In
the previous chapter, phonology has two aspects. We have dealt in general terms
with the production, transmission and reception of sounds and we shall now turn
our attention to the sound patterns in English. Since Standard English has no
official pronunciation, we find considerable variation throughout the world: an
American does not sound like an Australian and neither sounds like an
Englishman. It would be impossible to cover all the variations found and so the
description will be limited to the pronunciation sanctioned in Britain and in the U.S by radio and television
what will be described, therefore, are the network norms established by BBC
(National Broadcasting Company) and CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) in the United States
PHONETICS
AND PHONOLOGY: WHAT ARE THEY?
PHONETICS
and PHONOLOGY both study the sounds of speech but in
somewhat different ways. Phonology is the study of sound systems in particular
languages. It is concerned with significant units of sound called PHONEMES and the patterns or relationships
between them. The symbol for that sound is enclosed in slash lines. For example
the sound at the beginning of the English word tell is represented by the symbol /t/. this sound is a phoneme in
English. It is significant because it can distinguish meaning. For example, the
word tell is a different word from sell because the first word begins with
the phoneme /t/ and the second begins with the phoneme /s/. they have different
sounds and different meanings.
LETTERS,
SOUNDS AND SYMBOLS
LETTERS
are, of course, the symbol we use to make up the alphabet and to write words.
They may be used to represent spoken
sounds but they are not sounds. In fact, most writing systems do not represent
the sounds of speech in an entirely accurate manner. This is particularly true
in English. Think a moment about the fact that the vowel in sheep is spelt with ee;
the vowel in meat is spelt ea; the vowel in piece is spelt with ie.
And yet all three words contain the same vowel sound.
Phonetic
SYMBOLS, unlike the letters with which we
normally write, represent the sounds of speech in a one-to-one fashion: each
symbol represents one sound and each sound is represented by one and only one
symbol. For example, the sound which is spelt with th as in think is really
only one sound and so there is one phonetic symbol for it: [ θ ]. On the other
hand, the x in box represents two sounds. The phonetic symbols for these sounds
are [ ks ].
THE
PHONEMES OF ENGLISH
All
human beings alike, yet every human being has a unique set of fingerprints. In
a similar way, all languages make use of consonants and vowels yet no two
languages have the same set of distinct sounds of phonemes. A phoneme is not
one specific sound but it is like the common denominators of all realizations
of a specific sound. Let us take an example. If we say the words:
pin spin nip
aloud,
we realize that the ‘p’ sounds are all slightly different. The ‘p’ in ‘pin’ is
pronounced with a lot of breath, the ‘p’ in ‘spin’ has qualities of the ‘b’ in
‘bin’ and the ‘p’ in ‘nip’ is pronounced as if it were followed by a short
vowel. All these ‘p’ sounds are different and indeed no two people ever pronounce ‘p’ in exactly the same
way, but the differences are not
sufficiently great to be used to distinguish meanings in English. We say,
therefore, that all the ‘p’ sounds in English belong to the same phoneme. If,
on the other hand, we examine the words:
pin pen
we
realize that although these words only differ in their vowel sounds they refer
to distinct objects. Since these vowel sounds can be used to distinguish many
words:
din den
kin ken
tin ten
we
say that the vowels /I/ and /e/
are different phonemes.
THE
CONSONANTS OF ENGLISH
One
method of establishing the phonemes of a language is by means of minimal pairs.
An illustration will help to explain this. In English, we have the word pan and the word ban. These words differ fairly fundamentally in meaning but, as far
as the sounds go, they differ only in the initial segment. The sounds /p/ and
/b/ can be shown to distinguish meaning in many pairs of words:
pet bet
pill
bill
post boast
punk bunk
We
can, therefore, conclude that /p/ and /b/ are distinct phonemes in English. The
consonants of British and American English are essentially the same and
twenty-four distinct consonants can be distinguished by means of minimal pairs.
A list such as:
pie buy tie die guy fie vie lie
my nigh thigh thy sigh shy rye high
allows
us to isolate the following consonant phonemes: /p, b, t, d, g, f, v, l, m, n,
θ, ð , s, ∫
, r, h/
Lists
such as:
chin sin win
gin tin
add
/ t∫, ʤ, w/,
while:
simmer sinner singer
provide us with /ŋ / and:
rice rise
isolate
/z/
The
remaining three phonemes are revealed by three sets below:
leper letter ledger leisure
Which
give us /ʒ / and:
car bar far
which
provide /k/, and finally:
bard card yard
which
reveal /j/.
