1.1. Vowels Flashcards
(17 cards)
How many monophthongs and diphthongs are there?
12 monophthongs and 8 diphthongs.
Monophthongs are classified according to…
Horizontal movement: front, central, back;
Vertical movement: long/tense, short/lax, (the only short and long is /æ/);
Rounding of the lips: rounded/labialized, unrounded/unlabialized;
What’s the tendency of ME related to short vowels?
There’s a tendency of short vowels made long: /ɪ/>/i:/ (very, funny).
What kind of unit is a diphthong?
A single unit.
What’s the relation of the elements within diphthongs? What’s a glide?
When the second element is weaker, shorter than the first.
What are the types of glide?
/ɪ/, /ə/ and /ʊ/ glide.
What are triphthongs?
When diphthongs (/aɪ/, /aʊ/, /eɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /əʊ/ particularly) are combined a the monophthong (/ə/): /aɪə/ - fire. In fast speech it can become /aɪ/.
What is the tendency of ME related to diphthongs?
The tendency to monophthongize the the diphthongs: /ʃʊə/>/ʃɔ:/, /pʊə/>/pɔ:/ (sure, poor).
What are the three ways to detect the stress of words?
If we have -ology, -ity, then the third syllable from the end is stressed;
If we have -tion, -ic, the second one from the end is stressed;
Foreign sounding (mostly French) -oon, -ette, -eer stress these syllables: ba’lloon, fian’cee, engi’neer.
Stress varies according to…
Word structure: ‘diplomat, di’plomacy, diplo’matic;
Meaning: ‘hotdog and ‘hot ‘dog;
What type of stress is used in English?
Free/dynamic, since the structure defines the stress and stress defines the meanings.
What can you say about the stress in the variations of English?
Often varies.
What’re double stressed words? What do they consist of?
Primary (stronger) and secondary (weaker) stress: ‘thir’teen, ‘civili’sation, etc.
What can happen to the double stressed words in speech?
Under the influence of rhythm, one of them may be lost and a double stressed word turns into single-stressed.
What are the rules of the stress position in compound words?
There are no strict rules. But commonly the first part of nouns is often stressed: ‘greenhouse, ‘sunflower. The adjectives may act differently: ‘well-‘known, ‘absent-‘minded.
‘home-‘made and ‘home-made.
What caused the change above?
The loss of one of the stresses, which could be caused in flaunt speech. The changes depend on sentence stress, intonation, rhythm and fluency.
What’s vowel reduction?
When a vowel becomes shorter/weaker because of its unstressed position: Africa /’æfrɪkə/.
