15. Modification of English sounds in connected speech. Elision. Accommodation. Vowel reduction.

The modification in the articulation of a consonant under the influence of an adjacent vowel is calledaccommodation. In accommodation the accommodated sound does not change its main phonemic features and is pronounced slightly modified under the influence of a neighboring sound. In modern English there are three main types of accommodation. 1. An unrounded variant of a consonant phoneme is replaced by its rounded variant under the influence of a following rounded vowel phoneme as at the beginning of the following words:  E.g.: unrounded variant of consonant phoneme: tea [ti:]          less [les]        none [nΛn].  E.g.: rounded variant of consonant phoneme: too [tu:]       loose [lu:s]     noon [nu:].  2. A fully back variant of a back vowel phoneme is replaced by its slightly fronted variant under the influence of the preceding mediolingual phoneme [j].  E.g.: fully back variant of [u:]:  booty   [bu:ti]             moon  [mu:n] E.g.: fronted variant of [u:]:  beauty  [bju:ti]         music  [mju:zic] 3. A vowel phoneme is represented by its slightly more open variant before the consonant [l]. E.g.:    bed [bed] – bell  [bel]          ten [ten] - tell [tel]  6.3. In rapid colloquial speech certain words may lose some of their sounds (vowels and consonants). This phenomenon is called ELISION. Elision takes place both in words and at the boundaries. E.g.:           phonetics   [founetiks]    [f|netiks] mostly       [moustli]       [mousli]      all right     [ο:l  rait]       [o:rait] next day    [nekst  dei]    [neksdei] Some rules for elision. 1. Elision occurs when [t], [d] appear in a consonant cluster. E.g.: next day [nekst dei] – [t] is elided between [ks] and [d] "[neksdei]  E.g.: stopped for a lunch [stopt fɔ:] – [t] is elided between [p] and [f] " [stopfɔ:] E.g.: reached Paris [rit∫t Pæris] – [t] is elided between [t∫] and [p] E.g.: carved statuette [kɑ:vd stætʊ′et] – [d] is elided between [v] and [st]. 2. Complex consonant clusters are simplified. E.g.: acts   [ækts] can be simplified to [æks]          texts [teksts] " [teks]          the Sixth′s throne [sikθs  θr] " [siks θr]

3. [ə] – can disappear in unstressed syllables. E.g.: police, tonight, collective – [ə] is omitted in the first syllable  E.g.: interesting, vegetables – [ə] is not pronounced by many speakers, reducing the number of syllables in the word. 4.  [v] is omitted in of, before consonants    E.g.: of November, of time, of my. The students must know all the forms of assimilation, accommodation and elision described above but must aim at careful colloquial style in his own speech and avoid using assimilations and elisions typical of rapid colloquial English.

16. Syllable. Functional characteristics of the syllable

The syllable as a phonological unit performs three functions: constitutive, distinctive, identificatory. They are closely connected.

1. Constitutive Function

Syllables constitute words, phrases and sentences through the com­bination of their prosodic features: loudness — stress, pitch — tone, duration — length and tempo. Syllables may be stressed, unstressed,, high, mid, low, rising, falling, long, short. All these prosodic fea­tures constitute the stress pattern of words, tonal and rhythmic struc­ture of an utterance, help to perform distinctive variations on the syllabic level.

2. Distinctive and Differentiator^ Function

If we compare the words: lightening освещениеand lightning молния, we may observe that their syllabicity is the only min­imal, distinctive feature: /Uaitfltn vs. Uaitnm/.

It is an example of the word-distinctive function of the syllab­icity of /n/.

There are rather many combinations in English distinguished from each other by means of the difference in the place ol the syllabic boundary: a name—an aim, ice cream—/ scream, we loan—we'll own: /ataeim/—/an leim/, /iais'kri:m/—/ai iskrhm/, /wi- Uaun/— ,/wil isun/.

The distinctive, differentiator function of the syllabic boundary makes it possible to introduce the term "juncture". Close juncture or conjuncture occurs between sounds within one syllable, e.g. a name, I scream: in the first example the close juncture is between In! and /ei/, in the second — between /s/ and /k/. Open juncture, disjuncture, or internal open juncture occurs between two syllables. If we mark open juncture with /-f / then in our examples it will occur between a +mme, I +scream. American scientists H. A. Gleason, L. S. Harris and K. Pike consider the open juncture a separate segmental phoneme. They include /+/ into the inventory of phonemes as a separate differentiatory unit.

3. Identificatory Function

This function is conditioned by the pronunciation of the speaker. The listener can understand the exact meaning of the utterance only if he perceives the correct syllabic boundary — "syllabodisjuncture", e.g. pea stalks стеблу гороха—peace talks мирные переговоры; my train мой поезд — might rain возможен дождь.

The existence of such pairs demands special attention to teaching not only the correct pronunciation of sounds but also the observation of the correct place for syllabodisjuncture.