Phonetics_5

Sounds in Connected Speech

The previous lectures focused on the features of sounds in isolation, the
segmental phonemes. Yet, the sounds of a language are not uttered in isolation,
independently of each other. They form larger linguistic units: syllables, stress
groups, utterances. An utterance appears to the listener as a continuous stream
of sounds which does not consist of clearly distinguishable segments, but as a
continuum of sound features in constant state of transition.
Task: Listen to a language you do not know. Can you tell how many words
there are in the short message that youve heard?
Could you mark the word boundaries?

The present lecture will discuss the supra-segmental features of speech.

1. Modifications of English Phonemes in Connected

Speech
Variations in the articulation of English sounds are mainly of an allophonic
nature, i.e. the sounds may lack one/ more of their non-distinctive features, or they
may acquire some other features characteristic of neighboring sounds. In certain
situations, however, these modifications may be of a phonemic nature.
Thus, in rapid, colloquial pronunciation light candles and like candles may
sound alike, by neutralizing the opposition between /t/ and /k/.
One of the main factors that induces change in the quality of a speech sound
producing allophonic variations of that sound is the linguistic environment,
or linguistic context, in which it occurs. In other words, the quality of a speech
sound is influenced by those of the sounds that precede and/or follow it.
For example, the plosive, alveolar, lenis, voiced consonant [d] is:
labialized in dwell because of the subsequent rounded semivowel [w];
in die [dai] the lips are spread because of the open unrounded vowel [a]
which follows;
it is slightly palatalized in dupe [dju:p] = fraier, om pacalit, because the
semivowel [j] which follows is palatal;
in drain [drain] = canal, jgheab, scurgere, it is retracted because of the post
alveolar [r];
in reindeer ['reindi] it is slightly nasalised by the preceding [n]; etc.
The major supra-segmental phenomena by which neighbouring speech sounds
affect one another's quality are assimilation, elision and juncture.

Modifications of the English Vowel Phonemes

The articulatory and acoustic features of vowels may be modified by
neighboring consonants. The most important modifications imply:
Degree of opening
Place of articulation
Nasalization
Variation of length

Modification of English Consonant Phonemes

The most important modifications in the articulatory features of English

consonants imply:
Voice. E.g. the liquids /l, r/ the nasals /m, n, /, and the semivowels are partially
devoiced when preceded by voiceless stops or fricatives within the word: play,
cream, bacon.
The nature of release: unreleased;
released with aspiration;
released laterally;
released nasally.

A.

Assimilation

Most allophonic variants can be explained by reference to the mutual

influence of English sounds resulting in this phenomenon. It is the phonetic process
by means of which two or more phonemes when joined together, or within the word
boundaries, influence one another in an effort to achieve some degree of similarity.
For speakers, it is a way to achieve economy of articulation movement, and an ease
of pronunciation of the respective phonemes. There is always an assimilating
phoneme and an assimilated one, although they will undergo a reciprocal influence.
There are three types of assimilation:
1. Progressive, when a phoneme influences the immediately following one:
e.g. in rapid speech, open may be pronounced [' upm] because the
bilabial /p/ forces the subsequent /n/ to become bilabial, too;
2. Regressive - a phoneme is influenced by the immediately following one, i.e. in
anticipation of a certain speech sound, the speaker pronounces a sound with the
characteristics of the one that follows:
e.g. granpa is pronounced ['grmpa:], i.e. alveolar /n/ becomes
bilabial /m/ under the pressure of the following bilabial /p/;
e.g. dismiss [dis'mis] is pronounced [diz'mis] because /m/ is voiced,
so /s/ turns into a voiced sound, too;
e.g. this shop (assimilation of /s/ to //);
3. Double (reciprocal) - the phonemes influence each other to an equal extent:
e.g. train (/r/ is partially devoiced under the influence of /t/, while /t/ itself
becomes post-alveolar under the influence of /r/);
e.g. dont you ['duntju:] becomes ['duntu:] because the bilabial plosive /t/
and the palatal semivowel /j/ fuse, turning into the affricate palatoalveolar /t/.
Assimilation can affect:
voicing and force of articulation:
e.g. -s is pronounced /s/ after a voiced lenis consonant (e.g. /p/, /k/: caps
[kps], books [buks]) and /z/ after a voiceless fortis consonant (e.g. /n/, /g/:
coins [kinz], dogs [dgz]);
e.g. // becomes // if the following word begins with a fortis consonant, e.g.
with him [wihim] is pronounced [wihim];
e.g. /v/ becomes /f/ when followed in the next word by a fortis consonant, e.g.
of course [v'k:s] becomes [f'k:s]; they've told me [eiv'tuldmi] becomes
[eif'tuldmi]; etc.
place of articulation:
e.g. in rapid speech, granpa is pronounced ['grmpa:]; can bring is uttered
[kmbri] open mouth is pronounced ['upm'mau], i.e. alveolar /n/
becomes bilabial under the influence of the subsequent bilabial /p/ or /m/;
e.g. in not that ['nt't], under the influence of the dental fricative //, the
alveolar /t/ that precedes it becomes dental, too;
manner of articulation:
2

