Connected Speech Flashcards
What is rhythm?
Some noticeable event occurring at regular intervals
What is English sometimes referred to in respect to rhythm?
Stress timed
How often do stressed syllables occur?
At relatively regular intervals
What does syllable timed mean?
That syllables tend to occur at regular time intervals
What is a foot?
A unit of rhythm, which begins with a stressed syllable and includes all following syllables up to (but not including) the next stressed syllable.
What do tree diagrams show?
The relationship between strong and weak elements and the different levels of stress
Metrical grids: what does English speech tend towards?
A rhythmic alternation of strong and weak syllables
What is stress shift?
Occurs to maintain a s-w patterns, altered according to context e.g thir’teen but ‘thirteenth ‘place
Does the rhythm of English speech vary?
Varies on a continuum between stress-timing and arhythmicality
Is stress-timing real?
Studies of natural speech have shown that so-called stress-timed languages do not differ considerably from so-called syllable-timed languages. Could be psychological due to e.g. nursery rhymes
What is assimilation?
When a phoneme is realised differently due to context - “sounds become more similar”
When is assimilation likely to occur?
More likely to be found in rapid, casual speech, and in English usually affects more consonants at word boundaries
What is regressive assimilation?
Cf may change to be more like Ci in some way
What is progressive assimilation?
Ci may change to be more like Cf
What three ways can consonants change in assimilation?
Place of articulation, manner of articulation, voicing
What is assimilation of place?
Place of articulation changes - alveolar consonants are highly susceptible to regressive assimilation
e.g. light blue /laɪt blu:/ -> /laɪp blu:/
What is assimilation of manner (regressive)?
A final plosive may be realised as a fricative or nasal, usually regressive
e.g. that side /ðæt saɪd/ -> /ðæs saɪd/
What is assimilation of manner (progressive)?
With words beginning with /ð/, we sometimes get progressive assimilation
e.g. in the /ɪn ðə/ -> /ɪnnə/
What is assimilation of voice (phoneme theory)?
Only regressive, if Cf is lenis and Ci is fortis, the lenis consonant has little voicing
e.g. of course /əv kɔ:s/ -> /əf kɔ:rs/
What is coalescence?
When two neighbouring sounds merge into a single sound that has properties of the two original sounds (Betancourt y Galiffa, 2009)
When may coalescence occur?
When an alveolar consonant is followed by a palatal consonant (e.g. /j/)
e.g. tuesday /’tju:zdei/ -> /tʃu:zdeɪ/
What is elision?
Under certain circumstances, sounds disappear, the sound is said to have zero realisation
e.g. 1) loss of weak vowels after /p t k/ potato = /p’teɪtəʊ/
2) alveolar consonants tend to disappear where it’s the same voicing as the preceding consonant
= scripts /skrɪpts/ -> /skrɪps/
What is linking/ sandhi /r/?
Words that historically finish in /r/ (as evidenced by [r] in the spelling), may be pronounced with [r] when closely followed by a morpheme beginning with a vowel sound (e.g. tuner amp). This is the case even though ‘tuner’ would not normally be pronounced with an [r]
What is intrusive [r]?
Where words like ‘saw’ or ‘idea’ come before a vowel and [r] sound is inserted, even though [r] was never historically a part of the word
What is the definition of juncture?
The relationship between one sound and the surrounding sounds
What is close juncture?
Movement from sound to sound with no pauses or delay
e.g. train, blame, bright
What is open juncture?
Movement between sounds which is not continuous
e.g. new deal -> nude eel
night rate -> nitrate
