Phonology 2022 Online

Lesson 2 + Overview
An Introduction to English Phonology and

Pronunciation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJG0uErf8WY

1
ACCENTS OF ENGLISH
•  Why is the pronuncia1on of English the most variable aspect
of the language?

•  Because of the widespread use of English as a na1ve
language throughout the world, it is spoken with many
different accents which depend on different geographical
areas (diatopic varia<on)
•  A lot of ‘na<vised accents’ in countries where English was
introduced as a colonial language and it has later become a
second language in educa1onal or governmental contexts
as well as a lingua franca for the interna1onal
communica1on.
•  Speakers of English as a Foreign Language may show traces
of ‘foreignness’.
2
3
4
The sounds of English and world’s languages
•  The Interna<onal Phone<c Alphabet (IPA) provides
a wri1ng symbol for any linguis1c sound of any
world language.
•  The phonemic alphabet uses many of the leJers of
the English alphabet, but there are no silent”
leJers—every phone1c symbol represents an
actual sound.
•  To make fine dis1nc1ons, phone1cians add special
symbols, called diacri<cs, to the basic leJers.
5
THE SOUNDS OF ENGLISH
6
The sounds of English
•  English has 44 phonemes, 24 consonants and
20 vowel sounds

•  CONSONANT
–  A sound made with a certain amount of temporary
block of the airflow through the mouth.

•  VOWEL
-‐ A sound made without any restric1on in the airflow.

The 20 vowel sounds may be divided into 12 'pure' vowel sounds
and 8 diphthongs.
7
PHONEMES
•  Whenever speakers dis<nguish between a pair of
sounds, they will use that difference to
dis<nguish between words. Sound units that
dis1nguish words from each other are called
phonemes.
•  Phonemes are usually enclosed in slanted
brackets / /. In fact these are used when a
sound is discussed phonologically.

•  When the sound is ar<culated, the phonemes
are enclosed in square brackets [ ]
8
1.10.ACTIVITY
•  a. Write the phone1c symbol for the first sound in each of
the following words, then write the phone1c feature(s)
they have in common:
•  play / / -‐ became / /___________;
•  to / / -‐ does / /____________;
•  founded / /-‐ Viewed / /________;
•  the / / -‐ Thomas / /_________;
•  change / / -‐ Germany / /________;
•  Saxons / / -‐ zoo / /___________;
•  Sure / / -‐ Jules / /____________;
•  con6nues / / -‐ grandeur / /____________;
•  many / / -‐ none / / ___________;
•  bring / / -‐ son / /____________;
•  land / / -‐ record / /__________;
•  when / /-‐ yellow / /__________;
9
1.8.ACTIVITY
•  Read aloud the consonant sounds in the phone1c chart above,
then put them in the right place of the chart below (Fig.1.15.)

10

Problem 1: PRONUNCIATION AND
•  A.
SPELLING
There are at least three ways to pronounce the leJers <ch> in English:

1. /tʃ/ as in cheat
2. /ʃ/ as in chevalier
3. /k/ as in kit

1.In Old English the sounds /k/ and /tʃ/ were both represented by the leJer <c>.
Later, under the influence of French spelling, Middle English scribes inserted an
<h> aker <c> to indicate the /tʃ/ sound at the beginning of words, as in child.
2. In English words of Greek origin the digraph <ch> represents a translitera1on of
Greek X (chi), and so is usually pronounced /k/, as in chorus, architect, chaos.
And in English words borrowed from French, <ch> is oken pronounced /ʃ/ , as
in charlatan, cachet.
3. Words borrowed directly from French will have the /ʃ/ phoneme -‐ cliché and
for example chauvinist, champagne, cache, cachet, Cherie

