Positional changes of consonant sounds. §5. Voiced and voiceless consonants. Questions and tasks



What is called positional alternation of sound units? When can we say that sound units alternate positionally?
We will start from the concept of alternation. Alternation is always found in the composition of a certain morpheme. If the same morpheme in different words (or in different forms of one word) has a partially different sound composition, then alternation is evident. Twist - I twist. Forms of one verb, they have one root; its meaning in these two forms is the same; the sound composition is also partially the same: there is a common part kru-, but the last sound of this root is in one form [t’], in another [h’]. This is alternation.
The radically steep/steep alternation is reflected in the letter. But there are alternations that are not reflected in the spelling of words. For example, spelling does not reflect the alternation in the forms of words moro[s] - moro[z]y; but it’s still an alternation.
Position is the condition for pronouncing sounds. There are, for example, the following positions: vowels - under stress, in an unstressed syllable after a soft consonant, before [l], before a pause, consonants - at the end of a word, before [e], before a soft dental, after a sonorant consonant. Each sound in a word is in some position.
Some alternations are determined by position, and they are called positional. For example, exchange
[z] to [s] occurs at the end of a word before a pause. Indeed: moro [z] y - moro [s], rasska [z] y -
story[s], ro[z]a - ro[s1, va[z]a - va[s]; black eye [z] a - black eye [s], plague [z] y - plague [s], si [z] y - si [s]; pogrya [z] la - pogrya [s], froze [z] la - froze [s], oble [z\li - oble [s], manager of household [z'] food - manager [s], Kama auto [z ] avod - Kama [s], higher educational [institution] - university\s]. There is no word, no word form in which [z], coming to the end of the word, would not be replaced by a voiceless [s].
In itself, from a purely acoustic or articulatory point of view, a pause does not at all require that the noisy consonant before it be voiceless. There are many languages ​​(Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, French, English) where the final noisy remains voiced. The alternation is determined not by the acoustic or articulatory nature of sound, but by the laws of a given language.
On what basis do we conclude that alternation is positional? Perhaps we take into account the articulatory and acoustic clarity of the interaction of sounds? For example, the tooth before the soft tooth itself must be soft (in the Russian literary language), cf.: tail - hvo [s'] quieter, bush - ku [s'] thick, let go - let go [s'] tit, etc. .
But the opinion about the need for a visually obvious likening of sounds to each other is incorrect. In order to recognize the pattern of positional alternation, sound similarity is not necessary. As a special case it is possible, but only as a special case. There are cases when phonetic alternation is alive, active, positional, but there is no similarity between the sounds that interact.
Example. In the Russian literary language [o] (stressed vowel) in the first pre-stressed syllable after a hard consonant is replaced by the vowel [a]: new - newer, house - at home, stand - stand, etc. Alternation is positional. However, there is no acoustic need for such alternation. It cannot even be said that [o] is replaced in an unstressed syllable by the sound [a], because [a] is articulatory weaker than [o] (this would explain why it is appropriate to have [a] in weak unstressed syllables). On the contrary, [a] requires a larger opening of the oral cavity, i.e., more energetic articulation.
In general, imagine (as a general law) the reason for sound alternation is that one sound requires the acoustic or articulatory adaptation of another sound - big delusion. So, it is impossible to guess from the acoustic-articulatory essence of the sounds that the position requires a certain alternation.
By what reliable criterion can we separate positional alternations from non-positional ones? Just one thing at a time: positional alternations know no exceptions. If position N2 appears instead of N1, then the sound a always changes to the sound P; It is natural to consider position N2 as the reason for the exchange.
On the contrary, if the position N2 in some words is accompanied by the appearance of p (instead of a), and in others it is not accompanied (but remains without replacement), then the position N2 cannot be considered as the reason for its alternation|| R. She does not condition him. Therefore, an alternation that knows an exception is not positional.
Consequently, positional alternation can be explained in two ways: it is an alternation that occurs in a given language system without exception; it is an alternation conditioned by position. Both definitions are identical in essence.
Different sounds that have completely different characteristics can be in positional alternation. For example, they alternate [o] (middle vowel, back row, labialized) and [a] (low vowel, middle row, non-labialized). Significant qualitative differences do not prevent them from being alternating sounds (Table 4):
Table 4

Examples
Position
Members
alternation

At home, newer, standing
Stressed syllable
First prestressed syllable after a hard consonant

There are no exceptions, i.e. there are no cases (among the commonly used full-meaning words of Russian literary language), when the vowel [o] would be preserved in the second position, therefore, the alternation is positional.
The sound can alternate with zero (Table 5):
Table 5

Position Members
alternation
Examples
Before the pause 1i] stop, build, hero, yours
After a vowel before a vowel zero stands, builds
nym [and] heroes, their

Phonetics- a branch of linguistics in which the sound structure of a language is studied, i.e. speech sounds, syllables, stress, intonation. There are three sides to speech sounds, and they correspond to three sections of phonetics:

  1. Speech acoustics. She learns physical signs speech.
  2. Anthropophonics or physiology of speech. She studies the biological characteristics of speech, i.e. the work performed by a person when pronouncing (articulating) or perceiving speech sounds.
  3. Phonology. She studies speech sounds as a means of communication, i.e. the function or role of sounds used in a language.

Phonology is often distinguished as a separate discipline from phonetics. In such cases, the first two sections of phonetics (in the broad sense) - speech acoustics and speech physiology - are combined into phonetics (in the narrow sense), which is opposed to phonology.

Acoustics of speech sounds

Speech sounds- These are vibrations in the air caused by the organs of speech. Sounds are divided into tones ( musical sounds) and noises (non-musical sounds).

Tone- These are periodic (rhythmic) vibrations of the vocal cords.

Noise- these are non-periodic (non-rhythmic) vibrations of a sounding body, for example, lips.

Speech sounds vary in pitch, strength and duration.

Pitch is the number of vibrations per second (hertz). It depends on the length and tension of the vocal cords. Higher sounds have a shorter wavelength. A person can perceive the frequency of vibrations, i.e. pitch in the range from 16 to 20,000 hertz. One hertz is one vibration per second. Sounds below this range (infrasounds) and above this range (ultrasounds) are not perceived by humans, unlike many animals (cats and dogs perceive up to 40,000 Hz and above, and the bats even up to 90,000 Hz).

The main frequencies of human communication are usually within the range of 500 - 4000 Hz. The vocal cords produce sounds from 40 to 1700 Hz. For example, bass usually starts at 80 Hz, and soprano is defined at 1300 Hz. The natural frequency of vibration of the eardrum is 1000 Hz. Therefore, the most pleasant sounds for humans - the sound of the sea, the forest - have a frequency of about 1000 Hz.

The range of vibrations of a man's speech sounds is 100 - 200 Hz, in contrast to women, who speak with a frequency of 150 - 300 Hz (since men's vocal cords are on average 23 mm, and women's are 18 mm, and the longer the cords, the lower the tone) .

The power of sound(loudness) depends on the wavelength, i.e. on the amplitude of oscillations (the amount of deviation from the original position). The amplitude of vibrations is created by the pressure of the air stream and the surface of the sounding body.

The strength of sound is measured in decibels. A whisper is defined as 20 - 30 dB, normal speech is from 40 to 60 dB, the volume of a scream reaches 80 - 90 dB. Singers can sing at up to 110 - 130 dB. The Guinness Book of World Records records the record of a fourteen-year-old girl who screamed over a taking off airliner with an engine volume of 125 dB. When the sound intensity exceeds 130 dB, ear pain begins.

Different speech sounds have different strengths. The sound power depends on the resonator (resonator cavity). The smaller its volume, the greater the power. But, for example, in the word “saw” the vowel [i], being unstressed and generally having less power, sounds several decibels stronger than the stressed [a]. The fact is that higher sounds seem louder, and the sound [i] is higher than [a]. Thus, sounds of the same strength but different pitches are perceived as sounds of different volumes. It should be noted that sound intensity and loudness are not equivalent, since loudness is the perception of sound intensity by a person's hearing aid. Its unit of measurement is background, equal to a decibel.

Sound duration, i.e. the oscillation time is measured in milliseconds.

Sound has a complex composition. It consists of a fundamental tone and overtones (resonator tones).

Base tone is a tone generated by vibrations of the entire physical body.

Overtone- a partial tone generated by vibrations of parts (half, quarter, eighth, etc.) of this body. The overtone (“upper tone”) is always a multiple of the fundamental tone, hence its name. For example, if the fundamental tone is 30 Hz, then the first overtone will be 60, the second 90, the third 120 Hz, etc. It is caused by resonance, i.e. the sound of a body when it perceives a sound wave that has the same frequency as the vibration frequency of this body. The overtones are usually weak, but are amplified by resonators. Speech intonation is created by changing the frequency of the fundamental tone, and timbre is created by changing the frequency of overtones.

Timbre- This is a kind of coloring of sound created by overtones. It depends on the relationship between the fundamental tone and overtones. Timbre allows you to distinguish one sound from another, distinguish the sounds of different faces, male or female speech. Each person's timbre is strictly individual and unique, like a fingerprint. Sometimes this fact is used in forensic science.

Formanta- these are overtones amplified by resonators that characterize a given sound. Unlike the vocal tone, the formant is not formed in the larynx, but in the resonating cavity. Therefore, it persists even when whispering. In other words, this is the band of concentration of sound frequencies that receives the greatest amplification due to the influence of resonators. With the help of formants we can quantitatively distinguish one sound from another. This role is played by speech formants - the most important in the spectrum of a vowel sound are the first two formants, which are closest in frequency to the fundamental tone. Moreover, each person’s voice is characterized by its own voice formants. They are always higher than the first two formants.

The formant characteristics of consonants are very complex and difficult to determine, but vowels can be characterized with sufficient reliability using the first two formants, which correspond approximately to articulatory features (the first formant is the degree of elevation of the tongue, and the second is the degree of advancement of the tongue). Below are tables illustrating the above. It should only be borne in mind that the quantitative data presented are approximate, even conditional, since researchers give different data, but the vowel ratios, despite the discrepancy in numbers, remain approximately the same for everyone, i.e. the first formant, for example, of the vowel [i] will always be smaller than that of [a], and the second is larger.

Approximate frequencies of Russian vowels
This diagram clearly illustrates the correspondence of acoustic and articulatory characteristics of vowels: the first formant is a rise, the second is a row.
2500 2000 1500 1000 500
200 And at
400 uh s O
600
800 A

The frequency characteristics of sounds are flexible, since the formants are correlated with the lowest fundamental tone, and it is also changeable. In addition, in live speech, each sound may have several formant characteristics, since the beginning of a sound may differ from the middle and ending in formants. It is very difficult for a listener to identify sounds isolated from a stream of speech.

Articulation of speech sounds

When communicating using language, a person pronounces sounds and perceives them. For these purposes, he uses the speech apparatus, which consists of the following components:

  1. speech organs;
  2. hearing organs;
  3. organs of vision.

Articulation of speech sounds is the work of the speech organs necessary to pronounce a sound. The speech organs themselves include:

  • the brain, which through the motor speech center (Broca's area) sends certain impulses through the nervous system to the organs of speech production (articulation);
  • breathing apparatus (lungs, bronchi, trachea, diaphragm and chest), which creates an air stream that provides the formation of sound vibrations necessary for articulation;
  • organs of speech pronunciation (articulation), which are usually also called speech organs (in the narrow sense).

Organs of articulation are divided into active and passive. Active organs perform the movements necessary to produce sound, and passive organs are fulcrum points for the active organ.

Passive organs- these are teeth, alveoli, hard palate, upper jaw.

  • cricoid cartilage, located below other cartilages. It is narrower in front and wider in back;
  • thyroid cartilage, located at the top in front (in men it protrudes like an Adam’s apple, or Adam’s apple, because the two plates forming it make an angle of 90 degrees, and in women - 110 degrees), covers the cricoid cartilage in front and on the sides;
  • paired arytenoid cartilage in the form of two triangles located at the back from above. They can move apart and move.

Speech organs (pronunciation apparatus)

Russian and Latin names of speech organs and their derivatives

Between the arytenoid and thyroid cartilage there are mucous folds, which are called vocal cords. They converge and diverge with the help of arytenoid cartilages, forming a glottis of various shapes. During non-speech breathing and when pronouncing dull sounds, they are spread apart and relaxed. The gap has the shape of a triangle.

A person speaks as he exhales, while he inhales only the donkeys shout: “ya.” Inhalation is also used when yawning.

People with a larynx amputation are also able to speak with a so-called esophageal voice, using muscle folds in the esophagus as a larynx.

For the formation of sound, the oral (epiglottic) cavity is of great importance, in which noises and resonator tones are formed, which are important for creating timbre. The size and shape of the mouth and nose play a big role.

The tongue is a mobile organ that performs two speech functions:

  • depending on its position, it changes the shape and volume of the resonator;
  • creates barriers when pronouncing consonants.

The lips and tongue also serve as a barrier.

The soft palate in an elevated position blocks the entrance to the nasal cavity, and sounds will not have a nasal overtone. If the soft palate is lowered, then the air stream passes freely through the nose, and as a result, nasal resonance occurs, characteristic of nasal vowels, sonants and consonants.

