Q.

1: Write down the distinctive features of the final consonantal sound in each of the following words: Life
Dogs Rain That Witch ?

 Life - voiced dental fricative /ð/

 Dogs - voiceless velar plosive /k/
 Rain - voiced alveolar nasal /n/
 That - voiceless dental fricative /θ/
 Witch - voiceless postalveolar affricate /tʃ/

Q.2 Transcribe and write down the number of phonemes in each of the

following words: Jugs Stage Psychology Ear Olive?

ANSWER:

 Jugs - 4 phonemes (/dʒʌɡz/)

 Stage - 5 phonemes (/steɪdʒ/)
 Psychology - 10 phonemes (/saɪˈkɑlədʒi/)
 Ear - 2 phonemes (/ɪr/)
 Olive - 4 phonemes (/ˈɑləv/)

Q.3 Transcribe and write down the CV templates for the following words showing their syllabic boundaries:

Faithfulness Wanton Hopeful Successful Valley ?

Answer:

 Faith-ful-ness
 Wan-ton
 Hope-fu
 Suc-cess-ful
 Val-ley

Q.4 Describe English consonants with relevant examples?

Answer: In English, there are 24 consonant sounds, which are classified according to their distinctive features

such as place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing. Consonants are produced by obstructing or
restricting the flow of air through the vocal tract, resulting in a distinct sound. Here are the main types of
English consonants with examples: 1. Plosives (stops): These are consonants produced by completely blocking
the airflow and then releasing it with a burst of sound. There are six plosive sounds in English: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/,
/k/, and /g/

Examples:
/p/ - pen, pie, pepper, pick

/b/ - bat, ball, boat, bubble

/t/ - tea, toe, top, tent

/d/ - dog, door, down, dad

/k/ - cat, kite, keep, king

/g/ - gap, good, give, go

These are consonants produced by forcing the airflow through a narrow channel, creating friction and hence a
hissing or buzzing sound. There are nine fricative sounds in English: /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /h/.

/f/ - fan, fish, phone, flute

/v/ - van, very, vote, vine

/θ/ - thanks, thing, think, path

/ð/ - this, that, then, them

/s/ - sit, sun, see, noise

/z/ - zoo, zero, zebra, buzz

/ʃ/ - ship, share, shoe, sugar

/ʒ/ - pleasure, vision, measure, beige

/h/ - hat, house, heat, hello

These are consonants that begin as plosives but end as fricatives, e.g., /tʃ/ and /dʒ/.

/tʃ/ - cheese, church, match, watch /dʒ/ - juice, job, gym, age

These are consonants produced by closing the oral cavity and directing the airflow through the nose. There
are three nasal sounds in English: /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/.

/m/ - man, me, mom, ham

/n/ - name, no, nose, pen

/ŋ/ - sing, song, long, king

These are consonants produced by allowing the airflow to pass through a partially obstructed vocal tract. There
are two liquid sounds in English: /l/ and /r/.

/l/ - lean, line, listen, little

/r/ - red, right, real, read

These are also called semi-vowels, which are produced by allowing the airflow to pass through a partially
constricted vocal tract. There are two glide sounds in English: /j/ and /w/.

/j/ - yes, you, youth, yellow

/w/ - wet, when, well, win

It is important to note that some English consonants can be pronounced differently depending on their position
in a word or their proximity to other sounds. For example, the pronunciation of /t/ in tea is different from the
pronunciation of /t/ in stop. Similarly, the pronunciation of /k/ in keep might be different from the
pronunciation of /k/ in school. Additionally, the pronunciation of some consonants can differ between different
dialects of English. In conclusion, English consonants are a fundamental aspect of the English language, and
understanding the different types of consonant sounds is critical for improving one's pronunciation and
communication skills. By practicing the correct pronunciation of each consonant sound, learners can improve
their ability to communicate effectively in English.

Q.5 Describe 'intonation' and explain the possible functions of intonation in speech.

: Intonation is an essential aspect of speech that refers to the melody or pitch variation of a speaker
during their speech. It is the rise and fall of the voice's pitch level in spoken language, which carries a range of
meanings that the listener can perceive. Intonation, therefore, plays a crucial role in conveying the intended
meaning of a message.

Intonation serves different functions in speech, ranging from conveying emotions to emphasizing specific
words or phrases in a sentence. Below are some of the functions of intonation in speech.
One of the significant functions of intonation in speech is conveying emotions. Intonation can indicate the level
of stress, anger, happiness, sadness, or excitement that a speaker intends to express. For example, the rising
pitch of the voice implies surprise or excitement, while falling pitch indicates sadness or disappointment.

Another function of intonation in speech is emphasizing specific words or phrases. Intonation can be used to
highlight important parts of a sentence or express contrast between words or phrases. For example, in the
sentence I love chocolate, but I hate vanilla, the rising pitch on love and falling pitch on hate emphasize the
difference between the two contrasting words.

is used to differentiate between questions and statements. A rising intonation is used at the end of a sentence
to signify a question, while a falling intonation is used to indicate a statement. For instance, the sentence Do
you like ice cream? has a rising intonation to indicate a question, while You like ice cream has a falling
intonation to indicate that it is a statement.

Intonation can convey politeness or rudeness in speech. A soft, quiet, and gentle intonation can indicate
politeness, while a loud, harsh, or critical intonation can imply rudeness. For example, the sentence Would you
mind closing the window, please? with a soft, gentle intonation conveys politeness, while the sentence Close
the window! with a loud, harsh intonation sounds rude and impolite.

Intonation can be used as discourse markers that indicate categories such as topic change, sentence
completion, or hesitation in speech. For instance, a falling intonation may be used at the end of a paragraph to
indicate a change in topic or to signify the end of a conversation.

In conclusion, intonation is a crucial aspect of speech that conveys several meanings and plays multiple
functions. The intonation of a speaker's voice can indicate emotions, emphasize specific words or phrases,
differentiate between questions and statements, distinguish between politeness and rudeness, and serve as
discourse markers. Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to intonation when speaking and listening to
others to fully understand the intended message.

Q.6 Define 'Auditory Phonetics' and describe the processes involved in speech hearing.

Auditory phonetics refers to the study of how speech sounds are perceived and processed by the

human auditory system. The auditory system is a complex network of organs and neural pathways that work
together to enable us to hear and understand speech.

The auditory system consists of three main parts: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. Each part
plays a crucial role in the processing of sound.
 The outer ear (also known as the pinna) consists of the visible portion of the ear, as well as the ear canal. The
pinna is shaped like a funnel and helps to collect sound waves and direct them towards the ear canal. The ear
canal is a narrow, tube-like structure that is lined with tiny hairs and earwax. The hairs and wax help to protect
the eardrum while also providing some resonance and filtering of sound.

The middle ear is located behind the eardrum and is connected to the outer ear by a tiny bone called the
ossicles. The ossicles consist of three small bones: the malleus, incus, and stapes. When sound waves travel
through the ear canal and hit the eardrum, the eardrum vibrates. These vibrations are then transmitted
through the ossicles to the inner ear.

The inner ear is the final stage in the processing of sound. It consists of two main structures: the cochlea and
the vestibular system. The cochlea is a spiral-shaped structure that contains thousands of tiny hair cells. When
vibrations from the ossicles are transmitted to the cochlea, the hair cells move and generate electrical impulses
that are sent to the brain. The vestibular system, on the other hand, is responsible for detecting changes in the
body’s position and balance.

The perception of sound involves a complex interplay between physical sound waves and the physiological
processes that occur in the auditory system. The following sections outline some of the key processes involved
in sound perception.

Sound waves are physical vibrations that travel through the air. They are characterized by three main
properties: frequency, amplitude, and timbre. Frequency refers to the number of cycles of vibration that occur
in a sound wave per second. It is measured in hertz (Hz) and determines the pitch of a sound. Sounds with
higher frequencies are perceived as higher-pitched, while sounds with lower frequencies are perceived as
lower-pitched. Amplitude refers to the intensity or loudness of a sound. It is measured in decibels (dB). Sounds
with higher amplitudes are perceived as louder, while sounds with lower amplitudes are perceived as softer.
Timbre refers to the unique quality or tone of a sound. It allows us to distinguish between different sources of
sound, even when they have the same pitch and loudness.

Transduction refers to the process by which physical sound waves are converted into electrical signals that can
be interpreted by the brain. This process occurs in the hair cells of the cochlea. When sound waves are
transmitted through the ossicles and reach the inner ear, they cause the hair cells in the cochlea to move. As
the hair cells move, they generate electrical impulses that are sent to the brain via the auditory nerve.

The auditory nerve is a bundle of nerve fibers that transmit electrical signals from the cochlea to the
brainstem. The nerve fibers are organized according to the frequency of the sounds they respond to, with low-
frequency sounds being processed by nerve fibers at the apex of the cochlea and high-frequency sounds being
processed by nerve fibers at the base of the cochlea.

The perception and understanding of speech involve not only the physical processes of sound perception but
also complex perceptual and cognitive processes that occur in the brain. The following sections outline some of
the key processes involved in speech understanding. Speech Segmentation

refers to the process by which the continuous stream of speech is divided into discrete units, such as words and
phrases. This process is essential for speech understanding since it allows us to identify the boundaries between
different linguistic units. The segmentation of speech is thought to occur based on a combination of acoustic
cues (such as pauses and changes in pitch) and linguistic knowledge (such as our knowledge of word
boundaries and common phrase structures).

Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can be used to distinguish between different words in a
language. For example, the difference between the words ‘bat’ and ‘cat’ is due to a single phoneme (/b/ vs.
/k/). The perception of phonemes is thought to occur based on the acoustic features of the speech signal, as
well as the listener’s knowledge of the phonemic system of their language.

Word recognition refers to the process by which we identify the meaning of individual words in a sentence. This
process is thought to involve a combination of bottom-up and top-down processing. Bottom-up processing
involves the analysis of the acoustic features of the speech signal, while top-down processing involves the use
of context and prior knowledge to aid in word recognition.

Sentence processing refers to the process by which we integrate individual words into a coherent sentence
structure. This process is thought to involve a range of cognitive processes, including syntactic analysis (the
identification of grammatical structure) and semantic analysis (the identification of meaning).

In conclusion, the perception and understanding of speech involve a complex interplay between physical sound
waves and the physiological, perceptual, and cognitive processes that occur in the auditory system and the
brain. Understanding these processes is essential for developing effective approaches to speech therapy and for
advancing our knowledge of human speech perception and cognition.

Q.7 Phonemically transcribe the following passage:

This is a unit used in the study of quantity and rhythm in speech. In this study it is traditional to make use of
the concept of the syllable. However, the syllable is made to play a lot of different roles in language
description: in phonology we often use the syllable as the basic framework for describing how vowels and
consonants can combine in a particular language, and most of the time it does not seem to matter that we
use the same unit to be the thing that we count when we are looking for beats in verse or rhythmical speech.
Traditionally, the syllable has also been viewed as an articulatory unit consisting in its ideal form of a
movement from a relatively closed vocal tract to a relatively open vocal tract and back to a relatively closed
one. Mora is an important feature of generative phonology.

