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Phonetics and Phonology of English - Full Text For BA English-1

This document provides an overview of the course "Phonetics and Phonology of English". The course is divided into 6 units covering topics such as the production and description of English sounds, classifications of vowels and consonants, the phoneme concept, syllable structure, stress and intonation. It aims to teach students the phonetic and phonological principles needed for effective English language teaching and learning, with a focus on spoken English. The course introduction welcomes students and explains the organization of the units and sections to help students understand the scope and content of the course.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)

2K views145 pages

Phonetics and Phonology of English - Full Text For BA English-1

Uploaded by

Victor Owusu

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COURSE CODE: ENG 112D

COURSE TITLE: PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF ENGLISH

AUTHORS: CYNTHIA LOGOGYE (MPhil) (Units 2, 5, 6) &
LAWRENCE EWUSI-MENSAH (MPhil) (Units1, 3, 4)

i
UNIT 1 THE NATURE OF ENGLISH PHONETIC SOUNDS

INTRODUCTION
SECTION 1 SOUNDS IN PRODUCTION, TRANSMISSION AND PERCEPTION

Production of Speech Sounds

Transmission of Speech Sounds

Perception of Speech Sounds

SECTION 2 SOUNDS AS PHONETIC UNITS

What are Speech Sounds?

Speech Sounds as Phonetic Units

Representation and Description of Speech Sounds as Phonetic Units

SECTION 3 THE SPEECH ORGANS

Speech Organs involved in Speech Production

A Diagram of the Speech Organs

SECTION 4 DESCRIPTIONS OF SPEECH ORGANS

The Speech Organs and their Description

SECTION 5 FUNCTIONS OF SPEECH ORGANS

Speech Organs and their Functions

SECTION 6 THE AIRSTREAM MECHANISM

What is airstream Mechanism?

Types of Airstream Mechanism

i
ii
UNIT 2 CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF ENGLISH
SPEECH SOUNDS

INTRODUCTION
SECTION 1 VOWELS

Nature of vowel Sounds

The pure Vowels/Monophthongs

SECTION 2 CLASSIFICATION OF VOWELS

Criteria for Vowel Classification

Diphthongs

Triphthongs

SECTION 3 CONSONANTS

Nature of Consonant Sounds

Differences between Vowels and Consonants

SECTION 4 CLASSIFICATION OF CONSONANTS

Factors for Consonant Classification

Plosives

Fricatives

Affricates

Nasals

Liquids

Semi-glides/vowels

ii
iii
UNIT 3 INTRODUCTION TO PHONOLOGY
INTRODUCTION

SECTION 1 THE PHONEME CONCEPT

What Phonology is

Relationship between phonology and phonetics

The Phonemic System of English

What is a Phoneme?

Features of Phonemes

Phones and Allophones

Features of allophones

SECTION 2 IDENTIFICATION OF ENGLISH PHONEMES: MINIMAL PAIRS

AND SETS

Units of Sounds

Minimal pairs

Minimal Sets

Free Variation

SECTION 3 IDENTIFICATION OF ENGLISH PHONEMES: COMPLEMENTARY

AND CONTRASTIVE DISTRIBUTION OF SOUNDS

Phonemic Environment

Complementary Distribution of sounds

Contrastive Distribution of Sounds

SECTION 4 PROCESSES OF PHONEMIC PATTERNING

Phonemic Patterning in English

Permissible and Non-permissible Phonemic Patterning in English

iii

iv
Some Phonological Rules in Phonemic Patterning

Problem Areas of Ghanaian Speakers of English

SECTION 5 PHONOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS IN ENGLISH

What are Phonological/Phonotactic Constraints?

Accidental and Systemic gaps

Onset Phonotactics in English

Coda Phonotactics in English

Peak/ Nucleus phonotactics in English

UNIT 4 INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH SYLLABLE

INTRODUCTION

SECTION 1 DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SYLLABLE

What is a syllable?

Constituents of the Syllable

Characteristics of the Syllable

Phonetic Syllable and Orthographic Syllable

Some Rules for Orthographic Syllable Division

SECTION 2 THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH SYLLABLE

Nature of the English Syllable

The Onset Phonotactics in English

The Coda Phonotactics in English

SECTION 3 TYPES OF SYLLABLES IN ENGLISH

Syllable Types in English

Open Syllable

Closed Syllable

v
Differences between Open and Closed Syllables

SECTION 4 STRONG AND WEAK SYLLABLES IN ENGLISH

Strong Syllable in English

Weak Syllable in English

Syllabic Consonants

SECTION 5 SYLLABIFICATION IN ENGLISH

What is Syllabification?

Syllable Division Rules in English

Processes of Syllabification

Syllabification in Monosyllables in English

Syllabification in Disyllables in English

Syllabification in Polysyllables in English

UNIT 5 STRESS, ACCENT AND INTONATION IN ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION

SECTION 1 STRESS AND ITS TYPES

What is Stress?
Word Stress
Levels of Stress
Types of Word Stress
Primary Stress
Stress in Verbs
Secondary Stress
Stress in Polysyllabic Words
Word stress in Three Syllable Words
vi
SECTION 2 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A STRESSED SYLLABLE AND
GUIDELINES FOR STRESS PLACEMENT

Characteristics of as a Stressed Syllable

Guidelines for Determining Stress Placement

SECTION 3 FUNCTIONS OF STRESS IN ENGLISH

Stress and its Functions

Accent and Stress in English

SECTION 4 INTONATION TYPES

Intonation

Kinds of Intonation Patterns

Uses of the Falling Tune

Uses of the Rising Tune

SECTION 5 FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION

What Function does Intonation Play?

Grammatical function

Attitudinal Function

vii
UNIT 6 PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION

SECTION 1 ASSIMILATION AND ITS SCOPE

What Assimilation is

Scope of Assimilatory changes

Assimilation Affecting consonants

Assimilation involving Manner of Articulation

Assimilation involving Voice

SECTION 2 DIRECTION OF ASSIMILATORY CHANGES

Types of Direction of Assimilation

Regressive/Anticipatory Assimilation

Progressive Assimilation

SECTION 3 PHONOLOGICAL CONDITIONED ENDINGS OF WORDS

Past Tense Marker [-ed]

Pronunciation of the Plural Marker [-s]

Pronunciation of the 3rd Person Singular Forms of Verbs

SECTION 4 LINKING SOUNDS

Linking Sounds Explained

viii
COURSE INTRODUCTION
Dear student, we welcome you to the course Phonetics and Phonology of English. This course is
specially designed to introduce you to the production and description of English sounds and
English sound patterns. The course will also take you through some of the phonological
processes that English speech sounds undergo in the company of other sounds in same or
different phonological environments. This course, therefore, presents both phonetic and
phonological principles that you will need for effective teaching and learning of English
language.

English language has become an invaluable medium through which we communicate; and
without it, life in general will be difficult. It is, therefore, not surprising that the English
Language has become a world language.

In second cycle institutions in Ghana, speech practice is an integral part of the English
curriculum and your ability to grasp the phonetic and phonological concepts discussed in this
course, will position you well for the teaching and learning of English with a focus on spoken
English.

The course is divided into six units, with each unit further divided into sections. Unit one is
divided into six sections. These sections discuss the nature of the English phonetic sounds with a
focus on sound production, transmission and perception, the speech organs, and the airstream
mechanism.

Unit two has four sections. Sections one and two discuss the English vowels and their
classifications. In sections three and four we discuss the English consonants with a focus on
plosives and fricatives, nasals, affricates, lateral and approximants.

In unit three, there are five sections. The first section discusses the phoneme concept. Sections
two and three, further, talk about the identification of English phonetic units with a critical look
at minimal pairs and sets on one hand and complementary and contrastive distribution of English
phonetic units on the other hand. Section four treats the phonemic patterning processes in
English, and the last section of this unit discusses the phonological constraints in English.

Unit four is also divided into five sections. The unit introduces the English syllable. Section one
deals with definition and description of the syllable. The second section treats the structure of the
English syllable whereas the third section treats the types of syllables in English with a focus on
open and close types. Weak and strong syllable types in English are dealt with in the fourth
section of this unit. Section five of this unit talks about syllabification in English.

Unit five is broken down into five sections. Section one takes a look at the types of stress. Whilst
section two of this unit discusses the characteristics of stressed syllable and guidelines for stress

1
placement in English, sections three and four discuss functions of stress and intonation types in
English. The fifth section treats functions of intonation in English.

Unit six is also divided into four sections. The first and second sections discuss assimilation and
its scope and direction of assimilatory changes in the phonological processes in the English
language respectively. Phonological conditioning in English is well treated in section four and in
section five, linking sounds is given in-depth discussion.

By the end of the course, dear learner, you will be able to:

 Explain how phonetic sounds of English are produced, transmitted and perceived.
 Identify and describe the functions of the speech organs
 Explain the phoneme concept, phonetic units, phonemic patterning and phonological
constraints in English
 Identify the structure and types of syllables in English
 Identify the types of stress, accent and intonation in English and their functions
 Identify and describe the various phonological processes in English.

2
UNIT 1 – THE NATURE OF ENGLISH PHONETIC SOUNDS
INTRODUCTION

Dear Student, welcome to the first unit of this course. This unit aims at presenting information
about speech sounds and how they are used in language. The information presented in this unit is
necessary for anyone who needs to understand the principles regulating the production,
transmission, perception and the general use of sounds in spoken English. The unit will
specifically examine sounds as phonetic units, and further discuss the speech organs, their
descriptions and functions, and the airstream mechanism. We believe you will find this unit
invaluable in your attempt to learning and understanding the nature of English phonetic sounds.
This unit promises to be interesting, informative and insightful. We invite you to stay with us.

UNIT OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you will be able to:

 Explain how phonetic sounds are produced, transmitted and perceived.

 Describe sounds as phonetic units.
 Identify the speech organs involved in speech production.
 Describe the speech organs used in speech production.
 State the functions of speech organs.
 Describe the airstream mechanism.

3
SECTION 1: SOUNDS IN PRODUCTION, TRANSMISSION AND
PERCEPTION

INTRODUCTION
Hello student, welcome to section one of Unit 1. In this section, we are going to discuss how
speech sounds are produced, transmitted and perceived. The study of speech sounds has been the
main focus of linguistic investigation since 20th century, and as language students, we cannot
remain unaffected by this development. The discussion in this section will enable you to explain
some basic terms as far as sound production, transmission and reception are concerned. We
believe you will find this section very interesting and beneficial, so get ready and let begin our
discussion of the concepts in this section.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Explain how speech sounds are produced.
 Describe how speech sounds are transmitted.
 Describe how speech sounds are perceived.

 Production of Speech Sounds

Sounds are noises or any audible representation, and they are made when the air around us is
disturbed, thereby creating sound waves that are transmitted in the air. As human beings, we are
capable of making all kinds of sounds, but only some of these sounds have become units in the
language system. The study of speech sounds is termed as Phonetics. It must be noted that
speech sounds are produced by the human organs of speech, transmitted through the air,
and received by the human ear. The information conveyed by the sounds and prosodic features is
then sent to the human brain, where its meaning is interpreted.

We can analyze speech sounds from various perspectives and the two major areas of study
are phonetics and phonology. Let’s take a look at the area of phonetics. It studies how speech
sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived. Imagine that a speech sound is articulated by a
Speaker A. It is then transmitted to and perceived by a Listener B. We realise that the speech
sound goes through a three-step process: production, transmission and reception.

Naturally, the study of sounds is divided into three main areas: articulatory, acoustic and
auditory phonetics. Articulatory Phonetics is the study of the production of speech sounds. It
looks at how the various organs such as the lungs, the bronchi, the trachea, the larynx, the vocal
cords, or vocal folds (in the trachea), the pharynx, the mouth etc work together to produce
human speech sounds. Acoustic Phonetics is the field of phonetics that is concerned with the
physical properties of the speech sounds once they have been produced. The Auditory Phonetics,
on the other hand, is the branch of phonetics that studies speech sounds from the view point of

4
the listener. We shall explain both the Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics under sound and
perception at the latter part of this section. Now, let’s focus our attention on Articulatory
phonetics with respect to speech sound production.

All speech sounds are the result of some form of modification or obstruction to a stream of
air in the upper respiratory tract. Such modifications are more prominent in the production of
consonants than vowels. We also learn that depending upon where in the vocal cords such
modification occurs, and the nature of the modification, a different speech sound may be
produced. In order to vividly describe speech sounds, we need to have knowledge of the exact
place and manner of speech production.

The stream of air escapes from the lungs and passes along the vocal tract – the larynx, the
pharynx, the oral or nasal cavity. The air pressure built up in the vocal cords makes them vibrate.
Vibrations are transmitted by the stream of air to reach the human ear, carried to the brain and
perceived by a person as voice. The process of voice production is called phonation.

Due to their coordinated movements and particular positions, the human speech organs
can produce different sound effects. This process is called articulation. For each sound, the
position of the speech organs is changed; consequently, the shape and the size of the
pharynx and the oral cavity are changed; as a result, we produce different speech sounds.

 Transmission of Speech Sounds

Speech sounds move from one source to another. The area of phonetics which studies the
physical properties of speech sounds is termed as Acoustic Phonetics. The acoustics of speech
studies the physical properties of air waves produced through movements of the vocal
organs, especially through vibrations of the vocal folds. These properties are frequency,
amplitude, intensity, duration and spectrum. Let us explain these properties.

 Frequency is the rate of variation in air pressure in a sound. It is the number of

movements of air particles per second measured in hertz. The basic frequency is called
the fundamental frequency (Fo).
 Amplitude is the distance between the rest point and the top or bottom point of a
wave within which air particles move. It is the height of a waveform and it indicates
the strength or loudness of sound. Amplitude affects a sound’s intensity.
 Intensity refers to the amount of acoustic energy present in a sound.
 Duration also refers to the length of time that a sound lasts or travels.
 Spectrum is the graphic representation of a complex waveform showing the fundamental
frequency, the individual harmonics, as well as the amplitudes of each of these.

5
The acoustics of speech is a physical process of transmission of sound through the air. It
should be noted that the human brain identifies sounds of speech in terms of auditory qualities
(physiology and psychology) rather than acoustic properties (physics). Let us now look at the
auditory aspect of speech and consider its properties.

 Perception of Speech Sounds

The branch of phonetics that studies how speech sounds are perceived is termed Auditory
phonetics. It has already been said that what we perceive as voice exists in the form of pressure
waves made by vibrations of particles of air. A wave passes along the external auditory canal of
the human ear and reaches the eardrum. The eardrum turns vibrations into mechanical
movement, which is transmitted to the human brain. The mechanism of sound perception
involves complex physiological and psychological processes.

There is a correlation between acoustic properties of speech and auditory qualities

perceived by a person:

 Frequency is perceived as pitch of voice. Pitch is the auditory property of sound that
allows a listener to place it on a scale going from low to high. On the auditory level,
frequency of a pure tone is perceived as pitch; the higher the frequency of a sound, the
higher pitch the human brain perceives.
 Intensity is also perceived as loudness. Loudness is also an auditory property of a sound
that allows a listener to place it on a scale going from soft to loud.
 Duration is perceived as the length of a sound. Length is the amount of time a vowel, a
consonant or a syllable sounds.
 Spectrum is seen as specific quality of a sound which makes it different from other
sounds. It is a correlation between the frequency and amplitude of a sound. The peaks
of amplitude in correlation with particular frequencies are the main points of
energy in sound production; they are called formants.

ACTIVITY

 Briefly explain how speech sounds are produced.

 How different is sound transmission from sound perception?
 What knowledge do we need in order to vividly describe speech sounds?
 Identify three acoustic properties of sounds.
 Identify three auditory properties of sounds.

SUMMARY

Dear learner, congratulations on your ability to complete this section successfully. We believe
you have learnt a lot from this section. In this section, we described how speech sounds are
produced, transmitted and perceived. We did this in relation with articulatory, acoustic and

6
auditory phonetics. Some acoustic properties such as frequency, amplitude, intensity, duration
and spectrum were explained. We, again, identified some auditory properties of sounds,
including pitch, loudness, length and formants. In the next section, we are going to identify how
speech sounds are represented as phonetic units. Stay with us.

 What are speech sounds?

When we speak, we produce a continuous stream of sounds. This stream of sounds is divided
into small pieces called segments or units. For example, the word ‘kid’ is produced with a first
segment k, a second I and a third segment d. These units of sounds are very distinct and
contrastive. Each of these units has the potential to change the meaning of a word. We call this
stream of sounds speech sounds. We can explain speech sounds as any of the set of distinctive
sounds of a given language. They refer to any of the minimal identifiable discrete segments of
sound occurring in language. In fact, they represent the entire phonetic system of a language.
Speech sounds are one of the natural units into which linguistic messages can be analysed. They
are audible because we can hear them when they are produced. Similarly, they possess acoustic
elements such as frequency, amplitude, intensity, duration, and auditory properties including
pitch, loudness and length.
In phonetics, speech sounds are described as the smallest possible segment of sound
abstracted from the continuum of speech. They represent any actual and objective speech sound,
considered as a physical event and without regard as to how they fit into the structure of a given
language. Let us now discover why speech sounds are described as phonetic units.

 Speech Sounds as Phonetic Units

Speech sounds are described as phonetic units because they serve as the basis of all our
speech. They serve as fundamental descriptive units for speech. In speech analysis, we realise
that words, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, chapters and full texts are produced through
meaningful stringing of the individual speech sounds. The relationship between these strings of

8
speech sounds and their meaning is part of the system of language analysis. Secondly, they are
considered as phonetic units because each sound can be represented by means of a symbol that
has one value only; that is one sound, one symbol. These symbols representing the sounds are
called ‘phonetic alphabet’. The symbols used in the phonetic alphabet represent both the vowels
and consonant sounds of English. Beyond this, we also learn that speech sounds are represented
and described in special ways. Let’s now observe how English speech sounds are represented.

 Representation and Description of Speech Sounds as Phonetic Units

Speech sounds in English are phonetically distinct units of speech. The English alphabet is
phonetic – that is, the letters represent the sounds. The Chinese alphabet, however, isn’t
phonetic, since its symbols represent ideas rather than sounds. In English, sometimes, a letter
doesn’t always represent the same sound; the “a” in fat, father and fate, for example represents
three different sounds. Because of this, books about words often use specially created phonetic
alphabet, in which each symbol stands for a single sound in order to represent pronunciation
representing each speech sound with a symbol. These symbols were introduced by phoneticians
and these later became known as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
The IPA symbols are very useful in the sense that they serve as a shorthand description of the
articulations involved. Since the sixteenth century, efforts have been made to devise a universal
system for transcribing the sounds of speech. The best-known system, the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), has been evolving since 1888. This system of transcription attempts to represent
each sound of human speech with a single symbol. These symbols are enclosed in square
brackets [ ] to indicate that the transcription is phonetic and does not represent the spelling
system of a particular language.
All speech sounds are phonetic units and are represented in square brackets [ ]. For example,
the sounds m and d may be represented as [m] and [d]. According IPA description, most
consonants have their voiced and voiceless counterparts. To represent them, the voiceless sounds
are aligned to the left hand side of the square brackets whereas the voiced counterparts are
aligned to the right. For instance, f is a voiceless sound and v, a voiced sound. These are
represented as [f, v].
In the description of speech sounds as phonetic, we need to remember three important things.
First, we need to have knowledge about the place of articulation. This explains the speech organs
involved in the production of sounds at a point where there is a blockage. It asks the question, is
the sound bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar, velar, or labiovelar? Secondly,
we need to have knowledge about the manner of articulation. This refers to the kind or type of
blockage or narrowing process in the production of the sound. This also asks the question, is the
sound produced a plosive, fricative, nasal, affricate, lateral or approximant? Lastly, we need also
to know the state of the vocal cords, whether they are vibrating or not. It also asks the question,
is the sound produced voiced or voiceless? These criteria apply to consonant sounds. Let us
apply these three criteria in describing the following consonant sounds:
[s] – voiceless alveolar fricative

9
[z] – voiced alveolar fricative
[m] – voiced bilabial nasal
[k] – voiceless velar plosive
[ʧ] – voiceless palato-alveolar affricate
In describing vowels as phonetic units, however, we need to consider the part of the tongue
that is raised, the degree of the raise and the shape of the lips. Let us apply these three criteria in
describing the following vowel sounds:
[i:] – front close long spread vowel
[ɪ] – front near central half-close short vowel
[a:] – back open long neutral vowel
[u:] - back close long closely rounded vowel
[ə] - central below half-close neutrally spread short vowel.

Before we draw the curtain, there is the need to identify all the known speech sounds in
English. This will enable you to understand the concepts which will be treated in the next unit.
Basically, there are 44 distinct speech sounds in English. These are broadly divided into two:
consonants and vowels. There are 24 consonants and 20 vowels. We have grouped these sounds
according to their manner and place of articulation. The grouping is done to enable us to identify
and describe each speech sound under each group vividly, without any uncertainty. In the
production of certain sounds, the air is blocked and released with plosion. In some situations, on
one hand, the air is released with audible friction, whereas on the other hand, the air is released
through the nose or at the lateral sides of the tongue. In the case of vowels, some are produced
with the front of the tongue raised high with the lips either spread or rounded. Let’s start the
identification from the consonants. Here are the known consonants of English:

[p, b, t, d, k, g] [ʧ, ʤ] [f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, Ʒ, h] [m, n, ŋ] [l, r] and [j, w]. Let’s now have a look at
the known vowel sounds of English: [ɪ, e, æ, ɒ, Ʌ, υ] [i:, eɪ, aɪ, ᴐɪ] [u:, əʊ, aʊ, ɪə, eə, a:, ᴐ:, ʊə, 3:]
and [ə]. We shall discuss how these phonetic sounds are realised in words in the next unit of this
course.

ACTIVITY
a. What are speech sounds?
b. Why is the English alphabet described as phonetic?
c. Give a phonetic description to the following consonant sounds:
i. [b]
ii. [p]
iii. [ θ]
iv. [g]
v. [ʤ]

10
SUMMARY
Hello student, congratulations on your ability to successfully complete section two of Unit 1. In
this section, we explained what speech sounds were and stated why they were described as
phonetic units. We also showed how sounds were represented and described as phonetic units. In
the next section, we are going to identify the various speech organs involved in speech
production. This will enable you show specifically where these organs of speech are located. The
study will also enable you draw and label the speech organs. We hope this section will be very
useful to you as you advance in grasping more phonetic and phonological concepts in English.
Stay with us till the end.

 Speech Organs involved in Speech Production

Speech organs, also known as vocal organs, are those parts of the human body involved in
the production of speech. It is amazing to see how much of the human body is involved in the
production of speech: the lungs, the trachea (or windpipe), the throat, the nose, and the mouth. In
fact, the human body has a large and complex set of muscles that can produce changes in the
shape of the vocal tract. In order to learn how speech sounds are produced, it is vital to become
familiar with the different parts of the vocal tract. The vocal tract consists of the air passages
above the larynx. The organs involved in the speech process are called articulators and their
study is known as articulatory phonetics.

The lungs are very important in speech production because they provide all the airflow
needed for speech production. This airflow is what is commonly known as the pulmonic airflow.
The lungs, however, may not be considered as articulators because they do not actively
participate in the production of speech sounds.

When different organs work together, speech is produced. We can categorise the articulators
into two: active and passive, depending on which organ is moving. For instance, in the
production of [t] in the word tea, the tongue is an active articulator while the alveolar ridge is
passive. The passive articulators are usually stationary, that is they do not move. They include
the upper teeth, the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. The active articulators move in specific
directions to affect the speech production. They include the lips, tongue, soft palate, uvula,
epiglottis and the vocal cords.

The seven main articulators used in speech production are identified below:

12
 The pharynx
 The soft palate (Velum)
 The hard palate (Roof of the mouth)
 The Alveolar ridge
 The tongue
 The teeth
 The lips

Besides these seven articulators identified, there are three things we should consider. First,
the larynx which contains the vocal cords may be considered an articulator because it is an
important independent organ which is very useful in speech production. Conversely, the jaws
may not be considered as articulators because they cannot make contact with other articulators in
the production of sound, though we move the lower jaw when we are speaking. Lastly, the nose
and the nasal cavity cannot be described as articulators even though they play a major role in the
production of nasal sounds such as [m, n, ŋ].

Closely related to the speech organs are the resonants. These are the oral and the nasal
cavities. The oral cavity refers to the passage through the mouth whereas the nasal cavity is the
passage through the nose. The sounds made in the oral cavity are termed as oral sounds and those
made in the nasal cavity are called nasal sounds. We shall learn more about these sounds in Unit
2 of this course. Let us do the activity below to assess our level of understanding as far as our
study on speech organs is concerned.

 A Diagram Showing the Speech Organs

The diagram below represents the human head, seen from the inside, displayed as though it
had been cut in half. Look at it carefully to identify the various articulators. You may also use a
mirror in a well lit place to identify the articulators inside your mouth.

13
ACTIVITY

1. What are speech organs?

2. Identify four speech organs involved in speech production.
3. Differentiate between active and passive articulators.
4. Define the following:
i. Oral cavity
ii. Nasal cavity

SUMMARY
Dear learner, congratulations on your successful completion of this section. In this section, we
identified the various speech organs involved in the production of speech. We realised that whilst
some of the articulators are active, others are passive. We also explained what oral and nasal
cavities were. In the next section, we shall describe the speech organs identified in this section.
Stay with us.

 The Speech Organs and their Description

The speech organs involved in speech production differ in structure and function. Because they
are distinct, there is the need to pay particular attention to them in terms of description. Let’s
start our discussion from the pharynx.

 The Pharynx

It is a tube which begins just above the larynx. It is about 7cm long in women and about 8cm in
men. At its top end, it is divided into two, one part being the back of the mouth and the other
being the beginning of the way through the nasal cavity. You can see the back of the pharynx if
you look in your mirror with your mouth open.