Classification of speech sounds

Each language usually has about 50 speech sounds. They are divided into vowels, consisting of tone, and consonants, formed by noise (or noise + tone). When pronouncing vowels, air passes freely without obstacles, and when articulating consonants, there is always some kind of obstacle and a certain place of formation - the focus. The set of vowels in a language is called vocalism, and the set of consonants is called consonantism. As their name suggests, vowels are formed using the voice, i.e. they are always sonorant.

Vowel classification

Vowels are classified according to the following main articulatory features:

1. Row, i.e. depending on which part of the tongue is raised during pronunciation. When the front part of the tongue is raised, front vowels (i, e), middle - average(s), rear - rear vowels (o, u).

2. Rise, i.e. depending on how high the back of the tongue is raised, forming resonator cavities of varying volumes. Vowels differ open, or, in other words, wide(a) and closed, that is narrow(and, y).

In some languages, for example, in it. and French, sounds similar in articulation differ only in a slight difference in the rise of the tongue.

3. Labialization those. depending on whether the articulation of sounds is accompanied by rounding of the lips extended forward or not.

There are rounded (labial, labialized), for example, [⊃], [υ] and unrounded vowels, for example, [i], [ε].

4. Nasalization those. depending on whether the velum is lowered, allowing a stream of air to pass simultaneously through the mouth and nose, or not. Nasal (nasalized) vowels, for example, [õ], [ã], are pronounced with a special “nasal” timbre. Vowels in most languages ​​are non-nasal (formed when the palatine curtain is raised, blocking the path of air flow through the nose), but in some languages ​​(French, Polish, Portuguese, Old Church Slavonic) nasal vowels are widely used along with non-nasal vowels.

5. Longitude. In a number of languages ​​(English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Czech, Hungarian, Finnish), with the same or similar articulation, vowels form pairs, the members of which are contrasted in duration of pronunciation, i.e. they differ, for example, short vowels: [a], [i], [⊃], [υ] and long vowels: [a:], [i:], [⊃:], .

In Latin and ancient Greek, this phenomenon is used in versification: various poetic meters (hexameter, dactyl) are based on the ratio of long and short syllables, which correspond to modern poetic meters, which are based on dynamic stress.

This is clearly seen in the first words of Virgil’s poem “Aeneid,” written in dactyl (hexameter):

A rma vir um que cano (long syllables emphasized)

A rma v i rumque c a no (dynamic accents are highlighted)

6. Diphthongization

In many languages, vowels are divided into monophthongs And diphthongs. A monophthong is an articulatory and acoustically uniform vowel.

A diphthong is a complex vowel sound consisting of two sounds pronounced in one syllable. This is a special speech sound in which articulation begins differently than it ends. One diphthong element is always stronger than the other element. Diphthongs are of two types - descending And ascending.

In a descending diphthong, the first element is strong and the second weaker. Such diphthongs are characteristic of English. and German language: time, Zeit.

In an ascending diphthong, the first element is weaker than the second. Such diphthongs are typical for French, Spanish and Italian: pied, bueno, chiaro.

For example, in such proper names as Pierre, Puerto Rico, Bianca.

In Russian language There are no diphthongs. The combination “vowel + th” in the words “paradise” and “tram” cannot be considered diphthongs, since when declensed, this quasi-diphthong breaks into two syllables, which is impossible for the diphthong: “tram-em, para-yu”. But in Russian language meet diphthongoids.

A diphthongoid is a stressed heterogeneous vowel that has at the beginning or end the sound of another vowel, articulatory close to the main, stressed one. There are diphthongoids in the Russian language: house is pronounced “DuoOoM”.

Classification of consonants

There are 4 main articulatory features of consonants.

  • Sonants in which the voice dominates the noise (m, n, l, p).
  • Noisy ringing. Noise prevails over voice (b, c, d, h, g).
  • Noisy voiceless words that are pronounced without voice (p, f, t, s, w).

2. Method of articulation

The essence of this method is the nature of overcoming the obstacle.

  • Occlusive consonants are formed by a stop that forms an obstacle to the air stream. They are divided into three groups:
    1. explosive. Their bow ends with an explosion (p, b, t, d, k, g);
    2. affricates. Their bow passes into the gap without explosion (ts, h);
    3. stops nasals, which have a stop without a stop (m, n).
  • Slotted consonants are formed by the friction of a stream of air passing through a passage narrowed by an obstacle. They are also called fricatives (Latin " frico" - true) or spirants (Latin " spiro" - blowing): (v, f, s, w, x);
  • Occlusion-slit, which include the following sonants:
    1. lateral(l), in which the bow and fissure are preserved (the side of the tongue is lowered);
    2. trembling(p), with the alternating presence of a bow and a gap.

3. Active organ

According to the active organ, consonants are divided into three groups:

  • Labial two types:
    1. labiolabial (bilabial) (p, b, m)
    2. labiodental (v, f)
  • Lingual consonants, which are divided into front-lingual, middle-lingual and back-lingual;
    1. front-lingual divided into (according to the position of the tip of the tongue):
      • dorsal(Latin dorsum- dorsum): the front part of the back of the tongue approaches the upper teeth and the front palate (s, d, c, n);
      • apical(lat. arekh- top, tip), alveolar: the tip of the tongue approaches the upper teeth and alveoli (l, eng. [d]);
      • kakuminal(lat. cacumen- top), or bifocal, during articulation of which the tip of the tongue is bent upward (w, g, h) to the front palate, and the back is raised to the soft palate, i.e. There are two foci of noise generation.
    2. although middle-language consonants, the middle part of the tongue approaches the hard palate, they are perceived as soft (th); this phenomenon is also called palatalization;
    3. back-lingual consonants include (k, h). Plingual are divided into three groups:
      • reed (uvular), for example, French [r];
      • pharyngeal (pharyngeal) - Ukrainian (g), German [h];
      • laryngeal: they are found as separate sounds in the Arabic language.

4. Passive organ

According to the passive organ, i.e. place of articulation, distinguished between dental (dental), alveolar, palatal and velar. When the back of the tongue approaches the hard palate, soft sounds(th, l, t, s, etc., i.e. palatal). Velar sounds (k, g) are formed by bringing the tongue closer to the soft palate, which gives the consonant hardness.

Syllable

Syllable- the minimum unit of pronunciation of speech sounds into which you can divide your speech by pauses. The word in speech is divided not into sounds, but into syllables. In speech, it is syllables that are recognized and pronounced. Therefore, with the development of writing among all peoples, syllabic signs first appeared in the alphabets, and only then letters reflecting individual sounds.

The division into syllables is based on the difference in sonority of sounds. A sound that is more sonorous than neighboring sounds is called syllabic and forms a syllable.

A syllable usually has a peak (core) and a periphery. As a core, i.e. The syllabic sound is usually a vowel, and the periphery consists of a non-syllabic sound or several such sounds, usually represented by consonants. But a syllable can consist of only one vowel without any peripherals, e.g. diphthong in English pronouns I“I” or two or more vowels (Italian. vuoi). Peripheral vowels are non-syllabic.

But syllables may not have a vowel, for example, in the patronymic Ivanovna or in the interjections “ks-ks”, “tsss”. Consonants can be syllabic if they are sonants or occur between two consonants. Such syllables are very common in the Czech language: prst“finger” (cf. Old Russian. finger), trh“market” (cf. Russian. bargain), vlk"wolf", srdce, srbsky, Trnka(famous Czech linguist). In a sentence Vlk prchl skrz tvrz(the wolf ran through the fortress) there is not a single vowel. But in examples from the Czech language it is clear that the syllabic consonant is always sonorant.

The division into syllables is explained by different theories that complement each other.

Sonoration theory: in a syllable, the most sonorous sound is the syllabic. Therefore, in order of decreasing sonority, syllabic sounds most often are vowels, sonorant voiced consonants, noisy voiced consonants, and sometimes voiceless consonants (tss).

Dynamic theory: syllabic sound is the strongest, most intense.

Expiratory theory: a syllable is created by one moment of exhalation, a push of exhaled air. The number of syllables in a word is the number of times the candle flame flickers when the word is pronounced. But often the flame behaves contrary to the laws of this theory (for example, with a two-syllable “ay” it will flutter once).

Types of syllables

Open syllable is a syllable ending with a vowel sound, e.g. yeah, oh.

Closed syllable is a syllable ending with a consonant, e.g. hell, mind, cat.

Covered syllable begins with a consonant sound, e.g. glad, pop.

Uncovered syllable starts with a vowel sound: ah, he, ah, really.

In Russian, the syllables are mostly open, while in Japanese almost all are open (Fu-ji-ya-ma, i-ke-ba-na, sa-mu-rai, ha-ra-ki-ri).

There are also cases of extremely closed and covered syllables, for example, splash, English. and fr. strict(strict), German sprichst(you speak), Georgian - msxverpl(victim).

There are languages ​​where the roots and syllables are the same. Such languages ​​are called monosyllabic, e.g. whale. language - typical monosyllabic.

Often in speech it is very difficult to determine the boundary of a syllable.

Rus. They led me by the arm and took my friends away. They beat the viper - they killed the vipers. Palette - half a liter.

English an ocean - a notion; an aim - a name.

Supersegmental units of language

Sound units of language can be segmental (linear) and supersegmental.

Segmental units- these are sounds (phonemes), syllables, words, etc. Longer language units are divided into shorter segments.

Supersegmental units, or otherwise prosodic(from Greek prosodia- refrain, stress) are layered onto a chain of segments - syllables, words, phrases, sentences. Typical supersegmental units are stress and intonation.

Tact- a group of words united by one stress and separated from each other by a pause.

Proclitic- unstressed syllable before a stressed syllable, e.g. I d at small.

Enclitic- unstressed syllable after a stressed syllable, e.g. zn A Yu I .

Unstressed words - articles, prepositions, particles - often act as enclitics. Sometimes they pull the emphasis on themselves: “p O d hand."

Thus, the boundaries of words and measures may not coincide.

Accent

Stress (accent) is the emphasis of a sound, syllable, word, group of words.

The three main types of stress are force, quantity and musical.

  1. Power (dynamic) stress is related to the amplitude of the vibrations of the sound wave; the greater the amplitude, the stronger the sound is pronounced.
  2. Quantitative (quantitative) stress is associated with the duration, length of the sound; a stressed syllable has a longer duration than unstressed syllables.
  3. Musical (polytonic) stress is associated with the relative pitch of the tone, with a change in this pitch.

Usually in languages ​​that have stress, all three stresses are intertwined, but one of them predominates and the main type of stress in a particular language is determined by it.

In Russian, force stress, being the main one, is accompanied by the length of the stressed syllable.

Intonation

Intonation refers to all prosodic phenomena in syntactic units - phrases and words.

Intonation consists of the following 5 elements, the first two of which are the main components of intonation:

  1. melody of speech (voice movement in pitch);
  2. accent;
  3. pause;
  4. rate of speech;
  5. voice timbre.

Modifications of sounds in the stream of speech

  1. Combinatorial. Depending on the proximity of other sounds.
  2. Positional changes. Associated with position in an unstressed syllable, at the end of a word, etc.

1. Combinatorial sound variation

A. Accommodation

Accommodation is the adaptation of the articulation of consonants under the influence of vowels and vowels under the influence of consonants.

Two types of accommodation - progressive and regressive.

The excursion is the beginning of articulation. Recursion is the end of articulation.

Progressive accommodation- the recursion of the previous sound affects the excursion of the subsequent one. For example, in Russian, the vowels “a”, “o”, “u” after soft consonants are more advanced (mat - mint, mol - chalk, luk - hatch).

Regressive accommodation- the recursion of the previous sound is influenced by the excursion of the subsequent one. For example, in Russian, a vowel in the vicinity of “m” or “n” is nasalized (in the word “dom” the articulation of “m” is anticipated by the nasalization of the vowel “o”, and in the word “bratu” “t” is pronounced with a rounding before “u” ").

B. Assimilation and its types.

1. Consonantal and vocal assimilation

Consonantal assimilation- likening a consonant to a consonant, for example. in the word “boat” the voiced consonant “d” is replaced by a voiceless “t” - (“tray”).

Vocal assimilation- likening a vowel to a vowel, for example, instead of “it happens” in common parlance they often say “byvat”.

2. Progressive and regressive assimilation

Progressive assimilation- the preceding sound influences the subsequent one. In Russian language progressive assimilation is very rare, for example, the dialect pronunciation of the word “Vanka” as “Vankya”. Progressive assimilation is often found in English. ( cats, balls), French- subsister, German, bash. (at + lar = attar) and other languages.

Regressive assimilation - the subsequent sound affects the previous one. It is most typical for the Russian language “boat [tray]”, vodka [votka], “got up at three [fstal f tri]”

In eng. " newspaper"[z] under the influence of [p] turns into [s], in fr. absolu[b] - in [p], German. Staub ends with [p].

In bash. "kitep bara" ( leaves) turns into “kitebbara”.

3. Complete and incomplete assimilation

An example of complete assimilation is the word “assimilation” itself [ ad(j) + simil(similar, identical) + atio(suffix) = assimilatio)]. A similar example of assimilation is “agglutination” [ ad + glutin(glue) + atio = agglutinatio].

