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TIL

ENGLISH PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY
Information panels

informN-P.htm

Daniel Jones. Edited by Peter Roach, James Hartman and Jane Setter. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Scanned by Maung Kan Tun and edited by U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Not for sale. Prepared for students of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR .

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Contents of this page

Information panels N to P
| 43. Names of people and places | 44. Nasal consonant | 45. Nasalisation
| 46. Neutral | 47. Neutralisation | 48. Onset | 49. Palatal | Palatal, palato- | 50. Palato-alveolar
| 51. Pharyngeal | IPA-characters | Phonation | 52. Phone | 53. Phoneme | 54. Phonetics | 55. Phonology
| 56. Pitch | 57. Plosive | 58. Postalveolar | 59. Prefixes |

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43. Names of people and places

p359. It can be difficult to work out the pronunciation of some English words, and something like between ten to thirty percent of words in any text will have irregular spellings. Proper nouns for people and places can have really unexpected pronunciations. Here, we look at a few of the most interesting ones.

Examples

Family names are well known for having interesting realisations. This can be because some letters are not pronounced, but, in some cases, the way a word is written looks almost entirely different to the pronunciation, e.g.:

<Cholmondeley> /ˈʧʌm.li/

<Cholmondeley> /ˈʧʌm.li/ <Featherstonehawe> /ˈfeð.ə.st^ə n.hɔː; ˈfæn.ʃɔː/ (us)/ˈfeð.ɚ.st^ə n.hɑː; ˈfæn.ʃɑː/
<Colquhoun> /kəˈhuːn/
<Dalziel> /diːˈel; ˈdæl.ziːl/ <Quesnel> /ˈkeɪ.n^əl/

It is a similar situation for place names, e.g.:

Welsh place names can be very difficult to decipher for people who do not know the rules that govern the spelling of Welsh. Although Welsh is written using the same alphabet as English, the values of the letter are frequently different, e.g.:

<Llanrwst> /hlænˈruːst/ <Penmaenmawr> /ˌpen.mənˈmaʊəʳ, -ˈmɔːʳ/ (US) /-ˈmaʊɚ, -ˈmɔːr/

There is some regularity amongst suffixes in some place names. The suffix <-ham> in British place names, for example, is usually pronounced /-əm/, as in <Birmingham>. However, in the North American place name <Birmingham>, <-ham> is pronounced /-hæm/. Another common suffix in British place names, <-cester>, is usually pronounced /-stəʳ/ (us)  /-stɚ/, e.g. as in <Worcester> above (although note also <Cirencester>, in which one possible realisation is /-ses.təʳ/ (us)  /-ses.tɚ/ ). Finally, the suffix <-wich> in e.g. <Warwick> is usually pronounced /-ɪk/ in British place names, although there are exceptions.

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44. Nasal consonant

p360. A consonant in which the air escapes only through the nose. For this to happen, two articulatory actions are necessary: firstly, the 'SOFT PALATE' (or 'velum') must be lowered to allow air to escape past it and, secondly, a closure must be made in the oral cavity to prevent air from escaping through it. The closure may be at any place of articulation from BILABIAL at the front of the oral cavity to 'uvular' at the back (in the latter case there is contact between the tip of the lowered soft palate and the raised back of the tongue).

Examples for English

English has three commonly found nasal consonants: bilabial, alveolar and velar, for which the symbols /m n ŋ/ are used. /ŋ/ cannot occur at the beginning of a syllable, e.g.:

<map> /mæp/ <sang> /sæŋ/
<nap> /næp/

UKT: Some syllables are made up of three parts: an ONSET (beginning), a peak (middle), and a CODA (end). The peak and the coda constitute the RHYME (or RIME) of the syllable. -- see CODA.

There is disagreement over the phonemic status of the velar nasal: some claim that it must be a phoneme since it can be placed in contrastive contexts like <sum>/<sun>/<sung>, while others state that the velar nasal is an ALLOPHONE of /n/ which occurs before /k/ and /g/.

In English we find 'nasal release' of PLOSIVE consonants: when a plosive is followed by a nasal consonant the usual articulation is to release the compressed air by lowering the soft palate. This is particularly noticeable when the plosive and the nasal are 'homorganic' (share the same place of articulation), as for example in <topmost>, <Putney>. The result is that no plosive release is heard from the speaker's mouth before the nasal consonant, e.g.:

<topmost> /ˈtɒp.məʊst/ (US) /ˈtɒːp.moʊst/
<Putney> /ˈpʌt.ni/

Nasal release can also result in a SYLLABIC CONSONANT, e.g.:

<button> /ˈbʌt.n̩/

UKT: In Burmese :
"Many pairs of consonants distinguished by the voiced-voiceless contrast are found in different languages. Welsh has voiced and voiceless LATERAL consonants, while Burmese has voiced and voiceless NASAL consonants." -- from DJPD16, see VOICING.

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45. Nasalisation

p360. The addition of nasal escape of air to a sound which would not normally have it.

Examples for English

The best known examples of nasalisation in English are nasalised vowels. In most vowels the airflow escapes entirely through the mouth, but often, in a vowel preceding or following a nasal consonant, we find air escaping also through the nose.

This is a kind of coarticulation, e.g.:

<pin> /pɪn/ [pʰĩn] <sing> /sɪŋ/ [sĩŋ]
<man> /mæn/ [mæ̃n]

Nasalised vowels are not phonemically contrastive in English.

In other languages

Nasalised vowels are phonemically contrastive in a number of languages, such as French, which has pairs of words such as <beau - bon> /bo - bō/ and <mais - main> /mɛ - mɛ̄/ .

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46. Neutral

p364. A term used to describe lip configuration in speech sounds, in which the lips are neither rounded nor spread (see ROUNDING and SPREADING). The term 'unrounded' is also commonly used but can apply equally to spread lips.

Examples for English

The English vowels /ə/ (schwa) and /ɜː/ are thought as having a neutral lip configuration.

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47. Neutralisation

p364. The loss of contrast between PHONEMES.

Examples for English

In its simple form, the theory of the phoneme implies that two sounds that are in opposition to each other (e.g. /t/ and /d/ in English) are in this relationship in all contexts throughout the language. Closer study of phonemes has, however, shown that there are some contexts where the opposition no longer functions: for example, in a word like <still> /stɪl/, the /t/ is in a position (following /s/ and preceding a vowel) where voiced (LENIS) PLOSIVES do not occur. There is no possibility in English of the existence of a pair of words such as /stɪl/ and */sdɪl/, so in this context the opposition between /t/ and /d/ is 'neutralised'. One consequence of this is that one could equally well claim that the plosive in this word is a /d/, not a /t/. (See also ASPIRATION.)

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48. Onset

p380. In the analysis of syllable structure (and occasionally in other areas), the first part of a syllable.
(UKT: See CODA .)

Examples for English

In English the onset may be zero (when no consonant precedes the vowel in a syllable), one consonant, or two, or three, e.g.:

<in> /ɪn/ <spin> /spɪn/
<pin> /pɪn/ <spring> /sprɪŋ/

There are many restrictions on what clusters of consonants may occur in onsets: for example, if an English syllable has a three-consonant onset, the first consonant must be /s/ and the last one must be one of /l r j w/ .

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49. Palatal

p393. A palatal consonant is one in which the tongue makes contact with or approaches the highest part of the hard palate. The hard palate is mainly composed of a thin layer of bone and is dome-shaped, as you can feel by exploring it with the tip of your tongue.

Examples for English

In English, the only phoneme described as palatal is /j/, e.g.:

<yes> /jes/ <beautiful> /ˈbjuː.tɪ.fəl/  (US) /-ɟə-/ (U025F)

However, phonetically a voiceless palatal fricative [ç] (U00E7) can also occur for the consonants in the sequence /hjuː/

<huge> /hjuːʤ/ [çʉːd̥ʒ̊] <Hugh>, <Huw> /huuː/ [çʉː]

UKT:
Palatal, palato-
DJPD16 states "the only phoneme described as palatal is /j/ ". However other languages such as Burmese may have phonemes described as palatal or palato- . The following list is from American Mathematical Society http://www.ams.org/STIX/glyphs/proposal/reference/stixiso-02.html

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50. Palato-alveolar

p394. Palato-alveolar sounds are made between the upper teeth and the front part of the palate.

In the description of English, this term has been largely replaced by POST-ALVEOLAR.

In other languages

It has been proposed that there is a difference between palato-alveolar and 'alveolo-palatal' that can be reliably distinguished, though others argue that factors other than the place of articulation are usually involved. The latter sounds are placed further forward in the mouth than the former: an example of an alveolo-palatal consonant is that of Polish /ɕ/ (U0255) in <Kasia> (compare /ʃ/ (U0283) in <kasza>.

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51. Pharyngeal

p407. Description of a sound made by constricting the muscles of the pharynx (and usually also some of the LARYNX muscles to create an obstruction to the airflow from the lungs.

Examples for English

English does not have any pharyngeal phonemes.

In other languages

The best known languages that has pharyngeal consonants is Arabic, most dialects of which have voiced and voiceless fricatives.

UKT:
IPA characters for pharyngeal phonemes
from American Mathematical Society http://www.ams.org/STIX/glyphs/proposal/reference/stixiso-02.html

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Phonation

UKT addn • Phonation is the technical term for the production of speech sounds. The source of the energy for almost all phonation is compressed air from the lungs. We say almost all because certain languages have clicks and other sounds which are ingressive (air flows in) rather than egressive (air flows out). In American English we can safely omit these cases, and speak only about the outflowing air from the lungs. -- T. Lander, and T. Carmell, Structure of Spoken Language, Acoustics of Vowels, http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/tutordemos/SpectrogramReading/cse551html/cse551/cse551.html

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52. Phone

p409. A unit at the phonetic level in the study of speech. The term PHONEME is very widely used for a contrastive unit of sound in language. However, a term is also needed for a unit at the phonetic level, since there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between units at the two levels.

Examples for English

The English word <can't> is phonetically /kɑːnt/ in British English and /kænt/ in US English (4 phonemic units), but may be pronounced [kɑ̄ːt] or [kǣt] with the nasal consonant phoneme absorbed into the preceding vowel as NASALISATION (3 phonetic units). 

UKT: Letters such as ɑ̄ and ǣ can be formed by using combining diacritics:
•  U0251 U0304 --> ɑ̄
•  U00E6 U0304 --> ǣ

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53. Phoneme

p409. A fundamental unit of phonology, usually said to be the smallest unit of speech. It has been defined and used in many different ways.

Examples for English

Virtually all theories of phonology hold that spoken language can be broken down into a string of sound units (phonemes), and that each language has a small, relatively fixed set of these phonemes. Most phonemes can be put into groups, for example, in English we can identify a group of PLOSIVE phonemes /p  t  k  b  d  g/, a group of voiceless FRICATIVES /f  θ s  ʃ  h/, and so on.

An important question in phoneme theory is how the analyst can establish what the phonemes of a language are.

The most widely accepted view is that phonemes are 'contrastive' and one must find cases where the difference between two words is dependent on the difference between two phonemes. For example, we can prove that the difference between <pin> /pɪn/ and <pan> /pæn/ depends on the vowel, and that /ɪ/ and /æ/ are different phonemes.

Pairs of words that differ in just one phoneme are known as 'minimum pairs'. We can establish the same fact about /p/ and /b/ by citing <pin> and <bin>.

Tests like these are called 'commutation tests' and can only be carried out when a provisional list of possible phonemes has been established, so some some basic phonetic analysis must precede this stage.

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54. Phonetics

p410. The scientific study of speech. It has a long history, going back certainly to well over two thousand years ago. The central concerns in phonetics are the discovery of how speech sounds are produced, how they are used in spoken language, how we can record speech sounds with written symbols and how we hear and recognise different sounds.