 e.g. in would you ['wudju:] the plosive /d/ fuses with the semivowel /j/ and
together they produce the affricate /d/ (['wudu:]);
the position of the lips:
e.g. /p/ in park /p/ is pronounced with the lips spread because the adjacent
vowel sound /a:/ is pronounced with spread lips; /p/ in pork is pronounced
with rounded lips because the following /:/ is rounded;
nasality:
e.g. // in man is nasalized by the surrounding nasal consonants;
e.g. /d/ in good night can be completely nasalized, i.e. pronounced
['gun'nait]; etc.

B.

Elision

Sounds may often be omitted altogether, especially when they occur in

clusters which are difficult to pronounce or when they occur in unaccented syllables,
and their loss does not destroy the intelligibility of the word to which they belong.
1. Elision of vowels. It is restricted to unaccented syllables, more specifically
to // and /i/.
e.g. cons.+ a liquid + / /= / / is lost: beverage, reference, police.
e.g. natural ['nt()rl]; family [fm()li];
e.g. as a matter of fact [z'mt()rv'fkt];
2. Elision of consonants. Certain sounds, especially when situated in clusters,
were lost at an earlier date in the history of English. /t, s, l/ in listen, often, island,
calm; or the initial consonant in know, wrinkle, final consonant in autumn. In present
day English, the elision of consonants is restricted to certain sounds (mostly
alveolar) situated in consonant clusters. Thus /t/, /d/, /k/ or dark //are usually
dropped when they are medial in a three consonant cluster:
e.g. handsome, kindness, friendship, used to ['justu], last time [la:s'taim],
handbag [hnbg], grandpa [grnpa], asked [a:st], all right [u:'rait], etc.;
Elision of final /t/ or /d/ presents a special problem when they have
morphemic value (phonological realization of {-ed}): They refused to pay is
interpreted as indicating past actions only by reference to the linguistic context.
Alveolar sounds //, / /, and /f/ may also be lost when occurring in clusters which
are extremely difficult to pronounce: fifths, sixth, clothes.
3. Syllable elision.
e.g. literary ['litrri] becomes ['litrri];
e.g. February ['februri] is pronounced ['febrri].

C.Juncture
Juncture is a term used in phonology to refer to the phonetic boundary
features which may demarcate grammatical units such as: morpheme, word or
clause. The most obvious junctural feature is silence, but in connected speech this
feature is not as common as the use of various modifications to the beginnings and
endings of grammatical units. (D.Crystal:1992)
There have been several attempts to establish a typology of junctures. We
shall mainly discuss the distinction between open (or plus) juncture, usually
transcribed with a plus sign: <+>, and a close juncture, referring to the normal
transition between sounds within a word.