Rus. sew [shshhyt], highest (highest), eng. cupboard“cabinet”, “buffet” is pronounced [´k∧bed]. German Zimber turned into Zimmer"room", selbst"sam" is pronounced .

With incomplete assimilation, the sound loses only part of its characteristics, for example, “where - where”, “sitting - here”, where consonants lose the sign of voicing.

4. Distant and contact assimilation

Distant assimilation. One sound influences another at a distance, although they are separated from each other by other sounds.

Rus. hooligan - hooligan (colloquial), English. foot"leg" - feet"legs", goose"goose" - geese"geese". In Old English language fori(plural number from fot"leg"), " i" changed the vowel of the root and then dropped out. It's the same in him. language: Fuss"leg"- Fusse"legs", Gans"goose"- Gänse"geese".

With contact assimilation, the interacting sounds are in direct contact.

Synharmonism

Synharmonism (vowel harmony)- distact progressive assimilation along the row and labialization. Vowels of suffixes and usually non-first syllables of a word are likened by row or by rounding (front vowels - front vowels, back vowels - back vowels), i.e. for example, in a simple word there can only be vowels “i”, “e” or only “u”, “o”.

This phenomenon is characteristic, for example, of the languages ​​of the Turkic family of languages ​​(Turkish, Bashkir, Tatar, Uzbek and others), Finno-Ugric languages ​​(Hungarian, Finnish and others), as well as one of the most ancient languages ​​- Sumerian.

For example, ball(child) + lar(plural ending) = Balalar. Here all the vowels are back: the vowel [a] in bash. language closer to the back row.

But for the word “keshe” (person), the ending will not be “lar”, but “ler” - kesheler. Letter uh denotes the front vowel [ae].

More examples: Hung. levelemben"in my letter" Magyarorszagon"in Hungary", köszönöm“thank you” (synharmonism by labialization), Finn. talossa- “in the house”, tour. evlerinde"in their house." Traces of synharmonism are clearly visible in Russian borrowed from the Turkic languages. words drum, chipmunk, pencil, cockroach and etc.

Synharmonism emphasizes the unity of the word, but leads to some phonetic monotony of the words.

Dissimilation

This is the opposite of assimilation. Represents the dissimilarity of articulation of two identical or similar sounds.

February turned into February(cf. English) February, German February, fr. fevrier), corridor - corridor(colloquially), fr. couroir - couloir(Russian couloir), camel - camel- examples of distant dissimilation.

Contact dissimilation is observed in words easily[lehko], boring[boring].

Metathesis

Metathesis(gr. permutation) - mutual rearrangement of sounds or syllables within a word.

Word marmor(gr. μαρμαρος) passed into Russian. marble, taler (German) Teller or Swedish talrik) - plate, dolon became palm, cheesecake - cheesecake, rigging - rigging, neuro(-pathologist) - nerve. English thridda - third (third), german brennen switched to English burn (burn), bridd - in bird (bird).

German Brennstein - Bernstein, fr. formaticu - fromage.

For example, USSR President Gorbachev always pronounced Arzebazhan instead of Azerbaijan - it was more convenient for him.

Haplology

Haplology(Greek: ´απλοος [ haplos] - simple) - simplification of a word due to dissimilation, in which the same or similar syllables are dropped. For example, miner lolo gya - mineralogy, core nope syy - snub-nosed, bli zozo bright - myopic, tragic coco media - tragicomedy, sti Pepe India - scholarship. But in the word itself gap lolo gia - haplology (*haplogy) No.

Eng. miners" rights instead of miners's rights(if the same sounding formants of the plural and the possessive case coincide, the last formant disappears).

2. Positional changes

A. Reduction

Change (weakening) of consonant and vowel sounds in quality and quantity (length) depending on their place in the word, location in unstressed syllables, etc.

Rus. d O m - house A- houses O childhood In unstressed syllables, “o” is reduced. The reduction can be complete: Vanya - Vanya, Ivanovich - Ivanovich, Ivanovna - Ivanna.

Eng. nama-name(the second vowel was first reduced partially, and then completely, remaining in spelling). Good morning - g"morning - morning.

Apocope- loss of sound at the end of a word: so - so.

Syncope- loss of sound not at the end of the word: Ivanovich - Ivanovich.

B. Stun

Loss of voicing occurs in many languages. This is usually explained by the premature return of the vocal cords to a resting state, e.g. meadows - meadow[onion], pipe - pipes[dead body].

Prosthesis- the appearance of a sound at the beginning of a word, for example, Russian. osem - eight, mustache - caterpillar, fatherland - patrimony, Spanish - estudiante from lat. students, estrella from Stella(star), bash. ystakan, yshtan(glass, pants), Hung. asztal(table).

Epenthesis- the appearance of a sound in the middle of a word, for example. rus. Italy[Italy] from Italia, John - Ivan, in common parlance - kakava, rubel, shpien, bash. and Tat. pronunciation of “iks”, “act” as [ikis], [akyt].

Epithesis- the appearance of a sound at the end of a word: Russian. song - song.

Substitution. Replacing a sound alien to a given language with the sound of the native language, for example, German. Herzog- Duke, Hitler- Hitler (sound corresponding to German. " h"not in Russian), English. meeting- rally (sound " ng"[η] is absent in Russian), instead of fr. sound denoted by letter u (tu, pure) and German ü in Russian language written and pronounced [yu].

Diaeresis(Greek: miscarriage). Omission of sound: Russian. with l ntse, sir d tse, ches T ny, wait a minute T lush; bash. ultyr (sit down) - utyr.

Elision. Dropping the final vowel before the preceding vowel. This phenomenon is especially characteristic of Romance languages, for example, French. l"arbre(article le + arbre), D"Artagnan - de Artagnan, D"Arc - de Arc), bash. neither ashley - nishley.

Phonology

Phonology studies the social, functional side of speech sounds. Sounds are considered not as a physical (acoustics), not as a biological (articulation) phenomenon, but as a means of communication and as an element of the language system.

Phoneme

The basic concept in phonology is phoneme. The term “phoneme” was introduced into linguistics by the great Russian-Polish linguist, a descendant of French nobles, Ivan (Jan) Aleksandrovich Baudouin de Courtenay (1845 - 1929), the founder of the Kazan school of linguistics. He considered the phoneme to be a mental version of the sounds of a language.

Phoneme- this is a sound type, generalized, perfect performance about sound. The phoneme cannot be pronounced, only the shades of the phonemes are pronounced. The phoneme is the general, the actually pronounced sound is the specific.

In speech, sounds undergo various changes. There are a huge number of physical sounds that make up speech. How many people, so many sounds, for example, [a] can be pronounced differently in pitch, strength, duration, timbre, but all the different millions of sounds [a] are designated by one letter, reflecting one sound type, one phoneme. Of course, phonemes and letters of the alphabet are often not the same, but parallels can be drawn between them. The number of both is strictly limited, and in some languages ​​it almost coincides. A phoneme can be roughly described as a letter in the sound alphabet. If in a stream of speech of thousands of different sounds it is possible to distinguish different words, it is only thanks to phonemes.

Consequently, a phoneme is the minimum sound unit of a language system that allows one to distinguish between words and the meaning of words.

In the word “milk” one phoneme /o/ is represented by three positional variants - stressed and two unstressed.

Thus, a phoneme is an abstraction, a type, a model of sound, and not the sound itself. Therefore, the concepts of “phoneme” and “speech sound” do not coincide.

In a word " boy» two phonemes, not three, as it differs from words by, be, bee, bar etc.

There are also cases when two phonemes sound like one sound. For example, in the word “children’s” /t/ and /s/ sound like one sound [ts], and in the word “sew” /s/ and /sh/ sound like a long [sh].

Each phoneme is a set of essential features by which it differs from other phonemes. For example, /t/ is voiceless in contrast to voiced /d/, front-lingual in contrast to /p/, plosive in contrast to /s/, etc.

The features by which a phoneme differs from others are called differential (distinctive) features.

For example, in Russian language the word “there” can be pronounced with short [a] and long [a:], but the meaning of the word will not change. Consequently, in Russian these are not two phonemes, but two variants of one phoneme. But in English and German language Phonemes also differ in longitude. bit And bee, German Bann And Bahn). In Russian language the sign of nasalization cannot be a differential feature, since all Russian vowel phonemes are non-nasal.

General features that cannot be used to distinguish phonemes are called integral features. For example, the voicing feature of [b] is not a distinctive (differential), but an integral feature in relation to [x]. The phoneme is realized in the form of one of the possible options. These phonetic variants of a phoneme are called allophones. Sometimes the terms " shade"(Russian linguist Lev Shcherba) or " divergent"(Baudouin de Courtenay).

Strong position Phonemes are positions where phonemes clearly reveal their properties: catfish, myself.

Weak position- this is the position of neutralization of phonemes, where phonemes do not perform distinctive functions: With O ma, s A ma; n O ha, n A ha; ro To, ro G; ro T, ro d .

Neutralization of phonemes- this is the coincidence of different phonemes in one allophone.

The same phoneme can change its sound, but only within limits that do not affect its distinctive features. No matter how much birch trees differ from each other, they cannot be confused with oak.

Phonetic variants of phonemes are mandatory for all native speakers. If a man pronounces a sound in a low voice and lisps, and a girl pronounces a sound in a high voice and burrs, then these sounds will not be phonetic, obligatory variants of phonemes. This is a random, individual, speech, not linguistic variation.

Distribution

To identify the phonemes of a particular language, you need to know in what positions they occur. Distribution - distribution of phonemes according to pronunciation positions.

1. Contrasting distribution

Two sounds occur in the same environment and yet distinguish words. In this case, they are representatives of different phonemes.

For example, from a number of words “tom, house, lump, scrap, rum, som” it is clear that in Russian. language there are phonemes /t/, /d/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /s/, since in the same environment [ ohm] they allow you to distinguish different words.

2. Additional distribution

Two sounds never occur in the same environment and the meaning of words is not distinguished.

They are variants, allophones of the same phoneme.

For example, the vowel phoneme /e/ in Russian can have different allophones depending on different environments.

In the word “seven” [e] appears as the most closed allophone (after the soft and before the soft consonant)yu

In the word “sel” [e] appears as a less closed allophone (after a soft consonant and before a hard consonant).

In the word “six” [e] appears as a more open allophone (after the hard consonant and before the soft consonant).

In the word “pole” [e] appears as the most open allophone (after the hard consonant and before the hard consonant).

In Russian, [ы] is considered a variant of the phoneme /i/ in the position after hard consonants. For example, be - beat. Therefore, despite the visually identical environment, here we have different environments [bit´] - [b´it´]

IN Japanese The phoneme /r/ is pronounced as the middle between [p] and [l] and these sounds are allophones of the same phoneme.

3. Free variation (alternation)

Sounds occur in the same environments and do not differentiate between words and meanings. These are variants of the same linguistic unit.

For example, in French language There are two variants of /r/ - front-lingual (vibrating) as in Russian and uvular (grassing). The last option is normative, but the first is quite acceptable. In Russian, both options are equal - “land” and “earth”.

Phonological schools. Trubetskoy's phonology

On the issue of neutralizing phonemes in words like “meadow”, there are different points of view regarding the phoneme denoted by the letter “g”, but reflecting the unvoiced sound [k].

Linguists related to Leningrad school(Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba and others) believe that in the pair “meadow - meadows” the sounds [k] and [g] belong to two different phonemes /k/ and /g/.

However, linguists Moscow school(Avanesov, Reformatsky, etc.) based on morphological principle It is believed that in the word “meadow” the sound [k] is a variant of the phoneme /g/. They also believe that for the variants [k] and [g] in the words “lug-luga” there is a common phoneme / k/y/, which they called hyperphoneme.

Hyperphoneme combines all the characteristics of the sounds [k] and [g] - velarity, explosiveness, deafness, sonority, etc. The same hyperphoneme / a/o/ is present in the unstressed first vowels in the words “b” A ran", "m O l O ko".

Outstanding Russian linguist Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoy (1890-1938), one of the theorists of the Prague Linguistic Circle ( scientific school), which he emigrated after the revolution of 1917, believed that in this case there is a special phoneme, which he called an archiphoneme.

Archphoneme- this is a set of common features of neutralizing phonemes.

For example, archiphoneme / k/y/ combines the common features of the neutralizing phonemes /k/ and /g/ without the voicing that separates them.

If an archiphoneme is a unit with an incomplete set of features, then a hyperphoneme is a double or even triple set of features. In his classic work“Fundamentals of Phonology” by N.S. Trubetskoy also gave a classification of phonological oppositions, i.e. contrasting phonemes in order to identify similarities and differences.

1. Private oppositions

Private (lat. privo- deprive) oppositions are distinguished by the presence or absence of any feature in a pair of phonemes, for example, in one of the members of the pair b/p there is no sonority, but the other has it.

2. Gradual oppositions

Gradual (lat. degree- degree) of opposition are distinguished by different degrees of attribute that members of the opposition have.

For example, /e/ and /i/ in Russian. language in particular, they differ in different degrees of tongue elevation during articulation.

In English the opposition involves three vowels with varying degrees of openness: /i/, /e/, /ae/.

