MANUA L OF

Americon
Enolish
Prihunciotion
FOURTH EDITION

Cfifford H. Protor, Ir.

University of California, Los Angeles

Betfy Wolloce Robineff

University of Minnesota

HOII, RINEHARI AND WINSTON. INC.

Worth Chicago San Francisco Philadelphia
Fort
Montreal Toronto lnndon Svdnev
Tokyo
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Prator, Clifford H. (Clifford Holmes)

Manual of American English pronunciation.

Includes index.
1. English language-United States-Pronunciation.
2. English language-Text-books for foreign speakers.
I. Robinett, Beny Wallace. II. Tille.
PE2fi'.n 1985 428.1 84-25222

rsBN 0-03-0u0?u3-8
Copyright @ 1985, 1972by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Copyright O 1957 by Clifford H. Prator, Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or me-
chanical, including photocopy, recording or'any information stor-
age and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work

should be mailed to: Copyrights and Permissions Department,
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., Orlando, Florida 32887

Printed in the United States of America

rsBN 0-03-000703-8

012 090 987

Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

The Dryden Press
Saunders College Publishing
Contents

Accent lnventory (Copy 1) tx

lntroduction: To the Teacher XV

I. Differences in the Fourth Edition II. How the Manual Is Put
Together III. Use of the Manual IV. Use of the "Accent Inventory"

LEssoN 1 The Phonetic Alphabet

I. Learning to Pronounce English II. Why a Phonetic Alphabet?
III. Table of Symbols fV. How Words Are Transcribed V. Exercises

LEssoN 2 Classification of Vowels 10

I. The Five Fundamental Vowels II. The Eleven Vowels of American

English III. Exercises

LEssoN 3 Unstressed Vowels 18

I. The Importance of Stress II. The Pronunciation of Unstressed

Vowels III. Where the Stress Falls IV. Exercises
vi Contents

LESSON 4 Sentence-Stress and Rhythm 28

I. Stress in Groups of Words II. Which Words Should Be Stressed?

III. The Pronunciation of Unstressed Words of One Svllable IV.
Thought Groups and Blending V. Exercises

LESSON 5 Rising-Falling Intonation 44

I. What Intonation Is II. Rising-Falling Intonation III. The Use of
Rising-Falling Intonation IV. Exercises

LESSON 6 RiSing Intonation 58

I. The Use of Rising Intonation II. Nonfinal Intonation III. Exercises

LESSON 7 MOre abOUt IntOnation 75

[. Focus II. Lexical (Emotional) Intonation III.

Intonation and
Inventory of Intonation Patterns IV. Exercises

LEssoN I Classification of Gonsonants;

the Endings -ed and -s 90

I. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds II. Stops and Continuants, Sibilants

III. Point of Articulation IV. honunciation of -ed V. Pronunciation
of -s VI. Exercises

LEssoN 9 Initial and Final Consonants 101

I. Words II. The Lengthening of

Aspiration at the Beginning of
Vowels before Final Consonants IIL Aspiration at the End of Words
IV. Exercises

LEssoN 10 L, R, and Syllabic Gonsonants 113

I. The Formation of /U and lrl 11. lU and hl after Front Vowels III.
Syllabic Consonants IV. Exercises

LEssoN 11 Front Vowels 125

I. Vowel Substitutions II. The Vowel /iyl as in bg4t III. /r/ as in
bit IY. leyl as in bait V. /e/ as in bet Yl. lnl as in bat VII.
Exercises
Contents vii
LEssoN 12 Gentral and Back Vowels 136

I. The Vowel /a/ as in pqt lI. lcl as in bought III. /ow/ as in bqgt
IIr/. lul as in put V. /uw/ as in bgst YI. lel as in bgt, and /arl as in
bird VII. Exercises

LEssoN 13 Consonant Substitutions: Part 1 148

I. Consonant Substitutions lI. l0l , ltl , and lsl; 16/ , ldl , and lzl III.
/dL/ and lvl IV. /S/ and /t5/ V. Exercises

LEssoN 14 Gonsonant Substitutions: Parl2 159

I. lvl, lwl, and lhwl lI.

lbl , ltl ilI. Final lml , ln/, lgl , and lgk/ IV.
lW V. Exercises

LESSON 15 COnSOnant ClUSterS 173

I. Phonotactic Rules II. Position III.
Consonant Clusters in Initial
Initial Clusters Beginning with /s/ IV. Consonant Clusters in Final
Position V. Making Clusters Easier to Pronounce VL Exercises

LEssoN 16 The Sandhi of Spoken English 189

What Sandhi-Forms Are IL More

I. about Unstressed Function
Words III. The Disappearing ! IV. Reductions of Verb * to V.
Palatalization across Word Boundaries VI. A Word of Caution VII.
Exercises

LEssoN 17 Long and Short Vowels 206

L Problems of Spelling English IL The System of Long and Short
Vowels III. Vowel Sounds and Svllable Boundaries IV. Vowels
before ! or 1 V. Exercises

LEssoN 18 Regular and lrregular Spellings 218

I. What Is Regular Spelling? II. Principal Elements of Regularity UI.
Exercises

Accent Inventory (Copy 2) 235

Index 241
STUDENT'S NAME

COURSE AND SECTION

DATE OF RECORDING

Accent Inventory (Copy 1)

To the Student

This "Inventory" is to be used, preferably at the very beginning of the English

course, so that you may have constantly at hand a diagnosis of the elements of
foreign "accant" in your own individual speech. First, your voice will be re-
corded as you read the "Diagnostic Passage" on the next page. The reading
should be done at normal speed, in a matter-of-fact tone, without unusual care
in pronunciation; in other words, it should sound as much like natural conver-
sation as possible. Then the instructor will listen to the recording many times,
and make an analysis, on the following pages, of your speech difficulties.
These pages will serve as a guide to the sections of the Manual that are of
most importance to you, and show just what phases of English pronunciation
should be of most concern to you.
The "Inventory" may be used again at the end of the course to measure
the progress you have made.

SUGGESTED KEY TO CORRECTIONS

Phonetic symbols immediately under word: what you should have said. Second
line of phonetic symbols under word: mispronunciation in your speech.
' Over a syllable or word: you left this unstressed; it should be stressed.
(') over a syllable or word: you stressed this; it should be unstressed.

Black line: normal intonation.

Colored line: your inconect intonation.

i unnatural pause you made.

lx
x Accent Inventory

Diagnostic Passage

(1) When a student from another country

comes to study in the United States, he has to find out

for himself the answers to many questions, and he has

many problems to think about. (2) Where should he live?

(3) Would it be better if he looked for a private room

off campus or if he stayed in a dormitory? (4) Should

he spend all of his time just studying? (5) Shouldn't he

try to take advantage of the many social and cultural

activities which are offered? (6) At first it ls not easv

for him to be casual in dress, informal in manner, and

Accent lnventory xt

confident in speech. (7) Little by little he learns what

kind of clothing is usually worn here to be casually

dressed for classes. (8) He also learns to choose the

language and customs that are appropriate for informal

situations. (9) Finally he begins to feel sure of himself.

(10) But let me tell you, my friend, this long-awaited

feeling doesn't develop suddenly, does it. (11) All of

this takes will power.

xii Accent Inventory

Check List of Problems

I. STRESS AND RHYTHM

A. Stress on wrong syllable of words of more than one syllable. (See Lesson 3,
Section III, of manual.)
-
B. Misplaced stress on nominal compounds. (L. 4, S. II.)
C. - Misplaced stress on two-word verbs. (L. 4, S. II.)
D. - Other improper sentence stress. (L. 4, S. II.)
E. - Improper division of sentences into thought groups. (L. 4' S' IV.)
F. - Failure to blend well, to make smooth transitions between words or syllables.

- l. Improper insertion of /a/ to break up difficult combinations of conso-

nants. (L. 4, S. IV; L. 15, S. I.)
-
2. _ Insertion of /e/ before initial q followed by a consonant. (L. 15,
s. u.)
3. Unnatural insertion of glottal stop. (L. 4, S. IV.)

-
II. INTONATION

A. Unnatural intonation at end of statements. (L. 5, S. il.)

B. - In wh-questions. (L. 5, S. m.)
C. - In yes-no questions. (L. 6, S. I.)
D. - In series. (L. 6, S. II.)
E. - In questions with two altematives. (L. 6, S. II.)
F. - In direct address. (L. 6, S. il.)
G. - In tag questions. (L. 6, S. II.)
H. - In other cases.

-
ilt. vowEls
A. Failure to obscure unstressed vowels in words of more than one syllable.
(L. 3, S. il.)
-
B. Failure to obscure the vowels of unstressed words. (L. 4, S. II and III.)
C. - Failure to lengthen stressed vowels before final voiced consonants.
(L. 9, S. II.)
-
D. Substitution of an improper vowel sound. (L. 2; ll; 12; 17;18.)

-
Accent lnventory xiii
1. for liyl. 5. for lnl. 9. for lul . 13. for layl.
2. - for |il. 6. - for lal. 10. for /uw/. 14.
- for lel. laut/
- for lcl. .

3. - forleyl. 7. - forlcl. 11.

- 15.
-for
4. for lel. 8. for /oW. 12. lerl. 16.
- - - - for /yuw/.
- - -for -
IV. CONSONANTS
A. Substitutions due to improper voicing. (L. 8, S. I.)
- 1. lpl for lbl. 5. 16l for /01. 9. l{l for li,l.
2. lU for ldl. 6. lfl for lvl. 10. ltll for ldLl.
3. - lkl for lgl. - 7. - Others.
lsl for lzl.
11.
4. - l0l for 16l. - 8. lzl for lsl. -
- - -
B. -
Substitutions - especially improper point of articulation.
due to other causes,

- lrt for lU. (L. 10, S. I.)

- lU for lrl. (L. 10, S. I.)

- 16l for ldl. (L. 13, S. II.)

- ldl for 16l. (L. 13, S. II.)

- lzl for 16l. (L. 13, S. II.)
- ltl for l0l. (L. 13, S. II.)
- lsl for l0l. (L. 13, S. II.)

- ldi:l for lyl. (L. 13, S. il.)

- tyl for ldLl. (L. 13, S. III.)
- tLt for tdiJ. (L. 13, S. III.)

- lil for /t5/. (L. 13, S. IV.)

- lvl for lbl. (L. 14, S. I.)
- lbl for lvl. (L. 14, S. I.)
- lwl for lvl. (L. 14, S. I.)
- lvl for lwl. (L. 14, S. I.)
- lvl for /hw/. (L. 14, S. I.)
- lpl for lfl. (L. 14, S. II.)
- lhwl for lfl. (L. 14, S. II.)

- lgl for lnl. (L. 14, S. ru.)

- lnl for lgl. (L. 14, S. m.)
- lnl for lm/. (L. 14, S. m.)
- Others.

-
xiv Accent Inventory

C. Improper point of articulation, resulting in abnormal sound but not substitu-

tion.
-
1. _ tdt. (L.8, s. III.)
2. _ ttt. (L. 8, S. m.)
3. hl. (L. 10, S. I.)
4. -
D. Insufficient
-Others. aspiration of initial voiceless consonants. (L. 9, S. I.)
E. - Excessive aspiration of final stops and voiced continuants. (L. 9, S. m.)
F. - Excessive aspiration of "/d/-like" medial ltl. (L.9, S. I.)
G. - Improper addition of a consonant.

- l. /sk/ for lnl. (L. 14, S. m.)

2. - lgwl for lwl. (L. 14, S. I.)
3. - /h/ inserted. (L. 14, S. IV.)
4. - Others.
H. Slighting
- or omission of a consonant.
- l. _ tht. (L. 14, s. rv.)
2. tst.(L.8, S. V.)
3. - tzt. (L.8, S. V.)
4. _
- ttt. (L. 8, S. IV.)
s. _ tdt. (L. 8, s. IV.)
6.
-Others.
V. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS
A. Confusion between the three usual ways of pronouncing the -ed ending. (L.
8, S. IV.)
-
B. Confusion between the three usual ways of pronouncing the -s ending. (L. 8,
S. V.)
-
C. Syllabic consonants. (L. 10, S. lll.)
- l. Failure to pronounce the preceding consonant (for example, /wunt/ for
/wudnt/).
2.
- Insertion of /e/ (for example, /wudenV for /wudnt/).
D. -
Failure to insert /a/ between a front vowel and lU or lrl . (L. 10, S. II.)
-
VI. GENERAL COMMENTS
Introduction: to the Teocher

l. Differences in the Fourth Edition

This new edition of the Manual of American English Pronunciation differs

substantially from its three predecessors, published respectively in 1951, 1957,
and 1972. The most obvious change is the addition of two new lessons, num-
bered 7 and 16. The total number of lessons has thus been increased from 16
to 18.
The new lrsson 7, entitled "More about Intonation," is now the culmi-
nation of a sequence of five lessons that deal with the so-called "suprasegmen-
tal" features of spoken English which determine its rhythm and intonation.
Lesson 7 permits treating several useful intonation patterns that were not dis-
cussed in earlier editions. It also provides room for a systematic inventory of
patterns and a diagnostic passage for identifying the intonation problems of
individual students.
Lesson 16, "The Sandhi of Spoken English," ensures more adequate
treatment of the phonetic modifications that take place especially in informal
types of connected speech. The two new lessons add up to a considerable shift
in emphasis away from work on individual sounds and toward greater attention
to the whole stream of speech. Years of experience in teaching pronunciation
have led the authors to a deepening conviction that a diet made up principally
xvl Introduction

of drill on minimal pairs of isolated words is not the best treatment for helping
advanced students-the kind for whom the manual is primarily intended-to
make their speech more widely intelligible.
In other lessons new sections and/or exercises have been added to deal
with topics that had somehow been slighted or overlooked in earlier editions.
These include words ending in -ate, whose pronunciation may vary depending
on whether they are used as adjectives, nouns, or verbs (Lesson 3-III-4); "echo
questions" (6-D); focus of meaning in questions and statements (7-I); adverbs
ending in -edly (S-IV, 8-F-2); substitutions for /f/ (14-II, 14-D); phonotactic
rules governing the positions in which consonants can be used (15-D; types of
regularity in the spelling of sounds (18-I); and so on.
In other places the descriptions of sound production have been rewritten
so as to update the theory on which they were based and to provide better
practical advice regarding articulatory problems. Several figures have been re-
drawn in order to achieve greater accuracy and clearer detail.
The authors have tried to eradicate traces of sexist attitudes wherever they
were detected, and a definite attempt has been made to include female and male
references in a nonsexist fashion in the exercises.
The most significant kind of change in the new edition, however, is the
result of the effort we have made in various lessons to introduce more use of
language for real communicative purposes in the learning activities suggested
for students to carry out. The authors have always shared the belief among
teachers that languages cannot really be learned unless they are used for pur-
poses of communication. Without communicative intent, pronunciation is not
true speech; it is no more than the manipulation of linguistic forms.
We believe that the basic process whereby one learns to pronounce En-
glish, or any other language, is by imitating the pronunciation of those who
speak the language natively (see Lesson l, Section I, first sentence of all edi-
tions). Direct imitation is most effective, but circumstances often make second-
hand, indirect imitation necessary. And the imitation is also most effective if it
takes place under conditions that approach as nearly as possible those of normal
communication. Analyzing how sounds are produced is helpful but not basic.
We therefore conceive of learning to pronounce as a process that is nor-
mally achieved in three steps:
l. Learning to hear and identify a sound or sound contrast when a native
speaker produces it;
2. Learning to produce it when the learner's attention is focused on pro-
nunciation;
3. Mastering it to the point of automatic production when attention is
focused on meaning (our ad-hoc definition of communication).
Under some circumstances these three steps can no doubt be taken in quick
lntroduction xvii
succession, or even simultaneously. There is evidence that, in some cases, step
two may precede step one. But there are advantages, when planning a course
or writing a textbook, in thinking of them as taking place independently and in
the order listed above.
Pronunciation exercises can be classified into three groups according to
the three steps. An example of a step-one exercise would be listening to mini-
mal pairs of words pronounced by the teacher and stating whether the word
with a given meaning came first or second. Making as clear a distinction as
possible between the italicized words in a sentence such as "He slid on the
sled" would be a step-two exericise. A step-three exercise, involving the pro-
nunciation of ldLl for example, could be to read a discussion of jogging
nLigi1l and then answer the teacher's questions on the subject. (There is such
an exercise in Lesson l3-I.)
The authors have become increasingly convinced that more attention
should be paid to the third step in teaching pronunciation. Yet it is the step that
has been largely ignored in typical pronunciation classes and that is absent from
most existing materials for teaching pronunciation. How can we know that we
have really helped our students improve their pronunciation unless we create
frequent opportunities to hear how they pronounce when they are un-self-con-
sciously communicating?
In the earlier versions of this manual some step-three activities were in-
cluded at the end of the exercise section of most lessons. But one of our major
preoccupations in preparing this new edition has been to increase the number
of such communicative activities. We have added short dialogues that can be
used in real-life situations, that have significant content, and that can be used
as a basis for improvisation. Discussion questions and discovery procedures
have been suggested, which should lead to substantial exchanges of ideas on
appropriate topics. We have inserted poetry, limericks, jokes, and riddles
where we judged they could be made relevant and useful. Contests and games
have been included as conversational and motivational devices.
An innovation about whose possibilities we zre particularly enthusiastic is
the use of small-group activities that provide opportunities for pronunciation.
Because a student in one small group can speak to the other members of that
group at the same time as members of other groups speak to one another, the
total opportunity for speaking communicatively in an environment favorable to
good pronunciation is greatly increased. The possibilities for small-group activ-
ities are pointed out in a number of places in the new edition.
In other words, we have done what we could to enrich the general, nonlin-
guistic subject matter of the material which could give rise to un-self-conscious
communication. And we have tried to do this without slighting the linguistic in-
formation and systematic drill that have always been the core of the manual.
xviii Introduction

ll. How the Manual ls Put Together

This book is definitely not for beginners. Though an effort has been made to
keep the English in which it is written as simple as possible, much of the
subject matter is technical and requires the use of exact terminology. The man-
ual focuses on only one aspect of English, its pronunciation, and treats that
topic in considerably more detail than would be appropriate for students who
do not already have a considerable command of the language. As has already
been pointed out, it was prepared with the needs of advanced nonnative speak-
ers of English in mind: to learn new speech rhythms and intonation pattems,
to acquire a more natural and less bookish delivery, to strengthen the habit of
weakening unstressed vowels, to concentrate on sounds that are not thoroughly
familiar, and the like.
At a number of American universities it has also proven useful in courses
designed to introduce native-English-speaking future teachers to the phonolog-
ical system of American English and to methods of teaching pronunciation.
The manual is based on the kind of American English that can be heard,
with some variation, from Ohio through the Middle West and on to the pacific
Coast. Living as they do in the region where the process of dialect mixing has
gone furthest and where the language has achieved most uniformity, the people
who speak this language undoubtedly constitute the present linguistic center of
gravity of the English-speaking world,r both because of their numbers and their
economic and cultural weight.
The original author of the book was born in Georgia but has spent most
of his adult life in california. The second author has lived mostly in the Middle
West. In order to avoid, in so far as possible, introducing our own favorite
idiosyncrasies of speech into the text, we have agreed to accept Kenyon and
Knott's A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English (G. and C. Merriam
Co., 1953) as our authority for the pronunciation of individual words. We feel
that it represents more closely than any other dictionary the type of speech,
identified in the preceding paragraph, which used to be called General Ameri-
can English.
We do not accept, then, the oft-repeated clich6 that a teacher can teach
only his or her variety of English. While it may be true that most of us have
to use the variety we are most familiar with when setting an oral model for our

'As indicated by its title, this manual deals primarily with American English. Readers should
therefore understand that, when the authors speak of "English" without modification, we are
refening primarily to the most general American variety. When there has been a need for greater
precision, we have used more specific terms such as "American English," "British English,"
"both American and British English," or "the English-speaking world" as above.
lntroduction xix
students to imitate, a partial solution to that problem can be found through
the
use of recorded tapes that provide a more widely standardized pronunciation.
We can also use phonetic transcriptions and physiological descriptions that rep-
resent the most widely standardized form of English.
The authors would even suggest that professionally minded teachers
might
do, as we ourselves have tried to do over the years: that is, to learn
how to
avoid on appropriate occasions such features of regional dialect as we can iden-
tify in our own speech. we do our students no favor by flaunting in class the
regionalisms-be they regionalisms of pronunciation or of grammar-that lin_
ger on in the speech of most of us. And a high degree of standardization is
desirable and a source of strength for any language in this day of almost in-
stantaneous worldwide communication.
we particularly recommend the use of tapes to provide a model when
Lesson 16, dealing with the phonetic modifications that occur especially in
informal types of connected speech, is being taught. Supplementary tapes of
practice materials have been prepared especially for this text. If teachers have
not had formal training in phonetics, they may encounter considerable difficulty
in recognizing and identifying the sandhi in their own speech.
Since many of the difficulties nonnative speakers of English experience in
pronouncing the language result from the interference of the speech habits they
have internalized in using their mother tongue, it would have been advanta-
geous to be able to organize the manual around a contrastive analysis of En-
glish and one other language. Because of the many diverse language back-
grounds of our foreign sfudents at American universities, however, it was not
feasible to do this. Convinced that there are large categories of speech difficul-
ties that all or most of our students have in common, we used a statistical
approach to this problem. Our first task was to discover as accurately and ob-
jectively as we could what these areas of common weakness were. A check
list
of categories was set up in accordance with the phonetic systems of several
languages that have been described by linguists and that were more or less
known to us. we included, insofar as we could, all previously noted departures
from the norms of the conversational pronunciation of educated native speakers
of American English. we then recorded the speech, and analyzed and counted
the "errors" of students at ucLA for three years. The result was a sort of
frequency count of the pronunciation difficulties of a group of several thousand
typical students from abroad. The manual was built around this count.
The largest linguistic groups among the students whose speech we ana-
lyzed were speakers of Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Iranian, Arabic, German,
French, and the Scandinavian languages, in that order. But there were repre-
sentatives from all the major language areas of the globe.
we believe we have thus avoided two undesirable extremes; (l) a text
organized solely in accordance with the subjective intuition of the authors. and
 lntroduction

(2) one that logically and with equal emphasis treats all the elements of the
English sound system without taking into consideration the special needs of the
student grouP.
As the results of the frequency count became available, our next concern
was to determine the order in which the various types of speech difficulty found
to be prevalent in our mixed classes should be dealt with, and the relative
amount of attention that should be devoted to each type. Our aim was to make
the students' speech as completely intelligible as possible. Could this be best
achieved by treating first and in most detail those difficulties which the count
showed to be most common, by an arrangement based on simple numerical
frequency? Or were there certain kinds of difficulty that were more serious than
others, that affected intelligibility to a greater extent, and that consequently
must be given greater emPhasis?
We examined with considerable care the widely accepted assumption that
.,errors" involving the substitution of one phoneme2 for another-pronouncing
that as /0ret/ rather than lilrltl , ot bit as /biyt/ instead of /blV-are necessarily
those which most affect intelligibility, and are consequently those which rmrst
always be attacked first. As we gained experience, we were more and more
forced to the conclusion that, while this theory might have some validity with
reference to beginning students, it was of little value as a guide in our advanced
classes. Our count revealed that the substitution of one phoneme for another
was relatively infrequent in the speech of our students. only a few such sub-
stitutions-/iyl for ltl , ltl for liyl , ltl for lowl, lal for lcl , /s/ for lzl , ltl for
ldl , ldt for 16l , and so on-accounted for the great majority of cases. Most
others, while theoretically possible or even likely, were actually quite uncom-
mon and certainly could not be regarded as problems of major importance. We
found our students having little trouble with /m/ or the diphthongs layl , lawl, and
lryl.
We were also impressed by the fact that in almost all cases of phonemic
substitution, even in those where the mispronunciation should have resulted in
giving the word a different meaning-bit as lbiytl (beat) instead of /blt/-the
context made the intended meaning quite clear. In other words, the substitution
seldom seemed to result in a misunderstanding. This impression was strength-
ened by the extreme difficulty we experienced in preparing drills made up of
sentences in which either word of a minimal pair-made, mate; time, dime;
save, safe-would be equally appropriate. Our students appeared simply to fail

2Sound which may be the sole feature whereby one word is distinguished in meaning from
another: for example, time ltayml and dime ldaymt are alike except for their initial sounds; there-
fore /t/ and /d/ are phonemes in English.
lntroduction xxa

to understand a word much more often than they mistook it for some other
word. We did not understand them a great deal more frequently than we mis-
understood them.
On the other hand, certain nonphonemic "errors" proved in practice to be
serious barriers to intelligibility, and were shown by our count to be extremely
common. An Italian student had great difficulty in making himself understood
because of his tendency to pronounce all final stops with a strong "finishing
sound." For him and many others, the improper release and aspiration of stops
was obviously a much more important problem than the substitution of, say,
l5l for lLl.
We found that a knowledge of voicing alone did not enable our students
to make a clear distinction between words like plays lpleyVl and place /pleyq/.
Better results were obtained when we also pointed out and drilled the so-called
secondary differences between leyzl and /eys/: vowel length and consonant
release. These latter are not usually classified among the phonemic qualities of
English sounds.
The senior author was at one time struck by two very fine examples of
how nonphonemic differences in sounds may even cause misunderstanding.
With another American professor and several Filipino educational officials he
was traveling by car near Manila to visit a school in the village of Polo, prov-
ince of Bula\an. The other American asked one of the officials to repeat the
name of our destination, and understood the answer to be Bolo, Bulahan. In
Pilipino, the native language of this particular Filipino, lpl and lbl, lkl and lhl
all exist as separate phonemes. lnitial lpl is unaspirated as well as unvoiced. In
English, on the other hand, initial /p/ is strongly aspirated, and initial /b/ is not
aspirated though it is voiced. The American, listening to a sentence in which
the context gave him no clue, mistook the Filipino's unaspirated lpl for a lbl .
We have traditionally regarded voicing or the lack of it as the feature that
distinguishes the phoneme lpl from the phoneme /b/. But in this case aspiration
was certainly the distinctive characteristic. The official had pronounced Bu-
lakan with a perfectly normal Pilipino /k/, formed far back in the throat and
with a very incomplete closure. In English this /k/ would have been made
farther toward the front of the mouth and with a strong closure. Though these
latter qualities are not usually thought of as essential to the lkl
-phoneme, their absence clearly made the American mistake lkl for lhl .
When an individual begins the study of a foreign language, the new pho-
nemes are often immediately obvious to him, and he therefore tends to leam
them rather quickly. The American who takes up Pilipino cannot fail to become
aware of the glottal stop /'/ that distinguishes a word llke bai ltita'l lctritO;
from bata /bata/ (dressing gown). He will also, of necessity, learn very soon
to use the phoneme lgl at the beginning of a word, as in ngalan 5ilant (name),
xxtl lntroduction

where it does not occur in English. But he may never notice or reproduce
certain other features of the new sound system, such as the incomplete closure
of /k/ or the lack of aspiration of initial /p/, unless these are pointed out to
him. These latter are not obvious, though they may profoundly affect the ability
of native speakers to understand the American's Pilipino.
We believe that any pronunciation text which devotes its attention almost
exclusively to phonemic differences concentrates on what is most obvious and
most easily acquired through simple imitation. It neglects precisely those
phases of the phonetics of the language in which imitation is most likely to
fail, and analytical knowledge and systematic drill are of greatest value.
Our own solution has been to regard unintelligibility not as the result of
phonemic substitution, but as the cumulative effect of many little departures
from the phonetic norms of the language. A great many of these departures
may be phonemic; many others are not. Under certain circumstances, any ab-
normality of speech can contribute to unintelligibility.
The fact that any phonetic abnormality can contribute to unintelligibility
does not mean that all departures from the norm should be treated as though
they were of equal importance. We have adopted an order of arrangement
based primarily on simple numerical frequency, considering first and at greatest
length those difficulties most prevalent in our classes. It was necessary at times,
of course, to modify this arrangement, in the interests of logic and good peda-
gogy, by grouping similar problems together. We also considered that an "er-
ror" that involved an entire sentence, such as a faulty intonation pattem, was
obviously of more importance than one that affected only a single sound.
Problems such as improper voicing, aspiration, and vowel length, which
recur in connection with a series of different consonants or vowels, we have
treated as a whole rather than as matters to be taken up over and over again in
connection with each individual sound. In other words, we felt that the substi-
tution of lkl for its voiced counterpart lgl ina word like big lbtgl reflected not
so much an imperfect control of these two sounds as it did a general inability
to voice final consonants. We noted that students who substituted /bl!/ for big
/bIg/ also almost invariably substituted /ey$/ for age leydi:/ and /tq/ for is lt7l.
We consequently did not prepare a separate section and drills on lkl and lgl ,
but included these sounds in a lesson on voicing. For the same reason we did
not attempt to drill all difficult consonant clusters separately, but freated the
problem they represent in a general lesson on consonant clusters and combina-
tions. In a sense, then, our approach has been synthetic rather than analytical.
In its final form the manual has a cyclic arrangement. After an initial
lesson that introduces the student to the phonetic symbols, it proceeds at once
to the problem of the weakening of unstressed vowels, explaining only enough
about vowel classification to make clear the significance of weakening and the
 lntroduction xxiii
identity of the vowel sounds. It then moves on to the closely related and cru-
cially important subject of rhythm and stress in words and sentences. The ele-
ments of intonation and the connection between intonation patterns and stress
are next treated in three lessons. Until some control of rhythm and intonation
has been achieved, drills involving connected discourse may do more harm
than good, and it is futile to hope to achieve mastery of the individual sounds
that make up the larger patterns. If the pattern is wrong, the sounds cannot be
entirely correct. If the pattern is right, correct sounds are much easier to pro-
duce.
In Lessons 8 and 9 the principles of consonant classification, voicing, and
aspiration are explained and applied, with particular emphasis on the pronun-
ciation of the endings -s and -ed. The effect of an initial or final position on
articulation is underscored. Lesson 10 deals with the liquids lll and lrl and
their influence on preceding vowel sounds, and also with the group of syllabic
consonants.
Attention is then shifted back to vowels. Detailed analyses of the forma-
tion of the individual sounds are given, and the problem of stressed vowel
substitutions is attacked. Lessons l3 and l4 deal with prevalent consonant sub-
stitutions that are the effect, not of improper voicing or aspiration, but of a
formation of the individual sounds that is abnormal in some other respect. Les-
son 15 attacks the problems produced by clusters of consonants in both initial
and final position as well as those produced medially in words and phrases.
Mention has already been made of the new Lesson 16, which deals with the
ways in which various linguistic environments lead to changes in the pronun-
ciation of words during more or less informal oral communication.
The two final lessons of the manual concern the way English vowel sounds
are represented in spelling. These lessons are intended to help students to in-
ternalize the systematic elements in English spelling as they relate to pronun-
ciation, and to recognize cases in which vowels are irregularly spelled.

lll. Use of the Manual

since the students using the manual will presumably be familiar already with
the normal spelling of common English words, we saw no advantage in writing
all exercises in phonetic symbols in an attempt to protect users of the book
from possible mispronunciations arising from the inconsistencies of English
spelling. That problem needs to be attacked in other ways. A great deal of
transcribed material has nevertheless been included, especially in the earlier
lessons. The purpose of these transcriptions is to facilitate the breaking up of
existing faulty speech habits by providing a new type of visual stimulus, thus
xxlv lntroduction

making it possible for the students' analytical faculties to intervene more effec-
tively in the formation of sounds and patterns of sounds. This effect is best
achieved while they are first becoming familiar with the symbols, and the law
of diminishing returns appears to make itself felt soon thereafter. Toward the
end of the text special symbols and markings are used more and more spar-
ingly, and the transition is thus made back to normal orthography, to the lan-
guage situation in which the student has been finding himself all along in his
other classes and in which he will continue to use English'
It was never intended that the manual should teach students to make pho-
netic transcriptions and to mark intonation themselves. All that is aimed at is
an ability to read symbols and to follow intonation lines. It is true that in
several cases the class is asked to transcribe and mark the intonation patterns
of a few carefully chosen sentences. The purpose of these exercises, however,
is merely to achieve passive recognition more rapidly by means of a little active
experience. The instructor is strongly warned against making the ability to
write in phonetic symbols an end in itself'
The phonetic symbols we finally decided upon as those best suited to our
purposes can most accurately be described as an eclectic and pedagogical sys-
tem of transcription. It is eclectic because the symbols have been borrowed
from a number of different sources representing different analyses of the phon-
ology of English. From George L.Trager and Henry L. Smith we got the
diphthongal symbols for the stressed vowels in beat lbiytl , bait lbeytl , boat
/bowt/, and boot /buwt/ as well-as the diacritically marked symbols for the
consonants in ship lltpl , vision lvi?enl , child ltlayldl , and judge ldLedLl . From
Charles C. Fries and Kenneth L. Pike came the idea of using the single symbol
/a/ to represent the four somewhat different vowel sounds in but lbg.tl
(stressed), sofa h6wfgl (unstressed), bird lbgrd/ (stressed before /r/), andfather
tti}prt (unstressed before /r/). And the idea for transcribing front vowels before
lll or lrl as centering diphthongs-/eel lfplll , here lhprl , sale lseall , there
l6p.rl, pal /paal/-was suggested to us by the transcriptions used in some
and
of these environments by British phoneticians such as Daniel Jones'
Our system is pedagogical because, in every case, the final choice of sym-
bols was based on the practical advantages and/or disadvantages of using those
symbols in the classroom to help nonnative speakers pronounce English better.
Thus we decided to use a single symbol for the four slightly different /a/-like
sounds, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, in order to spare students the
work of learning three extra symbols that seemed to have little practical effect
on their pronunciation. On the other hand, the extra combinations of symbols
for representing centering diphthongs seemed justified because of the success
we have had using them in the classroom as a graphic means of representing
the special quality a front vowel has when it stands before lll or hl . Our ex-
lntroduction xxv
perience has shown that the transcription of will as /wtel/ and bell as /beel/ is
a very definite aid in combatting the tendency of many students to pronounce
such words with a pure vowel sound and with the tongue held unnaturally high.
There were also sound pedagogical reasons for our decision to use /I/ to
represent the pronunciation of an unstressed y in final position, as in party
tpirtlt . Actually, the pronunciation of this sound seems to vary, dialectally and
idiosyncratically, between ltl and /iyl in many parts of the United States. There
may be an increasing tendency to pronounce it as liyl , particularly in singing.
In recent decades many American phoneticians have begun representing this
sound as liyl or the equivalent. But the Kenyon and Knott dictionary represents
it as ltl . as do a number of other American dictionaries and-so far as we can
discover-as do all non-American dictionaries of English. We have chosen to
use /r/ rather than trying to teach our students that a large group of unstressed
vowels are pronounced with the diphthongal sound of liyl , whose symbol
strongly suggests a stressed vowel. You will remember that one of the greatest
problems of our students is to learn how to obscure unstressed vowels. It is
nearly impossible to get most of them to pronounce an liyl that really sounds
unstressed.
Whenever possible, the exercises provided at the end of each lesson are
made up of entire sentences and even connected paragraphs rather than individ-
ual words. In writing the exercises we have often referred to English frequency
counts in order to make sure that we were using the most widely understood
words that would fit the context. The subject matter of the exercises has been
drawn largely from the everyday-life situations most familiar to students. There
are no special review lessons, but every lesson contains review exercises; great
care has been taken to ensure the recall of important principles at spaced inter-
vals.
Even so, we recognize that any course in the pronunciation of English that
asked of its students no more than the completion of the work prescribed in the
pages of this manual would be woefully incomplete. Analytical explanations
and controlled drills, interspersed with communicative activities as in this new
edition, are certainly a useful part of learning to pronounce a new language;
there seems to be no more effective way to break up deeply ingrained habits
of faulty speech and initiate the formation of new habits. However, as has been
pointed out, the fundamental way of acquiring a better pronunciation or im-
proving any other skill is by practicing that skill, by pronouncing. There is no
substitute for very extensive, well-motivated, and well-intentioned use of the
language in a natural communicative situation. No textbook can completely
supply that need, and a single course seldom lasts long enough to develop the
skill of pronunciation as fully as one could hope for.
In learning a new language a speaker usually internalizes its relatively
xxvl lntroduction

restricted phonological system at an earlier stage than its much more extensive
grammatical and lexical systems. This means that the choices involved in pro-
nouncing the language are made largely below our level of awareness, as part
of firmly established habits. On the other hand, we are more often aware of the
grammatical and lexical choices we make as we speak, and have a considerable
degree of voluntary control over them. It thus requires a longer time for us to
change our pronunciation than it does for us to correct our faulty grammar or
improve our choice of words; the improvement of pronunciation generally re-
quires first becoming aware of automatic habits so that they can be broken and
new habits can be established.
Teachers should therefore not be discouraged if the practical effects of a
phonetics course-or the results of working through a pronunciation manual-
seem to be slow in coming. In fact much of the improvement may not become
evident until some time after the course has ended. Teachers should make every
effort to provide their students with ways to continue after the end of the course
the process of becoming-aware-of-habit/ breaking-it/ establishing-new-habit.
The principal immediate benefit of the course for some students may not go
beyond learning what their problems are and how to go about solving them.
But that is at least the first step in a process that can be pushed through to
completion in due time if a student has the will to do so and knows how to go
about it.
It is encouraging to remember that there are advantages as well as disad-
vantages in the fact that phonology is a quite restricted system. Just a few small
changes in one's pronunication-for example, producing an authentic Ameri-
can retroflex 1, or saying o/ in its normal reduced form /ev/-can result in a
large improvement in the over-all impression made by a person's speech.
We therefore hope the instructor will supplement in various ways the ex-
ercises carried out in the class. Students should be encouraged to carry on,
outside of class, the oral reading suggested at the end of most lessons, and they
should be given additional suggestions that even more such reading be done.
Better integration will be secured if the materials read are those used in other
phases of the students' work in English, or in their classes in other subjects.
During such reading, the students' attention should initially be focused on one
type of difficulty: for example, final -ed, or the stress on nominal compounds.
Reading aloud is clearly one of the most effective mechanisms for learning to
monitor one's own pronunciation. It can also help students to progress from
step two to step three as they become increasingly engrossed in the meaning of
what they are reading.
With this end in view, we have done quite a bit of play-reading in our
classes. Using such props as the classroom afforded, and with books in hand,
the students read the lines and walk through the actions. In selecting plays, we
 lntroduction xxvii
give preference to those that are written in a simple modern conversational
language free from dialectal peculiarities. A large cast and well-distributed
lines are also advantages, as they make it possible for more individual students
to participate. while the play is going on, coaching by the instructor is kept to
a minimum so that the attention of the participants can be concentrated on the
meaning of what they are saying.
Like other kinds of oral reading, play-reading can be continued by stu-
dents independently even after the last meeting of the course. Reading all the
roles of a play aloud, while trying to make each of the different characters
sound convincing, can be real fun as well as an excellent way of internalizing
new habits of pronunciation.
How much time would be required for completion of the manual within
the framework of a course such as that described here? Ideally, three instruc-
tional hours per week for two semesters, a total of approximately ninety class
hours, would not be excessive. The entire program-diagnosing students,
needs, becoming familiar with the subject matter of the text, performing the
exercises, carrying out communicative activities, and motivating supplementary
reading aloud to be continued after the course has ended-could be effectively
developed within a course of those dimensions. Unfortunately, that much time
will often not be available, especially if pronunciation is merely one phase of
a general course in English as a Second Language.
If faced with the necessity of eliminating items from the program, the
authors would probably first omit Lessons 17 and lg, which deal with the
relationship between spelling and pronunciation. Though the identification of
student needs through the analysis of individually recorded diagnostic passages
can be of undoubted value, it is also very time-consuming, and a great deal of
it simply cannot be done in a short course. Lessons I through l0 constitute, in
our opinion, the hard core of the book. with a small, well-prepared group of
students, some changes in pronunciation habits might perhaps be initiated in as
little as thirty hours of class time.

lV. Use of the "Accent lnventory"

The "Accent Inventory" of the manual should be of service to resourceful

teachers in a wide variety of ways. Here we can only suggest some of the
fundamental and particularly effective uses to which it may be put, as shown
by actual classroom experience.
As its name suggests, the basic function of the "Inventory', is to make it
possible to take stock of the types of difficulty each student is having with
English speech at the beginning of the semester's or year's work. It provides a
xxvlll lntroduction

diagnosis of individual weaknesses and a prescription of corrective measures.

It should also facilitate the teacher's task of deciding which sections of the
manual are to be stressed in work with the entire class.
The ..Diagnostic Passage" is recorded on tape by each student as early in
the course as possible. This passage, on which the "Inventory" is based, is
only eleven sentences long. Admittedly, somewhat more revealing results
might be achieved if the analysis could be based on a large volume of sponta-
neous conversational material, rather than on a few sentences to be read' Stu-
dents do get tense when they know they are being tested, and the intonations
of oral reading may often vary from those of ordinary conversation. The con-
versation-based inventory, however, because of the tremendous amount of time
and ingenuity it requires, can hardly be carried out effectively and systemati-
cally with an entire class. The reading of these sentences is a practical substi-
tute, which will be valid to the extent that the teacher succeeds in putting
students at ease when the recording is made, and getting them to read naturally
and informally. The sentences should be treated, so far as possible, as a matter-
of-fact conversation, involving no unusual emotion or stresses.
Based as it is on the reading of a very small amount of material, the
inventory can probably be well carried out only if the "Diagnostic Passage" is
recorded. No teacher's ear and hand would be quick enough to note all the
elements of faulty diction while listening to a single reading of so brief a pas-
sage. And repeated readings always vary slightly. A recording, on the other
hand, may be played any number of times as the diagnostician jots down what
he or she hears.
The student is requested to make this initial recording with nothing more
in the way of preparation than a casual preliminary reading of the "Diagnostic
Passage" at home to become familiar with the thought of the sentences. If the
teacher will record a "correct" version of each sentence immediately after the
student's version, the subsequent usefulness of the recording will be increased.
The teacher then analyzes each student's version of the eleven sentences.
The "Inventory" is printed on perforated pages both preceding this introduc-
tion and following Lesson 18. Either or both of these copies can thus be re-
moved without damaging the book. We suggest that a copy be taken up from
each student so that the teacher can keep it for whatever length of time is
needed for preparing the analysis. The teacher plays each recording repeatedly
and makes notes of "errors" heard until he or she feels the analysis is reason-
ably complete. The various classifications of the "Check List of Errors" should
help the inexperienced diagnostician listen systematically and recognize some
elements of the foreign "accent" which otherwise has gone unnoticed- For this
analytical work, a tape recorder with an instantaneous-repeat mechanism is ex-
tremely useful. with such a mechanism, the machine may be stopped and
lntroduction xxix
started with a minimum of tone distortion, and may be made to repeat sen-
tences and even words.
When adequate notes have been made, the teacher or a laboratory assistant
corrects the "Diagnostic Passage" and marks the appropriate items in the
"Check List of Errors" in each student's copy.
In phrases lke let rne (Sentence 10), if the 1 is merely pronounced with
too much aspiration, the error is classified under Section IV-E of the "Check
List"; on the other hand, if the student, in an effort to pronounce ! clearly,
goes so far as to insert an /e/ between ! and m, in addition to aspirating the !,
and thus disturbs the rhythm of the sentence, the error is classified under I-F-l.
Because of the arrangement of the manual and the fact that errors in the pro-
nunication of -ed and -q may involve vowels as well as consonants, it seemed
best to make separate headings to the "Check List" (V-A and B) to cover
errors of choice between ldl-/t|-ltdl and lzl-lsl-ltzl. If -ed or -g is omitted alto-
gether, the error should be noted under IV-H-2 or 5. In the case of errors
involving a front vowel before lll or lrl , as in feel (Sentence 9), the substitution
of lfiyll or lfll/ for /f!ql/ should be noted under V-D.
The corrected and marked copies of the "Inventory" are not returned to
the students until the latter have completed their study of at least the first four
or five lessons of the manual, and can therefore be expected to recognize most
of the symbols used and understand something of the principles involved. At
the time the copies are returned, every effort should be made to impress on the
class the significance of this diagnosis and prescription. It should be pointed
out that each heading of the "Check List" contains a reference to the section
of the manual in which that particular type of speech difficulty is treated. The
list will serve as an individual guide to the text. All members of the class
should study their own weaknesses carefully. They should mark in some way
those sections of the manual that are of particular concern to them and on
which they should concentrate their future attention.
When the students have had time to study their diagnosis, they are given
an opportunity, individually with the insffuctor or in class, to listen as their
recording is played. The purpose is to permit them to "hear their own mis-
takes," and the instructor should do everything possible to help them do so,
using the repeat mechanism when needed. This is a very necessary step in
accent correction. Clear realization of shortcomings must precede improve-
ment. As they listen to themselves, the students should have before their eyes
the marked "Diagnostic Passage" that has been refurned to them.
The class will have many occasions for extensive pronunciation work of
various kinds in the eighteen lessons that make up the body of the manual, and
in the additional oral reading and conversation that may be suggested by the
instructor. The "Inventorv." on the other hand. can be used to motivate com-
 Introduction

plementary intensive elglsiss-flequently repeated drills concentrated on a

very small amount of material with absolute mastery as the aim in view. If
students could succeed in learning to repeat just the eleven sentences of the
"Diagnostic Passage" perfectly, without fface of "accent," it would probably
mean that they had acquired sufficient control over their organs of speech to
enable them eventually to eliminate all their faulty speech habits. Perfection in
these eleven sentences may therefore be urged on the class as one of the spe-
cific objectives of the course.
Drills aimed at the achievement of such mastery may take various forms.
If they have access to a language laboratory, students may play their recordings
often and try to imitate the teacher's "correct" version of each sentence. A
particularly effective type of intensive drill may be carried out if there is avail-
able a tape recorder with a repeat mechanism, as mentioned above. By means
of this mechanism, the recorder can be made to play back each of the teacher's
"correct" sentences many times at quick, regular intervals. The student first
listens, then imitates again and again, concentrating on timing, intonation, and
the grouping of words. When the teacher or assistant thinks the imitation is
adequate, the machine is shut off, and the student repeats the sentence two or
three times more in the same rhythm, without the accompaniment of the re-
corded voice.
New recordings of the "Diagnostic Passage" may, of course, be made at
any time during the term. A last recording and quick analysis, carried out as
part of the final examination, will help the teacher assign grades based on
objective evidence of practical achievement. This chance to hear oneself again
at the end of the course, and to compare one's speech at that time with earlier
efforts, should send the conscientious student away from the class with a grat-
ifying realization of the progress that has been made.
LESSON 4
The Phonetic Alphobet

l. Learning to Pronounce English

The fundamental method by which a student learns to pronounce English is by

imitating the pronunciation of English-speaking persons under conditions that
approach as nearly as possible those of normal communication. During this
course you will have many opportunities to imitate the speech of your instructor
and others; do so as accurately and as often as you can. The strange sounds
and rhythms may seem a little funny at first, but you must try to forget that,
and imitate without reservations. You have probably been amused at the pecu-
liarities in the speech of an American pronouncing, or attempting to pronounce,
your own language; now you must try to reproduce those same peculiarities in
English. Your success will depend largely on the sharpness of your ear and
your ability as an imitator.
Sometimes imitation does fail, however. The instructor may pronounce a
word or sentence many times for you, and you still may be unable to say it
exactly as he or she does. This may be because you are hearing and reproduc-
ing well only a few of the most important sounds that make up the word. It
will be of benefit to you then if the instructor can write out the word for you,
sound by sound, using symbols that are always pronounced in the same way.
One of the most typical features of English is the manner in which its unim-
portant, unstressed vowels are pronounced. Your attention may not be called
 The Phonetic Alphabet

to these at all when you hear a word spoken, but you can see them as clearly
as the stressed vowels in a phonetic transcription. The eye is more analytical
than the ear. We can see separately all the symbols that make up a written
word, but we can hardly hear individually all the sounds that compose it as it
is normally spoken.
Most people learn most things better through the eye than through the ear.
Even in learning to pronounce, where you must depend primarily on hearing,
there is every advantage in being able to have your eye aid your ear. Something
learned in two different ways is probably four times as well leamed. The or-
dinary spelling of an English word sometimes has so little apparent relation to
its sound that the spelling is not useful as a guide to pronunciation.
There will be times when you may wish to write down the pronunciation
of a new word, so as to be able to recall it later. Unfortunately, we cannot
remember a mere sound clearly for very long; but a phonetic transcription will
make recall easier. When no English-speaking person is present to pronounce
a word for you, your only recourse may be to try to reconstruct the sound of
the word from the symbols in a dictionary. Practice in reading symbols will
help you leam to make accurat€ reconstructions'
There will be times too when, to succeed in making an English sound
perfectly, you will need to know exactly what to do with your tongue, lips,
and other organs of speech. For instance, in order to make the 1-sound in En-
glish, the tip of the tongue touches the roof of the mouth somewhat farther
back than is the case with many other languages. Merely hearing the ! and
trying to imitate it, you might never guess this fact.
In other words, though you must rely chiefly on your ear and imitation to
acquire a good accent, a knowledge of the number and identity of English
sounds, the symbols used to represent them in phonetic writing, the way in
which they are produced, and a few of the laws that govern their behavior will
be of great advantage to you and will increase your chances of success. This
text is designed to give you such information and to aid you in learning to
apply it. The text is not a course in English pronunciation, but merely a useful
aid in such a course. The science of phonetics may be considered the grammar
of pronunciation; a knowledge of phonetics can help you to pronounce no less,
and no more, than a knowledge of grammar can help you to speak and write.

ll. Why a Phonetic AlPhabet?

The first step in your work with phonetics will be to familiarize yourself with
a set of symbols by means of which the important sounds of English-all those
lll. Table of Symbols 3

that serve to distinguish one word from another wordl-may be represented.

There will be a symbol for every such sound, and no more than one symbol
for any given sound.
The set of svmbols used in this manual is an adaptation of the widely
known Smith-Trager system. This adaptation is better suited to our purposes
than are systems of diacritical markings such as those employed in most well-
known English dictionaries. Use of the latter may involve learning up to thirty
different vowel symbols, with each sound represented by several different sym-
bols. You will find various versions of the Smith-Trager system used in much
technical writing on English pronunciation as well as in many bilingual diction-
aries intended for students of foreign languages.

lll. Table of Symbols

In the table that follows are included approximate French, German, Japanese,
and Spanish equivalents for most of the American English sounds. These
equivalents are not scientifically accurate in most cases, and are given only
because they may make it easier at first for you to identify the various sounds.
A written accent marks the stressed vowel of words of more than one
syllable: reason iryzenl . When there are two or more stressed syllables, the
mo.st important is marked l'l, and that with secondary stress /'/: preposition
lprepazrienl.

