These labels show you where the sound is pronounced. You need to study these by heart
because they are also very important for assimilation
/p/ fortis bilabial plosive
/f/ fortis labiodental fricative
/m/ bilabial nasal
/b/ lenis bilabial plosive
/v/ lenis labiodental fricative
/n/ alveolar nasal
/t/ fortis alveolar plosive
/θ/ fortis dental fricative
/ŋ/ velar nasal
/d/ lenis alveolar plosive
/ð/ lenis dental fricative
/h/ fortis glottal fricative
/tʃ/fortis palatoalveolar affricate
/s/ fortis alveolar fricative
/l/ alveolar lateral
/dʒ/ lenis palatoalveolar affricate
/z/ lenis alveolar fricative
/r/ postalveolar approximant
/j/palatal approximant
, Basic terms (recap Phonetics I)
Minimal pair
= If you can change one phoneme and the meaning changes (eg. man and pan)
Minimal set
= Words that differ by one phoneme (ban/ran/tan)
Phoneme
= Smallest distinctive sound units (eg. bath /bɑːθ/ 3 phonemes and 4 letters)
Allophonic variation
= A phoneme is composed of a number of sounds which are
interpreted as one meaning unit (these variants are
allophones
)
The English vowels can be placed into three groups
1. Checked steady state (short vowel such as /ɪ/)
2. Free steady state(long vowels with length marks such as /uː/
3. Free diphthongs (They are long and consist of two symbols such as /eɪ/
Syllables
= (Dutch; lettergreep)
Homophones sound alike
= They such as meat/meet and some/sum
Homographs lookalike
= They such as bass /beɪs/ & /bæs/
Citation form
= Pronounced in isolation
Connected speech
= How words sound in an actual sentence and makes articulation easier
Stress= In citation form we call this
word stress, in connected speech we call this
sentence
. We indicate stress with a
stress stress mark (‘)
Strong &Weak form = You use strong forms when you pronounce the word by itself, this
way the word is stressed. Weak forms are used in connected speech and are not stressed.
We usually use a schwa for weak forms.
Contracted forms
= Combined function words, these words are frequently stressed.
Intonation groups
= I (a single bar) when there’s a pause in the sentence. II (a double bar)
when the sentence ends.
Assimilation
= The change of a phoneme
Elision
= Deleting a phoneme (eg. tasteless /t/ is elided)