Understanding Strong and Weak Forms in English Pronunciation
UNIT 5: STRONG AND WEAK FORMS
Some words have ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ forms. Depending on how stressed they are in the sentence, they have connected forms:
- different pronunciations
- different context of occurrence
There are about 40 words with strong and weak forms in English. They are normally grammatical words that have little semantic content of their own. These function words are essentially closed-class words: articles, personal pronouns, some determiners, prepositions, conventions, auxiliary verbs, etc.
Example: proposition ‘of’ /ɒv/ > connected speech > /əv/ The strong form of a word is used when the word:
- Appears in isolation: ‘of’ /ɒv/ > strong u ‘made of brick’ > /əv/ weak.
- Appears at the end of a sentence where it is stressed: ‘What is this made of?’ > /ðv/ strong
- Is being contrasted with another word: ‘the present is for him not from him’ > /fɜː/ /from/ strong instead of /fə/ and /frəm/
- Is being emphasized; ‘you must leave the room at once’ > /mʌst/ strong instead of /məst/
- spelling forms: about, scout, cow, brown
LEXICAL VERBS DO NOT TAKE WEAK FORMS
‘to be’ can take weak forms when not an auxiliary verb because it is a linking verb – demonstratives never take weak forms weak forms of /iː/ /uː/ – word-final position: lady /i/ (weak); baby, babe – in cs, when followed by a vowel: ‘to eat and to drink’ (tu/ tʌ, tə) – in unstressed final position in cs: ‘are YOU coming with me?’ (mi; mɪ possible); ‘how ARE you?’ /haʊ ə ju/’ (u, ə possible) – in stressed or neutral final position: ‘how are YOU?’ /haʊ ər ju(ə)/ ə is impossible
she ʃiː ʃiː. i i is unstressed final position
should ʃʊd ʃʊd negative form always strong
some, sʌm, səm, sm, strong + countable n than, ðæn, ðən, —-, —- that, ðæt, ðət, —–,, rel. and conj. weak; dem. strong the, ði,, ðə+C, ði+V,, —, — them, ðəm, ðəm, əm, — there, ðeə, də, there are: ðeə(r), there is/are; adverb strong to, tuː,, tu+v, tʌ/ tə+ c,, –, — (if it’s part of the semantic meaning ‘he told us that..’ this part would be the weak one) (if we want to stress that, we use the strong) us, ʌs, əs, s. —- was, wʌz, wəz, —
we,, wiː,, wi,, —-, /i/ in unstressed final position were,, wɜː,, wə,, –, — will,, wɪl, wəl,, əl,, — you,, juː,, jʊ, —, — your,, jʊə,, jʊ,, –,, — be,, bɪː, bi,, bɪ,, — been,, bɪːn,, bɪn, —, —
UNIT 6. CONNECTED SPEECH
In spoken discourse, words are not pronounced in an isolated way within the stream of speech. This results from a simple law of economy whereby the organs of speech, instead of taking a new position for each sound, tend to bring sounds together with the purpose of saving time and energy. In phonological or phonemic transcriptions of texts, aspects of connected speech have to be included. These aspects do not represent allophones but realizations of different phonemes from the ones expected. When transcribing full phrases or sentences, we have to establish the boundaries of the utterances:
- Last year | when I was in England | I saw a friend of mine || , , . (and another bar for the end of a sentence)
PHONOLOGICAL TRANSCRIPTIONS:
- ELISION: phonological process that occurs when under certain circumstances a sound disappears:
- rapid or casual speech.
- formal / informal discourse.
- principle of economy of effort. (optional ways of speaking)
- LOSS OF WEAK VOWEL AFTER /p, t, k/: ‘potato, tomato, canary, perhaps, today’
- WEAK VOWEL + /n, l, r/ may become a syllabic consonant: ‘police, tonight, correct’
- AVOIDANCE OF COMPLEX CONSONANT CLUSTERS: ‘George the sixth’s throne’: /sikθs θr/ can be pronounced /siks θr/.
