The document provides a comprehensive overview of English phonology, focusing on vowels, their classifications, and characteristics from phonetic and phonological perspectives. It discusses the importance of semivowels, nasalization, vowel allophones, minimal pairs, diphthongs, and suprasegmental phonemes such as pitch, stress, and juncture, highlighting their roles in speech and meaning. Additionally, it covers transcription methods and the distinctions between phonetic and phonemic transcription.

1. ESCUELA : PONENTE : BIMESTRE : ENGLISH PHONOLOGY CICLO : INGLÉS II BIMESTRE Dra. Cármen Benitez ABRIL – AGOSTO 2007

2. VOWELS Definition: Vowels are defined from the phonetical and phonological points of view Phonetically: deals with the way a sound is produced, so, vowels are sounds articulated without any closure in the vocal tract or a degree of narrowing (oral or nasal) Phonologically: deals with the place vowels have in a word, so vowels are sounds occurring at the center of the syllable and receive the stress with most intensity.

3. CLASSIFICATION OF VOWELS ACCORDING TO PHONETIC FEATURES Changes in movement during articulation Simple Complex / æ / / e / / i:/ / ɔ:ɪ / The tension of the tongue muscles Tense Lax / əʊ / / əʊ / / ɪ / /ɔ: / The position of the lower jaw High Mid Low / ɪ / / u: / / e / /ɔ:ɪ / /æ / / a / The position of the tongue Front Central Back / i: / / a: / /u: / The position of the lips Rounded Unrounded / uʊ / / ɪ /

4. VOWELS ACCORDING TO LENGTH Short: /ɪ/, /e/, /æ/, /ʌ/, /ɒ/, /ʊ/ Long: / ı:/, /ɜ:/, /ɑ:/, /ɔ:/, /u:/ VOWELS ACCORDING TO THE PLANES OF THE MOUTH. ACCORDING TO THE VERTICAL PLANE OF THE MOUTH: HIGH, MID and LOW VOWELS. These names correspond to the position of the lower jaw . It was explained before. ACCORDING TO THE HORIZONTAL PLANE OF THE MOUTH: FRONT, CENTRAL and BACK VOWELS. These names correspond to the position of the tongue and it was explained before.

5. SEMIVOWELS AND GLIDES Sound functioning as a consonant, but lacking the PHONETIC characteristic normally associated with consonants (such as FRICTION or CLOSURE) but functioning as them. They are: / y /, / w /, / r / and / : / GLIDES WITH / y /: The / y /-glide is a movement in the point of articulation of the vowel toward a higher and more in front position. yellow GLIDES WITH / w /: The / w /-glide is a movement toward a position that is higher and farther back in the mouth, with accompanying lip-pounding. water GLIDES WITH / r / AND / : / : The / r /-glide is a movement toward a central retroflex position from some other position. here there

6. NASALIZATION What is it? We call nasalization to the change of an oral vowel to a nasal one because of the effect of a neighboring sound. medal, neighbor, nasal, mother When does it occur? It occurs when a vowel is preceded by a nasal consonant. Compare: mate / late pen / men

7. DISTRIBUTION It is the total set of context or environments, in which a sound unit can occur. Vowel allophones, Minimal pairs, Diphthongs and triphthongs. VOWEL ALLOPHONES: LENGTHENED and UNLENGTHENED ALLOPHONES. They are articulated in such a way that the vowel sound is the longest within the syllable. The length or duration of a vowel depends on the type of consonant sound that follows in an adjacent position. We use a dot [ : ] to indicate that a vowel is lengthened. sell, begin, singer UNLENGTHENED VOWEL ALLOPHONES: This type of sounds are relatively short within the syllable, and it determines that the syllable is UNSTRESSED. rip, pick, set, left MINIMAL PAIRS, phonologically : a pair of words which differ in only one phoneme. m e n, m a n A minimal pair with vowel contrast is a pair of words which differ only by a vowel sound. For example, in the words SIT and SAT, the difference is in the vowel sound of each word / i/ and / e / respectively.

8. DIPHTHONGS: DIPHTHONG: combination of two vowel sounds within a single syllable. Two elements: stronger, weaker = Elements of the diphthong Diphthongs are made with the tongue beginning in one position and gliding to another before the sound closes. ARTICULATORILY: - Distance the tongue travels: “WIDE”= long glide “ NARROW” = short glide - Direction of the tongue: "CLOSING" = closer position "CENTRING“= central position AUDITORILY: A ccording to the prominence of the elements: "FALLING“ = when the first element is more prominent than the second "RISING“ = when the second element is more prominent than the first. In English, all diphthongs are considered generally "falling".