ðɪs ɪz ə juːnɪt juːzd ɪn ðə stʌdi əv kwɒntəti ənd rɪðəm ɪn spiːʧ. ɪn ðɪs stʌdi ɪt ɪz trədɪʃənəl tuː meɪk juːs əv
ðə kənsept əv ðə sɪləbəl. haʊevər, ðə sɪləbəl ɪz meɪd tuː pleɪ ə lɒt əv dɪfrənt roʊlz ɪn læŋgwɪdʒ dɪskrɪpʃən: ɪn
fənɒlədʒi wiː ɒfən juːz ðə sɪləbəl əz ðə beɪsɪk freɪmwɜːk fɔː dɪskraɪbɪŋ haʊ vaʊlz ənd kɒnsənənts kən kəmbaɪn ɪn ə
pərˈtɪk.jʊlər læŋgwɪdʒ, ənd məʊst əv ðə taɪm ɪt dʌz nɒt sim tu mætə ðæt wiː juːz ðə seɪm juːnɪt tuː bi ðə θɪŋ ðæt
wiː kaʊnt hwen wiː ər lʊkɪŋ fɔː biːts ɪn vɜːs ɔːr rɪðmɪkəl spiːʧ. trədɪʃənəli, ðə sɪləbəl hæz ɔːlsəʊ bɪn vjuːd əz ən
ɑːtɪkjʊleɪtəri juːnɪt kənsɪstɪŋ ɪn ɪts aɪdɪəl fɔːm əv ə muːvmənt frəm ə ˈrɛlətɪvli kləʊzd ˈvəʊkəl trækt tuː ə ˈrɛlətɪvli
ˈəʊpən ˈvəʊkəl trækt ənd bæk tuː ə ˈrɛlətɪvli kləʊzd wʌn. mɔːrə ɪz ən ɪmˈpɔːtənt fiːtʃər əv ˈdʒɛnərətɪv fəˈnɒlədʒi.

Q. 1 Write down the distinctive features of the final consonantal sound in each of the following

words:

Ans English words often end in one or more consonant sounds (car, card, cards). Words with final
consonants are less common in many other languages. Therefore, it can be difficult for English
learners to hear or say consonant sounds at the ends of wordsIn phonological theory the building
blocks of speech sounds are often argued to be what are called “distinctive features.” They typically
have phonetic definitions and phonetically inspired names (e.g., [voice], [nasal], [labial]). While
various algorithms for feature specification exist, segments and natural classes of segments are
typically interpreted as bundles of the phonetically defined feature values that match their phonetic
descriptions. Throughout the history of distinctive feature theory, a major goal has been to identify a
set of features that is adequate for describing the segmental contrasts and phonologically important
segment groups observed in the world’s languages

. ➢ Standard Stand. Set up. Started

➢ Cats Cap. Crap. Care

➢ Craze Case card. Cars

➢ Tooth Tools. Teeth. Talking

➢ Watch Which white water

Q.2 Transcribe and write down the number of phonemes in each of the following words:’

Ans
Despite there being just 26 letters in the English language there are approximately 44 unique
sounds, also known as phonemes. The 44 sounds help distinguish one word or meaning from
another. Various letters and letter combinations known as graphemes are used to represent the
sounds. The 44 English sounds fall into two categories: consonants and vowels. Below is a list of the
44 phonemes along with their International Phonetic Alphabet symbols and some examples of their
use. Note that there is no such thing as a definitive list of phonemes because of accents, dialects and
the evolution of language itself. Therefore, you may discover lists with more or less than these 44
sounds.

➢ Judges judge. giant. barge

➢ Batches Brunch born. Birth.

➢ Lovely Living long. Loading

➢ Eye Else Ella Along

➢ Oxen Orang. edge waves

Q.3 Transcribe and write down the CV templates for the following words showing their syllabic

boundaries:

Ans A CV personal statement is a brief (100 words tops), snappy paragraph at the top of your CV
that provides an overview of your qualifications and skills. It works as a “trailer” for the rest of your
CV. Fill it with keywords relevant to the job opening and explain why you’re the perfect candidate.
If you have years of relevant experience, write your personal statement as a CV summary: highlight
your best professional achievements.
Not much experience yet? Go for a CV objective: summarise what skills you’ve mastered so far and
how well you’d fit in.
Whichever one is right for you, don’t focus it solely on what you want out of the job. Instead,
emphasize what you have to offer.
For instance: Dependable licensed NMC Registered Nurse trained to work in high-stress
environments and stay calm under pressure.Seeking to leverage meticulous record-keeping and
analytical skills to help St Francis Hospital with your upcoming challenges.
3. Professional Experience Start with your current or most recent job.

Below, list your previous jobs chronologically descending.

List: your job title, the name of the company, dates worked.
Below each entry, add up to 5 bullet points explaining your responsibilities and achievements.
Quantify whenever possible. Numbers pop!
4. Academic History If you’ve got any post-secondary education, limit your CV education section to
just that.
Don’t mention your high school, unless it’s your highest degree of education.
Format your CV education section the following way: Graduation year (if you’re still studying, enter
your expected graduation date) Degree Institution name Sub-honours (if applicable) Don’t have a
wealth of job experience? Place your education section above your work history and mention the
coursework you’ve completed, as well as extracurricular academic achievements.
5. Skills Here’s how to list skills on a CV step by step:
Start with a spreadsheet with a master list of all the professional skills you’ve developed. Read the
job ad carefully and look for skill-related keywords.
Those skills from your list that match the job description go on your CV.
Instead of just listing skills in a separate skills section, mention them in your CV personal statement
and in the work history section.
6. Additional Sections
If you’ve participated in any activities relevant to your career that don’t fit into any of the above
sections, list them in extra sections of your CV.
Some CV examples of such sections include: Industry awards Professional
certifications Publications
Professional affiliations
Conferences attended
Additional training
The above template is an example of a classic, reverse-chronological CV. But, according to many a
career expert, there is an alternative. A skills-based CV format, also known as a “skills CV” or a
“functional CV.” Read on to find out what the right structure for a skills CV is.
Standard format of a cv for a job
One more thing to keep in mind when formatting a CV is to make it skimmable for recruiters and
hiring managers.
➢ Faithful Fault. Focus. Foundru
➢ Welcome Worldly Worldl Worried. Wages. Wollongong
➢ Effort Effective whitening. supplement
➢ Above. Amuse avoid average
Q.4 Describe English vowels with relevant examples
Ans Repeat each of the following vowels several times in succession, paying close attention to what
your tongue body is doing as you move from one vowel to the other:
[i] and [u]
[i] and [æ]
[u] and [ɑ+
[æ] and [ɑ+
If you are like most English speakers, you should have noticed that your tongue body moves
backward and forward in the [i]/[u] pair: it is further forward during [i] and further backward during
[u]. Similarly, your tongue body is closer to the roof of your moth during [u] than during [ɑ+ -- your
jaw is probably also opening wider during the *ɑ+ to help increase the distance between the tongue
body and the roof of the mouth. Your tongue body is higher (i.e., closer to the roof of the mouth)
during [i] than during [æ]. (You may also be able to feel the [i] as somewhat further forward than
[æ].) Finally, your tongue body is further forward during [æ] than during [ɑ+.
The dimensions for vowels
Height and frontness/backness
The most important property in the traditional classification scheme for vowels is the highest point
reached by the body of the tongue, on both the front/back and high/low dimensions. Vowels are
conventionally arranged on a two-dimensional diagram, where the vertical dimension indicates the
distance of the tongue body from the roof of the mouth, and where the horizontal dimension
indicates the forward or backward displacement of the tongue body (with left representing further
forward). The four vowels [i], [u], [æ], and [ɑ+.
[i] [u]
[æ] [ɑ+
Other vowels can be specified by the position of the tongue body relative to these four corners. In
[e], for example, the tongue body is pushed forward, as it is during [i] and [æ], but it is further away
from the roof of the mouth in [e] than in [i], and closer to the roof of the mouth than in [æ]. So we
can place [e] on a vowel chart between [i] and [æ].
Including all the vowels of English, our diagram looks like:
[i] [u]
[ɪ] [ʊ]
[e] [ə] [o]
[ɛ] ʌ] [ɔ]
[æ] [a] [ɑ+
We distinguish three major degrees of height: high, mid, and low. We also distinguish three major
degrees on the front/back dimension: front, central, and back. (Don't confuse this use of "central"
with the "central" that is the opposite of "lateral".) Imposing these categories on the above diagram
gives us the traditional vowel chart used in the North American linguistic tradition:
The schwa [ə] is in the exact centre of this chart. Schwa is often referred to as the neutral vowel, the
vowel in which the vocal tract is in its neutral state and most closely resembles a perfect tube. All
the other vowels require that the vocal tract be deformed by moving the tongue body away from its
neutral position, either up or down, backward or forward.
Tense/lax
We can distinguish most English vowels from each other in terms of the high/mid/low dimension
and the front/central/back dimension. But the chart above still has four cells which contain two full
(non-schwa) vowels apiece. So far we have no way to tell apart the following four pairs of vowels:
[i] and [ɪ]
[e] and [ɛ]
[u] and [ʊ]
[o] and [ɔ]
In each pair, one of the vowels is higher and less centralized (further front if a front vowel, further
back if a back vowel), while the other is lower and closer to the position of [ə] on the horizontal
dimension. Within each of these cells, the higher and less centralized vowel is referred to as tense;
the lower and more centralized vowel is referred to as lax.
Tense: [i], [e], [u], [o]
Lax: [ɪ], [ɛ], [ʊ], [ɔ]
(Those speakers who don't have [ɔ] in their dialect can try to produce one by lowering and
centralizing an [o] .)
Rounding
There is another important difference among the vowels of English. When you say [u], your lips are
rounded. When you say [i], your lips are spread. Vowels can be categorized according to whether
they are rounded or unrounded. In English, the mid and high back vowels are rounded, the front and
central vowels unrounded.
[u], [ʊ], [o], [ɔ]
[i], [ɪ], [e], [ɛ], [æ], [ɑ+, *ʌ+, *ə]
The [ɑ+ vowel of the word * fɑ + is unrounded in most dialects of nglish, though in Canadian
English it is often rounded at least a little.
Glides and diphthongs
Glides
When the tongue body is pushed up and forward for the high front vowel [i], it ends up underneath
the hard palate. If we were to try to classify [i] as if it were a consonant, we would have to call it a
voiced palatal approximant: the vocal tract is made narrower by the tongue body approaching the
hard palate, but not close enough to cause a turbulent airstream. But we already have a symbol, [j],
for a voiced palatal approximant.
In fact, there is very little real difference between [i] and [j]. Both can be made with the tongue in
the same position. [i] acts as the central part of a syllable, and typically lasts somewhat longer than
a [j]. [j] does not act as the central part of a syllable and is typically fairly short. Essentially, [j] is
simply an [i] that is acting as a consonant instead of a vowel.
There is a similar relationship between the vowel [u] and the consonant [w]. The high back position
of [u] puts it directly under the soft palate, where you would expct to find the velar half of a [w]. A
[w] is essentially an [u] that is acting as a consonant rather a vowel.
Glide is the general term for a consonant which corresponds in this way to a vowel.
Diphthongs
Three of the English vowels introduced earlier required a sequence of two IPA symbols: [aj], [aw],
and [ɔj]. This might seem like a violation of the principle that there should be a one-to-one
relationship between sounds and IPA symbols. But we can now see why [aj], [aw], and [ɔj] do not
really act as single, simple vowels. For a vowel like [ɑ+, the tongue body moves into a low and back
position and remains there for the duration of the vowel. During [aj], on the other hand, the tongue
body does not remain in one place -- it is (almost constantly) in motion from one position to another.
Complex vowels like [aj] which involve a movement of the tongue body from one position to another are
called diphthongs. Simple vowels like [ɑ+ which maintain a relatively constantly position throughout are called
monophthongs.
In the transcription of a diphthong, the first symbol represents the starting point of the tongue body and the
second symbol represents the direction of movement. (It is also position to use a vowel symbol for the second
half of a diphthong, with a half-circle "non-syllabic" diacritic, to indicate the exact position of the tongue body
at the end of the diphthong.)
In the diphthong [aj], the tongue body begins in a low, central position, represented by the symbol [a]. The
tongue body almost immediately begins to move upward and forward, toward the position for an [i]. Usually,
especially in facter speech, the tongue body does not have time to get all the way to the [i] position, so the
diphthong often ends nearer to [ɪ+ or even *e+. In a narrower transcription, we could record the precise ending
position, as in *ai+, *aɪ+, or *ae+.
None of these differences can change the meaning of an English word, so in a broad transcription we simply
use [j], the symbol for the glide corresponding to [i], to represent the direction and approximate end-point of
the diphthong.
In the diphthong [aw], the tongue body again begins in the low central position, [a], and then moves upward
and backward toward the position of [u+. ften, the tongue body only manages to get part-way. We could
transcribe the diphthong narrowly, as *au+, *aʊ+, or *ao+, or broadly as *aw+, using the symbol for the glide
corresponding to [u].
In the diphthong [ɔj], the tongue body begins in the position of the lax mid back vowel [ɔ]. It moves upward
and forward, toward the position of [i].
 In most dialects of English, even the vowels of bait and boat, which we have been transcribing with the single
symbols [e] and [o], are really diphthongs. They begin in the tense mid position but then proceed to move
upward toward the position for [i] and [u] respectively. For this reason, you will often see [e] transcribed as
[ej], [eɪ+, or *ei+, and *o+ transcribed as *ow+, *oʊ+, or *ou+.
Q.5 Describe English diphthongs as found in the RP (Received Pronunciation) accent

