Pronunciation
2007-11-20
Summaries
1. Concepts of "Pronunciation"
Generally speaking, pronunciation is part of surface structure of a dictionary, which is composed of two levels: one is linguistic description, the so called "metalanguage"; the other is units of language, the so called "object language." As far as dictionaries are concerned, metalanguage is the surface structure of dictionaries, for example, typography and layout of a book, hypertext, etc.; whereas object language is the surface structure of words in dictionaries, that is, spelling and pronunciation. Here, we still need to borrow the graphic of "Model of Types of Rendering Information."
2. Rendering Rules
Seen from the above model, one can get the following rendering rules.
● Pronunciation rules (acoustic modality)
● Spelling (visual modality)
● Sound-spelling rules (inter-modality conversion)
The relation between the internal and external structure and the pronunciation is the representation of sounds. The different views of sound are named transcription.
● Narrow phonetic transcription
– Goal: represent as many phonetic details of phones (i.e. the
allophones of phonemes) as needed
● Phonemic representation
– Goal: represent phonemes (generalised from allophones using
only information on phonetic context) needed in the lexicon
3. Phonemic vs. Phonetic
However, phonemic and phonetic transcriptions are actually different.
Phonemic transcription is the one used in dictionaries. It composes of the minimum amount of pronunciation in order to distinguish words for a native (or other competent) speaker of the language, e.g. /pin/, /spin/, /lVl/. Preferably, it is in IPA.
Phonetic transcription is the one used to give as many details of pronunciation as possible. It describes the actual pronunciation of phonemes (varies in different contexts), e.g. “pin” /phin/, “spin”/spin/, “lull” /lV/. Here, we should note that the term “phonetic” is used outside linguistics in
everyday, non-technical senses to include “phonemic”.
4. Prosodic Hierarchy in Sounds of Dictionaries:
– phonemes:
● function: “smallest word-distinguishing segments”
● internal structure: “configuations of distinctive phonetic
features”
● external structure (see syllables)
● rendering: “contextual variants”, “allophones”
– syllables:
● function: “word distinguishing phoneme configurations”
● internal structure: “configurations of sequential features
(consonantal, vocalic; voiced, unvoiced; ...) and simultaneous
features (tone, accent)
● external structure (word)
● rendering: a function of the rendering of phonemes
5. Definition of "phoneme"
There are several ways of defining phonemes, depending
on which of the four sign components is focussed:
1. the minimal word-distinguishing sound segment (based on the
contrastive function of phonemes)
2.The smallest unit of a syllable (based on external sound structure)
3.Consists of distinctive features (based on the internal sound
structure)
4.Consists of a set of allophones (based on the rendering of
phonemes)
As it is showed in the following graphic:
(Notes from Dr. Gibbon)
The basic English syllable structure is CCCVVCCC, e.g. /streIndZ/ - but affricates /dZ/, count as 1 phoneme, though phonetically they have 2 parts.
The spelling rule is used to describe a number of rules relating to the spelling of words in the language that would appear in most cases to deviate from a strictly phonetic transcription.
All above are quoted from the notes of the lecture given by Dr. Gibbon.
Task
List five English spelling rules:
1. We make the comparative or superlative forms of short adjectives by adding -er or -est.
2. We need to add -ing or -ed to a verb to make other forms of the verb, for example: I was talking when John arrived .
3. We often make an adverb by adding -ly to an adjective, for example: quick > quickly.
4. We add -s to words for two reasons:
- to make plural nouns (boy > boys)
- to form the 3rd person singular of the present simple tense (I work > you work > he works)
5. Sometimes it is difficult to remember whether a word is spelled with -ie- or -ei-. There is a very simple rule about this:
I before E Except after C. e.g. achieve, ceiling....
Make a list of 5 main spelling problems:
- consonant doubling
- gh is often pronounced /f/
- silent letters
- swallowed syllables
- homophones e.g. two and too
English and German
● Pronunciation:
– List
● the consonants of German which do not occur in English:
/ ç/, /xҳ/
● the consonants of English which do not occur in German:
/ð/, /w/, /θ/
● the vowels of German which do not occur in English:
/o/, /ø/, /y/, / o ə/, /ү/
● the vowels of English which do not occur in German:
/з/
● Spelling:
– List
● the characters of German which do not occur in English:
ä, ö, ü, ß
● the characters of English which do not occur in German: none
● 5 English graphemes containing more than one character: sch in school, sh in ship, wh in who, kn in know, ph in phonetic, etc.
● 5 German graphemes containing more than one character: sch in schule, tsch in Deutsch, ch in ich, pf in Pfand, ar in Markt, etc.
Evaluation
As we all have used dictionaries for a long time, pronunciation seems not a diffulty. But it's still important in this course.
Reference
- Gibbon, Dafydd. "Pronunciation." 19.11.2007. University of Bielefeld. 20.11.2007 <http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/~gibbon/Classes/Classes2007WS/HTMD/htmd06-v02a-pronunciation.pdf>.