UNIT 5

Segmentals and suprasegmentals

• An utterance, e.g “good heavens”, there are two features can be distinguished:

1. Segmental features; sound units arranged in a sequential order; “good heavens” has
nine segmental features, phonetically transcribed in the following way /gud-hƐvǝnz/

2. Suprasegmental features, which refer to stress, pitch, length, intonation, and other
features that always accompany the production of segmental.

3. The two features are indivisible, since it is impossible to produce one type of feature
without involving the other.

4. If someone produces a sound, his pronunciation always involves the employment of

stress, that is the use of some breath-force and some strength of articulation.

5. It should be produced with some pitch, some length or some period of time during the
sound is pronounced.

6. When the production of the sound is finished, the utterance may have a rising, falling,
or sustension pitchdirection at the end.

Differences between two speech features.

• Segmentals can be studied in isolation, whereas suprasegmentals cannot.

• Every utterance may be cut up or segmented into a linear sequence of segmental

features, each of which can be examined and analyzed separately without considering
the other segmental in the same utterance.

• Suprasegmentals cannot be studied in isolation.

• The utterance /gud-hƐvǝnz/ cannot be segmented into its constituting suprasegmentals

without reference to the segmental features they accompany.

• Every language has its own sound system, including its segmental and suprasegmental
system.
 • There may be similar elements between two or more languages, but it is certainly
wrong to assume that one can analyze and study a foreign language in terms of one’s
own native language.

English stress and length patterns

• Stress defined

 Stress is meant the degree of force or loudness with which a syllable is pronounced so
as to give it prominence.

 A vowel sound is the nucleus of syllable in English, so a syllable consists of a vowel,

with or without consonant.

 Three degrees of stress : strong (primary), medium (secondary), and weak stress.

• Word stress

 Each word in English has its own stress-pattern, therefore be learned together with its
meaning.

 Monosyllabic words in isolation bear primary stresses, e.g mán, ín, etc

 Two syllabic words may have the primary stress on the first syllable, and weak stress
on the second, e.g báby, óbject, crédit, etc

 the first syllable bears the weak stress, and the second syllable primary stress, e.g agó,
hotél, belíeve

 Sentence stress

when words are arranged in a sentence, they usually maintain their own stress
patterns. However, only one of them gets the primary stress, that is, the one that is most
important in the mind of the speaker. This is called sentence stress.

Example

This is my hóuse

This is mý house

This ís my house
Thís is my house.

 Length

o The term length refers to the period of time during which a sound is produced
in a given utterance.
o When the length of a sound is actually measured in terms of units of time, it is
called the absolute length.
o When the length of a sound is measured comparatively in relation to the other
sounds in the same utterance, it is called relative length.
o Relative length is more important than absolute length.

 A diphthong is relatively longer than a pure vowel

 A vowel defined as a long vowel, that is, which is indicated by a lengthening mark in
phonetic transcription

 A vowel in open syllable is relatively longer than when it occurs in a closed syllable

 A vowel in a stressed syllable is relatively longer than when it occurs in unstressed

syllable

UNIT 6
English Intonation Patterns

• Pitch level, clause terminals and intonation contours

 Speaking is like singing; means that the voice of the speaker goes up and down in
tone at different syllables.

 Each syllable is said with some degree of lowness or highness of tone pitch

 The going up and down of pitch over different syllable in an utterance

intonation (melody of speech)

 The use of intonation important

speech more lively and interesting to hearer.

We distinguish four significant pitch level:

a. Pitch level /1/

b. Pitch level /2/

c. Pitch level /3/

d. Pitch level /4/

Example

1. Hello

2. Good morning

3. I’m going home

 Pitch level /2/ is the normal pitch, we normally start an utterance, called mid. The first
syllables of those utterance are said in pitch level /2/

 Pitch level /4/ is higher than pitch level /3/, called extra high. This pitch level is only
used in emphatic speech with syllables which normally take pitch level /3/ in ordinary
sentences. In example, just example (3) we can use pitch level /4/ instead of /3/ on the
last syllable if we want to emphasize the word ‘home’
  Pitch direction at the end of an utterance, is used in conjunction with the three or four
pitch levels.

 Pitch direction refers to the movement of pitch at the end of utterance or clause, called
terminal contour or clause terminal.

 Pitch direction may be rising, falling, and sustained, considered from the highest
speech in the sentence.