Types of Juncture
3

There are three stages in the production of any given sound when produced in
isolation:
An initial stage: onset
A medial stage: retention/hold, and
A final stage: release.
English allows various possible phoneme combinations: cons + cons; cons+
vowel, vowel + vowel etc. The manner in which sounds are linked together in order
to form syllables, words and utterances depends on the degree of similarity
between the respective sounds. There will, accordingly, be many types of junctures
in English. We can group them into the following main types:
1. The merging of stages is the simplest way of joining sounds together. It consists
in the merging of the release stage with the onset of the immediately following
one. The type takes place between two sounds which are sufficiently different
from one another to require a significant movement of the speech organs from
one position to another (a consonant and a vowel; two consonants; two vowels);
2. The interpenetration of stages is a much closer type. The 1st sound penetrates
not only into the initial stage but also into the middle stage of the subsequent
sound. This type takes place between sounds of similar nature (hoped, robbed,
act, place, pray);
3. Repeated Sounds. A special case of interpenetration takes place when two
identical sounds are joined together: part-time, book-case, stop playing, should
do. The transition from one sound to another is slower and gradual. Consider:
illegal / ill + eagle, which consist of the same number of phonemes arranged in
exactly the same succession, but with differences of sound quality. The
distinction is due to a close juncture to [i:] in illegal and an open one in ill eagle.
These juncture phenomena usually mark words or morpheme boundaries.
There are other factors to provide a clue for distinguishing between these minimal
pairs, like grammatical structure, or the larger context.
In rapid speech, however, there is generally no silence to separate words,
and yet we can distinguish linguistic units on the basis of certain phonetic changes
in the quality of the phonemes. That is to say, phonemes are pronounced differently
at word boundaries. This can be proved by comparing phonologically identical
sequences of sounds, such as:
e.g. ['weit'ktit] can be the way to cut it or the waiter cut it; the
distinction is obvious because:
[ei] in way, being in word-final position, is longer than [ei] in waiter;
moreover, [ei] in waiter is shorter because it is followed by a fortis
consonant;
e.g.: [aikn'si:l] can be I can seal or I conceal; however, the two
pronunciations are distinct because:
the syllable [kn] is longer and more sonorous in the first example,
where it is a modal verb, while in the second it is only an unstressed
syllable of a word;
the syllable [si:l] is also longer and more prominent in the first
example, as it is a notional verb, while in the second it is only part (a
syllable) of a word;
e.g. [haustreind] can be house trained or how strained = incordat; the
distinction is marked by:
[au] in house is shorter because it is followed in the word by fortis /s/;
[au] in how is longer because it is in word-final position;
e.g. [aiskri:m] can be ice-cream or I scream; the two utterances are made
distinct by the fact that:
4

/s/;

the diphthong [ai] in ice is shorter because it is followed by the fortis

[ai] in I is longer because it is in word-final position.

Other factors of the modifications of English consonant phonemes:

Position of the lips. Consonants may be rounded when followed immediately
by /w/ or a rounded vowel: twins, swan, caught, goose.
Position of articulation. The alveolar sounds are quite unstable and their
realization may become:
Dental + dental sounds: lead the way
Post alveolar + post alveolar /r/: trade, drop, already, Henry

Functional Load
In establishing the total number of English phonemes, it was maintained that
the existence of a single minimal pair is enough to give phonemic status to two
sounds. But certain contrasts serve to make more distinctions than others: there are
many more English words distinguished by the /t/ - /d/ opposition (tip-dip, traindrain); less by the opposition /s/ - /z/; and definitely less by the opposition / / - //.
The phonemic contrasts which serve to distinguish a more important number of
words in the language are said to have a higher functional load than the others.
Functional load depends basically on the frequency of occurrence of a particular
contrast. Frequency of occurrence does not depend exclusively on the number of
words distinguished by a given contrast. It also depends on the frequency of the
words themselves. For instance the phoneme // is much more frequent than //,
not because it appears in more words, but simply because the words in which it
occurs (the, that, then, they), are themselves much more frequent. The occurrence
of a phoneme in few high-frequency words may outweigh the occurrence of another
phoneme in many low-frequency words.

2. The Syllable, Accent, Rhythm

A. The Syllable
What listeners can identify with more ease, both in their mother tongue and
when listening to a foreign language, is a higher unit, above the sound segment,
based on the prominence or degree of sonority of the various sounds in the stream
of speech. This unit above the sound segment level is the syllable.
Writing has started by representing syllables rather than sounds, a strong
proof that speakers are more aware intuitively of the relevance of the former than of
the latter.
Speakers certainly have an intuitive notion of how many syllables each word
contains: for instance, speakers of English would generally agree that meadow
[medou], dangerous and antidisestablishmentarianism (allegedly the longest word
in the language) have two, three and twelve syllables respectively. It is less easy for
speakers to reflect consciously on the internal structure of syllables, or to decide
where one stops and the next starts; yet, despite the psychological reality of the
syllable, evidenced by the fact that speakers usually arrive at fairly common
decisions when asked to divide words or utterances into syllables, a satisfactory
definition of the syllable is yet to be given.

