RHYTHM_ 1 _.docx

**RHYTHM: 1** This course generally focuses on rhythm, lexical and grammatical words. The rhythm of English speech is determined by stress as well as weakenings and reductions of vowel and consonants sounds. Words can either be grammatical or lexical. It is important to note that in English sentenc...

**RHYTHM: 1** This course generally focuses on rhythm, lexical and grammatical words. The rhythm of English speech is determined by stress as well as weakenings and reductions of vowel and consonants sounds. Words can either be grammatical or lexical. It is important to note that in English sentences, lexical words attract stress while grammatical or function words do not carry stress. Since grammatical words do not carry stress, they can easily weaken into the schwa /ə/. Hence, this section will examine stress-timed and syllable-timed rhythm. **What is Rhythm?** Rhythm could be defined as the periodic repetition of an event while speech rhythm is the periodic repetition of a particular event during speech. Every language in the world is spoken with either one type of rhythm or the other. Two types of periodic events may happen during speech and these events dictate the type of speech rhythm which a language has. These events are the periodic repetition of syllables and the periodic repetition of stressed syllables. The former occurs in syllable-timed languages and the latter in stress-timed languages. That is, the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables gives rise to rhythm. **Syllable-timed languages** Syllable-timed languages are those in which syllables are repeated periodically as all syllables take approximately the same amount of time during speech. For each syllable, there is a rhythmic beat which occurs at more or less equal time intervals during each speech event. Generally, these types of languages have two main characteristics: they have a small variety of syllable types, and they do not have reduced vowels as each vowel sound is pronounced in full. These two features are responsible for the fact that syllables in syllable-timed languages are more similar to each other in duration. Syllable-timed rhythm is also referred to as machine-gun rhythm. French, Spanish, Italian, and Yoruba are examples of syllable-timed languages. **Stress-timed languages** Stress-timed languages have stresses occurring at approximately equal intervals. This results in spending roughly the same amount of time between stresses, even when there are many intervening unstressed syllables. Stressed syllables tend to occur at roughly equal intervals of time. This is because the unstressed syllables in between give the impression of being compressed if there are many, and expanded if there are few. English is a stress-timed language, thus, sentence stress is the basis of rhythm in English. Stress-timing can be seen at work in the following example: w x y z 'David had 'seen 'helicopters at the 'airport. Since it is stresses that occur at approximately equal intervals, stress-timed rhythm requires that more or less the same amount of time be spent in the pronunciation of the three syllables between *w* and *x*, for the one syllable between x and *y*, for the six syllables between *y* and *z* and for the two syllables between *z* and the end of the utterance. It is, therefore, necessary to compress the duration of syllables more in the stretch between *y* and *z*: *'helicopter at the*, than in the one between *w* and *x*: *'David had*, whereas the syllable between *x* and *y*, *'seen* and the ones after *z* *'airport* will be relatively long. In the sentence below, the stressed syllables are given numbers: 1 and 2 and are not separated by any unstressed syllables, 2 and 3 are separated by one unstressed syllable, 3 and 4 by two and 4 and 5 by three. 1 2 3 4 5 ´Walk ´down the ´path to the ´end of the ca ´nal When there is a need to hurry over some word, it is mainly unstressed syllables that get shortened. Therefore, stress-timing requirements are responsible for many of the phonetic weakenings found in English, such as the reductions found in weak forms. **Lexical and grammatical words** Words classes are sub-divided into *lexical* and *grammatical* words based on their functions. The lexical words are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs while grammatical words are pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjection. Words Lexical Grammatical Nouns Pronouns Verbs Preposition Adjectives Conjunction Adverbs Interjection Lexical and grammatical words have distinct characteristics which distinguish one group from the other. The lexical words are considered the major parts of speech because they consist of content words. This means that lexical words have dictionary meanings and each of them has a specific referent that is, an object person, process, idea