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Chapter One: The English Sounds

The document discusses the English sound system. It notes that there are 44 speech sounds in English and they are classified into segmental and supra-segmental features. Segmental features include consonants and vowels, while supra-segmental features include stress, tone, and rhythm. Consonants are produced with an obstruction of airflow and English has 24 consonants. Vowels do not obstruct airflow and are classified as pure, diphthongs, or triphthongs. Supra-segmental features provide additional meaning and include length, pitch, stress, and intonation.

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Godson Patrick
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99 views

Chapter One: The English Sounds

The document discusses the English sound system. It notes that there are 44 speech sounds in English and they are classified into segmental and supra-segmental features. Segmental features include consonants and vowels, while supra-segmental features include stress, tone, and rhythm. Consonants are produced with an obstruction of airflow and English has 24 consonants. Vowels do not obstruct airflow and are classified as pure, diphthongs, or triphthongs. Supra-segmental features provide additional meaning and include length, pitch, stress, and intonation.

Uploaded by

Godson Patrick
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapter one : The English Sounds

The human vocal tract contains all the sounds of all the languages in the world.

The vocal tract is also called voice box or pharynx.

There are a total of 44 speech sounds in English language.

The English speech sounds in orthographic representation has 26 letters.

A phoneme is identified as the smallest speech sounds.

The study of speech sounds is called phonetics while the study of sounds in company is called
phonology.

The English sound system is classified into segmental features and supra-segmental features.

Consonants and vowels make up the segmental feature while stress, tone and rhythm make up the
supra-segmental features.

The Consonants

Consonants are produced with an interruption of airflow in the vocal tract. This interruption or
obstruction could be partial or total. The English language has 24 consonants.

The obstruction of air flow has 3 parameters for notification. They are place of articulation, manner of
articulation and state of glottis. The place of articulation is the point in the vocal tract where the sound is
produced. The places of articulation are bilabial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar, palatal,
velar and glottal.

Under manner of articulation the different degrees of obstruction are classified into six groups which
are; plosives, fricatives, affricates, nasals, laterals and approximants. Plosives or stops depict complete
blocking of airstream from the oral cavity. Fricatives allow the airflow to be severely obstructed, thereby
causing a friction. Nasals are an obstruction at the lips. Laterals are also called liquids. Manner of
articulation is concerned with the degree of obstruction experienced during articulation of a sound.

State of the glottis is used to show if vocal cords vibrate or not. If they vibrate the sound is said to be
voiced, if they don’t the sound is said to be voiceless. When the walls of the larynx are drawn apart from
each other, a voiceless sound is produced. When it is touching each other, a voiced sound is produced.

The 24 consonants of English language

/p/: voiceless bilabial plosive

/b/: voiced bilabial plosive

/t/: voiceless alveolar plosive

/d/ : voiced alveolar plosive

/k/: voiceless velar plosive

/g/: voiced velar plosive


/f/: voiceless labio-dental fricative

/v/: voiced labio-dental fricative

/θ/: voiceless dental fricative

/ð/: voiced dental fricative

/s/: voiceless alveolar fricative

/z/: voiced alveolar fricative

/ʃ/: voiceless palate alveolar fricative

/ʒ/: voiced palate alveolar fricative

/tʃ/: voiceless palate alveolar affricate

/dʒ/: voiced palate alveolar affricate

/m/: voiced bilabial nasal

/n/: voiced alveolar nasal

/ŋ/: voiced velar nasal ( there are three nasal sounds in English language; /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/ .

/l/: voiced alveolar lateral ( this is the only lateral sound in English)

/r/: voiced palate alveolar approximant

/w/: voiced bilabial approximant

/j/: voiced palatal approximant

/h/: voiceless glottal fricative

Vowels sounds

Vowels are sonorants and are basically produced without obstruction of air flow. All Vowels are voiced.
The three demarcations of the tongue play an essential role in vowel formation. Vowels are classified
into three namely; pure vowels (monothongs), dipthongs and triphthongs.

The description of Vowels consists of the part of the tongue involved in the production of vowel sounds.
They include; part of the tongue, height of the tongue and shape of the pharynx.

Pure vowels; they are /i/, /e/, /ə/, /æ/, /ɔ/, /u/ and /ʌ/ /i:/, /a:/, /ɔ:/, /u:/, and/ʒ:/ .

Dipthongs

A diphthong represents two vowels. It is a double sound. There are 8 diphthongs and they are: /əu/,
/ai/, /au/, /ɔi/, /iə/, /eə/, and /uə/

Triphthongs
A triphthong is a union of three vowels sounds produced in a syllable. /aiə/ and /auə/ are examples of
triphthongs.

Supra-segmental features

suprasegmental or prosodic features are length, pitch, stress, and intonation.

