VIII. STRONG ANDWEAK FORMS.UNSTRESSED VOCALISM

I John¹11 come. /1(%оп1_хклт/ ibread and _vbuiter /'oread n

8. <ls> is pronounced as /z/ after all lenis (excluding /z, 5,
and after vowels:

Tibs 7

Essential Weak Forms

I9L

Продолжение

Essential Contracted Forms

■ These may be contracted /tiB, Jiz, w», Juv, wiv, Jul, wid, Jud/,

Продолжение

The older contracted form of aren't and Isn'twas uln't.This Is tiowheard only In
7-182 193

iBob's _vhere. /ob _t/ iVan's ,come. /ivsenz _чклт/ Boy's gone, /tboiz _vgon/

<is> is pronounced as /s/ after the fortis (excluding /s, X, tf/)j

Uack's here, /'dsseks _vhi3/ (Robert's gone, /irrjbsts _%gon' I Pete's come. /ipi:ts ₄клт/

<is> is pronounced as /iz/ after /s, z, J¹, g, t)7, <has> is pro­nounced as /3z/, e.g.

Max is coming later, /imseks iz ikAmirj Jeite/

Mr. Hodge has arrived, /miste 'tradj эг a,raivd/

Jones has decided to leave, /icfceunz ez difsaidid ta _%li:v/

9. Some common grammatical words do not have a regular weak form, e.g.

on, up, when, then, one, what, where

As has already been mentioned, unstressed vowels in English may either change their quality and quantity or remain unchanged. For example the indefinite article a may be pronounced as /э/, which differs from /ei/ qualitatively. He may be pronounced as /hi'/ which diilers from /hi:/ quantitatively. In the word potato the final /9U/ remains unchanged though it occurs in an unaccented syllable /pa'teitsu/.

The major role in the system of unstressed vocalism in English belongs to the neutral vowel /a/. It originated as a result of the development of the analytical grammar structures, which led to the reduction of some vowels not only in inflexions but also in other parts of lexical and grammatical words.

According to the data of modern phoneticians /i, э, u, ou/ are always unstressed, /ei, ai/ are unstressed rather often, /d:, л, э: au, is/ are rarely unstressed, ja., u:, i:, 01, еэ, иэ/ are practically never unstressed.

The neutral vowel /з/ may alternate with any vowel of full formation, e.g.

/i:/—/э/ the /5i:/— the lesson /Зэ Uesn/

/e/—/9/ pence /pens/—three pence /trepans/

/se/—/э/ land /lsend/—England /lirjgfend/

/a/—/3/ particle /«ptttikl/—particular /psltikjula/

Ы—Ш a combine /э ikombain/—to combine /Ь кэт'Ьат/

/и/—/э/ fully /ifult/—playfully /ipleifah/

/и:/—/э/ to him /tu- him/—to the table /ta Ъ Iteibl/

/Л/—/Э/ some Mm/—tiresome /itaiasgm/

/3.7—/э/ herd /ha:d/—shepherd /^!j"ep3d/.

/ei/—/э/ face /feis/—preface /iprefas/

/ai/—/э/ shire /J¹ аю/—Yorkshire /ijo:kjty

/аи/—Ш mouth /mau0/—Plymouth /'рктэО/

/эй/—/э/ folk /fouk/—Norfolk /'пэ:Гэк/ /га/—/э/ revere /nivis/—reverence /irevarens/ /еэ/—/э/ there's /Öeaz/—there's S

On the phonological level the question arises about the phonemic status of the neutral vowel /э/. Is it an independent phoneme, or a va­riant of the phoneme with which it alternates? This question can be answered in terms of the distinctive function of the phoneme. In pairs like, for example, some /элт/ — some /sam/ /3/ performs distinctive function. In the sentence / read some /алт/ book some means "a certain". In the sentence / read some /sam/ books some means "several". Similar pairs in which the members differ in quality prove the independent phonemic status of the /э/ phoneme.