or state of affairs to which it refers. For example: *book, house, announcement, sleep, run, slowly*, etc. Also, lexical words constitute the class known as the "open-system" class of words. This means that these groups of words are open in the sense that the group can be extended by creating additional members. This is why the list of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs can never be exhaustive as new words are constantly being created in the language. Grammatical words belong to the group generally known as the function words because their main job is to create grammatical structures and express grammatical ideas. Grammatical words belong to a group known as "closed-class" items because their group cannot be increased. Therefore, it is possible to list all the pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections of a language. Lexical words can also be referred to as open-class items. In English pronunciation, lexical words attract stress while grammatical words do not carry stress. Therefore, English is said to be a stress-timed language. That is, stress is placed on lexical words and the time spent on stressed syllables occurs at approximately equal intervals. The time spent on a stressed syllable is the same not taking into consideration the unstressed syllable before the next stressed syllable. For example: - He ´lost the ´bag. - ´Beat her. - The rhythm of English speech is determined by stress as well as weakenings and reductions of vowel and consonants sounds. - Two types of periodic events may happen during speech and these events dictate the type of speech rhythm which a language has. These events are the periodic repetition of syllables and the periodic repetition of stressed syllables. The former occurs in syllable-timed languages and the latter in stress-timed languages. - In English sentences, lexical words attract stress while grammatical or function words do not carry stress. **Rhythmic Stress** When an English word has more than one syllable and when it is pronounced in isolation, that is, when it is in its citation form, one of its syllables will be more prominent and audible than the others. This most audible syllable bears the main **lexical stress** or **accent** of the word. When words are put together into phrases or sentences in connected speech, some words retain their lexical stress and others lose it. In connected speech, one-syllable words can bear stress. Look at the example below: The ˈfight between the ˈcat and the ˈdog In this utterance, there are three stressed syllables: *fight, cat* and *dog.* These all happen to one-syllable words. The word *between* does not bear a stress at all, although if we were to say this word in isolation, the second syllable would bear the main lexical stress:. Moreover, a word may bear stress when it appears in connected speech on a different syllable from that which carries the main lexical stress when the word is said in isolation. The stresses we marked in the phrase above *the cat and the dog* and in *afternoon tea* are not lexical stresses but **sentence stresses** or **rhythmic stresses**. As we have seen, the two types of stress do not always coincide. In this book, when we use the term **stress**, we mean rhythmic stress, unless we explicitly say otherwise. We will not use the word *accent* to refer to syllable prominence at all. **Strong and Weak forms** As we have already said, when words are in isolation, that is, out of context, we use their *citation forms*. In that case, all words have at least one stressed syllable. However, some words may not be stressed in connected speech and there are words which are rarely stressed. These words which are not usually stressed are words that have little lexical meaning (**grammatical** or **form** words). Propositions, pronouns, auxiliary and modal verbs, conjunction and articles are grammatical words. In the other hand, words which often keep the stress in connected speech because they carry considerable semantic weight (**lexical** or **content** words) are nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Phonetic weakenings and reductions mostly affect unstressed syllables. Sounds in unstressed syllables are frequently weakened, for instance by shortenings, elisions etc. In English, these processes have produced historically important changes in the pronunciation of unstressed syllables, particularly in vowels, and are now the usual pronunciation of words. For instance, historical for *awful* is no longer the usual pronunciation; its reduced form is much more likely:. In some grammatical words, on the other hand, both the full and reduced pronunciations co-exist. The choice between these pronunciations depends largely on whether the word is stressed or unstressed in connected speech. Because grammatical words are usually