 The Larynx

It is the visible projection in the front part of the neck known as the Adam’s apple. It is made up
of tissues, muscles and cartilage which contain the vocal cords (voice box). The larynx houses
the vocal cords, which are two fleshy tissues run horizontally from front to back. It must be
noted that the larynx does not actually involve actively in speech production, but the vocal cords
do. The opening between the vocal cords is called the glottis. We shall discuss the function of the
glottis in the next section.

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 The Pharyngeal cavity

It consists of the pharynx wall and the root of the tongue. This passage is often shut off by the
help of the epiglottis while we eat. This prevents food from entering the trachea (wind pipe) and
choking us. Have you had such a bitter experience of food particles mistakenly entering your
wind pipe? How did it feel and what did you do to come out of such situation?

 The Velum

The velum is also known as the soft palate. It is one of the articulators that can be touched by the
tongue. It can either be raised or lowered to have oral and nasal sounds respectively. When it is
raised to press against the pharyngeal wall, air is not allowed passage through the nasal cavity
and out of the nose, but through the mouth. When it is lowered, air is not allowed passage
through the oral cavity, but through the nasal cavity. We shall explain further when we discuss
the functions of these speech organs in the next section.

 The Hard palate

It is also known as the roof of the mouth. It is easy to feel its smooth curved surface with your
tongue. In speech production, the front of the tongue works hand in hand with the roof of the
mouth (hard palate). You can physically touch your hard palate if your hands are clean.

 The Alveolar ridge

It is, sometimes, called the teeth ridge. It is located between the top front teeth and the hard
palate. The tip of the tongue is used against the ridge behind the upper teeth. The shape of the
alveolar ridge can be felt using your tongue or clean hands. Can you feel your alveolar ridge
now? You can feel that the area is covered with little ridges whose surface is much rougher than
it feels. Can you think of any speech sound made at this ridge? Don’t worry! We shall identify
the sounds made at the alveolar ridge in the next section.

 The Teeth

 The Lips

They are very important in speech production. We have the lower and the upper lips. Both lips
can be pressed together, spread, rounded or brought into contact with the teeth. In each of these
processes that the lips assume, different speech sounds are produced. The lips are termed as
bilabial

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 The Tongue

It is the most active speech organ involved in the production of most speech sounds. The tongue
can be moved into different places and different shapes. Though there are no clear dividing lines,
the tongue is divided into different parts. These are tip, blade, front, back and root. Isn’t it
interesting? Indeed, it is very interesting. We learn that each part of the tongue helps in the
production of different speech sounds. Below is a figure showing the tongue and its parts.

The Tongue and its parts (Adapted from Roach 1998)

For easy identification and understanding, the diagram above has further been simplified. Below
is the simplified version of the tongue and its parts.

The Simplified Version of the Tongue and its parts

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ACTIVITY

1. Describe any three speech organs you know.

2. Define the term bilabial.
3. Draw and label the tongue.
4. Identify three ways by which the lips can be shaped.

SUMMARY
Dear learner, congratulations once again on your successful completion of this section. In this
section, we described the various speech organs involved in the production of speech. We also
identified the tongue and its parts. We established that the lips can be modified in different ways
in the articulation of speech sounds. In the next section, we shall discuss the functions of speech
organs in speech production. Stay with us.

 Speech Organs and their functions

In the previous section, we learnt that the vocal tract consists of the air passages above the
larynx. We said the vocal tract ends at the mouth and the nostrils. In sound production, we focus
much attention on organs which actively participate in the production of sounds. We start by
looking at the functions of the larynx and the vocal cords.

 Larynx and Vocal cords

The larynx is responsible for voice production because it contains the vocal cords. We learnt that
sounds are made when air from the lungs passes across the vocal cords. The sounds produced by
the vibrating cords are turned into speech by the mouth and tongue. The vocal cords function in
four different ways in speech production:

 The vocal cords may be completely shut and the air built up below is suddenly released.
The sound produced is called glottal stop [Ɂ].
 The second function is that the vocal cords can be placed fairly close together such that
the air passing through will cause audible friction. The sound produced this way is the
glottal fricative sound [h].
 Thirdly, the vocal cords may function to influence the articulation of other speech
sounds. For instance, when they are brought very closely together, they vibrate as the air
passes through them. This phenomenon of vibration is termed voicing or phonation in
phonetics. Sounds like [z], [v] and [g] are said to be voiced. Voice is not a sound but a
feature of certain sounds.
 Lastly, when the vocal cords are left widely open there is neither friction nor vibration.
This situation creates voiceless sounds or the phenomenon of voicelessness. Sounds like
[s], [f] and [k] are said to be voiceless.

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 Velum

When the air passes through the larynx to the pharyngeal cavity, the soft palate (velum) functions
in three different ways in the production of sounds:

 The velum can assume a normal position. When that happens, the pulmonic air is
allowed to pass through both the mouth and the nose. Sounds that are produced from this
situation are referred to as nasalised. It must be noted that English does not have such
nasalised sounds. The sounds become so only in the environment of nasals. Most
Ghanaian languages, on the other hand, use these nasalised sounds a lot. For example,
the vowels in the following Akan words illustrate the nasalised sound concept: fa (half),
ka (speak/ drive), fi (dirt), to (bake/buttocks) etc.
 When the velum is lowered, it creates a blockage somewhere in the mouth. This allows
the air to pass through the nose. The sounds produced this way are called nasal sounds.
Can you think of any nasal sound in English? They include [m], [n] and [ŋ]. In English, the
[ŋ] is usually found at word final and it is usually spelt as the two letters ‘ng’. In the following
words, the final sound is the voiced velar nasal [ŋ].
 The velum may be raised and when this happens, it blocks the air from entering into the nasal
cavity. The air is then released through the oral cavity. The sounds produced this way are called
oral sounds. All vowels in English are produced this way.

 Pharynx

As we described earlier, the pharynx refers to the throat. It is located behind the mouth and the
nasal cavity and above the oesophagus. It performs two basic functions. It is part of both
respiratory and digestive systems, acting as a passage for both air and food during normal daily
behaviour. In the pharynx is the epiglottis. The epiglottis has a vital role to play in speech
production. For instance, it acts as an articulator in the production of vowels and pharyngeal
consonants. In vowel production, the opening between the epiglottis and the pharynx becomes
larger but in the production of consonants, the opening becomes smaller.

 Hard palate

It works together with the front of the tongue to produce sounds like [ʃ], [Ʒ], [ʧ] and [ʤ]. These
sounds are palato-alveolar fricatives and affricates respectively. We can have words like shirt
[ʃ3:t], vision [vɪƷən] and chef [ʃef] to illustrate the palato-alveolar fricatives, and words like chin
[ʧɪn], bitch [bɪʧ], judge [ʤɅʤ] and germ [ʤ3:m] to illustrate the palato-alveolar affricates.

 Alveolar ridge

Alveolar sounds are formed with the front part of the tongue on the alveolar ridge. This means
that the front tongue moves to touch the alveolar ridge and alveolar sounds are produced. The

21
initial sounds in tap, sell, zip, net, dip, lip are all alveolar sounds. We can represent these sounds
as [t], [s], [z], [n], [d], [l]. Can you give any word which contains an alveolar sound at word
initial, medial or final?

 Bilabials

The upper and the lower lips produce the bilabial sounds. When the lips are fairly spread, vowel
sounds like [i:] and [e] are produced, and when they are pressed firmly together, bilabial nasal
[m] and bilabial plosives [b] and [p] are produced. The lips can be rounded to produce the sounds
[u:] and [ʊ]. Similarly, when the lips are fully opened, sounds like [a:] are produced. So apart
from the consonant sounds such as [b], [m], [p] and [w] which are produced by the lips, almost
all the vowel sounds are produced as a result of the different shapes the lips may assume. Try to
produce any of these sounds and see whether they are really bilabials.

 Teeth

The teeth function to produce two distinct groups of sounds: labiodentals and dentals.
Labiodentals are formed when the lower lip comes into contact with the upper teeth. We can see
two articulators coming together to produce this group of sounds. The initial sounds of the words
fit and vase, and the final sounds in the words self [self] and serve [s3:v] are labiodentals. These
are represented as [f] and [v]. The dentals, on the other hand, are formed with the tip of the
tongue behind the upper front teeth. Sometimes, the tip of the tongue is placed between the lower
and the upper teeth. In English, the dentals are represented in writing using ‘th’. The initial sound
of thin [θɪn], think [θɪŋk] thigh [θaɪ] and final sound of with [wɪθ], bath [ba:θ], birth [b3:θ] is
voiceless dental sound, represented as [θ]. The voiced dental sound represented as [ð] is realised
in the initial sounds of the following words, that [ðæt], those [ðəʊz], there [ðeə], though [ðəʊ]
and in the final sounds of the words clothe [kləʊð], breathe [bri:ð], bathe [beɪð].

 Tongue

In describing the tongue we said that it is the most active speech organ involved in the
production of most speech sounds. We also said the tongue moves in different places, directions,
and shapes to produce a wide range of speech sounds using its parts. The tongue is involved in
the production of dental, alveolar and palate-alveolar sounds, as we have observed earlier. Beside
this, the back of the tongue also plays a role in sound production. Sounds produced with the back
of the tongue against the velum are referred to as velars. Some of these velars are voiced while
others are voiceless. In the following words, the initial sound is the voiceless velar plosive [k]:
kit [kɪt], coke [kəʊk], cat [kæt], cane [keɪn], and kettle [ketəl]. We can also have the voiced
counterpart of the voiceless velar plosive, and that is the voiced velar plosive represented as [g].
Can you think of English words which begin or end with [g]? Here are examples, plague [pleɪg],
league [li:g], bag [bæg], gag [gæg], goat [gəʊt], gain [geɪn] etc. In fact, the tongue plays
multiple functions as far as speech sound production is concerned. Think of other speech sounds

22
in which the tongue plays an active role in their production. Let’s look at the last speech organ
and its functions under this section.

 Glottis

The glottal sound is produced without the active involvement of the tongue and other parts of the
mouth. Can you think of any sound produced this way? Well, it is the sound [h] which occurs at
the beginning of help, horse and home. For other speakers, it is realised in the initial sounds of
who and whose. We saw in our discussion of the functions of the vocal cords, that when the
glottis is open, voiceless sounds such as [h] are produced. In this case, the air which passes out
through the mouth does not undergo any modification, hence the production of the voiceless
glottal sound [h]. In fact, the main function of the glottis is to control the vibration made by the
vocal cords in the process of speech production.

ACTIVITY

1. Briefly describe the three ways in which the velum functions.

2. The tongue is the most active articulator in speech production. Discuss.
3. Explain with examples how labiodentals are produced.
4. Give four examples of sounds produced by the bilabial.

SUMMARY

Dear learner, well done! You have successfully completed another section of Unit 1. In this
section, we discussed the functions of speech organs involved in speech production. The
discussion helped us to identify specifically the speech sounds that are produced by these speech
organs. In the next section, we shall describe the airstream mechanism involved in speech
production. Stay and complete the next section with us.

 What is airstream mechanism?

As we have seen, speech results from the displacement of air through the airways (trachea,
larynx, and pharynx) and the mouth and nose cavities. The air that is used for speech is referred
to as an airstream. The airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is initiated in the
vocal tract. The organ which is responsible for generating the airstream is called the initiator.
There are three ways of initiating an air displacement through the throat, mouth, and nose. These
three ways involve initiators used in the production of sounds, namely: the diaphragm and the
lungs, the glottis and the larynx, and the tongue. The most common way is that in which lung air
is pushed through the vocal tract in the respiratory mechanism. Let us now take a look at the
types of airstream mechanisms used in speech production.

 Types of Airstream Mechanism

We have learned that most of the speech sounds are as the result of obstructing or modifying the
air coming out of the lungs. There are, however, other sources from where a stream of air can be
modified or obstructed for speech production. There are three main types of these airstream
mechanisms. Let’s discuss each type in detail.

 Pulmonic Airstream
The stream of air which begins in the lungs is called a pulmonic airstream. Sounds made
from this source are said to be produced with the pulmonic airstream mechanism. We can
identify two types of sounds produced under the pulmonic airstream. We have those sounds that
are made by pushing the lung air out of the vocal tract, and those sounds made by sucking the air
back inside. These are called pulmonic egressive and ingressive respectively.

24
In the pulmonic egressive mechanism, the air is pushed out of the lungs by the ribs and the
diaphragm. It is the normal mode and the basis of all normal speech in all languages, and many
languages (including English and Polish). One major advantage of this mechanism over the rest
is that it is easy to control and requires less articulatory effort than the others. All English sounds
are initiated by the action of lung air going outwards.
The pulmonic ingressive uses inhalation as a form of airstream initiation. To do this, we
dilate the lungs, thus lowering the pressure within them and so sucking air down the trachea and
into the lungs. To the best of our knowledge, no known language uses the pulmonic ingressive
mechanism for communication and as a distinctive feature of particular speech sounds during
normal articulation. This is because it is not conducive to speech; however, it is used for
paralinguistic purposes (i.e. sounds conveying a recognized meaning within a given speech
community) in various languages.

 Glottalic Airstream

This is another airstream mechanism used in producing sounds in some languages. In the
glottalic airstream mechanism, the source of the air is the glottis. Here, the air is trapped above
the larynx from where it may be pushed out to produce the glottalic egressive sounds. These
sounds are also known as ejectives. Since the glottis must be tightly closed in the production of
the ejectives, the sounds produced are usually voiceless. These ejectives are not common in
English but are common only in some indigenous languages of Americas (Quechua, Navaho)
and Caucasus (Georgian, Armenian).
When the stream of air trapped above the glottis is sucked in rather than pushed out, it results
in the production of glottalic ingressives, also known as implosives. Let us describe how these
sounds are produced. After a complete closure of the glottis and a simultaneous obstruction at
some point in the vocal tract, there is a sudden downward movement of the larynx. This results
in the air pressure inside the vocal tract dropping below atmospheric pressure. When the
obstruction further up in the vocal tract is released, air is sucked in to equalize the two pressures.
This gives rise to a sort of ‘gulping’ sound –a bit like the sound of a liquid being poured out of a
narrow - necked bottle. These types of sounds are said to be glottalic ingressives or implosives.
Glottalic implosives are found in 10% of the world’s languages, mostly African languages,
including Zulu, Swahili, Hausa, Igbo, Maasai. They are also used by Vietnamese, Khmer, and
Sindhi (spoken in Pakistan and India). Most implosives are voiced, but some languages, such as
Igbo in Nigeria, do have voiceless implosives. Though they can occur in all places of
articulation, bilabial implosives are the most frequently used.

 Velaric Airstream
The last mechanism for our discussion is the velaric airstream mechanism. This mechanism
is used in the production of click sounds. In the production of the click sounds, the stream of air
is trapped above the velum. The back of the tongue is raised against the velum and at the same
time, the front part of the tongue is also raised against the teeth. The release of the front closure

25
causes the outer air to be sucked in, accompanied by a characteristic click sound. A kiss is the
most known click sound. Clicks are found in few languages, such as Khoisan languages in
southern Africa, Bantu languages, including Zulu and Xhosa. Most European and other
languages use click sounds for non-verbal communication, especially, the sound people make to
attract a horse’s attention.
It is possible to cause the airstream to flow outward by raising the tongue and squeezing the
contained body of air, but this possibility is not actually used in any known language. We
conclude that no known human language uses the velaric egressive airstream mechanism for
speech purposes because the mechanism has both auditory and physiological difficulties.

ACTIVITY

a. Define airstream mechanism.

b. Identify the types of airstream mechanism in sound production.
c. Distinguish between pulmonic egressive and ingressive airstream mechanisms.

SUMMARY
Dear learner, congratulations on your successful completion of this last section of this unit. In
this section, we defined the air that is used for speech as an airstream. We explained airstream
mechanism as method by which airflow is initiated in the vocal tract. We also identified
pulmonic, glottalic and velaric airstream mechanisms as the types used in the production of
human speech. The lungs play an important role in the pulmonic airstream mechanism, the
glottis in glottalic airstream mechanism, and the tongue in the velaric airstream mechanism.

 Explain how phonetic sounds are produced, transmitted and perceived.

UNIT SUMMARY

In this Unit, we discussed the production, transmission and perception of speech sounds. We also
described speech sounds as phonetic units of language. The unit identified and described the
speech organs involved in the production of speech sounds and the roles the play in speech
production. Lastly, we looked at the airstream mechanism in speech production. The pulmonic,
glottalic and velaric airstream mechanisms were identified as types of airstream mechanisms
used in speech production. The next Unit will take you through the classification and description
of English speech sounds. Some of the issues to be discussed include the distinction between
vowels and consonants, identification and description of pure vowels, diphthongs and
triphthongs. Similarly, the next Unit will identify and describe plosive, fricative, nasal, affricate,
approximant and lateral sounds in English. Come with us as we navigate through Unit 2 for more
wonderful and in-depth discussion of phonetic concepts as far as speech sounds in English are
concerned.

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UNIT 2 CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF ENGLISH SPEECH
SOUNDS
INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, welcome to the second unit of this course. This unit aims at introducing you to the
English speech sounds, vowels and consonants, as well as help you pronounce them correctly in
your day today speaking of the English language. It also aims at helping you describe and
classify the sounds correctly and also be able to draw a meaningful distinction between vowels
and consonants. I promise you will find the unit interesting.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this unit the student will be able to:

 Identify and describe vowels

 Classify vowels into types
 Identify and describe consonant sounds
 Classify consonant sounds
 and types of vowels
 draw the distinction between a vowel and a consonant

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UNIT 2 SECTION 1 VOWELS
INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, welcome to section one. In this section, we shall be looking at the English pure
vowels, words in which they are realized and how they pronounced.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:
 describe what a vowel is
 identify pure vowels in words
 pronounce pure vowels appropriately in words

 Nature of Vowel Sounds

These are sounds produced when the airstream coming out from the mouth is flowing out
uninhibited during production. Twenty vowels are usually identified.
The vowel sounds in English can be divided into two groups; Pure vowels and Diphthongs and
by extension Triphthongs. The pure vowels are also known as monophthongs. Pure vowel
sounds are single sounds [i:], [æ], [e], etc. whereas diphthongs are a combination of two vowel
sounds such as [aɪ], [au], [eɪ] etc.

English has twelve pure vowels sounds from five vowel letters. These are: (a, e, i, o and u).
The twenty vowel sounds are usually divided into twelve monophthongs and eight diphthongs.
Monophthongs are vowels with only one sound quality while diphthongs have double sounds.

 The Pure Vowels/Monophthongs

[i:, ɪ, e, æ, ɑː, ɒ, ɔː, ʊ, u:,ʌ, ɜː, ə ]
A vowel can also be long or short. Long vowels are usually symbolized by the presence of a
colon [:] in front of the phonetic symbol as in /i:/
As can be seen from the chart below, some vowels do not only differ qualitatively, but also
quantitatively (as indicated by the colon as the diacritic for length). Long as opposed to short
vowels also differ by being tense as opposed to lax:
1) Tense vowels are produced with a deliberate, accurate, maximally distinct gesture that
involves considerable muscular effort. Tense vowels are either long vowels (e.g. [i:] in meet) or
diphthongs (e.g. [eɪ] in say).

29
Let us now take a look at the English pure vowel chart
The vowel chart is a diagram to understand vowel sounds. It tries to represent where the tongue
lies in relation to the openness of the mouth when you produce a vowel. So the front closed
vowel /i:/ means that your tongue is in a forward position in the mouth, which is in a relatively
closed position. Try saying it to yourself and then contrast it with the open back sound in the
diagram.

Now let us take a look at the various vowel sounds and words in which they can be realized.
/ɪ/ as in divorce, direct, manage, enough, estate, noted, market, women, orange, village, example,
exam
/i:/ as in police, please, teacher, foetus, defeat, see, quay, amoeba, seize

30
/e/ as in leopard, says, wet, set, realm
/æ/as in cat, man, fan, bank, bad, pack, gang
/ ɑː/ as in farm, palm, calm, market, father, star
/ ɒ/ as in honour, spot, doctor, got, dog
/ ɔː/ as in court, store, talk, fought, sport, raw
/ ʊ/ as in book, look, put, push, woman, full, foot, pull
/u:/ as in food, fool, pool, lose, news, fool, student, cool
/ʌ/ as in mother, money, love, much, trouble, double, couple, onion, oven
/ ɜː/ as in learn, bird, verb, work, word, nurse, turn, world, girl
/ə/ as in above, mother, ago, London, physical, baker, famous, cupboard
At this point, we advise that you make good use of your dictionary by checking up the whole
transcription of the words exemplified above.
Please use a dictionary that contains transcription and not one that just defines words.

ACTIVITY
1. How many pure vowels are there in English?
2. Describe the following sounds / i:, ɪ, æ, ɑː, ʊ, ə/
SUGGESTED ANSWERS
1. Twelve (12)
2. /i:/ close, front unrounded vowel
/ ɪ/ half close front near centre unrounded vowel
/æ/ half open front unrounded vowel
/ɑː/ open back unrounded vowel
/ʊ/ close back rounded vowel
/ə/ central neutral vowel
3. A pure vowel has a single sound quality whereas a diphthong contains a double sound
quality.
Compare your answers with the above and see whether you are making a headway. Good.

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SECTION 2 CLASSIFICATION OF VOWELS

INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, welcome to section two. In this section, our aim is to take you through the
classification of vowels. We shall, therefore, do well to draw your attention to the different
classifications of vowels as speech sounds.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:

 Describe and classify pure vowels using the three-way criteria of vowel description.
 Identify and pronounce appropriately pure vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs words.
 Distinguish the difference between closing and centering diphthongs and pronounce them
appropriately in words

 Criteria for Vowel Classification

Vowels can be described in three ways; the height of the tongue to the roof of the mouth in the
production of a sound, the part of the tongue that is raised in the production of the sound and the
shape of the lips.

Let’s take a look at the height of the tongue in the production of vowels. Depending on the
height of the tongue, vowels can be classified into high, low, and mid vowels:

1) When the front or the back of the tongue is raised towards the roof of the mouth, the vowel is
called high, this is the case, for example in /ɪ/ as in pill, /i:/ as in meet,/ ʊ / as in look, or /u:/ as in
soon.
2) When the front or the back of the tongue is lowered, the vowel is called low, as, e.g., /æ/ as in
land, / ɑː/ as in star, or / ɒ/ as in dog.
3) When the tongue occupies the position intermediate between the high and the low one, the
vowel is called mid, e.g./e/ as in get, or the unstressed [ə] as in about.
Depending on the part of the tongue that is raised most vowels are classified into front, back,
and central vowels:
1) When the front part of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate, the vowel is called front,
e.g. in meet, get, or land.
2) When the back part of the tongue is raised towards the soft palate, the vowel is called back, as
in star, dog, law, or soon.
3) When the front part of the tongue is raised towards the back part of the hard palate, the vowel
is called central, e.g. in about, much, or nurse.
These high-low and front-back dimensions of vowel articulation are also referred to as vowel
quality. To illustrate how the articulatory properties of vowels relate to each other. Non-tense or
lax vowelsare produced rapidly and are therefore short e.g /ɪ/ as in pill.

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 Diphthongs

The vowels described so far have all been monophthongs, in contrast to the diphthongs (or
gliding vowels), where the tongue moves from one position to another. Diphthongs are vowels
with double sound quality. They are sounds which consist of a movement or a glide. There are
eight diphthongs in English. They are classified as five closing diphthongs and three centering
diphthongs. In the production of closing diphthongs, the tongue glides from an open, half open or
central vowel to a close vowel. For example, [aɪ, eɪ, ɔɪ,əʊ, aʊ]. On the other hand, in the
production of centering diphthongs, there is a movement of the tongue from a close, half close,
half open or open vowel to the centering vowel,[ə].For example,[ɪə, eə, ʊə].
The chart below represents the five closing and three centering diphthongs.

Diphthongs of RP. From Roach (2004, p. 242)

The Five Closing Diphthongs
/eɪ/ beɪ/ bay, pay
/aɪ/ /baɪ/ buy high
/ɔɪ/ /bɔɪ/ boy, oil
/əʊ/ /bəʊ/ bow (noun)
/aʊ/ /baʊ/ bow (verb)
The Three Centring Diphthongs
/ɪə/ /bɪə/, beer, tear (noun)
/eə / /beə, bear, tear (verb)
/ʊə/ /pʊə/, poor, tour

 Triphthongs
Triphthongs are sounds in whose production, there is a glide from one vowel sound to another
and then to a third. In their production, all the five closing diphthongs are used plus the schwa
vowel. And so, we can have a structure like; [aɪ + ə] =[aɪə] as in higher. Take a look at some
more examples below:
[aɪ.ə] [aɪə] tire
[ɑʊ.ə] [ɑʊə] tower
[əʊ.ə] [əʊə] lower
[eɪ.ə] [eɪə] layer
[ɔɪ.ə] [ɔɪə] loyal

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ACTIVITY
1. Provide words for the following vowels.
/aɪə/, /əʊə/, /ʊə/, /eɪə/, /ɪə/, /ɪə/

2. Identify the types of diphthongs in the following words

i. Day, fight, bare, oil, beer, so, now, beer, sure
SUGGESTED ANSWERS
1. /aɪə/ higher
/əʊə/ mower
/ʊə/ pure
/eɪə/ layer
/ɪə/ fear
2. Words containing sounds under closing diphthongs
day, fight, oil, so, and now
Words containing sounds under cantering diphthongs
bare, beer, and sure.

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SECTION 3 CONSONANTS

INTRODUCTION

Dear learner, welcome to yet another interesting part of English speech sounds. In this section,
you will learn about consonants. The English language is made up two speech sounds; vowels
and consonants. In every utterance that is made, these two sounds are inevitable. In the past two
sections, we looked at vowels. We will therefore take a look at consonants now.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:

 Describe what a consonant is

 Explain the nature of consonants
 Explain the difference between a consonant and a vowel

 Nature of Consonant Sounds

Consonants are sounds that are produced with a major obstruction in the mouth cavity. For
example, in the case of [t], there is direct contact between the tip of the tongue (active
articulator) and the alveolar ridge (passive articulator), so that the airflow coming from the lungs
can leave the mouth cavity only when the obstruction is removed

Try producing the sound /t/ with your own speech organs. Good.