The Phonetical Syllable

Phonetically, attempts at defining the syllable have been made at all levels:
articulatory, auditory and acoustic. From the articulatory point of view, the syllable
5

has been defined as a puff of the air forced upward through the vocal channel by a
compression of the intercostal muscles.

Acoustically, syllables seem to be marked by the increases in intensity and (in

many instances) of the fundamental frequency of the nuclei over the margins of the
syllable.

In auditory terms, the basic clue of the listener in deciding on the number of
syllables in a given utterance is the prominence of certain sounds in the continuous
flow of speech. Some sounds are more prominent than others and, on these
grounds, they stand out in contrast to them. The stream of speech appears to the
listener as a continuously undulating flow of sound marked by higher peaks and low
points of sonority depending on the inherent qualities of the successive segments.
A group of sound segments which includes a peak of sonority will form a syllable.
The syllable may therefore be defined as a segment of speech containing
a peak of sonority or that stretch of speech between 2 valleys of sonority.
The peak is its nucleus/centre; its valleys of sonority are represented by the onset
and coda. The peak of the syllable is usually a vowel which has the highest degree
of sonority, but English allows certain consonants as well to perform this function (it
is the case of /l/ and the nasals which are syllabic when preceded by a consonant
and followed by another consonant or pause (middle, sudden, soften, rhythm,
bacon).
Both the onset and the coda are optional constituents, and each, if filled, will
contain one or more consonants. In English, be has an onset but no coda; eat has a
coda but no onset; and beat has both. Recognising the difference between the
nucleus, which is primarily the domain of vowels, and the onset and coda, where we
find consonants, also casts some light on the relationship between the high
vowels /i /, /u/ and the glides /j /, /w/. Phonetically, it is very hard to detect any
systematic difference between [i] and [j], or [u] and [w] respectively; however, we
can now say that [i] and [u] are [+syllabic], while the glides are [syllabic], so that
in ye= voi, [j] is in the onset and [i:] in the nucleus, and similarly in woo = a curta, a
cere in casatorie, [w] is an onset consonant and [u:] a nuclear vowel.
With respect to syllable division and syllable boundary, the following
significant difference is to be pointed out between English and Romanian. In
Romanian, as well as in other Romance languages, it is much easier to determine
when the syllable-cut is to be made. The onset of the syllable is clearly
distinguished from the preceding segment in the stream of speech. In English, on
the contrary, it is more difficult to establish where a syllable ends and the next one
begins. Another difference between English and Romanian is related to the syllable
types. Syllables may be free (or open) when they end in a vowel (they have no
coda), or checked (closed) if they end in a consonant. Romanian is a language in
which free syllables predominate while English is a language of the checked syllable
type.
According to the number of syllables, words can be
monosyllabic, i.e. composed of only one syllable,
e.g. book [buk], cart [ka:t], quick [kwik];
disyllabic, i.e. composed of two syllables,
e.g. worker [w: k], conquest [k kwist], better [be t];

polysyllabic, i.e. composed of more than two syllables,

e.g. economical [,i k n mi kl], industrialization [in ,ds tri lai zei n], etc.
In English, monosyllabic and disyllabic words have very high occurrence. The
succession of phonemes within a syllable or a word (which may consist of one or
several syllables) is constrained by the phonological system of the language. Thus,
Slavonic languages accept long strings of consonants, while English like Romanian
does not.
As far as their ability to make up syllables on their own, phonemes can be
grouped into two classes:
6

 phonemes which can form a syllable by themselves, or stand at the centre of a

syllable, e.g. the vowel phonemes and the consonants (/m/, /n/, //, /l/, /r/, /w/, /j/);
phonemes which cannot form a syllable by themselves and can only stand at the
periphery of the syllable, e.g. most consonant phonemes.

