t Peter pe ter '
pi:t ə
giraffe gir affe ʤə
'
ra:f Japan ja pan ʤə
'
pæn elephant el ephant '
el ɪ
f ə
nt / '
el ə
f ə
nt Anthony an thony '
ænt ə
ni Amazon a mazon '
æm ə
z ə
n Jemima je mi ma ʤ
ɪ
'
ma ɪ
m ə
/ ʤə
'
ma ɪ
m ə
Mississippi mi ssi ssi ppi
m ɪ
s ɪ
'
s ɪ
pi /
m ɪ
s ə
'
s ɪ
pi The most common sound is represented by the symbol
ə
; and it is the only vowel
important enough to be given its own name: the
schwa .
The schwa (sometimes spelled
shwa ) is not only the most common vowel sound in
weak syllables; it is by far the most common vowel sound in the whole of the English
system. It is found:
at the start of words, just before the main stress;
e.g. Mo rocco, Ja pan, gi raffe, Fe licity
following main stress (sometimes twice in words);
e.g. Pe ter , Am azon , An tho ny
between secondary and primary stress
e.g. ci ga rette, Wol ver hampton
as an even shorter alternative to short
[ ɪ
] in fast versions of certain words;
e.g. Ja net , Je mima, e le phant Schwa is not just short, it is the shortest possible vowel in English.
Words without schwa Words with schwa sport = sp
:t support = s ə
'p
:t claps = klæps collapse = k ə
'læps prayed = pre ɪ
d parade = p ə
're ɪ
d scum = sk
m succumb = s ə
'k
m sliver = '
sla ɪ
v ə
saliva = s ə
'la ɪ
v ə
train = tre ɪ
n terrain = t ə
're ɪ
n blow = bl əu
below = b ə
'l əu
cress = kres caress = k ə
'res plight = pla ɪ
t polite = p ə
'la ɪ
t Clyde = kla ɪ
d collide = k ə
'la ɪ
d hungry = 'h
ŋɡ
r ɪ
Hungary = 'h
ŋɡə
r ɪ
51
Schwa is found not only in
lexical items (nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs). It
is regularly found in common, weakly-stressed
grammatical items , especially
prepositions, articles, auxiliary verbs and pronouns.
Ω Listen to the following limericks. Your tasks are: 1.
hit the main stressed syllables
2.
watch out for the weak syllables in the names; a lot of them start with an unstressed
syllable containing schwa;
We tra velled to Ve nice then on to Ve ro na to test a Fi est a with on ly one own er. We drove through the night to a vi llage near Bru ssels to choose lots of booze and eat plen ty of mus sels. We la ter de ci ded to head off to Spain via France for a chance to drink lots of cham pagne . But after a week of good living and booze we agreed that we’d need to rest up in Toulouse. Then we drove to Madrid before heading to Lisbon to meet our friend Pete who’d just flown in from Brisbane. We drove farther south to a town near Granada to find lots of wine to replenish the larder, and then spent a week just outside Algeciras, but folk that we spoke to refused to come near us. We stayed for a while in the town of Pamplona where Pete walked the street (he’s a bit of a loner) We drove fairly fast to a hotel in Cannes where we tried to confide our affairs to a man, who gave us some goods to deliver in Rome for a fee we’d not see until safely back home. We sailed down to Malta to stay in Valetta but a fax sent from Sfax made us think that we’d better, cross over to Tunis then drive to Algiers to speak to a Greek I had known for some years. We drove through Morocco to reach Casablanca to discuss, without fuss, our affairs with a banker. Then headed back north, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar but passed through so fast we were starting to falter, and round about then I began to remember I had to meet Dad on the tenth of September. We sold the Fiesta and loaded a plane with some gear from Tangier then we got on a train, which roared through the night till it reached Santander where we stayed one more day just to breath in the air,
52
then a boat brought us back to our own native shores. So that was my holiday, how about yours? Questions for Discussion 1.
What is a syllable?
2.
How is a syllable formed?
3.
What sonorous sounds are syllabic?
4.
Speak about the types of syllables. Give your own example.
5.
What is an open syllable?
6.
What is a closed syllable?
7.
What is the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables? Explain and give
your own examples.
8.
What is schwa?
SELF – TEST 1. Mark the correct stresses in the following words:
nationality, responsibility, watchmaker, Navoi Street, celebrate, go away 2. Transcribe the words given below.
telegram, blackboard, architect, continue, November, dialogue, peculiarity, obliged, university, insufficient, anxiety, prosperity, advertisement, condemnation, accuracy 3.
Mark the correct stresses and define the type of the stressed syllables:
hungry, tube, melon, badge, Mary, funeral, Physics, afford, purpose, discharge, convenient, extreme, economist, underground, insurance, experience, compare, compulsory, institution, kindergarten, excited, various 4.
Divide the words into syllables:
busy, many, penny, beaten, bitten, system, beneath, table, assistant, comfortable, refrigerator, marvellous, residential, emergency, pollution, according, encyclopaedia Unit 8. The Accentual Structure of English Words Closely connected with the syllabic structure of words is their accentual structure,
because it is the syllable that bears what is known as word-stress or word accent. Every
disyllabic and polysyllabic word pronounced in isolation has word-stress. Word accent in
a disyllabic or polysyllabic word may be defined as a singling out of one or more of its
syllables by giving them a greater degree of prominence as compared with the other
syllable or syllables in the same word.
53
Note : In the word
indivisibility [ ' ɪ
nd ɪ
v ɪ
z ɪ
'b ɪ
l ɪ
t ɪ
] consisting of seven syllables, we make
the first, third and fifth syllables prominent by the same means, but the degrees of their
prominence are different.
The stress on the fifth syllable is effected chiefly by a change in pitch direction. This
syllable is called the
accentual nucleus of the word and the stress on it, the
primary (
nuclear )
accent .
The stress on the first syllable is also primary, but it is effected by pronouncing the
syllable on a high level pitch. This syllable bears the pre–nuclear primary accent.
The stress on the third syllable is weaker and is called
secondary . It is effected by
pronouncing the syllable on a mid–level pitch.
The nuclear primary accent is more important than the pre-nuclear one for two reasons:
1)
in some words the pre-nuclear primary and the secondary stresses are interchangeable.
inconvenient ['
ɪ
nk
ə
n'vi:nj
ə
nt]
[
ɪ
nk
ə
n'vi:nj
ə
nt]
2) a difference in the position of the nuclear accent may perform a distinctive function, e.g.
it may distinguish certain English verbs from nouns consisting of the same phonemes, e.g.