THE
VOWEL OF ENGLISH
As
might be expected, there is much greater variation in the pronunciation of
vowel phonemes than is the case with consonants. The variety of British English
that we have chosen to describe has twelve monophthongs and eight diphthongs
whereas our US
VOWEL
1 which has the phonetic symbol / i: / is a close, long, front vowel, made with
spread lips. It occurs in such words as ‘eat’, ‘seed’ and ‘see’.
VOWEL
2 which has the phonetic symbol / I / differs from vowel 1 in both quality
and length. It is a half-close, short,
front vowel made with spread lips. It is also one of the most frequently used
vowels in the English language and one that is often replaced by vowel 1 in the
speech of non-native speakers. This vowel occurs in such words as ’it’, ‘sit’
and ‘city’.
VOWEL
3 which has the phonetic symbol
/ e / is a
short, front vowel produced with spread lips. It occurs in words like ‘egg’ and
‘get’ but does not occur in word-final position in English.
VOWEL
4 which is represented phonetically by
/ æ / is
a short, front, open vowel. It is made with the lips in a neutrally open
position. It occurs in words like ‘add’, ‘sat’ and, like / e /, does
not occur in word-final position in English.
VOWEL
5 is represented by the symbol / ɑ: /. It
is a long, open, back vowel made with slightly rounded lips. It occurs in words
like ‘art, ‘father’ and ‘far. This vowel does not occur in US English.
VOWEL
6 is represented by the symbol / ɒ /. This is a short, open, back vowel made in British English
with slightly rounded lips and in the US
Fig.
4: The positions of the twelve monophthongs in British English. (the vowels are
based on the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, 2000)
VOWEL
7 is represented by / ɔ: /. This
is a long, half-open, back vowel pronounced with lip-rounding. Again, there is
more lip-rounding in the British pronunciation of / ɔ: /. This
sound occurs in ‘all’, sawed’ and ‘raw’.
VOWEL
8 is represented phonetically by
/ʊ/. This
is a short, half-close, back vowel pronounced with lip-rounding. It does not
occur in word-initial position but is found in ‘put’ and in ‘to’.
VOWEL
9 is transcribed / u: /. This is a
long, close, back vowel produced with lip-rounding. It is found in words such as ‘’ooze’, booed’ and
‘too’.
VOWEL
10 is represented by / ʌ /. This
is a short, open, centralized vowel. It does not occur in word-final position
but is found in ‘up’ and ‘bud’.
VOWEL
11 does not occur in US English. It is represented by the
symbol / ɜ: /. It is a long, central vowel and occurs in such words as
‘err’, ‘church’ and ‘sir’.
14
eI 13
15 16
Fig. 5: Diphthongs in
BBC English.
VOWEL
12 is represented by / Ə / and
is the only vowel sound in English with a name. / Ə
/ is called ’schwa’. The schwa is
the most frequently occurring vowel sound in colloquial English speech, and all
unstressed English vowels tend to be realized as / Ə /. This
is a short, central vowel which occurs in the unstressed syllables of such
words as ‘ago’ and ‘mother’.
All
the vowels described above are monophthongs. This means that there is no tongue
movement during the production of the vowel sound. A diphthong, however,
involves the movement of the tongue from one vowel position another.
VOWEL
13 is represented by /eI/. Like
all English diphthongs it is long. It starts close to Vowel / e / and moves towards Vowel 2. This sounds
occurs in such words as ‘ail’, ‘rain’ and ‘day’.
VOWEL
14 is represented by /Əʊ /. It starts near the centre of the mouth in British English
and moves towards Vowel 8. This diphthong is narrower and is pronounced with
more lip-rounding in US English. It occurs in such words s ‘oat’, ‘known’ and
‘go’.
VOWEL
15 is represented by / aI /. This
is a wide diphthong which starts in the region of Vowel 4 and moves towards
Vowel 2. This diphthong is found in words such as ‘aisle’, ‘fight’ and ‘high’.