The Phonological Syllable

In phonological terms, the syllable is defined as the lowest phonological
construction into which phonemes are combined. Just as the phonetic syllable, it
consists of three segments: a central segment (the nucleus/peak), an initial
segment (the onset) and a final one (the coda). Each language has its own rules for
combining phonemes into syllables. These rules imply selection of the phonemes
which may occupy a given position and order in their arrangement.
For example, in the word/syllable strong [str] which has the structure
CCC+V+C (consonant consonant consonant + vowel + consonant) the initial
consonant phonemes /str/ are the onset, the central vowel phoneme // is the
nucleus/peak of the syllable, and the final consonant phoneme // represents the
coda.
(a) the nucleus
The nucleus (or peak) of the syllable is generally a vowel or a group of vowels,
e.g. seen [si:n], town [taun], tower [tau], etc.
However, in English, the consonants (/m/, /n/, //, /l/, /r/, /w/, /j/) can stand as peak
when preceded by a consonant or followed by a pause or another consonant:
e.g. the second syllable of inflected words such as: functions ['fknz];
happened ['hpnd], struggles ['strglz];
The onset and the coda can be:
simple (i.e. consisting of one consonant), or
complex (i.e. containing various clusters of consonants).
(b) the onset
In English, // and // are the only consonants that cannot appear in initial
position, so that they cannot function as onset.
Two consonant onsets are numerous:
e.g. p+l, as in please, s+t, as in still, etc.
Semivowels, which function as consonants, often appear in initial clusters such as:
/tj/, /kj/, e.g. tune [tju:n], cube [kju:b], knew [nju:];
/tw/, /sw/, e.g. twist [twist], sweet [swi:t], quite [kwait].
Three consonant onsets are also numerous:
/stj/, e.g. stew [stju:];
/spl/, e.g. splash [spl];
/skw/, e.g. squeeze [skwi:z], etc.
(c) the coda
For both monosyllabic and polysyllabic words, codas can be made up of two
or three consonants. Endings, especially the -s and the -ed inflections, contribute
to increasing the number of codal consonant phonemes:
e.g. ruffled ['rfld], grasps [gra:sps], asked [a:skt];
Even four consonants can appear as coda:
e.g. texts [teksts], thousandth [' auznd,], etc.

B. Accent
In addition to the segmental phonemes of a language there are also suprasegmental ones, i.e. features which extend simultaneously over a group of sound
segments. Of these supra-segmental features, the phenomenon of juncture has
been dealt with previously.
The syllables of a word differ from one another in their degree of prominence
in the sense that some stand out in relation to the others by being louder or higher
in pitch or having a greater carrying power. The English words permit (n) and
permit (v), as well as the Romanian words modul and modul, display such a
difference in the actual prominence of their syllables. The phenomenon is called
stress and it is due mainly to an increase in the force of articulation. Both English
and Romanian are said to be characterized by such a stress. A distinction has been
suggested among others, by D. Jones between 'stress' and prominence. In this
course, the term accent will be used instead of stress. Accent, as defined here, is
equal to prominence, i.e. the result of any or all of the four following factors: stress,
pitch, quality and quantity in rendering one syllable more prominent than the other.

1. Stress
It may be defined in the traditional sense as both a greater breath effort and an
increased muscular energy in the production of a syllable. The greater breath effort
implies an increased current of air which renders the respective syllable more
prominent. For the speaker, stress is equivalent to greater articulatory activity,
while the listener perceives the physical auditory correlate of stress, namely an
increased loundness of the stressed syllable. Although there may be as many
degrees of stress as there are syllables in a word, the ordinary speaker does not
distinguish more than two or three degrees, on account of the fact that these alone
will be functional in the language.

2. Pitch (inaltime a unui sunet)

Another component of accent closely related to stress is pitch. It consists of
pronouncing a syllable on a higher pitch level than the others or in giving that
syllable a certain melodic shape: a falling one, a rising one, or a combination of the
two. In the words below /bi'lu/ (prep) and billow /'bilu / (wave), the accented
syllables are accompanied by a change in the pitch direction with which they are
uttered: below / /, bellow / /. Of the various syllables of a polysyllabic word it is
the strongly stressed ones that carry the change in pitch direction and the
secondarily stressed ones that carry a change in the pitch level:
accomodation /km dein /. Pitch accentuation may be of two kinds: primary
(nuclear or tonic), always associated with a change in pitch direction = /dei/; and
secondary (non tonic) /k/ (from accomodation).
Secondary accentuation may itself be of two kinds:
Signalled by a change in the pitch level;
Signalled by rhythm and quality-quantity factors.
This leads to distinguishing four stress phonemes:
1. Primary accent; based on stress but always associated with a change in pitch
direction equivalent to the primary stress./'/
2. Secondary accent; based on rhythmical and on quality-quantity factors,
equivalent to tertiary stress./^/
3. Tertiary accent; based on a change in the pitch level equivalent to secondary
stress /`/.
4.