11

Exercise
•  Devide the following words on the basis of the
pronuncia1on of <ch>:
•  Chief, chef, chop, stomach, chevalier, chemist,
monarch, chorus, cheque, cherub, ache, chaos,
parachute
1. /tʃ/ as in cheat
2. /ʃ/ as in chevalier
3. /k/ as in kit
12
Pr. 1: PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING
Hard and So^ Sounds for ‘C’ and ‘G’
•  The Pronuncia1on of ‘C’ and ‘G’ generally (but not always, see
below) depends upon the leJer following either 'C' or 'G'.
General Rules
•  If the following leJer is ‘E’, ‘I’ or ‘Y’, the pronuncia1on is said to
be “sok”.
•  If the following leJer is anything else -‐ including a space -‐ the
pronuncia1on is termed “hard”.
•  A sok ‘C’ is pronounced /s/ as in cell, ,city, decision, receive,
license, distance, recently, pronounce, juicy, cylinder
•  A hard ‘C’ is pronounced /k/ as in call, correct, cup, cross, class,
rescue, fact, public, panic, ache
•  A sok ‘G’ is pronounced /dZ/ as in general, giant, gymnas6c,
large, energy, intelligible, changing
•  A hard ‘G’ is pronounced /g/ as in golf, pig, running, great, gum,
fragrant, grasp, glut, progress 13
Problem 2: SILENT GRAPHEMES /b, k, p, l/
1.  Final /b/ when preceeded by /m/ in

<climb, tomb, lamb> or followed by /t/ in
<doubt, debt>
2.  Ini1al /k/ when followed by /n/ in <knife,
knight, know>
3.  Ini1al /p/ when followed by /s/ in
<psychology, psalm>
4. Central /l/ when followed by /k/ in
<talk, walk>
14
15
COMMON ERRORS BY ITALIAN SPEAKERS OF
ENGLISH: Choose the correct pronuncia=on
16
MONOPHTHONGIZATION: Choose the correct
pronuncia=on
17
SUBSTITUTION
18
PRONUNCIATION OF /r/
19
NO ASPIRATION OF /h/
20
Phonetics and Phonology
•  Phonetics is a system for describing and
recording the sounds of language objec1vely.
It provides an articulatory (production),
acoustic (transmission) and auditory (reception)
description of sound characteristics.
•  Phonology deals with the ways in which

languages make use of sounds to dis1nguish
words from each other.
fall- tall - call
21
22
ITALIAN VOWELS (7)
23
ITALIAN CONSONANTS (25)
24
• WORDS CAN BE BROKEN DOWN (DIVIDED) INTO
GRAPHEMES, i.e. THEIR CONSTITUENT LETTERS
u-‐n-‐e-‐m-‐p-‐l-‐o-‐y-‐m-‐e-‐n-‐t

THEY CAN ALSO BE BROKEN DOWN INTO
THEIR CONSTITUENT SOUNDS, i.e.
PHONEMES
A PHONEME is the smallest unit of sounds
which conveys a change of meaning.
Seat / beat / meat /
25
26
Representa<on of sounds
•  Phone1c symbols (phonemes) are enclosed in

slanted brackets //, par1cular realiza1ons of
phonemes (phones) in square brackets [ ], and
leJers (graphemes) from an ordinary spelling
system in angled brackets < >.
27

Minimal pairs
•  When two words such as pet and pat are
iden<cal in form except for a contrast in one
phoneme, occurring in the same posi<on, the
words are described as minimal pairs in the
phonology of English.
•  MPs are used to demonstrate that pairs of sounds
are used in a language to dis1nguish words from
each other.
•  Examples:
•  Fan-‐van, bet-‐bat, site-‐side, etc.
•  Big-‐pig-‐rig-‐fig-‐dig-‐wig is a minimal set.
28
Phones and Allophones
•  A phone is a varia<on of sound.
• When we have a set of phones that are all
versions of one phoneme we refer to them as
allophones.
• An allophone is a phone<c variant of a phoneme
in a par<cular language and has no dis<nc<ve
func<on, e.g. [teɪbļ] or [th eɪbļ] no
compromised comprehension.
•  Examples
• [p] and [ph] are allophones of the phoneme /p/.
•  [t] and [th] are allophones of the phoneme /t/. 29
Complementary distribu1on of plosives:
Aspira<on
•  Aspira<on is predictable as a feature of
voiceless stops /p t k/ when they occur
ini<ally in a stressed syllable: [ph l] [kh l ]
•  No aspira<on when plosives are

preceeded by /s/:
•  <spot, skin, star>
30

Allophones

u

[u] [u:]
31
Phonotac<cs
• Phonotac<cs is concerned with how sounds

are distributed or where they can occur in a
word (beginning, middle, end).
32
Restrictions in the distribution of
sounds
<-‐u-‐> is pronounced as when
there is as in:
put, bush, push,butcher

but
puB (a ball), Buddy with
33
Restric1ons in the
distribu1on of sounds
Ini1al <th:

