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Accommodation of consonants.



Pronounced in a stream of speech, sounds are far from having their ideal phonetic representation. What the speaker actually pronounces are allophones, which represent modified variants of phonemes, - the result of the influence exercised by the neighbouring sounds. Accommodation is the process of adapting of a consonant sound to a vowel sound. Cf.:

 

/ t /in ‘teeth ‘ is pronounced with spread lips,

in ‘tooth ‘- with rounded lips,

in ‘eighth’ - has dental quality,

in ‘cotton’ - loses its aspiration,

 

Such modifications are hardly noticeable to the speaker or the listener since they occur on the level of irrelevant phonemic features.

 


Chapter Six: Accentuation, stress and rhythm

Rhythmic beat.

 

When the speaker makes some parts of his utterance prominent and others - not, it leads to the compression of unstressed syllables, which tend to be pronounced with more or less equal periods of time between prominent stresses. What the listener perceives is a regular secession of prominent syllables which helps him interpret the whole message. Arranging prominent syllables in a certain order is a specific feature of English intonation. Only fluent speaker can do that while avoiding jerky stops and starts, and even pauses.

The rhythmic beat provides a necessary structure for the utterance, thus giving listeners clues to interpret the message. Speech full of jerky stops and starts and uneven pauses is hard to understand. Fluent speakers while pronouncing long utterance at one breath make use of 2-3 stress rhythmic pattern thus reducing the number of fully stressed lexical items. Cf.:

(a) It amounts to an environmental diSAster.

(b) It’ll result in the devastation of our cities and TOWNS.

 

The rhythm of English is based on the contrast of stressed and unstressed syllables. The rhythmic beat consists of fully stressed syllables which tend to occur at roughly equal intervals of time. Unstressed syllables (proclitics), preceding the prominent one, are found in so-called ‘weak’ position, whereas unstressed syllables (enclitics), following the prominent stress, are in ‘strong’ position. That means that proclitics are pronounced quicker than enclitics, which is revealed in higher degree of compression (leading to reduction and elision). Cf.:

(c)We need to impose reSTRICtion + on their manufacture and USE.

...ni:d tə mpəυz ..... onðə menjəfæktfə ...

 

Due to the same rhythmic patterning content words may lose their sentence stress while retaining their full quality pronunciation. Cf.:

(d) We simply can’t /kant/ TOlerate

(f) We need to impose /ımpəυz/ reSTRICTions.

(g) It brings /brıŋz/ devastation and deSTRUCtion.

(h) ... an architecturally pleasing /pli:zıŋ/ CAR park ...

Again, due to the same rhythmic patterning non-lexical items may gain rhythmic stress because with native speakers there is a tendency to pronounce stressed and unstressed parts in turns. Cf.:

He opened the DOOR + and walked straight IN.

 

The length of a stressed vowel in a rhythmic group depends upon the number of unstressed syllables following it. The longest pronunciation has a one syllable rhythmic group. Cf.: ANN + went aBROAD.

The rhythmic structure of a language fully realizes in poetry. The basic rhythm unit in verse is a line which orderly arranged. Cf.:

 

(j) A conscious slumber seems to take

And would not, for the world, awake.

 

(k) There the traveller meets aghast

Sheeted Memories of the Past.

 

Rhythmic structure of a descriptive text differs from that of a discourse. Rhythmic groups in a text are arranged in a kind of descending steps with nuclear rhythmic unit having the tone (rising or falling) and intensity maximum. The number of rhythmic stresses in a tone group varies from 3 to 4. Cf.:

 

(l) Every effort is made to clean the house from top to BOttom.

 

Rhythmic structure of utterance taken from a discourse has a rich variety and rhythm changes considerably within a single stretch of speech. Rhythmic groups tend to be short and the number of rhythmic units doesn’t exceed 2-3. Cf.:

 

(m) - “We’re going + very slowly as it is”

(n) - “Can’t you just see the sign?”

 

 

 




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