Aspects of Connected Speech

Aspects of Connected SpeechExplanationExample

RhythmStressed syllables will tend to occur at quite regular interval regardless of whether they are separated by unstressed syllable or not.Russian, English, Arabic

Stressed-timed rhythm

Syllable-timed rhythmStressed and unstressed syllableFrench,Telugu,Yoruba

AssimilationA phoneme is changed as a result of being near to some other phoneme belonging to another word next to it.

Regressive AssimilationFinal consonant,Cf changes to become like initial consonant,Ci(Anticipatory Assimilation)

Been going- /bi /

Place of Articulation

/n/ assimilates to //

/s/ assimilates to //This shiny - / ani/

/z/ assimilates to //Cheese shop - / ti p/

/t/ assimilates to /k/ or //That case - / k kes/

/d/ assimilates to //Good girl - / l/

Manner of Articulation

That side - / s sad/

/t/ plosive assimilates to /s/ fricative

/d/ plosive assimilates to /n/ nasal

Good night - / n nat/

Progressive AssimilationManner of Articulation

In the - /n n/ Get them - / et tm/ Read these - / rid diz/

/n/ , /t/ and /d/ become identical to final consonant with dental place of articulation

ElisionDisappearance of a sound

Potato - / ptet/ Canary - / kneri/ Today - / tde/

Loss of weak vowel after p,t,k In the first syllable,the vowel may disappear,the initial plosive consonant is aspirated

Complex consonant clusters are simplified Looked back - /lkt bk/ can be simplified to / lk bk/

Weak vowel / / + n,r,l becomes syllabic consonant

Tonight - / tnat/ Police - / plis/ Correct - / krekt/

/v/ can disappear in of,before consonant Waste of time - / west tam/

Linking/LiaisonCommon feature of continuity and natural flow of speech. To link the words means to join them together and it often entails different types of fusing sounds at word boundaries.

Her German - / h dmn/ /r/ is not pronounced Her English - / hr l/ /r/ is pronounced

Linking and Intrusion /r/

Linking /r/ When, there is a written r at the end of a word and it occurs between two vowel sounds,speakers with non-rhotic accents often use the phoneme /r/ to link the proceeding vowel to a following one

Intrusive /r/ When two vowel sounds meet and there is no written letter r, speakers with non-rhotic accents will still often introduce the /r/ phoneme in order to ease the transition This happens when the first word ends in //, // or // Media exploitation - / midr eksploten/ Media are - / mid r/ Saw it - / s rt/

Linking /j/

I agree - / aj ri/

When a word ends in /i;/ , or a diphthong which ends with / / ,speaker often introduce /j/ to ease the transition to a following vowel sound

Linking /w/

Go on - / wn/ Who is? - / hu wz/

When a word ends in /u:/,or a diphthong which ends with //,speakers often introduce a /w/ to ease the transition to the following vowel sound.

JunctureThe difference in the pronunciation (of the underlined word) despite the phonemes being the same are differences in juncture

I scream - / a skrim/Ice cream - / as krim/ My train - / ma tren/Might rain - / mat ren/

ContractionSimplify and speed up communication. It is a process when a weak form occurs with or next to another word and they together go through another reduction. Then, the two words are pronounced as one; marked by apostrophe

I am Im He is Hes They are theyre I have Ive He will Hell

Personal Pronoun + Auxiliary Verb

Verb + not Was not Wasnt

Priya Darshini Murugan