Lecture 1 The Phonetics System of a Language

'n vl/, “I saw him” - /ai 's :im/, but “history” -/histri/, “him” -/him/);

6. 
   /j / is omitted before /u/ )e.g. “duty’ -/du:ti/, “student” - /’studnt/,
   

“new” -/nu:/);

7. 
   /d/ is omitted after /l/ & /n/ )e.g. “cold”, “old”, “individual”);
   
8. 
   /k/ is omitted before /t/ )e.g. ”asked” -/æst /);
   
9. 
   The glottal stop /?/ is used instead of /t/ before /m, n, l, r, j, w/ (e.g. “certainly” - /sә:?nli /, “that one” - / æ?w n/, etc);
   
10. 
    GA vowels are not differentiated by their length. D. Jones notes
    

that all American vowels are long;

11. 
    /æ/ is used instead of /a:/ in words which do not contain “r” in spelling “path”, “glass”, “laugh”, “can’t”, “last”, “grass”, etc. Exceptions: “father”, “palm”, “balm”, “alms”);
    

1. 
   / æ / in GA is wider & longer than RP / æ /;
   

13. 
    /o / is much less diphthongal than in RP. It may be represented as /o:/;
    
14. 
    / ә/ tends to be monophthongized (e.g. “usually” - /ju әli/, “rural”
    

/rurәl/).
2.Peculiarities in the stress patterns in words in GA as compared to RP. American speakers make much greater use of secondary stress in polysyllabic words than British speakers do. In words which end in “-ary”, “-ory”, “-ery”, “-mony”, “-ative” the first syllable in the suffix bears tertiary stress (i.e. stress which is somewhat weaker than secondary stress). E.g. dictio nary, terri tory, milli nery, cere mony, com muni, cative.

3. 
   Peculiarities of GA intonation.
   

The most frequent intonation contour for statements & requests in GA is the tune, beginning low, rising to a high level, & then steadily falling.
E.g. He asked me to do it. Or He asked me to do it.
You better do it. or You better do it.
The same type of falling intonation contour may characterize the so-called General questions in GA.
E.g. did he ask you to do it?

“Rising” tunes that rise from a low pitch level & end on a high pitch level occur with some General questions, especially in situations where a very polite form is desirable.

E.g. do you know him?

Though the so – called Special Questions are pronounced with a falling tone in both RP & GA, the difference lies in the pr-n of the Scale. If in RP it is usually the Descending Scale, in GA the whole utterance is generally pronounced on a level tone.

E.g. RP ‘Why haven’t you told me about it?

GA Why haven’t you told me about it?

Why haven’t you told me about it?

Another frequent intonational characteristic in GA is to end a sentence with a high-pitch fall-rise.

E.g. We certainly can.