The phonetic nature and types of speech rhythm in different languages.
Rhythm
An essential feature of connected speech is that the peaks of prominence - the stressed syllables - are inseparably connected with non-prominent syllables. The latter are attached to the stressed syllables, they never exist by themselves. The simplest example of a close relationship between the stressed and unstressed syllables is a polysyllabic word-utterance which is a phonetic and semantic entity incapable of division, e.g.:
`Excellent. To`morrow. `Certainly.
Thus an utterance is split into groups of syllables unified by a stressed syllable, i.e. stress-groups, each of which is a semantic unit - generally a word, often more than a word.
An important feature of English pronunciation is that the prominent syllables in an utterance occur at approximately equal periods of time. It means more or less equal time for each of the stressed groups:
I'd 'like to 'give you a 'piece of ad`vice.
When the number of syllables in adjacent stress-groups is not equal, the speed of utterance will be the highest in the group having the largest number of syllables and, vice versa, the tempo is noticeably slower in a group having fewer syllables. Thus the perceptible isochrony of stress-groups is based on the speakers tending to minimize the differences in thelength of stressed groups in an utterance.
Thus it has been shown that stress in English performs an important function of 'organizing' an utterance, providing the basis for its r h у t h m i с structure which is the realization of rhythm as a prosodic feature of speech.
Rhythm is defined in different languages in largely the same terms. The notion of rhythm implies, first of all, a certain periodicity of phonological events. For an English utterance these events, as has been made clear, are the stressed syllables. Such a periodicity is a peculiarity of English. English speech is therefore often described as more 'rhythmic' than, for example, Russian.
It follows that the units of the rhythmic organization of an utterance are stress-groups, which may be as well called rh ythmic groups.
12. . Theories on syllable formation and division
Speech can be broken into minimal pronounceable units into which sounds usually group - syllables. Being the smallest pronounceable units, syllables form morphemes, words and phrases. A meaningful language unit phonetically may be considered from the point of view of syllable formation and syllable division. The syllable is a complicated phenomenon and like a phoneme it can be studied on four levels – artic., acoustic, auditory andfunctional.
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1. The most ancient theory states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels. This theory is primitive and insufficient since it does not take into consideration consonants which also can form syllables in some languages, neither does it explain the boundary of syllables.
2. The expiratory theory ( chest -pulse theory) by R.H. Stetson states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are expiration pulses. The borderline between the syllables is the moment of the weakest expiration. This theory is inconsistent because it is quite possible to pronounce several syllables in one articulatory effort or expiration.
3. The sonority theory (put forward by O. Jespersen ) states that there are as many syllables in a word as there are peaks of prominence according to the scale of sonority. Thus, in the word sudden the most sonorous is the vowel / ʌ /, then goes the nasal sonorant /n/. The sonority theory helps to establish the number of syllables in a word, but fails to explain the mechanism of syllable division because it does not state to which syllable the weak sound at the boundary of two syllables belongs. Besides, the concept of sonority is not very clearly defined.
4. Theory of muscular tension or "arc of articulatory tension" theory is based on L.V. Shcherba's statement that the centre of a syllable is the syllable forming phoneme. Sounds which precede or follow it constitute a chain or an arc which is weak in the beginning and in the end and strong in the middle. If a syllable consists of one vowel, then its strength increases in the beginning, reaches the maximum of loudness and then, gradually decreases. In terms of the "arc of loudness" theory there are as many syllables in a word as there are "arcs of loudness". A syllable begins at the point where a new articulatory effort starts, and the end of the syllable is the point where the articulatory effort drops to the minimum.
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5. Loudness theory (Zhinkin - Moscow school): every phoneme possesses a specific loudness; a syllable is a peak of loudness. Loudness shouldn't be confused with sonority (loudness - amplitude of sound waves, sonority - degree of noise).
6. Acoustic theory: peak of syllable is vowel or sonorant which has more prominence than consonant.
13. RP AS THE STANDARD ENGLISH ACCENT.
Since 16th started. For reason of politics, commerce - the south-east of England, of the London region. RP - high position in society. During the 19th - the accent of public schools and a good education. Regionally 'neutral' accent, and more widely understood than any regional accent => adopted by the BBC. Less than 3 per cent of the British people speak it. It is associated with the south-east. Most common model accent in teaching English as a foreign language. There are many people in England who do not speak RP, they speak Standard Englsih with a regional type of pronunciation. Phoneticians usually divide English speakers into three groups: 1. RP speakers of standard English (St.E. without local accent). 2. Non-RPspeakers of Standard Englsh (St.E. with a regional accent). 3. Dialectal speakers. Within RP itself three main types are distinguished: the conservative RP, the general RP(BBC), advanced RP, (certain social and professional groups).
Current changes in RP:
Realizational changes: Vowels: /i:/ and /u:/ are diphongized in final position(see). Diphthong /oʊ/ => /əʊ/. About 50 years ago /æ/ was less open and tenser than is now. Triphthongs may lose their mid element(fire). L-vocalization. /l/ in the final position or in a final consonant group is undergoing a process of vocalization (becoming a vowel)(milk).
Systemic changes : the loss of /ɔə/ from the phonemic inventory, as in the words YOUR /jɔə/-/jɔ:/, POOR/pɔə/-/pɔ:/
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Lexical changes : a strong trend towards selecting /ə/ instead of unstressed /i/ in weak syllables after /l/ and /r/, as in angrily /’æŋgrili/ v. /’æŋgrəli/
Distributional changes: loss of /j/ after alveolar consonants /s/ and /l/, as in super /’su:pə , suit /su:t/. Coalescence /t+j/ and /d+j/ is increasingly common, e.g., /’edju:keit/ - /’eʤu:keit/
Stress changes: adjectives ending in ‘-able’, ‘ible’. It tends now to fall later in the word, as in ‘applicable – app’licable. The feminine suffix ‘-ess’ - primary stress
Sentence intonation. A tendency to use a rising nuclear tone instead of a fall.
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