3. Equivalent oppositions

All members of the opposition have equal rights; their signs are so heterogeneous that there is no basis for contrasting the signs.

E.g. consonants /b/, /d/, /g/ are articulated in completely different ways: one is labial, the other is anterior lingual, the third is posterior lingual, and they are united only by the fact that they are consonants.

Phoneme systems

Each language has its own phoneme system (phonological system).

Phonological systems differ from each other:

  1. Number of phonemes.
  2. The relationship between vowel and consonant phonemes.
  3. Phonological oppositions.

Different languages ​​have organizations of phoneme groups (phonological oppositions) specific to their systems.

For example, in Russian language phonemically contrasting hard and soft consonants., in French - nasal and non-nasal consonants, in English. and German languages ​​- long and short vowels.

Relationships between vowel and consonant phonemes in some languages

Language Number of phonemes Number of vowels Number of consonants
Russian 43 6 37
English 44 12 + 8 dif. 24
German 42 15 + 3 dif. 24
French 35 15 20
Bashkir 35 9 26
Tatar 34 9 25
Spanish 44 5 + 14 dif.; 4 trif. 21
Italian 32 7 24
Finnish 21 8 13
Abkhazian 68 2 (a, s) + 8 dif. 58
Ubykh (Türkiye) 82 2 (a, s) 80
Quechua (Peru) 31 3 (a, i, y) 28
Hawaiian 13 5 8
Tahitian 14 6 8
Rotokas (Papua) 11 5 6 (g, k, p, r, t, v)

In some works, you can find numbers that differ from those given below, since researchers rely on different criteria for defining and counting phonemes (for example, they include borrowed phonemes or exclude diphthongs, etc.).

If we take into account the implementation of phonemes in speech (all phonetic variants), then the ratio of vowels and consonants in each language will be different than in the table, for example, in English. 38% - 62%, in it. language 36% - 64%, in French 44% - 56%.

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In this chapter:

§1. Sound

Sound- the minimum unit of sounding speech. Each word has a sound shell consisting of sounds. The sound corresponds to the meaning of the word. Different words and word forms have different sound patterns. The sounds themselves are not important, but they serve an important role: they help us distinguish between:

  • words: [house] - [tom], [tom] - [there], [m’el] - [m’el’]
  • forms of the word: [house] - [lady´ ] - [house´ ma].

Note:

words written in square brackets are given in transcription.

§2. Transcription

Transcription is a special recording system that displays sound. The following symbols are used in the transcription:

Square brackets indicating transcription.

[ ´ ] - emphasis. The accent is placed if the word consists of more than one syllable.

[b’] - the icon next to the consonant indicates its softness.

[j] and [th] are different designations for the same sound. Since this sound is soft, these symbols are often used with an additional designation of softness: [th’]. This site uses the notation [th’], which is more familiar to most guys. The soft icon will be used to help you get used to the sound being soft.

There are other symbols. They will be introduced gradually as you become familiar with the topic.

§3. Vowels and consonants

Sounds are divided into vowels and consonants.
They have different natures. They are pronounced and perceived differently, and also behave differently in speech and play different roles in it.

Vowels- these are sounds during the pronunciation of which air passes freely through the oral cavity without encountering an obstacle on its way. Pronunciation (articulation) is not focused in one place: the quality of vowels is determined by the shape of the oral cavity, which acts as a resonator. When articulating vowels, the vocal cords in the larynx work. They are close, tense and vibrate. Therefore, when pronouncing vowels, we hear a voice. Vowels can be drawn out. You can shout them. And if you put your hand to your throat, you can feel the work of the vocal cords when pronouncing vowels, feel it with your hand. Vowels are the basis of a syllable; they organize it. There are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels. For example: He- 1 syllable, she- 2 syllables, Guys- 3 syllables, etc. There are words that consist of one vowel sound. For example, unions: and, and and interjections: Oh!, Ah!, Oooh! and others.

In a word, vowels can be in stressed and unstressed syllables.
Stressed syllable one in which the vowel is pronounced clearly and appears in its basic form.
IN unstressed syllables vowels are modified and pronounced differently. Changing vowels in unstressed syllables is called reduction.

There are six stressed vowels in the Russian language: [a], [o], [u], [s], [i], [e].

Remember:

There may be words that can only consist of vowels, but consonants are also necessary.
In the Russian language there are many more consonants than vowels.

§4. Method of formation of consonants

Consonants- these are sounds, when pronounced, the air encounters an obstacle in its path. There are two types of obstruents in the Russian language: gap and stop - these are the two main ways of forming consonants. The type of obstruction determines the nature of the consonant sound.

Gap is formed, for example, when pronouncing sounds: [s], [z], [w], [z]. The tip of the tongue only approaches the lower or upper teeth. Friction consonants can be pulled: [s-s-s-s], [sh-sh-sh-sh] . As a result, you will clearly hear the noise: when pronouncing [c] - whistling, and when pronouncing [w] - hissing.

Bow, The second type of articulation of consonants is formed when the organs of speech close. The air flow abruptly overcomes this obstacle, the sounds are short and energetic. That's why they are called explosive. You won't be able to pull them. These are, for example, the sounds [p], [b], [t], [d] . Such articulation is easier to feel and feel.

So, when pronouncing consonants, noise is heard. Presence of noise - hallmark consonants.

§5. Voiced and voiceless consonants

According to the ratio of noise and voice, consonants are divided into voiced and unvoiced.
When spoken voiced consonants, both voice and noise are heard, and deaf- only noise.
Deaf words cannot be spoken loudly. They cannot be shouted.

Let's compare the words: house And cat. Each word has 1 vowel sound and 2 consonants. The vowels are the same, but the consonants are different: [d] and [m] are voiced, and [k] and [t] are voiceless. Voicedness-voicelessness is the most important feature of consonants in the Russian language.

voiced-voiceless pairs:[b] - [p], [z] - [c] and others. There are 11 such pairs.

Voiceless-voiced pairs: [p] and [b], [p"] and [b"], [f] and [v], [f"] and [v"], [k] and [d], [k"] and [g"], [t] and [d], [t"] and [d"], [w] and [g], [s] and [z], [s"] and [ z"].

But there are sounds that do not have a pair on the basis of voicedness - deafness. For example, the sounds [r], [l], [n], [m], [y’] do not have a voiceless pair, but [ts] and [ch’] do not have a voiced pair.

Unpaired according to deafness-voicing

Voiced unpaired:[r], [l], [n], [m], [th"], [r"], [l"], [n"], [m"] . They are also called sonorous.

What does this term mean? This is a group of consonants (9 in total) that have peculiarities of pronunciation: when they are pronounced, obstacles also arise in the oral cavity, but such that the air stream, passing through an obstacle produces only a slight noise; air passes freely through an opening in the nasal or oral cavity. Sonorants are pronounced using the voice with the addition of slight noise. Many teachers do not use this term, but everyone should know that these sounds are unpaired voiced sounds.

Sonorants have two important features:

1) they are not deafened, like paired voiced consonants, before voiceless consonants and at the end of a word;

2) before them there is no voicing of paired deaf consonants (i.e. the position in front of them is strong in deafness-voicing, just like before vowels). See more about positional changes.

Voiceless unpaired:[ts], [h"], [w":], [x], [x"].

How can it be easier to remember lists of voiced and voiceless consonants?

The following phrases will help you remember lists of voiced and voiceless consonants:

Oh, we didn’t forget each other!(Here only voiced consonants)

Foka, do you want to eat some soup?(Here only voiceless consonants)

True, these phrases do not include pairs of hardness and softness. But usually people can easily figure out that not only hard [z] is voiced, but also soft [z"] too, not only [b], but also [b"], etc.

§6. Hard and soft consonants

Consonants differ not only in deafness and voicedness, but also in hardness and softness.
Hardness-softness- the second most important sign of consonants in the Russian language.

Soft consonants differ from solid special position of the tongue. When pronouncing hard words, the entire body of the tongue is pulled back, and when pronouncing soft words, it is moved forward, and the middle part of the tongue is raised. Compare: [m] - [m’], [z] - [z’]. Voiced soft ones sound higher than hard ones.

Many Russian consonants form hardness-softness pairs: [b] - [b’], [v] - [v’] and others. There are 15 such pairs.

Hardness-softness pairs: [b] and [b"], [m] and [m"], [p] and [p"], [v] and [v"], [f] and [f"] , [z] and [z"], [s] and [s"], [d] and [d"], [t] and [t"], [n] and [n"], [l] and [l"], [p] and [p"], [k] and [k"], [g] and [g"], [x] and [x"].

But there are sounds that do not have a pair on the basis of hardness and softness. For example, the sounds [zh], [sh], [ts] do not have a soft pair, but [y’] and [h’] do not have a hard pair.

Unpaired in hardness-softness

Hard unpaired: [zh], [w], [ts] .

Soft unpaired: [th"], [h"], [w":].

§7. Indication of softness of consonants in writing

Let's take a break from pure phonetics. Let's take a practical look important question: How is the softness of consonants indicated in writing?

There are 36 consonant sounds in the Russian language, including 15 hard-soft pairs, 3 unpaired hard and 3 unpaired soft consonants. There are only 21 consonants. How can 21 letters represent 36 sounds?

Various methods are used for this:

  • iotized letters e, e, yu, i after consonants, except w, w And ts, unpaired in hardness-softness, indicate that these consonants are soft, for example: aunt- [t’o´ t’a], uncle -[Yes Yes] ;
  • letter And after consonants, except w, w And ts. Consonants indicated by letters w, w And ts, unpaired solids. Examples of words with a vowel letter And: nothing- [n’i´ tk’i], sheet- [l’ist], Cute- [Cute'] ;
  • letter b, after consonants, except w, w, after which soft sign is an indicator of grammatical form. Examples of words with a soft sign : request- [prose], stranded- [m’el’], distance- [gave’].

Thus, the softness of consonants in writing is conveyed not by special letters, but by combinations of consonants with letters and, e, e, yu, I And b. Therefore, when parsing, I advise you to pay special attention to adjacent letters after the consonants.


Discussing the problem of interpretation

School textbooks say that [w] and [w’] - unpaired in hardness and softness. How so? We hear that the sound [w’] is a soft analogue of the sound [w].
When I was studying at school myself, I couldn’t understand why? Then my son went to school. He had the same question. It appears in all children who approach learning thoughtfully.

Confusion arises because school textbooks do not take into account that the sound [sh’] is also long, but the hard sound [sh] is not. Pairs are sounds that differ in only one attribute. And [w] and [sh’] - two. Therefore [w] and [w’] are not pairs.

For adults and high school students.

In order to maintain correctness, it is necessary to change the school tradition of transcribing the sound [w’]. It seems that it is easier for the guys to use one more additional sign than to face an illogical, unclear and misleading statement. It's simple. So that generation after generation does not rack their brains, it is necessary to finally show that a soft hissing sound is long.

For this purpose, in linguistic practice there are two icons:

1) superscript above the sound;
2) colon.

Using a superscript is inconvenient because it is not provided by the set of characters that can be used in computer typing. This means that the following possibilities remain: using a colon [w’:] or a grapheme denoting the letter [w’] . It seems to me that the first option is preferable. Firstly, children often mix sounds and letters at first. The use of a letter in transcription will create the basis for such confusion and provoke an error. Secondly, children are now starting to learn foreign languages ​​early. And the [:] symbol, when used to indicate the length of a sound, is already familiar to them. Thirdly, transcription indicating longitude with a colon [:] will perfectly convey the features of the sound. [sh’:] - soft and long, both features that make up its difference from the sound [sh] are presented clearly, simply and unambiguously.

What advice can you give to children who are now studying using generally accepted textbooks? You need to understand, comprehend, and then remember that in fact the sounds [w] and [w’:] do not form a pair in terms of hardness and softness. And I advise you to transcribe them the way your teacher requires.

§8. Place of formation of consonants

Consonants differ not only according to the characteristics already known to you:

  • deafness-voice,
  • hardness-softness,
  • method of formation: bow-slit.

The last, fourth sign is important: place of education.
The articulation of some sounds is carried out by the lips, others - by the tongue, its different parts. So, the sounds [p], [p'], [b], [b'], [m], [m'] are labial, [v], [v'], [f], [f' ] - labiodental, all others - lingual: anterior lingual [t], [t'], [d], [d'], [n], [n'], [s], [s'], [z ], [z'], [w], [w], [w':], [h'], [c], [l], [l'], [r], [r'] , middle lingual [th’] and back lingual [k], [k’], [g], [g’], [x], [x’].

§9. Positional changes of sounds

1. Strong-weak positions for vowels. Positional changes of vowels. Reduction

People do not use spoken sounds in isolation. They don't need it.
Speech is a sound stream, but a stream organized in a certain way. The conditions in which a particular sound occurs are important. The beginning of a word, the end of a word, a stressed syllable, an unstressed syllable, a position before a vowel, a position before a consonant - these are all different positions. We will figure out how to distinguish between strong and weak positions, first for vowels, and then for consonants.

Strong position one in which sounds do not undergo positionally determined changes and appear in their basic form. A strong position is allocated for groups of sounds, for example: for vowels, this is a position in a stressed syllable. And for consonants, for example, the position before vowels is strong.

