Connected speech

 Communication....
 Chat...talk...sing...

let’s string
words
together!
"The drama of linguistic change," said English 
lexicographer and philologist Henry C. Wyld, "is
enacted not in manuscripts or in inscriptions, but
in the mouths and minds of men" (A Short History
of English, 1927). 
What is connected speech?

 Fluent speech flows with a rhythm and the

words bump into each other.
 To make speech flow smoothly the way we
pronounce the end and beginning of some
words can change depending on the sounds at
the beginning and end of those words.
Features of connected speech
Linking sounds
 Consonant to vowel linking – when the first word ends
with a consonant sound and the second word begins
with a vowel sound. E.g. Fried egg / a box oveggs /
cupov tea /doyer? We change the sounds to make it
flow!
 Vowel to vowel linking –when the first word ends in a
vowel and the next words begins with a vowel sound.
We add a ‘w’ or ‘y’ sound.E.g.’ go in’ / say it/do it/two
eggs/ hiya! / cudyer?

 Consonant to consonant linking – when the first word

ends in a consonant and the next one begins with a
consonant sound. We don’t hear both separately, we
just hear one. E.g. We only hear one /t/ E.g. A bit
tired /lot to do
 Features of connected speech
Disappearing sounds

 In rapid speech the /t/ or the /g/ sound at the end of the word
often disappears completely if there are consonant sounds either
side. e.g. next week / can’t swim/ going for .

 This also happens with the /d/ sound. e.g. sandwich –

san(d)wich. Fish and chips – fish an chips/bread an cheese.

 The /h/ sound is often deleted. E.g. You shouldn’t (h)ave told
(h)im/ We could (h)ave.

 The unstressed schwa(ɘ) is often lost. E.g. t(o)night/ got t(o)ave.

Features of connected speech
 Weak sounds

 There are a large number of words in English which can

have a ‘full’ form or a ‘weak’ form. This is because English
is a stress timed language, and in trying to make the
intervals between stressed syllables equal, to give us
rhythm, we tend to swallow non-essential words. Thus, we
lose pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliaries and
articles. E.g.
 And – a table ‘n chair
 Can – She c/ɘ/n speak English
 Of – A cup ov coffee
 Have – Av you finished?
 Should – You sh/ɘ/d av told me.
 The verb ‘to be’ – I’m He’s
Features of connected speech
 Changing Sounds

 Listen to two words said individually, then listen to them in a

sentence: good boy – Can you hear the difference?
 Sometimes the sound at the end of the first word takes on the
quality of the sound at the beginning of the second word. e.g.
She’s a good girl.
 This is to do with the place in the mouth where we make the
sounds. E.g. When we say /b/ or /p/ we can feel that both your
lips are pressed together.
 When we say /t/ or /d/ or /n/ we can feel that our tongue is
touching above our top teeth.
 When you say /k/ or /g/ or the –ng sound, we can feel the back
of our tongue touching the roof of our mouth.
Examples:

 Good girl – goog girl/goob boy

 Ten pounds – tem pounds
 Good mornin – goob mornin
 Not quite – nok quite
 So..
Assimilation
Assimilation: Changing the sound of a letter for easier pronunciation.
e.g. bad girl sounds like bag girl and did the ironing sounds like
dig the ironing

Assimilation can be described in terms of three (hierarchically

unrelated) categorizations, based on 1) the distance between the two
sounds involved, 2) the direction of the influence exerted, 3) the
particular distinctive feature affected.
 1. A. Contact assimilation (so common) →change of a neighboring
sound. E.g. ten pigs [tem pɪgz]
B. Distance assimilation (rare)→change of a sound standing far
away. E.g. turn up trumps [təm əp trʌmps]