Ans
Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognizable accent often described as ‘typically
British’. Popular terms for this accent, such as ‘the Queen’s nglish’, ‘ xford nglish’ or ‘BBC nglish’ are all a
little misleading. The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear
at Oxford University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent. RP is an accent, not a dialect,
since all RP speakers speak Standard English. In other words, they avoid non-standard grammatical
constructions and localized vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non-specific, that
is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about
their social and/or educational background.
Well-known but not widely used
RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of spoken English in the world,
yet recent estimates suggest only 3% of the UK population speak it. It has a negligible presence in Scotland and
Northern Ireland and is arguably losing its prestige status in Wales. It should properly, therefore, be described
as an English, rather than a British accent. As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic
concept. It is the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is widely used (in
competition with General American) for teaching English as a foreign language. RP is included here as a useful
reference, not to imply it has greater merit than any other English accent, but because it provides us with an
extremely familiar model against which comparisons with other accents may be made.
What’s in the name?
RP is a young accent in linguistic terms. It was not around, for example, when Dr Johnson wrote A Dictionary of
the English Language in 1757. He chose not to include pronunciation suggestions as he felt there was little
agreement even within educated society regarding ‘recommended’ forms. The phrase Received Pronunciation
was coined in 1869 by the linguist, A J Ellis, but it only became a widely used term to describe the accent of the
social elite after the phonetician, Daniel Jones, adopted it for the second edition of the English Pronouncing
Dictionary (1924). The definition of ‘received’ conveys its original meaning of ‘accepted’ or ‘approved’ – as in
‘received wisdom’. We can trace the origins of RP back to the public schools and universities of 19th-century
Britain – indeed Daniel Jones initially used the term Public School Pronunciation to describe this emerging,
socially exclusive accent. Over the course of that century, members of the ruling and privileged classes
increasingly attended boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and graduated from the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Their speech patterns – based loosely on the local accent of the south-
east Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and Cambridge) – soon came to be associated with ‘the stablishment’
and therefore gained a unique status, particularly within the middle classes in London.
Broadcaster’s choice
RP probably received its greatest impetus, however, when it was selected in 1922 by the BBC Advisory
Committee on Spoken English as a broadcasting standard – hence the origins of the term BBC English. The
Committee believed Standard English, spoken with an RP accent, would be the most widely understood
variety of English, both here in the UK and overseas. Members of the committee were also conscious that
choosing a regional accent might run the risk of alienating some listeners. To a certain extent their decision
was understandable, and their attitude only reflected the social climate at the time. But since RP was the
preserve of the aristocracy and expensive public schools, it represented only a very small social minority. This
policy prevailed at the BBC for a considerable time and probably contributed to the sometimes-negative
perception of regional varieties of English.
Q.6 Define Articulatory Phonetics' and describe human articulators.
Ans The production of speech involves 3 processes:
Initiation: Setting air in motion through the vocal tract.
Phonation: The modification of airflow as it passes through the larynx (related to voicing).’
Articulation: The shaping of airflow to generate particular sound types (related to manner) Articulatory
phonetics refers to the “aspects of phonetics which looks at how the sounds of speech are made with the
organs of the vocal tract” gden (2009:173).
Articulatory phonetics can be seen as divided up into three areas to describe consonants. These are voice,
place and manner respectively. Each of these will now be discussed separately, although all three areas
combine together in the production of speech
1) Voice In English we have both voiced and voiceless sounds. A sound fits into one of these categories
according to how the vocal folds behave when a speech sound is produced.
Voiced: Voiced sounds are sounds that involve vocal fold vibrations when they are produced. Examples of
voiced sounds are /b,d,v,m/.
If you place two fingers on either side of the front of your neck, just below your jawbone, and produce a
sound, you should be able to feel a vibrating sensation. This tells you that a sound is voiced.
Voiceless: Voiceless sounds are sounds that are produced with no vocal fold vibration. Examples of voiceless
sounds in English are /s,t,p,f/.
2) Place
The vocal tract is made up of different sections, which play a pivotal role in the production of speech. These
sections are called articulators and are what make speech sounds possible. They can be divided into two types.
The active articulator is the articulator that moves towards another articulator in the production of a speech
sound. This articulator moves towards another articulator to form a closure of some type in the vocal tract (i.e
open approximation, close, etc – define) The passive articulator is the articulator that remains stationary in the
production of a speech sound. Often, this is the destination that the active articulator moves towards (i.e the
hard palate).
I will now talk about the different places of articulation in the vocal tract Bilabial: Bilabial sounds involve the
upper and lower lips. In the production of a bilabial sound, the lips come into contact with each other to form
an effective constriction.
In English, /p,b,m/ are bilabial sounds. Labiodental: Labiodental sounds involve the lower lip (labial) and upper
teeth (dental) coming into contact with each other to form an effective constriction in the vocal tract.
Examples of labiodental sounds in English are /f,v/. Labiodental sounds can be divided into two types.
a) Endolabial: sounds produced where the upper teeth are pressed against the inside of the lower lip.
b) Exolabial: sounds produced where the upper teeth are pressed against the outer side of the lower lip.
Dental: Dental sounds involve the tongue tip (active articulator) making contact with the upper teeth to form
a constriction. Examples of Dental sounds in nglish are / θ, /. If a sound is produced where the tongue is
between the upper and lower teeth, it is attributed the term ‘interdental’.
Alveolar: First of all, before I explain what an alveolar sound is, it’s useful to locate the alveolar ridge itself. If
you place your tongue just behind your teeth and move it around, you’ll feel a bony sort of ridge. This is known
as the alveolar ridge. Alveolar sounds involve the front portion of the tongue making contact with the alveolar
ridge to form an effective constriction in the vocal tract. Examples of alveolar sounds in English are /t,d,n,l,s/.
Postalveolar: Postalveolar sounds are made a little further back (‘post’) from the alveolar ridge. A postalveolar
sound is produced when the blade of the tongue comes into contact with the post-alveolar region of your
mouth. Examples of post-alveolar sounds in English are / ʃ, ʒ /.
Palatal: Palatal sounds are made with the tongue body (the big, fleshy part of your tongue). The tongue body
raises up towards the hard-palate in your mouth (the dome shaped roof of your mouth) to form an effective
constriction. An example of a palatal sounds in English is /j/, usually spelt as .
Velar: Velar sounds are made when the back of the tongue (tongue dorsum) raises towards the soft palate,
which is located at the back of the roof of the mouth. This soft palate is known as the velum. An effective
constriction is then formed when these two articulators come into contact with each other. Examples of velar
sounds in nglish are /k,g ŋ /.
3) Manner
In simple terms, the manner of articulation refers to the way a sound is made, as opposed to where it’s made.
Sounds differ in the way they are produced. When the articulators are brought towards each other, the flow of
air differs according to the specific sound type. For instance, the airflow can be completely blocked off or made
turbulent.
1) Stop articulations: Stop articulations are sounds that involve a complete closure in the vocal tract. The
closure is formed when two articulators come together to prevent air escaping between them. Stop
articulations can be categorized according to the kind of airflow involved. The type of airflow can be oral
(plosives) or nasal (nasals). I will now talk about both plosives and nasals separately
1a) Plosives: are sounds that are made with a complete closure in the oral (vocal) tract. The velum is raised
during a plosive sound, which prevents air from escaping via the nasal cavity. English plosives are the sounds
/p,b,t,d,k,g/. Plosives can be held for quite a long time and are thus also called ‘maintainable stops’
1b) Nasals are similar to plosives in regards to being sounds that are made with a complete closure in the oral
(vocal) tract. However, the velum is lowered during nasal sounds, which allows airflow to escape through the
nasal cavity. There are 3 nasal sounds that occur in nglish /m,n, ŋ/
2) Fricatives: Fricative sounds are produced by narrowing the distance between the active and passive
articulators causing them to be in close approximation. This causes the airflow to become turbulent when it
passes between the two articulators involved in producing a fricative sound. English fricatives are sounds such
as / f,v, θ, , s,z, ʃ,ʒ /
3) Approximants: Approximant sounds are created by narrowing the distance between the two articulators.
Although, unlike fricatives, the distance isn’t wide enough to create turbulent airflow. nglish has 4
approximant sounds which are /w,j,r,l/.
Vowels When it comes to vowels, we use a different specification to describe them. We look at the vertical
position of the tongue, the horizontal position of the tongue and lip position.
Vowels are made with a free passage of airflow down the mid-line of the vocal tract. They are usually voiced
and are produced without friction.
1) Vertical tongue position (close-open): vertical tongue position refers to how close the tongue is to the roof
of the mouth in the production of a vowel. If the tongue is close, it is given the label close. However, if the
tongue is low in the mouth when a vowel is produced, it’s given the label open. + close-mid/open mid (see
below). Some examples of open vowels: ɪ, ʊ Some examples of close vowels: æ, ɒ,
2) Horizontal tongue position (front, mid, back): Horizontal tongue refers to where the tongue is positioned in
the vocal tract in terms of ‘at the front’ or ‘at the back’ when a vowel is produced. If the tongue is at the front
of the mouth it’s given the label front, if the tongue is in the middle of the mouth it’s given the label mid and if
the tongue is at the back of the mouth it’s given the label back. Some examples of front vowels: ɪ , e, æ Some
examples of mid vowels: ə Some examples of back vowels: ʌ,ɒ
3) Lip position: As is inferred, lip position concerns the position of the lips when a vowel is produced. The lips
can either be round, spread or neutral. Examples of round vowels: u, o Examples of spread vowels: ɪ, ɛ
There are also different categories of vowels, for example: monophthongs and diphthongs. Monophthongs:
Monophthongs are vowels that are produced by a relatively stable tongue position. Monophthongs can be
divided into two categories according to their duration. These are long and short vowels and their duration is
mirrored in their names. Examples of short vowels: e, æ, ɪ, ʊ Examples of long vowels: ɔ: ɜ:, i:, u:
Diphthongs: Diphthongs are vowels where the tongue moves from one part of the mouth to another. They can
be seen as starting of as one vowel and ending as a different vowel. Here are some examples: /aʊ, ɪə, ɔɪ, əʊ/
Q.7 Phonemically transcribe the following passage:
We have instrumental techniques for making scientific measurements of the amount of energy present in
sounds, but we also need a word for the impression received by the human listener, and we use loudness
for this. We all use greater loudness to overcome difficult communication conditions and to give strong
emphasis to what we are saying and it is clear that individuals differ from each other in the natural loudness
level of their normal speaking voice. Loudness plays a relatively small role in the stressing of syllables, and it
seems that n general we do not make very much linguistic use of loudness contrasts in speaking. Overall,
loudness, length and the quality of vowel all together play their role in placing stress in a particular syllable.
Ans The reason I don't think there is a clear-cut answer to which transformation to use and whether to use
one at all, is that we are dealing with a complex phenomenon. A useful way of thinking about this is that a
formant is an just an acoustic measurement (or perhaps a series of acoustic measurements if you can deal with
time series data) that reflects the state of a speakers articulatory system. It arises from some possibly very
non-trivial interaction of the voice source and vocal tract resonances. The resonances are not formants per se
because they are properties of the physical system that may or may not be fed acoustic energy. There's a
developing body of literature on using computational models for determining the resonances and looking at
their relation to observed formants. The results tell us that for large low voiced males the picture is mainly the
way text books often lay it out, but that there are confounds (like variation in vocal tract anatomy due to age,
gender and individual factors and dynamically nasality) that produce surprising effects.
And finally, depending on your question and materials, it might make sense to look at even more formants and
possibly transformations between them. Before doing so, I would encourage you to plot the data and see how
it behaves, so that you'll have a clearer understanding of what is happening. I've seen F4 recommended as
some sort of normalising value for one of the lower formants and then looked at F4 in a data set I was working
on only to discover that it was so badly tracked that I could not trust it and had to use other analysis methods.
1. Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics and phonology are two closely related disciplines in linguistics. Phonetics is the study of the
physical properties of speech sounds, including their production, transmission, and perception. It
focuses on the articulatory, acoustic, and auditory aspects of speech sounds and how they are
produced by the human vocal system. Phonology, on the other hand, is the study of the abstract
system of sounds in language, including the rules and patterns that govern their organization and use.
It focuses on the mental representation of speech sounds, their distribution, and how they interact
within a given language.