 The intonation contour of a sentence refers to the pitch levels used in that sentence,
together with the clause terminal at the end.

• The highest pitch with the strongest syllable in the sentence is called the head or
center of the intonation contour.

• Intonation contour can be grouped into the followings:

1) High-low falling intonation (31 #) or 231 #);

2) Rising Intonation (23 // );

3) High-normal Sustained Intonation (32 / )

Other pitch levels may be used in empatic or careless speech; but their intonation
contours still fall under the three sub-divitions above.

The high-low falling intonation (231#) or (31#)

• The falling intonation is used e.g. in orders, decided statement, prohibition, and
question-word question.

• Pitch level /2/ falls on the first syllable of a sentence; pitch level /3/ on the last
stressed syllable of the sentence, which is called the center of intonation. /31 # /
intonation pattern occurs normally with one-syllable or two syllable utterances.

• Orders

1. come here
 2. go home now

• Calls

1. hey, John

2. Ladies and gentlemen

• Exclamations

1. How beautiful!

2. What a pity!

• Decided or final statements

1. that’s my father house.

2. it is time to go

• Question word questions (Information questions)

1. what is your name?

2. How much money do you need?

The Mid-High Rising Intonation (23 //)

• The mid-high rising intonation, or just the rising intonation, is used in yes-no
question, polite requests, statement implying concern, sorrow, apology or other
emotions or other statement of less definite type.

• The utterance starts with pitch level /3/, which is the center of intonation

• Yes-No Question

1. Shall I open the door?

2. Can you hear me?

3. Do you mind if I close the door?

• Polite Request
 1. Please, sit down

2. Pass the salt, please

3. See you this afternoon

• Miscellaneous Emotion Statement

1. Don’t say anything.

2. Don’t be silly

3. Don’t leave so soon

High-Normal Sustained Intonation

( 23 / )

• The use of this intonation pattern implies non-finality of an utterance.

• The speaker and the hearer expect some continuation of the utterance. They expect
that something is going to follow since without it the utterance is not complete.

• This intonation used in enumeration or in counting is concluded by a falling

intonation

Examples:

• On the mainland we visited Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, Washington, and
teexas.

• Yesterday I bought chocolate, sugar, vegetables and milk.

 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

Phonetics as a science

• The signals used to convey message in language are speech sound, which are sounds
produced by man’s speech organs.

• General phonetics when phonetics studies all possible speech sound that may be
produced by human beings in general

Articulatory apparatus

• The study of pronunciation consists of two fields, namely phonetics and phonology

• Phonetics refers to the study of speech sound.

• A phonetician usually works in one or more of the following areas:

1. physiological phonetics : anatomical, neurological, and psysiological bases of

speech
 2. articulatory phonetics : action and movements of speech organs

3. acoustic phonetics : nature and acoustics of the sound waves which transmit
speech

4. auditory phonetics : speech is received by ears

5. perceptual phonetics : speech is received by brain

6. Phonology is concerned with how we interpret and systematise sounds.

7. Phonology studies which sounds make a difference in a language.

8. Phonology deals with the system and patterns of the sounds which exist within
particular languages.

9. The sounds are learnt not just any sounds, but they are produced by human beings by
the help of their vocal or speech organs.

10. There are no two people who speak exactly alike.

11. Differences in pronunciation between one speaker and another are caused by
geographical, social, and historical factors; or they may also be caused by individual
peculiarities such as stuttering, lisping, or other speech deficiencies.

Pronunciation problems

• Speaking is a matter of habit

 learning of the new sound

 learning of the new vocabulary items

 learning of the unfamiliar ways of arranging the foreign words into sentences

1. Imitation
2. Constant drill
3. practice

• Reasons for pronunciation problems

 the different elements found between his language and target language

 the degree of difficulty the degree of difference

  the same phonetic features but differ in the distributions, e.g b, d, g are in
initial and final

• Reasons for pronunciation problems

 the different elements found between his language and target language

 the degree of difficulty the degree of difference

 the same phonetic features but differ in the distributions, e.g b, d, g are in
initial and final

Speech sounds and their production

• Most speech is produced by an air stream that originates in the lungs and is pushed
upwards through the trachea (the windpipe) and the oral and nasal cavities.

