Lecture 6 week 6 VC2653

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Lecture 6 (week 6)VC2653

• RHYTHM INTONATION

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Rhythm Intonation

• Rhythm
• What is rhythm?
• - Assimilation
• -Elision
• -Linking
• Intonation
• What is intonation?
• Form and function in intonation

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Rhythm

• What is rhythm?
• Utterance of a number of strong stresses or beats
  corresponding to those parts of utterance to
  which the speaker wishes to attach particular
  accentual meaning and on which he expands great
  articulatory energy the remaining words or
  syllables are weakly and rapidly articulated.
• Forms a rhythmic beat rhythm in speech
• (Gimson,
  1980258)

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rhythm

• Stress-timed rhythm theory rhythm from
  intervals of stressed syllables.
• Rhythmic structure made by the occurance of
  weak and strong syllables used in speech.
• Regular alteration between stronger and weaker
  syllables, and adjustment of stress levels to
  accommodate the intervals.
• Stress-shift
• Eg. Bad-tempered a bad tempered teacher
• compact compact disk

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Assimilation

• sounds belonging to one word can cause changes
  to the sounds of the neighboring words phonemes
  realized (pronounced) differently as a result of
  being near some other phoneme belonging to a
  neighboring word to assimilate itself
  assimilation
• varies according to speaking rate and style
• found more in rapid, casual speech
• smts very noticeable, smts very slight
• affects consonants

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assimilation

• when a word that ends with a single initial
  consonant meets another word that starts with a
  single initial consonant, and the end consonant
  changes to be like the starting consonant in the
  second word regressive assimilation
• when the initial consonant in the second word
  changes to be like the end consonant in the first
  word progressive assimilation

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assimilation

• Can be identified according to
• Assimilation of place, of manner and of voicing
  in the consonants
• Assimilation of place
• where a final consonant (Cf) with alveolar place
  of articulation is followed by an initial
  consonant (Ci) with a place of articulation that
  is NOT alveolar.
• Examples that - ends with t that
  person sounds like dap person
• light blue laip blue

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assimilation

• Before a dental consonant, t will change into a
  dental plosive. E.g. that thing, get those
• Before a velar consonant, the t will become k
  that case, bright colour, quite good
• How about s and z?
• this shoe, those years

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assimilation

• Assimilation of manner
• much less noticeable, only found in casual
  rapid speech
• are mostly regressive assimilation
• change of manner is mostly towards easier
  consonants.
• smts final plosives can become a fricative or a
  nasal e.g that side, good night
• but final fricative or nasal cannot become a
  plosive e.g fun bit
• Progressive assimilation when a word-initial d
  follows a plosive or nasal at the end of a
  preceding word Ci becomes identical in the
  manner of Cf but with dental place of
  articulation

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assimilation

• Assimilation of voice
• only regressive assimilation.
• if Cf is a voiced (lenis) consonant and Ci is
  voiceless (fortis) the lenis consonant has no
  voicing
• Fixed assimilation - progressive assimilation of
  voiced with the suffixes s and z
• pronounced as s if the preceding consonant is
  voiceless (fortis).
• pronounced z if the preceding consonant is
  voiced (lenis)

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Elision

• What is elision?
• weakly accented syllables go through a process
  of gradation i.e. loss of phoneme or obscuration
  of vowels (Gimson, 1980234)
• - circumstances when a phoneme may be realised
  as zero zero realisation deleted
• - found typically in rapid and casual speech

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Elision

• Vowels
• Loss of weak vowel after p, t, k
• The aspiration of the plosive takes up the whole
  of middle portion of the syllable, resulting the
  elision of the vowels
• becomes syllabic
• Simplification of consonant clusters
• E.g clusters of three plosives or two plosives
  plus a fricative, the middle plosive may
  disappear
• Loss of final v in of before consonants
• E.g lots of them, waste of money

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Linking

• link words together words are not in
  isolation
• Most familiar is use of linking r
• Examples here are four eyes
• Intrusive r
• Media event, formula A
• Juncture relationship between one sound and the
  sounds that immediately precede and follow it.
• Close juncture? My turn
• External open juncture?
• Consider might rain vs my train
• keep sticking vs keeps ticking
• Boundaries of sounds?

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IntonationForm and function in intonation

• What is intonation?
• Concerns associated variations of pitch rises
  and falls of pitch forms a pattern
  intonation.
• Pitch of our voices constantly change during
  speech.
• 2 main functions
• A) accentual pitch change to make prominent
  what the speaker wishes to stress upon
  signaling via pitch change of primary meaningful
  words
• B) non accentual pitch change is to distinguish
  different type of sentences question, statements

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intonation

• Level tone not natural
• Moving tone falling, rising more common in
  speech depending on the situation
• Rise-fall tone the pitch goes down and rises
  again
• Tones give more meanings to our speech

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Tutorial activities

• Research what are contractions, give examples
  and usage. Are contractions elisions?
  Assimilations of sounds?
• Exercises page 148, 149 and 160