Coalescence (Lesson plan 09/09/2021)

1- Students are given the following lines to transcribe into phonemic notation. They are part of the
lyrics of Coldplay’s song “The Scientist.” The transcription is checked with the whole group.

“Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry

You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart.”

2- Students are encouraged to listen to the song and check whether the way Chris Martin sings the
song matches their transcription. The link to the song is the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB-RcX5DS5A In case students cannot recognise the change,
the teacher will guide their attention towards those parts where coalescence takes place.

“Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry

You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart.”

2.1- Students are asked whether they can recognise which phoneme the singer is producing in each
case. Once students have realised about the final result (affricate sound), the context in which
coalescence takes places is explained. The theory will be the following:

“Coalescence is the merging or fusion of two sounds so as to become a new one. This new sound shares
characteristics of both sounds. Which are the sounds fused?
One instance would be: the fortis voiceless alveolar plosive is merged with the lenis voiced palatal
semivowel and, as a resulting sound; we get the fortis voiceless palato-alveolar affricate.
The other would be: the fortis voiceless alveolar plosive is merged with the lenis voiced palatal
semivowel and, as a resulting sound; we get the fortis voiceless palato-alveolar affricate.

Examples of coalescence are: “Education” and “I’m looking at you”. This shows that this modification
can take place within a word or at word boundary.

Coalescence can be partial or complete: if the second word is a content word stressed on the first syllable,
then it is partial coalescence, for example, “First year” or “Eat yoghurt”. If the second word is an
unstressed function word, coalescence is complete. For instance, “The car is at your disposal.” The way
we write it in phonemic notation will change whether it is partial or complete.”

3- Students work with the following six sentences. The first three sentences will be dictated by the
teacher, the remaining ones will be transcribed by the students. Transcriptions are checked with the
whole group.

a) Don't you think what you did yesterday was wrong!?

b) In second year, she made you look like a complete idiot!
c) I bet you can't remember we met last year.
d) That yellow shirt won't suit you!
e) If you don't stick to the deal, they will hunt you and they will find you. Is that what you want?
f) You told me that you had your homework done.