1 Introduction to English Phonology and Phonetics Dr. Nadja Nesselhauf Semester Outline 1. Phonetics and phonology: basics (& introducing transcription) 2. English consonants 3. English vowels 4. Beyond the phoneme (connected speech, suprasegmentals etc.) 5. Accents of English American vs. British English - rhoticity - flapped /elided t - more yod-dropping - absence of /P/ (usually @9) - flat /z/ vs. broad /@9/ - often /@9/ vs. /N9/ - /29/ vs. /U/ in some words Purely phonetic differences: /r/ retroflex, /l/ always dark; /e/ more open, /@9/ further back, less movement in /eH/, /?T/ vs. /nT/ Approximant /r/ Pronouncing /r/ in RP: /r/ / __ V (Cara) /r/ / __ # V (car engine) = linking /r/ Ø / __ C,# (car, cart) not having /r/ in the last two contexts, RP is non-rhotic; GA is rhotic (r-full)
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1
Introduction to English
Phonology and Phonetics
Dr. Nadja Nesselhauf
Semester Outline
1. Phonetics and phonology: basics
(& introducing transcription)
2. English consonants
3. English vowels
4. Beyond the phoneme (connected speech,
suprasegmentals etc.)
5. Accents of English
American vs. British English- rhoticity
- flapped /elided t
- more yod-dropping
- absence of /P/ (usually @9)
- flat /z/ vs. broad /@9/
- often /@9/ vs. /N9/
- /29/ vs. /U/ in some words
Purely phonetic differences:
/r/ retroflex, /l/ always dark; /e/ more open, /@9/ further
back, less movement in /eH/, /?T/ vs. /nT/
Approximant /r/
Pronouncing /r/ in RP:
� /r/ / __ V (Cara)
� /r/ / __ # V (car engine) = linking /r/
� Ø / __ C,# (car, cart)
� not having /r/ in the last two contexts, RP is
non-rhotic; GA is rhotic (r-full)
2
Plosives: Allophonic Variation
T-flapping in General American [π]:
� /t/ → flap / V __ .V (better)
/ r __ .V (party)
/ __ kÿÿ, qÿ, lÿ (bottle, shutter, bottom)
� flap → Ø / n __ .V (winter)
Plosives: Allophonic Variation
D-flapping in GA in the same contexts as t-flapping
(cf. ladder, weirdo, saddle)
-> NEUTRALISATION of the contrast /t-d/ in the
relevant contexts
-> homophones such as
shutter – shudder, writing - riding etc.
Approximant /j/:
Yod-Dropping Before /u:/
[t9][t9]revolution/ l __
[t9][it9it9it9it9] [t9]enthusiasm/ θ __
[t9][it9it9it9it9] [t9]resume/ z __
[t9][it9it9it9it9] [t9]assume/ s __
[it9] [t9t9t9t9][it9]new/ n __
[it9] [t9t9t9t9][it9]duke/ d __
[it9] [t9t9t9t9][it9]Tuesday/ t __
[it9][it9]pure/ p __
[it9][it9]few/ f __
[it9][it9]mule/ m __
GARPExampleContext
English Monophthongs:
RP – GA Correspondences
RP /U/
GA /U/ cut
GA /29/ / __ r hurry, worry
RP /@9/
GA /@9/ father
GA /z/ / __ e,S,r,m,l(+C) staff, bath...
RP /N9/
GA /@9/ laundry
GA /N9/ <o,ou,oo> / __ r court
<a> /w __ r war
RP /P/ GA /@9/ lot
3
American vs. British English
Some more examples of “flat a:”
advance, after, ask, aunt, banana, basket, bath,
castle, class, disaster, fasten, France, glass, grass,
half, last, laugh, mask, monograph, nasty, passport,
Language spread= the increase in the number of users of a language, often in new areas
Types of language spread (Quirk 1988):� demographic: speaker movement, settlement in new areas
� imperial: language is introduced to new areas through political domination
� econocultural: the language gains new speakers through its economic / cultural attractiveness
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Accents of English in the World
20th + 21st centuryAll regions of the
worldEconocultural
phase 4
16th – 20th century
South Asia, South East Asia, West
Africa, East Africa, Caribbean, Pacific
Imperialphase 3
17th – 19th century
North America, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa
Demographicphase 2
11th – 19th centuryIreland, Scotland,
WalesImperial
phase 1
Rough TimelineAreas InvolvedDominant Type of
Spread
Accents of English in the World
Types of accent variation:
� systemic: different accents possess
different phoneme inventories
� distributional: certain phonemes occur
in different environments
� lexical: individual words or word
groups take different phonemes
� realizational: phonemes have different
phonetic realizations
Accents of English: British Isles
/α:/ in bath
(instead of
/æ/)
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
44
Accents of English: British Isles
/H/ as the final
vowel in happy
(no happY-
tensing)
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
44
8
Accents of English: British Isles
/T/ instead of
/U/ (systemic
variation)
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
44
Accents of English: British Isles
force and North
words are
distinguished:
e.g. [mNqS] vs.