From the position of the Moscow and Leningrad phonological schools the relations between the vowel of full formation and /э/ in the pairs mentioned above should be viewed differently.

The representatives of the Moscow phonological school consider such relations to be interaHophonic, because Ы is considered by them in the pairs like /sAm/ — /ssm/ to be an allophone of the /л/ phoneme, or hyperphoneme.

The representatives of the Leningrad school state that in the above examples /3/ and /л/ undergo interphonemic changes and that they are separate phonemes.

In the Russian language vowels in unstressed syllables may coincide in speech. E.g. /0, a/ in the first pretonic syllable are both pronounced as /л/: /л/ ват, IЦ лень.

The peculiarity of the unstressed vocalism of Russian is that an unstressed vowel never preserves its full form. Cases like potato /pa'teitgu/, artistic /o:itistik/ are very common in English, e.g. /ib/ paragraph /ipasragrof/

conservatoire /kanJseivatva:/ radar /ireida:/, /ireida/ /1/ graduate /tgrsedjuit/

surface /'seihs/

effect /lifekt/

ticket /itikit/ /эй/ also /Id:Is9U/ zero /tziaröu/ /л/ tumult /ltju:mAlt/

There are some digraphs in English which are pronounced in unstressed syllables either as /э/ or /1/, e. g. er — teacher /ftiitfa/ ar—mortar /'mo:to/ or—motor /imauts/ et—foreign /iform/ ir—elixir /iihksa/ ie—hobbie /Ihobi/ ou(s)—famous /ifeimas/

7* 195

Questions

1. Are weak and contracted forms common for actual speech? 2. Give examples in which articles, conjunctions, particles and preposi­tions are pronounced in the weak forms. 3. Give examples in which the verbs to be, to have and the negatives not, nor are pronounced in the weak forms. 4. Give examples in which auxiliary verbs are pronounced in their weak forms. 5. What are essential contracted forms for the verbs to be, to have, shall, will, had + should, would, for the nega­tive not, particles let, there} Use them in your own examples or in the examples taken from literature. 6. What rules for the use of weak and contracted forms do you know? 7. What role does the phoneme /э/ play in the system of unstressed vocalism? 8. With what vowels of full formation does hi alternate? 9. What phonological status does Ы possess? 10. What are the peculiar features of English unstressed vocalism?

Exercises

•1. Transcribe these words. Single out the pairs of phonemes in which /э/ al­ternates with the vowel of full formation in the unstressed position.

armour (броня) —army (армия)

allusion (намек) —illusion (иллюзия)

tell 'em (скажи им) —tell him (скажи ему)

sitter (живая натура) —city (город)

forward (передний) —foreword (предисловие)

experiment (опыт) —experiment (экспериментиро­
вать)

some (некоторое количество) —some (некоторый, какой-то)

that (который, относительное —that (тот, указательное ме-

местоимение) стоимение)

variety (разнообразие) —various (различный)

estimable (достойный уважения) —estimate (оценивать)

*2. Transcribe these words. Underline the vowels of full formation in the un­stressed position.

protest n, content n, comment n, abstract adj, asphalt n, cannot, epoch, blackguard, export n, humbug, expert n, institute

*3. Transcribe these words. Read them. Mind the dropping off of hi in the unstressed position.

often, session, special, difficult, some, can, conference, dictionary, April, have

*4. a) Transcribe these words and underline the sounds of full formation in the pretonJc syllables, b) Give examples of Russian vowel reduction in a similar position.

emission usurp aorta

eleven Uganda oil-painting

ensign upturn coyote

abstract urbane aerologist

objective idea hereunder

orchestral outwit Eurasian

S. Read the exercise. Pay attention to the strong and weak forms which are singled out.

Red and white. /Ired (3)n,wait/ That man said: "That's good." /'Sset imaen _vsed iSssts »gud/ Let's do it tomorrow, /llets Idu: it ts.nrarau/ I'm a student, /aim э _vstjudsnt/ These boys are naughty. /Jöi:z 'boiz э ₄no:ti/ These books are interesting. /I8i:z ibuks эг _kin-tnstirj/ These bags are black. /'Öi:z ibsegz э Jilgsk/ Which is cor­rect? /iwitj* iz kajekt/ I have many books, /ai lhaev 'mem _vbuks/ He needs some books, /hi 'ni:dz ssm _vbuks/ I want some book, /ai iwont isAra ,buk/