'Recognition of the difference between bed and bead, when the words are spoken, depends
on ability to distinguish between the vowel sounds in the two words. There must, therefore, be
separate symbols to represent these two sounds. The J in the word water is pronounced in different
ways in various parts of the United States and Great Britain, but variety of pronunciation does not
mean variety of meaning. For our purposes, one symbol will suffice to represent the various r
sounds. An alphabet based on this principle is properly called a phonemic alphabet, and phonemic
symbolization has been used in this text except that deviations have sometimes been made for
pedagogical purposes. As mentioned in the Introduction, we consistently refer to the transcription
as phonetic because students are more accustomed to this term and because several pedagogical
devices employed in the manual are phonetic in character. However, because the approach is
basically phonemic, we have followed the practice of using slant lines (/) to enclose all transcrip-
tions, even those which are obviously phonetic: for example, /:/ for vowel length and /h/ for aspi-
ration.
4 The Phonetic Alphabet

The Phonetic Alphabet

Approxitnate Equivale nt in
Symbol English Exntnples French German Japanese Spanish

CONSONANTS
l. lbl boat &owU g6b| baden ban tambi5n
2. tdt {atk llarkl loigt dumm dan un dedo
3. tfl far lfarl lait leind $*i lno
4. lg gold /gowld/ garder gut gukko golpe
5. lW home /bowrn (none) haben hachi gente
6. lW cold ikowld/ car kaufen kin vaea

lodak /kowdak/
7. tlt let lletl laisser lange (none) lado
8. lml lqan lgall lgelqe morgen urqa mano
9. lnl next /neksU non leiq qaqi nombre
10. lnl rilg lrl4l (none) singen gi4k0 naragja
silk /sIild
11. lpl part lg*t/ peu Papier pera qelo
12. hl 1est /resV (none) (none) (none) (none)
13. lsl send /q:nd qou Hauq suru sino
gity lgttil
14. t{t $p {tp/ chez !g!6n shuppatsu (none)
15. ltl ten llenl lemps Tiir !o tener
16. l0l think /9InV (none) (none) (none) cita (as
pronounced
in Madrid)
17. 16l that lprt/ (none) (none) (none) dedo
18. lvl very lyetl vain November (none) (none)
19. lwl went lwenV gUr (none) waru huevo
20. lyl you lyuut/ hier jung Wku hlerro
21. lzl zoo l4uwl chose dieser zashiki desde
roqe lrow!
knows lnowl
22. lr.l pleasure lplelerl J_e (none) (none) (none)
vision lvfianl
23. lhwl when /hwen/
---T
(none) (none) (none) (none)
24. lti,l children /t5Ildren/ Igbiq"" Pullgb cha mucho
25. ldi,l ju.y l@vril djinn (none) jama Io (when
edee le@ pronounced
age ley@ with
emphasis)
lll. Table of Symbols

The Phonetic Alphabet

Ap p ro xinat e E quiv alent in
Symbol English Etamples French German Japanese Spanish

SIMPLE VOWELS
1. lal fgr ltg/ dme Vater 4 m4o
hqt lhgtl
2. lrl gm laml mgl (none) (none) (none)
3. lel ggt tggu l)ve Bett empitsu el
brg4d /brsd/
said /sed/
4. lil tn ltnl (none) sitzen (none) (none)
become /blkem/
5. lcl for lf2rl nete wollen gru orden
all lgll
ought l?tl
6. tul pgt tpyu (none) dunkel pgtto (none)
cgUld kydl
C99d teYdl
7. lal2 bgt lb?u mg Knabg (none) (none)
bqd lbgrdl
qthgr tl69rt
-7
ago legowl
reason lnyzenl

ahe student who has a good ear will probably note that the vowel of but lbatl is not quite
the same as that of bird lberdl, where the /e/ sound is given a special "coloring" by the /r/ that
follows it. Some works on English pronunciation employ as many as four separate symbols to
rcpresent variants of the /e/ sound: [bat] in a stressed syllable, [ggow] in an unstressed syllable,
[bed] stressed and followed by r, and [fada] unstressed and followed by r. In order to require the
leaming of as few symbols as possible and in following the phonemic principle, this manual uses
only /e/ and /erl in Eanscribing these four variants.
 The Phonetic Alphabet

The Phonetic Alphabet

Approximate Equivalent in
Symbol English Exanples German Japanese Spanish

DIPHTI{ONGS3
l. leyl lgte thg Lgben eigo p9!ne
rg!se ^y
lryz
2. liyl see /sryl tni sieht le s!
receive /nsryv/
3. lowl gS /gow/ dQme Bqqt hirgg bou
coat /kowV
4. luwl ryle /rywl/ fqq StUbe k[ mqla
too /tq\r/
5. layt I tay! ate mern ar hay
cry lktay/
6. lawl nq\il /naw! (none) Hgrpt au pSusa
hsqse /hgws/
7. tcyt b9y tbry! (none) heute oi sois
nqjse lncyzl

DIPHTHONGS BEFORE llt OR lrf

1. tiat feel treU v!9 (as pro- (none) (none) (none)
we're wier/ nounced in
the Midi)
2. trct hill lhrell (none) (none) (none) (none)
h94r lhprl
3. leal sqle /seaU tt6" 1ut pto- (none) (none) (none)
nounced in
the Midi)
4. leal wgll lweayV plaie (as (none) (none) (none)
thsre /6ea;r/ pronounced
in the Midi)
5. leel shgll lSaoU (none) (none) (none) (none)

3The
diphthongization of leyl, /\y/, /ow/, and /uw/ is not as noticeable as that of layl, lawt,
and /cy/, but for the sake of simplicity in description and practicality in teaching they are so
symbolized.
aWe
have found that a diphthongal symbolization of the front vowels before ll/ and /r/ is a
definite aid in combatting the tendency of students to pronounce such sounds with a pure vowel
and with the tongue held unnaturally high. We have not used the glide lyl in the transcription of
the /ial and /eel diphthongs because it would give the appearance of two syllables in a word such
as feel: lfryaV.
lV. How Words Are Transcribed

VARIOUS PHONETIC MARKINGSs

t. ? Indicates a glottal stop: oh, oh lo?ol , as in "Oh, oh! Look what I did."
(See ksson 4, final paragraph of Section IV.)
2.
h Means that the preceding consonant sound is aspirated: time lthayml .
(See ksson 9, Section L)
3. : Means that the preceding sound is lengthened: the liyl of bead lbiy:.dl
is longer than the liyl of beat lbiyt/. (See Lesson 9, Section II.)
4.
I Means that the consonant under which it is placed is pronounced as a
syllabic: didn't ldrd4U, little ll4l. (See Lesson 10, Section III.)

lV. How Words Are Transcribed

Note that the phonetic symbols should be printed rather than written cursively,
so that they may more easily be read. In order that words spelled out in the
traditional manner may not be confused with these transcriptions, the latter
should always be printed between slant lines: fish is pronounced as ifiSl.
In transcribing a word in phonetic symbols, the guiding principle to be
kept in mind is that the transcription must represent all the distinctive sounds
heard when the word is pronounced, and only those sounds. Do not be misled
by the fraditional spelling. Silent letters-those not heard in the pronunciation
of the word-are not transcribed: for example, the .9 in bone lbown/, and the
gh in eight /eyU. Doubled consonants usually do not mean that the consonant
is pronounced tw,ice, so they are replaced in transcriptions by single conso-
nants: matter lmntarl . Two words may be spelled differently, as are sun and
son, but pronounced and transcribed alike: /ser/. On the other hand, if a word
has two or more different pronunciations when used in different ways, as has
bow, these must be represented by different transcriptions: lbaw/ , "to bend
one's head"; and /bow/, "instrument used for shooting arrows."
As has been pointed out, the transcription used in this book provides a
symbol for each distinctive English sound. A great many of these symbols-
lbl ,ldl ,lfl , M,lU,lml ,lnl,lpl ,lrl ,ltl ,lvl ,lwl , and lz,l-are exactly like the
normal printed letters of the alphabet; as symbols they always represent the
same basic sound that they usually represent as letters. These are, of course,
very easy to remember. Certain other symbols are also just like normal letters;

sThese phonetic
markings appear as pedagogical devices in certain sections of the manual but
are not a part of the basic system of symbolization.
 The Phonetic Alohabet

but the symbol always has the same basic sound, whereas the corresponding
letter is commonly pronounced in more than one way:

lgl always like the gin good lgudl,

never like the g in George1dit@l:

lsl alwavs like the s in said /sed/.

n"n", lik" the g in rise lriyVl;
lhl always pronounced as in home /howm/,
never silent as in hour lawrl;

For some other sounds, the traditional letters cannot serye as symbols, and
it is necessary to provide new symbols. Since these may be strange to you, to
learn them well will require some effort. Most vowel symbols fall in this class.
The eleven vowel sounds of English cannot be represented accurately and sim-
ply by the five letters normally used in spelling vowels. Lesson 2 will help you
to associate the vowel symbols with the sounds they represent. The new con-
sonant symbol /r3/ is necessary because the spelling ng is confusing. In words
spelled with ng the g is usually silent, as in ring htgl; we could not represent
ring in symbols as lrtngl since no phonetic symbol is silent and the /n/ symbol
must always have the same sound. In the same way we need /5/, which usually
represents the letters sh, because the sh sound cannot be made by simply pro-
nouncing /s/ and then /h/. The symbol lLl , as in vision lvii.an/, is a rather rare
English sound, spelled with letters that are ordinarily pronounced in quite a
different way in other words. The l0l and 16l symbols are needed because the
two distinctive sounds they represent are normally both written in the same
way, with the letters th: thigh lOayl, thy l6ayl.
Not all the letters that represent consonants in English spelling are needed
as pho,netic symbols. Thus, the letter g is usually pronounced like an g or a k:
city lsftrl , cool lkuwll . Therefore c is not used as a symbol in transcriptions.
For similar reasons, the letters j_, g, and x are not used as symbols. To represent
j we have ldl.l , which is also used in transcribing the "soft" sound of g: just
ldLestl , age leydLl . The combination qu is transcribed as /kw/: quick lkwtkl .
Usually x is transcribed as /ks/ or lgzl: fx lftksl , exact tryzbhtl .

V. Exercises
A. Go through the phonetic-alphabet table (Section III) several times, pronouncing the
sound represented by each symbol.
V. Exercises I
B. Pronounce these sounds and cite an English word in which each of them is heard.

l.m 7. hw 13. v 19. ey 25. e 31. er

2.& 8.u 14. a 20. t5 26. v 32. b
3.a 9. dL 15. Z 21. s 27. f 33. w
4. iy 10. c 16. ow 22. z 28. ay 34. t
5.S 11. uw 17. c 23. ea 29. aw 35. n
6.r 12. e 18. o 24. ry 30. d 36. I
C. Pronounce these combinations of sounds.

l. pa 6. t5ow I l. iys 16. wJ 21. 6uw 26. awi,

2. hwiy 7. raw 12. uk 17. en 22. Ocy 27. rd
3. ge' 8. dLe, 13. 5e 18. aym 23. iar 28. ael
4. av 9. ro 14. 6ey 19. ye 24. erk 29. 0e
5. low 10. ab 15. fe 20. eyz 25. hc 30. ut
D. Pronounce these very common words and write them as they are usually spelled in
English.

l. tern 6. slg I 1. tray 16. huw 21. meter

2. srks 7. dZest 12. kcz 17. hwrt5 22. rcyzrz
3. last 8. 0riy 13. tap 18. smcl 23. nyzen
4. kud 9. tawn 14. 6em 19. 6ow 24. plLzar
5. bcyz 10. gad 15. hrer 20. ye1 25. manl

E. Your teacher will pronounce for you the English examples listed in the phonetic-
alphabet table. Transcribe each example phonetically without looking at the table.

F. Can you read these phrases?

1. rndem5rnrg 6. Ineminrt 11. tadamiwvl

2. anijghsklas 7. wiykenisk 12. rndreftarniwn
t
3. wiergl6d 8. retdedr5gstcr 13. fremde0ryeter
4. tadetiyt5,ar g. tedek6nsert 14. Indewinter
5. hiyzastyuwdent 10. wiarhipr 15. nekstwivk
LESSON 2
Clossificotion of \bwels

l. The Five Fundamental Vowels

The fundamental vowel sounds, those that occur in many languages, are liyl ,
leyl,la/, lowl, and /uw/. It is worth noting that in
symbolizing these sounds
the five vowel letters of the ordinary roman alphabet ffs ussd-semetimes
alone, as in la/, or in combination with y and w, as in /iyl, leyl, lowl, and
/uw/. We have used the symbols lyl and /W to represent diphthongization, an
upward movement of the tongue in the production of the vowel sound. The lyl
glide indicates that the tongue moves upward toward the front of the mouth;
the lwl glide indicates that the tongue moves upward toward the back of the
mouth. This upward movement in the making of these vowel sounds is a char-
acteristic that distinguishes English vowels from the so-called pure vowels of
many other languages.
The relationship of these five vowel sounds to one another may be shown
by means of a vowel chart (Figure l).
The vowel pronounced farthest to the front of the mouth is /iyl. Pronounce
that sound; then pronounce leyl . In moving from liyl to leyl, note that there are
two important changes in the position of the organs of speech: the jaw is low-
ered, and the spot where the tongue approaches the roof of the mouth most
closely is shifted away from the front teeth toward the throat. If you pronounce
/eyl, then lal , you will feel the same two types of change occur again. From
lal to lowl , the movement from front to back continues, but the jaw begins to

10
ll. The Eleven Vowels of American English 11

Fronl

(t90)

(cs)
E
'

Figure 1. The five fundamental vowelsl

rise, or close, again; and these two movements also mark the shift from /ow/
to /uW.
Now pronounce several times the entire series /iy-ey-a-ow-uw/, and try to
feel the regular progression in the organs of speech: from front to back as you
move from left to right on the chart; and with jaw lower, then higher again, as
you move from top to bottom, then back to the top, of the chart. Note also that
the lips are widely spread for liyl ,that the amount of spreading decreases with
leyl and lal , and that the lips are rounded for /ow/ and /uw/.
Figure 2 may help you to understand how different positions of the tongue
correspond to different parts of the vowel chart.2

ll. The Eleven Vowels of American English

Students of English are usually well acquainted with the five fundamental
vowel sounds and find them quite easy to pronounce and identify. Familiarity
with them may help you to master the six other vowels in the language, those
that are represented by symbols unlike those of the ordinary roman alphabet:
ltl, lxl, lrel, ltl, lul, and lel.
The symbol /r/ represents a sound intermediate between liyl and leyl . In
other words, /r/ is pronounced farther back than /iy/, but farther forward than

rThe vowel charts that appear here have been adapted, with permission of the publisher, from
John S. Kenyon, American Pronunciation, l0th ed. (Ann Arbor: George Wahr Publishing Com-
pany, 1958).
tThe face diagrams in this text, which are based on x-ray films, have been adapted, with his
permission, from those done by Peter Ladefoged. See, for example, Peter Ladefoged, "Some
Possibilities in Speech Synthesis," Language and Speech, Vol. 7, Part 4 (October-December,
1964\.205-214.
12 Classification of Vowels

Figure 2. Tongue position tor liyl, /a/, and luwl

leyl; it is pronounced with the jaw and tongue lower than for liyl , but higher
than for /eyl. This relationship should be obvious to you if you will repeat
three or four times the series liy-t-eyl.
Between leyl and lal there are two intermediate vowels: first /e/, then,
farther back and lower, lal .
Between lal and /oW is lcl , and between /ow/ and luwl is lul .
This leaves only the position of /e/ (and its variant larl; see note on p. 5)
to be determined. The vowel /a/ is the sound English-speaking persons produce
when their speech organs are relaxed and in a neutral position. It is the sound
they make when they do not quite know what they are going to say and are
looking for the right words: "It's not that. Uh-h-h . How shall I say it?
Uh-h-h . ." For reasons that will be explained in the next lesson, /e/ is also
the most frequently heard of all the English vowels; you will need to recognize
and make it about as often as all the other vowels except /t/ combined. It is the
typical vowel that, more than any other sound, distinguishes English from
many other languages.
Since it is neither a front nor a back vowel, neither as close as /iyl nor as
open as lal, it is placed in a central position on the vowel chart.
In the combination /erl, as in bird lbardl , /e/ begins in the usual position,
but then immediately moves toward the back of the mouth as it blends into the
complex /r/ sound that follows. Lesson l0 describes the formation of /r/ in
detail.
The chart, with each of the eleven vowels of American English in its
place, would appear as in Figure 3.
When a student of English mispronounces the vowel in a word, what he
lll. Exercises 13
Front

(boot)

ey (pct)
(but)

e (boat)

-
(bought)

Figure 3. The vowels of American English

or she usually does is to substitute for the eorrect sound another sound very
close to it. In other words, if you mispronounce the /r/ of bit, you will probably
say beat /biyV. Usually /c/ is confused with either lal or lowl , the sounds that
appear on either side of it in the diagram; /a/ is confused with lel and lal; lel
with /eyl and lal , and so on and so on. Because of the position of the speech
organs when it is made, lal may easily be mistaken for any of the other ten
vowel sounds.
Notice that a word containing the sound appears in parentheses beside
each symbol on the diagram. The only difference between the pronunciation of
boot and but is the difference between /uw/ and lal . That is to say, the very
meaning of the word depends on the quality of the vowel. If you wish to
understand and be understood in English, you must be able to distinguish and
make the distinction among the vowel sounds with great accuracy.
There are three vowel sounds in English that are not included in the vowel
chart in Figure 3, since their high degree of diphthongization puts them in a
separate class from other vowel sounds. These are the diphthongs layl , lawl,
and lcyl , that appear in the words buy, bough, and boy. Most students seem to
have little or no difficulty in learning to pronounce them. Pronounce the diph-
thong /ay/ , noticing how much the jaw moves. Pronounce /aw/ and /cyl. Notice
how the jaw moves from an open position to a more closed position during the
pronunciation of these diphthongs.

lll. Exercises
A. Pronounce the ten vowel sounds around the edge of the vowel chart (Figure 3)
several times in order, beginning first with /iy/, then with /uwi, and note carefully
14 Classification of Vowels

how the speech organs move in regular progression as you pass from one symbol
to another.

B. Leam to draw the vowel chart and to locate the eleven svmbols on it.

C l. Phoneticians speak of "front vowels," "central vowels," and "back vowels."

Judging by the arrangement of the vowels on the chart, which vowels would
fall into each of the three groups?
2. We sometimes call lcl "open o" and /ow/ "close o." Can you explain why?
Which is more open, /ow/ or lal? lxl or lnl?

J. Suppose that a fellow student pronounces it as lrytl instead of lyt/. In order to

help him produce the correct sound, what would you tell him to do with his
jaw, his tongue, and his lips? What would you tell him to do in order to change
/guwd/ to lgudl2 lg2V to I ggU?

D. Make a vowel chart and number the symbols on it around the edge of the chart
from I to lO: liyl l, fil 2, leyl 3, and so on. Number the symbol /e/ 11. Your
teacher will pronounce several different vowel sounds; see if you can identify each
by giving the number of the symbol that represents it. If you fail to identify a
vowel correctly, note on the diagram the location of the sound you thought you
heard with relation to the sound the teacher actually pronounced.

E. Pronounce these very common words, and write them as they are usually spelled
in Enslish.

1. laef 9. t5eyndZ 17. hweer 25. kam

2. haws 10. dIs 18. 0r0 26. pliyz
3. yler l l. Sowz 19. dLty 27. keler
4. sc 12. wens 20. lardL 28. erh
5. rak I 3. lcr10 21. put 29. WIMIN
6. seym 14. luk 22. eyt 30. byuwtrful
1. wiyk 15. lek 23. Orow 31. kampant
8. layk 16. muwv 24. klak 32. 5d"t

F. Can you read these phrases?

l. hiyezfinr5t 5. 6eykSmeng6w 9. Siyezherdrt

2. ayavdentt, 6. hiyken6nsar 10. wiy5udtriylt
3. wiykonswtm 7. hirdtag6t I l. 6eyiytanr5n
4. iyntesTy 8. anSrtuiyt 12. iygertaptly"
ilt. Exercises 15

G. l. Listen while your teacher pronounces the following groups of words. They are
all among the five hundred most frequently used in the English language, so
you are probably already familiar with their pronunciation. In each group, four
words have the same vowel sound, and one has a different vowel sound. Draw
a line under the word that does not belong with the group, and write the symbol
that represents the sound the other four have in common.

a. piece, sleep, each, bread, she

b. sit, if, first, him, quick

plain, death, they, great, name

d. learn, friend, left, head, next

e. add, back, have, warm, laugh

f. rock, got, stop, cod, law

g talk, thought, draw, off, both

h. close, though, lost, road, most

book, full, put, food, should

J. wood, blue, two, move, do

k. does, foot, up, son, run

l. serve, bird, work, north, burn

2. Pronounce the groups of words above, making a clear distinction between the
one word that has a different vowel sound and the other four words.

H. Divide a sheet of paper into 15 columns, and write one of the following symbols
at the top of each column: iy, I, ey, e, &, a, c, ow, u, uw, e, et, ay, aw, 3y.
Classify the following words under the symbol that represents their vowel sound.
If necessary, your instructor will pronounce the words for you. Or ask a friend
who is a native speaker of English to pronounce them for you. Exercises H and I
could well be carried out with the students divided into small groups for discussion
and drill among themselves.
16 Classification of Vowels

l. with 26. wish 51. friend 76. front

2. ten 27. say 52. warm 77. crowd
3. strong 28. so 53. done 78. laugh
4. watch 29. those 54. great 79. God
5. south 30. high 55. bone 80. boy
6. late 31. rain 56. win 81. who
7. bring 32. month 57. book 82. they
8. good 33. mean 58. law 83. miss
9. gold 34. school 59. act 84. move
10. up 35. best 60. five 85. full
11. box 36. would 61. heart 86. wild
12. seem 37. voice 62. seize 87 . kept
13. wide 38. since 63. mouth 88. this
14. off 39. glad 64. raise 89. her
15. arm 40. said 65. cost 90. car
16. fall 41. out 66. fence 91. corn
17. stand 42. love 67. some 92. stop
18. bridge 43. put 68. foot 93. please
19. through 44. point 69. lip 94. talk
20. down 45. were 70. soon 95. cap
2r. light 46. come 71. have 96. church
22. street 47. not 72. touch 9'l . most
23. dead 48. true 73. could 98. girl
24. work 49. pass 74. she 99. bread
25. look 50. war 75. wing 100. give

I. Pronounce each of the columns of words you made in doing Exercise H, in order
to be sure that all the words you classified together have the same vowel sound.

J. The following represent short conversations between two people. Practice reading
them with another student, making them sound as natural as you can.

1. a. hawirrye

fayn, Oegks
t
2. a. aryeredl
at
b. ycs, letsgow
,,
3. a. hwcararyagowl4
b. tue-i*ut, duyawinak5m
t
a. y6s, aydlayktu
Exercises 17

4. a. ha15w

b. hal6w, tt 6rr6la,
a. n6w, Siyznitn6*-ni*
meyayt6ykem6srdZ

b. n6w, 064ks

aylkclb6kl6yter
LESS@N O
Unstressed Vowels

l. The lmportance of Stress

We put stress on a syllable when we pronounce it with such emphasis as to

give it more importance than the surrounding syllables and make it stand out
among them: for,example, the com- of comfortable l, or the -ter-
of determine /dltermln/. Stress is sometimes called accent.
^<Smfartebel
A long word frequently has two stressed syllables, one of which is usually
more prominent than the other. An example is economical. We say that the
most important syllable bears the primary accent, and the next most important
bears the secondary accent.l In the case of economical, the primary accent falls
on -nom- and the secondary on e-. These two syllables would be marked l'/
and /' I respectively: liyt<animrtetl.
Strong stresses are one of the distinguishing features of the English lan-

'The authors of this manual accept the analysis, supported by Smith-Trager and other pho-
neticians, that there are actually four distinctive degrees of stress in English. For the sake of
simplicity and pedagogical practicality, however, we use only the two symbols, l'l and l'/, rather
than Smith-Trager's four symbols: l'l for pimary stress, /^/ for secondary, l'/ for tefliary, and l-l
for weak. Our /'/, when it coincides with the peak of an intonation pattem (usually the last high
note of the pattern), corresponds to Smith-Trager's /'/. Elsewhere our /'/ corresponds to their /^/.
Our /'/ is the equivalent of their /'/. We leave weak stresses unmarked. (See Lesson 5, Sections I
and II.)

18
il. The Pronunciation of Unstressed Vourels 19

guage; the important syllables in English are more prominent, the unimportant
syllables less prominent than in most other languages. Stress, then, is the key
to the pronunciation of an English word, and the location of the accent should
always be learned with the word. If you stress the wrong syllable, it may be
quite impossible for anyone listening to understand what you are trying to say.
Stress does even more than give character and rhythm to a word; it also
determines to some extent the value of all its vowels-whether an a is to be
pronounced as leyl or lal , for example.

il. The Pronunciation of Unstressed Vowels

The vowel i\
a stressed syllable may be pronounced as any of the vowels or
diphthongs we have listed in the Phonetic Alphabet (see lrsson 1, pp. 5-6):
for example, liyl , |il, lnl , lel , liel , and so on. The vowel of an unstressed
syllable almost always has one of three sounds: either lal ,|il, or, less fre-
quently, /u/. No feature of English is simpler or more fundamental than this:
uNSTREssED vowELS ARE usuALLY PRoNoUNcED le/, ltl, oR (ron soue
seenrens) /u/.2

This principle may be illustrated graphically on the vowel chart

(Figure 4).
As was noted in Lesson 2, lel is the most neutral vowel, the one English
speakers produce automatically when their speech organs are relaxed, and,

Figure 4. Pronunciation of unstressed vowels

z/u/ is more or less equivalent to the Smith-Trager "barred /i/.

!" sound, symbolized as
20 Unstressed Vowels

therefore, the one that is easiest for them to make. Native speakers of English
are apparently willing, in a stressed syllable, to make the effort necessary to
produce any of the vowel or diphthong sounds, but they do not feel that an
unstressed syllable is important enough to justify rounding the lips, or raising
or lowering the jaw. So, however they may spell the vowel sound in an unac-
cented syllable when they write it, when they pronounce it they give it the
"luy" sound of lel , ot of nearby lil or lul . As there are more unstressed than
stressed syllables in English, lel , |il, and lul are among the most frequently
heard vowel sounds.
Notice the way in which the unaccented vowels in the following polysyl-
lables-words of more than one syllable-are pronounced:
apparently @thrgntl.
apponionment lqp5rSqnmenv

congregation lkiggrlg5ysqr/
Episcopalian l1pistcqp6ytyqd or /-lyqn/

insuperable /lnsuwpqrqbaU

If
a syllable bears a primary or secondary accent, its vowel may be pro-
nounced in many different ways; but only three different vowels are found in
the unstressed syllables above.
Persons who leam English as a second language often make the mistake
of pronouncing unstressed vowels the way they are spelled. In your anxiety to
make yourself understood, you will probably be tempted to say /ap6rgntlt/ and
liypistqwp5ylyan/. Actually there will be less danger of your being misunder-
stood, and your English will sound much more natural if you will obscure the
unstressed vowels, pronounce them /e/, |il, or lul , and make no attempt to
identify them as a, e, or o.
Unless you consult a pronouncing dictionary or a competent English-
speaking person, there is no sure way of knowing whether the unaccented vow-
els of an unfamiliar word should be lal , ll , or lul . Frequently it makes no
difference; lgpiskap6ylygn/ is just as natural as llpiskep6ylyqrV.

lll. Where the Stress Falls

Unfortunately, there are no infallible rules for determining which syllable of a
word should be stressed.3 Manv times vou will need to turn to a dictionarv

'In rccent years the "generative phonologists" influenced by Noam Chomsky and Morris
Halle have succeeded in demonstrating that English strcss is much morc predictable than it has
lll. Where lhe Sfress Fal/s 21

unless you hear the word spoken by someone familiar with it. Certain obser-
vations, however, should be of help.

l. The great majority (at least three out of four) of two-syllable words are
accented on the first syllablei neyer htverl, breakfast /br6kfasV, Monday
/m5n&l . The largest group of exceptions to this generalization is made up
of words that begin with a prefix. Most of these are accented on the second
syllable: djsntal ldtspl6/, exceed l/"lsiyil, device ldrv'aysl, belief lbaliyfl,
intent /Intenv.

2. Compound expressions:

a. Compound nouns ordinarily have a primary accent on the first com-

ponent and a secondary accent on the second: bird's-nest /b5rdznisV,
drugstore /drSgstir/, thoroughfare /05refierl, weatherman
lw66ermiry.
b. In compound verbs the reverse is true: there is usually a secondary
accent on the flrst component and a primary on the second: understand
/indarst6nd/ , overlook lJwvertirl, outrun tivrtrSl.
c. In the intensive-reflexive pronouns the stronger accent also falls on the
/asr syllable: mysetf lmiyslalfl, yourself /ytrs6.alfl.
d. Numbers ending in -teen may receive primary stress on either syllable,
but it is best for a student learning English as a second language to
put it on the last syllable, so as to distinguish clearly between thirty
/Sirttt and thirteen tdiirynt, forry licrtil and fourteen tfinyn/ .

3. A large group of words, which may be used either as nouns or verbs

without change in their spelling, have a difference in stress to indicate the
difference in usage. In such cases, the noun has primary accent on the first
syllable, the verb on the last (compare 2-a and 2-b above). The nouns in
this group,of words sometimes have secondary accent on the last syllable:
increase /Inknys/, overflow /owverflow/. Sometimes-as in the case of
concert and object-the meaning of the noun has little if any relationship
to the meaning of the corresponding verb.

/kansarU concert /kensart

/kandekt/ conduct /kandekU

traditionally been thought to be. Few if any of the rules they have formulated, however, are without
numerous exceptions. Most of them seem too abstract and complex to be of much practical use,
and many of these rules apply only to words of Greek and Latin origin.
22 Unstressed Vowels

/kanfltkU conflict /kenftkV

/kantesU contest /kentesV
It<intritv contract /kentrekU
/kantrasU contrast /kantrest/
/kanvarV convert /kenvert/
ldezartl desert ldtzerll
/tnklayn/ incline /rnklayrV
/Inkrrys/ increase Anknys/
/rnserv insert /rnserv
/nselU insult /mselU
labdi;tkil object labdLekV
/6wverfldw/ overflow /owvarflow/
/parmtV permit /perrilv
/prezenu present lprnentl
/pragrIS/ progress /pragres/
lpradLekV project lpredLekV
/prowtesV protest /pretesV
lrcball rebel hebeell
/rekerd/ record /nkcrd/
/servey/ survgy /sarvey/
/sespekV suspect /sespekU

4. Helpful generalizations can also be made about the large number of poly-
syllabic English words that end in -ate. Some of these-such as duplicate
and associate-may be used as adjectives, nouns' or verbs; others-such
as consulate (noun), educate (verb), and appropriate (adjective or verb)-
are used in only one or two of these three ways. In the case of all words
of this group, however, use as an adjective or a noun is indicated by leav-
ing the vowel of the ending unstressed and pronouncing it as ltl orlal ' I
must go to the consulate lkanselyl . Use as a verb is indicated by giving
the ending,secondary stress and pronouncing its vowel as leyl. He'll du'
plicate /dyirwplakeyt/ the letter. Further examples are:

Adjective
or Noun Verb

tLdvakttl advocate /redvakeyV

la,gragfl aggregate lngrageyt/
/clternIV altemate /clterneyV
/enrmIV animate /rentmeyV
,\
/eprowpruV appropriate /eprowpneyU
lV. Exercises 23
,\
/aprakslmrV approximate /eprakstmeyU
/dtltbenU deliberate /dlltbereyt/
/deseltV desolate /desaleyV
llJnbenV elaborate ltJ.abereytl
/estlnuV estimate /estImeyV
tgrildLutu graduate rgriaLuiyv
/rntrnuU intimate /IntlmeyV
lmadant/ moderate lmadareytl
/pflsIpItIt/ precipitate /pflsIprteyV
/sepeflt/ or separate /seporeyV
/sepflv

5. In general, when a suffix is added to a word, the new form is stressed on

the same syllable as was the basic word: abandon lebLnden/, abandon-
ment lebindenmanV; happy h&pil, happiness /h6prrus/; reoson liyzanl ,
reasonable liyzanebell . Words ending -tion, -sion, -ic, -ical, -ity, and
-graphy, however, almost always have primary stress or? the syllable pre-
ceding the ending. The addition of one of these "troublesome endings"
may, therefore, result in a shift of accent: contribute /kentribyuV, contri-
bution lkintrrbyiwSan/; biology niy'arcAht, biological tbiyal6aL*ett;
public ft5bltV, p ublic ity /peblisltr/ ; photo graph fflowtagrif t, p ho to graphy
lfetagrefil.

lV. Exercises

A. Your instructor will pronounce for you the following polysyllables. First decide
which syllable is stressed in each case; then write down the symbols that represent
all the vowel sounds in each word, and mark each stressed vowel. Example: the
instructor will pronounce about as /abiwtt; the student writes: I . *i*.

1. about 8. even 15. measure 22. something

2. after 9. exit 16. mistake 23. sometime
3. another 10. family 17. mother 24. story
4. between 11. general 18. often 25. thousand
5. body 12. hundred 19. receive 26. together
6. color 13. letter 20. remember 27 . visit
7. correct 14. many 21. service 28. without

B. Arrange in separate lists the vowels that you heard in stressed syllables and those
that you found in unstressed syllables. Are your results in agreement with Section
24 Unstressed Vowels

II of this lesson? Can you explain the apparent violation of the rule found in
sometime?

C. In order to increase your ability to recognize and place stresses, read this drill after
your instructor, and then alone. Watch carefully the pronunciattion of unstressed
vowels. Note that words with a similar pattern of stresses are grouped together;
each group should be repeated rhythmically.

a. l-z b. r-2 c. i-z-t d. r-5-z

l. bury l. around l. vigilance l. distinguish
2. judgment 2. occur 2. readiness 2. abandon
3. dollar 3. submit 3. mineral 3. eraser
4. minus 4. disease 4. emphasis 4. delicious
5. nation 5. deceive 5. similar 5. patemal

e. \-z-5 f. i-z-s-+ c. t-L-z-+

1. overlook 1. memorable' l. mechanical
2. evennore 2. personally 2. immediate
3. premature 3. accuracy 3. absurdity
4. magazine 4. amicably 4. catastrophe
5. guarantee 5. delicacy 5. additional

h. i-z-5-+ '. i-z-5-+-s j. t-)-z-+-s

l. corporation l. mathematical l. communication
2. education 2. zoological 2. eradication
3. sentimental 3. nationality 3. pronunciation
4. scientific 4. anniversary 4. deliberation
5. economic 5. indeterminate 5. appropriation

D. Pronounce these very common words, and write them as they are usually spelled
in EnBlish.

l. Stp 7. pleys 13. voYS 19. seperlt

2. 0rgk 8. sez 14. naw 20. leggwidZ
3. own 9. brct 15. fi.ald 21. ney5en
4. drap 10. t5ert5 16. lernd 22. plkt5ar
5. suwn I l. hway 17 . krcst 23. anaf
6. iyst 12. gud 18. winud 24. sevrel

Can you read these phrases?

,t
1. tadet6ft 3. givltamiy 5. m&nanwumen
,
2. anatrip
tt
4. rfwiYednown 6. ferdapowstmen
tv. Exercises 25
tt
7. Inekir 9. rayteletar
,t
11. Indak5ntrr
8. ret6ak5rner 10. eskekwest5an 12. bl6kenbliw
F. Pronounce these families of words, paying particular attention to the location of
the stresses and to the vowels in unstressed syllables. (see Section III-5 of this
lesson.)

l. abominate /ab6mrniyV, ablominable, adominableness, adomirfation

2. .ltftfibut" /kannibyuV, contributor, contribution, contributive
3 . uT8tirt' teuitrsl,'abE{t!g1, adolishable, iu8(ttionist
4. electric nliktrrkl, elJ"iggt, electficity. electrify
5. apology rcplarcant, uJotog"ti", ap/ologize
6. attain /at6yn/, attainable, attainability, attainment
7. material lmeintall , mat6rialist, materiilistic, m/teialize
8. philosophy-/filisefiJ,philosopher, philosbphical, philosophize
g. method mL}eat,methodical. Methodist
10. negotiate /nrg6w5riyU, ney'otiable, negbtiition, negotiator, negitiuditity
11. telegraph t6tagritt,telegfaphic, t{legraphy
12. liquid /likwld/, liqtiidity, fiquidate, trquid'aiion
G. Mark the primary accent on all words of more than one syllable (see Section III-
1,2, and 3 of this lesson); then pronounce the following sentences several times.
1. Would you object if I gave her the'present myleff?
2. I don't underdtand why the class should protest or rebel.
3. No one suslected that the hirplane had set a new record.
4. They will need a p'ermit to make a'bedroom of this/storehouse.
5. He has prog/essed sixty miles in'sixieen hours.
6. The/conflict is bver, and the crewmen have a new/contract.
7. What progress have they made with their survey?
8. There's no cor(tentins ieUEls.
g. The 'newspaper i, a/contest to inclrease its circulation.
"olhu.t?ng
10. How was his'conduct at the'concert?
I 1. They protested an'increase of only fifteen dollars an hour.
12. So far no suspects have been found.
13. You will cor(vert no one bv'insults.
14. Will you your'self .onhu"t ih" 'project?
15. The'crowd overfl'owed into the halli-?v.
16. I'm in/lined to inbert a'protest here.
17. The desert is full of/contrasts.
18. The/overflow rushed down the'incline.
H. Pronounce the word in parentheses so as to give it the meaning indicated by the
context of each sentence. (See Section III-4 of this lesson.)
26 Unstressed Vowels

l. (alternate) I was elected an representative to the college as-

Ir
sembly. I Alhrrift with another professor in my depart-

-
ment when he cannot attend.

2. testiniql The garage gave me an of the cost of repairing

my car-n-'5J- it will cost at least $300.

3. (graduate) They next -month. Most of them will continue

their education as students.

4. (separate) - to
We need the good apples from the bad ones.

I-et's put them in - baskets.

5. (precipitate) Let's have -no actions. We don't want to

a crisis.

6. (intim'ate I am not really -an friend of hers. I wish she

wouldn'f-- that I am.

7. (aeiiuerite) This pressure is They don't want to give us time

to

-. not
8. (aplropriite) The Congress should so much money. It's

not-. at this time.

g. (dele{4te) She makes a good J'alrrr She knows how to

---lD
-

10. (elaborate) I won't the plan further. It's already

enough.
lV. Exercises 2T
11. We are (fornnate) to have a Mexican (consulgte) here.

12. Schools should kdate@ students rather than Gr#oarinhtd them.

I. Read aloud several pages of English that are of particular interest to yo-u, concen-
trating y.our attention on the pronunciation of the unstressed vowels of words of
more than one svllable.

-1'.,q
LESSON 4
Sentence-Stress
ond Rhythm

l. Stress in GrouPs of Words

In Lesson 3 we were concerned with word-stress, the stressing of syllables in

words of more than one syllable. Our knowledge of stress must, however, go
beyond words if we are to have the complete picture. We do not really talk in
words, most of the time, but in sentences' or at least in phrases'
In the sentence I am glad to see you, there are normally two stresses: on
glad and see. Because these are words of only one syllable, they have no word-
stress, but the emphasis that is put on them is in many ways the same as that
put on the first syllable of history lhisten/. It is sometimes convenient, how-
ever, to distinguish between word-stress (history) and sentence-stress (I am
gtio to s6e you).
When sentence-stress falls on a word of more than one syllable, it usually
falls on the syllable that normally receives word-stress: "['ll meet you to-
t ..
morrow.
In Lesson 3 it was pointed out that there is a great deal more difference
between stressed and unstressed syllables in English than in most other lan-
guages; this is as true of sentence-sffess as of word-stress. To an English-
speaking person the rhythm of many other tongues (for example, Japanese,
Spanish, Italian, Pilipino) seems to be mechanically regular-a series of little
bursts of sound all of about the same size and force, like machine-gun fire.

28
/. Stress in Groups of Words 29

English pronounced with such a rhythm would probably not be understood. If

asked to draw a picture representing the rhythm of the syllables in Spanish, the
speaker of English might produce a line of soldiers of very much the same size
and following one another at rather regular intervals, as in Figure 5.

Figure 5. The seeming rhythm of some other languages

He might picture his own language as a series of family groups, each

composed of an adult accompanied by several small children of varying sizes.
A few of the adults might be childless, and some would be larger than others.
(See Figure 6.)

Figure 6. The rhythm of English

In a language like French or Spanish, a line of poetry is usually deter-

mined by counting the total number of syllables, stressed and unstressed alike.
Lines containing the same number of syllables are felt to be of the same length.
In a line of English poetry the number of sentence-stresses is more important
than the number of syllables. Here are two lines from Tennyson that are con-
sidered to be perfectly matched in rhythm and of the same length when read.

"Br6ak, br6at, br6at,

On thy gtuy st6nes, O S6al"
"6ta
The unstressed syllables are so unimportant, rhythmically speaking, that it is
not even necessary to count them. when a person recites those lines, it may
30 Sentence-Stress and RhYthm

take as long to say the first as the second, even though the first contains only
three syllables and the second is made up of seven'
This leads to a significant observation regarding English pronunciation:
ACCENTS TEND TO RECUR AT REGULAB INTERVALS.

(and
The more unstressed syllables there are between accants, the more rapidly
indistinctly) those syllables are pronounced. This is true to a large extent even

of prose.
Have your teacher or a native speaker of English pronounce these two

sentences for You at normal sPeed:

The b5y is interested in enlirging his vocibulary'

cr6at p.6gress is mide oiity.
Note how he or she unconsciously crushes together the unstressed syllables of
the first sentence in order to get them said in time, and how the stressed sylla-
bles of the second sentence are somewhat lengthened so as to compensate
for
the lack of intervening unstressed syllables. If we were to illustrate these two
sentences as suggested above, they might look something like this
(Figure 7):

The boy is interested in enlarging

is made daily.
Gr€t PrcFS

Figure 7. Examples of English sentence rhythm

The problem of acquiring a good English speech rhythm may be divided

into five parts:
ll. Which Words Should Be Stressed? 31

L l. Giving proper emphasis to stressed syllables, and making them recur rather
regularly within a thought group.
7 2. Weakening unstressed words and syllables, and obscuring the vowels in
most of them.
t 3. organizing words properly into thought groups by means of pauses.
4. Blending the final sound of each word and syllable with the initial sound
of the one following within the same thought group.
5. Fitting the entire sentence into a normal intonation pattem.

Intonation patterns will be studied in Irssons 5, 6, and 7, and the rest of this
lesson will treat the other four phases of the problem.

ll. Which Words Shoutd Be Stressed?

Grammarians sometimes divide all words into two classes: (l) content words,
which have meaning in themselves ,like mother, forget, and tomonow; and (z)
function words, which have little or no meaning other than the grammatical
idea they express, such as the, of, and, wiil. In general content words are
stressed, but function words are left unstressed, unless the speaker wishes to
call special attention to them.

Content words, usually stessed, include

l. Nouns.
2. Verbs (with the few exceptions listed under function words).
3. Adjectives.
4. Adverbs (including not and verbs contracted with not, such as don't\.
5. Demonstratives: this, that, these, those. CtrtCr?
V..l&'F'
6. Intenogatives: who, when, why, and so on.

Function words, usually unstressed, include

l. Articles: a, an, the.

2. Simple prepositions: to, of, in, and so on.-
3. Personal pronouns: I, me, he, him, it, and so on.

(
,tcompound prepositions, those that include a noun, are stressed on the noun: in sftte of,
instead of, and so on.
 32 Sentence-Stress and RhYthm

4. Possessive adjectives: my, his, your, and so on'

5. Relative pronouns: who, that, which, and so on. (*n a'uranhe,h"t )
6. Common conjunctions: and, but, that, as,-if, and so on'
.
.1
One usedas a noun-substitute, as in the ,Ld arlrtt and the blLe one.
8. The verbs be, have, do, wilt, would, shall, should, can, could' may'
. .I might, and rfir.st. These are easy to remember. as the-y are the verbs that
fr17vf/rza We must wait.
-Ju be used as auxiliaries: He is resitgning. Doyou s'ee it?
Even when th;V ur" the principil verb in the sentence, they are usually
f, foU
-.-- **)
'., t^i\". On th"
,
noF olxzrq
' unstressed: H'arry is my b:est friLnd. B'arbara has a l'ovely

;;;"" other hand, they are stressed when they come at the end of a sentence (1
smlarrcr than he.Ifl, and yhen thev are used in tag ques-
f il gAary thbught he was
tions such as didn't we and are they lAtt mintes hren't mhde in H'oltywood,
g -;. \.q t*nl ,are they?). ., ,
n'tf idf'hr-
A:i n'l- , ,t'
1'... ,r-r,'r* We hafe aheady seen (in lrsson 3, Section lII, 2-a) that compound nouns
? :l"i *1 ordinarily have a primary accent on their first component. This is true whether
(hke blrd's-nesf) or without a hYphen
Y r>r*'t such nouns are written with a hyphen compounds may, of course, also be written as
(like drLgsrcre). These nominal
two separate words, in which case the first of the two words ordinarily receives
senrence-stress while the second does not: on op'ort^"nt house, bisiness af-
use this sentence-
fairs, a s'ocial worker. In fact, native speakers of English
sress pattem6 a signal to listeners that they are to interpret the two words as
a nominal compound, with a special meaning, rather than as a sequence of
independent words. Thus She's a s'ociat worker means that she makes her liv-
ing by helping people solve social problems, whereas She's a s'ocial w'orker
presumably means that she is a worker who enjoys social relationships with
other people. In the first of the above two examples, then, though worker is
certainly a noun, therefore a content word, it is not given sentence-stress, so
that it will be recognized as part of a nominal compound'2
Though most verbs are also content words, in two-word verbs made up of
a verb and adverb it is normally the adverb that receives sentence-stress, not

2Not all two-word sequences that look as though they might be nominal compounds are
stressed on the first component. An important group of apparent exceptions is made
up of se-
quences in which the first component announces the material of which thF.s.ecQnd. c.olnponent
is
both receive sentence-stress: It's a gbld wittgir (the watch is
marde. In these sequences components
,n?Oe of gold), Il's an'apple f1e (he pie is made of apple). Compare the last example
with It's an
itppt" tri (the tree is nbr mide of apple). There are in English minimal pairs of two-word se-
quences that differ in sentence-stress and therefore differ in meaning: It's a metal clrter (it cuts
metal). 1r's a mbnl cLtter (the cutter is made of metal). The best explanation of the difference
seems to be that the mttal cutter is felt as a nominal compound, with a special meaning
ofjts own,
while the tin* is felt as a sequence of two independent words, modifier plus noun.
^6tol
I
\,,\o'ir lfu (ntvr^e,t-
!::.,j e*J),
ll. Which Words Should 8e Stressed? 33
the verb: to split'up, to put'on. (Compare Lesson 3, Section III, 2-b.) Do not
. confuse these genuine two-word verbs with other verbs, such as look and, listen,
that may be followed by a prepositional phrase: to fook at him, to listen to
him. A good way to tell the difference between, for example, to put on and to
look at is to put both expressions into a question beginning with what: whht
are you putting 6n? whit are you fooking ar? Note that at may be placed
before what and thus separated from the verb: At what are you looking? But
the two-word verb cannot be divided in this way: on what are you putting?
does not make sense.
In the great majority of cases, then, it is a simple matter to deterinine
where the stresses are placed in a sentence. one has only to apply the principles
outlined above.

l. I d5n't imigine you can succ6ed in a brisiness venture.. -

2. In an h5ur it will be r6ady to turn 6ver to you.
3. rnis r6a r5se is to be pl6nted h6re.
4. He 6ats thr6e rirt m6ais 6acn oiv.
5. I shall deliver it to you.
6. She siys that she l'rkes the ap6rtment, d6esn,t she?

which are the content words? which are the function words? why is there
no sentence-stress on venture in Sentence 1? Why no stress on turn in Sentence
2? why no stress on be in the same sentence? why is doesn't stressed in
Sentence 6? why don't in sentence l? why stress /rjs in Sentence 3?
stress
If a native speaker of English violates these principles and distributes the
sentence-stresses in some other way, he or she usually does so for one of two
reasons:

l. He may wish to call special attention to a word by placing contrastive

,rtreJs on it. If the speaker of sentence I above wishes to suggest that you
cannot succeed in a business venture though perhaps spmeone else could,
he will stress the function wordyou as well as the content words imagine,
succeed, and business. such contrastive stress on a word adds a meaning
that the sentence would not otherwise have.
2. He may wish, unconsciously, to give the sentence a more regular
rhythm. In English speech one stressed syllable is usually separated from
the next by one, two, or three unstressed syllables. But sentence 4, if
stressed according to the "rules," contains six successive stressed sylla-
bles without any intervening unstressed ones. A native speaker of English
might feel this to be an unnatural rhythm and instinctively suppress some
of the stresses: He eats thr'ee full mLals each dhy. sent"n"e 5, if stressed
34 Sentence-Stress and RhYthm

according to the ' 'rules,ends in a series of four unsftessed syllables. The

' '
native speaker might therefore find it natural to stress the function word to
as well as the content word deliver: I shall detiver it /o you'

Students of English should not, however, allow these unusual stresses they
may occasionally notice to confuse them and lead them to distribute stresses
randomly. The basic principles----content words stressed, function words un-
stressed-are easy to follow. Particular care should be taken to resist the ten-
dency, widespread among those learning English as a foreign language, to
stress auxiliary verbs (can, may, and so on), personal pronouns (I' you' he'
and so on), and possessive adjectives (my, your, his, and so on). All of these
are function words. The main verb is ordinarily more significant than
the aux-
iliary, and I and my are not as important as we sometimes think'

ilt. The Pronunciation of Unstressed Words of One Syllable

The group of unstressed words of one syllable includes most of the commonest
words in the language: the ten words most frequently used all belong in that
class: tfte, of, and, to, a, in, that, it, is, and 1' These ten make up 25 percent
of all that is written and spoken in English. or, putting it another way, one out
of every four words we use will be the, or of, or and, and so on. Unfortunately,
several of the ten are precisely the words that learners of English most often
mispronounce. It is probable that in no other way can you improve your En'
glish so much and so easily as by learninS to pronounce them naturally.
The rhythm pattem made up of the alternation of stressed and unstressed
syllables is powerfully reinforced in English by the phenomenon known as the
weakening or obscuring of vowels. By pronouncing the vowel of an unstressed
syllable as lal , ltJ, or lul , a speaker weakens that syllable and increases the
contrast between it and stressed syllables. We have already seen, in Lesson 3,
how the weakening of vowels works in polysyllables. As might be expected, it
occurs also in quite a few words of only one syllable when these latter words
do not receive sentence-stress. This leads us to another observation regarding
English pronunciation:

THERE|SAsTRoNGTENDENCYToWEAKENTHEVowELSoFTHEMoSTcoMMoN
UNSTRESSEDwoRDsoFoNESYLLABLEJUSTASTHEUNACCENTEDVoWELSoF
poLysyLLABLES ARE WEAKENEO; THAT lS, TO PRONOUNCE THEM pt, ttl, oa lul.

Thus, contrary to what is taught in many beginning English classes, the

indefinite article a is ordinarily lal , not leyl: in a minute nn a #ruU. Only in
 lll. The Pronunciation of Unsfressed Words of One Syttabte 35
a few rare cases is a stressed, and given the sound leyl: the article ,,a,'
tdt'artkal'eyt .
There are, then, two separate pronunciations of this and other similar
words: the weak form and the stressed form. A partial list of such words is
given below.

Words Most Frequently Weakened

Stressed Weak
Word Form Form Example
-a- -j-7
/ey/ in a car /rn e kar/
xan /e,n/ -le/teil get an egg lget en egl
*and lr.nd/ teil high and low /hay an low/
are tall tef I two are ready /tuw a, ,'edll
can lkan/ lken/ you can come /yuw kan kam/
had lbr,d/ ledl I hadbeen lay adbm/
has lhazl /ezl it has gone ln ez gcn/
have lhnv/ /av/ we have seen /wiy av siyn/
*of /ay/ levl three o/us /0riy ev es/
+or ltr/ /ar/ one or two /wen er tuW
that l6etl l6etJ those that went /6owz 6et went/
*the t6iyt l6al or 16rl on the right lan 6e raytl
*to lttJw/ /ta/ or ltul five to two /fayv te tuw/
was twazl twezl it was late lft wez leyt/

The words in the list that are marked with an asterisk (x) are almost al_
ways weakened: a, an, and, of, or, the, and to.
That is weakened when used as a relative pronoun or a conjunction. the
word that you want /6a w5rd 6et yuw w'antl , I know that he wiil /ay n5w dat
hiy wiel/. It is stressed and pronoun ced l6a:t/ as a demonstrative: the reason
for that l6a iyzen fcr 6&u.
The verbs are, can, had, has, have, and was are usually obscured or
weakened, but are given their clear pronunciation whenever they receive sen-
tence-stress: that is, at the end of a sentence or in a tag question. (See item g
under "Function Words," Section II of this lesson.)

wh6 can tklil 96? J5hn cin /kery.

The fligs are lgrl an 6xcellent ia6u, 6r"n't /qrnV rhey?