For vowels, the strong position is under stress, and the weak position is unaccented..
In unstressed syllables, vowels undergo changes: they are shorter and are not pronounced as clearly as under stress. This change in vowels weak position called reduction. Due to reduction, fewer vowels are distinguished in the weak position than in the strong position.

The sounds corresponding to stressed [o] and [a] after hard consonants in a weak, unstressed position sound the same. “Akanye” is recognized as normative in the Russian language, i.e. non-discrimination ABOUT And A in an unstressed position after hard consonants.

  • under stress: [house] - [dam] - [o] ≠ [a].
  • without accent: [d A ma´ ] -home´ - [d A la´ ] -dala´ - [a] = [a].

The sounds corresponding to stressed [a] and [e] after soft consonants in a weak, unstressed position sound the same. The standard pronunciation is “hiccup”, i.e. non-discrimination E And A in an unstressed position after soft consonants.

  • under stress: [m’ech’] - [m’ach’] - [e] ≠[a].
  • without accent: [m’ich’o´ m]- sword´ m -[m'ich'o´ m] - ball´ m - [and] = [and].
  • But what about the vowels [i], [s], [u]? Why was nothing said about them? The fact is that these vowels in a weak position are subject to only quantitative reduction: they are pronounced more briefly, weakly, but their quality does not change. That is, as for all vowels, an unstressed position for them is a weak position, but for a schoolchild these vowels in an unstressed position do not pose a problem.

[ski´ zhy], [in _lu´ zhu], [n’i´ t’i] - in both strong and weak positions the quality of vowels does not change. Both under stress and in unstressed position we clearly hear: [ы], [у], [и] and we write the letters that are usually used to denote these sounds.


Discussing the problem of interpretation

What vowel sounds are actually pronounced in unstressed syllables after hard consonants?

When performing phonetic analysis and transcribing words, many guys express bewilderment. In long polysyllabic words, after hard consonants, it is not the sound [a] that is pronounced, as school textbooks say, but something else.

They are right.

Compare the pronunciation of words: Moscow - Muscovites. Repeat each word several times and listen to what vowel sounds in the first syllable. With the word Moscow it's simple. We pronounce: [maskva´] - the sound [a] is clearly audible. And the word Muscovites? In accordance with the literary norm, in all syllables except the first syllable before stress, as well as the positions of the beginning and end of the word, we pronounce not [a], but another sound: less distinct, less clear, more similar to [s] than to [ a]. In the scientific tradition, this sound is designated by the symbol [ъ]. This means that in reality we pronounce: [mаlako´] - milk ,[khrasho´ ] - Fine ,[kalbasa´] - sausage.

I understand that by giving this material in textbooks, the authors tried to simplify it. Simplified. But many children with good hearing, who clearly hear that the sounds in the following examples are different, cannot understand why the teacher and the textbook insist that these sounds are the same. In fact:

[V A Yes ] - water´ -[V ъ d'inoy'] - water:[а]≠[ъ]
[other A wa´ ] - firewood´ -[other ъ in’ino´ th’] - wood-burning:[а]≠[ъ]

A special subsystem consists of the realization of vowels in unstressed syllables after sibilants. But in school course This material is not presented at all in most textbooks.

What vowel sounds are actually pronounced in unstressed syllables after soft consonants?

I feel the greatest sympathy for the children who study from textbooks that offer on-site A,E, ABOUT after soft consonants, hear and transcribe the sound “and, inclined to e.” I think it is fundamentally wrong to give schoolchildren as the only option the outdated pronunciation norm - “ekanya”, which is found today much less often than “icanya”, mainly among very elderly people. Guys, feel free to write in an unstressed position in the first syllable before the stress in place A And E- [And].

After soft consonants in other unstressed syllables, except for the position of the end of the word, we pronounce a short weak sound reminiscent of [i] and denoted as [b]. Say the words eight, nine and listen to yourself. We pronounce: [vo´ s’m’] - [b], [d’e´ v’t’] - [b].

Do not confuse:

Transcription marks are one thing, but letters are another.
The transcription sign [ъ] indicates a vowel after hard consonants in unstressed syllables, except for the first syllable before stress.
The letter ъ is a solid sign.
The transcription sign [b] indicates a vowel after soft consonants in unstressed syllables, except for the first syllable before stress.
The letter ь is a soft sign.
Transcription signs, unlike letters, are given in square brackets.

End of the word- special position. It shows clearing of vowels after soft consonants. System unstressed endings is a special phonetic subsystem. In it E And A differ:

Building[building n’ii’e] - building[building n’ii’a], opinion[mn’e´ n’i’e] - opinion[mn’e´ n’ii’a], more[mo´ r’e] - seas[mo´ r’a], will[vo´l’a] - at will[na_vo´l’e]. Remember this when doing phonetic analysis of words.

Check:

How your teacher requires you to mark vowels in an unstressed position. If he uses a simplified transcription system, that's okay: it's widely accepted. Just don’t be surprised that you actually hear different sounds in the unstressed position.

2. Strong-weak positions for consonants. Positional changes of consonants

For all consonants without exception, the strong position is position before vowel. Before vowels, consonants appear in their basic form. Therefore, when doing phonetic analysis, do not be afraid to make a mistake when characterizing a consonant in a strong position: [dach’a] - country house,[t'l'iv'i´ z'r] - TV,[s’ino´ n’ima] - synonyms,[b'ir'o´ zy] - birch trees,[karz"i´ny] - baskets. All consonants in these examples come before vowels, i.e. in a strong position.

Strong positions on deafness of voicedness:

  • before vowels: [there] - there,[ladies] - I'll give,
  • before unpaired voiced [p], [p’], [l], [l’], [n], [n’], [m], [m’], [th’]: [dl’a] - For,[tl'a] - aphids,
  • Before [in], [in’]: [own’] - mine,[ringing] - ringing.

Remember:

In a strong position, voiced and voiceless consonants do not change their quality.

Weak positions in deafness and voicedness:

  • before paired ones according to deafness-voicing: [sl´ tk’ii] - sweet,[zu´ pk’i] - teeth.
  • before voiceless unpaired ones: [aphva´ t] - girth, [fhot] - entrance.
  • at the end of a word: [zup] - tooth,[dup] - oak.

Positional changes of consonants according to deafness-voicing

In weak positions, consonants are modified: things happen to them positional changes. Voiced ones become voiceless, i.e. are deafened, and the deaf are voiced, i.e. call out. Positional changes are observed only for paired consonants.


Stunning-voicing of consonants

Stunning voiced occurs in positions:

  • before paired deaf people: [fsta´ in’it’] - V put,
  • at the end of the word: [clat] - treasure.

Voicing of the deaf occurs at position:

  • before paired voiced ones: [kaz’ba´ ] - to With bah´

Strong positions in terms of hardness and softness:

  • before vowels: [mat’] - mother,[m’at’] - crush,
  • at the end of the word: [von] - out there,[won’] - stench,
  • before labialials: [b], [b'], [p], [p'], [m], [m'] and posterior linguals: [k], [k'], [g], [g' ], [x[, [x'] for sounds [s], [s'], [z], [z'], [t], [t'], [d], [d'], [n ], [n'], [r], [r']: [sa´ n'k'i] - Sa´nki(gen. fall.), [s´ ank’i] - sled,[bun] - bun,[bu´ l’qt’] - gurgle,
  • all positions for sounds [l] and [l’]: [forehead] - forehead,[pal'ba] - firing.

Remember:

In a strong position, hard and soft consonants do not change their quality.

Weak positions in hardness-softness and positional changes in hardness-softness.

  • before soft [t’], [d’] for consonants [c], [z], which are necessarily softened: , [z’d’es’],
  • before [h’] and [w’:] for [n], which is necessarily softened: [po´ n’ch’ik] - donut,[ka´ m’n’sh’:ik] - mason.

Remember:

In a number of positions today, both soft and hard pronunciation is possible:

  • before soft front-lingual [n’], [l’] for front-lingual consonants [c], [z]: snow -[s’n’ek] and , make angry -[z’l’it’] and [zl’it’]
  • before soft front-lingual, [z’] for front-lingual [t], [d] - lift -[pad’n’a´ t’] and [padn’a´ t’] , take away -[at’n’a´ t’] and [atn’a´ t’]
  • before soft front-lingual [t"], [d"], [s"], [z"] for front-lingual [n]: vi´ntik -[v’i´ n"t"ik] and [v’i´ nt’ik], pension -[p'e´ n's'ii'a] and [p'e´ n's'ii'a]
  • before soft labials [v’], [f’], [b’], [p’], [m’] for labials: enter -[f"p"isa´ t’] and [fp"is´ at’], ri´ fme(Dan. fall.) - [r'i´ f"m"e] and [r'i´ fm"e]

Remember:

In all cases, positional softening of consonants is possible in a weak position.
It is a mistake to write a soft sign when softening consonants positionally.

Positional changes of consonants based on the method and place of formation

Naturally, in school tradition It is not customary to present the characteristics of sounds and the positional changes that occur with them in full detail. But general patterns phonetics need to be learned. It's hard to do without it phonetic analysis and complete test tasks. Therefore, below is a list of positionally determined changes in consonants based on the method and place of formation. This material is a tangible help for those who want to avoid mistakes in phonetic analysis.

Assimilation of consonants

The logic is this: the Russian language is characterized by similarity of sounds if they are similar in some way and at the same time are nearby.

Learn the list:

[c] and [w] → [w:] - sew

[z] and [zh] → [zh:] - compress

[s] and [h’] - at the root of words [sh’:] - happiness, score
- at the junction of morphemes and words [w’:h’] - comb, dishonest, with what (a preposition followed by a word is pronounced together as one word)

[s] and [w’:] → [w’:] - split

[t] and [c] - in verb forms → [ts:] - smiles
-at the junction of prefix and root [tss] - sleep it off

[t] and [ts] → [ts:] - unhook

[t] and [h’] → [h’:] - report

[t] and [t] and [w’:]←[c] and [h’] - Countdown

[d] and [w’:] ←[c] and [h’] - counting

Dissociation of consonants

Dissimilarity is a process of positional change, the opposite of assimilation.

[g] and [k’] → [h’k’] - easy

Simplifying consonant clusters

Learn the list:

vst - [stv]: hello, feel
zdn - [zn]: late
zdc - [sc] : by the reins
lnts - [nts]: Sun
NDC - [nc]: Dutch
ndsh - [ns:] landscape
NTG - [ng]: x-ray
rdc - [rts]: heart
rdch - [rh’]: little heart
stl - [sl’]: happy
stn - [dn]: local

Pronunciation of sound groups:

In the forms of adjectives, pronouns, participles there are letter combinations: wow, him. IN place G they are pronounced [in]: him, beautiful, blue.
Avoid reading letter by letter. Say the words him, blue, beautiful Right.

§10. Letters and sounds

Letters and sounds have different purposes and different natures. But these are comparable systems. Therefore, you need to know the types of ratios.

Types of relationships between letters and sounds:

  1. The letter denotes a sound, for example, vowels after hard consonants and consonants before vowels: weather.
  2. The letter does not have its own sound meaning, for example b And ъ: mouse
  3. A letter represents two sounds, for example iotated vowels e, e, yu, i in positions:
    • the beginning of a word
    • after vowels,
    • after separators b And ъ.
  4. A letter can denote a sound and the quality of the preceding sound, such as iotated vowels and And after soft consonants.
  5. The letter may indicate the quality of the preceding sound, for example b in words shadow, stump, gunfire.
  6. Two letters can represent one sound, usually a long one: sew, compress, rush
  7. Three letters correspond to one sound: smile - shh -[ts:]

Test of strength

Check your understanding of this chapter.

Final test

  1. What determines the quality of a vowel sound?

    • From the shape of the oral cavity at the moment of pronouncing the sound
    • From the barrier formed by the speech organs at the moment of pronouncing a sound
  2. What is reduction called?

    • pronouncing vowels under stress
    • pronouncing unstressed vowels
    • special pronunciation of consonants
  3. For which sounds does the air stream encounter an obstacle on its path: a bow or a gap?

    • In vowels
    • In consonants
  4. Can voiceless consonants be pronounced loudly?

  5. Are the vocal cords involved in pronouncing voiceless consonants?

  6. How many pairs of consonants are formed according to deafness and voicedness?

  7. How many consonants do not have a voiced-voiced pair?

  8. How many pairs do Russian consonants form according to hardness and softness?

  9. How many consonants do not have a hard-soft pair?

  10. How is the softness of consonants conveyed in writing?

    • Special icons
    • Letter combinations
  11. What is the name of the position of a sound in a stream of speech in which it appears in its basic form, without undergoing positional changes?

    • Strong position
    • Weak position
  12. What sounds have strong and weak positions?

    • In vowels
    • In consonants
    • For everyone: both vowels and consonants

Right answers:

  1. From the shape of the oral cavity at the moment of pronouncing the sound
  2. pronouncing unstressed vowels
  3. In consonants
  4. Letter combinations
  5. Strong position
  6. For everyone: both vowels and consonants

In contact with

Issues covered:

1. Types of alternations of sounds.
2. Positional alternations sounds:

a) positional alternations of vowel sounds;

b) positional alternations of consonant sounds.

