BY: Izzah Aishah Syahirah

Speech

is a continuous stream of sounds without a definite borderline between each word. we communicate with each others, we adapt our pronunciation to our audience and tend to speak at a pace which is convenient for us, rather than speaking clearly. causes changes to the shape of words. As a result, certain words are lost, and some phonemes are linked together while speaking. changes are described as features of connected speech.

When

This

These

Among the phonological processes that affect connected speech are:

assimilation

(changing sounds)

elision

(losing sounds)

intrusion

and linking (adding or joining sounds between words)

Assimilation can be:

Of

place Of voice Of manner

 The

most common form involves the movement of place of articulation of the alveolar stops /t/, /d/ and /n/ to a position closer to that of the following sound. For instance, in the phrase ten cars, the /n/ will usually be articulated in a velar position, so that the tongue will be ready to produce the following velar sound /k/. Similarly, in ten boys the /n/ will be produced in a bilabial position, to prepare for the articulation of the bilabial /b/.

BEFORE A VELAR (/k/, /g/) /d/ e.g. good girl / /t/ e.g. that kid / /k/ / /g/ /

BEFORE A BILABIAL (/m/, /b/, /p/) /n/ e.g. ten men /tem men/ /d/ e.g. bad boys / /t/ /bb b /b/ z/ /p/ m ru:mz/ /m/

e.g. hot mushrooms / h p

 The

vibration of the vocal folds is not something that can be switched on and off very swiftly, as a result groups of consonants tend to be either all voiced or all voiceless.

Consider

the different endings of dogs /d gz/ and cats /kts/, of the past forms of the regular verbs such as kissed / k st/ and sneezed /sni:zd/. these cases the fact of the final consonant of a word being voiced or not determines the choice of whether the suffix will be voiced or voiceless.

In

 In

the case of the suffixes for plural nouns, for the third person singular in the present simple, for regular verbs in the past simple and for the genitive the application of this rule is predictable, with only a few exceptions (e.g. leaf leaves). assimilation of voicing can radically change the sound of several common constructions

However,

1. Have to
have to has to /hv tu:/ /hz tu:/ /a become hft /hft / /hst / g /

I have to go!

2. Used to
used to /ju:zd tu:/ becomes /a ju:st ju:/ /ju:st / l vn

I used to live near you.

Here assimilation has taken place twice, first on the /d/ and then on the /z/. A common mistake that Italian speakers make in English is to use constructions like: *In my country we use to eat a lot on Christmas day, intending to convey information about present habits/customs. Not only is this an inappropriate translation of an Italian construction, it is also misleading - an English speaker will interpret it as referring to the past, as if it were /ju:st / . In English the simple present automatically indicates that the action is a present habit/custom In my country we eat a lot on Christmas day is quite sufficient.

3. Supposed to
Supposed to /s p d tu:/ z becomes /s p st /

You were supposed to leave!

/ju: w s li:v/

st

 Assimilation

of manner is only found in very fast casual speech. general speakers change sounds to sounds that are easier, those that obstruct the airflow less and therefore require less energy.

In

 An

example can be a rapid pronunciation of Get some of that soup, where instead of the expected /g t s m v dat su p/ an English speaker says /g s s m v das su p/, with /s/ replacing /t/ in two words.

It

is thus possible to find cases where a final plosive becomes a fricative or nasal (e.g. good night /g n na t/), but most unlikely that a final fricative or nasal would become a plosive (Roach, 2000: 140).