Can has the added feature of being pronounced with lal , rather than /e/, in the
contraction can't: I can't tell you lay t6nt t6at yuw/. Since the final /u, as
36 Sentence-Stress and RhYthm

normally pronounced in a combination like can't tell, is nearly impossible to

hear, a person listening to the sentence would understand it as negative or
affirmative depending on whether he heard lnl (can't) ot lal (can). The weak-
ening of vowels can indeed affect meaning! If you fail to obscure the a of can
in I can tell you, you may be understood to say precisely the opposite of what
you intended.
The vowels of many other unstressed words of one syllable may be weak-
ened: the weak forms listed here are those most important to use in order to
avoid a "foreign accent."

lV. Thought GrouPs and Blending

By means of pauses we normally divide all but the shortest sentences into two
ormoreparts,orthoughtgroups.Athoughtgroup,then,isaportionofa
sentence set off from the rest by a pause or pauses. In this manual we
shall

indicate pauses by a single diagonal line: There may be time for a swim I if you

come at once.
When we make a pause in a sentence, it is usually for one of three rea-

SONS:

l. To make the meaning clear: when the wind blows I the waves run high.
2. For emphasis: Frankly, I I'm disappointed in you'
3. Or, in a long sentence, simply to enable the speaker to catch a breath'

It is obviously impossible to draw up a neat set of "rules" for the division

of sentences into thought groups. Different persons will wish to emphasize
different ideas, and individuals vary a great deal in their ability to keep on
talking without stopping for breath. A speaker is ordinarily free to group words
in several different ways, according to personal preference'
This does not mean, however, that a pause may be made anywhere in a
sentence.It would certainly be unnatural to pause between the and meaning \n
Phrasing depends upon the meaning ofwhatyou say' ln general, no
pause is

made within closely related word groups such as adjectives or articles

and the

nounsthey modify, auxiliary verbs and the accompanying main verbs' prepo-

sitions and the nouns dependent on them, adverbs modifying adjectives, subject
pronouns and verbs, verbs and their object pronouns, and so on. But between
any of the large grammatical divisions of a sentence pauses may occur.
Analyze carefully the following passage, in which have been marked all
the places where a native speaker of English would be af all likely to pause.
tv. Thought Groups and Blending gz
It is not strange / that chlorophyll / has been called / green blood. This
substance / is carried about / in little green disks / which, / like the cor-
puscles of our blood, / can move about / just as if they had i a life of their
own. If the sun / is too strong, / they can turn / their edges / toward
it, / or sink / to the bottom / of the cells. when there is little sun, / they
may rise / to the top of the cells / to make the most / of the light.

of course, no one speaker would pause so often. If pauses are made too
frequently, the effect is unpleasant; if they are made too infrequently, the
speaker may run out of breath. If the material is written out, the author,s punc-
tuation will be a good guide, though more pauses will often be necessary than
there are commas, semicolons, and other such marks.
To distribute pauses intelligently, it is first of all necessary that speakers
understand the full meaning of what they are saying. And meaning can never
be made clear to the hearer unless one groups words in a clear-cut fashion. The
foreign student's most frequent error with regard to pauses is a failure to or-
ganize sentences into thought groups that can be recognized as such. The
pauses are too timid, or bear no relation to the intended meaning.
within thought groups, words and syllables are not pronounced as separate
units; they flow along smoothly, without jerkiness, and one seems to blend into
the next. A person who did not know any English would find it hard to tell
where one word ended and another began. The blending between the two words
of read ir is as close as that between the two syllables of reading. within a
thought group a speaker does not audibly intemrpt, even briefly, the outward
flow of breath. The blending is accomplished by this constant flow of breath,
and by the fact that even while one sound is being formed the speech organs
are already moving on to the position in which the next is to be formed.
Those who are learning English as a second language often spoil the
blending within thought groups by inserting little puffs of air or /e/ sounds in
order to divide combinations of consonants that seem difficult to them: I don,t
think so /ay downtq 0rpka sow/. (This phenomenon is treated in some detail in
Lesson 9, Section IIL) Blending may also be spoiled by making glottal stops,
that is, by cutting off completely the outflow of breath for an instant by holding
the vocal cords tightly togther, thus closing the glottis. Glottal stops, indicated
by the symbol /4, are comparatively rare in standard English, occurring nec-
essarily in only a few special combinations like oft, oh! lo?o/ (to express dis-
may). In some other languages (Hindi, Arabic, German, Hawaiian) they are
more common, and may even serve to distinguish between one word and an-
other (Danish, Pilipino). The student of English should not use glottal stops to
separate vowel from vowel or consonant from vowel; for example, the /iyl and
lowl of be over /biy owvar/ should be blended.
38 Sentence-Stress and Rhythm

A fuller treatment of the phonetic modifications that take place in word

groups will be found in Lesson 16, "The Sandhi of Spoken English."

V. Exercises

A. Do you understand the meaning of the following expressions? Each is a phrase of

the sort that makes up most of our speech. Each is written as one word, and in
actual conversation, with blending well done, would be pronounced as one word'
pronounce the phrases several times, making the contrast between stressed and
unstressed syllables very strong. The ten most common English words are all used
here, those which make up 25 percent of all that is said and written in English' As
a foundation for future progress, can you learn to pronounce these ten words nat-
urally?

l. av6al6sen
,
8. z6atrirw0 15. aykenm6ykrt
2. ev6edey g. datwiy,n5w 16. nwezm6yd
t
3. evaword 10. tabiyhrept 17. wiarg5wlg
4. Inebas I l. tuavmetyuw 18. d6wz6etk6ym
5.
a
zefrend 12. Siyazt5wldmiy 19. fiyuersiks
,
6. Izekwest5en 13. hiyazsryntt 20. b6kanf5r0
, 21. r5tt".tp6p"t
7. Izen&nser 14. ayad0St

B. Pronounce each of the following expressions as a blended unit, as you did the
transcribed phrases of the preceding exercise. Be very careful to weaken and
obscure unstressed syllables naturally. Sentence-stress is marked in each case.
, ,
l. a. supplant e. the beginning
,
h. on the road
t
,
b. the plant f. that you go
,
i. with the others
c.
t
the tones C. in the mail j. for the
,
d. the cars performance

,
2. a. unable e. a study h. for a nap
,
b. a name f. in a hurry i. for an apple
,
c. a nrght g
b' in a moment j. at a garage
d. an orange

, ,
-1. a. of the war e. of a professor
,
h. is mrschievous
,
b. of the peace f. is of use i. the r6st of us
,a

c. of his story C. will be of s6rvice J. the sound oI lt

d. of a restaurant
V. Exercises 39
4. a. today e. to bel5ng h. to an 5nd
b. to town f. to be f5und i. I cime to him
to try C. to the b6ard j. he s6id to me
d. to enter

5. a. performed e. are a family h. she was afr6id

t
b. are formed f. we rlre thankful i. was the sp6aker
c. are broken g
b' I was rrght j was a b5auty
d. are allowed

6. a. submrt has developed h. have been deciaed

b. had missed f. it has opened i. would have liked
c. haa t6ft g
D' have bec5me j. may have ciught it
d. has br5ught

,7
a. cons6nt e. can have h. I cin't s5e it
b. can s5nd happened i. you can trfist him
c. can t6ll you I. he can dance . i. you .6n't trist him
d. can def6nd g
D I can see it

a. ,,
8. an6st e. one or two h. anO he did it
b. or the r6st c
uncertain i. blick and bhle
c. or a brls o and certainly j. Jimes and i
d. understind

C. Unstressed words are often hard to distinguish in the stream of speech. This exer-
cise is to give you practice in hearing and comprehending such unstressed words.
First, your teacher may want to dictate the exercise to you, supplying in each
sentence one of the words in parentheses for you to identify and write down. Then,
you could practice pronouncing the sentences several times at normal conversa-
tional speed with stresses as marked, inserting in turn each of the words in paren-
theses.

Wh6re did (he, she, they) 95?

Pl6ase give (them, him, her) the tickets.
She br5ught (his, him, us) f6od.
They hiven't 5fferea (as, us) mich m5ney.
Were you isked (your, her) nime?
Is s5b (on, in) this bis?
Would you pl6y it (as, if) they requ6sted it?
Wh6n are you g5ing to t6ll me (the, a, her) st5ry?
40 Sentence-Stress and RhYthm

g. The b6ok cime (from, for) the tiUrary.

10. It's b6tter (that, than) you think it is.
11. The st6re (could, can, would) bring you the pickage'
12. t'd like this (and, or, for) thit.
13. We n6ed 6ne (of, and, or) tw6.

D. Here are four series of sentences, with sentence-stresses marked' In each series
except the last, sentence b contains more syllables than sentence 4, sentence c more
than sentence b, and so on, but the number of stresses is always the same; the
addition of the extra syllables does not mean any appreciable lengthening of the
time it takes to say the entire sentence. (See Section I of this lesson.) Tap on a
pro-
table with your pencil, slowly and regularly, in groups of three beats. Then
nounce each series of sentences several times, making a stressed syllable fall on
you
each beat, and bringing in all unstressed syllables between beats. Each time
read, tap a little faster.

l. a. D6gs 6at b6nes.

b. The dogs eat bones.
c. The d6gs will 6at b6nes.
d. The d5gs will6at the b5nes.
e. The d5gs will have 6aten the b6nes'
Z. a. The car is here now.
b. The cir is out fr6nt n5w.
c. The cir will be out fr6nt s6on.
d. The cir will be out fr5nt in a m6ment'
3. a. B6ys n6ed -5n"y.
b. The b6ys will n6ed -6n"Y.
c. The b6ys will n6ed ,orn" *5n"Y.
d. The b6ys will be n6eding ,orn",n6n"y'
e. The b6ys will be n6eding some of their m5ney'
4. a. A drigstore's the plice to ha'',e lunch'
b. We shall silon finish up for the semester'
c. Jine is a nice m6nth.
d. We were enchinted by her int6iligent conversition'
e. Gr6at diy in the m5rning!
E The passage below, in ordinary conversational style, is to be prepared for rhythmic
reading by

l. Marking all normal sentence-stresses. (See Section II of this lesson.)

a. Forget-Me-Nor (in Sentence 2 in the "Passage for Reading" below) is a
compound noun, and the indefinite pronoun anything (3 and 5) is like a
V. Exercises 41

compound noun; where should they be stressed (Lesson 3, Section III,

2-a)'?

b. where should the intensive pronoun themselves (7) be stressed (Lesson 3,

Section III, 2-c)?

c. Card game (6) is an example of a nominal compound; where is it stressed

(Section II of this lesson)?

d. Call out (3 and 6), and put down (3 and 6) are rwo-word verbs; position
of stress (Section II of this lesson)? Are comes to (3) and think of (5) two_
word verbs?

e. Would you stress because (7),you (8), is (8)? Why, or why not?

2. Marking also any contrastive stresses you think should be made (see last two
paragraphs of Section II of this lesson).
a. Do you see any function words-which, of course, would normally be
left unstressed-to which special attention should be called? Sen-
tence 5? Sentence 6?

b. Do you find any places where it might be well to violate the normal
principles of sentence-stress in order to secure a more resular
rhythm? Sentence 3?

3. Setting off thought groups by inserting (/) wherever you feel a pause should
be made (Section IV of this lesson).
a. Would you pause after that (l), first (3), green (5)? Why, or why not?

b. Sentence 1 is almost too long to read without a pause; would it be better

to break it after game or the first play? Why? Would you break
Sentence 7 after people or things?

PASSAGE FOR READING

l. There's a little game I want us to play that I used to play at school.

2. It's called Forget-Me-Not. 3. I'm going to call out some words-iust

anything at all-and as I say each word, you're all to put down the first thing

that comes to your mind. 4. Is that clear? 5. For instance, if I should say

"grass," you might write "it's green," or anything else you think of. 6. Or
42 Sentence-Stress and RhYthm

if I call out "bridge," you might put down "a card game." 7. It's an inter-

esting game because it shows the reactions of people to different things and

tells you a lot about the people themselves. 8. You see how simple and easy

it is?3

Naturally it is not expected or desired that all students should mark this
passage alike. After you have marked it, read it several times, making sen-
tence-stresses recur rhythmically and blending the words in each thought group.
If the teacher finds that you tend to break up thought $oups with glottal stops
or otherwise, it may help you prevent this if you will draw a line linking words
or syllables between which you are likely to intemrpt the flow of breath:
say each (3), different thlngs (7).
\__/
F. Mark the stresses in the sentences that appear below, and transcribe each sentence
in phonetic symbols. Write each word separately, rather than running words to-
gether in phrases as in Exercise A. After you have made your transcription, your
instructor will pronounce the exercise, so that you may check your transcription
with his or her pronunciation. Pay particular attention to the obscured and clear
sounds of verbs that may be used as auxiliaries, such as can and have. Frnally,
practice reading the material from your corected transcription.

1. What can I give as an answer?

2. I'm afraid it will be hard to get back.
3. He says that he will come if he can.
4. I thought she would be pretty, and she was.
5. She has worked with children since she finished school, hasn't she?
6. Men have shown no patience with it, but women have.
7. The car had been brought, and was ready to use.
8. If I had seen you sooner, we could have gone together.

G. There follow three stanzas of a well-known poem. It has a strong rhythm that may
help you learn to make stressed syllables recur regularly and to obscure unstressed
syllables. It also provides some excellent examples of stress-timed, as opposed to

3Adapted fromYouCan'tTake It withYou by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, copyright'

1937, by Moss Hart and George s. Kaufman, and reprinted by permission of the publishers,
Rinehart & Company, Inc.
 Exercises 49
syllable+imed, rhythm. Mark the sentence-stresses, with your instructor's help if
necessary; note what types of words are stressed and unsfressed, and check your
findings with Section II of this lesson. why do you suppose must is stressed in the
first line? why is it necessary to lengthen tall in order to maintain the rhythm of
the second line? Read the poem several times, being particularly careful of the way
in which you pronounce function words such as to and and; or, better still, mem-
orize the selection.

SEA FEVER

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted
knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Jonx Meserrn yo (lB7 4 -19 67 \

H. The class might like to record "Sea Fever" on tape. If so, the selection should
first be rehearsed a number of times, as a choral reading. This careful preparation,
motivated by the recording, is the chief value of the exercise. The first two lines
of each stanza might be assigned to three different individuals with distinctive
voices. The last two lines of each stanza could be said by the entire class in chorus.
other good poems to work with would be Robert Frost's "stopping by woods on
a Snowy Evening" and Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman."

I. while working on this lesson, each student should read aloud, with attention con-
centrated on sentence-stress and rhythm, as many passages as possible from books
in which he or she is interested.
LESSON 5
Rising-Folling lntonotion

t. What Intonation ls

Intonation is the tune of what we say. More specifically, it is the combination

of musical tones on which we pronounce the syllables that make up our speech'
It is closely related to sentence-stress. Often, but by no means always, a syl-
lable with sentence-stress is spoken on a higher musical note than the un-
stressed syllables. In such cases, intonation is one of the elements of
stress,

the others being loudness and length. (Lesson 7 deals in some detail with cases

in which sentence-stress does not coincide with a higher musical note.)

It is possible to identify on a piano or other musical instrument the note
or notes on which any given syllable is pronounced. Expressive speakers some-
times use as many as twenty-five different notes to give variety and meaning
to what they say. others may use a much smaller range. we could, then, mark
the intonation of sentences by writing them on something resembling a musical
staff.

Good

mg.

44
I. What lntonation ls 45

Have you ever listened to the tune of your own voice? what tune do you
use when you say "what time is it?" and "Good morning"? can you identify
any of the notes on a piano? which word did you pronounce on the highest
note? which word or syllable on the lowest note? can you draw a line that will
show the tune of what time is it? by rising and falling at the proper places?
Each speaker has his or her own range of notes, and it is not necessary,
in order to pronounce English well, for you to imitate someone else's intona-
tion, note for note. what is important is not that a given syllable be pronounced
on the note do and another on re, but the direction of the shift between sylla-
bles, the general movement of the voice up or down. Most native speakers of
English, pronouncing the same words under similar circumstances, would make
their voices rise or fall at approximately the same places. But it is hardly ever
possible to say that a given intonation pattem is absolutely obligatory in a
particular case. There are almost always altemate patterns that are also natural,
and that you can sometimes hear if you listen closely to native speakers of
English.
In marking intonation, we shall use a simplified systemr that divides the
tones into four types: normal, high, low, and extra-high. We can then show
the movements of the voice up or down by drawing lines at four different levels
over or under the passage we are explaining. A line drawn at the base of the
letters of a word indicates that that word is pronounced on a normal tone, a
line above the word marks a high tone, a line some distance below the word
marks a low tone, and a line some distance above the word marks an extra-
high tone. Can you make your voice follow the lines?

I'll havelcream andlsu

'Much of the material of Lessons 5, 6, and 7, as well as the system for marking intonation,
is derived from Kenneth L. Pike's The Intoruttion of American Engtish (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1946). The chief weakness of this marking system (or of any marking system)
appears to be that, unless it is well explained, it may give students tlle impression that English
intonation is much less flexible than is really the case. one should always keep in mind that, in
practice, the voice often does not rise and fall exactly at the place indicated by the markings; the
change from one tone to another may be gradual and extended over several syllables. In spite.of
this weakness, it seems to us that the Pike system of markings is the most teachable yet devised
because of its clarity, simplicity, and graphic quality.
46 Rising-Falling Intonation

Usually the movement from one tone to another takes place between syl-
Iables, and is called a shift. A shift is indicated by a straight vertical line, as
that between how and are in the first example above, or that between are and
you. Sometimes, however, the voice slides from one tone to another while it is
pronouncing a syllable; such movement within a syllable is marked by a line
curving up or down, and we shall call it a slide.

In this last example, we begin to pronounce long on a note higher than nor-
mal.2 and then the voice slides down to a note lower than normal before the
end of the syllable.

ll. Rising-Falling Intonation

It is at the end of a sentence that native speakers of English use intonation most
uniformly. In this position in certain types of sentences the voice often rises
above normal, then falls below normal. This means that the rising-falling in-
tonation pattern looks like this:

or this:

The key to such a pattern is the location of the high note: what comes
immediately before this high note is spoken on a normal tone, and what comes
after is spoken on a low tone. In a short sentence, if you know where to put
the high note, the rest of the pattern falls mechanically into place.

2Care should be taken to avoid exaggeration: making the high tones too high and sliding up
or down too slowly. Normally the slides are made quite rapidly and unobtrusively'
ll. Rising-Falling lntonation 47
THE HIGH NOTE NORMALLY COINCIDES WITH THE LAST SENTENCE-STRESS.

Note these examples.

In both sentences above there are, after the last sentence-stress and its high
note, one or more unstressed syllables left to receive the low note. The down-
ward movement of the voice is then a shift, shown by a vertical line between
the syllable with the high note and the following syllable. In some cases, on
the other hand, the last sentence-stress and its high note may come on the very
last syllable, leaving no room for the low note that must follow, as in The
coffee is hot. lt is then that the voice makes a s/ile, shown by a curved line.
Both the high and the low notes are heard as the last syllable is pronounced,
and the voice descends from the high to the low note within the syllable (the
phenomenon referred to at the end of Section I of this lesson).

ftroreild\.

What trme did you li\ll?

This sliding from one note to another within a single stressed syllable
means that the vowel of the syllable will be so lengthened that it may break
into two slightly different vowels-a diphthong. If we were trying to represent
the sounds as closely as possible, the above examples might be transcribed as

6a t5rr nhiat (rather than /hqV)

hwat taym dld yuw kqgl (rather than /k2l/)

These two-toned syllables and the resultant diphthongization constitute one of

the important differences between English and many other languages. Here
intonation and vowel formation meet. The proper use of slides will make it
48 Rising-Falling Intonation

much easier to give normal diphthongal quality to the right vowels and thus to
make English sound like English.
The fact that the high note usually coincides with the last sentence-stress
in speaking, helps us to distinguish between such grammatically different se-
quences as the following:

l. Nominal compounds and sequences of independent words

blickbird
(a certain species of bird)

Utict< Uira
(any bird black in color)

2. Nominal compounds and sequences in which the first component tells

the material of which the second component is made. (See Lesson 4,
Footnote 2.)

st6ak knife t'o tit<e alstffimite.

st6ak dinner

3. Nominal compounds and verbs followed by objects

checking accounts

tt z ltv
checking accounts They're checking adcQunts.

4. Two-word verbs and verbs followed by prepositions

,Fv
look up Whht are you lookind \P?
lll. The Use of Rising-Falling lntonation 49
look at Whit are you li6oilng at?

lll. The Use of Rising-Falting lntonation

IN ENGLISH, RISING-FALLING INTONATION IS NORMALLY USED AT THE END OF

1. stMpLE sTATEMENTS oF rncr (oecunlrrve serurelrces)

'lhls
^,r is. l-Y
mv lw\fe.
\

tre trisn't s6ia alNra.

2. coMMANDs

5. euEsrloNs THAT BEGTN wtrH AN tNTERRocATtvE woRD, such as what,

who, which, why, when, where, how, and so on. Hereafter these
will be referred to as "wi-questions."3

neft-u$rffikf

H6w are youlEEilng?

'Some grammarians call these "special questions," and distinguish them from "general ques-
tions," which do not begin with an interrogative word. General questions (such as Are you com-
ing?) may be answered by yes or no,' thus they are often called "yes-no questions." Special
questions (such as What time rs ir?) require more specific information as an answer.
50 Rising-Falling Intonation

Persons whose native language is not English may have consid-

erable difficulty at first in pronouncing questions of the type just de-
scribed with the proper rising-falling intonation. The tendency to use
a rising intonation in such cases must be strongly resisted.
The fall of your voice to a low tone at the end of a sentence is a
sort of vocal punctuation mark, a vocal period, indicating that the
thought is completed. A listener feels that there is more to be added
until he hears your voice drop. A disagreeable and puzzling impres-
sion of inconclusiveness may be given the listener when a speaker's
voice falls only a little or not at all at the end of a statement, com-
mand, or question beginning with an interrogative word' Clear rising-
falling intonation establishes a mood of certainty and completeness.

lV. Exercises

A. 1. Listen carefully as your instructor pronounces some of the material below. Can
you hear the high and low notes in his or her voice? Then, in order to fix the
rising-falling intonation pattern in your mind, ear, and speech habits, repeat
these short sentences yourself until they sound perfectly natural to you. Make
your voice follow the intonation line, and do not forget to weaken unstressed
vowels and to blend words tosether.

g ld like toltrGlit.
L-

b. Idft."l;ilfu'.h h.

c. I'd lite ulidau.

t-
, f'n
d. j I'd hke to comelolver.

k.

f.
,
I'd l*e alwrtt$,"h
-l

-
lV. Exercises 51

m. r'o fte tolsp&lto you.

n. Idlrk &E.klg

p. w. I'd lfte to finish

q.

v'

I'd like a piece ofDt

2. Your instructor will ask you or one of the other students the question

Whit would you |i\<e?

Answer by using o.r" ori" sentences above. you, in turn, ask someone else
this same question, and he or she also will answer, using one of the sentences
above. continue the exercise until everyone has had an opportunity to ask the
question and receive an answer.

B. l. Repeat these wft-questions after your instructor. Be sure to use the risine-
falling intonation.

whit did youfbXns? d. Wtrit dia youNndr

\: \-
b. wn6t an youhtr

c. wnit aia vou forlett? What did you think

52 Rising-Falling Intonation

c. wn6t aia vou[*'inLlg] q. whit did vou run lSher?

h. whit did youGillher?

I
r. wn6t dio youlffilauout?

wtrit's helctrvins? s. -lwd,'"Eic-'t+ng you?

k@ u. H6w did you lXEl

t. n6w are yeu EJhner

I
wrr6l*iStelin
L

m. Which is thelibrary? w. whi did uoulffi-Jitz

L_

x. which ones are tnel6'6st?

L

Wh6n can rlifidvz v. H6w did nela5litz

t_ L_

p. Wh6re's $e lirt buitAingt z. wh6m did vou wint to Epfilwith?

2. Your instructor will ask you a question from the list above. You will answer
the question and then ask another student one of the questions from the list.
The every student has participated. (Caution to the
drill will continue until
teacher: do not allow students to take a long time to answer the questions.
Keep the exercise moving rapidly by being willing to supply a cue for the
answer when a student hesitates.)

C. First, read over the following exercise silently to make sure you understand the
meaning of each sentence. Then pronounce the entire series several times, concen-
trating on rhythm and intonation. These sentences should be of practical use to you
the next time you visit an unfamiliar city.
lV. Exercises 53

r. dr-,,slo|yt I l. t6al rm te kamfin

4ls-ddloDY
-L
3.

4. rt, nie.6al]llb.en

5. wial t6vk
"lGthr
15. wial ivth(er

6. 16. haw mSts drd rtlD{st

7. sn&L@lbv 17.

8. hiw urSt 6eluXgz 18. #v fc. rt hiw

9. niu r'n 19.

"ftip

10. 20.

D. Be very careful in placing the high note as you pronounce the following pairs of
sentences.

1. a. In Pasadena, there's a playhouse.

b. Most children like to play house.

2. a. I know nothing about that and couldn't care less.

b. He's always a little careless.
3. a. Try to keep the street cleaner.
b. Try to keep the street-cleaner.
54 Rising-Falling Intonation

4. a. In India, the British no longer have a strong hold.

b. Gibraltar is a stronehold.

5. a. That boy has found a bird's-nest.

b. I've never seen those birds nest.

E. With the help of other members of your class and of your instructor, try to divide
the following representative list of nominal expressions into these four categories:

l. typical nominal compounds, with sentence-stress and the high note on the first
component (see Lesson 4, p.32);
2. expressions in which the first component tells the material of which the second
component is made, with sentence-stress on both components but the high note
on the second component (see Lesson 4, Footnote 2);
3. expressions that according to the above "rules" should belong in Category I
but that are really pronounced as though they belong in Category 2, or vice
versa;
4. expressions that can be pronounced either like those in Category I or like those
in Category 2, but that may have a consequent difference in meaning.
When you have assigned all the expressions to the proper categories, pronounce
the items in each category separately, and try to accustom yourself to the stress-
and-intonation patterns. Native speakers of American English would agree on the
pattern for most of the expressions, but there would probably be an occasional
disagreement.
This exercise might well be carried out as a small-group activity, provided
that the instructor checks thc work that is done.

l. amusement park 15. coffee cup 29. geography book

2. atomic bomb 16. computer program 30. gold watch
3. baseball game 11. cotton skirt 31. grocery bill
4. beach boy 18. cream cheese 32. ham sandwich
5. beef stew 19. credit card 33. high school
6. birthday party ZO. dancing girl 34. kitchen sink
7. brick wall 21. dollar bill 35. laundry soap
8. candy maker 22. Easter parade 36. legal system
9. canned goods 23. English teacher 37. library book
10. chemistry text 24. filling station 38. loving cup
11. cherry pie 25. fish eater 39. master's degree
12. chicken salad 26. flying machine 40. orange marmalade
13. chocolate cake 2'7. French class 41. orange tree
14. city hall 28. gas station 42. paper weight
 Exerclses 55

43. police car 46. school year 49. ten-cent stamp

44. reform school 4'1. social security 50. wil( paper
45. repair department 48. sorority girl

F. Outside of class your instructor will mark the intonation patterns of the passage
below and record the material, following his or her own markings. The recording
will then be played several times, sentence by sentence, for the class. Listen to his
or her intonation and try to mark the passage so as to show what the pattems were.
Some pattems with which you are not yet familiar will probably be used, but don't
try to analyze these. The exercise is intended merely to help you develop your
ability to hear intonation.

PASSAGE TO BE MARKED

l. I usually get up early. 2. It takes me about half an hour to brush my teeth,

dress, and get ready to leave the house. 3. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I some-

times take a swim before breakfast. 4. Do vou like to swim? 5. There's noth-

ing else like it to start the day off right. 6. What else would give you such an

appetite?

G. The material below is to be prepared for reading and then is to be read.

l. There are fifteen sentences of various kinds in the exercise. Do you recall the
types of sentence in which rising-falling intonation is normally used? All but
four of these sentences would normally be pronounced with rising-falling in-
tonation. Try to find the four exceptions, and eliminate them.

2. Mark the sentence-stresses of the eleven sentences that remain.

a. Coffee machine (in Sentence 5) and napkin holder (9) are nominal com-
pounds. Position of stress?
56 Rising-Falling lntonation

b. Are cleaned up (4), pick out (8), and look at (l) two-word verbs? Position
of stress?
c. Where would it be best to stressf/een (13)?
d. Would can be stressed (lO)? Have (12)?

3. Mark the intonation of each sentence. First, put the high note on the last
sentence stress; then fill in the rest of the rising-falling pattern. Everything
that precedes the high note may be marked as normal. Which sentences end
in slides? How do you recognize them?

SENTENCES TO BE MARKED

1. Let's look at the people.

2. What shall we order?

3. Where is the waiter?

4. He hasn't cleaned up the table.

5. He's there by the coffee machine.

6. Do you know what you want?

7. May I see the menu?

8. What shall I pick out?

9. Pass me the napkin holder.

10. We'd better order as soon as we can.

lV. Exercises 57

11. Will you have an appetizer?

12. We have time enough to finish.

13. We have fifteen minutes.

14. I'll take the regular dinner.

15. Will you bring us our coffee later?

H. Transcribe in phonetic symbols Sentences 1,3,6,9, 10, 13, and 15 of the preced-
ing exercise. After you have made your transcription, your instructor will read the
sentences and perhaps transcribe the exercise in class, so that you can check your
work. Practice reading your corrected version.

I. Outside of class, do as much reading aloud as you can, concentrating your attention
on weakening the vowels in unstressed words of one syllable. Selections from a
play are particularly appropriate to read, especially if you can find someone to
alternate with you in reading the parts.
LESSON 6
Rising Intonotion

l. The Use of Rising lntonation

At the end of a sentence, two types of intonation are most cornmon: rising-
falling and rising. In the preceding lesson we studied rising-falling intonation
and learned that it is used for statements, commands, and wft-questions. In the
present lesson we shall deal with rising intonation, the second common end-of-
sentence type.

IN ENGLISH, RISING INTONATION IS NORMALLY USED AT THE END OF QUESTIONS

wHrcH Do Nor BEGIN wrrH AN rNrERRocArvE woRo (that is to say, general
questions that may be answered merely by yes or no).

'" ynu [-6uayt wtt ynu ll6ud it f- ,n"t

These yes-no questions are easy to identify grammatically because they

begin with words such as the following:
1. will, would, shall, should, can, could, may, might, and must

58
l. The Use of Rising lntonation 59

tur*Falp -",

2. have, has, h.ad

finished?

5. Am, $, are, was, were

4. do, does, did

The voice normally goes up to a high note on the last sentence-stess, just
as in the rising-falling pattern. The difference between the two lies in the fact
that, in the rising intonation, the syllables that follow the rise are pronounced
on the high note too.

D"tt u*64-r"Urt fiil."* ""rtt

t"t

When we leave the voice high at the end of a sentence, we arouse in the
listener a feeling of incompleteness, in contrast to the sense of completeness
aroused by a lowered voice. Rising intonation suggests that something further
must be said, either by the speaker or by the hearer.
60 Rising Intonation

Any statement may be made into a yes-no question by the use of rising
intonation alone, without changing the words otherwise.

(statement)

tr-
@end? (question)

We noted in Lesson 5 that questions beginning with an intenogative word,

w/r-questions, are normally given rising-falling intonation. What would be the
effect of pronouncing such a question with rising intonation?

It becomes an echo question, a question about what was previously said. A

native speaker of English would normally interpret it as meaning something
like "Is that really what you just said?" or "Will you please repeat what you
said?" Thus the single word what, pronounced with rising intonation,

w{rt

means "I don't understand; please repeat".

Note that the meanings of the intonation patterns we have considered up
to now may thought of as grammatical meanings,' these patterns help convey
such concepts as affirmation, negation, special interrogation, general interro-
gation, imperative forms, compounding, contrasting, and so on. The most basic
use of intonation is to signal these grammatical meanings. Students will there-
fore need to make every effort to master the use of these intonation patterns.
They are an integral part of the grammatical system of English, as essential to
the structure of the language as are other grammatical signals such as word
order, inflectional endings, and function words. In Lesson 7, Section II, we
will look briefly at other-less basic-intonation patterns, which may be said
to have lexical meanings: surprise, incredulity, irony, and so on. These are
similar to the meanings of content words such as nouns, adjectives, and ad-
verbs.
ll. Nonfinal lntonation 61

ll. Nonfinal lntonation

What has been said up to this point applies to the raising or lowering of the
voice at the end of a sentence, where suitable intonation is most necessary and
easiest to predict. There is less that is definite to be said about the intonation
of that part of the sentence that precedes the last important wotd. Nonfinal
intonation may vary widely from speaker to speaker, with little corresponding
variation in meaning.
Nevertheless, you should know that in any sentence we may pronounce
on a note higher than normal the stressed syllable of any word or words to
which we want to call the special attention of the listener. These may be spe-
cially stressed function words (see Lesson 4, Section II, paragraph beginning
"If a native speaker of English . . .") or content words.

(Note yoa.)

(Note /ots.)

(Note unusual.)

With particular frequency special attention is thus called to demonstrative

and interrogalive words.

ln contrasts and comparisorzs, special attention is called to both ideas

being contrasted or compared. This means that, if both ideas are included in a
single thought group, one of them will be nonfinal. However, the two stressed
elements are not pronounced on the same high note but on different notes, one
high and one extra-high. This difference in level between the two notes serves
to emphasize the idea of contrast. It is one of the few cases in which an extra-
high note seems to be obligatory in an intonation pattem that has a grammatical
62 Rising Intonation

meaning. (Most often patterns with extra-high notes have an emotional, lexical
meaning.)
Curiously, it appears to make no difference which element is given the
extra-high note. Either sentence in each of the following pairs is equally
natural.

If a sentence is divided by pauses into two or more thought groups, each

thought group has its own separate intonation pattem. When the speaker comes
to the end of the first thought group, he or she may do one of three things:

l. End the group with the rising-falling pattern-up to a high note on the
fi.nal stress, then down to a low note. This is done before a long pause
such as might be marked by a colon (:) or semicolon (;).

End the group by a high note on its final stress, then a return to normal.
This is done when the speaker wishes to suggest that what follows is con-
nected with what was just said.
ll. Nonfinal lntonation 63

3. End the group with the rising pattern. This occurs, in general, whenever
the speaker wishes to create suspense.

t---
When I comelback, /

It should be clearly understood that the choice between these three non-
final patterns usually depends more on the attitude of the speaker than on the
grammatical structure and meaning of the sentence. Patterns 1,2, and 3 above
indicate progressively closer degrees of connection: the higher the note at the
end of the first thought group, the closer the connection to the second group.
A speaker using Pattern I is treating the two groups almost as though they
were separate sentences. Pattern 2 indicates a normally close relationship. Paf
tern 3 emphasizes the closeness of the relationship. It is therefore usually im-
possible to say that, before a nonfinal pause, one type of intonation is "right"
and all others "wrong." As far as grammar and logic are concerned, the last
example above might just as well be

On the other hand, there are some special constructions of whose intona-
tion we can be more certain.

l. sERIES wITH and. Rising intonation on all members of the series except the
last; rising-falling intonation on the last member.
64 Rising lntonation

n"rp5*rlilngnsltFatan,lesrilhfu ch.

2. ALTERNATTvES wITII or. Like a series-rising intonation followed by ris-

ing-falling intonation-if the speaker wishes the utterance to be heard
merely as a sequence of items.

w" 5ut ut ullJ6-re ru

'iilffi, rpr-alEluur*t.

However, or often carries a meaning of contrast or comparison. If the

speaker wishes to emphasize this meaning of contrast, he or she will give
an extra-high note to one of the alternatives (see pp. 6l-62 of this lesson).

, ___-r_
You can do it inlwnting
l-;l
/dcfially.

This contrastive extra-high note seems to be obligatory in questions with

or where the speaker wishes the hearer to make a choice between two or
more alternatives.

oo you pr"f6, Lorli,-r,g"t", I

On the other hand, if or merely means that the utterance is to be inter-

preted as a double question, to be answered by yes or no, it is spoken with
the intonation pattern of one, or two, yes-no questions.

Hun" vou 6ne. rrisited Los Angeles o, Sun F.*f,GJ?

ll. Nonfinal lntonation 65
l-r-
les / or San Franbtsco?

Serious confusions can result if a listener does not understand the differ-
ence between these two types of questions with or. (See Exercise F of this
lesson.)

3. DIRECT ADDRESs. for a learner of English to use in

The safest pattern
pronouncing names (or words substituted for names) and titles addressed
directly to the person to whom he or she is speaking is rising intonation.
Normal politeness requires that the direct address begin on a low note and
then rise to normal. Direct address may come at the end of the sentence
or elsewhere, and it does not affect the intonation of the rest of the sen-
tence.

lad tolseel vou. / mv fnend.

|- __:_I--
. , , f ,-71
Mrster Roberts- / how are youlfeellng'

If your voice does not rise at all, your hearer may think you are irritated
with him.

, , rf---71 ,
Come here thlslmrnfi.rte, / Johnny.

In the following sentence, if your voice begins to rise on a normal note

and then goes up to high, rather then beginning low and rising to normal,
you may sound like a cannibal

wr,it *itt *" 6ut rorlu&Furt, r UlOFrz

instead of like a loving daughter.

wt it *itt *" 6ut fo, E.6rt

hurt,
/ M6t+er?
66 Rising Intonation

4. TAG euEsrloNs, sucH AS aren't you, will he. These show clearly the es-
sential difference between rising-falling and rising intonation. If the tag
question is pronounced with the ising-falling pattern (high to low in this
case),

You',e
r' / ilril l-vou?
liitrv.

the whole sentence is to be interpreted d.s a statement of fact, and indicates

that the speaker is confident that the hearer will agree. When the tag is
pronounced with the ising pattern (normal to high),

J*irlhftry,
r_:_
I 6r"n'tl vout

the sentence is a genuine question, which means that the speaker is not
sure whether or not the hearer is hungry, and that the latter is asked to
confirm or deny the idea, to answer yes or no. Note that the intonation of
the part of the sentence that precedes the tag is not affected by the addition
of the latter; though, in the examples above, you're hungry is nonfinal, it
has the same intonation that it would be given if it came at the end of the
sentence.
Tag questions are introduced by the same kinds of words that are used
in yes-no questions. (See Section I of this lesson.)

l. will, would, shall, should, can, could, may, might, and must

n'"6dtEfu /;r{h",

kadlt ttu-fn

2. have, has, had

lll. Exercises 67

4. do, does, did

rhey d6n't aE)6e, I ffithey?

L

ilt. Exercises

A. Pronounce each group of sentences in the following exercise several times so as to

accustom yourself to the various intonation patterns. Your instructor will try to see
that you do not fail to blend the words together smoothly.

l. Yes-no questions

t f7--
d. Will vou keep itllong?
68 Rising Intonation

f. Rre you tivinglrr&et

g
D' r'tr'6d-fi1!*ilt-'"'

h. d.ni"lu*-J-*n

2. Contrasts and comparisons

Y6ulm6w it as w6ll as

b. Shrldra is older than

rnislr6om is m6re ex

t,
re was as lnterestlng as

3. Altemative and double questions

a. Shall we wfitlh6re, / or ou$(de?

lll. Exercises 69

trtr,l-7-
ou ever seenllce / orlsnow?

4. Series

I J"la#-I"", /BerFard, t

It's 6pen tJli I rqFSrro*, I

5. Degrees of connection

Mursers;ldlio|i,*Ltr+rer6.|,}(ut.t.

c. Tr,G]on. isKe: I thiilone isl)fi.

-u. -\_ vouNw.

-U:qF*l.|me-fs, / I'll s6rve

t-
f. In almmute, /
70 Rising Intonation

B. In order to improve your ability to control the ups and downs of your voice, to
hear and produce an intonation pattern, it is suggested that a recording of Exercise
A be made in class. As many students as possible should record groups of sen-
tences, and these should be played back to the class immediately. The students
will try to detect any failure to reproduce a natural pattern.

C. Read each of these sentences, first as a statement, then as a question, using only
intonation to show the difference. (See Section I of this lesson.)

1. The story begins long ago.

2. They were riding in an old car.
3. The car began to cross the river.
4. The bridge had been washed away.
5. The children were in the back seat.
6. They were talking at the tops of their voices.
'7. No one could hear anything.
8. One of the children fell out.
D. Your instructor will call on individual students to ask each of the following ques-
tions. Each student selected may choose to ask the question as a regular wft-ques-
tion or as an echo question. When the question has been asked, the student will
then call on another student to answer it in the way suggested by its intonation.
The expected answer to a regular wft-question is, of course, to provide the infor-
mation requested. On the other hand, the expected answer to an echo question is
to indicate in some way whether or not the original question has been correctly
understood: for example, "Yes, that's what I said." (See the next-to-last paragraph
of Section I of this lesson.)
1. What's the first day of the week?
2. Who's the best skater?
3. Where's the bus stop?
4. When's the next class?
5. Which way is north?
6. How is "athlete" spelled?
1. Why is the cat hungry?
8. How long have they lived in this country?

E. Each of these sentences involves a contrast or comparison. Therefore, in each

sentence special attention is called to two ideas, one given a high note and the
 Exerclses 71

other an extra-high note. In order to familiarize yourself with the intonation pat-
tern, repeat each sentence twice, once with the extra-high note first and once with
it last. (See pp. 6l-62, Section II of this lesson.)
l. Peace is always preferable to war.
2. Oleo is as tasty as butter.
3. I'd rather travel by ship than by plane.
4. She can play the piano or the guitar.
5. It's not Thursdav. it's Friday.

F. l. The story is told of a new immigrant who arrived in San Francisco. As re-
quired by law, the U.S. Immigration Inspector questioned him. Looking
sternly at the immigrant, the Inspector asked:

florce / or by.r

lGi"r'*r

Tenified but trying hard to be cooperative, the immigrant thought a long time,
then timidlv answered:

He was not admitted to the United States.

Can you explain the story? How did the Inspector intend his question to
be answered? Why did the immigrant answer as he did? Could he have profited
by a lesson on intonation?

2. Demonstrate the intonation pattern with which you think each of these ques-
tions should be asked. In some cases it may be possible to use either of two
different patterns, depending on the meaning you want to convey. (See pp.
&-65,ltem2 of this lesson.)
a. Do you prefer popular or classical music?
b. ln winter do you like to skate or ski?
c. Will you have coffee or tea?
d. Have you ever played roulette or blackjack?
e. Is the traffic light red or green?
f. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
72 Rising Intonation

G. Pronounce each of the following questions in two ways: first, as if you were really
asking for information; then, as if you knew the hearer would agree with you and
you were merely making polite conversation. After each reading of each sentence,
another student should try to make the response that your intonation shows you
expect. (See the end of Section II in this lesson.)

l. It's getting hotter, isn't it?

2. You don't think it will rain, do you?

3. It doesn't rain here in December. does it?

4. The nights are always warm, aren't they?

5. You can count on good weather in October, can't you?

6. The rainy season doesn't ever begin until winter, does it?

7. There's a lot of fog here, isn't there?

8. The mornings are warmer than the afternoons, aren't they?

9. The days are getting longer, aren't they?

10. Dinner is served at six o'clock. isn't it?

ll. Concerts usually begin at eight o'clock, don't they?

12. They usually finish before eleven, don't they?

13. The library isn't open after midnight, is it?

14. The busses don't run on Sunday, do they?

15. The museum is open on Mondays, isn't it?

H. 1. The sentences below are to be marked for rhythm and intonation, and then
read. A systematic way of analyzng material for this purpose is to

a. Mark all sentence-stresses. [n this exercise, all words may be stressed

normally; there are no specially stressed function words. (See Item I to-
ward the end of Lesson 4. Section ID.
lll. Exercises 73

b. Divide into thought groups by placing a diagonal bar (/) at pauses. Be

sure to mark as separate thought groups all (l) parts of a series, (2) alter-
natives, (3) words used in direct address, and (4) tag questions.
Mark the intonation of each group. First, locate the final high note or
rise. In this exercise, this may in all cases coincide with the last sentence-
stress. Second, determine whether the pattern should be rising-falling or
rising, by deciding whether the group is a statement, command, wh-ques-
tion, yes-no question, echo question, nonfinal group, or one of the special
constructions listed in b above. Third. mark the intonation line from the
final high note to the end of the group, distinguishing between shifts and
slides. Fourth, decide whether or not you wish to give a high note to any
nonfinal sentence-stresses, and mark such notes. Lastly, draw a line under
the rest of the group, indicating normal pitch.

This exercise could well be carried out as a small-group activity.

SENTENCES TO ANALYZE

l. Good morning, Ms. (lmtzl) Peterson. How are you feeling?

2. If it rains, we'll call off the whole thing.

3. You'll agree that it's the truth, won't you?

4. We are studying composition, pronunciation, and grammar.

5. There are two ways of accomplishing if by kindness, or by threats.

6. He translates from English to French, and from French to English.

7. Which syllable is accented?

8. Ms. Kim, will you open the door?

74 Rising Intonation

9. Do you speak better than you read, or read better than you speak?

10. Is the test on Monday or Tuesday?

I. Practice reading or repeating these short conversations with another student, mak-
ing them sound as natural as you can. (See Lesson 4, Section II, p. 32.)

b. sin" "lJ-*s"l
*".t".?

b. Xs. hivz u6rrlr6*at.

I

a.

3. a.

b.

a.

b. \*, vu* -iynldlJz h*6a. vu*Nv.

 LESSON 7
More About Intonotion

l. lntonation and Focus

The meaning of a sentence that contains a number of different elements-sub-
ject, verb, object, pronouns, adjectives, time expressions, expressions ofplace,
and so on-may be unclear because of the very number of those elements. This
is especially true of yes-no questions, such as "Will you drive to the office
tomorrow?" In written form and out of context, such a question may be am-
biguous. Does it mean, "Will you dive, rather than your wifu?" Does it mean,
"Will you drive, rather than walk?" Does it mean, "Will you dive to the
office, rather than to the beach?" Or does it mean, "Will you dive tomorrow,
rather than today?" In other words, what is the focus of the question? What
kind of information does the speaker expect as an answer?
Different languages may use different grammatical devices to signal focus.
French, for example, most often uses word order; the equivalent of "Is it yoa
that will drive to the office tomorrow?", "Is it to the ffice that you will drive
tomorrow?", "Is it tomorrow that you will drive to the office?" and so on.
Chinese also uses word order. Malayo-Polynesian languages add certain affixes
to verbs to indicate focus. In English, the favorite device for indicating focus
seems to be intonation. This is possible because of the great freedom that exists
in English to give the high note of the intonation pattern to any element in a
sentence.

75
76 More About lnlonation

We can say each of the following sentences, and the meaning of each
sentence is quite clear:

ltr-
Will lyou dnve to the office tomorrow? (rather than someone else)

Will you ldrrve to the office tomorrow? (rather than going some other way)

witt you ariu"@ (rather than from the office)

will uou d.iu" to th"[5ffi"-"

toln5rro*? (rather than somewhere else)

-
Witt vou Oriu" to th" 6ffi"" tffi.ro*? (rather than some other day)

IN ENGLISH, ATTENTION IS FOCUSED ON ONE OF THE ELEMENTS IN A THOUGHT

GROUP BY USING ONLY ONE HIGH NOTE, AND BY MAKING THE VOICE RISE ON
THE STRESSED SYLLABLE OF THE WORD THE SPEAKER WISHES TO SINGLE OUT,

Up to now in this text, we have assumed that the high note will coincide
with the last sentence stress. (See the "ruIe" in Lesson 5, at the beginning of
Section II.) A look at the above examples will show, however, that this is not
necessarily true when focus is needed to make the meaning of the sentence
clear.
Unless students of English leam to use this freedom to place the high note
wherever it is needed, they may fall back on the grammatical devices their own
language uses to indicate focus, and thus produce such unnatural sentences as
"Is it to the office you will drive tomorrow?" This freedom in the placement
of the high note in English extends to rising-falling intonation as well as to
rising intonation:

t tt I t , , ,
Why do you inbrst
lon
going home so soon?

The need for focusing attention on one element in a thought group arises
regularly in
lntonation and Focus 77

l. Making a question specific.

i---,-----------
Was itlyou who did that?

t l-7---1 ,
When do youlhoDelto come back?
'l

2. Answering a specific question.

(Who took the new car?)

ilt5ot ttre n6*

"ir.

(Did you take the new car, or leave it?)

t6oklthe n6*
"ir.

(Did you take the new car, or the old one?)

I t5ok theln6wlcir.

3. Contradicting an idea expressed elsewhere or merely implied.

(He's not working hard.)

&c,!eJ i.l *6rking hird.

78 More About Intonation

(Johnny will bring it to you.)

I *intfv1ulto
t-
brins it to me.

(Will you please bring it here?)

T-h+,y will bring it to you.

r ritel*risltipe b6st.

But we ldolbeheve you.

ll. Lexical (Emotional) Intonation

There are many intonation pattems, other than those so far described in this
manual, that are at times used by native speakers of English. Most of them
would be classified, however, as having lexical rather than grammatical mean-
ings. (See Lesson 6, end of Section I.) That is to say, they add to the basic
meaning of a sentence emotional overtones such as surprise, disbelief, shock,
fear, respect, determination, sarcasm, irony, friendliness, suspicion, and many
more. These lexical patterns thus have meanings that are similar to those of
content words rather than to those of function words.
An extra-high note is often part of a lexical intonation pattern. Such a note
seems to intensifi the force of any emotional adjective or adverb to which it is
attached:

(shock)

(surprise)

(approval)

Frequent use of such an intensifying extra-high note may, in fact, be one of

the distinctive characteristics of feminine speech.
ll. Lexical (Emotional) lntonation 79
Another tendency in feminine speech may be relatively frequent use of an
intonation pattern associated with coaxing or persuading. This emotional pat-
tern begins on a high note, comes down to a low note, and finally rises to
normal on the last sentence stress:

iloJilu.n6ue tit<e tn6t.

ll-

----7---l r t
Youl don't really need
fgrrlly.
-

A more masculine pattern may be to indicate determination by giving a

separate stress and a downward slide or shift to every word in a thought group:

de1nut$tJt tt'\[

\A )iU hfuE 4dbqrqbl

All three of the preceding patterns, however, are certainly used at times by
both female and male speakers.
Many would agree that a yes-no question that begins on a normal note,
rises to high on the last sentence-stress, then returns to normal has overtones
of ironv:

(He's my brother!)

f---71
Are youlce{giq? (I don't think you are at all.)

An authoritative work on intonationr describes thirty different "primary

rKenneth L. Pike, The Intonation of American English (see p. 45, Footnote 1).
80 More About Intonation

intonation contours." However, beyond the point we have reached, the prin-
ciples become too vague to be of much practical value to a student of English.
The patterns are less predictable, and there is less agreement as to their mean-
ing. The choice of patterns depends on intangible personal factors such as
speakers' attitudes, rather than on grammatical constructions and logic.
The common types we have already studied are entirely sufficient for nor-
mal conversational purposes. With them you can say almost anything in a clear
and natural way. Become as familiar with them as possible, and for a while try
to use them for everything you say in English. Then, little by little, you can
add new pattems-you will probably do so instinctively-by imitation.
Above all, do not make the mistake of thinking that all the various types
of intonation you have been accustomed to using in your own language will
have the same meaning if you transfer them to English. Some of the intonation
patterns of your mother tongue may not exist in English, and others will have
entirely different meanings.2

lll. Inventory of Intonation Patterns

Lessons 4, 5, 6, and 7 have been focused on the rhythm and intonation of
English. The most essential intonation patterns have been described and their
meanings identified. Before we move on in subsequent lessons to a detailed
examination of the individual sounds of the language, it may be useful to bring
all these intonation patterns together in the form of an inventory, so as to help
you see the over-all picture.
In the inventory the patterns are identified in the first column by a phrase
describing their type, then in the second column by a formula made up of a
series of numbers, and finally in the third column by one or more examples.
Lines are drawn over and under the words in the examples to indicate pitch
levels, according to the system with which you are already familiar. The num-
bers in the second column correspond to the lines as follows: I indicates a low
pitch, 2 a normal pitch, 3 a high pitch, and 4 an extra-high pitch. Thus the 2-
3-l pattern is what we have been calling rising-falling intonation, arrd 2-3
represents rising intonation.
These numerical formulas are included here because they are a concise
and easy way to identify intonation patterns in writing. Numbers are not as

2For
example, Engtish is the only language the authors know of in which tag questions with
rising-falling intonation are used to indicate expected agreement. (See ksson 6, Section II-4.)
Such tag-question formulas as the French n'est-ce pas, the German nicht wahr, and the Spanish
no or verdad alwavs have risins intonation.
lll. lnventory of lntonation Patterns 81

graphic as are lines for indicating intonation, so numbers are less helpful when
students are practicing pattems. But numbers are useful in identifying patterns
quickly and clearly. Also, if you ever want to read more about the intonation
of American English, you will find these numbers used in most of the material
written on the subject.