<th-‐> in lexical words:
Voiceless think,thing
(sorda)
<th-‐> in func1on words:

Voiced that,the,they
(sonora)
Excep1ons /t/ : Thomas, Thames
34
Restric1ons in the distribu1on of
sounds
In the middle of a word <-‐th-‐> is
VOICED

if it is followed by <-‐er> as in:
leather, weather, father
35
Restric1ons in the distribu1on of
sounds
•  In the middle of a word <-‐th-‐> is
VOICELESS

when no <-‐e-‐> follows as in:
lethal, method, author
36
Restrictions in the distribution of
sounds

[ł] [l] [ļ]
dark clear voiceless
37
Ar<culatory phone<cs
•  To produce speech, air must flow from the lungs
through the vocal tract, which includes the vocal
folds (popularly called the vocal cords, though
they are more like thick elas<c bands than
strings), the nose or nasal cavity, and the mouth
or oral cavity (See Figure 4.1).
•  The vocal folds vibrate for some sounds but not
for others.
•  Air flows through the nose for certain sounds but
not others. But the main creator of speech
sounds is the mouth.
38
Places and Ar<culators
39
PLACES OF ARTICULATION
7
8
6
5 4
9 1 1. bilabial
3 2
2. labiodental
3. interdental
4. dental
10 5. alveolar
6. alveolopalatal
7. palatal
8. velar
9. uvular
10. pharyngeal
40
Consonants
•  All consonants are produced by en<rely or almost en1rely
stopping the airstream coming from the lungs. They are
classified according to the following characteris1cs:
•  (a) whether or not the vocal folds are vibra<ng (voicing);
•  (b) whether the sound is made with a fully stopped or
merely constricted airstream (its manner of ar<cula<on);
•  (c) where in the mouth the stoppage or constric<on is
•  made (its place of ar<cula<on);
•  (d) whether or not air is flowing through the nasal cavity
(nasality); and
•  (e) whether or not the lips are pursed (lip-‐rounding).
41
Voicing
•  Warm up exercise. Make the sound fffff, and keep it
going for a count of five. Now make the sound vvvvv, and
keep it going for a count of five. Now alternate these
two: fffffvvvvvfffffvvvvv. The “buzz” is caused by the
vibra1ng of your vocal folds
42
VOICED
43
Consonants
•  Exercise. Iden1fy the sound represented by each of the

following phone1c symbols and for each sound collect
five words in which it occurs: /p, b, f, v, ð , θ , ʃ , ʒ , tʃ ,
dʒ , s, z/. How is each of these sounds ordinarily spelled?

44
Nasality
•  Warm up exercise. Make the sound represented by <m> in
the word Pam and con1nue it for some seconds. As you
con1nue it, pinch your nose and observe what happens to
the sound. It should stop immediately. Now try the same
liJle experiment with the <n> of pan and the <ng> of pang.
•  Sounds in which air flows through the nose are called nasal
sounds.
•  English has three main nasal sounds:
•  [m] Pam dummy maths
•  [n] pan clan Nat
•  [ŋ] pang clingy -‐-‐-‐-‐
45
Manner of ar=cula=on
•  By manner of ar<cula<on we mean the kind of closure or
constric<on of airflow used in making the sound. We
classify English consonants according to three manners of
ar1cula1on:
1. stops (full stoppage of the airstream somewhere in the oral
cavity between the vocal folds and the lips, as in /p/, /b/, /
m/);
2. frica<ves (constric1on of the airstream in the oral cavity
producing turbulence and noise, as in /f/, /v/);
3. affricates (full stoppage of the airstream followed
immediately by constric1on, as in , /tʃ , /dʒ/).
46
Manner of ar=cula=on
•  Stops
•  [p] pad [b] bad [m] mat
•  [t] tad [d] dad [n] Nat
•  [k] cad [g] gad [ŋ] tang
•  Frica<ves
•  [f] fie [v] vie
•  [θ ] thigh [ð ] thy
•  [s] Sue [z] zoo
•  [ʃ ] shoe [ʒ ] jus (au jus)
•  [h] how
•  Affricates
•  [tʃ ] chin
•  [dʒ] gin
•  47
Place of ar=cula=on
•  By place of ar<cula<on we mean the area in the mouth at
which the consonantal closure or constric1on occurs.
English uses only seven places of ar1cula1on

