ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

Lucia Lasić
Igor Najdert
Martina Pucelj
INTRODUCTION
 Speaker – language relationship

 English Renaissance

 Major changes in vowel sounds

THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT
CHANGES IN CONONANTS
 X - technically a “voiceless velar fricative”,
pronounced as in the “ch” of loch or Bach -
disappeared from English, and the Old English
word burX (place), for example, was replaced
with “-burgh”, “-borough”, “-brough” or “-bury” in
many place names.
 voiceless fricatives began to be pronounced like
an “f” (e.g. laugh, cough).
 Many other consonants ceased to be pronounced
at all (e.g. the final “b” in words
like dumb and comb; the “l” between some vowels
and consonants such as half, walk, talk and folk;
the initial “k” or “g” in words
like knee, knight, gnaw and gnat; etc).
AREAS OF SOUND AND SPELLING
INCONSISTENCIES:

 The same letter does not always represent the

same sound.
 The same sound is not always represented by the
same letter.
 Some letters are not pronounced at all

 We pronounce sounds in some places where there

is no letter
 There are variants of the plural and past tense
morpheme: (s/es) /s, z, Iz /; (ed) /d, Id, t/
1. SAME LETTER DIFFERENT SOUND
 The letter g
 /g/ as in guess, guy, got, guide, gross, etc.
 /dʒ / as in age, agenda, large, huge, etc.

 The letter s
 /s/ as in sat, sing, socks,
 /z/ as in busy, cousin, easy
 /∫/ as in mission, sure, sugar
 / ʒ /as in vision, measure, leisure, usual
 The letter u
 /u/ as in put, bull, sugar
 /aI/ as in buy, guy
 /ә/ as in succeed, suspect
 /∧/ as in luck, such, study
 /uә/ as in jury, rural
 The letter a
 /æ/ as in hand, match
 /a: / as in ask, part, laugh
 /ɒ/ as in was, want, wash
 / / as in tall, all, walk
 /e/ as in any, many
 /I/ as in village, private, baggage
2. SAME SOUND DIFFERENT LETTERS
 The velar plosive /k/
 k - keen, speaker, peak, keg
 c - cut, cap, act, cattle
 cc - occasion, according
 ch - chemist, stomach
 ck - pack, back, black
 The sound /e/
 a - many, any
 ai - said, again
 e - end send, let, get
 ea - dead, spread, health
 eo - leopard, Leonard
 ie - friend
 ue - guess, guest
 The diphthong /aI/
 ai - aisle
 ei - height, neither
 eye - eye
 i - lime, site, silence
 ie - die, cried, lie
 uy - buy, guy
 y - try, my, shy
 ye - bye, dye
 ry - rhyme
3. SILENT LETTERS
 Silent B as in: limb, thumb, comb, subtle, doubt,
dumb
 Silent C as in: muscle, scene, science

 Silent H as in: hour, honest, honour, heir, vehicle,

ghost
 Silent K as in: know, knit, knock, knight, knee,
knife
4. INSERTING SOUND WHERE THERE IS NO
SOUND

 /j/ is pronounced before u

 Use /ju:z/ Cute /kju:t/
 Beauty /bju:ti/ Cube /kju:b/
 /w/ is inserted before the letter o
 one, once
 /k/ is an extra sound inserted before s
 Accept /әksept/ Accident /æksident/
5. VARIANTS OF THE PLURAL AND PAST TENSE
MORPHEME

/s/ /z/ /IZ/

Cats /kæts/ dogs /dɒgz/ houses
/hauzIz/
Books /buks/ cows /kauz/ rushes /r∫Iz /
/d/ /t/ /ld/
Played /pleId/ faced /feist/ handed
/hædId/
Begged /begd/ looked /lukt/ painted
/peIntId/
OTHER POSSIBILITIES
 Misspronunciation (gover(n)ment, vu(l)nerable)
 Not understanding the parts of speech
 Spell checker and predictive text

 Should we write as we speak?

 Girl/gurl/goil
 https://nerdist.com/video-inconsistent-english-
phonetically/