- IN CLUSTERS OF 3 STOPS OR 2 STOPS PLUS 1 FRICATIVE, the middle stop may disappear: ‘acts, texts, looked back, scripts, postpone, postman’.
- LOSS OF FINAL /v/ IN ‘of’ BEFORE A CONSONANT : ‘lots of them’ ‘waste of money’ /əv/ > /ə/
- CONTRACTION OF GRAMMATICAL WORDS: had (‘d), is(‘s), will (‘l), have (‘ve), not (n’t), are (‘re)
- OTHER EXAMPLES: ‘don’t send’, ‘shouldn’t go’, ‘left-hand side’
- GEMINATION: phonological process which occurs across words or in compound words when the last consonant in a given word and the first consonant in the following one are the same stop, fricative or nasal.
- night train /naɪt:reɪn/ vs. night rain /naɪt reɪn/
- bookcase /bʊkˌkeɪs/
- R-LINKING: phonological phenomenon by which an /r/ is inserted in between two words in RP to ease the transition between a word and the next one. The first word ends in (not pronounced in RP) and a simple vowel sound (/ɜː, /ʊː, /ɔː, /ə/) or a diphthong.
- The car is /ðə kɑːrɪz/ ; Peter is /piːtərɪz/ ; care / caring.
- ASSIMILATION: common phonological process by which adjacent sounds change in order to resemble each other more closely. These sounds become more alike either in sonority, place or manner of articulation. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been completed.
- PROGRESSIVE, PERSEVERATORY, OR LEFT-TO-RIGHT ASSIMILATION: phonological process by which a preceding sound has an effect on the following one. Within words, it occurs in past tense / past participles endings, in 3rd person singular present tense endings, and in plural since the voiced or voiceless quality of the stem conditions the output of the morphological ending.
- 3rd sg. present tense endings and plurals:
- /s/ after voiceless sounds: ‘eats; drinks; cats, clocks’
- /z/ after voiced sounds: ‘receives; beds, rooms’
- /ɪz/ after fricative and affricate sounds: ‘watches; races, dishes, horses’ (wɒtʃ – wɒtʃɪz)
- naked is a word that doesn’t follow the rules. /kɪd/ /kt/
- learned /nd/
- PROGRESSIVE, PERSEVERATORY, OR LEFT-TO-RIGHT ASSIMILATION:
- EXCEPTIONS:
- The following -ed words used as adjectives are pronounced with /ɪd/: ‘aged, dogged, ragged, blessed, learned, wicked, crooked, naked, wretched’
- When used as real verbs (past simple and past participle), the normal rules apply.
- CONNECTED SPEECH:
- bookish styles /bʊkɪʃ staɪl/ /bʊkɪʃtaɪl/ what’s the problem? /wɒt (ɪ)z ðə prɒbləm/ /wɒts ðe prɒbləm/ in the end /ɪn ði end/ /ɪnniend/
- REGRESSIVE, ANTICIPATORY OR RIGHT-TO-LEFT ASSIMILATION:
- Phonological process by which the assimilated sound becomes similar or identical to the following conditioning sound:
- ‘his shoes’, ‘is she’ /hɪʃuːz/ /ɪʃiː/ ‘the sun kissed shore’ /sʌn kɪst/ ‘this year’ /ðɪsɪə/ ‘these young’ /ðiːjʌŋ/
- Final /t/ or /d/ + /p, k, b, g/, etc: ‘good boy’, ‘good girl’, ‘at peace’ first sound and second merge into a long version of the second sound: /b:/ /g:/ p:/
- COALESCENT ASSIMILATION:
- Phonological process by which two adjacent sound combine to form a new one: A+B=C
- Yod coalescence is a form of coalescent assimilation which takes place when /j/ is preceded by /t/ and /d/:
- /t/ + /j/ = /tʃ/: ‘What you’ > /wɒtʃu/; ‘don’t you’ > /dəʊntʃu/
- /d/ + /j/ = /dʒ/: ‘could you? > /kʊdʒu/; ‘education’; ‘do you?’ > /dʒu