There are 24 consonant sounds in English.

/b, p, t, d, k, g, f, v, s, z, m, n, ŋ,θ, ð, tʃ, dʒ, ʃ,ʒ, h, l, r, j, w/

You may follow the link below on Youtube and listen to the right pronunciation of the consonant
sounds above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch

 Some Differences between Vowels and Consonants

Vowels are sounds that are produced without such obstruction. For example, in the case of [i:] in
the vowel chart above, there is a gap within the mouth that is determined by the position of the
tongue, and the airflow can escape relatively freely. You try that and see.

Another difference between consonants and vowels is that vowels are generally voiced, i.e. the
vocal cords are set vibrating by the outgoing airflow. Consonants, by contrast, can be voiced or

35
voiceless: The vocal cords are either far apart and do not vibrate, as in fan, or they are relatively
closed and vibrate as in van.

ACTIVITY

1. What is a consonant?
2. Distinguish the difference between a vowel and a consonant
3. What is the difference between a voiced and voiceless consonant?

By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:

 Describe the consonants of English and classify them

 Pronounce the various classes of consonants appropriately in words

 Factors for Consonant Classification

Factors relevant for the classification of consonants include voicing, place of articulation and the
manner of articulation. With regard to the manner of articulation, English consonants can be
classified into plosives, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids, and semi-vowels.

 Plosives

Plosives are consonants that are made up by completely blocking the airflow. The production of
plosives involves three stages: 1) a direct contact between the active and the passive articulator
forming a complete obstruction to the airflow; 2) the compression of air behind the obstruction;
and 3) the release of the compressed air in the form of an “explosion” (hence the term plosive).
There are six plosives in English: bilabial [p] and [b], alveolar [t] and [d], and velar [k] and [g].

 Bilabial plosives [p] and [b] are produced with both lips pressed together. The active
articulator is the lower lip; the passive articulator is the upper lip. The soft palate is raised
and the air coming into the mouth stops for some time and then breaks the obstruction
with a slight explosion. In the case of [b], the vocal cords are vibrating:
 Alveolar plosives [t] and [d] are produced with the tip of the tongue firmly pressed
against the (middle part of the) alveolar ridge. The active articulator is the tip of the
tongue; the passive articulator is the alveolar ridge. The tip of the tongue makes firm
contact with the

alveolar ridge. The air is trapped for a short time and then breaks the obstruction with a slight
explosion. In the case of [d], the vocal cords are vibrating:

 Velar plosives [k] and [g] are articulated with the back of the tongue against the soft
palate. The active articulator is the back of the tongue; the passive articulator is the soft
palate. The back of the tongue makes firm contact with the soft palate. The air is trapped

37
for a short time and then breaks the obstruction with a slight explosion. In the case of [g],
the vocal cords are vibrating:
 Fricatives

Fricatives are consonants that are produced by impeding, but not completely blocking the
airflow, i.e., there is a narrow gap between the active and the passive articulator along which the
airflow can leave the oral cavity. There are nine fricatives in English: labio-dental [f] and [v],
dental [θ] and [ð], alveolar [s] and [z], palato-alveolar [ʃ] and [ʒ], and glottal [h].

Labio-dental Fricatives

The lower lip is very close to the edge of the upper front teeth, thus forming an incomplete
obstruction. When the air goes through the narrowing it causes slight friction (hence the term
fricative). For [f] the vocal cords do not vibrate; there may be some vibration accompanying [v]
when it occurs in word initial position as in e.g. vast or between vowels as in e.g. never.

Dental Fricatives

The tip of the tongue is either close to the edge of the upper teeth or slightly projected between
the teeth. For [θ] the friction is as strong as for [f], for [ð] it is gentler. For [θ], the vocal cords do
not vibrate; they vibrate for [ð] when it occurs in word initial position, before a vowel or in
intervocalic positions. E.g. that, rather, etc.

Alveolar Fricatives

Other fricatives are produced with different places of articulation: For the alveolar fricatives [s]
and [z], the tip of the tongue is close to the alveolar ridge. The teeth are very close together. The
friction for [s] is strong, even stronger than for [θ]. For [s] the vocal cords do not vibrate; they
vibrate for [z] when it occurs before vowels or in intervocalic positions. E.g. zone, easy, etc. 10

Alveo-Palatal Fricatives/Palato-Alveolar Fricatives

For [ʃ] and [ʒ], the tip of the tongue is close to the back part of the alveolar ridge forming a flat
narrowing. The front part of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate forming the front
secondary focus. The friction for [ʃ] is strong, stronger than for [f] and [θ]. For [ʃ] the vocal cords
do not vibrate; they vibrate for [ʒ] when it occurs before vowels. E.g. pleasure, etc.

It is produced with the voiceless expulsion of air from the lungs with the mouth and tongue
already in position for the following vowel.

 Affricates

Affricates are sounds that are similar to both plosives and fricatives: The tip of the tongue
touches the back part of the teeth ridge, the front part of the tongue is raised towards the hard
palate. The air is trapped for a short time because of a complete obstruction between the tip of

38
the tongue and the teeth ridge, then the obstruction is released slowly and the friction is heard.
The voiceless affricate is [tʃ] as in chain, whereas [dʒ], as in jelly, is voiced.

 Nasals

Nasals are consonants which, like plosives, are produced by completely blocking the airstream.
But there is an important difference: The airflow escapes through the nasal cavity (hence the
term nasals). There are three nasal consonants in English: bilabial [m], alveolar [n], and velar [ŋ]

Bilabial Nasal

In the production of [m], the lips are firmly kept together forming the complete obstruction. The
active articulator is the lower lip; the passive articulator is the upper lip. The soft palate is
lowered and the air escapes through the nasal cavity. The vocal cords are vibrating.

Alveolar Nasal

In the production of [n], the tip of the tongue is pressed against the alveolar ridge forming the
complete obstruction. The active articulator is the tip of the tongue, and the passive articulator is
the alveolar ridge. The soft palate is lowered and the air escapes through the nasal cavity. The
vocal cords are vibrating.

Velar Nasal

In the production of [ŋ] The back of the tongue is pressed to the soft palate forming the complete
obstruction. The active articulator is the back of the tongue, and the passive articulator is the soft
palate. Thesoft palate is lowered and the air escapes through the nasal cavity. The vocal cords are
vibrating.

Liquids

Liquids include alveolar [l] and post-alveolar [r].

The tip of the tongue is in firm contact with the alveolar ridge, forming the complete obstruction.
The active articulator is the tip of the tongue, and the passive articulator is the alveolar ridge. The
sides of the tongue are lowered and the air can pass between them. The vocal cords are brought
together and are vibrating.

The tip of the tongue is held in a position near to but not touching the back part of the alveolar
ridge. The soft palate is raised and the air flows quietly between the tip of the tongue and the
hard palate. The front part of the tongue is low and the back is rather high so that the tongue has
a curved shape. The vocal cords are vibrating.

39
Semi-Vowels/glides

Semi-glides or glides include bilabial [w] and palatal [j]: [w], as in why [waɪ], starts out with the
lips firmly rounded, these articulators then moving away (= gliding) from the narrowing in the
mouth. When articulating [j], as in you [ju:], the front part of the tongue is first raised towards
the hard palate, then the soft palate is raised and the air goes along the central part of the tongue.
The vocal cords are kept together and are vibrating.

The reason why these sounds are called semi-vowels is thus, their manner of articulation: Like
true vowels, semi-vowels are produced without a major obstruction, i.e., there is a wide gap
between the active and the passive articulator, so that the airflow can escape relatively freely
from the mouth. However, unlike true vowels, semi-vowels never form the nucleus of a syllable
(e.g., week, yellow).

The chart below should help you to describe the consonant sounds better.

Table 1 Classification of English RP Consonants

Place Bilabia Labio- Dental Alveolar Post- Palato- Palatal Velar Glottal
l dental alveolar alveolar

Manner vl vd vl vd vl vd vl vd vl vd vl vd vl vd vl vd vl vd

Plosive p b t d k g

Affricate tʃ dʒ

Nasal m n ŋ

Lateral l

40
Fricative f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h

Frictionless r
-continuant

Semi-vowel w j

Note: vl means voiceless and vd means voiced. Therefore, in the table, the consonant that comes
first is described as voiceless and the one that follows it, is described as voiced. For example: [p]
voiceless bilabial plosive. [b] voiced bilabial plosive. Also, in describing RP consonants, we
usually start with voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation.

ACTIVITY
1. Describe the following sounds / p, m, ŋ, θ, ð, dʒ, ʃ/
2. Identify the stages under plosives are described
3. Distinguish the difference between the following pair of consonants
/p,b/, ii. /s, z/, iii. /n, m/ iv. /θ, ð/
SUGGESTED ANSWERS
1. /p/ voiceless bilabial plosive
/m/ voiced bilabial nasal
/ŋ/ voiced velar nasal
/θ/ voiceless dental fricative
/ð/ voiced dental fricative
/dʒ/ voiced post-alveolar affricate
/ʃ/ voiceless post- alveolar fricative
2. Plosives are described in three criteria
i. In the production of plosives, the organs of speech involved come together and
touch.
ii. Air from the lungs is built behind the closure.
iii. When the organs are released the air comes out explosively. For example
/p,b,k,g,t,d/
3. i. /p, b//p/ is voiceless and /b/ is voiced
ii. /s, z/ /s/ is voiceless and /z/ is voiced
iii. /n, m/ /n/ is voiced alveolar and /m/ is a voiced bilabial
iv. /θ, ð/ /θ/ is voiceless and /ð/ voiced
UNIT ASSESSMENT
 Identify and describe vowels
 Classify the English vowels into types
 Identify and describe four consonant sounds
 Classify the English consonant sounds
 What is the difference between a vowel and a consonant?

41
UNIT SUMMARY
Dear learner, kudos on your successful completion of this unit. I believe you found every bit of it
interesting. This unit has looked at the English speech sounds, vowels and consonants, as well as
how they are pronounced and described. I believe that with this knowledge you will now
pronounce your words correctly and become better speaker of English.
In our next lesson, we shall look at phonology of English. Get ready.

42
UNIT 3 – INTRODUCTION TO PHONOLOGY
INTRODUCTION

Dear student, welcome to the third unit of this course. In the previous unit, we discussed the
classification and description of English speech sounds with particular reference to vowel and
consonant sounds. In this unit, you will learn about what phonology is. Under this, we shall
discuss the phoneme and the identification of English phonetic units. This will lead us to the
discussion of minimal pairs and sets, complementary and contrastive distribution of phonemes in
English. The unit will also introduce us to the processes of phonemic patterning and
phonological constraints in English. This unit promises to be interesting and insightful. We invite
you to stay with us.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you will be able to:

 Explain what phonology is;

 Explain the phoneme concept;
 Identify the phonemes of English;
 Describe the processes of phonemic patterning in English;
 Describe the phonological constraints in English.

43
SECTION 1: THE PHONEME CONCEPT

INTRODUCTION
Hello student, welcome to Section one of Unit 3. In this section, you will learn about what
phonology is. We shall look at the distinction between phonology and phonetics. We shall also
take a general look at the phoneme concept of the English language. In this, we will specifically
define a phone, phoneme and allophones and explain their differences. We shall examine the
characteristics of phonemes, and provide a brief summary on this section. We believe you will
benefit enormously from this section so get ready and let us begin our discussion of the concepts
in this section.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Explain what phonology is.
 Distinguish between phonology and phonetics.
 Explain the phonemic system of English

 What Phonology is

At our lower levels of study, one is much concerned simply with setting out how to form
grammatical sentences, but people who are going to work with English at an advanced level need
the deeper understanding provided by the study of grammatical theory and other areas of
linguistics. The understanding of these theories is necessary and serves as principles which
regulate our use of sounds in oral English.

What then is phonology? It is a branch of linguistics which deals with the study of the
inventory of speech sounds in a language, and how those sounds may pattern together or
contrast. It basically deals with the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a
language. Are these systems and patterns worth studying? We know your answer would be “yes”
because the systems and patterns of sounds help us to describe how phonemes function in
language, and the relationships that exist among the phonemes. We shall explain the concept of
phoneme in detail in the course of this section. We believe you have fully grasped the definition
of phonology.

We further add that phonology is concerned with the abstract set of sounds in a language
which allows us to distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we say or hear. It does not
entail knowing the sounds of the language only, but also how language patterns its inventory of
sounds for conveying meaning. Knowing all the speech sounds in English would not necessarily
make us good speakers of English, but the objective is to help us describe and analyse the

44
permissible and non-permissible combinations of the sound patterns in the language. In short,
phonology of English studies the sound patterns and systems of sound in the English language.

 Relationship between Phonology and Phonetics

Dear learner, phonology and phonetics are related branches of linguistics. However, there is a
difference between these two branches of language. Let us first of all look at what phonetics
studies. It is a branch of linguistics which deals with the production, transmission and reception
of speech sounds. This branch of linguistics does not describe the systems and patterns of sounds
that occur in language, it presents information relating to the principles regulating speech sounds
and how they are used in spoken English. The branch of linguistics which does the description of
the systems and patterns of sounds is phonology.

Let us learn more on the goal of studying phonetics. Phonetics studies the physical speech
sounds of language into detail and analyses them. The goal of phonetics is to accurately define
and classify speech sounds. This is achieved by studying the actual production of the speech
sounds and their properties. This enables the learner to distinguish one sound class from another.
Phonetics deals with the properties of the human vocal system, irrespective of which language is
being spoken.

As described earlier, phonology studies how vocal sounds are organised in a particular
language. It is an abstraction away from the physical data provided by phonetics. You see how
related these two linguistic fields are? Phonology also seeks to discover the psychological pattern
and underlying organisation of sounds shared by native speakers of a particular language. As
observed earlier, it studies the sound patterns of a particular language. Such patterns involve
distinctive sounds in a language and how the patterns combine with the sounds to form speech.
Phonology simply refers to the study of the general rules that govern how words are pronounced
in a language. For instance, in English, the sounds [ b, k, ɪ, l] can have the permissible
combinations such as [blɪk], [kɪlb], [bɪlk] and [klɪb]; however the following combinations are
not permissible in English: [bklɪ], [kblɪ], [kbɪl] and [lɪkb]. This means that the English language
carefully selects specific sounds to combine effectively with others to form words. We shall
discuss this phenomenon of permissible and non-permissible combinations of English sounds in
section five of this unit.

ACTIVITY 3.1

a. What is Phonology?
b. Outline the differences between phonology and phonetics
c. What is the objective for studying phonetics?

45
 The Phonemic System of English

Most linguists have considered the phoneme as one of the basic units of a language. The term
was first used in the late 1870s by Kruzanski. Whilst Bloomfield and Daniel Jones have
described the phoneme in physical terms, Sapir gave it a psychological consideration. Other
linguists consider the phoneme as an abstract unit of language.

It must be noted here, that just as there are abstract alphabet system as the basis of our
writing, so there is an abstract set of units as the basis of our speech (Roach, 1998). These units
are called phonemes, and the complete set of these units is called the phonemic system of
language. There may be different realisations of the various phonemes, but the most important
thing is that we should be able to make use of the full set of the phonemes for communication.

 What is a Phoneme?

In any language we identify a small number of regularly used sounds (vowels and
consonants) called phonemes. A phoneme refers to a group of related sounds of a particular
language which are so used in connected speech that no one of them ever occurs in positions
which any other can occupy. In simple terms, a phoneme refers to the smallest contrastive
linguistic unit which may bring about change in meaning. It constitutes the minimal unit of
sound that serves to distinguish meaning between words. For example, the vowels in the words
‘tin’ and ‘ten’ are different phonemes, and so are the consonants at the beginning of the words
‘sip’ and ‘zip’. We hope the concept of phoneme has been made simple to you, hasn’t it? Good,
let’s move forward.

To determine the phonemes of English in order to distinguish meaning, we put together a set
of words which have different meanings as a result of a change of one distinct sound. For
instance, the series of words - pin, bin, chin, gin, fin, kin, din, sin, shin, min, win, tin, etc give us
twelve words which are distinguished simply by a change in the first consonantal unit of each
word in the sequence. Phonemes are put in slang bars so from the above series of word we can
represent the twelve distinct phonemes as follows: /p/, /b/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/, /f/, /k/, /d/, /s/, /ʃ/, /m/, /w/
and /t/. These phonemes have contrastive significance because they bring meaning change in
words.

In fact, the phoneme is an abstract mental representation of speech sounds which serves as
the basic level for any phonological analysis. It is a single unit of sound that has meaning in
language. There are 44 phonemes in English (in the standard British model), each representing a
different sound a person can make. These comprise 24 consonantal phonemes and 20 vowel
phonemes. Since there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, sometimes letter combinations
need to be used to make a phoneme. A single letter can represent more than one phoneme. Here
are examples of letter combination which result in distinct phonemes:

46
Chef ====/ ʃef/

Chord === /kᴐ:/

Cheese == /ʧ i:z/

We realise that the ‘ch’ letter combination has three different pronunciations, which are
represented by three phonemes, as in: /ʃ/, /k/ and /ʧ/. Let us also see single letter which can yield
different phoneme. A typical example is the letter “o” as seen in the following words: sow, bow,
dove, cot etc. We realise four distinct vowel phonemes from the letter “o” as in: /əʊ / /aʊ/ /Ʌ/
and /ɒ/.

In English, the phoneme is not heard but its different physical realisations are heard in
speech or words. These physical realisations are the variants that are considered by native
speakers of English as the same. Native speakers consider the phoneme as a family of sounds in
a given language which are related in character and are used in such a way that no one member
ever occurs in the same phonetic context as any other in words. What does phonetic context refer
to? It simply refers to the surrounding environment in which the sounds occur. In other words, it
tells us about the different positions of the phoneme. For instance, /k/ sound in ‘kill’, ‘skill’ and
‘pick’ differs. In ‘kill’, it is found in word initial position; in ‘skill’, it is found in word medial
position, and in ‘pick’, it is seen in word final position. To the native speaker of English, there is
no difference in the three realisations of /k/. The native speaker is not aware of the physical
differences, but he thinks that these sounds are just members of /k/, that is variants of the same
sound /k/.

The phoneme concept in language was designed just to enable linguists to pattern-out
small number of sounds which can be used to gather all the various realisations of the sounds in a
given language. Phonemes are distinctive sounds because they are used to distinguish one speech
sound from another. This implies that if we substitute one sound for another in a word, there is a
change of meaning. This contrastive feature of phonemes is the basic operational test for
determining the phonemes which exist in a language. Let us now look at some features of the
phoneme.

 Features of Phonemes
 Phonemes are unique to every language. Even though it is possible to identify phonemes
in many languages, each language organises the phoneme in its own special way. For
example, in English, the phonemes /n/ and /ŋ/ can occur in the same position, as in [θɪn]
and [θɪ ŋ]. In the Fante dialect, however, /n/ and /ŋ/ do not occur in the same position. For
instance, /ŋ/ occurs only before /k/ and /g/ whilst /n/ occurs elsewhere so the two are
variants. This is because they are in complementary distribution. We shall talk about
complementary distribution in section three of this unit.
 All languages can have their pronunciation systems or sounds reduced or codified into
phonemes. The sounds in the different languages are represented using phonemes, from
47
which the different phonetic varieties manifest. The phoneme represents the codified
sound system in a language.
 One important property of a phoneme is that it functions contrastively. We know that
there are two phonemes /f/ and /v/ in English because they are the only basis of the
contrast in meaning between the forms fan and van or fine and vine. We realise from
these examples that phonemes bring meaning change in words.
 Similarly, phonemes occur in contrastive positions. We realise that when two sounds
occur in contrastive distribution or environment in a minimal pair, a substitution of the
other causes a meaning change of the word. This is the distinctive nature of phonemes.
 Phonemes cannot be equated to the letters of alphabet in the English language in the
sense that most of the letters of the alphabet are either silent in pronunciation or are
pronounced differently. Let see examples of letters which do not have phonetic values in
words as follows: Psalm [sa:m], womb [wu:m], listen [lɪsən], muscle [mɅsəl], sachet
[sæʃeɪ] etc. Here are examples of words pronounced different from their spelling:
Edinburgh [edɪnbərə], poignant [pϽɪnjənt], depot [depəʊ], chef [ʃef], hiccough [hɪkɅp]
etc.

 Phones and Allophones

Dear learner, we have defined the phoneme as a family of sounds in a given language which
are related in character. These sounds are used in such a way that no one member can occurs
twice in the same phonetic environment in a particular word. It must be noted that there are many
varieties of the same sound-type regularly produced in actual speech. These varieties are
members of the same phonemes which are described as phones. What is a phone? In phonology,
it is the smallest possible segment of sound abstracted from the continuum of speech. It
represents any objective speech sound, considered as a physical event and without regard as to
how it fits into the structure of a given language. Phones are phonetic units and are represented in
square brackets [ ].

With the definitions of phoneme and phones in mind, let us take a look at what an allophone
is. When we have a set of phones, all of which are variants of one phoneme, we refer to them as
allophones of that particular phoneme. An allophone is, therefore, a speech sound which is one
of the number of variants of a phoneme. The variants are the phonetic varieties realised from the
same phoneme. We observed previously that a phoneme may be realised by more than one
speech sound and the selection of each variant is usually determined by the phonetic
environment of the phoneme. We believe you have not forgotten about the concept of phonetic
environment explained earlier in this section?

Allophones are the different phonetic realizations of a phoneme, and these realisations do
not change the meaning of words. Thus in English [t], [tl] and [th] are allophones of the phoneme
/t/. Additionally, [ph], kh], [th], etc. are the aspirated variants of the phonemes /p/, /k/ and /t/.

48
Aspiration in English does not bring about a change in meaning but only changes the initial
position in a word. Some sounds, the native speaker thinks, are the same while others are
different. The linguist has to figure out what sounds are grouped together as the same; what it is
that they all have in common among themselves and how dissimilar they are to other groups of
sounds in informant's speech and what criteria the native speaker uses to tell sounds apart.

It must be noted that the selection of allophones are occasioned but sometimes they vary
significantly from person to person and occasion to occasion. The phonetic environment of the
phoneme tells us about the different positions of the phoneme and the possible realisations
coming out of a given phoneme. For example, the /k/ sound in 'keel', 'calm' and 'cool' differs. In
'keel' it is produced close to the front of the mouth; in 'calm' it is produced close to the centre of
the mouth and in 'cool' it is produced further back in the mouth. The native speaker does not
differentiate these sounds in everyday speech in the sense that he is not aware of the physical
differences. He thinks that these sounds are the members of /k/ class or are all /k/. However, we
can see that the phoneme /k/ is realised as central /k/, retracted /k/ and fronted /k/, and these are
the different realisations of the phoneme /k/. These realisations are called allophones.

Let us take another example for illustration. The phoneme /t/ in words like "take" and "stake"
are different phonetically because of the nature of phonetic environment in which they occur, but
phonologically they are all the same and strictly speaking, allophones of the same phoneme /t/.
The [t] of "take" is clearly aspirated, whereas the [t] of stake is unaspirated because plosive
sounds preceded by [s] are never aspirated in English. The phoneme /t/, therefore, consists of
several phonetically different sounds and may be logically regarded as a class. Before we draw
the curtain, let us examine some distinct features of allophones.

 Features of Allophones
 Allophones are sounds that are in complementary distribution.
 They are phonetically similar.
 They occur in different phonetic environment.
 Substituting one allophone for another does not cause any meaning change.
 They are sounds emanating from the same phoneme.

ACTIVITY 3.2

a. How different is phone from phoneme?

b. What are allophones?
c. State four qualities of allophones.

49
SUMMARY

In this section, we have identified the difference between phonetics and phonology. We learnt
that while phonetics studies the production, transmission and reception of speech sounds,
phonology describes the systems and patterns of sounds that occur in language. We also
discussed the phonemic system of English with special reference to phone, phonemes and
allophones. We learnt that the phoneme is the smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may
bring about a change in meaning. We also explained allophones as phonetic varieties of the same
phoneme and thus do not bring about change in meaning. The phone is the actual sound realised
from the phoneme. Whilst phonemes are contrastive units of language, allophones are non-
contrastive units of language. Phoneme is an abstract unit or mental construct. We do not utter
phonemes; we produce phones which are the allophones of the phoneme of the language. For
example, /p/ is a phoneme in English. This sound can be realized phonetically as either [p] or
[ph]. These two are allophones of the phoneme /p/. In the next section of this unit, we shall learn
about the English phonetic units with special focus on minimal pairs and sets. Go with us as we
explore the next section.

wet [wet]/yet[jet] - /w/ /j/ hot[hɒt]/rot[rɒt] - /h/ /r/

bark[ba:k]/park[pa:k] - /b/ /p/ boy[bᴐɪ]/toy[tᴐɪ] - /b/ /t/

day[deɪ]/say[seɪ] - /d/ /s/ tool[tu:l]/wool[wu:l] - /t/ /w/

kill[kɪl]/gill[gɪl] - /k/ /g/ might[maɪt]/night[naɪt] - /m/ /n/

you[ju:]/zoo[zu:] - /j/ /z/ surge[s3:ʤ]/purge[p3:ʤ]- /s/ /p/

We can clearly see from the examples above that two sounds are distinctive in each pair
of words. This distinctiveness results in meaning change though the two words in the pair seem
to be identical in form. We can establish that when we substitute one segment for another and the
substitution results in a change in meaning, the two segments belong to two different phonemes,
hence d and s are different phonemes because day and say are not the same. We can have other
examples as follows:

pig[pɪg] /big[bɪg] /p/ /b/

52
pea[pi:]/tea[ti:] /p/ /t/

meal[mi:l]/seal[si:l] /m/ /s/

lean[li:n]/leak[li:k] /n/ /k/

lip[lɪp]/leap[li:p] /ɪ/ /i:/

From the above examples, we can observe that the minimal pair test may be applied to
any position, including the initial, medial and final positions of words. Now consider the
following pairs of words below. Will you consider them minimal pairs or otherwise? Assign
reasons to justify your choice of answer.