Inventory of Intonation Patterns Having Grammatical Meanings

Typ" Formula Examples

l. Statements, 2-3-1
requests,
commands,
wft-questions

2. Yes-no questions 2-3 oia rn"l-inr*"tr

stre's n6tltrGt

3. Echo questions 2-3

4. Contrasts, 3-2-4-l
comparisons or
4-2-3-r

5. Implicit contrasts 4-2-3-r i lw5uran'tla5 hrrit.

or
2-4, and so
on can noo uetieuellnin
(continued)
82 More About lntonation

Inventory of Intonation Patterns (continued)

5. Nonfinal distantly 2-3-l Let's n5tlX: / it's too late.
connected

-.t
Nonfinal closely 2-3-2 E*r[-tl* / I believe you.
connected

,tt
Nonfinal suspense 2-3 You tnow.Jwhat, / I'm going to kiss
you.

7. Series with and 2-3 t 2-3 t w"'6"d1;riy', r s6'F-ls,', dl;+,"

2-3-l

8. Altematives with or 2-3 I 2-3 I 2- c5-" ut JG-n, t giG,t / 0rl\6

3-l

9. Alternative 2-3 t 2-4-l

questions or
requiring a 2-4 t 2-3-l witt yoult6l them, / or siv f,Gng?
choice

10. Double yes-no 2-3 / 2-3 oo tt"n ,6ulJi.t *, I o.lfrffiz

questions

11. Direct address l-2 J7m] lcan you help me?

12. Tag questions (real 2-3 His name isn't Jones,I jqjifl3
questions)
(continued)

'Notice that in series, alternatives, direct address, and tag questions the number of syllables
is sometimes insuffcient to permit developing the intonation pattern normally.' that is to say, with
the high note of the pattem on the last sentence-stress. Thus, in the example given for Pattern 7
above, the thought group novels has only two syllables. While saying those two syllables, the
lll. lnventory of lntonation Pafterns 83

Inventory of Intonation Patterns (continued)

13. Tag questions 2-3-l It's a nice aav. rfrl1
(agreement
expected)

14. Focus (Depends on where the voice rises. Applicable to any

pattem.)

Did theylbuy the house at the end of the street?

,-
Did they buy thelhouse at the end of the street?

i-
Did they buy the house at the lend of the street?

trrf-
Did they buy the house at the end of the lstreet?

Yes,/ they bought

Yes,/ the

, | ,1,
Yes,/ they bought lthat firouse.

voice will typically rise. So that the upward movement may be clear, the stressed syllable z6v- is
needed for the lower note, and the unstressed syllable -els for the higher note. As a result the high
note of the pattem is given to an unstressed syllable. The same is true of is it in the example for
Pattern 12. In the examples for Patterns 8 and 11, we need to use a rising pattern on just one
syllable, so we get upward slides on twelve nd Jim.
84 More About lntonation

tv. Exercises

A. Pronounce each group of sentences several times, until the intonation patterns seem
entirely natural to you.

l. Series of alternatives with or

l-- tf-
a. You can havelwhrte wine, /Shgfy, /

t f-7- f--7- r |--7-1 ,

c. A homelrun. / eltnple. / or even aldou{e will do.

Id'IFil t. / U4gl,t, r pr[u'Eli,.

'id;*, rffi, r,o1fi', I orls){ne.

2. Direct address

a.rr"1\/Iasr.

wrr6."li*lvou. / d6ar?
l' -.-

c. I'a tite alw6ralwittr you, / G6orge.

,
d. What are

e. @,lrvr6.rl6chon.L
--
lV. Exercises 85
f. Sindv. I ttrGis R5uertF&res.
----J- \-
t71 ,
s. If vou'relrn[q9g9g!. /Dad. / we could o loutlto eat.

3. Tag questions (real questions)

you *int u rg6"!y*z

'6.onalt3i4ine,

b.
@er,rd5esn'tlit?

Building, rjgg:ditz

You kn6w it 6tt ttre lii

4. Tag questions (agreement expected)

b. You have aG6Jtirutli\w, I

d. si--"r', 6t-ostlZL"r, /+]g

ueltirkrlt6o mu6n, r a6es
86 More About lntonation

5. Intensification

wrr6t ulrtting"[q9

B. l. By using suitable intonation, make this sentence, I put my red shirt away,
serye as an answer to each of the following questions. (See Section I of this
lesson.)

a. What did you Put awaY?

b. Where did you Put Your red shirt?
c. Did your wife put your shirt away for you?
d. Which shirt did You Put awaY?
e. Whose shirt did You Put awaY?

2. Formulate a question that might result in each of the following answers.

Shellost her credit card.

Shellostlher credit card.

c. She lostlherlcredit card.

lV. Exercises 87
d. She lost herlcEILt card.

C. Authors do not normally know anything about the theory of intonation, yet they
frequently indicate by putting a word in italics that their sentences should be read
with a certain intonation pattern. The lines below are taken from well-known plays.
How do you think the authors intended them to be spoken?

l. They don't want me.

2. That's a train trip for you.
3. I don't know what I'm going to do.
4. Everybody graduated this year.
5. We don't have to show vou.
D. The following exercise is to be done as you did Exercise H in Lesson 6: mark all
sentence-stresses, then divide into thought groups by diagonal bars, finally mark
the intonation of each group. In deciding what the intonation pattern should be,
you may wish to consult the Inventory of Intonation Patterns in Section III of this
lesson. In this exercise watch out for a few examples of function words with con-
trastive stress (see Lesson 4, end of Section II), of high pitches occurring on un-
stressed syllables (Section III, Footnote 2 in this lesson), and of upward slides.

l. This town has garages, stores, and a high school.

2. Is the school on the left-hand side of the street?
3. It's on the right-hand side, near the grocery store.
4. This is where your brother lives, isn't it?
5. He doesn't live here; my sister does.
6. Come on, Joe, it's time to head back to the big city.

E. Transcribe the following series of connected sentences in phonetic symbols; then

mark sentence-stresses, pauses, and intonation. After you have completed your
analysis, your instructor will read the sentences, so that you can check your work
with his or her pronunciation. It is not expected that each member of the class will
mark the sentences in exactly the same way. Finally, practice reading your cor-
rected transcription.

1. Yes, dear, I know what I'm to bring home: bread, sugar, and cheese.

2. It's written down here in my notebook, so I won't forget it.

88 More About Intonation

3. Shall I get a pound of cheese, or half a pound?

4. What kind of cheese do you want?

5. As for me, I like any cheese.

6. But I'm sure you want Wisconsin cheese, don't you?

F. Practice reading or repeating these short conversations with another student, mak-
ing them sound as natural as you can. Notice that in each conversation the into-
nation pattern gives to the single word what an entirely different meaning. After
the class has practiced these conversations, pairs of students can perhaps make up
similar conversations of their own. One way of doing this might be as follows.
Student "a" makes a statement. Student "b" responds with the word what, using
one of the three intonation patterns. Student "a" then needs to find a reply appro-
priate to the meaning given to what by the intonation with which it was pro-
nounced.

l. a.

b. ,yfr

a.

2. a. ay dZ5st r6d an intnsunfbtk

b. r'-D{tr
L
lV. Exercises 89
,rrltrz
3. a. ay dZast red en rntrrstr0lbqk.
l-_

f r 1 t r--j-
b. _!y/at? duw yuwln{1yllbuks?

G. We end the four lessons on rhythm and intonation with the special Diagnostic
Passage below. It should help you find out how well you have learned the basic
features of the intonation of English, and at the same time should enable your
instructor to discover if there are features to which the class should devote further
attention.
Your instructor may ask you to make an individual recording of the Diagnostic
Passage for evaluation. If so, you will do a better job if you do not practice the
material in advance. Read it once or twice so as to make sure you understand the
meaning of the sentences. Then, while you are recording, forget about pronuncia-
tion and concentrate on the meaning of what you are saying.
In analyzing your recording, your instructor may find it helpful to use the
numbers of the intonation patterns, as listed in the Inventory of Intonation Patterns
in this lesson, to call your attention to any unnatural patterns that he or she may
notice in the recording.

DIAGNOSTIC PASSAGE FOR ANALYZING INTONATION

l. Have you ever visited New York or Washington? 2. They are certainly interesting

cities, aren't they? 3. Did you go there by plane or some other way? 4. In Wash-

ington you can see the white House, the capitol, and the Supreme court Building.

5. You don't like Washington better than New York, do you? 6. I must say, John,

that New York is livelier. 7. which one is livelier? 8. New york. because of its

nightclubs and sporting events. 9. Did you pick out your hotel there, or did a travel

agent do it? 10. Do you expect to fly East on your next vacation? 11. No, my

friend; the West is the place for me.

H. Outside of class, read aloud several pages of simple conversational material (a

modern play, if possible), concentrating your attention on the intonation of ques-
tions.
LESSON E
Clossificotion of
Consononts;
the Endings -ed ond -s

l. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds

An important way in which one speech sound may differ from another is in
voicing or the lack of it. We say that a sound is voiced if our vocal cords
vibrate as we pronounce it; a sound is voiceless if it is pronounced without
such vibration. Press your thumb and forefinger lightly against the sides of your
larynx (the central part of your throat, where sounds are made); then pronounce
lzl and /s/ alternately in imitation of your teacher. You should be able to feel
the vibration of the vocal cords as you say lzl, and notice no vibration as you
say /s/. In other words, lzl is a voiced sound and /s/ is voiceless.
Now try pronouncing /5/ and /Z/. Which of the two sounds is voiced?
Another means of distinguishing the two types is to stop your ears as you
pronounce the sounds aloud. In the case of voiced sounds, you should then be
able to hear clearly the vibration of the vocal cords. You will hear nothing,
except perhaps the rushing of the air, as you say the voiceless sounds.

THE VOICED CONSONANTS ARE

bl0vz
dmrwr.
gndydZ

90
l. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds 91

THE VOICELESS CONSOTIANTS ARE

f k S t hw
h S 0 rs

. VOWEL SOUNOS ARE VOICED

Do not try to memorize the above lists. It is much better to pronounce all
the sounds to yourself, with fingers on throat or in ears, until you can tell
instantly whether each one is voiced or voiceless.
You may have noticed that there are a number of pairs sf ssnssnnlfs-
such as /s/ and lzl , l3l and liJ-which seem to be very much alike except that
one is voiced and the other voiceless. The consonants lbl and /p/ form another
such pair: both sounds are made in the same place (between the lips) and in
the same manner (by closing the lips, then opening them to let the air escape
explosively); but /b/ is pronounced with vibration of the vocal cords, and /pi
without vibration. We may say that /b/ is the voiced counterpart of /p/. How
many more such pairs can you discover?
Pronounce a prolonged lv/. In the middle of the sound, without intemrpt-
ing the flow of air through your mouth, make your vocal cords stop vibrating.
What sound is left? What is the voiceless counterpart of lvl?
What happens if you stop the vibration of the vocal cords while pronounc-
ing lm/? We may say, then, that lml has no voiceless counterpart in English.
The same is true of lll ,lnl , /41 ,lrl ,lwl , and lyl . On the other hand, there are
no voiced sounds corresponding to lW and ihwl.
This leaves the following pairs:

/b, pl /9, w lv, fl tz, sl

td, u t6,0/ /2, sl ldZ, tll

The first pair, lbl and lpl , may be regarded as two parts of the same sound;
so may /d/ and /t/ ,lgl and lk/, and so on. In each case, the first symbol repre-
sents the voiced half of the sound, the second symbol the voiceless half.
Because there is so little difference between /z/
and /s/, for example, it is
extremely easy to make the error of pronouncing one in place of the other. In
some languages, such as German, there are very few final voiced consonants.
When speaking English, a person whose first language is German will therefore
have a strong tendency to unvoice final consonants whenever possible. If he
sees the word bed, he may think he pronounces it as /bed/, but to an American
it will probably seem that he says /be(. We shall speak of this problem again
in later lessons.
92 Classification of Consonants; the Endings -ed and -s

ll. Stops and Continuants, Sibilants

It is sometimes useful to classify consonants in a second way, as stops or
continuants. A continuant is a sound-like /m/-that may be prolonged as long
as the speaker has breath to pronounce it. A stop must be pronounced instan-
taneously and cannot be held-like /V.
Is /n/ a stop or a continuant? What is lsl? lW? lbl? lfl?
Among the continuants, four consonants are known as sibilants, because
of the hissing sound with which they are pronounced. These are lzl , lsl , lLl ,
and /5/. Note that these four make up two voiced-voiceless pairs'. lz, sl and lL,
5/. The classification of sibilant is significant, as we shall see shortly, in deter-
mining the pronunciation of the ending -q, which is so frequently used in En-
glish.

lll. Point of Articulation

We shall also need to be able to classify consonants in one other way, as to
their point of articulation, or the place in the mouth where they are pro-
nounced. Six of these points are shown in Figure 8.
If we begin at the front of the mouth and work back, we shall find first a
group of three sounds made with the lips: lbl, lpl, and lrnl. Try making them.
(In technical language they are called bilabials.)
Between the upper teeth and the lower lip, we make two English sounds:
lvl and lfl. (Labiodentals.)
By establishing light contact between the tongue tip and the back of the
upper and lower front teeth, we make /6/ and l0l . (Interdentals.)
By touching the tip of the tongue to the tooth ridge Qust behind the upper
teeth), we make four sounds: ld/ , lU, lnl , and /V. In some other languages
(French, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, and so on) these same sounds are pro-
nounced with the tongue tip touching the upper teeth themselves. (Alveolars.)
By allowing the air to escape through a narrow passage benveen the
tongue and the hard palate, we form lzl, lsl, lLl, and lil. (Palato-alveolars.)
Pressing the back of the tongue against the soft palate, we form lgl , lW,
and lql. (Velars.)
The points of articulation of the other consonants-/W, lyl, lrl , lwl , lhwl,
/t5/, and ldLl-w1ll be described in sections of later lessons devoted specially
to those sounds.
lll. Point of Articulation 93

Lips, /b/, lp/, and tmt Lower lip and upper teeth,
lvl and lll

Passage between teeth, Tongue tip touching tooth

16l and l0l ridge, ldl,lll, lnl, and lll

Passage between tongue Tongue touching soft palate,

and hard palate, lgl, lk/, and l4l
lzl, lsl, l2l, and l5l
Figure 8. Points of articulation of consonants
94 Classification of Consonants; the Endings -e9l and -9

lV. Pronunciation of -ed

The ending -ed, added to regular English verbs to form the past tense and past
participle, has three different pronunciations: /t/ as in wished /wt5V, /d/ as in
failed lfealdl, and ltdl as in needed rrlydtdl.
The sound the ending will have in any given word is determined by a very
simple phonetic principle: when two consonants are pronounced together,
as /r/ and ldl in cared lkxardl, it is easier to voice both consonants or leave
both voiceless than it is to voice one and leave the other voiceless. Therefore,
the ending -ed is pronounced /d/ after a voiced sound, and ltl after a voiceless
sound. You will remember that ldl and ltl are the two halves of a voiced-
voiceless pair; in phonetic terms, this pair /d, t/ is the sign of the past tense
and past particiPle.
How would the ending -ed be pronounced after a vowel? Remember that
all vowels are voiced.
Suppose one wishes to add the sound /d/ or ltl to a word that already ends
in one of those two sounds, in other words, to add ld, tl to ld, tl . k is almost
impossible to do so without inserting some sort of a vowel sound between the
two consonants. Because vowels are voiced, the insertion of a vowel here
means that the final d will be pronounced as /d/ rather than ltl . In other words,
after t or d the ending -ed is pronounced as a separate syllable, /rd/.

THE ENDING -ED IS PRONOUNCED

l. /d/ ap'rr,n ALL voICED coNSoNANTS EXCEPT /d/, aNo AFTER ALL vowEI-
SOUNDS:
planng! lplnn!1, iudged tdLedL!1, played lpleyll
2. /V eTlen ALL VOICELESS CONSONANTS EXCEPT /t/:
rocked lrak!, kissgg! lktsgl , ripped htpt!
-') - AS A sEpARATE syLLABLE, ltdl (or /ud/), arrsn /d, t/:
p r ot e cte d t pretLktli,t, i nt e nde d Ant6ndrd/

The most common errors that result from failure to observe the above
principles are

1.
The pronunciation of -g! as a separate syllable after consonants other
than ldl or ltl:
robbed as trlabtdl , instead of /rab{
thanked as /06qkrd/, instead of /0agky

2. The pronunciation of -g! as /V after lll , lrl , ot a vowel:

V. Pronunciation of -g 95

dared as ldeer!, instead of /deer{

killed as lktel!, instead of /keld/

3. Apparent omission of the entire ending:

answered as /6nser/, instead of /6nsard/

There are only two types of exception to these rules. One is a group of
adjectives that end in -g! and therefore look like verbs: ragged, wretched, and
so on. Contrary to the principles outlined above, the ending of these words is
pronounced as a separate syllable, /d/: higy!,lr6tS1gl.

A child
naked /n6ykrd/ A two-tegged /tiwligg/ animal
A ragged nLgy! coat A wicked lw'rtsd/ idea
T\e rugged lr6gtdl rock A wretched lr6tSlOl aay
An aged l6ydi:-fl minister (Compare: He has aged leydldl a lot.)
The blessed /bl6sg! Virgin (Compare: The Pope blessed /bles! rhe
crowd.)

A dogged n3gg/determination (Compare: The little boy dogged ldcgdl

his brother's steps.)

The other type of exception is found in the case of adverbs such as de-
servedly, supposedly, and markedly. These can be analyzed as:

verb ending in a consonant sound * -ed- + -ly.

In a// such adverbs the -ed- is pronounced as a separate syllable, Adl.

The patient has improved markedly lm6*rdV.

We made the decision advisedly ledv'ayz4ltl .
I will support yotr unreservedly lantz5wf,ltl .

V. Pronunciation of -s
In English, to make a noun plural or possessive, or to put a verb in the thfud
person singular form of the present tense, we add lz, s/ to the end of the word.
This ending is spelled in several different ways: -s (two hours, he says), -es
(several churches, she kisses), -'q (a moment's time), or -s' (the grocers'
prices). However it may be spelled, the ending is pronounced, according to
strict phonetic principles, in one of three ways; lzl , /s/ , or lnl - The principles
96 Classification of Consonants; the Endings -991 and -9

are the same as those which determine the pronunciation of -ed. Can you for-
mulate them for yourself?

rHE ENDTNG -g Ces, -'s, oR -s') ts enonouruceo

l. lzl /.lwF,p. ALL voIcED coNSoNANTS ExcEI'r // eNo /Z/, eNo AFTER ALL
VOWEL SOUNDS:,
games lgeynlzl , calls_ lkcll , laws lltzl
2. /s/ nrrnn ALL voIcELESS coNSoNANTS ExcEPT /s/ eNo /5/:
grants_ /grentV, wraps lrapsl , Jack; ldLnksl
3. As A sEpARATE sYLLABLq, lnl (or iuzl), nrren A SIBILANT (lz, sl ot
tL,ll):
dishes tdisrzt, George's fii3rdLtzl, foxes liaksQ

The above rules apply only when s is added to a word as an ending. If the
final s is a part of the basic word itself, as in as, yes, and so on, there is no
logical way to decide whether it will be pronounced /s/ or lzl . We must famil-
iarize ourselves with the pronunciation of each word individually. Here is a list
of the most common such words.

lzl ls/
as la4 this l6rs/
has /hezl thus l6esl
his lhtz,l us lag!
,J /14 yes lyesl
was /wazJ or lwezl

Vl. Exercises
A. Are the following sounds voiced or voiceless? Divide them into two lists, and
compare your results with the lists in Section I of this lesson.

l.f 8.w 15.k 22. ts

2. I 9.5 16. iY 23. P
3. t 10. r l'1. L 24. 6
4. b 11. di. 18. a 25. m
5. s 12.0 19. d 26. h
6. n 13. v 20. Y 27. eY
7. & 14. rJ 21. z 28. C
 vt. Exercises 97
B. l. What is the voiced counterpart of: 5, f, k, tS, e, p, s, t?
2. How would a person with a German accent probabry pronounce the under-
scored letters in this sentence (see Section I): "His language shows that he is
glad to have the job and the big salary that goes with it"?

C. classify the following sounds as voiced or voiceless, stop ot continuant, and give
the point of articulation of each. For example, /d/ is a voiced stop, made with the
tongue tip touching the tooth ridge.

l. v 4. b 7. n 10. s 13. 6
2. p5.e8.m ll. d t4. ,.
J. f 6. s 9. k 12. z 15. c

D. Suppose a strrdent from Latin America pronounces the word very incorrectly, lb'enl
instead of 1v6fl. Keeping in mind what you know about points of articulation,
what would you tell him to do with his lips, teeth, and so on, in order to change
lbl to lvl? How would you help a French studenr to say think as /Olpk/ instead of
/qtpk/? those as l1owzl instead of lzowzl? A chinese student to pronounce tnnn as
lmanl instead of lmrrJl? A German student to pronounce that as /6ev instead of
ldatl? A Scandinavian to say thanks as /Oegks/ instead of /tre4ksi ?

E. Pronounce each of these words, and write the phonetic symbol that represents the
sound you gave to the ending. Then, in each case, explain why the ending is
pronounced as it is.

l. added 7. longed 13. believed 19. kicked

2. wished 8. armed 14. answered 20. boxed
3. caused 9. aired 15. showed 21 . lasted
4. dropped 10. asked 16. lighted 22. reached
5. crossed I 1. changed 17. laughed 23. turned
6. robbed 12. minded 18. followed 24. watched

25. belongs 3 l. bees 37. ages 43. acts

26. bottoms 32. bags 38. blesses 44. branches
27. breaks 33. attends 39. articles 45. caps
28. bridges 34. arrives 40. chances 46. confuses
29. appears 35. fixes 41. cars 41 . armies
30. allows 36. chiefs 42. America's 48. animals
F. Read these words aloud. In which of them is -ed pronounced as a separate
syllable? You may want to look some of them up in your dictionary.
98 Classification of Consonants; the Endings -ed and 's

a. naked d. rugged g. wicked j. ragged

b. baked e. stretched h. picked k. flagged
c. hugged f. wretched i. tricked l. tagged

2. Can you make up an appropriate sentence using each of these adverbs?

a. deservedly c. supposedly e. resignedly g. allegedly

b. markedly d. assuredly f. advisedly h. unreservedly

G. On page 94 of this lesson, you will find listed the three most common types of
error made in pronouncing -ed. The errors made in pronouncing the ending -s,
-es, and so on, are fundamentally the same as items 2 and 3 on that list. Can you
restate those two items in terms of -q, and give examples?

H. Practice reading the following sentences at normal conversational speed. Be sure

to pronounce the -q and -ed endings accurately.

While Ruth was washing the dishes one night, she cut her finger on a knife.

She washed and bandaged it while her sister finished the dishes.

..I have two assignments to hand in tomorrow. I won't be able to type them
very well now," Ruth comPlained.

Her sister stated emphatically, "Don't expect me to type your papers for you.
I've got things of my own to do tonight."

"I'll give you the earrings I bought yesterday if you'll do it."

Ruth's sister laughed, but she refused to say anything.

"I'll make your bed for the rest of the week, too," promised Ruth'

Her sister smiled.

"You'll do it?" asked Ruth.

"Yes. You talked me into it," answered her sister, "but maybe I agreed too
soon.

who knows what you might have promised if I had waited a little longer. "

I. Where would the high or extra-high note or notes of the intonation pattern fall in
the sentences below? In each of them the special attention of the hearer should be
VL Exercises gg

focused on one or two ideas, because of a comparison, contrast, contradiction, or

a desire to make a question or an answer specific. (See Lesson 7, Section I.) The
sentences make up a connected passage, and should be considered in the light of
what precedes and follows. Underline the syllables on which attention is to be
focused, and then read the exercise with the proper intonation.

l. Her composition is better than mine.

2. Isn't his still better?

3. No, I have a higher grade than he has.

4. What grade did Bob get?

5. He got an "A."
6. No, he didn't get an "A."
7. He got "C" on his paper.

8. On the one he handed in this afternoon, or the one he handed in yesterdav

aftemoon?

9. The one he handed in this afternoon.

10. What was the subject of the paper?

J. Practice reading or repeating these short conversations with another student, mak-
ing them sound as natural as you can.
100 Classification of Consonants; the Endings -ed and -9

2. a. nr *fil'olsbrl niul *", rt6tuo.

"l

b.

a.

3. a. a5*n,l*6".66t
t-t-- 6wld ri,eIa sSrt ta kl6s.

b. ilsyzr ou* nu* Oint 6n,uuo,ll6." *ut uyl6.rt

L

K. Read aloud several pages from a book you are studying, concentrating your atten-
tion on the pronunciation of the -q and -ed endings.
 LESS@N 9
lnitiol ond
Finol Consononts

l. Aspiration at the Beginning of Words

In Lesson 8 we considered the eight pairs,of consonants: /b, p/, ld,U,lg,W,

/6, 0/ , /v, fl , lz, sl , /t, 6/ , and ldt, tll . It was pointed out that, in each of these
pairs, the first sound is similar to the second, except that the first is voiced and
the second voiceless. This information is accurate as far as it goes, but it does
not go far enough. It is true that the difference which is most often mentioned
between two words such as big lltgl and pig /prg/ is that the initial consonant
of blg is pronounced with vibration of the vocal cords, and the initial consonant
of prg without vibration. But that is not the only difference.
Both /b/ and lpl are stops, which means that they cannot be prolonged for
more than a very short time. They are normally pronounced so rapidly that it
would be difficult for the hearer to tell whether the vocal cords have vibrated
or not. This may be one ofthe reasons why the English language has developed
an additional type of difference between initial voiced and voiceless conso-
nants: aspiration or the lack of it. For our practical purposes, we shall define
aspiration as the pronunciation of a consonant with an h-sound or, putting it
another way, with the sound of escaping air. The lpl of pig, then, is pro-
nounced with the sound of escaping air. When we say the lbl of big, no such
sound of air is heard.

101
102 lnitial and Final Consonants

When they come at the beginning of a word, all other voiceless consonants
are aspirated, as lpl is. This principle may be stated as follows:

ALL vorcELESS coNSoNANTS ARE ASPIRATED AT THE BEGINNING oF A woRo't

It may help you to remember the principle if you think of it this way: at the
beginning of a word, a consonant is pronounced either with the sound of es-
caping air (aspirated) or with vibration of the vocal cords (voiced).
In many other languages, initial voiceless consonants are not regularly
aspirated, and people who learned one of these languages first find it hard to
aspirate properly in English. For example, a Spanish-speaking student may in-
tend to say "I don't have the !ime," but be heard as saying "I don't have the
dime." Or a German student may intend to say "I am so tired," but seem to
mispronounce the so as lzowl . Such mispronunciations may, then, lead to mis-
understandings, or at least are likely to be noticed as elements of "foreign
accent." Both students would improve their pronunciation by forming the ini-
tial consonant of the word in question with more sound of escaping air and
without vibration of the vocal cords.
When we are writing phonetic symbols and think that it is important to
show that a consonant is aspirated, we can write a small ft above the line and
after the symbol. Note the difference in aspiration between tear l{eetl and dare
ldeerl, thigh l{ayl and thy tdayl. choke /tshowk/ and joke ldLowv. We use the
small ft in the phonetic transcriptions in this manual, however, only when at-
tention is being directed specifically to aspiration.
Medial consonants are those that occur within a word, after the first vowel
sound and before the last. They are aspirated much like initial consonants when
the medial consonants stand at the beginning of a stressed syllable: apartment

rThe assumptions of the current group of generative phonologists give them good theoretical
reasons for defining aspiration differently, as "a period of voicelessness after the release of an
articulation" (Peter Ladefoged, A course in Phonetics, 1975, p. 2'7'7). lt is not helpful, however,
to advise students of English as a Second Language to pronounce an initial or final voiceless
consonant with a "period of voicelessness" after it. Some phoneticians speak of aspiration only in
relation to stops, and describe the sound of escaping air that also clearly accompanies the pronun-
ciation of voiceless continuants as the result of a "fortis" or "forceful" feature of such sounds.
we have found, however, that it is not helpful, either, to advise ESL students to pronounce, for
example, the final lsl in guess /geg/ "with great force"; indeed, the practical results of such advice
can be startling. These problems have led the authors of this manual to our broad definition of
aspiration and to our use of the word in reference to all consonants, continuants, as well as stops.
Like many other decisions made in the preparation of this textbook, which is aimed at improving
the pronunciation of nonnative speakers of English, the decisions regarding the treatment of aspi-
ration were based on the need for practicality in giving advice and for simplicity in stating gener-
alizations.
 The Lengthening of Vowels before Final Consonants 103
/a-phi,rt-ment/ , contain /ken-f6yr/, refer ln-f'erl. Elsewhere they have much
less aspirationi paper lph'ey-par/ , taking /{'ey-kJr1l , ceasing /shiy-slgl.
A special case among medial consonants is a variant of ltl--one that oc-
curs between voiced sounds, usually vowels, and that does not stand at the
beginning of a stressed syllable. Examples are the t's in dtom and hilrting (but
not the t in dfter, which stands between a voiceless and a voiced sound; nor
that of rettll, which stands at the beginning of a stressed syllable). This special
r is made by a quick flap of the tongue against the tooth ridge with vocal cords
vibrating. Many educated Americans seem to make no difference of any sort
between this type of lU and a ld/. Atom and, Adam sound alike in their speech,
and the hearer must rely on the meaning of the sentence in order to know which
is intended. It seems true, however, that many speakers do make a slight dif-
ference between the two sounds. Perhaps the best advice to an ESL student is
to pronounce this special medial /U "somewhat like a /d/," without aspiration
and very rapidly: butter /b5pll, pretty ft{tg/, forty n34tt .

ll. The Lengthening of Vowels before Final Consonants

Even more often than at the beginning of words, voiced consonants are con-
fused with their voiceless counterparts at the end of words: I live (llt[1 instead
of /lryf in Califurnia, or Who was (lwas/ instead of lwa/) il? In the speech of
students of English, this type of error is probably more frequent than any other
type, with the exception of the failure to give unstressed vowels their normal
sound of lel , ltl , or /u/ .
In doing the exercises of Lesson 8, you may have had great difficulty
making a word like years sound like lyrcr_zJ instead of /yrarq/, even though you
knew the final sound should be voiced, and tried hard to make your vocal cords
vibrate as you pronounced it. The fact is that voicing of the lack of it is not
the only difference between the /s/ and /z/ sounds at the end of a word. Just as
in the case of the initial consonants, we do not rely on vibration of the vocal
cords alone to distinguish a final voiced consonant from its voiceless coun-
terpart.
There are at least three differences between the sound of bas /bag/ and
that of buzz lbazl . The first is, of course, that lzl is voiced, /s/ is voiceless.
The second is that the vowel before /z/ is lengthened; it usually takes almost
twice as long to say buzz as to say bus. The third difference-the aspiration of
the final /s/-will be discussed in Section III of this lesson.
When we feel it is important to show that a vowel is lengthened, we place
a colon (:) after it: buzz lba:zl .
The second difference mentioned above between final /s/ and /z/ serves to
104 Initial and Final Consonants

distinguish all voiced consonants at the end of words from their voiceless coun-
terparts; bed lbe.dl takes longer to say than bet lbxV, rib lrt:bl longer than rrp
lrtpl , bag /ba:g/ longer than back lbnU.

BEFoREAF|NALVo|cEDcoNSoNANT,STRESSEDVoWELSARELENGTHENEo.

deliberately try to lengthen the vowel, it may be easier for you

If you will
to make years sound hke lyrcrgl rather than /yterq/. This lengthening will also
increase the tendency toward diphthongization that is noticeable in many
stressed Enelish vowels.

lll. Aspiration at the End of Words

The third difference between final /s/ and lzl , as in br.rs and buzz (or in /yrerg/
and lyrcr/) is that the /s/ is pronounced with a great deal of aspiration, the lzl
with very little. As the /s/ is being aspirated, it is also often lengthened. In
other words, at the end of /bes/ a listener can hear very clearly the sound of
air escaping through the teeth; at the end of lbezl there is much less sound of
escaping air.
To sum up: if you find it hard to make a word llke years sound like lyrcrl
instead of /yrerq/, the difficulty with lzl may be overcome by trying con-
sciously to

l. Make your vocal cords vibrate to the end of the word;

2. Lengthen the final vowel sound;
3. Allow very little sound of escaping air.

On the other hand, to change a word llke lbeVl to /beq/ would require the
opposite procedures of

1. Making sure your vocal cords do not vibrate for the final consonant;
2. Shortening the final vowel sound;
J. Producing the final consonant with more sound of escaping air and thus
lengthening it.

Note that in lbaVl it is the vowel that is lengthened; in /boq/ it is the final
consonant.
The aspiration that helps distinguish /s/ at the end of a word, however, is
not typical of all other voiceless consonants in the same position. usually it is
heard only with final voiceless continuants (lfl , lsl , l1l , lgl), and with /t5/, but
ilL Aspiration at the End of Words 105

not with final voiceless stopr (lkl,lpl,lt/). Note the difference between the two
sets of examples below:

safe lseyfl, save lseyiul

place lpley{l, plays lpley:1
teeth ltifil, teethe ltiy:Ql
rich lrr1fl, ridge lrr:@

but

lack lIa,p, lag llr:gl

rip lrrp!, rib ht:!!
debt ldt!, dead lde:Q

AT THE END OF A WORD VOICELESS CONTINUANTS ARE ASPIRATED BUT

VOICELESS STOPS ARE NOT,

Many ESL students do, however, try to aspirate final consonants other
than voiceless continuants. An Italian may pronounce I don't think so as lay
downth Otpkh sow/. The little puffs of air after ltl and /k/ sound like extra
syllables. In extreme cases, the student may even add an lal at the end of don't
and think in order to pronounce the /V and /k/ more clearly: /ay downtha Orpkhe
sow/. This, of course, completely destroys the natural rhythm of the sentence.
Normally, two movements are necessary for the production of a stop such
as lt/,
lk/, or /p/. There is first a closure, or stopping of the outflow of air; for
Itl , the tongue tip presses against the tooth ridge; for lH , the back of the tongue
rises and presses against the soft palate; for lpl, the lips are closed. As soon as
a little pressure has been built up, comes the second movement, the release of
the air: for ltl the tongue tip leaves the tooth ridge; for lkl , the back of the
tongue falls away from the soft palate; for lpl , the lips open. It is during this
second movement that aspiration, the sound of escaping air, may be heard to a
greater or lesser degree.
In conversational American English, there is such a powerful tendency to
avoid the strong aspiration of final consonants (other than voiceless contin-
uants) that at the end of a word we regularly pronounce only the first half of a
stop. We make the closure, but do not pronounce the release. If we say "A
ship!" the sound ends when our lips come together for the lpl , and the lips
may not open again for some time. If we say "You're righ!," we similarly
avoid any "finishing sound" after ltl .It may seem to you that this would mean
that the final /p/ or /U would simply not be heard. A native speaker of English,
however, learns by long practice to distinguish between final stops by the sound
of their closure alone.
106 Initial and Final Consonants

lV. Exercises

A. Summarize this lesson by writing yer or no after the questions in the following
table, and by supplying additional examples.

Table of Differences between Voiceless and Voiced Consonants in

Various Positions

Between an initial voiceless consonant 0ike the /k/ in kud/) and its voiced coun-
terpart (/gud/):

&uN lgvdl

l. Is it voiced?

2. Is it aspirated?

Additional examples: l-l and l-l

l-l and l-l

Between a final voiceless stop and its voiced counterpart:

lsat/ lsrdl

l. Is it voiced?

2. Preceding vowel lengthened?

Additional examples: l-l and l-l

/-l and l-
lV. Exercises 107
Between a final voiceless continuant and its voiced counterpart:

/reypl trey4

1. Is it voiced?

2. Is it aspirated?

3. Preceding vowel lengthened?

Additional examples: I and l_t

/-l and l_l

B. what advice (regarding aspiration, vowel length, and voicing) would you give a
fellow student who made the following errors in pronunciation?
l. had as /hreU instead of /ha4/
2. than as /Qen/ instead of /6en/
3. five as /fayf/ instead of tfayyJ
4. dog as /dcp instead of ldcgl
5. bus as lbazl instead of /baq/
6. .ring as/zrjl instead of /qr4/
7. languages as /l6ggwr6rz/ instead of fiilggwtdLtzl

C. The following pairs of words differ in that the first word of each pair contains a
voiceless consonant, and the second contains the voiced counterpart of that con-
sonant. Transcribe the words in phonetic symbols. Then, using the signs [h] and
[:], mark the additional difference or differences in each case. Finally, pronounce
each series of words horizontally and vertically, taking great care to aspirate con-
sonants and lengthen vowels as marked. Repeat this drill several times. It is best
to use the same intonation for all words.

l. Initial (and Medial) Consonants

a. chest jest I
b. rhigh thy /
108 lnitial and Final Consonants

fine I vine I
d. sink I zinc I
e. tie I die I

f. pour I bore I
g infest I invest I
h. stacker I stagger I

2. Final Stops

a. rack rag
b. rip rib
c. hit hid
d. peck peg

e. heart hard
f. ape Abe

3. Final Continuants

a. price I pize I
b. proof I prove I

teeth I teethe I
d. cease I sees I

e. strife I strive I
f. hiss I his I

D. Read each of the sentences below twice, using word (a) in the first reading and
word (b) in the second. Then read again and use either (a) or (b), while another
member of the class tries to identify in each case the word you pronounced.

l. (a. back) (b. pack) Now I must go

2. (a. bear) (b. pear) You can't eat a whole

3.(a.mob)(b.mop)Theleaderkeptthe-wellinhand.
4. (a'fast)(b.vast)Thepatienthasshown-improvement.

5. (a.feel)(b.veal)Hespokenon..The-oftheFuture.''
lV. Exercises 109

6. (a. few) (b. view) We have a the hilltop.

7. (a. safe) (b. save) Nothing will make a careless man

8. (a. cold) (b. gold) -on

Are you getting

9. (a. cave) (b. gave) Under great pressure they -.

10. (a. back) (b. bag) Put your coat on -?

your

ll. (a. dime) (b. time) There's no -in.

lose.

12. (a. bed) (b. be| When he moved, he lost-.his

13. -to forget the

(a. dead) (b. debt) We must never

14. (a. feed) (b. feet) He was off his -.

-.
l5.(a.grade)(b.great)Thechildwasputina-school.
16. (a. led) (b. leQ A traitor -. enemy in.

17. (a. seal) (b. zeal) Her is well known.

18. -the
(a. ice) (b. eyes) You need good to skate well.

l9.(a.loss)(b.laws)Youcan'tavoidthe-oftheland'
2o.(a.peace)(b.peas)Amealwithout-isdisappointing.
21. (a. place) (b. plays) Put yourself in her

22. (a. race) (b. raise) I'll to the top.

23. -.
(a. bridges) (b. breeches) Don't burn your

24. (a. ridge) (b. -you

rich) It was grown on

25. (a. ether) (b. either) -. her

The doctor wouldn't give

Your teacher may wish to use the above drill-land.

as a test of your ability to distinguish
between voiced and voiceless sounds when you hear them. If so, take a piece of
110 lnitial and Final Consonants

paper and number the lines from I through 25. The teacher will read each sentence,
inserting one of the two test words. You should decide which one he or she used
and write (a) or (b) on your paper opposite the number of the sentence.

E. There follows an exercise that will give you a chance to work on the special type
of medial ltl that is pronounced "somewhat like a /d/." (See end of Section I of
this lesson.) Remember that, in English, the tongue tip touches the tooth ridge
rather than the upper teeth to form ltl or ld/.

l. Read the sentences, paying particular attention to the underlined parts of the
words.

a. What's hurling you?

b. She's getting the potaloes.

It's a piry you wailed so long.

d. There's not enough waler to ma!!er.

Begy hoped to stay laler at the pa4y.

f. They have beller butter at Ralph's.

2. Several members of the class should answer these questions by complete state-
ments.

a. At what age is a person at his or her best? (fo4y, thi4y)?

b. What can be described as "pre!$"?
c. What do you think of the alom bomb?
d. What kinds of foods (books, clothes, movies, music) do you like beger
than others?

F. Using the words listed below, describe some of the things that might happen in
preparing for a picnic or that might take place on a picnic. This exercise is intended
to give you practice in using aspirated consonants.

picnic tennis pear basket cold drinks

take croquet peach people table cloth
cook tea apple towel potato salad
plates coffee barbecue park potato chips
tv. Exercises 111

napkins milk pie plan clean

paper cups car play ice cream

G. Let the members of the class and the teacher ask one another questions about their
amusements, living arrangements, and so on. Each question and answer should
include the name (or a substitute for the name) of the person addressed: "Have
you seen a good movie lately, Natalie?" "Oh yes, Mr. Liebmann, I saw a won-
derful one last night." The instructor should listen carefully to see that proper
intonation is used for direct address. (See Lesson 6, end of Section II.)

H The passage that follows contains a great many final voiced consonants. A number
of useful activities can be based on it.

l. Make sure you can read the passage and then draw a circle around each of the
final voiced consonants.
2. Your instructor will call on students to read each sentence naturally. If the
instructor thinks that any of the final voiced consonants sound too much like
their voiceless counterparts, see if you can improve their pronunciation by
more vibration of the vocal cords, less aspiration, and a longer preceding
vowel.
J. Answer the questions that follow the exercise. It is helpful to answer them in
complete sentences.
4. Your instructor may want to ask additional questions about James and Three
Rivers so as to make sure that you can pronounce final voiced consonants even
when your attention is focused on the meaning of what you are saying.

l. 6a pl6ys rz t5tO Oriylrirbll/ brk5z rts l6wkeytrd hweer all6yklrz f5rmd,

Uay Oriyffi-r. z. av da l6yk. 3. de ,

\-
tt
6eer / en nowz
^
 lnitial and Final Consonants

t l-7-1 l--V ,
9. hiy trayz ta ferbetl rz lsted[2, / en nbvar r

to. rriy ri"tr 6"t u"yF*"n" s.ra uiyl@\.

a. Why is the place called Three Rivers?

b. What is to be seen at Three Rivers?
c. Is the hotel a good place to eat?

d. Who spends his summers at Three Rivers?

e. Why does he know everybody who goes there?

f. How does James spend his time?

g. What things does he like best to do?

h. Does he have a steady girl friend?
i. Is he ever bored?
j. What transportation does he use?
k. What does he think about?
l. Is he ready to go back to his studies?
 LESSON {O
L_, R, ond Syllobic
Consononts

f. The Formation of lll and lrl

lU and /r/ are unusual sounds in a number of ways: in how they are formed, in
their effect on preceding vowel sounds, in their relationship to spelling, and so
on. In Lesson 18, which deals with spelling, we shall see that letters repre-
senting vowels are very often pronounced differently before I and r than they
are before other consonants: compare glter lglter/ and gfter la;ttarl , cSL kaui!
and cqb /k3qb/. As is well known, native speakers of many Asian languages
frequently confuse lU and /r/ in their pronunciation of English: fried rice can
sound like /flayd lays/. During the historical development of a number of lan-
guages, including English, lU and /t/ have sometimes replaced each other.
When the French word colonel entered English, it came to be pronounced
/kegnel/, but it is still spelled colonel; in Spanish it is spelled and pronounced
coyonel.
The basic reason for these peculiarities of lU and hl may be that they are
formed with more movement of the speech organs than are most other conso-
nant sounds. The word we shall use in this manual as a cover term for both /l/
and lrl is liquid. In describing a liquid, dictionaries use some such definition
as "a vowel-like consonant, such as /U and /r/, produced without friction."
Most other consonants are made with the speech organs in a more or less fixed
position, as we saw in Lesson 8. But the two liquids-along with the glides

113
114 L, R, and Syllabic Consonants

lwl and lyl-are by extensive movements of the speech organs

characterized
from one position toward or to another. Thus the glide lwl , as an element in
diphthongs such as /ow/ and /awl, begins in the position of /oi or /a,i and then
moves toward the back of the mouth as the back of the tongue is raised and
the lips are rounded. ln lcyl or layl, the glide /y/ begins in the position of lcl
or lal and then moves toward the front of the mouth. (See Lesson 2. Sec-
tion II.)
Speakers of English normally produce /l/ as the tip of the tongue moves
to or away from the tooth ridge, just behind the upper teeth. Note that in many
other languages /V is made with the tongue tip approaching the upper teeth
themselves. In English, as the tongue tip reaches for and then touches the tooth
ridge, the sides of the tongue are lowered so that the air goes out laterally over
I
the sides. In order to learn to distinguish /l/ from lrl , it is important to remem-
ber that for the usual /l/ the sides of the tongue do not touch anything. /l/ is a
voiced sound, which means that the vocal cords vibrate continuously as it is
produced. The movement that characterizes /l/ is more extensive when the /l/
follows a vowel sound, as rn call /kc!, than when it precedes a vowel sound,
as in lie l\ayl. For an initial /V as in lie, the sound begins with the tongue tip
already touching the tooth ridge and the middle of the tongue relatively high in
the mouth. This latter type of /U is sometimes called a "clear" /l/ as contrasted
with the 33dalk" lll in call.
Pronounce coal kowll , fool lfuwll , pull lpull , like llayU , long llt4l , being
certain that your speech organs take the proper positions.
The /r/-sound is somewhat more complex. In certain parts of England, and
the East and South of the United States, the sound hardly seems to be pro-
nounced at all except at the beginning of a word or syllable. A large majority
of English-speaking people, however, pronounce it with both sides of the
tongue touching the back part of the tooth ridge and the back teeth. It is im-
portant to note that the tongue tip does not touch anything; the middle of the
tongue, including the tip, is lower than the sides, and the air goes out through
the channel formed between the middle of the tongue and the roof of the
mouth. The lips are slightly open. The liquid, the characteristic /r/-sound, is
produced as the speech organs move to this position from a vowel, as in are
larl , or away from this position to a vowel, as in red /red/. In whatever direc-
tion the movement may end, it always begins by a motion toward the back of
the mouth. More than any other factor, it is this retroflex (toward the back)
motion that gives the American-English /r/ its typical sound. The tongue tip
rises a little and is curved backward, while the sides of the tongue slide along
the back part of the tooth ridge as along two rails.

'It has been shown that some speakers make a unilateral /l/, with the air going out over only
one side of the tongue.
ll. lll and lrl after Front Vowels 115

Pronounce the vowel la/. As you do so, curve the tip of your tongue up
and slide the sides of the tongue backward along the tooth ridge, and you
should have no difficulty in producing a perfect American irl.
When /r/ follows a vowel, as in or ltrl , the entire movement is in a back-
ward direction. When /r/ precedes a vowel, right lrayV, the backward move-
ment is very brief, and is almost immediately reversed as the tongue moves
forward again to the vowel position. In addition, the lips may be rounded.
Many speakers of German, French, and certain other languages use a
"uvular" q, made by vibrating the uvula (the little flap of flesh that hangs down
at the entrance of the throat) or by the friction produced as the air passes
between the uvula and the raised back portion of the tongue. This type of r is
also a liquid characterized by movement of the speech organs, but to produce
it the tongue slides a little forward, rather than backward, and the muscles of
the soft palate are tensed. Students who find it difficult to avoid this type of r
in English should concentrate on the backward movement of the tongue and
making the uvula and soft palate (the soft back part of the roof of the mouth)
remain motionless and relaxed.
The trilled g, typical of such languages as Arabic, Spanish, and Italian,
can best be avoided by concentrating on the sliding of the sides of the tongue
along the tooth ridge, by keeping the tongue tip comparatively inactive, and by
being very careful that the tip does not approach closely the roof of the mouth
or upper teeth.
Japanese and Chinese students, in particular, sometimes have difficulty in
distinguishing between lll and hl . They should spend a great deal of time pro-
nouncing such pairs of words as grd.r.r /gres/ and glass lglrsl , crime lktayml
and climb lklayml , free lfnyl and flee lfliyl , red lredl and led lledl , making the
tip of the tongue touch the tooth ridge for lU and stay away from the roof of
the mouth and teeth for hl . In a sense, lll and lrl are made in exactly opposite
ways: for /l/ the tongue tip touches the tooth ridge and the air goes out over
the sides; for hl the sides of the tongue touch the tooth ridge while the air goes
out over the middle and tip.

ll. lll and lrl alter Front Vowels

In Lesson 2 we classified liyl , ltl ,leyl ,lxl , and /a/ as front vowels; la/,ltl ,
lowl, lul , and /uw/ as back vowels; and lel as a central vowel. If the reasons
for this classification are not clear to vou now. it misht be well to review that
lesson at this point.
The movements that characterize both /l/ and hl , especially when they
follow a vowel sound, are produced quite far back in the mouth. As a result, it
is a more complicated process and takes more time to pass from a front vowel
116 L, R, and Syllabic Consonants

to /l/ or lrl
than from a back vowel to either of these two liquid sounds. Com-
parc ill all, ear and or. As the tongue moves back from the position of the
and
front vowel, it passes through the middle, central zone where /e/ is formed. In
doing so, it produces a centering glide that is heard as /e/. We may say that,

wHEN A FRoNT vowEL ts FoLLowED ev lll or /r/, nN tnrenuEDtABY /a/ ts tru-

SERTED,

No such /a/ is heard between a back vowel and lU or hl , since the move-
ment of the tongue takes place primarily in the back of the mouth without
passing through the central zone. We pronounce wall as /wcl/, but well as
lweall . Similarly, in the case of words in which /r/ follows a vowel, we hear
car lkarl without the intermediary lel and care /keqr/ with it.
These combinations of front vowels followed by the centering glide lal
constitute, of course, a type of diphthong. Some phoneticians call them "cen-
tering diphthongs." In this manual we recognize five of these centering diph-
thongs and transcribe them as follows.