2. Phoneme and Allophone

Phonemes and allophones are related to the study of sounds in language, but they have different
meanings and applications.
Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can change the meaning of a word in a language. They
are abstract units that represent the sounds in a language and are often represented by symbols in
the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For example, in English, the sounds /p/ and /b/ are separate
phonemes because they can change the meaning of a word (e.g., "pat" vs. "bat").
Allophones are variations of a phoneme that occur in different contexts or environments in a
language. They are different ways of pronouncing the same sound and do not change a word’s
meaning. For example, in English, the sound /p/ can be pronounced aspirated (with a puff of air) or
unaspirated (without a puff of air) depending on its position in a word. These two pronunciations are
allophones of the phoneme /p/ in English.

3. Consonant and Vowel

In linguistics, consonants and vowels are two types of sounds that are used to create words and
speech.

Consonants are sounds that are made by restricting or obstructing the airflow through the mouth
with the tongue, lips, teeth, or other parts of the vocal tract. Consonants are characterized by a
constriction or closure in the vocal tract that causes friction or turbulence in the airflow. Some
examples of consonant sounds are /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, /m/, and /n/.
Vowels, on the other hand, are sounds that are made by allowing the airflow to pass through the
mouth without being obstructed by any part of the vocal tract. Vowels are characterized by an open
vocal tract and a relatively unobstructed airflow. Some examples of vowel sounds are /a/, /e/, /i/,
/o/, and /u/.

In English, there are 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds.

3. Voiced and Voiceless phonemes

In linguistics, phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can change the meaning of a word.
They are often categorized as either voiced or voiceless based on the vibration of the vocal cords
during their production.

Voiced phonemes are produced with the vibration of the vocal cords, which creates a buzzing or
humming sound. Examples of voiced phonemes in English include /b/, /v/, /d/, /z/, and /g/.

Voiceless phonemes, on the other hand, are produced without the vibration of the vocal cords. They
are pronounced by forcing air through the mouth to create a hissing or whispering sound. Examples
of voiceless phonemes in English include /p/, /f/, /t/, /s/, and /k/.

The difference between voiced and voiceless phonemes can be illustrated by comparing pairs of
words that differ only in the voicing of a single phoneme. For example, "bat" and "pat" differ only in
the voicing of the initial phoneme, with "bat" being pronounced with a voiced /b/ sound and "pat"
being pronounced with a voiceless /p/ sound.

In some languages, the distinction between voiced and voiceless phonemes is very important for
distinguishing between words. For example, in Hindi, the words "bāt" (meaning "talk") and "pāt"
(meaning "leaf") differ only in the voicing of the initial consonant.

Overall, understanding the difference between voiced and voiceless phonemes is important for
accurately pronouncing words in a language and for distinguishing between words that might
otherwise be confused with one another.

5. Phonemic and Phonetic transcription

Phonemic and phonetic transcriptions are two different ways of representing the sounds of a
language.

Phonemic transcription is a system of writing down the sounds of a language using a set of symbols
called phonemes. In phonemic transcription, only the significant sounds that differentiate one word
from another are transcribed. For example, in English, the words "pat" and "bat" are differentiated
by the phoneme /p/ and /b/, respectively. So, in phonemic transcription, these two words would be
transcribed as /pæt/ and /bæt/ to show the difference in meaning.

On the other hand, phonetic transcription is a system of writing down the actual sounds that are
produced when speaking a language. Phonetic transcription uses a different set of symbols
called phonetic symbols, which represent the specific sounds that are produced by the mouth and
throat. Unlike phonemic transcription, phonetic transcription includes all the sounds that are
produced, even if they do not change the meaning of a word. For example, in English, the word "bat"
is pronounced with a slight puff of air when the /b/ sound is produced. This puff of air is represented
in phonetic transcription by the symbol *bʰæt+.

Types of Phonetic Studies

Phonetics, as a discipline, is the scientific study of human speech sounds. It includes the
understanding of how sounds are articulated using the mouth, nose, teeth and tongue, and that how
the ear hears those sounds and can tell them separately. In phonetics, the physical properties (such
as the wave form of each sound and its length duration) can also be analyzed with the help of
computer programs (e.g., PRAAT). There are three major types of phonetic studies; articulatory
phonetics, acoustic phonetics and auditory phonetics. Table 1.3 explains these branches and shows
the questions which each one of them addresses fundamentally, and very briefly defines them as
separate branches of phonetic studies.
Articulatory Phonetics Acoustic Phonetics Auditory Phonetics How speech sounds are produc ed?
How speech sounds carry their physical properties?
How speech sounds are processed and perceived? It is the study of how the human vocal organs
produce speech sounds. It is the study of the sound waves produced by the human vocal apparatus.
It is the examination of how speech sounds are perceived by the human ear.
Articulatory Phonetics Articulatory phonetics studies the production of speech sounds by the vocal
tract; the place from where and the way in which the speech sounds are made (‘articulated’) by the
vocal organs. It describes speech sounds and vocal activities through which these sounds are
produced and use these activities of vocal tract as classification criteria. In traditional articulatory
phonetics, the modifications that occur in the vocal tract are further used for classifications of
sounds (e.g., difference between vowels and consonants). Speech articulation is a central focus in
articulatory phonetics whereby various modifications such as changes in the place of articulation
(from the sound is produced?), the manner of articulation (how is the sound is produced?), the tract
used (whether the nasal or oral tract was used?), or/and the position of glottis (voicing) are noticed
and further used as criteria for defining speech sounds. Note the first consonant sound in each of the
following words:
Mine - Fine - Dine - Line – Pine
As you see, the place of articulation for all of these sounds is different. /m/ and /p/ are bilabial. /f/ is
labiodental. /d/ are /l/ alveolar. From manner of articulation point of view: /d/ and /p/ are stops. /f/ is
fricative. /l/ is approximant and /m/is nasal stop.
For /m/ nasal cavity is used whereas for /f/, /d/, /l/ and /p/, the oral tract is used.
From voicing point of view, /m/, /d/ and /l/ are voiced whereas /f/ and /p/ are voiceless. The above
mentioned modifications and features are very important as these are used in articulatory phonetics.
Articulatory phonetics derives much of its descriptive terminology from the fields of anatomy and physiology,
and is sometimes referred to as physiological phonetics. Articulatory phonetics has traditionally held a central
place in the training of phoneticians and language experts, the movements involved being reasonably
accessible to observations and experiments and, in principle, under the control of the investigators.
The major areas studied in ‘articulatory phonetics’ are air stream mechanism, phonation (the activities of
vocal cords), oro-nasal processing and various articulatory gestures.
what human articulators are used for the production of various speech sounds and how their respective
adjectives are used for naming those particular speech sounds.
What is a Vowel?
 A vowel is a sound in which there is a continuous vibration of the vocal cords and the air passage is allowed to
escape from the mouth cavity freely without any interruption or obstruction. In other words, the main
difference between a consonant and a vowel sound is that in the case of a consonant, the air passage is
exploited somewhere in the oral cavity whereas, in the case of a vowel, it is allowed to escape freely.
Consider: The Airflow during the Production of a Vowel Sound Classification of English Vowels English vowels
are classified in the following ways:
1. Part of the tongue: Which part of the tongue is involved in the production of a specific sound; Front, Center
or Back? For example: /ɪ/ is a front vowel, /ǝ/ is central and /ʊ/is a back vowel.
2. Position of the tongue: How high is the tongue when the vowel is produced; High – Mid – Low? The high-
low positions are sometimes also called as close-open positions of the tongue. For example: /ɪ/ is a high vowel
whereas /æ/ is low vowel.
3. Lip-rounding: Whether the vowel is produced with rounded lips or not? For example: /ɪ/ is unrounded
whereas /ʊ/ is a rounded vowel.
4. Vowel length: Sometimes, the length of the vowel is also considered as a contrast between short and long
vowels. For example: /ɪ/ and /e/ are short vowels whereas /iː/ and /ɜː/ are long vowels.
6 American and British Vowels
We need to discuss briefly about the difference between American and British vowels here. Many of the
American vowels are essentially different than those of British – and that is why it is a different accent of
English (compare Standard American Newscaster English, known as SANE, with British English as spoken by
BBC newscasters (also known as the RP accent). When you carefully listen to the American vowels [ such as i, ɪ,
ɛ, æ] as in words heed, hid, head, had (spoken by a native speaker of American English) these vowels sound as
if they differ by a series of equal steps. Even some Eastern American speakers would make a distinct diphthong
in heed so that their [i] sounds really like a glide (diphthong) starting from almost the same vowel as that in
hid. Similarly, the back vowels also vary considerably in both forms of English (e.g., many Californians do not
distinguish between the vowels in words father and author). Moreover, the vowels [ʊ, u] as in good and food
also vary considerably as they have a very unrounded vowel in good and a rounded but central vowel in food.