Weak accent characteristic of unaccented syllables, equivalent to weak stress /

8

/.

3. Quality
generally, vowels are more prominent than consonants;
among vowels, the more open the vowel, the more prominent it is;
vowel-like consonants (e.g. the semivowels) have higher prominence than the
other consonants;
fricatives (e.g. /f, v, s, z/) are more prominent than plosives (e.g./p, b, t, d/);
etc.

4. Quantity
Long vowels and diphthongs are prominent, even in unstressed position,
e.g. increase (n) [ikri:s], advertising [dvtaizi], etc.

The Perception of Accent

Accent is felt differently by the speaker and listener. For the listener, of the
factors contributing to render a syllable prominent, the most efficient one is pitch
variation, while the least effective is stress. For the speaker, however, it is stress
that acquires importance in assessing the accented character of a syllable. The
speaker feels accents because he uses increased effort and muscular energy in
pronouncing certain syllables of a word which are associated with his linguistic
usage of the word.

The Position of Accent

The most important difficulty encountered by Romanian students in acquiring
the accentual structure of English, is related to the position of the accent. English
presents one great advantage, namely it has a great number of monosyllabic words
which will carry the accent on their single syllable. Polysyllabic words, and
especially words borrowed from Romance languages, however, pose a great number
of problems to the learner of English. English, as well as Romanian are characterized
as free accent languages. In English, for instance, accent may fall on the last
syllable (a'loud), the last but one ('plastic), the third syllable from the end
('catholic). There are, however, a number of accentuation rules applicable to
derivate and compound words, which, to a certain extent resemble the situation
existing in languages with a fixed accent. A better characterization of English will be
as a language with a free accent, which possesses however subsystems of fixed
accent.
With some languages, the accent falls regularly upon a certain syllable: e.g.
in French, it is the last syllable that is always stressed. In English, there is no rule
concerning the position of the accent it may fall on any syllable of the word.
However, some regularity can be noticed:
words of Germanic origin usually have the stress on the first syllable,
e.g. father [fa:], mother [m], brother [br], etc.
words or phrases of French origin, especially more recent loans, have generally
preserved the accent on the last syllable,
e.g. machine [mi:n], hotel [hutel], employee [emplji:], negligee
[negliei], faade [fsa:d].
many French words have been "anglicised" and the accent has been transferred
to the first syllable:
e.g. beauty [bju:ti], courage [krid], animal [niml], restaurant
[restra:nt], etc.
words derived by affixation, with the help of a prefix, even when the prefix is no
longer felt to be a separate, meaningful part of the word carry the stress on the
next syllable,
9

 e.g. about [baut], become [bikm], forget [fget], etc.

longer words, which bear the stress on the second or third syllable, may have a
secondary stress on the first, especially when the first syllable is a prefix:
e.g.
engineer
[,endini],
outstanding
[,autstndi],
circulation
[,s:kjulein];
in some cases, though, both stresses are primary:
e.g. misinterpret [misint:prit], misunderstanding [misndstndi].
with compound words, the accent usually falls on the first syllable, even
though it may not be the main element; this is what distinguishes a compound from
a free combination of words.
e.g. the compound bluebird (adj. + noun) is pronounced
[blu:b:d];
the free combination blue bird is stressed [,blu: 'b:d];
even longer and more complex compounds carry the primary stress on the first
element:
e.g. merry-go-,round, good-for-,nothing, forget-me-,not, etc.

