Allama Iqbal Open University:

Name: KANWAL JAVAID

ID: 0000508588

Semester: Spring 2023

Course Code: 9056

Program: BS(ENGLISH 2.5 Program)

Assignment No 1:
Question No 1:
Write down the distinctive features of the final
consonantal sound in each of the following words:
Life Dogs Rain That Witch
Answer:
Life: The distinctive feature of the final consonantal
sound of life is:
Life -voiced dental fricative

/ᶞ/
Dogs: The distinctive feature of the final consonantal
sound of dogs is:
Dogs -voiceless velar plosive

/k/

Rain: The distinctive feature of the final

consonantal sound of rain is:
Rain -voiced alveolar nasal

/n/

That: The distinctive of the final consonantal

sound of that is:
That -voiceless dental fricative
/ᶿ/

Witch: The distinctive feature of the final

consonantal sound of witch:
Witch -voiceless postalveolar affricate

/ʧ/

Question No 2:

Transcribe and write down the number of phonemes in

each of the following words:
Jugs Stage Psychology Ear Olive

Answer:

Jugs: The number of phonemes in jugs is:

Jugs – 4 phonemes (/ʤɅɡᴢ/).
Stage: The number of phonemes
in stage is:
Stage – 5 phonemes (/steIʤ/).

Psychology: the number of phonemes

in psychology:
Psychology – 10 phonemes (/saIˈkɑləʤi/).

Ear: The number of phonemes

in ear:
Ear – 2 phonemes (/Ir/).

Olive: The number of phonemes

in olive:
Olive – 4 phonemes (/'ɑləv/).

Question no 3:

Transcribe and write down the cv templates for the

following words showing their syllabic boundaries:
Faithfulness Wanton Hopeless successful
valley.
Answer:
Faithfulness:
Faith-ful-ness

Wanton:
Wan-ton

Hopeful:
Hope-ful

Successful:
Suc-cess-ful

Valley:
Val-ley

Question No 4:
Describe English consonants with relevant example:

Answer:

Consonants shape the air stream coming from the larynx in a

more perceptible manner than vowels. Yet, there are no clear
cut boundaries in articulatory terms between all members of 2
groups. Consonants are sound that are produced by an
obstruction of an air stream either in the pharynx or in the
vocal tract. The obstructions that occur to create different
types of consonants can take place at various locations
between the glottis and the lips. There are 24 consonant
phonemes in RP and in most other accents of English.

Here are main types of English consonants with examples;

Plosives/Stops:
Plosives are also called stop sounds are made by complete
closure of the articulators involved so that the air stream
cannot escape through the mouth. There are nine plosives
sounds in the English:
Examples:
/p/ - pine , pen , pie, pepper, pick . voiceless

/b/ - bite , bat, boat, ball, bubble. Voiced

/t/ - tire , tea, toe, top, tent . voiceless

/d/ - dire, dog, door, down, dad. Voiced

/k/ - cat, kite , keep, ,king. Voiceless

/g/ - gate, good, give, go , going. Voiced

/m/ - map , hem ,melt . Voiced

/n/ - nose , not , nice . Voiced

/ŋ/ - finger , singer , singing. Voiced

Fricative sounds:
Fricatives are produced by an incomplete obstruction of the air
stream. Instead of the complete obstruction that produces the
stops, The airstream is only partially obstructed, creating
turbulent friction beyond the construction.

Examples:

/f/ - fine , fan , fish , flute, phone. Voiceless

/v/ - vine , van , very, vote . Voiced

/θ/ - thin , thanks ,thing , path . Voiceless

/ð/ - that , this , then , them . Voiced

/s/ - sing, sit , sun , see , noise. Voiceless

/z/ - zong , zoo , zero , zebra ,buzz. Voiced

/h/ - hat , house , hello , heat. Voiceless

/ʃ/ - ship , shore , share ,sheep , voiceless

/ȝ/ - measure, pleasure , vision , heat voiced

Nasals:

These are consonants produced by closing the oral cavity and

directing the air flow through the nose.

Examples:

/m/ - mouth , morning , man , me , mom .

/n/ - new, name , no , nose ,pen .

/ŋ/ - sung ,sing , long, king .

Affricates:
Affricates are classed here as obstruent, and are prolong able
both in the closed stage of the stop part, and in the release
stage of the fricative part.

Examples:

/ʧ/ - cheap , cheese , church , match. Voiceless

/dȝ / - juice , job , gym , age . Voiced

Approximants:

In approximate the air is even less restricted then a fricative,

meaning the tongue is only shaping the mouth cavity to
produce a sound or a sound in which one articulator is close to
another, but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an
extent that are turbulent air stream is produced.

Examples:

/I/ - lean , line , light , little.

/r/ - right , red , ready ,real .

/j/ - yet, yes, you, youth, yellow.