9. PITCH SEGMENTAL PHONEMES (vowles and consonants) SUPRASEGMENTAL PHONEMES special features of speech add meaning to what we say. They are PITCH, STRESS and JUNCTURE. What is PITCH? The h eight of tone, produced by the tension of the vocal cords. Permits the ordering of sounds on a scale running from low (grave) to high (acute). INTONATION PATTERNS: A RISE IN PITCH.- occurs on the last syllable and reaches a point below the next higher pitch,. In the drill material, the rise is represented by a rising arrow ( ). Is it yours? A FADING AWAY INTO SILENCE, not accompanied by a terminal rise. There is often a fall in pitch, especially if the phrase ends on pitch 1 . The "fading away" is represented by a break or space in the "staff" and the absence or an upturned arrow. We are going to the movies A SLOWING DOWN OR SUSTENSION OF THE VOICE, not accompanied by a pitch rise or a fading away. Sometimes this kind of phrase-ending contour has been described as a "SHIFTING OF GEARS". A dotted vertical line is used to represent this kind of contour. I would like to talk about …. er…

10. STRESS D efined as the loudness, intensity or articulatory energy with which a syllable is spoken. The same as pitch, it helps to add meaning to what we say. Stress also helps to differenciate the meaning or grammatical function of a word To emphasize or contrast information present / present There are four contrasting degrees of stress in English. / ' / called the PRIMARY, LOUD or HEAVY STRESS; / ^ / called the SECONDARY or MEDIUM STRESS; / ` / called the TERTIARY, THIRD or LIGHT STRESS; / ◡ / called the WEAK or MINIMAL STRESS.

11. WORD STRESS: It's the stress given to one or more syllables in an individual word when it stands alone. One-syllable words or any other word said in isolation, so it is not necessary to use a stress mark when transcribing them. If a word has two or more syllables, at least one of them is stressed. SENTENCE STRESS: It is the stress given to different words in a sentence to bring out the meaning of connected speech. The same sentence can be said using different stress depending on what you want to say. yes How are you? yes? How are you?

12. MAJOR-MINOR STRESS DISTINCTION: (useful). Major stress: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs ,. Minor stress: personal pronouns, short prepositions, auxiliary verb, articles and the like, except when these have special contrastive (or shifted) stress. CONTRASTIVE OR EMPHATIC STRESS: primary stress can be put on any word in the phrase to show contrast or emphasis . This is not the only means of showing contrast, but it is an extremely common device. For example, it is possible to say: HER DRESS IS PRÉTTY, HER DRESS ÍS PRETTY, HER DRÉSS IS PRETTY, or HÉR DRESS IS PRETTY.

13. JUNCTURE This is another suprasegmental phoneme, known as the manner of transition from one segmental phoneme to another. Juncture is an extremely important sound feature in English. Let's note its role differentiating phrases such as: A NODE from AN ODE WHITE SHOES from WHY CHOOSE NIGHT RATE from NITRATE A NAME from AN AIM

14. INTERNAL JUNCTURE identifies a type of juncture that occurs within a phrase . We can distinguish: 1. INTERNAL CLOSE JUNCTURE: is the normal transition from one phoneme to the next within an utterance. For example, in the word TR AIN, the close juncture is determined by the manner of transition / t/ to / r /. 2. INTERNAL OPEN JUNCTURE (+) it is a manner of transition which contrasts with close juncture. It keeps meanings apart. This is a manner of transition from one phoneme to the next in two uterances. Let's analyze the following pairs of phrases: A NAME AN AIM NIGHT RATE NITRATE SHORE TRAIN SHORT RAIN

15. TERMINAL OR EXTERNAL JUNCTURE: The term TERMINAL JUNCTURE refers to a juncture that occurs AT THE END OF SENTENCES AND PHRASES. We also have: DOUBLE BAR JUNCTURE/ /: This is a terminal juncture that means A RISE IN PITCH. Also called RISING JUNCTURE, ocurs in QUESTIONS. are you OK? a:+ ju:+ əʊ keɪ || DOUBLE CROSS JUNCTURE/#/: This is a terminal juncture that indicates a fading away into silence. let’s go lets +g əʊ # SINGLE BAR JUNCTURE/ /: This is a terminal juncture that is marked by a sustention of the voice. This pause determines a change in the sense or meaning of the expression. Let's see these two questions: I CAN TELL MARY I CAN TELL, MARY a ɪ +kæn + tel meri: # a ɪ +kæn + tel | meri:/

16. TRANSCRIPTIONS What is to transcribe? Transcribing means to put what we say into speech sounds. What do we use to transcribe? We use the English Phonetic Alphabeth which is the set of symbols that represent speech sounds. When transcribing: do not use capital letters (we do not use letters, but symbols) most of the times the symbol is the same letter. do not use periods or punctuation marks. write the word as it is pronounced, not as it is written do not use other phonetic symbols

17. PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION.- is a graphic representation of speech sounds which records as many differences in sound as it is possible to perceive. This is also called narrow or allophonic. This is written within square brackets [ ]. PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTION , it is also a graphic representation of speech sounds, which records only those differences in sound that are significant in the particular language. It is also called phonemic or broad This is written between diagonal bars or slanted lines / /.