Лекциялар жинағы Мамандығы: 5В011900 «Шетел тілі: екі шетел тілі»
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| Syllable formation in English is based on the phonological opposition vowel – consonant. Vowels are usually syllabic while consonants are not, with the exception of [1], [m], [n], which become syllabic if they occur in an unstressed final position preceded by a noise consonant, for example ['lıtl] little, ['blasəm] blossom, ['ga:dn] garden.
The structure of the syllable is known to vary because of the number and the arrangement of consonants. In English there are distinguished four types of syllables. 1) open [nзυ] no CV 2) closed [od] odd VC 3) covered [nзυt] note CV(C) 4) uncovered [зυ], [зυk] oh, oak V(C) It should be pointed out here that due to its structure the English language has developed the closed type of syllable as the fundamental one while in Russian it is the open type that forms the basis of syllable formation. The number of syllable varieties from the point of view of their structure is 23. The structure of the English syllable reveals variations in the number of pre-vocalic consonants from 1 to 3 and post-vocalic consonants from 1 to 5. As to the number of syllables in the English word it can vary from one to eight, for example [кΛm] come, [‘sıtı] city, [‘fæmili] family; [sım'plısıtı] simplicity, [‘Λn’næ∫ərəlı] unnaturally, [‘ınkom,pætı’bılıtı] incompatibility, ['Λnın,telid3ı’bılıtı] unintelligibility. So far we have described some of the aspects of syllabic structure of English. As was mentioned earlier, the other aspect of the dialectical unity which characterizes the speech continuum is syllable division. The linguistic importance of syllable division in different languages is in finding typology of syllables and syllabic structure of meaningful units of a language, that is morphemes and words. It is the syllable division that determines the syllabic structure of the language, its syllabic typology. It is easy to understand that syllabic structure of a language like its phonemic structure is patterned, which means that the sounds of language can be grouped into syllables according to lie certain rules. The part of phonetics that deals with this aspect of a language is called phonotactics. Phonotactic possibilities of a language determine the rules of syllable division. As the phoneticians point out, in the English language the problem of syllable division exists only in case of intervocalic consonants and their clusters like in the words ['sıtı] city, ['əgri:] agree, ['ekstrə] extra and others. In such cases the point of syllable division is not easily found. Let us consider the first case. Theoretically two variants are possible: a) the point of syllable division is after the intervocalic consonant; b) the point of syllable division is inside the consonant. In both cases the first syllable remains closed according to phonotactic rules of the English language, because the short vowel should remain checked. The results of instrumental analysis show that the point of syllable division in words like ['pıtı] pity, [topık] topic, [me3ə] measure, [babı] Bobby is inside the intervocalic consonant. This conclusion is of great importance for Russian learners of English. They should keep in mind that in the Russian language the stressed syllable in the structure (C)VCV(C) is always open, for example, y-xo, мя-та, о-бувь, while in English this kind of syllable is always closed if the syllabic vowel is short and checked. So to be able to pronounce the English words of this type correctly it is necessary to make transition from a vowel to a consonant very close. Now let us examine another type of intervocalic consonant clusters. It is the VCCV(C) type, for example [ə'gri:] agree, [ə'brΛpt] abrupt and so on. To be able to determine the syllabic boundary in words of this type it is necessary to apply phonological criteria, the first of which might be the distribution of segmental phonemes. In the abovementioned examples the words should be divided into syllables in the following way: [ə-'gri:], [ə-'brΛpt] because such combinations of consonants as [gr], [br] are permissible initial clusters for the English language. On the other hand, there are clusters that can never be fourtd in the word initial position and consequently should be broken by syllabic boundary, for example: [əd-'maıə] admire, [əb-'ho:] abhor. It should be pointed out that there are cases when the distributional criteria may fail. In this case when the number of intervocalic consonants is three as in the word ['ekstrə] extra we have to state the possible points of syllable division: [‘ek-strə] – back street ['eks-trə] – six try ['ekst-rə] – mixed ray In such cases it is the native speaker's intuition that could be relied on. The subconscious feeling of a new pronunciation effort makes him divide the words of such types into [‘ek-strə]. This natural way of division is fixed in the pronunciation dictionary. In compound words like [‘t3υstræk] toast-rack it is the morphological criterion that counts because the boundaries of the syllable should correspond to morpheme boundaries and so such cases present no difficulty from