unstressed, their reduced or weak pronunciations are very frequent, even more so than their full forms. There is, accordingly, a weak, normal pronunciation and a full, strong one which is used when the word is stressed for some reason and in some other circumstances which we shall see below. These pronunciations are known as the **weak form** and **strong form** respectively. Not all grammatical words have an alternation between weak and strong pronunciations. For instance, only monosyllabic grammatical words have a weak form. Conversely, some words present several different weak forms. Changes affecting grammatical words are systematic since they follow general language rules and properties of sounds. For instance, the more centralized a vowel, the weaker it is. The greatest weakening for any sound is **elision**. Weak form is also known as the.................. while the strong form is known as.............. Weak form is also known as the unaccented form while the strong is known as the accented form. **Vowel changes** Weakening makes all vowels move to the centre of the vowel space. They will first move to the central vowel quality nearest to their original one as in table below: **Vowel changes** strong vowel weak vowel Example -------------- -- ------------------ --------- **** , *Be* **** , *Do* **** *Them* **** *And* **** *But* **** *Are* **** *Of* **** *For* **** *Her* In the case of grammatical words which have the vowel /ʊ/ in their citation form, such as *could*, they can stay unchanged when unstressed since this vowel is already weak, or they may be further weakened to schwa : /k**ʊ**d/ /k**ə**d/ *could* By the same token, grammatical words which have the vowel in their strong form may go a further step in weakening, which make the vowel go to , for example: *do* *you* The last pronunciation of these words (which is only possible when the following sound is a consonant as we shall see below) is considered to be very informal in RP, but is usual in other varieties of English **8.2.2 Consonant changes** Consonant changes are not an intrinsic part of weak forms but an optional step in a scale of weakening which depends on the speech register that is used. Many of the consonant changes that we will mention are not exclusive to weak forms. They can be seen to occur in lexical words, too, depending on the phonetic context and register. Nevertheless, grammatical words are favourable environments for these changes. The following changes are very often found in weak forms: - may be elided if it is not at the very beginning of the utterance (following a potential pause): *tell him* but not in *he came* - and may be elided when at the end of a word and preceded by another consonant: *and* The table below lists the most common words which have strong and weak forms in RP English. Notice that all these words consist of a single syllable and that they nearly all belong to one of the four classes of auxiliary verb, conjunction, preposition or pronoun. The symbol and in this table represent syllabic consonants. **Use of weak forms in RP** Grammatical words in connected speech are used in their weak form most of the time but take note of the following restrictions: I. When the word is stressed because of emphasis or contrast, the strong form is compulsory: in the sentence: *I didn't say apples or pears, I said apples [and] pears.* II. When prepositions and auxiliary verbs appears in grammatical structures such as the following, they are used in strong form: *That's the picture I was looking [at.] not * *You were later than I [was] this morning. not * *He can sing well, but I [can] too. not /k***ən***/ or * *He's younger than I [am.] not * *They were being looked [for] by the police. not * The underlined words above are not likely to bear stress, but nevertheless appear in the strong form. The reason is that a word which normally follows the underlined preposition or auxiliary verb has either been deleted or moved to some other position in the sentence, leaving the auxiliary or preposition behind. The auxiliary or preposition is said to be *stranded.* Take the first sentence, for example. The word *at*, being a preposition, is normally followed by a noun or noun phrase which it is said to govern. The noun phrase which *at* governs in this sentence is *the picture.