•  1. Bilabial sounds are made by bringing both lips together
to stop the airstream:
•  [p] pie cupping cup
•  [b] by clubbing cub
•  [m] my coming come
48
Place of ar=cula=on
•  2. Labiodental sounds are made by bringing the top teeth
into contact with the boJom lip and forcing air between
the two to create the frica1ves:
•  [f] feel raffle tough
•  [v] veal ravel dove
•  3. Interdental sounds are made by placing the <p of the
tongue between the top and boJom teeth and forcing air
through. Again, these are both frica1ves:
•  [θ ] thigh ether mouth bath (noun)

•  [ð ] thy either mouth bathe (verb) 49
Place of ar=cula=on
4. Alveolar sounds are made by bringing the tongue and the alveolar
ridge (the bony ridge just behind the top teeth) together to create
either a stop or frica1ve:
•  [t] tub boa<ng boat [s] sip fussy grace
•  [d] dub boding bode [z] zip fuzzy graze
•  [n] knit boning bone [r] rip terror tear
5. (Alveo-‐)palatal sounds are made by bringing the blade of the tongue
to, or close to, the alveo-‐palatal area of the roof of the mouth to
create frica1ves and affricates:
•  /ʃ/ shoe vicious rush
•  /ʒ/ jus (au jus) vision rouge
•  /tʃ/ chin catcher etch
•  /dʒ/ gin edger edge 50
Place of ar=cula=on
6. Velar sounds are created by stopping the airstream by bringing the
back of the tongue into contact with the velum:
•  [k] could backer tuck
•  [g] good bagger tug
•  [ŋ] -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ banger tongue
7. Gloual sounds are created by either narrowing the vocal folds
sufficiently to create a frica1ve or closing them to create a stop:
•  [h] hat cahoots [?] buuer (some varie<es of English)
51
Approximants
•  Approximants are sounds made by narrowing the oral cavity but not
enough to cause turbulence in the airstream; the airstream is said to
be smooth. The Approximants are more sonorant (resonant,
i.e., naturally loud) than consonants, but less so than
vowels. They are like consonants in that they typically
occur before or aker the vowels of syllables. English has
three kinds of approximants.
1. Lateral [l] let
2. Central [r] Rheu
3. Glides a. Labio-‐velar [w] wet b. Palatal [j] yet
52
Ar=culatory descrip=ons
•  An ar<culatory descrip<on of any consonant or approximant must
specify (at least) its place and manner of ar1cula1on, whether it is
voiced or voiceless, and whether it is nasal or oral. For example, [m]
is made at the lips by stopping the airstream, is voiced, and is nasal.
•  We can gather all of the consonants that we have

described into a single chart (Tab.4.4):
53
54
PLACE
MANNER 55
56
TO SUM UP…Consonants
Are classified according to:
•  manner of ar<cula<on (plosive, affricate, frica<ve,
nasal,lateral, approximant) referred to the passage
of airflow in the vocal tract;
•  place of ar<cula<on (bilabial, labio-‐dental, dental,

alveolar, palatal, velar, gloual), i.e. posi1on of
tongue, lips, etc.