Couch/coach bat/get

Shirt/flirt shoe/sue

Worry/sorry move/mauve

Touch/torch moth/mouth

Paint/taint chef/chief

Ban/can mute/cute

Now let us solve the activity above together. We realise that the pairs couch/coach, shoe/sue,
touch/torch, paint/taint, moth/mouth, move/mauve, ban/can and mute/cute constitute minimal
pairs each whereas shirt/flirt, worry/sorry, bat/get and chef/chief do not constitute minimal pairs
each. We draw the curtain on minimal pair by stating that sounds in a minimal pair

 contrast
 are unpredictable (i.e., must be learned)
 belong to different phonemes
 can occur in the same position.

 Minimal sets

The minimal set test is not so different from the minimal pair test. Do you have any idea
about this minimal set test? Well, let us explain the concept now. A set of distinct words in a
language which differ in only one or limited number of phonological elements is termed as a
minimal set. We note that if there are two words in the set, it is a minimal pair. When a group of
words can be distinguished, each one from the others, by changing one phoneme (always in the
same position), then we have a minimal set. A minimal set is used to demonstrate that the
phonological element under consideration is phonemic. This means that each segment of sound

53
has a contrastive function in determining meaning. The principle of a simple binary opposition
between the two members of a minimal pair may be extended to cover a minimal set where a
number of words differ from each other in terms of one sound in a particular position in the set
of words.

We can have minimal sets based on the vowel and consonant phonemes of English. Thus, a
minimal set based on the vowel phonemes of English would include:

Fill - /ɪ/

Fall - /ᴐ:/

Fell - /e/

Fool - /u:/

Full - /ʊ/

Feel - /i:/

The set above shows that the vowel phonemes /ɪ/, /ᴐ:/, /e/, /u:/, /ʊ/ and /i:/ are distinct units of
sounds in English that bring meaning change. Similarly, we can have a minimal set based on
consonant phonemes of English, as in:

Fake -/f/

Take - /t/

Cake - /k/

Bake - /b/

Sake - /s/

Lake - /l/

Make - /m/

Shake - /ʃ/

Rake - /r/

Wake - /w/

Jake - /ʤ/

Again, we realise that the consonant phonemes /f/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /s/, /l/, /m/, /ʃ/, /r/, /w/ and
/ʤ/ are distinct units of sounds in English which bring about change in meaning of words. As we

54
can see, when we try to substitute any of the phonemes in the set, the result is change in meaning
of words. By using minimal set, we can establish all the phonemes of a language. Let us now
present the consonant and vowel phonemes of English in the tables below respectively.

Figure 3.1 Consonant phonemes of English

/p/ pad pie pet

/t/ tad tie

/k/ cad keep

/ʧ/ Chad cheap

/ʤ/ jeep

/b/ bad buy bet beep

/d/ dad dye debt deep

/g/ gad guy get

/m/ mad my met ram

/n/ nigh net neap ran

/ŋ/ rang

/f/ fad fie fang

/v/ vie vet

/θ/ thigh ether

/ð/ thy either

/s/ sad sigh set seep sang sip

/z/ mizzen zip

/ʃ/ shad shy sheep mission ship

/Ʒ/ vision

/w/ wad why wet weep

/j/ yet

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/l/ lad lie let leap

/r/ rad rye ret reap

/h/ had high het heap

Figure 3.2 Vowel phonemes of English

i: bead heal feel

I bid hill fill

eɪ bayed hail fail

e bed hell fell

æ bad

aɪ bide

aʊ bowed foul

a: barred

ɒ bod

ᴐ: board haul fall

ᴐɪ Boyd foil

əʊ bode hole foal

ɪə beard

Ʌ bud hull

u: booed fool

ʊ full

3: bird hurl furl

eə
ə

ʊə

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ACTIVITY 3.1

1. Briefly state the difference between minimal pair and minimal set
2. State two significance of the minimal pair test

 Free Variation

Sometimes, in the English language, we come across situations where a word may have at
least two different pronunciations. In such instance, it makes little or no difference which of the
two possible ways we choose to pronounce a word. Free variation occurs when two phonetically
different units occur but the substitution of one for the other does not result in a different word
but a mere different acceptable pronunciation of the same word. The sounds may appear in the
same environments, but none ever causes a change in meaning, hence there are no minimal pairs
involving sounds in free variation. In such situation, the native speaker of English will accept
any of the alternative pronunciations as correct, and will not identify any change in meaning of
the word pair.

For example, the b at the beginning of a word such as ‘bat’ will normally be produced with
no voicing, maybe in speaking very emphatically. If this is done, the sound is still seen as the
phoneme b, even though we can hear that it is slightly different in some way. In this case, we can
see from the example that b as a phoneme has different realisations and one can be substituted
for the other without changing the meaning.

Let us now see some English words which have at least two pronunciations, hence are in free
variation.

either [ɪðɚ] or [aɪðɚ]

ration [reɪʃən]or [ræʃən]

direct [dairekt] or [dərekt]

economic [i:kənɒmɪk] or [ekənɒmɪk]

tomato [təmeɪtəʊ] or [təma:təʊ]

From the above, we realise that each of the italicised words in English has at least two different
pronunciations. For example, in the pronunciation of the word ‘ration’, the vowel sound in the
first syllable is realised as either /eɪ/ or /æ/. Again in the pronunciation of the word ‘economic’,
the initial sound is realised as either /i:/ or /e/. We observe that /i:/ and /e/ are not allophones
from the same phoneme but different distinct phonemes. However, the two sounds do not
contrast to bring about meaning change in the words under consideration. Instances of this kind,
where the single meaning of a word is represented by different phonemic forms are termed as
57
free variations. Thus the words [iðɚ] and [aiðɚ] (either) are said to be in free variation. Can you
identify instances of free variation in other English words? Does this phenomenon occur in your
native language?

ACTIVITY 3.2.

1. After each minimal pair write the phonemes that bring about the sound contrast between
them:
a. Ban/bang e. Buy/boy
b. Pill/bill f. Girl/gill
c. Fate/date g. Feel/fill
d. Shape/shade h. Shield/field
2. Demonstrate the English phonemic contrasts given at the left with minimal pairs, one
contrast in word initial and the other in word final position. The first example is done for
you.
a. /b/ - /d/ belt – dealt lab – lad
b. /s/ - /z/ ..................... .............................
c. /ʧ/ - /ʃ/ ..................... .............................

SUMMARY

In this section, we have identified two criteria for identifying phonetic units of English. These
are the minimal pair and sets tests. We explained the meaning pair as a pair of words that have
different meanings and which differ in only one sound whereas minimal set refers to a set of
distinct words in a language which differ in only one or limited number of phonological elements
We learnt that when a group of words can be differentiated, each one from the others, by
changing one phoneme (always in the same position), then we have a minimal set. We also
learned that both minimal pair and sets are important tests used basically to demonstrate
phonemic contrast in the phonemes of a language and to determine the non-native speakers’ of
ability of understanding the contrast in meaning of English words. We learnt that free variation
occurs when two phonetically different units occur but the substitution of one for the other does
not result in a different word but a mere different acceptable pronunciation of the same word. In
the next section of this unit, we shall learn more about the English phonetic units with special
reference to complementary and contrastive distribution of sounds.

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SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 3.1

1. Whereas a minimal pair is a pair of words that have different meanings and which differ
in only one sound, a minimal set refers to set of distinct words in a language which differ
in only one or limited number of phonological elements.
2. It is used to demonstrate phonemic contrast in the phonemes of a language. It is also used
to determine the non-native speakers of English’s ability to understand the contrast in
meaning resulting from the minimal sound contrast.

ACTIVITY 3.2.
1.
a. Ban/bang /n/ - /ŋ/ e. Buy/boy /aɪ/ - /ᴐɪ/
b. Pill/bill /p/ - /b/ f. Girl/gill /3:/ - /l/
c. Fate/date /f/ - /d/ g. Feel/fill /i:/ - /l/
d. Shape/shade /p/ - /d/ h. Shield/field /ʃ/ - /f/

2. Demonstrating the English phonemic contrasts given at the left with minimal pairs, one
contrast in word initial and the other in word final position.
 /b/ - /d/ belt – dealt lab – lad
 /s/ - /z/ sip – zip bus - buzz
 /ʧ/ - /ʃ/ chip – ship ditch - dish

59
SECTION 3 IDENTIFICATION OF ENGLISH PHONEMES:
COMPLEMENTARY AND CONTRASTIVE DISTRIBUTION OF SOUNDS

INTRODUCTION
Welcome, dear Student, to section three of unit 3. This section is a continuation of the concepts
we treated in section two of this unit, so you need to quickly recollect most of the facts discussed
to enhance your understanding of this section. In this section you will learn about what phonetic
environment is. We shall also explain in detail complementary distribution of sounds as well as
contrastive distribution of sounds. We shall explain these concepts in detail and provide
examples for better understanding. We believe you will get the maximum benefit from this
section if you move along with us. Let us see the task ahead of us.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Explain phonemic environment.
 Explain the concept complementary distribution of sounds.
 Identify English sounds that are in free variation.

 Phonemic Environment

An environment generally refers to the surroundings or conditions within which something or

someone exists. Phonetic environment refers to the relative position in which a sound occurs. We
learn that the phonemic environment may be word initial (after a pause), word medial (between
any two sounds), word final (before a pause), inter vocalic (between two vowels), preceding
certain sounds or a class of sounds (prevocalic, postvocalic, stressed or unstressed syllable).

The phonemic environment of a given sound is very important. The environment that causes
variation in sound must be identified in order to understand the systemic changes that come
along with it. Once sounds are grouped into their phonemic environment, patterns of distribution
can be taken into consideration. In this section, two of such distributions are going to be
discussed. These are complementary and contrastive distribution of speech sounds. Let’s first of
all look at the complementary distribution of phonemes.

 Complementary Distribution of Sounds

We find cases in speech similar to the writing example of capital A and little a. We realise
that in writing where the capital A occurs, the little a does not occur. With this in mind, let’s
proceed to define what complementary distribution is. It refers to the distribution of sounds in
their respective phonetic environments such that one never occurs in the same phonetic context
as the other. In other words, it is the occurrence of variants of phonemes in different phonetic
environments that are usually predictable.

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Let’s see how the linguist regards sounds in complementary distribution. The linguist
considers all sounds in complementary distribution as follows:

 Substituting one sound or variety for another does not cause meaning difference or
change
 Those sounds must be phonetically similar
 They must occur in a definable environment.

Let’s illustrate the above with examples: [p], [ph] and [p┐]. [p] is unaspirated and it usually
occurs when it is preceded by [s] as in the words [spi:k] and [spɪt]. [ph] is aspirated and it usually
occurs in initial and stressed positions in words, as in [phᴐ:t] and [ɪm phᴐ:t]. [p┐], on the other
hand, is the incompletely exploded variant of [p] and it occurs before [t] and [ʧ] in words, as in:
[kæ p┐tɪn] captain and [kæ p┐ʧə] capture. We can see clearly from the above illustrations that
[p], [ph] and [p┐] do not occur in the same environment. Again, we observe that [p], [ph] and [p┐]
are allophones of the same phoneme /p/.

Dear learner, we believe we are making headway? We realise from the example above
that the distinctive sounds complement each other because where one occurs the other will not
occur, that is each one occurs in its own environment. When two variants are in complementary
distribution, one can predict where each will occur because one can easily and simply look at the
environment in which the variants or allophones occur. So when phonemes are distributed in
different environments to help each other complete a certain function, we can say they are in
complementary distribution. Even though there are similarities, there are also differences as a
result of the different environment in which they occur.

Let’s illustrate this further with another example. The realisation of t in the word ‘tea’ is
aspirated as in the case of all voiceless plosives when they occur before stressed vowels at the
beginnings of syllables. In the word ‘eat’, the realisation of t is unaspirated as in the case of all
voiceless plosives when they occur at the end of a syllable and are followed by a vowel. We can
see that the aspirated [th] and the unaspirated [t] are both recognised as t by English speakers
despite their differences. We can observe that the aspirated variant of t will never be found in the
place where the unaspirated variant occurs, and vice versa. This phenomenon is what we refer to
as complementary distribution of sounds. [t] and [th] are therefore allophones of the same
phoneme /t/ whose varieties include [th], [t], [tl] and [tn]

 Contrastive Distribution of Sounds

What do we mean when we say two sounds contrast? What we mean is that the sounds
function to distinguish meaning. Two sounds are said to be contrastive if inter-changing the two
can change meaning of the word. With this knowledge in mind, let’s move forward to explain
what contrastive distribution of sounds is. When two sounds can occur in the exact same
phonetic environment thereby forming a minimal pair, the phenomenon is termed as contrastive
distribution. Contrastive distribution also means that the two sounds in the minimal pair are

61
distinct phonemes and substituting one for another causes meaning change of the word. For
instance, the sounds [k] and [g] are distinct phonemes that bring about the difference in meaning,
hence they are contrastive units. For example, ‘came’ [keɪm] and ‘game’ [geɪm] are two different
words and the difference is brought by [k] and [g]. Additionally, the sounds [s] and [z] contrast
markedly in all phonetic environments. In initial position, we can have ‘sue’ [su:] and ‘zoo’
[zu:]. In word medial position, the two sounds still contrast, as in: ‘bussing’ [bɅsɪŋ] and
‘buzzing’ [bɅzɪŋ]. In word final position, we still see the contrastiveness of [s] and [z] as in
‘loose’ [lu:s] and ‘lose’ [lu:z].

The linguist regards all sounds in contrastive distribution as follows:

 The sounds may not be phonetically similar

 They must occur in the same phonetic environment
 Substituting one of these sounds causes change in meaning.

In phonology, two sounds are said to be in contrastive distribution if replacing one sound
with the other in the same phonetic environment results in a change in meaning. Let’s consider
other sounds, for example, [p] and [b], and [n] and [ŋ]. In English, the sounds [p] and [b] can
both occur in word-initial position, as in: pat[pæt] and bat[bæt]. We can see that the two sounds
are distinct phonemes in English and are therefore in contrastive distribution. In the previous
section of this unit, we explained that two sounds which are in contrastive distribution in English
could be in free variation. We believe the concept of free variation is still fresh in your memory?
Good!

In conclusion, when two sounds are in contrastive distribution, they are distinct
phonemes, but those in complementary distribution are allophones of the same phonemes. For
instance, the aspirated [ph]and the unaspirated [p] are not distinctive sounds because they do not
bring any change in meaning; however the phonetically distinctive sounds which exist in English
bring about meaning change in different phonetic environments.

ACTIVITY 3.1

 What is phonemic environment?

 Briefly explain the concept of complementary distribution of English sounds.
 What criteria are used by the linguist to identify sounds which are in complementary
distribution?
 Illustrate with examples why [f] and [v] are said to be in contrastive distribution.

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SUMMARY

Congratulations, dear learner! We have successfully completed another section of this unit of the
course. In this section, we have explained what is meant by phonemic environment. We said that
phonemic environment referred to the relative position in which a sound occurs. We explained
complementary distribution as the distribution of sounds in their respective phonetic
environments such that one never occurs in the same phonetic context as the other. We added
that sounds that are in complementary distribution must be phonetically similar, must occur in a
definable environment and bring no meaning change when substituted. The section also
highlighted the concept of contrastive distribution of sounds. We said that two sounds are said to
be contrastive if inter-changing the two can change meaning of the word. We learnt that sounds
in contrastive distribution must be phonetically similar, must occur in the same phonetic
environment, and substituting one of these sounds causes change in meaning. In the next section
of this unit, we shall learn about phonemic patterning in English. This will enable us to identify
the permissible and non-permissible sequences of phonemes in English. We shall also identify
some phonological rules that guide phonemic patterning in English. We believe you are
motivated enough to join us explore the next section.

 Phonemic environment refers to the relative position in which a sound occurs.

 Complementary distribution of sounds refers to the distribution of sounds in their
respective phonetic environments such that one never occurs in the same phonetic context
as the other.
 The linguist considers all sounds in complementary distribution as follows:
 Substituting one sound or variety for another does not cause meaning difference
or change
 Those sounds must be phonetically similar
 They must occur in a definable environment.

 [f] and [v] are said to be in contrastive distribution because the two sounds, in a minimal
pair, are distinct phonemes and substituting one for another causes meaning change of the
word. For example, ‘fan’ [fæn] and ‘van’ [væn] are two different words and the
difference is brought by [f] and [v].

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SECTION 4 PROCESSES OF PHONEMIC PATTERNING

INTRODUCTION

Dear learner, welcome to section four of unit 3. In the previous section, we discussed what
phonemic environment was. We also had an extensive discussion on complementary and
contrastive distributions of sounds. We illustrated these concepts in detail and provided examples
for better understanding. This section will try to give explanation to the concept of phonemic
patterning and further establish the permissible and non-permissible sequences in the English
language. Similarly, we shall identify some of the phonological rules that guide phonemic
patterning in English, and problem areas in phonemic patterning for some Ghana speakers of
English. We believe the concepts we are going to discuss will help add to the store of knowledge
you have already acquired from this course. Before we delve into the section, let’s consider the
objectives we have set for ourselves.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Explain what phonemic patterning is.
 Identify permissible and non-permissible sequences of phonemes in English.
 Identify some phonological rules which guide phonemic patterning in English
 Discuss problem areas in phonemic patterning for some Ghanaian speakers of English.

 Phonemic Patterning in English

All languages build their words from a finite set of phonemic units. It is also true that in all
languages there are restrictions on the sequences of phonemes that are used. For example, we
know that no English word begins with the consonant combination sbv and no word in English
ends with the sequence æh.
Speakers of English know that the phonemes of the language cannot be strung together in
any random order. Suppose you are asked to form a word from the phonemes /r/ /t/ /eɪ/ and /n/,
what word would you form? You may come out with certain combinations such as [eɪntr],
[rteɪn], [rnteɪ], [treɪn] etc. We realise that apart from [treɪn], all other phoneme combinations
above do not follow permissible order in English. Some phonemes exhibit clustering behaviour,
that is, they have the feature of blending effectively with other phonemes in order to form
acceptable words.
So now what is phonemic patterning? It simply refers to the permissible combination of
phonemic units in a language to form words. Phonemic patterning shows the acceptable
sequences of phonemes in a language. In English and languages in general, phonemic patterning
follows a lot of processes and rules. In phonology, we try to analyse these processes, restrictions

64
and regularities in English in order to determine which phonemic clusters are permissible in the
language.

 Permissible and Non-Permissible Phonemic Patterning in English

In life, there are rules and principles that guide our everyday activities. Without them life
would be chaotic. Similarly, there are permissible and non-permissible phonemic combinations
in English. We need to know the actual and permissible sequences in which sound units in
English occur. By so doing we will be able to determine words that are not English and those
that are. Let’s consider the following examples of phonemic patterning: /p/ + /l/ combines
effectively to give the pattern /pl/ which yields words such as plain, play, plural, plumb, plant,
place, etc. In a similar vein, /p/ + /r/ result in the pattern /pr/ which yields words such as prey,
print, press, process, praise etc. Can you think of any English word which begins with the
pattern /lp/ or /rp/? We believe you are trying hard to get one but your effort will yield no result
since no word in English begins with the phonemic pattern /lp/ and /rp/. So words such as *lpay,
lport, rpert, rpull* etc are not acceptable in English.
We can also have other permissible patterning as follows:
 /kl/ - club, class, clear, clean, clay, clutch etc.
 /kr/ - crab, crane, crush, crunch, crime etc.
 /sp/ - space, spy, spoil, spell, spill, Spain etc.
 /skr/ - square, squat, squash etc.
 /str/ - strict, string, stress, stretch, stray etc.
 /spr/ - spring, spray, spread, spree etc.
 /spl/ - splash, split, spleen, splay, splint etc.

While we consider the above sequences as permissible in English, the combinations *zk, *pkl,
*sd, *td, *pb etc are not permitted in English.

ACTIVITY 4.1
Form three words each from the following permissible word-initial clusters:
/tr/ ............. ................. .................
/gr/ ............. ................. .................
/gl/ .............. ................. ..................
/dr/ .............. ................. .................
/br/ ............... ................. ....................
/bl/ ............... ................... .....................

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We believe you got words like train, grain, glass, drain, brain, black etc for each cluster.
That’s excellent! We observe that all these combinations identified above do not occur at word
final position, except /sp/. The cluster /sp/ can occur at word final position in words such as
grasp, wasp, wisp, rasp etc. Let’s consider the following:

 Trap /tr/
 Quench /kw/
 *Proot /pr/
 *gfoil */gf/
 *plune /pl/
 *srtoon */srt/
 Stew /stj/

Which of the above will you not consider as English words? How did you know? Yes, we can
readily see that *gfoil and *srtoon are not English words because the word-initial phonemic
clusters /gf/ and /srt/ are not permissible in English. Without doubt, we conclude that trap,
quench and stew are English. However, when we consider *proot and *plune, we realise that
they follow the consonant cluster formation rules of English, yet they are not known English
words. It is possible to see *proot and *plune in the English lexicon some day in the future
because they satisfy the phonemic patterning rule in English.

 Some Phonological Rules in Phonemic Patterning

Phonological rules describe the relationships between phonemes and phones. For example,
the following is a possible (but incomplete) rule for English: A voiceless stop at the beginning of
a word is aspirated when followed by a vowel. In English, the maximum initial consonant cluster
is three. In such a cluster, the first phoneme in the sequence must be a /s/, followed by any of the
voiceless stops /p, t, k/, and an approximant /w, r, j/ as in: /spr/, /skr/, /stj/, /skw/. These are
realised in words such as sprain, screw, stew, square etc. On the contrary, the patterning /srp/,
/rks/, /spk/, /tnr/, /trs/ are not permissible combinations in English.

Similarly, the maximum final consonant cluster in English is four. For instance, the
combination /ŋkθs/ is permissible at the word-final position in English, as in: strengths
[streŋkθs]. It is, however, not permissible at the word-initial position. The combination /mpst/ is
equally permissible in English at the word-final position, as in: exempts [ɪgzempts], tempts
[tempts]. The phonemic patterning /ksts/ is also permissible at word-final position in English, as
in: texts [teksts]. Can you think of any other word that ends with /ksts/ phonemic cluster? Again,
we can have /lfθs/ combination at the word-final position in English. We can have twelfths
[twelfθs] as an example for the /lfθs/ phoneme combination.

In a cluster consisting of a nasal + non-nasal consonant, both consonants must be produced at

the same place of articulation. This kind of blending is called homorganic consonant clusters.

66
For example, in the word thank, the alveolar nasal [n] has to change to the velar nasal [ŋ] so that
it occurs at the same place of articulation with the velar stop [k]. Here are more examples:

think [θɪŋk]
incorrect [ɪnkərekt]
index [ɪndeks]
mingle [mɪŋgəl]
impossible [ɪmpɒsɪbl]

In the English phonemic patterning rule, the following consonant stops [p, t, k, b, d, g]
cannot be preceded immediately by another stop in word-initial position. The patterning /gb/,
/kp/, /pb/ etc cannot occur in English though in most Ghanaian languages these combinations are
permissible. In word-final position, however, we can have the combinations /kt/ in looked [lʊkt]
and /bd/ in dubbed [dɅbd]. This phenomenon mostly occurs in phonologically conditioned
endings of words in English.

It should be noted that after a lateral or a trill, the next segment must be a vowel, as in:
road [rəʊd] and lord [lᴐ:d]. Can you think of other words which satisfy this rule?

We also note that after a palatal sound /ʧ/ or /ʤ/ in word initial or medial, the next
segment must be a vowel, as in: chore [ʧᴐ:] or judge [ʤɅʤ]. Sometimes, at word-final position,
this rule does not hold, most especially in the phonologically conditioned endings of words, as
in: perched [p3:ʧd] and engaged [ɪngeiʤd].

Here are other phonological rules that guide phonemic patterning in English:

 Only bilabial nasal /m/ occurs before the bilabial plosives /p/ and /b/, as in: ample,
example, tumble, humble, shamble, exempt, pre-empt etc.
 Only velar nasal /ŋ/ occurs before velar stops /k/ and /g/, as in: ankle, angle, ink, inkling
etc
 Among the English consonants, only alveolar nasal /n/ occurs before alveolar stops /d/
and /t/, as in: sand, handle, candle, hunter, pant, saint, plant, sprint etc
 English words can have four or even five consonants in the middle of a word. In these
instances, the consonants will be in different syllables. Here are example:

Windscreen /...nd.skr.../
Abstract /...b.str.../
Watchstrap /...ʧ.str.../
Explain /...k.spl.../
Extra /...k.str.../

We shall discuss the English syllable structure in detail in unit 5 of this course and we believe the
unit will facilitate your understanding of the concepts we have discussed in this section so far.

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Let’s now identify some problem areas in initial and final clusters for some Ghana speakers of
English.

 Problem Areas of Ghanaian Speakers of English

Most Ghanaian speakers of English do not have consonant clusters in word-final position in
their indigenous languages. Besides, some of the phonemes in English are not found in most
Ghanaian languages and this makes it difficult for some Ghanaian speakers of English to produce
some English words correctly. Let’s identify some of these challenges encountered by Ghanaian
speakers of English:

 Most Ghanaian speakers of English drop some consonant phonemes in the cluster in
words. Can you think of some words produced this way? Here are examples:
“pos” instead of “post”
“firs” instead of “first”
“tes” instead of “test”
“kios” instead of “kiosk”
“des” instead of “desk”.

 At times, some Ghanaian speakers of English interchange the positions of consonant

phonemes in some English words. Here are examples:
“deks” instead of “desk”
“aks” instead of “ask”
“taks” instead of “task”
“graps” instead of “grasp”
“riks” instead of “risk”
“nakpin” instead of “napkin”

Think of two of such words that have their positions of consonant phonemes interchanged by the
Ghanaian speaker of English. Write the two words down.