* Because of the grammatical structure used, this phrase does not immediately follow the preposition, therefore, the proposition is stranded. In the second and third sentences, the verb *was* and *can* are not followed by an adjective or a verb, respectively. They have been deleted in order to avoid repetition. Again, the auxiliaries are stranded. **Stranding** often takes place at the end of the sentence, but not always, as you can see from some of the sentences above. One final detail about **stranding** is that the auxiliary verb *have* in structures where it is immediately preceded by another auxiliary, such as *can't, could, couldn't, must, mustn't, should, shouldn't, will, won't, would, wouldn't,* is normally used in its weak form even if it is stranded. **Common Words with Strong and Weak forms in RP English** word strong form weak form Word strong form weak form ------------- ------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------- ------------- ------------------------------ ***a*** *His* ***am*** *Just* ***an*** *Me* , ***and*** , , , *Must* / **məst**/ ***are*** *Of* ***as*** *Shall* , ***at*** *She* , ***be*** , *should* , / **ʃəd** / ***been*** / **bɪn**/ *Some* /s**əm**/, ***but*** *Than* , ***can*** , *That* ***could*** , *The* , , ***do*** , , *Them* / **ðəm**/, ***does*** *There* ***for*** *To* , , ***from*** *Us* ***had*** , *Was* ***has*** / **hӕz** / /h**əz**/, *We* , ***have*** / **hӕv** / , *Were* ***he*** , , , *Who* , ***her*** , *would* , ***him*** *You* , , **CONNECTED SPEECH PROCESSES** It is important to note that when we write, we leave gaps between words so it is easy for the reader to process the text. However, when we speak, it is unnecessary to leave pauses between words much of the time as it would sound unnatural if we did. This is owing to the fact that segments affect each other within individual words and this influence also operates across word boundaries. Therefore, differences often exist between the pronunciation of words in their isolate form and their pronunciation in connected speech because they are subject to influences from other surrounding sounds and from larger accentual and rhythmic patterns. The differences may affect the word as a whole, (for instance, weak forms in an accented situation) or they may concern a word's accentual pattern or sounds used at the word boundaries**.** This variation between isolate forms and context-influenced forms depends on: (a) **casual or formal nature of speech**; (b) **the speed of delivery;** and (c) **the tendency to preserve a form near to that of the isolate word.** **8.5: TYPES OF CONNECTED SPEECH PROCESSES** We can distinguish three main types: 1. Assimilation 2. Elision 3. Liaison **Assimilation** **What is assimilation?** In recent years, computer technology has led to big improvements in speech production, but the inadequacies of 'mechanical speech' that is, the machines designed to join words together to form sentences, has brought about the teaching and learning of pronunciation. This device mentioned above that produces mechanical speech would contain all words in English, each having been recorded in isolation. A significant difference in natural connected speech is the way that sounds belonging to one word can cause changes in sounds belonging to neighbouring words. Hence, assuming we know how the phonemes of a particular word would be realised when the word is pronounced in isolation, in cases where we find a phoneme realised differently as a result of being near some other phoneme, we call this difference an instance of **assimilation**. **Assimilation** is a process whereby a sound segment becomes identical with or more like another segment. It is like a process of photocopying, whereby a segment takes on the features of a neighbour segment either on the left or on the right. Also, assimilation is a result of **phonetic conditioning** where one phoneme is replaced by a second under the influence of a third. **Phonetic conditioning** is a term used to cover the way in which speech segments are influenced by adjacent or near-adjacent segments, causing phonemes to vary in their realisation according to phonetic context. Technically, assimilation is a process whereby segments become more like the segments which precede or follow them. Assimilation is something which varies in extent according to speaking rate and style: it is found in rapid, casual speech and less likely in slow, careful speech. For instance, the word *broadcast,* which is pronounced /ˈbrɔ:dkɑ:st/ in careful speech but which in rapid speech may well become /ˈbrɔ:gkɑ:st/. Here, one phoneme /d/ has been replaced by a second /g/, under the influence of a third /k/. We can distinguish here two forms of the word *broad:* (1) /brɔ:d/ (2) /brɔ:g/ where form 1 can be considered as the **ideal form,** which corresponds to the target that the native speakers have in their minds and it is what is produced in the slowest and more careful style of speech. It bears a close resemblance to the spelling representation. Form 2 is more typical of connected speech and is termed the **assimilated** **form.