English Phonetics: Pronunciation Rules and Intonation
Pronunciation Rules
- Dentalization: (n, t, d) + ð
- Glottalization: t + consonant (e.g., fútbol, that chair)
- Elision: In a cluster of 3 consonants (t, d) in the middle (e.g., I moved to England)
- Coalescence: t + j = ʧ; d + j = ʤ
- Word Boundaries: won’t + a
- Aspiration: (p, t, k) + a vowel in a stressed syllable (e.g., people)
- Devoicing: (p, t, k) + w, j, l, r approximants in a stressed syllable (e.g., play)
- Dark L:
- Final position, after a vowel (e.g., feel, fill)
- After a vowel, before a consonant (e.g., help, milk)
- Clear L:
- Before a vowel, as a linking sound, in word initial (e.g., look)
- Medial in a word (e.g., silly)
- Pre-Fortis Clipping: Long vowel + unvoiced (e.g., da·k)
- ‘To’ Pronunciation:
- ‘To’ + vowel: /tu/
- ‘To’ + consonant: /tə/
- ‘The’ Pronunciation:
- /ði/ before a vowel
- /ðə/ before a consonant
- ‘And’ Pronunciation:
- an(d) before a vowel
- an otherwise
Assimilation
- T changes to P before m, b, p
- D changes to B before m, b, p
- N changes to M before m, b, p
- T changes to K before k, g
- D changes to G before k, g
- N changes to ŋ before k, g
- S changes to ʃ before sh, j
- Z changes to ʒ before sh, j
- θ changes to S before s
Function Words vs. Content Words
Function Words: Grammatical use in the sentence (pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, articles, quantifiers, connectors). Weak forms often contain schwa. Words that are not function words are called Content Words (nouns, verbs, adverbs, modals). Strong forms occur at the end of a sentence or when their meaning is important.
Intonation
Intonation shows feelings and emotions. It is the melody of a voice (down-up).
3Ts of Intonation
Tones: Related to pitch movements (fall, rise, fall-rise, rise-fall, level).
Tonicity: Nucleus placement (tonic syllable). The speaker decides where to put the most important word in an intonation phrase (IP). The nucleus is where the tone is placed.
Tonality: How the speaker organizes information into chunking units (intonation phrases).
Stress: More emphasis on the tonic syllable because it carries the meaning.
Chinese/Mandarin: Changes the meaning of the word by changing the tone.
English: Changes the meaning of a word or phrase through intonation.
Lexical Meaning: The real meaning of the word. Lexically speaking, English is not a tone language.
Pragmatics: It’s not what you say but how you say it. Pragmatically speaking, English uses tone.
Onset, Head, and Tail
We need an ONSET to have a HEAD. PRE-HEAD is all unstressed syllables before the onset. HEAD extends to the NUCLEUS. TAIL is everything after the nucleus.
Common Intonation Patterns
- Fall: Statements, exclamations, wh-questions, commands, new information, adding information.
- Rise: Yes/no questions.
- Fall-Rise: Old information, tentative statements, shared knowledge.
Is English a Tone Language?
English does not use tone lexically, so it is not a tone language. However, it uses tone for intonation.
Intonationally, it involves breaking the utterance into chunks and distinguishing between clause types (statements vs. questions).
Functions of Intonation in English
- Attitudinal: Expressing attitudes and emotions through TONE.
- Grammatical: Identifying grammatical structures in speech through TONALITY (chunks).
- Focusing: Highlighting new or known information through TONICITY. These are pragmatic functions.
Stress: Realized by a combination of loudness, pitch, and duration. It is an important part of the spoken identity of an English word.
Tone: A prosodic characteristic realized by differences in the pitch of the voice (high level, mid level, low level, rising, falling).
Lexical Use of Stress and Tone
Some languages use stress placement lexically to distinguish between different words. The difference in meaning depends entirely upon the location of the stress. Some languages use tone lexically, meaning words have different meanings depending on the tone used.
L1 Intonation Interference
Learners transfer the intonation habits of their first language (L1) to their second language (L2). The assumption that English is like their L1 leads to interference from the L1 as inappropriate elements are transferred.