In short, American English in many ways is distinct from the British English and as the students of phonetics
and phonology we should try to explore these differences. It is only about American English, there are many
other varieties which have vowels different from British English. One aspect of this variation is the emergence
of word ‘ nglishes’ as today we have more varieties of nglish than before. Accent variation is certainly one of
the major reasons for these dialects and accents of English language
. Rhotic Vowels This term is used to describe some varieties of English (e.g., American) pronunciation in which
the /r/ phoneme is found in all its phonological contexts. Remember that in the BBC accent of English, /r/ is
only found before vowels (as in ‘red’ /red/, ‘around’ /əraʊnd/), but never before consonants or before a
pause.
In rhotic (e.g., some American) accents, on the other hand, /r/ may occur before consonants (as in ‘cart’
/ka:rt/) and before a pause (as in ‘car’ /kɑ:r/). While the BBC accent is non-rhotic, many accents of the British
Isles are rhotic (including mostly spoken in the south and west of England, much of Wales, and all of Scotland
and Ireland). Similarly, most speakers of American English speak with a rhotic accent, but there are non-rhotic
areas including the Boston area, lower-class New York and the Deep South. From English language learning and
teaching point of view, foreign learners encounter a lot of difficulty in learning not to pronounce /r/ in the
wrong places. Rhotic vowels are also sometimes called ‘retroflex’ vowels as they are produced with curling tip
of the tongue. Rhoticized vowels are the norm of American English mostly prevalent in North America.

A vowel may take one out of three possible forms: 1. Stressed form (when it is loud and long vowel with a
different quality being stressed), 2. Unstressed form (when it is a kind of neutral form, not necessarily in
reduced form), and, 3. Reduced form (most vowels take the shape of schwa /ə/ when they are reduced). Most
of the time a vowel is completely pronounced when it is in a stressed syllable but the same vowel is different
in quality (allophonic form) when it takes place in an unstressed syllable, and, of course, it is reduced to
another form when it is in a reduced syllable. Remember that, in most cases, various reduced vowels are
taking the shape of a schwa vowel /ə/. The symbol /ə/ may be used to show many types of vowels with a
central, reduced vowel quality. Ladefoged and Johnson (2011) give the following table for the comparison of
the three forms of vowels.
A vowel in an unstressed syllable does not necessarily have a completely reduced quality. All the English
vowels can occur in unstressed syllables in their full, unreduced forms and not all but many of them can occur
in all possible three forms.
Classification of English Vowels English vowels are classified in the following ways:
1. Part of the tongue: Which part of the tongue is involved in the production of a specific sound; Front, Center
or Back? For example: /ɪ/ is a front vowel, /ǝ/ is central and /ʊ/is a back vowel.
2. Position of the tongue: How high is the tongue when the vowel is produced; High – Mid – Low? The high-
low positions are sometimes also called as close-open positions of the tongue. For example: /ɪ/ is a high vowel
whereas /æ/ is low vowel.
3. Lip-rounding: Whether the vowel is produced with rounded lips or not? For example: /ɪ/ is unrounded
whereas /ʊ/ is a rounded vowel.
4. Vowel length: Sometimes, the length of the vowel is also considered as a contrast between short and long
vowels. For example: /ɪ/ and /e/ are short vowels whereas /iː/ and /ɜː/ are long vowels.
Conventionally, the quadrilateral shown above is taken as the four sides of human tongue and thus it is used to
describe vowel sounds of any language. For our analysis in this section, we are also going to use the same
pattern. In addition to the above classification system, the primary cardinal vowel system is a standard
reference used by phoneticians for the description of vowel sounds. Initially introduced by International
Phonetic Association (IPA), we are also going to use this quadrilateral (four-sided figure) shape with eight
cardinal (basic) vowels. This shape is called primary cardinal vowels which is given here for your
understanding.

What is a Syllable?
A syllable is a single, unbroken sound (part) of a spoken (or written) word. Syllables primarily contain a vowel
but can also have consonants. Even if a person cannot define a syllable, s/he can easily count the number of
syllables in a word or phrase. Sometimes, syllables are referred to as the beats of spoken language. However, a
syllable may not be confused with a morpheme. In morphology, a morpheme is a meaningful linguistic unit
consisting of a word such as ‘cat’ or a word element such as ‘s’ at the end of the word ‘cats’ which cannot be
divided into further smaller meaningful units. So a syllable is a unit of pronunciation and it is different than
morpheme.
A syllables also differs from phonemes in that a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound; the number of syllables
in a word is unrelated to the number of phonemes it contains. For example: /b/, /k/, /t/,   
 are all phonemes. The word ‘cat’ is made up of three phonemes / . The word ‘light’ is made up of
three phonemes / /. However, both the words ‘cat’ and ‘light’ have only one syllable each.
A word that consists of a single syllable like the English cat is called a monosyllable (and is said to be
monosyllabic). Similar terms include disyllable (and disyllabic; also bisyllable and bisyllabic) for a word of two
syllables; trisyllable (and trisyllabic) for a word of three syllables; and polysyllable (and polysyllabic), which may
refer either to a word of more than three syllables or to any word of more than one syllable.

As we differentiate between a consonant and vowel on the basis of the obstruction of the air flow on the basis
of phonetic or on vowels and consonants having different distribution on phonological grounds. Similar
situation is found with syllable. A syllable can be defined both phonetically and phonologically. Languages vary
as to which type of speech sounds are allowed to occur in which position of the syllable. In English, consonants
can only appear in the onset and the coda position, whereas the nucleus position is nearly always filled by a
vowel.
The syllable cat thus consists of /k/ in the onset position, // as the nucleus and /t/ in the coda position. In
English, all parts of a syllable can be filled with more than one speech sound. Syllables are described as
consisting of a centre which has little or no obstruction of air before or after this centre there will be greater
obstruction to airflow and /or less loud sound. Almost always the centre is a vowel sound and before and after
this vowel sound are consonants.
The centring vowel sound is called nucleus and the consonant before is called onset and the last consonant is
called coda. Both the vowel sound and coda create rhyme, so a syllable can be figured way:
The consonant after the nucleus is optional in some languages as in English, highly restricted or prohibited in
others. The syllable is usually considered right-branching, i.e. nucleus and coda are grouped together as a
"rime" and are only distinguished at the second level. The nucleus is usually the vowel in the middle of a
syllable. The onset is the sound or sounds occurring before the nucleus, and the coda (literally 'tail') is the
sound or sounds that follow the nucleus. They are sometimes collectively known as the shell. The term rhyme
covers the nucleus plus coda. The syllable can be abstracted as a consonant-vowel-consonant syllable,
abbreviated CVC.
Minimum syllable: a single vowel sound in isolation can stand alone as a minimal syllable. For example, the
words (are) // (or) // (err) // are minimal syllables. They are processed and followed by silence. Isolated
sounds such as m /m/ or sh // sometimes are also regarded as syllables (in some languages).
Onset The initial sound of the syllable is called onset which is a consonant. For example: (car) /k/ (key) /k/
(no) //
Zero onset A syllable may not have an onset but have a coda. For example; (and) // (of) // (each) //
Some syllables have both onset and coda. For example; (had) / (need) // (bake) // Some syllables
have a consonant cluster; however, onset is obligatory in some languages, and optional or even restricted in
others.
Rime The right branch in the figure above splits into nucleus and coda.
Nucleus A nucleus is a vowel as discussed above or syllabic consonant (will be discussed later). Nucleus, like in
English language is obligatory in most languages.
Coda The coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus. The sequence of nucleus
and coda is called a rhyme. As discussed above, the syllables can consist of only a nucleus, only an onset and a
nucleus with no coda, or only a nucleus and coda with no onset.
Open Syllable: when a syllable ends in vowel. Closed syllable: when a syllable ends in consonant or consonant
cluster.
Light Syllable: A syllable which is open and ends in a vowel.
General Description – CV. xample, ‘to’. Closed Syllable: Closed syllables or syllables ending in consonant
xample: ‘opt’

Despite what has been said about the structure of syllable, there are still problems as to where to divide a
syllable when we find a connected sequence of them as we usually find in normal speech. For example, the
word going // consists of two syllables as most English speaker would agree with it. On phonetic
grounds, we can decide that the / sound in the middle is the dividing point between the two syllables since
the articulation is slightly closer to obstructing airflow than the vowel next to it. This would not answer the
question of whether the /        
Although we know that // belongs to the // diphthong. A similar problem occurs with the division of
syllables in the word extra , /s/ between /k/ and /t/ would be counted as a syllable. Most English
speakers feel that the word has two syllables but they have disagreement where to divide the syllable
boundaries. There are the following possibilities of the two syllables:   
 