this point of view. Now we shall consider two very important functions of the syllable. The first function we should mention is known to be the constitutive function of the syllable. It lies in its ability to be a part of a word or a word itself. The syllable forms language units of greater magnitude, that is words, morphemes and utterances. In this respect two things should be emphasized. First, the syllable is the unit within which the relations between the distinctive features of the phonemes and their acoustic correlates are revealed. Second, within a syllable (or a sequence of syllables) prosodic characteristics of speech are realized, which form the stress-pattern of a word and the rhythmic and intonation structures of an utterance. In sum, the syllable is a specific minimal structure of both segmental and suprasegmental features. The other function of the syllable is its distinctive function. In this respect the syllable is characterized by its ability to differentiate words and word-forms. To illustrate this a set of minimal pairs should be found so that qualitative and/or quantitative peculiarities of certain allophones should indicate the beginning or the end of the syllable. So far only one minimal pair has been found in English to illustrate the word distinctive function in the syllable, that is [naı-'treıt] nitrate – [naıt-'reıt] night-rate. The distinction here lies in: a) the degree of aspiration of [t] sounds which is greater in the first member of the opposition than in the second; b) allophonic difference of [r]: in the first member of the opposition it is slightly devoiced under the influence of the initial [t]; c) the length of the diphthong [aı]: in the second member of the opposition it is shorter because the syllable is closed by a voiceless plosive [t]. It can be easily seen from the example that syllable division changes the allophonic contents of the word because, as it is generally known, the realization of the phoneme in different positions in a syllable (initial, medial, final) results in different allophones. The analogical distinction between word combinations can be illustrated by many more examples: an aim – a name mice kill – my skill an ice house – a nice house peace talks – pea stalks plat rack – play track Sometimes the difference in syllabic division might be the basic ground for differentiation sentences in such minimal pairs as: I saw her eyes. – I saw her rise. I saw the meat. – I saw them eat. Here we should mention another phenomenon in English which sometimes illustrates the linguistic value of the syllable. The fact is the majority of phoneticians regard the length of the syllabic vowel to be a defining characteristic of the syllable. It has been proved experimentally that the duration of a vowel increases when a rising nuclear tone occurs within it. In such cases the vowel becomes free enough to indicate the syllabic boundary line, for example: → Isn't this day, hotter? The → days are getting hotter. The word hotter in the sentence pronounced with the falling tone has the syllabic boundary within the consonant [t] because of the checked character of the [o] vowel. When pronounced with a rising tone the vowel is prolonged so that it becomes free enough to indicate the syllabic boundary between [o] and [t]. In such cases we might say that the syllable division here is one of the factors that differentiate the communicative types of sentences. Yet the difference is not always regularly displayed because, as was mentioned above, duration of vowels in English depends on a lot of other factors. Therefore this aspect of the problem needs some further, more detailed investigation. Summarizing we might say that at the functional level of description the syllable could be conceived of as a smallest pronounceable unit with potential linguistic importance. That is why it reveals its functional value only occasionally. By way of conclusion we could enumerate the following peculiarities of the syllabic structure of English which should arrest the learner's attention: 1) syllabic boundary is inside intervocalic consonant preceded by vowels, for example: Betty, racket, money, hotter; 2) syllabic boundary is before an intervocalic consonant if it is not preceded by the above-mentioned vowels, for example: later, speaker; 3) the sonorants [1], [m], [n] are syllabic if they are preceded by noise consonants, for example: little, blossom, sudden; 4) there cannot be more than one vowel (a diphthong or a monophthong) within one syllable; 5) the typical and most fundamental syllabic structure is of (C)VC type; 6) word final consonants are normally of weak-end type. Russian learners of English as well as would-be teachers of English should be well aware of the regularities governing the structure of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words as well as the syllabic structure of the utterance. What matters here is that wrong syllable division on the articulatory level leads to inadequate perception of phrases and consequently to misunderstanding. жүктеу/скачать 221,88 Kb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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