r/ → they also abandon the other linking /r/s → they make a distinction: they form
a natural class in that all of them are high vowels, or at least surface diphthongs with high second elements,
while the vowels that attract /r/ are nonhigh

→ there appears, however, to be some graduation in the likelihood of occurrence:

1. the insertion of /r/ is obligatory before a suffix beginning with a vowel, where the /r/ is
historically justified
2. the insertion of /r/ is optional, though generally present, before a following word beginning
with a vowel, where the /r/ is historically justified
3. after [ə], even an intrusive /r/ (historically unjustified) is generally used before a following
word → vanilla essence /vənilər esəns/
4. after /ɑː/ and /ɔː/, an intrusive /r/ is often avoided before a following vowel nougat and →
chocolate and nougat /nuːgɑr ən ʈʃoklɪt/
5. the insertion of intrusive /r/ before a suffix is often strongly stigmatized → strawy /strɔriŋ/

WEEK 5: THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

• CONSONANTS AND VOWEL CHANGES: the English CONSONANTS have been subject to fewer changes than
have the vowels → consonantal articulation usually involves a contact which can be felt and such an
articulation tends to be more stable → one example is the change of the OE palatal plosives [c,ɟ] to PresE
[ʧ,dʒ] as in OE cirice > PresE church and OE brycg > PresE bridge, involving the combinative change of
palatal plosive to palate-alveolar affricate before a front vowel → more common is the type of chanfe
involving the conferment of phonemic status on an existing sound
→ a modification of VOWEL quality results from very slight changes of tongue or lip position and there
may be a series of imperceptible gradations before an appreciable quality change is evident (or is capable
of being expressed by means of the Latin vowel letter) → one example are the modern homophones meet
and meat had in ME different vowel forms: approximately of the value of [eː] and [ɛː]

there may be considerable qualitative changes, the number and pattern of

• sound changes and the linguistic system:
the terms within the system may show relative stability → the ME /iː/ for instance is now realized as [aɪ],
but there is still a phonemic opposition which contrasts such words as time, team, tame, term, tomb → on
the other hand, the system may change because a sound, without itself changing, may receive a new,
phonemic value
→ the phonological system of our language consists of a framework of phonemic contrasts which lead to
differences of meaning and therefore we might expect it to remain stable since the loss of a contrast might
lead to loss of meaning
→ though the relationships within the system remains stale, a change od phonetic realization of any
phoneme may have qualitative repercussions throughout the system → this can be observed in modern
English: the phonetic relationship of the vowel phonemes in set and sat, in one type or pronunciation, is of
a front vowel between close-mid and open-mid to a front vowel between open-mid and open → if,
however, the vowel of sat has a closer articulation than that described, that of set must be raised too, and so
on

• the great vowel shift

→ in ME there were four long vowels in the front region /iː,eː,ɛː,aː/ → by 1600 /iː/ had diphthongized and
the remaining vowels closed up and this may have been caused by the creation of an empty space brought
about by the diphthongization of the pure vowel /iː/ (often called a pull-chain) or alternatively pressure
upwards from /aː/ (often called a pull-chain)
→ the primary significance of the sounds of modern English is how they fit into the present-day
phonological system → some sound changes are indeed the result of an influence which appears to the
system as a whole → those drastic changes of vowel quality known as the GREAT VOWEL SHIFT mainly
affected vowels in accented syllables, but vowel in unaccented syllables had a different type of change →
the tendency has been for all unaccented vowels to shorten (if long) and to gravitate towards the weak
centralized vowels [ɪ] or [ə], or sometimes [ʊ], if not disappear altogether
→ OE is sometimes called the period of FULL ENDINGS; eModE the period of LOST ENDINGS