Peter Roach sums up the English syllable as having the following maximum phonological structure:
preinitial-initial-postinitial-vowel-prefinal-final-postfinal1-postfinal2-postfinal3
ONSET CODA
The vowel sound in the centre of the syllable is a must. However, there is a special case of syllabic consonants
which is discussed separately later in this chapter. The boundaries of syllables in a word are not always clear-
cut. Let’s take the word students  the word consists of two syllables with /stju/and / In a
more detailed way, either the syllabic feature of /n/ or the schwa sound / between is creating the second
syllable in this word. The type of analysis of the syllable structure given above can be very useful to foreign
learners of English. There are many more limitations on possible combinations of vowels and consonants, but
an understanding of the basic structures described above will help learners to overcome syllable related
problems.
Strong and Weak Syllables Like the features of syllables in other languages, English too has both strong and
weak syllables. It is important to learn how these weak syllables are pronounced and where they occur in
English. The distribution of strong and weak syllables is discussed under many topics such as stress, and elision.
Even in considering intonation, the difference between strong and weak syllables is also significant.
Finally, words with "strong'' and "weak" forms are clearly a related matter. Let’s discuss below the general
nature of strong and weak syllables
Difference between Strong and Weak
In the present context, we are using these terms to refer to phonetic characteristics of syllables. Comparing
weak syllable with strong syllable, we find the following characteristics:
A weak syllable tends to be shorter like // etc.
A weak syllable is of lower intensity.
A weak syllable is different in quality from a strong syllable of the same word. For example, in the word father
and famer / /, the second syllable in these words is weak, shorter than the first, less
loud and has a vowel that never occurs in strong syllables. Similarly, in words like little and listen (/ 
 lɪs. ṇ/), the second syllables consist of the consonant /ḷ /and /ṇ/ respectively which have no vowel sounds.
This is an example of syllabic consonant. The syllabic consonants always have a small vertical sigh under it
called diacritic.
Other features of strong and weak syllables can be described in terms of stress by saying that strong syllables
are stressed and weak syllables are unstressed (the concept of stress can be fully understood by studying the
chapter on stress). A weak syllable will have any of the three following sounds: / i, u,  The strong syllable will
give either long vowel or diphthong as its peak. However, if the syllable has a short vowel, the strong syllable
will always have a coda The weak syllable can have a very small number of peaks. A word may end with a
weak syllable that may consist of a vowel without any coda. There are the following possibilities:
i) the vowel / ("schwa") e.g. teacher 
ii) a close front unrounded vowel in the general area of /i:/and /I/ or symbolized /i/ as the ending sound in
happy /
iii) a close back rounded vowel in the general area of /u:/and // or the symbolized /u/ /ju/
iv) a syllabic consonant. bottle ḷ 
             /
Different Types of Weak Syllables
The /ə/ vowel schwa The schwa /ə/ is the most frequently occurring vowel associated with weak syllables in
English. In quality it is mid central vowel sound in between half close and half open. It is generally described as
lax, that is, not articulated with much energy.
This vowel does not always have the same quality; however, the variation is not important. Any vowel letter
can be pronounced as schwa and the pronunciation of a vowel letter can change depending on whether the
syllable in which it occurs is stressed or not. In the word 'man' the letter 'a' has its full sound - represented by
the symbol /æ/. In 'postman' the syllable 'man' is not stressed and the letter /ə/ is pronounced as schwa,
represented by the symbol schwa e.g.: (man) / / (postman) /  /
Besides, the sound schwa does not only represent a single letter. In some words, it is the sound of several
letters or even a whole syllable. This is often, but not only, seen in words which have a syllable made up of a
vowel letter followed by the letter 'r'. Remember the schwa sound is only used if the syllable which it is in is
not stressed.
Not all weak syllables contain /. It is a difficult question to answer where we can use /  here it is not
possible. In this regard, we seek more help from spellings than phonemic theory. Let us look at some
examples;
i) The strong pronunciation of letter ‘a’ is /æ/ while weak letter / Apple  attend  ii) The
strong pronunciation of letter ‘ar’ is / while weak letter / Car / particular //
iii) The suffix ‘ate’ have strong pronunciation as /       Appropriate /
accurate 
iv) The strong pronunciation of letter ‘o’ is /ɒ/ or //while weak is  Hot / go  customer

v) The strong pronunciation of letters ‘or’ is // while weak letter / Forget // doctor 
vi) The strong pronunciation letter 'e' is /e/ while weak is / Settlement / salesman
//
vii) The strong pronunciation ‘er’ is // while weak is / Earn // perhaps //
viii) The strong pronunciation of the letter ‘u’ is // while weak is / Supper // support //
ix) The sequence for letters ‘ough’ has many pronunciations. plough // ought /t / cough / rough
/ / thorough //
x) The sequence ‘ous’ has strong pronunciation as // while weak is / Gracious /
These vowels /i:/ and // are commonly found in weak syllables. They are distinguishable from each other in
strong syllables, but in weak syllables the difference is not very clear. Similar is the case with close back
rounded /u:  The two words may be like the following; Easy // and busy // Easy // and
busy / / However, the / sound may be replaced with a nonstandard phoneme     /u:/.

s Phonologically, the study of the possible phoneme combinations at syllable level of a language is called
phonotactics. Languages vary greatly in the restrictions on the sounds making up the onset, nucleus and coda
of possible syllables (called syllabification). The simplest way to understand it to look at what can occur in the
beginning of an English syllable as onset and what can occur at the end of it as a coda. In an English syllable
there is a possibility of up to three phonemes, whereas, no word in English ends with more than four
consonants.
Approaches to Intonation
There are two main approaches to intonation. ne is known as a ‘contour analysis’ and the other may be
called the ‘grammatical approach’. The first is represented by a large group of phoneticians: H. Sweet, D.
Jones, G. Palmer, L. Armstrong, I. Ward, R. Kingdon, J. O'Connor, A. Gimson and others. It is the traditional and
widely used approach. According to this approach, the smallest unit to which linguistic meaning can be
attached is a ‘tone-group’. Their theory is based on the assumption that intonation consists of basic functional
‘blocks’. They pay much attention to these functional ‘blocks’ but not to the way they are connected.
Intonation is treated by them as a layer that is superimposed on the lexico-grammatical structure. In fact, the
aim of communication determines the intonation structure, not vice versa. The grammatical approach to the
study of intonation was worked out by M. Halliday. The main unit of intonation under this approach is a
‘clause’. Intonation is a complex of three systemic variables: tonality, tonicity and tone, which are connected
with grammatical categories. Tonality marks the beginning and the end of a tone-group. Tonicity marks the
focal point of each tone-group. Tone is the third unit in Halliday's system. Tones can be primary and secondary.
They convey the attitude of the speaker. Halliday's theory is based on the syntactical function of intonation.
Types of Intonation
 We are introducing four basic types of intonation in this section. These are the mostly used intonation
patterns by English native speakers. Since teaching of English intonation to English as second language (ESL)
and English as foreign language (EFL) students is one of the big challenges, we have tried to use the patterns
and examples mostly used by English language teachers.
 Falling Intonation *↘+ It is the most common type of intonation found in nglish language. At the end of the
sentence the tone is falling. It is used for asking and giving information in normal and quite style. It is used on
the last stressed syllable of the sentence in:
1. Statements (Declarative Sentences): We live in MOScow. This is the end of NEWS.
2. Wh Questions: Where do you LIVE?
3. Imperative Sentences: STOP it. Sit DOWN.
4. Exclamatory Sentences: What a wonderful SURprise!
5. Tag questions: (When the speaker is sure that the answer will be ‘yes’.) You live here. D N’T you? 6. The
last part of alternative questions: Do you want TEA/COFfee?
 Rising Intonation *↗+ Rising tones are indicative of politeness, diffidence, and are inquiring.
1. Rising tone conveys the impression that something more is to follow: I phoned them (but they were not at
home). You must right it again (and this time get right). I am to leave now (because I am getting late)
2. General Questions: Was she glad to SEE him.
3. It may be used while encouraging someone: You will get it right. There is always next time.
 Fall-Rise Intonation *↘↗+ Fall-rise tone shows limited agreement, response with reservation, uncertainty, or
doubt. 1. You may be right. 2. It’s possible. 3. He may be honest.
 Rise-fall Intonation *↗↘+ This tone is used to show strong feelings of approval or surprise. 1. It’s impossible!
2. You were first! 3. It’s true! ur discussion on the structure of intonation in the next section is going to clarify
the above examples further.
What is intonation?
Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say. Without intonation, it's impossible to
understand the expressions and thoughts that go with words. Listen to somebody speaking without paying
attention to the words: the 'melody' you hear is the intonation. It has the following features: It's divided into
phrases, also known as 'tone-units'. The pitch moves up and down, within a 'pitch range'. Everybody has their
own pitch range. Languages, too, differ in pitch range. English has particularly wide pitch range. In each tone
unit, the pitch movement (a rise or fall in tone, or a combination of the two) takes place on the most important
syllable known as the 'tonic-syllable'. The tonic-syllable is usually a high-content word, near the end of the
unit. These patterns of pitch variation are essential to a phrase's meaning. Changing the intonation can
completely change the meaning. Example: Say: 'It's raining'. Now say it again using the same words, but giving
it different meaning. You could say it to mean 'What a surprise!', or 'How annoying!', or 'That's great!'. There
are many possibilities.
The examples of YES/NO sentences: In order to analyze the role of intonation, a very simple example that
could be given is of one-word Y S/N sentences. We can utter such a sentence (e.g., ‘Y S’) while keep our
tone ‘level’ (a rare possibility) or with ‘moving’ tone (most of the time with falling/rising tone). Primarily there
are three possibilities for such sentences: 1. Level tone: → no/ → yes (steady manner – unnatural/rare
example) 2. Falling tone: ↘ no / ↘ yes (showing definite manner) 3. Rising tone: ↗ no / ↗ yes (showing
questioning manner) While discussing the functions of intonation, another approach is to concentrate on its
role in conversational discourse. This involves such aspects as indicating whether the particular thing being
said constitutes new information or old (in sentence, for example). It further creates the regulation of turn-
taking in conversation, the establishment of dominance and the elicitation of co-operative responses as well.
As with the signaling of attitudes, it seems that though analysts concentrate on pitch movements there are
many other prosodic factors being used to create these effects.
Intonation bears relevant information which is not carried by any other means and therefore has several
significant functions in interaction (not only) with other interlocutors.
Peter Roach (1998) states the following four main functions of intonation:
1. The attitudinal function of intonation
2. The accentual function of intonation
3. The grammatical function of intonation
4. The discourse function of intonation In the remaining part of this unit, we are going to discuss these various
functions of intonation in English language.

Intonation is crucial for communication. It's also a largely unconscious mechanism, and as such, a complex
aspect of pronunciation which is used to express emotions and attitudes. Attitudinal function of intonation is
based on communicating special kinds of meaning. In this section, we discuss in detail the attitudinal aspect of
the function of intonation. Intonation carries attitudinal meaning by reflecting feelings and attitude such as
anger, happiness, boredom, gratefulness and so on. Form of intonation is different in different languages. We,
therefore, need to learn it properly while acquiring English as a second or foreign language. Consider the
following sentence: I want to buy a new bike. This sentence could be spoken in a number of ways such as while
pleading, or being angry, or happy, or sad, or proud, and so on. We will create these kinds of emotions by pitch
range or pitch movements. So, the attitudinal function of intonation expresses the mood and emotions of a
speaker, their attitude to the certain situation and also to the listener or other interlocutor. This function is
expressed only by our intonation patterns. In other words, a single sentence can be pronounced in a number
of different ways depending on intonation of the utterance. Let us take one more example sentence: What a
beautiful day! This sentence may be interpreted in the following ways:
(a) What a beautiful day! Simple fall pattern of intonation – meaning: when said perfunctorily;
(b) What a beautiful day! Rising intonation – meaning: when said enthusiastically;
(c) What a beautiful day! Rising-fall intonation – meaning: when said sarcastically. However, intonation can
create differences in meaning that go further beyond attitudinal information. The sentence “I didn´t get the
job because of my husband” can be understood from two points of view depending on intonation.
Rules of Sentence Stress
A sentence stress involves picking out one word or phrase within the sentence. A special emphasis of some
sort in pronunciation is given to this word or phrase. In spoken English, sentence stress creates music which
gives rhythm’ or beat’ to this language. Like word stress, sentence stress also helps the speakers to
understand spoken English meaningfully. A sentence stress is based on following rules:
i. Stress falls on the content words.
ii. Function words do not get any stress.
iii. A focused word gets stress.