nevertheless, when the second or third element carries the main idea of the
compound, the stress falls on that element, often with a secondary stress on the
first word:
e.g. waste-paper-basket, self-determination, do-it-yourself.
when both elements of a compound are equally important, both carry primary
stress:
e.g. queen-mother, Lord-Chancellor, Knight Templar, etc.
Romanian behaves very much like English, as far as the accent is concerned.
There are however several basic differences. The most important one is the
reduction of vowel sounds in unaccented syllables. Only / /, / i /, / u /, /u /, when
situated in final position and syllabic / l /, / m /, / n / can occur in unaccented
syllables in English; an important restriction which does not exist in Romanian.
Another peculiarity, not shared by Romanian is its frequent use of secondary
accent in polysyllabic words. Compare: photograph-fotograf, appetite-apetit,
symptomatic-simptomatic. English words possess a secondary, echo accent which is
not present in the Romanian words. There is also a slight difference between
English/Romanian accent from the functional point of view as well. The phonemic
nature of accent in both languages will be proved by such minimal pairs as import
(n) - import (v) in English and tipic - tipic in Romanian. It follows that the main
function of accent is morphological in English (to indicate the transition from one
part of speech to another) and both morphological and lexical in Romanian. In
compound words, however, the English accent displays a lexical function owing to
the interplay of primary and secondary accent, which keeps apart such pairs as:
French teacher - French teacher (a T who teaches French)
E.g: cross words (angry words) - crosswords (puzzle)
Mad doctor (who is mad) - mad doctor (psychiatrist)
Green house (which is green) - greenhouse (glass building for plants).
The pattern

is extremely often used for compound words, while the

pattern o
is typical of Noun phrases. The latter pattern may also be used for
making compounds which form a closed paradigm which can be learned by heart as
a list of exceptions, as their structure (N + Adj.) is completely contrary to the
normal word order in English. Their great majority are of Romance origin: attorney
general, secretary general, court martial, notary public, princess royal, etc. The
interplay of primary and secondary accent keeps apart more than two-word pairs of
noun phrases as the following:
American history teacher (history teacher who is American)
10

American history teacher (teacher of American history)

Accent in connected speech

The logical relevance and grammatical role of a word in a sentence is closely
related to its importance for the utterance. Accordingly, we can distinguish two
classes of words:
content words, which are strong/accented: nouns, notional verbs, adjectives,
adverbs, numerals, demonstrative, interrogative and emphatic pronouns;

form words (or function words), which are weak/unaccented: articles,

prepositions, conjunctions, personal, possessive, relative, reciprocal pronouns,
auxiliary and modal verbs.
Sometimes, however, the speaker may stress a form word, so as to
emphasize or highlight a certain idea:
e.g. I(a)m [()m] a teacher.
I am [m] a teacher.
In the first case, the speaker merely declares his profession, so the verb am is
not stressed. In the second example, the speaker wants to emphasise the fact of his
being a teacher, so the verb is stressed.
In unstressed syllables, both vowels and consonants become shorter and less
prominent, and are often elided. Thus, he is pronounced [hi:] in a stressed position
(e.g. 1), but becomes [i] in rapid speech (e.g. 2):
e.g. He [hi:] is to blame for it. (1)
I dont think he [(h)i] knows about it. (2)
Similarly, and is pronounced [nd] when it is stressed and [n] in unstressed
position:
e.g. Both John and [nd] Mary will have to go.
fish and chips [fi()ntips]
Consequently, many words in unstressed position are made to sound alike,
e.g. [] can stand for a, are, her, of, or,
are: Theyre [e] here.
her: I told her. [aituld]
of: a cup of tea [kp ti:], etc.
In connected speech, accent may also vary according to the words/units
syntactic function: attributive usage requires stress, predicative usage does not.
e.g. These are valuable paintings (paintings in attributive usage)
These paintings are valuable (in predicative usage)
second hand books (book in attributive usage)
I got the books second hand (predicative usage)

C. The foot & the rhythm of speech

When listening to a poem, it is quite easy to distinguish units that are larger
than the syllable.
Take, for example, these two lines:
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
[tf] =strong, [bau] = a large branch of a tree, [ka:f], [du] = aluat
Listening to it, one can hear a succession of beats which occur at fairly
regular intervals. This is because some of the syllables are strong, or salient
11

