EN 2107: Practical Phonology III
Connected speech: linking words-consonant + vowel
· Focus: help
students cope with natural spoken language. Help with the comprehension
problems caused by the blurring of the word boundaries in sentences where a
consonant and a vowel meet, word borders tend to have blended sounds.
e.g. get out (ge
-tout) the final consonant is treated as if it belonged to the 2nd word
e.g. She went out
(t+ aw)
· Types of
activities:
- Practice saying these pairs. Try to think the
sounds which come together.
Red apple, wet
umbrella, speaks English etc.
- Listen to the links between ‘r’ and a vowel sound.
Practice saying them.
Mother and father, after all, where am I? etc.
- Find the link between consonant and vowel sounds in
these sentences.
The books are on the table in the corner.
It’s a waste of money to buy lots of clothes.
Linking words: consonant + consonant
- Focus:
- Dealing with comprehension problems related to
pronunciation.
Consonant + consonant: word borders tend to have a
deleted or an unreleased final consonant. e.g. She is a good girl. [d+g]
- Identical consonants delete one of the consonants
and blend the border together as one long consonant. e.g. I have a black
coat. [k +k], Bob Brown is here. [b+b]
- Types of activities:
- Listen and practice: red dog, sit down, take
back, desk top, good boy, phone bill, etc.
- Find links between words ending and beginning in a
consonant sound in the sentences
e.g.
Is it good luck to see a black
cat?
The time is ten
past two
Intonation: pattern of pitch changes in speech.
· Different pitch
patterns can produce different meanings.
Consisting of different tones. Tones depend on the
pitch of the voice. e.g. They arrived at EIGHT and left at TWO.. The
focal point of the message 2 and 8 are called tonic syllables.
· Practice
activities:
She’s a doctor. – a
statement or a fact. Here the intonation doesn’t go up. We use a falling tone
sounding friendly and polite.
She’s doctor? - an echo question. It has a rising tone.
· Find the
information focus in each sentence. Practice saying them as statements and
questions. e.g. He left. He left?
Intonation in question tags
· When you check
information that you’re not certain about, the intonation in the question tag
doesn’t go up.
· Types of
activities: Complete the sentences with a question tag. Then practice saying
them with correct intonation.
He’s French, isn’t he? This is the train to Kandy?
etc.
Allophonic variations
· Different
realizations of phonemes in speech, i.e. the phoneme is pronounced slightly
differently in the company of different sounds or environments. e.g. ‘p’ in
‘pot’ is aspirated but the ‘p’ in ‘spot’ is not. In English these sounds are
mainly ‘t’, ‘d’, and ‘h’ when followed by a velar or labial consonant ‘k’, ‘g’,
‘m’, or ‘b’.
· Clear ‘l’ (when
followed by a vowel) e.g. believe, allow, and dark ‘l’ (when
followed by a consonant) e.g. help, milk, are allophones of the phoneme ‘l’ -
allophonic variations of ed: ‘t’ after a fortis consonant except
‘t’, lukt, ‘d’ after a lenis consonant other than ‘d’.
e.g. ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘g’, ‘v’, ‘z’, ‘id’ after ‘t’ or ‘d’
· Provide practice
activities
Strong and weak forms
· Weak forms are the
unstressed forms of function words
· Types of
activities
Give examples of weak forms and strong forms
e.g. I swallowed a fly - schwa, You say a book, a child but an apple (strong forms)
An alligator bit him (weak form)