1. THEORETICAL PATHS OF DEVELOPMENT: changing realization of a particular phoneme, we can be

reasonably sure of its sound value at two points in history, we can, from our knowledge of phonetic
possibilities and probabilities, inter theoretically the intervening stages of development →we might,
therefore, postulate such developments as [ɑː > ɑʊ > oʊ > əʊ] or [ɑː > ɔː > ɔʊ > əʊ] → the available
evidence will then confirm or refute the hypothesis (in this case the second solution being more in
keeping with the information) → it would be dangerous to attempt to predict, merely according to
phonetic probabilities, the way our present sound system will develop
2. OLD ENGLISH: spans a period of some 400 years from about AD 700 to AD 1100 → the invasion of
the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in the fifth and sixth centuries introduces four separate varieties of
English: MERCIAN, NORTHUMBRIAN (or in general terms ANGLIAN), WEST-SAXON and
KENTISH → West-Saxon become a kind of standard language in OE → the earlier runic spelling
was replaced by a form of the Latin alphabet, probably introduces by Irish missionaries and a great
deal is known about pronunciation of Vulgar Latin (those sound systems had much in common with
that of modern Italian) → they understood that the Latin alphabet and its sounds were inadequate to
represent English sounds: the vowel values of the OE system were particularly difficult to represent
with the five Latin vowel letters → quantity was often shown in the case of vowels by doubling the
letter or by the use of an accent mark and, in the case of consonants, by doubling the letter
3. MIDDLE ENGLISH: roughly AD 1100-1450 and the letters still had their Latin values and those letters
which were written were meant to be sounded (the initial <k> in a word like knokke was still
pronounced) → English spelling was modified by French influences: the French <ch> spelling was
introduced to represent the [ʧ] sound in a word like chin (formerly cinn) → RHYMES have their
value, especially as, in this period, they are almost always satisfactory to the ear as well as to the
eye: in some written text, they turn out to involve the pairing of different vowel sounds → words
imported from French can also give us information concerning the timing of sound changes (vowels
had not begun to change
4. EARLY MODERN ENGLISH: roughly AD 1450-1600 and the introduction of printing brought
standardization of spelling and already the spoken and written forms of the language were
beginning to diverge → individuals, especially in their private correspondence, often used spellings
of a largely phonetic kind, in the same unsophisticated and logical way that children still do →
spelling which aim at revealing the etymology (true or false) of a word must usually be discarded as
phonetically valueless → rhymes continue to be useful as complementary evidence along with the
Elizabethan literature
WEEK 6: COMPARISON BETWEEN RP AND GA

THE MAIN STANDARD ACCENTS OF ENGLISH

• RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION (RP), the term suggests that it is the result of a social judgement rather
than an official decision as to what is “correct” or “wrong” (the word “received” means “acceptable”)
→ the BBC used to recommend this form of pronunciation for it announcers mainly because it was the type
which was most widely understood and which excited least prejudice of a regional kind

• certain types of regional pronunciation are, however, firmly established as alternative standards, like
STANDARD SCOTTISH ENGLISH (SSE); others that are used in large towns, are still often
characterized as ugly (Liverpool or Birmingham) or strange (Newcastle) → most RP speakers are aware
that this type of pronunciation is used by only a very small part of the English-speaking world (an
American pronunciation of English, is now familiar in Britain)
• innovation tends to be stigmatized by the RP: conservative forms tend to me most generally accepted

• even with the RP there are some areas and many individual words where alternative pronunciations are
possible → three main types of RP: GENERAL RP, REFINED RP and REGIONAL RP
→REFINED RP: is that type which is commonly considered to be upper-class, and it does indeed seem to
be mainly associated in some way with upper-class families and with professions which have traditionally
recruited from such families (officers of Navy, for example) → speakers of Refined RP have become a
figure of fun
→ REGIONAL RP: reflects regional rather than class variation and will vary according to which region is
involved in “regional” → it describes the type of speech which is basically RP except for the presence of a
few regional characteristics which go unnoticed even by the speakers of RP → some features, although, of
regional accents may still be too stigmatized to be acceptable as RP (Cockney, Northern English) → the
concept of Regional RP reflects the fact that there is nowadays a far greater tolerance of dialectal variation
in all walks of life, although, where RP is the norm, only certain types of regional dilution of RP are
acceptable

• LONDON REGIONAL RP, under the name of “Estaury English” has provoked much discussion in the
press → this names was firstly used because such a pronunciation was thought to have spread outwards
from London along the Thames Estuary into Essex and North Kent → it is competing with the Regional
RPs of cities in which has entered (Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool etc.)

• RP has traditionally been the type of pronunciation taught to learners of English as L2 and that most
commonly described in books on the phonetics of British English → for historical reasons, RP continues to
serve as a model in many parts of the world (the choice is between RP or GA)

• GENERAL AMERICAN (GA): the traditional division of the USA for pronunciation purposes is into Eastern,
Southern and GENERAL → the last one, can be regarded as that form of American which does not have
marked regional characteristic (like RP) and is sometimes referred to as “NETWORK ENGLISH” (like
RP’s “BBC English”)
→ there are two major areas of systemic difference between RP and GA: first, GA lacks the RP diphthongs
/ɪə,eə,ʊə/ which correspond in GA to sequences of short vowels plus /r/ → beard /bɪrd/, fare /fer/
→ in RP, where /r/ occurs only before vowels, GA /r/ an occur before consonants and before pause (GA is
rhotic and RP non-rhotic)
→ second major difference is that, GA has no /ɒ/ → most commonly, those vowels which have /ɒ/ in RP
are pronounced with /ɑː/ in GA → cod, spot, pocket → not only /ɒ/ and /ɑː/ fall together, but /ɔː/ also for
an increasing number of GA speakers
→ the main difference of lexical occurrence concerns words which RP have /ɑː/ while in GA they have /æ/
→ differences of realizations are always numerous