•  voicing (voiced # unvoiced or voiceless sounds, i.e.
b,d,v,đ,z # p,t,f,θ,s) referred to the vibra1on of the
vocal cords.
57
Now listen to the pronuncia1on of
the English consonants
•  Oxford online resource:
•  hJp://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/intermediate/
c_pronuncia1on/?cc=global&selLanguage=en

or BBC Learning:
•  hJp://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
grammar/pron/sounds/index.shtml
•  hJp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai4khkgA_a8
58
CONSONANTS
59
Exercise
60
or GRAPHEMES
61
62
63
Consonant Clusters
•  A consonant cluster is a group or sequence
of consonants that appear together in a
syllable without a vowel between them.
•  Here are some examples of consonant
clusters:
•  \sp\ and \ts\ in the word spots
•  \spr\ in the word spray
64
Lesson overview

•  Classifica1on of vowel sounds
•  Syllables and feet
•  Phonemes
•  Exercises
65
VOWELS
•  Vowels include the sounds we ordinarily
represent as the leJers <a, e, i, o, u>,
•  Vowels are produced with a smooth,
unobstructed airflow through the oral tract.
•  Characteris1c vowel quali1es are determined by
(a) the height of the tongue in the mouth; (b) the
part of the tongue raised (front, middle, or back);
(c) the configura<on of the lips; and (d) the
tension of the muscles of the oral tract.
66
Tongue height
•  Pronounce the words eat and at. Now pronounce
just the vowels of these two words. No1ce that as
you go from the vowel of eat to the vowel of at,
your mouth opens. The degrees of openness
dis1nguish high, mid, and low vowels
67
Front and back vowels
•  Now compare the vowel of beat with that of boot.
•  Because of the rela1ve posi1ons at which these
vowels are made in the mouth, phone1cians call
[i] and the other vowels in the vowel quadrilateral
front vowels, and [u] a back vowel.
68
VOWEL QUADRILATERAL
FRONT CENTRAL BACK
HIGH
MID ROUNDED
LOW

69
Intermediate vowels
•  First, pronounce the words meat, miB, mate, met,
and mat. Then pronounce just their vowels:
•  meat me [i]
•  miu [ɪ]
•  mate may [e]
•  met [ɛ]
•  mat [æ ]
•  The vowels we’ve just added, [ɪ] and [ɛ], are
intermediate in height between [i] and [e], and [e]
and [æ], respec1vely.
70
Intermediate vowels
•  Now pronounce the series of words suit, soot,
sowed, sought, sot. Then pronounce just their
vowels:
•  suit cooed flew [u]
•  soot [ʊ]
•  sowed code flow [o]
•  sought fraught caw [ɔ:]
•  sot cot spa [ɒ]
•  We’ve added two more intermediate vowels to
the back series, [ʊ ] and [ɔ:].
71
Features of vowels
•  vowels differ in several ways:
•  1. In length: [i:], [e:], [u:], [o], [ɔ:], and [ɑ:] are
longer than [ɪ ] [ɛ] and [æ ] [ʊ ] , and [], when they
occur in the same contexts.
•  2. In posi1on in the mouth: [i:] and [e:] are higher
and farther front than [ɪ ] [ɛ], respec1vely; [u] and
[o] are higher and farther back than [ʊ ] and [ɔ],
respec1vely.
• 
• 
72
Features of vowels
•  3. All vowels can occur in syllables that end in at
least one consonant (closed syllables); [i], [e], [u],
[o], [ɔ], and [ɑ] can occur as the final sound in a
syllable (open syllables).
•  4. Muscle tension: [i:], [e:], [u:], [o:] and [ɑ:] are
produced with greater muscle tension in the
ar1culators than [ɪ ] [ɛ] and [æ ] [ʊ ] and [V] are.
The former are tense vowels; the lauer are lax.
•  Even though there are several differences
separa1ng these two sets of vowels, we will refer
to them as tense and lax vowels. 73
SHORT OR LAX VOWELS
bit, fit, miss, hymn, bid pull, would, put
mess, hen, bed, bet, deck
bus, cup, bud, cut
apple, ham, bad, gap, bat loss, Tom, cod, pot
74
LONG OR TENSE VOWELS
do, food, soon,

beat, feet, lead, see, tea
goose
hurt, heard, earn, earth, thought,

bird, word, fur, fern, worse bought, horse
car, cart, half, pass, class
75
Vowels in mul=-‐syllabic words:
schwa
•  Pronounce the words above, soda, sofa, comma,
arena, pa=na, photograph, paying par1cular
aJen1on to the vowel represented by the bold
leJers. Then pronounce this vowel in isola1on.
•  This vowel is called schwa and wriJen [@].
•  it is central, mid, lax, and unrounded.
•  It is heard primarily in unstressed syllables

