Lecture 9

Aspects of Connected Speech

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Mrs. Hind Al-Beladi

SPEECH

MECHANICAL

CONNECTED

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Why shall we study aspects of connected speech?

Oral Speech is a continuous stream of sounds without clear-cut borderlines between each word. In spoken discourse, we adapt our pronunciation to our audience and articulate with maximal economy of movement rather than maximal clarity. Thus, certain words are lost, and certain phonemes linked together as we attempt to get our message across.

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Aspects of Connected Speech

Weak Forms Rythm Elision Linking Assimilation intonation

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Weak forms
When we talk about weak forms in the phonetics of English this regards a series of words which have one pronunciation (strong) when isolated, and another (weak) when not stressed within a phrase. e.g. It is his car v. /z/

The car is his. /hiz/

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There is a tendency for vowels in unstressed syllables to shift towards the schwa (central position)

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Weak form are commonly used words

Prepositions (at) Auxiliary verbs (must) Conjunctions (and) Pronouns (his) Articles (the) Qualfiers (as)
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Look at this phrase: I went to the station and booked two tickets for my father and his best friend.

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What are the most important words?

I went to the station and booked two tickets for my father and his best friend.

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If we eliminate the other words can we still understand the message?

went tickets station father booked best two friend.

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Weak=unstressed
In the following sentences the underlined words are stressed and so would be pronounced using the strong form: I do like chocolate. She drove to Las Vegas, not from Las Vegas. We were surprised when she told us her secret. (stress on were for emphasis)
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Assimilation

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What is assimilation?
A phoneme might be released according to the effect of neighboring words. In other words, a phoneme may be realized differently as a result of being near some other phoneme belonging to a neighboring word we call this an instance of assimilation.
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Definition:
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary).

Example:

A common example of assimilation would be "don't be silly" where the /n/ and /t/ in "don't" become /m/ and /b/= ("dom be silly").

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Where does assimilation appear?

Assimilation is more likely to be found in rapid, casual speech and less likely in slow, careful speech.

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 consider case where two words are combined, the first of which ends with a single final constant ( which we will call C ) and the second of which starts with a single initial consonant ( which we will call C ); we can construct a diagram like this: .Cf | Ci. |= the word boundary
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TYPES OF ASSIMILATION

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 If Cf changes to become like Ci in some way, then the assimilation is called regressive (the phoneme that comes first is affected by the one that comes after it); if Ci changes to become like Cf in some way, then the assimilation is called progressive.
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The main differences between consonants are of three types:

1) differences in place of articulation; 2) difference in manner of articulation; 3) differences in voicing.

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Assimilation of Place
The most common form involves the movement of place of articulation of the alveolar stops /t/, /d/ and /n/ to a position closer to that of the following sound (WHICH IS NOT ALVEOLAR).

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Assimilation of Place
For instance, in the phrase ten cars, the /n/ will usually be articulated in a velar position, /teN ka:z/ so that the tongue will be ready to produce the following velar sound /k/.

Similarly, in ten boys the /n/ will be produced in a bilabial position, /tem boIz/ to prepare for the articulation of the bilabial /b/.

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BEFORE A VELAR (/k/, /g/) /ng/ /n/

e.g. bank = /baNk/ /d/

/t/

/g/
/k/

e.g. good girl = /gug g3:l/

e.g. that kid = /thak kid/

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BEFORE A BILABIAL (/m/, /b/, /p/) /n/ /m/ e.g. ten men /tem men/ /d/

/b/

e.g. bad boys /bab boiz/ /t/

/p/

e.g. hot mushrooms /hop muSru:mz/

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Elision
Elision is very simply the omission of certain sounds in

certain contexts. In certain circumstances a phoneme may be released as ZERO, or have ZERO REALIZATION or be DELETED. Elision is typical of rapid, casual speech. The most important occurrences of this phenomenon regard:
1 Alveolar consonants /t/ and /d/ when sandwiched between two consonants (CONS t/d CONS), e.g.
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The next day.

The last car Hold the dog! Send Frank a card.

/neksde/
/ la:ska:/ / hldg/ /senfrnkka:d/

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Elision of not
The phoneme /t/ is a fundamental part of the negative particle not. Consider the negative of can if followed by a consonant the /t/ may easily disappear and the only difference between the positive and the negative is a different, longer vowel sound in the second:

+ I can speak.
- I cant speak

/ai kn spi:k/
/ai ka:nspi:k/

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Intonation
IT IS the rise and fall of the pitch
of sound in speaking.

The function of intonation is to

express attitude, feeling or emotion

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WHAT IS A TONE?
IT IS the use of pitch in language

to distinguish words.

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TONES
BASIC
1. level tone 2. Falling tone 3. Rising tone
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COMPLEX
1. Fall-rise tones 2. Rise- fall tones 3. Level tones
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