 Another common phenomenon encountered by the Ghanaian speaker of English is the

insertion of vowel phonemes into consonant phoneme clusters. Observe the following
examples:
“milik” instead of “milk”
“filim” instead of “milk”
“belet” instead of “belt”
“silik” instead of “silik”

 The Ghanaian speaker of English also substitutes some of the phonemes for others,
especially in situations where those phonemes are not in his/her native language. For
instance, the phonemes /θ/ and /ð/ are not common in indigenous languages in Ghana. In

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word-initial position, a typical Ghana speaker of English will substitute /θ/ for /t/ in
words thin and thigh. He will also substitute /ð/ for /d/ in words like there, that, those etc.
Interestingly, in word-final position, both /θ/ and /ð/ are substituted for either /f/ or /t/ in
words such as with, path, breathe, clothe etc. Do you make this error in your everyday
use of English? If yes, then try to overcome the error so that you would be understood
when you communicate with a native speaker of English.

ACTIVITY 4.2

 What is phonemic patterning?

 State three phonological rules that guide the process of phonemic patterning in English.
 Explain with examples two problems faced by the Ghanaian speaker of English.

SUMMARY

Dear Learner, well-done! We have completed another interesting and insightful section of Unit
3. In this section, we explained the concept of phonemic patterning as the acceptable
combination of phonemes in English to form words. We identified some of the phonological
rules that govern the process of phonemic patterning in English. We ended the section by
identifying some of the problem areas encountered by most Ghanaian speakers of English. We
believe you have grasped a lot of facts from this section and hope the concepts discussed here
have equipped you for the tasks in the subsequent units of this course. The next section promises
to be more insightful and revealing. It will discuss phonological constraints in English. You can’t
afford to miss this last section of this unit for it has in store for you well defined and down-to-
earth information. Let’s explore the next section together!

/tr/ trek truck tree

/gr/ grill green grain
/gl/ glean glee glue
/dr/ dry drain dress
/br/ bra brain bread
/bl/ blue blow bled

ACTIVITY 4.2

1. Phonemic patterning refers to the permissible combination of phonemic units in a

language to form words. It shows the acceptable sequences of phonemes in a language.

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2.
 Only bilabial nasal /m/ occurs before the bilabial plosives /p/ and /b/, as in: ample,
example, tumble, humble, shamble, exempt, pre-empt etc.
 Only velar nasal /ŋ/ occurs before velar stops /k/ and /g/, as in: ankle, angle, ink, inkling
etc
 Among the English consonants, only alveolar nasal /n/ occurs before alveolar stops /d/
and /t/, as in: sand, handle, candle, hunter, pant, saint, plant, sprint etc
3.
 Most Ghanaian speakers of English drop some consonant phonemes in the cluster in
words. This is because those clusters do not occur in their native languages. Examples
are follows: “pos” instead of “post”, “firs” instead of “first”, “tes” instead of “test” and
“kios” instead of “kiosk”.
 At times, some Ghanaian speakers of English interchange the positions of consonant
phonemes in some English words. Examples include “deks” instead of “desk”, “aks”
instead of “ask”, “taks” instead of “task.

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SECTION 5 PHONOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS IN ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION

Dear student, welcome to the last section of unit 3. This section discusses the phonological
restrictions in English. It highlights the concepts of accidental and systemic gaps and provides
examples to distinguish between these two concepts. We shall also discuss the onset, coda and
peak restrictions in English in order to determine what sounds can be put together to form the
different parts of a syllable in English. The restrictions in the combinational possibilities of the
sound segments in English as well as the maximum number of possible consonant sequences will
be illustrated in detail in this section. We believe this section will provide you with the requisite
knowledge which will help you progress in this course of study. Let’s look at the objectives set
for us in this section.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Explain what phonotactic constraints are.
 Distinguish between accidental and systemic gaps
 Describe the onset, coda and peak phonotactics in English.

 What are Phonological/ Phonotactic constraints?

We have seen in the preceding section that all languages build their words from a finite set of
phonemic units. It is also true that in all languages there are limitations on the way in which
these phonemes can be arranged to form syllables. We have learnt that languages do not make
use of all possible sequences of sounds. Within a particular language, sound sequences are
restricted in specific ways. In English, for instance, no lexical item begins with the segment /ŋ/,
even though it can occur at the end of words (as it does in “thing”). Similarly, the [h] sound
never occurs in word-final position. These restrictions on the environments in which sounds
appear are called phonotactic constraints. These constraints are sometimes known as phoneme
sequence constraints and they severely limit the number of syllables that would be theoretically
possible if phonemes could be combined in an unconstrained way. The rules that determine the
possible onsets or codas are called phonotactic constraints. Phonotactics is made up of two
words ‘phono’ meaning sounds, and ‘tactic’ which means arrangement. So phonotactics simply
means how the sounds of a language can be arranged correctly.

Phonotactic constraints determine what sounds can be put together to form the different parts
of a syllable in a language. There are restrictions in the combinational possibilities of the sound
segments in English as well as the maximum number of possible consonant sequences. For
example, in English onsets, /kl/ is acceptable: “clean” “clamp” and /pl/ is also acceptable:
“play” “plaque”. However, in the same onset position, */tl/ is not acceptable: *tlay *tlamp

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and */hl/ are equally unacceptable: *hlep, *hlum etc. If we ever encounter a word that starts
with /tl/, we would wonder whether that word belongs to the English lexicon. Let us see more
examples of phonotactic constraints in English. In the preceding section we learnt that all three-
consonant clusters at the beginning of a word in English start with /s/ ('sprint', 'squire', 'stew' etc);
nasal consonants cannot occur as the second consonant in word-initial consonant clusters unless
the first consonant is /s/ (e.g. there are no words in English that begin with /bm dn/ etc), although
this is certainly possible in other languages. It is clear that sound sequences in English are
subject to phonological restrictions and these restrictions do not operate in a vacuum but under
rules and processes encoded in the language. These constraints are part of what defines the
phonology of English and they vary from language to language.

Why do languages have phonological constraints? The main reason has to do with the limits
on the speaker's ability to pronounce sequences of sounds as one syllable, and the listener's
perception of how many syllables he or she hears from a given sequence of phonemes. Another
important reason why languages have phonotactic constraints is because their sequential
arrangement is itself a cue to the number of syllables in a word. When we produce an English
word like 'blunt' for example, we want to convey to the listener not only that this word is made of
a certain number and type of phonemes, but also that the word happens to contain only one
syllable. The listener’s perception of how many syllables there are in a word depends to a certain
extent on the arrangement of phonemes in sequence.

 Accidental and Systemic Gaps

Though phonotactic constraints are meant to filter out impossible words in English, words
such as schwa and genre are impossible per the phonological rules of English yet they exist in
English. So we can see that the rules are violated here. We have a second instance where many
words are not filtered out by phonotactic constraints yet those words do not exist in the English
lexicon. This phenomenon is what linguists refer to as Accidental Gap. For instance, the
following words: quate, flirm, capsate, vanpeel, stamishes etc do not exist in English but one
would not be surprised if any of these words finds its way into the lexicon of English. This is
because the words follow phonotactically legal word-like sequences, but happen not to occur in
the English language.

We also realise that some words are filtered out of the English lexicon because they contain a
rare string yet those words exist in English as in the case of schwa and genre. There are,
however, other words which are not expected to be seen at all in the English lexicon because
they overly violate the phonological rules of English and thus their positional occurrence and
sequences are not permissible. This phenomenon is what is referred to as Systemic Gap. These
words may not in any way have entry into the English language: wrane, stlip, craneh, bnick,
pcurt etc because they violate a phonotactic constraint in English language.

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 Onset Phonotactics/Rules in English

Phonotactic constraints can be understood better when we have in-depth knowledge about the
syllable structure in English. Don’t worry! The next unit will take you there and we shall
simplify these concepts of onset, coda and peak to you very well. Let’s move forward now! The
greatest restrictions in the sequential arrangement of phonemes in English occur in the onset. For
example, in English: /f/ can only be followed by approximants, as in 'fly', ‘fry’. There are no
consonant phonemes that can follow affricates /tʃ, dʒ/ etc. Do you agree? What we are trying to
say is that no consonant sound can occur just after / tʃ, dʒ/. It means that we cannot have the
following as permissible clusters in English: ʧr, ʤw, ʧp, ʤf etc.

We also learnt in the preceding section, that in English the maximum number of consonants
that can make up the syllabic onset at the beginning of an isolated word is three. The first can
only be /s/, the second has to be /p, t, k/, and the third has to be an approximant /w, j, r, l/. We
can see from these combinations that positional restriction rules apply. Here are examples:

Splayed Strayed Scrape

Spew Stewed Skewed
Squish Squawk Squeal

Another onset restriction rule in English is that when the third consonant in a cluster is
/w/ then the first two must be /sk/ as in, squeeze, skew, squat etc. We also learn that whilst /spr/
and /str/ are acceptable in word-initial positions as in, spray, strip etc, /spw/ and /stw/ are
unacceptable initial word positions in English. Can you give examples of other unacceptable
combinations in the initial position of words in English? Most languages do not allow as many as
three consonants in the onset position however there are some that allow up to six in the word-
initial position of words.

In English, the consonants /ŋ/ and /Ʒ/ are never found at the beginning of words; however
they may appear at the beginning of syllable. Below is a summary of onset restrictions in
English:

1. /s/+{p t k m n l w (j)} = /sp, st, sk, sm, sn, sl, sw, sj/ as in, spare, star, sky, small, snow, slow,
swim, sue etc.

2. /ʃr/ as in, shroud, shrimps, shrub etc.

3. {m n h}+/j/ = /mj, nj, hj/ as in, mew, new, hew, hue etc.

4. {p b f} + {l r j} = (/pl, pr, pj/), (/bl, br, bj/) and (/fl, fr, fj). Here are examples for /pl, pr, pj/:
play, pray, pew. Can you give other examples? Let’s give examples for /bl, br, bj/: blew, brew,

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beauty. Can you think of any word with /bj/ at the word initial position? Examples of words that
begin with /fl,fr,fj/ include: fly, fry, few etc.

5. {t d θ} + {r w (j)} (/tj/→/ʧ/, /dj/→/ʤ/) = (/tr, tw, tj/), (/dr, dw, dj/) and (/θr,θw, θj/). Let’s look
for examples for the sounds /tr, tw , tj/. They include words like try, twine, tune etc. Add two
words which begin with either /tw/ or /tj/. We move ahead by looking at examples for the sounds
/dr, dw, dj/ and they include: drill, dwell and dew.

6. {k g} + {l r w j}

The phonotactic restrictions in the coda in English are often (but not always) a mirror-image
of those in the onset (as you'd expect if the syllable's legal phoneme sequences are strongly
influenced by the sonority profile). For example, English allows /pl/ in the onset ('play') and /lp/
in the coda ('help'); it allows /fr/ in the onset ('free') and, for rhotic dialects (e.g. American
English), /rf/ in the coda ('surf'). But there are also many permissible coda sequences that are
allowed whose mirror-image is disallowed in the onset (e.g. /mp/ as in 'lamp', but no /pm/ in the
onset).

 Coda phonotactics in English

Not every sequence of phones is a possible coda in English. What this means is that certain
phonemes do not occur in final position of words in English; however they may appear at the
beginning or middle of words. The following phonemes may not occur at word-final positions in
British English: /r, h, w, j/, but /r/ can occur in final position in American and some varieties of
English. Let’s consider these words: [ha:j], [kɅw], [reɪn], [ʤᴐ:j], [nᴐ:h], [kleə], [heɪt], [ and
[pi:l]. Which of them would you consider as words in English? We realise from these eight given
words that only three are English words: [reɪn], [heɪt], [kleə] and [pi:l]. All the rest cannot be
considered as words of English because they end in the sound [j], [w], [h] and [r].

Furthermore, in English codas, nasals may precede voiceless plosives, but only if they share
the same place of articulation. Here are examples: jump [ʤɅmp], stunt [stɅnt], stink [stɪŋk]. We
observe that [m] and [p] are produced at the same place of articulation; hence they can occur in
word-final position together. Similarly, [n] and [t] are both produced at the alveolar place of
articulation; hence they form a perfect blend at the coda. On the contrary, the following coda
positions in the words are not allowed because the words are not produced at the same place of
articulation:*jumk [ʤɅmk], *stunp [stɅnp], *stingt [stɪŋt]. Whilst [m] is a bilabial plosive, [k] is
a velar stop, so the word jumk is unacceptable in English. In the second word stunp, we observe
that the blending [np] is not homorganic in a sense that the two sounds are produced at different
places of articulation. We notice that while [n] is produced at the alveolar region, [p] is produced
at the bilabial region.

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In fact, the coda restrictions in English can range from one to four, as in: /sɪk/ sick, /sɪks/
six, /sɪksθ/ sixth, /sɪksθs/ sixths. Any combination beyond this violates a phonotactic constraint
in English. We shall delve much into this in unit four of this course.

 Peak/Nucleus Phonotactics in English

In unit four, we shall learn that the syllable structure of any language consists of the part
known as the peak/nucleus or core which is usually a vowel. Some linguists call it the core and it
precedes or comes after a consonant. In English, the following vowel phonemes which are
relatively short, /e, æ, ɒ, ʊ, Ʌ/, may not occur in word-final position. On the contrary, all other
vowel phonemes, as well as syllabic consonants may occur in word-final position in English.

Again, we learn that the sound /ʊ/ cannot occur at the beginning of words. The consonant
sound /ʒ/ only occurs initially before vowel phonemes /ɪ, iː, æ, ɒ / in foreign words such as
genre.
Prohibited sound sequences in English may arise as a result of:

 borrowing from another language. Example: tsunami [sunami] or [tsunami], from

Japanese [tsWnami]
 putting affixes, words together sequentially. Here are examples: cost + s ! *sts; next store
! *stst

ACTIVITY 1

 Explain the term phonotactic constraints.

 Distinguish between accidental and systemic gaps
 Briefly illustrate the peak phonatactics in English.

SUMMARY

Congratulations! You have successfully completed section five and last section of this unit. In
this section, we have explained phonotactic constraints as the rules that determine the possible
onsets or codas and the restrictions on the environments in which the sounds occur. We learnt
there are restrictions in the combinational possibilities of the sound segments in English as well
as the maximum number of possible consonant sequences. Again, we distinguished between
accidental and systemic gaps in English. We explained accidental gap as an instance where many
words are not filtered out by phonotactic constraints in English, yet those words do not exist in
the English lexicon. We also explained systemic gap as words which are not expected to be seen
at all in the English lexicon because they overly violate the phonological rules of English and
thus their positional occurrence and sequences are not permissible. We identified and illustrated
the onset, coda and peak restrictions in English. In the next unit, we shall introduce you to the

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English syllable. In section one of the preceding unit we shall specifically discuss mono and
disyllables in English. Go with us as we guide you through the next section.

 What is the difference between phonemes and allophones?

 With illustrations, explain the concept of free variation in English.
 Briefly explain the following:
 Complementary distribution of sounds
 Contrastive distribution of sounds
 Phonemic patternings in English are guided by rules. Discuss
 State four onset phonotatics in English

UNIT SUMMARY

In this Unit, dear learner, we introduced you to the concept of phonology in English. We
discussed the phoneme concept of English. We defined the phoneme as the smallest contrastive
linguistic unit which may bring about change in meaning. We also demonstrated how minimal
pairs and sets are used to distinguish phonemes in English. The unit further looked at the concept
of complementary and contrastive distributions of phonemes and allophones in English
respectively. The unit also had an in-depth discussion on the processes of phonemic patterning in
English. The unit ended solidly on a detail discussion on the phonological constraints in English.
Under this, we looked at accidental and systemic gaps, and onset, coda and peak phonotactics in

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English. The next Unit will take you through some basic concepts in the English syllable
including mono and disyllables, polysyllables, open and close syllables, weak and strong syllable
and other related concepts. You realise that the deeper we delve into the course, the more
interesting and insightful it becomes. Come with us as we journey through Unit 4.

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UNIT 4 – INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH SYLLABLE
INTRODUCTION
Hello student, welcome to the fourth unit of this course. In the previous unit, we introduced you
to the concept of phonology in English. We discussed the phoneme concept of English
extensively. We explained the phoneme as the smallest contrastive linguistic unit which creates
change in meaning. The unit demonstrated ways by which phonemes in English could be
distinguished. It further looked at the concept of complementary and contrastive distributions of
phonemes and allophones in English respectively. The unit also had a discussion on the
processes of phonemic patterning and phonological constraints in English. In this unit, you will
learn about the English syllable. Under this, we shall define and describe the syllable, and outline
its constituents. We shall also discuss the two major types of syllables in English. The unit will
further discuss the strong and weak syllables in English and examine the processes of
syllabification in English. This unit promises to be thrilling and informative. We invite you to
stay with us.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you will be able to:

 Define and describe the syllable;

 Identify and describe the structure of the English syllable
 Describe the two major types of syllables in English.
 Discuss strong and weak syllables in English.
 Explain the processes of syllabification in English.

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SECTION 1: DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SYLLABLE

INTRODUCTION
Hello Student, welcome to Section one of Unit 4. In this section, you will learn about what a
syllable is. We shall look at the constituents of the syllable. This will enable us to identify the
number of consonants that can occur before and after the vowel. We shall also take a critical look
at the difference between phonetic and orthographic syllables. The syllable concept is very
crucial to the English language learner because it aids in pronunciation on one hand, and spelling
on the other. This is true because it is easier to spell a word syllable by syllable, and this will
help the learner be a much better speller. We hope you are poised for this section, because the
concepts and facts discussed here are going to enrich your knowledge and prepare you
adequately for the subsequent sections in this unit.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Explain what a syllable is.
 Identify and illustrate the constituents of a syllable.
 Distinguish between phonetic and orthographic syllables.
 Identify some rules for orthographic syllable division.

 What is a Syllable?
In Unit 4 Section 1 of Introduction to English language Studies course, we explained a
syllable as a pronounceable unit of a word: the various units a word can be broken into to
facilitate pronunciation. We learnt that some words have just one syllable, while others are made
up of multiple syllables. One important feature of the syllable that we identified was that it does
not have meaning. For instance, the word “alphabet” has three syllables ( al-pha-bet). The word
“work” has only one syllable while “organisation” has five syllables (or-ga-ni-sa-tion).
Normally, a syllable indicates the rhythms of words which can be beaten to indicate the various
sections (units) of words.

Now, let us try this: beat to the rhythm of the following words and by so doing, state the
number of syllables the words contain. The words are family, friend, permission, inescapable,
daughter, lovely, and twice. How many did you get for each of the words? Let us do that together
by using dashes to indicate one syllable from the other.

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Word Number of syllable

-family: fa-mi-ly 3

-friend 1

-permission: per-mi-ssion 3

-inescapable: in-es-ca-pa-ble 5

-daughter: daugh-ter 2

-lovely: love-ly 2

-twice 1

The syllable is a very important unit of language learning. In speech, we realise that some
of the speech sounds have greater carrying power than others. Those sounds which have greater
carrying power are the ones that could carry pitch or tones. This means that those sounds could
be sung. We call those sounds sonorants. For instance, in the word bird, the loudest sound is the
sonorant [3:]. If this same word were to be articulated from a distance, the sound [3:] is the most
likely sound to be heard. When we pronounce ‘understanding’, we don’t pronounce
(or perceive) it as a simple string of sounds, but rather, the phones are grouped together into
‘beats’. These ‘beats’ making up the word give it a rhythm. These ‘beats’ and rhythm come out
naturally when we pronounce words slowly. The ‘beats’ that make up the sound-structure of the
word are called syllables.
A syllable is defined as an utterance that contains one peak of sonority. Sonority is the
relative loudness of a segment compared with other sounds. Roach (1998, p.67) describes the
syllable as consisting of a centre which has little or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds
comparatively loud. In phonetics, a syllable is a group of sounds that are pronounced together. It
is a phonetic unit, which is pronounced by one articulatory effort accompanied by one muscular
contraction, which results acoustically and auditorily in one uninterrupted arc of loudness. Every
English word consists of one or more complete syllables. For example, while the word “flat”
consists of one syllable [flæt], “contain” consists of two syllables [kən-teɪn]. We realise that each
syllable contains one vowel. This vowel is followed by one or more consonants. The vowel itself
may be combined with a nasal or liquid to give a syllabic consonant. We shall explain syllabic
consonant in detail in Section 4 of this unit.
Basically, the syllable is a structural unit and within that structure we can identify
sequence of consonants and vowels. Most syllables have a single vowel plus zero or more
consonants. Sometimes, a syllable may not use a vowel but a syllabic consonant. It must be
noted that no syllable has more than one vowel. Vowel-like sequences in a single syllable are
interpreted as diphthongs or semi-vowel plus vowel sequences. The syllable may have certain

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number of consonants before and after the vowel depending on the rules that exist in a given a
language.

 Constituents of the Syllable

Harley (2006) posits that syllables have a fundamental three-part structure as follows: onset,
nucleus and coda. The three basic parts of the syllable is illustrated below:

SYLLABLE

Onset Coda

Nucleus

Syllables can differ in size. In English, while some syllables do not have onsets, others do
not have codas; however, as we learnt earlier, the nucleus is always present in all syllables in
English. Here are some syllables, broken down into their parts:

Syllable Onset Nucleus Coda

Ban[bæn] [b] [æ] [n]

Be[bi] [b] [i] NONE

An[æn] NONE [æ] [n]

Stand[stænd] [st] [æ] [nd]

plank[plæŋk] [pl] [æ] [ŋk]

Spray[sprei] [spr] [ei] NONE

Languages differ in the structures that they permit. English permits complex onsets and codas,
but some languages do not. Let’s explain further the constituents of the English syllable.

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 Onset

The onset is the opening or the initial segment of the syllable. This initial slot of the syllable is
normally occupied by consonant sounds. The number of consonant sound that can fill the onset
position depends on the given language because every language has its own specific syllable
structure and rules. In English for example, the number of consonants that can fill the onset slot
ranges from one to three. We can have a consonant + vowel = CV as in, he, we, tea, consonant
+consonant + vowel = CCV as in, star, spare, ploy, tray or consonant + consonant + consonant +
vowel = CCCV as in, spray, stray, skew etc. We shall discuss this further in Section 5 of this
unit. Can you come out with English words which have these CV, CCV and CCCV structures?

 Nucleus

The central element of the syllable is the nucleus, which is sometimes known as the peak. It must
be noted that all syllables must minimally consist of a nucleus. The nucleus must always be
present for us to have a syllable. In most English syllables, the nucleus is typically a vowel
sound; however, a small number of syllabic consonants may also fill this slot. In English, the
nucleus only contains one vowel, either a pure vowel or a diphthong, known as nuclear vowel.
Sometimes, a syllable can minimally consist of a nucleus only. This can be seen in words such as
air [eə], ore [ᴐ:], ear [ɪə] etc. Can you think of any word that has only a nucleus? The nucleus
only acting as a syllable is termed as a V-type. The V represents both pure vowels and
diphthongs which can occupy the nucleus position.

 Coda

The coda is the sound or sounds that follow the nucleus. It includes all consonants that follow the
peak in a syllable. It is the closing or the final segment of the syllable. The number of consonant
sound that can fill the coda slot depends on the given language and its rules. In English for
instance, the number of consonants that can fill the coda position ranges from one to four. We
can have structures like VC, VCC, VCCC and VCCCC, as in words: feel [fi:l], test [test], text
[tekst], glimpsed [glɪmpst]. We shall explain the coda further in Section 5 of this unit. Can you
come out with English words which have these VC, VCC and ....VCCC structures?

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The nucleus and the coda of the syllable are together called Rhyme or Core. Here is a diagram
illustrating the syllable structure:

SYLLABLE

ONSET

RHYME

NUCLEUS CODA

 Characteristics of the Syllable

 The syllable may be a single vowel in isolation. This situation is called a minimum
syllable. Here are examples of minimum syllables: are [a:], or [ᴐ:], err [3:]. These are
usually preceded by silence. Sometimes, isolated sounds such as m or ʃ which indicate
agreement and silence respectively are also regarded as syllables.
 Syllables may have onsets, that is, they have more than just silence preceding the centre
of the syllable. Here are examples: car [ka:], key [ki:], pore [pᴐ:], tore [tᴐ:], too [tu:].
 Syllables may have no onset but have a coda. Here are examples: am [æm], off [ɒf], ooze
[u:z], age [eɪʤ], urge [3:ʤ], each [i:ʧ].
 Some syllables have onset and coda. Here are examples: burn [b3:n], kiss [kɪs], port
[pᴐ:t], king [kɪŋ].

 Phonetic Syllable and Orthographic Syllable

Syllable can be looked at in two ways: spoken and written. Phonetic syllables must not be
confused with orthographic syllables. What is phonetic syllable? It deals with a segment of a
spoken word consisting of one sound or two or more sounds pronounced as a single unit of
speech. This single unit is held and articulated together. For instance, the word potent consists of
two syllables [pəυ] and [tent]. Phonetic syllable deals with the pronunciation of words in a given
context. It is phonetic in nature; that is, it deals with how words are divided into pronounceable
units.

Orthographic syllable, on the other hand, refers to a group of letters of the alphabet in
spelling. Often, when a word is split across two lines of writing, it should be broken at
orthographic syllable boundary. In typing, we use word processors to do the breaking across the
lines automatically using hyphenation programmes. In some cases, an orthographic boundary

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may not correspond exactly to a phonetic syllable boundary. For example, in the words happen
and bottle, the spelling include two Ps and Ts respectively, and the orthographic syllabification
are hap-pen and bot-tle. However, in phonetic syllabification, happen and little have one P and T
respectively, and the syllables in the two words are [hæp.ən] and [bɒt.l]

 Some Rules for Orthographic Syllable Division

The following are some rules to guide us in breaking words at their right syllable boundaries in
writing:

 Do not divide a word within a syllable.

 Do not divide an ending (a suffix) of two syllables, such as -able, -fully, -ably etc.
 With the exception of the suffix –ly, do not divide a word so that an ending of two letters,
such as –ed, -er, -ic begins the next line.
 Never break a word so that one of the parts is a single letter. Examples: me-n, neve-r, lin-
e, uni-t, accros-s etc.
 Monosyllabic words are not to be divided.

We shall look at rules of syllable division in English in section 4 of this unit.

