Phonetics

Grammatical –s

There are 3 cases in which you can always be certain of which kind of s you need.

Grammatical –s

- plural

- 3rd person singular (look-looks)

- Genitive ending (Jack’s pot)

Rules

-IZ after hissing sounds (s/z/ʃ/ʒ)
- S after fortis obstruents (p, t, k etc)
- Z in all other cases (all voiced)


Example plural
Boss bossiz
hat hats
king kingz (also car ca:z)

Example 3rd
guess guessiz
look looks
read readz

Example Genetive ending

Dennisiz

Jacks

Joyz

Past participle endings –ed

Past participle endings -ed

- plural

- 3rd person singular (look-looks)

- Genitive ending (Jack’s pot)

Rules

|id| after /t,d/

|t| after fortis obstruents

|d| in other cases

Examples

To fit fitted fit-id

To shop shopped shopt

To lie lied lied

Terms

Phonological interference: This is what happens when, even though you know it’s a different letter in front of you, you still pronounce a letter from your native language.
E.g A Dutchman says fery instead of Very


Homophones: Homophones are words that sound the same but are written differently.
E.g heir/air son/sun


Phoneme: Tone used to pronounce a letter -> every phoneme has its own symbol


Accent: Speaking the same language but with different pronunciation is called speaking with an accent.


Vowels of RP: Lax : vowels are usually short and don’t change their quality (i.e monophthongs)
Tense : vowels are long and can either be monophthongs or diphthongs.
Monophthongs : are vowels with only one sound
Diphthongs : starts as one sound and end as another
Schwa : One of the most used vowels, it’s a weak vowel for unstressed syllables.

Consonants: Obstruents > Plosives
Fortis (strong) : consonants are unvoiced
Lenis (weak) : consonants are voiced

‘’Page 35’’

Linking R : the /r/ only occurs at the beginning of a syllable before a vowel. Words that end with an r do not end with pronounced r, expect if the next word starts with a vowel.

Stressed : If a vowel ( or word ) is stressed it means it’s where you put most of your vocal power in ( it’s HEllo not hello ) unstressed is the opposite of stressed (duh)

Citation : Pronouncing a sentence with every word isolated ( all words have their strong form)

Pronunciation : Mainly spoken by people who feel like they have authority.

Weak Form and Strong form

Strong form (SF ):

Pronunciation of words in isolation. Each word has an accent. Used by the queen, church and parents

A = ei

A book = ᵊ book

Weak form (WF):

Pronunciation in a longer natural utterance ( use of weak vowels ).

/shwa, I, u, i/

Gradation words :

You can use in SF and WF

Major category words:

-Nouns

-Adjectives

-Adverbs

-Main verbs

One form.

Also called ‘’Open category’’

Minor category

-Propositions

-articles

-auxiliaries

-conjuctions

-pronounces

Are most of the time gradation words.

Also called ‘’Closed category’’

The 11 rules

‘The 11 rules’ are basically 11 rules to show you in which cases words are always pronounced/transcribed in their Strong Form. These eleven rules would be :
1. Citation Pronunciation

Isolation and accent. People that are important.

2. Accented words

Accent on the article. This is the man for the job.

3. Demonstrative words

this, that, these, those. (aanwijzend voornaamwoord)

4. to do/to have as main verbs

"He did his homework"

5. Interrogative words

"Who did this to you?"

6. Auxiliary + negation (not)

shouldn't, wouldn't, don't, haven't, can't.

7. Auxiliary + tag

He couldn't do that, could he?

8. Auxiliary before a Deletion Site

John won’t do that, but Joe will ( do that )

9. Preposition before a D.S

What are you looking at?

10. Preposition + personal pronoun

for you, at me, from us. Either strong/weak or weak/strong (FOR you/for YOU)

11. Sometimes at the beginning of the sentence

Many people start their sentence with the strong form