3. Historical alternations of sounds.
4. Phonetic transcription.
5. Rules for transcribing (pronunciation) vowels and consonants.

Key concepts: syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, sound position, positional alternations of sounds, combinatorial alternations of sounds, accommodation, quantitative and qualitative reduction, assimilation, dissimilation,constriction, diaeresis, epenthesis, metathesis, haplology, substitution, deafening of consonants at the end of a word, historical alternations of sounds, phonetic transcription.

1. Types of alternations of sounds

During speech, some sounds can be replaced by others. If this replacement is permanent, regular, and explained by the same reasons, then we say that there is a process of alternation and not an erroneous pronunciation. The relationship of regular replacement of some sounds with others in the same phonetic conditions is called alternating.

Alternations associated with the position of a sound are called positional alternations. Alternations caused by phonetic processes that took place in the past are called historical alternations.

All types of sound alternations can be presented in the following table:

Types of sound alternations

positional

(changes in sounds associated with their position)

historical

(changes in sounds due to phonetic processes that took place in the past)

actually positional

(sound changes related only to the position of sounds)

combinatorial

(changes related to the position of sounds and the influence of sounds on each other)

vowel reduction;

deafening at the end of consonants

accommodation, assimilation, dissimilation, contraction, diaeresis, epenthesis, metathesis, haplology, substitution

Despite the alternations, we recognize sounds, and therefore words, since alternations are associated with the relationships of sounds (phonemes) within a system, where units are connected to each other in some way. In language, there are two main (global) types of interactions, interconnections (relations) of units: syntagmatic(linear) – relations of mutual influence of neighboring units and paradigmatic(non-linear, vertical) – relations of unification of homogeneous units based on associations.

In phonetics, the influence of adjacent sounds on each other is a syntagmatic relationship, and recognizing similar sounds and mentally linking them into the same sound, regardless of sound, is paradigmatic (for example, when a speaker recognizes that the sounds [b], [b' ], [n] in the words [oaks], , [du΄p] are the same typical sound).

2. Positional alternations of sounds (Syntagmatic relations)

Sounds in the stream of speech are pronounced with different strength and clarity depending on sound positions.Sound position – this is its immediate environment, as well as its position at the beginning, at the end of a word, at the junction of morphemes, and for vowels, its position in relation to stress.

There are two types of changes in sounds in the speech stream.

Positional changes – these are changes in sound associated with its position (for example, deafening at the end of a word, weakening of unstressed vowels [o], [a], [e]). Types of Positional Changes: stun at the end of a word , reduction (weakening of sound), assimilation, dissimilation, contraction of sounds, prolapse (diaeresis), epenthesis, metathesis, haplology, substitution, accommodation.

Combinatorial changes – these are changes associated with the influence of sounds on each other. Combinatorial changes include all types positional changes, except for deafening at the end of a word and reduction, since these processes are associated only with position in the word, and not with the influence of other sounds.

2 a) Positional alternations of vowel sounds

The main type of positional changes in vowel sounds is reduction. Reduction happens quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative reduction decrease in length and sound strength - typical for sounds [and], [s], [y] not under stress. Compare, for example, the pronunciation of [s] in different positions of the word [was - experienced]). High-quality reduction weakening with some change in sound. For example, the sounds [a], [o], [e] are in an unstressed position. Wed: sound of vowels in words hammer And hammer: [molt], [mlLtok].

The sounds [a], [o] after hard consonants are pronounced as reduced sounds [L] in the first pre-stressed position and at the absolute beginning of the word and as a reduced sound [ъ] in other positions (2nd, 3rd syllable before or after stress , For example, milk– [milLko], beard– [barLda]. After soft consonants, the sounds [a], [o], [e] are pronounced as reduced sounds [and e], [b] – Rowan[r"i e b"in], hourly[h"sLvoy].

The sound [e] in the first pre-stressed position is pronounced as the sound [and e], in the rest - [b]. For example: flight– [p"r"i e l"ot].

IN foreign words qualitative reduction of vowels [o], [e] appears irregularly: piano– [рLjал"], but boa[boa], remark[r"and e mark], but metro[m "etro".

Positional changes in vowel sounds undergoing reduction can be presented in the following table:

accent

strong position

Unstressed positions

absolute beginning of a word

the beginning of the word after [j],

first pre-stressed syllable

1 weak position

other pre- and post-strike positions

2 weak position

after TV

after soft

after TV

after soft

clouds

five

[p'i e t'i]

field

[p'l'i e howl]

private

[р'дLв́й]

wife

[zhy e na]

forests

[l i e sa]

tin

[zh's't'i e no]

heroism

[g'рLism]

Combinatorial changes vowels arise as a result of the adaptation of the articulation of the vowel to the articulation of the preceding and subsequent sounds and are called accommodation. Wed. pronunciation of [o] in words they say[they say], chalk[m’·ol], mole[mo·l’]. Accommodation can be progressive (®): chalk[m’·ol] and regressive (¬): mole[mo·l’].

Thus, characterizing changes in vowel sounds in a word, we consider two aspects: 1. Positional - in relation to stress (reduction is qualitative, quantitative or vowel without change); 2. Combinatorial - the presence in the neighborhood (right and left) of soft consonant sounds (progressive, regressive, progressive-regressive accommodation or no accommodation). For example, birch[b'i e r'oz]:

[and e] – positional changes (relative to stress): qualitative reduction; combinatorial changes (depending on the influence of neighbors): progressive-regressive accommodation.

[·o] – there are no positional changes, because stressed vowel; combinatorial changes – progressive accommodation.

[ъ] – positional changes: qualitative reduction; there are no combinatorial changes.

2 b) Positional alternations of consonant sounds

As a result of the adaptation of the consonant to the articulation of the subsequent sound (usually a rounded vowel), a process arises consonant accommodation. Wed. the sound of the sound [t] in words – So And That: [sic] – [t o from].

Much more common than accommodation are other changes in consonant sounds.

Assimilationsimilarity on any basis. Assimilation happens:

  • by proximity of the affecting sound : contact or distant;
  • by the nature of the change by deafness/voice And hardness/softness;
  • in the direction of influence – progressive(impact from left to right (®) and regressive(exposure to sounds from right to left (¬);
  • in terms of completeness of comparison: full And partial.

The Russian language is characterized by contact, regressive assimilation. For example: fairy tale– [skask] – voiced [z], under the influence of the voiceless [k], was assimilated into the voiceless paired sound [s]. This is contact assimilation, partial regressive in deafness.

Whistling consonants before sibilants as a result complete assimilation turn into hissing: I'm driving .

D assimilation – dissimilarity of sounds. In Russian this process is rare. As a result of the process, sound changes its characteristics according to the method or place of formation: r ® x soft– [m "ahk"y], easy– [l "ohk"y]. Pairs of sounds or similar sounds that are identical in the method or place of formation are subject to dissimilation. Dissimilation may be contact And distant,progressive And regressive.

Distant progressive dissimilation occurred, for example, in the literary language in the word February from February, V colloquially kolidor from corridor. Replacing one of the two [p] with [l] is distant dissimilation. (Not to be confused with the pronunciation norm: th, hrs like [shn] – What[what] and - wow, -him like [ova], [iva]: blue– [s "in" ьвъ]! These alternations take place regularly, in the same positions, without exception, and have the character of a law.)

Contraction coincidence in the articulation of two sounds in one. For example, urban® [g'artskaya ® g'artskaya], [ts] ® [ts].

When groups of consonants are contracted, sound loss may occur: Sun- [son]. Usually these are combinations [vstv], [ntsk], [stl], etc.

Changes based on the phenomena of assimilation and dissimilation:

Prolapse (miscarriages, diaeresis)– (from the Greek diaresis – gap) – omission of one of the sounds in a combination of three or four consonants. For example, giant– [g’igansk’iy].

Haplology– (from Greek gaplos – simple + logos – concept) omission of one or two identical adjacent syllables due to dissimilation. For example, mineralogy instead of mineralology, standard bearer, instead of standard bearer.

Metathesis– (from the Greek metathesis - rearrangement) rearrangement of sounds or syllables within a word on the basis of assimilation or dissimilation. For example, palm from dolon, plate from ticket.

Epenthesis- (from Greek epenthesis - insertion) insertion of sounds, For example, ndrav instead of disposition, scorpijon instead of scorpion in colloquial speech, the sound [th] in a word coffee(from coffee), sound [v] in a word singer(from sang) in literary speech.

Substitution- (from Latin - substitution) the replacement of one sound with another, often when replacing sounds uncharacteristic of the language in borrowed words. For example, in the word William[в] instead of [w].

3. Historical alternations of sounds

Regular changes in sounds, not related to position in a word, but explained by the laws of the phonetic system that existed in the past, are called historical alternations. The main historical alternations associated with the processes of falling reduced, palatalization of consonants or their changes under the influence of softening [Ĵ]:

vowel alternation:

[ e] –[ i] –[ o] –[ a] – [Ø] // sound zero: died - die; pestilence - to kill - I will die; take – collect – collection – collect;

[e] – [Ø] sound zero: stump - stump; faithful - faithful; wind - wind;

[o] – [Ø] – sound zero: forehead - forehead; bottomless - bottom; lie - to lie;

[s] – [Ø] – zero sound: send –ambassador - to send.

Vowels can alternate with consonants or with vowels + consonant:

[i] – [th] – [her] – [oh]: drink - drink - drink - swill; beat - beat - beat - fight;

[s] – [oh] – [ov] – [av]: dig - swarm - ditch; swim – swimmer – swim; cover – cut – cover;

[y] – [ov] – [ev]: kuyu – forge; draw - draw; peck - peck;

[a] – [im] – [m]: reap – shake – press;

[a] – [in] – [n]: reap - reap - reap.

consonant alternation:

[g] – [f] – [z]: friend - be friends - friends; run - run; moisture – wet;

[k] – [h]: scream - shout; hand - manual; bake - bakes;

[x] – [w]: quiet - silence; dry – land; stuffiness - stuffy;

[z] – [z"] – [zh]: thunderstorm - threaten - threaten; carry - drive; smear - smear; climb - I get along;

[s] – [s"] – [w]: bring – carry – burden; scythe - mow - mow; ask - demand - request; high - height - higher;

[t] – [t"] – [h] – [w"]: light - shine - candle - lighting; return – return – return;

[d] – [f] – [zh]: gardens - planting - planting;

[n] – [n"]: change - change; torn - torn;

[l] – [l"]: business - efficient; prick - prickly;

[r] – [r"]: blow - to hit; heat - heat; steam - steam;

[b] – [b"] – [bl"]: rowing - rowing - rowing;

[p] – [p"] – [pl"]: pour out - rash - pour out;

[v] – [v"] – [vl"]: trapper - catching - catching;

[f] – [f"] – [fl"]: graph - graph - graph;

[sk] – [st] – [s"t"] – [w":]: shine - shine - sparkle - shines; start - let - lower;

[sk] – [w":]: crackle - crackle;

[st] – [w"]: whistle - whistle

4. Phonetic transcription

Phonetic transcription is the recording of spoken speech using special characters. There are several transcription systems that differ in the degree of accuracy in conveying the nuances of sound. You are offered the most common phonetic transcription, created on the basis of the Russian alphabet. Not all letters of the Russian alphabet are used in transcription. Phonetic transcription does not use letters e, e, yu, i. Letters ъ, ь are used in a different meaning. Some letters of the foreign alphabet are added - j , γ , as well as superscript and subscript characters: È .... Ç. Basic signs adopted in phonetic transcription:

– square brackets to highlight transcribed sound units;

/ – a sign above the letter to indicate emphasis;

– a sign to the right of the letter to indicate the softness of the sound;

L– a sign to indicate the sounds [a] or [o] in the first syllable before stress after hard consonants or at the beginning of a word not under stress: [сLды́], ;

ъ– a sign to indicate unstressed sounds [a], [o] after hard consonants in all unstressed syllables except the first syllable and the beginning of the word: gardener– [sudLvot], young– [мълЛд΄й], as well as the unstressed sound [e] after unsoftened [zh], [sh], [ts] in all unstressed positions, except for the first one before the stress: cement– [tsam’i e nt’i΄arv’t’].

b– a sign to indicate vowels [a], [o], [e] after soft consonants, except for the first syllable before stress: hourly– [h’sLvoy], forester– [l’sLvot];

and uh– a sign to indicate vowels [a], [o], [e] after soft consonants in the first syllable before stress: forest– [l’i e snoy]; nickel– [p’i tak].

s uh a sign to indicate a sound in place of the letter E in the first pre-stressed syllable after always hard consonants f, w, c: regret– [zhy e l’et΄t’], price– [tsy e na΄],

γ – letter to indicate the fricative consonant indicated by the letter G in words: yeah, lord;

È – a bow under the line between words indicates a combined pronunciation of a function and an independent word: in rows– [пъ È р’ и е dam];

j– a letter to indicate the sound [th] at the beginning of words e,yo,yu, I, as well as between two vowels and after hard or soft signs: spruce – , climb– [pLдjo΄м], his– [svj i e vo΄];

Ç – the bow above the combinations of consonants (dz, j) indicates their continuous pronunciation: [d Ç zhy΄nsy].

