English Phonology Lecture 5 (2): Aspects of connected speech

Professor Jane Setter presents Part 2 of this lecture on aspects of connected speech, which continues with connected speech processes. We are following the course text English Phonetics and Phonology: a practical course by Peter Roach (CUP; 4th edition 2009).

[@huyenmayhuynh8403]

Thanks so much for your informative and helpful video. Thanks to your video, I can comprehend the lesson much better than sitting in the class and listening to my lecture's talking.

[@joytotheworld460]

You're my lifesaver queen. Thank you so much for this educational series/playlist. I've learned a lot from it, which helps me to have a better understanding of the pronunciation system of English. It really helps me in verifying some of the myths regarding it that are commonly believed by people from my country.

[@DrJaneSetter]

I'm glad you feel you have benefitted from it. 😀

[@marinasierra1457]

You are a genious, thank you so much for the very clear explanation !! I finally could understand the features of connected speech 👏👏 thanks!!

[@jorgeandresprietoprat9897]

Dear Jane Due to the closure of presential classes at our University, I have uploaded some materials for my Phonetics students, including a link to this video. It should get lots of hits! You keep helping me ten years later, so thank you once more.

[@DrJaneSetter]

I'm glad it's useful, Jorge. Stay safe and well!

[@JohnZaabi]

@@DrJaneSetter this is amazing Prof. Setter! I'm not too sure you'll read this, but just in case... I do have a query. When pronouncing "Is she?," or "Does she," I usually go for "Ish...she?," or "Doesh..e," something like that. How could you realize, at the same time the voiced g followed by the voiceless sh, I mean, saying something like "Doedgg she," or "Idgg she?," isn't the s (iS/DoeS) devoiced by the pervaise /sh/ in "she"? I get it that you need the voicing for vowel length but it's too difficult to articulate. Anyways, thanks a lot for this wonderful video, hope you're A-OK and hopefully this horrid pandemic will be blown over with little to no aftermath, keeping my hopes up!

[@DrJaneSetter]

@@JohnZaabi Going for "Ish ... she?" or "Doesh ...she?" seems perfectly fine to me. Just don't clip that first vowel!

[@reginalancaster2245]

Very interesting! A lot to learn

[@enriquemoya8726]

I am studying TESOL Certificate program and came upon your videos. Although you are covering in much greater depth than we are, it is so very interesting to me. Thank you so much for educating me further. I adore your voice, it is perfect in every way!

[@DrJaneSetter]

Awww thanks Enrique! I'm glad the content is useful.

[@ThanhNguyen-gz7qm]

Thank you for the video, you made lots of concepts much more clearer to me with those detailed explainations. Lots of love and have a nice day!

[@Samuel17.45]

Thank you, professor.

[@romangul4540]

Very practical and understandable, thank you for this work)

[@user-it4xm1gl3p]

very helpful to me，can’t thank you enough

[@pluto8373]

Thank u madam this helped me to understand the aspects of connected speech .

[@euphonyacademy]

Thanks for this video

[@yulipujiastutik5294]

Love your voice Prof.

[@abetterlife7848]

Thank you very much for this explanation .

[@kinzahfardoos1950]

Thanks Ma'm this video is very helpful in my presentation

[@pangwai841]

Very clear and nice explain you did it!!!! 💯❤

[@AndrzejLondyn]

Thank you dear Professor. It was one of few lectures which changed my view about the English pronunciation. First was discovering sound Schwa, second the phonological processes described by you.

[@DrJaneSetter]

You are welcome.

[@hassan_alzydiee]

I've never seen a professor like you 🥲 you are the best , thank you for this lesson

[@ramzy-6566]

Thank you for amazing video.

[@hassan_alzydiee]

Quite cleaver and beautiful

[@user-nh4hd8bz2z]

I really thank you ❤️ You are an amazing teacher ☺️

[@hagerkhalidmohamed938]

Very fantastic,thanks alot ✨🔥✨

[@girefedemelash3904]

Great teacher thank you so much

[@raghadalsada4941]

Very good explanation

[@rlyehdate]

This is golden wisdom.

[@UniRdgEngLang]

[Jane] That's very kind! I hope you have found it to be useful.

[@Mabaz]

Thank you for this lecture!

[@DrJaneSetter]

Yo are welcome!