Elements Transcription Examples

l. liyl * lel liel seal lsiall
2. lrl + lel lrcl fill
tfrctt
fear lfrcrl
3. leyl -l lel teel tale lteeU

4. lel + lel Ite/ well lweeU

wear lwgefl

5. lel + lel lnel shall l(r,ell

There is a considerable amount of dialectal variation in the use of these

centering diphthongs. The five listed above are those that are normally heard
in the most widely spoken dialects of American English. In these dialects iiel
and leal occur only before ll/ , not before /r/. Note that in transcribing these
same two diphthongs we omit the lyl glide. This is because the transcriptions
of seal as /siyel/ and of tale as lteyell might give students the mistaken impres-
sion that such words are pronounced as two syllables. lr,al is fairly widely
used before hl and is so represented in many dictionaries, but it appears to be
increasingly replaced by leel care lkearl . (Further information about vowels
before lll and hl is given in Lesson 17, Section IV.)
The deliberate insertion of lal in the pronunciation of front vowels before
lll or lrl will usually help a student to produce an lll or lrl that "sounds Amer-
ican," and will enable her or him to avoid pronouncing such words as will,
bell, and feel with an unnaturally pure vowel and with the tongue too high.
The mispronunciation of words like these is a prominent feature of many a
lll. Syllabic Consonants 117

foreign accent. Think of them as lwrcll , lbeeU, and lfiall , rather than as /wrU,
lbell, and lfiyV.
Though the centering glide /e/ is inserted in such words as hiII lhtgll or
hillside /hiqlsiyd/, in which the /l/ is final or followed by another consonant
sound, usually no such glide is inserted in words llke hilly tttiht, in which the
/l/ is followed by a vowel sound. The same is true for words with hl: merry
/m6n/ without lel. but where lhwearl with lal.

lll. Syllabic Consonants

Most of us are accustomed to thinking that every syllable must include at least
one vowel, yet in words such as little, sudden, and wouWn'l there are only
consonant sounds in the final syllable. These are known as syllabic consonants,
since they may make up a syllable without the accompaniment of vowels. In
phonetic transcription, syllabic consonants may be indicated by drawing a short
vertical line below them: little llttl , sudden /sed4/, wouldn' t /wudlV. They are
difficult for most foreign students to pronounce; in place of llttl/ we frequently
hear /lttel/ or lltV in place of /wud4V the student may say /wudenU or /wunV.
Syllabic consonants occur when a syllable ends in ltl , ldl , or /n/, and the
next syllable is unstressed and contains an lll or /n/. This may be expressed by
an equation:

tu
tdt * unstressed syllable containing
- {lll > syllabic consonant.
llnl
tnt

All the necessary conditions are present, for example, in saddle and cotton,
and we have the pronunciations /sred| and /katn/. In lieutenant /luwt6nent/,
there is a /V followed by an lnl , but the lnl is in a stressed syllable, so no
syllabic consonant results.
It is easy to remember the four consonants that are involved in syllabic
consonants: lU, ldl , lnl , and lll . They are the four that are formed with the tip
of the fongue touching the tooth idge.2 Indeed, it is the fact that the four are

"In rapid conversational speech, syllabic consonants may occur in two other cases where stops
and continuants have the same points of articulation: (l) between lpl or lbl and lrnl, as in stop'em
/stapq/; and (2) between lH or lgl and /g/, as in I can go /aykpgow/. Since the alternate pronun-
ciations, /stapen/ and /aykangow/ do not sound "foreign," these two cases are not important for
the purposes of this text. Some phoneticians also transcribe as syllabic consonants such combina-
tions as the /U after the lsl in pencil, /pcnseV or /pensf, and the /U after the /p/ in apple, bpal/ or
/epf, where the points of articulation are not quite identical (or in technical terms, where the two
sounds are not homorganic). In these cases also, however, either altemate pronunciation is per-
fectly normal American English.
118 L, R, and Syllabic Consonants

all made with the tongue tip in the same position that causes the formation of
syllabic consonants. What happens that, in pronouncing cotton, for example,
is
the tongue tip goes to the tooth ridge to fotm lt/, and just stays there to pro-
nounce the following /n/. There should not even be a brief separation of tip and
tooth ridge between ltl and lnl.Ifthe tongue tip breaks contact and moves from
its fixed position for even a fraction of a second, it will result in the insertion
of an lel between the two consonants. In a word such as cotton, an /a/ in the
second syllable is definitely an element of "foreign accent."
You will remember that the formation of a stop, such as ltJ or ldl , usually
requires two movements: a closure, or stopping of the oufflow of air, and then
a release of the air. (See Lesson 9, Section III.) Before a syllabic consonant,
in words like little and sudden, the closure for the stop takes place normally,
as the tongue tip makes contact with the tooth ridge. But the release is quite
unusual, since the tongue tip, which normally makes the release by moving
away from the tooth ridge, must in this case remain in its position for the
formation of the following syllabic consonant. Before syllabic /l/ the release is
made by a sudden lowering of the middle and sides-rrot the tlp---of the
tongue; this permits the air imprisoned by the preceding closure to rush out and
make an /f/. Before syllabic ln/ the release is made by a sudden opening of the
velum, which allows the imprisoned air to escape through the nose. (The velum
is the soft part of the palate, at the back of the roof of the mouth. When drawn
up, it closes the nasal passages, and all escaping breath must come out through
the mouth; when relaxed and open, the breath may come out through either
nose or mouth. See Figure 8, P. 93.
So, when you wish to pronounce a word hke little /ltt!/ or sud.den /sedfl,
bring the tongue into contact with the tooth ridge sharply and definitely for the
Itl or ldl . Then, cs you force the tongue tip to remain where it is, make the
release that will produce lll or lnl . You may find it helpful at the beginning to
pronounce the first syllable completely, llttl , and to pause on the /V in order to
feel and maintain the pressure of the tongue tip in its proper position before
you go on to make the release and pronounce the last syllable, /f . In the same
way, try important, ltmpcrV, pause, /r,rV; and sentence, /senU, pause, /4s/.
It should be noted that the /U which precedes a syllabic /l/, as in little, is
the "/d/-like /U" discussed at the end of Section I, Lesson 9.

tv. Exercises

A. This drill is intended to furnish you with an opportunity for extensive and careful
practice in the formation of /r/. It begins with the combinations in which most
students Usually find it easiest to make an American lrl , and then moves on to more
difficult combinations. Pronounce each item three or four times, more if necessary,
lV. Exercises 119

keeping in mind the instructions given in Section I. Try to master each step in the
exercise before you go on to the next one. Start with (a), then proceed to (b), and
so on.

(a) (b) (c)

l. ar l. kar 1. farm
2. cr 2. fcr 2. bern
3. Ier ser 3. gerl
4. eer 4. hler 4. *56".
5. er ). deer 5. fi6et

(d) (e) (f)

1. ..r5-tg l. ara 1. tn6tr
2. birgrn 2. arow 2. k6rr
3. werk 3. ariy 3. m5ral
4. *5r-e. 4. ere 4. tJ(tn
5. bSrder 5. cre 5. trer

(e) (h) (i)

l. riy l. rtd l. raf
2. rey 2. reyn 2. rowl
3. ra 3. rek 3. rayd
4. row 4. ,6rirq 4. rawz
5. ruw ). rller 5. riwler

0) (k) 0)
l. gruw l. Orown l. 6urt
2. frow 2. bng 2.
"ptl"y"
3. drc 3. kreyt 3. brfr6nd
4. prey 4. prrp6"t 4. drkriys
,
5. triy 5. griwndld 5. brgradZ

(m) (n)
1. a large farm l. a greater artist
2. shorter working hours 2. frequent arrivals
3. to further your purposes 3. to cross the border
4. forever and ever 4. a brown dress
5. the wrong room 5. to bring under control

B. Your instructor will pronounce the following geographical names with an "Amer-
ican accent." Imitate him or her as closely as possible, paying special attention to
the formation of iri.
120 L, R, and Syllabic Consonants

1. Berlin 8. Ferrara 15. Rio de Janeiro

2. Turkey 9. Prague 16. Cairo
3. Hiroshima 10. Tripoli 17. Paris
4. Peru 11. Burma 18. Rumania
5. Smyrna 12. Florida 19. Warsaw
6. Florence 13. Madras 20. France
7. Karachi 14. Teheran ltterlanl 21 . Argentina

C. These two exercises are particularly for Oriental students.

l. Pronounce each pair of words several times, remembering the differences be-
tween /l/ and lrl as described in the last paragraph of Section I. In each case
the two words sound exactly alike, except for lll and lrl .3

a. late, rate e. alive, arrive i. believe, bereave

b. cloud, crowd f. liver, river j. blight, bright
c. glue, grew g. play, pray k. blush, brush
d. lime, rhyme h. glass, grass l. fly, fry
2. Read the following paragraph, and then tell a fellow student what happened to
Richard and Grace Robinson.

Richard and Grace Robinson planned to attend a Broadway play while

they were in New York. The traffic that night was very heavy, so they
were late getting to the theater. Because they arrived late, the usher told
them they would have to stand at the rear of the auditorium until the end
of the first scene. The play was so bad that they decided to leave. Since
it was really too late to go anywhere else, they went back to the hotel
and watched television.

D. In the light of what you learned in Section II of this lesson, determine which of
the following words would be pronounced with an /a/ inserted between the vowel
sound and lll or lrl . Then transcribe all the words in phonetic symbols, and check
them with your instructor's transcription. Finally, pronounce your transcriptions,
taking particular care with combinations such as well, in which a front vowel pre-
cedes /l/.

l. bar 3. hair 5. care

2. for 4. ear 6. beer

'Note to the teacher: ln order to maintain a minimal distinction between the two words, help
the students to pronounce each word with the same intonation:\,",\" lrather than with a series
intonation:J46,\. \ \
tv. Exerclses 121

7. bear 15. will 23. fell

8. they're 16. tell 24. ball
9. we're l'7 . coal 25. shall
10. fur 18. kill 26. help
I l. sir 19. real 27. pool
12. word 20. self 28. spelled
13. heard 21. full 29. failed
14. verb 22. milk 30. she'll
E. Three of the items in the following exercise are not pronounced with a syllabic
consonant, but all the others usually are. Which are the three exceptions? Draw a
line under the syllabic consonants in the other 30 words (see Section III); then
pronounce the entire exercise. Your instructor should pronounce this material with
you, before you try to work on it alone.

1. liule 12. hospital 23. gardening

2. didn't 13. travel 24. certainty
3. student 14. curtain 25. penalty
4. couldn't 15. oriental 26. finally
5. article 16. bottle 27. fertilize
6. tunnel 11. saddled 28. ordinary
7. Latin 18. broadened 29. ventilate
8. harden 19. attention 30. monotonous
f . idle 20. battleship 31. bread and butter
10. important 21. suddenly 32. bright and early
I l. mountain 22. sentences 33. salt and pepper

F. The following passage contains many /l/'s and /r/'s, as well as some syllabic con-
sonants. It can be used in the same way as Exercise H in Lesson 9.
1. Make sure you can read it, and then underline any words you may find trou-
blesome.
2. Your instructor will call on students to read each sentence naturallv and mav
call attention to any pronunciation problems he or she hears.
3. Answer the questions that follow the passage and any additional questions the
instructor may ask in order to make sure you can pronounce key items even
when your attention is concentrated on the meaning of what you are saying.

l. oziet mirt+ tivz 5t yierEwnJlrn Oriy ir.rt, / yt6!dEd- I

""1.nad"t
r3q

2. .66", 6u.n ,t*6yn Eyd tn 6" Erhl, / Siy wSrks az e

^
122 L, R, and Syllabic Gonsonants

l-Tl
elQe_bq*fhl.
lv
drs6rl[kGlyrr/ jjy4Fffi4, ", "i
l*eyt11q
\ "

uu*n,f51,,,.
I
4. siv rnt6ndz te uiv alfiil-nesrst, /
I
s;il
I t r f----71
lownz da martr,rldregptcr In Ony nv?rz. G. aziet stirtslw5rt<lur6vt n Srtr rn 6et

F6fr1n, I an sSmtavmz d5zantlfil5 entiel l6vt atl4t . 7. s6vrel av er fr6ndzt

8. "b6- qlG;bfi'U, / 6e w5rkarz hav a sSrt+ ,

,trf\rl,
amawnt av fny taym m 6r aftarhu@/ ta gowlswlmtl, /

g. l. 10. Its a gud )

w6y tu 5rililru, r1qilft-piyp"l, I en h,.v a litllEnlat 6a s5ymi\

What is Jill's last name?

^.
b. Who are the members of her family?
c. How does she spend her summers?
d. Do you think it's necessary for her to work in the summer?
e. Give a reason for your answer to the previous question.
f. What are Jill's reasons for wanting to work?
g. What are her working hours?
h. What free time does she have?
i. Is she an ambitious student?
j. What do you think her future will be like?
k. Would you enjoy the kind of summer work that Jill does?
l. Why, or why not?
 Exercises
lV. 123
G. 1. As you answer these questions, use the intonation that is normal for a series.
(See Lesson 6, p. 63-64.)

a. What do you usually eat for breakfast?

b. What languages do you speak?
c. What courses are you taking now?
d. What countries have you visited?
e. What kinds of ice cream have you tried in this countrv?

2. Make questions in which you present the following ideas as alternatives with
or; for example, "Is the food better in the United States, or in your native
country?" Be careful with the intonation of the questions. (See Lesson 6,
p. 64.)

a. interesting, boring f. January, June

b. a real fire, a false alarm g. moming, afternoon
c. just beginning, ending h. long, short
d. attended
this school, the school you last i. easy, difficult
e. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday j. music, art

H. This lesson ends with a speed and rhythm drill. Read it at normal conversational
speed, and try to observe an even, regular sentence rhythm. (See Lesson 4, Section
I.) The material is well suited for individual recording.

l. a. I f5und ir.
b. t've t5lo you I f6und it.
c. I've t6ld you ak6ady that I f6und it.
d. t've t5tA you alr6ady that I f5und it at the m5vies.
e. I've t5ld you ah6ady that I f5und the m5ney at the m5vies.
f. t've t5ld you ak6ady that I f5und the m5ney at the m6vies on Sinday.
2. a. I'm surprised!
b. I'm surprised you believed it!
c. I'm surprised you believed such a st6ry!
d. I'm surpdsed you believed such an incr6dible st6ry!
e. I'm surprised that 6nyone believed such an incr6dible st5ry!
f. I'm surprised that inyone believed such an incr6dible st6ry as thit!
124 L, R, and Syllabic Consonants

3. a. He kn5ws 6verything.
b. He app6ars to kn6w 6verything.
c. He s5metime, upp6*, to kn5w 6verything.
d. He s5metime, upp6ar, to kn5w 6verything when he l6ctures'
e. He s6metim", upp6*, to kn5w 6verything when he l6ctures so c6nfi-
dentlY.
f. He s6metime, upp6r, to kn5* 6verything when he l6ctures so c5nfi-
dently to his cl6sses.

I. Outside of class, read aloud several pages of simple, conversational material, con-
centrating your attention on the pronunciation of lU or /r/, whichever you find more
difficult.
 LESS@N 44
Front Vowels

l. Vowel Substitutions
A common-and very serious-mistake made by students of English is the
substitution of one vowel for another in the stressed syllable of a word: for
example, the pronunciation of leaving as /livrl/ instead of lliyvtql . Such a
substitution is serious because it often completely changes the meaning of the
word. It may be polite to tell your friend, "/ay howp yuw wownt llyv naw/";
but "/ay howp yuw wownt l1v naw/" may not be appreciated.
The usual causes for mistakes of this sort seem to be:

t. The speaker gives the letters that represent vowels the sounds these letters
would have in her native language. The French tend to pronounce aid as
/ed/ instead of leydl.
2. The speaker is deceived by the inconsistencies of English spelling. Usually
ar is pronounced lar/ , as in car, far, and part; therefore war is sometimes
wrongly pronounced as /w4r/ instead of /w2r/.
J. The speaker cannot hear, and consequently cannot reproduce, the differ-
ence between two sounds. either because the two do not exist in his own
language, or because they do not regularly serve to distinguish between
words in it. Both leyl andie/ are heard in Spanish, but there are very few
cases of two Spanish words that are exactly alike except that one contains

125
126 Front Vowels

leyl /e/. As a result, the student from Mexico often mispro-

and the other
nounces change as /t5endZ/ instead of /tieyndZ/.

Lessons ll, 12, 17, and l8 attack the problem of stressed vowel substi-
tutions. They are intended to give you practice in hearing and reproducing the
differences between vowels that are frequently confused, to give you an oppor-
tunity to make stronger associations between vowel sounds and their usual
spelling, and to call your attention to certain common words in which the
vowel sounds are spelled in an unusual way.

fl. The Vowel liyl as in beat

The material that follows is based on the vowel chart as explained in Lesson
2. (It would be well at this point to review that explanation, particularly Figure
3 on page ll3l.)
You may remember that liyl is the vowel which is pronounced farthest
toward the front of the mouth, with the jaw most nearly closed. The sides of
the tongue are pressed tightly against the upper bicuspid (two-pointed) teeth
and the palate (roof of the mouth). The tongue tip may press the cutting edge
of the lower front teeth. Upper and lower teeth almost touch. The lips are
spread somewhat by muscular force. The air escapes through a very narrow
opening between the tongue blade (the part just behind the tip) and the upper
tooth ridge. In general, /iyl is made with noticeable tension. Although the
tongue is already very high in the front of the mouth when you begin this
sound, the tongue normally moves farther up before beginning the next sound;
therefore, this sound is symbolized as a vowel plus a glide: /iyl.
This is the vowel heard in she liiyl , seem lsiyn/ , leave lliyvl ,
chief lt$yfl , and so on. Say these words carefully, then pronounce the vowel
in each of them alone: /Siy/, liyl; lsiyrn/, liyl;, and so on. As you pronounce,
make sure that your tongue, teeth, and lips take the position described in the
preceding paragraph.

,ll. nlas in bit

The vowel that follows liyl on the vowel chart, as we move away from the
front of the mouth, is //. To change liyl to ltl , the iaw relaxes and drops very
slightly, the pressure of the sides of the tongue against the upper bicuspids is
relaxed, and the forced spreading of the lips disappears. The tongue tip may
lV. leyl as in bqlt 127
merely touch the back of the lower front teeth. To see what happens to lips,
jaws, and tongue, it is good to watch your mouth in a hand mirror as you form
liyl and |il. Most important of all, the opening between the tongue blade and
the palate becomes wider and rounder. This means that the place where the
tongue and palate are closest together moves a little farther back in the mouth.
Pronounce sheep liiypl , then ship /Slp/. Now pronounce only the vowels
of the two words: liyl , lt/, liyl , ltl , liyl, ltl . Can you feel the essential differ-
ences in the position of the speech organs clearly? Form an /iyl-sound; then,
without intemrpting the flow of breath, try to make the liyl change to an /t/ by
appropriate movements of the tongue, jaw, and lips.
The /t/-sound is the vowel of big lbtgl , king lkrgl , and ciry /sit/. In some
languages this sound does not exist. In others it may be heard occasionally, but
does not differentiate words from similar words containing liyl . Students who
leamed these other languages first will probably have difficulty in distinguish-
ing clearly between leave lliyvl and live lhvl . Yery often they will use, instead
of liyl or //, a vowel halfway between the two, which will make /eaye sound
llke live, or live like leave, to an American ear.
The use of /iyl for /l/ or of ltl for liy/ is, in fact, by far the most common
and troublesome of the vowel substitutions we spoke of at the beginning of this
lesson.

lY. leylas in bait

Moving downward and backward on the vowel chart from ll , we come to /eyl.
The jaw drops just a little more. The tongue tip may touch the bottom of the
front teeth without pressure. The sides of the tongue press slightly against the
sides of the upper bicuspids. The passage throughwhich the air escapes be-
tween the middle of the tongue and the palate grows wider. The lips are open
and relaxed.
Perhaps the characteristic which best distinguishes /eyl is that i/ ends with
a definite upward and forward movement of the tongue. The complete vowel
begins in the position described in the preceding paragraph, then moves upward
and forward toward the // position as the tongue is pushed nearer the palate
and upper front teeth. The diphthongization of leyl is much more discernible
than that of liyl, and it is also much greater in most varieties of British English
than in American English.
The degree of diphthongization is greatest in words where /eyl is:

l. Final: day ldeyl.

2. Followed by a final voiced consonant: made lmevd/ .
128 Front Vowels

3. Pronounced with a slide at the end of an intonation pattern:

tfs gcfend-avfft\yv

The /eyl-sound is the vowel heard in say lseyl , plain lpleyn/, and
came keyml. It is most often confused with lel and lnl . Can you see the
difference between leyl , ltl , and liyl in your mirror?

V. /e/ as in bet

After /eyl on the chart comes lel; but, unlike /eyl, /e/ is not usually diph-
thongized. To form lel, the jaw is once more lowered just a little. For the first
time, the tongue exerts no pressure at all.The tongue tip may touch the spot
where the lower front teeth join the tooth ridge; the sides touch the tips of the
upper bicuspids. The air-escape passage is as wide as the roof of the mouth
itself .
The /e/-sound is the vowel of yes lyesl, edge ledLl, and end /end/. It is
not so clear a sound as leyl , from which it must be carefully distinguished.
Make sure you have understood and seen the chief differences: /e/ is not
diphthongized, and in forming it the sides of the tongue touch lightly the tips
of the upper bicuspids without pressure. For leyl there is enough pressure to
narrow the air passage somewhat.

Yl. lelas in bat

The last of the front vowels is la,l . To form it the jaw is lowered quite a bit,
until the mouth is almost as wide open as it can be without making a muscular
effort. Remember that this is the last front vowel that can be made; when we
move on to lal , the sides and tip of the tongue will no longer touch the upper
or lower teeth at all. For lal , the lightest possible contact is made between
tongue tip and lower tooth ridge, and between sides of tongue and the tips of
the upper bicuspids or even of the first molar teeth just behind the bicuspids.
In other words, the passage through which the air escapes is as wide and deep
as it can be and still remain a passage formed by the tongue rather than by the
cheeks.
The /a/-sound is the vowel of am lnml , black lbla.kl , and cap lkapl . It
is easily confused with la/, lel , or even leyl . Before you go on to the next
section of this lesson, it would be well to go over the entire series-/iy-I-ey-e-
r,l-rnany times with your mirror, checking your way of forming the sounds
with the physiological descriptions of how they should be formed.
Vll. Exercises 129

Vll. Exercises
A. l. Listen carefully as your instructor pronounces a prolonged /iyl several times:
liy-, iy-, iy-l. Imitate the pronunciation of the vowel, watching your lips,
tongue, teeth, and so on, in a hand mirror and trying to make your speech
organs assume the exact position described in the appropriate section of this
Iesson.

2. Listen, then imitate, as your instructor pronounces the following material. If

the instructor indicates that the vowel in any word does not sound quite right,
correct yourself by making your speech organs assume more exactly the de-
sired position.

(a) (b) (c)

l. biy 1. these dreams l. riyd, rrd
2. miy 2. green trees 2. hiyt, hrt
3. f.iy 3. weak tea 3. sliyp, shp
4. iyt5 4. meet in the street 4. miyt, met
5. iyst 5. please teach me 5. fiyd, fed
6. Siyp 6. a deep sleep 6. siyt, set
7. siyk
8. niyd
9. fiyt
10. kwiyn

B. The instructions for Exercise A apply also to Exercises B, C, D, and E.

I . lr-, r-, r-/

2. (a) (b) (c)

l brt l. this city l. slt, siyt
2. fiks 2. a quick finish 2. hp, liyp
3. krs 3. which gift 3. sfik, steyk
4. fl! 4. six inches 4. rils, mes
5. tflp 5. to visit my sister 5. slns, sens
6. wln 6. sip the milk 6. brt, bet
7. lrft
8. rts
9.d
10. Igk
130 Front Vowels

C. 1. ley-, ey-, ey-l

2. (a) (b) (c)
l. pey l. straight pay 1. pleyn, plen
2. sey 2. a date at eight 2. greys, gres
3. grey 3. a famous flavor 3. geyt, get
4. eyt 4. the baby's name 4. bleyd, bled
5. eydL 5. made me late 5. teyk, uk
6. reyn 6. bake a cake 6. leyd, hd
7. leyd
8. weyt
9. peynt
10. pleyz

D. l. lg-, g-, g-/

2' (a) (b) (c)
l. step l. send them 1. bed, bad
2. ten 2. her best dress 2. men, m&n
3. leg 3. a red head 3. let, leyt
4. pres 4. several presents 4. rest, reyst
5. nekst 5. when I left 5. weel, wlel
6. leg0 6. help the men 6. pek, ptk
7. fre5
8. eg
9. end
10. tdL

E. 1. 1p-, a-, E-/

2. (a) (b) (c)
1. baek 1. narrow path l. brend, bend
2. brgk 2. past master 2. lest, lest
3. fest 3. half a glass 3. sed, sed
4. gled 4. a happy fancy 4. ed, ed
5. pes 5. a grand family 5. hat, hat
6. plrent 6. a black cat 6. sek, sak
7. reg
8. &z
9. esk
10. akt
Vll. Exercises 131

F. It is suggested that five steps be carried out in doing each of the two parts of the
following drill: (1) be sure that the students understand the meaning of all the
words; (2) let the teacher read across the columns, as the students imitate; (3) have
the students read collectively and individually across the columns; (4) let the
teacher dictate ten words selected at random from the drill, and have the students
write down the words they hear; (5) let the students pick out certain words and try
to pronounce them so well that the teacher can recognize them.

I. iy I e
a. peak b. pick c. peck
d. dean e. din f. den
g. deed h. did i. dead
j. least k. list l. lest
m. heed n. hid o. head
p. feel q. fill r. fell
2. ey e &
a. bait b. bet c. bat
d. pain e. pen f. pan
C. bake h. beck i. back
j. laid k. led l. lad
m. lace n. less o. lass
p. shale q. shell r. shall

G. Many of the following sound combinations do not make up English words. First,
pronounce them in imitation of your instructor. Then the instructor will dictate
twenty or more combinations chosen from the list at random, while you try to copy
down the sounds in symbols.

l. Siy l. riym
l 21. fiyt
2. 5r 12. rrm 22. frt
3. Sey 13. reym 23. feyt
4. 5e 14. rem 24. fet
5. 5a 15. r&m 25. fet
6. Siyp 16. liyv 26. siyg
7. SIp 17. hv 27. slg
8. Seyp 18. leyv 28. seyg
9. Sep 19. lev 29. seg
10. Sep 20. lav 30. seg
H. Before reading each sentence below, pronounce the two words in parentheses in
contrast. Then read each of the sentences twice, using word (a) in the first reading
and word (b) in the second. Then read the sentence again using either (a) or (b),
132 Front Vowels

while another member of the class tries to identify in each case the word that you
pronounced.

l. (a. wean) (b. win) It's time to the child.

2. (a. feel) (b. filD He doesn't seem to the need.

-
3.(a.peak)(b.pick)Hewalkedconfidentlytowardthe-'
4. (a. dean) (b. din) I can't study because of the

5. (a. heed) (b. hid) We always our mistakes.

6.(a.sheep)(b.ship)Youcan'tgeta-intosuchasmallplace.
7. (a. bit) (b. bet) I'd like to make a little on that horse.

8. (a. pin) (b. pen) Keep the you can reach it'

9. (a. pig) (b. peg) I caught the - with both hands.

-where
l0.(a.rain)(b.wren)The-descendsgentlyfromtheclouds.
-
1l.(a.dale)(b.dell)AgreatmanyflowerSgrowinthe-.
|2.(a.laid)(b.led)Whocouldhave-thechildthere?
|3.(a.date)(b.deb0I'llneverforgetthatold-ofmine.
14. (a. mate) (b. mat) The dog was asleep by his

15.(a.cane)(b.can)Thecookhasa-inherhand.
16. (a. mess) (b. mass) In the street was a tangled-. of cars.

17. (a. pet) (b. pa| It's not wise to a tiger.

l8'(a.ten)(b'tan)She'sveryproudofher-shoes.
19. (a. peck) (b. pack) You'll need a whole of cards.

20. (a. shell) (b. shall) You'll shell more peas than I

-.
vil. Exerclses 133

If the instructor so wishes, the above drill may be used as a test of your ability to
distinguish between the front vowel sounds. Take a piece of paper and number the
lines from I through 20. The instructor will read each sentence, inserting one of
the two test words. You should decide which one was used and write (a) or (b) on
your paper opposite the number of the sentence.

I. Read these sentences aloud, making as clear a distinction as possible between the
vowels of the words in italics.

l. Either read the book or set rid of it.

2. Didn't you buy it to eat?

3. I didn't seek to be sick.

4. Each foot itches .

5. List at least the most important ones.

6. She dipped deeply into the sack.

1. Don't grin at my greenness.

8. They begged a big meal.

9. There was a sharp noise as the ball met his mitt.

10. The living influenced us more than the dead did.

I l. Can you lift what's left?

12. You'll get wet if you wait.

13. Tell us a tale, Grandma.

14. There's a gate to get thrcugh.

15. I hope long dresses are afading fad.

16. Bankers lend money on land.

17 . He said he was sad.

134 Front Vowels

18. His bad leg made him lag behind.

19. The hen .rat where he set her.

20. You've certainly met yotJr match.

J. Read these sentences with two different intonation pattems: (1) so as to create
suspense between the two parts of the sentence, and (2) without suspense. (See
L,esson 6, Section II.)

l. If you do that again, I'll punish you.

2. You push a little button, and the food comes out.
3. I opened the door, and there was the "ghost."
4. When he heard the answer, he was horrified.
5. If it happens here, it will be the ruin of us.
6. Until you see me, make no move.
7. If I'd known that, I could have made ten dollars.
8. Smoke one of these, and you'll never smoke again.

K. American children delight in asking one another riddles they consider funny. The
four typical examples that follow can help you learn to read phonetic transcriptions
and give you practice in question-and-answer intonation. When you become famil-
iar with the riddles, you may even want to try them out on a friend.

l. ". r''6v-1g." "l'tfisr64

u*52 6e[wStarz k5wld?

2. a. ry&Jg."v, t ha:z t'crEezr,-arcftXptr

b.
vil. Exercises 135
3. a. lwitlEy{4r wen 6e[k

b. -6yut *5n p6rtlt*6"tur

a. rts tiym te rrp6er 6a R]{<..

L

4. a. @r*en
b.

a. brk5z 5iy winud te siy wat 5iyliGlh6vk / wen Siy wazFibrp.

L. Read aloud several pages of English, concentrating your attention on the correct
formation of the front vowel with which you seem to have most difficultv.
LESSON 42
Centrol ond Bock Vowels

l. The Vowel lal as in Pqt

You have no doubt noticed that when a physician wishes to have a clear view
into your mouth and throat, he or she asks you to say "Ah." That is, of
course, the sound of our vowel lal . The physician knows that the formation of
/a./ requires the mouth to be opened more widely than for any other sound. The
tongue is also positioned lower in the mouth than for any other vowel. That is
what gives the doctor an unobstructed view of your throat.
It might be well here to refer again to the vowel chart in Lesson 2
(Figure 3).
In order to form lal , the jaw is Lowered more than it would be in a normal
relaxed position, lowered so far as to require a slight muscular effort. As a
consequence, the lips are also wide open, about an inch apart for most speak-
ers, and two upper front teeth and several lower teeth are probably visible.
Verify this with your mirror. The tongue tip lightly touches a point as low on
the floor of the mouth as it can reach, so low that in compensation the back of
the tongue must be raised iust a little in the throat-
In most varieties of American English, /a/ is the vowel of father liaderl ,
box lbaksl ,andcalm /kam/. It is most often confused with lel and /e/. what
are the essential differences in the formation of /e/ and lal? Check your answer
with the description of lnl in Lesson 1l and by watching the formation of the
two vowels in your mirror.

136
lll. lowl as in boat 137

ll. lelas in bought

In moving from lal to lcl , we are starting up the back portion of the vowel
chart. The most important thing to watch with this vowel is the position of
your lips. The value of a front vowel-liyl , ltl , leyl, lel , or lr,l-is largely
determined by the tongue; that is, by the shape and size of the air-escape pas-
sage between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. On the other hand, it is
the lips-the size and shape of the opening between them-that have most
influence in forming the central and back vowels. For lal this opening is about
an inch and a half across, one inch from top to bottom, and shaped as in Fig-
ure 9.

Figure 9. Lip position for /a/

For lcl the opening is usually about one inch or less across, and half an
inch from top to bottom. The lips are somewhat protruded (pushed forward).
Normally little is to be seen of the teeth. (See Figure 10.) In order for the lips

Figure 10. Lip position for /c/

to assume this position for lcl , the jaw is raised a little. The tongue remains in
approximately the same position as for lal , but it is "bunched" a little more
toward the back of the mouth.
The /c/-sound is the vowel of all lcll . saw lscl . cause lktzl . and cross
/krcs/. It is easily confused with lal , lowl, and lal .

lll. /oW as in bqat

In order to produce an lowl , the lips form the shape of the letter o. This re-
quires that they be protruded and rounded more than for lcl. The resuhing
opening is a little circle about half an inch in diameter. (See Figure ll .) The
jaw has been raised still more, and the "bunching" of the tongue in the back
138 Central and Back Vowels

Figure 11. Lip position tor lowl

of the mouth is greater. The tongue tip probably no longer touches the floor of
the moutlt.
Llke leyl, the /ow/-sound is diphthongized, much more so in British than
in American English. This means that during the pronunciation of the sound
the lips close slightly and lose their forced rounding, and the back of the tongue
moves upward and backward. The sound is, therefore, symbolized as a vowel
plus a glide: /ow/.
The /ow/-sound is the vowel found in go lgowl, cold lkowldl ,
coast lkowstl , soul lsowll , and snow /snow/. It is sometimes confused with
ltl and /uw/. What are the essential differences between lowl and/c/? Can you
see them with your hand mirror?

lY. lulas in put

Until now, in order to make the classification of vowels as simple as possible,
we have assumed that the progression from /oW through lul to luwl was per-
fectly regular: that as we moved from one vowel to another up the back part
of the vowel chart we merely raised the jaw, rounded the lips, and pulled the
tongue backward a little more each time. Actually, the relationship between the
back vowels is more complex; the regular progression will account for ltl ,
lowl , and /uw/, but not altogether for lu/ .
To form lul, the lips are less rounded and protruded than in the produc-
tion of lov'l . The opening between them is wider across than for lowl , but a
good bit sntaller in distance from upper to lower lip. The teeth may be visible:
the tips oJ the lower teeth approach the backs of the upper ones. (See Figure
12.) Though the tongue tip touches nothing, the tongue itself is pulled back
and up, mctre than for lowl, until its sides touch the upper tooth ridge.
The /u/-sound is the vowel of book lbuW, full lfull , and could /kud/. It
is most often confused with luwl and lel .

Figure 12. Lip position ,or,u, @

\--l
vt. lal as in but, and lerl as in bild 139

V. /uw/ as in bqet

Llke liyl at the other extreme of the chart, the /uw/-sound requires tension for
its production. It is pronounced with a slight upward and backward movement
of the tongue after the sound is begun. It is, therefore, symbolized as a vowel
plus a glide: /uw/. This diphthongization, however, is much less discernible
than in the /ow/-sound. The lips should be rounded and protruded as much as
possible, leaving a little circular opening about the size of a pencil. The teeth
are not visible. (See Figure 13.) The tip of the tongue is drawn quite far back
and touches nothing, but the sides of the tongue press firmly for some distance
along the upper tooth ridge.

Figure 13. Lip position tor luwl

The /uw/-sound is the vowel of too ltuwl , soon lsuwn/ , and blue /bluw/.
It is easily conf,;sed with /u/. Form the two sounds carefully before your hand
mirror until you can see and feel clearly the essential difference: (t) in the
rounding and protrusion of the lips; (2) in the pressure exerted by the tongue;
and (3) in the visibility of the teeth.
This would be an excellent place, in fact, to go through the entire series-
a-c-ow-u-uw-before your mirror, fixing in your mind the distinguishing char-
acteristics of the formation of each vowel.

Yl. lelas in but, and lorl as in bird

The only remaining vowel sound is the central, neutral, relaxed /e/, which is
not properly a part of either the front or back series. It has already been de-
scribed at some length in Lessons 2 and 3 in connection with its very frequent
use in unstressed syllables. However, it may be well to add a few more details,
by way of comparison, now that you have a clearer understanding of the phys-
iology of the other vowel sounds.
The /e/-sound is formed with the lips slightly parted almost their entire
Iength. (See Figure 14.) There is no tension or effort anywhere. The tongue
Iies relaxed on the floor of the mouth, and usually neither its sides nor its tip
touches anything.
It is the vowel of cut lkotl, jump ldi,amp/, and dull ldall. Owing to its
position in the center of the vowel chart, it may be confused with any of the
140 Central and Back Vowels

Figure 14. Lip position tor r",

@
other vowels, though this seems to happen most often with lal , lcl , and lul . To
change an lel to lal , all that is needed is to open the mouth wider. To change
lal to /ul , nirrrow the lip opening by putting some pressure on the corners of
the mouth, touch the sides of the tongue against the upper tooth ridge, and
move the teeth closer together.
The combination larl is a complex sound, which, because it includes the
liquid, /r/, is characterized by movement rather than by a fixed position of the
speech organs. Though many regional variations of the sound occur, the stu-
dent from abroad may safely pronounce /arl as the symbols indicate-begin it
as an ordinary lel and end it as an lrl . But very little pure lel is heard; even as
the lal is formed, it begins to change into an hl , moving bachuard in the mouth
with the sides of the tongue sliding along the tooth ridge and with the tongue
tip curving upward without touching anything. Practice this with word lwardl ,
verb lverbl , and turn lternl .

Vll. Exercises
A. 1. Listen carefully as the instnrctor pronounces a prolonged /a./ several times:
la-, a-, a-l. Imitate the pronunciation of the vowel, watching your lips,
tongue, teeth, and so on, in a hand mirror and trying to make your speech
organs assume the exact position described in the appropriate section of this
lesson.

2. Listen, then imitate, as your instructor pronounces the following material. If

the instructor indicates that the vowel in a word does not sound quite right,
correct yourself by making your speech organs assume more exactly the de-
sired position.

(a) (b) (c)

l.ad 1. start shopping l. hat, het
2. aks 2. a garden party 2. stak, stak
3. ann 3. a hot-rod car 3. kap, kap
4. drap 4. lock the shop 4. nat, ntt
5. gad 5. stop the clock 5. rak, rek
6. klak 6. from top to bottom 6. lak, lrek
7. lat
8. mart5
9. gard
10. dark
Vll. Exercises 141

B. The instructions for Exercise A apply also to Exercises B, C, D, E, F, and G.

1. lt-. t-. t-/

2. (a) (b) (c)
l. sJ 1. tall corn 1. lc, low
2. pJ 2. small talk 2. bcl, bowl
3. drc 3. across the walk 3. kcst, kowst
4. cl 4. a horse's stall 4. strJg, stral
5. cf 5. a soft cloth 5. nJrs, ners
6. krcs 6. along the wall 6. tck, tak
7. lc
8. sclt
9. kcld
10. bcrn

C. 1. /OW_, grff_, 9,W_/

2. (a) (b) (c)
l. now l. both soldiers l. flow, flc
2. dow 2. an open coat 2. kowt, kct
3. 0row 3. those snows 3. nowz, n}z
4. owld 4. wrote a note 4. kowl, kuwl
5. owd 5. his own show 5. rowz, ruwz
6. bown 6. knows the road 6. powl, puwl
7. smowk
8. powst
9. nowt
10. howps

D. l. /V_, g_, g_/

2. (a) (b) (c)
1. fut l. a good book l. ful, fuwl
2. pul 2. she could cook 2. Sud, Suwd
3. tuk 3. put in sugar 3. wud, wuwd
4. hud 4. stood by a brook 4. put, pet
5. nuk 5. look at the woman 5. tuk, tek
6. Sur 6. took a look 6. luk, lak
7. pu5
8. bu5
9. wul
10. wulf
142 Central and Back Vowels

E. 1. /Uw_, gy_, gw-/

2. (a) (b) (c)
1. truw l a loose tooth l. Suwt, Set
2. huw 2. through the school 2. suwn, sen
3. gluw 3. whose shoe 3. luwk, luk
4. tuwd 4. a blue moon 4. spuwk, spowk
5. spuwl 5. choose the boot 5. tSuwz, t5owz
6. fruwt 6. move into the room 6. suwp, sowp
7. luwz
8. pruwv
9. truw0
10. guws

F. l. la-, e-, e--l

2. (a) (b) (c)
l. ep 1. mother tongue l. Set,Sat
2. as 2. trouble with bugs 2. klek, klak
3. hem 3. young love 3. kem, kam
4. hant 4. ugly duckling 4. ket, kct
5. lag 5. wonderful company 5. nen, nuwn
6. kep 6. above the cut 6. lek, luk
7. dest
8. wens
9. rab
10. bra5

G. l. 161-, gv-, Qt-l

2. (a) (b) (c)
l. erO l. the girl's birth 1. werrn, wcrn
2. erdL 2. early bird 2. werd, wJrd
3. fer 3. a thirsty herd 3. ster, stler
4. ser 4. the curves merge 4. wer, weer
5. starn 5. her earnings 5. barn, barn
6. Oerd 6. stern words 6. lerk, lark
7. hert
8. wer0
9. barst
10. arb
Vll. Exercises 143

H. Did you evcry try to read lips as the deaf must learn to do in order to understand
what is said to them? The back vowels and certain consonants are rather easy to
recognize by sight. Before doing the following exercise, it would be well to review
the pictures of the lip position for the back vowels and lal and to reread, if neces-
sary, the material in Lesson 8 on the point of articulation of /f/ and /p/. Watch in
your hand mirror as you form the sounds. In class your instructor will form some
of the cornbinations below with lips, tongue, and so on, without actually uttering
any sound. Try to recognize each combination and write down its number.

1. a 7. fa 13. pa
2.t 8. fc 14. pc
3. ow 9. fow 15. pow
4.u 10. fu 16. pu
5. uw 11. fuw 17. puw
6.e 12. fe 18. pe

I. The drills below are to be carried out like Exercise F of the preceding lesson:
(1) the teacher makes sure that the meaning of all words is understood; (2) the
teacher reads across the columns and the class imitates the teacher; (3) the students
read across the columns as a group and individually; (4) the teacher dictates ten or
more words selected at random; (5) the students pick out certain words and try to
pronounce them so well that the teacher can identify them by letter.

1. a a (and /erl)
a. not b. nut c. naught
d. cod e. cud t. cawed
o
E' Don h. done i. dawn
j. cot k. cut l. caught
m. are n. elT o. or
p. barn q. bum r. born

2. J ow uw
a. flaw b. flow c. flew
d. Shaw e. show f. shoe
c. bought h. boat i. boot
j. call k. coal l. cool
m. Paul n. pole o. pool
p. lawn q. loan r. loon

3.e U uw
a. luck b. look c. Luke
d. cud e. could f. cooed
144 Central and Back Vowels

C. buck h. book i.
j. k. should l. shoed

m. putt n. put o.
p. q. pull r. pool

J. Before reading each sentence below, pronounce the two words in parentheses in
contrast. Then read each of the sentences twice, using word (a) in the first reading
and word (b) in the second. Then read again and use either (a) or (b), while another
member of the class tries to identify in each case the word that you pronounced.
The teacher may also give the drill as a test of your ability to distinguish between
back vowels.

1. (a. cat) (b. cot) Would you call it a

2. (a. shack) (b. shock) He had a in the woods.

3. (a. map) (b. mop) The -?

was hanging on the wall'

4. (a. far) (b. fur) Is it - from the zoo?

5. (a. doll) (b. dull) She's-wearing a hat.

-
6.(a.bomb)(b.bum)one-cancauSealotofdamage'
7. (a. lock) (b. luck) We depend on -
our to avoid burglars'

8. (a. barn) (b. burn) Take good care of that

9. (a. hall) (b. whole) Shall we paint the floor?

-.
10.(a.naught)(b.note)Iwrotea-ontheslipofpaper.
-
1l.(a.cost)(b.coast)The-ishighalongtheshore.
12. (a. faun) (b. phone) Do you have a at your house?

13. (a. awed) (b. owed) The speaker every person there.

14. (a. horse) (b. hearse) The was followed by a line of cars.

15. (a. balks) (b. bucks) The pony badly.

-
-
Vll. Exercises 145

L6. (a. boat) (b. boot) I'm sure such a will float.

17. (a. foal) (b. fool) She loves that dearly.

18. (a. took) (b. tuck) I the money in my pocket.

19. (a. pull) (b. pool) To have no - is a misfortune in Hollywood.

-
2o.(a.school)(b.skull)A-canteachmanylessons.
If - You might make notes of the word you
possible, tape record the above drill.
intend to use in each sentence l-a, 2-b, 3-b, and so on. Then record, following
your notes, and put the latter away where you cannot see them for several days.
After an interval long enough to allow yourself to forget which word you used in
each sentence, listen to the recording and write down what you hear. Finally,
compare your original notes with the record of what you later heard. You might
also have another student listen to your tape and make notes of what he or she
hears. Did you in every case hear the word you originally intended to use? Did the
other student always hear the same word you heard? Are you now making your
back vowels with enough clarity to be understood regularly?

K. Read these sentences aloud, making as clear a distinction as possible between the
vowels of the words in italics.

1. A black cat blocked mY way.

2. His story only adds to the oddness of what happened.

3. You'll be hot without a hat-

4. The sea is becoming calm.

5. lt fell suddenlv on the sod.

6. The ducks swim under the dock.

7. We heard a shot and shut the doot.

8. I think he heard, though he's hard of hearing.

9. When they woke, theY took a walk.
146 Central and Back Vowels

10. Every man brought his own bowling ball.

ll. I saw her sew it.

12. The tiger's claws closed.

13. It was a noisy war of words.

14. All was done before dawn.

15. I stole tp behind the stool.

16. The results will be knownby noon.

17. We made a rush for the bushes.

18. The child has good blood.

19. He just stood and looked athisfood.

20. Soon the srn will come out.

L. All the sentences in each of the following groups have the same rhythm and intona-
tion. Sentence stresses are marked. Go through each group several times until you
can produce that particular pattem rapidly and smoothly.

l. a. fne Uitt has g6ne to C5ngress.

b. The S6nate's sl6w to piss it.
c. The s6ssion's n6arly 6ver.
d. Deliy would .6ur. u, tr6uble.
e. We n6ed to kn6* the r6ason.
trt
2. a. Spnng is the prelude to summer.
,ra
b. What is the name of the actor?
ttt
c. Robert is taller than Allen.
d. ,,,
When is the lady expected?
,t,
e. Who has the courage to try it?

,t,
3. a. The inflation may lead to a depression.
t
b. It's a fashion I read of in the papers.

-
Vll. Exercises ',47
,rt
c. I can grve you the answer in a mrnute.
ttt
d. I'll repeat the suggestion as I heard it.
,rt
e. You can see in a moment that he needs it.
,tt,
4. a. When the cat's away, the mrce will play.
,rt,
b. If the pnce is nght, I'll buy the car.
c. Though the nights *e c6ld, it's wirm toAiy.
,ttt
d. As you surely know, it's trme for lunch.
,rrt
e. Since he seems surpnsed, you'd better speak.

The above drill is also suitable for taping.

M. Below are some English proverbs. Practice saying them, paying particular attention
to the back vowels and lel . Do you have proverbs with similar meanings in your
own language?

N. Read aloud several pages of English, concentrating your attention on the correct
formation of the central or back vowel with which vou have most difficultv.
LESS@N{3
Consonont Substitutions:
Port 1

l. Consonant Substitutions

You should be familiar by now with the idea of vowel substitutions, and will
probably understand immediately what is meant by the similar phrase "conso-
nant substitutions." The latter refers, ofcourse, to that type of speech error in
which one consonant is incorrectly used in place of another: the pronunciation
of those as llowzl instead of lpowzl , of days as /deyg/ instead of ldey-il.
A very large number of such substitutions involve the replacement of a
voiced consonant by its voiceless counterpart, or vice versa. We have already
treated this type of error in Lessons 8 and 9. In Lessons 13 and 14, we shall
work on several common and troublesome consonant substitutions of other
kinds, in which the error is not due to incorrect voicing. However, a knowledge
of the system of consonant classification and the effect an initial or final posi-
tion may have on a consonant sound-the material of Lessons 8 and 9-is
basic in attacking the problem before us.

ll. l0l, N, and lsl1' 16l, ldl, and lzl

The English soundsl0l and /6/ occur in very few of the other important tongues
of the modem world. Naturally, most students of English as a second language

148
ll. l0l, /tl, and lsl; 16/, ldl, and lzl 149
have trouble with the two consonants and often try to replace them in conver-
sational speech by other, more familiar sounds. The most frequent substitutes
for /0/ and /6/ seem to be ltl and ldl , respectively, though /s/ and lzl are some-
times heard also. If you will check back for a moment and think of the points
of articulation of these six sounds, you will note how close together they
all are.
The consonants /6/ and /0/, of course, make up a voiced-voiceless pair. In
the formation of both, the cutting edges of the upper and lower front teeth are
aligned and brought close to one another without touching. The tongue is ad-
vanced toward the slit-like opening between the upper and lower teeth until its
tip makes light contact with the back of both sets of teeth. For /0/, both initial
and final, the air is forced out between the tongue and the teeth with consider-
able pressure. In fact, the /0/-sound is merely the noise of this air escaping
through its narrow passage. For 16l, there is less pressure and consequently less
sound of escaping air, the latter being largely replaced by vibration ofthe vocal
cords. /d/ is usually a somewhat shorter sound than l0l . practice with teeth
ItiyQ/ and teethe ltiy!!, thigh l9ayl and thy Pay/, and make the contrast as clear
as possible.
When /t/ is substituted for l0l , as when a Scandinavian or German pro-
nounces thing as lttT,l in place of lQt4l , it means that a stop has been substituted
for a continuant. The speaker has intemrpted the outflow of breath completely
by a brief but firm contact of the tongue against the tooth ridge, rather than
allowing the air to escape continuously between the tongue and the teeth. Ex-
actly the same thing happens when /d/ replaces /6/, as when r/ee is pronounced
/de/ instead of pal . Both substitutions can be avoided by making a ronger but
a less firm contact with the tongue, and by making this contact between the
teeth rather than against the tooth ridge.
when /s/ is substituted for l0l , or lzl for 16l , as when the traditional
Frenchman speaking English pronounces think as /qr0k/ instead of /Qrgk/, the
problem is primarily with the place of articulation rather than the manner of
articulation. The substitutions can be avoided by advancing the tip of the
tongue and allowing the air to escape between it and the teeth, rather than
farther back between the blade of the tongue (the part just behind the tip) and
the hard palate.
In spite of the ease with which substitutions of /u for /o/ and of ldl for /6/
can be corrected when the speaker makes a conscious effort to form them well,
they may continue for years to mark his or her English as ..foreign-sounding,'
at times when concentrating on the thought he or she wishes to express rather
than on the position of the tongue. This kind of error is especially persistent in
the short, unstressed words of a sentence. The combinations o;f the and knew
that are good examples. To eliminate incorrect /d/'s when such phrases are
150 Consonant Substitutions: Part 1

used unselfconsciously, the student may need to make a considerable

disciplined effort. Drills such as those in this lesson may help, especially Exer-
cises A-3 and B-3, in which attention is fixed on the formation of a good /6/
or l0/ at the beginning, then gradually transfened to the meaning of what is
being said.

ilt. ldLl and lyl

The substitution of ldLl for /y/ is often noted, for example, in the speech of
students whose mother tongue is Spanish. In Argentina ldLl (or l2l) has re-
placed /y/ altogether in words like yo and suya. In most of Latin America and
in Spain this substitution can be heard in words spoken with emphasis. By way
of contrast, Scandinavians who learn English tend to make the opposite substi-
tution; in a word llke jump they are likely to replace dLl by lyl , and pronounce
lyempl instead of ldLampl . Since the manner in which these two consonant
sounds are made in English has not yet been fully explained in this manual,
we shall examine them in some detail.
Up to now we have considered /y/ principally as a glide, a semi-vowel,
that occurs after a vowel sound in diphthongs such as /cyl arrd /ayl. In these
diphthongs the lyl begins in the position of /c/ or lal and then moves toward
the front of the mouth. (See Lesson 10, Section I.) /y/ also occurs, however,
at the beginning of a syllable and thus before a vowel sound, as inyoung lyagl
and onion lanyenl. In this position it is usually thought of as a consonant. It is
still formed as a glide, characterized by movement from one position to an-
other. But the movement of lyl as a consonant is in the direction opposite to
its movement as a semi-vowel: it begins in the front of the mouth, in the
position of hl or ltl , and then quickly moves backward toward the position of
the following vowel. This means that the consonant /y/ cannot very well be
pronounced alone or separated from the following vowel.
On the other hand, /dZl is classified as an affricate. An affricate is a stop
(see Lesson 8, Section II) followed by a slow separation of the organs of
speech, which makes the last part of the sound a continuant. As the symbol
indicates, ldLl is a combination of /d/ and lLl . It is voiced, as are both the
sounds of which it is composed. You may remember that the voiceless coun-
terpart of lLl is /5/. Both lLl and l3l are normally produced by the sound of air
rushing through a long shallow channel between the blade of the tongue and
the hard palate. (See Figure 8 in Lesson 8.) At the sides, the channel is closed
by contact between the sides of the tongue and the tooth ridge. The lips are
somewhat protruded and rounded. For the production of ldLl the position is
similar, except that for a moment at the beginning of the sound, while forming
V. Exercises 151

the initial lN, the tongue touches the tooth ridge all around, thus blocking
altogether the escape of air. when a little pressure has built up, the tip of the
tongue (but not the sides) moves away from the tooth ridge, opening the chan-
nel for the outrush of air.
If you compare the descriptions of ldLl and lyl , you will note that the
essential difference is this contact at the beginning of ldLl between the tongue
and the upper tooth ridge. For ly/, no part of the tongue touches the roof of
the mouth; only light contocts are made between the tongue tip and lower teeth
and betn'een the sides of the tongue and the upper bicuspids. Contrast jet ldietl
and yet lyet/ and keep your tongue away from your palate and tooth ridge
for lyl.

lV. /5/ and /t5/

For reasons that need not be explained here, there is a tendency to substitute
/5/ for /t5/ in certain positions, even on the part of students whose mother
tongue has a /tS/-sound. Thus question is frequently mispronounced as
/kwes5an/ instead of /kwest5en/ by speakers of various language backgrounds.
Since /5/ and /t5/ are the voiceless counterparts of lLl and ldt/, they are
naturally formed in much the same way, described above, as these latter con-
sonants. Only, in the production of /5/ and /t5/, there is more sound of the
outrush of air to make up for the lack of voicing. When /5/ is substituted for
ItSl , it simply means that the brief contact between the tongue tip and upper
tooth ridge, necessary for ltl , has been omitted. Compare sheep $iyp/ and
cheap lt{iypl , washer /wa!er/ and watcher /wa6er/.

V. Exercises

A. 1. Listen carefully as your instructor pronounces a prolonged /0/ several times:

/e-, O-, 0-l. Imitate the pronunciation of the consonant, making sure that
you make light contact between the tongue tip and the back of the upper and
lower teeth.

2. Listen, then imitate, as your instructor pronounces the following material.

Finally, try to pronounce each word or phrase to his or her satisfaction.