Come for the ticket. /1клт fa 5з »tikit/ Come for a change, /1клт far 3 _vfeind5/ Would you like to stay? /iwud ju Uaik ta ₄stei/ Do you want to argue? /Idu ju iwrjnt tu ,agju:/ You shouldn't have done it /ju Ijudnt av _kdAn it/

Control Tasks

*1. Transcribe these words. Use them to illustrate the peculiar feature of the 2j [English unstressed vocalism,

latchkey, simplicity, protest n, skylark, pantheon, bulldog, out­door, dining-room, into, mildew, woodcut, heart-burn, humpback, highway, simplify, highbrow, convoy, rainbow, raincoat, underwear, armature

2. Give some examples from the English language to illustrate the qualitative
and quantitative changes of vowels in the unstressed position.

3. Prove the functional independence of the id phoneme in the English language.

*4. Transcribe the passage below. Write out some examples of the strong and weak forms. Mark them with SF, WF, accordingly.

The Guardian newspaper is famous for its misprints. Why, there is even a Guardian, misprint preserved in brass for posterity. Some years ago the El Vino wine bar decided to put up a plaque in honour of Philip Hope-Wallace, its most faithful and probably wittiest habit­ue. And so, mentioning his eminence as a wit, raconteur and critic, it was duly placed above his usual seat on the wall and unveiled at a small ritual.

'I don't want to seem ungrateful,' said the recipient, peering at it closely, 'but there's only one "1" in Philip and you've put in two.'

'How can that be?' gasped the management. 'We were careful to check with the Guardian.'

IX. INTONATION

Intonation is a complex unity of non-segmental, or prosodic fea­tures of speech: 1. melody, pitch of the voice; 2. sentence stress; 3. temporal characteristics (duration, tempo, pausation); 4. rhythm; 5. tamber (voice quality).

Intonation is very important. It organizes a sentence, determines communicative types of sentences and clauses, divides sentences into intonation groups, gives prominence to words and phrases, expresses contrasts and attitudes. The two main functions of intonation are: communicative and expressive.

There are two main approaches to the problem of intonation in Great Britain. One is known as a contour analysis and the other may be called grammatical.

The first is represented by a large group of phoneticians: H. Sweet, D. Jones, G. Palmer, L. Armstrong, I. Ward, R. Kingdon, J. О 'Con­nor, A. Gimson and others. It is traditional and widely used. Accord­ing to this approach the smallest unit to which linguistic meaning can be attached is a tone-group (sense-group). Their theory is based on the assumption that intonation consists of basic functional "blocks". They pay much attention to these "blocks" but not to the way they are connected. Intonation is treated by them as a layer that is superim­posed on the lexico-grammatical structure. In fact the aim of commu­nication determines the intonation structure not vice versa.

The grammatical approach to the study of intonation was worked out by M. Halliday, The main unit of intonation is a clause. Intona­tion is a complex of three systemic variables: tonality, tonicity and tone, which are connected with grammatical categories. Tonality marks the beginning and the end of a tone-group, Tonicity marks the focal point of each tone-group. Tone is the third unit in Halliday's system. Tones can be primary and secondary. They convey the atti­tude of the speaker. Halliday's theory is based on the syntactical function of intonation.

The founder of the^TAmerican school of intonation is K. Pike. In his book "The Intonation of American English" he considers "pitch phonemes" and "contours" to'be the main units of intonation. He des­cribes different contours and their meanings, but the word "meaning" stands apart from communicative function of intonation. A. Anti-pova in her "System of English Intonation" characterizes the approach of the American school to the study of intonation system as "mechani­cal".