/w/ - wet, when, well, win.

Additionally, the pronunciation of some consonants can differ

between different dialects of English.

In conclusion, English consonants are of fundamental aspect of

the English language and understanding the different types of
consonants sounds is critical for improving once pronunciation
and communication skills. Buy practicing the correct
pronunciation of each consonant sound learners can improve
their ability to communicate effectively in English.

Question No 5:

Describe ‘Intonation’ and explain the possible functions

of intonation in speech:

Answer:
Intonation has traditionally not had the same kind of attention
in the past that has been accorded to this study of consonants,
Vowels and word stress. Rhythm has also been before focus of
attention to a greater extent than intonation because of its
crucial role in poetry. But in the last two decades, linguist have
been turning to intonation in a much more systematic fashion
as a result of the upsurge of interest in this discourse studies,
and as a result, much more is now known. But people are much
less able to talk confidently about Intonation and rhythm them
because these are features of language in use rather than of
language in units (like words.) Although. People can recognize
the significance of the way something was said, there is not the
same certainty in talking about intonation as there is about
talking about words and their pronunciation.

Example:

Pitch of the voice play and important role in human speech as

we continuously change pitch according to the context of the
communication with a lot of arbitrary choices and constantly
changing between ‘high and low ‘pitch. This variation in pitch
carries a number of linguistic information very important for
conveying meaning. Remember that speech with the fixed and
unvarying pitch is very rarely possible and that is in very
unusual situation. In usual lively discussion, human beings
constantly change their pitch levels. In other words, Intonation
refers to the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice at phrase or
sentence level. When you say something, you cannot say it
without some kind of intonation even a monotone can be
classed as a kind of intonation. Intonation is inevitable in
speech.

Possible functions of intonation in speech:

Attitudinal function:

Intonation is crucial for communication. It also a largely

unconscious mechanism, and as such, a complex aspect of
pronunciation which is used to express emotions and attitudes.
Attitudinal function of intonation is based on communicating
special kinds of meaning.

Intonation carries attitudinal meaning by reflecting feelings and

attitude such as anger, happiness, boredom, gratefulness and
so on. We therefore, need to learn it properly while acquiring
English as a second or foreign language.
For learning point of view, the first to think is for learners to
recognize the effect of intonation changes.

For example:
Say the word ‘banana’- firstly with an’ interested intonation
(varied tone); then ‘uninterested (flat) .
In other words, a single sentence can be pronounced in a
number of different ways depending on intonation of the
utterance. Let us take one more example:

What a beautiful day!

This may be interpreted in the following ways:
(a) What a beautiful day! Simple fall pattern of innovation
meaning: when said perfunctory;
(b) What a beautiful day! Rising intonation – meaning:
when said enthusiastically;

(c) What a beautiful day! Rising fall Intonation meaning:

when said sarcastically.

Accentual function:
Accent plays and important role in intonation such as the role
of ‘stressed syllable’ In a tone unit. The accentual function of
intonation is based on two ideas; (firstly) The placement of,
stress is something determined by intonation and, (secondly)
intonation is carried entirely by the’ stressed syllable of a tone
unit. This function helps to recognize the end of a sentence by
means of pauses of different length together with an emphasis
on the most prominent word of and utterance.

Example:

When danger threatens your children call the police.

Two different sorts of intonation change the semantics of the

whole sentence.
Compare case a) and case b)

a) When danger threatens your children call the police.

b) When danger threatens your children and call the police.

Italics highlight the intonation phrase boundary (delimitation of

syntactic constituent.)

Grammatical function:
The Grammatical function is another important aspect of
intonation as a Suprasegmentally feature. The rise and fall of
pitch, as part of intonation determined various grammatical
and syntactic boundaries. It also determines the major
difference between the grammatical categories and tactic
nature of sentences. For example, the basic difference between
a ‘statement’ and a ‘question’ is that of intonation.

Grammatical function is important because intonation becomes

important part of grammatical realization of an utterance.
There is also possible between ‘attitudinal and grammatical,
functions of intonation mostly they work together and
complement each other.

For example:

Wh- word questions: falling intonation

Yes/ No questions: rising
Statements: falling’
Question -tags: ‘chat’-falling : check ‘-rising
Lists: Rising, rising, rising, falling

The Discourse function of intonation:

Discourse function of intonations is obvious from the effect
that communicatively different types of sentences /utterance
are distinguished by intonation alone : for instance: The
following sentence can express a polite request (a) or aorder
categorical order depending on its intonation.

(a) A rising tone- Wait – here!

(b) A falling tone – Wait – here!

This function may be also named discourse function because

this one looks at the act of speaking in a broader way in a sense
that intonation can signal the listener what is to be taken as
new information and what is already given; it to me it may
indicate a contrast , convey to the listener what kind of
response is expected and so forth.