(a)
l 0c 4. 0rgk 7. truwO
2. 0a4k 5. Oerd 8. men0
3. 0eft 6. grow g. 50"t
10. -60ea
152 Consonant Substitutions: Part 1

(b)
l. arithmetic
2. thick and thin
3. a thrilling thing
4. beneath his thumb
5. the fourth of the month
6. through the theater

(c)
1. eft, tlk 6' Pe0, Pet ll. 0Ik, stk
2. 0iym, tiym 7. 5iy0, Siyd 12' 0re4k, sagk
3. Ored, tred 8. lowO, lowd 13. Oam, sam
4. OIn, tln 9. tiy0, tiyd 14. mawO, maws
5. fey0, feyt 10' iyOer, iyder 15. tene, tans

3. After you have an opportunity to look at this exercise to be sure you under-
stand all of the words, repeat this drill as rapidly as you can after your instruc-
tor. Do not read from the printed page; just imitate what you hear. Each
sentence contains at least one /0/, but you should not concenttate on these
sounds. Think only of the meaning of the sentence. The instructor will tell
you if you mispronounce a l0l , and you can try again. The drill is intended to
help you begin to make the /O/-sound well when your attention is directed
toward the thought of what you are saying'

a. I'm thirsty. k. I'm thinking hard.

b. I'm methodical. l. I'm very thankful.
c. I'm through with it. m. I'm third in the class.
d. I'm quite thrilled. n. I'm three years older.
e. I'm thoroughly satisfied. o. I'm a thousand miles from home'
f. I'm always faithful. p. I'm not a thief.
g. I'm having a birthday. q. I'm at the theater.
h. I'm in the bathtub. r. I'm going south.
i. I'm healthily tanned. s. I'm losing my teeth.
j. I'm almost pathetic. t. I'm anything you say.

B. The instructions for Exercise A apply also to this exercise.

l. 16-,6-,6-l
V. Exercises 153
2. (a.) (b)
l. dren 6. suwd l. father and mother
2. 6iyz 7. briyd 2. get them together
3. 6rs 8. t66er 3. Smooth feathers
4. 6aw 9. b6y6rs 4. either this or that
). 6as 10. .66e. 5. the weather
6. then and there

(c)
l. 6ow, dow 6. tay6, rayd I l. riy6, riy0
2. dey, dey 1. lowd, lowd 12. klow6, klowz
3. 6en, den 8. 56"t, 5d"t 13. siy6, siyz
4. 6owz, dowz g. w5rdI, w5rdr 14. sayd, sayz
5. 6ear, dear 10. 6ay,Oay 15. tiy6, tiyz

3. a. I knew that you'd rather not.

b. I knew that you'd answer these letters.
c. I knew that you'd be absent this aftemoon.
d. I knew that you'd gather up your things.
I knew that you'd give clothing.
I knew that you'd change those grades.
I knew that you'd investigate further.
I knew that you'd speak at the beginning of the hour.
I knew that you breathed easily.
I knew that it bothered you.
I knew that you were smothering.
I knew that the reverse was the case.
I knew that you'd ask that question.
I knew that the water was smooth.
I knew that you were younger than that.
I knew that you liked the idea.
I knew that you loathed the place.
I knew that you disliked bathing.
I knew that you had them already.
I knew that they were fun though difficult.
154 Consonant Substitutions: Part 1

C. 1. Imitate as your teacher pronounces the syllables ldtal and /yal several times.
For ldLal , be sure the tip of the tongue touches the tooth ridge;for lyal, avoid
such contact carefully.

2. The exercise below may be carried out as similar drills done previously:
(a) the teacher makes sure that the meaning of all words is understood; (b) he
or she reads down the columns. then across them. and the class imitates the
pronunciation; (c) the students read across and down, in a group and individ-
ually; (d) the teacher dictates several words selected at random; (e) the stu-
dents pick out certain words and try to pronounce them so well that the teacher
can identifv them bv letter.
dz. v
a. Jew b. you
c. juice d. use (noun)
e. jet f. yet
g. jarred h. yard
i. joke j. yoke
k. jail l. Yale

3. Read these sentences aloud, making as clear a distinction as possible between

the ldl:l and lyl of the italicized words.

a. He has been jeered at for years.

b. You can't make jam with yams.
c. You lie;it was in Jaly.
d. The oranges are juiceless and useless.
e. Please yell when the mixture.lel/s.

D. The instructions for Exercise C also apply to this exercise.

l. /Sow-t5ow. Sow-tSow. Sow-t5ow/

2, S ts
a. sheep b. cheap
c. ship d. chip
e. shatter f. chatter
g. mush h. much
i. mashing j. matching
k. washer l. watcher

3. a. The baby shouldn't chewher shoe.

b. Merchants tw to catch all the cash thev can.
V. Exercises 155
c. I never wished to see such awitch.
d. He uses crutches since his foot was crushed.
e. You were cheated when you bought that sheet.
E. Your instructor will dictate some of the words from the exercise below for you to
recognize and write down. Then you should choose certain of them, not in any
fixed order, and try to pronounce them well enough so that he or she can identify
them. In the phonetic transcription of each word, marks of length, /:/ , and aspira-
tion, lhl , have been added where appropriate (see Lesson 9) in order to help you
pronounce more clearly.

l. dead lde'.d/ 8. sink /shrql/ 15. die ldayl

2. death /deOh/ 9. zinc lztrlU 16. thy l6ayl
3. debt ldetl 10. think /0hr4k/ 17. thigh l}hay/
4. thread /Ohre:d/ 1 1. heart /harV 18. sigh lshay/
5. dread /dre:d/ 12. hard lha:rd/ 19. breath /breOh/
6. tread lthre:dl 13. hearth /harOh/ 20. bread lbre:dl
7. threat /OhreU 14. tie lthayl 21. breadth /bre:d0h/

F. This exercise is a review of the consonants that have been practiced in this lesson,
and it can be used in different ways. (l) Combine the introductory phrases on the
left with each item on the right to practice all of the sentences. (2) Your instructor
will call out a letter, and you are to make a sentence by combining one of the
introductory phrases on the left with the phrase that corresponds to that letter. (3)
When your instructor says "think," you are to use only the phrase "He thought
that he should . ." to make sentences, and when your instructor says "wish,"
you are to use only the phrase "She wished that she could ." to make
sentences.

a. wash the car.

b. thank the teacher.
c. watch television.
He thoueht that he should . d. use the telephone.
e. go to the theater.
f. joke about the matter.
She wished that she could . g. shut the door.
h. breathe deeply.
i. tell the truth.
j. choose something else.
156 Consonant Substitutions: Part 1

G. This exercise is to be carried out like similar exercises done earlier.

l. (a. thought) (b. taught) I would never have that.

2. (a. booth) (b. boot) That is too small.

3. (a. thinking) (b. sinking) Are you - or just lying there?

4. (a. truth) (b. - have the

truce) We must at all costs.

5. (a. They've) (b. Dave) sat there for hours without moving.

6. (a. these) (b. d's) Can you pronounce perfectly?

7. (a. soothe) (b. sued) He declared he'd her.

8. (a. teething) (b. teasing) I believe the child is only

9. (a. jail) O. -
Yale) My son just got out of

10. (a. jet) (b. yet) The color is not black.

ll. (a. joke) (b. yolk) I see no -.that egg.

in

-
|2.(a.jeers)(b.cheers)Don'tlettheir-disturbyou'
13. (a. shin) (b. chin) He hit me on the

14. (a. share) (b. chair) Don't take my from me.

15. (a. dish) (b. ditch) Put the ashes in the

16. (a. washing) (b. watching) What are- you so cargfully?

H. -.
The sentences in each of the following groups have the same rhythm and intona-
tion. Repeat each group until you can produce that particular pattern rapidly and
smoothly.

l. a. Can you in**"t it for me?

b. Won't you t6tt us about it?
c. Is he sh5wing it to them?
V. Exercises 157
d. You're antigonizing him?
e. You pres6nted me to her?
2. a. T5m is u gr'"ut big b5y.

b. Which is the sixt6enth fl5or?

c. This is a 6ne-min sh5*.
d. Whit was in list night's n6ws?
Wtr5 tras the b6st b6ss v5icet
3. a. It's a l5ng time since I have ,6"n you.
b. It's a g6od thing that he's an 6thlete.
c. There's a r6al r5ason for preciutions.
d. It's a l6ng r6y to San Francisco.
e. She was quitr trippy to be ch6sen.

4. a. It's n6t *ir" to t6il them what you l6arned.

b. There's n6 *'uy to bring it to the sh5re.
L. A nice crlp of c6ffee would be g5od.
d. A l5ud "n5" was 6n tnut he could siy.
e. uy 5to sh6es are pl5asant to put 6n.

It would be instructive to tape the above exercise.

I. This exercise about jogging provides an opportunity to use the consonant sounds
discussed in this lesson in a communicative situation. It can be done in the same
way as the exercises in Lessons 9 and l0 about sumrners in Three Rivers.

, /rnde,
t -17- t.. - , ,
-lT1
]ruwnaytrdlstevts / an rn mets av dalrestlav 6e w5rld. 2. rt rz dz5dzd ta hev I

ffi[gfr6[raz'". : / str6o0enz yur r

f=7- t , l-\,
lOayz, / en heelps yu kantrowt yurlwi\yt. +. yu* t t"-U6yn n *rdlU5rdtr
l_ "n
158 Consonant Substitutions: Part 1

ly4q, I er wrd dZast Oinkrt siw6ro|0\s. 5. rf yuw ev riytst e sSrt+l6dl I

ttt
6. vuw ken rvvan t5uwz te llsen te t

, f

l.l@ar 7. bat dzagt0 Iz nat wloawt

-,
lts t

@2".r. s. tt -6yt, yu* u6r,l05irtr, / ,ksp5w,'z yuw ,

t" er6t, rr"-laG"n 56"rlaZe".r, / en m6y liyd tu alhtletaek. 9. lisenrl ,

rz, I hwiy w6yst 51 66tlfiarozr I wen yuw kud biy d;wrl e yiwsfulldz;;lta g6t

yur 6ksersayz? -

a. How would you define jogging?

b. Are you yourself a jogger?
c. What are the advantages of jogging thought to be?
d. Are there both physical and mental advantages?
e. Do you think that jogging will keep you young?
f. Is jogging better for the old or for the young?
g. Is it a dangerous sPort?
h. Why, or why not?
i. Do you think jogging is just a passing fad?

j. Would you rather jog than do a useful chore?

J. Read aloud several pages of English, concentrating your attention on avoiding

whichever of the consonant substitutions treated in this lesson you have noticed in
your own speech.
 LESSON 44
Consonont Substitutions:
Port 2

,. lb/, lvl,lwl, and /hW

These four sounds-/b/, lvl, /w/ , and /hW-form a group within which are
made several different substitutions not due to incorrect voicing. students
whose original tongue was spanish, Japanese, Korean, or pilipino tend to con-
fuse /b/ and lv/, because of the lack of a clear distinction between the two
consonants in those languages; it may seem to an American ear that such stu-
dents pronounce visit as l{nttl instead of r{tat/. Scandinavians, central Euro-
peans, Iranians, members of the Arabic-speaking group, and some others often
substitute lv/ for /w/ , give we the improper sound of ly_iyl in place of /wiyi.
Latin Americans may prefix a /g/ to words that begin with /w/; would ly.udl
thus becomes /gwud/. Since /hd does not exist in many languages and may
be becoming less common even in American English, there is a rather general
tendency to replace it by tw/; where lfuear/ becomes lyearl , white lfuayt/
becomes lwayU.
These substitutions are easily made because all four of the sounds-/b/.
lv/, lwl, and /hw/-are produced far forward in the mouth, largely with the
lips, the teeth, and the tip of the tongue.
You may remember that lbl is a voiced stop, made between the lips. For
an initial or medial lb/ , the lips close firmly, the pressure of air trying to escape
builds up briefly behind them, and then the air is released by a sudden opening

159
160 Consonant Substitutions: Part 2

of the lips: try it with berry l\6tJl .In the production of a final lbl , the last part
of the process, the explosive release of the air as the lips open, is usually not
heard. (See Irsson 9, Section I[.) Can you pronounce rob ha!/ , and allow the
sound to end while your lips are still closed?
By way of contrast, /v/ is a voiced continuant, made between uppet teeth
and lower lip. It thus differs from /b/, both in place and in manner of articula-
tion. The cutting edge of the upper teeth touches lightly the lower lip, and the
air escapes smoothly, without being stopped even momentarily. It should be
clear, then, that what is necessary in order to avoid the substitution of ibl for
/v/ is to touch the lower lip lightly against the teeth rather than firmly against
the upper lip. Very, berry; lyle:ill, /!6nl; light touch against upper teeth, firm
closure of lips.
Llke lyl , iwl is a glide used both as a vowel and as a consonant. We have
seen (Lesson 12, Sections III and V) that in transcription /w/ is witten after
the vowels lol and /u/ to represent upward movement toward the back of the
mouth. When used as a consonant, before a vowel as in went lwent/ and once
/wans/, the sound begins with the lips somewhat protruded and rounded in the
/u/-position. The lips then open and the speech organs move on quickly to the
position for the following vowel, whatever it may be. In avoiding the substi-
tution of lvl for lwl, it is most important to protrude the lips and keep the lower
lip away from the upper teeth. If this lip even brushes the teeth, the /w/ will
have some of the /v/-quality about it and may be misunderstood. Contrast wine
lwaynl and vine lyaynl , west lwestl and vest /yesU.
The remaining sound in this group, /hw/, is a consonantal glide. It is
sometimes known as the "candle-blowing sound," because we make it by
emitting a little puff of air through the rounded and protruded lips, just as we
do when we want to blow out a candle or match. No such puff of air accom-
panies the formation of lw/. You can see the difference between these two
sounds if you will hold a lighted match about two inches from your lips as you
pronounce witch lwrtill atd which /bwlt5/. Wilch should hardly cause the flame
to flicker, but a strongly produced w/riclr should blow it out.
It should be pointed out that the substitution of /w/ for /hw/ cannot be
regarded as an enor. Many, perhaps most, American Speakers make the
substitution, especially when pronouncing rapidly such words as which,
where, what, why, and when in unstressed positions. In the dominant form
of British English, lwl for /hw/ is customary even in stressed words like
whale and white. Such substitutions can sometimes result in misunderstand-
ing, however, and it is certainly worthwhile for the student of American
English to be aware that there can be a difference in the pronunciation of
such pairs of words.
lll. Final lml, lnl, lgl, and lgV 161

il. fil
lfl is a relatively uncommon sound, particularly in the Austronesian languages
of Asia and the Pacific area. In the major Philippine languages it occurs only
in loan words. In some forms of Japanese writing, the same symbols are used
for both lfl and /h/. Naturally, then, some students of English have problems
in producing the sound.
The most common substitution for /f/ seems to be lpl; for example, Fili-
pinos usually refer to their national language as Pilipino, and the important
Korean city of lusan is often written as Eusan. The differences between lfl and
lpl parallel those we have already noted between /v/ and /b/. In both cases there
are differences both in place and in manner of articulation. /f/ is labiodental,
formed between the upper teeth and the lower lip, but /p/ is bilabial, formed
between the upper and lower lips. And lfl is a continuant, whereas /p/ is a stop.
In order to avoid the substitution of/p/ for lfl, then, it is necessary to touch the
lower lip lightly against the upper teeth rather than firmly against the upper /rp.
Contrast/a/ lfaU and pat lpetl , suffer lsalerl and supper lseparl .
If you have ever listened closely to a Japanese pronouncing the name of
beautiful Mount Fuji, you have probably heard another substitution for /f/. Be-
fore /uw/, as in Fuji, Japanese normally pronounce the sound spelled with the
letter f as a consonant very similar to or identical with /hW. The lips are
rounded and protruded, the lower lip touches neither the upper teeth nor the
upper lip, and there is noticeable aspiration. See if you can pronounce !uji,
fukuy, and lukuoka that way. However, in pronouncing English words such
as fool lfuwll , foot lfutl , and fist /fisV, make your lower /rp touch yo:ur upper
teeth lightly.

lll. Finaf lml, lnl, lql, and lqV

At the end of words, there is often confusion between lm/,ln/ ,lgl , and lgkl .
lm/ , lnl, and lql form a group of consonants known as nasals, a classification
that we have not so far discussed. In the productions of other consonants (orals)
the air escapes through the mouth; for the nasals it comes out through the nose.
It is the soft palate (velum) that determines which way the air will escape.
When the velum is drawn up, it closes the nasal passage and forces the air out
through the mouth. When the velum is relaxed, the breath stream may pass out
through mouth or nose. To produce a nasal consonant, the velum is relaxed
and at the same time the passage through the mouth is blocked at some point
by the tongue or lips, so that all the air is forced out through the nose. In
162 Consonant Substitutions: Part 2

An oral consonant

l\l
Figure 15. Air escape for an oral consonant and
the nasal consonants

English, nasals are voiced. The diagrams in Figure 15 should help you visual-
ize the essential differences between an oral consonant and the nasals /m/, /n/,
and lgl.
It will be seen that for /m/ the outflow of air through the mouth is blocked
by the closing of the lips, for lnl it is blocked by the tongue's touching the
tooth ridge, and for /1/ by the tongue's bunching in the back of the mouth and
pressing against the palate.
In Spanish, words ending in m are extremely rare, but words with a final
n are very common. The first man is not called Adam but Adal, and the pre-
ferred spelling for the name of the Jewish patriarch Abrahalq is Abraha4. There
is therefore a strong tendency for Spanish speakers, when they begin the study
of English, to substitute final lnl for final lml . A word such as ftom thus be-
comes /frar/ and dim ldifl may become din ldifl. The problem can be over-
come by closing the lips firmly for the final /m/: some lsefl, came lkeym/ , and
bloom lbluw_d.
On the other hand, speakers of certain widespread dialects of Spanish reg-
ularly pronounce as /g/ the final consonants that are pronounced as /n/ in Stan-
tv. thl 163
dard Castilian. The same is true of the speakers of several Chinese dialects, in
which /4/ replaces the final /n/ of Standard Mandarin. Such speakers find it
hard not to carry this habit over into English. In their mouths rain lreyfl be-
comes / rey$l , and seen lsiynl becomes /siy4/. To avoid this substitution, it is
only necessary to make sure that the tongue tip and blade touch the tooth ridge
all around with enoughlrmness to block the escape of air through the mouth.
Note the clear contrast in tongue positions for ran lra;fl and rang ha;4l , sin
/sIq/ and sing lsrgl.
Still another group of students-among whom are many native speakers
of German, Yiddish, and Russian---often add a lH to words that should end
with an /g/-sound: for example, they pronounce doing /diwrg/ as /diwr0k/.
One of the reasons for this is probably a feeling on the part of the speaker that
the final g of a word like doing should be pronounced. Since lgl is a voiced
sound, a person in whose native language final voiced consonants are not com-
mon will tend to substitute for /g/ its voiceless counterpart, /k/. It should be
understood clearly that the g of the ending -ng is silent; the g changes the
preceding n from lnl to lgl , but it is not itself pronounced. you may be able to
realize this fact better if you will note the contrasting pronunciations of singer
andfinger. The former is /s'lr3ar/; the g is silent, though it affects the sound of
n. The latter is lfiqgarl; the g not only changes the n, but is also pronounced
itself. Can you hear the difference between lgl and lggl? At the end of a word
-ng always has the sound of /g/ , as in singer.
You may have noticed that l\/ , lgl , and lk/ are all formed with the tongue
in the same position, bunched high in the back of the mouth so as to touch the
soft palate. Two of these, /g/ and lW, are oral stops. To produce them, the
velum is drawn up, preventing the escape of air through the nose. The tongue
momentarily blocks the passage of air through the mouth, then releases it ex-
plosively. The other, l4l , is a nasal continuant. The velum is relaxed, allowing
the air to pass out through the nose. The tongue, which blocks the passage
through the mouth, remains in its position until the end of the sound. There is
no explosive release of breath. The substitution of /pk/ for ltl/ may be avoided,
then, by taking care that there shall be no explosive release, no aspiration, at
the end of a word llke rang. The tongue should remain pressed against the
palate until the sound is completely finished. Contrast rang /ra0/ and, rank
/ragV, sing lsi0/ and sink Ailk/.

av. th/

The problem with /h/ is not usually substitution, but omission. It is another of
those English sounds that do not occur in certain other languages, notably
164 Consonant Substitutions: Part 2

French, Italian, and Portuguese. In Spanish a sound similar to /h/ exists, but it
is represented by the letter j; the letter h is always silent. This means that
speakers of one of these Latin languages may have difflculty in producing lh/,
and find it natural simply to ignore the sound. On the other hand, once they
become aware of lW, they may tend to insert the sound where it does not
belong: /rts may !6wnlI howp/ for "It's my only hope"'
This tendency is probably strengthened by the fact that in a few common
English words the h really should be left sllent: heir ltarl , honor llnerl , and
hour lavtrl . Either pronunciation, with or without /h/, is possible for herb, lerbl
or /herb/; homage 11.|11i.dLl or l'amtdLl; and humble, /hSmbol/ or /5mbeV. Fur-
thermore, native speakers of English frequently omit the /h/ of little words such
as he, him, his, her, have, has, and had, when these are in an unstressed
positionin the sentence: fLU him n\w /t6el rm niwl; we have done i/ /wiy ev
don tV.
Except in the cases mentioned above, initial h's should be sounded. Even
withhe, him, etc., it is certainly not necessary to omit the h in order to avoid
a "foreign accent."
The /h/-sound is a voiceless continuant, and no particular position of the
tongue and lips is required to produce it. With the speech organs in the position
of the vowel that is to follow lhl , the breath is forced through the partially
closed vocal cords and out of the mouth with sufficient strength to make a
rushing sound (as if the speaker were panting for breath): home lhowm/ , house
/haws/.

V. Exercises
A. l. Listen carefully as your instructor pronounces a prolonged /v/ several times:
lv-, v-, v-l. Imitate the pronunciation, making sure that your lower lip
lightly touches your upper teeth.
2. Listen, then imitate, as your instructor pronounces the following material.
Finally, try to pronounce each word or phrase to his or her satisfaction.
a. 1. veyn 6. ,ittt I l. Inv6yd
2. vest 7. vlhdZ 12. Invayt
3. vcys 8. lev 13. kaver
4. vyuw 9. breyv 14. Ileven
,
). nSvr 10. t6uan 15. peyvd

b. l. various vegetables 3. never vexed

2. overly virtuous 4. verify the victory
V. Exercises 165

5. a vicious savage 9. an oval table

6. a big vote 10. a back vowel.
7. a vivid blue I l. a bold visitor
8. a very bad verdict 12. a beautiful valley
3. After you have an opportunity to look at this exercise to be sure you under-
stand all of the words, repeat this drill as rapidly as you can after your instruc-
tor, without looking at the printed page. Concentrate on the thought of the
sentences, and depend upon your instructor to call to your attention any lvl
that is mispronounced.

I've sealed the envelope.

I've had very little vacation.
I've prevented an accident.
I've never tried to write verse.
I've read Volume I.
I've just left my favorite class.
I've developed several vices.
I've spilled graYy on my vest.
I've never even seen it.

I've lost some valuable papers.

I've never driven a Cadillac.
I've leamed all vowels are voiced.

B. l. Imitate as your teacher pronounces lwiyl,lwiyl , lwiyl;' lwowl , lwowl , /woW.

Be sure your lips are rounded and protruded, and that you keep your lower lip
away from your teeth as you pronounce /w/.

2. a. l. wey 6. kwayet 11. weyt

2. wcl 7. swlm 12. aweyt
3. want 8. 5l*"y, 13. tw6stsan
4. wer g. brw6ar 14. w6stern
5. kwlk 10. bltwiyn 15. *6.en
b. 1. within a week 7. a vast world
2. gone with the wind 8. a loving wife
3. wish me well 9. vile weather
4. waste away 10. win over
5. awaken at once 11. a wicked villain
6. without vigor 12. the seven wonders of the world
166 Consonant Substitutions: Parl 2

3. After reading this exercise to be sure you understand all of the words, repeat
the drill after your instructor, without looking at the printed page. Concentrate
on the thoughr of the sentences, and depend upon your instructor to call your
attention to any mispronounced /W's.

I wish I were wiser.

I wish I had a sandwich.
I wish I weighed less.
I wish I knew more words.
I wish I could flnd work.
I wish I were widely read.
I wish we had won.
I wish we were through.
I wish you would warn us.
I wish you would reward us.
I wish the window were open.
I wish to ask a question.
C. l. With your hand before your lips, pronounce the name of the letter y lwayl and
the word l@ayl several times. You should be able to feel the puff of air with
which /hway/ is produced.l

a. l. hway 5. hwayt 9. hwayn

2. hweyl 6. hwtp 10. evflhweer
,
3. hwen 7. hwiyl I1 hwenevar
4. hwrt5 8. ahw6yl 12. hwiyt
b. l. the white whale 1. wash his whiskers
2. which wharf 8. a wild whistle
3. the whip whistled 9. whisk away
4. a whiff of whiskey 10. while the wind whirled
5. whine and whimper I l. whether we want it or not
6. wherever you wish 12. when she winked

3. a. I know what you want us to do.

b. I know what we're to studv.

'Note to the teacher: The chief purpose of this drill is to help students hear the difference
between lwl and lhwl . Because many native speakers of English do not distinguish between the
two sounds in their own speech, little time should be spent trying to make sure that all students
leam to Droduce the distinction automatically.
V. Exerclses 167

I know what a whirlwind is.

I know what you whispered.
I know nowhere to look.
I know where the laboratory is.
I know when we make recordings.
I know when I pronounce it right.
I know all your whims.
I know which bus to take.
I know why the wheels tum.
I know why we're doing this.

D. This section deals with /f/. As it is less commonly

mispronounced than some of
the other sounds we have been studying, many members of a particular class may
have no difficulty with it. The following communicative activities may help to
decide how much time should be spent in practicing lfl with a particular group.
Activity I can serve as a way of determining if problems with /f/ are common in
the class. If they are found to be comrnon, Activity 2 can provide additional prac-
tice. A good way for a teacher to encourage a student to try to correct a faulty
pronunciation by repeating a word is for the teacher to cup his or her hand behind
the ear as if to indicate inability to hear what the student said.

l. a. The teacher asks if the following are used for food or for fuel: gasoline,
margarine, coal, butane, snails, fodder, wood, straw, fowls, fish, fruit,
kerosene.
b. Ask how many there are of the following: seasons in a year, cents in a
nickel, quarters in a dollar, people in a quintet, states in the United
States, hours in a day and night, cards in a deck for playing bridge,
weeks in a year, numbers in half a hundred.

2. a. Ask the class as a group to list as many towns and cities as they can
whose name begins with the sound of /f/.
b. Ask students to explain what fauna and flora are.
c. Ask them what their favorite foods are.
d. Ask if there is a difference in meaning betweenfurther andfarther.

E. l. Imitate your teacher's pronunciation of lrr,m/ , /ran/, ha,gl , lrngU several

times. Be sure that your lips meet firmly for lm/, that your tongue touches
your tooth ridge for lnl , that it touches your soft palate for l4l , and that only
/pk/ has an explosive release.
168 Consonant Substitutions: Part 2

2. This exercise is to be carried out similarly to previous exercises of the same

kind. (For example, Lesson 11, Exercise F.)
gk
a. tam b. tan c. tang d. tank
e. clam f. clan g. clang h' clank
i. brim j. k. bring l. brink
m. n. ban o. bang P. bank
q. some r. son s. sung t. sunk
u. bum v. bun w. bung x. bunk
y. hum z. Hun aa. hung bb. hunk
3. Read these sentences aloud, making as clear a distinction as possible between
the lml, /n/ , lgl , and /4k/ of the italicized words.
a. Tlhey ran and rang the bell.

b. A new gang war began.

c. I think he's kin to the king.
d. lt's pinching my chin.
e. Come on; get along.
f. A pilot must wln his wlngs.
C. What are you doing with the ink?
h. The Titanic's passengers sang as the ship scnl<.

i. Are you ordering drinks?

j. I think the thing is possible.
k. The chains clank and clang.
l. The flowers are dropping their pink petals.
m. What a dumb thing to have done!
n. We had to spend some time away from home.
o. She's done some singing on television.
p. That car can tum on a dime.
q. The waitress came, bringing his rum.

4. Try to explain what ram, ran, rang, and rank mean.

F. l. Imitate your teacher's pronunciation of /huw/ /huw/ /huw/; lheyl , lheyl , lheyl .
You should be able to feel the strong puff of air at the beginning of each of
these syllables.
v. Exercises 169

2. a. 1. haws 6. howld ll. perh6ps

2. huw 7. hcrs 12. brh5yv
3. how 8. hiyt 13. brhiynd
4. hrer 9. hert 14. h59gn
5. heyt 10. atr6O 15. h6mberger

b. l. hard-hearted 5. a happy home

2. high-handed 6. my only hope
3. the whole of history 7. hurricane winds
4. Uncle Henry 8. an entire ham

3. After going over this exercise to be sure you understand all of the words,
repeat the drill after your instructor without looking at the printed page. Con-
centrate on the thought of the sentences and depend upon your instructor to
call your attention to the omission of any /h/'s that should not be omitted, or
to the insertion of anv /h/'s where thev do not belons.
a. I hear you've been in the hospital.
b. I hear you've heard from home.
c. I hear you're going away for the holidays.
d. I hear you know how to manage a horse.
e. I hear you hope to be able to hire an electrician.

f. I hear you've been hesitating to ask for help.

g
o' I hear he's been misbehaving.
h. I hear he always has high grades.
1. I hear he's not happy here.
j. I hear he habitually hides his errors.
k. I hear he has a beautiful head of hair.
l. I hear it has already happened.
m. I hear they're holding open house.
n. I hear I must meet the American history and institutions requirement.
o. I hear that instructor is often hard to please

G. This exercise is to be carried out like similar exercises done previously.

b v w
1. bail 2. veil 3. wail
4. buy 5. vie 6. Y
7. bile 8. vile 9. wile
170 Consonant Substitutions: ParI 2

10. bet 11. vet 12. wet

13. 14. vine 15. wine
16. best 17. vest 18. west

H. In order to help fix in your mind the position in which the consonants studied in
these last two lessons and the back vowels are formed, another lip-reading exercise
is included here. Your instructor will form some of the combinations below with
his or her lips, tongue, and so on, without actually uttering any sound. Try to
recognize each combination and write down its number.

l. ba 2. va 3. wa 4. da 5. da
6. bow 7. vow 8. wow 9. 6ow 10. dow
ll. be 12. ve 13. we 14. 6e 15. de
I. This exercise is to be carried out like similar exercises previously done.

l.(a.bow)(b.vow)Hemadea-togreetuscordially'
2. (a. boat) (b. vote) The candidate received a large

3. (a. ba| @. vat) A is used in making beer.

4. (a. veil) (b. wail) A is a sign of sorrow.

-
5.(a.verse)(b.worse)Itcouldn'tpossiblybe-.
6. (a. vines) (b. wines) -Californians should know about

7. (a. fan) (b. pan) You don't need a for that.

8'(a.fashion)(b.passion)Doyouknowaboutmynew-?
9. (a. lea| @. leap) That's a beautiful

10. (a. food) (who'd) We saw served.

ll. (a. sum) (b. sun) How can the -. be so large?

12. (a. clam) ( b. clan) Do you know what a is?

-
l3.(a.ton)(b'tongue)Doesitweighasmuchasa-?
14. (a. sin) (b. sing) Don't urge me to - .

-
 Exercises 171

15. (a. stun) (b. stung) Your remarks me.

16. (a. wing) (b. wink) The waiter gave me a .

-
|7.(a.sing)(b.sink)Thechildwon't-inthewater.
18. (a. bang) (b. bank) I wouldn't - on the door, if I were you.

19. (a. hitch) (b. itch) I hope no will develop.

20. (a. heart) (b. art) Put your in your work.

21 . (a. heating) (b. eating) I won't live there because of the ar-
rangements.

J. In English the most popular type of humorous verse is certainly the limerick. A
limerick has five lines. The first. second. and fifth lines each have
- three stresses
(not necessarily placed according to the usual rules for sentence stress) and rhyme
with one another. The third and fourth lines have only two stresses each and like-
wise rhyme with each other. The rhythmic pattem is very strong and regular.
The four well-known limericks that follow are very suitable for small-group
activities designed to give you a surer control of rhythmic patterns. One good
sequence for such activities might be:

a. The teacher divides the class into four groups and assigns each group of you
a limerick to prepare.
b. The members of each group then read the limerick that has been assigned to
you and try to help one another understand its meaning.
c. Each group locates and marks the stresses in its limerick.
d. The teacher comes to each group in turn and reads the assigned limerick to
you line by line while the members listen and imitate.
e. The students in each group practice reading their limerick, or reciting it from
memory, with each student pronouncing one line and one of you following
another in order around the circle. You should try to keep the overall rhythm
of the verse as regular as possible.
f. Each group recites its limerick for the entire class.
g. If facilities are available, the groups can record their limericks on tape.
l. I'd rather have fingers than toes;
I'd rather have ears than a nose;
And as for my hair,
I'm glad it's still there.
I'll really be sad when it goes.
172 Consonant Substitutions: Part 2

2. As a beauty I'm not a star;

There are others more lovely by far;
But my face-I don't mind it,
For I am behind it.
The people out front get the jar!

J. An amoeba named Sam and his brother

Were having a drink with each other.
But while they were quaffing
They split their sides laughing,
So each of them now is a mother.

4. A medical student named Lees,

Worn down by B.A.'s and M.D.'s,
Collapsed from the strain.
Said his doctor, "It's plain
You are killing yourself by degrees."'

K. Read aloud several pages of English, concentrating your attention on avoiding

whichever of the consonant substitutions treated in this lesson you have noticed in
your own speech.

2The limericks are adapted from somewhat different versions in The World's Best Limericks
(Peter Pauper Press), A Treasury of I'aughter (edited by Louis Untermeyer), and H.A. Gleason's
Workbook in Descriptive Linguistics (Henry Holt and Company).
 LESSON{5
Consonont Clusters

l. Phonotactic Rules

Sounds can be difficult for language leamers to pronounce not only because of
the way they are formed when they stand alone, but also because of the posi-
tion they occupy in relation to other sounds in words or sentences. Every lan-
guage has its own set of rules (sometimes called phonotactic rules) governing
such features as the positions in which each sound can be used, the vowels that
can appear together, and the order in which consonants can follow one another
without intervening vowels. These rules always greatly restrict the number of
sound sequences that can actually be used as words in a given language.
Though you may have never seen the word ndiyo (Swahili for "yes") before,
you know that it cannot be English because of the order in which the sounds
follow one another. No real language would permit the combination Btfsplk,
which is the impossible name that an American humorist gave to one of his
characters.r Though the individual sounds that make up that name are easy for
the speakers of most languages to pronounce in isolation, the sounds are ar-
ranged in a way that violates the phonotactic rules of all known languages.
Therefore no one can pronounce the name easily without inserting two or three
vowels.

tAl Capp in his widely read comic stnp, Li't Abner. Joe Btfsplk walked around
under his own
little black cloud and always brought terrible misfortune to anyone with whom he came in contact.

173
174 Consonant Clusters

Some of the phonotactic rules of English are shared with other languages,
but no two languages have precisely the same set of rules. And each time a
student of English has to learn a word whose sounds are in positions that the
mother tongue does not permit, the student has more or less of a problem in
pronouncing the word. The reverse is, of course, also true. A native speaker
of English has trouble pronouncing the Swahili word mtoto lmt6tol "child",
because the rules of English require that an initial /m/ be followed by a vowel,
For similar reasons English speakers have problems with ngalan tnitant
"name" and maaari lma'a'ail "possible" in Pilipino, or Pferd lpfertl
"horse" in German, or Gdynia lgdrynya/ "name of city" in Polish.
A somewhat simplified formula for the syllable structure of English is
(C)(CXC)V(C)(C)(C)(C). This is read as meaning that the only obligatory ele-
ment in an English syllable is V: that is to say, a vowel sound. The vowel
may, optionally, be preceded by as many as three C's, consonant sounds.
It may be followed by up to four consonant sounds. An example of the
most elaborate permitted syllable would, then, be strengths, pronounced as
/stregk0s/.
This syllable structure of English is relatively complicated; the great ma-
jority of syllables of most languages are much simpler than the longer syllables
that English allows. The formula for the syllable structure of Japanese, for
example, is (CXy)V(n). There must be a vowel sound, which may be preceded
by a consonant sound. If a second consonant sound precedes the vowel, it can
only be lyl , and the only consonant sound permitted after the vowel is /n/.
Thus, most Japanese words are made up of a series of simple CY's: sayonara,
sukiyaki, and so on.
All this means that native speakers of Japanese, like the native speakers
of most other languages, do not find it easy to pronounce the more elaborate
consonant clusters of English. When English words such as strike and guest
are borrowed into Japanese, they have to be reconstituted according to the
Japanese formula: strikebecomes sutoraiku, and guest becomes Sesuto.
The phonotactic rules that cause most trouble to language students may be
those that govern consonant clusters-that is, sequences of two or more con-
sonants within one syllable. In this lesson we will consider in some detail the
consonant clusters that English permits. Initial and final clusters will be iden-
tified, and opportunities will be given to practice those that occur most fre-
quently. We will also discuss ways in which the pronunciation of words and
phrases may be affected by unfamiliar clusters, as well as ways in which the
pronunciation of consonant clusters can be made easier. In the next lesson,
Lesson 16 entitled "The Sandhi of Spoken English," we will look at other
pronunciation problems that are related to the phonotactics of English.
ll. Cononant C/usfers in lnitial Position 175

ll. Gonsonant Clusters in Initial Position

The table that follows lists, with examples, all of the consonant clusters that
are permitted in initial position in an English word or syllable.2 The items are
arranged according to the final element of each cluster, in alphabetical order.

Initial Consonant Clusters Permitted in English

(Two-C onsonant C lusters )

l. /sf/ sphere /sfier/ 26. /tw/ twelve ltwealvl

2. /sk/ sky /skay/ 27. /0W thwart /Owcrt/
3. /bl/ blue /bluw/ 28. /by/ beauty /bWwtr/
4. tfV fly lflayl 29. /dy/ due /d(y)uw/
5. lgll glad lgla,dl 30. lfy/ few lfWwl
,
6. lkJl clear lk|rerl 31. lgyl gewgaw lgyuwgcl
7. tpll play lpbyt 32. /hy/ hue /hyuw/
8. /sl/ sleep /sliyp/ 33. /ky/ cure /kyur/
9. /sm/ small /smcl/ 34. /my/ mute /myuwU
10. /sr/ snow /snoW 35. /ny/ new /n(y)uw/
Il. /sp/ speak /spiyk/ 36. lpyl pure lpyurl
12. lbrlbing lblgl 37. /tyl tune /t(y)uwr/
13. /dr/ drink /d.InkY 38. /vyl view /vyuw/
14. lfrl free lfiyl
15. lgrl great lWyU
(Three -C onsonant C lusters )
16. /kr/ cross /krcs/
17 .
lprl pice /prays/ 39. /skl/ sclerosis /skhr5wsls/
18. /5r/ shrink /5rI4k/ 40. /spl/ split /splrt/
19. ltrl tree ltiyl 41. /skr/ scratch /skrat5/
20. l0rl three l0iyl 42. /spr/ spring /sprrl/
21. /sU still /straV 43. /str/ street /qqyU
22. /dW dwell {weeJ 44. /skw/ square /skweer/
23. /gw/ Gwen lgutenl 45. /sky/ skew /skyuw/
24. /kw/ quick /kwil</ 46. /spy/ spew /spyuw/
25. /sw/ sweet /swiyV 47. /sty/ stew /st(y)uw/

of the clusters on the list-such as /gw/ (number 23), lOwl (27),

Some
lgyl (31), and /skl/ (39Fare so rare that even a native speaker of English
2Much of the data in the tables in this lesson is drawn from Betty Jane Wallace, "A
Quanti-
tative Analysis of Consonant Clusters in Present-Day English," unpublished dissertation, Univer-
sity of Michigan, 1951.
176 Consonant Clusters

might spend a lifetime without ever needing to use them. Many of the clusters
made up of a consonant plus /y/ or lwl (22-38) are permitted by the phonotac-
tic rules of many other languages, so that native speakers of those languages
seem to have little or no trouble with them when learning English.
Four of the clusters, which include an alveolar consonant (see Lesson 8,
Figure 8) followed by /y/ as part of the diphthongal vowel lyuwl , are regularly
heard in extensive regions of the United States, but not in other regions. These
four are ldyl (29) as in due, lnyl (35) as in new, ltyl (37) as in tune, and /sty/
(47) as in stew. Note that the lyl with which these clusters are transcribed is
written between parentheses in the list as (y) in order to indicate that the inclu-
sion or omission of the /y/ is optional. For a student of English, either pronun-
ciation-/yuw/ or /uw/-is equally acceptable in words of this type.
For a large group of students the numerous clusters ending in lll or lrl (3-
8, 12-20,39-43) are quite difficult. The basic reason here is that speakers of
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and a number of other languages have trouble
pronouncing lll and hl in any position. In their language lll and hl are not
distinguished from one another as they are in English. Thus their play lpleyl
may sound like pray lpyeyl, and/or their pray may sound like play. Once they
master the pronunciation of lll and /r/ in other positions, as in lay and ray, they
should find it relatively easy to pronounce play and pray. The production of
lU and /r/ has already been discussed in some detail in Lesson 10, Section L If
you are still having problems with the two sounds, it would be well to review
that discussion at this point.
It may be worth noting that all three-consonant initial clusters (39-47) are
put together according to a very limited formula. The first sound is always isi.
The second sound is always one of the three voiceless stops that exist in En-
glish: /p/, ltl , or lk/ . And the third sound is always one of the four glides and
liquids of the language'. lwl , lyl , lll , or /r/. The nine combinations of these
sounds that actually occur are indicated by the arrows in Figure 16.

consonant'l consonant 2 consonant 3

tsl

Figure 16. Formula for initial three-consonant clusters

lV. Consonant C/usters in Final Position 1T?

lll. Initial Clusters Beginning with /s/

The most troublesome initial clusters for the largest number of students seem
to be those consisting of an initial /s/ followed by one or more other conso-
nants. This large group includes lsfl , lsk/, lsll , /sm/, lsn/ , lspl , /sV, and /sw/,
as well as all nine of the three-consonant clusters. Typical examples are spirit
hdutl , stop lstapl , string lstrtgl , scrap lskrnpl , and square /skweer/. All these
u6rds violate the phonotactic rules of a number of important languages, includ-
ing Chinese, Spanish, and Iranian. Speakers of these languages often try to
make initial-/s/ clusters easier to pronounce by placing a vowel-/e/ or ltl-
before the /s/, thus splitting the clusters into two separate syllables: /es-p'nru,
les-iapl , lts-t{tr1l , and so on. This type of mispronunciation can usually be
avoided by concentrating on the /s/-sound and consciously lengthening it:
/s:pIrtU, ls:tap/ , is:tfl1/.
Some students make a different type of error in pronouncing the /sl/,
/sm/, and /sn/ clusters. They substitute a /z/-sound for the /s/. In other words,
they begin voicing for the lll , lm|, or /n/ too soon. Thus, snoke sounds like
lzmowkl . Again, the way to avoid this is to concentrate on lengthening the
/s/-sound without voicing it, and then to pronounce the following consonant
very rapidly: /s:mowk/.

lV. Gonsonant Clusters in Final Position

The following table lists the consonant clusters that are permitted at the end of
an English word or syllable. The items are arranged as in the table of initial
consonant clusters: alphabetized, first, according to the final element in each
cluster and, then, according to each preceding element in turn. The most fre-
quently used clusters are marked with an asterisk (*). Particular attention
should, of course, be paid to these marked clusters.

Final Consonant Clusters Permitted in English

(Tw o -C onsonant C luste r s )

l. /lb/ bulb ibelb/ 8. igdl longed /lcld/

2. lrb/barb lbarV *9. /rd/ marred lmard/
3. /bd/ robbed /rabd/ 10. /6d/ bathed lbey@
4. lgd/ tagged ltrgdl 11. /vd/ lived /hvd/
x5. /ld/ filled /field/ *12. /zd/ cawed kczdl
6. /md/ seemed /siymd/ 13. lLdl rouged lruw1dl
*7. /nd/ cleaned /kliynd/ *14. /lf/ self isealf/
178 Consonant Clusters

Final Consonant Clusters Permitted in English (continued)

15. lnfl Barfff lbr.nfl 55. lrvl curve lkervl
16. /rfl scarf /skarf/ 56. /bz/ cabs lkebzl
17. lrgl berg lbargl *57. /dzl beds lbedzl
18. /lk/ milk /melk/ 58. lgzlbags lbegzl
*19. /4k/ ink Afl</ *59. /lz/ fills lfia@-
*20. /rk/ dark /da( *60. /mzl seems lsiymzl
21. /sk/ ask /ask/ *61. lnzl cleans lkJiy1gl
*22. lrU girl lgarU *62. /42/ things l0t4zl
23. /lm/ film lfielml *63. lrzl cars lkagl-
24. /rm/ arrr. larm/ 64. /6zlbathes lbey@
25. /ln/ kiln /keln/ 65. lvzl loves llauz,l
x26. lrn/ turn ltarnl
*27. /lp/ help lheelpl (Thre e -C onsonant C lusters )

28. /mp/ camp lkrmpl 66. /lbd/ bulbed /balbd/

29. lrpl harp lharpl 67. /rbd/ barbed /ba&{/
30. /sp/ wasp /wasp/ 68. /rld/ curled /ke@
31. /fs/ laughs /lrefV 69. /lmd/ filmed /fialmd/
*32. /ks/ likes /layks/ 70. /rmd/ armed larmr]/
x33. /ls/ else /cals/ 71. /lnd/ kilned /kelnd/
*34. /ps/ stops /staps/ 72. /rnd/ leamed llary!
*35. /rs/ nurse /nerV 73. /lvd/ shelved /See\f
*36. /ts/ eats /iyts/ 74. /rvd/ carved lkarvdl
37. /0s/ baths /baOs/ 75. ldzdl adzed lr@
38. /r5/ harsh /harV 76. lnzdl bronzed lbranzdl
39. lftl laughed llr,ft/ 77. /dZdl judged ldr,edZd/
*40. lkt/ ltked /laykt/ 78. /mpf/ nymph /ntmpf/
*41. llt/ felt lfnlt/ 79. /lfs/ Alf's /eelfs/
*42. lnV ant la;ntl 80. /rfs/ serfs /serfV
*43. /pU stopped /stapV 81. /lks/ milks /mrelks/
*44. lrV ara lart/ x82. /gks/ links /hgks/
*45. /sU passed /pasU *83. /rks/ works /w-arks/
*46. /5U washed /wa5U 84. /sks/ asks /resks/
47. /dOi width /wrdU 85. /lps/ helps /heelpV
48. /f0/ fifth /fifO/ 86. /mps/ camps /kamps/
*49. /10/ wealth /weelU 87. /rps/ harps /harps/
50. /n0/ month /manU 88. /sps/ wasps /wasps/
51. /p0/ depth /depO/ 89. /fts/ lifts /hftq/
*52. h9l earth /"til 90. /kts/ acts /a!!9/
53. ltOl eighth /eyt9t 91. /lts/ belts /beelts/
*54. /lvl twelve /tweelv/ *92. /nts/ prints /pfl4q/
Consonant C/usters in Final Position 179

Final Consonant Clusters Permitted in English (continued)

93. /pts/ accepts iaks6PtV 132. /rbzl barbs lbarbzl
94. /rts/ hearts /harts, 133. /ldzl holds lhowldzl
95. /sts/ tests /teql!q/ 134. /ndzJ lends lleglzJ
96. /d0s/ widths /wId0s/ 135. /rdzl cards lkardzl
97. /f0s/ fifths /fifOsr 136. lrgzlbergs tb.@
98. /lOs/ filths /fie!fu/ 137. /rlzl curls lkerlzl
99. /n0s/ months /men0s/ 138. /lmzl films lfialrnzJ
100. /pOs/ depths /depOs/ 139. /rmz/ arms latfftzl
101. /rOs/ births /ba10s/ 140. /lnzl kilns lk'rclnzl
102. /tesi eighths /eyt0s/ l4l. /rnzl learns llarnzJ
103. /ltS/ Welsh /wea!$/ 142. /lvzl selves lseeluzl
104. /ntS/ pinch /ptq!5/ I43. lwzl carves lkarvz
105. /rtS/ march /mag!q/ 144. lldLl bulge lbeldt'l
106. /lfU delft ldeelftl *145. lndil change /t5eyndi/
lO7 . /mfU triumph ed ltr'ayaryfu 146. lrdLl large llarlP!
(F our -C onso nnnt C luste r s )
108. /rfV surfed /sarft/
109. /lkV milked imte!$/ 147. /ldZd/ bulged lbaldldl
I10. /pkU linked /ltgkU 148. lndLd/ changed /t5eyndZd/
l1l. /rkt/ worked /wa$.f 149. lrdLdl charged /tSardZd/
ll2. /skU asked /eq\1/ 150. /mpfs/ nymphs /ntmpfs/
*113. /rnV burnt lba@ 151. /lkts/ mulcts /ma!\g/
ll4. ilpU helped /heelpU 152. /gkts/ instincts /Insunk!!/
115. /mpU camped /k--4 153. /mpts/ tempts /g*pE/
116. /rpU carped karpV 154. /rpts/ excerpts /eksarpts/
ll7. /spU clasped /klttp9 155. /ksts/ texts /teksts/
118. /dsV midst /mtdCg 156. /rsts/ thirsts /Oersts/
119. /ksU taxed /te\gl!i 157. /lffis/ twelfths /tweelfOs/
120. /lsU pulsed /pa!q/ 158. /gkOs/ lengths /legkOs/
121. /nst/ sensed /se4q/ 159. /ks0s/ sixths /sftsOs/
122. /psU lapsed /lepsU 160. /pksU amongst iemegksU
*123. /rsV forced /fcry! 161. /mpsU glimpsed /glImpsU
124. /tsU blitzed /bh1g/ 162. iltsV waltzed /wcltst/
125. /r5t/ marshed /map! 163. /ntsV minced /mrntsV
126. /tSV watched /wa!$! 164. /rtsU quartzed /kwcrtsV
127. /rOV berthed lbarOt/ 165. /ltSU filched /fie!$!
128. /lf0/ twelfth /tweafO/ 166. /ntSU pinched /ptg!g!/
129. /jkO/ length /le1k0/ 167. /rtSU marched /mart5u
130. /ksO/ sixth /sftsO/ 168. /rmp0/ warmth /wcrmpO/
131. /lbzl bulbs lbelbz! 169. /rldzl worlds lwarldz,l
180 Consonant Clusters

Students should not be alarmed by the large number of permitted final

clusters in the above list. Many of them are included in the table merely to
give an overall picture of those that exist. Though the 169 final clusters are
almost four times as numerous as the 47 initial clusters, an even larger propor-
tion of the final ones than of the initial ones are quite rare in actual use. A
glance over the list will show that the great majority of the items marked with
an asterisk-those that are quite common-are two-consonant clusters, which
are also relatively easy to pronounce. Only six of the three-consonant clusters
and none of the four-consonant clusters are so marked.
In an analysis of 10,000 words, about an hour and a half of recorded
speech, the lnt/ final cluster was found to occur over 200 times and the /ts/
cluster over 100 times. However, only 37 final clusters occurred five or more
times. This manual concentrates on those 37, and students are advised to do
the same.
The table shows that many two-consonant clusters, most three-consonant
clusters, and all four-consonant clusters are created when the extremely com-
mon endings -s and, -ed, and the less common ih, are added to words that
already end in one or more consonants. This means that a very large part of
the difficulty students have in pronouncing final clusters arises from the need
to add one or the other of these three endings. In Lesson 8 we discussed the
principles that determine the three different ways in which -s and -ed endings
are pronounced. A familiarity with those principles is obviously essential if
students are to be able to recognize which clusters are represented by the spell-
ing of words like eighths /ey!9V, worlds lwar\fu|, changed /t5eyndZd/, and
asked /e;!11/.
A somewhat similar problem of recognizing clusters from the way they
are spelled arises in words like warmth, prince, and, amongst In the pronun-
ciation of words such as these a voiceless stop (/p/, lt/, or lH) that is not
represented in the spelling of the words is inserted in the final cluster. Warmth
is pronounced as /wcrmp0/ with a lpl . Prince comes out as /pnn!s/ with a lt/,
and thus rhymes perfectly with prints. Amongst sounds like /emepksV with a
/k/. These inserted stops seem to occur most regularly when a voiced nasal
continuant-/ml , lnl , or /g/-is present in a final cluster where it is followed
by a voiceless sound, usually also a continuant. Warmth, prince, and amongst
all conform to that pattern. In passing from the voiced nasal to the voiceless
sound, a speaker is almost forced to produce the voiceless stop that corresponds
to the voiced nasal in its point of articulation. It is actually easier to insert /p/
between the lm/ and /01 of warmth than it is to pass directly from /m/ to /0/.
Most native speakers of English are unaware of the inserted stops and may
even deny pronouncing them, but the stops are present in the phonetic tran-
scriptions provided in many good dictionaries. Since their insertion makes the
 Making C/usters Easierto Pronounce 181

pronunciation of a number of final clusters easier, nonnative speakers would do

well to become aware of them. In our table of final clusters, additional exam-
ples of inserted stops can be found in nymph (78),Welsh (lO3), Iength (lZ9),
and minced (163).