[enqr]
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
44
Accents of English: British Isles
light grey:
monophthongs in
face and goat
dark grey:
diphthong shift in
face, price, goat
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
45
Accents of English: British Isles
rhoticity
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
45
9
Accents of English: British Isles
h-dropping
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
45
Accents of English: British Isles
word-medial
glottal stop
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
45
Accents of English: British Isles
Listen to:
London
(Cockney)
[41]
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
43
Accents of English: British Isles
There was one of our blokes – one of his family –like cousins or uncles – or you know – in that range – had had an accident – and been taken to hospital – so he spent – I think most of his weekend without any sleep at all – at this hospital like – until he knew – that the person was going to be OK – anyway – come Monday morning – he decides to go straight to work –and – he comes to work – and say he has had no sleep at all and he‘s got a job to do in this house to provide – an extension phone – you know –and usually – it‘s – you run the cable upstairs into a bedroom – it‘s the usual place to have the phone – and – the bed – was fitted into slots in the floor – so he couldn‘t sort of – move it over.
10
Accents of English: British Isles
I mean – he could only get two legs out of the holein the floor and he couldn‘t – he needed two people to actually lift it and move it – so he laid across the bed – to – finish the cabling – and screw the – terminal box on the wall – and – not having had any sleep – he just sort of drifted off – and the thing is – the gentleman who let him in – but said he was going to work – and his wife would be in shortly – and she‘s come in – and not knowing the telephone man was there – I mean –to see a van outside – but she didn‘t – you know – sort of put two and two together – she‘s come in – she‘s gone upstairs – into the bathroom –
Accents of English: British Isles
and she‘s taken her clothes off like – you know –and gone into the bedroom to get her housecoat – she was going to have a bath – and there‘s a strange man laying on the bed – snoring his headoff – needless to say – our bloke spent about six hours in the nick – trying to explain what had happened – yes – spent six hours in the police station
Accents of English: British Isles
A closer look at Scotland
The languages of Scotland:
� Scottish Gaelic (today almost extinct)
� Scots (might be considered a distinct
language, an earlier split from English)
� Scottish English (the Scottish standard
of English)
Accents of English: British Isles
Task: Listen to the following excerpt from “Saving
Grace”, with the Scottish actors Craig Ferguson and
Valerie Edmond [Kapitel 5, 31:07]:
1) In what ways is the pronunciation of the phoneme /r/
different from Standard British English?
2) How is what would be Standard BrE /?T/ pronounced?
3) How is what would be Standard BrE /dH/ pronounced?
4) How is what would be Standard BrE /`T/ pronounced?
11
Accents of English: North America
North American accents (USA and Canada) are
relatively uniform.
Special features are to be found in: New England,
South, Canada
Two important ethnic accents:
� the accent of African Americans (~ African-
American Vernacular English = AAVE)
� the accent of Hispanic Americans (~ Chicano)
Accents of English: North America
Canada:
• house is [?T] and price is [?H] before fortis consonants
= “Canadian raising”
• otherwise, like GA
Accents of English:
The Southern Hemisphere
The three major Southern Hemisphere
varieties of English are:
� Australian English
� New Zealand English
� South African English
They share:
� a similar history (British settlement in the
18th-19th centuries)
� similar accents!
Accents of English:
The Southern Hemisphere
Some shared features of Southern
Hemisphere accents:
� non-rhotic
� /e/ and /æ/ are very close
� palm is very front: [a9] (only AusE and
NZE)
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Accents of English:
The Southern Hemisphere
Listen to New Zealand English [55]:
- Close /e/: went, bed, very, everybody, let
- Close /z/: bad, flatmate
- Long /@9/ very front: car, guitar
Listen to South African English [56]:
- Close /e/: went, special, together, vegetable
Accents of English in the World
Source: Trudgill/Hannah
Systematizing the major differences between native-speaker accents of English:
Accents of English in the World
Key to the previous figure:
1 /a:/ rather than /æ/ in path
2 absence of non-prevocalic /r/
3 close realizations for /æ/ and /e/
4 front [a:] for /@9/
5 absence of contrast between cot and caught
6 /æ/ rathern than /a:/ in can’t
7 absence of contrast between bother and father
8 voicing of intervocalic /r/
9 unrounded vowel in pot
10 syllabic /r/ in bird
11 absence of contrast between pull and pool
Accents of English in the World
Numbers of English native speakers in different countries