/ – mark of a beat pause when transcribing spoken speech: [s’i e rg’e΄ay ​​/ my friend//]

// – a sign of a phrasal pause when transcribing spoken speech:

[dom / and È s’t’e΄any pamLga΄jut //] .

Phonetic transcription conveys the exact pronunciation of words and is used in the study of dialects and dialects, when the peculiarities of the pronunciation of a word in a particular area are recorded, in the study of children's speech, as well as in mastering the correct literary pronunciation of words.

Literary pronunciation of words in the Russian language presupposes compliance with certain norms, which are reflected in the rules of transcription.

5. Rules for transcribing (pronunciation) vowels and consonants

Rules for transcribing (pronunciation) vowel sounds:

1. The vowels O, A, E (in spelling E) in an unstressed position are subject to reduction (weakening) and are not pronounced clearly.

2. In all unstressed positions after hard consonants, except for the first unstressed syllable, A and O are written with the sign b: balalaika– [b llLlayk]; gardening .

The vowels I, Y, U do not change during pronunciation.

3. In the first pre-stressed syllable, O and A are pronounced as open A, in transcription they are conveyed by the sign - [вLда́]. This type of pronunciation is called let's say. The norm of the literary language is accentuated pronunciation.

4. The sign also reflects the pronunciation of the initial unstressed O and A: district– . If the word has a preposition, in the flow of speech it is one phonetic word and is transcribed in accordance with general rule: to the garden[in ъглр΄т];

5. After soft consonants in the first pre-stressed position, the sound A (letter Z) is pronounced as I and transcribed using the [and e] sign: watch[ch'i e sy].

6. The vowel E (in spelling E) in the first pre-stressed position is pronounced as I and transcribed using the sign [and e]: forest[l’i e snoy]. In other positions, except for the first pre-stressed syllable, E is pronounced unclearly and is transcribed after soft consonants using the sign [b]: forester– [l’sLvot], copse– [p'р' и е l'е΄сък].

7. The letters E, E, Yu, I are not used in transcription; in their place the sounds corresponding to the pronunciation (audible) are written: ball[m’ach’], ball[m'i e ch'a΄], apple , climb[pLd j o΄m], spacious[prolstornj jь].

8. After the hard consonants Ж, Ш, Ц in the first prestressed syllable, in place of the letter E in the transcription the sign [ы е] is written: want– [zhy e lat’], price– [tsi e na]. In other positions, unstressed E after hard ones is conveyed by the sign [ъ]: yellowish[yellow].

9. After Zh, Sh, Ts in the stressed position, instead of the spelling rules I, the pronounced [s] is written in the transcription: number– [cy΄fr], lived– [lived], sewed- [whispered].

Rules for transcribing (pronunciation) consonant sounds:

In the flow of speech, consonants are subject to mutual influence, as a result of which processes of assimilation, dissimilation, contraction, loss, etc. occur. Voiced consonants at the end of a word in Russian are deafened. Accommodation processes of consonant sounds (for example, rounding of the sound [t o ] in a word here) are usually not reflected in the transcriptions we use.

Types of phonetic alternations. Phonetic alternations, in turn, are positional and combinatorial. Positional alternation is a phonetic alternation of sounds depending on their position (position) in relation to the beginning or end of a word or in relation to a stressed syllable. Combinatorial alternation of sounds reflects their combinatorial changes due to the influence of neighboring sounds.

Another classification is their division on positional exchange and positional change. The basic concept for phenomena of phonetic nature is position– phonetically determined place of sound in the flow of speech in relation to significant manifestations of living phonetic laws: in Russian, for example, for vowels – in relation to stress or hardness/softness of the preceding consonant (in Proto-Slavic – in relation to the subsequent jj, in English – closedness /openness of syllable); for consonants - in relation to the end of the word or to the quality of the neighboring consonant. The types of phonetic alternations differ by the degree of positional conditioning. Positional exchange- alternation, rigidly occurring in all cases without exception and significant for meaning differentiation (a native speaker distinguishes it in the flow of speech): “akanye” - non-distinction of phonemes A and O in unstressed syllables, their coincidence in /\ or in b. Positional change– acts only as a tendency (knows exceptions) and is not recognized by a native speaker due to the lack of a semantic distinguishing function: A in MOTHER and MEAT are phonetically different A ([[ayaÿ]]and [[dä]]), but we do not recognize this difference; soft pronunciation of consonants before E is almost mandatory, but unlike I, there are exceptions (TEMP, TENDENCE).

Historical (traditional) alternations are alternations of sounds representing different phonemes, so historical alternations are reflected in writing. Non-phonetic, non-positional (historical) alternations are associated with the expression of grammatical (friend-friends) and word-formation (friend) meanings: act as an additional means of inflection, (formation and word formation. The historical alternation of sounds accompanying the formation of derivative words or grammatical forms of words is also called morphological, since it is determined by the proximity of phonemes with certain suffixes or inflections: for example, before diminutive suffixes -k(a), -ok etc. back-linguals regularly alternate with hissing ones (hand-hand, friend-friend), and before the suffix -yva(~yva-) part of the verbs alternates root vowels <о-а>(work-work out). Types of historical alternations.

1) Actually historical, phonetic-historical– alternations reflecting traces of once active living phonetic processes (palatalization, fall of reduced ones, iotation, etc.);

2)Etymological– reflecting the semantic or stylistic differentiation that once occurred in the language: EQUAL (identical) // EVEN (smooth), SOUL // SOUL; complete agreement // partial agreement, PR/PRI.

3) Grammatical, differentiating– which also have at the synchronic level the function of differentiating grammatical phenomena: NEIGHBOR//NEIGHBORS (D//D'') - the change from hard to soft contrasts singular and plural (these cases do not include truly different indicators, for example, conjugations –I and E, USH and YASH, because here we have before us not an exchange at the level of sound, but an opposition of morphological forms (the same - ENGINEER Y//ENGINEER A)).It is clear that all these phenomena, which have different natures, are only conditionally grouped as “historical” - therefore the term “non-phonetic” would be more accurate.

LECTURE 8. Positional change and positional changes of vowels and consonants. Historical alternations of vowels and consonants

Phonetic processes in the vowel area .

Positional exchange. The main cases of positional exchange of vowels include cases of qualitative reduction of the vowel sounds A, O, E in unstressed positions. High-quality reduction– this is a weakening of sound, which is accompanied by a change in acoustic-articulatory characteristics (the sound changes its DP). There are positions: percussion– the sound remains unchanged (strong position); first pre-shock– first degree of reduction; second(all other unstressed positions) – the second degree of reduction (weak first and second positions). The sounds I, U, Y do not undergo qualitative changes, they change only quantitatively. Qualitative reduction of these sounds has different results depending on whether they appear after a soft or hard consonant. See table.

Let's not forget about the phenomenon of the absolute beginning of a word, where A and O in both the first and second position will be the same /\ (instead of /\ for the first and the expected b for the second position: [] ORANGE. E, respectively, in both the first and second position will be (instead of in the first and Kommersant in the second): ETAZHERKA [[t/\zh''erk]].

first position

second position

first position

second position

*Sometimes after hard hissing Ж, Ш, Ц in the first position, A instead of the expected /\ sounds like E: you just need to remember such words - JACKET, SORRY, SORRY, SORRY, SORRY, RYE, JASMINE, HORSES, TWENTY, THIRTY. But this is not for me, but for the next topic (changes), and also for spelling.

Positional changes. Positional changes include phenomena accommodation vowels before soft and after soft consonants. Accommodation is the process of mutual adaptation of sounds of different nature (vowel to consonant or vice versa). After a soft consonant, a non-front vowel moves forward and upward in formation at the beginning of pronunciation (progressive accommodation), before a soft one - at the end (regressive accommodation), between a soft one - throughout utterances (progressive-regressive accommodation).

MAT – [[MaT

MINT – [[M’’˙aT]]

MOTHER – [[Ma˙T’’]]

MOTHER – [[M’’däT’’]]

For the sounds O, A, E - only under stress - all 4 cases are possible; for sounds U - both stressed and not, all 4 cases; for ы both under stress and without stress, only 2 cases are possible ы and ыяÿ, for And a dot is not placed in front, since it is not used after a hard word - 2 cases And иыь. Sometimes instead of Yo (between soft ones) they designate kê – SING [[p’’kêt’’]]. Y and JJ are considered soft.

Another case of positional changes is the progressive accommodation of the initial I in Y, when a consonant prefix is ​​added to the root: GAME - PLAY UP (this applies to changes, since it knows exceptions - PEDAGOGICAL INSTITUTE is also possible to pronounce I).

Non-phonetic processes in the vowel area.

at the root - BIR//BER, GOR//GAR, non-accord//full consonance, E//O, A//Z, U//YU at the beginning of the word, O//E type VESNY//SPRING; in the prefix – PRE//PRI, NOT//NI, in the suffix – EK//IK, ETs//ITs, OVA//EVA//YVA//IVA, IN//EN//AN, in adjectives; at the end – OV//EV, IY//EYE, OH//EYE, OM//EM, ІY//Ой//Ий

2) Historical alternations of phonemes with zero sound (“fluent vowels): in the root – DAY//DAY, WINDOW//WINDOWS, COLLECT//TAKE, WHO//WHOM, WHAT//WHAT, in the prefix – THROUGH//THROUGH, PRE//PERE, WITH//CO, VZ//WHOZ , IN//IN, OVER//NADO, FROM//OTO, KOY//KOE, in the suffix – PEAS//PEAS, RED//RED, BIRD//BIRD, TI//TH of the verb, SK//ESK, СН//ЭСН in adjectives, in the ending – ОY//ОУ, in the postfix – СЯ//Сь

The alternation RAZ//ROZ refers to phonetic types of writing and is one of the rare cases of reflection in writing not of historical, but of phonetic alternation within one phoneme - the strong position O (under the stress, which naturally sounds in the first and second positions, respectively, as /\ and Kommersant, which is reflected in the letter as A.

Phonetic processes in the area of ​​consonants.

Positional exchange. The positional exchange of consonants includes diverse processes, united by a common feature - they know no exceptions. 1) Positional deafening of noisy voiced sounds at the end of a word - RODA-ROD [[T]]; 2) Regressive assimilation in terms of voicing - noisy deaf people are voiced before voiced ones MOWING-MOWING [[Z]] (assimilation refers to the processes of assimilation of homogeneous sounds - the influence of vowels on vowels, consonants on consonants, in contrast to accommodation); regressive assimilation by deafness - noisy voiced ones are deafened in front of noisy voiced ones - BOAT[[T]]. The process does not concern sonorants - neither the sonorants themselves, nor the noisy ones before the sonorants. The double role of the B sound is interesting (it is no coincidence that some also consider it sonorant). In front of it, noisy ones behave not as in front of a voiced one, but as in front of a sonorant one - they do not become voiced (RESPECT: T does not turn into D); and he himself behaves like a noisy voiced person - in front of a deaf person and at the end of the word he is deafened - STORE [[F]]; 3) Regressive assimilation by softness - will be exchanged only for the anterior lingual teeth D, T, S, Z, N before any of them soft: NEWS [[S’’T’’]]; 4) Complete (such assimilation in which the sound changes not just one DP, but completely its entire characteristic) regressive assimilation of Z, S before hissing Sh, F, CH,SH, C – SEW [[SHH]], HAPPINESS [[SH’’SH’’]]; T and D before CH – REPORT [[CH’’CH’’]]; T+S= C – FIGHT [[CC]]; T and D before C (FATHER [[TTS]]; S and Z before SH (SPLITTLE [[Ш''Ш'']]; 5) Dieresis (loss of sound on a dissimilative basis) – KNOWN, HOLIDAY; ​​6) Dissimilation ( reverse assimilation - dissimilarity of sounds) G before K – SOFT [[ХК]]; 7) Accommodation by softness in front of I, b, (except C, W, F, H) – HAND//HANDS [[K]]//[[K’’]]; 8) Vocalization of the phoneme JJ: as a consonant sound jj appears only at the beginning of a stressed syllable (YUG), and in other positions it acts as a non-syllabic sound - a vowel sound.

Note: B at the end of participial and adverbial suffixes does not turn into F; there it is F, because in a strong position like B it never sounds (there is no alternation). The same thing - we must distinguish between, say, the loss of sound in the synchrony SUN and in the diachrony FEELING, where at the modern level there is no loss, because there is no alternation with its full version.

Positional changes. Processes that occur as a trend, but have exceptions. 1) Assimilation in softness of labial and dental before labial and R before labial (Z''BELIEV, LYUB''VI). The old norm required exactly this pronunciation, but now, apparently under the influence of spelling, this is not relevant. 2) Assimilation by softness before jj: most often softened, but, again under the influence of spelling, before the dividing b, denoting jj, at the junction of the prefix and the root - the hard consonant EAT [[С]] sounds; 3) Irregular dissimilation of H before T or N: WHAT, OF COURSE [[SHT]][[SHN]](does not always happen - for example SOMETHING - already only [[TH]]); 4) Accommodation by the softness of hard words before E - now, in many foreign words, it is also possible to pronounce a hard consonant before E: REVENGE [[M’’]], but TEMP [[T]]. 5) Deafening of the sonor in the position at the end of the word after the hard PETER. 6) Sonoran vocalization – the acquisition of a syllabic character by a sonorant consonant in a cluster of consonants – KORAB[[ъ]]Л, TEMB[[ъ]]Р. All of these processes are at the same time orthoepic, because fluctuations in regular pronunciation are the reason for orthoepic variation.

