ASSIGNMENT 4

Assignment 4

Name of Writer

Name of Institution

Assignment 4

Q1.

I am a non native English speaker my first language is Arabic and this is how I would transcribe the phrases given below.

Phrase: All my friends congratulated me on the occasion of my graduation.

Phonetic Transcription: awl mai frendz kung-rat-ew-let-id mee on da o-kay-shun of mai gra-dew-a-shun.

Phrase: At the heart of linguistic study lies a deep concern with the properties of cognition.

Phonetic Transcription: at da hart of ling-wis-tik stedi laiz a deep kun-surn wit da pro-pur-teez of kog-ni-shun.

Phrase: People often exaggerate about the amount of rain that falls in Manchester.

Phonetic Transcription: pee-pul ofun ig-za-gur-reyt abowt da amownt of reyn dat faalz in men-chest-ur.

Q2.

It is believed that there are both universal and language specific constraints on the form that syllables may take that is constraints on the syllabification of sequence and segments. Among the universal constraints, we may mention two. Firstly, it is claimed that sequences of segments are syllabified in accordance with a sonority scale, which takes the following form (Carr, Philip, 1953: 121):

Sonority Scale

•Low Vowels

•High Vowels

•Approximants

•Nasals

•Voices fricatives

•Voiceless Fricatives

•Voiced Stops

•Voiceless stops

The idea is that as one proceeds from the bottom to the top of the scale, the class of segments becomes more sonorous a sound the more it resonates. Vowels gave greater resonance than consonants and voiced consonants have greater resonance than voiceless ones. If you listen to a singer holding a note for any length of time, the sound in question will most probably be a vowel. There are two articulatory reasons why it is easier to hols a vowel sound for longer than consonant sound, and both are relevant to production of sonority.

Another universal principle of syllabification concerns the syllabification of polysyllabic words, and is referred to as the principle of onset maximization. We have only monosyllabic words so far, therefore we will now consider the syllabification of the English word appraise. It is clear that the word is bisyllabic, the question is where the boundary between the syllables lie. We know that /p/ may occur in coda position in English as in cap, cup etc. we also know that /pr/ is a well formed onset, as in prize, price etc, and we know that /r/ may occur alone In onset position, as in rice, razor, etc. the principle of onset maximization says that in cases like this where the language specific phonotactics will allow for two or more syllabifications across a syllable boundary, it is the syllabifications which maximizes the material in the following onset which is preferred.

The principle of onset maximization is intimately connected with a universal fact about the syllable structure; that syllables with an onset consonant are in some sense more basic than those without, and that presence of onset consonants is in some sense more basic than presence of coda consonants. It appears that the most basic syllable structure languages are CV syllable structure, with a single onset consonant followed by a vowel (Carr, Philip, 1953: 124).

In his section, Bert Vaux claims that syllabification mildew ...