Reduction

Reduction is a historical process of weakening, shortening or disappearance of vowel sounds in unstressed positions.

The neutral represents the reduced form of almost any vowel or diphthong in the stressed position

The vowel sounds of the two related words are in contrast because of different stress positions.

There is also a tendency to retain the quality of the unstressed vowel sound.

Non-reduced unstressed sounds are often retained in:

· Compound words

· Borrowing from the French and other languages.

Reduction is closely connected not only with word stress but also with rhythm and sentence stress. Stressed words are pronounced with great energy of breath. Regular loss of sentence stress of certain words is connected with partial or complete loss of their lexical significance. These words play the part of form-words in a sentence.

So reduction is realized:

· In unstressed syllables within words

· In unstressed form-words, auxiliary and modal verbs, personal and possessive pronouns within intonation groups and phrases

Three different types of reduction are noticed in English.

ü Quantitative reduction, shortening of a vowel sound in the unstressed position, affects mainly long vowels

ü Qualitative reduction, obscuration of vowels towards, affects both long and short vowels

Vowels in unstressed form-words in most cases undergo both quantitative and qualitative reduction

ü The third type is the elision of vowels in the unstressed position

Direct Adress

Direct Adress at the beginning of the sentence.

Direct address at the beginning of the sentence is stressed. It is pronounced with the low-fall in formal serious speech and with the fall-rise to attract the listener’s attention or in friendly conversation.

Direct Adress in the Middle or at the End of the Sentence.

Direct address in the middle or at the end of the sentence is pronounced as the unstressed or half-stressed tail of the preceding intonation group. After the low-falling nucleus it can also be pronounced with the low-rising tone.

Parentheses

Parentheses at the beginning of the sentence

When the speaker doesn’t attach any importance to the parenthetical words at all they do not form a separate intonation-group and are often unstressed and are pronounced very quickly.

If the speaker attaches more importance to parentheses they form an intonation-group. In this case they are stressed and are pronounced with any nuclear tone:

Low Fall, Low Rise, Mid-Level or Fall Rise

Поиск по сайту: