1Comparative Typology as a branch of general linguistics

In articulating English vowels Russian students are apt to make the following mistakes:
1. They do not observe the quantitative character of long vowels;
2. they do not observe the qualitative difference in the articulation of such vowels as / i-i:/,
/ u –u: /, / o-o: /.
3. they replace the English vowels / i:,o: , u:, a; æ , / by the Russian vowels /и,о, у, а, э/;
4. they pronounce / I, e, ei / without the ‘flat position’ of the lips;
5. they soften consonants which procede front vowels as a result of which the latter become more narrow and the consonants are palatalized;
6.they articulate /o, u , ou / with the lips too much rounded and protruded;
7. they make the sounds / æ , ə / more narrow because they don’t open the mouth properly, similarly to the Russian / э, о/.
8. they do not observe the positional length of vowels,
9. they make both elements of the diphthongs equally distinct.

9. Typological characteristics of stress and intonation in Eng. & Rus.

Stress – pronunciation of one of the syllables with greater intensity. In different lang-s stress may be – fixed (falls on the same syllable in every word of the languages) or free. In Rus. stress may fall on any syllable of the word. It may change if we change a part of speech. In Eng. there are sometimes secondary stress (typical of Eng, but not Rus. e.g. underground). Accentuation is a term which in most modern languages is synonym to the word STRESS. When a certain syllable of a word is pronounced with greater intensity than the rest. In Germanic languages the stress is usually on the 1^st syllable of a word consisting of two or more syllables. In Russian the place of stress is irregular or free. It may fall on any syllable of the word. Secondary stresses common in English do not occur in Russian. The stress in Russian is enough to distinguish different words which are identical in other respects. In Russian stress is mobile, sometimes different forms of the same word are distinguished from each other, only by stress. (ст,ены-стен,ы, р,уки-рук,и) in English stress serves to distinguish the verb from the noun or adjective. (pr”esent-pres”ent)