[@AkarslanAkademi]

Thanks so much!❤

[@danieldamazio3738]

Super good. 💜👏👏👏👏

[@user-dr8gz5pg6q]

Excellent ❤

[@innet09]

Amazing! Thank you :)

[@UniRdgEngLang]

[Jane] You are welcome.

[@user-gl1ob8ut4t]

Well done ✔ 👍

[@lizziereed9832]

Is catenation also an example of juncture? I'm confused about where it fits into the scheme of things, but was given it as a term to learn.

[@DrJaneSetter]

It's not a term I would use in phonetics, but you do see it in pronunciation literature an in exercises to work on fluency. It's basically when a consonant sound at the end of one word kind of rolls into the next word where that begins with a vowel in connected speech - e.g., "an onion" pronounced as "a nonion". So it's definitely to do with external open juncture, yes.

[@RobertBrownieJr]

Very good lecture :) gonna use you more often!

[@DrJaneSetter]

Thanks! :-D

[@michaelkylow4411]

@@DrJaneSetter : I would like to ask you a question; look at the moment 5:14 of a speech delievered by Barack Obama in the link I share below, instead of "in the depths", he says "in the deps". What happened there, assimilation? Link to his speech: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGO5eISDZs92pJo

[@DrJaneSetter]

@@michaelkylow4411 Apologies for the very late reply. This is elision.

[@afrasyyabyakumaaabaysarfa8365]

Thanks

[@najianaser6968]

I have a question about the biliabial assimilation, in the word (light blue)why does it become /lɑip bluːt/ ،why /p/ not /b/ like in blue????

[@DrJaneSetter]

It's because, in English, we tend to do assimilation of PLACE in this position (here, alveolar to bilabial) rather than VOICE (which is what your question is about) or MANNER. This is because the voiceless consonant at the end of 'light' shortens the preceding vowel; this is a very important acoustic cue for listeners, so to change the voicing would make it (even more) difficult to understand the phrase.

[@andrearominastrigencz7370]

Excellent... One question ... Do you have a video explaining the process involved in alveolar plosives t and d followed by labiodental f and v ?

[@DrJaneSetter]

The short answer is no.

[@AndrzejLondyn]

I am a Pole who has been living in London for 10 years. I love your lectures. I would like to buy a book about English phonology. Thank you for your vlog. There are some vlogs about English phonology but they are describe American English phonology. Living in London it is very difficult for a foreign man. People speak modern RP, Estuary English, some elderly Cockney, younger MLE...

[@DrJaneSetter]

Hello Andrew. I'm glad you like the lectures. :-) I always recommend Peter Roach's _English Phonetics and Phonology_ (CUP, 4th Edition 2009) as I find it very straightforward. My lectures follow this text book. You may also be interested in my upcoming popular science book, _Your Voice Speaks Volumes_ (OUP); it's out at the end of October 2019 but you can pre-order it here: global.oup.com/academic/product/your-voice-speaks-volumes-9780198813842?cc=gb&lang=en&

[@AndrzejLondyn]

@@DrJaneSetter Thank you Jane for your recommendations. I will definitely buy them. Apart from English, British pronunciation I am interested in English collocations, phrases, idioms according to their occurrence. I am learning English by using special electronic flash cards. I'm adding words and phrases ad hoc from newspaper, books and films. I do not think it is the best idea, because sometimes I add so exotic words and phrases that I will never use them and I think, that I am only wasting my time. Can you recommend me something apart from English Collocation Dictionary issued by Oxford?

[@DrJaneSetter]

This isn't my field, so the short answer is no, I'm afraid. I'd have to do an online search to advise you - and you can do that!

[@AndrzejLondyn]

@@DrJaneSetter I took part in an online course " Corpus Linguistics. Method, Analysis, Interpretation" at the Lancaster University but I haven't found the answers for my questions. There are different corpora (corpuses) but I am interested especially in modern spoken British, East London English :-)

[@tikualon1838]

But ma'am can I able to translate some of the word in my language

[@user-qq3ht3td9w]

good. 👌👌👌

[@jameshaden9279]

Commendable making such a brain freezing set of ideas watchable and easier to understand! (not easy mind!) There must be some overlap between assimilatiion and elision though, where it's basically impossible to know if the first vowel has disappeared or assimilated to the next oen (unless of course it changes POA). Also, I'd definitely say /siksis/ to show the posssessive of 6th.

[@DrJaneSetter]

Hi James. I'm glad you found it accessible! We don't normally describe vowels as undergoing assimilation - can you give me an example?