In the first of these areas, when we study the production of speech sounds we can observe what speakers do ('articulatory' observation) and we can try to feel what is going on inside our vocal tract ('kinaesthetic' observation). The second area is where phonetics overlaps with PHONOLOGY: usually in phonetics we are only interested in sounds that are used in meaningful speech, and phoneticians are interested in discovering the range and variety of sounds used in this way in all the known languages of the world.

This is sometimes known as 'linguistic phonetics'. Thirdly, there has always been a need for agreed conventions for using phonetic symbols that represent speech sounds; the International Phonetic Association has played a very important role in this. Finally 'auditory' aspect of speech is very important. The ear is capable of making fine discrimination between different sounds, and sometimes it is not possible to define in articulatory terms precisely what the difference is. A good example of this is in vowel classification. While it is important to know the position and shape of the tongue and lips, it is often very important to have been trained in an agreed set of standard auditory qualities that vowels can be reliably related to (see CARDINAL VOWELS). Another important area is acoustic phonetics which studies the physical properties of speech sounds.

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55. Phonology

p410. The study of the sound systems of languages.

The most basic activity in phonology is 'phonemic analysis', in which the objective is to establish what the PHONEMES are and arrive at the 'phonemic inventory' of the language. Very few phonologists have ever believed that his would be an adequate analysis of the sound system of a language: it is necessary to go beyond this. On can look at 'suprasegmental' phonology -- the study of STRESS, RHYTHM and INTONATION. One can go beyond the phoneme and look into the detailed characteristics of each unit in terms of 'distinctive features'. The way in which sounds can combine in a language is studied in 'phonotactics' and and in the analysis of syllable structure.

For some phonologists the most important area is the relationships between the different phonemes -- how they form groups, the nature of the contrasts between them and how those oppositions may be neutralised (see NEUTRALISATION). For others, the most important activity is to discover the rules which affect the phonemes of the language and the way they are produced, and to express these rules as economically as possible.

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56. Pitch

p414. An auditory sensation which places sounds on a scale from low to high.

When we hear a regularly vibrating sound such as a note played on a musical instrument, or a vowel produced by the human voice, we hear a high pitch if the rate of vibration is high and a low pitch if the rate of vibration is low. Many speech sounds are voiceless (e.g. [s]) and cannot give rise to a sensation of pitch in this way. The pitch sensation that we receive from a voiced sound corresponds quite closely to the frequency of the vocal folds. However, we usually refer to this vibration frequency as 'fundamental frequency' (which we can measure) in order to distinguish it from the subjective impression of pitch.

Pitch is used in many languages as an essential component of the pronunciation of a word, so that a change of pitch may cause a change in meaning: these are called 'tone languages'. In most languages (whether or not they are tone languages) pitch plays a central role in INTONATION.

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57. Plosive

p416. A sound produced by forming a complete obstruction to the flow of air out of the mouth and nose. Normally, this results in a build-up of compressed air inside the chamber formed by the closure. When the closure is released, there is a small explosion that causes a sharp noise.

Examples for English

British English and US English have six plosive consonants, /p t k/ (voiceless) and /b d g/ (voiced).

In syllable-initial position [UKT: see ONSET], sounds in the voiceless group /p t k/ are strongly aspirated (see ASPIRATION), and in final position Glottalisation of these sounds causes a shortening of the preceding vowel. Sounds in the voiced group /b d g/ tend to be 'devoiced' at the beginning and ends of words. At the ends of words, the pairs of sounds /p b/, /t d/ and /k g/ can sound very similar due to this, and one must listen to the length of the vowel to work out which consonant is being produced. [UKT: see Devoicing]

The basic plosive consonant type can be of many different forms: plosives may have any place of articulation, may be voiced or voiceless and may have an 'egressive' (breathing out) or 'ingressive' (breathing in) airflow. The airflow may be from the lungs ('pulmonic'), from the larynx ('glottalic') or generated in the mouth ('velaric'). We find great variation in the release of the plosive.

