1 / 7

Unstressed S yllables, S chwa and S yllabic C onsonants

Unstressed S yllables, S chwa and S yllabic C onsonants. Unstressed Syllables. Weak (reduced) vowel → shorter, weaker in energy and closer to schwa /ә/ in place of articulation Vowels of weak syllables: Schwa /ә/ /i/ (finally or before a vowel): happ y , r e act

emile
Download Presentation

Unstressed S yllables, S chwa and S yllabic C onsonants

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Unstressed Syllables, Schwa and Syllabic Consonants

  2. Unstressed Syllables • Weak (reduced) vowel → shorter, weaker in energy and closer to schwa /ә/ in place of articulation • Vowels of weak syllables: • Schwa /ә/ • /i/ (finally or before a vowel): happy, react • /ɪ/ (before a consonant): panic, elect • /(j)u/ (before a vowel or before a a stressed syllable): intuition, regulate, united • /(j)ʊ/ (before a consonant plus an unstressed syllable): stimulus, soluble • No vowel, just a syllabic sonorant /m n l r/: final, recent • /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ may also function as full vowels

  3. Unstressed Syllables • Before the stressed syllable: never more than 2 weak syllables e.g. if the stressed syllable is the fourth syllable: justifi'cationhalluci'nation + - - + - - + - + - • After the stressed syllable: may be 3 weak syllables (in words with certain endings) e.g.: candidacy impenetrable + - - - - + - - - • harvest, biggest, family • Weak vowels: often free variation

  4. Schwa • http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/vowel_short_5.shtml • No prevocalic schwa in English • Preconsonantal schwa • Often interchangable with /i/ (spelling: usually /i/ or /e/ not followed by r) • Word-initial schwa: a- or o- • Word-final schwa – almost /ʌ/

  5. Syllabic Consonants • Schwa followed by a sonorant (/n, l/ and less frequently /m, ŋ, r/) → /ә/ often drops out → the sonorant becomes syllabic

  6. Syllabic Consonants • Syllabic /l/: always dark • Examples with syllabic [m]: prism, handsome • Examples with syllabic [ŋ]: bacon, we can go • Syllabic: acts as the “vowel” of the syllable • Only occur in unstressed syllables • How are syllabic consonants indicated in transcription?

  7. Sources • Baloghné Bérces Katalin, Szentgyörgyi Szilárd. Az angol nyelv kiejtése -The Pronunciation of English. Available from: http://mek.oszk.hu/04900/04910/04910.pdf • Kreidler, Charles W. The Pronunciation of English: A Course Book in Phonology. Oxford; Cambridge: Blackwell, 1999. • BBC Learning English webpage http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/vowel_short_5.shtml • Nádasdy, Ádám. Practice Book in English Phonetics and Phonology. Budapest: Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, 2003.

More Related