Question No 6:

Define ‘Auditory Phonetics’ and describe the processes

involved in speech hearing:

Answer:

Auditory phonetics:
 Auditory phonetics deals with understanding that how human
ear perceives sound and how the brain recognizes different
speech units. This branch of phonetics studies the perceptual
response to speech sounds as mediated by ear auditory nerve
and brain. Hearing is defined as a series of vibrations and their
moving as waves through air and their touching of ear drums.
The human ear is divided into three sections outer middle and
inner ear and their physiology is the further explored in
auditory phonetics. As a basic human facility here is capable of
perceiving and extraordinarily white range of changes in
loudness noticing tiniest audible sound. This loudness is
measured in decibels DB starting with softest possible sound
for human ear off 1 DB and reaching the loudest possible with
140 DB with painful hearing

Processes involved in hearing of speech:

Speech sounds are basically the outcome of many movements

including that of air movement from lungs into larynx and then
from there into vocal tracked and the movement of tongue and
lips.

Speech sounds involved pushing air (the same air which we

take in the while breathing) out of lungs through wind pipe and
into the larynx (technically known as trachea) thus making
noise in crowd and mouth and exploiting the air with the help
of tongue and other articulators. Producing sounds need
energy and nearly all sounds used respiratory system is the
source of power in which the air is coming out of lungs. This air
mechanism is called the pulmonary Air stream mechanism.

In speech production there are four basic components involved

the following figure shows these components for your
understanding of the system .

Air stream process:

As the result of the respiratory system the air goes out of lungs
through the wind pipe and into larynx also known as sound box.

Phonation process:

In larynx, The air passes through two small folds now as focal
folds this process make sound voiced or voiceless .when the
vocal folds are apart the sound are voiceless such as/ f//p/ and
they are closed and their as vibration the sound produced are
voiced( such as /b /and/d/).

Oro-nasal process:

Above the larynx there are two tracks making either nasal or
oral sounds .with the help of velum the passage of the air is
determined when the velum is up the air goes through the oral
tracked making oral sounds such as/ p/ /b/and/ t/ when it is
down the air passes through the nasal cavity creating nasal
sounds such as/ m /and n/.

Articulatory process:

The movements of the articulators in the novel tracked are part

of the articulatory process involving tongue and lips and other
organs involved in the articulator’s gestures.

Question No 7:

Phonemically transcribe the following passage:

This is a unit used in this study of quantity and rhythm

in a speech. In this study it is traditional to make use of
the concept of the syllable. However, the syllable is
made to play a lot of different rules in the language
description: In phonology we often use the syllable as
the basic framework for describing how vocals and
consonants can combine in a particular language and
most of the time it does not seem to matter that we use
the same units to be the think that we count when we
are looking for beads inverse or rhythmical speech.
Traditionally, The syllable has also been viewed as the
articulatory unit consisting in its ideal form of a
movement form or relatively closed vocal track to a
relatively open vocal tract and back to a relatively
closed one. Mora is an important feature of generated
phonology:

Answer:
ðIs Iz ɘ ju:nIt ju:zd In ðə stʌdt əv kwɒntɘti ənd rIðəm In spi:ʧ. In
ðIs stʌdi It Iz trədIʃənəl tu : meIk ju : səvðə kənsept əv ðə sIləbəl
. haʊevər , ðə sIləbəl Iz meId tu : pleI ə lɒt əv dIfrənt roʊlz In
lᴂŋgwIdȝ dIskrIp ʃən : In fənɒlədȝi wi : ɒfən ju : z ðə sIləbəl əz
ðə beIsIk freImwɜ:k fͻ:dIskraIbIŋ haʊ vaʊlz ənd kɒnsənənts kən
kəmbaIn In ə pər’ tIk.jʊlər lᴂŋgwIdȝ, ənd məʊst əv ðə taIm It
dʌz nɒt sim tu mᴂtə ðᴂt wi : ju:z ðə seIm ju:nIt tu: bi ðə θIŋ
ðᴂt wi: kaʊnt hwen wi :ər lʊkəŋ fͻ: bi :ts Iŋ vɜ: s ͻ: r rIðmIkəl
spi:ʧ. trədIʃənəli , ðə sIləbəl hᴂz ͻ:lsəʊ bIn vju : d əz ən ɑ:
tIkjʊleItəri ju: nət kənsIstIŋ In Its aIdIəl fͻ:m əv ə mu :vm ənt
frəm ə ‘rɛlətrIvli kləʊzd ‘vəʊkəl trᴂkt tu: ə ‘rɛlətIvli ‘əʊpən’
vəʊkəl trᴂkt ənd bᴂk tu: ə ‘rɛlətəvli kləʊzd wʌn . mə: rə Iz ən
Im ‘ pͻ: tənt fi: tʃər əv ‘ dȝɛnərətIv fə ‘ nɒlədȝi .