** Also**,** *good boy* for example, will be pronounced /gʊdˈbɔi/ in the slowest and careful style. However, in connected speech, it will be produced as /gʊbˈbɔi/. The ideal form of the word *good* is /gʊd/ while the assimilated form is /gʊb/. Then, the phoneme /d/ has been replaced by a second /b/ under the influence of a third /b/. **PATTERNS OF ASSIMILATION** Assimilation can be classified according to direction which is left to right or right to left. This is referred to as the **direction of** **influence.** We have three types of assimilation based on the direction of influence. 1. **The leading, regressive, backward or anticipatory assimilation** is a type of direction of influence that can be defined as features of an articulation which leads into those of the following segments. That is, the feature of one sound anticipated in the articulation of the preceding sound. This is a movement from right to left. For example: a. English *white paper:* /waɪt ˈpepə/ becomes / waɪp ˈpepə/ In the example above, /t/ changes to /p/ before /p/ b. *Good pen*: /gʊd ˈpen/ becomes /gʊb ˈpen/ In the example above, /d/ changes to /b/ before /p/ c. *Ten men*: /ten ˈmen/ becomes /tem ˈmen/ Also, in the example above, /n/ changes to /m/ before /m/ However, there are certain order in which the regressive assimilation occurs in English: - /t/ changes to /p/ before /p. b, m/ (e.g. *that pen* /ծӕp ˈpen/) - /t/ changes to /k/ before /k, g/ (e.g. *that girl* /ծӕkˈgɜ:l/) - /d/ changes to /b/ before /p, b, m/ (e.g. *good man* /gʊb ˈmӕn/) - /d/ changes to /g/ before /k, g/ (e.g. *good concert* / gʊg ˈkɒnsət/) - /n/ changes to /m/ before /p, b, m/ (e.g. *ten players* /tem ˈpleɪəz/) - /n/ changes to /ŋ/ before /k, g/ (e.g. *ten cups* /teŋ ˈkʌps/) +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Say these English words and phrases, first following the | | transcription in column 1 and then, in 2. | | | | 1. Ideal forms 2. Assimilated forms | | | | *headquarters* /hed ˈkwɔ:təz/ /heg ˈkwɔ:təz/ | | | | *main course* /meɪn ˈkɔ:s/ / meɪŋ ˈkɔ:s/ | | | | *matched pairs* /mӕʧt ˈpɛ:z/ / mӕʧ ˈpɛ:z/ | | | | *perhaps* /pəˈhӕps/ /prӕps/ | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ 2. **The lagging, progressive, forward or preservative assimilation** is also a type of the direction of influence that moves from the left to right. The progressive assimilation is relatively uncommon. Here, the articulation features may be held over from a preceding segment, so that the articulators lag in their movements. In other words, one sound influences the following sound. For instance: - On the house /ɒn ծə ˈhaʊs/ becomes / ɒn nə ˈhaʊs/ In the example above, /ծ/ changes to /n/ after /n/ - Organ /ˈɔ:gŋ/ In the example above, /n/ changes to /ŋ/ after /g/ - Second chance /sekŋ ˈʧɑ:ns/ In the example above, /n/ changes to /ŋ/ after /k/ However, there are certain order in which the progressive assimilation occurs in English: - /n/ changes to /m/ after /p, b/ (e.g. urban /ˈɜ:bm/) - /n/ changes to /ŋ/ after /k, g/ (e.g. second chance /sekg ˈʧaɪns/) 3. C**oalescence assimilation** is when two segments merge into one. It is a process where two segments like X and Y become Z, where Z is a combination of the phonetic or phonological features of both X and Y. For example: in connected speech, *haven't you* is likely to be pronounced / hӕvənʧu: / with the /t/ at the end of haven't and the /j/ at the start of you being merged to give \[ʧ\]. Other examples are: a. Would you? /wʊʤu:/ Here, /t/ + /j/ changes to /ʤ/ b. In case you need it / ɪŋ keɪʃu: ˈni:d ɪt/ In the phrase above, /s/ + /j/ changes to /ʃ/ c. What do you want? / wɒʧu: ˈwɒnt/ In the sentence above, /t/ + /j/ changes to /ʧ/ Transcribe the word *happen* in the ideal and connected forms and explain the type of assimilation present in the connected form. 1. Ideal form: happen /ˈhapən/ 2. Connected form: happen /ˈhӕpm/ 3. Lagging or progressive assimilation: /n/ changes to /m/ after /p/ In many cases, there is a two-way exchange of articulation features which is known as the **reciprocal assimilation**. For example, we can have *raise your glass* as /ˈreɪz jɔ: ˈglɑ:s/ becomes /ˈreɪʒ ʒɔ: ˈglɑ:s/. Assimilation can also be classified based on the **types of influence**. We can identify assimilation of **place, manner and energy (voicing)** in consonants. Assimilations involving a change in place of articulation are termed **place assimilation**. For instance, final alveolar in ideal forms are often replaced by bilabials (preceding /p b m/) or velars (preceding /k/) or palatals (preceding /ʃ/), e.g. *wet blanket* /wet ˈblӕŋkɪt/ becomes /wep ˈblӕŋkɪt/. Place assimilation is very common in English. Assimilation may involve a reduction of fortis/lenis contrast which is a type known as the **energy or voicing assimilation**. In stressed syllables, energy assimilations are less frequent in English than in most other languages, but It is important to note that assimilation of different kinds may occur simultaneously. That is, both place and manner assimilation might occur in a word or phrases. Also, more than one phoneme may be affected by assimilation. This is known as the **co-occurrence of assimilation**. For example: *behind you* /bəˈhaɪndju:/ becomes /bəˈhainʤu:/. Here, both place and manner of assimilation affects /d/ and /j/ of the ideal form. In the example above, /d/ + /j/ changes to /ʤ/ **Elision** **What is elision?