[@DrJaneSetter]

Interesting. What's your language background?

[@desmorgens3120]

I still do not understand the so-called "word-stress" and "sentence-stress". I tried to read Prof.Daniel Jones' explanation on them in his English phonetic books. What I got was I had a headache.

[@DrJaneSetter]

Oh dear! Sentence stress is to do with the rhythm of a sentence. So in e.g. "two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, please" we might get | ˈtwo pints of | ˈlager and a | ˈpacket of | ˈcrisps | ˈplease || in the accent I've used here, where it takes roughly the same amount of time to say each group separated by | |. You can try this by clapping / beating the table / clicking your fingers. An extreme example would be the speaking in rap music. Word stress is to do with which syllable in a specific bi- or multi-syllabic word is stressed. There are rules for this in English but they are complex and I'm not going to go into them here.

[@nono25sar17]

Thx alot

[@DrJaneSetter]

You are welcome!

[@sattarabus]

Jane introduces the key concepts of assimilation and coarticulation with examples that elucidate the process. Does she skip 'hiatus' ? Without a micro-pause to mark the boundary between the preceding and succeeding phonemes, 'rock edicts' may sound like 'rocky dicks'. Give a listen to Sunil Khilnani's short podcast on Ashoka in ' BBC Incarnations'. If I have misheard it more than once or suffered auditory hallucination, do let me know. Humbled, I shall listen to the same podcast for the 7th time to retrain my ears. The series is immensely interesting and thought-provoking.

[@DrJaneSetter]

I usually refer to what you describe as 'juncture' - and have in fact done some research on it in Hong Kong, British and Singapore Englishes. Juncture is not something I go into a lot on the course these lectures were designed for (it is mentioned in passing), but students do look at it in more detail in my module on acoustic and auditory speech analysis. The materials for that are only available to my students.

[@loveisdyinglife5358]

What does POA stand for?

[@DrJaneSetter]

Keep Humanity: ‘Place Of Articulation’.

[@abdallaMoa]

Is this pronunciation the Modern RP??

[@DrJaneSetter]

Kind of. In the course we refer to it as 'BBC English' (as this is what the textbook we are following uses).

[@maloudabderraoufmouloud1847]

Thanks, but it's difficult.

[@DrJaneSetter]

It is indeed.

[@rakh.20]

🤍🫰🏻

[@receivedSE]

good morning /ˌgʊb ˈmɔːnɪŋ/

[@michaelkylow4411]

I would like to ask you a question; look at the moment <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="314">5:14</a> of a speech delievered by Barack Obama in the link I share below, instead of "in the depths", he says "in the deps". What happened there, assimilation? Link to his speech: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGO5eISDZs92pJo

[@DrJaneSetter]

That's elision of the dental fricative. Speakers often do this in e.g. "clothes" which is often pronounced to sound like "close" (verb).

[@DrJaneSetter]

Apologies for the late reply!

[@AlanlaCelestina]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="415">6:55</a> you never got around to pronounce the last two examples on the list

[@DrJaneSetter]

Did I not? If I ever re-record this lecture I will try to remember that!

[@cymak5790]

Um... need some time to digest...

[@desmorgens3120]

/aɪ ˈlaɪk jə ˈklɑːs ‖/

[@johnnyarmasparedes1571]

Speak louder pls

[@ondrejlenz2257]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="548">9:08</a> co to je za sracku ?????

[@DrJaneSetter]

buď víte, nebo nevíte 🙃

[@ramamonato5039]

/aɪ ˈlaɪk jə ˈklɑːs. ˈɪŋglɪʃ prənʌnsɪˈeɪʃn həz bɪn maɪ ˈfeɪvərɪt ˈtɒpɪk sɪns ðə ˈfɜːst ˈtaɪm aɪ ˈlɜːnt ˈɪŋglɪʃ ɪn naɪnˈtiːn eɪtɪ ˈsevn. aɪ wəz θɜːˈtiːn jɜːz ˈəʊld ət ˈðæt ˈtaɪm./

[@DrJaneSetter]

/ˈθæŋk ju/

[@ramamonato5039]

​@@DrJaneSetter /maɪ ˈpleʒə./ I live in Jakarta, Indonesia. We speak Indonesian. Indonesian spelling works just like the phonetic symbols which you teach to us here: one letter represents one speech sound. Although you do not speak and write in Indonesian, you can imagine how simple our Indonesian spelling is.