Non-phonetic processes in the area of ​​consonants.

1) Historical alternations of phonemes: traces of palatalization (first, second, third) HAND//HANDLE; traces of the influence of iota LIGHT//CANDLE; traces of simplification of consonant groups BEREGU//BERECH; stun at the end of a word (unchecked BY DOING [[F]]); historical exchange of G for V in the endings of adjectives – RED [[V]]; alternation of suffixes CHIC//SCHIK; non-phonetic (phonemic) softness - WILL // BE, ZARYA // RADIANT (here it is not a softening, because in the word ZARYA before A should not be softened (non-anterior) - there is no positional conditionality).

2) Historical alternations of phonemes with zero sound (“fluent consonants): traces of L-epentheticum – EARTHLY//EARTH [[–]]//[[L]]; historical diaeresis (unverifiable) FEELING, LADDER; adjective suffixes SK//K; endings OV(EV)//– (GRAM//GRAMS).

Note. The change of Z//S in prefixes like IZ, WHO, RAZ, although reflected in the writing, is in fact not a historical, but a living, phonetic process of assimilation in terms of voiced-voicelessness: it’s just that phonetic, not phonemic, spelling is implemented here.

LECTURE 9. Segmental and supersegmental units. Stress and its types

Linear units are also called segmental, since they are obtained as a result of segmentation against the background of comparison with other similar units as minimal independent fragments. But as a result of the division of the sound flow, other, no longer limiting units are distinguished, which are called supersegmental. Supersegmental are units that do not have an independent semantic character, but simply organize the speech flow due to the characteristics of the matter of sound and our organs of speech and senses. If supersegmental units are not related to the expression of meaning, they still have their own articulatory-acoustic specificity. The articulatory-acoustic characteristics of supersegmental units are called PROSODY.

PROSODY is a set of phonetic features such as tone, volume, tempo, and general timbre coloring of speech. Initially, the term “prosody” (Greek prosodia – stress, melody) was applied to poetry and singing and meant a certain rhythmic and melodic scheme superimposed on a chain of sounds. The understanding of prosody in linguistics is similar to that accepted in the theory of verse in the sense that prosodic features relate not to segments (sounds, phonemes), but to the so-called supra- (i.e. supra-) segmental components of speech, longer in duration than a separate segment - to a syllable, word, syntagma (intonation-semantic unity, usually consisting of several words) and sentence. Accordingly, prosodic features are characterized by duration and impreciseness of their implementation.

The section of phonetics that studies these characteristics is called accordingly. Since their characteristics come down to two types of phenomena – STRESS and INTONATION, this section is divided into two subsections: ACCENTOLOGY and INTONOLOGY.

ACCENTOLOGY(Latin akcentus “emphasis” + Greek logos “word, teaching”). 1. System of accents of the language. 2. The doctrine of accentual (prosodic) means of language. Aspects of accentology: descriptive, comparative-historical, theoretical. Descriptive accentology studies the phonetic, phonological, and grammatical properties of prosodic means. Comparative-historical accentology studies historical changes in accent systems, their external and internal reconstruction. Theoretical accentology describes the systemic relationships of prosodic means, the role of significant units in the structure, and linguistic functions.

The central concept of accentology is emphasis.STRESS in a broad sense –– This is any emphasis (emphasis) in the flow of sounding speech of one or another part of it (sound - as part of a syllable, syllable - as part of a word, word - as part of a speech tact, syntagm; syntagm as part of a phrase) using phonetic means. STRESS in the narrow sense – only verbal stress

TYPES OF STRESS:

According to the acoustic-articulatory characteristics, stress differs between monotonic (expiratory) and polytonic (musical, melodic, tonic, tonal). They also talk about the quantitative type of stress.

Russian-type stress was traditionally considered dynamic, or expiratory. It was assumed that increased respiratory and articulatory effort on stressed vowels is reflected in their increased acoustic intensity.

Another way of organizing the relationship between stressed and unstressed syllables is possible: the vowel of a stressed syllable lengthens, while the unstressed ones retain a neutral duration (the quality of the vowels remains almost unchanged). These are languages ​​with quantitative (quantitative) stress. Modern Greek is usually cited as an example of this type of stress. In it, unstressed sounds are not subject to reduction and differ from stressed sounds only in the absence of an increment in duration. In ancient times, many languages ​​had such an accent.

Traditionally, there is another type of stress – tonal. In Europe, it is represented in the South Slavic (Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian) and Scandinavian (Swedish and Norwegian) languages. This type of stress is associated with a special interaction between verbal and phrasal prosody. In most languages ​​of the world, the beginning of the tonal movement that implements phrasal accent is combined with the beginning of the stressed syllable. However, it is also possible for two landmarks to appear to place the tonal emphasis. For example, in the Serbo-Croatian language there was a shift of stress by one syllable to the left (the so-called “retraction”), and in the place of stress, words with the former stress on the second syllable coincided with those that had the original initial stress; the old orientation of the tonal accent of the phrase was preserved. Therefore, in words where the stress has not shifted, the falling tone of the statement falls on the stressed vowel, and where it has shifted, the fall in tone falls on the overstressed syllable, while the fall in tone is often preceded by its rise. As a result, on the initial stressed syllable the falling and rising tones are opposed. For example, words glory, power in Serbo-Croatian have a falling accent, and words leg, needle–– ascending.

The object of emphasis is emphasized syllabic, verbal, syntagmatic (beat), phrasal.

Accent syllabic–– highlighting a specific sound within a syllable. Syllable stress is a change in the sound strength or tone of a syllabic sound. There are usually five types of syllable stress: smooth, ascending, descending, ascending-descending, descending-ascending. With rising stress, the syllable is characterized by rising intonation. With a descending stress, the stressed syllable is characterized by a descending intonation.

Accent verbal–– highlighting one syllable in a word using phonetic means, serving for phonetic unification. this word.

Russian verbal stress has qualitative and quantitative characteristics. According to the traditional point of view, Russian verbal stress is dynamic (force), expiratory, expiratory, i.e. the stressed vowel is the strongest and loudest in the word. However, experimental phonetic studies indicate that the loudness (“strength”) of a vowel depends both on the quality of the vowel ([a] is the loudest, \у], [and], [ы]- the quietest), and on the position of the vowel in the word: the closer to the beginning of the word the vowel is, the greater its volume, for example, in the word gardens an unstressed vowel is stronger than a stressed vowel. Therefore, an essential characteristic word stress is its duration: a stressed vowel differs in longer duration from an unstressed one. In addition, a stressed syllable is distinguished by greater clarity: under stress, sounds are pronounced that are impossible in an unstressed position.

The languages ​​of the world differ both in the rhythmic patterns allowed in words and in the functions performed by stress in them. An example of a language with an exceptional variety of accentual (i.e., stressed) possibilities is Russian. Since the stress can fall on any syllable of a word, it can perform a semantic distinguishing function, contrasting pairs like: saw - pli, zmok - castle, etc.

In many languages, stress is fixed, occupying a permanent place in the word. Fixed stress is oriented toward extreme positions in a word—either its beginning or its end. Thus, Czech and Hungarian languages ​​have stress on the first syllable, Polish on the penultimate, and most Turkic languages ​​on the last. Languages ​​have a similar rhythmic organization, in which stress can occupy one of two positions, oriented to the edge of the word, and its placement depends on the so-called distribution of “light” and “heavy” syllables. “Light” are syllables that end in a short vowel, and “heavy” are syllables that have either a long vowel or a vowel covered by a final consonant. Thus, in Latin and Arabic, the stress in non-monosyllabic words falls on the penultimate syllable if it is “heavy”, otherwise it shifts to the previous syllable.

Russian stress is not only variable, but also mobile: it can shift when the grammatical form of the word changes (vod - vdu). English has more limited accent capabilities. As in Russian, the stress in it is varied, which implies the possibility of contrasting pairs like: ўsubject “subject” –– subўject “to subjugate”, ўdesert “desert” –– deўsert “to desert”; English stress can also change during suffixal word formation: ўsensitive –– sensitivity. However, the inflectional capabilities of the English language are small, and stress does not change during inflection.

Languages ​​also show significant differences in the distribution of gradations of force in the unstressed part of a word. In some languages, all unstressed syllables are equally opposed to the stressed syllable, although marginal syllables may have additional strengthening or weakening. In other languages, the principle of "dipodia" applies: stronger and weaker syllables follow one another, with a gradual weakening of strength as they move away from the apex. This is the situation in Finnish and Estonian: the main stress in them falls on the first syllable, the secondary stress on the third, and the tertiary stress on the fifth. The situation in the Russian language is unusual: the pre-stressed syllable here is inferior in strength to the stressed syllable, but exceeds the others: potakla (here means reduced a).

There is another possibility of varying the prosodic scheme of a word with “dynamic” stress: different phonetic parameters can enhance different positions in this scheme. Thus, in Turkic languages, the main accentual vertex of a word is the final syllable, on which the intonation accent is placed. However, there is also a center of collateral reinforcement - the initial syllable, which has a loudness accent.

Languages ​​without accent (accent). In many languages ​​outside of Europe, there is no clearly defined accentual vertex of the word, and scientists have difficulty determining the place of stress. A typical example is Georgian, regarding the rhythmic organization of which there is no single point of view. There is an opinion that the assumption that the rhythmic combination of the syllables of a word is mandatory is false (V.B. Kasevich et al., S.V. Kodzasov). In particular, the history of the Russian language speaks in its favor. In Old Russian, a significant number of forms of full-valued words were the so-called “enclinomen” (V.A. Dybo, A.A. Zaliznyak). These words did not have their own stress and were added in the form of enclitics to the preceding full-stressed words.

Accent functions.Word-forming function: phonetic combination of a word. Russian words have only one main (acute) stress, but complex words can have, in addition to the main one, a secondary, side (gravity) stress: cf. rural And agricultural. The recognition function of word stress is also associated with the word-forming function, which allows you to recognize the word, since the word is characterized by non-two-stress.

One of the most important functions of word stress is differentiating function: stress serves as a means of distinguishing words (flour And flour, castle And lock) and their different meanings (chaos And chaos), word forms (hands And hands), as well as stylistic variations of the word (you call and decomposition you call, it's cold and dial. cold, alcohol and prof. alcohol,

The movable stress is not fixed on a separate syllable or morpheme and can be inflectional And word-formation. Mobile inflectional stress is capable of moving from one syllable to another during inflection (hand-hands). Mobile word-formation stress is capable of moving from one syllable to another, from one morpheme to another during word formation (horse-horse, hand – pen). Along with the movable stress, the Russian language also presents a fixed stress: shoe, shoes.

Not every vocabulary word has its own word stress. Functional words receive stress in the flow of speech only in exceptional cases, but usually they form clitics. In a statement, as a rule, there are fewer stresses than words, due to the formation of phonetic words, in which function and independent words are combined with one stress.

The accent is timed ( syntagmatic) – highlighting one of the words in a speech beat (syntagma) by increasing verbal stress, combining different words into one syntagma. Syntagmatic stress usually falls on the stressed vowel of the last word in a speech bar: In the original autumn there is / a short, / but wonderful time //.

The speech beat usually coincides with the respiratory group, i.e. a segment of speech pronounced with one blast of exhaled air, without pauses. The integrity of a speech beat as a rhythmic unit is created by its intonation design. The intonation center is concentrated on the stressed syllable of a word as part of a speech beat - - bar accent: On dry aspen / hoodie/... Each speech beat is formed by one of the intonation structures. Speech tact is sometimes called syntagma.

The main means of dividing into syntagms is a pause, which usually appears in combination with the melody of speech, the intensity and tempo of speech and can be replaced by sudden changes in the meanings of these prosodic features. One of the words of the syntagma (usually the last) is characterized by the strongest stress (With logical stress, the main stress can fall on any word of the syntagma).

A phrase usually stands out and contains several speech beats, but the boundaries of the phrase and the beat may coincide: Night. // Street. // Flashlight. // Pharmacy //(Block). The selection of speech beats can be characterized by variability: cf. Field behind the ravine And Field/behind the ravine.

Phrase stress–– highlighting one of the words in a phrase by increasing verbal stress, combining different words into one phrase. Phrasal stress usually falls on the stressed vowel of the last word in the final speech beat (syntagm): There is an initial autumn / short, / butmarvelousit's time //.

Within a bar (less often a phrase), two types of bar (phrase) stress are distinguished, depending on the functions – logical And emphatic.

Stress logical (semantic)–– stress, which consists of highlighting a certain part of a sentence (usually a word), on which the speakers’ main attention is focused. Logical stress is observed in cases where the content of speech requires special emphasis on certain parts of the statement. With the help of logical stress, one or another word is usually highlighted in a sentence, important from the logical, semantic side, on which all attention should be concentrated

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