ACTIVITY 1

1. What is a syllable?
2. State the constituents of a syllable.
3. Briefly explain any one of the constituents.
4. Distinguish between phonetic syllable and orthographic syllable.

SUMMARY

Dear Student, congratulations! You have successfully completed the first section of this unit. In
this section, we explained what a syllable was. We looked at the onset, nucleus and coda as the
constituents of the syllable. We learned that the syllable was a very crucial language element to
the language learner. We discussed the difference between phonetic and orthographic syllables.
Phonetic syllable focuses on pronunciation whereas orthographic syllable focuses on writing. We
saw that one’s knowledge in the syllable concept boosts one’s pronunciation on one hand, and
writing on the other. This is true because it is easier to spell a word syllable by syllable, and this
will help the learner be a much better speller. We believe you have grasped these concepts and
facts discussed in this section and we trust you will put them to good use. The next section will
delve into the structure of the English syllable. Stay with us.

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SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 1

1. A syllable is defined as an utterance that contains one peak of sonority. It consists of a

centre which has little or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud.
2. Onset, nucleus and coda are the constituents of the syllable.
3. The onset – It is the initial segment of the syllable. This initial slot of the syllable is
mostly occupied by consonant sounds. The number of consonant sound that can fill the
onset position depends on the given language because every language has its own
specific syllable structure and rules. In English for instance, the number of consonants
that can fill the onset slot ranges from one to three.
4. Whereas phonetic syllable deals with a segment of a spoken word consisting of one
sound or two or more sounds pronounced as a single unit of speech, orthographic
syllable, on the other hand, refers to a group of letters of the alphabet in spelling.

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SECTION 2: THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH SYLLABLE

INTRODUCTION
Hello Student, welcome to section 2 of unit 4. Your progress from the previous section till now
has been very fantastic and commendable. In the previous section, we explained what a syllable
was. We moved a step further to look at the constituents of a syllable, and distinguished between
phonetic and orthographic syllables. In this section, we shall discuss the nature of the English
syllable and identify the onset and coda restrictions in English. This section promises to be
interesting and we believe you will not go away.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Describe the nature of the English syllable.
 Identify and explain the onset restrictions in English.
 Identify and explain the coda restrictions in English.

 Nature of the English Syllable

Like the syllable structure of most languages of the world, the English syllable consists of a
vowel as the centre of the syllable and a possible combination of three consonant sounds before
the vowel and a possible combination of four consonants after the vowel. These consonant
clusters allowed in English may be summarised as follows:

 Onset Types
Under the onset types, we can have three groups. The first is the CV syllable structure type. This
structure has a consonant followed by a vowel, as in: do [du:], key [ki:], shore [ʃᴐ:]. Can you
give examples under this? Good.

The second group under the onset types is the CCV structure. Here we can have different
combinations of sounds as follows:
Initial S + voiceless unaspirated plosives, as in /sk/. Examples: scare[skeə], spare[speə],
stir[st3:]
Initial S + bilabial or alveolar nasal, as in /sm/ or /sn/. Here are examples: smear[smɪə],
snare[sneə], snore[snᴐ:]
S + semi-vowels. Here are examples: swear[sweə], sue[sju:], swore[swᴐ:], sway[sweɪ].
S + lateral, as in: slur[sl3:], slue[slu:], sloe[sləʊ], slay[sleɪ], sly[slaɪ].
S + voiceless labio-dental, as in: sphere[sfɪə], spheroid[sfɪərᴐɪd], sphenoid[sfi:ənᴐɪd.
k/t + l/r, as in /kl/ and /tr/. Here are examples: clear[kleə], clay[kleɪ], tray[treɪ], try[traɪ],
troy[trᴐɪ].

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The third category of the onset type is the CCCV structure. In this structure, the first sound is
always a voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ followed by a voiceless unaspirated plosive /p, t, k/. The
final consonant here is either a semi-vowel /w,j/ or a liquid /l,r/, as in: stew [stju:], squeeze
[skwi:z], splash [splæʃ], spray [spreɪ]

 Coda Types
Under the coda types, we can have four different groups. The first is the VC syllable structure
type. This structure has a consonant after the nucleus, as in: on [ɒn], up[Ʌp], eel[i:l]. Can you
give examples under this? Good.

The second group under the coda type is the VCC structure. This second structure has four types.
Let’s examine these types. The first of the coda types has consonants such as {p, t, k, d, ʤ, g, z,
ʃ, ʧ} at the end plus one of the inflectional endings {t,d,s,z}, that is C+{t,d,s,z}. Here are
examples: eats [i:ts], eggs [egz], oozed [u:zd], itched [ɪʧt], kissed [kɪst]. Can you write down any
English word which has this structure? We hope you can give a list of them. The second VCC
structure type has a lateral followed by consonants such as {d, f, m, p, t, v}. Here are examples:
bulk [bɅlk], tilt [tɪlt], help [help], felt [felt], field [fi:əld], solve [sɒlv], wolf [wυlf]. Think of two
words in English which has this structure. Write your answers down. The third VCC structure
type has a nasal followed by consonants such as {p, t, k, d}, as in: ant [ænt], dump [dɅmp], ink
[ɪŋk], band [bænd]. The last VCC structure type has the consonant [d] followed by a voiceless
dental fricative. Here are examples: width [wɪdθ], breadth [bredθ].

The third under the coda type is the VCCC syllable structure. This syllable structure in English
can have three consonants after the nucleus with varying consonant clusters. Here are examples:
glimpse [glɪmps], text [tekst], scripts [scrɪpts], length [leŋkθ], tempt [tempt], sixth [sɪksθ].

The last coda structure is the maximum limit the English syllable can have, that is four
consonants coming successively after the nucleus. Can you think of words that have this VCCCC
structure? Let’s look at examples of such words in English: glimpsed [glɪmpst], texts [teksts],
twelfths [twelfθs], tempts [tempts], sixths [sɪksθs].

From the discussion, we can conclude that the English syllable may have its maximum
phonological structure as: #CCCVCCCC#.

 The Onset Phonotactics in English

In sections four and five of Unit 3, we discussed the processes of phonemic patterning and
phonological constraints in English. We shall consolidate our discussion on those concepts by
looking at the restrictions on the number of clusters that are allowed in the English syllable.
In section five Unit 3, we observed that in the onset position of the English syllable, the
consonants /Ʒ/ and /ŋ/ are never found; that is, they are not found at the beginning of words.

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They may, however, appear at the beginning of syllables as in: vision [vɪƷən], visual [vɪƷʊəl].
We also realised that the voiced velar nasal /ŋ/ is only found at the end of syllable as in: sing
[sɪŋ], ink [ɪŋk], pink [pɪŋk].

We saw in the previous section that English permits up to three consonant phonemes in the onset
position. When this maximum number is achieved, the following restrictions apply:

 /s/ must occupy the first position

 Only the voiceless stops /p, t, k/ should occupy the second position
 The third position is occupied by only the voiced approximants /l, r, w, j/.

 The Coda Phonotactics in English

Have you ever come across any English word that ends in any of these consonant sounds /h, j, r,
w/? Your answer will definitely be ‘No’, because these consonants do not end words in English.
These sounds cannot, therefore, be in the coda position of any English word. The voiced velar
nasal /ŋ/ in English, for instance, appears at the end of syllables where the nucleus is short. We
also realise that in the English CV syllable structure, only the long vowels and diphthongs end
words. However, the short vowels /ɪ/ and /ə/ are exceptions and can also end words.

ACTIVITY
1. What does the English syllable consist of?
2. Identify four sounds that do not end words in English.
3. Identify the three onset types of the English syllable.
4. Give two sounds that cannot begin words in English.

SUMMARY
Congratulations! You have successfully completed section five and last section of this unit. In
this section, we have identified and described the nature and structure of the English syllable. We
also identified and explained the onset and coda restrictions in English. We believe your
expectations are met and we strongly hope that you will put the knowledge you have acquired in
this section into practice. In the next unit, we shall introduce you to the English stress and accent.
The Unit will discuss the types and functions of stress, primary and secondary accents, and
forms, functions and uses of intonation in English. In section one of the preceding unit we shall
specifically discuss mono and disyllables in English. Stay with as we lead you through the next
section of this course. Well-done!

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SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO ACTIVITY

1. The English syllable consists of a vowel as the centre of the syllable and a possible
combination of three consonant sounds before the vowel and a possible combination of
four consonants after the vowel.
2. These are [ h, j, r, w]
3. The nature of the three onset types of the English syllable are:
 the CV syllable structure type which consists of a consonant followed by a
vowel.
 the CCV structure which has different combinations of sounds including initial
S+ voiceless unaspirated plosives, initial S + bilabial or alveolar nasal, S + semi-
vowels, S + lateral, S + voiceless labio-dental, and k/t + l/r
 the CCCV structure which always has as a first sound a voiceless alveolar
fricative /s/ followed by a voiceless unaspirated plosive /p, t, k/. The final
consonant here is either a semi-vowel /w,j/ or a liquid /l,r/,
4. They are [Ʒ] and [ŋ].

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SECTION 3: TYPES OF SYLLABLES IN ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION
Hello Student, welcome to Section three of unit 4. You are making a steady progress in this
course and we believe you have accumulated a store of knowledge which will propel you to
grasp other concepts in this course. Amazing! In the previous section, you learned about the
structure of the English syllable. We described the nature of the English syllable and
consolidated our explanation of the onset and coda phonotactics in English. In this section, we
shall discuss the open and closed syllables as the two major types of syllables in English. The
section will examine the difference between open and closed syllables in English. We believe
you will not go away.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Identify the two major types of syllables in English.
 Describe open and close syllables in English.
 Distinguish between open and closed syllables.

 SYLLABLE TYPES IN ENGLISH

There are two main syllable types in English. These are the open and closed syllable types. Let’s
examine these syllable types in detail.

 OPEN SYLLABLE
In the open syllable, the syllable has an onset preceding the vowel or nucleus. The onset is the
initial consonant sound of the two syllable types. Here are examples: law /lᴐ:/, sue /sju:/, bee
/bi:/, sir /s3:/, key /ki:/, me /mi:/, no /nəʊ/, to /tu:/. We realise from the above that the open
syllable does not end in a consonant sound. Similarly, it has only one vowel, and that vowel
occurs at the end of the syllable. When a syllable ends in a vowel, we describe it as an open
syllable because it is possible for other sounds or syllables to be added to it. The open syllable is
the most common type of syllable in English language, that is the type which has a consonant
before a vowel, often represented technically as CV. The C represents the initial consonant sound
and the V, the vowel sound. Can you give examples of words which have this CV structure?

In an open syllable, nothing comes after the vowel. Look at the word ‘he’. We say that the vowel
in the syllable is open because there is nothing closing it in. If a syllable is open, it normally ends
with a long vowel sound spelt with one vowel letter; there will be no consonant to close it and
protect the vowel. Look at the syllables in the following words: see, pea, saw, pore, more, core,
lure, quay, sea. Do you notice that in each of the open syllables, the vowel is long? Yes, we

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believe you do. The open syllable may have from one to three consonant sounds before the
centre of the syllable with zero consonant sound after the centre. This is illustrated below:
 CV = one consonant + vowel = bar[ba:], tar[ta:], far[fa:], say[seɪ], tyre[taɪə]
 CCV= two consonants + vowel = tree[tri:], bra[bra:], tray[treɪ], play[pleɪ], ploy[plᴐɪ].
 CCCV = three consonants + vowel = spree[spri:], spray[spreɪ], splay[spleɪ], stray[streɪ].

Sometimes, vowels on their own are also considered as open syllables since they form a syllable
of their own. For example, “a” in a-bout, a-ble, a-dage, a-gog is considered as open syllable.
This type of syllable is called minimum syllable. A minimum syllable is further explained as one
which has just one single sound which is a vowel in isolation. It does not have an onset or coda;
that is, it does not have a consonantal sound. In some cases, minimum syllables can be full
words, as in: err /3:/, ore /ᴐ:/, awe /ᴐ:/, are /a:/. Do the following words also constitute minimum
syllables: I, eye, air, our, hour, or, heir? Justify your answer.

 CLOSED SYLLABLE
Syllables ending in a consonant, examples, cat[kæt], it[ɪt], eat[i:t], fish[fɪʃ] etc are traditionally
known as closed syllables. The closed syllable contains one vowel, but this vowel is always
followed by a consonant. In other words, a closed syllable always ends with a consonant. We
observe that the vowel in the closed syllable is ‘closed in’ by the consonant. The final consonant
sound in a closed syllable is called the coda. Take a look at these words: cup, sit, men, sin and
pen. Do you notice that in each of the closed syllables, the vowel is short? Yes, unlike the vowels
in the open syllables, the vowel sound found in the closed syllable is usually short. When the
vowel of a syllable is short, the syllable is closed off by one or more consonants. Here are
examples: ask, soft, but, sock, hip, bed, men. At times, if a closed syllable is connected to another
syllable that begins with a consonant, two consonant letters will come between the syllables, as
in: com-mon, but-ter, pot-ter, fil-ler, vil-la. It must be noted, that the closed syllable can have
from one to four consonant sounds just after the nucleus.

We can observe two sub-types under the closed syllable: coda syllable and onset-coda syllable.
The coda syllable has from one to three consonant sounds after the nucleus of the syllable with
zero consonant sound before the nucleus. This is illustrated below:

 VC = vowel + one consonant = arm[a:m], eel[i:l], ill[ɪl], on[ɒn], arch[a:ʧ], itch[ɪʧ],

urge[3:ʤ], earth[3:θ].
 VCC = vowel + two consonants = ant[ænt], and[ænd], aunt[Ʌnt], ink[ɪŋk], apt[æpt].
 VCCC = vowel + three consonants = asks[æsks], ends[ends], aunts[Ʌnts], ants[ænts]
 VCCCC = vowel + four consonants = Can you find any word in English with this
syllable structure? Write it down and show it to your Course tutor for a reward.

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The onset-coda syllable has one to three consonants before the centre and from one to four
consonant sounds after the nucleus. This is illustrated as follows:
 CVC = consonant + vowel + consonant = run[rɅn], fill[fɪl], kiss[kɪs], pen[pen],
short[ʃᴐ:t], teeth[ti:θ].
 CCVC = two consonants + vowel + one Consonant = truck[trɅk], trek[trek], skip[skɪp],
skirt[sk3:t].
 CCCVC = three consonants + vowel + one Consonant = spread[spred], spleen[spli:n],
split[split], splash[splæʃ]
 CVCC = consonant + vowel + two consonants = depth[depθ], width[widθ]
 CCVCC = two consonants + vowel + two consonants = swept[swept], slept[slept],
stopped[stɒpt, thrashed[θræʃt]
 CVCCCC = consonant + vowel + four consonants = texts[teksts]
 CCVCCCC = two consonants + vowel + four consonants = glimpsed[glɪmpst]

 Differences between open and closed syllables

The main difference between an open and close syllable is that open syllable ends with a
vowel sound whereas closed syllable ends with a consonant. Below is a table showing the
difference between open and closed syllables.
OPEN SYLLABLE CLOSED SYLLABLE
Open syllable ends vowel It ends consonants
It has a long vowel sound It has a short vowel sound
Its nucleus is not followed by any consonant Its vowel is followed by a consonant
Its sound is similar to the name of the vowel Its sound may not be similar to the name of
the vowel.

ACTIVITY 1
1. Identify the two major types of syllables in English.
2. State three differences between open and closed syllables.
3. Write three words each to illustrate the following closed syllable structures:
 VC
 VCC
 VCCC

4. Write three words each to illustrate the following syllable structures:

 CV
 CCV
 CCCV

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SUMMARY
In this section, we have identified the two main types of syllables in English: open and closed
syllables. We described the two syllable types and saw the difference between them. The section
looked at what sounds can occur at the beginning of the first syllable when we begin to speak
after a pause. We found that the word can begin with a vowel, or with one, two or three
consonants. We observed that no word begins with more than three consonants. Similarly, we
realised that a word in English can end with a vowel, or with one, two, three or four consonants.
No word ends with more than four consonants. In the next section of this unit, we shall learn
about the weak and strong syllable types in English. Go with us as we explore the next section.

 STRONG SYLLABLE IN ENGLISH

A syllable may appear either weak or strong. Stress and intonation are the key factors in
determining whether a syllable will be strong or weak. Let’s consider the strong syllable in
English first. In English, strong syllables are usually stressed, or may appear with a diphthong,
triphthong or vowels other than the vowel /ə/. The most important feature of the strong syllable
is that it has as its peak one of the vowel phonemes, but not the schwa /ə/. In strong syllables, we
observe that the vowel tends to be longer, of higher intensity and same in quality. In the
following examples, the syllables which contain diphthongs are described as strong syllables
because we produce the first syllables with much stress.
parent /peərənt/, patient /peɪʃənt/, totem /təʊtəm/, tourist /tʊərɪst/.

Here are words with triphthongs which are considered as having strong syllable:
layer /leɪə/, liar /laɪə/, lower /ləυə/, mower /məʊə/, flour /flaʊə/. Other vowels which can
appear in the strong syllables of English include: /a:/ as in carted[ka:tɪd], /i:/ as in feature[fi:ʧə],
/æ/ as in caption[kæpʃən], /e/ as in tender[tendə], /ɒ/ as in cotton[kɒtən], bottle[bɒtəl] etc. Let’s
now visit the weak syllable.

 WEAK SYLLABLE IN ENGLISH

One of the most observable features of English is that many syllables are weak. It is necessary,
therefore, to study how these weak syllables are pronounced and where they occur in English.
We shall discuss the distribution of strong and weak syllables in Unit 5 of this course. Let’s look
at the general nature of weak syllables. In the pronunciation of words, the vowel in the weak

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syllable is frequently reduced to the mid central lax vowel /ə/. This vowel sound is generally
very weak so it is not stressed. Weak syllables can only have one of a very small number of
possible peaks. Not all weak syllables have the schwa vowel in them. In English, all vowel
phonemes may be replaced by the vowel /ə/. Vowels used in the weak syllables are produced
very closely to the lax high front unrounded vowel in the general area of /i:/ and /ɪ/ or very
closely to the close back rounded vowel in the general area of /u:/ and /υ/. We realise that vowels
in weak syllables tend to be shorter, of lower intensity and different in quality. For example, in
the word ‘fever’ [fi:və], the second syllable which is weak is shorter than the first. It is also less
loud and has a vowel that cannot occur in strong syllables.

Where do we find weak syllables? At the end of disyllabic words, we may have a weak syllable
ending with a vowel (i.e. with no coda) as follows:
 /ə/ as in better /betə/, father /fa:ðə/, walker /wᴐ:kə/, victor /vɪktə/
 /i/ as in city /sɪti/, pretty /prɪti/, happy /hæpi/, Mary /m3:ri/
 /u/ as in thank you / θæŋk ju/, missed you /mɪst ju/

Weak syllables can also be found in word-initial positions, as in appear [əpɪə], again[əgen],
appease[əpi:z], addict[ədɪkt]. In word-final positions weak syllables can be found with a coda if
the vowel is /ə/. Here are examples: open /əʊpən/, token /təʊkən/, sharpen / ʃa:pən/. Can you give
other examples? In word-medial positions, we may find the weak vowels /ə/, /i/ and /υ/ acting as
nucleus or peak without codas. Here are examples: photograph /fəʊtəgra:f/, radio /reɪdiəʊ/
influence /ɪnfluens/. Similarly, the vowel /ɪ/ can act as a nucleus without coda if the preceding
syllable begins with a consonant, as in architect /a:kɪtekt/, plantain /plæntɪn/, platypus /plætɪpəs/.

As learners of English, we need to learn where the vowel /ə/ is appropriate and where it is not.
Let’s now consider some realisations of the schwa sound in English words. The vowel is spelt
with:
 ‘a’ – we get words like attend / ətend/, character /kærəktə/, assume /əsju:m/, above /əbɅv/
 ‘ar’ – we get words like particular /pətɪkjələ/, molar / məʊlə/, monarchy /mɒnəkɪ/
 ‘o’ - we get words like tomorrow /təmɒrəʊ/, today /tədeɪ/, potato /pəteɪtəʊ/
 ‘or’ – we get words like forget /fəget/, ambassador /æmbæsedə/, forlorn /fəlᴐ:n/
 ‘e’ - we get words like moment /məʊmənt/, violet /vaɪlət/, totem /tətəm/
 ‘er’ – we get words like perhaps /pəhæps/, seller /selə/, perform /pəfᴐ:m/
 ‘u’ – we get words like Autumn /ᴐ:təm/, suppose /səpəʊz/, support / səpᴐ:t/
 Adjectival ending –ate, as in: intimate /ɪntɪmət/, accurate /ækjərət/, adequate /ædɪkwəɪt/

 SYLLABIC CONSONANTS
In English, sometimes a weak syllable may be produced without the presence of a vowel; instead
we use a consonant. The phenomenon only occurs when the consonant is a liquid [l, r] or a nasal
[n, m, ŋ]. Such consonants are termed as syllabic consonants and they appear as syllable nucleus.

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We can say that syllabic consonants occur in syllables in which no vowels can be found. In this
case, a syllabic consonant stands as the centre of the syllable instead of a vowel. The syllabic
consonant /l/ is the most common in English whereas syllabic /r/ is the least common. All
syllabic consonants may occur at the end of any word except /r/. A small vertical mark (ɪ) is used
beneath the consonant to indicate that a consonant in question is syllabic.

In a word like ‘kettle’ [ketlɪ], the second syllable is weak and contains no vowel at all, but
consists of the consonant /lɪ/. This is called a syllabic consonant. Here are examples illustrating
syllabic consonants in English:
/l/ - bottle [bɒtlɪ], kettle [ketlɪ], cattle [kætlɪ], waddle [wædlɪ], saddle [sædlɪ]
/m/ - bottom [bɒtmɪ], fathom[fæθmɪ], orgasm[ᴐ:gəzmɪ], organism[ᴐ:gənɪzmɪ]
/n/ - cotton[kɒtnɪ], button[bɅtnɪ], open[əʊpnɪ], mutton[mɅtnɪ], ribbon[rɪbnɪ]
/ŋ/ - bacon[beɪkŋɪ], broken key[brəʊkŋɪki:]

We learn that stress and intonation are key factors in determining the kind of syllable we have in
English. We shall learn more about stress and intonation Unit 5 of this course.

ACTIVITY
1. State three characteristics of a strong syllable.
2. Where can we locate weak syllables?
3. Identify the syllabic consonants in English and give two words under each of them.
4. Mention two factors which are vital in determining the kind of syllable we have in
English.

SUMMARY
In this section, we have identified and described the strong and weak syllables of English. We
also explained and illustrated syllabic consonants in English. We believe you have firmly
grasped most of the concepts treated under this section. The course is becoming more interesting
and we hope you will make a steady progress till you complete course wholly. In the next
section, we shall look at the structure of the English, with special reference to the onset and coda
phonotactics in English. Stay with as we navigate you through the next section of this course.
Congratulations!

4. These are stress and intonation.

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SECTION 5: SYLLABIFICATION IN ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION
Dear Student, welcome to section five of unit 4. You are making progress in this course.
Wonderful! In the just ended section, you learned about the strong and weak syllables in English.
We explained syllabic consonants in English and saw how they manifest themselves in words. In
this section, we shall discuss syllabification in English. The discussion will focus on the
definition of syllabification and other related concepts such as monosyllables, disyllables and
polysyllables. We shall look at the processes involved in word syllabification in English.We
hope you will not go away.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to:
 Define syllabification.
 Identify syllable division rules in English.
 Explain how monosyllables, disyllables and polysyllables in English are syllabified.

 What is Syllabification?

You remember that in Sections one and two of this unit, we discussed the concept of syllable.
We learnt that a syllable refers to an utterance that consists of one peak of sonority, and are
pronounced together. Let’s now explain what syllabification is. Do you have any idea? We know
your knowledge in the concept of syllable would enable you to have a fair idea about the concept
of syllabification.

The term syllabification is a process of dividing a word into syllables. It is the separation of a
word into syllables, whether spoken or written. In other words, it refers to splitting words
according to the syllables or units of sounds or vowel sounds. Sometimes, we split a word at the
end of a line. We do so by marking the division with a hyphen [-]. We realise that whereas some
words can be effectively split at the end of a line, others cannot be split. For instance, while we
can split holy into two syllables, more cannot be broken into two because it has only one
syllable. Similarly, whereas lead, put, are, learn cannot be broken into further syllables, avoid,
possible, sonority, university can be split into different syllables as follows: a-void, pos-si-ble,
so-no-ri-ty, u-ni-ver-si-ty. In most English dictionaries, words that are more than one syllable are
divided by a dot or space between the syllables. Why is it that some words in English such as
search, cord, frog, plant, word cannot be split into syllable?

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 Syllable Division Rules in English

Syllabification in English does not occur in a vacuum; it follows rules. A dot (.) is used to divide
syllables, in accordance with the current recommendations of the IPA. As far as possible,
syllables should not be divided in a way that violates what is known of English syllable structure.

Let’s now identify some of these rules that govern the process of dividing words into syllables.

 In affixal words, the syllable boundary coincides with the morphological boundary. Here
are examples: mis-place, dis-please, be-come, un-able, count-less, mal-treat, right-ful.
 In words with CVCV structure, the syllabic boundary is after the accented vowel, as in:
farm-er, cit-y, pap-er, bord-er, pit-y, sing-er, bond-age, blist-er, weev-er etc.
 In words with CVC structure, the syllabic boundary is after the intervocalic consonant,
which terminates accented syllables, as in: porter[pᴐ:t.ə], posit[pɒz.ɪt], poster[pəυst.ə].
 In words of CVC, VC structure, the syllabic boundary is after the intervocalic sonorant,
as in: inner[ɪn.ə], cinema[sɪn.əm.ə], enemy[en.əm.ɪ] etc.
 While English diphthongs are monosyllabic since they consist of one vowel phoneme,
triphthongs in English are disyllabic because they consist of two vowel phonemes. Here
are examples: Diphthongs – pay[peɪ], ploy[plᴐɪ], buy[baɪ], pole[pəυl] etc. Triphthongs –
flower[flaυ.ə], shower[ʃaυ.ə], payer[peɪ.ə] etc.