76
THE SCHWA SOUND
•  It is a short and always unstressed

vowel
phonology, ago, quality
merger
77
DIPHTHONGS
Vowels are ar1culated by a specific configura1on
of the tongue, lips, and oral cavity, which is held
constant throughout their pronuncia1on. Vowels
made like this are called monophthongs; others,
called diphthongs, involve a change in the
configura1on of the mouth.
78
DIPHTHONGS
•  Exercise 1. For each of the three diphthongs
symbolized below provide four more example
words. In two of these words the diphthong should
appear in a closed syllable (i.e., before a consonant,
e.g., Boyd) and in the other two words it should
appear in an open syllable (i.e., not followed by a
consonant, e.g., boy).
•  [ɔɪ] _________ _________ _________ _________
•  [aɪ] _________ _________ _________ _________
•  [aʊ] _________ _________ _________ _________
•  2. Are the English diphthongs tense or lax? (Hint:
they can occur in open syllables.)
79
DIPHTHONGS
80
81
PRONUNCIATION OF VOWELS IN
STRESSED [ ‘ ] SYLLABLES
•  The sequence
CONSONANT+ VOWEL+CONSONANT+VOWEL (CVCV)
has the phonemic value of the alphabet name of the
leJer:

<i> time, fine <u> /ju/ mute, renewal

<o> gone, alone, phone

<e> supreme, meet, need

<a> made, mate, shadow 82

Exercise
83
Exercise
84
Syllables
• A syllable (symbolized as $) is a unit of

organiza1on for a sequence of speech sounds.
• For example, the word water is composed of two
syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made
up of a syllable nucleus (most oken a vowel or a
syllabic consonant /r, l/) with op1onal ini1al and
final margins (typically consonants).
• Syllables are oken considered the phonological
"building blocks" of words. They can influence the
rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poe1c
meter, its stress paJerns, etc.
85
Syllables
•  a syllable nucleus may be preceded by an

onset (symbolized as O), consis1ng of one or
more consonants, and followed by a coda
(symbolized as C), again consis1ng of one or
more consonants.
•  The nucleus and the coda together make up a
unit called the rhyme (R).
86
Syllables
•  The following diagram illustrates the
cons1tuent of the single-‐syllable word then.
$
O R
N C

ð ɛ n

87
Syllables

•  Parts of syllables may be repeated for poe1c effects. Of
these repe11ons, rhyme is the most important: it involves
repea1ng the rhyme of syllables, usually at the ends of
lines, as the rhyming words in the following stanza (4)
show:
•  Piping down the valleys wild,

•  Piping songs of pleasant glee,
•  On a cloud I saw a child,
•  And he laughing said to me:

(William Blake, Introduc1on to Songs of Innocence)
88
Syllables

•  Repea1ng onsets, or first sounds in onsets, as in then and
there, creates allitera<on. Repea1ng nuclei, as in Mikey
likes it, or the incredible edible egg creates assonance.
89
Coun<ng Syllables

To find the number of syllables in a word, use the following steps:
•  Count the vowels in the word.

•  Subtract any silent vowels, (like the silent e at the end of a word, or the
second vowel when two vowels are together in a syllable)
•  Subtract one vowel from every diphthong (diphthongs only count as one
vowel sound).
•  The number of vowel sounds lek is the same as the number of syllables.