• The production of a speech sound may be divided into four separate but interrelated
process, namely:

• The initiation process

speech sounds are initiated by a pulmonic egressive air stream

• The phonation process

the process takes place in glottis; closed glottis, narrow glottis, open glottis

• The oro-nasal process

this is done by the velum; raised velum and lowered velum

• The articulation process

in mouth, due to the mobility of the lips and tongue.

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
Phonetic and Orthografhis writing

• Speech sounds can be represented visually by means of written symbols or writing.

• There are two ways of writing, namely:

1. writing in which each character is a picture of an object or idea picture

writing or ideographic writing, e.g the hieroglyphs

2. writing in which each character represent speech sound called alphabetic

writing.

• The most popular and well established way of representing speech sound is called
conventional or orthographic writing.

• When writing in English, we use 5 vowel and 21 consonant letters.

• When speaking English we typically use 20 different vowel sounds (including 12

diphthong), and 24 consonant sounds.
 2. writing in which each character represent speech sound called alphabetic
writing.

• The most popular and well established way of representing speech sound is called
conventional or orthographic writing.

• When writing in English, we use 5 vowel and 21 consonant letters.

• When speaking English we typically use 20 different vowel sounds (including 12

diphthong), and 24 consonant sounds.

• The representation of speech sounds by the written symbols is more based on

convention or tradition, which has been accepted and agreed to by the public.

• Sometimes there is no consistency in using the written symbols.

• One symbol sometimes represent more than one sound, such as the letter a in English.

• Conversely one sound may be represented by several symbols in orthographic writing

such as the sound /k/ which is spelled differently in different words.

The use of phonetic transcription

• A student of language should familiar with phonetic symbols and the values assigned
to them so that he can read phonetic writing and transcribe utterances by means of
phonetic symbols.

• In case he comes across an unfamiliar word and does not know how to pronounce it,
he will be able to consult a dictionary to see how it is pronounced, which is indicated
in phonatic transcription.

• If he wants to transcribe the pronunciation of a word he will have to use phonetic

symbols because they represent sounds consistently.

Phonetic symbols and their values

 • The use of symbols is a matter of general practice and sometimes of arbitrariness : the
following symbols are mainly adopted from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Consonants

Con.son.ant / kɒnsənənt; Ame kɒ:n/ noun, adj

Noun 1 (phonetic)
a speech sound made by completely through the mouth
2 a letter of the alphabet that represents a consonants sound
For example b,c,d,f etc
Adj.~ with something (formal) agreeing with or
being the same as something else

Consonants

p pen, copy, happen

b back, baby, job

t tea, tight, button

d day, ladder, odd

k key, clock, school

g get, giggle, ghost

 tʃ church, match, nature

dʒ judge, age, soldier

Consonants

f fat, coffee, rough, photo

v view, heavy, move

θ thing, author, path

ð this, other, smooth

s soon, sister, cease

z zoo, music, roses

ʃ ship, sure, national

ʒ pleasure, vision

Consonants

h hot, whole, ahead

m more, hammer, sum

 n nice, know, funny, sun

ŋ ring, anger, thanks, sung

l light, valley, feel

r right, wrong, sorry, arrange

j yet, use, beauty, few

w wet, one, when, queen

Vowel

/vaʊəl/ noun (phonetics)

1 a speech sound in which the mouth is open and
the tongue
Is not touching the top of the mouth
2 a letter that represents a vowel sounds, a, i , u, e ,
o

diphtong
/d ɪfθɒ ŋ/ noun
A combination of two vowel sounds or vowel
letters,
For example the sounds /aɪ/ in pipe or the
letters /ou/ in doubt
Vowels and Diphtongs

ɪ sit, big, hymn, minute

e dress, bed, head, many

æ trap, bad

ɒ lot, odd, wash

ʌ mud, love, blood,flood

ʊ foot, good, put

i: sea, machine

eɪ face, day, break

Vowels and Diphtongs

aɪ price, high, try

ɔɪ choice, boy

u: goose, two, blue, group

əʊ goat, show, no
aʊ mouth, now

ɪə near, here, ear

eə square. fair, various

ɑ: start, father
Vowels and Diphtongs

ɔ: thought, law, north, war

ʊə poor, jury, cure

ɜ: nurse, stir, learn, refer

ə about, common, standard

i happy, radiate. glorious

u thank you, influence, situation

nn suddenly, cotton (sa)

ln middle, metal (sa)