VOWEL
16 is represented by /aʊ /. This is a wide diphthong which starts in the region of
Vowel 4 and moves towards Vowel 8. It occurs in such words as ‘out’, ‘house’
and ‘now’.
VOWEL
17 is represented by / ɔI
/. This diphthong begins in the
region of Vowel 7 and moves towards Vowel 2. It occurs in such words as ‘oil’,
‘toyed’ and ‘boy’.
The
above are the five diphthongs shared by British and US English.
VOWEL
18 is represented by / IƏ /. It is a centering vowel in that it starts near Vowel 2 and
moves towards Vowel 12. This diphthong is found in such words as ‘ear’,
‘pierce’ and ‘beer’. You will notice that this diphthong occurs in words which
involve post-vocalic ‘r’. The sound in such words would be represented by /ir/
in US English.
VOWEL
19 is represented by / eƏ
/. It is a centering diphthong
which starts near Vowel 3 and moves
towards Vowel 12. It is found in such words as ‘air’, ‘paired’ and
‘there’. This sound is usually represented in US English by /er/, that is, by
the combination of a vowel similar in quality to Vowel 3 followed by the
consonant /r/.
VOWEL
20 is represented by / ʊƏ / (/ʊr/ in the US). It
is a centering vowel starting near Vowel 8 and moving towards Vowel 12. This
diphthong does not occur in word-initial position but is found in words like ‘tour’
and ‘moor’. With many speakers this diphthong is replaced by the monophthong
/ɔ/ so that it is not uncommon to have speakers who pronounce
‘Shaw’, ‘shore’ and ‘sure’ in exactly the same way, as /ɔ/.
CONSONANT
CLUSTERS
The
English language permits a number of consonant clusters such as /dr/ and /spl/.
There are restrictions on the type of combination which can occur. These can be
summarized in two groups: consonant clusters in initial position, and consonant
clusters in final position.
CONSONANT
CLUSTERS IN INITIAL POSITION
The maximum cluster of consonants (C) in an
initial position in English is three,
and they must be followed by a vowel
(V), thus: CCCV. If there are three consonants, however, the first must be /s/,
the second must come from the set /p,t,k/, and the third must come from the set
/l,r,w,j/, but these can only occur in certain patterns, as shown bellow:
The
maximum cluster of consonants (C) in an initial
position in English is three, and they must be followed by a vowel (V), thus: CCCV. If there are three
consonants, however, the first must be /s/, the second must come from the set
/p,t,k/, and the third must come from the set /l,r,w,j/, but these can only
occur in certain patterns, as shown bellow:
The
above possibilities are illustrated by the following words:
splash, sprain, spurious/spjʊƏriƏs/
strain, stew /stju:/
screech, sclerosis, squander /skwɔndƏ/
and skew /skju:/
If
there are only two consonants in the cluster, the first must come from set
/p,t,k,b,g,f,v,θ,s,∫,h/ in the following patterns. The normal orthography is
used but the reader is reminded that sounds and not spellings are referred to:
CONSONANT
CLUSTERS IN FINAL POSITION
English
permits up to four consonants in word final position, so we have CCCVCCCC as a
possible English word. Such words are uncommon but ‘strengths’ illustrates the
patter. The following types of clusters can be established, starting with VCC:
The
VCCC patter is quite frequent in English although it is not found as widely in
the language as the VCC pattern.
pts as in scripts /skrıpts/
pst as in lapsed /læpst/
pθs as in depths
/depθs/
tst as in blitzed
/blıtst/
kst as in next /nekst/
mps as in limps /lımps/
ŋst as in amongst
/Əmʌŋst/
etc.
The
VCCCC pattern, where four consonants occur at the end of a word or syllable is
rare in English and is only found when the inflectional endings /s/ and /t/ are
added to a VCCC form as in ‘thousandths’
/θaʊzƏntθs/,
exempts /eksempts/ or glimpsed
/glimpst/.
SUMMARY
In
this chapter, methods of describing the sound system of English have been
examined. Each model of grammar has its own preferences and so different
descriptions will emphasize different aspects of phonology. The account given
above, however, is compatible with all models of grammar for English and will
be extended in subsequent chapters where some of the most influential
descriptions of English produced in the last fifty years are examined.
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