•  The number of syllables that you hear when you pronounce a word is the
same as the number of vowels sounds heard. For example:
•  The word came has 2 vowels, but the e is silent, leaving one vowel sound
and one syllable.
•  The word outside has 4 vowels, but the e is silent and the ou is a
diphthong which counts as only one sound, so this word has only two
vowel sounds and therefore, two syllables.
•  The word create has 3 vowels, but the e is silent, the diphthong eɪ counts
as only one sound and so this word has only two vowel sounds and
therefore, two syllables. How many syllables in created? 90
Syllables and feet
•  In speech, syllables are combined into rhythmic units
called feet, which are also of considerable importance in
scanning lines of poetry. Each foot consists of at least one
stressed syllable (its energy peak) and one or two
unstressed syllables.
•  Feet are differen1ated from each other by the number of
stressed syllables they contain and by the posi<on of the
stressed (S) syllable(s) rela1ve to other syllables in the
foot.
91
Syllables and feet
•  In the following examples, S represents a stressed
syllable and U an unstressed one; the stressed syllable of
each example word is bolded.
•  Iambic: [U S] today
•  Trochaic: [S U] trochee
•  Anapes1c: [U U S] intervene
•  Dactylic: [S U U] personal
•  Spondaic: [S S] good news
•  Homework: Exercise 1. In the stanza given in (4) above,
iden1fy each stressed syllable, determine the feet, and
iden1fy the kind of meter (iambic, trochaic, etc.) used. 92
Syllabic consonants

•  Some consonants are syllabic, i.e. they func1on as

nucleus of a syllable:
n, l
Here are some examples:
•  BuJon – widen -‐ roJen -‐ boJle -‐liJle -‐ wobble -‐ -‐ able

93
Syllables
•  A word that consists of a single syllable (like cat) is called a
monosyllable (such a word is monosyllabic).
•  While a word consis1ng of two syllables (like monkey) is

called a disyllable (such a word is disyllabic).
•  A word consis1ng of three syllables (such as indigent) is

called a trisyllable (the adjec<ve form is trisyllabic).
•  A word consis1ng of more than three syllables (such as

intelligence) is called a polysyllable (and could be
described as polysyllabic),although this term is oên used
to describe words of two syllables or more.
94
Syllables
•  A syllable must contain a vowel sound.
•  One syllable can consist of:
•  Me: CV OPEN SYLLABLE
•  Ham: CVC CLOSED SYLLABLE
•  Green: CCVC
•  Splat: CCCVC
•  A syllable has to have a vowel and could
consist of just one vowel. Ex: I.
95

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Lesson 2 + Overview

An Introduction to English Phonology and

1. Final /b/ when preceeded by /m/ in

• Phonology deals with the ways in which

• Phone1c symbols (phonemes) are enclosed in

• No aspira<on when plosives are

• Phonotac<cs is concerned with how sounds

put, bush, push,butcher

dark clear voiceless

• Exercise. Iden1fy the sound represented by each of the

• [θ ] thigh ether mouth bath (noun)

• We can gather all of the consonants that we have

• place of ar<cula<on (bilabial, labio-­‐dental, dental,

bit, ﬁt, miss, hymn, bid pull, would, put

mess, hen, bed, bet, deck

bus, cup, bud, cut

apple, ham, bad, gap, bat loss, Tom, cod, pot

do, food, soon,

hurt, heard, earn, earth, thought,

car, cart, half, pass, class

• It is a short and always unstressed

• A syllable (symbolized as $) is a unit of

• a syllable nucleus may be preceded by an

• Piping down the valleys wild,

• Count the vowels in the word.

• Some consonants are syllabic, i.e. they func1on as

• While a word consis1ng of two syllables (like monkey) is

• A word consis1ng of three syllables (such as indigent) is

• A word consis1ng of more than three syllables (such as

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1.  Final /b/ when preceeded by /m/ in

•  Phonology deals with the ways in which

•  Phone1c symbols (phonemes) are enclosed in

•  No aspira<on when plosives are

•  Exercise. Iden1fy the sound represented by each of the

•  [θ ] thigh ether mouth bath (noun)

•  We can gather all of the consonants that we have

•  place of ar<cula<on (bilabial, labio-‐dental, dental,

•  It is a short and always unstressed

•  a syllable nucleus may be preceded by an

•  Piping down the valleys wild,

•  Count the vowels in the word.

•  Some consonants are syllabic, i.e. they func1on as

•  While a word consis1ng of two syllables (like monkey) is

•  A word consis1ng of three syllables (such as indigent) is

•  A word consis1ng of more than three syllables (such as