** The nature of elision may be stated quite simply: under certain circumstances sounds disappear. One might express this in more technical language by saying that in certain circumstances, a phoneme may be realised as **zero**, or have **zero realisation**. Elision may be defined as the change from ideal form in connected speech which involves the deletion of a phoneme. In rapid speech, sounds may be left out or elided, especially when they occur as part of a cluster of consonants or when identical segments occur in a sequence and this happens frequently. Apart from word-internal elisions and those associated with weak forms, sounds may also be elided in fast, colloquial speech, especially at or in the vicinity of word boundaries. In connected speech, using the examples of *next day* and *prime minister*, the /t/ at the end of *next* will be lost before *day* and the /m/ at the end of *prime* will lost before /m/ at the start of *minister*. Hence, the term for the loss of a speech segment is elision...............involves the deletion of a phoneme or the zero realization of a phoneme. a. Elision (b) Liaison (c) Assimilation Elision involves the deletion of a phoneme or the zero realization of a phoneme. It is difficult to know whether contractions of grammatical words should be regarded as examples of elision or not. The fact that they are regularly represented with special spelling forms makes them seem rather different from the above examples. The best-known cases are: - 'had', 'would': spelt *'d*, pronounced /d/ (after vowels), /ed/ (after consonants) - 'is', 'has': spelt *'s*, pronounced /s/ (after fortis consonants), /z/ (after lenis consonants), except that after /s, z, ʃ, ʧ, ʤ, ʒ/ 'is' is pronounced /ɪz/ and 'has' is pronounced /əz/ in contracted form. - 'will': spelt *'ll*, pronounced /l/ (after vowels), /l̩/ (after consonants) - 'have': spelt *'ve*, pronounced /v/ (after vowels), /əv/ (after consonants) - 'not': spelt *n't*, pronounced /nt/ (after vowels), /n̩t/ (after consonants) - 'are': spelt *'re*, pronounced /ə/ (after vowels) and contracted 'are' is also pronounced as /ə/ or /ər/ when following a consonant. **8.5.3: Liaison** **What is liaison?** The converse of elision is liaison. That is, liaison is the insertion of an extra sound in order to facilitate the articulation of a sequence. Liaison is the term used for the process where a segment is added or appears at a certain word boundary. It is the introduction of sounds between words. The accents of English can be divided into two groups according to /r/ distribution: (a) rhotic accents where /r/ is pronounced in all contexts (i.e. before a consonant and at the end of an utterance) and; (b) non-rhotic accents where /r/ is pronounced only when it precedes a vowel. It is important to note that because RP is a non-rhotic accent, the phoneme /r/ is produced only when it is immediately followed by a vowel sound. Other considerations involving the phoneme /r/ are as follows: i. The linking r (ii) The intrusive r four / fɔ / four apes / fɔr eɪps/ father /faծə/ father and son /faծrən ̩sʌn/ over /əʊvə/ over and above /əʊvrən ̩əbʌv / The /r/ at the end of *four, father* and *over* is not pronounced when the words are in isolation but when they are followed by a vowel sound in a string of words of in connected speech, the **linking r** is used. The Intrusive /r/: Possibly due to the fact that the use of the linking r is common among speakers of English, speakers frequently add /r/ in constructions where letter r (orthographic r) does not appear in spelling. This type of /r/ is known as the **intrusive r.** For example, *America* has no /r/ at the end, but if *America* is placed before a word beginning with a vowel, such as in *America and Canada*, an intrusive/r/ emerges to give the pronunciation: /əmerɪkər ӕnd kӕnədə/. Other examples are: \(a) idea of /aɪˈdɪər əv/ \(b) Russia and China / rʌʃər ən ʧɑɪnə/ \(c) area of agreement /ˈeərɪər əv ˈgri:mənt/ Intrusive *r* is heard after the non-high vowels /ɑ:, ɔ: and ə/ as well as the diphthongs terminating in /ə/. Instances with other vowels hardly ever occur. For example, /ɛ:/ is invariably spelt with *r* and final /ɜ:/ almost always has *r* in the spelling. Also, related to liaison is **epenthesis**, which is the insertion of a segment which was previously absent. In all varieties of English, speakers often insert a homorganic stop after a nasal in examples such as the following: *length* /leŋkθ/. As a result, words such as *sense* and *scents* may be pronounced identically.