[sei.li.nt] = important (e.g. take, you, -re-, know, tough, ), while others are weak
(e.g. I, it, al-, dy, ). The phonological unit consisting of one strong/salient syllable
and the following weak syllable(s) that depend on it (e.g. 'take it, 'tough and, ) is
called foot. In phonemic transcription, feet are marked off with a slash, as in:
I 'take it / 'you al / 'ready / 'know
Of 'tough and / 'bough and / 'cough and / 'dough?
When an utterance begins with an unstressed syllable (e.g. I, Of), it goes
along with the first accented syllable (e.g. I 'take it). Since in poems strong syllables
occur at relatively regular intervals, the result is a definite sensation of rhythm. But
in ordinary communication there is also a sense of rhythm, even if it is not as
obvious as in poetry. For example,
Im 'pleased to 'see you.
So 'nice of 'you to 'let me 'come.
The rhythm of speech is given by a succession of beats, carried by the
strong/salient/accented syllables. Such syllables, which stand out by their increased
loudness, duration, tenseness, etc. (thus are perceived as more prominent),
represent the nuclei of the feet. The role of the weak/off-beat syllables is to fill the
time. This is why the foot is also called the rhythmic unit (or rhythmic group) of the
language.
For example, in
Im 'pleased to / 'see you.
So 'nice of / 'you to / 'let me / 'come.
consist of two, respectively four, rhythmic units.
In Romanian, rhythm is syllable-timed, i.e. the duration of an utterance is
conditioned by the number of syllables uttered. Unlike Romanian, rhythmic groups
in English have roughly the same duration, irrespective of the number of syllables.
This kind of rhythm is called stress-timed rhythm.
Take, for example, the following utterances:
Reading = 1 stressed syllable + 1 unstressed syllable
Reading it = 1 stressed syllable + 2 unstressed syllables
He is reading = 1 stressed syllable + 3 unstressed syllables
He is reading it = 1 stressed syllable + 4 unstressed syllables
The utterances vary significantly as far as the number of syllables, yet the
time required to utter them is roughly the same. This is possible because of the
simplification and loss of prominence of phonemes in unaccented syllables, in rapid
speech. In the same way, the two feet in Im pleased to see you are both
pronounced in roughly the same time. The phonological salience of the strong
syllable is realized with the help of the accent.
Conclusions
Stress, rhythm and intonation are all concerned with the perception of
prominence. We speak of stress when we are considering the prominence with
which one part of a word or of a longer utterance is distinguished from other parts.
We speak of rhythm when we are considering the pattern formed by the
stress being perceived as peaks of prominence or beats, occurring at somewhat
regular intervals of time. English has a tendency for 'stress-timed' rhythm.
We speak of intonation when we associate relative prominence with pitch,
the aspect of sound which we perceive in terms of 'high' or 'low'.
The position of the stress is unpredictable in the sense that, in contrast with
some languages, there is no single position where the main stress can be expected
to fall: answer (1), a'bove (2), mana'gerial (3), incompre'hensible (4), palatali'zation
(5). Thus, to a large extent, the accentual pattern of each word has to be learnt
12

separately. Native words and early French adoptions tend to have the main stress
on the root syllable and to keep it there, regardless of what word-formation might
add: 'standing / under'standing / misunder'standing.
By contrast, with the more recent adoptions and coinages (= inventions), the
place of the stress varies according to the affixation: 'telegraph/ te'legraphy /
tele'graphic. Stress falls on the syllable before adjectival '-ic': 'phoneme/ pho'nemic
and on the syllable before nominal and adjectival '-ian': 'library/ lib'rarian. A
numerous set of words have an accentual difference in the functions of
Adjective/Noun, on the one hand and Verb on the other: 'conduct/con'duct; 'present/
pre'sent.
Speaking about the individual stability to place stress freely, contrastive
stress is capable of highlighting any word in the sentence, especially in the case of
the closed-system words which are normally unstressed, making use of the 'schwa'
vowel: [nd] [n], [bt]. Under contrastive stress, they assume the form that they
have as dictionary items [nd], [bt], [v], [wz].
Broadly speaking, in the absence of contrastive stress, English connected
speech has stress on the open-class items: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and
absence of stress upon the closed-system words accompanying them (pro-N,
article). The natural rhythm of English provides rather equal intervals of time
between stresses.

13