iv. The time between stressed words always remains same. In the following section, these rules will be
discussed in detail. A sentence consists of two basic types of word, content words and function words. Content
or lexical words are the main or key words of a sentence. All the meaning or sense of a sentence is composed
within content words which are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Content Words – Stressed Words
Carrying the Meaning Examples Main verbs Take, employ, enjoy Nouns Bus, drama, sofa Adjectives Blue, small,
boring Adverbs Quickly, never, softly Negatives No, nothing, nowhere
2: Content Words In contrast to this, function or structural words are not important part of a sentence. They
are usually small and simple words which only aid in understanding a sentence grammatically correct. The
structure of the sentence is based on function words like prepositions, conjunctions and articles etc.
Function Words – Unstressed Words Carrying the Meaning Examples
Pronouns He she we
Prepositions In out on
Articles The a an
Conjunctions Or and nor
Auxiliary verbs Do be have
The stress will be given to content words in a sentence. Consider the following sentence:
 She will make me a card because it is my The stress will be given to content words in a sentence. Consider the
following sentence:
She will make me a card because it is my birthday.
There are three content words: make, card and birthday. These words are stressed or accentuated while the
functional words in the sentence like she, will, me a, it and is etc. are eliminated for the stress.
Consider the following sentences:
(1) The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance. (14 syllables)
(2) He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn’t have to do any homework in the evening. (22 syllables).
It is noticeable that the sentence (2) is longer than sentence (1), but both sentences are uttered in almost five
seconds. How come the two sentences are uttered within the same amount of time? It is because there are
only five stressed words in each of the above-mentioned sentences. The content words convey the real sense
of the sentences, and are thus stressed while the function words only aid the grammatically correct structures
of a sentence. When talking about focus word stress, almost in every other sentence, the speaker gives
emphasis or focus to one word only. The loudest part is the strong syllable of There are three content words:
make, card and birthday. These words are stressed or accentuated while the functional words in the sentence
like she, will, me a, it and is etc. are eliminated for the stress. Consider the following sentences: (1) The
beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance. (14 syllables) (2) He can come on Sundays as long as
he doesn’t have to do any homework in the evening. (22 syllables). It is noticeable that the sentence (2) is
longer than sentence (1), but both sentences are uttered in almost five seconds. How come the two sentences
are uttered within the same amount of time? It is because there are only five stressed words in each of the
above-mentioned sentences.
The content words convey the real sense of the sentences, and are thus stressed while the function words only
aid the grammatically correct structures of a sentence. When talking about focus word stress, almost in every
other sentence, the speaker gives emphasis or focus to one word only. The loudest part is the strong syllable
of the focus word. These focus words help the listener to understand the message in a better way by digging
out the important information conveyed through the loudest stressed word. The strong and soft beats in
pronouncing the words in a sentence give rise to music in English. Usually, a focus word comes at the end of a
sentence .
Manners of Articulation
At most places of articulation there are several basic ways in which articulation can be accomplished. The
articulators may completely close off the oral tract for an instant or a relatively long period, they may narrow
the space considerably, or they may simply modify the shape of the tract by approaching each other. On the
basis of these activities, the lips, tongue, velum and glottis can be positioned in different ways to produce
different sound types. These various configurations are called the manners of articulation.
Oral and Nasal Sounds A basic distinction in the manner of articulation is between oral and nasal sounds. We
have already introduced the oro-nasal process in Unit-1. When the velum is raised, cutting off the airflow
through the nasal passages, oral sounds are produced. The velum can also be lowered to allow air to pass
through the nasal passages. This process produces a sound that is called a nasal sound. Both consonants and
vowels can be nasal, in which case they are generally voiced. The consonants at the end of the English words
sun, sum and sung are nasal. However, the vowels in English are oral though there are nasal vowels in other
languages such as French. For many speakers of English, the vowels of words such as bank and wink are also
slightly nasal due to their proximity to nasal consonants. We will learn in later chapters that neighboring sound
do have effects on each other.
Plosives/ Stops Plosives also called stop sounds are made by complete closure of the articulators involved so
that the air stream cannot escape through the mouth. To give a complete description of the plosive consonant,
we must describe the following four phases which take place in its production:
1. Closing phase: it the phase when articulator or articulators move to form the stricture for the plosive. In this
phase we close the two articulators firmly.
2. Compression phase: in this phase the compressed air is stopped from escaping while continuing to allow air
to come up from the lungs: air pressure builds up behind the closed articulators.
3. Release phase: in this phase the articulators which made the stricture are moved so as to allow air to
escape.
4. Post-release phase: The air under pressure will suddenly release, generating a disturbance (a sound-wave)
in the surrounding air.
These four phases are known respectively as (1) closure, (2) hold, (3) release (4) post-release. The sounds
which completely block off the air through the mouth in nglish are: /p/, /b/, /t/,/d/, /k/,/g/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/. The
first three pairs are called oral plosives or stops (or obstruent), the latter three sounds are nasal stops.
Generally, plosives or oral stops will be labeled simply as “Stops”, whereas nasal stops will be called “Nasals”.
In oral stop in addition to the articulatory closure in the mouth, the soft palate is raised so that the nasal tract
is blocked off, then the air stream will be completely obstructed. Pressure in the mouth will build up and an
oral stop will be formed. When the articulators come apart the air stream will be released in a small burst of
sound. Because the air is stopped at different places in the oral cavity, there are three sets of plosive sounds.
The glottal plosive occurs frequently but it is of less impotence in English. We use this symbol / for the glottal
stop sometimes asan alternative pronunciation for / p, t, k / in specific situations. Let’s look at each one in
detail.
Bilabial Plosives/Stops /p/, /b/ as initial sounds in pine and bite A bilabial plosive/ stop is made with both lips
(hence bilabial) held tightly enough to block the passage of air. To achieve this, the articulators involved move
together to make this closure, and this is termed the shutting (or 'approach') stage of the stop. The articulators
are then held closed for a period (about 40-150 ms), during which air pressure builds up behind the closure:
this is called the closure phase. During this closure stage there is, in fact, silence if the stop is voiceless /p/, or
the buzzing of the vibrating vocal folds if the stop is voiced /b/. Finally, when the articulators move apart, we
have the release stage, which is normally accompanied by the outrush of compressed air, which gives plosives
their characteristic 'popping' quality. This popping noise is often termed 'plosion', or the 'plosive burst'. This
may be taken as a fourth stage termed post-release stage (by Peter Roach). The velum is up in stop
articulations.
An alveolar plosive/ stop is made with the tongue in contact with the alveolar ridge located just behind the
upper teeth. It is held tightly enough to block the passage of air. The articulators are then held closed for a
period (about 40-150 ms), during which air pressure builds up behind the closure: this is called the closure
phase. During this closure stage there is, in fact, silence if the stop is voiceless /t/, or the buzzing of the
vibrating vocal folds if the stop is voiced /d/. Finally, when the articulators move apart, we have the release
stage, which is normally accompanied by the outrush of compressed air, which gives plosives their
characteristic 'popping' quality. This popping noise is often termed 'plosion', or the 'plosive burst'. It also
makes the fourth stage of the plosive articulation. The velum is up as it closes off the airstream passage for
releasing from the nasal cavity.
Velar Plosives/Stops
/k/ and /g/ as initial sounds in cat and gate A velar plosive/stop is made with the back part of the tongue in
contact with the soft palate or velum located just at back of the roof of mouth. It is held tightly enough to
block the passage of air. The articulators are then held closed for a period (about 40-150 ms), during which air
pressure builds up behind the closure: this is called the closure phase. During this closure stage there is, in fact,
silence if the stop is voiceless /k/, or the buzzing of the vibrating vocal folds if the stop is voiced /g/. Finally,
when the articulators move apart, we have the release stage, which is normally accompanied by the outrush of
the compressed air, which gives plosives their characteristic 'popping' quality. This popping noise is often
termed 'plosion', or the 'plosive burst'. It also makes the fourth stage of the plosive articulation. The velum is
up as it closes off the airstream passage for releasing from the nasal cavity.
The term stop may be defined so that it applies only to the prevention of air escaping through the mouth. But
it is commonly used to imply a complete stoppage of the airflow through both the nose and the mouth.
In the initial position no consonant precedes /b, d, g/ but /p, t, k/may be preceded by /s/ and in that case /they
are unaspirated. In the final position /b, d, g/ have little voicing, if there is voicing, it is at the beginning of the
compression phase.
Fortis and Lenis
Some phoneticians are of the view that the voiceless /p, t, k/ are produced with more force than /b, d, g/.
Therefore, / p, t, k/ are called fortis meaning strong and / b, d, g/ are called lenis meaning week. The preceding
vowel has a shortening effect especially long vowel and diphthong though the effect is also noticeable in short
vowel. The plosive phonemes are presented below:
Voicing Bilabial Alveolar
Velar Fortis Voiceless p t k Lenis Voiced b d g
When a sound such as /l, m, n / follows /p, k. t/ instead of a vowel, the effect of these continents is the same
as on vowels. They are considerably shortened. For example: melt // lump // bend /bend/ link
//
Nasal Stops If the air is stopped in the oral cavity but the soft palate is down so that the air can go out through
the nose, the sound produced is a nasal stop. Sounds of this kind occur at the beginning of the words my
(bilabial closure) and nigh (alveolar closure) and at the end of the word sang (velar closure). There are three
nasal stops in English.
Bilabial Nasal Stop
/m/ as initial sound in map The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken
languages. The bilabial nasal occurs in English, and it is the sound represented by /m/ in map and hem. It is
produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Because the consonant is nasal, the blocked airflow is
redirected through the nose. Its place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips. The
airstream is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively or in addition to partly going through the
mouth. The uniqueness of nasals is the fact that, during their articulation, the velum is lowered, allowing air to
exit through the nose.
Alveolar Nasal Stop
/n/ as initial sound in nose If the airstream is obstructed at alveolar instead of bilabial, /n/ is the result. The
slightly different shape of the oral cavity gives rise to a slightly different sound wave. It is articulated with
either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge. The air is allowed to escape through the
nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth. It is a voiced sound. It is a central
consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than
to the sides.
Velar Nasal Stop
/ŋ/ as the last sound in king The velar nasal stop is a frequently occurring sound in nglish (ng in the spelling,
e.g. singer, singing). This has the same place of articulation as /k/ and /g/, but the same manner of articulation
as/m/ and /n/, specified above. The symbol for this sound is /ŋ/. The airstream is held before velum and as this
is a nasal sound, so when the back of the tongue is removed from the velum, the airstream passes through the
nasal cavity. It is a voiced sound. Generally, the /ŋ/ is used for ng digraph in the end of the syllables and in the
word sing or as in the word nk as in bank   /. However, not all ng digraphs in the words have /ŋ/ sound
only. For example, in the word finger the ng digraph is pronounced /  as in  whereas in singer
 there is only /ŋ/. The reason is that finger is one morpheme the letters ‘er’ are not a morpheme,
whereas in singer there are two morphemes sing + er. It can be concluded that if the word contains ‘ng’ in the
spelling, /ŋ/ occurs at the end of a morpheme; if it occurs at the middle of the morpheme, it has a following
/g/. However, there are some exception which make the rule complicated. For example, the comparative and
superlative forms of long should not have /g/ after /ŋ/. However, the correct pronunciation of them is
 and  So it can be said that comparative or superlative degree consist of one morpheme.
Another distribution of /ŋ/ is that it follows the short vowels      never a long vowel or diphthong. In
case of ambiguity, a dictionary must be consulted. The /ŋ/ sound never occurs in the initial position.
Fricative Sounds
Fricatives are produced by an incomplete obstruction of the airstream. Instead of the complete
obstruction that produces the stops, the airstream is only partially obstructed, creating turbulent
