English Pronunciation Hilton1 Lecture 5 Lecture 5 (last, but not least) English "Prosody" or Phrasing (Putting It All Together)

English Pronunciation Hilton2 So far, we have talked about the SOUNDS of English (individual vowels, consonants); We have also talked a little bit about WORDS (syllables and word stress).

English Pronunciation Hilton3 Before we end these lecture sessions, we must also talk about what happens in connected speech – that is, when you put the sounds and words together in sentences, or utterances. (an utterance = a spoken phrase)

English Pronunciation Hilton4 Course booklet, pages 29-40: WORD STRESS (30-34) SENTENCE STRESS (35-36) NEUTRALIZATION (or WEAK FORMS) (37-38) INTONATION & PAUSE UNITS (39-40)

English Pronunciation Hilton5 Course booklet, pages 29-40: SENTENCE STRESS (35-36) NEUTRALIZATION (WEAK FORMS) (37-38) INTONATION & PAUSE UNITS (39-40) Prosody (phrasing) The non-phonological aspects of pronunciation

English Pronunciation Hilton6 stressed vowels WORD STRESS: stressed vowels As you know, in every English word of more than one syllable, one syllable is stressed... The vowel sound in the stressed syllable is: longer louder higher in pitch

English Pronunciation Hilton7 unstressed vowels WORD STRESS: unstressed vowels The other vowels in the word are (by definition) unstressed. Unstressed vowels in an English word are often neutralized – their pronunciation is reduced. What is the name of the IPA symbol that's highlighted in yellow here?

English Pronunciation Hilton8 Unstressed Vowels Most of the time, an unstressed vowel in English is pronounced as a "schwa" As you saw in the lesson this week, many English suffixes also contain the / I / sound. -ing -ain -est -ace, etc. (booklet, p. 12)

English Pronunciation Hilton9 banana breakfast another necessity occur syllable

English Pronunciation Hilton10 banana breakfast another necessity occur syllable

English Pronunciation Hilton11 banana breakfast another necessity occur syllable

English Pronunciation Hilton12 banana breakfast another necessity occur syllable

English Pronunciation Hilton13 banana breakfast another necessity occur syllable

English Pronunciation Hilton14 banana breakfast another necessity occur syllable

English Pronunciation Hilton15 IMPORTANT!! Schwa is NEVER the sound of a stressed English vowel! You will never find schwa in a stressed syllable.

English Pronunciation Hilton16 Frequently the sound of unstressed English vowels. But NOT ALWAYS!  hotel  maintain  dictate

English Pronunciation Hilton17 A group of words, organized according to syntactic rules, that expresses (at least one) idea. Now, let's look at...

English Pronunciation Hilton18 SENTENCE STRESS: In normal spoken sentences, certain words stand out from the others. Listen – which ones stand out? In normal sentences, certain words stand out from the others. These are the KEY CONTENT WORDS.

English Pronunciation Hilton19 SENTENCE STRESS: CONTENT WORDS CONTENT WORDS are stressed in normal speech: nouns verbs adjectives adverbs wh- words (interrogatives) Where could he have put that book he was talking about?

English Pronunciation Hilton20 SENTENCE STRESS: Unstressed words in sentences tend to be words that fulfill a GRAMMATICAL FUNCTION: articles prepositions pronouns auxiliary verbs conjunctions Where could he have put that book he was talking about?

English Pronunciation Hilton21 SENTENCE STRESS: These unstressed FUNCTION WORDS (grammatical words) are frequently "neutralized": the vowel sound is reduced to schwa occasionally a consonant sound may even disappear... booklet, pp

English Pronunciation Hilton22 SENTENCE STRESS: It takes MUCH LESS TIME to say a neutralized word than a stressed word. Many function words can take the same amount of time to say as a single key word: TIMEWISE, Sal might have forgotten it. = Sal forgot. Booklet, p. 36.

English Pronunciation Hilton23 SENTENCE STRESS: The alternance between stressed and "neutralized" words gives English its rhythm. English is called a "stress-timed" language: word stress is the basic unit of rhythm (for poetry, music, etc.). French is a "syllable-timed" language: the syllable is the basic unit of rhythm (what is the definition of an alexandrain…?)

English Pronunciation Hilton24 SENTENCE STRESS: Stress-timed rhythm: how many stressed syllables in each line? (the number of words or syllables doesn't necessarily matter) I was 'angry with my 'friend; (7 syllables) I told my 'wrath, my wrath did 'end. (8 syllables) I was 'angry with my 'foe; I told it 'not, my wrath did 'grow. William Blake

English Pronunciation Hilton25 PAUSE UNITS: In spoken language, we don't have punctuation. We have pauses, sentence stress, and intonation, to tell us what the speaker considers most important. The chunk of language between two pauses is called a pause unit. These are the basic units of spoken language.

English Pronunciation Hilton26 PAUSE UNITS: Most pause units contain only one or two stressed words. Sentence stress usually falls towards the END of an English pause unit. Intonation usually drops at the end of the pause unit, as well.

English Pronunciation Hilton27 English Phrasing (Prosody) We will not have much time to work on this. To be practiced in semester 2, LEA 2, etc.

English Pronunciation Hilton28 RETURN TO CONSONANTS: -final consonants are (almost) always pronounced, in English. [Very different from French!] (booklet, p. 27) - silent consonants: booklet, p. 28 (you mmust learn all of these words)

English Pronunciation Hilton29 FINAL WORDS: Pronunciation is a "motor skill" (involving muscles + brain) Expertise in making the sounds of English properly requires:

English Pronunciation Hilton30 We are VERY SORRY about all the technical problems in room they may finally be solved!!

English Pronunciation Hilton31 Thank you.