V. Making Clusters Easier to Pronounce

Even native speakers of English, who have presumably internalized the pho-
notactic rules of the language, may find the pronunciation of the more compli-
cateci consonant clusters difficult. It should be remembered that the final cluster
of one word may be followed immediately in the stream of speech by the initial
cluster of another word. This can result in the creation of sequences of conso-
nants that are very long indeed. To say changed streets involves the production
of seven consonant sounds in succession without a single intervening vowel:
/-ndZd str-/. Sequences of five or six consonants can easily be found: learned
quickly /-rnd kwJ, sixth floor /-ks0 fl-l, charged three l-rdLd 0r-l , walked
strangely /-lkt str-/, and so on. For all speakers of English, then, there is a
degree of pressure to find ways, especially in rapid conversation, of making
clusters and sequences of consonants easier to pronounce.
Nonnative speakers can profit by some of the ways that are used by native
speakers to make clusters more pronounceable. Two of these ways will be
discussed here: (l) phonetic syllabication, and (2) the omission of consonants.
The most recommendable of the two for students is the process that has
been called "phonetic syllabication." Phonetic syllabication can occur when a
word ends in a consonant sound and the following word begins with a vowel,
as in the sequences has it /hLVn/, hide'em /hiy!em/, and give up tgty?tt.
The two words must be closely related and occur within the same thought
group, as is the case with verbs and their objects, two-word verbs, auxiliary
verbs and their accompanying main verbs, adverbs modifying adjectives, and
so on. (See Lesson 4, Section IV, Thought Groups and Blending.) Under those
circumstances the final consonant of the first word can be pronounced at the
beginning of the second word: h&-Vrtl, hiy-!am/, lg-y5fl . In the same way
the last consonant of a final cluster can be moved forward and pronounced with
the vowel of the following word. Find out can become lfayn-diwt/, Sixth Av-
enue can become /sIks-06venyuw/, and changed address can become
/t56ya!!-{adds/. Two-consonant clusters are thus reduced to single conso-
nants, three-consonant clusters to two-consonant clusters, and four-consonant
clusters to easier three-consonant clusters. Proper use of phonetic syllabication
can not only facilitate a student's pronunciation, it can also do much to make
his or her English sound more authentic.
182 Consonant Clusters

The second way to make consonant clusters more pronounceable is simply

to omit one of the consonant sounds. Native speakers do this more often than
they realize: for example, many very commonly pronounce arctic as t'g[;t*t ,
omitting the first g. Probably everyone omits the difficult p in raspberry, which
is normally pronounced t6'zbirr/, as well as the d in hindsome, pronounced
/h6nsam/. Such omissions happen most frequently and are least noticeable in
final three-consonant clusters when the middle consonant, the sound that is
omitted, is a voiceless stop: acts le\Isl becomes la,S! , lifts /hfu/ becomes
llr15,l , asked /eg$/ becomes /req11/. They may also happen with continuants:
depths /depQs/ becomes /depsi, and government lgavatnmenV becomes
/g5vermenU-.Omissions of tnis tcinO should, however, be used with restraint.
Too many of them, especially in formal situations, may give hearers the
impression that the speaker is somewhat uneducated.
There is still another, a third way of making clusters easier, but the au-
thors of this manual definitely do not wish to recommend or even to suggest
its use by nonnative speakers. Unfortunately, it is the way such speakers often
choose instinctively. That is, to break up the combinations by inserting "finish-
ing sounds," obscure vowels, or even fully sounded vowels between individual
consonant sounds: I don't think so as /ay downf oIgkh sow/, these three as
l6iyze oriy/, or the Japanese transformation of stress into sutoresu. These pro-
nunciations are, of course, the result of attempts to impose the phonetic or
phonotactic rules of other languages on English. They are not common in the
speech of native speakers of English and can make the language quite difficult
to understand. (See Lesson 9, Section III, Aspiration at the End of Words.)
To sum up, if an American family serves you delicious Russian borscht
soup for dinner and you have trouble saying /bc1qq/, there is a better chance of
your being understood if you will omit the ltl and call the soup /bcrs/, rather
than insert an lal and call it /bc1eq1/.

vt. Exercises

A. Your instructor may want to use this exercise as a test (see l.esson 11, Exercise
H) to find out how much you profited by the material on lU and /r/ in Lesson 10,
or how well you have otherwise leamed to distinguish between the two sounds.
More specifically, the exercise should show whether or not you can apply such
general ability as you may have in pronouncing lll and hl to the special problems
of handling them in initial clusters.
If you find you still sometimes have trouble in hearing the difference between
the two sounds, or in pronouncing them so that a listener can always hear the
Vl. Exercises 183
difference, it would be advisable to go back and work through the materials in
lrsson l0 again. Exercises A, B, and c in that lesson are designed to increase
students' mastery of /V and /r/, beginning with the positions in which they are
easiest to pronounce and then working up to the positions where they are most
difficult.

l. (a. play) (b. pray) It's time to go _ now.

2. (a. crime) (b. climb) The _ was quite discouraging.

3. (a. fleas) (b. freeze) We had trouble wirh rhe

4. (a. plow) (b. prow) A is always pointed.

5. (a. crew) (b. clue) The captain didn't have a _ .

6. (a. fright) (b. - rabbit was about to take

flieh| The
7.(a.glass)(b.grass)Pleasedon'twalkonthe-.
8.(a.blue)(b.brew)Doyouseethatspeckinthe-?
9. (a. flames) (b. frames) The pictures were in

10. (a. braid) (b. blade) She showed us how to make a

11. (a. fly) (b. fry) These fish don't _ well.

-.
|2.(a.crash)(b.clash)Therewasnowarningbeforethe-.
13. (a. free) (b. flee) They wanted to the prisoner.

|4.(a.claw)(b.craw)Thefishwoundupinthebird's-.
15. (a. glowing) (b. growing) I - light
saw the _.
16. (a. present) (b. pleasant) Enjoy the sun while it's _.
B. L This exercise is particularly helpful for those who have difficulty with initial
consonant clusters with the /s/-sound. Pronounce each word, concentrating on
184 Consonant Clusters

the /s/-sound and lengthening it, if necessary, making sure you do not insert
a vowel sound before it. Then pronounce the words at a more normal speed.

a. swearcr h. special o. splurge

b. spiral i. slide p. sphere

c. struggle j. smile q. squint

d. star k. splash r. small

e. spot l. spray S. sky

f. snow m. scratch t. sniffle

o
D' schedule n. string u. scream

2. This exercise gives you an opportunity to practice the use of initial three-
consonant clusters. It approaches them through "build-ups," series of three
words. The first word in each series begins with a glide or liquid: for example,
rap lrppl . In the second word a voiceless stop is prefixed to the first word,
thus producing a meaningful word beginning with a two-consonant cluster:
trap ltrapl . In the third word /si is prefixed to the second word, producing a
meaningful word beginning with a three-consonant cluster: strap lgtrepl . For
the formula see the end of Section II in this lesson. Remember that we are
concerned with the sounds that make up the words, not with theit spelling.
The following procedure is suggested for doing the exercise. First' the
teacher reads each word in all the series and you imitate his or her pronunci-
ation. Then you close your books, and the teacher divides you into two teams
for a contest. The teacher gives the first word of a series. Members of the
teams take turns trying to give words two and three in the same series. A
method of scoring may be to Score one point for a team each time a member
of it gives a meaningful word that fits the formula (whether the word is listed
below or not), and to subtract a point from the team's score when a member
gives a word that is not meaningful or that does not fit the formula'

a. ray, tray, stray g. ride, tried, stride

b. ream, creiun, lgleam h. 1ain, [ain, strain

c. lay, play, splay i. wire, quire, squire

d. ye,Ey, spry j. lP' giP' qlgp
e. Irc, Erc, spnc
k. rate, trait, straight

f. you, pew, spew l. latter, platter, splatter

vt. Exercises lg5
C. In the final consonant cluster of each of the words below, there is an inserted
voiceless stop that is pronounced but that is not shown by the spelling. (See end
of Section IV of this lesson.) Pronounce the words and try to identify the inserted
stop.

1. fence 4. warmth 7. dreamt

2. ninth 5. strength 8. rinse
3. lymph 6. month 9. sevenths

D. l. Read the sequences below several times. Simplify their final consonant clus-
ters by using phonetic syllabication; that is, pronounce the final consonant of
the first word as if it were the initial consonant of the second word: cooks it
Itits iu as tkik-siv.
a. loans it h. finds 'er o. must adopt
b. w5rks it i. caused'em p. don't all6w
c. arranged it j. retumed'em q. won't inswer
d. cirled it k. turns around r. can't 5wn
e. loves 'im L looked up s. jist a f6w
f. helped'im m. sold out t. m5st of ill
g. told 'er n. moved over u. l5ts of time
2. Read the following sequences that cannot be made easier by phonetic sylla-
bication. Try to pronounce all of the consonant sounds in them.

a. don't know k. that's clear

b. last minute l. most boys
c. thank them m. it's broken
d. can't think n. can't quite
e. gets back o. depth from
f. doesn't rain p. looked through
g. think so q. first quarter
h. forward march r. works perfectly
i. six feet s. sounds pretty
j. first floor t. just three
186 Consonant Glusters

E. Because the word the occurs so frequently in English, it seems useful to practice
sequences with the word the preceded by words that contain final consonant clus-
ters. You will notice that, with a little practice, your tongue adjusts itself to various
points of articulation for 16l, depending upon the consonant that precedes it. Prac-
tice reading these sequences several times until you can say them smoothly'

1. changed the room 11. worked the puzzle

2. failed the test 12. fixed the machine
3. aren't the ones 13. sort the cards
4. assumed the worst 14. since the dance
5. hopped the fence 15. understand the word
6. helped the man 16. almost the end
7. worth the trouble 17. thinks the most
8. built the house 18. points the arrow
9. amazed the people 19 ' knows the date

10. deals the cards 20. it's the end

F. l. Read the sentences below, all of which have singular subjects. Pay particular
attention to the pronunciation of the final consonant clusters in the verb forms:
lltsl consults. ll<sl looks. Then read the sentences again, making the subject of
each sentence plural and paying attention to the final consonant clusters of the
noun forms: hzl lawyers, lmzl rooms.

a. The lawYer consults manY books.

b. The room looks emPtY.
c. The examPle seems easy.
d. The instructor writes on the blackboard'
e. The teacher smiles at the class.
f. The student tells stories.
g. The girl sings beautifullY.
h. The professor answers the questions.
i. The girl receives letters every day.
j. The picture hangs on the wall.

Z. Your teacher will read one of the sentences above, sometimes with a singular
subject, sometimes with a plural subject. You will tell which he or she is pro-
nouncing. This will give you practice in listening for the -q ending. Individual
students can continue the exercise.
 Exercises
Vl. 1gz
G. l. Read the sentences below, all of which have present-tense verb forms. Then
read the sentences changing the verbs to the past form. Pay attention to the
final consonant clusters that are formed by the addition of the -ed ending.

a. They live on Main Street.

b. We study very hard.
c. They ask a lot of questions.
d. The professor always answers them.
e. The janitors mop the floor.
f. The boys laugh a lot.
g. The waitress serves breakfast.
h. We arrange the date of the dance.
i. The twins look alike.
j. We prepare a list.

2. Your teacher will read a sentence from the above, sometimes in the present
tense, sometimes in the past. You will tell which he or she is pronouncing.
This will give you practice in listening for the -ed ending. Individual students
can continue the exercise.

H. This drill is intended to give you practice in pronouncing difficult combinations of

consonants without inserting a "finishing sound." Use phonetic syllabication to
make consonant clusters easier where possible. This material is well suited to in-
dividual laboratory work.

1. A large group of students graduates each spring.

2. I heard that splendid speech you made last night.
3. He changed his mind and lunched at the student cafeteria.
4. They answered correctly, and the.instructor thanked them.
5. I request that all books be removed from the desks.
6. He will need all his strength to catch the others.
7. The next time you come we must speak Swahili.
8. Someone's trying to tum my friends against me.
9. Does she like this part of the United States?
10. George nudged me and asked if we hadn't watched long enough.
ll. I wonder why that child acts so strangely.
12. The baby has a big splinter in the skin of his finger.
13. Thanksgiving comes the last Thursday in November.
188 Consonant Clusters

14. Do you expect to catch the next train?

15. We'll have to risk using the old screens this year.

Read the following paragraph, paying particular attention to final consonant clus-
ters produced by the -ed ending.

Clarence, a university student who lives with his aunt in town, often helps around
the house. One Saturday, his aunt went downtown, leaving a list of things for
Clarence to do. Clarence performed the first three chores with great good will.
Then he discovered that his car had a flat tire. He changed it and began to work
on the engine. When his aunt arrived home, she found that Clarence had washed
the dishes, made his bed, and picked up his clothes. But he hadn't washed the
windows, burned the trash, hosed down the front porch, or trimmed the hedge.
Clarence confessed that the time had slipped by, and he was very sorry.

With your book closed, talk about all the things that Clarence had done and had
not done.

J. Read the following paragraph, paying particular attention to the final consonant
clusters produced by the addition of the -q ending.

Alice and Ann are twin sisters. When they were little girls, their mother dressed
them exactly alike. Now that they are older, they like to wear clothes that are
different. Since they go to the same university and have similar features, people
sometimes mistake one for the other. If you are well acquainted with them, how-
ever, you can tell them apart in many ways. Alice likes to wear brighfcolored
blouses and skirts; Ann prefers more subdued shades. Ann reads and studies a lot,
while Alice spends her time participating in various sports and games. Alice smiles
and laughs a gteat deal and makes friends easily; Ann seems quieter and attracts
friends more slowly. They agree on some things, like going to dances and to the
movies on weekends. And neither one ever lacks invitations to go out.

With your books closed, tell about the similarities and differences between the
twins.

K. Practice reading aloud interesting articles from the newspaper, paying particular
attention to the smooth pronunciation of consonant clusters.
 LEssoN 46
The Sondhi of
Spoken English

What Sandhi-Forms Are

The word sandhi, usually pronounced /s6ndiyl in English, is a borrowing from

sanskrit, in which language it means "placing together." It is used by gram-
marians to refer to the differences in the pronunciation of words or endings that
depend on the environment in which these occur. A well-known example in
English is the use of the article a lel before nouns that begin with a consonant
sound, and of an lan/ before those beginning with a vowel sound: a morning,
an afternoon In the case of a and an the difference in pronunciation is obvious
in both the written form and the spoken form of the language. In many other
cases, however, the difference is present only in the spoken form. By far the
most important example of this in English is the alternative pronunciations of
the -ed ending as lU, ldl , and ltdl , and of -s as /s/, lzl , and lnl .
We are primarily concerned in this manual, of course, with sandhi in the
spoken language.
The environment that determines when a sandhi-form is used may be pres-
ent in a single word or it may involve a sequence of two or more words. you
may remember that the environment in which the syllabic consonants we stud-
ied in ksson 10 occur is described in the following equation:

* unstressed syllable containing consonant

1\ {'):,rsyllabic

189
190 The Sandhi of Spoken English

These syllabic consonants are usually heard within a single wotd: final ltaynll ,
student /styiwdqV, sentence ls6ntr,rtsl. But they will also occur if the necessary
environment is present in a contraction formed of two separate words: didn't
nialtt , or couldn't /kidp. And they may likewise occur if the environment is
produced by a sequence of closely related words such as night and day lniyt1
deyl.
Another case of a sandhi-form that may occur either within a word or
between closely related words is the medial ltl that sounds "somewhat like a
ld/" that we studied in Lesson 9. (We will transcribe it here as a /d/.) You
may remember that, within a single word, the environment in which it is pro-
duced is between voiced sounds, usually vowels, but not at the beginning
of a stressed syllable. Thus it is heard in ltuer A6.!art, 'otom t64atnl,
and p'arty ryk$t; but not in at{est rc16.st1 . Examples of the occurrence,of this
/d/like /U between closely related words are htt 'im /hld ird and nght or
wins triyiar r3g.If the sentence sffess is on the second of the two words,
the /t/ is /d/-like when it ends the first word: get Lp is pronounced lge!'epl.
The lt| remains a /t/, however, when it begins the second word: a test is
heard as la glsu.
In this manual we are concerned both with sandhi within one word (inter-
nal sandhi) and with sandhi between words (external sandhi). The same pro-
cesses are involved in the two positions'
It should be apparent by now that we have already discussed sandhi often
in this text, so far without using that term. The various aspects of sandhi that
we have dealt with earlier include not only the endings -ed and -s, syllabic
consonants, and the /dllike ltl , but also blending within thought groups, special
unstressed forms of words, the insertion of /e/ between front vowels and /l/ or
ftl , the special features of initial and final consonants, the simplification of
consonant clusters, and various other kinds of phonetic variation.
The basic reason for all these types of sandhi seems to be the pressure that
speakers feel to make the pronunciation of the language easier. The following
are the principal processes by which this very human need is met'

l. Assimilation: that is, changing the voicing and/or the point of articulation
of adjacent sounds so as to make them more similar (for example, in
guessed /ges/ the d is devoiced so as to make it more like the voiceless
/s/ that precedes it).
2. Obscurqtion: pronouncing a sound with reduced clarity and effort (un-
stressed vowels are regularly obscured in English).
3. Omission: ignoring entirely a sound suggested by'the spelling of a word
(the ! of debt is always omitted).
4. Insertion: adding a sound that puts the speech organs in a better position
ll. More About Unstressed Function Words 191

to pronounce the following sound (the insertion of /a/ between a front

vowel and /l/, as in well lweaU, makes it easier to produce the ,.dark" /l/
that is needed at the end of the word).

There are sandhi-forms in all languages. All native speakers of each lan-
guage use a great many of these forms in the environments that call for them.
It is true that highly literate speakers, influenced by their extensive contact with
the written language, tend to make less use of sandhi. In formal situations some
sandhi-forms are completely acceptable, other forms less acceptable. However,
sandhi-forms are a perfectly natural, very important, even essential part of En-
glish. There is absolutely no justification for the fear some nonnative speakers
have of using them. Natural use of them may well do more than any other
factor to make your English more understandable.
This lesson is designed, then, to enable you to understand sandhi in a
fuller perspective by putting together what you may already know about the
phenomenon. Information about several aspects of sandhi that we have not
yet discussed will be given, and the environments that call for each type
will be indicated. You may be sure that all the forms you are asked to prac-
tice here can be used in almost any social situation in which vou mav find
yourself.

ll. More about Unstressed Function Words

Back in Lesson 4, Section III, we studied a list of 14 "Words Most Frequently

Weakened." That list, which you might want to review, is made up of function
words which, in their usual unstressed environment, are "weakened,' or ..re-
duced. " This reduction is accomplished by the obscuration or omission of
some of the sounds that are heard when the words are fully stressed: can kin/
becomes ken/, have /h6vl becomes levl, and so on. Though reduction can
take place with a great many function words, the list includes only a few of
the most common of them, those whose weakening is most necessary if a
speaker's English is to sound like English.
Because the reduction of unstressed function words is so pervasive and
our information about it is as yet so incomplete, it seems useful to return to
the subject in the present lesson. A list of additional words that are often weak-
ened is therefore provided below. The items are alphabetized and divided into
the three groups of words that are particularly subject to reduction: particles
(short conjunctions, prepositions, and articles that do not take endings), pro-
nouns. and verbal forms.
192 The Sandhi of Spoken English

Supplementary List of Words Subiect to Reduction

Stressed Reduced
Form Forms Example

(PARTICLES)
1. as lazl /ezl it's as good as gold lfts ez gud az
gowld/
2. at laA leV look at the time n6t et 6a tivml
t-
3. from lfram/ lfrem/ came from there /k5ym fram d6er/
4. than l6an/ l6en/ better than ever /beiar 6an 6var/
l6\tJ more than that /m5r h 6LU
t'a
lnl less than a mile /les n e mavl/

(PRONOUNS)

5. he thiyt I tryt he's sone! livz scnl

-t,
In I thought he did /ay ocd I dtd/
,,
6. her lherl lerl made her glad /meyd er glad/
a,
7. him lhtml lrml wish him luck /wt5 Im lak/
,t
8. his lhtzl ltzl break his neck /breyk rz neU
9. she /5iy/ lSrl did she walk? /drd Sr w5V
10. them I saw them lay s5 6eml
l6em/ IL t6ent
tent
,t
eive them hell! /etv am heal/
tt
11. what lhwatl lwet/ that's what I said /6ets wat aY sed/
12. you will you sing? /wlel yu slg/
lyuwl I tyut you
t't
/haw da Ya duw/
I tyel how do do

NERBAL FORMS)
,
13. am I&Iil I larn/ I am sure /ay em Sur/
I rov I'm sure /aym Sur/
,4,
14. do /duw/ I ntr how do 1 know? /haw du ay now/
I ra"r what do they want? /hwit da 6ey
wanv
15. must /mesU we must leave now /wiy mes liyv
naw/
,t
16. will Jim will work it /dZrm wal werk tU
lwrcU
l:i' mother will be there /m56ar el biv
6ear/
l t,
I tlt what will it be? /hwat I It brv/
17. would lwudl ladl people would like that /prypel ed
tlvt<.6bv
lll. The Disappearing I 193
You will note that for some of the items on the list (numbers 4, 5, lO,
12, 13, 14, 16) more than one reduced form is given. In fact, a trained pho-
netician can hear more than one reduced form for all of the items on both this
supplementary list and the one in Lesson 4. The different forms correspond to
progressively greater degrees of reduction. For example, Joan will sign it may
be heard as /dZ6wn wrel siyn tl, or ld?6wn *et riyn tt/, or ftL6w"net ,iyn
Iv-, or /di'6wn! siyn tl. And he has gone may- be reduced from /hiy haz
g3n/ , to /hiy hiz g\n/ , to thiy ez g3il, io thiyz
;3n/
.

The principal factors responsible for the different degrees of reduction

seem to be those listed below.
Sentence s/ress.' the less stress, the more reduction. A word with full nor-
mal or contrastive stress (see Lesson 6, Section II) should not be reduced.
Frequency of use: the more often a word is used and the more its presence
in a given linguistic environment can be assumed, the more reduction. The
starred items on the list in Lesson 4 are among the most frequent of all English
words, and they are almost always reduced.
Speed of utterance: the faster a speaker talks, for whatever reason, the
more reduction.
Formality of situation: the more informal the social situation, the more
reduction. Formality is very common in a university classroom, where teachers
may deliver (or read) lectures, and students are expected to demonstrate their
knowledge and abilities in the most understandable possible language. How-
ever, a great deal of formality is inappropriate in most other social environ-
ments.
Some authorities insist that there is more reduction before words beginning
with consonants than there is before words beginning with vowels. The is said
to be pronounced /dq/ before consonants, /diy/ before vowels: the banana l6e
ban6na/, the apple l6iy 6pau. To in to eairs said to be /tuw iyu or rtyiytt;
to dine is said to be /tq diyn/.lt this distinction is really wiOety observed in
practice, the usage must be dialectal or occur under relatively formal circum-
stances. A great many well-educated native speakers of English are quite com-
fortable pronouncing the as l6il and to as lte/ in all unstressed positions. We
think that teachers of English who insist that their students should always pro-
nounce the, to, and other unshessed words one way before consonants and
another way before vowels are probably wasting both their own and your time.

lll. The Disappearing !

There is probably more variation dependent on environment in the American
English pronunciation of the letter 1 than in the pronunciation of any other
194 The Sandhi of Spoken English

consonant. We have already discussed in fusson 9 the variant sounds of 1 at

the beginning of words (with aspiration) and at the end of words (usually with-
out aspiration). We have also referred a number of times to the voiced or
flapped medial ! that sounds somewhat like a /d/. In Section V of this lesson
we shall look at cases in which 1, along with certain other consonants, is pala-
talized that is, it is pronounced with the front of the tongue raised toward the
hard palate.
We know that ! is often inserted in consonant clusters where the letter is
not present in the spelling; since, for example, is pronounced as /sIn1s/. Here
we will look at cases where exactly the reverse is true; ! is present in the
spelling but, for all practical purposes, seems to disappear in pronunciation.
The pair of words winter and winner provide a good example. It is probable
that for most Americans, most of the time, the two words rhyme perfectly as
lwinerl . If someone says /6e *ina. L kSmg/, we cannot tell, without more
context. whether the remark concerns the season or an athlete.
The environment in which the disappearing t occurs is represented by the
following formula:
syllable\
/stressed
\ ending *til;/ *. liunstressed\
\:;ffi;- )'tnot Pronounced

You are likely to notice the absence of /V first in very common words such as
twenty ftwL1nl and plenty ftllnil. Then you may notice that, in informal situ-
ations, Californians will tell you that their state capital is /sakremcnow/ (Sac-
ramento) and that ls6ne minrtai (Santa Monica) is near Los Angeles. Geor-
gians witt exp,lain that their state is on the letlilrrrkl (Atlanlic) coast and that its
capital is /atlrena/ (Atlanta).
Other examples a.e county k|wnil, bountifut /b6wrufaV, and quantity
Itw;rutV. The necessary environment is often created when endings such as
-ing, -ed, and -er are added to verbs and adjectives: slanting /slanti/, painted
6y"td/, andfinter lieyrcrl .
In phonetic terms, the facts explaining the t's disappearance seem to be
that the speaker pronounces the stressed lnl of a word like plenty, then intro-
duces the following unstressed vowel by a nasal release of the consonant
sound. You will recall that lnl and ltl have the same point of articulation-the
tooth ridge. To eliminate the ltl after the /ni of ftl;rtrl the tongue tip has only
to leave the tooth ridge weakly, with no aspiration.
The disappearing t is much more common in American English than in
British English. And in American English it is more informal than, for exam-
ple, syllabic consonants. You may or may not want to incorporate this type of
sandhi-form into your own speech, but you should certainly be prepared to
recognize such forms and to understand the words where the forms occur.
lV. Reduction of Verb + to 195
lV. Reductions of Verb + to

The unstressed particle ro is,used with great frequency, and its use in a partic-
ular linguistic environtn€int is often quite predictable. In other words, the pres-
ence of to can ofton De assumed, whether it can be clearly heard or not. It is
therefore the kind of word that is inevitably involved in many reductions.
One of ro's typical uses is to link auxiliary-like verbs to the main verbs
that usually follow them: wont to see or ought to grow. In this environment
several well-established reductions occur that are used at times by even the
most educated speakers of American English. Writers of popular literature have
even invented special spellings, which do not appear in dictionaries, for a num-
ber of these reductions.

Full Spelling of Pronunciation

Form Reduction of Reduction Meaning

l. going to gonna /gena/ (or intention

/gowna/)
2. got to gotta /gadel necessity
3. has to hasta /hreste/ necessity
4. have to hafta lhrftel necessity
5. ought to oughta /cdal moral obligation
6. used to usta /yuwste/ former habit
7. want to wanna lwan.el desire

A number of different processes, with most of which we are already fa-

miliar, have resulted in the creation of these sandhi-forms . Wanna involves
omission of the disappearing 1. ln gotto and, oughta there are ldl-like ltl's re-
sulting from assimilation: the voicing of lU after a stressed (and voiced) vowel.
Hasta, hafta, and zsta involve assimilation in the opposite direction: the de-
voicing of the lzJ and lvl of lhnl , lheyJ, and lyuw/ to make them more like
the voiceless lU of the following to. The development of gonna, the most com-
mon of all these forms, seems to involve a combination of processes. We as-
sume that the lgl of going lg6w{ was first changed to ln/, e6wtg, a very
widespread sandhi-change that we will return to later in this lesson. T\e lnl
and ltl of /g6wlq !e/ thus came to be in the environment that results in the
disappearing lU. The ltJ was omitted, and the /ow/ was obscured to /e/ because
of its frequent use in unstressed positions. The steps would therefore be /g5wlg
tuW > /gowrn tal > /gownel ) lgenal . This is a very good example of how
sandhi-changes can accumulate.
It is useful, even necessary if you want to be fully understood, to be
familiar with the meaning of these reductions of verb * /o, because the mean-
196 The Sandhi of Spoken English

ing of the reduced form can differ from that of the corresponding full form.
Note these examples.

la. I'm gonna be good. (intention)

b. ['m going ta church. (destination)
2a. What have we gotte eat? (necessity)
b. What have we got to eat? (availability)
3a. What does she hafta say? (necessity)
b. What does she hnve to say? (provision of explanation)
4a. It's what he hasta do. (necessity)
b. It's all he has ro work with. (availability)
5a. You usta dance often. (former habit)
b. This is what you used to scare us. (utilization)
6a. How much do you wanna do it? (extent of desire)
b. How much does he want to do it'l (request for renumeration)
In the case of each of the pairs of sentences above, you cannot use in Sentence
b the reduced form found in Sentence a without changing the meaning of Sen-
tence b or making it meaningless.

V. Palatalization across Word Boundaries

In Lesson 8, Section III, we identified the consonants lzl , lsl , lLl , and l1l as
palato-alveolars, formed by allowing the air to escape through a n:urow passage
between the tongue and the hard palate. Tlhe palato- in palato'alveolar refets
to the hard palate, and alveolar refers to the alveolar ridge, the technical term
for the tooth ridge. The hard palate, of course, is that part of the roof of the
mouth just behind and above the tooth ridge. Hard palate and tooth ridge are
thus joined, and there is no obvious way of telling where the one ends and the
other begins. The chief difference between lz, sl and /L, 5l is that lzl and /s/
are made farther forward with the tip of the tongue near the tooth ridge, and
that lLl and /5/ are made just a little farther back and higher up, with the blade
of the tongue near the hard palate. (See lrsson 13, Section IlI.) Another
closely related sound, /y/, is made with the blade of the tongue approaching
the hard palate still farther back and higher up. In other words, there are simi-
larities among all these sounds and they can be produced in a more or less
regular progression by moving the tongue from the tooth ridge backward and
upward to the highest point of the hard palate: lz, sl-+lL, il--->lyl'
With the above relationships in mind, it is instructive to consider the his-
torical changes in the pronunciation of -tion, a very common ending for nouns
in a number of Germanic and Romance languages, including English. The -ri
Vl. A Word of Caution E7
of the ending was once pronounced /tyl, which required the tongue to move all
the way from a dental positionfor ltl , backward and upward through the posi-
tions for /s/ and /5/, to the high palatal position for /y/. Try it, and see how
difficult this considerable movement is to make.
We have seen that it is through the development of sandhi-forms that
speakers make pronunciations easier. So the movement of the tongue from ltl
to /y/ was shortened. In modern English the two distant sounds of ltl and /y/
were reduced to the one intermediate sound /5/, as in nation /n6y!an/ and po-
sition /pezilan/. This change from /tyl to /5/ is a type of palatalization Palatal-
ization can be defined as the raising of the tongue toward the hard palate in the
pronunciation of a sound.
Various types of palatalization are now completely accepted when they
occur within words, as infiction ldk!an/, vision lvilenl, qu"riionlkw6stleni,
and, region liydLanl . There is no feeling that the pronunciation of the l3l , lL/
,
/t5/, and /dLl in words like these is in any way uneducated or too informal.
Even the most careful speakers of American or British English pronounce the
words with the palatalized sounds as indicated in our transcription. The same
types of palatalization, however, also occur across word boundaries, between
words. They result, in fact, in some of the most common sandhi-forms of
spoken English. Miss you /#-q yuw/ becomes /m'r!uw/, loves you il5vgyuwl
becomes ll5vluwl, hit you t"ity yuwt becomes rhi15uwl, ard dii you nl4 yuwt
becomes tdidLuwt .
- -
The formulas for the environments in which such palatalized sandhi-forms
occur are given below.

final /-s/ * initial /y-l > medial f5-/

final /-z/ + initial ly-l > medial l-i:-l
frnal l-tl or /-ts/ * initial /yJ > medial ftdJ
frnal l-dl or l-dzl * initial ly-/ > medial t-dL-t

Unfortunately, there are still some ultraconservative teachers who would

insist that palatalizations across word boundaries are errors, or "careless pro-
nunciation." They willingly accept the pronunciation of nature as /n6y$ur/,
but may tell you that the only "correct" way to pronounce ate your in ate your
lunch is ley! yurl. Such advice not only reveals ignorance of the nature and
history of palatalization in English; it is simply bad advice.

Vl. A Word of Caution

Although English teachers may sometimes be too conservative about the use of
sandhi-forms, there are indeed some of these forms that are so informal as to
be inappropriate on most occasions. Some may be interpreted as signs of in-
198 The Sandhi of Spoken English

adequate education. Others label a speaker as having a particular ethnic back-

ground or social status. When you are talking with close friends, it may be
very satisfying to use the special language of the social group to which you
belong. But there are surely many occasions on which it would not be in your
best interests to emphasize through your speech a particular ethnic or social
background. There are, finally, sandhi-forms that are so very reduced as to
lessen the intelligibility of what is said.
It is not easy to draw the line between forms you should be able to use,
those you need only to understand, and those you are not likely to find useful
or appropriate. Native speakers are far from unanimous in judging such mat-
ters, and decisions must necessarily be very subjective. So far in this lesson
we have dealt only with forms we think you should be able to use or at least
be able to understand. Before ending the lesson, however, we would like at
least to call your attention to a few types of forms you are not likely to find
useful or appropriate. Knowing what some of these are may make it easier for
you to pick out the more useful forms when you hear them.
We suggest that accumulations of several reduced forms in quick succes-
sion are usually too informal and will lessen the intelligibility of your English.
Examples are:

whit did vou d6? as tw'adze diwt

t-rt,
Why don't you say it? as /wayownt5e seyIV
Did you eat yet2 as /dZtYtSeU

For reasons that are not altogether clear, the conffaction ain't is widely
regarded as so informal as to be bad grammar. Some people will not like hear-
ing you use it.
On the other hand, contractions beginning with /t/, a reduced form of ir,
are too formal for ordinary conversational purposes. Here are some that are
appropriate only in poetry or in writing representing old-fashioned speech: /'is
Itrzl be / twlal bry/. It would be a good idea to avoid
, t'were ltwarl , t'will
them, unless you are trying to sound amusing.
We spoke in Lesson 15 of the difficulties that arise in the pronunciation
of consonant clusters such as /str-/ in strip and /-rmpQs/ in warmths . Somewhat
surprisingly, native speakers of English often create unnecessary and unex-
pected consonant clusters by omitting some of the unstressed v,owels that are
ordinarily heard in words. Examples are: balloon as /!!uwn/, beheve as /bliyv/,
bel6w as /b!ow/, coll|pse as /\!aeps/, ,orr6rt as /$ekU, gorigt as lgtadLl,
por6d" ryreyu, police as /pliys/, polite as lplaytl, and suppise as /spowz/.
Note that they typically have the following pattern:

/ unstressed \ - /stressea\ -- / vowel in initial\

\initiut syllable/ \syllable/ \syllable omitted/
Vll. Exercises 199

We suggest that you avoid, or at least not cultivate, the above pronunciations
since they do not make the formation of the words easier or their meaning
more understandable. They may also in the minds of many hearers label you
as somewhat illiterate.
(There are, however, other words in which vowels that look as though
they should be pronounced are regularly omitted by even the most literate
speakers. Some of the most common of these ur", 'orrrog, as l6,vrtdi] , irlJ"rrrt
as /difranV, Lrrry u, l6wl,interest-ing as /intrrstrp/. nlotrrot u, niltlralt, ,Lp-
arate (adjective) as hlprrl , and s'everal as /s6vrol/. Note that they typically
have the following pattem:

/stresseo\* (wo or more successive\ -, lrirrt vowel afrer stressed\

\syllable/ \ unstressed syllables / \ syllable omifted I
You would do well to familiarize yourself with these words.)
The very common pronunciation of the ending -ing as /-rn/ instead of l-ql
was once even more widespread among almost all social classes than it is to-
day. Well-educated lords and ladies (and some not so well educated) spoke of
singing as /siryl4/ and dancing as /d6ntsr4/. Today, however, that particular
sandhi-form is widely disapproved among educated speakers of English. It has
also come to be considered as a mark of certain restricted social and ethnic
groups. The considerable change in attitude toward the form may be due to the
omnipresence of -ing in printed English and to the conscientious efforts of
generations of teachers of English to persuade students to "pronounce it as it
is written." Somewhat reluctantly, then, we suggest that you have nothing
n5Ory to gain by using lyiwznllthe /-r4/-forJ-rg/ form.

Vll. Exercises
A. Each of the following phrases contains an unstressed word or syllable that would
normally, in conversation, be reduced to a syllabic consonant, usually l4l or ll/. rn
a few cases the syllabic consonant will be lryl or /q/. (See Footnote 2 in Lesson
10.) Repeat each phrase after your teacher, who will pronounce each with the
proper syllabic consonant. If there are words you do not understand, ask for an
explanation of their meaning. Then, if time permits, make up a sentence using
each of the phrases.

1. g5od and r6ady 6. stirt an 5ngine 11. aio ina6ea

2. hird and fist 7. tiia an'egg 12. thit will be
3. g5oa and ingry 8. blte an ippte 13. it will hippen
4. w6nt and l6st g. n6t u.r5th", 14. wh6n will it c6me
5. hirand-nln 10. iia en6usrt 15. had all5wed
200 The Sandhiol Spoken English

16.
,,
stnp 'em bare 18. or6p'im 5n 20. back
t,
and forth
tt
17. stop'im 19. I can say 21. rock and roll

B. Most of these phrases contain words that are pronounced with a /d/ though they
are spelled with 1. In a few cases, however, the conversational pronunciation is /V.
Try to identify these exceptional cases. (See Section I of this lesson.) Then make
up a sentence using each of the phrases, and pronounce each sentence in conver-
sational style. Make sure you understand the meaning of all the phrases.
, t
l. hrt us 8. get over
,
15. that ever
2. eat'em 9. beal up 16. a,,tlme
3. forge!'er 10. set off 17. ngh!t,
on
4. what are 11. let-,on 18. grea!
,t
evening
5. go ge! a 12. ea! up,
19. ,, a! all
no!
6. righl or
t
16ft 13. ge! out 20. dott lell
7. the lea 14. it rsn't 21. so gred

C. The sentences below are spelled out in formal style, though they would probably
be spoken in very informal, conversational style. Read them as though they were
part of an informal conversation, using reduced forms of the articles, prepositions,
pronouns, and so on, that are written in italics. Also, feel free to use other sandhi-
forms where the environment seems to call for them.

l. Will you ask her what she wants to do this evening?

2. Do you think this would be a good night for going ro c baseball game?
3. I am not sure sfte woul.d like that at all.
4. Baseball games are boing; she has never been to more thnn one or two of
them.
5 . But I do not know an outfielder from a shortstop.
6. You must tell him that we will buy the tickets.
7 . Tell them we can eat when we get to the stadium and are seated.
8. I will btfte knows tftat numbers are a very important pau.t of the game: the
number o/ strikes, o/ balls, olf outs, and so forth.
9. You have to keep tfte numbers in mind in order to realize the drarta of what
rs happening.
10. Here baseball is as important as fishing, and more important than politics.

D. Each formally written phrase below is followed by four transcriptions showing how
the phrase could be spoken with various degrees of informality. For each phrase
reiurange the four transcriptions, listing the four in order of their degree of infor-
mality, from most formal to most informal (that is, from the transcription with
fewest reductions to that with most reductions). As the class makes its decisions,
 Vll. Exercise" 201

the teacher can serye as secretary, writing the transcriptions on the blackboard.
When the four rearranged lists of transcriptions have been written out, the class
may wish to discuss the question: "Just how informal should the pronunciation of
a nonnative speaker of English be?"
Alternatively, the exercise could well be carried out as a small-group activity.

l. (I would have been gl6d.)

a. ay ude brn gl6d
b. ay wud ev brn gl6d
c. ayde brn gl6d
d. ay wud hev bln gl6d

2. (Did you 6ver m6et her?)

a. dZevar mrydar
tt
b. dIdZuw evar mryt her
c. ,,
dZuw ever mryd ar
d. dIdZa 6ver rniyt
",
,t
3. (What did he want?)

a. trwit ora iy w6nt

b. *5drdr *int
c. *5ara iy *int
,t
d. wadt want
ta
+. (What will it be for you?)
,, ft bry fer yuw
a. wadf
b. hwit el t biy fcr yuw
tt
c. wad al ft bry fcr yuw
tt
d. wedf tdbryferya

E. l. Each of the following sentences has in it one or more of the kind of t's that
often disappear in conversational speech. First, note where these t's are, if
necessary by using the formula given in Section III of this lesson. Then, omit-
ting the disappearing t's, pronounce the sentences several times until you feel
202 The Sandhi of Spoken English

you could understand the words in question if you heard a speaker pronounce
them without the !'s.

a. When we say the harvest is bountiful, we mean it's plentiful.

b. She writes with a slanting hand.
c. It's a great advantage to have plenty of money.
d. I can feel the splinter in mY finger.
e. His paintings are all gigantic.
f. Be careful in confronting danger.

C. We used to live in Pontiac, but now we live in Toronto'

h. The heroine fainted when she saw the phantom.
i. I became frantic as the voice grew fainter and fainter'
j. The Mounted Policeman wanted the bounty very much'
k. Buy a large quantitY of bread.
l. They were all elected to county office'
2. This exercise will give you practice in associating meaning with a /V-less pro-
nunciation of certain items. The instructor will ask questions for individual
students to answer. The information needed to ask and answer the questions
is contained in the table below. Choosing an item in the table, the instructor
asks: "What does /b6ner/ mean when spelled with (or without) a !?" The
student answers: "When spelled with a, 9, hfinarl means good-natured teas-
ing," or "When spelled without a!, lbr;netl means flag."

Pronunciation Meaning

SPELLED WITHOUT !

a. lba,nerl banter : good-natured teasing :

banner flag
b. lfeynerl fainter : harder to hear feigner someone
who pretends
c. lplnnarl planter : sower of seed planner : maker of
plans
d. /wrner/ winter : cold season winner someone
who wins
e. /peynl9/ painting : using paint : hurting
paining
f. lpangl punting: polingaboat punning making
plays on words
vil. Exercises 203
F. At the beginning of each of the following sentences two forms of the verb- + -ro
construction are spelled out, one of them a reduced form such as wanna and the
other a full form such as want to. Speak each sentence in conversational style,
inserting the reduced form in the blank whenever the meaning of the sentence
permits this. If the meaning does not permit the reduced form, insert the full form
in the blank. (See Section IV of this lesson.)

l. (a. wanna) (b. want to) How much money does he do the job?

2.(a.gonna)(b.goingto)Aren'tyou-missyourappointment?
3.(a.wanna)(b.wantto)We-leaveasSoonaSpossible'
4. (a. gotta) (b. got to) He needs help. What have you offer him?

5. (a. gonna) (b. going to) Saturday's our day for _ swim.

6. (a. hasta) (b. has to) I think she _ work harder.

7. (a. wanna) (b. want to) I don't eat lunch so late.

8. (a. hafta) (b. have to) What does pity _ do with it?

9. (a. usta) (b. used to) This is what the burglars break in.

l0.(a.gonna)(b.goingto)They'reall-churchSunday.
I l. (a. hasta) (b. has to) Is that all she _ eat. candv?

12. (a. usta) (b. used to) We always take a vacation in August.

13. (a. gotta) (b. got to) You've be careful about that.

14. (a. hafta) (b. have to) In this case, you tell the truth.

15. (a. gonna) (b. going to) I'm never agree to that.

G. Transcribe (using the symbol l3l , li|, /tSi, or ldil) the palatalized sound that occurs
between the two italicized words in each of the following sentences. Then pro-
nounce the sentences in informal conversational stvle.
2O4 The Sandhi of SPoken English

l. He's not as young as he looks'

2. I'm tempted to kiss you.
3. Did you sign the Petition?
4. Uncle Sam wants You.
5. It's the law of these United States.
6. I understand what you said.
7. Will they bus your children to school?
8. That was last year.
9. Hide yourself quicklY.
10. I hope you pds.t your test.
11. What's yoar number?
12. Did your car break down?
13. They haven't finished Yet.
14. When's your bkthdaY?
15. They mustn't read your mall.

H. In the passage below there are at least 1l words that are almost always pronounced,
even in formal style, with one less syllable than their spelling seems to indicate.
An example of such a word would be Niagara, usually pronounced lnaybgra/ . Try
to find the I I words and then pronounce them in this shortened form. Then answer
the questions that follow the passage.

l. David is majoring in English literature. 2. Almost every evening he

watches a play on television. 3. Fortunately, he has his own separate televi-
sion set. 4. In an average week he sees plays by several different authors.
5. He is naturally most interested in the opening performance of new plays.
6. As you would expect, he generally gets to bed quite late.
a. What is David's major?
b. Are plays a natural interest for a student of literature?
c. How often does David watch a PlaY?
d. Is he interested in more than one author?
e. What kind of performance does he like most?
f. Why do the members of his family not object to his using the television set so

much?
g. Does David generally get enough sleep?
h. Do the I I shortened words in the passage have a common pattern that would
explain this tYPe of reduction?
vlt. Exerclses 2Os

I. As you know, all multiples of ten-twenty, thirty, and so on---+nd in -ry in En-
glish. You may have noticed that the 1 in this -ry is pronounced in three different
ways, depending on what precedes it: sometimes as a regular alveolar stop, some-
times as a /d/-like /t/, sometimes as a disappearing !.
Your instructor will count by tens from ten through ninety. Imitate the pronun-
ciation, and identify the kind of ! heard in each number.
Finally, you could play a game in which the instructor calls out a number from
two to nine. Individual students multiply that number by ten and state the result,
being careful to pronounce the 1 suitably. A point could be scored for each -ry that
is pronounced in the manner that corresponds to its environment.
LESSON 47

Long ond Short \bwels

l. Problems of Spelling English

You may remember that Lessons I I and 12 were designed to help you avoid
that type of vowel substitution which is due to inability to hear or reproduce
clearly an English vowel that does not exist as a distinctive sound or is formed
differently in your mother tongue. This lesson and the one following are aimed
at the other types of difficulty students may have in giving the stressed vowel
of a word its correct value: vowel substitutions caused by the inconsistencies
of English spelling, or the differences between the English and some other
system of spelling.
To approach the problem, we must examine such systematic relationships
as exist between vowel sounds and the way they are ordinarily spelled. Unfor-
tunately, there seems to be no fully satisfactory way of doing this for students
of English as a Second Language, principally because the spelling of English
is much less systematic than that of most other languages. There are more than
twice as many vowel sounds in English as there are vowel letters in the roman
alphabet with which English is written. It has therefore been necessary to de-
vise various combinations of symbols, some of them unsystematic, to represent
all the different vowel sounds. The symbols w and y have had to be used to
represent both consonant and vowel sounds. English has borrowed an enonnous
number of words from other languages, and has often borrowed elements of

206
ll. The Sysfem of Long and Short Vowels 2O7

foreign spelling systems with the words. Attempts at spelling reform have been
very limited and relatively unsuccessful in modern English. For English there
has never been the equivalent of the Acadimie Frangaise or the Real Academia
Espafiola to guide the standardization and development of the spelling system.
Irregular, nonsystematic spellings therefore abound.
The classical way of explaining the spelling of English vowel sounds has
involved dividing them into two groups, called respectively the "long" vowels
and the "short" vowels. There have always been serious difficulties, both the-
oretical and practical, in this system of long and short vowels. Consequently
some ESL instructors have felt that the system was not worth explaining, and
have asked their students to learn to spell each word individually without regard
for patterns of spelling.
During the last fifteen years, however, our interest in the system of long
and short vowels and our confidence in its potential usefulness have grown.
This has come about partly through the work of a group of linguists known as
the "generative phonologists." (See Footnote 3 in lrsson 3.) Through their
research they have demonstrated underlying systematic elements in English
spelling of whose existence we were not previously awzue.
No attempt will be made in this manual to analyze the complex system of
rules formulated by the generative phonologists. Still, encouraged by the suc-
cesses of generative phonology, the authors will here renew the effort made in
earlier editions of the manual to relate the system of long and short vowels in
a useful way to the problems of learning to pronounce English better.

ll. The System of Long and Short Vowels

The system of long and short vowels underlies the diacritical marks used in
many dictionaries of English to represent the pronunciation of words. A straight
line is placed over long vowels, as in fate; a curved line goes over short vow-
els, as infir.
The system is based on the assumption that each of the five English vowel
letters-g, €, i, 9, u-has two most common sounds in stressed syllables, a
long sound and a short sound.

Lefter Long Sound Short Sound

a leyl ldte lrl pit
e liyl eve lel End
i layl rce ll sit
o /ow/ bone lal 6dd
u /yuw/ c[be lel [p
208 Long and Short Vowels

As the above transcriptions show, each of the long sounds is a diphthong

that includes one or both of the glides lyl or lwl . The short sounds are tran-
scribed without glides. It is worth noting that the names we give the vowel
letters when we spell a word or recite the English alphabet are the same as
their long sounds. For example, the letter a is called leyl , not /a/. It may help
you remember the short sounds of the vowel letters if you think of them as the
nicknames of those letters; thus /eyl is the name of 3 and /e/ is its nickname.
The long vowels are sometimes called "tense," since they are often pro-
nounced with more muscular tension than the short vowels, which are some-
times called "lax."
Each vowel letter is pronounced with its long sound
l. If it is final in the syllable:
pd-per, she, fi-nal, no, du-ty

2. If it is followed by an unpronounced e, or a consonant plus an

unpronounced e:

make, €ve, die, Pde, lse

Each vowel letter is pronounced with its J/rort sound

1. If it is followed in the same syllable by a consonant:
m5t-ter, wEnt, riv-er, d6c-tor, c[t
It should be remembered that these rules apply only to vowels in stressed
syllables. We already know that in unstressed syllables vowel letters are nor-
mally pronounced as lel , ltl , or lu/ .
We believe that an understanding of the system of long and short vowels,
added to what you already know about the predictable pronunciation of un-
stressed vowels, will enable you to determine the pronunciation df the vast
majority of English vowels on the basis of the way they are spelled.

lll. Vowel Sounds and Syllable Boundaries

One reason for questioning the usefulness of the system of long and short vow-
els has been that it does not enable us to predict the pronunciation of a large
group of words of more than one syllable such as Lver andLven. lt is indeed
true that we cannot determine with certainty whether the stressed vowels of
such words are pronounced with the long sound /iyl or the short sound /e/ by
looking at their spelling. As we shall explain, however, a knowledge of how
long and short vowels are paired can at least help a student to make an in-
formed guess as to their pronunciation.
lll. VowelSounds and Syllable Boundaries 209

The problem is to know where one syllable ends and the next syllable
begins. For example, if the stressed vowel in Lver is final in the syllable, the
system tells us that the g is pronounced as /iyl. And if the stressed vowel is
followed in the same syllable by a consonant, the e is pronounced as /e/. But
where is the line drawn between syllables? If you look up the rules for the
division of syllables, you find that a consonant between vowel sounds, such as
the v in ever, is part of the first syllable if the preceding vowel is short, and is
part of the second syllable if the preceding vowel is long. This information is
of no help to you, of course, as the longness or shortness of the vowel is
precisely what you are trying to determine. You will simply have to guess at
the facts, which are that the v of Lver is part of the first syllable; the e is
therefore short, and the word is pronounced I'xv-erl . On the other hand, the v
of Lr"n is part of the second syllable; it is therefore long, and the word is
pronounced lry-van/ .
An anlysis of how the system of long and short vowels relates to words
such as ever and even, in which there is a stressed vowel followed by a con-
sonant plus an unstressed vowel, has yielded information that should at least
greatly improve a student's chances of guessing correctly whether the stressed
vowel of such a word has a long or short vowel sound.
Actually, the situation varies depending on the letter that represents the
stressed vowel sound. The lists that follow include most of the words of this
type that are among the 2,500 most frequently used English words.r

THE LETTER ! usunuv HAS A sHoRT souND.

sHoRr /r/: addition, B{tish, cltizen, city, civil, condition, conslder, continue,
divlsion, famlliar, flgure, flnish, glven, image, indivldual, ltaly, liberty, lily,
llmit, linen, magnificent, mllitary, mlnister, minute, opinion, orlginal, partlc-
ular, Philip, physlcian, plty, posltion, prlson, religious, splrit, sufflcient, Vir-
glnia.