friction beyond the constriction. The result is a hissing sound similar to the first sound you hear
coming from a whistling teapot. The consonants in five, van (labiodental), thin, that (dental), sip and
zip (alveolar), ship and last sound of rouge (alveolar) and hat (glottal) are examples of fricative
sounds. The higher-pitched sounds with a more obvious hiss, such as those in sigh, shy, are
sometimes called sibilants. Fricatives are continuant consonants as the speaker can continue making
them without interruption as long as he/she has enough air in the lungs. The production of fricative
takes the following steps: Make a long, hissing /s/ sound and gradually lower the tongue so that it is
no longer close to the roof of the mouth. The hissing sound will stop as the air passage gets larger.
Similarly, while making a long /f/ pull the lower lip away with your finger and check how instantly
the hissing sound stops.
The Oro-nasal Process
Consider the consonantal sounds at the ends of words ram, ran, rang. When you pronounce these
sounds (m, n, ng) by themselves (separately), you shall notice that the air is coming out through the
nasal cavity. In the formation of these sounds in sequence, the point of articulatory closure moves
forward, from velar in rang, through alveolar in ran, to bilabial in ram. Now, while producing these
sounds, you will notice that in each of these three sounds (m, n, ng), the air is prevented from going
out through the oral cavity but is able to go out through the nasal cavity. This is possible mainly
because the soft palate (or velum), is lowered and the air is passing through the nasal cavity. As most
of the speech sounds are oral, the soft palate is raised so that there is a velic closure. When it is
lowered and there is an obstruction in the mouth, we say that there is a nasal consonant. Lowering
or raising of the velum controls the oro-nasal process, the distinguishing factor between oral and
nasal sounds.
Accent Variation
As an introductory unit to the broader field of phonetics and phonology, this last section of the unit is
dedicated to one of the most important phenomena in the field, i.e., accent variation. ‘Accent’ is the typical
way people from a particular geographical area, country or social group pronounce words (speak differently).
A specific accent depends mostly on pronunciation of specific words or phrases used by a particular individual,
group, social or geographical community. Accents usually differ in the quality of voice, pronunciation of vowels
and consonants, and prosody (suprasegmental aspects). The accents of English exhibit great variation across
the areas where English is spoken as the first or the second language. Remember that today, we have so many
accents of nglish that the experts have started calling it rather nglishes (meaning that we don’t have any one
particular way on English accent). Imagine the distinctive features of English accents spoken in Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, the United States, Singapore, China and African countries and other parts of the world. Now
we have terms like Singlish (Singaporean English), Minglish (Malaysian English) or Pinglish (Pakistani English)
frequently used in the field of phonetics and phonology.
1. Systematic variation: where there are more or fewer phonemes found in a separate variety. For example,
northern English (spoken in the United Kingdom) lacks /ʌ/ sound found in words like STRUT. As a result, they
could not differentiate between the vowels in STRUT and FOOT.
2. Distributional variation: when two varieties have the same number of phonemes but they do not similarly
pronounce it. For example, the difference between rhotic (when /r/ sound is realized in all contexts) and non-
rhotic accents.
3. Lexical variation: when words are differently pronounced by different varieties. For example, the BATH
words (bath, path and dance) are pronounced in the way word CAT is spoken in Northern and Midland English
accents in the United Kingdom.
4. Realization variation: when certain phonemes are not equally realized by different varieties. For example,
the diphthongs in FACE and GOAT are spoken narrowly in accents like Scots, Irish, Welsh and Northern accent
but widely realized in Cockney, Australian and New Zealand accents of English.
Having discussed the features of accent variation, you should also remember that in Pakistani universities and
colleges the RP (Received Pronunciation) accent also known as BBC accent is used as a standard variety and
the same accent is appreciated in international educational institutions.
Phoneme, Allophone and Phone
There are various terms which are frequently used in phonetics and phonology. Speech sounds, when studied
individually, are given different technical terms and names in different contexts. They mainly include; phone,
phoneme and allophone. For better understanding, we need to distinguish among them.
Phonemes are basic building blocks which further develop the sound system of a language. This is simple.
Every language has a limited number of distinctive phonemes which are further used to form syllable, words
and sentences. For example, English (the RP accent) has 44 phonemes (both consonants and vowels) which
work as basic building blocks to form larger units such as syllables and phrases. There are many other ways to
define phonemes.
Let us explore few of them here so that you fully understand the concept of phoneme.
A phoneme is the smallest meaningful unit of sound (therefore, the smallest unit in phonology) in a language
and this meaningful unit of sound is one that will change one word into another word. For example, the
difference in both ‘light’ and ‘right’ (while studying speech, ignore spellings and focus on sounds) is the
difference of two sounds (l – r) which are different phonemes and they have the ability to change meaning.
Similarly, take another example of ‘cat’ vs ‘bat’ (the difference between sounds k – b here).
You can also think about difference among words such as BILL, TILL and PILL and between PILL and PAL. There
is only one phoneme different in the each of both sets of words making them different words and thereby
changing the meaning of the words. This is the basic quality of a phoneme to change meaning of words and
phrases.
More minutely, linguists have also defined phoneme as a group or class of sound events having common
patterns of articulation. If phoneme is a group then allophones are the group members. Let us discuss now
allophone.
An allophone is a definable systematic variant of a phoneme. Compare the following sets:
‘s’ sound in words like sill, still and spill or in words like seed, steed and speed (think about the difference in
various /s/ sounds found in these words as /s/ in seed is different from speed).
‘k’ sound in words like key and car.
‘t’ sound in words like true and tea.
‘n’ sound in words like tenth and ten.
If you carefully analyze these words, you should find that the specific sound is not exactly the same in each of
the given word examples above. But since these variants do not change meaning (and we simply take them as
alternate sounds), these are called allophones. In other words, an allophone is a variant of the same phoneme
in a given context.
A phone, on the other hand, is a sound (or a segment) which has some physical features. Phone is
comparatively a neutral word and this term is mostly used in a non-technical sense.
Now, to summarize this discussion:
 A phoneme is a (distinct) sound having the ability to change meaning.
 An allophone is the systematic variant of a phoneme. A single phoneme might have many allophones
(alternate sounds).
 Phone is a sound pattern having some (i.e., physical) features. A sound is, very simply, a spoken utterance.
Auditory Phonetics
Auditory phonetics deals with understanding that how human ear perceives sound and how the brain
recognizes different speech units. This branch of phonetics studies the perceptual response to speech sounds,
as mediated by ear, auditory nerve and brain. Hearing is defined as a series of vibrations and their moving as
waves through air and their touching of ear drums. The human ear is divided into three sections; outer, middle
and inner ear and their physiology is further explored in auditory phonetics. As a basic human faculty, ear is
capable of perceiving an extraordinary wide range of changes in loudness noticing tiniest audible sound.
This loudness is measured in decibels (dB) starting with softest possible sound for human ear of 1 dB size and
reaching the loudest possible with 140 dB (with painful hearing).
Auditory phonetics is a very less well-studied area of phonetics, mainly because of the difficulties encountered
as soon as one attempts to identify and measure psychological and neurological responses to speech sounds.
On the other hand, anatomical and physiological studies of the ear are well advanced, as are techniques for
the measurement of hearing, and the clinical use of such studies is now established under the headings of
audiology and audiometry.
But relatively little pure research has been done into the attributes of speech-sound sensation, seen as a
phonetic system, and the relationship between such phonetic analyses and phonological studies remains
obscure. The subject is closely related to studies of auditory perception within the domain of psycholinguistics.
Nowadays, phonetics is a multidisciplinary field and it also studies speech sounds in terms of general
linguistics, language development, dialectology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, anatomy, physiology,
developmental psychology, robotics and information processing. There are various other fields which are
newly emerging and take phonetics into account for detailed analysis such as instrumental phonetics, applied
research in speech technology, and theoretical and experimental phonetics.
3 The Emergence of Phonetics as a Branch of Linguistics
We have studied above that phonetics and phonology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the production,
physical nature, perception and distributional features of human speech sounds. Phonetics as a branch of
study has been explored for many centuries and even for millennia. As an ancient branch of knowledge,
phonetics and phonology has been a popular subject in the Sub-continent where it has been studied for more
than 2000 years. In early periods, phoneticians from then India (and now Pakistan) such as Panini were among
the pioneers of phonetic sciences who developed tremendous grammatical and articulatory features for
teaching and learning of pronunciation of Sanskrit and other ancient languages. Grammarian Panini belonged
to an area between the modern day Chota Lahore (Swabi) and Attock District and his methods of phonetic
explorations are still very effective and admired by modern scholars. During his period and subsequently, the
Greeks, the Egyptians and the Arabs also took interest in the learning and teaching of phonetics for their
religious and cultural activities. Similarly, the Buddhist and the Christian missionaries also developed manners
for their religious recitations and contributed to the studies of phonetics.
Dane J. Mattiahs, author of ‘De Litteris’ is considered as the first phonetician of the modern world who wrote
his notes on the topic in 1586. An English mathematician named John Wallis classified vowels according to
their place of articulation in 1653 whereas a German scholar, C.F. Hellwag invented the vowel triangle for the
description of vowel sounds in 1781. On similar lines, an Austrian expert phonetician, Wolfgang von Kempelen,
invented a speech sound machine for studying human speech sounds. After him, in 1863, a German physicist,
Hermann Helmholtz, started exploring the physical features of speech sounds (thus acoustic phonetics) and
wrote ‘Sensations of Tone’ in 1863. Subsequently, a Frenchman, Abbé Jean Pierre Rousselot, pioneered the
field of ‘experimental phonetics’.
In the beginning of the last century, a Polish linguist, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and a Swiss structuralist,
Ferdinand de Saussure advanced the theory of phoneme and contributed to the field of phonetics and
phonology. In 19th and 20th centuries, American linguists including Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield
were among the contributors who worked on phonetic theories and advanced the studies on phonetic
sciences. Roman Jacobson developed and highlighted the universal features of phonemic systems.
Phonetics and phonology, therefore, is one of the basic areas of linguistics emerging rapidly and covering many
fields and disciplines and creating many possibilities for research and exploration. The fundamental branches
of phonetics are introduced in the next section.
,
 as a discipline, is the scientific study of human speech sounds. It includes the understanding of how sounds
are articulated using the mouth, nose, teeth and tongue, and that how the ear hears those sounds and can tell
them separately. In phonetics, the physical properties (such as the wave form of each sound and its length
duration) can also be analyzed with the help of computer programs (e.g., PRAAT). There are three major types
of phonetic studies; articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics and auditory phonetics. Table 1.3 explains these
branches and shows the questions which each one of them addresses fundamentally, and very briefly defines
them as separate branches of phonetic studies.
In the first of these areas, when we study the production of speech sounds we can observe what speakers do
(articulatory observation) and we can try to feel what is going on inside our vocal tract (kinesthetic
observation).
The second area is where phonetics overlaps with phonology and where phoneticians are interested
evaluating the physical properties of sounds and where they are interested in discovering the range and
variety of similar sounds used in other languages of the world. This is also sometimes known as linguistic
phonetics. For recognizing various speech sounds and differentiating among them, there has always been a
need for agreed conventions for using phonetic symbols. The International Phonetic Association (IPA) has
played a very important role in doing this and has created charts for consonants, vowels and their special
properties.
Finally, the auditory aspect of speech is very important as the human ear is capable of making fine
discrimination between different sounds, so much so that sometimes it is not possible to define in articulatory
terms precisely what the difference is but we can still hear and note the difference.