3. A phoneme is a basic unit of
a language's phonology, which is combined
with other phonemes to form meaningful units
such as words or morphemes.
4. 1. Segmental
It is phonology that deals with the analysis of speech into phonemes which
correspond fairly well to phonetic segments of the analyzed speech. Consist of consonant
and vowel.
The Segmental Sounds of English consist of:
a) The English Consonant
The English consonants are twenty-four in number. The word consonant is phonemic. Of
courses the word consonant here does not refer to the consonant found in the English
alphabet, but rather to the consonants as they sound orally. The example of consonants
are:
/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /f/, /v/,/θ, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /∫/, /з/,/t∫/, /dз/, /h/, /m/, /n/, /η/,/l/, /r/, /w/, /j/.
5. b) The English Consonant described
It is a list of the English consonant phonemes and their
major allophones. The allophones are describes
phonetically.
c) Consonant Clusters
It is a combination of two or more consonant. Such
clusters may occur in initial, medial, or final positions.
d) The English Vowel
The English vowels are fourteen in number. In addition to
these vowels, there are glides and diphthongs, which are
really combinations vowels. The examples of vowels are:
i/, /i:/, /ei/, /æ/, /ə/, /۸/, /з/, /a/, /u:/, /u/, /əu/, /α/, /./כ
6. e) The English Vowel Described
It is a list of the English vowel phonemes. They are described phonetically,
and their distributionis given withexample: phoneme / e / , allophone [ e ]
descriptionmid openfront unrounded. It occurs only initially and medially. / end
/ [end] ‘end’ ; / send / [send] ‘send’.
f) Lengthin EnglishConsonants and Vowels
Means the time it takes to produce a sound. This does not meanthe speed
at whicha person speaks. It means, rather, the relative lengthof time in
whicheachseparate sound is produced, as comparedwitha longer or shorter
time in whichthe same sound or othersounds may be produced in the stream
of speech.
7. 2. Supra – Segmental
It is a vocal effect that extends over more than one sound segment in an utterance, such
as pitch, stress, or juncture, pattern. In supra-segmental consist of:
8.
In the alphabet we have five letters that are called
vowels ′𝜕’ , ‘e’ , ‘i’ , ‘o’ , ‘u’ . If we choose the right
context we can show how substituting one letter for
another will change meaning .Thus with a letter ‘p’
before and a letter ‘t’ after the vowel letter ,we get the
five words spelt ‘pat’ , ‘pet’ , ‘pit’ ,’pot’ , ‘put’ .each of
which a different meaning .if we look at the short vowels
I ,e,æ,۸,ɒ,ʊ .