Here are other syllabification rules for syllable divisions in English:

 Every syllable should have one vowel sound.

 The number of vowel sounds in a word should be equal to the number of syllable in the
word.
 A one-syllable word should not be divided. Examples: stop, feet, bell, pearl, flat
 Consonant blends and digraphs are never separated, as in: rest-ing, bush-el, reach-ing etc.
 When a word has a ‘ck’ or an ‘x’ in it, the word is usually divided after the ‘ck’ or ‘x’, as
in: nick-el, tax-able, neck-lace.
 A compound word in English is divided between the two words that make the compound
word, as in: in-side, foot-ball, foot-wear, cross-road
 When a single consonant comes between two vowels in a word, it is usually divided after
the consonant if the vowel is short, as in: lev-er, cab-in, hab-it, waiv-er.
 When a single consonant comes between two vowels in a word, it is usually divided
before the consonant if the vowel is long, as in: ba-sin, fe-ver, ma-jor, po-tent.
 When two vowels come vowels come together in a word, and are sounded separately,
divide the word between the two vowels, as in: ra-di-o, di-et, i-de-a, ster-e-o.
 When a vowel is sounded alone in a word, it forms a syllable itself, as in: grad-u-ate, a-
pron, u-nit, a-dage, a-bout.
 When be, de, ex, and re are at the beginning of a word, they make a syllable of their
own, as in: be-come, de-fend, ex-hale, re-main.

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 A word that has a prefix, as indicated earlier, is divided between the root word and the
prefix, as in: dis-count, mis-fit, un-tie, un-do.
 A word that has a suffix is divided between the root word and the suffix, as in: kind-ness,
thank-ful, right-ful, staff-ing.
 When –ed comes at the end of a word, it forms a syllable only when preceded by ‘d’ or
‘t’, as in: start-ed, fund-ed, round-ed, paint-ed.
 A word should be divided between syllables at the end of a line. The hyphen(-) stays with
the syllable at the end of the line.

 Processes of Syllabification

Syllabifications in English manifest themselves in monosyllables, disyllables and polysyllables.

Let’s delve into these three concepts.

 Syllabification in Monosyllables in English

Mono is an English prefix denoting one. So we define monosyllables in English as words

consisting of a single syllable. In other words, any word which has only one syllable is classified
as a monosyllable. Words which have only one syllable are also called monosyllabic words. In
writing, monosyllabic words cannot be split. Here are examples: act, cat, book, slew, base, vile,
oft, cause, crown, mourn, fear, head, riot, sword, plot, wish, won, school, make, see, all, bet,
sleep, at, bill etc. Can you break any of the above words into two or more syllables? We believe
your response is negative because every monosyllabic word has exactly one syllable which
cannot be further broken. Can you give examples of monosyllables in English, and why do you
classify them as monosyllabic? Monosyllables in English have different structures, including V,
VC, VCC, VCCC, CV, CCV, CCCV, CCCV, CVCC etc. Below is a table showing the structure
of monosyllabic words and their corresponding words.

STRUCTURE OF MONOSYLLABLES CORRESPONDING WORDS

V Air, err, are, heir, owe, or
VC On, own, ooze, off, owl, ion, ill
VCC Ink, end, ant , apps
VCCC Ends, ants
CV So, go, no, woo, zoo, shoe
CCV Play, slow, plea, bra, clear, grey
CCCV Spray, spree, stew
CVCC Hand, sand, hint, point, sound

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 Syllabification in Disyllables in English

Di- is an English prefix denoting two. So we define disyllables in English as words consisting of
two syllables. Any word which has exactly two syllables is, therefore, classified as a disyllable or
disyllabic in nature. In writing, disyllabic words can be split into two syllables. Here are
examples: censure, measure, retard, beside, critic, again, women, vanquish, coward, suspect,
purpose, programme, fortress, outbreak, dormant, debate, senate, villain, survive etc. Can you
break any of the above words into two syllables? We believe your response is ‘yes’ because
every disyllabic word has exactly two syllables. Break any of the words in the list into two
syllables. Did you find it difficult breaking the words into their respective syllables? How many
syllables are there in the following words: going, extra, avoid, player? Indicate the syllable
boundaries to indicate the split of each word. Beyond this, can you give other examples of
disyllables in English, and why do you classify them as disyllabic? Disyllables in English have
different structures. There can be four-letter disyllabic words such as pity, cagy, city. We can
also have five-letter disyllabic words such Bible, noble, cobra, moral, cynic, avoid. Six-letter
disyllabic words such as defeat, socket, frigid, stupid, wisdom, silent etc are also common in
English. Interestingly, we can even have seven-letter, eight-letter, nine-letter etc disyllabic words
in the English language. Disyllables in English may have CVCV, VCVC, CVCVC,
CVCCCCVC etc structures. Below is a table showing the structure of disyllabic words and their
corresponding words.

STRUCTURE OF DISYLLABLES CORRESPONDING WORDS

CVCV Pit-y, cit-y, cag-y, wat-er, mo-ney
VCVC a-bout, a-bove, a-gain, a-void, a-side, a-shame
CVCVC Be-come, be-neath, be-low, be-lief, di-vine
CVCVCC Be-yond, be-hind, be-half, be-hold, be-hest
CVCCCCVCC Con-struct, con-strict, con-straint
CCVCVC Plur-al, brut-al, frug-al
CCCVCCV Struc-ture, stretch-er, sprint-er

 Syllabification in Polysyllables in English

Poly- in English refers to much, many or several. We can have words such as polygon,
polytechnic, polyandry etc. In the words above, we realise that they denote plurality. We will,
therefore, define polysyllables in English as words consisting of three or more syllables. Any
word which has three or more syllables is, therefore, classified as a polysyllable or polysyllabic
in form. In writing, polysyllabic words can be divided into three or more syllables. Here are
examples: verify, survival, personification, intelligent, initiative, entertainment, international,
submission, September, information, communication, multiplicity, accidental, humility,
telecommunication etc. Can you break any of the above words into their appropriate syllables?
We hope you can because most of the words can be split in the same way as we pronounce them,

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as in: Sep-tem-ber, in-for-ma-tion, te-le-com-mu-ni-ca-tion, po-ly-syl-la-ble etc. Count the
number of syllables in the words September, information, telecommunication and polysyllable.

Now try and break communication, multiplicity, accidental, humility into their constituent
syllables. Did you find it difficult breaking the words into their respective syllables? How many
syllables are there in each word? How did you determine the syllable boundaries in each word?
Beyond this, can you give other examples of polysyllables in English, and why do you classify
them as polysyllabic? Like monosyllables and disyllables, polysyllables in English have their
structure, including CVCVCVCV, VCCVCVCC, CVCVC, CVCCCCVC etc

ACTIVITY 1

a. What is syllabification?
b. Explain why, in writing, monosyllables should not be split.
c. Briefly explain polysyllables and give five examples

SUMMARY

In this section, we have explained the concept of syllabification. We learnt that syllabification
involves splitting words according to the syllables or units of sounds or vowel sounds. We also
identified and explained syllabifications in monosyllables, disyllables and polysyllables. We
explained that whilst monosyllables contain only one syllable, disyllables contain two syllables
and polysyllables three or more syllables. We gave examples of each syllable type. We also
identified some rules that govern syllable division in English. In the next unit, we shall learn
about stress, accent and intonation in English. Go with us as we explore the next unit.

a. Syllabification refers to splitting words according to the syllables or units of sounds.

b. This is because they contain one peak of sonority, and breaking them results in the
formation of units which are not phonetic.
c. Polysyllables are words consisting of three or more syllables. Any word which has three
or more syllables is described as a polysyllable. Examples include: verify, survival,
personification, intelligent, initiative.

UNIT SUMMARY

In this Unit, dear learner, we introduced you to the concept of syllable in English. Under this, we
defined and described the syllable, and outlined its constituents. We discussed the two major
types of syllables in English. The unit further discussed the strong and weak syllables in English
and examined the processes of syllabification in English. The next unit will stress, accent and
intonation in English. It will explain stress, its types and characteristics. We shall also discuss the
functions of stress in English and draw the distinction between stress and accent in English. We

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shall explain intonation in English, identify its types and state its functions. You realise that the
deeper we delve into the course, the more interesting and insightful it becomes. Come with us as
we journey through Unit 5.

UNIT ASSESSMENT

 What is a syllable?
 Identify and describe the structure of the English syllable.
 Describe the two major types of syllables in English.
 Outline the difference between strong and weak syllables in English.
 Explain the processes of syllabification in English.

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UNIT 5: STRESS AND INTONATION IN ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, you are welcome to Unit five . This unit will take you through stress and accent and
then take a look at Intonation in English. The unit is divided into five sections. The first section
takes a look at stress and its types. Section 2 discusses the characteristics of a stressed syllable
and guidelines for stress placement. Section 3 deals with the Function of Stress in English.
Section 4 discusses intonation in English and looks at its form and Section 5 discusses the
functions and uses of intonation.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section the student will be able to:

 Explain stress and its types

 Identify the characteristics of a stressed syllable
 Use stress to perform different functions in English
 Draw the distinction between stress and accent in English
 Explain intonation and its types
 State the functions of Intonation

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SECTION 1 STRESS AND ITS TYPES
INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, you are welcome to this section on stress and its types in English. In the previous
section, you learnt what a syllable is. I believe you still remember that? Good, in this section
your ability to identify a syllable is crucial. You will have to identify which syllable to stress in a
word.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section the student will be able to:

 Explain what stress is

 Distinguish between primary and secondary stress
 Determine stress placement in disyllabic and polysyllabic words for meaning making

 What is Stress?
Now, when we talk about stress, we don’t mean the sense of the word that means you having
done so much work that you are worn out but the muscular energy that is placed on a syllable
that makes it more prominent than other syllables.

 Word Stress

The stress placed on syllables within words is called word stress or lexical stress. Some
languages have fixed stress, meaning that the stress on virtually any multi-syllable word falls on
a particular syllable, such as the first or the penultimate. Other languages, like English, have
variable stress, where the position of stress in a word is not predictable. Sometimes more than
one level of stress, such as primary stress and secondary stress, may be identified. However,
some languages, such as French and Mandarin, are sometimes analyzed as lacking lexical stress
entirely.

The stress placed on words within sentences is called sentence stress or prosodic stress. In
stress, only strong syllables are stressed, weak syllables are unstressed unless for emphasis.

 Levels of stress
o word
o sentence
In this course, we are dealing with stress at the level of the word which means that we are
looking at words as they are said in isolation which is rather artificial situation: we do not often

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say words in isolation except for a few such as ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘possibly’, ‘please’ and interrogative
words such as ‘what’, ‘who’ Roach (2000).However,this helps us to see stress placement.

 Types of Word Stress

Dear learner, I believe in the course of your education you might have heard primary stress,
Secondary stress but may not know what makes one syllable in a word qualify to take a primary
stress and what makes another take a secondary stress.
Can you think aloud what comes into your mind when you hear primary and secondary stress?
Good, now let’s take a look at what those two concepts mean. We take a look at primary stress
first.

 Primary Stress
Primary stress is indicated by a high vertical line before the stressed element (ˈ) for example bag
/ˈbæg/, syllabification [sɪˌlæbəfɪˈkeɪʃən]
Let’s take a look at primary stress in nouns and verbs.
If monosyllabic nouns are pronounced in isolation, they are usually said with a primary stress.
For example book /ˈbʊk/, bag /ˈbæg/, house /ˈhaʊs /, fish /ˈfɪʃ/.
Stress in disyllabic nouns fall on the first syllable if the second syllable contains a weak vowel
example driver /'draɪvə/, mother /'mʌðə/.
If the second syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong then the second syllable is stressed
example balloon /'b/, design /'d/.

 Stress in verbs
All monosyllabic verbs are pronounced with a primary stress, for example come, sit, go. In verbs,
the second syllable is usually stressed if it is a strong syllable. Here are examples:
Invite /in'vaɪt/, report /ri'pɔ:t/, arrive /e'raɪv/, dictate /dik'teɪt/.
If the second syllable of the verb is weak, then the first syllable is stressed. For example, open
/ˈəʊpən/envy /ˈenvɪ/, enter /ˈentə/.
All the above examples are said with primary stress.
Let me quickly add that English language unlike other European languages like French has no
regular stress pattern and so you will have to identify the strong syllable in a word and
pronounce it with the appropriate stress.

 Secondary stress

Secondary stress occurs in disyllabic words. In such cases the primary stress falls on the stronger
syllable while the secondary stress falls on the less stronger syllable. For example; ice cream
/ɑɪsˈkri:m/, documentary /ˌdɒkjuˈmentrɪ/, desertation, /dɪzəteɪʃn/, photographic /ˌfəʊˈtəgræfɪk/
anthropology /ˌænθrəˈpɒledʒɪ/.

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Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stressin the pronunciation of a word; the
stronger degree of stress being called primary. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for
secondary stress is a short vertical line preceding and at the foot of the secondarily stressed
syllable: as before the nun in proˌnunciˈation (the higher vertical line denotes primary stress).

 Disyllabic Words with Identical Spelling

Noun Verb

ˈsubject sub ˈject

ˈConsent conˈsent

ˈPermit per ˈmit

ˈPresent pre ˈsent

ˈConvict con ˈvict

ˈTransfer trans ˈfer

ˈAbstract abs ˈtract

ˈConduct con ˈduct

ˈInsult in ˈsult

ˈProtest pro ˈtest

In large number of polysyllabic English words, more than one syllable is stressed. For example;
organisation /ɔ:gənəˈzeɪʃn/. In this word, the fourth syllable; or.ga.ni.sa.tion carries the primary
stress, whilst the first carries the secondary stress, the remaining three would be grouped together
as weak unstressed. Some suffixes such as -al, –ic, attract a tertiary stress. For example;
biographical, individual, academic,

Remember we said that the main stress normally falls on one syllable in a two-syllable word.
Thus, when the word is made up of two syllables, the stress may fall either on the first syllable or
on the second syllable. Remember we said that it is only nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and
WH-words that are usually stressed. The other word classes-pronouns, prepositions,
conjunctions, articles and auxiliary verbs are usually not stressed unless for emphasis.

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 Stress Placement in More Than Two Syllables.
A word which has more than two syllables is known as a polysyllabic word. The polysyllabic
word may be made up of three, four, five, six or more syllables. Study the words below. The
syllable that carries the primary stress in polysyllabic words varies from word to word. In each of
the words, the three different syllables have been separated with a dot.

 Word Stress in three-syllable words

Three-syllable words may have the stress on the first syllable, the second syllable or in some
cases on the third syllable. Remember that English does not have a particular stress pattern for
classes of words as in some European languages like French. And so you will have to learn stress
placement on each individual words. Here are a few examples of such three-syllable words. The
syllable that carries the primary stress is written in capitals.
Com.pre.HEND sub.TRAC.tion re.LI.ent
Im.POR.tant dis.CU.ssion dra.MA.tic
PA.ra.graph ci.VI.lian a.TO.mic
SY.lla.ble co.ME.dian co.LO.nial

ACTIVITY
You may try your hands on the following words by identifying the stress in them.
Dramatic
Photograph
Photographic
Interview
Education
Good. I believe you are making a headway. Now, check the words in your dictionary and
compare with your answers. Now let’s take a look at word stress in four-syllable words.

 Word stress in four-syllable words

Some words are made up of four syllables. In such words, the stress may fall on the first, second,
third or fourth syllable. Here are a few examples of words that are made up of four syllables.

1st syllable stressed 2nd syllable stressed 3nd syllable stressed 4th syllable stressed
HE.li,cop.ter pho.TO.gra.phy pho.to.GRA.phic su.per.in.TEND
MA.tri.mo.ny de.NO.mi.nate ob.ser.VA.tion
ED.u.cat.ed con.VEN.tion.al de.mon.STRA.tion
FER.ti.li.zer fa.CI.li.tate con.tro.VER.sial
A.gri.cul.ture ex.E.cu.tive e.lec.TRI.cian

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ACTIVITY
Please visit the site below on the internet and watch a video on stress in verbs, nouns and
adjectives: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?)

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SECTION 2 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A STRESSED SYLLABLE
AND GUIDELINES FOR STRESS PLACEMENT
Dear learner, welcome to section two. In this section, you will be taken through the
characteristics of stress and how to determine stress placement on a syllable.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section the student will be able to:
 Identify the characteristics of a stressed syllable
 Determine stress placement through some guidelines

 The Characteristics of a stressed Syllable

What are the characteristics of stressed syllables that enable us to identify them? This question
can be approached in two ways. One is to consider what the speaker does in producing a stressed
syllable and the other is to consider what characteristics make a sound more stressed than the
other to a listener (Yule 2010).
According to Yule (Ibid), we can study stress from the point of view of perception. The
production of stress generally depends on the speaker using more muscular energy than
unstressed syllables. Measuring muscular effort is difficult but it seems possible according to
experimental studies, that when we produce stressed syllables, the muscles that we use to expel
air from the lungs are often more active, producing higher sub-glottal pressure (Yule, ibid).
It must be noted that in this course, we are looking at stress at the level of the word.
Whenever an English word contains more than one syllable, one of the syllables is made louder
or more prominent than the others. The prominent syllable is described as a stressed syllable,
example teacher [ˈti: ʧə]. This word contains two syllables; [ti:] and [ʧə]. In the pronunciation of
this word, the syllable that is given prominence is /ti:/. That is, /ti:/ is heard louder than /[ʧə]/ and
therefore we say /ti:/ is stressed. We mark a stressed syllable in transcription by placing a small
vertical line ( ˈ ) high up, just before the syllable it relates to.
For example; [rɪ 'si:v], [ǝ'bout], ['ti:ʧə]
Words that are mostly stressed in English sentences are content or lexical words
 Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs
 Wh question words, such as who, what, how, when, why, where
 Yes/No words
Only strong syllables are stressed. A strong syllable is a syllable that contains a long vowel, a
diphthong or one that ends with a consonant, a weak syllable usually contains a short vowel.
Only strong syllables are stressed for example, attract, audience. /əˈtrækt/, / ˈɔ:dɪəns /.
From the perceptual point of view, all stressed syllables have one characteristic in common –
prominence. Stressed syllables are recognized as stressed because they are more prominent than
unstressed syllables.

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Four different factors make a syllable prominent; loudness, length, pitch, quality Roach
(2000).Stressed syllables seem louder than unstressed syllables in perception. In a word, if one
syllable is made louder than the others, it will be heard as stressed. The length of syllables has an
important part to play in prominence. If one of the syllables in a word is made longer than the
others, there is quite a strong tendency for that syllable to be heard as stressed.Pitch in speech is
closely related to the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds and to the musical notion of low-
and high-pitched notes. In a polysyllabic word, if one of the syllables is said with a pitch that is
noticeably different from that of the others, this will have a strong tendency to produce the effect
of prominence. For example, if all syllables are said with low pitch except for one said with high
pitch, then the high- pitched syllable will be heard as stressed and the others as unstressed. A
syllable will tend to be prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in quality from
neighbouring vowels.
 Guidelines for determining stress placement
Here are a few guidelines that can help us determine where to put the stress:
1. Prefixes and suffixes are not stressed so in words like impossibility and mismanagement,
the underlined parts are not stressed.

2. The vowel /ǝ/ is an unstressed vowel. As we see in the examples below, the syllable that
contains the unstressed vowel /ǝ / is not stressed.
a. Ago /ǝ. ˈgǝʊ/
b. Alone /ǝ.ˈlǝʊn/
c. Doctor / ˈdɔk.tǝ/
d. Teacher / ˈti:.tʃǝ/

3. In words which end with ‘-ion’, ‘-ic’, ‘-sial’, -tial’, and ‘-ian’ the primary stress usually
falls on the second to the last syllable.
a. e.du.CA.tion d. con.fi.DEN.tial
b. pro.nun.ci.A.tion e. po.li.TI.cian
c. e.lec.tri.fi.CA.tion f. pho.to.GRA.phic

4. For words with three or more syllables which end in ‘-ate’, ‘-cal’, ‘-ty’ and ‘-al’ the main
stress is usually on the third to the last syllable. The counting is done from the last
syllable to third syllable within the word. Here are some examples:
a) par.TI.ci.pate
b) gra.MMA.ti.cal
c) stu.PI.di.ty
d) NA.tion.al

5. Polysyllabic words which end in -ing, -tion, -sion, -ence,/-ance are usually stressed on the
syllables preceding these suffixes.
 ad.MIT.tance
 ad.min.i.STRA.tion

6. Polysyllabic words which end in –able and –ible are usually stressed on the first or
second syllable depending on the stress pattern of the original two-syllable word. What

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this means is that if the original two-syllable word has the stress on the first syllable, the
new word may also have the stress on the first syllable but if the original two-syllable
word has the stress on the second syllable, the new word may have the stress on the
second syllable. Here are a few examples:
1st Syllable 2nd Syllable
HAB.it.a.ble (HAB.it) re.SPEC.ta.ble (re.SPECT)
PAR.don.a.ble (PAR.don) re.LI.a.ble (re.LY)

Let me chip in a word of caution. These rules do not cover all the aspects of word stress in
English; but they do cover the large majority of polysyllabic words in the language.

ACTIVITY
Try your hands on the following exercise

1. State any two characteristics of a stressed syllable

2. In each of the following words, the main stress is indicated by writing the syllable
in which it occurs in capital letters. From the words lettered A-D, choose the one
that has the correct stress.
i. . DRAmatic B. draMAtic C. dramaTIC D. DRAMAtic
ii. familiarize B. FAMiliarise C. faMIliarize D. familIArize
iii. HypNOtic B. HYPnotic C. HypnoTIC D. HypNOTIC

SUGGESTED ANSWERS
1. The following are some characteristics of a stressed syllable
I. A stressed syllable must contain a long vowel or a diphthong
II. It must be heard louder than the other syllables
III. It must have a higher pitch than the other syllables
2. i. B
ii. C
iii. B
Now cross-check your answers with the answers above

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FUNCTIONS OF STRESS IN ENGLISH
SECTION 3
INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, you are welcome to the third section of unit 5. In this section, we will be looking at
the functions of stress as well as the difference between stress and accent in English. Gather
momentum as we go along.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:
 Use stress to perform speech functions
 Distinguish the difference between stress and accent

 Stress and its Functions

The functions of stress cannot be over-emphasised. Stress can help us distinguish the meaning
and word class of a word from the other especially if those words have identical spelling. We
illustrated this by looking at nouns and verbs that have identical spelling.

In an analysis of stress and intonation, stress is shown to distinguish semantic and grammatical
meaning on every level of language. It is suggested that the distinction between stress and
intonation is particularly important in teaching English as a second language. Written texts and
fabricated examples of dialogue are used, with a focus on speech as oral production of texts.

It is proposed that a regular correlation can be seen between the degree of semantic meaning
attached to a syllable and the degree of stress it carries. Rules for the distribution of functionally
contrastive degrees of stress are shown to operate on the word level where roots are stressed in
contrast with affixes.

On the phrase level, lexical and structural words are distinguished by stress, and the semantic
focus of the phrase is marked by primary stress. Stress operates beyond the phrase on the text
level to link sentences and groups of sentences in connected discourse. Anaphoric stress is a
cohesive device that expresses the relationship between referents and references. On the other
hand, intonation is a non-structural feature that utilizes pitch contours projected on phrase stress
groups. This involves a culturally conditioned expression of attitude to the speaking situation

 Accent and Stress in English

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or
to certain words in a phrase or sentence. Stress is typically signaled by such properties as
increased loudness and vowel length, full articulation of the vowel, and changes in pitch. The
terms stress and accent are often used synonymously, but they are sometimes distinguished, with
certain specific kinds of prominence (such as pitch accent, variously defined) being considered to
fall under accent but not under stress. In this case, stress specifically may be called stress accent
or 'Accent' is perhaps a bit ambiguous. The strict meaning is 'stress' or 'prominence'. Accented
syllables are made clearly distinct from the other syllables by putting more effort on them,
uttering them more loudly or using a higher pitch. Accented syllables are not necessarily
stressed; there are languages that don't use stress but still make some of their syllables

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prominent, which means accented. On the other hand, I have seen in a linguistic work the term
'accent' in the meaning it is usually used in everyday English, that is 'distinct pronunciation',
meaning that the speech in question does not have other dialectical differences than
pronunciation. Thus, we can talk of a speaker having American accent, British accent, Ghanaian
accent or Nigerian accent etc. depending on one’s pronunciation of words. In accent in this
sense, one is talking about the distinct pronunciation different speakers from different
backgrounds speak a language. One’s educational, geographical, or cultural background can
influence their pronunciation.

ACTIVITY
1. State any one function of stress.
2. Distinguish the difference between stress and accent in English.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS
Stress can help us distinguish the meaning and word class of a word from the other. For
example nouns and verbs.
Stress is shown to distinguish semantic and grammatical meaning on every level of
language.
2 Stress is the prominence placed on a syllable whereas accent is the distinctive ways
speakers from different backgrounds pronounce a syllable.