LoNG /ayl: Chlna, climate, final, Frlday, private, silence, tiny.

THE LETTER E USUALLY HAS A SHORT SOUND.

sHoRr /c/: American, bqnefit, celebrate, crgdit, dglicate, devglop, dgvil,

eleven, enemy, espgcial, ever, general, generous, level, msdicine, mgmory,

'An examination of the 2,500 most common English words, as listed in E. L. Thorndike, Ifte
Teacher's Word Book, reveals that i is short in 79Vo of the pertinent cases, e in i5Vo, o in 64Vo, a
in 55vo, and u in only 20vo . If we examine a larger number of words, thus including more bookish
and unusual terms, the proportion of short vowels is: !,7OVo; 9,16Vo; o, 63Vo; a, 457o, and u,
lOVo.
210 Long and Short Vowels

merit, necessary, never, pgrish, precious, prlsent, prqsident, recognize, rlcord,

register, regular, relative, second, senate, separate, seven, spgcial, telephone.

I-oNc /iy/: convenient, Egypt, equal, even, evil, female, fgver, frequent, im-
mgdiate. Peter. recent, rggion.

THE LETTER A HAS LONG AND SHORT SOUNDS WITH

ALMOST EOUAL FREQUENCY.

sHoRT lr.l: animal, avenue, balance, ch4pel, companion, examine, fqmily,

gr4dual, h4bit, im4gine, It4lian, L4tin, magic, manage, n4tional, n4tural, p4l-
ace, r4pid, salary, sgtisfy, S4turday, shadow, Spgnish, stgtue, tr4vel, value,
vanish, wagon.

r-oNc /eyl: Asia, bgby, education, f4mous, f4vor, f4vorite, found4tion, gr4:
cious, inform4tion, inviqtion, labor, lgdy,l4zy, maker, n4ked, ngtion, native,
nature, navy, p4per, p4tience, patient, popul4tion, potqto, relation, station. va-
por.

THE LETTER O HAS LONG AND SHORT SOUNOS WITH

O'-"O"' EOUAL FREQUENCY.

sHoRT lal:body, colony, column, cqpy, hqliday, honest, hqnor, model, mod-
erate, modern, modest, mqnument, olive, prqbable, prqduct, prqfit, prqmise.
prE)er, prqperty, prqvince, Rqbert, rqbin, solid, Thomas, volume.

LoNG /oW: brqken, ftgzen, Joseph, local, locate, moment, motion, notice,
ocean, October, qpen, over, pony, Roman, sober, tqtal.

THE LETTER U ALMOST ALWAYS HAS A LONG SOUND.

sHoRT /o/: punish, study.

t-oNc /yuw/: funeral, fqture, human. humor, music, numerous. opportunity.

peculiar, pupil, gniform, union, usual.

It would be well to check over the lists carefully and mark any items that
you would have hesitated to pronounce. Almost all students are doubtful re-
garding certain words like these, in which the spelling gives no clear indication
of the pronunciation.
If you need to pronounce unfamiliar words of this kind, you should con-
sult a dictionary whenever possible. If you have to guess, however, you may
do so with some degree of certainty when the stressed vowel is !, e, or u. Thus
you could be fairly sure that the ! of tibia is to be given the sound of ltl, and
that the e of senary is /e/. You could be practically certain that the \ of cuticle
is pronounced as /yuw/.
You may find the preceding explanation easier to remember if you will
 Vowels before I or 1 211
note that, in the type of word we have been discussing, the letters we associate
with front vowels, i and e, tend to have their short sound. The letter we asso-
ciate with back vowels, u, usually has its long sound. The middle vowels, a
and o, may be long or short.
Because of the relationship between the system of long and short vowels
and the way syllables are divided, you should also find the system helpful in
dealing with the troublesome problem of dividing words by a hyphen at the
end of a line of writing. Remember that long vowels usually end a syllable
(except when followed by a consonant plus an unpronounced $, but short vow-
els do not end a syllable. If you know how the stressed vowels in final liaynl/
andfinish /finrS/ are pronounced, you can be sure that the n of finat goes with
the second syllable, fi-nal; and that the n of finish goes with the first, fin-ish.

lV. Vowels before I or r

Earlier in this manual it was pointed out that lll and /r/ are unusual sounds in
a number of ways, including their effect on preceding vowel sounds and their
relationship to spelling. In fact, the effect of lU and /r/ on preceding vowels
seems to be, after the regular system of long and short vowels, the most ob-
vious systematic element in the spelling of English. (See Lesson 10, Sections
I and II.)
When they come before I or r, the vowel letters in a very large number of
words are pronounced according to a special variation of the system of long
and short vowels. Because of the lowering and backing of the tongue that are
involved in producing the two liquid, glidelike consonants, lll and /r/ tend by
assimilation to make any vowel that precedes them have a more open and/or
back sound than it would otherwise have. Thus, a in the position of a short
vowel is pronounced /a/ according to the regular system of long and short
vowels: actor l&ktarl. But an a in a short position before ! is ordinarily pro-
nounced ltl: alir t'2ltart . An a in a short position before r usually has the sound
of lalrather thanthe /e./ thatmighthavebeenexpected:catlkpt/,cartlkartl .
There follows a table that shows how the pronunciation of vowels before
I or r varies from the pronunciation they would have according to the regular
system of long and short vowels.
Despite the practical usefulness of the system of long and short vowels,
you should remember that the words /ong and short used in this connection are
somewhat misleading. They suggest that "long" vowels take more time to
pronounce than do "short" vowels, and that is not always true. It is true that
a "long" vowel normally lasts longer than a "short" vowel when the two
occur in the same linguistic environment; the leyl in "We'll tgke it up" lasts
longer than the /a/ in "We'll tack it up." However, the sound spectrograph
212 Long and Short Vowels

Pronunciation of Vowel Letters before I or f

a In Long Position
Sound according to regular system leyl, lqte lleyV
Before ! /eel, sale /seel/
Before I leal , cgre lkp.rl
In Short Position
According to system lr.l , sqt lsat/
Before ! ltl , glter l'2lterl
Before J la/, cgr lkgrl

e In Long Position
According to system liyl, even llyvan/
Before ! (rare)
Before J lrcl , hgre lhterl
In Short Position
According to system lel, m9t lmgV
Before ! leel , wgll lweell
Before 1 le(ar)l, vgrb /vggb/

In Long Position
According to system layl, mlne lmaynl
Before ! (same)
Before 1 (same)

In Short Position
According to system hl, hLt lhlt/
Before ! lrcl, hlll
lhrcll
Before 1 la(ar)l, slr /sg/

2There
is a great deal of dialectal variation in the pronunciation of vowels before ! and espe-
cially before r. Also a number of relatively rapid changes in the pronunciation of such vowels seem
to be taking place. Not surprisingly, then, different phoneticians analyze them in a number of
different ways. It is therefore difficult in some cases to determine what the facts really are.
For example, speakers of some dialects are said to use only five different simple vowel sounds
in a syllable that ends inr: lrl, lel, lal, lal, and /3/. It is said that many more speakers, perhaps an
increasing majority, limit themselvcs to six, adding /u/ to the above group. Phoneticians who count
syllables differently say that diphthongs are also used before 5 without constituting two separate
syllables: lre lfayrl, our /awrl, and so on. Phoneticians who recognize the existence of centering
diphthongs, as we do in this manual (see Lesson 10, Section 2), speak of combinations such as
lrcrl in here and learl in care. ln parts of the South and East such combinations as /iar/ inwe're
md leerl in they're are heard. In other words you may be told that there are anywhere between
five and thirteen monosyllabic vowel- * -/r/ combinations, depending on the region being consid-
ered and the analysis favored by the phonetician doing the counting.
The authors have not attempted to include all these legitimate variant pronunciations and
analyses in the above table. In order to make the table as useful as possible and to avoid being
overly influenced by a preference for our own dialects, we have included in all but one case only
the pronunciation listed first in Kenyon and Knott's A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English
for the words we have used as examples. In the case of o in long position before r (as in more)
IV. Vowels before lor 1 213
Pronunciation of Vowel Letters before ! or f (continued)
In Long Position
According to system /ow/, rqse lrryzl
Before ! (same)
Before 1 lowl or lcl , mgre /mgwr/
or /mcr/
In Short Position
According to system lal, h9t lhgt/
Before ! /ow/, cqld /kqwld/
Before r ltl, fgr lf2r/
In Long Position
According to system /yuw/, cgte /kyuwU
Before ! (same)
Before 1 lyul, cyre /kyurl
In Short Position
No variation (/a/)

provides clear visual evidence that "short" vowels often last longer than
"long" vowels. The "short" !of bid /b1d/ is a longer sound than the .,long"
lof bite /bgyt/.In the sentence "His name is John," the ..short" o of John
ldLgnl is surely longer than the "long" a of name lnqm/. The vowel of bid is
longer because it is followed by a voiced consonant, and that of bite is shorter
because it is followed by a voiceless consonant. (See ksson 9, Section II.) In
the particular sentence cited above, the o of Johnis unusually long because its
intonation slides from high to low. (See Lesson 5, Section rI.) In other words,
being classified as "long" or "short" according to the system of long and
short vowels is only one of the several factors that combine to determine the
measurable length of a vowel sound.
Despite its problems, the system of long and short vowels is certainly the
most helpful way to explain to nonnative speakers of English, logically and
with relative simplicity, the systematic relationships that exist between the
spelling and the sounds of most English vowels. In view of the large number
of pronunciation errors that even advanced students of English make because
of their lack of clear associations between vowel sounds and their usual spell-
ing, it is worth your while to familiarize yourself with the theory. you will
then be in a position to identify words of irregular spelling more easily, and to
concentrate on learning their pronunciation individually.

we have given both Kenyon and Knott's first listing /mowr/ and their second listing /mcr/. Our
symbols often differ from the Kenyon and Knott symbols, but the pronunciations we indicate are
intended in all cases to be the same as thein. A pronouncing Dictionary of American English,
which describes the midwestern type of English that used to be called General American. is the
most authoritative book of its type.
214 Long and Short Vowels

V. Exercises
A.
l. What English vowel sounds do not exist in your mother tongue?

2. In your mother tongue, is it possible to find two words of different meaning

exactly alike in sound except that one contains an liyl and the other an //
(such as seat lsiytl and sit /s1U in English)? Do leyl and lel ever constitute the
only difference between two words? lel and lnl? lrl and lal? lcl and lowl?
lal and lal?
J. Which English vowels and diphthongs do you have most difficulty in pro-
nouncing?

4. Do you sometimes make the mistake of pronouncing up as /4p/ instead of

/gp/? Why? (See Lesson ll, Section I.) Do you ever confuse lul and lal?
Why? Did you ever mispronounce post as /p4sU instead of /powsU; wash as
/wes/ instead of /wqs/? If so, can you explain the reason for the mispronun-
ciation?

B. l. What are the long and short sounds of a, e, !, o, and u?

2. According to the system, should the stressed vowels in the following words
be lons or short?

age l. less q. doctor

lake j. nine r. number

expect k. box s. happen

f

I l. Just t. complete

bone m. escape u. begin

suppose n. cent v. which

ask o. see w. go

be p. tie x. use

Are all of the words in this list actually pronounced according to the system?
3. Which of the following very common words have stressed vowels that are not
pronounced according to the system of long and short vowels as explained in
this lesson?

a. any d. only C. blue

b. busy e. race h. give

c. have f. was i. hindred

V. Exercises 215

J. other o. move t. gone

k. sing p. but u. no
l. watch q. then put
m. both r. water w. these
n. glass S. bottom x. shoe

C. l. The stressed vowel in each of the words below is followed by a consonant

plus an unstressed vowel. You will remember that the spelling is not a sure
indication of how such words are pronounced. The pronunciation of each
word, however, is given in the table in Section III of this lesson. Can you
remember how all these very frequently used words are pronounced? If there
are some of the words you are not sure of, look them up in the table, pro-
nounce them, and try to impress their pronunciation on your memory.

a. avenue i. tr5taay q. punish

b. crvil j. linen r. recent
c. k. ,.
chmate m5ment s. recognrze
d. colony l. n6ked t. record
e. convenient m. native u. robin
f. devil n. natural v. trny
C. evil o. numerous w. total
h. final p. provlnce x. vapor
2. What would be the safest guess as to the vowel sound in the stressed syllable
of each of these comparatively rare words?
a. drvot f. levitate
,, k. pi.u.oon
b. ducat g. mlmlc l. nbald
c. fetus h. rni.ou, m. sesame
d. humic i. n6matode n. srderite
e. leguminous j. pediment o. trdings

Look up each word in a good dictionary and see how often you guessed cor-
rectly. Which of the letters d, e, L, o, and u were you not asked to guess the
pronunciation of in this exercise? Why?

D. The vowels of the following words are pronounced regularly according to the table,
"Pronunciation of vowel Letters before ! or r," that appears in Section IV of this
lesson. Pronounce the pairs of words several times, and note the systematic
changes that result from the presence of the ! or 1.

l. save, sale 3. case, care 5. bad, bald

2. mane, male 4. date, dare 6. sat, salt
216 Long and Short Vowels

7. back, balk 14. gem, germ 21. pope, pore

8. 'uft"r,'ult"t 15. beg, berg 22. cod, cold
9. cat, cart 16. ten, tern 23. God, gold
10. had, hard 17. sick, silk 24. cot, colt
Il. mete, mere 18. sit, silt 25. spot, sport
12. met, melt 19. bid, bird 26. stock, stork
13. sped, spelled 20. fist, first 27. puke, pure
Write the phonetic symbols that represent the vowel of each word'

E. L Keeping in mind that long vowels usually end syllables and short vowels do
not, divide these words into syllables.

a. bacon /b6ykan/ C. notion /n5wSen/ m. irval lr'ayvel/

b. frozen ftlowzenl h. pity tpittt n. second ls6kand/
c. gather lg;jleil i. promise ftrlamtsl o. table /t6ybeV
d. mason /m6ysen/ j. punish /p5nr5/ p. tinny /tinrl
e. metal /m6t!/ k. pupil /pyiwpel/ q. tiny ftiynil
f. motor /m6wtar/ L risen /rizanl r. together lteg66arl
2. Why do you suppose the final p of hop is doubled when -ing is added? why
double the g of big when -est is added? why double the b of rob when -ed is
added?

3. ln 1982 the world-champion Saint Louis Cardinals baseball team had a relief
pitcher-named Bruce Sutter. His last name was pronounced /sirwter/ rather
than /s5ter/. In what way is the pronunciation /suwter/ unsystematic?

4. The most famous of all comets is known as "Halley's Comet." Would the
regular pronunciation of the name Ae thilnt or hLyW? /h6yh/ is often heard,
though dictionaries give the pronunciation as thbn.

5. The British usually spell the word that indicates a person who takes trips as
..trave!!er," while Americans tend to prefer spelling it as "trave!er." which
spelling is more systematic? why? (Hint: the system of long and short vowels
applies only to stressed syllables.)

F. The systematic nature of the pairs of long and short vowels is to be seen also when
we compare some English words with words that have been derived from them or
are related to them in meaning. For example, the long lof wide lwayd/ corresponds
to the short ! of width lw1d9l . Such correspondences are quite common though not
entirely predictable. Usually the more basic word has the long vowel and the de-
V. Exercises 217
rivative word has the corresponding short vowel. Practice the following pairs of
words. Then see if you can give the second word of each pair when your teacher
gives the first word in random order. The exercise should help you intemalize the
system according to which long and short vowels are paired.

,t
(g: /ey/ md /a/) 14. decrde.
,t
decrsion
l. sine, s6nity
,t
15. trtle.,,htular
2. nation, national
,a
16. subhme.tt
subhmitv
3. grateful, gratitude 17. denve,
tt
derrvative
4. grlud", gt'udout" 18. wrld, wrldemess
5. stite, st6tic
t,
o. page. paglnate (o : /owl and la/)
lg. c5ne. c5nical
,t
: liYl and lel) 20. code. codifv
@
,, metric
7. meter,
,, serenity 21. vocal. vocative
8. serene, 22. i5te,l5cutar
9.
^rt
supreme, supremacy 23. ph6ne, ph5nic
lo. rep6,at, r"p6titiu"
ll. proc6ed (verb), proc6ssion (u : /yuw/ and /e/)
t,
24. punitive,
,t
punish
(! : laYl and ll) 25. reduce. reduction
,, (verb),
12. mine, mineral 26. produce
tt
production
13. line,linear 27. numeral. number
G. The members of the class should take turns asking and answering questions about
their lives. As they speak, the instructor will listen carefully and encourage them
to diphthongize leyl and lowl slightly in the positions where those two ,.long,,
vowels should actually be most lengthened: when the vowel is final as in slow
/sloV, when it is followed by a final voiced consonant as in played lpleyd/, or
when it is pronounced with a slide at the end of an intonation pattern. (See Lesson
I l, Section IV.) Key expressions for use in the questions might be go, show, play,
know, say, alone, date, every day, at home, study load, closed section, grade,
raise your grade, an "4," enroll, fail, loathe, hate, notes, and so on.

H. outside of class prepare several pages of a magazine article for reading aloud by
marking the pauses by means of which it can best be divided into thought groups.
Then read the article, being careful to blend your words together within thought
groups. Try to avoid glottal stops and finishing sounds. (See Lesson 4, Section
IV.)
LESS@N 4E
Regulor ond
lrregulor Spellings

l. What ls Regular SPelling?

Any useful consideration of the relationship between speech and writing, be-
tween pronunciation and spelling, must take into account the fact that speech
is primary and that writing is derived from speech. In the development of both
human beings and languages, speech comes before writing. Children normally
learn to pronounce words long before they learn to spell them. Languages often
exist for hundreds of years before they are reduced to writing. In fact, there
are still many languages in the world for which writing and spelling systems
have not yet been devised.
So. as the title of this lesson indicates, we will speak-and think-here of
regular and irregular spellings, not of regular and irregular pronunciations. The
significant question for us is "How regularly do the letters represent the
sounds?" rather than "Why don't you pronounce the words the way they are
written?"
An ideal, completely regular system of spelling for a language would be
one in which there was a perfect correspondence between the pronunciation of
all the distinctive sounds of the language and the written symbols used to rep-
resent those sounds. There would be a different symbol for every sound, and
each symbol would always represent the same sound. It would then always be
easy to determine the pronunciation of a word by seeing how it was spelled.

218
l. What ls Regular Spelling? 219
what a help that would be for a foreign student trying to learn to pronounce a
new language!
But it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to find such a completely
regular spelling system in actual use in the writing of a well-established, natural
language. All widely used spelling systems are more or less irregular, and it
must be admitted that English spelling may well be the most inegular of them
all.
Some of the reasons for this lack of perfect regularity were referred to at
the beginning of Lesson 17. The roman alphabet, originally devised for the
spelling of Latin, was not well suited for the writing of Anglo-Saxon, and is
an even poorer fit for the spelling of Modern English. The decision to use the
roman alphabet for English made it impossible to follow the principle of one-
sound-one-symbol in spelling the language. Then, too, the sound system of
English has changed faster than its spelling system, thus making the spelling
increasingly irregular. Also, the developers of English spelling have not al-
ways considered phonetic regularity to be the most desirable feature of the
system. They have been very much concerned with having a spelling that
would reveal something of the history of words and their relationships to other
words. For example, the b in debt ldxtl seryes as an indication that it is derived
from the Latin debitum, though it results in an irregular spelling. And the ir-
regular silent g in sign /sayn/ serves to show that it is related to a whole family
of words-signal, sigrnture, signifi, and so on-in which the g is actually
pronounced.
Despite all this, we found in lrsson 17 elements of regular spelling in the
basic system of long and short vowels, in the relationship of vowel sounds to
syllable boundaries, and in the effect of ! and 1 on the pronunciation of preced-
ing vowel letters. It is true that we did not find anything approaching the ideal
regularity of one-sound-one-symbol in any of these three cases. The system of
long and short vowels makes each of the five vowel letters represent at least
two vowel sounds. we must look at the environment in which the letter occurs
before we can know which of the two sounds the symbol probably represents
in a given word.
The somewhat systematic relationship of vowel sounds to syllable bound-
aries is found only in the statistical fact that in a certain environment i and g
are more regularly given their short sound and u is more regularly given its
long sound. The effect of ! and J on the pronunciation of preceding vowel
letters, though semisystematic, does not always apply. Nonetheless, in all three
cases there is regularity of one type or another. These three types of regularity,
plus others that will be noted in this lesson, do make it possible to predict the
stressed vowel sounds of most English words by seeing the symbols that rep-
resent them.
220 Regular and lrregular SPellings

The purpose of this last lesson in the manual, then, is threefold.

l. To summarize and provide more examples of the elements of regular-

ity we have already found. The authors hope you will feel that the
different kinds of regularity add up to a total large enough to justify
your making an effort to familiarize yourself with the rather complex
system. If you are aware of the several forms that regularity in spell-
ing can take, you should be in a better position to recognize the resi-
due of words whose spelling is irregular.
2. To point out some additional features of spelling that are in some
sense regular. For example, the combination lgft represents the sound
layl with a high degree of regularity: high, sigh, might, brighten,
delighful, and so on.
3. To provide you with a classified list of the most common English
words whose spelling is misleading: that is to say, words that look as
though they might be regularly spelled but that are not pronounced as
might be expected. For example, have looks as though it should be
pronounced lheyvl, with a long a, but it is really pronounced lhavl,
with a short a. You may then be able to impress these words on your
memory by using them, which is really the only way of learning to
pronounce and spell them.

ll. Principal Elements of Regularity

There follows a table showing the principal ways in which letters represent
vowel sounds in stressed syllables with some degree of regularity in English.
The first column of the table lists 57 different letter combinations whose
pronunciation is largely predictable. These combinations constitute the linguis-
tic environments that can determine the pronunciation of a vowel letter or let-
ters. Combination number l, for example, is described as "a in long position,
normally." This means that, if the 4 is final in a syllable or if it is followed by
an unpronounced g or by a consonant plus an unpronounced 9, it is normally
pronounced with its long sound of leyl , as indicated in the second column.
(See Lesson 17, Section 2.) When the word normally appears as part of the
description of the combination, it implies that there are variations of that com-
bination, described subsequently, which are pronounced differently (for exam-
ple, combinations 2 and 3).
Among the 57 letter combinations are listed the long and short positions
for each vowel letter. For most of the vowel letters the list also includes the
long and short positions before ! and before 1. To these items have been added
the digraphs----combinations of two letters such as ai, ea, and qq-that repre-
 221

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228 Regular and lrregular Spellings

sent vowel sounds with some degree of regularity. Letter combinations for
which the few examples that can be found are pronounced in various ways,
such as the fi in fruir and the ua in guard, are not included.
The items marked with an asterisk represent elements of regularity that
were not discussed in Lesson 17 and that should therefore be studied with
particular care in this lesson.
The third column in the table provides examples of words in which the
vowel letters in the combinations listed in the first column are pronounced as
shown in the second column. The fourth column lists common exceptions,
words in which the vowel letters look as though they should be pronounced as
shown in the second column but are actually not so pronounced. The words
listed as exceptions are divided by semicolons into groups, according to the
vowel sounds with which they are actually pronounced. Unfortunately, in a
few cases the total number of exceptions is almost as large as the number of
examples.
Approximately 500 words are listed either as examples or as exceptions.
Most of these 500 are among the 1,000 most commonly used English words as
identified in frequency counts such as E. L. Thorndike's The Teacher's Word
Book. Words that contain none of the 57 letter combinations are not included
in the table: examples would be people lpiypaV and build /bteld/. Function
words, usually heard in their reduced form (are for example), have been tran-
scribed only in their stressed form (/arl); their pronunciation when unstressed
(/erl) has, of course, been discussed in previous lessons.
You are not expected to memorize the table. The exercises at the end of
the lesson will help you to become familiar with it, and you may wish to refer
to it later. It should be a resource to you in your efforts to avoid that type of
vowel substitution which is caused by the way in which a word is spelled.

lll. Exercises
A. l. Add new examples of your own to illustrate as many as you can of the 57
letter combinations in the preceding table.

2. Each of the following words is an example of one of the 57 combinations.

Give the number of the combination illustrated by each word.

a. set
c
l- cool k. lawn
b. hid g.
b' fold l. hat
c. oats h. melt m. fill
d. call i. peer n. cede
e. fare j. shield o. name
lll. Exercises 229
p. prerce ale ll. lean
q. seal stew nm. crook
r. toil rain nn. five
s. farm blind oo. caught
t. freight cute pp. not
u. peel search qq. near
v. dec6ive rr. fourth
w. ry.rd
srncere spread ss. verse
x. pair such tt. piece
y. thtud meet uu. nail
z. boss may w. store
B. You are probably not familiar with many of the following rather rare words, but
these are the kind of words whose pronunciation you may want to try to figure out
while doing your reading. The pronunciation of the stressed vowels in all of them
is regularly spelled according to the table. How should each be pronounced? Re-
member that the table does not refer to unstressed vowels; you should already be
thoroughly familiar with the sounds normally given to unstressed vowels. (See
Lesson 3.)

l. 'uaAu"y 18. hearse 35. fiend

2. sparse 19. weald 36. wield
3. scald 20. blear 37. tier
4. smalt 21. drear 38. vizier
5. taut 22. veer 39. stooge
6. paunch 23. deign 40. cal5te
7. abele 24. skein 41. loft
8. subv6ne 25. ask6w 42. thong
g. abst6rge 26. abeyance 43. wold
10. w! 27. wince 44. b5lster
1l. mercurate 28. tithe 45. rook
12. sere 29. hind 46. bourn
13. delve 30. rind 47. slouch
14. tread 31. besmirch 48. pounce
15. streak 32. dirge 49. bulge
16. earl 33. filch 50. spume
17. yearn 34. fieze 5l. rebrike

C. The words below all contain letter combinations that are included in our table.
None of the words, however, is actually pronounced in the way indicated by its
spelling. Each of them could therefore be listed in the fourth column as an excep-
tion. Be sure you know how the stressed vowels of all the words are actually
23O Regular and lrregular Spellings

pronounced, looking them up in a dictionary if necessary. Then tell both how each
word is actually pronounced and how it would sound if it were pronounced as
indicated by its spelling.

l. pear 8. foul 15. tough

2. realm 9. youth 16. scoop
3. machine 10. glove 17. Tom
4. plead I l. doll 18. beard
5. bull lZ. swamp 19. deaf
6. calm 13. award 20. key
7. ninth 14. aunt 21. cough
D. According to our table some of the common words below are spelled regularly,
some irregularly. Pick out the inegularly spelled words, and write the phonetic
symbols that represent their vowel sounds. Then read the entire list several times.
The hyphens in some words of more than one syllable mark syllable boundaries.

1. do 20. foes 39. son

2. go 21. both 40. front
3. move 22. cloth 41 . moth-er
4. stove 23. come 42. both-er
5. ab6ve 24. home 43. oth-er
6. prove 25. some 44. cov-er
7. love 26. dome 45. o-ver
8. wove 27. word 46. gov-ern
9. lose 28. lord 47. clo-ver
10. those 29. worth 48. boat
I l. whose 30. north 49. broad
12. nose 31. most 50. blood
13. none 32. cost 51. good
14. gone 33. post 52. food
15. stone 34. lost 53. wood
16. bone 35. w5nder 54. flood
ll. done 36. p5nder
,
55. boot
18. does 5 t. among 56. foot
19. shoes 38. long 51. soot
E. American elementary-school teachers sometimes ask pupils who are just learning
to read to memorize two rhyming lines: "When two vowels go out walking, /the
first one does the talking." This verse is supposed to remind the children that,
when two vowel letters are written together to form a digraph such as ai or ee, the
whole digraph is given the long sound of thefirst of the two letters. Thus ai would
lll. Exercises 231

be pronounced as leyl and ee as liyl. This would presumably make it possible for
the children to recognize written words such as rain andfeet.
Unfortunately, the verse may mislead the children. Some digraphs are not
pronounced the way the verse says they should be. Our table tells us, for example,
that ai before 1 is pronounced leal and au is pronounced /cl . Do you think it is
wise for the teachers to ask their pupils to remember the two lines?
The class could discuss that question. This would involve going through the
table and finding out how many of the digraphs listed there are regularly pro-
nounced with the long sound of their first vowel. This exercise could alternatively
be done as a small-group activify. Each group could be asked to examine the data
in the table, and then to report their conclusions to the class as a whole.

F. Early in this manual a great deal of attention was paid to rhythm and intonation,
because they may well be the basic elements in learning to pronounce English
understandably. It therefore seems desirable to return to those elements in this final
lesson in order to call your attention once more to their importance.
The sentences in each of the following groups have the same rhythm and
intonation. Sentence stresses are marked. Repeat each group until you can produce
that particular pattern rapidly and naturally. (This material is suitable for taping.)
,rt
l. a. To tell us to be quret is unreasonable.
,,,
b. The owner is prepared to redecorate it.
,,,
c. I'll help you with your coat when you're ready for it.
,,,
d. I thrnk he would be shocked if you
asked him for it.
at,
e. I never would have thought you would gve it to me.
tt
2. a. Have you studied your lessons?
b.
,,
Does he speak with an accent?
tt
c. Is it wrong to get angry?
tt
d. Are you wrlling to tell me?
tt
e. Can you ever beheve it?
,tt
3. a. I have exams in mathematics and chemistry.
tt,
b. I would have thought it was a Lrncoln or a Cadillac.
tat
c. Was he identified beforehand or afterward?
trt
d. You'll have to promise me to love it and cherish it.
,,,
e. Do you prefer to have it toasted or untoasted?
trttt
4. a. With a new car and enough tlme we could make it.
,trr,
b. It's a long trme since he left home for the crty.
232 Regular and lrregular Spellings

c. If you w6n't 96, yo., *rit" n6w and expliin it.

"*
d. When the *ir 6nAs and the p6u"" we'll be hippy.
"5-"t,
e. There's a fine cinent of c5ol iit n"- the window.

G. The intonation patterns as marked in the sentences below

"re
not natural.In fact,
each sentence represents a type of "intonation error" often made by students.
What suggestions could you make to help a person who used such patterns improve
his speech?

l. How arelilou, Mr. Witti'ams?

2. It's a beautitutBqy, isi-li-tt

3.

4. How are youlGiiiF[]G6ilIiF

6. N!1.|Tmb-fq-Ue!% but I don't see Mrs.lTho-Eas.

8. It's the center ofl6Elthoughts, otilbgp

H. RBFLECTIONS ON ENGLISH SPELLING

Itake it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh, and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
lll. Exercises 233

Beware of heard, a dreadful word

That looks lke beard and sounds hke bird,
And dead: it's read like bed, not bead-
For goodness' sake don't call it "deed"!
Watch out for meal and great and threat.
(They rhyme with sweet ard stoight and debt.)

A moth is not a moth in mother.

Nor borh in bother. broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear andfear for bear and pear.

And then there's dose and rose and lose-

Just look them up-and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word ard sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart-
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive,
I'd mastered it when I was five!

The above verses' express well the frustration many speakers of English
feel in regard to the way the language is spelled. This material can be quite
useful to students, however, in familiarizing themselves with some of the most
common and irritating inconsistencies in the spelling system.
The following activities are suggested as ways of learning something from
"Reflections on English Spelling."
l. The teacher can read the material and have the students repeat it after him
or her line by line.
2. The verses, or a part of them, can be given as a dictation with books
closed.
3. The class can be divided into two teams for a contest. Individual team
members could take turns in reading one line each. A point could be
scored by a team each time a member of it read a line and pronounced all
the italicized words in it correctly.

3We have been unable to identify the author of the verses definitely or to find a copy of the
complete selection in print. Dwight Bolinger published part of the material in the second edition
of his Aspecrs of Language (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1975). He said the verses were written
by Richard Krogh, whom he did not further identify. The longer and somewhat different version
that we have included here has been circulated among graduate students at the University of Cali-
fornia, in mimeographed form, and signed with the initials T. S. W.
STUDENT'S NAME

COURSE AND SECTION

DATE OF RECORDING

Accent Inventory (Copy 2)

To the Student

This "Inventory" is to be used, preferably at the very beginning of the English

course, so that you may have constantly at hand a diagnosis of the elements of
foreign "accent" in your own individual speech. First, your voice will be re-
corded as you read the "Diagnostic Passage" on the next page. The reading
should be done at normal speed, in a matter-of-fact tone, without unusual care
in pronunciation; in other words, it should sound as much like natural conver-
sation as possible. Then the instructor will listen to the recording many times,
and make an analysis, on the following pages, of your speech difficulties.
These pages will serve as a guide to the sections of the Manual that are of
most importance to you, and show just what phases of English pronunciation
should be of most concern to you.
The "Inventory" may be used again at the end of the course to measure
the progress you have made.

SUGGESTED KEY TO CORRECTIONS

Phonetic symbols immediately under word: what you should have said. Second
line of phonetic symbols under word: mispronunciation in your speech.

' Over a syllable or word: you left this unstressed; it should be stressed.
(') over a syllable or word: you stressed this; it should be unstressed.

Black line: normal intonation.

Colored line: your incorrect intonation.

i unnatural pause you made.

235
236 Accent Inventory

Diagnostic Passage

(1) When a student from another country

comes to study in the United States, he has to find out

for himself the answers to many questions,-and he has

many problems to think about. (2) Where should he live?

(3) Would it be better if he looked for a private room

off campus or if he stayed in a dormitory? (4) Should

he spend all of his time just studying? (5) Shouldn't he

try to take advantage of the many social and cultural

activities which are offered? (6) At first it is not easy

for him to be casual in dress, informal in manner, and

Accent lnventory 237

confident in speech. (7) Little by little he learns what

kind of clothing is usually worn here to be casually

dressed for classes. (8) He also learns to choose the

language and customs that are appropriate for informal

situations. (9) Finally he begins to feel sure of himself.

(10) But let me tell you, my friend, this long-awaited

feeling doesn't develop suddenly, does it. (11) All of

this takes will power.

238 Accent Inventory

Check List of Problems

I. STRESS AND RHYTHM

A. Stress on wrong syllable of words of more than one syllable. (See lrsson 3,
Section III, of manual.)
-
B. Misplaced stress on nominal compounds. (L. 4, S. II.)
C. - Misplaced stress on two-word verbs. (L. 4, S. II.)
D. - Other improper sentence stress. (L. 4, S. II.)
E. - Improper division of sentences into thought groups. (L. 4, S. IV.)
F. - Failure to blend well, to make smooth transitions between words or syllables.

- l. Improper insertion of /e/ to break up difficult combinations of conso-

nants. (L. 4, S. IV; L. 15, S. I.)
-
2. Insertion of /a/ before initial q followed by a consonant. (L. 15,
s. m.)
-
3. Unnatural insertion of glottal stop. (L.4, S. IV.)

-
II. INTONATION

A. Unnatural intonation at end of statements. (L. 5, S. m.)

B. - .-In wh-questions. (L. 5, S. m.)

C. In yes-no questions. (L. 6, S. I.)

D. - In series. (L. 6, S. II.)
E. - In questions with two alternatives. (L. 6, S. II.)
F. - In direct address. (L. 6, S. [.)
G. - In tag questions. (L. 6, S. II.)
H. - In other cases.

-
ilt. vowEls
A. Failure to obscure unstressed vowels in words of more than one syllable.
(L. 3, S. il.)
-
B. Failure to obscure the vowels of unstressed words. (L. 4, S. II and III.)
C. - Failure to lengthen stressed vowels before final voiced consonants.
(L. 9, S. il.)
-
D. Substitution of an improper vowel sound. (L. 2; ll; 12; 17; 18.)

-
Accent lnventory 239

l. for liyl. 5. for lal. 9. for lul. 13. for layl.

2. for |il. 6.
- for la/. 10. - for /uw/. 14.
- lavrl .

3.
- for leyl. 7. - 11. 15. for lcl.
- -for for
4. -- for lel. 8. for /oW.
-forlcl. 12. for larl . 16.
-forlel. - /yuw/.
- - - -
tv. coNsoNANTs
A. Substitutions due to improper voicing. (L. 8, S. I.)
- l. lpl for lbl. 5. 16l for /01. 9. l{l for lLl.
2. ltl for ld/. 6. lfl for lvl. 10. ltll for ldL.l.
3.- lW for lgl. 7.
- - Others.
lsl for lzl. 11.
4.- l0l for 16/. 8. - -lzl for lsl.
- - -
B. -
Substitutions - especially improper point of articulation.
due to other causes,

- lrl for lll. (L.

- lU for lrl. (L.

- 16l for ldl. (L.

- ld/ for t6l. (L.
- lzl for /6/. (L.
- ltl for /0/. (L.
- lsl for l0l. (L.

- ldZl for lyl. (L.

- lyl for ldLl. (L.

- lZl for ldLl. (L.
- l3l for /t5/. (L.

- lvl for lbl. (L.

- lbl for lvl. (L.

- lwl for lvl. (L.

- lvlfor /w/. (L.
- lvlfor /hw/. (L.
- lpl for lfl. (L.
- lhwl for lfl. (L.

- lgl for lnl. (L.

- ln/ for lr1/. (L.

- lnl for lm/. (L.

- Others.

-
24O Accent Inventory

C. Improper point of articulation, resulting in abnormal sound but not substitu-

tion.
-
l. _ tdt. (L.8, s. ilr.)
2. _ ttt. (L.8, S. [r.)
3. /r/. (L.10, S. I.)
4. - Others.
D. -
Insufficient aspiration of initial voiceless consonants. (L. 9, S. I.)
E. - Excessive aspiration of final stops and voiced continuants. (L. 9, S. III.)
F. - Excessive aspiration of "/dflike" medial ltl. (L. 9, S. I.)
G. - Improper addition of a consonant.
- l. /gk/ for lnl. (L. 14, S. il.)
2. - lgwl for lwl. (L. 14, S. I.)
3. - /h/ inserted. (L. 14, S. IV.)
4. - Others.
H. Slighting
- or omission of a consonant.
- l. _ lht. (L. 14, s. IV.)
2. lst. (L. 8, S. V.)
3. - tzt. (L.8, S. V.)
4. _
- ttt. (L.8, S. IV.)
5. _ tdt. (L.8, s. IV.)
6. Others.

-
V. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS
A. Confusion between the three usual ways of pronouncing the -ed ending. (L.
8, S. IV.)
-
B. Confusion between the three usual ways of pronouncing the -s ending. (L. 8,
S.V.)
-
C. Syllabic consonants. (L. 10, S. il.)
- l. Failure to pronounce the preceding consonant (for example, /wunt/ for
/wudnV).
2.
- Insertion of lal (for example, /wudenV for /wudnV).
D. - to insert /e/ between a front vowel and
Failure lll or lrl. (L. 10, S. II.)
-
VI. GENERAL COMMENTS
lndex
lal, 10, ll, 13, 128, 136, 137,2O7, 210, 212, 213 Comparisons, and intonation, 6l-62, 64, 81
4, long and short sounds of, 20'/ , 2O8, 210, 2l | , 212 Compound expressions, 2l , 31n, 32, 44
a,34-35, 189 Conjunctions, and stress, 32, 35
Accent (see Stress) Consonant(s), aspirated, l0l-103, 104-105
Address, direct, and intonation, 65, 82 classification of, 90-93
Adjectives, ending in -ed, 95 continuants,92,1O4,1O5,117n, 16l
and lexical intonation, 78 final, 103-105
and stress, 22-23,31,32,34 initial, l0l-102
Adverbs, -ed in,95 medial, 102-103
and lexical intonation, 78 nasal, 161-162, 163
and stress, 3l, 32-33 omission of, 182
lel,ll,12,13,128,207,210,211,212 oral,16l,162
le al, 116 pairs, 9l
Affricate, 150 in phonetic alphabet,4
Alternatives with or, 64-65,82 point of articulation of, 92-93
an,189 sibilants,92
and, seies with, 63-64, 82 stops, 92, l0l, 105, I l7n
Arabic,37, ll5, 159 substitutions, 148-l'72
Articles, 31, 34-35, 189 syllabic, 7, ll7-l 18, 189-190
Asian languages, 1 13 voiced, 90*91, 94,96, lO2, 103, 104, 105, I 14
Aspiration, at beginning of words, l0l-102 voiceless, 90-91, 95, 96, 102, 103, 105
and end of words, 104-105 Consonant clusters, 173-188, 198-199
of medial consonants, 102-103 in final position, l'7'7-181
symbol for, 7, 102 initial, beginningwith lsl, 171
Assimilation, 190, l95,2ll in initial position, 175-177
-ate, and stress, 22-23 making more pronounceable, l8l-182
Austronesian languages, 16l Content words, 3l,32, 33, 34, 6l
lawl, 13, 114 Continuants, 92, 104, 105, I l7n, 16l
layl, 13, ll4, 2O7, 209, 212 Contractions, 198
Contradiction of idea, and focus, 77-78
|b|,91,92,93, l0l, ll7n, 159-160 Contrasts,andintonation, 6l-62,64,81
tb, pt, 9l
Blending,inthoughtgroups,3T 1d1,92,93,94,117, l18,149
British English, ll4, l2'1,138, 160, 194,197 tdl-hke /tl,103, ll8, 190, 195
td, tt, 9t, 94
9,8 Danish, 37
can,35-36 Demonstratives,3l,35,61
Central European languages, 159 Determination, and intonation, 79
Chinese, '75, 115, 163, 176, l7-1 Digraphs, 220,228
Coaxing, and intonation, T9 Diphthongization, 10, 13, 47-48, 104, 12'7-128,
Colon, and intonation pattern,62 138, 139
to show lengthened vowels, 103 Diphthongs, centering, 6,116-11'7
Commands, and intonation, 49, 8l before /l/ or lrl , 6, I 16-l 17

241
242 Index

Dipthongs (cozr.) -ic. and stress. 23

long vowel sounds as, 208 -ical, and stress, 23
in phonetic alphabet,6 Imitation. 1.2
tdLt , 8, 150-t5t, r97 -ing, 199
ldL, t(l, 9l Insertion, 190-l9l
Interrogatives, 31, 49-50, 6l
e, long and short sounds of, 207, 2O9-2lO,2ll, Intonation, 44-89
212,2r9 alternate pattems in, 45, 6l
leel, 116, 212 and focus. 75-78. 83
tet, ll, 12, 13, 128, 2O7, 2O9-21O, 2r2 and grammatical meaning, 48-49, 60, 61-62
leel, 116, 212 inventory of pattems of, 80-83
tat,5n, ll, 12, 13, 116-117, ll8, 139-140,207, lexical (emotional), 60, 62,78-80
210 marking system for, 45-46
for a, 34 nonfinal. 6l-6'7. 82
insertion of, 6, I 16-1 17 rising, 58-74, 76, 81, 82, 83
in unstressed syllable, 19-20,22, 34 rising-falling, 46-57, 62, 63-64, 65, 76, 81, 82,
larl,5n, 12, 140 83
la(ar)l, 212, 213 and sentence-stress, 44, 47-49,59
East, ll4,2l2n Iranian, 177
-ed,94-95, 180 Irony, and intonation, 79
-es, 95, 96 Italian,28, 105, l15, 164
teyt, 10, I l, 13, 35, t2'l-128, 207, 2r0, 212 -iry, and stress, 23
tiyt, lO, ll, 13, 126, 127 , 2O7, 210,212
tft ,92, tM, 105, 161
Feminine speech, 78-79 j,8
Focus, and intonation, 75-78,83 Japanese, 3,4,5,6,28, ll5,159, 16l,174, 176,
Force, and intonation, 75 182
French, 3, 4, 5, 6, 29,75,8On,92, ll3, I 15, 125,
149, t& lW,92,39, 105, ll7n, 163, 180
Function words, 3l-32, 34-36, l9l-193 Korean, 159,176
/ks/. 8
t9,92,39, ll7n,163 /kw/, 8
g,8, 163
/g, W,9l nt, 91, 92, 93, 113-114, ll5-117, ll8, 176
German, 3, 4, 5, 6, 37,8On, 91, lO2, ll5, 149, diphthongs before, 6
163, 174 after front vowels, I l5-l 17
Glide(s), 10, ll3-114 vowels before, 212-213, 219
centering, 116-117 Letters. silent. 7
Glottal stop, 7, 37 Liquids, ll3-114, 115, 140
-graphy, and stress, 23
Greek, 92 lrnl, 91, 92, 93, ll7 n, l8O
lgzl, 8 final. 16l. 162
final /ni substituted for, 162
tht , 9t, t63-t64, 165 Malayo-Polynesian languages, 75
!, initial, 164 Meaning, grammatical, 48-49, ffi,6l-62, 8l-83
Hawaiian, 37 lexical (emotional), 60, 62, 78-80
Hebrew, 92 and pauses, 36, 37
Hindi, 37 and stress, 32
lhwl,9l,159, 160 and weakening of vowels, 36
Masculine speech, 79
i, long and short sounds of,2O7, 2O9, 210,211,
2t2-2r3,2r9 lnl, 91,92,93, ll7, I 18, 180
hl, tl-12, 126-127 , 207, 209, 210, zt3 final. 16l. 162
in unstressed syllable, 19,20,22, 34 final l4l substituted for,162-163
trdt,94,95 substituted for final lrn/, 162
Iral, 116,212, 213 /41, 8, 91, 92, 93, ll7n, 180
l-tnl,199 final, 16l, 162,163
t-rql, 199 /4k/ substituted for, 163
Irzl ,95,96 substituted for final lnl, 162-163
Index 243
/DV, substituted for l4/, 163 Reduction(s) (cont.)
ng, 8 words subject to, 34-36, l9l-193
-ng, 163 Requests, and intonation, 8l
Nouns, compound, 21, 32, 48 Rhythm, 28-31,33-34
and intonation, 48 Russian.92. 163
and stress, 2l-23, 31, 32
Numbers, and stress, 2l ts|, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95,96, 103-104, 105, 197, 198
initial consonant clusters beginning with, 177
o, long and short sounds of, 207, 21O, 2ll, 213 lengthening, 177
ttl , 1l , 12, 13, 137 , 2ll, 21,2, 213 substituted for. l0l. 149
lcyl , 13, 114 /zf substituted for, l7'7
Objects, and intonation, 48 til,8,90,9t,92,93, 104, 105, 150, 15l, 196, 197
Obscuration, 190, 191 -q,95-96, 180, 189
Omission, 190, l9l, 195, 198-199 -'s, 95, 96
or, and intonation, 64-65, 82 -s', 95, 96
/oW, 10, I I, 114, 13'7-138,207, 210, 213 Sandhi,189-205
Scandinavian languages, 149, 150, 159
|p|,91,92,93, l0l, 102, 105, ll7n, 16l, 180 Semicolon, and intonation, 62, 82
Palatalization, across word boundaries, 196-197 Sentence-stress, 28-36
Pauses, 36-37 and content words,3l, 33, 34
Persuading, and intonation, 79 and function words, 31-32, 33,34-36
Philippine languages, l6l and inlonation, 44,47-49, 59
Phonetic alphabet, 2-9 and reduction, 193
Phonetic markings, T unusual,33-34
Phonetic syllabication, 181 See a/so Stress
Phonetic transcription, 2,'1-8, 117 Sentences, blending in, 37
Phonotactic rules, 173-17 4 declarative.49. 8l
Pilipino, 28,37, 159, 174 pauses in, 36-37
Poetry, 29-30 Series with and. 63-64. 82
Polish, 174 Shifr, 46, 47,'79
Polysyllables, and stress, 20-23, 34 Sibilants.92.96
unaccented vowels in, 20, 34 -sion, and stress, 23
Portuguese,164 Slant lines. 3n. 7
Prefixes, and stress, 2l Slide. 46, 47-48,"19
Prepositions, and intonation, 48-49 Smith-Trager system, 3, l8n
and stress, 3l Soath, ll4,2l2n
Pronouns, and stress, 21, 31, 32, 34, 35 Spanish, 3, 4, 5, 6,28, 29, 80n, 1O2, l13, 115,
Punctuation, 3'7, 67, 82 125-126, r50, 159, 162-163,164, t71
Spelling(s), and consonant clusters, 180
q,8 and phonetic transcription, 7
qu, 8 problems, 125, 206-20'7
-Questions, double, 64-65, 82 regular and inegular, 218-233
echo, 60, 81 and stressed vowels, 220-228
and focus, 75,76-77 and unstressed vowels, 20
with or, 64-65 Statements, changing into yes-no question,60
tzg (see Tag questions) and intonation, 49, 66, 81
wh- (see wft-questions) Stops,92, l0l, 105, 117n, 16l
yes-no (see Yes-no questions) inserted, 180-181
Stress. contrastive. 33
trl, 12, 91, ll3-ll7, 176 determining, 20-23
diphthongs before, 6 importance of, 18-19
after front vowels, I l5-1 17 marks. 3. 18
liquid, 140 and one-syllable words, 34-36
vowels before, 2ll-213, 219 primary, 3, 18, 20, 21,22,23
I, 3n secondary, 3, 18, 20, 21,22,23
trilled, I l5 sentence- (see Sentence-stress)
uvular,115 word, 18-27
Reduction(s), 198 Suffixes. and stress.23
of verb * to, 195-196 Swahili. l'73. l'14
244 Index

Syllabic consonants, T, 117-118, 189-190 Vowel(s) (cozl.)

Syllabic boundaries, and vowel sounds, 208-211, long,206-217,219
219 omission of, 198-199
Syllable structure, 1?4 in phonetic alphabet, 5, 6
before /r/. 2l l-213. 219
lrl, 92,93,94-95, 105, I 17, l 18, 149, 180, 197 /r/ after front, I l5-l 17
/d/like, 103, ll8, 190, 195 short,206-217,219
!, 2 stressed, spelling as indication of pronunciation of,
disappearing, 193-194, 185 220-228
lgl,8,92,93, 148-149
104, 105, substitutions, 125-126
t6t,8,92,93,148-149 and syllable boundaries,20S-211,219
16,91,91 unstressed, l-2, 18-27
Tag questions, 32, 35, 66-67, 80n, 83 weakening of, 2O, 34-36
-teen, and stress,2l
-th, 180 lwl , 9l, ll4
that,35 glide, l0
Thought groups, 36-37 initial, /g/ preferred to, 159
blending within, 37 substituted for /hw/, 159, 160
and intonation. 62-63,76-78 ivl substituted for, 159, 160
-tion,23,196-197 wft-question, and intonation, 49-50, 60, 8l
to, and reductions, 195-196 Word boundaries, palatalization across, 196-197
104, 105, l5l, 197 Word order, and focus,75
Two-word sequences, 32n, 48
^5/, Word-stress, 18-27
See also Stress
u, long and short sounds of,207,21O,211,213,219
/u/, ll, 12, 13, 138 1,8
in unstressed syllable, 19,20,34
/uwi, 10, 1 I , I 39 tyl , 9l , ll4, 196, 197
idzl substituted for, 150-15l
lvl , 9l , 92, 159, 160 glide, l0
lv, fl , 9l Yes-no question, 49n
Verb + 195-196
to, reduction of, changing statement into,60
Verbs, auxiliary, and stress, 32, 34 double, and intonation, 82
and intonation, 48-49 focus of, 75
and stress, 2l-23,31,32-33,34,35 and irony, 79
two-word. and intonation.48-49 and lexical intonation, 79
two-word, and stress, 32-33 and rising intonation, 58-60, 64-65, 8l
Vowel(s), back, 136-139 Yiddish, 163
central, 139-149 lyul,zl3
classification of, 10-17 lyuvtl,207,2l0, 213
eleven, I l-13
fivefundamental, l0-ll lz/,90,91,92,93,95,96,103-104,149,177,196,
front, I l5-l 17, 125-135, 137 197
before /l/, 2ll-213, 219 lz, sl,9l, 92, 95, 96, 196
/l/ afterfront, ll5-l17 1i1,8,90,91,92,93,150, 196, 197
lengthening of, 103-104 lt,3l,91,92,96, 196
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