The system of English sounds. Classification of sounds; The ph0neme. The system of English phonemes; Phonemes and allophones; The system of English consonants and vowels

Speech sounds may be looked upon as basic meaningful linguistic units, performing distinctive function in speech. these smallest contrastive units of the phonetic system, which help to recognize and distinguish words of the language are generally called phonemes. This functional view at the phonemes is described in the works of L.Bloomfield, N.S.Trubetzkoy, R.Jakobson. The phoneme can also be psychologically as an ideal sound (Baudouin de Courtenay), physically as a “family” of sounds (D.Jones) and as an “abstract” phenomenon. Scherba considered the phonemes to be a functional material and abstract unit.

The English language has undergone very striking changes dining the last thousands years, which have affected every aspect of the language. Today it is possible to abstract 24 consonants and 20 vowel phonemes (total 44).

Different phonetic realizations of a phoneme are known as its allophones. The all which do not undergo any distinguishable changes in the chain of speech are called principle (door, darn, down). If there are changes in articulation that occur under the influence of the neighboring sounds we call these all subsidiary. [d] is slightly palatalized before front vowels and the sonorant [j] (deal, day, did, did you). In the word final position it is voiceless (road, raised, old). Allophones don’t change meaning.

Consonants are distinctive units which are consonantal both in their function (they tend to be marginal in the syllable) and also in their articulation (their articulation involve the obstructions or narrowing which produce noise).

Vowel sounds have a distinctive syllabic function in English. Their qualitative distinctive features and their articulations are characterized by the absence of any obstruction or narrowing in the vocal tract and wide passages for the outgoing air. A caustically vowel are sounds of pure musical tone.

English consonants may be described and classified from different points of view:

· According to the manner of producing noise (non-sonorous – sonorous)

· According to the type of obstruction (occlusive – constrictive)

· According to the number of noise producing narrowing (unicentral – bicentral)

· According to the place of obstruction and the active organ of articulation (labial, bilabial, forelingual, predorsal dental, apical alveolar, cacuminal post-alveolar, mediolingual, dorsal palatal, backlingual dorsal velar)

· According to the work of the vocal cords (voiced – voiceless) – voices always lenis, week; voiceless always fortis, strong

· According to the degree of the muscular tension (fortis – lenis)

· According to the position of the soft palate (oral – nasal)

7 sonorants are always voiced: [m, n, l, w, r, j, ᵹ]

Occlusive plosive: phonemes fall into 3 contrastive groups: bilabial [p, b], forelingual apical alveolar [t, d], backlingual dorsal velar [k, g]. [p, t, k] – voiceless 2 fortis. [b, d, g] – voiced and lenis.

Constrictive fricative is the largest group in the system of English consonants. It consists of 4 pairs of voiced and voiceless phonemes formed within the mouth cavity and 1 voiceless phoneme which is articulated in the larynx outride the mouth cavity.

Labio-dental [f, v], f – fortis, v – lenis.

Unicentral [θ, ð] and [s, z] – predorsal interdental forelingual flat narrowing and forelingual apical alveolar round narrowing

Forelingual [ʃ, ᵹ] are bicentrical. The primary apical alveolar articulation is accompanied by a secondary place at articulation: the middle part of the tongue is raised to the hard palate forming a narrow resonator®a shade of palatalization.

Constrictive sonorous: bilabial [w], post-alveolar cacuminal [r], apical-alveolar [l] and dorsal palatal [j].

The lateral phoneme [l] occurs in speech in 3 main allophones:

· Clear [l] before vowels and [j] – Lily

· Dark [l] in a word-final position and before a consonant – dull

· Partially devoiced [l] following voiceless non-sonorous consonant mostly [p, k, t] – play, clean, butler

The most important principles of vowel classification:

· Stability of articulation (monophtongs, diphthongs, diphthongoids)

· Tongue position: the position of the bulk of the tongue (front, front-retracted, central, back-advanced, back) and the height of the raised part of the tongue (high, low, middle)

· Length (short, long)

· Lip position (neutral, spread, rounded)

20 vowels: 12 monophthongs (long [i:, a:, ͻ:, u:, ɜ:] and short [I, e, o, ʌ, u, ə] and 8 diphthongs ([ei, au, iə, uə, oi, ci, eə, əi]).

i: - front, high i – front-retracted, high ɜ: – central, mid u – back-advanced, high

e – front, mid iə - front-retracted, high ə – central, mid uə – back-advanced, high

æ – front, low ai – front-retracted, low əu – central, mid a: – back-advanced, high

eə - front, mid (air) au – front-retracted, low ʌ – central, low u: – back, high

ei – front, mid ͻ: – back, mid

o – back, low

oi – back, low

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