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SECTION 4 INTONATION TYPES
INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, you are welcome to this section. In English language, it is possible to express
different shades of meaning using the same utterance. This is possible through what we call
intonation. Please pay attention as we take you through this concept.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section the student will be to:
 Explain what intonation is
 Distinguish the two main types of stress

 Intonation
Intonation has to do with the pitch and intensity or tone of the voice. It is the rise and fall pattern
of the voice. Depending on the meaning we intend to convey to our listeners our voice may rise
or fall on part of the utterance or the other. There are two main kinds of intonation patterns in
English. They are known as:
o The falling tone and
o The rising tone
Depending on the meaning we intend to convey to our listeners, we can use the falling tone or
the rising tone.
The falling tune is also known as tune 1 and the rising tune is known as tune 2.
When we use the falling tone, the voice relatively rises up on each stressed syllable in the
utterance and then when it comes to the last stressed syllable, the voice falls or goes down
immediately. It is for this reason that we call it the falling tone.
What it means is that the first stressed syllable in the falling tone is usually said on the highest
pitch and each of the succeeding stressed syllables is said on a slightly lower pitch. The falling
tone is usually used for the following types of utterances:

 Statements
 I am very hungry↘
 Linda knows my house↘

 Wh-questions (which begin with interrogative words like where, how, what etc. could be
intended to be neither polite nor impolite
 who is this man?↘
 Where did you go?↘
 Why should he open the door?↘

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 Commands or orders
 Shut up↘
 Don’t go away↘
 Come here↘

 Exclamations and interjections. Utterances which express emotions such as surprise also
use the falling tune.
 What a beautiful baby↘
 That’s wonderful↘
 Fantastic↘
 Wow↘

 The last alternative in alternative questions

e.g do you want rice or kenkey?↘

Did you say you want to see the boss or his secretary?↘

 Sentence fragments
Definitely↘
Impossible↘
Thank you↘

 Response to Yes/No questions

The yes or questions are made using the rising tone but the responses to the questions are
made with the falling tune.
e.g Do you like sweets↗
Response: Yes, I do↘ or No, I don’t ↘

 Invitations
Come over for dinner↘
Why don’t you join me for a dance↘

 The Rising Tone

In the last section, we learnt about the falling tone. In this section, we are going to learn about the
rising tone which is also known as tune 2. In tune 2, the last stressed syllable carries the rising
pitch. If this final stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable, the unstressed syllable
is said on a high pitch and rises as it gets to the end of the utterance. This final stressed syllable
in the utterance carries the highest pitch (Anderson, 2011). Because the pitch of the voice rises at
the end of the utterance, it is referred to as the rising tone.

 Uses of the Rising Tone

Here are examples of each of the utterances listed above:
 Polar questions
Do you speak?↗

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Are you tired↗

 Statements which carry additional meanings:

Ama ate the food?↗

He’s going to Accra?↗

 The first alternative in an alternative

Do you like rice↗ or banku?

Would you attend Kawia’s wedding↗ or the end of year party?

 Phrases or clauses that are not the final in sentences

I sent Adua to school, passed by the saloon, the seamstress shop…↗

 Polite requests
 Can you pass me the salt?↗
 May I join your class↗
In English, intonation can be used to show our attitudes to what we are talking about. Intonation
can be used to express surprise, enthusiasm, anger, or our doubt about something.
Now, can you tell the expressions the following speakers are making with the utterances below?
A. My daddy is coming for me to the USA next week
B. He is?
A. John did not write the exams
B. He didn’t?

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SECTION 5 FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION
Dear learner, let me say well done, for coming to the last section of this unit. I believe you have
enjoyed the previous sections we have covered so far. Intonation is used to perform varied
functions in speech; ranging from grammatical, attitudinal to accentual functions.
Let us take look at these functions.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:
 Use intonation to perform grammatical functions
 Use intonation to perform attitudinal functions

 Grammatical Function
Intonation distinguishes different types of sentences. For example, the difference between the
sentences below in spoken English, which are syntactically identical is only one of intonation:

a. He is coming today.↘ (statement)

b. He is coming today? ↗(question)
Similarly, the difference between a command and a request is that the former, is said with a
falling tone and the latter with a rising one as in the following sentences

a. Sit down ↗(command)

b. Sit down↘(offer)

 Attitudinal Function
Intonation is a good means by which a speaker conveys his attitude and emotion. Intonation
makes distinctions of meaning to which the grammar most often gives no structural clues. Sethi
&Dihamija (2009). Thus through intonation, we are able to tell whether a speaker’s attitude is
one of politeness, rudeness, anger etc. The pairs of sentences below show how intonation signals
a speaker’s attitude and emotions. For example

1a. will you sit down?↘

1b. will you sit down?↗

2a. she’s going to school↗

2b. she’s going to school↘

3a. excuse me↗

3b. excuse me↘

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When sentence 1a is said with a falling tone, it is a normal question. It is neither polite nor
impolite. When said with a rising tone, as in 1b, it expresses politeness.
As for the second pair, 2a which is said with a falling tone, is a statement, whereas 2b., which is
said with a falling-rising tone, expresses reservation on the part of the speaker. It expresses
something like ‘but you don’t know the other side of the picture.
In sentence 3a., ‘excuse me’ expresses a polite request when said with a rising tone, whereas in
3b., it expresses a command as is said with a falling tone.
Intonation is very important in meaning making. No matter how carefully a sentence is
constructed grammatically, it cannot convey the desired meaning without the appropriate
intonation. Intonation helps us to express varied meanings depending on the tone of the voice at
any given time.

ACTIVITY
1. What is intonation?
2. State the difference between rising and falling tune
3. Identify the meanings expressed in the utterances below
i. Shut the door!↘
ii. John is going to school↗
iii. Mr. Mensah has beaten his wife ↗
4. Identify the intonation pattern and meanings expressed in the following utterances

1A. He is a nurse↘

1B. He is a nurse↗

2A. She works in a supermarket↗

2B. She works in supermarket↘

SUGGESTED ANSWERS
1. Intonation has to do with the pitch and intensity or tone of the voice. It is the rise and fall
pattern of the voice.
2. In the falling tune the voice relatively rises up on each stressed syllable and falls at the
end of the utterance but with the rising tune the pitch of the voice rises at the end of the
utterance.
3. i. Expresses a command or an order
ii. Expresses a surprise or shock at the fact that Kofi is going to school
iii. Expresses a disbelieve that Mr. Mensah has beaten his wife
4. A. falling tune, it expresses a statement
B. rising tune, it expresses a surprise at the fact that the guy is a nurse
C. rising tune, expresses a shock at the fact that she works in a supermarket
D. it is a statement, only gives information

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UNIT SUMMARY
Dear learner, I believe you found this unit very insightful. I’m sure by now you can tell what
stress is and use stress to perform speech functions appropriately. I also want to believe you can
identify the characteristics a stressed syllable should have in order to be stressed and place the
stress on the right syllables appropriately. I am also certain that you will make good use of the
knowledge you gained in intonation and its functions to perform various speech functions.

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UNIT 6 PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, you are welcome to unit six on the phonological processes in English.
In this unit, we will take a look at the scope as well as the direction of assimilatory. In this unit,
we shall also take a look at phonological conditioning in English with respect to the past tense
marker –ed, and the plural marker –‘s’ as well as the linking ‘r’ and blending and vowel linkage.
Since speech is a continuum and adjustments are taking place all the time during speech, sounds
in continuum tend to be similar to their neighbouring sounds in one way or the other. “The
process by which sounds adapt to their neighbours is called assimilation” ( Sethi &Dhamija,
2009)

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this unit the student will be able to:

 Explain assimilation and its scope

 Explain the direction of assimilatory changes
 Determine the phonological conditioned endings of words
 Link the sound at the end of one word to the sound at the beginning of the next

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SECTION 1 ASSIMILATION AND ITS SCOPE

INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, you are welcome to section one of unit 6. In this section, we will be looking at
assimilation and its scope. We will explain what assimilation is and discuss how it affects vowels
and consonants. We will also distinguish assimilation involving voice and manner. Please
concentrate as we go along.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson the student will be able to:
 explain what assimilation is
 discuss how assimilation affects vowels and consonants
 distinguish assimilation involving voice and manner.

 What Assimilation is
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby
sound. This can occur either within a word or between words. In rapid speech, for example,
"handbag" is often pronounced [ˈhæmbæɡ]. Or more easily, assimilation is when two sounds
come together and change or melt into a new sound. It can occur either within a word or between
words when the final sound of a word touches the first sound of the next word (because when we
speak we join all the words together). Assimilation varies in extent according to speaking rate
and style, more found in rapid, casual speech and less likely in slow, careful speech.
Generally speaking, the cases that have most often been described are assimilations affecting
consonants. As in this example [ˈhæmbæɡ], sound segments typically assimilate to a following
sound (this is called regressive or anticipatory assimilation), but they may also assimilate to a
preceding one (progressive assimilation). While assimilation most commonly occurs between
immediately adjacent sounds, it may occur between sounds separated by others ("assimilation at
a distance").
Take a look at the following examples; hand bag /hænd bæg/ /hæm bæg/want to /wɔnt tu:/ /w n
nə/ɔfive pence /faiv pens/ /faif pens/, that girl /ðæt gɜːl/, /ðæk gɜːl/
As in these examples, sound segments typically assimilate to a following sound or to a preceding
one. One reason for the assimilatory processes is that several articulators are involved in making
a speech sound, and that they are not capable of moving instantaneously. An easy process to
observe is the position of the lips.

 Scope of Assimilatory Changes

Assimilation affects both vowels and consonants. There are two ways in which vowels change in
assimilation.

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1. Vowels are nasalized when they are followed as well as preceded by nasal sounds.
For example, [a] is nasalized [ ã] in [pãn]
2. Vowels are also realized as longer sounds when they are followed by a voiced sound than
when they are followed by a voiceless sound. They are realized as still longer sounds
when they occur finally in a syllable.
For example:
I. beat [bi.t]
II. Bead [bi:d]
III. Sea [si:]
In the examples above, the vowel in example (iii) is longer than the vowel in (ii) and the
vowel in (ii) is longer than the vowel in (i)

 Assimilation Affecting Consonants

Assimilation affecting consonants are mainly of three types
 Assimilation Involving Place of Articulation
Under this type of assimilation, consonants assimilate to the place of articulation of the following
consonants. This is exemplified below:
/t/ assimilates to /p/ in that boy [dæp bɔɪ]
/s/ becomes / ʃ/ in this sheet [dɪʃʃi:t]
/n/ becomes /ŋ/ in ten calls [teŋkɔːlz]
/z/ becomes /ʒ/ in his years [hɪʒjɪez]
From the examples given, it is likely that when the alveolars /t,s,n,z/ precede other consonant
sounds, they are most likely to adapt to their following sounds. Can you think of any more
examples? Good, write them in your notebook.
 Assimilation Involving Manner of Articulation
Under such assimilations, consonants change in terms of their manner of articulation. The
following are examples:
I. /t/ is laterally released [tl] when it is followed by /l/ as in castle, hustle
II. /t/ may become /s/ in expressions like that song
 Assimilation Involving Voice
In this type of assimilation, consonants assimilate to their preceding or following sounds in terms
of voice. For example:
I. /n/ is partially devoiced [n] in such words as snow
II. /l/ is fully devoiced [l] when it is preceded by an aspirated /p/ or /k/ as in
plain, declare, reply, plight.

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ACTIVITY
1. What is assimilation?
2. Say which type of assimilation is the following and brief explanation
i. that song
ii. clean
iii. those shoes
iv. smite

SUGGESTED ANSWERS
1. Assimilation is a phonological process whereby a sound becomes more like its
neighbouring sound and acquires some or all the features of that sound.
2i. It is assimilation involving manner. In articulating the expression that song, /t/ becomes
/s/ in that song [dæt sɒŋ] [dæsɒŋ]
2ii. Assimilation involving voice. /l/ is partially devoiced in clean [kli:n]
2iii. Assimilation involving place of articulation. In saying the phrase, those shoes in rapid
speech, /s/ becomes articulated in the same place of articulation as /ʃ/[ðəzʃu:z] [ðəʃʃu:z]
2iv. Voice assimilation. /m/ is partially devoiced in smite [smaɪt]

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SECTION 2 DIRECTION OF ASSIMILATORY CHANGES
INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, welcome to yet another interesting aspect of assimilation. In this section, you will
learn the direction of assimilatory changes. Please come along.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:
 Distinguish between regressive and progressive assimilation

 Types of Direction of Assimilation

In terms of direction, assimilatory adaptations affect only consonants and are of two kinds. These
are Regressive or Anticipatory Assimilation, and Progressive Assimilation.

 Regressive or Anticipatory Assimilation

A consonant sound is considered regressive if it changes to become like it’s following sound. For
example:
i. /s/ in that’s becomes post-alveolar [s] in that’s real under the influence of /r/,
which is post-alveolar.
ii. /l/ in call becomes dental [l] in call them under the influence of the dental /ð/ in
[ðem/.
iii. /p/ is articulated with rounded lips when it is followed by /w/ as in cheap woman,
shop window

 Progressive Assimilation
If a sound changes to become like its preceding sound, the assimilation is called progressive. For
example:
i. /l/ in play is devoiced[l] under the influence of the preceding aspirated /p/.
ii. /r/ in through becomes a partially devoiced under the preceding voiceless dental fricative
/θ/.
iii. /j/ in huge becomes a voiceless palatal fricative under the influence of the preceding /h/.

ACTIVITY
1. Visit the following website for more information on direction of assimilatory changes:
(http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2011/04/progressive-assimilation.html)
2. Say whether the following assimilations are regressive or progressive:
i. /s/ becomes / ʃ/ in bookish style [bʊkɪʃ ʃtaɪl]
ii. /t/ becomes /dental t/ in that theory [ðæt θəʊrɪ ] [ðæθθəʊrɪ]
iii. /n/ becomes /ŋ/ in ten cards [ten kɑːdz] [teŋ kɑːdz]

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iv. /j/ becomes /ʃ / in got you [gɒt jə/ ['gɒtʃə]
v. /s/ becomes / ʃ / in British citizen [brɪtɪʃ ˈsɪtɪzn̩ → ˈbrɪtɪʃ ˈʃɪtɪzn̩]

SUGGESTED ANSWERS
i. Regressive assimilation
ii. Regressive assimilation
iii. Regressive assimilation
iv. Progressive assimilation
v. Regressive assimilation

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SECTION 3 PHONOLOGICAL CONDITIONED ENDINGS OF WORDS
INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, you are welcome to another exciting section. Here, you will be learning how to
pronounce words ending in -ed and -s. In English, words are not always pronounced the same
way as they spelt. It is therefore important for us to take you through the phonological ending of
words.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:
 Pronounce words ending with the -s plural marker correctly.
 Pronounce words ending with -ed past marker correctly.

 Past Tense Marker –Ed

In English, the regular way of forming the past tense is adding the suffix –ed, or –d to the verb.
However, the suffix is not pronounced the same way. The past tense marker –ed, suffix is not
pronounced the same way. It is pronounced as /t/ if the word ends in a voiceless consonant other
than /d/. for example /k, f, ʃ,tʃ, s/
kicked
laughed
stopped
jumped
looked
kissed
worked
jumped
watched
wished
If the word ends in a voiced consonant other than /d/, pronounce the –ed suffix as /d/. I hope you
remember the voiced sounds such as/b,d,g, j, m, n, l, ʒ,dʒ/? Below are some examples:
Stored
Struggled
Hanged

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Loved
If the word ends with consonants /t/ or /d/, pronounce the –ed suffix as / ɪd/. For example:
Consented [ɪd]
Wanted [ ɪd]
Wedded [ɪd]
Wounded [ɪd]

 Pronunciation of the plural marker-S

Most English nouns are inflected with the plural marker –s to indicate their plural. Just as the
rules of the past tense marker, the suffix –s is pronounced in three different ways, depending on
the sound which occurs before the suffix –s. The pronunciation can take three forms; /-s/, iz/, /z/
When a voiceless consonant occurs before the suffix ‘-s’ and such a consonant is not any of the
following such as /s/, /tʃ/, /ʃ/, the plural marker is pronounced as /s/.
For example;
Pecks [peks]
Tricks [rɪks]
Streets [sri:ts]
Cups [kʌps]
Sticks [stɪks]
When a voiced sound comes before the ‘-s’ suffix other than /z, dʒ,ʒ,/. The -s suffix is
pronounced as /z/. This rule applies to all vowels preceding -s suffix. I hope you remember that
all vowels are voiced. Here are some of the voiced sounds /g, z, m, dʒ, n, n, b, d/ etc.
For example
Bags [bægz]
Beans [bi:nz]
Boys [bɔɪz]
Girls [gɜːlz]
Hairs [heəz]
When the sound before the -s suffix is any of the consonants /s , ʒ, tʃ, dʒ, s, / the -s suffix is
pronounced as /ɪz/.
For example;

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Fridges [frɪdʒɪz]
Churches [tʃɜːtsɪz]
Clashes [klæʃɪz]
Blushes [blʌʃɪz]
Chassis [tʃæzɪz]
Watches [wɔːtʃɪz]
Now write the plurals of the following words
Shoes
Pens
Burns
Phones
Farms
Batches
Scratches
Compare your answers with those words as transcribed in your dictionary

 Pronunciation of the 3rd Person Singular Forms of Verbs

The third person singular form of verbs also has the same rules as the simple past tense of regular
verbs. Verbs in the third person singular usually take –‘s’.
For example:
1st person Singular 2nd Person Singular 3rd Person Singular
I want You sing she/he wants
I sing she/he sings
We talk she/he talks
When the sound before the –s suffix is a voiceless consonant other than /s, ʃ,tʃ/ the –s suffix is
pronounced as /s/. For example:
Kicks /kɪks/
Treats /tri:ts/

129
Sucks /sʌks/
Jumps /dʒʌmps/
When the sound before the –s suffix is a voiced consonant other than /z, ʒ, dʒ/, the –s suffix is
pronounced as /z/.
For example:
Informs /ɪnfɔːmz/
Calls /kɔːlz/
Reads /ri:dz/
Leads /lɪdz/
Tells /telz/
When the sound before the –‘s’ suffix is one of these consonants /ʒ, z, dʒ, ʃ, s/, the –s suffix is
produced as /ɪz/.
Churches [tʃɜːtʃɪz]
Scratches [skrætʃɪz]
Judges [dʒʌdʒɪz]
Flashes [flæʃɪz]

Now write the plurals of the following words

ACTIVITY
Shoes
Pens
Burns
Phones
Farms
Batches
Scratches
You may cross-check your answers with the following

130
SUGGESTED ANWERS
Shoes [ʃu:z]
Pens [penz]
Burns [bɜːnz]
Phones [fəʊnz]
Farms [fɑːmz]
Batches [bɑːtʃɪz]
Scratches [skrɑːtʃɪz]

131
SECTION 4 LINKING SOUNDS
INTRODUCTION
Dear learner, you are welcome to the fourth section of unit six. In this section, you will be
learning some dynamics in spoken English. Here, our focus is on how sounds are linked in rapid
speech. Do come along with us.

OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:
 Link consonant sounds at the end of words smoothly to vowel sounds beginning words
 Link vowel sounds at the end of words to words beginning with a vowel.

 Linking Sounds Explained

In fluent speech, words within a speech unit are usually said without a break. The sound at the
end of one word is linked to the sound at the beginning of the next so that there is a smooth
connection between them.
A consonant sound at the end of a word is linked smoothly to a vowel sound at the beginning of
the next. The words below exemplify how words following others are linked to them in rapid
speech.
One ͜ evening, a serious ͜ accident, the exact ͜ opposite.
When a word ending with a consonant sound is followed by a word beginning with another
consonant sound there is no break between them, although the first consonant sound may change
its pronunciation a little to make it easier to move to the next consonant sound.
A warm ͜ breeze, I’ve ͜ seen it, starting ͜ tomorrow
Notice also that when a word ending with one of the consonants /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, is
followed by a word beginning with a different one of these (/m/, or /n/), no air is released at the
end of the first consonant and there is a smooth change to the second:
Stop͜ now, heard ͜ tell, make ͜ bread.
When a word ending with a consonant sound is followed by a word beginning with the same
consonant sound, one lengthened consonant is made:
Some ͜ milk, glorious ͜ sunshine, it’s half ͜ full.
A vowel sound at the end of a word is linked to a vowel at the beginning of the next by an
inserted /w/ or /j/ (‘y’) sound:
Who͜ is it? Go͜ away can you see ͜ it? It’s completely ͜ empty
/w/ /w/ /j/ /j/

132
The choice of either /w/ or /j/ depends on the vowel sound that ends the first word. If the vowel
is produced with the highest part of the tongue close to the front of the mouth (/i:/, /eɪ /, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/
then the linking sound will be /j/. If the vowel is produced with the highest part of the tongue
close to the back of the mouth (/u:/, /aʊ/, /əʊ/) then the linking sound will be /w/.
Words ending with the letters -r or -er have a vowel as a final sound: e.g car /ka:/, more /mɔ:/, fir
/fɜː/, other /ʌðə/, fear /fɪə/, hair /heə/, pure /pjuə/. When a word is followed by a word beginning
with a vowel, a /r/ sound is inserted. For example; Car engine my other uncle pure oxygen.
In some dictionaries, this /r/ before a vowel is shown with the symbol(r). For example: /ka:(r)/
(car), other /ʌðə(r)/ pure /pjʊə(r)/.
Note: In many other accents of English(Scottish, Irish and most American accents) words ending
in -r or -re always have a final /r/ sound: car /ka:r/, more /mɔːr/, etc.
Less commonly, a /r/ sound is inserted when the word ends in one of the vowels /a:/, /ɔː/, /ɜː/, /e/,
/iə /, /eə / or / ʊə/ but is not spelt with the letters-r or -re:
China ͜ and Japan the area ͜ is flooded
/r/ /r/
However, some native speakers of British English think this is incorrect pronunciation.
When sounds merge or a sound changes at the end of a word, it may sound like another word,
but usually any misunderstanding is resolved by context. For example, ‘talk Danish’ might sound
like ‘taught Danish’, but these are unlikely to be confused in context.

ACTIVITY
First mark A’s with B’s in this conversation. Then look at the B parts and decide whether the
links marked are /w/ links (write /w/) or /j/ links (write /j/).
1.

133
1 A. Where are you going? ….B. By ͜ air.
2 A When? ….B Yes, I grew ͜ up there
3 A. Why? ….B Yes, a new ͜ umbrella.
4 A. Who is he? …..B He ͜ asked me for one.
5 A. Have you got cousins there, too? …..B Tomorrow ͜ afternoon.
6 A. How will you get there? …..B I’ll stay ͜ a week
7 A. How long will it take? …..B To ͜ Australia /w/
8 A. Have you been there before? …..B No, they ͜ all live in France
9 A. How long will you be there? …..B It’s too ͜ expensive
10 A. Why don’t you stay longer? …..B To see ͜ Adam.
11 A. Will you take Adam a present? …..B A few ͜ hours.
12 A. Why an umbrella? …..B My ͜ uncle

2. Mark all the possible /r/ links in these sentences containing idiomatic phrases.
Example I bought it on the spur ͜ of the moment
i. He’s got a finger in every pie.
ii. It’s in the nature of things.
iii. She’s without care in the world.
iv. It’s the law of the jungle.
v. Pride comes before a fall.
vi. Get your act together!

SUGGESTED ANSWERS
Now check your answers with the following
i. He’s got ͜ a finger in every pie.
ii. It’s in the nature ͜ of things.
iii. She’s without care-- in the world.
iv. It’s the law ͜ of the jungle.
v. Pride comes before ͜ a fall.
vi. Get your ͜ act together!
The dash between the words shows the /r/ link.

134
UNIT SUMMARY
Dear learner, well done for coming this far. Congratulations on your successful completion of the
last unit of this course. We believe this unit has been very educative. We know by now you can
tell what assimilation is as well as the direction of assimilatory changes. We are also certain that
when it comes to fluent speech, you will be able to link your sounds appropriately at word
boundaries and make meaning to your listeners.

COURSE SUMMARY
Finally, we have come to the end of the course, Phonetics and Phonology of English. We
believe you found the course insightful, interesting and informative. The course introduced you
to some fundamental phonetic and phonological concepts in English Language and we hope the
prerequisite knowledge you have acquired will propel you to grasp other complex concepts as far
as spoken English is concerned. We trust that you are well equipped and poised for action
knowing the worth of information you have gone through in this course of study.

We fairly considered, in this course, how phonetic sounds of English are produced,
transmitted and perceived. Similarly, we identified and described the various speech organs
involved in speech production and outlined their functions. We, also, explained the phoneme
concept, phonetic units, phonemic patterning and phonological constraints in English. We delved
into the structure and types of syllables in English. Beside this, we identified the types of stress,
accent and intonation in English and explained their functions, and finally we identified and
described the various phonological processes in English.

The course was designed to provide you with down-to- earth information on phonetic and
phonological processes of English and we believe that the course module has served as a useful
tool for self-tuition, quick revision, and self evaluation. We entreat you to put into practice
whatever you have learnt in this course so that you don’t forget the useful concepts that you have
acquired so far. Do not rest on your laurels, and surely success will crown your effort.

Best wishes to you!

135
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Akpanglo-Nartey, J. N. & Akpanglo-Nartey, R. (2006). Introduction to Phonology. Tema:

Sakumo Book Ltd.

Akpanglo-Nartey, J.N. (2002). A Phonetic Course for Non-native Speakers of English. Tema:
Sakumo Books Ltd.

Anderson A. J. ( 2011). A Complete Course in Senior High School Oral English Ghana,
Kwadwoan Publishing.

Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983b). Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Brown, G. (1990). Listening to Spoken English (2nd Ed). London: Longman.

Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., & Godwin, J. (1996). Teaching Pronunciation. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Chomsky, N., & Halle, M. (1968). The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper and

Clark, J. & Yallop, C. (1990). An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell.

Crowley, T. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University

Press.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1989). Spoken and Written Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hans, S. H. (1985). The voiced-voiceless distinction and assimilation of voice in Dutch.

Helmond: Wibro. 2-3.

Hawkins, S. (2003). Roles and representations of systematic fine phonetic detail in

Hempenstall, K. (1997). The role of phonemic awareness in beginning reading: A review.
Behavior Change, 14, 201-214.

Hewings M. ( 2007). English Pronunciation in Use, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

https://www.reference.com/education/vowels-consonants

Laver, J. (1994). Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Maddieson, I.(1984). Patterns of Sounds, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-
26536-3

Roach P. (2000). English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

136
Roach, P. (1998). English Phonetics and Phonology - A Practical Course (2nd Ed). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Sethi J. & Dhamija P.V. ( 1999). A Course in Phonetics and Spoken English, Second ed. New
Delhi, Asoke K. Ghosh, PHI Learning Private Limited, M-97, Connaught Circus speech
understanding. Journal of Phonetics, 31, 373-405.Studies in Language, 24, 319-344.

Yule G. ( 2010). The Study of Language, Fourth ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Yule, G. (2007). The Study of Language (2nd Ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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