1. A. Progressive assimilation → the influence of a preceding sound. E.g.

dentist's /dentɪsts/, goes /gəʊz/, looked /lʊkt/, and turned /tɜ:nd/→ choice
between the various endings for the regular plural, the possessive case, the
third-person singular, the regular past tense and etc. Also shut your mouth
[ʃʌt ʃə maʊɵ], Church Street [tʃɜtʃ ʃtri:t]
B. Regressive assimilation → the influence of a following sound. E.g. sandbox,
standby, windbreaker, sandwich. Also that case [ðᴔk_keɪs], good boy
[gʊb_bɔɪ]
 3. Coalescent assimilation → always merges two sounds to form a
single, new sound, or rather phoneme. E.g. don't you /dəʊnt ju/ ─
/dəʊnʧu/, could you /kʊd jʊ/ ─ /kʊdʒu/, What d'you want? /wɒt djʊ
wɒnt/ ─ /wɒt ʃʊ wɒnt/, intuition /ɪnʧu:`ʃn/, duel /dʒu:əl/, picture
/pɪkʧə, soldier /ˈsəʊldʒə(r)/, sugar /ʃʊgə/
/t/ + /jz/ /tʃ/ gotcha (an informal spelling of got you)
/d/ + /j/ /dʒ/ would you /ˈwʊdʒə/
/s/ + /j/ /ʃ/ miss you
/z/ + /j/ /ʒ/ is your...

Common types of assimilation

/t/ /p/ before bilabials /p/, /b/ and /m/ night porter get bored hot meal
/t/ /k/ before velars /k/ and /g/ white cat let go
/d/ /b/ before bilabials /p/, /b/ and /m/ bad press red bag wide margin
/d/ /g/ before velars /k/ and /g/ good coffee solid gold
/n/ /m/ before bilabials /p/, /b/ and /m/ gone past done better in music
/n/ /ŋ/ before velars /k/ and /g/ fan club kitchen gadget
/s/ /ʃ/ before /ʃ/ and /j/ less sure miss you
/z/ /ʒ/ before /ʃ/ and /j/ use shampoo those years
 
The fortis plosives p,t,k, are aspirated most typically in the following
environments:
- when they are pronounced in isolation, which hardly ever happens, of
course, but which shows that the aspiration of / p, t, k/ is intrinsic, i.e. it is part
of the " real * nature of these sounds;
- when they occur at the onset of a stressed syllable immediately before a
vowel as in pin, tough, and key, except when preceded by / s /, as in spin,
stuff', and ski (note that phonologically, or phonotactically, no consonant other
than / s / can precede a fortis plosive in a syllable-initial cluster);
- when they occur at the onset of a stressed syllable immediately before one of
the four frictionless continuants, / l, r, j, w / , in which case the aspiration
usually results in the devoicing of these continuants (because they are
articulated while the vocal folds are still apart), as in please, try, tune, and
quick except, again, when preceded by / s /, as in spleen and squiggle
 
There is no aspiration before unaccented syllables:
backup

dipper

master

thicker

There is no aspiration when an unaccented syllable ends the word:

setup

bucket

logic

Aspiration is optional when an accented syllable ends the word:

dump

thick

wait

watch

but

In this optional case, aspiration can be used to express emphasis, (“This

place is a dump!”) a pause, (“If we go to the dump, we should take the
older truck.”) or a question. (Have you ever been to the dump?) Often
no aspiration is the choice when the word is followed quickly by another
word. (“The little boy liked to watch the big truck dump the garbage.”)
Accommodation is the process of mutual influence of consonants and
vowels. The modification in the articulation of a consonant under the
influence of an adjacent vowel is called accommodation. In
accommodation the accommodated sound does not change its main
phonemic features and is pronounced slightly modified under the influence
of a neighboring sound.

For example: / t /
in ‘teeth ‘is pronounced with spread lips,
in ‘tooth ‘- with rounded lips,
in ‘eighth’ - has dental quality,
in ‘cotton’ - loses its aspiration.
 
Here are some most common types of accomodation.

→Consonants tend to be labialized when followed by a rounded (labialized)

vowel: cool, pot, rude.
→Vowels are slightly nazalized under the influence of the preceding or following
sonorants [m] and [n]: and, nice, men, morning.
→Alveolar plosive [t] in the intervocal position before unstressed vowels is replaced
by a voiced tap: pretty, better.
→labialization of Cs under the influence of following or preceding Vs [i, i:]
resulting in lip spreading (tea-eat, feet-leaf, keep-leak, pill-tip);
→  palatalization of Cs under the influence of Vs [i, i:] (part-pit, top-tip).
 
To sum up....

 So let’s connect and

 Connected speech chat!!!
consists of:
 Linking sounds
 Disappearing sounds
 Weak sounds
 Changing sounds