Length is whether a vowel or consonant is long or short.

Stress is the prominence assigned to a word or a syllable. The word that is pronounced with greater
force than other words in a sentence is said to be stressed. When it is a verb, the stress is on the second
Syllable. When it is a noun, the stress is on the first syllable. The classification of stress are secondary or
weak stress and unstressed.

Questions

1. How many speech sounds are they in English language


a) 50
b) 44
c) 45
d) 20
2. The English sound system is classified into __&__
a) Vowels and consonants
b) Monothongs and diphthongs
c) Segmental and supra segmental features
d) Voiced and voiceless
3. Vowels and consonants make up ___
a) English sound
b) Segmental features
c) Voiced sounds
d) Supra-segmental feature
4. __ is produced with an interruption of airflow in the vocal tract
a) Consonants
b) Vowels
c) Plosives
d) Fricatives
5. The English language has how many consonants
a) 12
b) 36
c) 24
d) 25
6. The obstruction of air flow has 3 parameters for notification. Which of these is not one of them
a) State of the glottis
b) Time of articulation
c) Place of articulation
d) Manner of articulation
7. The point in the vocal tract where the sound is produced is
a) State of the glottis
b) Time of articulation
c) Place of articulation
d) Manner of articulation
8. Under manner of articulation the degrees of obstruction are classified into how many groups
a) 4 groups
b) 6 groups
c) 12 groups
d) 3 groups
9. ___ is concerned with the degree of obstruction experienced during the construction of sounds
a) Manner of articulation
b) Sound box
c) Consonants
d) State of the glottis
10. ___ is used to show if the vocal cords vibrate or not
a) Vibrato
b) State of the glottis
c) Place of articulation
d) Bilabial
11. When the vocal cords vibrate the sound produced is
a) A voiced sound
b) A consonant sound
c) A voiceless sound
d) A vowel sound
12. Which of these better represents the voiceless palate alveolar fricative
a) /ʒ/
b) /dʒ/
c) /ʃ/
d) /tʃ/
13. Which of these better represents the voiced velar plosive
a) /k/
b) /g/
c) /d/
d) /θ/
14. Vowel sounds are how many in number
a) 10
b) 20
c) 12
d) 18
15. Which of these is not a classification of vowel sounds
a) Monothongs
b) Dipthongs
c) Triphthongs
d) Trithongs
16. Pure vowels are how many in number
a) 10
b) 20
c) 12
d) 18
17. Which of these is not a diphthong
a) /əi/
b) /əu/
c) /iə/
d) /ea/
18. Which of these is not a supra-segmental feature of English sound system
a) Pattern
b) Rhythm
c) Intonation
d) Stress
19. ___ is the prominence assigned to a word or a syllable
a) Pattern
b) Rhythm
c) Intonation
d) Stress
20. The word that is pronounced with greater force than other words in a sentence is said to be
a) Rhythmic
b) Stressed
c) Hyphenated
d) Pitched
21. __ consists of the part of the tongue involved in the production of vowel sounds
a) State of the glottis
b) Manner of Articulation
c) Description of Vowels
d) Vowel patterns
22. The English speech sounds in orthographic representation has how many
a) 50
b) 44
c) 45
d) 26
23. The vocal tract is also called
a) Pharynx
b) Sound box
c) Vocal cords
d) Larynx
24. When the walls of the larynx are drawn apart from each other, a __ sound is produced
a) A voiced sound
b) A consonant sound
c) A voiceless sound
d) A vowel sound
25. __ is identified as the smallest speech sounds
a) Phoneme
b) Phonetics
c) Phonology
d) Phonominals
26. The study of speech sounds is called
a) Phoneme
b) Phonetics
c) Phonology
d) Phonominals
27. The study of sounds in company is called
a) Phoneme
b) Phonetics
c) Phonology
d) Phonominals
28. Which of these is not a manner of Articulation
a) Plosives
b) Fricatives
c) Africatives
d) Approximants
29. __ contains all the sounds of all the languages in the world
a) Vocal tract
b) Sound box
c) Speech system
d) Larynx
30. ___ depict complete blocking of airstream from the oral cavity
a) Nasals
b) Laterals
c) Plosives
d) Affricates
31. Which of these is an obstruction of sound production at the lips
a) Nasals
b) Fricatives
c) Plosives
d) Affricates
32. Which of these is also known as liquids
a) Nasals
b) Laterals
c) Plosives
d) Affricates
Questions: 1b, 2c, 3b, 4a, 5c, 6b, 7c, 8b, 9a, 10b, 11a, 12c, 13b, 14b, 15d, 16c, 17c, 18a, 19d,
20b, 21c, 22d, 23a, 24c, 25a, 26b, 27c, 28c, 29a, 30c, 31a

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