UKT: The following is from Structure of Spoken Language, Nasals and Plosives, http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/tutordemos/SpectrogramReading/
   "The plosives are unique among phoneme categories in English in that they involve three distinct phases which are sequential in time, in addition to coarticulation effects on preceding and following segments. We shall see, however, that not all phases occur in all allophonic realizations of the plosives.
   "The three phases are the following:
1. Silence - The articulators totally block the airstream. There may be some underlying voicing activity during part of this phase. The air pressure increases just behind the obstruction.
2. Plosion - The articulators quickly move away from each other. An explosive burst of air rushes through the opening, involving energy in most or all of the audible spectrum.
3. Aspiration - The articulators are now further apart, and the air pressure at the site of the obstruction has fallen so that the speech sound is no longer a burst with energy in all frequencies, but bands of aspiration which are more narrowly concentrated and which move toward the formant values in the next phoneme.
   "This multiple personality of the plosives is responsible for the two different names which are traditionally used for this phoneme category: the term stop refers to the first or silence phase, while the term plosive refers to the second or explosive phase. These two phases will also be called closure and release in what follows; this terminology conforms to Worldbet notation in which each plosive is divided into a silent phase and a explosive phase and a separate symbol is used for each phase. "
Go to Structure of Spoken Language, Overview of Plosives in TIL archives

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58. Postalveolar

p422. Descriptive of sounds made between the upper teeth and the front part of the palate.

Examples for English

British and US English have two sets of sounds referred to postalveolar, the FRICATIVES /ʃ ʒ/ and the AFFRICATES /ʧ ʤ/ .

These are also referred to as PALATO-ALVEOLAR, e.g.:

<pressure> /ˈpreʃ.əʳ/ (US) /-ɚ/ <church> /ʧɜːʧ/ (US) /ʧɝːʧ/
<pleausure> /ˈpreʒ.əʳ/ (US) /-ɚ/ <judge> /ʤʌʤ/

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59. Prefixes

p425. A prefix is an element placed at the beginning of a word to modify or alter its meaning. In general, prefixes do not alter the original pronunciation of the word stem on to which they are affixed, though they may attract secondary stress.

A narrow definition of prefix would apply only in the case of words where removal of the prefix would leave a free-standing word (for example, <unfit> is <un> + <fit>), but many treatments of English word stress also treat as prefixes such elements as <con> in <contain> or <in> in <insert>, where <tain> and <sert> do not exist independently as words.

Examples

Some examples of words containing unstressed prefixes follow, e.g.:

<admire> /ədˈmaɪəʳ/ (US) /-ˈmaɪɚ/ <desist> /dɪˈsɪst/
<contain> /kənˈteɪn/ <undo> /ʌnˈduː/

A prefix may attract secondary stress if it is affixed to a word beginning with an unstressed syllable (e.g. another prefix), e.g.:

<divided> /dɪˈvaɪd.ɪd/ <foreseen> /fɔːˈsɪːn/
<undivided> /ˌʌn.dɪˈvaɪ.dɪd/ <unforeseen> c (US) /-fɔːrˈ-/

UKT: The first line <divided> and <foreseen> are my additions.

A prefix may be stressed to avoid a clash of two stressed syllables in stress-shift situations, e.g.:

<unfair  dismissal> /ˌʌn.feə  dɪˈsmɪs.əl/ (US) /-fer-/

In homographic noun/verb pairs containing prefixes, the prefix is usually stressed in the nominal form and unstressed in the verbal form (see the panel on HOMOGRAPHS), e.g.:

<insert> (n.) /ˈɪn.sɜːt/ (US) /-sɝːt/
             (v.) /ˈɪnˈsɜːt/ (US) /-ˈsɝːt/
<record> (n.) /ˈrek.ɔːd/ (US) /-ɚd/
               (v.) /rɪˈk.ɔːd/ (US) /-ˈk.ɔːrd/

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